Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Steal Our Album, Help Bury the Label

My opinion on organisations like the RIAA and CRIA is that they are killing music. They are simply hack-sawing (slowly) the goose that in the end, lays the golden egg!. They seem to be lost in the golden age of music and are following an old and unsustainable business model. A lot has been written about this and we don't seem to be seeing the end of it. DRM and other useless restrictions are destroying the freedom on music we listen to. I don't see why I can't rip onto my computer a music CD that I bought!. I paid for it. I own it. Or if there is a problem, the band that created this music in the first place owns the recording!. All these needless antics of law-suits by the recording industry on people who share music online or recently, even ripped the CD onto a computer is crazy. Recording industry - your business is flawed!. You better come up with some ideas - fast!. The point I am trying to put across here is that all these law-suits and what-not finally do not end up helping the artist!. Your online sales of DRM-crippled music does not help the artist in any way. I'm happy to see that more newer artists seem to be realising this slowly but surely. They realise that the recording industry is somewhat skewed against them in the first place.

So into the picture comes this frontman of a band called Throwdown. He simply said this - "I play in a metal band. We have sold around 200K records across 3 releases. We’re not ‘huge’ by any stretch but do alright and live off (and ON subsequently) the road. Fans and friends ask me all the time how I feel about “stealing music.” I just told someone yesterday “I have a hard time seeing it as stealing…when I don’t see any money from cd sales to begin with." (emphasis mine). He goes on to give a message to the file-sharers out there: “I encourage our fans to acquire our album however they please. The philosophy I’ve adopted is that if you’re supporting disc sales, you’re keeping the old model around longer…the one that forces dudes like me to tour 9 mos/year if they want to make ends meet with a career in music". Ending with a final insult for the record business, Peters hits a sweet note that will likely resonate with many as they reflect on the record labels future usefulness: “If you wanna really support a band, “steal” their album….help bury the label….and buy a tshirt when you show up at their show and sing every word”.

More on this article on TorrentFreak.

Another very interesting article that I came across on TorrentFreak was an "Open Letter to the CRIA". The writer most of the times reflects my sentiments exactly!. On a recent visit to a music store, I was really pissed off at seeing so many "Greatest Hits" and "World's Biggest Metal Hits" collections. Like the author says - "The record labels cry about downloading cutting into the profits of the sales of albums. They put out “greatest hits” albums by 20-year olds with 2 or 3 albums under their belts, released with one new track to try and sucker the fans that already have both albums into spending another $20 for one new song, or re-releasing a 3-month old album with a “previously unreleased bonus track”. Then they can’t understand why people aren’t buying them, and cry foul that people are downloading the one new song instead". Simple logic I must say.

Another interesting point is that NO ONE in the "popular" media seems to be "promoting" metal. "So tell me, what does the CRIA do to promote metal? Oh, right, you’ve got a link to the top 50 “metal” albums in Canada, which after a quick glance at the top ten this week includes punk acts like Dropkick Murphys, Finger Eleven, and Billy Talent, and rock acts like Nickelback and Queen, but very little that resembles heavy metal. (Perhaps you should ask the Celtic punk band, Dropkick Murphys, what they think of being labeled as “metal”.)"

Damn, its a very interesting read - please check out the whole article here.

The recording industry's business model seems to be dying - "No prayer for the dying"! Bury the label!!.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Leave your non-Anony-mouse comments here: