Fran Healy defends music downloads

7:48pm Tuesday 7th October 2008

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Fran Healy has claimed he doesn't care about fans pirating his music because they are still promoting it for him.

The Travis frontman - who attended the Q Music Awards at London's Grosvenor Hotel - said just by searching for his music to download for free, fans are doing him a favour.

Fran said: "If someone downloads an album, if they search for that record, they're a fan of the band. They download that record, that record (that's) 76p to manufacture.

"They get it for nothing - really you're paying the 76p for doing the most important job there is in the business which is word of mouth. If you made a great record and they are gabbering about it, these are the people that create the hype you know that's kind of important."

The singer confessed he had downloaded music illegally himself, saying: "Generally people who don't buy music are 12-year-old kids who can't afford it. I did it you know.

"So there's two schools - the ones that do buy and the ones that don't buy it. There will always be people that don't buy it and there will always be people that do buy it. It's fine. The people that do buy it will prop up the industry and keep it all going."