[Sean]

Originally Posted by King of Snake

Not sure how different it is really.

The advertising approach is making the video available only on youtube. You can't download it to watch it any where any time like you could if you had it on a dvd. It's also only available on youtube as a compressed file. So logically, if someone wants a copy that they can watch any where at any time, and that's full quality, they'll buy the dvd.

Having an illegaly downloaded copy on dvd means that you can watch it any where at any time, often at full quality without having paid for it, thus robbing the creators of the content of income. It's pretty clearly different.

Originally Posted by King of Snake

you could apply the exact same principle to marketing music. Except that instead of youtube you have p2p networks. Make music available for free online as an advertising tool for your concerts and merchandise (and better quality copies of the music on cd or paid download). The principle is exactly the same.

Agreed.

The illegal downloading I have a problem with is when people use P2P sites to share full quality, copyrighted material, causing an artist to lose sales. Using lower quality downloads (although I would lean towards the youtube model of non-downloadable previews like Amazon.com does) for advertising is a great idea. Myspace does the same thing, providing a lower quality music player that can provide the full, non-downloadable track as a preview. I think that's great.

Originally Posted by King of Snake

Now Sean, just because you keep repeating the same point doesn't mean that other people can't disagree or try to provide different points of view.
And while I sympathise and understand that you feel passionately about this, I have to say that just because your are an independant artist yourself doesn't make your point of view the only right one. (I'm sure that's not how you meant it but it does come across like that in your last paragraph).

Point of view is one thing. We can all have diverse points of view on how best to deal with the issue of illegal downloads. But in the last paragraph you mentioned, I'm talking about a simple fact that too many people ignore. Stealing the work of an artist rather than paying for it hurts the artist financially. That's not my opinion, or my personal point of view - it's a simple fact. What we do about it is where all our different - and in many cases valid - points of view come into play.