I agree with your sentiment on the physical format. I'm a GIANT proponent of bandcamp, because musicians get like 85 cents on the dollar. But, I do feel that one is still a thief of sorts (albeit, a more noble thief ) when not paying for the music and still going to the tour. I mean, they tour tons to make up the bulk of their money....and if we actually paid the band for their art....they may not have to bust their balls two years at a time?

I know how you feel. The reason why I download all my music is because I have more important things to spend my money on, like food.

I agree with this because you're still getting the album and all your money is going directly to source, not some small measly percentage. This is actually how I've bought my CDs over the course of the last few years. I love that the artists I'm supporting will actually feel the effect of my purchase, rather than some record company hogging all the profits. What's waiting a couple of weeks when you don't have to go back and forth to a store that is constantly out of stock of your particular item. Sure, it means less jobs, but it's too much of an unreliable and over priced source to stay.

Press vinyl and tapes, make the album available for free download. If a band is worth its listen, fans will buy the physical copies despite the free download because they feel it's that important to them.

Guys, when we say digital distribution, we're talking about legal digital distribution, not piracy. I don't think anybody is going to argue for wanting everything for free. I'm saying digital distribution should be easier than it is now. It should be quicker and cheaper to get. It should be Bandcamp: two clicks and I'm already downloading.

Everything should be available via download for less than $10 per album. I really, really, really do not want to make an account on a tiny dealer's website in order to get The Slow Death's II. In CD format. With DRM. In .wma.

Also don't get me wrong. I don't pirate music at all. All my music is in physical format, which I bought. I am STRONGLY against pirating music, and MP3's to the extent where I won't collect the format (Won't download, legally or not). I don't feel as strong about piracy when it comes to film or video games, unless the publishers/directors really deserve it, but than again it's my opinion then. Since we are talking about formats, I would like to see efforts for better quality and a bigger bang for your buck aimed both ways, for those that buy physical formats and those that download. And also what Antoine said, downloading a song/movie file is different than stealing a loaf of bread.

Art cannot be reduced to the labor that went into creating it. Yes, most artists and their fans exist in a system where the production of art requires a certain degree of financial stability, so they must earn money if they want to continue creating art. However, piracy is not the only revolution in the industry brought about by cheap computers and the internet. It is easier than ever to record and distribute your own music, lowering the initial investment required (and, as a result, the need for the traditional record label, but that's another discussion for another time). Piracy is not a simple black and white morality issue. It has to do with drastic changes in the way information is shared, and our current understanding of intellectual property is not sufficient to account for it. I'm not saying that intellectual property needs to be abolished. I don't know how I feel about the issue, although I am suspicious of the concept of property in general.

In my case I would be a real hardass and push my merch in with the cd. Obviously the CD can be acquired for free. A pirated CD might as well be a demonstration of the band to the user and if they like the band. They can get in with the merch. I mean you can use grooveshark and other programs to try and push your music out at a fair price. Otherwise, focusing on getting known and pushing out shirts seems to be a great way to make a decent amount of money. This is for the bands lacking a label.

i agree with who ever said including merch is a good idea, for example, southernlord records has alot of fairly priced bundles where you can buy a cd and shirt for $22 or so. il also agree that sometimes cd's arent the easiest to obtain in some cases, at the same time, alot of piracy is done by kids who listen to mainstream scene shit who generally dont even make an effort to walk far enough into the mall to find a record store.

Bandcamp is great I think, it allows for indentured digital distribution, and allows for physical distribution. So when a band who can only get 1000 or so cd's/vinyl/tapes created runs out, the material can be bought digitally and you can still support the band.

(I will honestly miss the feeling of walking into a record store in 30 years)

Hmm, the old piracy debate. Personally, I buy everything because it gives me more incentive to actually listen to what I received. I never fully understood why this is for me.

Tools like iTunes already work pretty well to reduce piracy. I like to buy CDs, but there are some times when it is easier and much more affordable to hop on iTunes on my phone, and download the songs straight to my iPhone. Makes me a happy chappy.

Another way to reduce piracy that bands can get involved in - I think - is allowing people to sample their stuff in some way. Having one or two songs (or more) available for streaming (In their entirity) up on youtube, facebook, or their website really helps. Downloadable can help more. You could argue people will just then stream from them and never bother to purchase the full album, but I'd wager that it is more effective than having nothing really out there, resulting in people deciding to download your stuff illegally to check it out, and then not bothering to go the extra mile and buy it.

Oh...god...you're one of those...

I'm an idealist and a visionary person so my analysis of the problem would be less technical like yours.

My analysis is quite long but I promise its worth the read.

First I look at the problem and then the solution. Why Piracy exists in the first place? Is piracy equal to theft, if it is why does it have a different name?

I think piracy is driven to obtain something in order to use. We dont "steal" music through a website for a financial gain. We want to obtain something for free because we dont want to pay the high price or we dont value it. If each album was worth 2-3$, believe me you would buy them rather than looking on mediafire.

The question is why we dont want to pay the high price or why dont we value it. I took pop music course at my college and we were talking on when LP's came out around the 60's. People would buy them as a gift for x-mas and then everyone gather to listen to it. It had significant value because it was very expensive (its like buying a Parker pen for 150$ as a gift) and it had a meaning. The music was motivated by music not by money. Music was rare.

Today due to technology and globalization and youtube and itunes music is loosing its value and significance. It doesnt mean the quality of musicians who are honestly playing music for the sake of music went down in quality. The overall industry is looking at a monetary reward rather than an artistic push which music is all about. The expression of feelings through music. This is why metal is more leaning to that side because its about expression - we all can agree that bands like In Flames said to themselves that they rather have a bigger house and a fancier car so they create music that is motivated selling more albums and shows for the masses.

A great example is I open wikipedia, open the metal section and see all the albums that were released on each and every date in the year 2011 - its hundreds of albums. And thats a quite small market comparing to pop, alternative, rock, rap, electro, country, folk bla bla bla bla

Now back to your solution, artists do what they want if they want too - many artists want a big car and a house, I do not blame them at all. That means they dont want to create a fancier digi pack or give away a patch or create "value" to the customer. They know that if they can sell 10 times more albums because its a well oiled machine then they would do it. If tomorrow I get a chance to work with Justin Bieber and get paid 100 times more than I do now with a local Torontonian band, I would do it. Sorry.

Most people who value metal, blues, folk, gospel, do purchase the albums and do support the artist and piracy doesnt affect them much because people respect it and they will not use piracy. And buy their merch at the concert, and go see them more than once and pay the money to support them.

All this talk about piracy hurting the music industry is the exact copy of the financial mortgage fiasco with the banks in 2008. Greed does not mix well with anything, I feel that greed is driving the music industry into piracy. Maybe i'm wrong, its my opinion but thats how I feel. Fixing the industry would fix piracy by itself.

Cut out the controlling intermediaries (through sites like bandcamp), and more people will pay, knowing they are directly supporting the bands.
When you take away the personalisation and see music not as what it is (art) but just a commodity, people become disattached toward the whole buying process, making it easier for them to justify that it's ok in taking it (?).

So you're in favor of Bandcamp being taken away?

It's already been mentioned pretty much, but make the music easier to get and listen to. Take away the DRM restrictions -- allow me to take my music wherever I want. An easy, searchable database with the option to download and/or stream music. Fair compensation to the artists. Bandcamp is pretty damn awesome in this regard and I wish more metal labels would jump on the chance to put their catalog on there. Relapse has already put their entire catalog (current and legacy) on Bandcamp.

Spotify is another good music resource for streaming music.

To be put simply: make an album worth buying. People will download it from blogs or torrents, you can't really do anything about it (labels couldn't, the US government was bounced back multiple times, etc.). If I fall in love with an album (and have money for it at the moment) I buy it. The other possibility: the band already earned my respect and they release some rare (live) stuff from the past, I'll get it in physical format.

@OP
DVDs can be pirated as well, some even with the booklet included. I've come across some downloads that had everything (FLAC audio or DRM-free DVD image + high res scans).

This. I would add that people want to get for free anything if they can. People it's just like that, taking all what they can if no one stops them.

People saying 'release an album worth buying', that means that if you won't buy, you won't store the downloaded files either? cause I find extremely hypocrital to rant about the quality and price if you're planning to get it anyway,
Like saying: that shit it's not good, in fact I'll steal it cause it's not good enough to spend my money on it.

Here (Chile) most (and I'm talking about 70%, if not more) metalheads don't own more than 10 albums. From people I've known, very, very few have some cd's from their fav bands and the very minority has a decent collection. We actually have the 'little mp3-metalhead' adjective for them.

(Note: I do have some mp3, mostly are backup of my own cd's, a small part of them is composed for albums I like and I couldn't find a physical copy or it doesn't exist). I don't store mp3 files of albums I don't like.

How to reduce piracy? Release vinyl and tapes only. MP3s of vinyl and tape-only releases are far harder to find on peer-to-peer websites, since it's more complicated to rip them, let alone rip them properly. Not to mention cassettes are a cheaper alternative to CDs, as well as cheaper shipping. If you're worried about tapes not being too reliable, possibly jamming, just dub the original into another tape. As for vinyl? Surely your dad or grandpa has an old dusty record player in the attic.

And if I may make a point that might make you wanna disembowel me, the reason why old(er) metalheads scorn us younguns for piracy is because we can pirate music much easier than they could. As far as I can tell, there was absolutely no objection to tape trading and home taping back in the 80s, no one really gave a damn about "supporting the artist". And am I seriously supposed to believe that a bunch of fukks who don't give a fukk like Seth Putnam or the dudes from Sadistik Exekution wouldn't have pirated music in the 80s if the Internet existed? Hell, I remember an old interview from Metallica how they said that in their homes they got a wall ceiling-to-floor covered in bootlegged and pirated tapes, and they said the reason why Metallica are so great is because they take inspiration from all that stuff. Eh, what do I know. In 20 years time I'll probably go into a depression from thinking about how stupid I was. But that's a problem for future-me.

No, you're basically correct. The real issue that most people who even understand it instinctively yet can't articulate is that downloading makes the process so easy that without enforcing an expenditure of time and effort on the part of the downloader that it fosters an idealist, consumption based perspective which is destructive to the downloader's capacity to properly appreciate and participate in metal as a full process of social interaction, acquisition, manual operation of the medium and ultimate enjoyment which many (perhaps rightly) consider integral to the maintenance of metal as an art form and social practice.

Read what he said again. He's offering up Bandcamp as a solution, not the problem.

I did read it, but it's confusing as hell. He said to cut them out, and then said, "through sites like Bandcamp," which implies they are an intermediary. Besides, I did ask him just to confirm. You don't need to reply all snarky.

Since discovering bandcamp last year, I have made many purchases. Every day new stuff is added. Great site.

Well, when I replied, I thought *you* were being snarky. Nevermind.

Eliminating snark and presumptions of snark is the first step towards universal understanding and total elucidation.

You should realize that even if vinyl or cassettes were still in regular use these days, there would still have been bootlegs and other illegal releases (regardless of format). And plus, CDs are more convenient for lossless backups -- not something easily said for analog. The .mp3 format is intended for a lost generation of people who don't truly value their music and thus sacrifice sound quality for the sake of convenience (on sites like last.fm or Pandora). Until more labels start selling .flac files, I refuse to be a part of digital distribution.

It's no wonder vinyl lovers typically stick to .mp3s for digital (instead of .wav or .flac) since both formats are lossy.

Then you shouldn't be allowed to get the music you seek. You are not entitled to that music. If you are too poor to afford it, get in a better circumstance to be able to afford it. That's like stealing a car because you want to visit your girlfriend but you don't have the money to pay for a car, gas, or a cab. fuck you




There are hundreds of LP rippers that can automatically make high bitrate mp3s. So wrong on that.
I don't know if you actually have released a tape before or cd... but in my experience it's cheaper to release cds.. 1.75 per cd compaired to 1.80 a tape. and it's actually cheaper in shipping. for me to send one cd it's 1.50. to send a tape... 1.75.

Fucking goddamn right. You hit the fucking nail on the head.

off:

I have never seen that before. did you just make it or was it already created? and honestly... no i wouldn't I worked to get my first car and I appreciated it more.

Wait...You're being serious here?

He's right. Listening to music isn't a right, it's a privilege. Not that I don't download stuff (I even put some songs on YouTube) but the best ones land in my collection.


This is some years old, it's a parody of an anti-piracy ad.

The "some people can't afford it" argument is pretty flawed. If you're downloading something that you fully acknowledge you would buy and keeping it permanently for free, that is flat out theft, since the artist IS missing out on a sale. If you can't afford $10 for a CD, you probably shouldn't be able to afford such a nice download limit for your internet. This is coming from someone who downloads like a maniac, but if you're going to try and justify it, use a better justification.

