Music Blogs, the Music Industry, and Government Seizures

The government seizure of Limewire and other programs accused of copyright infringement has extended to blogs. I recently read “Piracy Fight Shuts Down Music Blogs” by Ben Sisario and found that music blogs, which “leak” anticipating music, have been seized. The featured blog in the article is OnSmash.com whose founder Kevin Hofman told his side of the story. Well, it seems that the website seizures might prevent “copyright infringement” but also disrupts a marketing business model amongst recording labels, managers, artists, and music bloggers.

According to the article and Hofman, the way his blog works is that, most times, he is given exclusive music by labels/managers/artists. The purpose of which is for Hofman to “leak” or post the music so as to create virtual buzz about said music or artist. Similar to the way celebrities give exclusive stories to magazines. Hofman is well known and accepted with some of the artists the government is accusing him of stealing from. Thus, creating a conundrum: “While the Recording Industry Association of America wants to shut them down, the rank and file of the record labels — particularly in hip-hop circles — uses them as marketing tools and publicity outlets.”

“Leaking” music may not be the ideal means of marketing for the music industry and its clearly disliked by the RIAA. But it is the music industry’s way of adapting to social media and other web 2.0 where such “leaked” music can lead to anticipation about an upcoming album or new artist. The article does mention that at times the given music can lead to other music being pirated; Rapper Fabolous explained it best:

“It’s a double-edged sword…it’s a great, great promotional tool to get whatever you’re trying to get out to the masses. But on the other side it is a little bit of piracy, because sometimes it’s not always stuff that’s given — there’s certain things that are taken.”

Considering the popularity of music blogs and “leaked” music amongst celebrity blogs, the bulk of the music industry will be left figuring out new means to market the music, within the virtual world, without it leading to government seizures. In the mean time, OnSmash is still seized (you can read the notice by going to the website) and Hofman is in the legal process of fighting the seizure. His take on whether he’s a music pirate:

“I see myself as a legitimate source of content online, and I have no reason to believe that I was ever perceived as otherwise. If what I’m doing is so wrong and is harming the artist, then why is he retweeting stuff to two million-plus people?” … Referring to Kanye West. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”