Distribution and Piracy. A Rant.
| Written by: | BitterCOld |
| Published: | November 30, 2011 |
(edit! if you cannot read more than a whopping 300 words without changing the channel, skip to the end. that's the important part of the article. if you cannot make it to the crux and insist on commenting, i will mock you. unrepentantly. )
So by this point we are all pretty aware of how piracy and illegal downloading are killing the record industry. The labels won't shut up about it... but their points make sense. The less revenue a label is seeing for an investment the more it hinders the ability to sign other acts or even continue to work with current ones. You cannot fault a label for merely wanting to break even.
And while some of you might get your rocks off about "sticking it to the man" when you download something illegally, the reality is how many of these bands are on mean and nasty major labels like Sony? How many are on labels run out of an office the size of my garage?
I'd bet that most metal labels are run by metal fans who want to make enough money to put out more metal. If they were in it for the cash, they'd have ditched the distortion pedal in favor of auto-tune long ago.
And the "well, the band only gets $1 per cd" argument is bullshit too. The cut that goes to the label is to help cover the cost of recording and promoting the album. If a label puts $5,000 into recording and promoting an album (a completely arbitrary figure), but only gets $1,000 back, how likely are they to piss away another couple thousand dollars on a follow-up album? How likely are they to just cut ties altogether?
And if they lose money hand over fist on several acts, how likely are they to invest in new artists?
and to RAWR is metal.
So I am an ardent supporter of, erm, supporting both artists that make good music as well as labels that sign/put out the albums of artists that make good music.
However what chaps my hide is the whining about piracy in the current technological and ethical environment and yet sticking to antiquated distribution systems.
In this day and age, I find it a reasonable request to have timely access to a new release that has already dropped across the pond. I do not see why there is all too often a 30 day discrepancy.
Enslaved's latest, Axioma Ethica Odini dropped the 27th of September in Europe and a day later in the US. Hooray. Timely access! It can be done!
Yet all too often the gaps between release dates are absurd. You can laugh at my (clearly illustrated) plight in the thread for Candlemass' Death Magic Doom. The album drops April 3rd of 2009, Lucas gets his review published April 15th, and I post how I cannot wait for it's eventual US release... and two weeks later quote myself again, still waiting and wondering. Thanks to Ivan's handy dandy album purchase tracker, you can see I didn't get it until May 6th. And I made weekly pilgrimages to the local shop, hoping for it. A full month and change later.
There have been several other cases through time, and even now with the latest Oranssi Pazuzu. Mr. Doctor has had it since the 26th of October. (Fuck you and your afro too, Roddy!) I checked again today, a month and change later, and not only is it not yet available in the States, it won't be for another three weeks. Hell, it'd be quicker if I sent Marcel $25, had him buy it in the Netherlands, hire a glass blower to encase it in a wine bottle, launch it into the Atlantic, have Dismal Euphony wait for it to wash up in Boston Harbor, and then hire a couple homing pigeons carry it in a net and fly it the remaining 3,000 miles to my house.
The gap is so massive, even an ardent supporter of paying for music like me is about to crack and give in. And if I'm going to break, it likely means the folks who sit on the "Download or Buy?" fence did a while ago. You'll never see a dime out of them. And if the price is $27, as Amazon currently lists it, you might not get mine as well...
I can understand with smaller labels and bands (the Pazuz) that there might be difficulties in being high on the priority list for overseas distributors (there shouldn't for that latest Candlemass)... leading to delays, but don't just sit there flat footed.
Do something to make your fucking music available in the interim. Put it up on iTunes. Put it up on Spotify. Make it available for (PAID) download straight from both the band and label sites.
