BitTorrent Is The New Radio, Says Counting Crows Frontman

http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-is-the-new-radio-says-counting-crows-frontman-120514/

by evo_9 • 14 years ago

51 69 14 years ago

torrentfreak.com

paulhauggis2• 14 years ago

It only works if people know to search for you, like the Counting Crows.

The nice part about actual radio is that it can give unknown artists airplay (and people will actually listen to it).

roc• 14 years ago

That's a largely theoretical advantage for radio.

What happens far more often is that the big labels that are paying (directly or indirectly) get to decide what gets played. And listeners are forced to choose between a handful of intentionally-overlapping stations, each of which is pushing, primarily, an unfortunately small number of "hits".

While bittorrent itself is not a medium that lends itself to discovery, it does at least serve any non-trivial subset of taste and isn't as easily gamed as radio play and shelf space.

AncientPC• 14 years ago

Managers pay quite a bit to get "unknown artists" airtime on radio stations.

Smaller bands advertising via internet route still have YouTube, Soundcloud, etc. I've bought a few albums as a result.

Also, with the proliferation of smartphones, a significant group choose to listen off their own devices rather than slog through yet another pop song + advertising.

libraryatnight3• 14 years ago

If you belong to a good private (or maybe a public one, too) torrent community, you'll likely end up finding more artists than the radio would help you find.

Just looking at new uploads, looking at top lists, browsing by tags, and going through by genre yields new finds. It's easy to listen to new/unfamiliar artists risk free, and most passionate music lovers do find a way of getting money back to the artists. At least in my own experience this is the case. I'm sure there are people who are 100% freeloaders, but I wonder if they'd have bought anything ever anyway.

goblin89• 14 years ago

Some more or less private trackers do actually promote artists explicitly (featuring select submissions). And even when they don't, people still easily discover new less known bands from searching by genre and reading torrent discussions—I'd say it works even better than radio. Although this depends on the community and submission guidelines of a particular tracker.

perspectiveless• 14 years ago

The Pirate Bay have been promoting unknown content on their front page as have other file sharing sites. There's music blogs and youtube channels that promote unknown artists.

Not to mention file sharing technologies such as direct connect and soulseek that lets you browse everything a user shares which is another way of discovering new content. You can search for something that you like and hopefully discover people with similar taste and find new stuff in their collections.

codeine2• 14 years ago

That's true for bittorrent, although as others have suggested, smaller torrent communities focused on a particular genre may also act to provide ad-hoc recommendations.

At Presto.fm we're working on a different solution to the problem, by creating a way to discover and stream new music using personalized radio stations seeded with the listener's existing favourite artists or genres. (A bit like some existing services but with a focus on niche artists and a deep catalogue of music).

http://presto.fm

paulhauggis2• 14 years ago

I would much rather see a legal way (with permission from the artist) like Pandora.

psychotik2• 14 years ago

Radio is still no good for 'real' discovery. If you're really into music discovery, give Audiogalaxy a shot. Here's something to start with: http://www.audiogalaxy.com/mix/11997-The%20Coding%20Zone/

dagw2• 14 years ago

"Sorry, Mixes are not available in your country"

Never had that problem with torrents...

tptacek18• 14 years ago

Far more likely that Duritz is naive about BitTorrent than that he's right about its role in his industry.

People listen to songs on the radio and then buy the recording so that they can play higher-quality versions of their preferred songs on demand.

Nobody rationally torrents a CD rip and then goes to the store to buy the real version.

Further evidence of Duritz naivete: they're releasing a 4-song teaser of their new album on BitTorrent. Exactly what is the advantage of holding back tracks in their official release? It is utterly, absolutely inevitable that high-fidelity versions of all their tracks will be on BitTorrent moments after they become available in any form. Partial teaser releases are a pantomimed form of control and a waste of time. If you believe P2P sharing is a real business benefit, you embrace it for real.

eCa• 14 years ago

Maybe not buy a CD for themselves. On the other hand..

I have bought and given away music that I've only listened to pirated (more than once).

I also most likely wouldn't have been to two Bob Dylan and two PJ Harvey concerts if it hadn't been for Napster and BitTorrent.

jmatt• 14 years ago

Unless they have credit for writing the song, or self publish, the band makes most of their money from touring and merchandise.

