. EMusic

18:07:02 Janis Ian: why free downloads help artists.
In a detailed article written for-CNet News.com, the American singer-songwriter Janis Ian says in a natural and highly-logical the argument that free downloads help artists instead of damaging them. Having said that when he asked for comments on the subject got around insistent proposals by Hilary Rosen of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) because it would include the statistics commissioned by the same organization, who had tried to show how much objectivity could not fail to be considered biased. The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, however, tried to press for you to say that the downloads 'destroy the store', 'ruining the music industry' and 'user cost money'. It must be said that Ian has won numerous Grammy Awards (nine nominations), as a singer and songwriter, and therefore knows the music market. Taking his own experience, for example says his site generates 75,000 visits per year. During the heyday of Napster was a monthly average of 100 emails from people who had downloaded the songs for free and wanted more information. Of these 15, bought a cd, which means 180 cd sold in more than a year and a $ 2,700 collection. The author, who was thirty years ago in ranking in the United States asserts that the cries Greek industry are the same who has personally observed with the introduction, in order, the reel to reel, cassette, DAT, of the MD, videos and MTV ("who will buy the discs if you can record? '). Realistically, most of the people, says Ian, downloading music old and new, the first out of print and often to the second 'test' before you spend good money. Everyone seems to forget that the reason why artists become famous is their public exposure, and that there is still no concrete evidence that sales have been damaged by downloads. The evidence seems to the contrary, however, because the artists are constantly receiving documents from the calculation of royalties that indicate their debt to the label, not to mention the fact that the same labels hold the rights to all their material, so that can not even be put online by the artists. Janis Ian concludes by saying that should be the artists themselves to mobilize to defend their rights in order to avoid the risk of finding themselves in a world of Microsoft model, in which for every copy of what you have purchased you have to buy multiple licenses.