What a thing to wake up to. Alright, RIAA, think about it for five seconds:
FACT: Like Napster before it, OiNK's database was the most comprehensive, convenient, high-quality source of digital music on the Internet. And if you build it, they will come - the site has thousands upon thousands of users, every one a music lover looking for a great way to find albums new and old. Also like Napster before it, the industry has chosen to completely blow a tremendous opportunity by destroying an obviously successful system rather than simply figuring out a way to monetize it and rake in profits.
FACT: There is no one-stop location on the Internet where you can pay $10 and download a 192+ kbps DRM-free MP3 of any album you want - which you can do on OiNK for free. Essentially, the music industry is asking consumers to ignore the gentleman in the street handing out fresh Hebrew National hot dogs (delicious, amirite) and pretending that the gross chunks of meat that've been simmering in 7-Eleven all week are just as good! Why should anyone pay for an inferior product when what they actually want is just sitting there?
FACT: DRM-laden music doesn't work. Subscription services don't work. Why? The same people who buy the most music are also its biggest promoters, making tapes or burning CDs for their friends and now, passing around MP3s. If you can't do this, it's no fun - how can you convince your friend to go to a show with you? Music is communal. Sites like OiNK are the ultimate example of this. Which leads to...
FACT: Career sales trump one-hit-wonders. Touring and merch trumps album sales. How does this happen? AWARENESS. How do people become aware of bands in a way that inclines them to make a connection and develop loyalty in the iPod era? I'll let you guys figure that one out, but it's not happening on MTV or ClearChannel-owned radio stations.
FACT: A download is not a lost sale. The kids with the most MP3s are hoarding them because they can, not because they're trying to save money on paying for CDs. No one is ever going to go out and buy 5-10 albums a week, but that's about how many a good chunk of us download.
FACT: Promotion costs money. Record companies routinely lose tons of cash on bands that sell 100k and call it a career. During the late '90s heyday, they could offset this with the Backstreet Boys, but that was never going to last.
FACT: Promoting your album by letting people listen to it online so they can go out and buy it or see you on tour, and letting buzz build organically through word of mouth? FREE.
FACT: The audience that pirates albums is often a totally different market than the one that still buys CDs. Downloading is never going to cannibalize CD sales - they're two seperate entities, and the industry should be supplying quality products to both markets, not constraining one while the other dies a miserable death.
In short, fellas, the industry is moving in a direction where bands are going to pull a Radiohead and just sell the shit themselves because the industry seems unwilling or incapable of doing the absolute bare minimum of offering their entire catalogs in a quality file format at a reasonable place in a one-stop shop.
Update: Because there's been some confusion about my intentions with this post, I'll make them perfectly clear: I'm not condoning piracy or even promoting OiNK, really. What I'm saying is, the lack of a legitimate, legal service with the same quality, ease and variety of OiNK is a huge, gaping hole in the music business right now and if anyone wants to make money on a recording ever again, you guys had better fill it the hell up.
(Feel free to Digg this post.)
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Labels: Critical Backlash
posted by David Greenwald @ 10:57 AM 
Comments (119)
Perfect. Everything I thought and more. Along with every other indie college kid, 90% of the shows I go to I wouldn't of gone to if I didn't d/l the album. 90% of the albums I buy I wouldn't have bought if I hadn't downloaded them prior.
I might very well be the same sad 5th grader rocking to Pink Floyd, if napster and oink didn't come about.
This is great. More power to you!
If we keep repeating these "facts," they are bound to become true! Right?
Just curious, but you do know there are plenty of other p2ps out there, right? Dry your eyes, pal!
You're forgetting that the gentleman handing out hot dogs stole them from the butcher shop.
Dude, I LOVE free music too! Fuck the man! Steal their product!
hells yeah ive been talking to my friends about this since we woke up to this horrible day. Guess i'll go listen to some of the 600 albums i got at oink. And yeah i definatly go to shows and buy merch cuz i toured myself and know the record companies are in it for themselves and not the artists. Long live music and file sharing and may every artist get their music out there and heard easily.
For those of you unlucky not to have an oink account its a major deal cuz unlike ALL other sites out there you only get cd quality at oink. No viruses no spam no incomplete albums no transcodes, no freely available items. It was way too nice and loving of a community. And i downloaded at 2megs a second...cant get that anywhere. Will be missin my oink.cd fo sho
1 & 2. Fact: For $30 a month you can get 100 downloads at eMusic. That's 8-9 albums and you don't have to steal.
3. Given.
4. Fact: Touring and merch is a lame excuse to rationalize piracy and does not recoup lost sales for all artists.
4. There are other means of promotion besides leaking an album.
4. If leaking an album is such a valuable means of promotion, then why don't you ask the labels and artists first. They'll surely agree, right? Maybe they're one of those artists or labels who purposely leak their albums. We've all heard that story.
5. Questionable: Those who primarily listen to digital music have no reason to buy a cd once they have mp3s.
6. Given
7. Fact: Not every consumer of recorded music is a consumer of live music. Not every artist you pirate is a full time touring artist.
8: Questionable: Someone please find me some numbers to find what percent of albums downloaded illegally are later purchased.
I'm glad I never went on OiNK, so I wouldn't have to be in the company of complete meatheads like Jay here.
Hey Fluxblog, do me a favor and argue against any point I just made.
Just Sayin' - As I noted above, downloading is not actually stealing anything - it's creating more of something, which is obviously still piracy but is a different (and arguably less damaging) thing than a physical theft. No one is losing the cost of making 10,000 CDs at the record plant because an album leaks on OiNK.
What I'm trying to argue here, fellas, is not that we should all be pirating music, but that the record industry is being remarkably short-sighted and also that downloading/piracy allows for greater - and more personal - overall awareness of music in an era where the industry sorely needs to reach out to as many fans as possible to compete with video games/TV/movies/etc regardless of any effect music piracy itself has on sales.
