Unknown band's album illegally downloaded 100,000 times. Or is it?

Here is a blog post from the band manager yesterday. <a href="http://www.camerontilburypublicity.com/post/2011/04/03/Illegal-Downloading-follow-up.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.camerontilburypublicity.com/post/2011/04/03/Illeg...</a><p>I think the band should be very frustrated. Their manager made a invalid claim without real evidence then decided to take swift and public action. Unfortunately, the manager does not understand the situation and refuses to talk to anyone who may understand it.<p>What could the band have done here? Was the lack of sales that much more important than the bands popularity?

I imagine this must be quite sad for the band. If they're creating music for any other reason that just pure moneterily reasons, it must be quite weird to first believe that you have tens of thousands of fans listening to your music (albeit not paying for it) only to realize that almost nobody at all have even heard of your band.

The "manager" of the band is stuck in the old media model of the music industry. I would be delighted if my album was downloaded 100K times- I'm sure I would see corresponding increase in Twitter and Facebook followers, YouTube subscribers and live show attendance, merchandise sales, etc. When are the music industry people going to get that? I would think that this would be common sense?!

This article talks about "sampling" music. Grooveshark and last.fm are for sampling, downloading is for getting everything..IE: not sampling.<p>I've heard the argument that most bands don't make money on the albums, only the merchandise and concerts. What's interesting is that piracy has made it this way. When piracy wasn't as mainstream, the bands did make money on albums.<p>Why can't people admit that they are too cheap to spend money on something they know they can get for free with little effort and little consequences? These arguments have been going on since the mid-to-late 90s and every few years, when the record companies listen to the public and comply with the pirates' demands, the excuses change (which is why you should never negotiate with criminals).<p>First it was because you couldn't sample music and it was too expensive. The industry listened and songs are now 99 cents (you aren't forced to buy an album) and you can also preview songs (for free) on a multitude of services.<p>Then it was because artists were getting screwed by record contracts. Now, any artist can sell his music online, without a contract. But the funny part about that is that piracy has destroyed the market for them. Because piracy is rampant, the value of music online has gone down considerably and people aren't as willing to pay for music.<p>This is the real problem with piracy. It's not about stealing that one song, it's about destroying an entire industry of digital products. The value is only what people are willing to pay and as more and more people know they can get something for free, the closer it is to $0.<p>But, it's the age of entitlement...