Prepare yourself for a longer rant here.

Tbh everything in the world is being pirated right now, not just music. Yet somehow, some albums by pop artists are breaking world records on a much faster pace now. That means the affection is not destroying the music industry apart. Even in gaming and everything that can be obtained on a computer, sales records are being broken. How do they do this? They avoid shit BitterCOld ranted about in the much-ignored second half of the article and do actually make everything available online for payment, and also.. they decrease the ratio of piracy with protection.

I want to express my bad feelings as well about the albums that don't arrive to certain places. Being in Jordan, my friends and I have been dwelling and drooling over a Black Sabbath "Paranoid" anniversary release, a few Scorpions albums and a misplaced D.R.I. "Thrash Zone" t-shirt that somehow made their way to our local Virgin Megastores. Whenever I mention that in my trip to New York, back when being a relatively amateur-ish Big-4-hype metalhead in 2008, I bought an actual physical "Death Magnetic" copy, people think of me as THAT guy who actually buys albums. Even in other genres, music is RARELY bought here. Why? The prices are crazy for the wage, and for us metalheads, the albums are not even available for purchase. And to be honest, to people who weigh their money spent, getting albums online for prices like $15 when it's the same exact thing as the torrent you get from Pirate Bay, most of us, including myself who still doesn't have his own credit card, will not vie for the option of purchase.

Also, let's make a few notes here on our part as the metal scene in why the albums have decreased in selling:

1. Negativity. Most metalheads feel the pressing need to put themselves as quite the critics and deny the album's charm, wellness or performance and point out as many flaws as they can. I can do this to any album right now, gimme Rust In Peace and I can be the negative guy who points out that the vocals were horrible and some songs feel out of place, etc. etc. Yet back in 1990, this seldom occurred. As I saw from a few veteran thrashers, they say that back in the golden age of thrash, the scene was more focused on saying how good albums were and try their best not to let the genre die out by criticism. Today, when I check out all these "overrated" comments and reviews on multiple websites, I would think twice before downloading and wasting my download limit. How about buying it? Probably wouldn't. Want evidence of the increasing negativity? Look at the top album this year and its rating, see 2010, then suddenly jump back to say 1986. Difference pretty much pointed out. And I'll say it, some albums released this year could rank pretty much amazingly well for me, better than '80s and '90s "classics".

2. Band on a label that can allow it to make a living = band has sold out. Primarily example is bands who just got inked to Roadrunner or Nuclear Blast. Primarily a case that could be seen with bands like, say, Nile. The overall negativity that struck them in the scene when they got with N. Blast horrified some bands from a potential dream-future in which N. Blast or Roadrunner might sign them, and chose to stay "underground". Let's say it loud and clear here, and I'm not challenging any values, but the less the band sells, the more the scene accepts them. That means bands who are still putting out great content after being signed are now prone to lots of hate and naysayers. It's a shame, honestly, when you see this today and when you see the victory all thrash metal fans found in Slayer releasing the extremest of albums, "Reign In Blood", with crisp-clean production and to wide sales.

Just my two cents million bucks?

The whole point of the internet is to share fucking information.

Information =/= lolcats, btw.

Multimedia, while not eye-opening "I see you Illuminati punks violatin' mah Second Amendment HEE YAH" info, is still vital to be shared.

@Strifeman: tl;dr Lots of words, little juice. Also private BitTorrent trackers ftw.

So "download generation" sounds kind of silly.

Alcohol and forums can be bad combos. might have gone a tad overboard in a rant (and booze) last night...

Written by BitterCOld on 03.12.2011 at 08:22

remember, metalheads think they are "smart" and these people are our "future."

First off, I'd like to apologize in advance for getting off-topic but you've really brought up an interesting point here.

