Steven Wilson begging in Facebook

zumacraig wrote: i think what's going to happen is that folks will make music as a part time thing.

It's happening already, and we are getting part-time quality in return.
Combining 2 professional careers is impossible, i'm having hard enough a time doing one!

My question, is why don't they just make multimedia CDs?  I know Iron Maiden do that.   Maybe it's possible to crack them too but it would be much harder (on the other hand, it's ridiculously easy to make a copy of a CD on the hard drive and the moment somebody uploads that on a file sharing website, the 'magic' starts).  My guess is, the labels fear it would make it unattractive in terms of transferring to portable players but it's still worth a try.  Have one or two songs off an album that you can only rip onto Itunes or something like that (not as a freely accessible mp3 file) and the CD in multimedia format.   Why should music be so easily share-able in any case?  It wasn't the case in the days of tape or even when CDs first hit the market (and before they became vulnerable to theft).  

Metalmarsh89 wrote: Finnforest wrote: There's no debate here, no grey area.  You can either steal someone's work, then try 20 different angles to justify your thievery, or, you save your money and purchase your stuff at the offered price.  One choice is right, one borders on a****le territory.  And if you think otherwise, then you'll be perfectly accepting and happy when someone steals something of value from you, from your home, your car,  your computer. If you agree you wouldn't mind being ripped off, then I can at least give you points for consistency.  Because, hey, that guy who took your Ipod  couldn't afford to buy one!  Should he be denied the ability to have one?  I think you're missing a point here. Any time an artist records and releases a CD, he does so knowing that there are going to be thousands of illegal downloads. Any artist who doesn't think it can/will happen would be have to be pretty naive. It would be much more comparable to going into the grocery store and leaving your car windows down with a computer or ipod sitting in plain sight. You'd be a fool to think it would be safe. I'm not saying that it's the musicians' fault, more that these are very unfortunate circumstances we live in, because unlike the grocer, musicians don't have the option of rolling the windows up.

No, I'm not missing the point.  I understand the technology makes this kind of theft very simple.  As do the musicians.  That doesn't change in any way the issue of right and wrong.

I'm sure you're not making the case that because something is easy to steal, that makes it OK to steal.


Edited by Finnforest - February 25 2013 at 10:59

Finnforest wrote: My two cents.... When you can't afford to buy something/anything, I guess there are two general choices.  a. I'll just steal it.  b. I'll save up my dough for a while and when I can afford it, I'll buy it.  Choice "b" is what was pretty common when I was a kid, silly us, we didn't sit around crafting sob stories about why we should get free music, man....We didn't whine about "those rich guys", who incidentally probably worked very hard for what they have.  We just had a little patience and eventually we managed to save up and buy some music, books, whatever.... There's no debate here, no grey area.  You can either steal someone's work, then try 20 different angles to justify your thievery, or, you save your money and purchase your stuff at the offered price.  One choice is right, one borders on a****le territory.  And if you think otherwise, then you'll be perfectly accepting and happy when someone steals something of value from you, from your home, your car,  your computer. If you agree you wouldn't mind being ripped off, then I can at least give you points for consistency.  Because, hey, that guy who took your Ipod  couldn't afford to buy one!  Should he be denied the ability to have one?  Last there are TONS of free music choices out there people can stream with permission.  The idea that people who can't afford to buy music "will have no music to enjoy" is as daft as any comment I've read in this forum in years.

This completely sums up my feelings on the issue.

I'd like to point out that even though I had friends record LP's onto cassette for me when I was younger, and never bought the physical album myself in many cases (until later, when I was more financially secure and wanted to replace those old tapes with better sounding CD's) , they were not copied a billion times and given out to everyone on the planet.  The same principal applies to library books.  You simply can't compare tape trading (which in many cases was condoned and even encouraged by bands, as such trading was almost always of live shows that were not officially released in any capacity) to downloading torrents.

I was excited when I first saw all the music on Napster back in the late 90's (before I gave much thought to the legality of it).  My excitement wasn't, however, about getting free music, it was about being able to hear and sample music I was potentially interested in buying.  Nowadays that is quite easy to do LEGALLY, so I don't really see how anyone can justify downloading pirated music.  Many prog bands offer ENTIRE albums for streaming at their web sites so for the most part the excuses being offered here are complete BS.
 


Edited by infandous - February 25 2013 at 13:30

Thanks Mike, though I'll admit I was heavy-handed, so apologies to anyone my words below offend.  The whole "debate" to justify illegal downloading just seems ridiculous to me......idk, is it "dinosaur" thinking to believe a musician has the right to set his own price to his work?  And that all of us as fans need to respect that?  Esp in an era where we have so many free choices?  

