As the World Bleeds on YouTube

[Arkatox]

I frequently check YouTube for songs from As the World Bleeds as I want to link 'em to my friends on Facebook. Several times, however, I've found that the songs were uploaded, but were very quickly removed by YouTube by the request of Ulterium.

I just have to ask, now that the album is out everywhere, why does Ulterium continue to take the songs down from YouTube?

 

[Verbum Lux]

Um....I'm no expert on this stuff, but I'm pretty sure it's the same reason they would want to shut down any place giving illegal downloads - the band and the label don't make any money off it. A lot of hard work went into this album, and I can understand why they wouldn't want to give it away. UIterium put 30 Pieces of Silver and Nailed up, which is pretty good IMO.

If you want your friends to listen to one of the other tracks off the album, why not direct them to Rdio or Spotify? They can get a free account at either of them and listen to the songs legally - and the band and label will at least get something for it. I think it's a tiny amount, but hey, better than nothing I guess.

 

[SeaStorm]

I'm guessing here, but it could be because they know people can very easily rip songs from youtube. If you allow every song to be available on youtube, some people will simply rip them all and never buy the album. If you allow some (30 Pieces of Silver and Nailed), but not all, you give people enough to get hooked and give them an incentive to buy the album.

 

[knight777]

I frequently check YouTube for songs from As the World Bleeds as I want to link 'em to my friends on Facebook. Several times, however, I've found that the songs were uploaded, but were very quickly removed by YouTube by the request of Ulterium.

I just have to ask, now that the album is out everywhere, why does Ulterium continue to take the songs down from YouTube?

The basic issue is that when you, as an artist (in your case, a writer), create art, you own it exclusively. It is purely up to do you what you do with it. Nobody else gets to decide that.

When art gets put in a place it can be easily stolen or in a place that provides the value of their art for free without their permission, they are impacted negatively by that... aka, they make less money. But more important than the money is the fact that when someone does this, a basic right is taken from the creator of the art without their permission.

Now, there are of course complicating factors, such as having something on YouTube promotes the band, gets them more notice, gets more people to concerts, etc... those are all legit arguments for posting to YouTube, but it all goes back to who has the right to make that call.

If you really want to get deeper, consider that when you upload songs to YouTube, Google makes money and Theocracy doesn't. Google benefits from Theocracy's work and Matt & company make squat. Everybody tangibly benefits from the upload, except the artist, whose benefits are intangible at best, or more likely a loss of revenue.

That right to take that risk belongs exclusively to the creator or copyright holder, nobody else.

It would be similar to me saying "Hey, this guy I know on the forums interviewed a guy from Van Canto" but instead of linking to your blog, I post the entire thing to my blog. Maybe people will eventually find your blog and be your readers, maybe they won't. But for sure I will have benefited, my friends will have benefited, and I would have effectively taken unfair advantage of art that I have no right to.

Smashing Magainze has a fairly decent introduction to the subject:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/06/14/understanding-copyright-and-licenses/

 

[I Rock 4 God]

[Seastorm: removed discussion of a particular piece of software of questionable legality - let's not help people commit copyright infringement]

....... so it's good that it's not up.

 

[Child Of God]

And the album just came out, so it's better not to give it away on youtube...

But I think that nowadays, buying an album is a choice, because you can easily find a way to download it (even if you type "Theocracy as the world bleeds review" you will find download links in the first pages :/). And I think it's pretty difficult to remove all these download links...
So if someone wants this album and doesn't want to buy it, he technically can... so I think buying the album means "supporting the band" in those days... That's the sad reallity IMO...

It's the same thing with software (most for personal use)... I know the software I make will be pirated... so I understand what it does to get your work spoiled... but I think that giving my software free for personnal use and make a donation system will give me more money than getting it pirated by everyone

 

[Follow The Wolves]

I used to pirate heaps of music, but I've been buying a lot of albums lately. Why? Let me put it this way:

5 Reasons To Buy Physical Copies:
1. Art costs money; Artists need to be payed, simple as that. Look at it as giving something back for what they gave you.
2. High quality; Although there are 320kbs and HQ flac rips out there on torrent sites, usually official cd's have your favourite music in the highest quality available.
3. Artwork! Especially metal cd's have often gorgeous artwork (like Stratovarius, Sonata Arctica, Theocracy) that I'd personally hate to miss out on.
4. Let's talk biblical. Illegal downloading equals stealing (yes, I hate to admit it) and in the Bible stealing is 'for losers', to say the very least...
5. And the most subjective one of all: owning a big cd collection is COOL and BADASS. Period =Þ. (Make sure you don't exclude Theocracy though)

 

[Ulterium Records]

I think some board members did answer this question for us very well, thank you.

