It’s really quite a simple and obvious concept: going after somebody who is offering up pirated copies of your song, and publicizing their arrest in the media, is going to inform people that these songs exist and are available on the Internet. When it comes to Internet piracy, the best deterrent is to pretend it never happened.

However, going after pirates does accomplish one very positive thing: it increases buzz and provides additional publicity for an upcoming release. For Guns N’ Roses and their new album Chinese Democracy, this is exactly what has happened: a blogger releasing the songs has been arrested, 90% of the illegal downloads of their songs have occurred after the arrest, and a lot of people are listening to, hearing about, and writing about Guns ‘N’ Roses.

It’s my opinion that fighting pirates works much better for older bands like Guns N’ Roses, or any artists or bands that appeal to an older demographic. I don’t know what the statistics are, but I imagine that older consumers are more likely to purchase CDs and less likely to engage in file sharing than younger consumers. Although fighting the piracy exposes the existence of songs available for file sharing, it’s not as much of a threat to Guns N’ Roses’ bottom line as it would be to a younger, hipper band with a more tech-savvy fan base. In fact, it fuels the publicity fire and may indeed help drive additional sales that they wouldn’t normally get without the press.

I would not recommend this for a band like Arcade Fire, whose college student and hipster base is deeply knowledgeable about file sharing and ambivalent to the threats of record labels. They are best served by keeping mum about file sharing, not making any enemies, and hoping to sell as many albums as possible while driving up demand for live shows.

It’s tough to say the best strategy, though. But the fact of the matter is that the man arrested for sharing Guns N’ Roses may be responsible for helping drive up sales. I wonder if they’ll pay his fines for him?

Story via Peter Kafka at SAI

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