Put yourself in a position to where you don't fuel the easy out for the "I deserve a trophy for showing up" generation. Because to the youth of today (your largest target demographic), the choice between illegally downloading a copy or waiting a month to fork over cash to hear it is not a terribly difficult one. Particularly when the culture has already painted you "greedy" record execs (currently struggling to get by) as Fat Cats who are morally acceptable targets.
 | Written on 30.11.2011 by BitterCOld has been officially reviewing albums for MetalStorm since 2009. |
Comments page 2 / 5
| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306  |
Written by jupitreas on 01.12.2011 at 01:14 I went 1-for-1 and quit because I didn't want to tarnish my perfect score.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| Milena gloom cookie Staff Posts: 4603  |
Written by jupitreas on 01.12.2011 at 00:48 A solution for my worries; with my shitty internet speed, it would take me YEARS, and I'm not exaggerating, to download my collection back if my hard drive crashed. About the mp3ornot - I've found during the last year that I can mostly tell the difference up to 320 kbs and no more. And my speakers are almost 10 years old and pretty much crap anyway, I only listen to higher quality music when I'm at houses of friends who use (some sort of?) amps to listen to music.
---- 7.0 means the album is good
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| Jason W. Razorbliss Staff Posts: 3523  |
Written by jupitreas on 01.12.2011 at 01:14 Not sure why the necessity of a "listening challenge" needed to be brought up, but...  I did get three correct in a row though, took me 10 minutes for all 3 to make the correct judgements for sure. These are much better quality than the promo releases I've heard with swirling sounds or the user rips with wavering sounds in the cymbals being not nearly as present here. Here, I can hear an increase in the white noise effect that is hard to notice in a car with windows down but really annoying in headphones. Actually, it's not specifically the quality of mp3s sonically that has driven me away from downloads from blogs, etc., it's equally as much the poor rips, with random clicks, pops at the start, or incorrect lengths (I can go on with 100 examples). I inherently distrust other people touching my music files, and adding an air of distrust is not something I like infecting my listening experience with. I want a pure listening experience, or as close as I can get. And at least one that doesn't start out with negative suspicions.
---- "After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley
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| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306 |
Written by Jason W. on 01.12.2011 at 01:47 Well you're leaving it in the hands of producers and the mixing/mastering team to ensure your CD release is up to par - which isn't always the case, especially in the loudness war era.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| Jason W. Razorbliss Staff Posts: 3523 |
Written by Troy Killjoy on 01.12.2011 at 01:51  Well this is a different argument entirely than mp3 quality! And I'm sure there's ten other topics we can spawn here, but unforunately it's not a pub, so these tangents just won't be as fun 
---- "After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley
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| jupitreas hi-fi / lo-life Staff Posts: 6659  |
Written by Jason W. on 01.12.2011 at 01:47 This is actually one of the best arguments that I've heard on this matter. Its true that listening and how we perceive quality is extremely subjective and I can see how adding to the uncertainty results in a less enjoyable listening experience. I was bringing up the listening test merely as a counterpoint to your claim that music from blogs/torrents is often noticeably lower in quality than CDs. This is simply not true in this day and age as most rippers use the same mature encoder (LAME) that very rarely sounds worse than the uncompressed sound.
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| Susan Smeghead Elite Posts: 6941  |
Bitter, thanks for writing this. It really needs to be discussed! And I hope everyone read Jupitreas's post near the top. Excellent and necessary points. How long will it take for the music industry to adapt and move into the present? Just as the music industry evolved from vinyl to tapes and CDs, they need to evolve to digital distribution. Change is not an option. That said, I disagree that they need to do away with CDs completely. Many others have stated a preference for the physical option and not all of us see them as coasters You might say that I like CDs since they were cool when I was a kid and that this next generation won't care. For the most part that's true BUT records weren't "cool" when I was kid and I still discovered them on my own and collect vinyl whenever I can. Just as I discovered vinyl, future generations will discover CDs. Releasing most music digitally but having a limited run on CD (or vinyl) seems like a perfect way to embrace this change. And perhaps it's already happening. Last year I paid to download a few albums from CD Baby and of course iTunes, albums that had the option of purchasing the .mp3 files vs. a more expensive physical CD. I still prefer having the CD but honestly I loved having the music instantly. Another new trend I see is on Bandcamp sites (and a few others) the album is available for whatever price the listener wants to pay. I have downloaded several albums from up-and-coming unsigned bands this year and tossed them $5 or so. Very easy!
