Which Artists Support Music Swapping?

jtauber asks: "With RIAA's new campaign to 'educate' people that unauthorized downloads of music are illegal and with the range of artists who are endorsing the campaign, I thought it would be interesting to ask the question: which well-known artists (if any) go against the RIAA and are _in favour_ of music swapping? Certainly many unsigned bands like my own encourage it, but what about those signed with major record labels?" We did a question along a similar veign not too long ago, except its focus was non-RIAA Record Labels. What artists are you aware of (popular or not) who have come out in favor of music-swapping?

Comments

Rage Against the Machine

[dotgod]

This site has a record of the following quote from RATM's Tom Morello:

Rage Against the Machine would like to sincerely apologise to all of our fans who were kicked off of Napster for downloading 'Renegades'. The move to take action against Rage fans was taken completely unilaterally by our new management. In their zeal to keep the record from getting out before the release date, they did not consult the band before instructing Sony Music Corp. to institute the Napster ban. As soon as I was made aware of this horrible mistake on their part, I immediately phoned our management and the record company to see what we could do to get our Napster-using fans reinstated as soon as possible. I'm told that the easiest way to get back on Napster as quickly as possible is to download one of many files floating around on the Internet to get around the ban.

They don't face the risk

[nelsonal]

Most of the artists who came out against it in the early days, like Metallica, did so because studio tracks were being leaked before they had even been decided upon. Because they don't face a lot of risk from any potetial lost sales, or gains from additional sales, the sales aspect is not a big concern at least from what I have seen. I think if pre release tracks were not shared, most artists would not care. The artists coming out against sharing are probably doing it to please their contract holders.

Do they have a choice?

[anthony_dipierro]

It's quite irrelevant what most popular artists think, since they don't own the copyright on their recordings.

There are lots, for live music

[mikemulvaney]

There are a ton of bands that allow taping their live shows, and then encourage fans to trade those recordings. This includes bands like:

• Phish
• Grateful Dead
• Tenacious D
• Oysterhead

and so on. There are several communities that can help you get lossless versions of shows from these bands and others:

• www.etree.org
• www.furthurnet.com

-Mike

Re:There are lots, for live music

[stubear]

There's a difference between taping the live show and ripping the CD and passing it around. First, fans have only been given permission to tape the show, something that won't likely be a huge seller anyway for most bands and if a song or two does happen to make it onto a compilation album at some point, these bootlegs won't affect sales of the compilation that much.

Second, the bootlegged recordings might be nice to listen to but they don't compare to being at a well produced concert. Good quality MP3 rips on the other hand can encapsulate the exact same experience the original CD does. The next step in P2P music swapping is to scan the liner notes and offer PDFs of them. After that what's the point of buying the CD?

People who go to concerts, even to record the show and pass it around (is it really bootleg is the bands allow it to happen?) People who download hundreds of MP3s are leeches.

U2

[bhize]

BONO: "My feeling," he adds, "is that it is cool for people to share our music -- as long as no one is making money from the process. We tell people who come to our concerts that they can tape the shows if they want. I think it is cool that people are so passionate about our music"

THE EDGE: The terror of online song-trading and bootlegging that has occurred in the wake of Napster is not something the members of U2 are losing any sleep over. "In fact, as long as fans aren't being exploited and bootleggers aren't raking in huge money from the practice, it's a part of the music business they've come to accept."

Projekt Records

[cjpez]

Projekt Records' frontman Sam Rosenthal has been quite supportive of P2P music trading, saying that it's an excellent way for the "smaller" labels like his to get more of a widespread audience. You can find a lot of Projekt bands on mp3.com, etc, too. If you sign up for the weekly email list thing, he'll rant about it occasionally. He was quite pissed off when Napster got shut down.

Bowie

[pete-classic]

David Bowie is the most enlightened artist that I know of as far as this goes. I don't care for his music, but he seems to "get it."

OTOH, his site is flash only :-(

Now, flame on about how he is already rich, blah, blah.

-Peter

a lot

[Antipop]

I think just about every single indie band supports it, or at least doesn't mind. The more people these bands can get their music out to the more people who will come to their shows. I know that I will look up show listings for my area, download some MP3s of the bands I haven't heard before, and make my decision as to who gets my money for that weekend.

I know I've heard a few bands say that turnout for shows in smaller cities has actually been getting better, and a lot of kids will say it's because they checked them out via MP3.

Leftover Salmon

[Llama Keeper]

Leftover Salmon those crazy "Polyethnic Cajun Slamgrass" musicians allow live taping of their shows and have several shows "off the board" up in MP3 format on their website here.

I think the majority of bands of the "jam band" genre are cool about low key bootlegging and people trading their music.
The local jam band from my whereabouts Toadstool Jamboree is pretty cool about bootlegging as well. I got permission to throw my DAT on the board at a couple of their shows.

I think its mostly the uptight corporate bands that have such an issue with people MP3'ing. Most of the lowerkey / unsigned / indie bands don't really make much off of CD Sales and aren't in music to make a bundle, rather they love entertaining and would rather you buy a t-shirt and pay admission to their show. They also manage themselves typically so they aren't getting screwed by industry insiders.

Just my Opinion, but check out Toadstool and LOS... rocking music, plus you get to say slamgrass :)

Bj�rk does

[dragonfly_blue]

She had the most interesting things to say about why she wrote her album, Vespertine. It's an amazing work, I've never heard anything like it before.

"...Its also like a love affair with a laptop. I wanted to make modern chamber music. And it's a love affair with two things: the home and laptops, basically saying that a hundred years ago the most ideal music situation was in the home, where people would play harps for each other, or tell each other stories. And in the middle of the century it became the opposite, the most ideal music situation was something like Woodstock, with many hundreds of thousands of people hearing the same song in the same mud pit, having the same euphoric experience, and the target, sonically, was to make a stack of amplifiers that could reach China. I think we've come full circle and the most ideal music situation now, through Napster and thr ough the Internet and downloading and DVD, is back to the home...."

In another interview I read, she said she composed the album with the idea in her mind of her fans sharing the album through the web, and wrote much of the lyrics as a kind of "whispered secret" for listeners to enjoy. I think she's one of the few artists who realizes that without her fans, she wouldn't be where she is today.

Chuck D. has also seemed to be fairly clueful about the web, although I'm not sure how he feels about P2P apps.