Neil Gaiman understands how filesharing helps artists

I haven’t much heard of English author Neil Gaiman before (blame my perennial cultural/literary retardation, as usual), but if this is any indication, he’s certainly earned my respect by being one of the tragically few artists who actually get it regarding filesharing (ie. “media piracy”):

Of course, his experience is his only subjective and all that, but add it to the overabundance of evidence demonstrating the accuracy of his conclusions and the only logical conclusion is that filesharing is one of the best things any artist could ever hope for. It’s a mechanism guaranteed to expand their audience, thereby inevitably leading to increased sales. Those who claim that piracy represents lost sales aren’t only demonstrably wrong (one doesn’t lose money when someone pirates material that they never would’ve purchased in the first place) – they’ve got it exactly backwards.

(via @BadAstronomer)