Dean wrote: infandous wrote: Dean wrote: Any musicians out there reading this can chip in and correct me if I am wrong, but it is fair to say that every artist in Progressive Rock Music today has a day-job that finances his Prog - If I am not mistaken every Prog Musician is part-time. Well, there are quite a few that are full time in music.....by having multiple projects (Roine Stolt, for example), having their own studio (Karl Groom, Neal Morse, others), or working in various musical endeavors as writers, session men, etc.  Or, like Andy Tillison, simply dirt poor trying to make prog music their sole income stream. Sure, but they are still a day-jobs that are necessary to pay the bills. Rest assured these guys are not rich by any stretch of the imagination. And they are in the top eschelon, below them are hundreds of Prog musicians who do not make a living from music.

Oh I certainly agree that the vast majority of prog musicians are strictly part time, just not all of them as I've pointed out.  And no, none of these guys is anywhere close to being rich......not even Wilson (who is probably pretty comfortable though, being single with no children to worry about).

infandous wrote: Finnforest wrote: My two cents.... When you can't afford to buy something/anything, I guess there are two general choices.  a. I'll just steal it.  b. I'll save up my dough for a while and when I can afford it, I'll buy it.  Choice "b" is what was pretty common when I was a kid, silly us, we didn't sit around crafting sob stories about why we should get free music, man....We didn't whine about "those rich guys", who incidentally probably worked very hard for what they have.  We just had a little patience and eventually we managed to save up and buy some music, books, whatever.... There's no debate here, no grey area.  You can either steal someone's work, then try 20 different angles to justify your thievery, or, you save your money and purchase your stuff at the offered price.  One choice is right, one borders on a****le territory.  And if you think otherwise, then you'll be perfectly accepting and happy when someone steals something of value from you, from your home, your car,  your computer. If you agree you wouldn't mind being ripped off, then I can at least give you points for consistency.  Because, hey, that guy who took your Ipod  couldn't afford to buy one!  Should he be denied the ability to have one?  Last there are TONS of free music choices out there people can stream with permission.  The idea that people who can't afford to buy music "will have no music to enjoy" is as daft as any comment I've read in this forum in years.  This completely sums up my feelings on the issue. I'd like to point out that even though I had friends record LP's onto cassette for me when I was younger, and never bought the physical album myself in many cases (until later, when I was more financially secure and wanted to replace those old tapes with better sounding CD's) , they were not copied a billion times and given out to everyone on the planet.  The same principal applies to library books.  You simply can't compare tape trading (which in many cases was condoned and even encouraged by bands, as such trading was almost always of live shows that were not officially released in any capacity) to downloading torrents. I was excited when I first saw all the music on Napster back in the late 90's (before I gave much thought to the legality of it).  My excitement wasn't, however, about getting free music, it was about being able to hear and sample music I was potentially interested in buying.  Nowadays that is quite easy to do LEGALLY, so I don't really see how anyone can justify downloading pirated music.  Many prog bands offer ENTIRE albums for streaming at their web sites so for the most part the excuses being offered here are complete BS.

Metalmarsh89 wrote: Finnforest wrote: There's no debate here, no grey area.  You can either steal someone's work, then try 20 different angles to justify your thievery, or, you save your money and purchase your stuff at the offered price.  One choice is right, one borders on a****le territory.  And if you think otherwise, then you'll be perfectly accepting and happy when someone steals something of value from you, from your home, your car,  your computer. If you agree you wouldn't mind being ripped off, then I can at least give you points for consistency.  Because, hey, that guy who took your Ipod  couldn't afford to buy one!  Should he be denied the ability to have one?  I think you're missing a point here. Any time an artist records and releases a CD, he does so knowing that there are going to be thousands of illegal downloads. Any artist who doesn't think it can/will happen would be have to be pretty naive. It would be much more comparable to going into the grocery store and leaving your car windows down with a computer or ipod sitting in plain sight. You'd be a fool to think it would be safe. I'm not saying that it's the musicians' fault, more that these are very unfortunate circumstances we live in, because unlike the grocer, musicians don't have the option of rolling the windows up.

I guess most of the people here come from Europe or the USA or have a good income. I wish they had experienced the reality of having no money at all to buy records. God, you guys buy it even without listening it first? That's what I call throwing money away. I think people should watch the Zeitgeist series to get an idea about money, business and stuff. But anyway.. won't discuss further.

Junges wrote: I guess most of the people here come from Europe or the USA or have a good income. I wish they had experienced the reality of having no money at all to buy records. God, you guys buy it even without listening it first? That's what I call throwing money away. I think people should watch the Zeitgeist series to get an idea about money, business and stuff. But anyway.. won't discuss further.

Sorry but that is still no justification for illegally downloading music. This isn't the same as stealing food because you are starving. While you're using you PC on the internet to download music to your mp3 player and recommending middle-class agitpop documentaries you might want to ease off on the poor boy sob story.