the FBI closes Megaupload

[SocialNumb]

...while trying to pirate an Aerosmith album? :zombie:

That's what I was thinking.

 

[Arsenu,]

That's what I was thinking.

...while having trouble doing something that became soooo easy, pirating music.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Still not making any sense at all.

 

[SocialNumb]

nope.avi notatall.jpg

 

[Arsenu,]

^ nice embedding...

my point was that it reminded me of the time when if i wanted to listen to a band, i'd have to go to the store and BUY their album, instead of it being 2 clicks away, and for a second i imagined how awesome it would be to go back to that time.
that's all.

obviously, it's now going to happen.

 

[Mago]

^most of the time you can listen to 2-4 song legally without having to pirate the album....bands youtube page, myspace (^^), facebook page...
I think that that's a good thing.
just my random thought that popped up now, even if it doesn't relate 100% percent to what you mean.

But what keeps you from not going back to the 80's is what I wonder....no one forces you to just not listen to anything on the web before heading to the store to buy the album?

oh and massive +1 on Chris' last post.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Musicians are upset because people don't want to pay for 1s and 0s. I'm sure as hell not paying $10 for 1s and 0s when I can buy a used cd for $0.99.

This whole thing is a clusterfuck of epic proportions and can only end in one of the following two ways:
1. Government regulation of the Internet, complete with a Police force and Internet Drivers Licenses
2. Collapse of the recorded music industry as well as any other 1s and 0s-based industries (film, written media, code)

I see no other options. The potential ramifications of #2 are very bad.

 

[SocialNumb]

^ nice embedding...

are_u_serious?.html

 

[drew_drummer]

Musicians are upset because people don't want to pay for 1s and 0s. I'm sure as hell not paying $10 for 1s and 0s when I can buy a used cd for $0.99.

Is this your actual opinion? It's a pretty fucking stupid one if it is. It isn't a question of 1's and 0's. It's a question of paying for people's time, effort, and creativity - rewarding someone for creating something you got pleasure out of.

There is no reason why 1's and 0's should be any less valuable than a physical product. FACT.

 

[Mutant]

I would be quite happy to pay $5 per album directly to the band instead of paying $10 and knowing that the band will see only $1 - just like we have it today...

 

[egan.]

That's an excuse based on an assumption about bands' negotiated rate with the label. I can't give numbers but my band makes a much higher percentage royalty rate on downloads than CD's and we have done this with multiple record labels. I can only imagine that plenty of other bands are doing much better than 10% on downloads despite being on a record label. In fact, we've always made significantly more than 10% on everything.
Sure, most bands would prefer you hand them money directly but you wouldn't have heard of them without label advertising and they're record probably wouldn't sound as good without a label budget. There are certainly exception of course.
Most of the justifications for D/L are based on warped, over-simplified or simply wrong understandings of business.

 

[Emdprodukt]

Kim Schmitz is actually from my hometown and was a student of one of my teachers. He was REALLY bad at school.

 

[Mutant]

Egan my post was not an exuse for downloading anything, i simply stated my wish for the bright future of music distribution without any evil record companies forcing me into accepting them as middlemen.

without label advertising

I am immune to advertising and in fact i don't even remember ever seeing an advert for an album i might like.

When i feel a need for some new music, it's always only word of mouth and active research, so label advertising has 0 value for me.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Is this your actual opinion? It's a pretty fucking stupid one if it is. It isn't a question of 1's and 0's. It's a question of paying for people's time, effort, and creativity - rewarding someone for creating something you got pleasure out of.

Hey thanks, buddy, that was cordial.

Yes it's my opinion. I want a CD and a cover and pictures with blood and guts and gore, and with the guitarist showing his horns. Not to mention that a cd includes (gasp) information on who engineered and mixed the album. That happens to be important to me. Why am I going to pay the same price for a bunch of 1s and 0s (in mp3 format nonetheless) that have no CD, no artwork, no horns, no equipment info, no production info, and no pics of sweaty, shirtless drummer?

When people come over to my house, I want them to see my CD collection and get frightened by its magnitude. It scares the shit out of people when they see 8 Dimmu albums next to each other. But you probably wouldn't know about that.