But, seriously, I agree with Bill on some points: experimental, hip-hop (non-white basically), electronic artists, etc. are really done a disservice via file-trading because they don't tour. Touring is a rock thing, and even it's not a slam-dunk moneymaker. Making music costs a lot of money (and no...home recording doesn't equal a really good sounding studio in most cases), and many people have to have day jobs to support their music habit, thus making touring very difficult.
@ Bill:
"7. Fact: Not every artist you pirate is a full time touring artist."
Maybe they should be. I'm not in charge of the paradigm here - OiNK or not, recordings are no longer something that's going to be effectively monetized, especially when the industry refuses to do it properly. If bands want to be successful, they're going to have to do more than spend a month recording an album, and this is true whether they tour or just do interviews or make videos or whatever. Making your living as a musician has always required more than just playing music.
r.i.p. oink
love,
bren
irc.dal.net #Oink
Also, Justice/Daft Punk/Simian Mobile Disco and plenty of electronic musicians and DJs seem to have no problem playing shows and drawing crowds. People like going out and hearing music regardless of genre.
Oh, fuck off.
FACT: Yes, the RIAA are delusional aholes with their fingers up their...yeah.
FACT: If you think a download is *never* a lost sale, or that illegal downloads aren't hurting indie artists and labels, YOU ARE AS DELUSIONAL AS THE RIAA.
Leaking and downloasing records is a reality, but it doesn't entitle you to bitch and moan about not getting records *before* they're intended to get to you. Sure, the RIAA has lost the plot on how to effectively protect artists. That's no big surprise. But for you to bitch and moan about losing the quickest and easiest way to steal music *BEFORE ARTISTS WANT YOU TO HAVE IT* is almost as entitled and obnoxious as the RIAA itself.
I have to say, as an artist myself, I completely agreed with everything said here. And to the people saying that experimental musicians are done a disservice by not touring, they should. I find, that the music I listen to is incredibly obscure, I find myself not being able to find it anywhere, and when I find it online, the price is always extortion. Artists make more out of touring than record sales anyway. If I had more money I would be more than willing to spend it on music, but the prices are just so goddamn high, which is why sites like OiNK were such lifesavers, as it gave me a chance to hear all the music I wanted to hear but couldn't find.
Dave, albums cost a lot of money to make and market and they shouldn't be seen as this loss leader for concerts. Record companies aren't there to support a patronage system, you can't just pretend that it's OUR RIGHT TO HAVE FREE MUSIC when we're still living in a capitalist culture, and if these companies all dry up, there are some serious consequences. It's not all bad to get stuff for free, but we have to understand that we're getting away with something questionable, and that we're not entitled to anything.
And for real you guys, I promise you that other p2ps exist and they always will and most of them won't be nearly as douchey as Oink.
Also, it's worth noting that not everyone can afford to tour, and a LOT of people who do LOSE lots of money. It may be a favorable situation for certain acts, but in a lot of cases, it's definitely not. People live on other continents, have dayjobs or families they can't abandon, people specialize in music that doesn't lend itself to profitable touring. Should those people not break even on their recordings?
Matt, did you miss all the parts where I begged the record industry to sell me a quality product that I'd be willing to buy? Because as soon as that happens, I'll be happy to give up bit torrent forever. What irks me is the RIAA's total reluctance to face facts and even attempt to compete with services like OiNK which are so obviously superior. Even iTunes still (smartly) sells a file format that just cements its own monopoly and doesn't really help the consumer.
And, tangentially: Bands should be aware that playing music isn't a lucrative career unless you get very, very lucky and - while of course people should pay for their stuff - it's a bit ridiculous to say that just because you've picked up a guitar and cut a record, you should automatically be turning a profit or even breaking even. You've got to work for it and, y'know, be a band worth supporting in the first place.
Dave they have these things called "compact discs." It's all "cd quality," from what I understand.
http://oinkmemorial.blogspot.com/
Dave they have these things called "compact discs." It's all "cd quality," from what I understand.
Holy oversimplification! Tell that to a 15-year-old kid who's just going to put the CD right onto his iPod anyway and doesn't need/want a CD. What's easier for him, downloading AAC files from iTunes or streaming them from Rhapsody or just getting regular old easy-to-use, high-quality MP3s from OiNK?
I don't see why everyone is so averse to the concept of selling decent MP3s. Plenty of the big indie labels (Thrill Jockey is one fine example) are doing it already. I'm saying it would be great if it could all be in the same place...which illegal sites are already doing. Why not beat them at their own game?
for a well-reasoned, eloquent discussion (from an artist oink affects, no less) go read dj ruptures thoughts:
http://www.negrophonic.com/2007/defending-the-pig-oink-croaks/
I'm sorry, but live does not equal the studio, period. They are not even the same band to me. A good live band does not necessarily mean a good studio band and vice versa. Using CDs as an incentive to get people to go to shows is an incredibly myopic way of looking at music. I love live performance, but it's a very narrow view of what music is. Sure, Daft Punk has done great...do you know how much that production cost? Records cost a lot of money to make, even the "on the cheap" ones. Relying on live shows is not a good way to ensure financial success.
I know plenty of bands that lose their ass on the road.
That's a great article, anonymous, thanks for posting it.
You seriously think people used OiNK because it had slightly higher-bitrate MP3s, not because it was, y'know, free?
That's certainly one among several factors that made OiNK vastly superior to any of its legal alternatives. The fact that it had practically every album, 7" and live show ever is an even bigger one.
I'm sooooo incredibly dubious of that "OINK HAS/HAD EVERYTHING EVER" claim. Everyone makes it, but it's so overreaching. Can't you just say "it has a whole lot of stuff, good variety, most anything a 20/30something with a lot of computer access would want" and leave it that? Because that's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay closer to the truth.
This post has been removed by the author.
guys, we're still around
http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?action=showall&boardid=44&threadid=1197
oink invites
Who is this Perpetua guy? He is an uninformed bag of hot air. it sounds like he is arguing with Dave just because he doesnt like him, without any well defined position of his own or any viable alternatives.
