“Piracy is killing the music industry” is a phrase we’ve been hearing from industry execs for many years now.
So in that regard, it can be quite refreshing to hear a different perspective from someone whose livelihood depends on music.
This is exactly what happened at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival last Friday.
During his set, singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco told the crowd that his latest album “This Old Dog” had leaked online. That’s not insignificant, as it’s nearly three weeks before the official May 5 release date.
However, instead of begging fans to wait for the official release to come out, DeMarco said that he didn’t give a shit and encouraged them to download it from pirate sites.
“We’re going to play a song we’ve only played twice before. It’s a new song, came out a couple of days ago. But you know what? The album leaked yesterday, so I don’t give a shit anymore.”
“Download it. Pirate Bay, Torrents.to, Soulseek, Napster, Limewire, Kazaa. Just get it, just get it,” DeMarco added.
The comments are noteworthy since artists don’t regularly encourage fans to get their work on The Pirate Bay, for free. However, the sites and services that the singer-songwriter mentioned are also worth highlighting.
It appears that Mac DeMarco hasn’t been actively participating in the piracy scene recently as the references are a bit dated, to say the least.
The original Napster application ceased to operate in 2001, when Demarco was 11-years-old, and Kazaa and Limewire followed a few years later. Even Torrents.to is no longer operational from its original domain name.
The only two options that remain are The Pirate Bay and Soulseek, which are both icons in the file-sharing world. Perhaps it’s time for this old dog to learn some new tricks?
Despite the active “promo,” thus far interest in the leaked album is rather modest. The torrent on The Pirate Bay has roughly 100 people sharing it at the time of writing, and that’s the most popular one we’ve seen.
Or could it be that some fans just gave up after they tried to get outdated and malware infested copies of Kazaa and Limewire up and running?
