Jump to content

no cure for piracy


exotic

Recommended Posts

Im sorry to say that you should probably be happy they did. This way your artists will get more and more attention. A friend of mine -intentionally- got pirated with a live set that he compiled and "leaked" himself. It took around 10 hours for it to be spread on various ftps, and took him around 3 days to gain 6 new bookings on the email address that was provided in the .nfo. How about that? :)

I don't mind the additional exposure... what I do mind is bandwidth theft. Several pirate blogs have been linking direct to my content (particularly lossless packages) after stripping away any credit or links back to my site. That's not so cool.

 

On another front, a group decided to rip the first release on my netlabel. According to their .nfo they have 635 releases. It wasn't hard to track them down on IRC. Amusingly enough, they post on Isratrance. It sort of makes me wonder how many forum regulars moonlight as suppliers/rippers/couriers for the various MP3 groups. Probably a bunch, I'm guessing. :ph34r:

 

Anyhow, like I said... it's funny. I mean, someone actually takes credit for supplying releases from my site. Making a sandwich takes more effort than that but you don't see anyone handing out medals of valour for a ham and swiss on rye, do you?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't mind the additional exposure... what I do mind is bandwidth theft. Several pirate blogs have been linking direct to my content (particularly lossless packages) after stripping away any credit or links back to my site. That's not so cool.

 

On another front, a group decided to rip the first release on my netlabel. According to their .nfo they have 635 releases. It wasn't hard to track them down on IRC. Amusingly enough, they post on Isratrance. It sort of makes me wonder how many forum regulars moonlight as suppliers/rippers/couriers for the various MP3 groups. Probably a bunch, I'm guessing. :ph34r:

 

Anyhow, like I said... it's funny. I mean, someone actually takes credit for supplying releases from my site. Making a sandwich takes more effort than that but you don't see anyone handing out medals of valour for a ham and swiss on rye, do you?

That is indeed rotten and they should get slapped for not mentioning the original source. :angry:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, it's true. What this scene needs is for one of the major distributors to take a hard-line and digitize everything in their catalogue... or for Saikosounds to finish building their download service. What percentage of new releases actually make it to legal download services? Maybe 10%? You end up with all the TIP World and BNE you can stomach, but none of the brand new, exciting labels.

 

Beatport recently announced that they were going to require a minimum sales volume from their label partners. This is completely asinine. Why limit possibilities when inventory costs are nil? The way to succeed in the digital media economy is to 1) offer as much selection as possible, and 2) provide powerful means of finding content (smart search, community recommendations and other "wisdom of the crowd" features, tell-a-friend, and so on). Beatport fails both of these criteria--their psytrance catalogue is extremely limited and their user interface is clunky Flashturbation with an incredibly weak search. While their business will no doubt continue to succeed, it does little for the state of digital download sales of psytrance music.

 

I think God has chosen you for starting up the leading digital online based psy/goa/ambient/chillout site. I wish I knew anything about such things and had the money for starting it then I would without blinking. I mean let's face it, people say psytrance is dead or is heading in that direction. That is not true.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, thanks for the vote of confidence! It would be an interesting challenge to tackle, especially now... but I think I might have my hands full with university, the netlabel, and everything I already do with my current web site. Then again, I am working on building an online shop to handle CD orders from my site, and it wouldn't be tough to add download functionality. I guess we'll see how it goes...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That sounds exciting basilisk! Best of of luck. From my own experience the only wisdom i can shed is to make sure you get a proper server to handle large download requests. You know how that worked the last time :rolleyes:

 

On real world talk, it's a hard bargain from cd distributors, there isn't much trust out there, while they are all saying "we preffer to have our own digital service" they do nothing. Some websites have made advances like cytopia getting the trust of labels, but nothing noteworthy that really grabs a big market sector. If you can get one big distributor to trust you, then the doors should start coming down. In the meantime, there's a hard fight ahead to prove physical distributors digital is the way to go and its ok for them to open their entire catalogue. Not mention Costs will still remain prohibitively high because the distro wanst their piece of cake in the digital world too... so the costs will be about the the same. At that point buying flac for wave for the same price of a CD or even higher makes no sense.

 

From that perspective, if you want to get the digital market you have to straight to the labels, the serious ones that float on their own. A big share of the current labels rely on their distro to cover miscellaneous costs like mastering which are later deducted from the earnings and thus some level of loyalty. Off course, as soon as you start going around the distro's and they notice, they will do everything within their power to shut you down. On the good side, the effort might be the spark needed to show everyone digital can work.