The music industry is currently in flux between an old model based on tangible goods to a new model based on bits of information. He fails to acknowledge that the two models certainly overlap, but they do not REPLACE AND SUPPLANT each other, they will, in all likelihood, supplement and support each other. Once the dust settles, I am willing to bet that both the tangible music industry (CD sales) and the intangible music industry (downloads) will spur growth among each other. All we are doing for now is squabbling over the details about how we get there.
FACT: Almost every musician we work with holds down another job to help finance their musical career. That's a minimum of two jobs, neither of which is generally very lucrative.
FACT: About half of the artists we work with have children and families (as do I).
FACT: No other business would tolerate the type of criminal reform consumers have perpetrated through piracy. If you want to change a business or industry, have the courage and will to actually work in that industry and change it through your own means. You can't ask people to jeopardize the security of their jobs and families to tour so that you can listen to their records for free. Also, I don't come to your work and claim that I'm entitled to your stuff for free. As Matthew said, it takes a lot of time, money and effort to record and promote a record.
Not only that, but we work with a few artists with severe medical conditions that don't allow them to tour. How would you compensate them for their talent and efforts?
I personally don't like the RIAA nor do I like their practice of suing individuals, but Oink and other torrent sites are a different story.
FACT: If you keep stealing from us, we won't be able to afford to stay in business and find and market artists that you otherwise wouldn't hear about.
FACT: If you want to listen to millions of bands for free, there's always My Space. It's far from ideal, but it's free and, as it should be, you get what you pay for.
Long live piracy. Bottom line - making people pay $20 for a crappy CD with only one-half decent song on it and then paying the artist who created that song millions is ridiculous.
Nobody has ever been able to justify to me why it's worth paying that much money to an artist like 50 Cent, or Kanye. While Joe-schmo, at 16, is working a minimum wage job and has to spend 1/10 of his paycheck for one CD - recording artists are living in fat mansions and talking about how people don't respect their music.
It's not that those of us who pirate don't respect their music, it's that we don't respect companies that pay these people millions of dollars to do what garage bands have been doing for free for over 40 years. I go to free shows all the time, and many times, the music played is better than the crap that's on MTV or the radio. It is nice, however, to slap the "Man" in the face every time I pirate the one decent song from his artists crappy album.
We will never stop pirating - and I hope the recording industry goes to shit in the next few years. That way, we can get back to the times when people made music because they loved it. Not because they need a new Bentley, or just want to hang out on South Beach for the summer while they juggle their oh-so-difficult life.
All i'm gonna say is that the industry quotes lost revenues in regard to product sales down 1/3. I would argue that is lucky for them as much more than one third of the music they sell is garbage and it used to be you wouldn't know until you bought the damn thing. Now people may review the product before purchasing and they are buying albums that are of adequate value for thier cash. I have downloaded albums probably 20 or so over my time, only from artists which I had an interest in and I have found most of the albums laking, and thus have only bought 3 of them. But I bought 3 of them at the full 20 dollar price tag.
I would NEVER have bought them otherwise, as I don't have them money to WASTE on garbage. Catch a grip and realize that for those who are honest, torrenting an album is a legitimate means of ensuring only quality artists are supported not the one track wondres that have had massive album sales in the past.
Sooner or later the the musicians making albums strictly to get rich will die out and we will be left (again) with those that do it solely for the love of the art. Not the love of cash.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that my downloads have never cost anyone any money. In fact quite the opposite is true. Last visit to the record store, I bought 4 CDs, and I learned of ALL 4 BANDS on the OiNK forums. That's 4 semi-indie bands who have money in their pocket thanks to OiNK. What has the RIAA and their clones ever done for those bands that could compare to that?
I completely agree with you Dave, and those who don't really are not thinking about this logically.
Let me post a quote from DJ /rupture: "For fans, consideration of the music comes before questions of money and ownership - this is how it should be."
He's completely right, and here's the thing: artists should be playing for the music, not the money. And don't say that's unfair to artists, because it is not. Look at radiohead, the released a free album, and made MILLIONS off it. Music Labels should take note of that.
There are a lot of things the music industry isn't doing right. Much of the ballyhoo about piracy is a plain and simple scapegoat.
You can no longer hear new music on the fm radio. It is a vast wasteland of replay after replay. You can thank payolla for that happening.
Were it not for p2p, there would be almost no place to try new music. I won't go buy an album on the faith that it will be good beyond the one hit wonder song. Been stung far too many times for that. You can chalk that one up to the industry as well. Eliminating the single in favor of the album and then stuffing it will filler is a direct result of seeing the starting of Napster.
As far as the sales of cds declining again, you can thank the industry for that for two reasons. One is that they have driven the repeat sale through the constant change of formats and I for one am tired of buying the same ablum I like over and over yet to do it again in a few years. The other is that the industry made sweetheart deals with the chains that no mom and pop record store could compete with. In the end it meant the closing of all those multiple stores that drove sales. Like back catalog that is purportedly to be 30% of total sales. Chains don't don back catalogs so there is 30% of the sales gone right off the top.
The fallicy that the RIAA is for the artist is the usual hogwash. The RIAA is for their masters, the major labels and nothing else. None of the sue'em alls will ever go to the artists. It's been already stated that. The best we can hope for is that this vast money pit will eventually bankrupt them.
Since they don't listen to their customers and the artists are wising up to the signing of a deal with the devil, more and more artists are showing how its done. Radiohead and their new album is one example, Prince another, Madonna yet another.
The rip off of the customer has reached the place that the last straw to break the camels back is being added. $20 for a single song on an album, isn't a price I am willing to pay. Nor is $11 bucks for that matter. Maybe for a live concert but not for a lossy digital song. There is no longer value in music when it comes down to quality and less is not more.
Nor will the closing of Oink bring about the end to piracy no more than did the closing of Napster. Instead it will be repeated in that those who were on Oink will now go elsewhere and continue to do the same with far more ill will towards the industry. One item the industry seems determined to continue spread.
