In a recent video interview Grammy award winning and 10 million albums sold R&B artist Joss Stone was asked what her thoughts were on piracy and people who download illegal copies of her music. Surprisingly Joss thinks piracy is great, and we think Joss is too.

When asked the question “what do you think of piracy, and people who download your songs off the Internet”, Stone replied “I think it’s great,” adding “Yeah, I love it. I think it’s brilliant and I’ll tell you why. Music should be shared. I believe that this is how music turned into like, some crazy business. The only part about music that I dislike is the business that is attached to it. Now, if music is free, then there is no business, there is just music.”

It looks like Stone has the same mind set as other artists like Nine Inch Nail’s, Radio Head, who have already embraced file sharing distribution for free. We are sure the RIAA will love her comments especially the fact she claims other artists have been “Brainwashed” by the music industry, brainwashed may not be the right term more a situation of being controlled by the incoming cash for the record company.

Stone’s philosophy seems to be have the music in digital format for free and pay to see my live shows, which for me is the perfect business model for musician’s at the current time. Digital replication of music is too high quality, fast and easy to obtain to retain any real value nowadays, for a live show however you have no other option but to pay for that experience. And that’s the key for me is to promote your music for free or pay what you like and then turn your popularity into ticket sales.

The economics of music include two main revenue streams: record sales and touring profits. Record sales are a) unpredictable; and b) divided up among many parties. If you learn how to tour efficiently, meanwhile, the profits including not only ticket sales but also corporate sponsorship, t-shirt sales, etc., can be staggering. You can essentially control how much you earn by adding more dates, whereas it’s hard to control how many records you sell.

For some comparisons on how much popular artist’s can rake in on ticket sales and merchandise, here are some examples below from 2006.

U2, $154.2 million
The Rolling Stones, $92.5 million
Eagles, $63.2 million
Paul McCartney, $56 million
Elton John, $48.9 million
Neil Diamond, $44.7 million
Jimmy Buffett, $44 million
Rod Stewart, $40.3 million
Dave Matthews Band, $39.6 million
Celine Dion, $38.5 million
Kenny Chesney, $31.5 million
Green Day, $31 million
Coldplay, $30.1 million
Destiny’s Child, $24.8 million
Diddy, $24.3 million
Gwen Stefani, $23.9 million
Toby Keith, $22.2 million
Motley Crue, $22 million
50 Cent, $19.7 million
Bruce Springsteen, $19.6 million
Eminem, $17.8 million
Jay-Z, $17.5 million
Barry Manilow, $17.2 million
Hilary Duff, $17.1 million
Kanye West, $16.9 million
Dr. Dre, $16.9 million
Rascal Flatts, $16.3 million
Aerosmith, $16.3 million
Bon Jovi, $15.8 million
Tom Petty, $14.9 million

Full List: RollingStone.com

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