BitTorrent isn't a zero sum game. It's difficult to prevent and any action upsets fans. Why not embrace it and get free PR. Meanwhile, the people that will buy it (or request it on a radio station, or listen on Spotify) need to be aware of the music. And both groups end up attending concerts. So it's really a win for the bands. It's the labels that are at risk.

tptacek18• 14 years ago

David Lowery says that's not true. He says that your idea of how much artists make from touring suffers from cognitive bias: we pay attention to the anomalously successful huge touring acts, but that the reality is bimodal: a very few major touring acts, and then a huge cluster of artists who make less than minimum wage from even respectably attended club shows.

Neko Case made some comments to the effect of how much her returns were from touring _Middle Cyclone_. I went to that show in Chicago, which packed the large Chicago Theater. Neko Case was repeatedly featured on NPR and other media venues. She is anomalously successful. How amazingly lucrative do you think that tour was for her? Hint: if you're picking between being Neko Case and a senior engineer at Google just based on the money...

Of course, Steve Albini's famous "Some Of Your Friends May Already Be This Fucked" made much the same point about touring. He'd put it this way: if you're picking between being a midlist touring act and a senior manager at Wendy's just based on the money...

Meanwhile, the popular conception of how lucrative a label recording contract was is also mistaken, because it failed to take into account recoup rates and automatic per-sales royalties that are paid out even when albums don't recoup. In reality, the recording contract alone both financed the (very expensive) professional-quality recording of music and provided musicians with a base-level middle class income.

sliverstorm• 14 years ago

Partial teaser releases are a pantomimed form of control and a waste of time

Eh? Teaser releases are to generate buzz and interest. To gather mindshare.

tptacek18• 14 years ago

What's the point of only releasing a subset of the tracks?

jarek• 14 years ago

> Nobody rationally torrents a CD rip and then goes to the store to buy the real version.

But some do do it, however irrationally.

mkmcdonald• 14 years ago

> Nobody rationally torrents a CD rip and then goes to the store to buy the real version.

I do. As a music collector, I prefer to sample the music online before buying it. If the music is sufficient, I eventually buy a physical copy and add it to my collection. The CD is then ripped onto my hard drive.

By purchasing a physical copy, I support local record stores (great people); I also obtain the album artwork, which interests me as a former designer.

InclinedPlane2• 14 years ago

"Nobody rationally torrents a CD rip and then goes to the store to buy the real version."

Except this behavior is commonplace. Probably as common as people buying music they've heard on the radio.

Maybe to you it isn't "rational" in some sort of twisted Homo Economicus model, but in the real world it happens all the time.

tptacek18• 14 years ago

Who do you think a comment like this is convincing? Wouldn't you have to have no real-world friends to believe that people who download music for the overwhelming most part DON'T go on to buy those tracks? All you have to do is ask anyone sitting near you to find out how message-board-fake your argument is.

chrischen2• 14 years ago

I highly doubt teenagers and low-wage earning youths torrent with the intent to buy a CD. In fact I know of no one around my age (younger side) who even buys CDs in general.

Torrenting and then downloading from iTunes makes no sense either.

romaniv• 14 years ago

I downloaded half of the Ghosts album from NiN, linked it and then bought the physical album. Not exactly the same, but maybe that's how it should work. Release 50-80% of the work for free. People will download it from you, because you're the official source and probably have better PR capabilities. People still want to "own" something and want the rest 50-20%, so they buy the CD.

dagw2• 14 years ago

Nobody rationally torrents a CD rip and then goes to the store to buy the real version.

I do all the time. Well I don't go to the store, since I have this internet thing that's quite useful for buying stuff through, and sometimes I buy a legal digital download instead of a physical CD, but otherwise I do exactly what you describe all the time. If I find music I really like I want to pay the person who made that music, but I'll leave it up to other do decide if that is rational or not.

ewillbefull5• 14 years ago

"Nobody rationally torrents a CD rip and then goes to the store to buy the real version."

I think the comparison of the article went a bit over your head. It's all about music/artist promotion, and nothing to do with sales. Otherwise we shouldn't be calling it "the new radio", but "a new radio". Unrelated: who is still going to the store to buy their music? and how often are they actually "CD rips" anymore?

The best example of this "radio" analogy is Dubstep. Soundcloud, free digital downloads, artists practically give away all of their music and leave the option for purchase on iTunes and Beatport. Most revenues are from touring and commercial uses of their music. And "cultural progress" is trotting on.

tptacek18• 14 years ago

If file sharing is "the new radio", then by implication file sharing should serve the same role in customer acquisition that the radio did. But it doesn't. That's my point.

guelo3• 14 years ago

Duritz is a world class music professional who has lived and breathed the music business for over 20 years, but somehow you know better than him how to sell his music?

tptacek18• 14 years ago

I see your Adam Duritz-backed ad-hom argument and raise you David Lowery:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3850935

Frankly, I'd rather have Lowery on my side than Counting Crows. But, matter of taste.