Sueing your customers that you depend on for your economic livelyhood is insanity. File sharers are among the best of customers; or they were. The artists that continue to sign up will be painted with the same dislike as the industry by association. Like it, hate it, makes no difference.
dear everyone: please stop referencing radiohead in your arguments about how music should be free! they released a "free album" that wouldn't even cut the mustard on OiNK because of its bitrates and are putting said album out via an ACTUAL LABEL that has ACTUAL RIAA TIES next year.
also, what matthew said as far as the idea of OiNK being some sort of "celestial jukebox." there was a lot of shit that wasn't on there, and a lot of shit that--real talk--i would upload to no response from the shins-downloading faithful. i actually didn't care when my access got revoked in april, because the site was pretty much useless to me.
What Maura's trying to say is it's really hard to keep up a good ratio when journalistic integrity won't let you leak your promos.
aww, maura, you just sound upset about loosing your OiNK account. But in seriousness, radiohead's album is completely relent. They released their hard-copy CD at a public domain price.
and finally, you really think there's such thing as a fresh hot dog, dave?
-matthew fluxblog
yeah, you guys are right. i'm just "bitter" over getting kicked off a site that i hardly ever used and that had a bunch of entitled assholes as its userbase. i couldn't possibly think that the entitled cry that's going up from the site's so-called music lovers is hilarious!
So currently I download maybe ten albums per week and buy about 3.
If I couldn't download, I reckon I might buy one per week.... because I like to know that what i'm buying is worth my money.
What would the labels prefer? Me buying 3 albums or just the 1?
That whole getting-kicked-off-Oink thing really did a number on poor Maura. Lord knows how hard it is for a professional blogger engaged to another widely published critic who works for a major online store to get a hold of free music.
"Downloading CDs hurts artists." "Downloading movies hurts filmmakers"
All of these are based on the assumption that the consumer would purchase the product in the first place. A good deal of the content being put out by "artists" isn't worth the 10c worth of material its printed on.
Film makers are paid money in advance to produce a film and then the box office revenue pays its initial investors back and provides the basis for profit. The dvd generates more profit, but it is not the front line for profit. It is a different revenue stream.
Recording artist are not making their revenue solely on cd sales. If they were, many people would have been out of business a long time ago. CD sales do make up a part of an artist income. Artists have rights to their songs, which they can make money off of the rights to use their material in different media (tv, movies, games). There are a good many avenues to making money. Even so, the artist isn't the one who sees the lion's share of that money. The recording label is.
The group that actually takes a hit from "lost sales" is the distributor. Distributors buy those cds based on a projection of the artist or group's popularity. If the artist's album bombs, they are the ones stuck with the product. It isn't like they have any guarantee that a certain amount of money will be made. Artists, as has always been the case, are never guaranteed a meal or any money at all. Art is something you do because you love it, not because you'll get a paycheck from it. If you want money, there are certainly better ways to do it. Even so, downloading a cd doesn't remove a physical piece of property from a store shelf. Though some will never purchase the cd, some do out of a sense of morality. Either way, information sharing is not going away. DRM formats and encryption are not absolute roadblocks. It just is not possible to stop people from copying music, even with legal action. People come up with a defense, and others will find a way around it. There is no perfect defense, no infallible method to protect your information. Which is why if you really want to stop people from stealing something, offer it at a price point that makes sense. Just offer the product at a price the market will bear.
I take it that the price is "free." That seems to be the price everyone wants to pay now.
he is correct, there is no site on the net that allows downloads of almost any record that acheived some level of fame in formats like flac or high quality variable bitrates... 192kps is low quality in my book, and if your going to listen to music listen to something worth listening to
Meme Driver, there is this thing, in the industry, known as "returns." That's what the boxes and boxes of unsold CDs that the distributor returns to the label and gets account credit for are called.
Speaking of "entitled assholes"...how about the level to which Fatblog and this Maura seem to enjoy the fact this all happened. They would greatly prefer being among the select few to have access to leaks and obscure tunes. IF only that were the case...people might actually give half a shit about what they have to say.
Further, all those individuals reading and commenting on an obscure (no offense, Dave) indie music blog are obviously "so-called music lovers". We actually spend all of our free time obsessing about and listening to this "india rock"(?) because it gets us laid...AND we all get more ass than we can handle....albeit slightly less than Perpetual Douche.
dave - i'm not gonna argue with any of your facts because i feel like you really believe them and i can't change that.
but, i guess that's what worries me and probably a lot of other people who work on helping bands put out music - the so-called obsolete sector of the industry.
it's not the sense of entitlement or the didacticism, it's the fact there is a generation of music fans who lack any perspective to understand that these type of beliefs are eventually going to kill off the vary thing you profess to love.
i go to an organic food market every Saturday at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. i'm sure it would be no problem to steal a week's worth of produce. i mean, they're just farmers in town for a Saturday and it's pretty crowded and they're pretty busy with customers.
i'm also pretty respected in my circle of friends and am known for some pretty kick-ass barbeques. i tell all my friends about the benefits of organic food and tell them where they should buy the food, but at the end of the day it's not about that.
i believe in organic farming for much greater reasons. health benefits, local economy, energy independence, etc. these are my values and i express my belief in these values via giving it the best form of support you can - buying the shit.
so, when i lay down $4 for a few beautiful japanese eggplants, i'm supporting a whole set of values that i have and it's much larger than something grown without pesticides at a local farm.
and the food certainly tastes better than stolen food because i can live with myself bite by bite knowing i'm doing my part to sustain it.
again, you're entitled to your values and beliefs too and i can't speak for any other label, artist or person in the industry, but if you never dedicated another pixel to a band i care about, i would not personally lose any sleep over it.
the lack of a legitimate, legal service with the same quality, ease and variety of OiNK is a huge, gaping hole in the music business right now
iTunes. Shut the fuck up.
Adam, buddy, I'm not understanding the part where I'm saying people shouldn't pay for music or that piracy is cool aside from the admittedly belligerent title of this post. All I'm saying is the same thing that DJ Rupture is saying: that if it were legal, OiNK would've been the best music website there is, and it's a goddamn shame that there's not a legal pay-to-play equivalent in Two-Thousand-fucking-Seven.
