Um, maybe because some people don't buy CDs just because of the impact on the band? I like to buy CDs to have a physical copies of the music I enjoy. If I really wanted to support the band I'd just go to a show or buy a shirt.

Rebuy cds you've already owned just to rip them to your computer again?! Give me a break, not all of us are made of money.

Yeah yeah "buy your CDs" and ladidadida... We've all heard the fucking story before. Welcome to the 21th century, here we have the luxury to get a sample free before we make our decisions because buying all the music you want is NOT cheap.

The only tip I can give is efuckingBay. I haven't bought a single new CD since I started with eBay. Feels a lot better to get an original print for 1/3 of the price of a re-issue...

That's actually very funny

The point that the "cd buyers" were trying to make was that by buying CDs, you're supporting the band.

Tbh, buying a t-shirt and going to concerts > buying cds.

It's only that way because too many people are downloading music, but you can't download a t-shirt.
You can download a live concert but it doesn't sound as good as being there and you get a better feeling live.
The physical albums/demo etc sound better than MP3. And have artwork, notes and lyrics. Your collection looks good, as oppossed to a list on a screen. Your understanding of the bands idealogy comes easier.

There are more reasons to owning the physical format than just supporting the band.
But I do agree that downloading first to see if you like the band or album is fine so long as you have the intention to eventually buy what you think is good and delete the rest. I wasted lots of money on shit that I wouldn't have bought if I heard it first, before I had the internet which for me was long after most, sometime just after 2000.

No, it's because the record companies end up siphoning huge amounts of money from what actually goes to the band. Whereas a t-shirt (theoretically), would go 100% towards the band and the techies and stuff.

Yeah, I agree though. Downloading is not a replacement for audio, but buying Used CDs is stupid unless you want the collection.

As for quality, FLAC torrents exist in large quantities on private trackers.

Well, even if they only got 5% of the sale, they are still losing out by other people simply downloading their product. It works out to be a fair amount.
What you brought up really only happens with the biggest of metal labels to the best of my knowledge, and I'd say the shirts would be made through those labels. So there wouldn't be much difference either way.
Not to mention the fact that many bands are self releasing nowdays.

About FLAC, what is the size of a song that goes for roughly 4 mins? I have a few WAV recordings and they are huge for a song. 57MB at 1411KBPS for a 4min song. If the FLAC is anywhere close to this, well, you wont have much music on your PC if you were to only go FLAC.

when you say WAV, I'll assume you mean WavPack. A 4 minute FLAC song would be around 23mb. If you want a Vinyl rip, it'll be substantially higher.

Note that I'm not an avid user of FLAC. I'm more of an Ogg/V0 guy myself.

Who cares if most of the money goes to the label? Without any labels, bands won't be able to distribute their shit.

you should be glad some of your music is gone mate...

atreyu???

Ok... I frequently download albums and am not going to even try to justify it in general, but I'll say this:

I really don't see anything wrong with downloading old demos or other out-of-print rarities. That is something I will continue to do. Also, it should finally be noticed that an album downloaded does not equal one less album sold, because a lot of people use downloading to check stuff out before buying. In fact, if the music is any good, an album downloaded may result in one more album sold (one that would not have been sold otherwise).

This said, I do prefer CD's and buy them whenever I can. Downloading is not a substitute for the physical format. I tend to think of my mp3's as something temporary that either gets deleted or is "replaced" by a CD sooner or later.

OP: A shame you lost the files.

This is pretty much my line of thinking. And for the people above, yes the CD companies get most of the money. That's because they spend the money necessary to budget the creation of a CD in the first place. While obviously a lot of labels screw over artists, you still need to buy the CD if you don't want them to get dropped.

Well, looking at your list, none of that should be too hard to replace. In my honest opinion, it could be a good thing for you to start from scratch. I know I'd be pissed if I lost all my music, but considering I've upped everything that was hard for me to find in the first place, it wouldn't be too bad.

A blank slate is helpful to grow out of the bands you currently like and into some new ones.

Why should music cost money?

