Filesharers....Who are these people?!

[brut willis]

I've always bought a lot of music, since i was 10 years old. I buy physical music, mostly vinyl. I also steal mp3s. I buy as much as i can. I couldn't buy more now. Most of my money goes into music. That's it.

I remember words from an interview of Guts, former producer of a french rap group that had a huge commercial success in the 90's and who dropped an album on Wax On records (Nightmares On Wax's label) who's not big in the game:

"i have no problems with people stealing mp3's. What bothers me is people selling mp3's"

[human?]

sage francis is huge anyway as is regina they can afford to say such things....

how did afrika bambaataa get so big without file sharing thats what want to know...

bambaataa got big through the original killer of the record industry, cassette tapes!!!! live parties dubbed countless times and passed around the NY area...

so did sage francis... i copied my old sage francis tapes many times bitd for people before most people had cd burners lol...



not tryin to enter the debate lol, jus sayin...

[brut willis]

And Human? got a point here!

[Pistonsbeneath]

sage francis is huge anyway as is regina they can afford to say such things....

how did afrika bambaataa get so big without file sharing thats what want to know...

bambaataa got big through the original killer of the record industry, cassette tapes!!!! live parties dubbed countless times and passed around the NY area...

so did sage francis... i copied my old sage francis tapes many times bitd for people before most people had cd burners lol...



not tryin to enter the debate lol, jus sayin...

surely he got big before that though...like when they held block parties?

he became a local hero and word spread...if someone wanted lookin for the perfect beat though and they lived in austria but heard it after a trip to the u.s they would have had to find a way of buying it

sage francis on tape is surely not as clean as on cd so people would have been more likely to buy the real product

anyway i can only say how i would feel about my music....read that in my earlier posts and refute that if you want...and my point ebout emalkay as well

[boogiemeister]

on the whole nobody should really care bout illegal file sharing because it has always been around, especially in economically poorer countries. However, nobody can seriously tell me that selling 3,000 records nowadays is considered a SUCCESS!!! The mere fact that digital music can be shared without dramatic loss of sound quality (if any) has hurt every underground music scene big time! In electronic music you at least have dedicated DJs who play out and check for new tunes but if it's just for music that's basically meant to be listened to and collected (like Metal for example), you're on a lost track, thanks to illegal file sharing.
Of course there are artists that wouldn't be as successful as they are now without the internet and file sharing but on the whole it hurts the music scene. People like Sage Francis have been around before the whole mp3 bloggery and p2p shit went off. There are so many countless artists that got lost in the shuffle during the last say five years, it's not funny anymore.
Bottomline, file sharing has always been around and there's practically nothing you can do against it. If it were only for people in economically poorer countries, this wouldn't hurt the music scene on the whole (and I can understand their situation, after all they can't afford buying all that music in the first place anyway), it's those people that turned their backs on the artists and instead of buying music, they now all download illegally. Thank them.
I am also of the opportunistic kind, if you will. I see the whole mp3 blogs and forums as a luxurious form of the radio. I have always bought music and lately have been buying more than ever before but sadly enough not everyone does that. The fact alone that records are pressed in such minimalistic quantities should tell you enough. I seriously doubt that the combined vinyl and digital sales of a release amount up to as much as it would have been some years ago.

[human?]

surely he got big before that though...like when they held block parties?

he became a local hero and word spread...if someone wanted lookin for the perfect beat though and they lived in austria but heard it after a trip to the u.s they would have had to find a way of buying it

sage francis on tape is surely not as clean as on cd so people would have been more likely to buy the real product

anyway i can only say how i would feel about my music....read that in my earlier posts and refute that if you want...and my point ebout emalkay as well

bam was well known in the bronx, but is def the case that the sounds spread through tape dubs. they recorded the live parties, sold the tapes, and the tapes got copied & passed around.... which lead to more gigs which lead to record deals & distro, all before looking for the perfect beat... radio also had alot to do with it, and radio recordings passed used to play a huge role....

