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Originally Posted by mr ploppy
I suggest he has a look around on Myspace, Youtube, Bandcamp, etc because there is more music being recorded now than there ever has been before. The only comparable growths in recorded music were in the mid to late 70s when it became easy to have your own records pressed, or when cassette culture came along.
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The technology that makes piracy easy also makes distributing your music very easy; add to that falling costs of producing music, and you have a lot of indie bands and amateur bands putting out MP3s not attached to labels and that aren't recorded in the industry numbers. I suspect that what's happening is more of a shift from labels, rather than a shift away from music.
The silver lining according to the Sheaf.com:
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As artists and labels have come to accept the realities of file sharing, silver linings have presented themselves. Aaron Miller of Toronto-based Indie label Arts & Crafts thinks file sharing can benefit artists and labels, if used correctly.
“It’s indirect, but the ability to spread music and disseminate products around the world like that, even illegally, can mean invaluable exposure,” says Miller.
Struthers cites the overseas popularity of some Canadian bands like Broken Social Scene and The Weakerthans, which would never have been possible without the internet.
“Broken Social Scene can tour China because of downloading. Nobody there has actually bought their album,” says Struthers. Last year, Broken Social Scene played shows in Singapore, Taiwan, and Tokyo, a long way from their roots in Toronto. The fact that these places have even heard of Canadian music, to which they are rarely otherwise exposed, is a testament to the power of piracy.
The boost is felt at home as well as abroad, which leaves artists and labels in a grey area of support.
“If people are digging the record and then come out to the show, that’s great,” says Kerman.
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There's a cost to no enforcement for sure, but there's also a cost to too much enforcement or the wrong kind of enforcement. Copyright is a fine balance, so it makes sense that the enforcement of copyright should also be a fine balance.