Chicago based band Wilco was dropped by Reprise records in 2001 over "creative conflicts". With nothing to lose, the band made a contraversial move and placed the album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot online for free. The plan worked, the exposure that resulted from the free distribution of their music, their next albums have been doing very well indeed. The latest, entitled A Ghost is Born, debuted at number 8 on Billboard. Here is a snippet from an interview at Wired.
Wired News: What sparked the idea of offering your music online for free? Jeff Tweedy: Being dropped from Reprise in 2001. They weren't going to put out Yankee Hotel Foxtrot the way we'd created it. They wanted changes; we weren't willing to do that, so they rushed a contract through their legal department to let us go. It was the fastest I'd ever seen a record company work. Once they let us go, we were free to do with the album what we chose. We'd been noticing how much more important the internet had become -- once information is out there in the world now, anyone can get it. Since that was beginning to happen with the record anyway, we figured, OK, let's just stream it for free ourselves. WN: Did you minimize the quality of the files you offered online, so that people would be encouraged to pay for a higher-quality "real thing" when you signed to a new record label? Tweedy: We didn't go out of our way to make it sound low-res. MP3s are poorer quality anyway. That's part of why the record industry's argument against file sharing is so ridiculous -- nothing out there on P2P networks sounds as good as the original CD or vinyl record. WN: Did the free online release make it hard for you to find a new label home? Tweedy: That's why we ended up with Nonesuch. They weren't intimidated by the fact that hundreds of thousands had already downloaded it. WN: What was your reaction when copies of A Ghost Is Born started showing up online this year, before the official release? Tweedy: Something interesting happened. We were contacted by fans who were excited about the fact that they found it on P2P networks, but wanted to give something back in good faith. They wanted to send money to express solidarity with the fact that we'd embraced the downloading community. We couldn't take the money ourselves, so they asked if we could pick a charity instead -- we pointed them to Doctors Without Borders and they ended up receiving about $15,000. |
Nice to hear something positive for a change about file sharing! Make sure to visit Wired and read the entire article. Those of you interested in file sharing should visit our Music Downloads, P2P & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: Wired
