Martin Orford August 2009

I appreciate you having an open mind on this.

I'm not at liberty to share other peoples sales figures, but I do know what they are.  The same is true of most of the Inside Out label.  It's not a matter of dismantling the internet, but it is a matter of some accountability of the companies that perpetuate the problem like Google, Rapidshare and the like (who have almost no legitimate purpose).  You can track the rapid rise in piracy in recent years to the availability of low cost, high speed internet in eastern europe, south america and china.  It was bad enough when I got perfect copies of our CD's sent to me from Russia that were knock offs, but now it's digital, it's free for someone to give away.  Without getting seriously hard core about it, you can't do a whole lot.  One way to slow it down as Rachel said is to just not send out promo's.

I designed Mindawn to combat every argument that pirates use, yet it still isn't enough for them, there is always another excuse around the corner.  My main thing now is education, I tell 2 people, they tell 2 people, etc.  I just fixed my nephews laptop the other day, the problem was he had Limewire on it and was downloading tons of music, I talked to his mom, she didn't realize that wasn't legal, she says to me "how can they do that if it is illegal?" she just assumed that because it was there, it was legal, and this is the other side of the problem, education.  If we can't make it unavailable, we have to educate and prosecute.  

As a thought exercise, if your best friend got thrown in jail for a year because he had downloaded some albums illegally, would YOU still download?  I don't think so.

as long as you refuse to understand that piracy has a negative effect on sales, this conversation is pointless. Downloading is wrong both morally and legally, that isn't freedom, that is anarchy, unless of course you consider anarchy to be the ultimate expression of freedom.  There is no other market segment that consumers insist that they get the product for free.

Yes, IQ is selling an order of magnitude less than they did even with the previous album and far less than the album before that, why do you think Martin retired?  He can't make a living any more.

Your other quote about downloads versus purchases is old and doesn't apply any more, I told you, this problem gets worse every day.  I'm in the trenches on this, every day I'm tracking and removing my catalog from pirate sites, every time I do, I see an increase in sales on my site and on Mindawn.  I'm in this, I live it, I breathe it, this isn't an abstract conversation to me, this is my livelihood as well, so when I see people talk about 'freedom' for my investments, I get really ticked off.

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: EDIT: It's true that file sharers buy more music, but this is bad news, they will probably buy the 2 or 3 srtists they really love, and download the music from the rest of the artists.   So the file sharers buy exactly the same as they did before the p2p existed, but they also download a hell lot more of music from artists that won't receive a dime.

So explain to me how that is a loss for anyone, especially if that music (as shown in my link above) is more likely to be from smaller, more obscure artists.

um, yes he is breaking the law, he's stealing the CD's, the penalty in the US is up to $150,000 per download, I've seen fines at $9,000 per file so far, so yes, he is in real legal jeopardy with what he is doing.

ok, to continue why I know.  When you have a release from an established artist that has historically sold well (this is also true for IQ for example) and the new release is universally hailed as their best yet, distribution is better than it ever has been and promotion is higher than ever, yet sales are down and you see these huge download counts, it is pretty obvious what is happening.  I don't pretend to claim that each download is a lost sale as many people do, I understand it's a percentage, but it's a much much higher percentage than the ones that turned in to a sale.

teaflax, I've had this argument for 2 years, feel free to go to progagainstpirates.blogspot.com and www.myspace.com/progagainstpirates and you can read some of my writings and other labels and artists writings.  I've heard and refuted all the arguments you're going to make a hundred times, I don't feel the need to regurgitate it again.  I'm just surprised that your are pro stealing.  I guess if I just electronically transfer money out of your bank account, that would be ok with you since I didn't actually take physical dollars out of your pocket?

Sure, if you don't want to have the debate because you have absolutely no arguments, then bow out. Fine by me.

Hey, I know. How about if someone gets caught file sharing we just turn off their electricity for a year? Then they can't even listen to the songs they got caught raping. That'll learn 'em, the sumbitches.

Man, you're a riot, Shawn. You should take that act on the road.

I've written extensively on the topic of piracy and don't intend to reproduce it here, but as someone who is in this business, piracy is killing it, and the arguments of the pro-piracy groups are just silly.  There is some mystical economic model that musicians should adopt according to them, but none can articulate it.  I'm serious about multi-year prison sentences though, I'd start with a '3 strikes' where you loose internet for a year, you do it again, then prison.  I really think it wouldn't take long to see a huge difference.  People who aren't breaking the law have nothing to worry about.