Are you fucking stupid? Why should it cost money? These people pour there souls into making this music. They own it, they have their rights to sell it. Imagine if you painted a beautiful picture that took you MONTHS to do, and them someone with no other thought but selfishness came in and with no regard to you, took your beautiful painting from you. It's the same deal, if you download music, you're stealing from the artist. You are a thief.

Problem is that it's not even the labels that are getting most of it, it's the stores selling the CD's. Mark up is atrocious.

That's not a very good analogy IMO. Someone downloading an image file of the painting would be more accurate.

Downloading enables people to discover bands, after which you can buy the actual cd if you like it. You can't expect everybody is able to blind buy albums. Also, some people genuinely can't afford albums and in that case I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to enjoy music. Obviously most downloaders don't buy because of egoistical reasons, but that doesn't mean you should denounce downloading music as a whole.

Shitty, Its happened to me twice. First my computer had to be rebooted and second time most of the files got corrupted. It's very depressing.

Do you really not? There are a lot of people who can't afford CARS so they have to suffer through the public transportation system every day. Would you be cool with them just taking a car? I know that seems extreme, but thats only because downloading is such an anonymous, easy way of stealing. You can romanticize it because its art, but in the end you're taking a product that cost money to create/distribute, with no cost to yourself, most times without the permission of the artist/label. Thats stealing, period.

Maybe this example would be a bit more poignant: What about people stealing cds FROM OTHER PEOPLE? I mean, if we're saying that its okay to steal music because "Hey man, its art and even poor people should get to enjoy it!", is it okay to just go in someones car and grab a cd if you see one you might be interested in?

I'm not even saying I'm totally against it (see earlier posts), but for fucks sakes will you people please stop trying to rationalize it and just call it what it is...

Unfortunately for me it did take a natural disaster to "delete" my collection. God damn you Katrina!

^^^ really man that sucks I'm sorry to hear that . I would be fucking pissed but thankful i'm alive

People have yet to prove to me that downloading music actually makes artists lose money. And no, horrible analogies like "IT'S LIKE GOING INTO MALWART AND STEALING FOODS" don't work because when downloading music, you don't actually own them physically.

Although I could agree with it being stealing, I can't see how it can be harmful.

Well said.

LOL That's some brilliant contradictory rationalization there.


If you do a little maths at 1000 records sold at $15 is $15,000, divide that by 5% is $3000. If we say that 2 copies are downloaded to each copy sold the artist would have recieved an extra $6000 worth of sales, from the 3000 taking them to $9000, but alas, 2 out of 3 people downloaded it and aren't going to buy it dropping their income back to $3000.
(Note that the scale I've used is in favour of the label and consumer, not the artist. 5% is fuck all, and they still lose out.)

You have real talent that needs to have a day job to survive, and you have plastic models with singing and dancing ability living in the fast lane with more money than they know what to do with.
That's because of volume of sales. POP artists reach the mainstream market and still make lots of money despite people downloading because they still sell over a million copies in under a month.
That is not the case with metal.

More germane analogy, I'd think.


I don't deny music's value.

Why has such vehemence been aroused?


But they do travel.


No, many are simultaneously sharing one car.

I find this comparison unmanageable; cars and music serve incomparable functions.


Better analogy.


Shouldn't they?

That's retard maths. Nobody has yet bothered to find out what percentage of downloaders will never buy any albums they downloaded. There is only a marginal amount of academic studies on this. One by some Canadian instance found that 75% of people made the answer that they had bought the very album they'd "stolen" earlier (lol). TAPE TRADING IS KILLING THE INDUSTRY!!!!

And re-read Differer's post from above. Downloading can lead to increased sales. But as long as there's no reliable data on this (RIAA's humbug doesn't count), this is just guesswork.

On "stealing": I think it's the wrong word to use, regardless of what you think of the phenomenon. In theft, the possession of an object is transferred from A to B, whereas in piracy it's duplicated (A & B) -- sounds more like a paper-money counterfeiting operation, or whatever.

PS. Those of you who "never pirate", is your software and porn collection 100% legal too?

Calm down. I'm not saying downloading is killing the music industry. I never said that. I gave an example of how the artist is losing money and if you deny that's happening than you're living in a dream world. And I only brought it up for those that don't buy cd's at all, and they are here in this thread, so stop acting like it doesn't happen.

