BBC: ‘Copy our music’ urges rock band
A new rock group featuring former members of The Clash and Generation X has taken a novel approach to the issue of piracy by urging their fans to copy their music.
Carbon Silicon make all their recordings freely available online, and actively encourage bootlegging or filming of their gigs.
They even attack the current waves of litigation surrounding illegally copied music in their song Gangs Of England, which includes the line, “if you want the record, press record”.
“What we’re talking about here is fans who are sharing music,” Tony James, formally of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Generation X – who formed the group with ex-Clash guitarist Mick Jones – told BBC World Service’s The Music Biz programme.
“It’s just like you did when you were young, when you made a cassette of your favourite tracks you’d love, and would give it to a friend and say ‘listen to this.’
“Everyone’s going to say, ‘hang on – if they’ve got it already, why are they going to buy the record?’ But what we find is actually, people really like buying the records.”
Demos online
The music industry has been grappling with issues of piracy over the last few years, in particular since broadband became popular.
Artists who have backed anti-piracy campaigns, include Metallica, Tatu and Peter Gabriel.
But James said that he considered the internet to be the “most exciting thing that’s happened to rock and roll”.
In particular, he pointed out that people could now record songs in their bedrooms and make them available to the world, and new artists no longer needed “a label, or a manager, or a BBC Radio playlist”.
Carbon Silicon use their website to show the development of their songs. Demos are put on the web so people can track how they came together.
“We feel that it’s almost like if I could go and watch Lennon and McCartney in the studio making Sgt Pepper, and watch them on the internet making that record, that would be a really exciting thing,” James explained.
“So I think what we’ll see in the future is people will pay to be there – to be part of the creative process. That’s a really exciting thing.
“Our ideas of copyright, and what constitutes a record, will change in the future.”:
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This is one of the more enlightened pieces that I’ve read on the fake downloading controversy. The more connected fans get to the music, the more they will want to buy it.
The record (and the software) industry needs to come into the 21st century and think creatively as to how the internet can be used to further their products, and stop trying to put 14 year old fans in jail. The Jeannie is out of the bottle.
One idea is to reduce the price of CD’s so that more folks can afford to buy them; a price point of $5.99 would still provide for profits while allowing fans to buy more CD’s from a wider array of artists.
And the other comes from “Grand Theft Auto:” that is, imbedding something interesting, desireable, or something that enhances the product (a bad that mockup of a sex scene may not be ideal), that can only be obtained once the product is in hand.