Saturday, January 19, 2008
A word on comments
While we are allowing anonymous comments, we are moderating the comments because some of them are just too rude and pointless to the discussion, especially when they are made anonymously. So if you do want to make some accusations, then use your real name and verifiable email address. You can see from the majority of the posts that we aren't filtering much.
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48 comments:
I am using my front name. I did use my last.fm name once and ended up with having to delete that account since downloaders saw it as funny to harass me overthere.
Not sure but i think Mr. Orfold has my emailadress. I have ordered cd's from his store and we already have talked about about downloading a bit.
Gert
Now, i see most sides of this situation, but there is a phrase that still eludes me:
"Illegal downloading is destroying music."
Can someone convince me on this? I understand some artists will be losing money if people are happy with just downloading and not buying, but if the music is agreeable to the general public, isn't it able to sustain? I mean, people will buy the music regardless. Most of the stuff floating around on download sites is good, and also usually hard to find, so people do at least attempt to buy it. And, if it's an older album, why buy it on CD if you've already got a copy on vinyl?
I'm just seeing a lot of angles with this one. Help me out.
Gert, I am so sorry that you've had abuse from these people. You are one of the rare people that's moved across from being an illegal downloader to genuinely supporting the bands and you deserve all our thanks. Your comments on the subject are always well observed and welcome so please hang in there.
What a lot of people fail to understand is that most people who download music wouldn't buy it anyway. Would you rather have someone listen to you music by downloading it illegally, or not listen to it at all.
I had never heard of many bands until I downloaded their cds from blogs that graciously offered them. I don't have the money to spend on cds, but now I know about the bands, and I can recommend them to whoever will hear me.
I can safely say that I'd rather they never heard it than got it illegally. You can afford your internet connection, you can afford to buy an album, and using Mindawn OGG downloads for example, it is $7 for an album. That is a trivial cost.
Hey,
I'd still like to know just how much the original artist sees of the reissues of much of the ancient musics of the 60's and 70's.....??
More than likely what they did back then... bugger all or nothing...
It's still down to control thereof and of course $$$$$ not the music.... well, for you anyway... :-(
So bite your arse....!!!
We don't have anything to do with that stuff or their contracts and it doesn't matter anyway, the artist made whatever deal they made, that is their issue, not yours to try and correct through some delusional sense of being robin hood.
I do hope that you and all the people who support you fail on your intend. Music is not like you knew anymore! And money is a poor reason for it returning to that!
And if you'll write to say I'm wrong, so you'll have to block all the "Mona Lisa"'s reproductions, and all the Bible copies, and all the "Rodan's Thinker" statues too, you idiot!
Money is not the important thing! True ART is!!!
From Brazil, JAIRON
@Gladly not on your Frequency:
The royalties artists get per song are typically very poor. I remember a few years back it was like 8 cents per song, or roughly a dollar per album. It's pretty disgusting that less than a tenth of the money you pay for music actually goes to the people who created it. At least that's my opinion.
It amazes me that anyone thinks music downloaded from a blog should be viewed as a lost sale.
The point of most blogs is to introduce music that is not widely known, and sometimes impossibly obscure to garner any attention in today's market. When someone downloads an album fitting that description, what you have is a potential sale. You have the ability to turn someone into a fan who will often buy the album, and in many cases, they go on to buy several more from the same artist. You have the opportunity to advertise your store alongside a blog posting.
To expect everyone to pay under these circumstances is unrealistic and unfair.
I now buy almost all my music only after I've heard the artist's record at a blog. It is a sure way to buy an album that you know you will like. Seriously, if you love an album, why wouldn't you buy it for permanency?
You can add me to the list of people who routinely buy CDs thanks to blogs. Before discovering the blogs, my purchasing had dwindled down to almost nothing - not because of filesharing, which I never did, but because I just couldn't find much music I liked that I didn't already own. I have made more than my share of blind purchases over the years and often been rewarded with a crappy album. Or I'll hear a nice track somewhere, buy the disc, and lo and behold it's the only good track on a disc full of filler.
The record companies now are paying for the habit of pushing out inferior product as part of the old business model.