 

A good start would be a coalition or union of labels dedicated to releasing stuff online, but you need something that sparks their interest. All this stuff is near taboo when you start taking about going against the people that really make money in this business... the distros. Some other labels are so fiercely independent, they prefer to do everything themselves and will not accept any help or services.

 

I have probably writen this same shpiel a couple of times now, sorry, this will be the last time, i promise.

 

p,s: One thing i find curious, a lot of people here have no problem with the piracy distributors, the source so to speak, and apparently even they seem bothered when their wares is spread via p2p, yet why don't they do something to stop it? if it bothers them so much, how come they don't just quit? wouldn't that stop the problem? i mean, just go into any p2p, now imagine there's no mycel, etc, etc, etc files ripped by them, what are you left with? that's my point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The cure for piracy lies in changing the way people think - somehow finding a way to eliminate the attitude of trying to get as much as you can for as little as possible. If the majority of people had the attitude that something worth having is something worth supporting, it would help a lot of problems, not just music piracy.

 

But since the majority of people are soulless, narcissistic hell-beasts, my vision has little chance of becoming reality.

 

Oh, did I say that out loud? :unsure:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The cure for piracy lies in changing the way people think - somehow finding a way to eliminate the attitude of trying to get as much as you can for as little as possible. If the majority of people had the attitude that something worth having is something worth supporting, it would help a lot of problems, not just music piracy.

 

But since the majority of people are soulless, narcissistic hell-beasts, my vision has little chance of becoming reality.

 

Oh, did I say that out loud? :unsure:

Somewhat what we tried to do with NEO, but we split as a team (due to many factors). I would prefer labels running their own distro, cutting out the cost of the dist.company. This is what I have in Plan for both Colo-Caos and Aglaja Records. I will also try and sell other labels on my site, leaving the other labels 100% of the profit and only live and survive of the sales on Aglaja/Colo-Caos + banners. I know its going to be tough, but I think I can lower cd sales to around 8 euros + postage and digital downloads from the same labels as cheap as 60-80 cent per track. Of course server maintenance is an issue here, so I MIGHT take like SOME dosh from the labels to have their own space on elektronikmusik.org. We will see. Of course I a also welcome free quality labels (if you are one, contact me in the future) (Sorry basilisk, one has to survive as well hehe) :)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The cure for piracy lies in changing the way people think - somehow finding a way to eliminate the attitude of trying to get as much as you can for as little as possible. If the majority of people had the attitude that something worth having is something worth supporting, it would help a lot of problems, not just music piracy.

 

But since the majority of people are soulless, narcissistic hell-beasts, my vision has little chance of becoming reality.

 

Oh, did I say that out loud? :unsure:

 

I agree with you, unfortunately few people understand or care.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a lighter note, does anyone other than myself find it rather funny that the MP3 groups have been pirating free releases from my site? :wank:

Yeah, happened to me too. Apparently I made my music 1 year before I acutally made it. How about that! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That sounds exciting basilisk! Best of of luck. From my own experience the only wisdom i can shed is to make sure you get a proper server to handle large download requests. You know how that worked the last time :rolleyes:

 

On real world talk, it's a hard bargain from cd distributors, there isn't much trust out there, while they are all saying "we preffer to have our own digital service" they do nothing. Some websites have made advances like cytopia getting the trust of labels, but nothing noteworthy that really grabs a big market sector. If you can get one big distributor to trust you, then the doors should start coming down. In the meantime, there's a hard fight ahead to prove physical distributors digital is the way to go and its ok for them to open their entire catalogue. Not mention Costs will still remain prohibitively high because the distro wanst their piece of cake in the digital world too... so the costs will be about the the same. At that point buying flac for wave for the same price of a CD or even higher makes no sense.

 

From that perspective, if you want to get the digital market you have to straight to the labels, the serious ones that float on their own. A big share of the current labels rely on their distro to cover miscellaneous costs like mastering which are later deducted from the earnings and thus some level of loyalty. Off course, as soon as you start going around the distro's and they notice, they will do everything within their power to shut you down. On the good side, the effort might be the spark needed to show everyone digital can work.

How do labels actually know how much they sell? is a site like beatport obliged to show their books? Otherwise they could say to everybody they had half the sales..

 

Can anybody shed some light on this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...