just for the record – my favorite mass is Journey’s ‘Faithfully’—isn’t that a mass?  maybe not.  oh, well.

Seth – I find it interesting that Phil gave you that coat when I asked specifically to have it put in the will for me.  That sucks.  Just know when he dies – i am coming after it.

Brian

It’s great to see you so involved with your fans…and I count myself among them. In fact, I decided to listen to all 38 of your songs while reading. =)

Let me say clearly that I’m a huge Caedmon’s Call fan and I love Derek’s solo stuff as well. I’ve received a lot of traffic lately because I linked to Derek’s site, and as a result have read some of what’s been written online. In my opinion, this situation wasn’t handled very well.

First, Derek himself draws a parallel to Keith Green’s giveaways. This is problematic in that Keith really did say “take it” and asked for a donation from those so inclined. Isaac Air Freight (a comedy group) did the same, as did a few others. This isn’t what Derek did, which is why the parallel isn’t a good one. Derek is asking for an opportunity put his name and music in front of your friends. That’s not at all the same, and many find the distinction a lot like deceit.

Second, “free” no longer means “free” when it comes to the internet. Every time we read about identity theft we’re reminded that our personal information is a valuable commodity. Asking for the personal information of 5 friends APPEARS to be asking for trouble. In this case, Derek isn’t using that information for anything more than saying “come get your free album by giving me 5 more people’s info”. The problem is, in my opinion, the fact that NoiseTrade didn’t make the situation abundantly clear up front.

Christians like Derek and you and me should also be concerned about public perception. While Derek’s motivation is (in his own words) “survival”, that’s not why Keith Green did it…another reason that the parallel is unfortunate. Green gave away music because his message was more important to him than his wallet. Derek’s giving away music so that he can make enough money to keep spreading his music. I see nothing wrong with either approach…only with suggesting that they’re the same thing.

What would I do differently? I’m not sure, as I’m not Derek’s accountant. Here’s one idea: I’d suggest that signing up for his free album should give you access to a private web page. You could email the link and password to 5 friends, and the web page would only allow 6 total downloads. That’s not very complicated from a web development point of view, and would clear up the frustration over being asked to give away others’ personal information.

What do you think?

I’m disappointed that you would quote Kat on all of this, and further the mistaken impression some people have that you have to “give away” 5 of your friends’ email addresses to get Derek’s record.

A one-time email gets sent to your friends– and it comes from your email address. Derek retains your email address, but not those of your friends. It’s summarized on the front page, and spelled out in detail on the Privacy Policy page.

If you do a Google BlogSearch (google.com/blogsearch), you’ll find that out of around 265 people who have blogged about this, Kat is the only one who really can’t accept that Derek (or his “web development team”) can be trusted to do as he says.

Please consider posting a correction/clarification. It bums me out to think that more people will misunderstand and be suspicious of Derek because of your post. (Notice Mark’s commment above, for example.)

Yep.  One of my comments on Kat’s blog:

I think there’s a whole generation out there (the MySpace generation) that won’t think twice about something like this.  This is a little bit concerning to me.

Kudos to Derek for giving some music away, but thumbs-down for the cost.

And, unfortunately, in these days the word “free” never means free with no strings attached.  If I saw Derek’s ad, I probably wouldn’t have believed it anyway.  And I’d maybe just call my friends before I give out their address.

For issues like this, you should have your friend’s trash email addies, and they should have yours.  The aggreement being that they are available for use with this type of promotion.

That said, I agree with Kat that the perception created is the problem.  Free is supposed to mean no strings attached.

Has anyone tried the download without adding addies?

Yet (and you knew this was coming) I have a problem with your statement at the webboard as well as your thoughts about Derek, his music, and his free giveaway of Mockingbird.

You say that you won’t give him e-mail addresses? Why?  The purpose is to tell them about Derek’s free giveaway of Mockingbird.  Don’t you want them to have teh free music that is great and powerful?  I want others to know.  I bought five copies of the CD before I found out about the free giveaway so I could give them away myself.  Now, I have told everyone I know to tell that they can get Mockingbird for free and that they too should tell others (which they can by putting in five e-mail addys).  I am still confused as to why you wouldn’t do this.

Second, you have taken shots at Derek in the past.  In another blog post you said his music didn’t appeal enough to a wider audience.  You said his music should appeal more to 30 year old women.  You said it wasn’t fit for Christian radio.  On these points you are correct. yet you said all of this in a critical way.  I am glad that Derek has the balls to make “Christian” music that smacks the regular pious Christian music in the face.  No his music isn’t fluffy crap that appeals to middle-aged, suburban Christians (men or women) and they may never hear his music because they are too busy listening to songs about themselves instead of Jesus and His Truth.  Yet, what he is doing is more important. And I find your criticism offensive.

I can only say that you should be glad that my wife enjoys your music because I for one have no plans of supporting you in the future.

– Chris