What exactly was ever FAIR about forcing people to buy an album BEFORE hearing it? The USA has never allowed customers to listen to a CD or LP in a store before purchase, as was customary in Europe for years. The best they did was allow listens of the most recent hit CDs, which is a very short list. Well they took advantage of this handicap for years. Blogs now expose all the flaws and make it easier to decide on original albums or best-of compilations - or passing up artists with only one good song to offer.
You think with that kind of power available today it's reasonable to cling to the old and obsolete ways of taking your word that you're selling an album worthy of my money?
I have also heard the argument that you can now preview music on sites like amazon.com. Not exactly true. I can't think of a single time I thought 30 seconds was enough to make a judgement on a song. All that's good for is knowing if you've heard the song before, but it's insufficient for making a decision to purchase.
You guys are fighting a losing battle. You have to remember this simple mantra because it's absolutely true. These are not lost sales, they're potential sales. Saying they're lost sales is unrealistic because that would assume someone was going to buy the album after simply stumbling on it, as used to be necessary in physical record and CD stores. Eventually, this reality will have to be faced by the industry. There are better ways to get the music heard, it's a matter now of finding the most reasonable methods for taking advantage of these changes and making money with them.
Trust me when I say I don't want a music world where you have nothing but amateurs and those who have found a way to manage their own careers without record company support. Music is truly a craft that requires the focus of a full time job, so it has to pay as such.
Embrace bloggers, and I believe you'll make more money than by going the bullying route. Instead of deleting the material, have the blogger put up a notice that the album is available at your site, with a direct link. You'll get results so long as you don't charge more than other online merchants for the same disc. But doing what you're doing guarantees that no one will buy from you. No one I know willingly gives money to people who sport an unreasonable and backwards-viewing attitude.
"Money is not the important thing! True ART is!!!"
Yes, yes, we have heard this argument many, many times.
You clearly think that artists should be noble and give their work away for free. But when it is the other way around, then YOUR money IS the important thing.
YOU don't want to pay for your art.
YOU think that others shall pay it for you.
It's just a lot of "give me give me give me" from people like you.
BTW...have you managed to create any true art lately?
@Rotundbob
You obviously have never done a music contract yourself. What you are sighting are referred to as "Mechanicals" and there is a federally mandated "Statutory rate", this is currently at about $.095 per song, so for an album of 10 songs, they'd get $.95 per album. This amount is NOT the royalty rate, the royalty rate is something else, this is what artists get advanced, and is what expenses get recouped against, in the case of us small labels, there isn't much of an advance, if any, but let's use someone "big" that got $250,000 advance against royalties to make their album, despite the fact that they were still in the whole on the advance, they'd STILL get the mechanicals of about $.95 per album and once their royalties were recouped, they'd get that as well, whatever percentage they negotiated.
@Fat Tony
This has been addressed multiple times here already. No one says each download is a lost sale, but the ratio has increased drammatically in the past few years. There are plenty of legal and preferred ways to help promote bands and music, all of which we've stated.
Pirate killer, the mere ratio going up doesn't help your case. You're relying on incomplete information. And just one aspect of that incomplete info is the effect blogs have had on renewing interest in artists who have already had their first go-round.
You don't have any data on how the blogs are performing to help artists, because conditions are not hospitable to collect that data, there's simply too much risk. I simply don't believe that your prog artists are suffering at the hands of bloggers, I think what we're seeing is panic in the face of technology. I remember when Metallica panicked over napster - now THAT was worthy of panic. But did it help them? It made a lot more people download Metallica either from spite or increased curiosity.
My own opinion? P2P is making the dent in the CD market and that dent is coming primarily at the expense of major label artists with new releases. That's where the volume is. But it's nowhere near where your targets are. The blogs I know about that were targeted were not putting up mainstream material or anything recently released.
I still don't understand why anyone thinks it is fair to ask a consumer to make a blind purchase of an album (and before you say "30 second clips"...read upwards) at a time when that is no longer necessary as part of the business model.
I'll buy new albums blind ONLY from artists I already know and respect. I'm not going to buy a CD from an unknown artist whom I've only heard in a few short clips. Period. There's no reason to; there's plenty of artists out there that are worthy of my attention.