And hey, Anonymous? When iTunes has half the music OiNK did and I don't have to play it on my iPod, then maybe it'll be worth using.
this is a good article, i agree with a lot of your points, now here is the problem, everyone is complaining about money, money, money and more friggin money.
everyone is obssesed with money, gotta have money, need that money.
fuck of with money already all it does is put evil into power, and corrupts good men. people kill over money, destroy whole countries for money, money is the enemy, and who has lots fo this? these jack-ass corparations who try to run the world, and any "pirate" out there sees this enemy, and if we have to steal to see this evil wither and die, then so be it. Whats that you ask? if they go under who will make the music? this is what the artists are for, they make the music, they will continue to make the music, with or without these companies.
P2P is the best distribution method i have ever seen, its free so there is no cost to get your music out there, if your music sucks, noone will listen to it and that would be a good time to change day jobs. just because you can bang on some drums dosent mean your good. an artists job is to entertain, not sit on his ass and get paid, you want to get paid, get up, go out and play your music. you say you need to have a job in order to support your music carrer, i can see this, you do have to buy a guitar, amp all that stuff, and it does get expensive, but then why havnt you "made it big" as they say? are you in it for the music or the money.
and whats this fuss about injured artists? whats wrong your hands broken and cant play a guitar, well that sucks. or are you parapalegic and cant walk, you can still sing, bang on some drums, do you have terminal cancer? quit being a wimp and make your life mean something before you kick the bucket, bob marley did.
It is about the music, the message it sends. not the money, and how many cars you can buy. True artists Know this.
May capitalisim die a bloody and horrible death.
"Speaking of "entitled assholes"...how about the level to which Fatblog and this Maura seem to enjoy the fact this all happened. They would greatly prefer being among the select few to have access to leaks and obscure tunes."
yes, you're absolutely right. i am an elitist. i only want to listen to artists that have an artist of one.
are you serious? grow up. oh wait, maybe you'd actually be acting like a grownup if you'd SIGN YOUR NAME TO YOUR POST. at least i have the stones to utter my opinions with my name attached to them, mr. "professional."
god, this whole thing has just reminded me how much i hate how fucking entitled and assholish indie kids can be.
"Kids" being the key term here Maura. Don't forget, you are, for the most, arguing with a bunch of kids who still live with Mommy or are in college and have no concept of the real world whatsoever. Yes, it's a shame that they have brainwashed themselves into the rote regurgitation of the mantra, "LABELS ARE EVIL AND TEHY ARE ALL RIPPING OFF TEH PEOPLE AND GREEDY ARTISTS ARE ALL TRYING TO GET BLING BLING AND TEH MUCSICS SHOULD ALL BE FREE," but then again, it's like you're arguing with a brick wall: you can't reason with it. Stop wasting your energy. Word of advice.
Anon 19:26 -- you're totally right. see you on the flip side everybody!
Love of music doesn't get you studio time or mastering costs, y'all.
I don't "enjoy" any of this, I just fucking hate people who feel entitled to free art and display a deep contempt for people who try to make a living off of their art. It's awesome to get things for free, to sample things, whatever, but you are not owed anything. I'm not asking you to stop using p2p, but I do expect you to understand the real consequences of it, and not delude yourself into believing you're helping anyone but yourselves.
I really fucking hope this issue gets resolved soon cos I'm so fucking sick of it. No matter what the RIAA does, people are gonna download shit. It's just the way people are; we want stuff for free and if we can get it, by and large, we will. That's just the way it works.
DRM is where the record/movie industry has the biggest problem. Seriously, it takes at most a few days before some clever guy out there has it cracked and out there for all. So why would you burden the people that are actually willing to pay you for something with it? It's like when I watch a DVD and am forced to sit through an anti-piracy commercial. I just bought the freakin thing so why do I have to sit through something that is telling me I shouldn't steal what I just bought????
"...arguing with a bunch of kids who still live with Mommy or are in college and have no concept of the real world whatsoever. Yes, it's a shame that they have brainwashed themselves into the rote regurgitation..."
You, sir, are one who needs to grow up a bit. The point of this post was not a Music Label bashing session. Granted, there were some really (REALLY) lame and idiot ic comments, but choosing to respond to them really is your own problem.
Oh, and by the way, I still live with my mother. I haven't graduated from high school; does that immediately preclude me from this discussion? I am the one noting:
1) You saying "brainwashed themselves." That makes no sense, how the heck can you brainwash yourself?
2)Music Labels are not evil, horrid, blah blah blah. They have simply make mistakes, mistakes that manifested themselves as groups like OiNK. That's all that Dave was trying to say, that OiNK filled a void, and that Music Labels don't need to go away, but change their tactics if they wish to stop this mass P2P phenomena.
Oh, and Maura, if you are really insulting someone for posting anonymously on an blog comment you really need help, possibly professionals. I'm sorry that your OiNK withdrawals have lead to such bitter and stupid statements.
Sorry Dave, for turning this into a kind of personal rant.
I would be a different person without OiNK. I downloaded music from all over the world, that I couldn't find anywhere else. I downloaded live albums, unreleased albums, albums that itunes didnt have and that were old and hard to find in record stores. Yes, I downloaded a lot of indie stuff, and I promoted a hell of a lot of it. I went to see shows, I bought t-shirts, I wrote the bands e-mails.
A lot of the music I loved and a lot of the music I did not like, and I would have wasted a lot of cash buying a product that didnt satisfy me, since you cant return CDs or MP3s.
For a while I was a part of a really big music loving community: It was an amazing library of music that was organized in meticulous genres, along with "similar artists."
For those of you out there who think all OiNK users are evil, we're not, a lot of us love music more than most people. So much that we cannot afford the amount of music we need. So much that we waited impatiently for the leaks of Cassadaga and Easy Tiger every day for a month so we could tell our friends about it and buy the t-shirts as soon as they were available online.
RIP, OiNK. you will be missed.
P.S. The only company i feel bad for downloading is the teaching company... they deserve every cent they get their lectures are great!
Good God, one day away from TRRTS and all hell breaks loose. If nothing else, the fact that this post generated 60+ responses in a day:
A) demonstrates our focus on the negative...when is the last time there was this sort of discussion on any of Dave's other great posts?