You know, sometimes your trenchant reflections make me laugh because even though they can be quite scathing, most of them are very true .
I actually don't know whether you agree with me on this but I never understood why metalheads think they're smarter than others. I'd say we're equal but certainly not better. It's funny how music has become a point of reference and a flawless tool to valuing people's abilities . And even if it was the case (which is not), assuming that music is in fact able to indicate how smart we are, don't you think that the "pretentiousness", complexity and nobleness of orchestar, opera and symphony would be way ahead of us? You have on the one hand, a young pianist or violinist from Juilliard totally obsessed with the likes of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach and on the other, a pretentious metalhead seeking refuge in Shining and Gorgoroth. You pick

Written by BitterCOld on 03.12.2011 at 08:22


fuck, as someone who has plowed their way through Anna Karenina despite hating virtually all characters within, i cannot get over how many people seem unable to get through a measly 850 WORDS.

if you are 30+ and happen to read this, KILL YOURSELF. it will be easier. remember, metalheads think they are "smart" and these people are our "future."

....Thanks...bro. and I read the whole thing, decided to comment about piracy since I don't buy very many new albums, or I am not that anxious to hear new stuff. I may listen to it on Youtube, then buy it, I may not. All I was saying was that my piracy is not costing the labels any money, and that i spend the same amount of money regardless of what the labels do.

Written by Mindheist on 03.12.2011 at 19:22
You have on the one hand, a young pianist or violinist from Juilliard totally obsessed with the likes of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach and on the other, a pretentious metalhead seeking refuge in Shining and Gorgoroth. You pick

How about we say both are morons, but the classical musician has style?

Written by vezzy on 03.12.2011 at 23:10

Written by Mindheist on 03.12.2011 at 19:22
You have on the one hand, a young pianist or violinist from Juilliard totally obsessed with the likes of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach and on the other, a pretentious metalhead seeking refuge in Shining and Gorgoroth. You pick

How about we say both are morons, but the classical musician has style?

+1.

Interesting article and comments from others, as is often the case in this topic of discussion. Earlier on, I read a very interesting Power Quest interview where the topic how the band is financed, how it's effected by the current Music climate etc is talked about and makes for very interesting reading. It is well worth a read if you have any interest in Music, regardless of whether you like the Band or not.

http://www.themayfairmallzine.com/ - The article is at this link and if you scroll down the Home Page, you will get to a selection of the latest interviews, which includes the Power Quest one I refer to.

Very interesting thought, I have recently seen Exhumed on their US tour and throughout the show them and Blood Red Throne both specifically commented on the topic. What makes this worth saying something about is that both bands merely encouraged the fans to listen to them, didn't give any fucks about whether we bought the album or not even went as far as saying "If you stole on the internet, bought it or whatever thanks for listening...we only see about 10 bucks of it anyway".

But I for one try to stay honorable, however after the Decapitated and Morbid Angel releases I've gone to downloading to listen before I buy. So if it sucks, it gets burned with no one hurt or out of money and I don't have a personal hatred towards the band for my loss of 20 dollars and an hour long headache and obviously if it's the shit, it earns my hard earned cash and becomes part of the collection. I for one have always thought that was fair, no way to judge an album based on 4 - 30 second long samples and with each album in this genre going anywhere from 13-40 bucks an album, I as a consumer want to know if it's something I want to keep or if it's not going to be something I want, therefore...listening session.

Well Bitter I have read your 850 words and I have read everybody else's words too and my commentary is going to be more about the piracy simply because your rant basically said what needed to be said and Jup expanded on it so I personally do not feel that I need to say more. Therefore...I (same as others) feel more compelled to defend my "evil pirating ways" so I'm going to have to back the same excuse as Troy and the "3rd worlders" (sounds like a poor African jazz band or something, lol) as I too am a broke mofo so I pirate bcuz I can't afford to buy cd's and merch atm. I used to be able to, and I did buy all the collector stuff and lots of merch (I could go a month and half without washing shirts because of how many band shirts I have from all the shows I used to go to weekly/monthly) and went to lots of shows but I have found myself in a low point in life and can't afford to buy albums right now and won't be able to for a while, so I refuse to go a couple years without increasing my collection of music therefore I pirate in the interum. When I get my finances back on track and I have expendable income again it will most definitely be my pleasure to continue to buy cds, go to shows and buy merch to support my fave bands.

