Last week I have been with Agata to a superb gig in Lisbon. The lineup was more than promising. Two of our favourite bands were scheduled to play that night, Blonde Redhead and Interpol. The performance was simply stunning, professional, skillful. Nobody felt bullshitted, I'm pretty sure.

While enjoying the live act I found myself thinking once again about the perversive nature of the current copyright system enforced by 5 major record companies, which criminalizes online music sharing as an abominable act of piracy. The bogus argument is always the same. Those who share copyrighted audio files are inflicting severe losses on the industry and, therefore, ruining the artists. Funny enough, if there are agents robbing the artists they are to be found in the HQ's of those giant recording conglomerates and the law firms "protecting" their interests. All in all, a classical deal yields not more than a miserable 20% for the creator, whilst the other 80% ends up in the hands of the copyright holders, for the most part a bunch of lice more versed in lawsuits than art. As a mater of fact, the copyright system is devised to effectively turn a creation into a mere trading good often owned by someone else but the original author. In other words, a song writer or a composer can be deprived from royalties for their work simply because the copyright is owned by a third party.

What I have just exposed is common knowledge amid artists themselves and a few ethical businessmen. Recent moves by mainstream artists like Prince, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails indicate that a new model is about to emerge. A model in which musicians and listeners are directly connected, without ruthless bloodsuckers in between. At a glance, a model that grants economic sustainability, enhances distribution and keeps copyright in the hands of the authors.

This brief post is about something else, though.
Why does file sharing help performative artists? Straight answer: the gig we went to wouldn't have had half of the audience without the online buzz file sharing generates. This is precisely what tosses the industry off. File sharing is for many a gateway to new sounds, new artists. Without it, the playlist radio format would be the only means of contact most people would have with music. The same 10 season hits repeated a hundred times per day. Talented bands like Blonde Redhead and Interpol can make a living out of their road work in part thanks to "illegal" file sharing. I have paid 25 EUR to watch the gig, an amount from which they are likely to get more than just 20%...