B) the fact that this issue generates such animosity and heated (bigoted?) viewpoints only highlights the fact that the RIAA is doing nothing to remedy the situation.....which, uh, WAS the original intent of the post, right?
C) ....and this is a personal viewpoint, crucify me if you like....but, this is just a symptom of a bigger problem: Corporations/ our brand of Capitalism. THIS IS A SYMPTOM OF WHAT CORPORATIONS DO! They are in a race with each other to get their hands on anything that a large portion of the population wants/likes/kinda likes/needs for survival....then bleeding the population for whatever they're worth. Sometimes that population is "invisible" (i.e. a third world country overseas) and sometimes it's more obvious. Bottom line, I think the choices lie with the artist as to whether or not they want to participate in that system or not. Granted, that doesn't solve anything...who can download albums JUST from artists who don't want to participate in that system? I don't have the answer; the question is much bigger than whether or not downloading a song is "wrong".
@Cory
"you" and the companies you work with are bound to go under despite the perceived lost revenue at the cost of downloading. the downloading exists because the companies aren't giving artists or listeners what they really want, which is reasonably priced digital music. downloading has been around for a long while now and is clearly not going anywhere, still music companies have yet to get the message.
radiohead has understood and are a band with the means to take matters in to their own hands, and it is already a successful experiment - albums paid for was around 1.2+ million while pirated copies were around .5+ million. the money they will make from allowing their listeners to set the price will probably be comparable (or much better?) to what would have been made had they gone through their recording company.
these multi million dollar record companies essentially created the p2p problems they are dealing with today by owning a product that was under high demand, and not having an intuitive, reasonably priced high quality method of getting it to users how they wanted it. instead of reacting to the market the way they probably should have 10 years ago, they responded with some convoluted DRM-laced trash mp3s. granted, the p2pers probably would have surfaced eventually and evolved on their own, but never at the rate it has if companies had started selling mp3s like they are today years ago.
And yes, I'm usually a stickler for grammar and I didn't follow some rules. It kinda bothers me re-reading it, but I'm tired...peace.
Twas true in March, is true today.
this is a great post
but way lame comments
try this: napster was a 2000 fad where tons of people came together to get excited about music - the industry shut it down. SEVEN COCKSUCKING YEARS LATER Oink is a site where music fans come together to get excited about music
WHERE IS THE COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY ALTERNATIVE
I WOULD PAY 50$ a month, I would CHASE someone to pay 50$ a month to get what I got from oink this past year
THE INDUSTRY IS THE BAD GUY - not for shutting down oink - but for not having its shit together
do you know what there big idea is right now - take 50% of artist touring revenue - I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!!!
industry execs are sitting around big tables discussing how they can move in on taking 50% of their touring artists.. while fucking kids are building communities like OINK
This is so very conflicting. I disagree with raids like this one -- and yet it couldn't have happened to a bigger collection of douchebags with overinflated sense of self. Oh well. I look forward to the shakeup and things can only get better. It was only a single website and there's always going to be another site. Maybe this time it won't be run by a collection of people who need to be garroted with their Threadless t-shirts.
Very well Said,
The record industry loves to pass the blame onto people that are ironically much more musically enthusiastic than the casual Cd buyer(especially in this case). Smaller bands need buzz. they need movers and shakers making people aware of their existence. they have shown the extent of their greedy green fingers, Desperately pulling out wires in an easy, informative, relevant, Well taken-care-of, High Quality Network- Out of greed. They don't care about their artists, theres been proof of that for years. Dropping bands that don't make them enough money to feed the big greedy family, trading them like baseball cards, Taking way too big a cut when they aren't making any of the music themselves. It definitely doesn't give me any reason to trust them an inch further. I see major record labels ultimately losing the battle of the digital revolution. of course you have to pay the artists for their music- that is, if they deserve it. If they do then I am THRILLED to go see them whenever they come through town, and maybe even buying their merch. I could give a fuck if Creed
doesn't ship enough units because of piracy. I know this same regurgitated point has been stated a million times in blogs and comments now for a while, But how much longer until they start listening to their market?
I've been playing in different bands for about 7 years now. Getting exposure and building buzz can be a tricky task, especially when you have NO MONEY. Once I flew to the UK, met a COMPLETE stranger in a bar, and then found out after a few drinks that SHE HAD PIRATED MY BANDS ALBUM!!! I WAS FUCKING THRILLED!!!
not in my wildest dreams did I expect ANYONE in England to know who we were at that time.
Anyway- Finding out Oink was shut down today was a hell of a shitty way to wake up. Most people won't miss it because it was an invite only community, NOT A PAYSITE. (although you did have an option to donate if you wanted better search options, but you could IN NO WAY pay for an account)
It was the PERFECT resource for any kind of great, relevant, and usually otherwise unheard of music.
you will be missed dearly ol' Pal.
-Authorized User
When a Gawker empire editor like Maura talks about indie kids being assholes, you gotta laugh.
Perpetua, it's hilarious to see you riding the white horse here when you run a blog that DAILY posts new songs for download (like, say, LCD Soundsystem's recent single). I suppose your argument is that you're only posting a single song, but it certainly strips away your utter moral high ground. It makes you sound, as you would say, "douchey."
Also, less bitchy whining on Fluxblog, please.
Personally, I think it's too bad oink got shut down, but it was inevitable and illegal. It was apparently a very well run site, if a bit stringent. Dave's point here, if you can see past everyone's screaming, is a valid and good one.
Maura, since I don't feel like going through the comment hazing over at Idolator, let me just say here that the site becomes shrill and annoying whenever Oink gets brought up, like some sort of 15-year-old bitching about the popular kids.
You have ZERO call to piss all over oink users when you and Brian were previously users. You even attempted to do a whole "let's snark on the Oink top ten" article that then blew up in your face when they kicked you off the site. Since then it's been nothing but pissy little comments about bitrate elitists. Word of advice: when complaining about elitist snobs, try not to act like one yourself.