---- "A life all mine Is what I choose At the end of my days" --The Gathering "A Life All Mine" from Souvenirs
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| M C Vice ex-polydactyl Posts: 3408  |
Written by [user id=101272] on 30.11.2011 at 23:00 You want to be Tuomas Holopainen? On the bying CDs thing, I've only got 2 albums that were not purchased legaly from a physical/online shop. AC/DC's Back In Black which someone at work gave me a burned copy, and Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication because I already had all the songs from it so I just made myself a copy.
---- "I'm here to nunchuck and not wear helmets. And I'm all out of helmets." "I'll fight you on one condition. That you lower your nipples." " 'Tis a lie! Thy backside is whole and ungobbled, thou ungrateful whelp!"
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| HassoT Account deleted |
HassoT
Account deleted Written by BitterCOld on 30.11.2011 at 20:45 No, the truth is that they mostly don't. The truth is much more complicated than that, but a closer to the truth simplified version is that distributors do. The very same distributors who happen to be owned by some of the biggest labels in the world who also own most of the Spotify. Got the point? Written by BitterCOld on 30.11.2011 at 20:45 It's also legal to kill your wife in some jurisdictions .
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| Spirit Molecule spirit molecule Posts: 1918  |
Honestly I think the internet has done a shit load for the music industry than it has caused problems. Maybe bands like metallica stopped making as much money as they were so they were pissed, but small underground bands, that you would have never found if not for the internet are making it big. Piracy - I really don't have an issue with this, being in a band myself I find it beneficial that people share music online. I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't have heard of us, especially outside of India if we only released physical copies. Same with a lot of other bands, there probably wouldn't be such a big djent scene if it were not for the net ( maybe the only con for me  ) Labels can't sign every band, there are a whole bunch of really good bands out there that still aren't on a label and I think the internet gives them a way to get their music out. Music sharing has been around for ages, its not going to stop and I hope it doesn't coz that would just wipe out 90% of my playlist. When I was a kid we used to share tapes and thats how we found new bands and new music, now with the internet its just easier to do it and more convenient. As for labels not making money anymore. I think most people have already said this and I think they need to rethink their sales strategies. Don't forget the band. Well most people think that if you don't go out and buy the bands cd/vinyl etc you're killing your favourite artist. I think if you buy the cd, sit at home and listen to it when the band is playing your hometown is killing the band. Bands barely make anything from cds and this is not bullshit. Cd sales mean shit to a band, doesn't matter if you're on a label or not. Its like someone said a label makes 3$ for a million plays on some online radio, pretty much the same for a bands cd sales. If you want to support the label, go ahead and buy all the cds from that label so that they can find new bands and release their albums. But if you concerned about your favourite band, I would say go out and catch their live shows, go buy their merch. Thats where the money is for the band. I barely buy cds, its easier for me to just download. What I do is buy merch of the bands I like and I make sure I go to their concerts. I'm quite excited to know that I could catch Mastodon here in Sweden, I've gotta travel from the west to east coast, and the tickets are about 45Euros for the gig, the ticket price itself is more than what the tickets for Metallica were in India that I was cribbing to buy, but for a band I like, I wouldn't think twice
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Admin Posts: 15287  |
Written by [user id=39567] on 01.12.2011 at 13:40 They do. Century Media wanted their albums off... boom... they are off Spotify. 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. I also presented other options (download on iTunes, paid download from label/band site) which ensure both band and label get cash. 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.
---- get the fuck off my lawn. Beer Bug Virus Spotify Playlist crafted by Nikarg and I. Feel free to tune in and add some pertinent metal tunes!
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| afu Posts: 260 |
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| Milena gloom cookie Staff Posts: 4603 |
Written by [user id=114127] on 01.12.2011 at 22:12 FINALLY SOMEONE WITH THE SAME PROBLEM AS ME! Except my download rate goes up to 20 kbps. Yes, downloading is pretty tiresome under those conditions... it takes me quite a few days to download a movie, and DVDs are out of the question.