im talking sage francis on tape when there wasnt sage francis on cd.... like, go to the tiny ass show, say whattup to sage and cop a tape off him for 5 bucks, handwritten labels & uneven hand cutout covers... we used to have the copyette cassette duplicator cause we used to slang mixtapes ourself, and since there was absolutely no way to even buy the tapes online or in stores, if i thought somebody needed to have it, id dub em a copy... put tons of people onto dude (and others, like global phlowtations, living legends, rhymesayers etc..) and have all kinds of interesting stories and evolutions that come from those dubs lol...

its deep... industry calls it "social"... and in the next couple years they are going to abandon the "product" angle and get more into the business of experience if they want to survive... vevo is a great example of the trend

[Pistonsbeneath]

i seriously cant imagine how many sales have been lost in edm since it blew up...

if you look at the warp records golden era that ended in 98ish and look since

the gulf in sales then and since are shocking

mike p talked about it somewhere with regards to how he wished hed started mu earlier as he lost a load of money

@ Human?

that is in itself distinct as the recordings were of setsin both cases too an extent.......nobody has a problem with mixes and these alone would be fine

[boogiemeister]

the whole tapetrading thing actually helped artists to spread their name since it was on a much smaller scale. maybe also people had a different perception of music and bought more than today but I highly doubt that. I was also an avid tape trader back in my Metal days. Why do you think tape trading is not around anymore? Do you think all the people on those Russian message boards are ex-tape traders and think they help "spread the word"? I mean how many times have you copied your Sage Francis tapes? 20 times maybe?

[Pistonsbeneath]

i used to make tape compilations for people when i was a kid...never whole albums though and i would put my own cuts in and random film clips in...would usually give them to girls i fancied...how is that in any way comparable to modern file sharing?

theres nothing creative in uploading stuff illegally

[human?]

@ Human?

that is in itself distinct as the recordings were of setsin both cases too an extent.......nobody has a problem with mixes and these alone would be fine

well the sage francis era stuff wasnt mixes... they were albums... but dudes werent even recording digitally... it went straight from 4 track to copied cassettes

but i think they are both significant eras as far as how music is distributed...

the Hiphop record in itself is a industry manufactured model... how do we sell this? Hiphop was ONLY on tape... live. and what they were doing was actually the begining of the end of the "industry" imho... which is evidenced imo is the rush a few years later to sue for sampling....

but with the rise of technologies you could in the early 90's really make music and product for relatively cheap, and the 4-track tape era of the mid 90's was revolutionary... and its where more or less all the current "underground" heroes come from... and we were copying the shit out of those tapes, cause yo, thats what it was, it was more important that you hear this and go support the next show.... it was a experience. and whether they know it or not, its exactly that that keeps dudes on top... whether its sage creating a community online or murs with paid dues.... i bought 4-track tapes off both them dudes, and copied them mad times, and feel good about it.


i have no fixed opinion on the subject... and i think either extreme is wrong headed... but i dont see how anyone can believe in what they make and at the same time ignore the potentials of the technology with $ clouded visions....

[freakah]

I BLAME MT EDEN......

I buy every piece of music I have. I will be honest and say that sometimes I'll download a release illegally first, to check out other tracks on it or if I'm running late to a gig or whatever, but if I like it I will buy it. If I don't, it gets deleted.

I also go support the artists by seeing them live. Let's face it - there is no money in recorded music anymore due to piracy etc. EMI are selling Abbey Road - sign of the times?!
The money is in the live music, labels and people who can't adapt to that are dying out because of it.

There was an article written, I can't remember where, but some people did some quite extensive research and surveys which showed that filesharers were:

a) The people who bought the most music.
b) The people who saw the most acts live.

They say any publicity is good publicity right? If your stuff is pirated, and it's good stuff, more people are gonna come see you perform, and more people might buy the stuff! Not everyone whose downloading illegal MP3's is a complete warezaholic and never pays for anything they've downloaded! By the stuff being pirated you're gaining more recognition because you're on more places around the internet!

