Performers from established to starving have not only embraced the Internet as a tool for making and marketing their work but most think that, while unauthorized peer-to-peer file swapping should be illegal, it isn’t the big threat to “creative industries” that the industries themselves think, according to a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
“They use the Internet to gain inspiration, build community with fans and fellow artists, and pursue new commercial activity,” Pew research specialist Mary Madden wrote in “Artists, Musicians, and the Internet.” “Artists and musicians are more likely to say that the Internet has made it possible for them to make more money from their art than they are to say it has made it harder to protect their work from piracy or unlawful use.”
Surveying about 2,775 musicians, songwriters, and music publishers as well as 809 “American adults who said they were artists,” as well as 2,013 randomly chosen American adults, Pew determined that, among the over three-quarters calling themselves artists who use the Internet, over half of all online artists and 59 percent of paid online artists said they get ideas and inspiration from online search, while 45 percent of the paid online artists said the Net was important to help them create and distribute their work.
The study also found 23 percent of all online artists and 45 percent of paid online artists polled said the Net helps them in their “creative pursuits and careers,” while only four percent of all online artists and six percent of paid online artists said the Net made it “much harder” to get their work noticed.
Madden also said 83 percent of those artists surveyed offered free online samples which produced such benefits as higher compact disc sales, more concert attendance, and more radio play, with 77 percent having their own Web sites and 69 percent selling their music online “somewhere.” And independent musicians, she wrote, found the Net a strong way to “bypass traditional distribution outlets.”