---- 7.0 means the album is good
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| Fredd Account deleted |
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| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306 |
Written by Milena on 01.12.2011 at 22:19 Wow. I literally download 50 times faster than you.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| jupitreas hi-fi / lo-life Staff Posts: 6659 |
Written by afu on 01.12.2011 at 20:05 I think this is one of those things that holds the industry back at the moment. The truth is that the Internet gives the band a chance to offer far more sophisticated 'packaging' for an album than a booklet does, but very few bands that I know of capitalize on this. The Internet is a medium that is interactive and offers a multimedia experience, so it should be easy to offer unique and innovative art with an album. Why not prepare a movie or at least a slideshow that would accompany the music? Why not make something interactive, like a game or even an alternative reality event that would accompany the album? These are all things that are only possible with digital distribution but is very rarely attempted by bands. When Nine Inch Nails pioneered many of these ideas I was expecting to see a deluge of similar projects but alas, this didnt happen. Not really sure why, I guess musicians arent as forward-thinking as engineers are and it will still take a while for the music industry to catch up with the rest of the world. If we are only dealing with still images, digital distribution does indeed have a kind of a disadvantage when compared to physical distribution, but so many things are possible with digital distribution that are impossible with physical mediums that this comparison shouldnt even really be made.
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| BitterCOld The Ancient One Admin Posts: 15287 |
Written by jupitreas on 01.12.2011 at 23:06 hold in hand artwork is impressive and there is something i dig about booklets - kinda like i still cling to books and haven't run off to get a Kindle... but you are right. there is so much that can be done to make internet packaging more attractive. some bands are great at those "making of" DVD's... package that and maybe some zany screensaver that coordinates with the music to give you a visual trip (thinking what a band like Mastadon could do with their cool artwork).
---- get the fuck off my lawn. Beer Bug Virus Spotify Playlist crafted by Nikarg and I. Feel free to tune in and add some pertinent metal tunes!
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| malaikat Posts: 405  |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 30.11.2011 at 20:53 That's just not fair, Marcel. First of all, bread, gas... are neccesites. To be blunt about it, you need bread and electricity to survive - music albums are just one form of luxury. Granted, they are not in the same league as buying a jakuzzi or a ferrari, but it's a luctury/hobby/occupation nonetheless, i.e. something you do "for fun and enjoyment". Secondly, what about music lovers that actually can't afford to buy albums? For instance, the average monthly income in my country is ~250 euros, with almost 90% of it going to the almost bare neccesities - such as bread, electricity, gas, drinks, etc. So, yes, in theory, if I lived alone, I could maybe afford one album per month, but bear in mind that new releases here cost around 15-20 euros, so pretty much 10% of my salary would go on just one music CD. But again, I love books the most, so I would always choose book over CD, so I will basically have to spend afforementioned 10% on my "secondary" hobby. I mean, yeah, it's wrong to steal music, but some of us really have no other choice but to... well, steal. Sad but true, as one once popular band said.
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| Milena gloom cookie Staff Posts: 4603 |
Written by malaikat on 01.12.2011 at 23:53 Aaaand, another person from Serbia confirms some of my views on this, though I upped our 'average salary' a bit. It's basically like this - the world shows you a myriad of bands and styles which are available only a few clicks away, and then says "but since you're poor, you're gonna have to steal this. No biggie, you won't get caught." And yeah, I'm aware that this isn't the topic of this article, but there's a lot of people who "don't get" how we steal music without guilty feelings... maybe some of them will read this thread and be enlightened
---- 7.0 means the album is good
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| malaikat Posts: 405 |
Quote:Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 30.11.2011 at 20:53 Thieves with a reason, heh  But, with all respect (and I know I'm going offtopic with this one, sorry), 400 euros is, concerning Serbia, average salary only on paper. 250-300 euros is the true average, given the vast amount of minimum-wage working people.
