April 23, 2009

The Camden Crawl = Discover Indie Artists + Networking + Free Music!



Culture, music, beer, sunshine. This weekend sees one of the ultimate offerings of all these elements under one roof. And by roof I mean ‘district’ of London. And when I say sunshine I mean more beer.

The Camden Crawl is a two day event spanning Friday 25th and Saturday 25th April, showcasing 150 bands, artists, poets and film pieces across 40 venues, ending up on Saturday Night at the Roundhouse with performances from Kasabian and Madness.

As a preview, the lovely people at The Londonist have compiled a collection of free, legal mp3s from the majority of the bands performing. There’s 65 free tracks to download, so you can select your favourites, share the love, and make sure you don’t miss out.

Before this starts to seem like a big promotional ploy or sponsorship for event or website, I’ve no affiliation with either. My reasoning is that music discovery has changed. You don’t hear ‘new’ bands on national radio anymore. Up and coming artists aren’t getting the support of CD sales that they used to, and so live events are becoming extremely important for both performer and punter. Yes, the internet is a great source of new music, but you need a very good filter or the patience of a saint to wade through the endless streams of average (and below) music.

Why the Camden Crawl? Why not? It’s today, you have nothing better to do, and the free download taster just tops it all off (oh, did I mention the beer?). Head over there now and buy your tickets before it’s too late.

Unfortunately I won’t be there this year, but you can certainly thank me at future events. I accept beer, in case you’re wondering.


Lee Jarvis.

Cross-posted at UK Music Jobs Blog Music Industry News, Career advice and Job links

April 17, 2009

Pirate Bay trial: The verdict, and the future of P2P sites and the ‘pirates’



To bring everyone up to speed, there has been an ongoing case in Swedish court that the four owners and heads of Peer2Peer (file sharing) site The Pirate Bay were in mass breach of copyright laws, not just within the music industry but also regarding movies and video games. The case has received a lot of attention and also incredible support from torrent and P2P websites and their users. Roger Wallis, who spoke in favour of The Pirate Bay at the trial, received a colossal amount of floral tributes, sent to his wife at their home.

The verdict was announced today, and all four men (Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström) received 1 year in jail each and fines totaling $3,620,000. The prosecutors were aiming for much higher compensation, although their calculations are often very misguided; 10,000 free transfers of your song does not mean you lost 10,000 times the sale price of that record. Do they take into account the people who downloaded a few free tracks and then bought the actual album? I thought not.

Having said that, I am not in favour of people setting up software allowing the public to trade music and other files for free without artists' consent. Let alone the people who shoot their mouth off, claiming "all music is free" and the like. Yes, all music is probably available for free if you wanted to find it online, but I am in favour of letting the artists (and the copyright owners) make that decision, controlling and profiting from the distribution of their work in some way, be that financially or by building their contact list. As content creators, that is their choice, and one of the reasons I am a huge fan of Creative Commons licenses.

People are using over-stretched analogies such as 'if you hold the P2P site accountable then you must also prosecute ISPs'. There are also many, many comments across the web from people claiming it is a sad day and that there is no way this should have happened. I'd like to hear them come up with a solution, as to how artists can retain control of their work, be compensated where appropriate, and how they will be able to fund and market future creations and music projects.

You can't really go and prosecute the millions of end users who take the music and other files. The RIAA have tried and failed more than 35,000 times, receiving nothing but bad press, fueling angst and probably instigating further file sharing. If there was a system in place by the websites to charge the users a subscription fee, then maybe that could work, and they could then reimburse the labels and artists. But they have not chose this route. So, do you hold the P2P sites and owners viable? Maybe. If their business model does not compensate the artist in any way, then I think they should be charged somehow. Governing bodies should aim to control this cause though, rather than react to the aftermath. The P2P sites could avoid legal wranglings themselves by striking up deals with labels, but as they are sworn enemies, how about independent artists? If the artists can register their music with a site and give permission to distribute and share globally then the P2P sites can still aid the discovery and sharing of new music and building of artists careers, which they are so fond of using as their mission statement.

What will the devastating effect be on the music industry? Not much. For a start there will be months of appeals, more uneducated blabberings in the press, and probably more flowers. 'Pirates' will continue to vent and despise the major labels and government prosecutors. P2P file sharing is rampant, and as much a part of a schoolkid's daily life today as dolls, toy cars and baseballs were decades ago - it's not going to disappear. Major labels will continue to push in this wrong direction instead of focusing their efforts on restructuring their business models, and to get to the route of the problem, that is that they have mistreated musicians and music fans for many years now. Creating value, authenticity and transparency within their brands should be at the top of their agenda, not 'hire more lawyers'.

Who wins? Neither side. Certainly not the Pirate Bay owners (lend me $905,000 will you, mate?), and not the labels who struggle to recoup a few million bucks when they have just spent the same amount on forcing untalented acts into their hit-machine mould, only to be forgotten by this time next year. There are some people out there who have a collection of thousands of unpurchased songs that they will hardly listen to who think they are on the winning side. Congratulations, you're very clever.

Who loses? Artists. Artists may move to gigging like crazy in order to subsidise the record sales gap in their revenue compared to previous years. Which is fine if they are able to do so and the people who listen to their music online genuinely like them and willingly support them when they come to town.

So do me (or more accurately, the music industry) a favour. Find a new, upcoming artist / band / rapper / DJ-producer from your iPod collection who is performing in your town this weekend, and go out to see their show / gig / concert. Use the $15 you just saved from purchasing their album... you will then be giving something back to the industry that you 'care about' so much. Heck, you may even have a good time. Yo-ho-ho.


Lee Jarvis.

Cross-posted at US Music Jobs Blog - Music Industry news and career advice