Handing out free music seems like a good way to promote a band, so it makes sense for an indie record label to hit listeners through BitTorrent sites, where that's already happening.
Miami, Fla.-based Awesome New Republic, along with its label Honor Roll Music, took out a banner ad on the torrent tracking site isoHunt, directing visitors to a legal torrent and a .ZIP file for the band's EP "Rational Geographic Volume I." The ad, as seen below, is scheduled to display for a month, and offers a free download with no strings attached.
Speaking to TorrentFreak, campaign creator Colin Foord said he wasn't aware of any other labels or bands that advertised directly on a torrent search engine. On isoHunt's news feed, the band explains its rationale:
"In a music industry that is quickly changing, Honor Roll Music recognizes that torrent search engines such as Isohunt should not be vilified, but rather worked with cooperatively in order to reach millions of music fans eager to discover and download new music," the band said.
Of course, the idea is to draw in new listeners and build a fan base, though it's not clear how (or whether) the band plans to monetize through future releases or live performances. We'll have to see how this turns out in the long term, because it will help to prove or disprove the idea that file sharers can become part of a band's business model, rather than a disruption.
Awesome New Republic's music can be downloaded directly from its Web site.