Blunt force won't help you or the artists. You need to get people's cooperation by being reasonable and embracing the technological advances that created this situation and find the best way to profit from it. Encourage your artists to stream their albums with 128 kb sample rates. Heck, have them do what Radiohead, Juliana Hatfield and others have done - set up an honor system. Do some experimenting to find a sample delivery system that will work for everyone, depending on their current success/popularity level. But I think most people are done relying on hype to tell them whether their dollars are well spent on something they haven't even heard.
Somehow you're missing something we've said over and over and over again. There are TONS of ways to legally sample an album or songs from an album, it is ridiculous in the extreme to insist that you must listen to an entire album a dozen times before you can decide to purchase it.
Just look at the comments being posted here by people reveling in the fact that they are pirating music? Sheer common sense, regardless of any other information, would tell you that as long as something is available for free, people won't pay for it, but it is pretty obvious when there are tens of thousands of downloads and ones of thousands of purchases, even discounting the fact that there isn't a one to one correlation, you are obviously loosing sales to piracy. I can't believe you can try to state the contrary and keep a straight face.
PK,
Just the attitude I expected from some half cocked business man...Your arguments are just as self centred and flawed as the bloggers you are hoping you can marginalise so you can have all the subjective pie and control......
As you say the original artist gets nothing for their music you are flogging. Well, in this supposed delusional robin hood state I find myself in, seems to me all you've done is paid a fee to secure a right to own/press CDs for your own profit... how does that give you the divine right of self importance to act as you do...??
Why is it so hard to coexist with these blogs....?? Surely you realise the more you stoke the fire the more it will burn brighter...
I feel the real downturn in music sales genre wide is due to other factors other than just downloading.... I think you'll find many other industries suffering in the same way from what appears to be an apathy of the general populace but can possibly be explained better by a little more curt self observation and of course observation of the economic pressures and overall mood being generated around the world presently.... a little terse don't you think..?? What's the first things to be reduced when the general mood is fear and uncertainty...??
A: Luxury items....
Be sure this has been engineered for some time with I suspect worse yet to come, so, instead of killing for the diminishing table scraps how about a little more innovation in the promotion thereof...??
Other than pouncing on the supposed greedy little internet hogs stealing music that is already stolen....
Also don't worry I've spent thousands of dollars at some of the sites you list... still doesn't change reality.
Hi Guys,
Every now and then the bloggers who host the illegal blogs
tell us that "if you only let us know you don't want your music
here we will remove it".
I have now, once again, sent 3 e-mails to a blog hosting
the new Galleon album kindly asking them to have it removed.
Result? Nothing.
It's still up.
I personally think that we should not have to search for our
illegally put up albums and then send friendly requests to have
them removed. The blogger should ask us before they put them up.
And, again, even when we send them requests they ignore it.
Thought you liked to know.
Hello Fat Tony,
I see your point.
There is plenty of ways to download entire songs (the 30 sec snippet days are over).
And we are working on finding more ways to get 1-2 entire tracks out for free.
The first website for this is up and running at www.evergrey.fr
We have proposed this model to many bloggers, but they refuse. They want the whole kit for free.
Without asking. Without doing anything at all in order to make agreements with the bands or labels.
We will never accept their ways or their strange "Art must be free" arguments.
Art can not be free. It's impossible. It doesn't work. Musicians need to eat. They need money for living. And instruments.
It can not be free.
Hansi,
Where can i reach you? Am interested in blogging stuff the legal way and if i can helpout it's because of me wanting to give something back for hundreds of hour of listening music i got from you guys.
Gert
Hi Gert,
hansiart@hotmail.com
Any reason why my posts aren't being let through? It's kind of difficult to defend my view when I can't respond.
Quote by Pirate Killer:
No one says each download is a lost sale
Quote by Pirate Killer:
The fact that a copy is preventing an original from being sold is the problem
I dunno, I smell a bit of a contradiction here.
PK, I'd think it would be obvious that I've not done any contracts with artists. I'm not a label, believe it or not.
