While exposure, as covered in part 3, is the main benefit to letting people steal your logo and content, it’s not the only one. What else is there? Contributing to the open-source community.
There’s no doubt that the Internet is changing the music industry. No longer is music being made by solitary artists is far-and-away studios… and no longer is it being sold one piece at a time to solitary consumers.
Music is being pushed out to communities, who weed out, change, and push through what they like. Approval and success comes directly from people. Not from some suit high up in a recording office.
And if your success depends on your community, why wouldn’t you focus your efforts on this community? I don’t see any reason why not.
Letting people steal your logo and content is an easy way to integrate into the groups of people you want to reach. You can contribute to listeners, and other artists… putting out your creativity into the collective intellect.
Best of all, by putting effort out into the ether, you receive effort back. Other people add and contribute back to your content, either improving your work themselves, or giving you ideas to do it.
Your shit improves… and you get better as a result. By letting other people steal your stuff, everyone wins. And down the road, everyone gets more rich.