Sir Paul McCartney Doesn’t Object to FileSharing

Says that unauthorized music downloading “doesn’t bother him.”

The debate over file-sharing and it’s implications on art has been around for at least since 2001 when the Napster case made headlines throughout the file-sharing community. It was only the last couple of years that high profile bands like Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Bare Naked Ladies, Radio Head, and Sum 41 came out to officially support the movement. Still, there have been bands like Metallica and Nickelback who possessed the opposite position and commented how piracy is hurting the music industry.

While high profile artists are still grappling with the file-sharing movement, another high profile artist, Sir Paul McCartney of The Beatles has openly taken a side in the file-sharing debate, saying that people downloading music without paying for it “doesn’t bother him.” This is all according to a report on the Daily Express. While he says he doesn’t mind it, he expressed confusion, saying that he finds the movement “baffling” because the previous ways people got music was through buying it through stores on vinyl, cassette and CD.

Some observers, like Eliot Van Buskirk of Listening Post, found the move puzzling given the long-standing tension between the band’s music and iTunes, but McCartney explained that the reason The Beatles music is not available on iTunes is due to a deal between the band and major record label EMI falling through.

McCartney is far from the last who had issues with iTunes and major record labels. Comic artist Weird Al responded to a fan question at one point about fans who bought from iTunes vs the physical album saying, “This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure.”

It doesn’t take too much effort to find stories about how little artists make when signed on to a major record label (just ask ZeroPaid forum members) so McCartney saying that he doesn’t mind things like file-sharing might make more sense from that perspective. After all, it’s mainly major record labels that are currently pushing for copyright term extension in Britain currently much more than the artists (though major record labels are more than happy to say that the move is on behalf of the artists)

For years, artists have been finding new ways to reach their fans. A large number of independent artists actively distribute their music on sites like NewGrounds, SoundClick and CCMixter. A large number of artists featured on these sites have a Creative Commons License which is, more often then not, an open invitation to share the files on file-sharing for free.