Bloggasm

by Simon Owens

Before Google’s $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban famously said that anyone who buys the online video giant is a “moron.” With almost daily lawsuits launched at websites for copyright infringements, there was no shortage of media analysts who agreed with him. It might seem odd, then, that a growing number of bloggers are not only getting away with posting copyrighted music online for free; they’re actually encouraged to do so by the musicians themselves.

Music blogs (also known as mp3 blogs) post song reviews similar to those written for any traditional magazine, with one key difference: after the reader finishes the review, he can then listen to the song. The blogger uploads a full mp3 onto his server and anyone with basic computer skills can right click on the link and save it to a hard-drive.

Matt Jordan is a 20-year-old journalism major who attends the University of Kentucky. In November of 2004 he started youaintnopicasso.com for an audience of “a few friends.” Two years later, the site now gets over 5,000 visitors a day and brings in a significant income from advertising sales.

Like other music bloggers, Jordan will often download tracks from the review copies he receives and give his readers a taste of the album. “About 15 to 20 percent of the stuff I review comes from CDs people send me,” he said. “And most of those come with a note saying I can either post specific tracks from the CD, or to feel free to post any tracks I want.” For the songs he wants to upload which don’t fall into this category, he often emails the musician to ask permission. Very few say no. “The only time I’ve ever been asked to take down a song was when there was a pre-release leaked to me, and against my better judgement I put the song up on my blog. The people were cool about it though, they just emailed me and asked me to take it down for now.” They then told Jordan that he could go ahead and post the song again once the album had been released.

This trend is consistent for Frank Yang as well. By day he’s a web developer for The Globe and Mail, but in his spare time he heads chromewaves.net, an indie rock blog that covers the Toronto scene. In 2006, Yang attended close to 80 shows, many of which he got into for free because of his site.

Chromewaves differs from other blogs of its kind because it’ll often feature several songs from an album rather than just one or two. “My site is 95 percent legal and approved,” Yang said in a phone interview. “Most labels send review copies that come with an authorized mp3 to post for free.” The reason he posts more than a few songs is because he’s “more of an album person,” while other bloggers like to focus on individual tracks. As for the five percent of the songs which aren’t technically posted legally, he removes them from the site after they’ve been up for a week. To date, Yang hasn’t had a single take-down notice from a music label.

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Caption: Frank Yang, blogger for Chromewaves

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Jasamine White-Gluz, lead singer and guitarist for a Montreal band called Bad Flirt, said that this is because the benefits of allowing free downloads outweigh the negatives. Her six-member band has been playing since 2002 and they’ve never minded when fans post their songs for free online.

White-Gluz is 24 years old and works as a casting agent, holding auditions for TV shows and talent agencies. “It’s cool to tell beautiful people that they’re not right for the part,” she replied when asked if she liked her job. “That’s what I always tell people.”

In addition to allowing bloggers to post their songs for free, Bad Flirt puts together pieces specifically for online promotion. They recently released an indie-pop dance collaboration with the band Hexes & Ohs and emailed it to dozens of sites. “When we had songs out on blogs,” White-Gluz explained, “the only results are more people at shows and more people buying albums and t-shirts.” She argued that because indie bands don’t normally get radio time, the blogs are able to step in and allow free samples of their music, since very few people are willing to buy an album without hearing the songs first.

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Caption: Bad Flirt

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Not all bands are so lax about the free music offers, however. Ryan Hancock and Andrew Prinz, both members of the Brooklyn band Mahogany, said that whether they allow a blog to post their work for free depends on a variety of factors. For one, they prefer that the person contacts them and asks permission; they’re not very comfortable with an anonymous blogger assuming that it’s absolutely fine to post whatever he wants. “I think it also depends on the music you’re doing,” said Prinz, a 32-year-old art director living in New York. “And I think it’s a decision everyone needs to make on an individual basis.” Generally, though, the band has given permission to bloggers who have emailed and asked for it.

“I think it’s a good idea to allow blogs to post our songs,” said Ryan Hancock, a civil rights lawyer who makes the trip from Philly to New York three times a week to practice with his band. “So far the music labels who produce our albums don’t mind either…it’s free promotion.”

But even with all the avenues that music blogs may open, very few have delusions of grandeur. Yang, the before-mentioned blogger for Chromwaves, asserted that in the end, his blog probably doesn’t result in many album sales. “I don’t think blogs make a huge impression,” he said. “All they can do is build buzz, create an echo chamber. And even though I get anecdotal evidence when readers tell me they bought an album after listening to a song on my blog, the sales aren’t measurable. I mean, my blog only gets 2,000 readers a day, and half of those come from Google hits, not daily readers.”

For Yang, it’s more of “an individual thing,” a grassroots promotion of his favorite bands. “If I can reach one person, and this person discovered a band he really likes, then that’s great,” he explained. “For me, that’s all that matters.”

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