I download and share music. And I make music. And yes, I want people to download my music for free. That would make me very happy.

I have been downloading music since Napster came out. I kept buying many of my favourite records and I went to loads of gigs of artists that I might have not gone had I not downloaded their music and I’ve also passed my favourite music into many of my friends. Not to speak of rare albums and singles that I had been unsuccesssfully trying to find in my local stores but hadn’t been rereleased because maybe the record company didn’t think it was profitable or the shop owner didn’t think anyone was interested in that band.

Do music downloads mean the end of the music industry? No. It only means the end of record companies that sell pieces of plastic CD’s as a business model. There’s loads of people making money out of music such as bands at gigs, commercial music, etc. Is the end of record companies a big loss? No, they don’t create the music, they only print CD’s and sell them. Do I want to have tons of CD’s using up so much space at home when I can carry all my music in my Creative Zen or iPod? No. Do they have the right to attack music fans just because they don’t want to adapt to a changing world? No. If I don’t adapt to the changes in my industry I will be jobless very quickly but I won’t start suing other people because everyone will agree that being up to date is my responsibility.

With P2P and BitTorrents the artists do still get paid when you go to gigs and way more people have access to their music. It’s a win-win situation. At the end of the day, most artists never receive a dime out of CD sales, which is something they’ve always complained about so it’s in everyone’s interest to make music as easily available as possible. Music fans will enjoy it and artists will get better known so more people will go to their gigs. Let’s face it before only a few successful artists concentrated most of the generated income. Will the world be a worse place now that super artists able to fill stadiums are less? Nope, in fact that means that people listen more to the gigs they actually enjoy since there’s much more to choose from. It has never easier to make music and get the world to listen to it. Good music will eventually get there one way or another and neither artists or music fans will be tied to record companies’ commercial strategies unless they want to.

I took a music production course in London a few years ago and I remember the teacher explaining how the different agencies in the UK collect royalties and turns out you have to pay your own royalties beforehand if you wanted to self publish a few hundred copies of your own music in CD format so that your label would later pay back that money to you when the copies were sold! That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard and was only designed to support record companies business model. This way you needed very deep pockets to legally self publish your own music. Luckily those days are over.

The traditional music distribution system is not made to make it easy for new artists to be known by the general public, it is designed to support record companies and their business structure.

But let’s analyse what does a record company actually do:

1. looks for a new cool band that the A&R thinks people will like
2. makes an exclusive contract with the band for a certain amount of albums
3. pays for an album to be recorded
4. a bunch of guys with suits interfere with the creative process by reminding the band that they have a signed contract
5. makes sure that the band’s music is distributed in the right shops
6. promotes that band’s music through different channels

A band doesn’t need anyone to discover them because recording an album with high quality is easier than ever and very affordable. Since you can upload your music to your webpage that effectively bypasses the need for a record company’s distribution channel.

The only actual work out of the reach of most artists is the promotion but that means that any marketing agency can really do the same job and probably much better since record companies have been neglecting the internet so much they don’t know how to use it.

Therefore all those people who say that music is dying because of P2P are wrong. Record companies have been attacking their customers for 10 years instead of trying to adapt to a changing world. Now there’s no time to rectify. Will they disappear? Probably. Is it a big loss for the world? No. There has never been more music than now, there have never been more live gigs and music festivals than now and there’re many artists making a living through music.

Finally when record companies realised their big mistake they started to sell their music in iTunes, at the same price as if you were buying a CD! But wait, there’s no distribution cost, no storage cost, no production and packaging. It’s just a replication of a file stored on a server, and in MP3 format! Compressed MP3’s don’t sound nearly as good as uncompressed CD’s and they expect us to pay the same price? No way!

Is music sharing stealing? You only steal when you take something and keep it and the original owner no longer has it. Do MP3 files disappear when you share them? Nope, therefore you are not stealing.

Recently, even mainstream bands like Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails have realised that the best way of getting people to listen to their music is releasing it for free. They can later charge for the extras, artwork, merchandinsing, limited vinyl editions. But at least I don’t have to listen to them moaning about their fans downloading their music being criminals. They just adapt, move on and keep making cool songs (and loads of money).

I make music and I give it away for free in myspace. Why? because I can reach everyone from anywhere and they can hear my music.

If you love music, share it.