I do agree however that this whole piracy thing sucks for people in underground genres and behind small labels because they don't make a huge profit anyway, and to have the tunes available for free is really damaging to them . However I think people in Sony and EMI should stop making such a bloddy fuss cos they are rolling cash anyway, and shouldn't care if some 11 year old girl downloads JLS' new album or some crap like that.

Just my opinion...

[human?]

the whole tapetrading thing actually helped artists to spread their name since it was on a much smaller scale. maybe also people had a different perception of music and bought more than today but I highly doubt that. I was also an avid tape trader back in my Metal days. Why do you think tape trading is not around anymore? Do you think all the people on those Russian message boards are ex-tape traders and think they help "spread the word"? I mean how many times have you copied your Sage Francis tapes? 20 times maybe?

prolly more than 20... but yeh its def a different scale... but i think the model is scalable.... if people enjoy your music they will pay to interact with you. i bought the tapes so i could listen to the music, but also so i could type on dubstepforum 12 years later than i copped a tape off sage francis... meaning there is value in more than just the music, experience is key...


and yeh, i do think alot of pirates are very into putting people on to new shit... there are ALOT of different sorts of pirates so its really not possible to peg them all down with one broad stroke of intent...

[Byronik]

Get your beats on wares sites...

Get everyone w**king off over 'your sound' which is really just the same tune with different comedy samples for the kids...

Sell out and produce music for Rhianna and Britney Spears

Done!

[human?]

Get your beats on wares sites...

Get everyone w**king off over 'your sound' which is really just the same tune with different comedy samples for the kids...

Sell out and produce music for Rhianna and Britney Spears

Done!

its interesting tho, cause undeniably a chunk of ruskos success come from the massive amount of scion freebee

the industry knows this.

the video for the rusko britney tune is gonna have product placement & be made for youtube lol

[Byronik]

If it's as bad as his album no one is gonna share it so the label will be safe

[_boring]

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

GOES BY DUBPLATE.


TEH END.

[brut willis]

At Pistonbeneath:

I see your point, it's obvious that it damaged the scene. But you can't say it's all bad. The fact that people who are very concerned by this issue have a lot of different thoughts about this shows it isn't all bad.

What is bad, is people ONLY downloading illegally. I got loads of friends who never spend a penny on music. I personally couldn't do that, but like i said i download illegally too. Most of my money goes into physical music (I will never spend money on an mp3), but i can't buy anything i want. My friends who i told you about, they truly love the music they steal and listen to. Kind of sad days we're living. But i can't blame them for that.

What is also bad is the sound of the mp3, and people only listening to it will lose some hearing habilities; check this: http://analoglife.fr/News/mastering-with-john-dent.html

Someone gotta find a solution, but it's kind of too late if you ask me. People are too used to it, you can't come and say "hey you gotta buy physical, good sounding music" to someone who's used to steal it. People prefer buying fresh clothes. And sometimes, or often, pay for a good concert or party.

On the other side, there will always be people buying vinyls, cd's, even mp3's... Just less

Big up the buying music gang!

[human?]

also just want to point out that alot of pirates are indeed russian and it has to do with just fundamentally different notions of what property is...

and that yeh, communism wasnt right, but it dont mean marx was wrong about capitalisms contradictions & eventual demise...


its not supposed to be easy, but we are actually figuring out freedom in real time... the future for artists is bright, the future for vultures & parasites is dim

[_boring]

am i really going to have to read this thread?

[Byronik]

am i really going to have to read this thread?

No! Take this -

I don't download music, i buy everything... Even stuff thats shit so that i support the scene in every way.

I've even got a circus lunchbox

Multiply by 50 or 60( randomly add a few valid points here and there) and imagine all of them sat at their laptops writing that as they download anything that Mt. Eden touches

About the jist of it