Matthew and Maura coming on here to bitch out commenters is exactly the sort of perpetual college-paper-writer that I fear the music writing scene is filled with. I'm sorry to see that theory fulfilled today.
Thank you Dave, for an interesting article and for defending it.
dave, your blog is poorly written and your points are weak.
btw,
xo
One thing is being ignored in this increasingly shrill debate.
There is evidence to suggest that labels were tacitly encouraging leaks, if not perpetrating them themselves. One example came in the lists of albums on OiNK's upload page that weren't allowed to be uploaded.
Some of these gave reasons like "requested to be removed by band management."
It's highly likely that there were employees of the record industry who had OiNK accounts. This would explain how "band management" knew what was on there - someone had an account, saw their artist's material, and got uncomfortable.
After all, with the site's private, invite-only status, how else would management find out that something had leaked if they or someone they knew (employed?) weren't a member of the site?
Whether industry employees had accounts to monitor file-sharing undercover, to actually leak albums, or to see what the "tastemakers" were listening to, we'll never really know.
But doesn't it strike anyone as odd that a) the RIAA, as far as we know, wasn't involved in OiNK's takedown at all, even on a tangential level (despite the fact that a little over half of OiNK's users are American), and b) that the RIAA has yet to release a statement on the matter (when you would think they'd be crowing about it within seconds of the raid).
Seriously, their website was even updated today...and with no mention of this "big victory" over piracy.
I'm only speculating here, but could this be because the RIAA doesn't want to get a whole bunch of egg on its face? Call it ridiculous all you want, but label employees having OiNK accounts, checking out what type of music was in the top 10, and discovering new artists they could potentially pursue is not THAT preposterous.
Though, on second thought, that would imply that the record industry was ahead of the game and investigating how best to utilize new technology. And, well, that clearly hasn't been the case up to now.
I could be completely wrong, but I am surprised that not many people have brought up this point.
And the RIAA's continued silence only makes me wonder more.
Fact: Bears eat beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
Perfect.. again..
What I loved about it was how it was the greatest archive of music publicly available.
If you searched for a classic Beatles album, there'd be 30 lossless versions of Sgt. Peppers. True audiophile versions of rare vinyl with quality superior to the half-assed remasters record labels released on CD.
EMI famously neglected the sound quality in their official releases and as such, fans made superior versions (like the Dr. Ebbets and MFSL vinyl rips). Oink was simply the best archive of digital music anywhere. Old Clash demos, rare live performances, copies of band's homemade first albums that never got distributed, etc.
Yes, it provided a way to get free versions of widely available popular albums, but it also archived and cataloged the last 50 years of music better than any other place on Earth. Many of which are not readily available for purchase anywhere. It was an excellent record of one field of human achievement and now its gone.
Take Fujiya and Miyagi's first album, "Electro Karaoke in the Negative Style". The local music store doesn't have it. Amazon doesn't have it. Even the band's own website links to an online store that says, "Sorry this title is permanently out of stock." But Oink had it.
How about the Clash's "Vanilla Tapes" that were lost on a subway train 30 years ago? On Oink, but not HMV, iTunes, Virgin, Amazon, etc.
70% of my Oink downloads were things I couldn't buy even if I wanted to. The labels are destroying sources for things they don't even provide. (Can you even get lossless DRM-free digital music legally?)
It was the digital music version of the burning of the Library at Alexandria. And it was destroyed so some label execs could make a couple more bucks off Rhianna's "Umbrella".
I'm not claiming a moral high ground, John. I'm saying that we shouldn't feel that we DESERVE free music, or that not buying music is actually some heroic thing that's somehow actually going to SAVE MUSIC. We have to be aware of the consequences of what we do and not rationalize everything so that we feel as though we're in the right when in the best situations, we're in a gray area of morality, and in the worst, we're being gluttonous pirates without any care for what happens to other human beings. If that's a bit too nuanced of a position for you and others to digest and understand, I don't know what to tell you.
I am still concerned about the attitude taken towards non-touring musicians, as if they are somehow less relevant or stupid because they choose to not do so. I work with a band whose lead singer has massive anxiety and hasn't left the house in 14 years. How about other famous non-touring artists like XTC and, say, the Beatles?
Cory works with an artist named Okay, who can't go on tour because of Crohn's Disease. That guy doesn't deserve to be compensated for his art?
And people are so dismissive of Adam and Cory's comments, but these are guys from indie labels that work hard to develop and support artists, offering them things they can't realistically provide from themselves. Music is a job, and a damned expensive one.
Some people here need to grow the fuck up and look at the reality of the world they are creating with their entitled attitude.
Oh, and the ad hominems and tu quoques getting thrown around at Maura and Matthew, your designated straw men, are used to obscure the fact that, yes, you are stealing.
http://www.negrophonic.com/2007/defending-the-pig-oink-croaks
here's an interesting, well-informed, honest, artist's opinion of Oink.
I just can't stand some of these comments, I can't help it. Some of you just swallow things the way they are so easily, you refuse to see how the music "industry" needs to innovate and you just don't seem to want to acknowledge the fact that paying around $15-$20 for a CD is utter bullshit. Perpetua seems to like getting raped in the ass by record companies, or maybe you get plenty of free promos so you aren't worried about it? Music should not be about money, people who want to dedicate their life to music will find some way of making a living. Any music artist who actually considers music an art should be thrilled at the possibilities of the internet, not scared that it will ruin their current business model. Maybe the days of becoming a multi-millionaire through music are over, and would that be so bad? Not everyone gets to live their dream life and support their grandchildren's grandchildren off the money they make. If musicians are being deterred from what they love to do just because they don't feel they're getting paid enough, then maybe they're in wrong "business." Get a freaking day job, ask for donations, go on tour, make a more interesting product than another carbon copy jewel-cased CD with some shitty little liner notes. Things are going to change, they already have, open your fucking eyes. I'm so sick of people just accepting things the way they are because this is a capitalist economy, did it ever occur to you that maybe a capitalist economy doesn't always influence culture in best ways? Open your freaking mind, consider the possibilities, quit Perpetuating this disgusting "industry" that constantly devalues and disrespects the art and the artists it is supposed to expose to the world.