This. Also I think it's a digital formats in general phenomenon. 20 years ago, if I spent months searching for a tape, possibly paying too much and waiting forever for it to arrive, you'd better fucking believe I listened to it the whole way through. With CDs and Mp3s, you can easily skip through the boring intro tracks and parts of songs you don't like, which probably lessens your familiarity with the release as a whole. In a way, I see a lot of albums these days as collections of individual songs, rather than a cohesive whole.

But yeah, as for downloading, if it's too easy to get whatever you want in a matter of seconds, I'm not sure that helps people appreciate it. You could get online and download 200 metal albums tonight, but you sure as hell don't have time to listen to them all carefully.

Personally, I like real releases because I like having the booklet (the few times I legally bought mp3 albums, I felt deeply ripped off because I just had mp3s), looking at lyrics, photos, drawings, whatever in it. Also, I'm prone to computer problems and not prone to backing shit up, so I am always losing any mp3s I have (but despite computer problems, all my real releases remain on my shelf). I also tend to forget I have mp3 albums, because I can't look at the shelf and see it.

Re: "some people can't afford it." Do you think people were all made of money before the internet? No. If we couldn't afford 100 albums, we didn't get them, most of the time. Even when you consider tape trading, which I did, it takes a long time to dub a tape and mail it or bring it to someone's house. It's quite a bit different from downloading mp3s, which you can make infinite copies of. Tape copies were limited by time, resources (blank tapes, source tape or LP), and this is one reason I don't think the argument that tape trading is the same as downloading mp3s is a valid argument. Even then, you picked and chose carefully and usually didn't do it in large volume.

The "can't afford it" argument is flawed because it assumes you are entitled to a release whether you can afford it or not, and as I said before, in the past if you couldn't afford it, you did without until you could afford it. Or you went to a friend's house who had it and listened with them on their stereo. But you didn't say "I can't pay but I should have it anyway" so much.

And Frog said. Now, I don't have band but I do make some of my income from art. On behalf of anyone who does do anything artistic, I'd like to say: We have to eat, too. We have bills to pay, too. So why is it that art should be free and everyone is entitled to it? This is not a very respectful attitude toward artists is all.

csehszlovakze that's for the info, I never knew. Lol even though it's a meme it re-enforces the belief that this generation of worthlessness honestly thinks they deserve everything just because their mom shat them out.

and yes ralfikk123 I am serious and looking at the further comments I'm not alone in that feeling.

circleofdestruction... 100% backed. and i wasn't even taking from the perspective from the artist. since I do release and create for the sake of creating. But I do appreciate every dollar I get off of what I make cause all i do is turn around and sink it and even more into releasing and creating more so others can enjoy it as well

Yeah, I understand that, and it's why I often do artwork for not much more than the cost of materials and shipping if I'm in the right mood(but I would be upset if everyone suddenly decided they deserved to have me work for them for nothing; if I charge or not should be up to me, I think.). However, I was on another board and they were talking about why they think it's ok to pirate any videogame (even indie games), and I reminded them that, for some, that's their fucking job, and if no one pays them for it, talented game designers will be broke and you won't have any good games to play. (Still, mostly talking about independent, small companies.) And like you said about sinking any money back into your projects. I'm sure a lot of musicians take what little money they get and buy better gear, put it into releasing more merch, and other things that can eventually be appreciated by the consumer in some way.

Hell it was actually done to me, were a piece I drew up for a 3 way split that fell apart. one of the bands already had their songs completed so they just went on and used the artwork. I didn't find out about it till someone linked a video for a song of their ep that I saw the artwork. Hell all I asked for was a copy of the cd for my own collection and I didn't get anything for it. that's pityful, and sadly that's not the first time all I asked for was a copy of the shirt or release the art is going to be on and I don't get anything in return

Yep, let us not listen to anything ever again unless we pay for it. I am completely sure that'll do wonders for the new artists who want to get their music known! In fact, let us scorn those same listeners for downloading -- they certainly don't like the music if they don't buy it!

Twist it however you want. I grew up in a time if I couldn't afford it I didn't get it. There wasn't plenty of avenues to sample an album like there are now. Plenty of bands make that choice to put their material out as free downloads if they want but plenty also choose not to. If you disagree that's okay, you are going to be insulted and there is no need for you to get jealous of us who actually can afford it. regardless of your reasons be it you are poor, have a shitty job, at university or whatever.