Help us fight piracy

I buy used albums/vinyls almost exclusively, so the band/label isn't really getting my money to begin with...

BigBoss wrote: Ok, so if a painting by DaVinci is too expensive, but you want it, would you steal it?  If you feel like Lobster, but can't afford it, do you steal it?  If you want a BMW but can't afford it, do you steal it?  Just because something is easy to steal, doesn't make it right.  Imagine if the death penalty was quickly applied to someone stealing music, would you stop doing it?  This is obviously an extreme example, the point being, if the penalty is severe enough, is that the point you will admit it is wrong?

People can go and view the Mona Lisa right? I mean the comparison would make sense if a download was the only copy ever in the world and no one could ever listen to it again. But really it's an illegal duplicate.
I think if people could download genuine paintings, food and cars for free they would. Music is an entirely different ballgame.

Imagine if my neigbour was playing music and I had to put in some ear plugs.
Not because it was so noisy, but because I realised I didn't own a copy myself.

Also think about all the albums being lent out, and bought second hand as aforementioned.

Most people who listen to independent or local artists are the kind of people who are serious about listening and will also purchase an album.

There is no way prog rock would have the fanbase it does today (referring more to the younger audience) if it weren't for the internet and downloading.

Easy Money wrote: I never liked the whole Napster thing (various reasons:bad sound quality, ripping off musicians etc) so I didn't participate. At least one of my friends who was very enthusiastic about it ended up owing a couple thousand dollars.

Please don't confuse the old Napster (one of the first P2P networks) with the new, legitimate Napster (download shop + subscription service).

heyitsthatguy wrote: Another complaint I've noticed people having is that a lot of people feel that a "short sample" doesn't give a feel for the whole album. As a prog rock fan, I can understand this perhaps there is more of a future in the way of streaming entire albums on myspace pages etc....The Mars Volta, Muse, and Coheed and Cambria have recently implemented this with their latest albums and it's a practice that I genuinely like.

Everyone who lives in the U.S. should check out http://free.napster.com/. There you can listen to a *lot* of albums up to three times for free ... then you can either purchase the files or subscribe ($10/month).

@BigBoss: I know you don't like Napster too much, but if your albums are available there (example: http://free.napster.com/view/album/index.html?id=12558582) I'll use the opportunity. The same goes for emusic.com ...

^ of course an album is not just the piece of plastic, vinyl or the piece of the hard drive which stores the mp3 data. There's also no way to determine the "reasonable" price for an album. When I buy a watch I could try to determine the price of all its parts and the work hours needed to assemble it, then add 10% and this *could* be a reasonable price. For an album it is much more complex ... there's the cost for recording the album, the cost for marketing/advertising, and then there are the artists who created it and want to make a living with their music, which includes touring/shows *and* album sales.

My personal solution is to go for *any* legal opportunity which is available to me. The best solution for the bands would be to record the music all by themselves and to offer the CD or download on their own website, or at a artist friendly store like mindawn.com or cdbaby.com. But if they're also making the music available on subscription services like Napster or cheaper download sites like emusic.com, I'll use them because I have limited funds and I want to get as many albums as possible for my money.


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - January 29 2008 at 07:41

OK, the message has been addressed. Many thanks!