Went to best buy last week to get the new six feet under and their selection is much smaller than at least a year ago(when I was last there). That, Cannibal corpse, and Deicide, are the only physical copies Ive bought in the past year. Wasn't worth it to me. The trailers showed everything inside and Ive lost lots of interest in lyrics. As far as piracy, one of my annoyances, is how certain artists complain about it, yet theyre making shitty music(ahem, david vincent).

Pirating and bootlegging has been around forever. Back in the 70's Led Zeppelin were bootlegged to buggery. In the 80's, the cassette made everything much easier to counterfeit, bootleg and trade. Piracy isn't a new problem, its been around as long as record distribution has. The means has varied over the years, but the premise of free music has stayed the same. Several people have cited the tape trading era as a great example. The bands made no money off of traded tapes, yet these bands still gained fame from said trading. Today, every fucker downloads, and those that say they don't download are liars. Downloading today is the result of ever evolving technology. Its easier today to acquire music thn it was back on the tape trading era, but the premise remains much the same. People who download still support music, they'll still go to shows, and buy merch. The continued success of tours and festivals is a citation to this point. Bands never made much money off of record sales anyway, only a few ever make a living off of record sales. This is why many second tier bands tour every year. Bands such as Motorhead, Overkill. Morbid Angel need to tour to make money. Most people here are fans of all these bands, and most have heard each bands latest releases. But how many of the people here paid for The World is Yours, Illud Divinum Insanus or The Electric Age? Almost none I'm sure, yet every time these bands come to town, you'll go to their show. This is the music business today. To those who think otherwise, reality sucks, life isn't fair, deal with it.

Well said but let's not assume downloading is the same as bootlegging. There are greater consequences to music downloading which I find favorable. In my opinion bootlegging didn't do enough to kill the record. With instant free music the album is totally devalued and becomes more like a demo for a live performance, so bands have to put on a great live show if they want to endear themselves to fans. The live act returns to its rightful place as the quintessential music experience, replacing the record, an old dead relic of the past. This means a refocusing on instrumental mastery, virtuosity and showmanship that can't be simulated by studio knob-twiddling.

I don't listen to recorded music any more. It's boring, and always was - a second-class replacement for the energy and atmosphere of the live performance.

What.

The way to combat piracy is make your album available. I'm serious.

I know of a lot of 1980s bands that put new albums recently, either new material or comps with all their old stuff on CD, which is collectors items and would cost hundreds to get the original vinyl. A lot of these become unavailable in just 2 or 3 years, then they pop up on ebay for 50$ or more, which is ridiculous. In my opinion this encourages piracy.

And this example can be valid for other types of metal, for example some recent black metal.

Then I also know of a 1980s band with a recent album, available in several places for sale, but no samples anywhere.

So the best is to put several songs on youtube so people can sample the album, also put links where people can buy it.

I don't think you have any idea how difficult it can be to reissue some older albums... it's not in the band's hands most of the time.

Bandcamp is fucking awesome. Great way to both find and support bands/artists. For example, I did a tag search for sludge metal. Then, sorted by newness. With 6 clicks I brought up 6 bands I never heard before. What's real great is the control tthe artists have over their shit. For example:

http://coffinworm.bandcamp.com/album/gr ... night-2012

Coffinworm have this up online, you can't download it but it is indeed streaming right there, instant listening. Also right there is a link to buy the vinyl edition. With 1 click,you're listening, and if you like it, you can have it bought and shipping with another few clicks. Then there's bands like this one:

http://grantedearth.bandcamp.com/album/nomad

Granted Earth have their album up for "name your price" downloading. You can pay fuck-all, a buck, whatever. Plus a link to get the CD version if you crave physical media. Great price, too.

/end bandcamp fellating

All my music is available "name your price" with no minimum on Bandcamp (see signature). I choose to make it freely available because I want to find listeners sympathetic to my work, and the only way to do this is to respect their need to listen (possibly many times in many contexts) before choosing whether or not to commit money. I would prefer an informed decision not to give me money to an uninformed decision to give me money. This is how I would like to be treated as a listener and it is the only way I am willing to present my work as an artist.

Also, I very much hope that people who can't afford to pay for my music download it for free. Placing artificial limitations on access to culture based on income only serves to promote obscurity and stifle innovation.

I don't think people are really complaining about the piracy of old out of print albums, I'm pretty sure everyone would agree that's a good thing.

There have been studies that have shown that the people who pirate the most music also buy the most music. There are always people who will steal everything and never give a dime to the artists, but many of us have great deal of respect for the craft and will pay to help them out.

