Artists pick a side in Times Square piracy adverts

Brooklyn based band, Ghost Beach, has urged artists to “pick a side” in the piracy argument, with giant billboards in Times Square, displaying messages like “Piracy is Progress,” and “#ArtistsForPiracy,” right alongside “Piracy is Robbery.”

The plan is to encourage people to discuss the current “problem,” of piracy via Twitter and for artists to speak out on where they stand. So far, artists and public responses have come down overwhelmingly on one side of the argument, with most being pro-piracy. Ghost Beach's own thoughts on the matter are clear from its recent Twitter posts:

The billboards also direct people to the ArtistsVsArtists website, which keeps track of those that voted with twitter hashtags, with live feeds of recent tweets as well as featured tweets from the past few hours.

However despite the pro-piracy message Ghost Beach seems to be pushing, in a chat with TorrentFreak the group claimed they weren't encouraging it. “Although we do think that there have been many positive progressions in the world of music distribution and sharing platforms as a result of piracy, we are ultimately against piracy,” they said.

“We believe in using new music sharing platforms to combat illegal downloading by offering the modern music consumer convenient choices when it comes to discovering and downloading new music.”

They also offered advice to music industry executives, suggesting that giving music away for free makes total sense as it generates new fans, the very lifeblood of the music business. It would also help combat piracy, as lack of funds is often an excuse given by those that download music illegally.

KitGuru Says: Where do you guys come down on the argument? If you want to have your opinions noted, all you need do is post a tweet with one of the following hashtags: #Artistsagainstpiracy or #Artistsforpiracy.

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