David Byrne and 50-cent for file sharing (and increasing our music libraries)

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Brian and team, who work for a digital marketing agency run this Digital Crosstalk blog.
Occasionally we might blog about companies and people we work with but for the most part we'll simply be blogging about stories and events which we find interesting.

20th
DEC

David Byrne and 50-cent for file sharing (and increasing our music libraries)

Posted by Brian | Filed under blogging

Last week, erstwhile rap paragon 50-cent made headlines when he claimed that file-sharing doesn’t really hurt musical artists. Yesterday, David Byrne – whose music I value more highly – expressed a similar sentiment in no uncertain terms.

Wired News is running two features by the Talking Heads frontman: one in which Byrne dissects the music industry’s now outdated business model and the other in which he interviews Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, whose ground-breaking “pay-what-you-like” formula for album ‘In Rainbows’ has had chins wagging for months

According to Byrne:

“What is called the music business today… is not the business of producing music. At some point, it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases and that business will soon be over. But that’s not bad news for music, and it’s certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.”

Fiddy and Byrne emerge from different ends of the global musical spectrum but they both have the right idea. People don’t make illegal downloads because they want to undermine the ‘establishment’: they just want to listen to more music, something that the old pillars of the music industry just don’t seem to get. And, as both Byrne and 50-cent recognise, the real revenue for artists in the digital age should come from merchandise and touring – which is probably why Thom Yorke is so eager to get a piece of second-hand ticket sales.

(Picture from Wired & Torrent Freak)