The rock band Harvey Danger, who you may remember for the wonderous one hit "Flagpole Sitta," has come up with a publicity stunt: The band is giving away its music. It's not revolutionary and sometimes the downloader get what he pays for, but the media tends to treat free as newsworthy. Never fails. All the band needs is a few journalists and a few bloggers to start talking and the ball is rolling.

Slashdot.org took to the story and took quotes from the band's website that give reasons for giving it away:

"'In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as 'illegal' file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little..., available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website."

Harvey Danger brings up an important point: file sharing is not always illegal. Some people trade songs issued under a Creative Commons license, which can grant certain permissions that would allow for legal sharing. Others may trade files that are in the public domain (though it's surely extremely rare). Some may trade travel photos or Word documents. The file sharing that is "demonized by the music biz" is that which trades copyrighted material owned by RIAA members. (The cease-and-desists letters and efforts to close some file sharing networks, though, ends up targeting all traffic on those networks -- whether or not its related to the RIAA.) To my knowledge (and if I'm wrong please let me know) nobody has been sued for allegedly trading non-RIAA songs.

Just take a look at the lawsuits. This page at the EFF website lists them by label. An article at Slyck tells of a pattern in the lawsuits (under the DMCA): "Ludacris, Michael Jackson, NAS, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat and Musiq were very common throughout the subpoenas." Check the list of songs. Busta Rhymes' "Pass the Courvoisier" had appeared on 12 lawsuits by the time the article was written in July of 2003.

Indie labels give away free MP3s of their music, and indepedent bands regularly post songs and sometimes entire albums on their websites. Free music can be an antidote to limited money, distribution and interest at retail. Like Harvey Danger says, giving it away can help the independent band.

But don't assume that what's good for the unknown indie is good for all artists. Giving away music isn't the favored marketing stretegy of most labels -- majors and indies -- so if a person wants that Phil Collins track it's a different story. The EFF offers advice on how not to get caught, or you can read an old Coolfer post on tips for downloaders.