An interesting article from the Guardian on the same line as we harp on quite a lot through this blog, making the point that fans are as essential a part of the music industry as the musicians, and that they are selfishly altering the marketplace, mixing piracy and avid legitimate consumption to make a very confusing but vibrant place for artists and labels. A brief snippet:

…if anyone’s a “new partner” in the music business these days, it’s the fans. They’re the ones promoting the music on social networks, uploading fan videos and homebrew remixes. They’re creating the atmosphere that makes live music more of a draw than ever before, they’re the ones buying – yes, buying – more singles than at any time in British music history. And they’re doing this at the same time as they’re downloading whole discographies via BitTorrent and sending leaked MP3s on Gmail. Underlying UK Music’s report is the assumption that the licensed activity and the unlicensed activity are separable, that you can punish the latter without hurting the former. But what if that’s not true – what if, as several studies of piracy and music purchasing seem to suggest, the good fans and the bad fans are the same people?

There are a few things on our tools page to help you reach out to fans, and more on ReverbNation, but if you’ve found something cool and useful, drop a link in the comments for everyone to use.