via Digital Music News

by Sam Rosenthal (Projeckt Records, Brooklyn)

You see, all those millions and millions of illegal files (music, films. p&rn, books) are not up there because of some utopian belief in open-source access to art. This isn’t about paradise. This is about a new way to screw the artist. Those files are up there so people like Kim Dotcom can earn $50,000,000 a year. Let’s be clear about that.

It’s using the “pipelines” to deliver our content without permission. What am I talking about? Back on December 16 (2011) Shea and I were scratching our heads wondering what incentivized people to upload the same Steve Roach album 10 times a day @ filesonic. Then we found the answer. Those sites pay users when people download illegal content. $50 for 1000 downloads! Read “Basis of indictment” at Wikipedia.  ”An incentivizing program was adopted encouraging the upload of ‘popular’ files in return for payments to successful uploaders.” It is all about greed.

Follow the dots. Illegal content brings people to their sites. Those people don’t want to wait 3 hours to download a movie, so they upgrade to the premium service and get the movie in 3 minutes. Ka-ching! More profit in the “locker” sites’ pockets! The site wins, their incentivized uploader wins, the person illegaly downloading wins. Win-win-win! Who loses? We (the artists) lose!

Read full story at digitalmusicnews.com

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