You're quick to criticize my ignorance of the amount that artists get per song/album, but I'm curious why you neglected to reveal the typical figure yourself? I know you told us what a "big" artist would get, but what about the lesser-known ones who make up a vast majority of artists? (The "little people" if the term is more familiar.)
I also found it funny that you believe that file-sharers are getting even more destructive because now there are lossless files out there that are exactly as good as the CD. There definitely are, and yes, they're a big hit. But what's funnier is that there's no legal way to buy the lossless song, at least for most of them. I'd buy a great deal more music if I could download it losslessly from a legal outlet, but it's just not available there. If the record industry spent half the time they spend suing fans on improving the ways people can buy music, they might actually start winning people over, rather than running them over.
In any case, you don't need to worry - there's no danger of me downloading any of your label's songs. (And as a result, no danger of me buying any either.) About 99% of the music I like is completely free - which tends to support my feeling that technology has turned labels into obsolete leeches, who need to find a new role in the digital era if they intend to survive.
maybe they got lost in the shuffle, I get a lot of emails.
No contradiction in what I said, not every pirate is a lost sale, but if that person downloads it instead of buying it, then it is preventing a sale.
Mindawn exactly gives you FLAC files (CD quality), again, one of the things I said we addressed with Mindawn and common complaints. If you want lossless, and can't find it as a download, then buy the CD, don't steal it.
99% of the music you want is not completely free, you are simply stealing it. And you are reiterating that same tired excuse that i've addressed a dozen times already about updating to survive and labels being leeches, blah blah blah.
I don't know what small labels do, they are all different. Some might pay a flat rate of $2 per CD, but not recoup any expenses. Some might pay 50% but recoup expenses, etc. When you get to the small labels, there is a big variation. On my label, if you buy it from my site, the artist get's over $11 on average. That's pretty damn good.
@ progo
YES! My money is important! Yours! The artists' money is! I didn't say I don't want to pay for art. When I really like the music, the book, the picture I go to BUY it! I don't burn pirate CD's and make money for me. Music download is a way for know new sounds, new bands, new albums. Be sure that if haven't downloaded some CDs, I haven't buyed any of them, I haven't went to any live show of those artists, I haven't asked for their music on the radios, haven't told to my friends about them! Idots like you have to recognize how important internet is for spreading ART and saling it as well - not the inverse!!!
You can be sure that there's many many many ways for an artist gain money and survive! Saling CDs or whatever you consider ART is the very minor part of it! Everything is for becoming labels rich! Everyone can see that!
The only thing you saw right is: I'd love if ART becomes FREE! FREE!!! And it will be, you like or not! WE will make it free, you like or not!
To the anonumous person who wants art to be free:
Who shall pay the artists if their art are free?
Quote by Pirate Killer:
Mindawn exactly gives you FLAC files (CD quality), again, one of the things I said we addressed with Mindawn and common complaints. If you want lossless, and can't find it as a download, then buy the CD, don't steal it.
Okay, well Mindawn doesn't have the songs I want. So, that means I'm supposed to buy 14 other songs I don't like or want and also pay for shipping (or drive 200 miles to/from the nearest town that has it in stock). No thanks. If that's the best thing the record industry can come up with, then they haven't earned my sale.
Quote by Pirate Killer:
99% of the music you want is not completely free, you are simply stealing it. And you are reiterating that same tired excuse that i've addressed a dozen times already about updating to survive and labels being leeches, blah blah blah.
No, 99% of the music I want is free. Some artists actually create music, and rather than signing it off to labels, decide to let fans do the work of distributing it.
It's great that Mindawn has lossless tracks. While I probably wouldn't pay $1+ for a track I didn't really, really want, it's moderately tempting. But you didn't start out speaking for your label - you've made a general condemnation on sharing of all copyrighted material. Most of which is not available losslessly without going back to CDs - which obviously aren't the new-and-improved business model that fans are asking for.
$11 per album is pretty good. How do you manage it while charging ~$9 per album? (I'm sure I must be missing something.)
"$11 per album is pretty good. How do you manage it while charging ~$9 per album? (I'm sure I must be missing something.)"
Yes, it's very good.
