Ghost Beach Band Debates Piracy on Times Square Billboard

For the last week a mysterious ad has flashed on the LED billboard above the American Eagle Outfitters store at Broadway and 46th Street, just over the bronze shoulder of George M. Cohan. Variably positing piracy as “criminal,” “progress” and “the future,” it asks the observer to “pick a side” on Twitter, as #artistsforpiracy or #artistsagainstpiracy.

The display runs for just 30 seconds, four times an hour, alternating with images of tourists and scantily clad models. But the discussion it has stirred shows that unauthorized file sharing still touches a nerve in the music industry. The campaign asks artists to make what can be a torturous choice: Is it better to charge for music and probably limit your audience, or embrace all the ways music can spread online, without permission or remuneration?

The party behind the billboard and its related Web site, ArtistsVsArtists.com, is Ghost Beach, a two-man Brooklyn band whose profile is low even by indie Brooklyn standards: about 8,800 Facebook likes and zero Pitchfork hits. Ghost Beach was approached by American Eagle, which wanted to license the band’s song “Miracle” for an online ad. As it has done with a few other bands the retailer offered a fee as well as access to the billboard.

The ArtistsVsArtists billboard has been booked for two weeks, ending on Sunday. The group’s use of the billboard is worth $50,000, an American Eagle spokeswoman said.

“When we were offered the space on the billboard, we were perplexed about what to do with it,” said Josh Ocean, 27, the band’s lead singer. “Since we started we’ve given away all our music for free, so just telling people to purchase our music somewhere didn’t seem natural for us. So we said, ‘What if we take advantage of this and open up a discussion about the new music industry?’ ”

The band’s manager, Will Suter, has a background in advertising, and approached some agencies. “I said, ‘Our budget is zero, but we have this wonderful canvas,’ ” he recalled.

TBWAChiatDay New York, one of the world’s leading advertising agencies, took the account as a pro bono project and devised a stark, text-heavy design in black, red and white.

So far the #artistsforpiracy hashtag has been used far more than #artistsagainstpiracy: 2,802 versus 93 on Tuesday afternoon. But comments by artists (and others) show it is not so easy for them simply to pick a team. One blog writer, identified as a guitar student in Milwaukee, struggled with the idea and concluded, “So, if anyone wants to support me as a musician, come to my shows, listen to what I have to say, or let me crash on your couch.”

The effect of piracy continues to be intensely debated in the entertainment industry. Many studies have shown that it negatively affects sales, but they have not been unanimous. Last week a European Commission report found that piracy did not hurt digital sales, but music industry groups immediately blasted it as flawed.

The ArtistsVsArtists site offers another choice, ostensibly about piracy: pay $5 to download a Ghost Beach EP from iTunes, or get it free from the band.

David Lowery of the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, who has been an outspoken advocate for artists’ rights in the digital age, said the site misrepresented piracy. (He was quick to add, though, that he could not blame a struggling band for some clever self-promotion.)

“This conflates piracy and giving music away for free,” Mr. Lowery said. “Piracy is eliminating your rights as artists, whereas if you are for copyright, you have the choice to sell your work or give it away.”

Some music industry bloggers were alarmed at the involvement of TBWAChiatDay, which is part of the TBWA Worldwide division of the Omnicom Group. The agency’s other clients include the Grammy Awards, and the recording industry’s official stance on piracy has always been strongly negative. A Grammy spokeswoman had no comment on Tuesday.

Ghost Beach’s own position is absent from the campaign. In an interview Mr. Ocean and his band mate, Eric Mendelsohn, 26, said they opposed piracy. But they also expressed a pragmatic view of piracy that is widely shared by musicians of their generation: If you can’t fight it, at least try to use it.

“We are against piracy in the sense that we are for new technologies and using the Internet in a way that wins over it by us giving away our music directly to fans,” Mr. Ocean said. “That way we know where the music is going and can establish that connection directly with fans.”

“We never want to promote blatantly going out and stealing music,” he added. “What we do want to do is offer choices that we think are right.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/arts/music/ghost-beach-band-debates-piracy-on-times-square-billboard.html?partner=rss&emc=rss