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My Steve Earle Dilemma...and what would you do?

A few weeks ago I heard about Earle's tribute to Townes and have enjoyed reading about it here and there. As so many of us on this site are, I'm a huge fan and never can seem to get enough of whatever he puts out. Heck, I'll even take the turntables and digital voice-thing when I have to.

This morning on the community Jeff Giddens posted a thoroughly thoughtful run through on the new release, and I also enjoyed Grant's comments. I figured the advance releases were hitting the reviewer's desks and radio stations so out of curiosity I did a quick search and found the entire CD available for download on an extremely active and popular bittorrent site. Free. Hmmm......

Throughout the day I kept checking in and watched with amazement how many downloads were taking place. I don't know why, but Earle has always been a worldwide download fave and by the time I got home this evening it was ranked in the top 100. As someone else posted here a few hours ago, Amazon is already selling four individual tracks for .99 each. But there it is...out there....full and complete....free. Five weeks before it's official release date. Hmmm.....

A dilemma is defined as a problem offering at least two possibilities, none of which that are acceptable. And mine is to wait for the official release date in May, download the whole thing to enjoy now, just pay the four bucks for four tracks to Amazon, or call a friend at the record label and have a promotional copy sent out to me in time for the weekend. (The latter insures that the artist and composer will receive no compensation...so it's not really any different than stealing it in my opinion. I'm neither a reviewer nor radio station.)

There's been quite a few posts here about the "new business model": free streaming, how composers can get compensated, who owns the videos or recordings, the demise of record stores, the quality of an MP3, placing value on creativity...etc. I think this is a pretty good example to test the waters.

So fellow Earle fans and all you music junkies: what would you do? Or what will you do, or have done already? Show this poor boy the way....

Tags: bittorrent, downloads, earle, mp3, streaming, townes

Comment by Daniel T on March 31, 2009 at 11:31pm: Easy Ed, I've always noted that your posts tend to be inciteful, honest, and conscientous. Even though you think your having trouble deciding what to do, your charachter comes through when you say "so it's not really any different than stealing it in my opinion". I believe you answered your own question. One way or another your going to buy it to make sure everyone who deserves it get's their share of the profits. As for me, I'm going to wait untill the official release date and pick it up at my local indy record shop. Support two birds with one stone so to speak. I know there are a lot of people who get their music for free any way they can, but sooner or later, when the profits for the artists disappear so will the music.

Comment by Dangerbird on April 1, 2009 at 1:44am: i'll be pre-ordering a nice 180gm LP version.
but until then, i'll seek a free download.

best o' both worlds, no?

Comment by Ron Frankl on April 1, 2009 at 6:15am: I fully understand the dilemma, but as long as you purchase the recording as well, I don't think it's that difficult a choice to make. If you still feel badly, though, you can do other things to make up for your misgivings, like tell everyone you know how wonderful the album is, or write/post a positive review, both of which may attract further buyers.

But in some ways the worst thing you can do is ask the label for a promotional CD. In most situations, promotion is charged back to the artist's royalty account. In other words, the artist ends up paying for the CD, not the label.

I lived for a long time in New York, and I used to shop at several "used" CD/ record stores that, in reality, sold a large number of promos. They usually had all but the most popular current releases. Because of the concentration of reviewers and music industry types in New York, there was this whole army of people who were on the record companies "lists," who would bring in bags of promos that they didn't want to keep for their own collections. The stores would pay a dollar or two for the sellable ones, and price them for sale at five or six or seven dollars. The person that brought them in pockets the money for the music they got for free, the store banks the difference, and the recording artist gets charged for the cost of the recordings. All of this goes on in plain sight, of course. A friend who worked in one of these stores told me a story about an up and coming young artist who saw a stack of his own promos for sale. His jaw dropped and he burst into tears. He knew what it meant. So, if one wants to avoid hurting the artist, don't buy promos, and don't support shops that sell them.

Comment by David Shaw on April 1, 2009 at 6:19am: I'm waiting to buy it from my regular music source (suspect I've already ordered it). I recall when Wilco did Yankee Hotel Foxtrot you could download it for free from Wilco's own site ... but I waited and bought it when the CD came out. there always seems to be plenty to listen to before the next ship sails in.

Comment by Easy Ed on April 1, 2009 at 8:58am: Replying to myself. I have no shame. This just in on the wire.....

Google Inc. and major music companies launched a FREE Internet music download service for China on Monday in a bid to help turn a field dominated by pirates into a profitable, legitimate business.

The advertising-supported service will offer 1.1 million tracks, including the full catalogs of Chinese and Western music for Warner Music Group Corp., EMI Group Ltd., Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music and 14 independent labels, the companies said.

Comment by simon2307 on April 1, 2009 at 11:56am: I've ordered the deluxe 2 cd version, without knowing what the second disc is, UK pre-order Play.com is £ 11.99 for this version.

I'll admit it's tempting to get the download, safe in the knowledge I'll get the CD anyway, to be honest if he released an album of thrash metal folk hip hop, I'd buy it too.

Comment by Easy Ed on April 1, 2009 at 1:47pm: Interesting blog today:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/31/stealing-music-is-it-wrong-or-isnt-it/

Comment by Daniel T on April 3, 2009 at 12:57am: I read the techcrunch.com blog. It seemed to me most of the comments were from people trying to rationalize there current non-buying habits. One guy actually wrote "all music should be free". I'd be willing to bet he is NOT a musician.

Comment by Easy Ed on April 3, 2009 at 9:14am: He's a tech guy from Silicone Valley...not a musician for sure.

Personally, I'm starting to believe that music should not be free in the sense that there's no charge for it, but free in the sense of availability and storage. Google's new service in China is giving music downloads away for free, but they will be paying artist royalties from the ad revenues they can get.

Comment by Codfish on April 3, 2009 at 3:22pm: 1.) Pre-order the CD
2.) Download the tracks
3.) Enjoy some guilt-free listening.

Now if ever there was a CD that might actually make me feel guilty about downloading it, this might be it. I'm not apologizing, but I think I might pick up a couple legit copies for gifts when it comes out.

For some reason, I kinda shrugged at the prospects of this record, even though I'm a Steve Earle fan and a Townes fan. Steve Earle doing a Townes album seemed kinda obvious I guess. I second the "unexpectedly good" observation made in the earlier blog. Seriously.