I'm happy our stuff is sold through this channel.
distribution without compensation is not distribution, and Mindawn has about 50,000 albums on there now, so it is hardly just limited to my label.
I don't believe I said I charged $9 for an album, on my site they are $16.
PK,
Just the attitude I expected from some half cocked business man...Your arguments are just as self centred and flawed as the bloggers you are hoping you can marginalise so you can have all the subjective pie and control......
As you say the original artist gets nothing for their music you are flogging. Well, in this supposed delusional robin hood state I find myself in, seems to me all you've done is paid a fee to secure a right to own/press CDs for your own profit... how does that give you the divine right of self importance to act as you do...??
Why is it so hard to coexist with these blogs....?? Surely you realise the more you stoke the fire the more it will burn brighter...
I feel the real downturn in music sales genre wide is due to other factors other than just downloading.... I think you'll find many other industries suffering in the same way from what appears to be an apathy of the general populace but can possibly be explained better by a little more curt self observation and of course observation of the economic pressures and overall mood being generated around the world presently.... a little terse don't you think..?? What's the first things to be reduced when the general mood is fear and uncertainty...??
A: Luxury items....
Be sure this has been engineered for some time with I suspect worse yet to come, so, instead of killing for the diminishing table scraps how about a little more innovation in the promotion thereof...??
Other than pouncing on the supposed greedy little internet hogs stealing music that is already stolen....
Also don't worry I've spent thousands of dollars at some of the sites you list... still doesn't change reality.
Another thing too, you seem hell bent on attacking progressive rock only... why so...?? (And, YES I can see what you're "company" is called) What about all the spotty faced kids ripping off modern music like you wouldn't believe... are you attacking them with the same $$$$ fervour...(I doubt it). You're picking on a marginalised selective sub genre these days and as years go by all you can expect is even more diminishing returns as people get older and buy even less.... there are very few younger ones interested in this music, let alone be willing to want to pay for it....
despite having an IQ of 165, I'm having a hell of a time following what you're saying or the connections you are making.
I suppose you either aren't capable of reading, or haven't read the many things we've said on this topic. Don't post music you don't have permission to post, it is that simple, and that is all we are doing.
"I find myself in, seems to me all you've done is paid a fee to secure a right to own/press CDs for your own profit... how does that give you the divine right of self importance to act as you do...??"
Why is it so hard to coexist with these blogs....??"
Hi Glad to not be,
I know this was not adressed to me, but I am, as PK, co-owner of a record label specialized in prog.
No. We are not paying a fee to secure a right to own/press CDs for our own profit. We do a hell of a lot more than that. We are in every way we can think of helping out and co-operating with the bands in their own interest.
"Why is it so hard to coexist with these blogs....??"
Because they are giving away the entire albums without asking for permission.
I think he means:
1- labels rip artists off and only want to fill their pockets with money
2- Downloading isnt harmfull and helps artists selling more cd's
3- If bloggers keeps getting attacked by label owners prog-music won't be around much longer
More or less the same blah blah...
My answers:
1- Don't generalise the labels.
2- Downloading is harmfull and this has been shown several times by people who have the knowledge and can back it up with reall figures.
3- Tons of bands indeed will quit making albums because it only costs them money and they can hardly sell anything since people rather packup the free version from a blog.
Gert
hansi said...
Hi Guys,
Every now and then the bloggers who host the illegal blogs
tell us that "if you only let us know you don't want your music
here we will remove it".
I have now, once again, sent 3 e-mails to a blog hosting
the new Galleon album kindly asking them to have it removed.
Result? Nothing.
It's still up.
I personally think that we should not have to search for our
illegally put up albums and then send friendly requests to have
them removed. The blogger should ask us before they put them up.
And, again, even when we send them requests they ignore it.
Thought you liked to know.
January 21, 2008 12:03 AM
hansi said...
Hello Fat Tony,
I see your point.
There is plenty of ways to download entire songs (the 30 sec snippet days are over).
And we are working on finding more ways to get 1-2 entire tracks out for free.
The first website for this is up and running at www.evergrey.fr
I have to say that I never get an e-mail or comment from someone before you proceed to those complaints..