Well it looks like you lost the Atreyu....what a terrible loss.

Look, you can argue that it's immoral, that it hurts the artist, but don't go on with garbage calculations like this. You make the fatal error of assuming a download takes away a sale. This isn't just a problematic assumption, it's blatantly wrong. Look at it this way: the OP said he had 55 gigs, that could be what, maybe 700 CDs? That's over $10,000 worth of CDs at $15 each. Does anyone think that downloaders like this are withholding ten grand in disposable income that they would have spent on CDs if they couldn't download????

This is why analogies like this are worthless and should have no place in this debate:

A CD is a physical item. Someone had it, it was stolen, now they don't have it anymore. You can clearly demonstrate that something has been stolen. Downloading an album? Not so much.

It was just a hypothetical response.

I downloaded Celtic Frost's Morbid Tales, and To Mega Therion...good thing I bought them both on vinyl anyway.


My mp3's are a collection of both mp3's of my current music collection (save for some obscure demo tapes, and records I cannot find online, but own copies of), albums I plan to get, or rare/obscure demos that will take years to find,

Or there's stuff that goes for top dollars on ebay market and don't intend to afford. When there are only 100 legit copies of Taste Our German Steel LP's, I love the album, but not enough to pay $1,000 for it. I'm not against high prices for records (I feel the price for Yellow Goat Bathory, Posercorpse Deathcrush, DSP burzum, and other classic rarities are very fair for what they are) and own some rarities myself, however the album isn't one I hold in high enough regard to be worth as much as people ask for it. If it was $100-200? I'd consider saving up to get it, but for $1,000 it's just out of my reach to own in any other format.

As for mp3's. I'm glad for my personal collection. My girlfriend has my collection saved on an external hard drive, however due to my computer's inability to be accessed at the moment I've resorted to my records, my tapes, and my cd's in order to listen to what I want. Fortunately I have a decent enough size of a collection with almost enough diversity to have a few records of everything I listen to frequently.




Generally speaking i spend $2-14 in a single store when it comes to metal releases, with anything over $10 being a vinyl record rather than a typical CD and $2-3 generally being a cassette tape or 7'', not a CD release.

The only time I ever spend more than that is either on rare/out of print albums on vinyl format, or when shipping is included when ordering online. The thing is, many great albums are only available through label mailorder, so a couple bucks gets added on to standard prices. It's fair enough though if you want to own a copy of the release, be expected to pay a little more since you can't just walk to the store and pick it up.

I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, but claiming you spend $17 on an album seems unlikely unless the only place to buy metal in your area is upscale record stores like FYE and such places. There's plenty of major and small momandpop stores alike, and regardless of the two I find stuff for dirt cheap and on the higher end.

If you haven't paid for the Albums in ANYWAY you're not true at all. Unless you have very little access to Metal and no way you can obtain money to spend on CDs then it'd be alright to Download. But seriously... Man, you're not really a Metal Head.

People also have the option of online radio (which they obviously have access to, if they're downloading), Myspace, Youtube, Metal Archives (along with innumerable other sources for information and reviews) and a variety of other tools to decide whether or not an album is worth purchasing before they actually do so. However, how many people are actually going with any single or combination of these versus the amount that are just downloading? I know I'm certainly not; and I can't say I know many, if any, that actively substitute or pursue these perfectly acceptable, legal options either.

I'd also like to point out that I certainly don't condone downloading, but I also have a hard time condemning it, fully.

I've downloaded lots of music. This, however, does not necessarily lend to the argument that downloading equates to lost sales. I am one of the (few?) people who primarily only purchases what they've already downloaded/heard/enjoyed. Nearly every CD in my collection was downloaded prior to me actually purchasing the album. This goes to show that, for some, however uncommon they may be, downloading can actually lead to an increase in fanbase/sales.

This habit usually confounds my friends. Almost every time I buy a CD, I get asked, "You already have that on your iPod, don't you?" To which I always respond: "Yeah, but I want a hard copy." "...Well, is it any different?" "The quality is typically higher, but that's not my biggest concern. I like owning the hard copies of albums I really like for the art, etc."