We're not buying less because of piracy, we're buying the same (if not more) and listening to more than we buy. That's ultimately what piracy is about for many people - discovery. I listen to everything I download (usually - I've got a pretty large backlog I have to work through right now), and a lot of it is stuff I never would have been exposed to without the ability to download it. Yes, streaming is an option, but I lack a smartphone, which means I can't stream it on the go, so I have to download and sync it to my iPod. Many great albums are ones that grow on you after repeated listens, and piracy still offers the best way to do that.

Someday, when I have the money, I'd love to go through my music library and either buy or delete everything I've pirated. I know I can't get all of it, because so much is out of print.

Unfortunately, the majority of music pirates don't share my feelings on the subject, and won't bother paying to support the artist. It sucks to be in the minority in this case, because the musicians really do deserve better.

I fully agree with you. The way I see it, there are two kinds of pirates. First, there are the people who want free stuff no matter what, regardless of their economic situation. To go after these people is a waste of time and money. Then there are the people who want to buy your work, but they can't, either because they can't afford it or because they can't find any legitimate options.

One of these days, when I get the money, I too will buy physical copies of the albums I really, really love.

And third type of people, who have the money to buy everything they hear, but find the ability to test everything else out in advance too alluring, and then only buy the stuff they like.

Actually, this makes sense. You don't want to spend 15 dollars on an album that may turn out to be a piece of shit, so it helps to have the ability to listen to it before you buy a physical copy of it.

That's pretty much what I do (I know streaming is capable of the same thing, but my internet streams terribly, and I get two nights a week I can use a computer with internet for music, downloaded files let me make use of my 700kms of driving a week). As such it means the best way to prevent my piracy is to make great music. While I like to consider this pretty morally fine, there is a little issue where of kills band loyalty for me. Take Moonsorrow's new one (Ignoring the fact that without illegal downloading I wouldn't have bought the stuff of theirs that I have), without downloading in advance it would have been an instant loyalty purchase, but since I listened first and found out it sucked I didn't buy it. So technically they did miss a sale they would have gotten, although they didn't deserve it.

Sell singles, and sell cheap. Remember that for half of the history of recorded music, the single ruled. You didn't buy whole LPs all at once, and nor did you pay $$ for them. You bought the good stuff you heard on the radio, you bought just the songs you wanted, and got a b side with it. And they were cheap.

It was pure commercialism that made record companies start to bundle the good songs with lots of filler, simply because they could sell a long play record for a lot more. Didn't take long before many albums started to consist of maybe three singles, plus filler, and they cost 10 times as much as a single did.

Wasn't much of anything anyone could do about it. But now there is. Once again people can acquire just the songs they want. Many people buy tracks legitimately from places like iTunes, but it's also reasonably easy to download them elsewhere for free. People can also download entire albums before they shell out a dime, which if you ask me is perfectly normal consumer backlash against the decades long practice of making the consumer pay $20 for three (or two, or one) good songs. And the record companies hate this, because they're being forced back to the practice of being able to sell just singles. And instead of adapting, they fight against it with every fiber of their being, and for good measure refer to their main consumer base as "pirates".

Well, fuck you too. I'm real sorry your business model is failing, but you have trained us our entire lives not to trust that the album you're pushing is worth the price. Time and time again, the catchy song on the radio turns out to be literally the only catchy song among 8 or 10 of them, and we find ourselves tricked yet again into shelling out $20 for one fucking good song. That's why we download.

People need to stop saying albums these days are expensive. $18, $20 for albums? Huh? Where??

I bought the new Testament album at Bestbuy for....get this.....$7.99.

Months before I purchased new Overkill, and Dream Theater for $9.99 and a bunch of others. The most expensive new album I bought within the last year was the latest Edguy album, which was $12.99.

Stop bitching. CD's are very cheap these days compared to 10 plus years ago.

http://earache.com/uswebstore/product_i ... fr0v92uoi3 *Cough*

28 bucks If I want the non 100 pressing edition, 32 If I do.

That's a vinyl record, not a CD.

Here's the problem, though. If the album turns out to be complete shit, then you've just wasted $8. If anything, downloading an album helps the consumer make a more informed decision.

If a burger tastes bad you've wasted five dollars, if a liquor makes you sick you've wasted 15 dollars, if a book is lousy you've wasted seven dollars....we should get free samples at all restaurants and bars and be able to read entire novels before we buy them!

Fuck yeah! In an ideal world *rolls eyes*

Cleveland has an excellent library system, you know.

