Techdirt is a fantastic blog that I have really come to enjoy over the last few months for their insight and great perspectives on the future of the digital world we live in. Yesterday I came across the article from their ‘treating-fans-right’ department which sparked a dialogue on the issues we are facing in the inevitable landslide of change and how a independent band is actually actively promoting fans who are burning copies of their CD and helping those that don’t know how, to do it more actively.

Over the last few years we have seen the crisis control of many of the proverbial gatekeepers of content and intellectual property shift their stance from absolute shutdown (Napster) to frantically aggressive (suing a 12 year old) to archaic (the iTunes takeover) to the desperate state that they find themselves in now.

For decades, radio stations and djs were seen as the distributors and influencers of music and were largely nutured by the record labels. However Napster, Pirate Bay and the bevy of online filesharers, coupled with the iPod led a pirate lead coup de etat of the record industry. By making it easier to share music with your friends and listen to a playlist customised to your tastes consumers were no longer interested in the plastic discs the record industry was trying to sell.

Instead of bringing out the lawyers to solve a marketing problem they should have taken an objective look at the role piracy was playing and what it was telling them about their customers.

To quote Techdirt:

Chester French isn’t just encouraging people to share their music, they’re actively promoting fans who are burning copies of their CD and handing them out to friends and strangers. In fact, they just put up a silly video of the guy showing others how to burn copies of the CD to hand out as well.

Chester French realise that the pirates are pivotal influencers in their communnity. They are motivated to tell more people about the product but are limited so they go above the mean to spread the word and they turn to piracy for a solution. Instead of ’solving’ the situation with lawyers they embraced and empowered their fans.

The role of marketers in this digital age where social aggregation and word of mouth is to enable those influencers and passionate fans that are your most valuable assets.

The issue isn’t that people don’t want music anymore, personally I routinely pay upwards of $50 to see a concert but I haven’t bought a CD in years, the issue lies in the gap between what customers want and what the record labels want to sell.

Are there pirates in your market environment that might unsatiated brand advocates?

What are you doing to enable them?

Photo credit, Juhan Sonin