Tech Service Gives Artists Line on Pirates

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When the music industry looks at the billions of illegal music downloads, they see lost revenue and potential lawsuits. When former musician Tommy Funderburk looks at those pirated tunes, he sees possible customers.

Funderburk’s Santa Monica technology company Muzit Inc. has this month launched a tracking service enabling recording artists and other copyright owners to contact illegal music file-sharers and try to entice them into becoming legitimate customers in nice, but confrontational, ways.

Muzit’s proprietary technology monitors file-sharing sites around the world and provides customers with downloaders’ ZIP codes, songs they’ve downloaded and emails. It flips what has been an adversarial relationship to a proactive one, Funderburk said.

“The reality is that every song, movie, video game is already on the Internet, so you’re fighting a losing battle,” he said. “Why not reach out? Why not consider these people to be fans and potential customers?”

With that information, musicians email downloaders – nicely – to let them know they’ve been noticed, but offer them incentives, Funderburk said. Such as discounted or early concert tickets, backstage passes, better seating at concerts, discounts on merchandise or a contest invitation. It’s up to the artist, he added.

“We don’t condone piracy, but we’re realists,” Funderburk said.

Artists pay Muzit a slice of revenue they make from sales if they convert fans to paying customers. Recent customers include Grammy winners the Mavericks, who the service identified within the first two months as having more than 200,000 fans that could be contacted, and sales also increased over that period, Funderburk said.

–Carol Lawrence

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