It will be benign to both the music industry and its customer to obtain a nimble preemptive system to hinder spreading of a stolen product, whereas changing morals can be very onerous. There are inceptions for that - the police and law, but they are not funded well enough (the ways to prevent intellectual property theft are not scrutinized well with due diligence by these either). These days, most copyright holders, even if they have money for a lawyer, are even afraid to detect and oppose any occurrence of piracy, mostly owing to the aftermath of the general public reprobating the author himself or the designated company or person after such legal act is initiated and enforced.
Buying music is very accessible these days: one can merely walk into a store and choose a selection of record media to test inside the shop before the final purchase.

What artists and labels want is to sell more albums. Fighting piracy is a very poor way to do that. The end.

Food and drink isn't an art form made entirely for entertainment. And what bookstore have you been to where you don't see people picking up books and reading them? Some people actually sit there all day reading books, but regular people do read a sample of it to see if they like it.

I recently bought the new Testament, Overkill, and finally Anthrax albums on amazon. I used two codes and paid $7 each for Testament and Overkll, and right now, Anthrax is $5. At that price, I thought "what the hell". I downloaded all of them when they leaked.
There have been a few albums Ive downloaded and deleted very soon after. The new Nile and Morbid Angel. I couldnt get into Nile and knew Id soon forget about it and Morbid Angel...well, we all know what happened there.

You would spend $8 bucks to see a movie, would you expect a refund if you didn't like it? Isn't finding out if you like something part of the entertainment? Why can't people expect to take some responsibility for their choices.
There are plenty of ways to sample music, soundcloud, youtube, bandcamp etc.

If people insist they've got to download an entire album before they can make an informed decision whether or not to buy it, I'd question their motive.

Cleveland does indeed have a wonderful library system. Other than that, all other arguments are ridiculous. Claiming your entitled to know whether or not you'd enjoy a thing before purchase is inherently odd.

You call it entitlement, when in reality, it's the consumer expressing his newfound power. Before the internet, the consumer was at the mercy of the entertainment industry. The consumer has the power now. No longer are they forced to buy an album full of shit just to listen to one song they like.

Try telling that to people who live in small towns that don't have record stores.

Your argument has holes. These people can order stuff from the internet now and listening to samples is like listening to it in the record store, it's not much different. It's more available now because of the power of the net, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily have to pirate the albums, even if you're a kid who can't buy on the internet, I'm sure your parents can do it for you, eh. Nothing is always black and white.

Thanks, I haven't noticed...

Since I live out in the sticks purchasing albums from the store(unless it's Walmart ) is pretty much not an option. Have to resort to the web if I want anything good, although yardsales have yielded some interesting old prog stuff.

I do favor the physical release (I can see why some bands/labels are going digital though), but I'll pay $8.99 to download on amazon before I shell out $25 to someone on eBay to get a hard to find CD. The artwork and everything is nice to have, but I care most about the actual music. If some independent band wants to put all their money into the actual recording rather than the packaging of cd's, that's fine with me too.

I used to download alot, but not so much anymore. With the mp3's I do have, I tend to go down my winamp and systematically buy everything I loved particularly. But mostly I check out a few songs on Youtube, last.fm, or Spotify to determine if I like it enough to put it on my 'buy list'. Youtube for me personally is like mp3.com was back in the day. It's introduced me to so many bands, that I later bought albums from.

Oh, and I second Bandcamp, and also wanna mention BigCartel. it's a webstore alot of independent bands use in which they receive a high percentage (not sure of the specifics) of every dollar.

I was curious, so I went to amazon and theyve got the demolition hammer albums. The first album even has a digital release and ironically, the physical releases are imports(since theyre only like $8).
Ive noticed that books are the same way, especially horror. The last LE hardcover books I bought were $25 each, but the ebook was only $5. Ive saved tons of money from buying an ereader.

Well, I mean, the guy you were responding to was saying that the prices of CDs weren't as absurd as people think they are. I'm pretty sure AreYouGammaRay is aware that new LPs can go up into the $20-$30 range, hence why he didn't mention them.

Correct, I do see your point. However he said that albums don't run up to 20 dollars, and they do. CD formats don't, vinyl formats do. I don't buy CDs so I pay 20+ for those albums. So to him, albums do run expensive these days. And on a side note, don't albums from iTunes cost almost as much as CDs?

Most music stores have those things where you can listen to the CDs and see if you like em beforehand. Probably you couldn't stand there listening to the whole thing, but how many times do people sit there and read a book front to back in a bookstore?

I don't mind downloading - I just don't like people making excuses about it is all! Just admit what you're doing and be done with it. All the excuses are full of holes, as stated here.

You can buy most albums on Amazon for like 3-5 bucks used. I did that with a bunch of Neurosis albums last night. The trick is spending efficiently on em. I don't believe in spending more than say, 15 bucks on most albums; 20 if I really love the band already. You'll bleed your wallet dry pretty fast otherwise.