 

[egan.]

I am immune to advertising and in fact i don't even remember ever seeing an advert for an album i might like.

When i feel a need for some new music, it's always only word of mouth and active research, so label advertising has 0 value for me.

Advertising isn't just a glossy ad. It's promo copies, features and reviews in magazines and blogs, endorsements, tours, videos and a host of other things you've failed to consider. You can do all of those things w/o a label but they're all easier with an infrastructure that does them fifty times a year. Those are the things that foster "word of mouth" and make you more accessible to "active research." You can't be "immune" to that.

I wasn't accusing you anything but I'm sure you can see how many people use identical logic and take it one step further.


@Genius, no one is stopping people from continuing to buy physical media but the fact is the average consumer takes free d/l's over the booklet you want so badly or else the sales of the last decade wouldn't have taken the huge down turn.

 

[drew_drummer]

Why am I going to pay the same price for a bunch of 1s and 0s (in mp3 format nonetheless) that have no CD, no artwork, no horns, no equipment info, no production info, and no pics of sweaty, shirtless drummer?

FLAC files are superior to a CD. Make as many copies as you want; once a CD breaks... it breaks.

Artwork+horns+equipment info+production info+pics of sweaty ball sacks can all come with FLAC's too... provided the band wants you to have any of that stuff.

And I'm not anti-physical media at all. We just got 200+ digipacks made up for our upcoming release. But digital media can be just as valuable. That's my point.

And cordiality? Since when did the Sneap forum encourage cordiality?

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

FLAC files are superior to a CD. Make as many copies as you want; once a CD breaks... it breaks.

Artwork+horns+equipment info+production info+pics of sweaty ball sacks can all come with FLAC's too... provided the band wants you to have any of that stuff.

And I'm not anti-physical media at all. We just got 200+ digipacks made up for our upcoming release. But digital media can be just as valuable. That's my point.

And cordiality? Since when did the Sneap forum encourage cordiality?

True about the cordiality, my bad there haha.

Look at Metallica's Black Album [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Metallica/dp/B000002H97/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327954274&sr=8-3"]here[/ame].

Now explain to me why a CD is $3.50 and an inferior quality mp3 download is $8.50. Shipping? Tax? And what about those cool gray and white pictures of Jaymes and Lars and co (probably the last cool pics ever taken of them btw)? And the lyrics? How come I don't get those?

And since we're speaking about "artists", what about the artist that created the album cover? We're not going to pay him anymore? So the musicians should get paid but the album cover artists shouldn't?

I dunno, sounds like a bunch of horseshit to me. 1s and 0s. That's all music is these days. You can argue all you want, but in the end it is 1s and 0s. No way out of that.

Making money off of your music right now is akin to building a sandcastle on a beach.

 

[Mago]

to be fair: 3.50$ is for the used CD, new one is 10.89$

I think artists normally get payed like soundguys, so how many CD's are sold, or what the price of the CD is doesn't have a lot to do with them.

I'm also one who likes to buy physical CD's, normally I only pay for a DL if it is FLAC or if I don't have access to a physical CD.
I expect it to be a lot cheaper than a physical CD though, since the cut for the store, transport and storage isn't as bad with a download.
I also like the music without any artwork or stuff, but it really helps me to bond with it if I can have something to look through...be it holding it in hands or clicking through the booklet on screen.

 

[Arsenu,]

i'm with the Genius on that one. regardless of royalties and who gets paid and who doesn't, physical copies are so much more than any digital copy can ever be.
i started this shit-storm by saying i miss the days when everyone used to do what i just did today:
got the new LOG album after avoiding the temptation of that convenient download link, threw it into my CD player, and spent about an hour reading the lyrics and appreciating the artwork while listening to it for the first time.

10 years ago that used to happen with every album. now even if i did this only once a year it would still be more than 99% of music consumers do.
i will never pay for a digital copy not to mention charge people for that, when someone chooses to pay for my music he will get a solid piece of art, not a bunch of meaningless binary code.
(wev'e drifted so far from the subject of the thread...)

i just miss the time when i used to appreciate EVERY album like that, and so did everyone else.

 

[JeffTD]

Please resize that picture. Jesus christ.