February 7, 2008 at 19:24Artist uploads his latest album to What.cd, response to piracy from the music industry
Benn Jordan, an electronics engineer, also known by his musical pseudonym Flashbulb, recently uploaded his new album “Soundtrack To A Vacant Life” onto What.cd, The Pirate Bay and other popular trackers.
He did this to circumvent the inefficiency of traditional means of distribution.
An information file with the appeal is downloaded along with the album : “Hello, music lover ... downloader ... pirate ... pseudo-criminal ...”, hereinafter:
“If you read this, then you downloaded my album via a peer-to-peer network or by downloading a torrent. You probably expect to learn from the message that you are guilty of violating the copyright law and insulting the musicians who created what you listen to, but you can relax, nothing of the above is imputed to you. ”
Instead, Jordan speaks to listeners asking them why someone should worry about buying CDs in the era of iPods and clogged MP3 hard drives. Jordan believes that he knows the answer to this question: people buy CDs if they really liked the music and to support their favorite artist.
“Want to buy a CD just to demonstrate your support?” Don’t worry if you don’t like the CD format itself. Stores, such as Best Buy and Amazon, often inflate prices for music sold by 8 times, from the price set by the artist. In addition, most CDs are made from non-recyclable plastic, the production of which pollutes the environment. ”
Taking such a step, Jordan hopes that the new, for him, an audience of users of file hosting services, in case they like the album, wants to make small donations or purchase his other albums. You can download them in FLAC directly from its official website . He does not disclose the amount that, at the moment, the users have donated, but apparently, their reaction to the Jordan act is more than positive. A proposal to download his music was posted on the What.cd homepage and site administrators actively encouraged their users to download this piece of music for free.
Jordan, it seems to us, is not very sure that they will pay stably for such a distribution method, but he is sure that new models of music distribution are inevitable.
Attempts to cling to the old sales system only lead to an increase in piracy, without increasing the profit of the musician himself and allowing the labels to cash in on overpayments.
From his blog :
“Record labels cannot or do not want to satisfy a customer, which in turn leads to piracy and the destruction of the industry as a whole.
No matter how many people you sue, how many trackers you close or how much you come up with idiotic protection, like Key2Audio, DRM, etc. - people will always do what they want to do, make them accept something violently, you will not succeed.
At some point, the entire music industry should decide and change the current business model to a new one that is consistent with the realities of today.
I don’t think that donations are a long-term solution, but what the hell, it's still better than pretending that 85% of your audience doesn’t exist. ”
translation: Avvacum
Source
He did this to circumvent the inefficiency of traditional means of distribution.
An information file with the appeal is downloaded along with the album : “Hello, music lover ... downloader ... pirate ... pseudo-criminal ...”, hereinafter:
“If you read this, then you downloaded my album via a peer-to-peer network or by downloading a torrent. You probably expect to learn from the message that you are guilty of violating the copyright law and insulting the musicians who created what you listen to, but you can relax, nothing of the above is imputed to you. ”
Instead, Jordan speaks to listeners asking them why someone should worry about buying CDs in the era of iPods and clogged MP3 hard drives. Jordan believes that he knows the answer to this question: people buy CDs if they really liked the music and to support their favorite artist.
“Want to buy a CD just to demonstrate your support?” Don’t worry if you don’t like the CD format itself. Stores, such as Best Buy and Amazon, often inflate prices for music sold by 8 times, from the price set by the artist. In addition, most CDs are made from non-recyclable plastic, the production of which pollutes the environment. ”
Taking such a step, Jordan hopes that the new, for him, an audience of users of file hosting services, in case they like the album, wants to make small donations or purchase his other albums. You can download them in FLAC directly from its official website . He does not disclose the amount that, at the moment, the users have donated, but apparently, their reaction to the Jordan act is more than positive. A proposal to download his music was posted on the What.cd homepage and site administrators actively encouraged their users to download this piece of music for free.
Jordan, it seems to us, is not very sure that they will pay stably for such a distribution method, but he is sure that new models of music distribution are inevitable.
Attempts to cling to the old sales system only lead to an increase in piracy, without increasing the profit of the musician himself and allowing the labels to cash in on overpayments.
From his blog :
“Record labels cannot or do not want to satisfy a customer, which in turn leads to piracy and the destruction of the industry as a whole.
No matter how many people you sue, how many trackers you close or how much you come up with idiotic protection, like Key2Audio, DRM, etc. - people will always do what they want to do, make them accept something violently, you will not succeed.
At some point, the entire music industry should decide and change the current business model to a new one that is consistent with the realities of today.
I don’t think that donations are a long-term solution, but what the hell, it's still better than pretending that 85% of your audience doesn’t exist. ”
translation: Avvacum
Source