I’m a “pirate.” Everyday, I steal.

I steal music, by downloading it from music blogs.

I steal movies, by downloading them or streaming them from websites.

I steal information, by reading it online.

Except that stealing information isn’t exactly stealing it. Websites everywhere are giving it away. People set up blogs for the sole purpose of giving away what they write for free. News organizations do the same thing all the time: they post content on their website, and give it away freely.

And stealing music and movies isn’t stealing either. It’s piracy. Stealing removes the original, while piracy merely makes a copy (see this diagram by Danielle for help understanding this concept).

So what is the difference between the print publications (those, not including the Globe and Mail, that realize they can still have a profitable business by giving away content for free) and the entertainment industry that refuses to change its business model in the face of the internet?

Its not like there aren’t successful examples of entertainment organizations giving away their content for free and exploring different models.

Michael Moore recently allowed his film “Slacker Uprising” to be downloaded for free. Techdirt reports that Wayne Wang (director of the Joy Luck Club and Maid In Manhattan) is giving away his most recent film for free via YouTube.

As I’ve pointed out before, BMW gave away a number of short films they created with actor Clive Owen. There’s no reason that kind of model of corporate sponsorship (in exchange for product placement) can’t work in a future of legal, free downloads.

Similarly, both Radiohead and the Nine Inch Nails have seen a great deal of success in giving away albums or allowing fans to pay what they want for them. Rapper Lil Wayne is constantly giving away his music for free, and that hasn’t stopped him from near-record breaking sales.

At least one record label seems to understand this concept, even if their hosting company doesn’t. According to this story, Quote Unquote Records worked on a model that allowed fans to download albums and songs from the label’s catologue for free. Unfortunately, the company that owned the space they were hosting their content on didn’t understand this concept and took down their site for copyright infringement.

South Korean Jin-Young Park also seems to get the new economy. According to an article in Portfolio a few months ago, his entertainment company (I hesitate to call it a music label) is worth over $100 million US, and music sales only make up a small part of that fortune. That’s because Jin-Young Park recognizes that the music promotional, and can be used to sell other products and services that his company offers related to that music. This includes concert tickets, cell phones and more.

Oh, and to the American record labels that are lamenting the loss of revenue as a result of declining CD sales: Jin-Young Park created his company in a country where CD sales declined 80% from 2000 to 2006.

The world has changed, and the failure of organizations to realize that they will be unable to profit in ways that they were accustomed to will be their downfall. Those that are capable of adapting will prosper.

-Parker

A friend of mine who’s a prospective movie producer asked me to act as music supervisor for his (yet to be finished) diploma project. He needed some authentic country and 50s old school rock’n'roll for the soundtrack. Unfortunately there wouldn’t be a budget – and he would need the worldwide rights for an indefinite amount of time for all kinds of media (DVD, television, cinema…).

Confronted with this task I of course turned to the web – to Last.fm and Myspace to be precise.

As I’m neither to familiar with country nor with 50s rock’n'roll Last FM’s function to look for similar artists came in handy (beginning with Johnny Cash seemed like a good idea…) as did Myspace’s search functions, the possibility to listen to several tracks and to contact the band. The seedy bottom of the internet seems to be good for something after all. In regards to  presenting and discovering music it still has quite an edge on Facebook.

In short: There’s a vast talent pool out there, pretty much all our needs were covered by (mostly) unsigned or young and upcoming bands.

All this – again – made me realize just how important these platforms became for music and which great chances they offer for both parties involved. Even though we didn’t have a budget for the soundtrack what we could offer was a worldwide DVD-release which surely comes in handy in terms of exposing music to new markets – we got great tunes and the bands a chance to introduce themselves to a new audience, all without a middle-man or complicated license agreements.

Another example, even though in a completely different league, are my Australian friends from Operator Please, whose career certainly owes a lot to Myspace. Just recently, they were nominated again for two Aria awards (in one category they’re up against Kylie!).

So keep on posting your stuff onto the web, you never know when some random German movie person wants you for the soundtrack of his flick.

-Jens

PS
Check out the trailer for my friend’s old movie “Die Schwarze Kolonne” (The Black Platoon), a spoof on comic adaptations with German soap actor Tim Sander.

One of my favourite websites is The Hype Machine, a music blog aggregator. What it does is search through a directory of music blogs, allowing you to listen to the tracks without visiting each site individually. Think of it as an MP3 RSS reader. Start using it, and you’ll become more common with CSS standing for “Cansei de Ser Sexy” (which translates from Brazilian Portuguese into “I’m tired of being sexy”) rather than Cascading Style Sheets.

I’ve discovered a ton of new music through the site, and have even ended up buying a few albums as a result of listening to songs first through Hype Machine. I’ve even started my own music blog with dreams of hitting it big and getting listed on the Hype Machine

In looking over the site earlier today, I noticed one of their older blog entries that has the results of one of their users surveys. It is from the end of May, only has a sample size of about 2000, but provides a great look into the way people are using music online.

Music has always been the predecessor to the way other types of popular media (movies, books, video games) are used and consumed, so this is a fascinating little survey. Among the findings are the 91% of HypeMachine users find new music online, and that 47% of them buy their music online.

So what are some other cool things that you can do with Hype Machine? Well, like all Social Media sites you can add a badge from Hype Machine showing what you’ve been into lately on your blog, and you can also integrate Hype Machine with Twitter so that every “heart” a song, your Twitter followers will know. I wish more people used this feature, and I promise to start doing so in the near future.

I also just learned from the comments on this Tech Crunch post that you can easily browse all tracks listed on the Hype Machine via Del.icio.us at Http://Del.icio.us/taggedhype. Not only can you browse them from here, but you can also stream them - that’s Web 2.0 action at its best.

And while we’re on the topic, a recent article in the Financial Times about a recent study (paid for by the music industry!) says that the big record labels should embrace piracy and start offering tracks for free (via Slashdot).

Have you used Hype Machine before? Do you read music blogs at all? If so, recommend some good stuff in the comments.

-Parker

PS: Definitely check out Yelle on Hype Machine. My roommate got me into this French discobelle a few weeks ago and I’ve been digging her ever since. And also check out some tracks by the aforementioned CSS. They do electro right.