As Ernesto over at TorrentFreak wrote today, it seems that a German record label called Dependent Records is closing up shop. Normally this would mean that their catalog of titles, unless purchased by another label, would go eventually out of print and be difficult for existing and potential fans to find. So, as a parting gift to the music community, the CEO of the company, Stefan Herwig, decided to upload the entire catalog to The Pirate Bay.

In the description for each torrent, Mr. Herwig writes the following:

Hello, my name is Stefan Herwig. I closed down my record label >>Dependent Records<< for good. But since I want my music to be heard by the people out there, everything I have ever published is now available on >>The Pirate Bay<<. This is a LEGAL torrent!

When Mr. Herwig originally discussed the closure of his company last year due to piracy, it was ironically done in a CD booklet - the album itself showed up on torrent sites within hours of release.

His thoughts on the matter were also reprinted on the company website, but they seem to have shown that he really couldn't seem to make up his mind when it came to piracy. “We are not closing our doors because of the existence of pirate websites, but because there are simply too many people who enjoy our bands and their songs who do not wish to pay for them,” he said.

He later went on to say that, “A popular claim often seen on Internet fora [sic] maintains that the P2P culture weakens the majors and bolsters the independent labels. This is, we can assure you, 100% bulls**t. Even if there are listeners who download first and buy later, they are clearly in the dwindling minority.”

It is understandable that Mr. Herwig would have strong feelings. But I think he would be hard pressed to say that P2P sharing was 100% to blame for any record companies' failures.

No matter what role piracy may have played in his companies demise, it is admirable that he had the desire to keep the music available to its fans in some way after closing the doors on Dependent Records.