What you have to say about it ?
I guess your answer is "you have to ask for permission" ?
Or you just afraid to contact me ?
I see you very often in comment sections of other blogs...but not in mine.
www.evergrey.fr ??????
You are pathetic Hansi.
Did you ever see me to have music like this in my blog ?
Or you just try to find cheap ways to promote your music ?
(Oups, a blog can't promote an artist/band)
A war you give, a war you'll get.
Have fun (or regards ?) LiT.
I've pretty much given up asking because there has never been a case where the blog owner was polite and did it, they either ignore us or tell us to get stuffed. I can't comment on your blog because it is private.
We'd love to have you promote artists and bands, just don't post their music without permission, and yes, you should ask for permission first.
"I have to say that I never get an e-mail or comment from someone before you proceed to those complaints..
What you have to say about it ?
I guess your answer is "you have to ask for permission" ?"
Yes. You have to ask for permission.
"Or you just afraid to contact me ?"
No. Should I be?
I just don't agree on the idea that you can take whatever you want and do whatever you want with it, and then hand over the responsability to the copyright owners and say that they must spend time and energy with finding blogs who stolen their music, and then have to send an e-mail to ask the owner to remove the content.
It should be the other way around.
You should ask for permission.
What I really don't understand is why that is so unthinkable.
"I see you very often in comment sections of other blogs...but not in mine."
I don't even know which one you run.
"www.evergrey.fr ??????
You are pathetic Hansi."
Thank you.
"Did you ever see me to have music like this in my blog ?"
How should I know.
Which blog do you run?
This entire post is a joke. My comments have been censored non-stop. I don't use profanity or slander. I'm just hoping to engage in some friendly debate with the people who run this site, but I am now unable to respond to anyone through this blog. If there's a forum I can post where any dissenting opinions won't be censored, please let me know.
Since you aren't signing your posts, I don't know who you are from what has been filtered, but I do know we're filtering stuff that has nothing to do with the discussion, if you're the one with the music blog that won't post what it is, then you're not engaging in a valid debate.
I haven't been signing my posts recently because it seems you are targeting a few individuals and silencing their opinions. Everything I have posted has been on topic, except for the ones when I asked you why my previous posts were censored.
You are completely wrong, obviously we are posting the great bulk of the posts, silencing dissent is not one of the reasons, nor is it because of certain people. If it isn't relevant or redundant, then I'm not posting it.
Pirate killer can lick my cheesy sweaty ball sack
"Pirate killer can lick my cheesy sweaty ball sack"
Your point? Anything related to the discussions we have? Or just showing the avarage attitude the downloading crowd seems to have?
Gert
I agree with Silencedagain. For the past week and a half I've been waiting for the message that I posted three times to appear. My comment was perfectly civil - certainly more than "lick my cheesy sweaty ball sack" but for some reason it's not being let through. If we're so wrong, why do you feel the need to cover up what we're saying?
From my perspective it seems like you just block posts that bring out points you can't come up with a response to. Shall I try posting my message yet again or will it just get blocked?
PK has been away for a couple of days. It seems that some of them has disappeared. One of mine f eks.
Try to post it again.
Tried a couple more times and still nothing. These posts are obviously getting through, so I don't see why my responses to your points shouldn't be allowed as well. It's really a shame if your position is so weak that you have to silence those who disagree with you.
no, actually you keep combining personal attacks with redundant points, so we're not letting that through, if you want to come up with a fresh idea and leave out the personal attacks, then that will go through.
It's kind of funny that you accuse me of "personal attacks" while at the same time wrongly accusing me of being a liar and a thief. I can't really defend my view anymore since you block all my attempts to do so, so I guess this discussion is over unless we can continue it somewhere with impartial moderation.
make a point that hasn't already been made and addressed then.
I tried again - this time specifically pointing out the new points in my post. Of course, it still hasn't been let through. I'm not going to stick around here anymore. Intelligent discussions clearly aren't the objective of this blog.
The only post by you was "I thought you don't allow redundant posts", which we didn't put through for obvious reasons. Never saw the post you are talking about.
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