Have you heard of Harvey Danger? I hadn’t, until half an hour ago or so. Had it not been for one specific thing, Harvey Danger would be nothing more that at most a name to me, in all probability. The one thing that changed the situation for me, is bittorrent.
Harvey Danger is a group, which recently released their third album: “Little by Little”. Being independent, they’re not bound by RIAA and their demonising of the p2p file sharing model – and so they wanted to do an experiment. They put out their album for download. It’s their complete album, DRM-free, in ogg vorbis and mp3 formats – and it’s free. We’re even encouraged to share it with friends. Not quite the view of the RIAA juggernaut, eh?
Of course, they don’t give it away just to be nice – they do sell the album, too, and would like to make money on it. The result they’re hoping for is to get some contribution for the downloads, and/or to sell the physical album (which includes a bonus CD) and more. History has shown us (those of us that don’t close our eyes) that people find new artists via file sharing, get curious and search out previous albums to buy. Other artists have noticed higher sales as they’re being shared – let’s hope the same is true for Harvey Danger, and that this experiment turns out to be a viable model.
Me? I’m listening to the album as I’m writing. I like it – how much I like it remains to be seen. 🙂