Too busy to read? Here's the top line:

* Lowery is Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven; also, a programmer with a math background and now a recording engineering.

* Most musicians make fuck-all from concerts and merch and many live out of their van.

* Musicians were sharing their music for free long before file sharing sites started profiting off their work.

* Technology isn't making recording high-quality music cheaper, but is sapping the returns from doing so.

* When you factor recoup and automatic sale royalties into the picture, the major label system was giving midlist artists a middle class existence, which they've now lost.

* Studies showing an uptick in sales after file sharing are often rigged in obvious, comical ways.

* Youtube and Facebook have made it impossible for midlist artists to set up their own shops online.

nextparadigms• 14 years ago

It has been proven time and time again that "pirates" buy more of that product than everyone else.

tptacek18• 14 years ago

Could you cite some primary sources?

njs12345• 14 years ago

What do you think about the Kickstarter model for music? That seems to work for recorded music even if artists cannot make money from sales..

tptacek18• 14 years ago

I think people who make things should be able to choose the business model under which those things are offered to the public.

jeffpersonified• 14 years ago

As much as I enjoy Counting Crows (did?) I hardly think Duritz is the best indicator of industry trends.

oldschooltaper3• 14 years ago

I think some commenters are missing the point.

For Duritz, who admits he collects bootlegs[1], bittorrent is being envisioned here as a promotional tool, not a distribution tool. Radio used to be the main promotional tool. Disc jockeys (once fully human, now often pre-programmed since radio stations have all been acquired by large corporations) could make or break an artist. And it's been this way for as long as the recording industry has existed.

Even if you were lucky enough to get time at Sun Studios in Memphis, if the radio did not agree to play your songs, "no one" would know you exist. And you would not become a cash cow for some record company.

No listener has to pay for radio. It's "free".

Duritz is smart. His band is also in need of some promotion. Who is going to listen to radio at the point when everyone is connected to the internet and when the internet offers a more flexible way to get music "for free"? The answer is no one. That point is inevitable.

1. Assuming he's a reasonably serious collecter that implies he knows all about distribution of "pirated" content. Before file sharing became easy, this used to be the postal mail. People mailed cassette tapes to each other. As an artist, he also sees a side of the "pirating" issue many collectors of bootlegs (perhaps analogous to today's bittorrent addicts) do not see.

J3L24043• 14 years ago

>Duritz is smart.

Citation needed.

ye-olde-taper• 14 years ago

This made me laugh. Nice one. :)

It's opinion not fact. No citation needed for opinions of the author.

Nevertheless I will rephrase for anyone who might confuse opinion for fact:

In the author's opinion, Duritz is, with respect to this decision, being smart.

Smart means smart in a business sense.

Time will tell if he is truly being smart in deciding to do this.

psychotik2• 14 years ago

Err, no. Music streaming services (Pandora/Audiogalaxy/Spotify) are the new radio. Facebook's Open Graph is the new radio. Background music in ads (Apple ads, for example) are the new radio.

chrischen2• 14 years ago

Problem with Pandora and Spotify is that unlike the actual radio new songs are slower to get on them.

guelo3• 14 years ago

Musicians have been selling their music for ads for almost as long as there has been radio advertising.

oldschooltaper3• 14 years ago

There was a time in history, when radio was first introduced, when publishers of newspapers sued radio stations for reading the news over the airwaves. It seems rather short-sighted now, doesn't it?

WiseWeasel• 14 years ago

BT isn't comparable to radio or something like Pandora or Lastfm. It's more like the new version of making a dub tape of a friend's music, labor-intensive and not always convenient or practical.

oldschooltaper3• 14 years ago

Perhaps the internet will lead to musicians who are in it only for the music, the self-expression and the ego boost, not for the money.

Maybe the truth is that it has always been this way. Maybe musicians didn't ask to be paid for doing what they love. Maybe record companies just realised they could profit recording and distributing a musician's music. And the musicians were quite happy to be paid.

But once record companies give a musician this "easy money", musicians are unlikely to ever want to sacrafice that benefit. Eventually it becomes viewed as an entitlement.

Digital recording and the internet means we don't need record companies to distribute music anymore.

Will musicians stop making music? Will the quality of music decline?

These are very weak arguments with no evidence to support them.

J3L24043• 14 years ago

Duritz is a muppet. But hey if your hero is Kim Dotcom then he looks cool I guess.

BitTorrent Is The New Radio, Says Counting Crows Frontman

Related Stories