Artist uploads latest album to What.cd, blames music industry for piracy

Benn Jordan, also known under his electronica moniker The Flashbulb , has uploaded copies of his newest album "Soundtrack To A Vacant Life" to What.cd The Pirate Bay and other torrent trackers in order to bypass the ineffective means of traditional distribution.The album download comes complete with an info file that addresses the readers with "hello listener...downloader...pirate...pseudo-criminal...", and then continues:Instead, Jordan emphasizes with downloaders, asking why anybody would bother to buy CDs anyway anymore in the age of iPods and MP3-filled hard disks. Jordan believes the answer is that people still like to support their favorite artists, but that they really don't have the right options to do so.Jordan hopes that his newfound file-sharing fans will instead donate, and maybe buy his and other albums as FLAC downloads directly from his label's website . He won't reveal how many people have donated so far, but first reactions seem to be encouraging. The download has been promoted to the front page of What.cd, and the site's admins actively encourage their users to donate.Jordan doesn't seem to be too sure that his experiment will pay out, but he believes that new models like these are inevitable and that holding on to the old ways of doing business will actually increase piracy. From his blog: