Okay, so we've all had the discussion on whether piracy is utterly bad or helpful in the process of deciding to make the final purchase. Frankly, I'm sick of hearing about it. What I find more interesting and helpful for musicians are ways to battle or reduce piracy.

One idea I like is to add a DVD with the album, I'm not talking about those chunky digipaks with the DVD attached to the back, I'm talking about a proper DVD with full artwork. With a full concert worth of material and perhaps an additional making of the album. I like the idea of being able to put the music DVD with the rest of my movie collection and not having to unpack my CD's, you know, to treat it the way it ought to be treated. To gaze in awe at an extra case full of larger artwork that accompanies a different form of entertainment. To me, the way they do it with digipaks just looks rushed and kind of spoils the theme and impact of the album. I prefer not having the track list jumbled because of the extra text included on the back, not only that, but it spoils whatever artwork is featured on the back.

Another idea I like is getting a piece of merch with the CD. In the past with a couple of purchases I made, I went up to the counter and got a key ring, patch or sweatband. I found this really cool and they seemed like worthwhile items I could actually use. Although I was making a blind purchase and paying $25, I didn't feel like I was getting ripped off, I felt strongly enticed to buy it.

What are some of your ideas? What are some additional items you got that made a purchase worth every cent?

Why does everybody act like this is some big, fucking scientific mystery? Alright, you want to know how to efficiently combat piracy?

Here it is. Are you ready? Are you ready? Check this out:

Make the shit easier and quicker to acquire.

I just blew your goddamn fucking mind.

Essentially this.

You don't. Even before the internet we dubbed tapes and ripped shit from the radio. And since the dawn of the internet, I've seen many ways of piracy come and go like Limewire and the recent sopa/pipa scare. Does that mean piracy is right? Not necessarily, but trying to stop it is like beating a dead horse.

I don't agree. You may easily pleased with a stand alone item, I for one want more bang for my buck. Make the items more entertaining and people will be more enticed to buy it. Wow, I just blew your fucking mind.

Nope. We're quickly heading down an all-digital future. Make the product easier to acquire. Don't give me more shit I don't care about, or it will eventually just be a dust collector, unless it's a really rare piece that I could cherish in a special capacity, which it won't be that way when they mass produce ten-thousand copies and everybody has one, because of your stupid-ass idea.

So, no to your point.

Like a tshirt with a cum stain from one of the band members on it? And yeah, it's been done before.

It's a fun topic for discussion that involves creativity, just because you see everything in black and white doesn't make it so. Also, where does all the hostility come from? I've heard people discuss whether piracy is right or wrong countless times, but I haven't found them to entertain solutions. If some of you have discussed it repetitively, be respectful and remove yourself from the equation and let other MA users have their say.

He is right though. Labels are pushing faster and faster towards all digital distributing. And this isn't even about music, video games too. I know people who won't buy a game at all if it's not on Steam. In other words people want easy, fast access. But what iAm said, You can't stop piracy, it's not a new thing. It will never go away.

I'm aware you can't stop piracy. I think it's is possible to reduce it. I don't know of anyone who is purely for digital content and against buying physical formats, maybe that's a younger generation thing. The main thing I hear is it's too expensive for what you get, it's a rip-off, it's not worth the purchase because the CD is just music that you can get online and lacks the extra something.

I find it unlikely that the majority of people on this site think the way you do. Have you seen the lastest album purchases thread? Where I live, I would be hard pressed finding a metalhead who has similar feelings on the physical format as you do. Most metalheads actually enjoy having the physical item in their hands complete with glorious artwork, and that's the same case with any additional item that came with it, regardless of it being mass-produced or not. It's not so cut and paste as you think.

Netflix cut down a lot on my downloading of TV shows and movies.

A lot of downloading is done out of convenience, not deviant behavior. Streaming is more convenient than downloading so I prefer it when available.

All that's needed is a music service that lets you stream and play specific music whenever you want. Something similar to Pandora.

I know it's not out of deviance because you'd have to be crazy to not want to support the artists you love. That being said, why don't you buy albums? What's so unappealing about having the artwork and lyrics?

I do. I never said I don't support my favorite artists.

Itunes actually beats out the convenience of finding a working download for a song many times. But then Itunes is annoying at times and an inconvenient service. So it's iffy.

If they're awesome and I want to give them money, Itunes. If I'm sorta just curious to see if I'll like that band I'll just do a search online.

What I'm saying is that a convenient streaming service would cut down on downloads I'm sure.

That's true, it would surely make a difference. I just can't relate because I enjoy owning the physical copy of an album, it has importance to me. Looking through each page, reading the meaning behind a song or whatever else is there, looking at each different piece of artwork located on the back, front, CD and inlay, having something I can show off to my friends without the use of an electronic device. It's nice having it on the shelf like a book or a comic that I can pick up and enjoy without worrying about battery life or if the computer or Internet is acting up.

I think posters or patches or even stickers are still a great idea. They're something you can't just print off or copy so it's something worth buying along with the music, and they demonstrate your support for the band to other people, which is something metal fans appreciate a lot.

For me I just love it when an album I buy has decent liner notes. Lyrics at a minimum (although some bands don't publish them), pictures of the band, maybe them talking about certain songs and things like that. I've got some albums with great liner notes, and some with very poor ones. A booklet with a front, back, and 2 pages in the middle with fuck all in it.

Sometimes I get bonus dvd's with an album. I rarely if ever watch them. I got Scum by napalm death about a month ago and the other side of the disc is a documentary. I've listened to the cd 3/4 times, but not bothered with the dvd.

And bonus stuff would be cool: patches, posters or keyrings or whatever (I'm not a hardcore collector, I don't care if a 100,000 other people have the same keyring, I just like owning a CD collection and other cool merch). But you just know that bands would charge more for that.

Basically, internet piracy is going to hang around unless somebody manages to totally murder the internet, With illegal downloading, sales (at least in big artists) will never go back up, not only do you have the people who download and never buy, more importantly everyone will have heard the album before they have to pay for it, so simply being high profile and easily accessible to the masses isn't enough to guarantee success. Full album streams on a page where you get some advertising revenue is the only thing I can suggest for this, but even then, the restrictions of something streaming compared to a fully portable illegal file makes it far from a 100% effective measure. Small artists with great material actually do a little better with this set up though thanks to the free profile boost that can occur.

Well anyway, my partial solution to this unsolvable issue? Kill off stores. I love wandering around in record stores, I really do, but they are another now unneeded middleman in the chain of distribution. Quite simply, online distribution is infinitely easier when it comes to finding what you want (The draw back is obvious a couple of weeks wait time), and since it entirely removes the need to pay for many, many stores in terms of staffing, extra shipping and handling, and storefront rent the cost suddenly becomes material cost + label cut + artist cut, which is much cheaper. This is why $14 for a CD is robbery online, and a god damn bargain in a store. This is not a total solution of course, online MP3 sales is a necessary evil in getting money off people who can't wait/are implusively going to pick up individual songs/don't care about owning physical CDs. Physical albums will still appeal to a certain group, but I think the fact of the matter is that they're going to be most likely collector types in the near future, the added ease and the lack of any actual NEED for a physical product is going to be the way of the future, as much as I hate to admit it. And finally, there are people who are just going to download shit illegally because they just couldn't give a damn, and there is no getting that money, it's gone.

As for little bonus things and good booklets, I'd like to imagine that would help, but I can't really see the presence of little knick knacks really having THAT much of a shift, I mean, I love good booklets, but it is extremely rare that I'll buy something purely because it has good packaging, the music will still be the primary thing in determining purchases. The little bonuses will only shift the narrow group of people who collect physical editions, like the album in question, but not to a large enough amount that they would buy it anyway, but are close enough to wanting to buy it that the promise of a really well done booklet (Which they have no way of looking at if it is sealed in plastic) is enough to sent them over, and if there is a bonus guitar pick or patch or keyring etc, they need to be in the precise store which has obtained this special edition so as to get the impulsive draw of it. Basically, the goal here is to increase sales, so people who would buy it any way don't count, so instead it's all about the few people who would be swung from "don't buy" to "buy", which to me is a small percentage, certainly a smaller percentage than the people who don't buy anything, or the people who have been lost by being able to hear the full album in advance.

Bands should totally still put effort into their booklets though, make something to be proud of and make the fans happy.

If you asked me if I would love to own a remastered version of Spectrum Of Death on CD in a nice, small casing with some extras thrown in, I'd probably say yes, because that's an amazing record and an absolute classic. I don't need fucking Overkill's, The Electric Age in a physical format. The affinity for old records, I get. But new, shit? No. All digital, all fucking day. A fifteen-page digital booklet is enough for me. I don't need any more crap that's going to make it hassle for when I move next. In the end that's what it is. I live a relatively portable lifestyle, where digital makes sense, and now that I have gone almost entirely digital, I never fucking want to go back to physical formats. It turns into wasted space.

Because, for all intents and purposes, I'd be paying $20 for artwork and lyrics.

Hell no.

+ make the releases cheaper (especially blu-ray and computer games) and stop these countless version hypes: limited edition, ultra edition, vber-trve-fan-boy-edition etc.

It also should be noted that a lot of digital downloading happens outside of the metal genre (probably most of it.) That still leaves the majority of metal fans buying physical copies, more than the ones who download.

I still buy CDs, but I plan to acquire a turntable in the near future, and when I do I'm switching to vinyl and downloads only. No more CDs.

Ever hear the "vinyl sounds better" cliche? Technically, it's not true, but a lot of albums released on vinyl are mastered differently than their digital counterparts, and the vinyl masters are usually superior because they aren't brickwalled. Plus, CDs will rot eventually (CD-Rs even faster), while a vinyl record that has been stored and cared for properly will last much longer.

Quite simply, I don't see the need to pay extra for the plastic case and tiny booklet for a CD that will be u. If I want the artwork, I'd rather have the bigger vinyl variant. The main thing I'm after is the music, and I can get exactly what's on the CD by downloading.

I don't understand your choices at all. Why would you stop buying CDs, start buying vinyls, and still download music?

You know you can rip DVDs onto your computer and then upload them online for people to download.

I think it all comes down to attitude in the end, there's no way you can combat piracy, artwork and booklets can be scanned, dvds ripped, and I don't think there's much people worried about getting über-rare merch or stuff they'll only look at once and then throw in a closet.
All you can do is get people to honestly want to support you. I buy albums (or make donations sometimes if the albums is available for free) because I want the musician(s) involved to be able to keep doing their shit. Be it investing in better equipment, studio recording, being able to raise the money to press a second album or spending it all on drugs and hookers, as long as it helps the artist I like to keep releasing the music I dig (or programmers to keep coding in the case of software), I'll be glad to put some of my money down for their albums.

Maybe it's just me, but if for whatever reason everything did move towards 100% digital distribution, I would begin pirating. With a physical copy, I feel like my money actually went towards something that I truly own. You know, I can look at it, touch it, open it, put it wherever I want... It's mine. With digital copies though, I don't feel like I actually paid for anything. My bank account decreases and I get what, an immaterial file? I just need something physically there to reassure my subconscious. Not to mention that many things purchased digitally are total rip-offs, with artificially inflated prices (take one look at the prices for a DD video game vs. a physically boxed video game, and you'll see what I mean).

I would probably still pay for metal, because after all most bands earn jack-shit and need all the monetary support they can get, but I would never pay for another video game or movie again.

Correct. I only own about 10 MP3s. I like to have a physical release and say 'Hey, I got this, I bought this'. And with digital downloads it's just a simple file that you can't really brag about.

...Why do you feel the need to brag about owning a CD?