@GeekBoi: Would you also argue that people who watch movies they don't have to pay for (there are countless [both legal and illegal] situations where this happens; you can figure some out for yourself) but don't actually own (m)any are not fans of movies? What about if their knowledge of movies was vast? Would that affect it? Personally, it's more about what you do/like than what you own. (The previous sentence was not meant to advocate downloading, btw.)

I'm not saying that people who download stuff never buy the albums they download; I know for a fact that many do, and from a purely ethical point of view, I think that's OK. However, when we are discussing a teenager's lost collection of a couple of hundred albums, you can bet your liver that he isn't ever going to buy more than 5% of them.


Have you ever considered sending a résumé to NASA? They might need your math skills when they design the next Mars orbiter...

some of these points may have already been made but i'm starting to get angry so it's just gonna flow right out from me...


you're not just supporting bands, you're supporting labels, and distros and the underground as a whole


if albums aren't selling, the labels will not have the funds to press more albums and sign bands and help with recordings, and pay the artists who create the covers/layouts, and if the labels can't create the albums physically-YOU WON'T HAVE THEM TO DOWNLOAD YOU FUCKING LEECHES... *calm down 16th, caaaalm down...* so with the labels not pressing as many or any more albums, that means little distros the states over won't be able to carry many titles because by now ONLY FUCKING ROADRUNNER WILL BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO FUCKING PRESS ALBUMS!!!!! AAAARRRGGG *caaaaaalm......caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalm* and effectively the underground will die.


i have absolutely no sympathy for the metal thief, they are the ultimate poser and it only does BAD for the underground to steal the music.
i DO understand the idea of try before you buy....but does that mean download the whole album on mp3 listen to it twice and then make a shitty judgement on an inferior sounding product !! ?? (mp3's sound awful... don't tell me they don't!)
i DO understand some people in some countries have a problem with customs... you, i understand your situation.

but for Jimmy McPoserfuck who lives in Vermont- YOU can suck it up and fucking BUY an album, and HELP the underground stay afloat


to those who make the weak argument of going to shows and buying shirts being more effective in supporting a band, you are correct in terms of short term-but in long term if the label doesn't see numbers, they axe the band and then the band is left looking for a lbel that will give them TOUR SUPPORT but the labels who do that will say "no thanks... your last album didn't SELL"





i could go on and on and on and on and on and on and on.... but i have to force myself to hold back because i know there are some real brickwall numbskulls out there reading this.

if you don't buy, if you don't support, WHO WILL... people like me and hellhippe will ALWAYS be supportive, but a band isn't going to stay on a label and get the help they need if their yearly sale for albums #3 is 2 fucking units!

my heart truly goes out to you
let me know if you need ANY help...

I own a good many of the CDs I have on my hard drive. Not all of them, but a good percentage. You have to if you want to load your iPod. If I lost my hard drive I wouldn't lose to music but I'd be pretty pissed anyway. Who wants to rip all those CDs all over again?

I've never downloaded any albums, because I really don't see the point in that. The excitement is a big part of listening to an album for the first time, and if you have already heard it before you buy it, a lot of that excitement is gone. I can understand downloading a song or two, but for me, a couple of minutes (MySpace, YouTube, Vibrations of Doom etc.) is enough to make me decide whether an album is worth buying or not. I wouldn't even go as far as calling a bunch of mp3 files an "album". It's like saying that you've seen Mona Lisa even though you've only got a poster of it on your wall. I spend most of my money on CDs, vinyls and tapes, but it has never bothered me. I think metal is worth it. For some people it apparently isn't.

I don't think this sort of alarmist and unsubstantiated ranting is terribly productive. Without downloading, would the "metal thief" even give a shit about the underground in the first place? Can we talk about "lost sales" if an individual wouldn't even care about a band if they hadn't downloaded their stuff? You may just as well have a case where without downloading, Joe Metalhead wouldn't know about a band and wouldn't buy their album. With downloading, Joe Metalhead knows about a the band, still won't buy their album, but will go to their show when they come to town.

The underground is not going to die because of downloading, this is impossible. Having to come up with new business models is not death.