What’s Really Keeping Us From Where We Need To Be. (It’s Not Piracy.)

Guest blogger Derek Sivers runs CD Baby and is a strong advocate for the indie/d.i.y. music community.  He blogs regularly at sivers.org and this post comes via Andrew Dubber’s Music Think Tank. Derek writes:

I spoke at a conference last weekend, where a woman in the audience was SO mad about piracy that she was physically shaking, red in the face, tears in her eyes, fuming spitting livid, asking how we can stop this rampant piracy.

I didn’t answer her concern well, but I said “More people are killed by pigs than sharks each year, but because shark attacks are more newsworthy, they seem more prevalent. Piracy gets all the attention, but I don’t think most of you in this room have lost more than $30 to piracy.” (I got a big “Booo” from the audience for this.) “Obscurity is your real enemy. Fight obscurity until you’re a household name, then piracy will be more of a problem than obscurity. Until then, worry about pigs, not sharks.”

The woman got so furious about this that she screamed at me with tears in her eyes, “I HATE YOUR POINT OF VIEW, BUDDY!” (and some other angry things I forget.) From her point of view, piracy was Enemy #1 and anybody ignoring this massive threat was hurting us all.

Driving away from the event, of course I figured out what I wish I would have said in that moment:

The thing separating us from where we are and where we need to be is not piracy.

It’s always something more internal, whether writing, communicating,
producing, networking, promoting, or taking a wildly different approach
to marketing.

Putting so much attention and energy into fighting piracy (as if, when
solved, you’ll suddenly start selling 10 times more) – is misguided
effort, distracting you from what you really need to be improving.

That’s the real reason I often tell musicians not to worry about
piracy. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. But energy spent worrying
about it is energy better spent working on what you know you really
need to do.