Hi again, i've been out for quite a while... and i got shocked by a review about the new DT record: Octavarium... (and the insults too, hahaha) I'm not a saint and of course i'm far from it, but where are we going by downloading music from an album that hasn't reach the streets, and sadly damaging the beloved artist. To be honest i had to check out the source, and gladly (¿?) found out that the songs are from the James LaBrie record ELEMENTS OF PERSUASION, however, our thirst of music has gone beyond our ethics, and to me, buying an original record is a very important thing, not for the media, but for myself, i'm an architect and i would be very dissapointed if someone publish or copy my designs without my permission, even if that person is a fan trying to help me.

peace

I completely agree. People are as*h*les, and ruthless.

You gotta love todays socitey.

I agree that it is bad to download entire albums without buying them also. I don't have such an issue with people who will go and and buy the album (eg Octavarium) after they download leaks or whatever, but really i don't think whole albums need to be downloaded in the first place.

The way i do it is i download a song or two or three (depending on the size of the album) and if i like what i hear enough i'll buy the album. That way i think i'm getting fair representation of the feel of the album. I have no moral issues with the way i do things in the slightest, and i really do think such methods have benifitted some bands. Whole albums though? Not for me. For one, it ruins the listening experience of when i finally get the album and pop it into my stereo or what ever.

Reverie wrote: I agree that it is bad to download entire albums without buying them also. I don't have such an issue with people who will go and and buy the album (eg Octavarium) after they download leaks or whatever, but really i don't think whole albums need to be downloaded in the first place. The way i do it is i download a song or two or three (depending on the size of the album) and if i like what i hear enough i'll buy the album. That way i think i'm getting fair representation of the feel of the album. I have no moral issues with the way i do things in the slightest, and i really do think such methods have benifitted some bands. Whole albums though? Not for me. For one, it ruins the listening experience of when i finally get the album and pop it into my stereo or what ever.

I totally agree with what you have said. Downloading one or two songs from an album I feel is a great way of determining whether you will like the album or not. That is how I do it and if I like what I hear then I will go out and buy the album. Unfortunately, there are many who do not go by this method and it is bad news for the bands who are the big losers in the end. I like the samples that are on this site and because of this I have expanded my CD collection somewhat and tried out new prog that I normally would not listen to. I only wish others would use some common sense and realize that they are not doing their favourite bands a favour by downloading entire albums off the Net.

I refuse to buy albums without listening a representative number of songs from it, I already wasted too much money in crap before Internet existed.

BTW: I never bought more CD's than when Audio Galaxy was alive, thanks to them I found about at least 60 or 70 bands, and bought albums of most of them.

Iván

I like to be both things: a pirate and a good consumer        

Winmx is the way .

If i hadnt downloaded mp3s, i would have perhaps 20% of the albums i have now.

I may download a song or two, but I'll only really buy CD's.

ita_prog_fan wrote:   I like to be both things: a pirate and a good consumer

Me too. My problem is that I don't have enough funds to buy many CD's, but have an appetite for new stuff, or stuff I've already got on vinyl. Some stuff is hard to find to buy anyway!

Come to that some of the stuff that we like here is hard to find P2P!

Snow Dog wrote: ita_prog_fan wrote:   I like to be both things: a pirate and a good consumer         Me too. My problem is that I don't have enough funds to buy many CD's, but have an appetite for new stuff, or stuff I've already got on vinyl. Some stuff is hard to find to buy anyway! Come to that some of the stuff that we like here is hard to find P2P!

Very Hard To Find P2P... and in a CD store TOO !!!!!!!!!!!!

Paradox wrote: Piracy is a two sided coin. It's a great way for people to get introduced to new/old music that they would probably never buy. Yes, a lot of people probably won't buy anything by those bands, but a lot of people will.

Welcome back Paradox.

Hierophant wrote: DC++ has about everyband you can think of - if you connect to enough hubs.

Soulseek, man!

gdub411 wrote:   Welcome back Paradox.

Thanks! It's been quite a while

Who would buy an album he never herd of? I'd never have bought most CD I own without downloading songs on that particullar album. Also, with the awful pop surrounding the medias, I would only know, like, Dream Theater . And there are so many bands that I can't find their albums (Never found Anglagard albums), and the only way I know to listen to them is by internet. It's also the best for underground band to get known, as they can't count on TV or radio for that.

