Musicians Flip-Flop On Giving Fans Free Music

These days, politicians aren’t the only people flip-flopping on issues.

With some of the industry’s biggest names questioning the vitality of giving fans free music or supporting downloading, it’s getting harder and harder to keep track of who’s maintaining what position – especially because media-hogging musicians, namely Sir Paul McCartney and The Cure frontman Robert Smith, keep changing their minds.

So where do McCartney and Smith stand on the issue now?

Just a few months ago, McCartney indicated that he didn’t really understand the concept of downloading music, and asserted it didn’t bother him and that “it works out.” Someone must have shown him a royalty-loss report or given him some new info, because the Beatle seems to have changed his tune completely.

“If you get on a bus you’ve got to pay,” McCartney said. “And I think it’s fair, you should pay your ticket. The problem is you get a lot of young bands coming up and some of them aren’t going to last forever.

“So if they have a massive hit that’s going to pay their mortgage forever, they’re going to feed the children on that and if they don’t get that money, if they don’t see that money, I think it’s a bit of a pity.”

Well, at least Sir Paul seems to have reversed his view for the noble cause of supporting underdog bands rather than for selfish personal gain.

Meanwhile, Smith, who recently referred to Radiohead‘s “pay what you want” business model as “an idiot plan,” has released a recording of The Cure’s secret Dec. 13, 2008 MySpace show at the Troubadour as a free streaming album, “Live At Secret Shows“, on the band’s MySpace. Previously Smith said:

“You can’t allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don’t consider what you do to have any value at all and that’s nonsense.”

True, Smith is putting his own ‘price’ on this streaming album, but he’s setting a bad example that seems contrary to his previous Radiohead-bashing. News flash buddy: Even if you were planning to make some bucks off this live album by releasing it for sale later, you’ve damned yourself by streaming it for free, because now “other people” are distributing it at that value. Indeed, a high-quality bootleg of the album is already available for download on popular Torrent websites.

But maybe Smith’s not a hypocrite. Perhaps he’s just received some more education on the subject (like McCartney, seemingly), and he’s OK with being less of a capitalist.

What do you think? Was it foolish/hypocritical for Robert Smith to release a free streaming album? Is McCartney switching over for good PR, or does he have good intentions?

Source: Undercover.com.au

Photos via MySpace