http://torrentfreak.com/6-reasons-wh...-music-110729/

The record labels would have you believe that Napster and now BitTorrent are
ushering in the Dark Age of music, but really it’s just the Dark Age of the
music industry; music as an art form is on the brink of a new renaissance.

Here’s a countdown of the top six reasons why consumers and artists alike are
embracing this brave new world where music can be freely shared.

6. The internet is a great way to reach out to fans

99% of artists are starving artists (hey, it’s a tough gig), but artists who
are really good will always make money. Radiohead’s album “In Rainbows” was
given away for free and yet still managed to hit the #1 spot on both UK and US
music charts and sold 3 million copies. The fans didn’t buy the album because
the law compelled them to or because DRM forced them to, they bought the album
to show their love and support for the band — and think how many millions more
fans Radiohead now has. Talk about filesharing karma.

5. A live performance cannot be downloaded

Music is better live, and that’s how artists have always made their living:
live shows. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising, and there’s no better
way to get the word out than to share music online. Rather than cracking down on
filesharing, savvy artists know that when their fans share their music with
their [millions of online] friends, more of those friends will show up at
concerts. Torrented MP3s lead directly to more sold out concerts.

4. Big industry stifles creativity

100 songs by 100 independent artists is better than 100 songs by a single
mega-band like U2 or a teeny-bopper like Miley Cyrus. Many aspiring musicians
never had a chance because they were pushed aside by the latest hit that the
record companies decided to bring out. The decline of the music industry, and
the rise of filesharing, means there are opportunities for independent artists
who can now share their music with the world without ever signing a
contract.

3. BitTorrent is just better

Joe Customer wants to listen to Mumford & Sons on his way to work. Joe
carefully weighs his options: he can hop in his car, drive 15 minutes to the
nearest Best Buy, wander around the store for a bit looking for the album, wait
in line for 10 minutes, drive all the way back home, spend an hour ripping the
CD to his computer and syncing it to his iPod, and then finally be able to
listen to it on the subway on his way to work the next day — or he can just
download the album in five minutes. Tough choice. Consumers don’t pirate music
to be evil, they do it because it’s easy, which brings us to our next point…

2. iTunes is a billion-dollar business

Billion with a B! Maybe the industry isn’t dead after all. People are willing
to pay lots of money to download music, and rather than doing what the record
companies did — sue their own customers and then cry themselves to sleep — Apple
saw a golden opportunity and made buying songs as quick and easy as a single
click. Plus, iTunes now has 90 second song previews and DRM-free music, and
iTunes Match which is virtually legalized sharing. What Apple figured out that
the record companies didn’t is that music as a culture is one of sharing and
socializing, not lawyers and threats.

And the number one reason why filesharing will go down in history as the
greatest thing ever to happen to music…

1. It already is

This article isn’t about the future, it’s about the present. Music has been
freely shared for years, ever since Napster, and there’s enough data now to
definitively say that music is not dead. In fact, it’s thriving. Thanks to
piracy, there’s more music than ever. People walk around with thousands of songs
in their pockets and new bands and artists can gather up new fans with ease. The
freedom of sharing is the future of music. Why is anyone still trying to stop
it?

—



This is a guest post by the brilliant Philip Brocoum of Rhyme and Reason,
who’s famous for his blog post ‘Anybody else waiting for the old
generation to die so that we can legalize filesharing, marijuana, gay marriage,
etc. and then get on with our lives?‘

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