We've posted two full tracks on YouTube, and on top of this there's also samples [30-90 seconds of each song] posted at numerous locations like iTunes, Amazon etc. We feel that this is more than enough for people to make up their mind whether to get the album or not, legally.

Enough said I think.

Thanks for supporting Theocracy, they totally deserve it!

 

[Child Of God]

5 Reasons To Buy Physical Copies:
1. Art costs money; Artists need to be payed, simple as that. Look at it as giving something back for what they gave you.
2. High quality; Although there are 320kbs and HQ flac rips out there on torrent sites, usually official cd's have your favourite music in the highest quality available.
3. Artwork! Especially metal cd's have often gorgeous artwork (like Stratovarius, Sonata Arctica, Theocracy) that I'd personally hate to miss out on.
4. Let's talk biblical. Illegal downloading equals stealing (yes, I hate to admit it) and in the Bible stealing is 'for losers', to say the very least...
5. And the most subjective one of all: owning a big cd collection is COOL and BADASS. Period =Þ. (Make sure you don't exclude Theocracy though)

Great !

 

[Elecguitardude27]

5 Reasons To Buy Physical Copies:
1. Art costs money; Artists need to be payed, simple as that. Look at it as giving something back for what they gave you.
2. High quality; Although there are 320kbs and HQ flac rips out there on torrent sites, usually official cd's have your favourite music in the highest quality available.
3. Artwork! Especially metal cd's have often gorgeous artwork (like Stratovarius, Sonata Arctica, Theocracy) that I'd personally hate to miss out on.
4. Let's talk biblical. Illegal downloading equals stealing (yes, I hate to admit it) and in the Bible stealing is 'for losers', to say the very least...
5. And the most subjective one of all: owning a big cd collection is COOL and BADASS. Period =Þ. (Make sure you don't exclude Theocracy though)

So True!!! Also include the lyrics and booklet with the album cover. There is just nothing like reading the album while listening to it for the first time!!!

 

[Arkatox]

Trust me, I want a physical copy. I'd do anything to get one, except I have no money. :/ Spotify will still have to last a while.

Oh wait, let me check something... HAH! My brother was right! Someone finally added AtWB to Grooveshark! Now I need to choose between the two websites/apps.

 

[Yoykex]

I'd like to add something here:

1. Art costs money; Artists need to be payed, simple as that. Look at it as giving something back for what they gave you.

This is a perfectly good reason and for me it's the only one to actually spend money on music at all.

High quality material is available everywhere, the artwork is just NTH and I don't really have the place for a big CD collection. Most of my data carriers are in a box in the basement. It must've been years when I last played a movie or an album from a DVD/CD.

However, I must object to this point here:

4. Let's talk biblical. Illegal downloading equals stealing (yes, I hate to admit it) and in the Bible stealing is 'for losers', to say the very least...

No offence, but you're treading on very thin ice. There wasn't anything even remotely close to "copyright" a couple thousand years ago. Back then people usually didn't even have books. They remembered the stories and songs and kept them available by telling/singing them to other people so those could pass it on, too. Do you think they'd accused any bystander of stealing because that person listened as well?
I suppose anyone who would've come up with such a concept would've been sent to the desert right away.
In these times you'd probably have listened to Theocracy and then started singing those songs to others.

Oh and btw: Downloading/copying is at least partially legal in quite a number of countries. In Germany it's legal to download from Youtube, record (internet-)radio and tv and copy any material from a legal source, i.e. CDs/DVDs from friends or libraries. In Switzerland it's even legal do download stuff from any source.
I therefore somehow understand why Ulterium is taking down the YT uploads, although I don't think it makes much sense...

Yoykex

 

[JayArby]

^ for me it just comes down to doing to others what I would have them do to me. I know I want other people to respect my intellectual property, so I should respect theirs. Even if it is legal.

 

[Follow The Wolves]

I must object to this point here:

No offence, but you're treading on very thin ice. There wasn't anything even remotely close to "copyright" a couple thousand years ago. Back then people usually didn't even have books. They remembered the stories and songs and kept them available by telling/singing them to other people so those could pass it on, too. Do you think they'd accused any bystander of stealing because that person listened as well?
I suppose anyone who would've come up with such a concept would've been sent to the desert right away.
In these times you'd probably have listened to Theocracy and then started singing those songs to others.

None taken, thanks for your feedback. I must admit that the point about downloading being not biblical and all was a bit subjective or at least not properly supported. The list was merely intended as humour and I wasn't trying to start the discussion whether downloading is stealing or not. However, I seem to have failed at that.

