Piracy in Southern Gospel
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This month’s interview doesn’t focus on one artist. Instead, we take a look at a problem that many artists confront—illegal sharing of their music. I contacted several Southern Gospel artists for their views on the issue, and I’ll let them explain how illegal file sharing impacts them in their own words.
I asked the artists if they thought that audio piracy was a major problem in Southern Gospel. All the artists who responded agreed that it was a problem, but they also concurred that it is not as big a problem in this genre as it is in other genres.
Daniel Ball of the Ball Brothers said: “I’m really not sure how big the problem is, but I do know there is a problem there. We have had people at the product table tell some else standing at the product not to buy a cd because they will “burn” them one. (This has only happened a few times, and it seems the people had no idea it was wrong).”
Gerald Wolfe of Greater Vision said that at this point, the problem was not as much a financial problem as it was a spiritual problem: “I don’t think it is a ‘major’ problem yet, financially speaking, but any time Christians are involved in illegal activity, I think it is a ‘MAJOR’ problem, from a spiritual point of view.”
Legacy Five’s Scott Fowler agreed, saying: “I don’t know how prevalent audio piracy is in our business, but I assume it will only get more pervasive as our audience embraces current technology. With the advent of mp3 players, iTunes and computer technology, it is certainly easy to do. Audio and video sharing is a copywrite infringement and illegal. As such, people should not participate in it.”
