The discography of Laura Veirs, an American rock/folk music singer, consists of nine studio albums, four singles, an extended plays, a live album and four music. K.)' All the Same to You' (Casual CD 2.

• Laura Veirs The Ocean

Laura Veirs The Ocean

I recently received an anonymous tip regarding the status of Seattle band on a large private torrent site. At some point, one of the admins on this sight designated the Maldives’ 2009 album Listen to the Thunder as a “staff pick”. This led to a flurry of downloading, making the Listen to the Thunder the #3 downloaded album ever for this site–just behind two Beatles albums.

The record has now been snatched 6,327 times. That’s 702 GB of data. That’s a lot of money this small band (and their ) are not making. On That is interesting. I wonder how the people who say “my file-sharing causes me to spend MORE not less money on music” will spin this. That argument is total bullshit, by the way.

While I don’t think that those downloads mean that 6,327 people who would have bought The Maldives’ record didn’t and I do think that an extra 6,327 people hearing The Maldives is better than none (esp. Because I like them), this is still pretty hard to justify.

There is much, much less revenue available to musicians (record sales are down considerably, and not just the blockbusters), oil prices make touring more difficult (or even cost-prohibitive) and right now, it seems like the best way for anyone to make any money is by licensing songs to commercials or movies – and how long before that source of revenue dries up? But, uhh, yeah, people like The Maldives, right?