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071  |
Like you said music is a luxury and not a necessity unlike food, roof over your head, drink. So if you don't have money there is NO need to steal music because one can do without. Simple as that. I can't buy all the music I like, so that's just tough luck for me that doesn't give me the right the steal the stuff I can't pay for.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| jupitreas hi-fi / lo-life Staff Posts: 6659 |
Written by [user id=35732] on 02.12.2011 at 00:24 Bands still got paid for performing before labels existed though. It is however true that the label system really changed people's expectations of how much money can be made on music. Right now things might be returning to the pre-label system, where bands cant rely on an industrial monolith to sell their music and instead need to communicate with their fans on a more personal basis.
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| Mindheist No Longer Human Posts: 618  |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 02.12.2011 at 00:22 That's pretty vague, don't you think? It's the same thing as scolding a poor kid for stealing a book. That kid could grow up to be the next Leo Tolstoy but since you've forbidden him from repeating the same mistake again, he'll refrain himself from doing it. Now, The society is happy and the poor kid's dazzling dreams of becoming a great writer go with the wind. Yeah sure stealing is wrong but I'm sure anyone of us might do the same thing if we had to walk in his shoes. Now, as far as I'm concerned, I can buy as many albums as I want but what about those who can't? We have many good members here on MS who download albums not because they are too cheap to buy them but mainly because they can't afford it. If we follow your way of thinking, we'd lose those members and MS will never be the same again.
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| Milena gloom cookie Staff Posts: 4603 |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 02.12.2011 at 00:22 If you could pay for 0,1% percent of stuff you wanted to listen to, you probably wouldn't say that it's morally one of the most wrong things one could do, yes, but when you're given access to a vast library of contents by simply having an internet connection... most people will steal away without a second thought, and us who still have second thoughts kneel in under the pressure of having everything they could ever wish for without any consequences whatsoever.
---- 7.0 means the album is good
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| Troy Killjoy perfunctionist Staff Posts: 21306 |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 02.12.2011 at 00:22 There isn't a need to steal it, no. But I download what I can't afford, or what I can't get a hold of. The leftover money I did have from my expenses went directly to album purchases. If I had as much expendable cash as someone like yourself I wouldn't have to worry about downloading music I can't afford, since you've apparently purchased more albums than I've even listened to.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| malaikat Posts: 405 |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 02.12.2011 at 00:22 So, that's it, I don't have the money to buy albums, I shouldn't listen to music? The world isn't black and white, you know.
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| Ag Fox Angel No More Elite Posts: 4774  |
Great article, and some very nice points raise by jupitreas as well to further on the self-release parts. I guess I belong to the "young generation, want it instantly" crowd. Yet seeing as I don't have any income, and I still buy CDs (and I got my first ever vinyl last night D), I think it's pretty good. I've only started buying less than two years ago, and now the collection is still a measly 50, but compared to all my real life friends, the collection that I have is the biggest already. I think if one loves the music enough, one would either go to shows, buy merch or get the CDs whether they have pirated or not. I know I do try and save up for those, and it's how we prioritise things. Indeed, some people do take it for granted that music is fine to "steal", though I think it's also the label or the artists' responsibility to makes things of easier access to fans or potential fans because as jupitreas mentioned already, the tools are already there. There's a small debate regarding spotify... I don't know how much spotify is paying the labels, but I just know they keep making a loss and yet the labels are still complaining they don't get enough royalties out of it. I guess this is just a failed model of legalising music downloads. I remember reading somewhere saying spotify and normal piracy is like offering the choice of die by getting hit by a truck or a tortured, slow painful death. lol As some poster already said, buy CDs or merch / go to shows if you can. I know that these days before I buy a new shirt, I would ask myself "this or a new CD/band shirt". The latter usually wins. Another thing that irks me sometimes... You know all those limited / regional / digital bonuses? It's like I need to get 3/4 CDs just for one track. In those cases, I would most certainly download...
---- loves 小巫
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| Yojimbo Posts: 232  |
Alright, B-to-the-C, I'll agree with your points. I will say this for paying for music, it makes the value of an album that much more tangible. When getting stuff for free, it's easy to peruse and forget. However, when I pay for something I want to know that it was worth the purchase so I'll give it more spins before shelving it if it isn't immediately gripping.
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