Également disponible en français.
Dear artists,
A year ago, in order to support the blackout against SOPA, I wrote a blog post explaining why I was pirating your work. A few hours later, the sudden closure of Megaupload gave an unexpected popularity to my text. In the weeks that followed, nearly 100,000 people read it on this blog, not to mention the numerous translations.
With Flattr, I earned a total of € 34.70 for that post and its French translation. If I had a 1€ paywall, this post alone would worth € 100,000. Even considering that only 10% of readers would pay, it would still be around € 10,000. Not bad, isn’t it?
But if I charged visitors, nobody would have read that text in the first place. It would never have become viral and I would not have earned a single euro on Flattr. This seems obvious, isn’t it? It is nevertheless exactly what the entertainment industry makes you believe when they say that pirates steal. Pirates steal your art as much as readers stole mine when reading my blog post.
The fundamental error is to consider art as a commodity. Even selling MP3 or eBooks follows the principle of hardware. Buyers keep their “MP3s” as a collection of records. DRM attempts to mimic physical constraints in the virtual world.
But what is your goal as an artist? Selling records, books and paintings? Or to be read, listened to and admired? Hopefully, money put aside, you would choose the second. Discs and books are only physical mediums that allow you to broadcast your art.
Many of you can not make a living out of art. It is a sad but perfectly normal situation. Personally, I also consider myself as an artist. After all, I blog and I write fiction. I would like to make a living out of it in order to devote myself full time to writing. This is obviously not the case. Either I did not found the right business model or I don’t have enough talent. Is it the fault of people who read my blog for free? Definitely not : they spread my writings and give me sometimes small donations. Yet again, this is exactly what the industry makes you believe: that your fans are your enemies, those that prevent you from living from your talent.
You want to broadcast your art, and if possible, earn money. We want to enjoy your art, and if possible, contribute financially to your talent.
However, when we buy your art “legally”, we know that over 95% of our money goes to intermediaries. We consider most of them unnecessary and harmful to society. All the sweat, all the talent that you put in your art is vampirized at 95% by these parasites. We are also reluctant to pay the same price for a fun song that we will listen to once or twice or a hymn that will resonate for every morning of our lives.
We are ready to invest in the launch of your projects, eg on Kickstarter. But we do not want to pay to “own” a file. It does not make any sense. We do not imagine paying a fixed price each time we “consume” a piece of art. Your hardcore fans would be ruined. Not to mention those who listen to background music while working. It would be a barrier to your success. My personal solution is to give, every month, a fixed amount through Flattr. On Grooveshark, an artist is Flattred if I listened to one of his song at least once during the month. I’d like to see similar automatism for ebooks or web pages I read within Pocket.
If we generalize such a system, your interest as an artist would become to be heard, read, admired. Even if it is years later, allowing you to focus on the long term. On the opposite, mixing a work with its physical support encourages quick consumption, aggressive marketing and ephemeral success before falling into oblivion.
In order to preserve its own obsolete interests, the entertainment industry has lied to you pretending that we were your worst enemy, they benefited from the vast majority of your earnings, they threatened your fans as criminals, they perverted our laws, our politicians and our educational system, they standardized our culture and creativity. Simple tactics: they oppose us and benefit. However, we share a common interest: that you could devote yourself to your art without having to flip burgers. While their own is to earn money, regardless of your accomplishment.
Dear artists, would you embark on a pirate ship bound for the new world where fans and artists cooperate? Everything has to be discovered yet. Flattr is anecdotal and, moreover, might be more an experiment than a solution. Same for online donations. Many problems have to be solved. This is why we need you and your creativity. But not those leeches on your back.
Hoping for a positive answer from you,
A pirate fan.
Picture by Jason Barnette.
Également disponible en français.
The An Open Letter To Pirated Artists by Lionel Dricot, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Belgium License.
I fully agree about your ideas, but your tone sounds quite as if you’re talking to kids. It is a perfect text for the general public, but a somehow condescending one for artists. They’re supposed to know a lot about the subject.
