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!!.

Defective By Design

Came across DefectiveByDesign's site where they have buttons to show your support for the fight against DRM. You can get the html and post it on your blog.

DRM doesn’t work

Came across this article where Mark Shuttleworth had written about DRM - "There are some ideas that are broken, but attractive enough to some people that they are doomed to be tried again and again". DRM also known as Digital Restrictions Management (to the opponents of DRM), is a doomed piece of technology brought into the distribution of entertainment in digital formats. When I first heard of DRM, my question was - "If I buy the bloody song, then how is it that I do not own it? How is it that I cannot transfer it from my MP3 player to my computer or elsewhere?". When I read that I still do not own the damned piece of music, this made me more intrigued about DRM. I read up on artistes (who actually created the damned music in the first place) mention that the digital format of selling music has pretty much left them high and dry. They do not still make much money from the distribution of the music. Many of them do not like such restrictions on their music!. Then why - just cause some major music labels think its right to restrict the way we listen to our music?.

Some of the points that Mark touches upon are very interesting. He says - "Those folks who try to impose analog rules on digital content will find themselves on the wrong side of the tidal wave". Interesting point there. Another is that "It only takes one crack". We know that the processing key for all HD discs produced to date has been discovered and published. They brought about insane rights managements on CDs, then DVDs and now for HD discs. But time and time again, we see that they have been cracked. So are any of these insanities really doing any good? NO!.

Friends say - "Why get so worried about something? You need a whole album, download it off some torrents site". But my point being - shout out atleast. Make yourself heard. DRM sucks!. Write about it on your blog. Give power back to the people. Not some fucked up record company somewhere.

Mark also touches upon Steve Jobs' sudden high moral ground on DRM. So fucking see-through, Steve. The article written by Mark is really a very interesting read and you can read it and other articles by Mark on his site - www.markshuttleworth.com

On another note, came across this cool software for installing Ubuntu on your local Windblows hard drive partition itself - called Wubi. All you need is the software and the ISO image for Ubuntu. Check it out. I haven't - yet!. Let me see if I can somehow install it and check it out for myself.