I have never pirated music. I buy all my CDs, despite nonsensically bad selection at local "record stores" (HMV). If something isn't there I'll go on amazon or other websites and use prepaid VISA cards to buy it (I am not old enough for a real credit card). I used to have a part time job so that was one way to get money for CDs and vinyls. I understand the point of view of people without the finances to buy albums but since I have the money to spend I would rather support the artists than not.

Written by Mattybu on 05.12.2011 at 03:08
I would rather support the artists than not.

Definitely. I swear when I worked at the grocery store I spent more money on CDs than food.

Something I plan on getting back into come February when I start working again.

Now Switzerland seems to be a forward-thinking country as the government decided piracy ain't illegal.

Quote:
The government's argument was this: intervening through additional copyright legislation would make sense if it preserved the economic benefit of content like music and movies. But intervening would bring with it its own economic costs. The government then looked at 22 studies analyzing the effects of piracy on the music industry, with five showing a positive impact on sales and three showing no correlation. In Switzerland and the Netherlands, sales of movie tickets remained constant between 1999 and 2007. Since it could show that Swiss citizens had continued to spend money in the entertainment sector, the government felt that it could not impose additional regulations.

Furthermore:

Quote:
Large foreign production companies are likely to be most affected, the government said. "You have to adapt to the changing consumer behavior,"

Which is basically Craig's message to labels and distributors - go with the change.

I.

Any good business adapts its methods to meet the needs and wants of its target market, as they change over time. If they don't, they die. And if they die, the business in question can only blame itself for it's downfall, for failing to provide what the consumer wants. The consumer is not to blame.

This is where the record industry is going wrong. Their ancient business model doesn't work in the information age. They know this themselves, yet instead of adapting to an alternative model that would work, the industry seems content to sit back and carry on as it always has, and threaten us with huge fines and/or prison for pirating their products.

And that only makes things worse. The threats and lack of a willingness to adapt just make the consumer (their own potential customer) angry. "Why the fuck should I hand over my hard earned cash to those greedy, selfish bastards?!" Whether right or wrong, a growing number of people do think like that, and it's easy to understand why.

If the record industry is going under as profits are falling - and it's debatable whether piracy does harm profits (the Swiss have a perfectly valid point) - it's up to them to change their ways, not us as consumers.

Personally, I'm quite happy to see labels die if they refuse to change their ways. I'm also quite happy to see bands go under that support their label's ancient model. Music will always get made. The bands and labels that die, will eventually be replaced by other, more forward thinking ones. Life will go on.

I myself do buy CDs/vinyl where I think the product is worth my money (and money is available), and I go to shows and buy merch too. I also download music. The music I download, I don't pay for. I probably never will. If I'm buying an album, I want the complete package (artwork, lyrics and liner notes, a hard copy of the music etc), not just a few megabytes of data on my hard drive. Also, the amount I download has absolutely no negative effect on the amount I spend purchasing physical copies of albums. If anything it's a positive effect, because by downloading, I discover far more albums that I want to buy - albums that I wouldn't have ever heard otherwise.

A physical product I can hold in my hands, I will happily pay for. The data that comes along my telephone line, is (or should be) covered by my internet subscription fee. You get x amount of gigabytes per month download limit, for y amount of cash. Simple. Why should we have to pay twice for the same thing? Because that's essentially what happens everytime you buy a song/album from iTunes.

Pretty much everything you see on the internet is copyrighted by someone, yet you can download an image or the content of a webpage, for your own personal use, without the threat of prosecution. You can record a TV show, for your own personal use, without the threat of prosecution.

Why should music be any different? If I freely download a song, and the band/label aren't getting paid any royalties, then surely it's up to them to get together with ISPs, and work out a system where they do get paid. Maybe the end to 'unlimited' download contracts is the answer?

How about something like this:
- Bands/labels make all their releases available for download, completely free, on official websites.
- Cram those official websites full of adverts. They would undoubtedly be high traffic sites, so theres plenty of £££ to be made from this. That's your royalties sorted.
- The consumer pays the ISP based on the amount of data they download, instead of being 'unlimited' (maybe £x.xx per month for yGB of downloads, then an extra few pence per MB over the set limit.
- The ISP monitors exactly what songs are downloaded (which they could fairly easily do), and pass on the relevant amount of money to the relevant copyright holders. That's a bit more paid in royalties, in case the adverts don't satisfy the greed of the labels.
- Maybe even log the details of who is downloading what, and sell the information on to various companies to use for targeted advertising... i.e. in the same way Facebook make their millions. There's yet another few quid for the labels.

I'm not the first to suggest that. Not by a long, long way. The record industry know themselves that it's a realistic possibility. I believe Radiohead and a number of other well known artists support a similar distribution model themselves. Yet the industry still refuses to embrace change, instead preferring extra security/protection and threats of legal action.

Well if that continues to be their attitude, they can go fuck themselves. Music will survive a hell of a lot longer than them, and I'll be laughing when the inevitable happens, and the big names start going under. They only have themselves to blame. Good riddance.

EDIT: Reading this through, I'm aware it's not particularly well written. Sorry if it's a difficult read. The points are still valid ones though, in my opinion.

While I like what you wrote I want to comment on something in particular.

Written by Deleted Scenes on 05.12.2011 at 19:27

- The consumer pays the ISP based on the amount of data they download, instead of being 'unlimited' (maybe £x.xx per month for yGB of downloads, then an extra few pence per MB over the set limit.
- The ISP monitors exactly what songs are downloaded (which they could fairly easily do), and pass on the relevant amount of money to the relevant copyright holders. That's a bit more paid in royalties, in case the adverts don't satisfy the greed of the labels.

Dude, I take it you are not in the IT field yourself and have absolutely no clue what developing this kind of infrastructure would cost. If you've been keeping track of your own country's propositions along those lines, ie track what people download and ban them from the internet on multiple offenses, you'd know why this will fail. The development and setup of such infrastructure costs far more than labels, etc., lose to piracy. Not just a bit more, the difference is estimated to be in magnitudes if my memory serves me right. So, setting up a similar monitoring solution would not be profitable. Besides, there's absolutely no way you'd be able to get every ISP to invest in such a thing. However, I do like to think that simply charging a flat royalty fee from ISPs (and thus through them from the consumer) and making everything free on the Internet is a far more viable solution. But then you get a bunch of people saying "Bohoo, it's not fair, I don't even listen to music/watch films/etc." Personally, I'd say screw them. If you don't listen to music and are charged, maybe you should then?

Anyway, tl;dr version. Won't work, costs shitloads of money to setup, more than there is to gain probably. I'd vote for flat royalty fee and thus a bit more expensive Internet subscription, though.

I.

Written by Ivor on 05.12.2011 at 22:42
If you've been keeping track of your own country's propositions along those lines, ie track what people download and ban them from the internet on multiple offenses, you'd know why this will fail. The development and setup of such infrastructure costs far more than labels, etc., lose to piracy. Not just a bit more, the difference is estimated to be in magnitudes if my memory serves me right. So, setting up a similar monitoring solution would not be profitable. Besides, there's absolutely no way you'd be able to get every ISP to invest in such a thing. However, I do like to think that simply charging a flat royalty fee from ISPs (and thus through them from the consumer) and making everything free on the Internet is a far more viable solution. But then you get a bunch of people saying "Bohoo, it's not fair, I don't even listen to music/watch films/etc." Personally, I'd say screw them. If you don't listen to music and are charged, maybe you should then?

Anyway, tl;dr version. Won't work, costs shitloads of money to setup, more than there is to gain probably. I'd vote for flat royalty fee and thus a bit more expensive Internet subscription, though.

I.

Yeah, I appreciate there's a lot of cost involved there. Like you said yourself though, it can be simplified to a much cheaper method... and if internet subscriptions in general are on a 'pay for what you use' basis, then people who don't download music/films etc don't lose out anyway, because they obviously use a lot less than someone downloading say 10 albums and a couple of movies each week. Their subscriptions would, on the whole, be cheaper than they are currently.

Anyway, my main point was really all about advertising. Sites like Facebook make silly amounts of money either from cramming their pages full of adverts, or logging and selling users' details to companies for targeted marketing purposes (simply logging in to Facebook gives them access to your entire internet history, so there's a massive amount of data for them to sell on). Major record companies could easily follow that kind of methodology on their own and make millions from it, and smaller labels could do it through an HMV style 'middle-man' that takes a cut and passes on the rest. The product is made available to a huge number of people, free of charge to the consumer, and labels still get paid... Everyone's a winner.

Which is the best method to use though, isn't important. What is important, is that there are a number of alternative distribution methods available (many of them easily implemented and relatively low cost), but the industry refuses to embrace any of them. They don't seem to care about their customers, so until they do make the change, why should any of us care whether or not the industry goes bankrupt? I certainly don't.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 05.12.2011 at 03:26

Written by Mattybu on 05.12.2011 at 03:08
I would rather support the artists than not.

Definitely. I swear when I worked at the grocery store I spent more money on CDs than food.

Something I plan on getting back into come February when I start working again.

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of grocery store did you work at? Depending on the answer you'll probably be deemed somewhere in between semi-badass and Governator.

My job was pretty shitty, but it was a pretty good way of getting money for doing relatively little. And I got to enjoy some full-time CD buying mode which is always fun.

Written by Mattybu on 06.12.2011 at 00:28
If you don't mind me asking, what kind of grocery store did you work at?

Giant Tiger. Not a grocery store (more like a family thrift store), but I was the head of the fresh/frozen grocery department and was responsible for ordering all perishable product.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 06.12.2011 at 00:40

Written by Mattybu on 06.12.2011 at 00:28
If you don't mind me asking, what kind of grocery store did you work at?

Giant Tiger. Not a grocery store (more like a family thrift store), but I was the head of the fresh/frozen grocery department and was responsible for ordering all perishable product.

7/10 badass. I went into Giant Tiger the other day and found a thing of 50 warheads for like 2.49 or something. The thing about Giant Tiger is that you'll find gems sometimes but be a little disappointed other times.

My turn: I worked at the snack bar at my local hockey arena, serving people hot chocolates and candy and such. Lot of standing around. I invented a game called "Fry Whips" to play in the back room. I would basically take fries, put them on the scooper thing, and whip them around and get really excited whenever one got in the garbage can... Good times.

Written by Mattybu on 06.12.2011 at 00:44
My turn: I worked at the snack bar at my local hockey arena, serving people hot chocolates and candy and such. Lot of standing around. I invented a game called "Fry Whips" to play in the back room. I would basically take fries, put them on the scooper thing, and whip them around and get really excited whenever one got in the garbage can... Good times.

Ya I'll be the first to say you worked a lot less than I did for presumably around the same wage. I feel duped. Busting my ass for 50 hours a week just to blow it all on music that realistically isn't even that important considering it's all out there for free.

Written by Deleted Scenes on 05.12.2011 at 23:19

Which is the best method to use though, isn't important. What is important, is that there are a number of alternative distribution methods available (many of them easily implemented and relatively low cost), but the industry refuses to embrace any of them. They don't seem to care about their customers, so until they do make the change, why should any of us care whether or not the industry goes bankrupt? I certainly don't.

Advertising's a different matter and possibly a good alternative solution to some extent. But as far as industry goes, for some reason I'm having a feeling that they will not embrace the change in full until the turnover of generations occurs, meaning that until download generation gets behind the wheel the old way of making business in music will take a long time to change or die out.