This article is right to the point, Artist should open their eyes and leave companies their keep them captive to get most of the money.
We count on artists to find new way we can buy they art.
And to respond to the previous comment, no they don’t know because if they know and do nothing about it, then its worse than expected
I do not see any benefits from this odd view – free food and gas before music then?
Giving free music to a million Chinese does not find them
Jumping on a plane to a gig in NYC or East London – nor dies it see the band able to afford to go to them and play at no cost (less travel costs/PR/PA etc)
To be honest free music does not even get a bus or car load of new fans in to gigs from a nearby village or town. It does nothing except sit on someone’s device for a long while waiting to be played.
People take free music because it is made free to them – not any of those downloaders care about being a fan – they just take/ download free music because they can. If they bought it they clearly want it – if they bought it the band know who they are and may offer them other free stuff they wish to give away to engaged fans!
At least they know the fan – the band never knows a PIRATED purchase – it’s not even a chart position nor is it on any artist site.
Free music does not get a new band on your TV – youth culture have no voice anymore – if punk occurred tomorrow it would be snuffed out in a week by free downloads – it would not chanfe and shock the charts – the kids would not rebel and the parents don’t get pissed off seeing a youth culture band take over.
Kids today have no protest channels – they don’t influence radio nor the charts anymore.
They influence nothing new.
So many options online has created a very watered down youth movement – it’s way too fractured to
be of any relevance there is no single voice anymore.
Youth cannot rebel without music and fashion being involved – having your ears silenced with iPods etc means you cannot engage as a collective. It’s gone towards solo channels – and that means solo little rebellions everywhere / nothing major. The #pussyriot was a great example – millions of downloads – no chart positions – no album – 2 years in jail .. End of.
Free music does not help sign a new band
Free music not given away by the band is theft and not supportive of the band
If new bands don’t allow free files or free music then others (real parasites) should not decide to file share entire debut albums and kill a bands career dead – with no earnings to carry on. Why should Kim Dotcom be mega rich and steak artist earnings?? – 100% parasite!
With most major deals offering 50/50 record deals it would be insane to state artists lose 95% of earnings to others greed! Paranoid nonsense.. Unless PIRATED!
Piracy means 100% loss of earnings to the artist/band – obviously far worse than 50%+ deals and also far worse than the 95% parasites you speak of?
(Whoever they are?) Pirated unauthorised file sharing loss is especially bad to new DIY artists unable to control online abuses of their recorded works.
If artists/bands do not allow file sharing then so called ‘fans’. Need not decide for them they lose 100% & lose a chart position on every illegal download.
Respect new music and respect the efforts of new musicians hoping to create music and be able to leave the day job as a professional to the wider world.
Perhaps I can share all journo works to free sites .. Hey better still share my house or let me share your car for a year??. It does not work that way in reality.
You will not give your keys ir mobile phone for free!
Music has an equal right to decide what & how if presents its art forms to the widest most suitable audiences as you have decided with this very article/blog and its detailed introduction at the start of this thread here.
Having seen acts be 100% pirated to almost a million downloads in less than a month – I have seen the impacts and consequences to new artists and bands. It’s not good. They vanish entirely.
To many young bands that is a dreadful waste of their new talent.
They have no funds or future to go forward.
I am not against bands giving away materials if they chose to do so – I am against unauthorised file sharing not approved by bands and artists. It’s their choice as it was your choice to publish this article as you wished.
Thanks for a very clear and eloquent summary of what you stand for. I agree with it entirely. I’d just like to note that many, perhaps the most profitable to the industry, of these “artists” are little more than fronts presenting vapid popular “art”, rather than some genuine creators of artistic content. For them the 5% will indeed suffice and your overall argument will never come through.
And there’s something else, more immediate, that’s worrying me: I invited a couple of friends over to watch a football game on TV tomorrow. I pay my cable subscription, and the cable company in turn pays to the owners of the rights to broadcast. Here’s my worry: if I let my friends watch this content (i.e., share it with them), will I be breaking the law?