http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/14/136279162/an-inter...
I'd argue the opportunities for digital distribution far outweigh the risky and extremely limited opportunities of traditional physical media. The smaller artist has a major lack of publicity muscle. Piracy can provide just that; on a potential scale almost completely inaccessible to unknown artists.
I work for a small record label, I understand the problem very well.
Do you mean that sincerely, or do you mean it is always great to see artists' perspective on "piracy" when they're equivalent to your perspective on piracy?
I make a living selling "copyrighted work", and it determines whether I eat on any given day. I am not a big corporation. I think pirates are value-destroying parasites, and their justifications are self-serving proto-philosophy drizzled over gigantic entitlement issues. The fundamental justification for piracy is that stealing stuff is a lot preferable to buying stuff if stealing stuff carries no social cost to it.
I implement DRM and, worse to pirates, changes to business models which are 100% effective DRM++: put the bits which need protecting on your server, gate access to them based on payment. This both helps me continue eating and gives me that piece of mind that only people who are not getting their stuff stolen have.
That is just this artist's perspective, of course.
First off, stealing.
I don't give a crap how often you and others like you spout this bullshit, it doesn't make it any more correct. It's not stealing. It never was, it never will be. If you are unable to understand the consequences of digital media, that's a pity, but not the fault of the evil, evil pirates.
Second, that's a pretty nice appeal to emotion. Frankly, I don't give half a fuck whether you starve to death. If your business model cannot keep up with technology and you refuse to adapt (or worse, try to fight the change, which is ultimately a losing battle to everyone's detriment, including you), that's your fault. The evil, evil pirates are just a convenient excuse.
Third, if you really /need/ all this bullshit to get people to buy your stuff, then your doing something very, very wrong. Deliver a good product at a reasonable price and people will be happy to pay for it. Stop developing against the evil, evil pirates but instead for your valid costumers.
Fourth, if 'free culture/software' is a 'self-serving proto-philosophy drizzled over gigantic entitlement issues' to you, I can't help but feel sorry for you.
Many nfo files include things like "try before buy" or "if you like this release, please buy it".
