Pirates of the Seven Seas!

Back in 1964...it was only a movie. Nowadays...they are all over the internet.

Piracy is a huge issue that causes great damage to the music industry. In a way, it has led the whole music business to rethink its model. What’s even worse than the increasing number of illegal downloads, though, is the decreasing perception of value that affects intellectual property today. The ".99 price mentality" has destroyed the value of artistic creation. The lower the prices are, less value the consumer attributes to the product itself. (So, why bother buying it at all?) The problem is, for the serious music producer, thousands were spent to produce one single track (not to mention the full album).

Do the math. 

Let's disregard the fact that an artist spent a whole lot of time and money to craft their talent - buying equipment and instruments, paying for music lessons, learning how to produce, etc. Let's focus only on the plain and simple mathematical principle of investment and return.

Let's say that you spent $1,500 just to produce one track. Many people would think that it takes approximately 1515 unique .99 cents sales of that track in order to pay off the investment, right? Wrong. It is way more than that. And that's exactly where the music consumer is missing the perception of intellectual value. A great percentage of those .99 cents goes to the music distributor; so let’s say that on a VERY optimistic scenario the copyright holder keeps .55 cents only. Now, in order to break even, you need to sell 2.727 copies of one song right?

Now, you have 500 very nice friends on Facebook that love you, and believe in what you do, and therefore, each one of them potentially can buy 1 song from your album. Do the math and you will see that this independent musician is not even close to even breaking the initial investment.

Now, on top of all that, imagine that one rotten orange simply "likes" the song take, that the mp3, creates a YouTube video to create traffic for his own channel, for the sake of having online visibility. Then, he shares "his" nice video on Facebook and 100 of his friends share that online and now, the song is over 1,000 people...nice promo right!?!? Well...any YouTube video can be ripped from teh site and the mp3 extracted from it and uploaded to ANY mp3 player. COME'ON!

Well be reasonable: if you were a business man, NOT an artist passionate about creating music with a purpose, would you invest your time and money on that?

So your next question is: “SO, WHY IN THE WORLD YOU DO?” Good point. And the answers are many, and very simple:

• Because I have a reason to sing: Jesus.
• Because I believe that someone out there needs to hear the message of hope found in Him.
• Because someone out there is looking for God, and may be led to Him by one of my songs.
• Because I believe that you and I can help one more girl in Nepal to get out of the streets. Because one more child in the Amazon can be rescued from death, and become someone's life changer years down the road. Because one more kid can have a better life in Africa, through the Sole of Africa project.
• And also because I believe God has called me to lead you in worship and I need financial support to produce more albums like this.

Part of the revenues from the Abba Father album is being donated to the ministries I personally support.

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About the Law?

The LAW clarifies the principle by which intellectual property infringement is made.

Basically, piracy consists of theft, which is forbidden by God in the Bible. You can find several passages about the principle of paying for one’s work and NOT obtaining it for free without one’s consent. Here are a few verses for you to consider:

• Exodus 20:15..."You shall not steal." (New International Version, ©2011)
• Jeremiah 22:13 “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his own people work for nothing, not paying them for their labor". (New International Version, ©2011)
• Luke 10:7 “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (New International Version, ©2011)
• 1 Timothy 5:18 ..."For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” [a] and “The worker deserves his wages.” (New International Version, ©2011)

DARE TO BE DIFFERENT. SUPPORT MY MINISTRY AND BUY THE SONGS