I don't understand this reverence you seem to hold about making music though.  How is it different than someone who is really good at working on car engines for example?  I'm a musician myself and I don't really understand his position of not playing at all, I like to pick up a guitar or sit at the piano regularly and just play, but that's me.

I know how you manipulate studies and statistics, BigBoss. What you haven't addressed is why Harvard University, scientists, government agencies and others would want to falsify results. Paranoid much?

Hey, if you want to redefine terminology, you can do that, but don't expect to be taken seriously in any debate (the idea of multi-year sentences for what is at best a misdemeanor doesn't help, of course). I don't see why you don't go all out and just call it murder - or rape, that packs an even higher visceral punch and would be sure to make people think you're well-reasoned, rational and right.

Oh wait...I remember now, you were part of that group blog that suggested cutting off hands of file sharers. You may want to look into anger management clases, because that kind of overreaction is the sign of a seriously troubled mind. How about reintroducing the stocks for parking tickets and drawing and quartering for not filling out your tax forms, while you're at it? That's going to make for a lovely society, that is.

Finnforest wrote: And it does hurt the artists despite your studies.

They're not my studies. They are studies made by government agencies, universities and schools.

Harvard in 2004: "File sharing may boost CD sales"

BI Norwegian School of Management: File sharers buy 10 times more music than those who don't download for free.

Dutch Government: the economic effects of filesharing are positive.

Canadian Government: positive correlation between peer-to-peer downloading and CD purchasing.

Swedish Royal Technical College study 'Music Lessons': File sharing increases sales.

Please tell me what the incentive is for any of these people to lie.

And I repeat this because reading comprehension doesn't seem to be some people's strong suit when they get all black-eyed about file sharing: I in no way condone not paying artists whose works you enjoy. I find immoral file sharing reprehensible and spend quite a bit of effort to make sure that those I know that file share illegally make sure that they do their best to renumerate the artists whose work they enjoy.

But I also know that, even if we were to assume that the damages claimed by the music industry were true, the price you would have to pay to stop file sharing simply isn't worth it. It would mean basically closing down the internet or turning it into an apparatus under Stasi-like control, where everybody's online activity is watched, recorded and catalogued. If you trust anyone, government agency or business concern, with that kind of information and think that there won't be mission creep and it will start to get used for other, more sinister purposes, then you are naive enough to have been born yesterday.

Since file sharing is inevitable as long as the internet is a free channel of communication for every person, it makes much more sense to adapt to it and try to leverage its advantages to make money, rather than railing against it and helping authoritarians turn it into an electronic police state (then again, I'm sure some people wouldn't be too bothered by that - order, obedience and straight lines are very pleasing to a certain mind set).


Edited by Teaflax - September 29 2009 at 11:07

Teaflax wrote: No, you cannot arrive at any result you want if you're a reputable and unbiased source, especially if the numbers are available for review, which is exactly the status of all these cases. And in none of these studies was the stated goal to prove anything specific, but simply to look at how things actually are. Are you saying Harvard University, The Royal Technical College of Sweden, The Dutch Government et. al. have a vested interest in making file sharing seem harmless? If you're right,  scientists should just stop doing studies, because what's the point? The reason many young people feel the way your nieces and nephews do is because the legal alternatives haven't been there until recently (and even then, they're seriously flawed), and we have a generation that has grown up with illegal downloading being far easier and more convenient than any legal alternatives. That's entirely at the door of the media companies who've been trying to fight technical developments as far back as the advent of the radio and the record player. When Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association of America said that "The VCR is to the movie industry as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone" he was as dead wrong as the old record company saw of "home taping is killing music". Also, it is not stealing. It's copyright infringement. You might as well call it murder if you're going to play fast and loose with the terminology.

Same old rubbish.  We'll keep calling them thieves as long as they perpetuate the myth that this is somehow not as bad as old fashioned theft.  It is.  And it does hurt the artists despite your studies.  You have people posessing music (the fruit of labor) that they didn't pay for.  Frame it any way you like, it's never going to pass the sniff test with people of common sense. 

Edited by Finnforest - September 29 2009 at 10:17

For once in my life I'm agreeing with Teaflax!