Internet serves musicians, fans well

It's snarky and smartass-ity, but spot on.

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine, the editorial staff pens a letter to record company execs "thanking" them "for fighting the good fight against Internet MP3 file-swapping. Because of you, millions of kids will stop wasting time seeking out new bands ... no more harmful exposure to thousands of bands via Internet radio either. With any luck they won't talk about music at all."

It's a timely missive.

Now that the major labels have been waging a losing battle against file-sharing for a decade, can we finally dispel all the falsities perpetuated by so many corporate suits? Enough is enough. The Internet has been great for music fans and artists alike.

But wait, hasn't file-swapping caused album sales to plummet and cost lots of artists lots of money?

Yes and no.

It's true, CD sales are down, but a fallacy that it has hit that many musicians in the pocketbook.

If anything, it has been beneficial to many artists' bottom line.

How? First off, understand that very few artists have ever made a dime on record sales. Only about 7 percent of the acts on major labels sell more than 100,000 copies of a given album. Now, consider the fact that it takes sales of an average of 500,000 copies -- depending on the status of the artist -- to even recoup the costs of making the record, and you see that less than one in 10 bands ever sees any kind of revenue from its records. I remember interviewing Corey Taylor, singer for popular metal band Slipknot, a few years back, and he claimed that his band had never earned any real royalties for their album sales -- despite selling more than 5 million units in the United States alone.

In reality, concert tickets and merchandise are where most artists really make their money. And so in order to get people to their shows, artists benefit from the most widespread distribution of their music as possible. In this area, the Internet certainly helps.

Just as importantly, the Internet has helped level the playing field between major label artists and their indie counterparts. Now, it's less about buying an artist onto corporate radio or onto video outlets with pricey clips. To wit: This year, we've seen true indie bands Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire debut atop the Billboard album chart. This didn't happen a decade ago.

So really, the major label execs do deserve our thanks for their dubious business practices.

Their loss has been our gain.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.