Fran Ten mini-podcast: the impact of filesharing on musicians

The recent post on giving away digital creative works has gotten some attention, not least because of the link from the New York Times' David Pogue on his blog. One of the inspirations for the post was my talk with Fran Ten of the great LA band West Indian Girl--specifically when he spoke eloquently and from the heart about the issue of filesharing and its impact on music and musicians.

I've extracted that piece of the podcast into a mini-podcast (5min30 seconds long). You can download it here.

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Shop Talk Podcast #9 - Francis Ten of West Indian Girl on Today's Music Business

For the latest edition of the podcast, we're talking the business of music. It's changed dramatically since the boom days of the late 1990's, when Napster hadn't yet been born and CD sales were at their peak. Now, music is easier to download free than to purchase.

In spite of these obstacles, the music world is more open to new voices than it's ever been. Making a living, though, has gotten harder.

Francis Ten is the bassist for West Indian Girl and also manages the group's business operations. West Indian Girl is based in Los Angeles and its latest album 4th and Wall was released in late 2007.

In a wide-ranging, fun (and funny) discussion, we talk about "revenue streams," MySpace, and why music is different from t-shirts.
And check out Fran's very personal and human response to the question of acquiring music free via filesharing rather than purchasing it. (Some similarly nuanced sentiments can be found in this post from consumer-electronics columnist and author David Pogue.)

The podcast is here (right-click to download).

(Intro and Outro music: "Up the Coast," from West Indian Girl's latest album 4th and Wall.)