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Looper's Delight
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Bill Fox wrote:
> Last night, I was at a party where a friend told me that he saw my
> entire new album for free download at some Sweedish site. WE HAVEN'T
> EVEN RELEASED THE DAMN THING, YET!!!! I'm a NOBODY. My band is
> UNKNOWN; not Genesis reformed or the Beatles reincarnated. Holy moly.
> In the little niche of Progressive Rock, we're not even Spock's
> Frelling/Fracking Beard!!! Who the hell would want OUR music?
You are certainly somebody, maybe I want your music? I sounds like its
worth checking out...
> 1) Should I bother to spend any more money on what the world can already
> get for free?
Yes, because nowadays there is only one way to find out if your music
counts: If you can encourage people to by the CD. I guess you think its
worth it. I believe so too (I'd love to hear it)
> 2) I might be flattered that SOMEONE wants my music to be exposed to the
> world. But at what cost to me and my band? Can we afford to even
> FINISH this CD? Can we afford to ever make another one ever again?
This depends how the story ends...
In the end it might turn out to be a good advertisement. If its a web
site, I'd try to get in contact, to rentain whatever control seems
appropriate. Either shut them down, or force them to point them to sales
and to encourage the listeners to buy it (and maybe put it up on only
128 kbit). I have no idea what is more profitable. I have no idea how
many free downloaders are in the end buying CDs because they came across
the music via free downloads. It might be more than without.
> 3) I feel betrayed that some trusted friend let our music out to the
> world to allow this to happen. All trust worthy friends will now be
> punished by not getting so much as advanced CDRs of tunes in progress,
> all because of one bad apple.
This is the most hurting part. That really hurts.
> 4) What is my hard work and dedication worth?
See answer to point 2.
But in the end it would not make such a difference if the mp3s are out
even before the CD is out. If the music is worth it, it will come up
somewhere on the net. If not, you should start to think if its worth
anything! ;-)
For me personally the situation is similar to what Kris explained
already. I don't have too much left to spend on CDs. But there are two
ways to spend it well: One is I listen to the music live, and I know if
I herad a "must buy". The other is I listen to it as mp3, and there are
some "must buys" found that way (Bruford Levin Upper Extremities for
example). Some rare occasions are sell-outs for 1 Euro or so, where I
just take it as it looked interesting, but I couldn't hear it. The
average cost considering the percentage of junk is not much cheaper than
a list-priced CD, but some surprise discoveries make this technique
worthwhile.
In the past there where record stores I could trust the taste of the
dealer to point me to new horizons. Nowadays its rare, and a list like
Loopers Delight is more of a usable resource to find interesting new stuff.
I did a lot of mastering for Nuclear Blast, they claim that their CD
sales did not decline in the past years. Their products are very much
aimed at the fans of that kind of (heavy metal) music. Their products
are very much more than just a CD, they have special packaging, an bonus
material and the fans are willing to pay for it.
They use no DRM at all, I guess all their music is available through P2P
networks easily.
Stefan
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Stefan Tiedje
Klanggestalter
Electronic Composition
&
Improvisation
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