Say what?

I’ve made some spurious claims about being an mp3 blog lately, as well as contradicting myself with regard to not posting stuff from major labels, so I guess I’d best clarify my position.

Basically, posting downloads of other people’s music is a breach of the originator’s (the artist, composer, whoever…) legal rights.  Most blogs mp3 justify themselves by talking about “promotion for the artist” and other (quite frankly rather shaky) claims about new audiences buying CDs because they got a taster from a blog somewhere.  I certainly purchase music that I’ve found out about from blogs, and there’s a strong chance that the other people who write music blogs do too.  However, I’ll be the first to admit that I live in quite a rarefied environment when it comes to music (basically, I’m an obsessive) and your average reader/listener isn’t quite so geeky; meaning they can’t really be bothered to spend money on something when they can get it for free from blogs/torrents/wherever.  Also, it’s still just plain illegal, regardless of whether or not the artist benefits somewhere down the line.

All is not lost, however, as there are still some groovy artists and small labels out there who do think blogs can make a positive difference to their careers.  I receive a fair few presspacks and demos and CDs by people who want me to talk about and/or play their music; and I’m a tiny fish in an ocean of DIY music writers.  Blogs like Song, by Toad, and Daily Growl get by almost exclusively on content that’s been sent directly to them.  The bottom line is this; any promotion is good news for small/new bands and artists, and many of them are happy to let a blogger post a song or two of theirs.

So apologies for the long and rather dull post, but I feel it’s necessary to state that from this moment on, all mp3 download links posted in this blog are either available for free online elsewhere anyway (and I’ll always post a link to the original site) or I have the express permission of the artist to give the track away.