Drake, Once Again, Shows That It Makes Sense To Embrace Your Fans Who Infringe, Too

from the connecting-with-fans dept

Wed, Nov 9th 2011 3:10pm — Mike Masnick

A few months back, we wrote about how famed singer Drake was angry at Universal for sending takedown notices and getting his leaked tracks taken down. Given Drake's history of building up a lot of popularity through releasing mixtapes, it's not a surprise that he realizes that getting content spread far and wide creates more benefits than it does "downsides." Now he's confirmed that point of view even further, tweeting his somewhat enlightened views on file sharing:

If you can't see it, it says, "Listen, enjoy it, buy it if you like... and take care until next time." In other words, don't attack fans for wanting to hear and share your music, learn to recognize that these are fans, and they have their reasons for doing what they do. But connecting with the artist directly also builds up significantly more goodwill. It's nice to see someone of Drake's stature willing to speak up about these things. The thing that he seems to realize is that even if people are "pirating" leaked material, that's no reason why they might not give him money in the future -- and one way to make that more likely is to really connect with fans. Threatening them with lawsuits is kind of the opposite of connecting, and it's backfired on more than a few artists.

Hopefully more artists will make their position on such things much more clear than it is today.

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Filed Under: connecting, copyright, drake, embracing, fans, piracy

22 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 9 Nov 2011 @ 3:22pm

Uh...Mike? Aren't you reading a bit too much into this one (and I don't mean the fact that you totally murdered the quote)?
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out_of_the_blue, 9 Nov 2011 @ 3:32pm

Yeah, to hell with contracts when it suits /your/ notions.
I'm struck by this from your previous piece (emphasis added):
"Now, as I'm sure people will quickly point out, he signed a contract with Universal, and that means he almost certainly handed over the rights to the music in question. To some extent, you can argue that if he was doing it for the people instead of for Universal Music, he shouldn't have signed a deal that gave all the rights to Universal Music."

But in the Huffington Post pieces, you objected to people suing for a cut of hundreds of millions after they'd "agreed" to contribute for "free". -- Yes, I know that bringing up your past pieces and expecting consistency is futile. I soldier on. -- But it's definitely breach of contract for this guy to distribute songs after signing a contract and presumably getting paid for it.

Malleable Mike: in favor of explicitly breaking contract so long as harms Big Media, but when Arianna Huffington gets $310M, he'll hold people /strictly/ to web-site TOS.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Nov 2011 @ 3:37pm

Re: Yeah, to hell with contracts when it suits /your/ notions.
Dishonest OOTB.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Nov 2011 @ 3:38pm

Re:
Can you please point me to the nearest website that plays legal music so I can rip it, preferably it should be owned by any of the major labels, so they are responsible for the piracy I'm going to engage in.
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Marcus Carab (profile), 9 Nov 2011 @ 3:52pm

Re: Yeah, to hell with contracts when it suits /your/ notions.
This particular story is not about tracks Drake released himself in violation of his contract, it's about his album being leaked by someone else. In fact, from what I understand he was somewhat annoyed that the album leaked, but he is smart enough to realize that getting mad solves nothing.

The earlier Drake post on Techdirt was not lauding him for violating his contract - in fact it was not even about whether what he did was 'right' or 'wrong' or legal or illegal. It was about demonstrating that labels do not always represent what artists want, despite their insistence that they do - and demonstrating how labels that go nuts with takedowns end up doing really silly things that benefit nobody.
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Yo, 9 Nov 2011 @ 3:57pm

Drake embraces his fans and lets this roll off his back because the Mixtape circuit single handily launched his career.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Nov 2011 @ 4:00pm

Re:
He even added words to create the point he's trying to emphasize...
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Nov 2011 @ 4:07pm

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/11/stop-online-piracy-act-blacklist-any-other-name-still-blacklis t

Finally someone noticed that SOPA is really a blacklist censor tool.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 9 Nov 2011 @ 5:56pm

fixed
Sorry about the error in the transcription of the tweet... fixed.
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surfer (profile), 9 Nov 2011 @ 6:15pm

Re:
do you realize that trolling here only emphasizes the fact that you are an idiot, and that most ppl here are educated and intelligent, something you are not?

FUD Mike this, and Pirate Mike that, Fat Boy, Couch Potato, bla bla bla.. You are not convincing anyone of anything, other than you are a complete and utter moron.

Go post on RIAA your brain washing rhetoric, oh, that's right, you can't post on RIAA, they don't accept creative thinking..
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surfer (profile), 9 Nov 2011 @ 6:18pm

oh, and your a mindless 'tard too.

when reading OOTB posts, think of a downs syndrome Special Olympic winner accepting his trophy and speaking in drooling, slurred words, it helps me get past his first word or two..
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surfer (profile), 9 Nov 2011 @ 6:22pm

Re:
'im fruck my dis mfrom myour mrevus possinsing peessse...'

I gave up after that..
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Steve (profile), 9 Nov 2011 @ 7:54pm

Before the internet
�If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.�

George Bernard Shaw

Saw this and thought it applied to most of the postings on techdirt
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btrussell (profile), 10 Nov 2011 @ 5:49am

Re: Re:
"...they don't accept creative thinking..."

Then he shouldn't have a problem!
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gorehound (profile), 10 Nov 2011 @ 5:55am

If these bigwig Artists really cared they would rip up their RIAA Memebership Cards.
And then go DIY ! They would make a better living both away from the MAFIAA and without their taking of his income which would be going towards who he has hired not who the MAFIAA has hired.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2011 @ 6:26am

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I understand that as a general rule those having contracts with labels are typically able to tour independent of the label(s) with which they have signed a contract.

If my understanding is correct, and please feel free to correct me if it is wrong, labels will obviously want to handle distribution, whereas those who tour will want to pump up whatever will help maximize attendance during their tour.

Clearly there is a conflict, but to me it seems that if the parties have entered into a contract of the type I would anticipate, that contract binds both parties. If a musician engages in acts subverting the contractual rights of the other party, I have no sympathy for the musician. He/she made a deal, and it is undeniably his/her obligation to live up to it. After all, if those with whom the musician has contracted concerning the tour began breaching those contracts, the musician would have every right to be upset to the same degree that labels are upset.
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Bill (profile), 10 Nov 2011 @ 7:23am

Re: Re:
He even added words to create the point he's trying to emphasize..

He actually dropped an "it".

"Listen, enjoy it, buy it if you like it... and take care until next time."
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 10 Nov 2011 @ 7:25am

Re: Re:
I'm sure there's a non-editable pre-written comment form he can use over there.
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iamtheky (profile), 10 Nov 2011 @ 7:53am

Re: fixed
no its not...
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2011 @ 8:42am

If an artists tells you to illegally download his content doesn't that absolve you of piracy charges? Would he not be liable for paying the rights holder for the licensing of the content?
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jrfoster01 (profile), 10 Nov 2011 @ 3:16pm

Misquote
Mike, just curious as to why you would take the effort to remove one word from the quote? And one which completely changes the context.

"Buy it if you like..." and "Buy it if you like it" have very different meanings.
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Hooter McBus (profile), 10 Nov 2011 @ 3:26pm

Misquote
And it was an intentional deletion (note the ellipsis).

Not hatin', just curious.
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