"Whoo-hoo! Now I can't create a shuffling mix playlist of all the music I own because no machine can hold 1200+ CDs!"

CDs are cool to own because there's nothing like holding a CD in your hand - that can never be replicated. But with the ever growing presence of iPods and other such devices, downloads are becoming more and more practical.

As for piracy, well, that's never going to stop. I agree with FasterDisaster about making things more readily available. Better prices might be good too, although a lot of metal distros aren't too bad about that, so eh, prolly just my own cheapness. I download a lot, but I also buy whenever I get the chance, so eh, no skin off my nose.

If labels could re-release certain albums, that would help.. If you really get into a band, and want to hear their earlier work, what do you do when it's not available anymore? And what about bands that release an album in 4 different "special editions" ? If you're like me, then there are bands of which you want to have everything they ever sold.. but with labels not making the discs anymore, and bands releasing an album multiple times with different bonus content? Ugh..

Don't get me wrong, I won't shove that information to a stranger's face. However, If a buddy of mine comes in I'd like to show him my collection and say "See, this is my collection and I'm proud of it". It doesn't really have the same effect when showing a playlist on my iPod.

For one, bands and labels need to stop bitching about piracy- that only ever backfires. And it should pretty much be standard for all albums to come with posters or some other goodies. Oh, and the overall price of CD's needs to come the fuck down a bit. $18 for a new album still seems kinda ridiculous to me. Maybe there isn't as much of a profit margin as I'm imagining, but still...

Obscurity is a far bigger problem than piracy. Even if people were buying CDs for $10,000 each, if no one has heard of you, you're not gonna be making any money. If someone downloads a band's album, they shouldn't see this as a threat, they should see it as an opportunity. If that person who downloaded your album really likes it, they'll be more likely to go to your concerts and buy your merch.

You have to reverse the fucking despicable "ART SHOULD BE FREE" and "I DESERVE THIS!" mentality of this piece of shit generation. We are the first generation to feel completely and utterly entitled to whatever we want, and actually have some sort of say in what artists do. We mask our selfish stupid fucking mentality with dumb-ass ideas like "no intellectual property!" and "piracy is good for publicity!". It doesn't matter how you slice it, your taking something someone put effort into and negating all the effort.

Art is labor, and one should be paid for labor. This is what this dumb generation needs to get through its head. We want artists to continue, but never want them to be able to. All of you saying you should get more for your dollar? Why? How do you feel that entitled to something outside of the artistic vision? They don't owe you patches, shirts, shorts, usb drives, whatever. You pay FOR THE ART and so they can CONTINUE TO MAKE ART. Nothing more. If artwork is that big of a deal, it's kind of silly. I support awesome artwork, I understand marketing and selling, but you are essentially just paying for music.

Anyway, you can't stop it until people realize that piracy is fundamentally bad for art as a whole. Publicity aside, there's nothing positive about it.

What about the people that can't afford to buy CDs, but want to appreciate the art? What do you say to those people? If you have the means to buy a release, buy it, support the artist. But If you can't afford it for whatever reasons, you are okay in my book to 'get it'.

It depends on the artist then. If they have a problem with it, they are entitled to have a problem with it. If not, then go for it. But there are plenty of people who can't afford a lot of things Ralf, and when they "get it" it's called theft.

PhilosophicalFrog hit the nail on the head. It's ridiculous how entitled we've become. We try to argue, but that's all it is, bullshit entitlement.

Yes, we can call it theft, but stealing mp3s is not the same thing as stealing a loaf of bread. The physical support of an album is only one of the way a musician can make money, if you download their music but buy merch and go to their shows instead, are you still a thief? If you pay a beer to the singer, etc... The physical format is a stereotypical and possibly archaic support, even if I and others think it's a sad thing. Music is not tangible, but the musicians are and they are the one who needs all the financial help, be it donations on their bandcamp or money from tours/shows. The industry changed and will continue to change.

Still downloading an album when you can pay for it is to be condemned, I download a lot but I buy when I can (not often these days, I'm afraid )