Without that, we would be able to listen as much as we'd like. I'm 16, no money, unfortunatly. I want to listen to more than 1-2 CD per months...

Music piracy is the best that happened to music, really. At least, these days.

I do admit that I have committed several acts of aural piracy, but I’ve certainly bought a lot of albums since.  Up until 1999, I was never really into music much, didn't have any CD's at all, then I bought my first album, Toploader - Onka's Big Moka.  Surprisingly I can still look back on it and listen to it and appreciate it, at least it was half decent music and nothing too faddy.

But since 1999 I've amassed over 100 or so albums, and when you think of the average price that's going to be around £1000 at £10 a shot.  So actually on average I buy an album or so every month, although its more phase like, i.e. I won't buy music for a while and then get a load in.

However certainly without piracy in the form of Audio Galaxy, WinMX, Kazaa Lite, Limewire and now Bit Comet I wouldn't have gone out and bought many of the albums I have now.  However I do have a lot of copied music from friends, parents etc and I just don't see the point it buying the same thing over and over again if we all seem to have it.  For instance, although my parents are divorced, between us we each have a legitimate copy of Phil Collins - Testify, which is utterly ridiculous.

I do however understand that music is certainly very expensive and it comes at a premium, so recently I’ve started downloading music from www.allofmp3.com, and legit Russian website that charges for music downloads, but because of Russian copyright laws you can get an entire album for $1.5 dollars @192 kbps in mp3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis and several others.  Ok you don't get the album art, but at least you’re giving something back and technically it is legal.  With regards to this I've bought quite a few progressive albums since coming here.  And I'm glad, because despite being a big Genesis fan I bought both Archives’ 1969-1975 and 1976-1992 and on the first one the first 2 CD's were effectively a polished Lamb Lies Down, the third CD Genesis Live with a few others, and the last was some very early Genesis, with pretty damn poor studio recording quality.  I have since listed to the original CD's of this and for costing £40 the quality was not distinguishably better.

So there are reasons for piracy, but it is a double edged sword, I just think its partly greed by the music industry and greed by the consumer that makes this so expensive.  However that doesn’t stop me having 5,869 songs on my computer, about 4,000 of which are from legit CD’s i.e. parents and friends and the rest are illegal downloads.

Lamia wrote: ... I just think its partly greed by the music industry and greed by the consumer that makes this so expensive.  However that doesn’t stop me having 5,869 songs on my computer, about 4,000 of which are from legit CD’s i.e. parents and friends and the rest are illegal downloads.

Remember that the songs from "legit CD's" are illegit copies unless they're from YOUR CDs...

*BUSTED!!!*

My view is one of a minimalist collector.  (Does that make sense?)  If I have the album in one format (ie: if my dad has it on vinyl), I am willing to download it.  As a result, I have taken to buying albums on viynl because I prefer it to CDs, then downloading it via Bittorrent (by far the best and most relyable program for this purpose).  I now have a copy which I can store on my iPod for portability and convinience, and one which will not deteriorate over time.

Also, I have some friends who listen to awful music, so I am willing to burn them copies of good CDs, just to try and civilize them! 

I have started downloading OOP stuff - maybe if I get a decent enough collection one day I'll try and start up an FTP server with that sort of thing on... the only difficulty is finding lossless rips . It's still illegal if they're OOP but I couldn't buy them if I tried (except second hand, and that doesn't help the record label ), so I feel justified.

Certif1ed wrote: *BUSTED!!!*

?

This has probably already been stated, but as I've said before, I rarely read the comments before mine unless they have something interesting (no offense). . .

I don't think it's so much as the fanatics are downloading because they're poor or just refuse to buy the album, but rather that they're anticipating the said release so badly that they can't wait for it to be issued, so in the end, they try to download it in order to get a taste for the piece(s) - and I suppose you could say that the 30-second samples would be sufficient, but to be candid, they aren't. . . they just add to the eagerness.

Quoting from Shadow Gallery's latest:

"A solid nod of gratitude goes out to those who bought this disc, seperating yourselves from those who copy it."

Here, Here...

ExquisiteCorpse wrote: also what about renting cd's/getting them from the library and copying them on yur comp? And what about bands that arent around any more or are dead and dont make any money anymore anyway from the music?

Oh man........I was doing that when I read this