You make a valid point if you say that in the past there was no such thing as copyright, and it may be true that in some countries downloading isn't against the law (I live in one myself), but I'm rather trying to look at this from a moral point of view. Music (and any product for that matter) is usually made by artists who expect to receive credit for the work they put in it, which is perfectly logical I think. Avoiding this and leaving the money that was intended to pay for the music you enjoyed in your own pocket looks suspiciously similar to stealing to me.

Also, in the past, they only had apples. Apples can't be copied, unlike mp3's, and so don't need copyright. However, both are products that someone put effort into.

To be perfectly honest, I don't feel like starting this discussion, which wasn't my intention anyway. Thin ice is fragile, you know

 

[Yoykex]

^ for me it just comes down to doing to others what I would have them do to me. I know I want other people to respect my intellectual property, so I should respect theirs. Even if it is legal.

I don't think there's even such a thing like "intellectual property", you can't "own" ideas, music and thoughts.

I personally don't care if people use my private "intellectual work", as long as they don't use it to make money out of it.

 

[FleshAndBloodTheocracy]

No offence, but you're treading on very thin ice. There wasn't anything even remotely close to "copyright" a couple thousand years ago. Back then people usually didn't even have books. They remembered the stories and songs and kept them available by telling/singing them to other people so those could pass it on, too. Do you think they'd accused any bystander of stealing because that person listened as well?
I suppose anyone who would've come up with such a concept would've been sent to the desert right away.
In these times you'd probably have listened to Theocracy and then started singing those songs to others.

Wrong.

Numerous times in the Bible it says to submit to your government, as they have been given authority by God. It even goes so far as to say "rebellion is as of the sin of witchcraft" in Daniel.

Therefore, in the countries where it is illegal, it is also sinful. Simple as that.

 

[Yoykex]

Also, in the past, they only had apples. Apples can't be copied, unlike mp3's, and so don't need copyright. However, both are products that someone put effort into.

To be perfectly honest, I don't feel like starting this discussion, which wasn't my intention anyway. Thin ice is fragile, you know

That's ok, no problem.

Just one remark: In the past they didn't have only apples. They had music and stories, paintings and plays, but they didn't need a copyright because copying and using other peoples work as basis for their own was a completely normal thing.

 

[Yoykex]

Wrong.

Numerous times in the Bible it says to submit to your government, as they have been given authority by God. It even goes so far as to say "rebellion is as of the sin of witchcraft" in Daniel.

Therefore, in the countries where it is illegal, it is also sinful. Simple as that.

That may be so, but it's a strawman you're bringing up here.
Follow The Wolves claimed that it'd equal stealing which is a sin according to the bible. Therefore I argued that there's no such thing as "copyright infridgement" mentioned in the bible and spreading knowledge, songs and stories was common at that time (and therefore there's no biblical foundation for considering it to be stealing and/or a sin). The legal situation in certain countries was more of a sidenote.

"Submitting to the government" is a completely different can of worms, which I hope you don't want to open here...

 

[Follow The Wolves]

That's ok, no problem.

Just one remark: In the past they didn't have only apples. They had music and stories, paintings and plays, but they didn't need a copyright because copying and using other peoples work as basis for their own was a completely normal thing.

Yup, true. Just look at how frequently classical musicians used each others passages in their own music. But then also look at how much competition there was between physicists or mathematicians about who did a discovery first. Up until the patent was introduced, the sly scientist would win all fame and money.

This was not my point though, I wasn't talking about stealing ideas (different discussion). What I did intend to say was that not paying for something you are supposed to (because that's what it basically is) is stealing in my eyes, regardless whether the law does approve of it or not. With these things I usually try to look from the artist's point of view.

 

[FleshAndBloodTheocracy]

That may be so, but it's a strawman you're bringing up here.
"Submitting to the government" is a completely different can of worms, which I hope you don't want to open here...

It's really not - if the question is "is downloading illegally sinful?" the answer is absolutely and without pause, yes.
And why not? Not doing it (submitting to government) is a sin. Unless you're arguing for the fallibility of the Bible with me (you will lose), there's no can of worms here.

And, as someone who's argument consists of "times were different", you don't seem to have a grasp on just how different they were. Patents and copyrights weren't a thing because individualism didn't exist. It was all about the community. Originally, the tribe. Then the temple community (Hammurabi). Then the patriarchal family (Hebrews) and the Polis (Greeks). Then the Republic (Rome) and the Empire (also Rome). Then the tribe again (Germanics), then the empire (Charlemagne), then the kingdom (middle ages). Then the nation (post-rennaiscance). Everything a man did, he did for his community. Up until about the mid-1700s, individualism did not exist, so stealing "intellectual property" wasn't an issue because the art (be it music, a painting, a scientfic discovery, etc) was made for the good of the community.