creative deconstruction

Sufjan Stevens Gives Copyright to Fan Who Won’t Copy

Posted on 16. Jun, 2009 by refe in ARTISTS, INNOVATION

In November 2007 Sufjan Stevens announced that he would be trading the rights to one of his latest songs for the winning entry in a contest called the Great Sufjan Stevens Song Xmas Xchange. More than 600 fans submitted original compositions and a song called ‘Every Day is Christmas’ by Alec Duffy was chosen. Duffy’s song became property of Asthmatic Kitty Records, and as promised, the rights to Stevens’ ‘The Lonely Man of Winter’ went to Duffy.

Sufjan Stevens is no stranger to innovation in both art and business, and Xmas Xchange contest stands in start contrast to the recording industry’s copyright-centric message. Here we have an artist voluntarily relinquishing his rights to his own song – not to a record label, but directly to a fan and allowing him to do whatever he wants with it. In the words of Sufjan’s Asthmatic Kitty Records website, “Sufjan’s new song becomes your song. You can hoard it for yourself, sell it to a major soft drink corporation, use it in your daughter’s first Christmas video, or share it for free on your Web site. No one except Sufjan and you will hear his song, unless you decide otherwise.”

What would you do if you won exclusive rights to you favorite artist’s new piece? Not an easy decision, and one that took Alec Duffy about a year to make. Instead of uploading the song  to the internet and sharing it freely with the world, he has chosen to protect it, keep it quiet. Duffy has recently begun holding private listening parties in the living room of his apartment. That’s right – if you want to hear the song you have to travel to Brooklyn and sit on this guy’s couch.

In an effort to counter the cheapening effects of internet all-availability,” writes Duffy on his website, ”and to recapture an era when to get one’s hands on a particular album or song was a real experience, we at Hoi Polloi would like to share this song with Sufjan fans in a special way… We would like to invite you to our Brooklyn home for an exclusive listening session of this gorgeous song, with hot beverages and cookies provided for your enjoyment.”

Duffy doesn’t charge anything to get in, but guests are required to listen to the song on headphones to prevent secret recordings being leaked onto the Internet. “This is the finest way we felt we could curate this song,” says Duffy in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, “It brings people together.”

It has certainly brought Sufjan Fans together in the blogosphere. Many have expressed dissapointment and anger over Duffy’s “snooty little tea parties,” calling him “another self-interested, self-absorbed, attention-starved, narcissistic poser claiming to serve some higher artistic truth.”

Honestly though, I think what Duffy is doing is great. Sure, I’d like to hear the song – I’m a big Sufjan Stevens fan myself. But when Duffy cites the “cheapening effects of internet all-availability” he is spot on. There are plenty of Sufjan tracks on the net. Yet, because this one isn’t, it’s special. That’s one of the things that makes this whole idea of handing a song over to a single fan such a brilliant one. Whereas the normal strategy would be to broadcast a new single to as many millions of people as possible (and this is certainly not a bad strategy, by the way) The Great Xmas Xchange has allowed ‘The Lonely Man of Winter’ to take a different route. No one would be talking about this song right now if Duffy had simply sprayed it all over the net. It would have been streamed and downloaded by all the usual suspects, added to Sufjan’s already formidable catalogue and that would be that. Instead, the song has taken on a near-mythical status and will likely stand apart from the rest of Sufjan’s work for some time.

Of course, if Sufjan Stevens himself had done this, I’m not sure if it would have the same effect. There is something pretentious about an artist withholding a song in order to create demand for it. Yet, apart from the fan fare of the contest itself, Stevens has stayed out of it and has declined to comment. This is a very creative example of an artist giving his fans the opportunity to engage with his art and letting them do the promotion for him.

“He’s like the wizard behind the curtain,” says Duffy, “If he didn’t like it, we’d be so sorry.” I wouldn’t worry so much about that, Alec. Something tells me that Stevens is more than happy with the results of his contest.

So what do you think? What would you do with exclusive rights to your favorite artists’ new song?

Tags: Asthmatic Kitty, music, NEWS, Sufjan Stevens