Musician Releases Album And Explains Why File Sharing Isn't That Big A Deal

Culture

from the it's-all-good dept

Mon, Dec 13th 2010 10:02pm — Mike Masnick

Brian points us to a video from Charlie McDonnell, a musician/internet personality, who has just released a new album. The video, rather than just talking up the new album, is a four minute reflection on file sharing that covers the sorts of things we talk about pretty frequently, basically saying (1) file sharing isn't stealing, because no one's missing something (using a comparison to stealing Mars Bars) and (2) if you like the content, it creates new fans who will help support the artist in other ways:

Again, nothing really new or different there but put forth simply and eloquently and interesting that it's done in conjunction with the release of his album, where he notes you can listen to the entire album for free and he's not going to be upset if folks get the songs from elsewhere, though he'd certainly like people to support him. You can hear the album below too, and it's internet geeky, so I figure folks around here might like it.

The one thing that surprises me, though, is that while he's using Bandcamp to handle sales of the CD, he's not offering downloads via Bandcamp, where he could do things like offer flexible pricing. Instead, you have to buy it from iTunes. Kind of strange.

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Filed Under: charlie mcdonnell, file sharing, music, reason to buy

19 Comments

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Yogi, 13 Dec 2010 @ 11:18pm

Nice
The younger generation gets it: coercion as a way of life and commercial rape is out, kindness, voluntary cooperation and generosity are in. Can't wait for them to take over the world.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Dec 2010 @ 11:38pm

For some reason I want a Mars bar.
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Ryan Diederich, 13 Dec 2010 @ 11:56pm

I agree
I agree with everything he said, and I think most other people do as well.

Every single person in my generation (currently 16-24) agrees that piracy is the norm, and should be perfectly legal.

These people will grow up and take over eventually.

In the mean time, this music sucks....
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Kaotik4266 (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 12:40am

Freaky...
That's quite freaky timing - I just received an email from DFTBA saying my copy of his CD has shipped!

The album sales are actually handled directly by his label, DFTBA, rather than BandCamp. http://dftba.com/shop/products/This-Is-Me-%5BCD%5D.html
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Blatant Coward (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 3:37am

Re:
If I had magic self replicating Mars bars, I would have to file share cause I would be too big to go to the shop.

Especially if they were frozen.

Omnomnomnom.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 5:09am

If I'm not mistaken, what the brits call Mars bars are what we call Snickers, and the reason for that is that snickers sounds like nickers, which means underwear. so if they called them snickers bars, it would be like saying "underwear bars". I could be mixed up though.
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PaulT (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 5:30am

Re:
You're mistaken. UK Mars bars are similar to the US Milky Way bars (UK Milky Ways being different again), but they've always been called Mars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_bar

Snickers bars used to be called Marathon but were renamed for globalisation reasons in 1990. As far as I'm aware, they're the same bar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snickers
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The eejit (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 5:48am

Re:
Best be trollin' mon.

no, Mars and Snickers are two completely different bars. MArs has been the same both in the US AND the UK since at least 1995. Snickers used to be called Marathon, but was globalised in 1990.
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Flake, 14 Dec 2010 @ 6:35am

Mmm
In Britain, where they call a sandwich a "butty", sausage "bangers" and meatballs "faggots", what's wrong with an underwear bar? Sounds just as appetizing.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 6:48am

Ahh...underwear bar reminds me of the "floater!!" scene in Caddy Shack.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 7:28am

I find the best place to advertise on the internet is Pirate Bay. Biggest audience ever. Google doesn't work. Yahoo is a little better but all the search engines are nothing but money pits. We don't allow their stupid advertising on our sites. When was the last time you clicked on an ad? Lameo!
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PaulT (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 7:46am

Re: Mmm
Just be careful whose "fanny" you're talking about... you might get misunderstood...
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Dan, 14 Dec 2010 @ 9:55am

Re:
I click on links in my gmail all the time. ads on the google search engine though, not so much.
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Huph, 14 Dec 2010 @ 11:02am

Re: I agree
Meh... Every single person of my generation thought the exact same thing 10 years ago. Eventually, kids grow up, they have families, money becomes an important factor. Musicians work for free when they're young, eventually they'll want to be paid. You can take that to the bank. Some of the best advice I've ever been given is to be wary of judging the future based on what kids are doing now. People are adults for MUCH longer than they are children.

Because if what you say is true, and these kids will never change their priorities, then why wasn't pot legalized when the baby boomers took over? For that matter, why is gay marriage still such an issue? People used to say that things would be different when the boomers took over, but here we are, embroiled in two wars under the command of the "Love & Peace Generation". (a generation that had first-hand experience with the war machine in the 60s and 70s!)

Gen X was as anti-corporate as a generation comes, yet who do they all work for now?
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Tom Landry (profile), 14 Dec 2010 @ 3:40pm

Re: Mmm
I thought cigarettes were called faggots? I'm assuming that since single cigs are called "Fags"
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 4:46pm

Since I refuse to use iTunes it looks like I won't be buying his CD
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 7:55pm

I am sure his 6 fans appreciate it. He will change his tune (pun intended) if and when he produces something that could actually generate significant income.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Dec 2010 @ 9:56am

Re:
Yawn. Can you at least find some new talking points?
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Jeff MacDougall, 15 Dec 2010 @ 4:39pm

Re:
I might suggest looking into the artist and his label before tossing out such an ignorant comment. Charlie and DFTBA records are surprisingly profitable.
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