I.

Written by Troy Killjoy on 06.12.2011 at 00:49

Written by Mattybu on 06.12.2011 at 00:44
My turn: I worked at the snack bar at my local hockey arena, serving people hot chocolates and candy and such. Lot of standing around. I invented a game called "Fry Whips" to play in the back room. I would basically take fries, put them on the scooper thing, and whip them around and get really excited whenever one got in the garbage can... Good times.

Ya I'll be the first to say you worked a lot less than I did for presumably around the same wage. I feel duped. Busting my ass for 50 hours a week just to blow it all on music that realistically isn't even that important considering it's all out there for free.

lol probably man. Some nights it got crazy and I had to actually get mass amounts of hockey moms and their whining kids snacks and food, but a lot of the time if someone else was working with me I would just go to the back (out of view from possible boss sightings) and play Pokemon or Block Breaker. Or studied for school, etc. To be honest I probably would've had more respect for the job in general if my supervisor didn't act like such a douche all the time (eg telling me to get my hands out of my pockets when there's nobody even around to see).

Regarding the music buying aspect of it, I think it's worth it to buy albums. Especially metal albums, which a lot get overlooked by 99.999% of the public anyways.

Written by BitterCOld on 01.12.2011 at 17:52

They do. Century Media wanted their albums off... boom... they are off Spotify.

I said, it's a simplified. Somewhat less simplified view is "some of labels are in the position to make such moves, many of them are not".

Written by BitterCOld on 01.12.2011 at 17:52

As fr it being legal to kill your wife in some jurisdictions (SMiLEY FACE!), i am not sure what this has to do with the issue at hand... aside from pointing out that some jurisdictions clearly need to address their stance on capital crimes.

It was just (yes, over the top) an example that being legal isn't necessary ethical.

Written by BitterCOld on 01.12.2011 at 17:52

I also presented other options (download on iTunes, paid download from label/band site) which ensure both band and label get cash.

No objections. Except that most of world can't (at least legally use iTunes, Amazon or most of other major electronic distribution channels. They can't use Spotify and other similar services either, btw .

Written by BitterCOld on 01.12.2011 at 17:52

not sure why you harp in a singular suggestion... unless Spotify married your sister, happened to live in one of those jurisdictions you refer to, and tossed her down an elevator shaft.

I just don't Spotify marketed as saviour of music. It isn't.

Written by Guest on 06.12.2011 at 12:50
No objections. Except that most of world can't (at least legally use iTunes, Amazon or most of other major electronic distribution channels. They can't use Spotify and other similar services either, btw .

You mean someone cracked iTunes and Amazon so I can buy everything for free?

Holy shit, where do I get those?

Since we're on the subject of piracy, what is your opinion of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that is currently in congress?

Featured above: this thread's best question.

I am not thrilled with piracy, acknowledge it exists and would encourage alternate behavior - at least in regards to metal music. you wanna download the latest hollywood flick? fine by me... they've changed their own distribution game to where they don't get punished for making terrible movie after terrible movie.

i am not in favor of censorship.

The sad truth is that most artists in pretty much all genres have almost completely lost touch with reality, they don't understand how little money their target demographic has and they over prize their albums like crazy. At least that's how it is here in Estonia. The record companies are only sort of greedy, they see what's going on and they sort of understand that an average person cannot afford to pay much for an album, music stores most certainly know this too, but the artists themselves don't seem to understand. That doesn't justify piracy in any way, but it helps explain it.

If it's an industry, it must die. That is all.

I don't exactly have a choice, since practically no metal albums are available/permitted in Lebanon. When I am out of the country I do buy some albums but I don't want to spend all my money on metal albums either. I think artists earn most of their money in concerts and events, that goes for all music genres Bieberific and Kvlt, and I believe labels know that as well so I don't think they expect any kind of profit, coming from album purchases.