File sharing is not evil. It's not! It's not! It's not!
Posted: 27 August 2007 at 21:10:00
Many who read the Fozzolog know I've become a fan of Porcupine Tree -- a progressive rock band based out of England. They've been releasing music steadily since the early 1990s.
I saw them perform live last year in San Francisco and had the time of my life. Performing on stage with them was guitarist and singer John Wesley, an American who has accompanied the band on the road since their In Absentia album tour in 2002.
"Wes" is also featured on the band's most recent album Fear Of A Blank Planet.
Anyway, my buddy Thom alerted me today that Wes posted a blog entry to
his
MySpace site a couple days ago which contained some rather shocking
news. Here it is:
"Sharing the Wes"
For me to continue to create music, I have to know that people are hearing it. Elements of cost and lack of distribution have made most of my catalogue very difficult to acquire. So rather than go into a long diatribe about how the industry is changing, I am just going to post this blog to announce a new "Share the Wes" policy.
My entire catalogue is now available through links on this site as MP3 downloads - at no cost.
The only thing I ask in return is that if you choose to download the music and add it to your collection, you "Share the Wes" with everyone you know that may have an interest in the music that I create.
Point them to the site and encourage them to discover the music I have created over the course of my career, and then encourage them to share it!
If you like the music, go to the "Demand it" button on my site, tell me where you are, and hopefully at some point in the future I can come near to where you are and "Share the Wes" live.
I am driven by a need to create and perform. Sharing my music in this manner will help to remove some of the barriers that I have encountered in exposing the songs to a wider audience.
In regards to income, music is not free to create. There are heavy costs in the time, money and expense it takes to create, record and perform the music. Many people also still enjoy having the CD and artwork... Some like to have it signed to collect, and let¹s face it, CD's are higher quality and sound better than MP3's. So to help defray these costs and still make the music available to the fans that love having the discs, I will still offer the music in CD form online and at gigs, although most of the music I am offering is now out of print, which again, is a major factor in my decision to "Share the Wes" for free.
I've added a Paypal button on the site for donations to go towards covering the expense of creating new music. If you download the music and you love it, and you want to be a part of supporting my quest to create more, click the Paypal button. Any amount helps and will go to covering the cost of creating new music.
When I create new music, there will be an initial period where it will only be available on CD or Snocap, again, to help cover the costs.
The bottom line is, there are now over 50 songs on this site to have, to share, and to help you become a part of the entire history of my journey of creating music.
Please take it all, listen to it, and enjoy... and share it!
John Wesley
This is really cool news and it makes perfect sense. Wes is in a good situation to do something like this -- he's fairly independent and not encumbered by the iron fist of a record company.
I say this is common sense because of my experience with Porcupine Tree. I was introduced to the band by word of mouth and was then prompted to download some of their music from (evil, illegal) music sharing sites/networks on the Internet. Some of the stuff I downloaded is out of print or very difficult to get your hands on otherwise.
Someone (perhaps, someone from the RIAA) might say I'm a bad, bad person for doing this, but consider the outcome: I ended up traveling to San Francisco and attending a concert I otherwise would not have. I bought the band's live DVD Arriving Somewhere (which is excellent, BTW), a DTS DVD-Audio version of Deadwing, and the CDs: Fear Of A Blank Planet and Stars Die - The Delerium Years.
Word-of-mouth and, more importantly, music (illegitimately) obtained from online sources results in money in the bank for artists who make good product.
So, if you're inclined to like progressive or alternative rock, you can do as I will also do: download Wes's stuff. See if you like it. If you do, consider purchasing a CD or two or, better yet, hit that "Demand It" button on his site to indicate that you would likely pay for a ticket to a concert in your area if John Wesley were to perform.