If you were a member of Oink that used the site correctly, you'd know that it was a community that had serious rules that DEMANDED respect for music, musicians, and music-lovers.
If people want to find something bad enough, they will find it. The beauty of oink was that they simplified/expedited this process.
True, it didn't have "everything," but who remembers the request feature? In the two+ years I was on the site, I'd say 95% of my often obscure requests were filled.
To boot, I'm one of those snotty college radio djs and I've built quite the listener base just through music found on oink....
You know who I feel sorry for? All those middle managers and A&R guys at Warner-Sony-Universal Records (or whatever it's called these days) whose kids will have to drive Jetts instead of Cayennes to Teddy's. Those Program Directors at Clear Channel radio stations who haven't seen a hooker or an eight-ball since W-S-U cut their payola budget. And let's not forget the money required to break obscure talents like Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan. Face it--you kids are nothing but a bunch of Communists who question the wisdom, fairness, and goodness of the Free Market. Why don't you all move to North Korea or someplace.
Oink let you try music of new artists for free (whole album, cd-quality). In only the last two years I've gone to see at least six shows of artists and bands which I learned about and listened to first simply because of Oink. There are other bands I love to see that haven't been in town, too. I'd be happy to give these artists $50 of my money to see them perform if they'd let me listen to their music free rather than paying $10 for a CD.
The prevalence of free music is one of the better things that has happened in our recent era. File sharing is an explicit acknowledgment of a reality that has existed since the invention of the recording tape deck: copying and passing music along. Music, contrary to what some of the people on here have been saying, has always been free. If you didn't want to buy records, you could listen to the radio. They were, most likely, playing those records on the radio anyway.
Once the tape deck came around, everyone just took their friend's records and CD's, recorded them to tape. What's that? More free music. If your friends didn't own records, you could tape your favorite songs off the radio. I did this when I was a young chap with no allowance. CD burners made life easier because you no longer had to actually listen to the album. You already know what the album sounds like, and you just want to pass it to your friend. You don't really need to listen to it for the nth time just to copy it. MP3's are the next logical advancement in the spread of free music. Oink was nothing more than a large tape share. You went to one place, found Edan's Fast Rap mix, Sleep's Dopesmoker, and a Francoise Hardy album all at the same time. You'd trade them You're Living All Over Me, Long Live the Kane, An Experimental Aircraft album, and Dusty in Memphis. It's how music has worked throughout its recorded form.
This is all true and will never change. The reality then and the reality now is that it does disadvantage the artist. But, that disadvantage comes with a tradeoff. If you are an artist, you have to ask yourself the question: do I want money or do I want my art out there and a fanbase?
If I were an artist, I would much rather have my music in the public audience regardless of whether it was earning me money or not. I don't want to play to empty rooms. I would probably have a second source of income anyway until I blew up. If my albums are being shared online, I can be guaranteed of some people showing up at my concerts. Additionally, if I keep up my end of the deal, I can get people to buy stuff from me and add to the money that I'm making from the venue and plant the seeds in their minds to make my albums an automatic buy from a legitimate record store, something which isn't all that unreasonable. Don't get it wrong, I'd be pissed about that money, but I know that the money will get back to me through live shows, merchandise, commercial rights, and compilations.
So, file sharing, while still technically illegal (like recording television and copying music for your friends), has a very distinct utility for recording artists and fans alike. If it weren't for file sharing, I would have never found out-of-print and obscure albums that I now love or gone to shows where I bought other cds, t-shirts, and records from the band. So, slam it all you want, file sharing has been and will continue to be here.
Ace FTW!
I gotta say, I agree with Adam's earlier comment:
...it's not the sense of entitlement or the didacticism, it's the fact there is a generation of music fans who lack any perspective to understand that these type of beliefs are eventually going to kill off the vary thing you profess to love.
One thing nobody is mentioning (becuase it was admittedly extremely rare) is the non-infringing use of Oink. I used it to upload all three of the albums released by our record label. You know, hoping that people would hear the music and enjoy it and become fans...
I have an answer.. How about record companies stop signing people based on Image and start signing the people who play quality music. People download to see if they want to buy, because most albums these days have 2 or 3 good songs and the rest is filler. I won't buy an album unless I'm sure that more than 60% of it is quality. Record companies are killing themselves by signing 1/2 rate musicians who look "cool" or "metal" or "blingy" ..
some of the comments today are really starting to hit home of what is really going on here.
look at bands like the thermals (licensed a song for a commercial), the hold steady (seem to be getting more and more popular by the month), interpol (signed to a major), arcade fire (playing the largest venues of perhaps any 'indie'artist), and the national (selling out shows across the country in days, when their first few albums were completely ignored).
the internet created these bands. people downloading these albums and giving them to their friends has created a way for these bands to make a living. they may not be rich, but most of them can probably afford to quit their day jobs by now.
my brother is a very casual music fan, but i called him up yesterday and we got to talking about music, and i asked if he had heard clap your hands say yeah. and he said YES, this blew my mind. he spends no time looking up music on the net, he came across them in a mainstream publication somewhere. this band would have nothing and be nowhere without the internet. i would be very interested to know how many of the people who bought their first album off their site directly from the band, stole it first and then decided it was awesome and gave the band some money. id say many, if not most, of them.
im not concerned that music is going to die. as long as there are bands out there worth supporting people will support them. the majors wonder why no one is buying their crappy albums anymore. ITS BECAUSE THEY COST TOO MUCH AND, more importantly, THE MUSIC SUCKS! people say that majors sign bands more on image or marketability then talent and this is obvious. before file sharing and internet hype the major's promotions department and mtv and clear channel were all consumers had to go on when making decisions.
now with myspace and band webpages and allmusic and other sites you can search for hours for artists that sound similiar to ones you like that might have no money and no backing whatsoever. but you can become a fan and share them with your friends.
i havent bought a major label release in years. not because i dont buy cds anymore, but because im going to spend my music money on bands that i like, and yes, have listened to their albums for free, on the internet before buying. the strong arm tactics of the riaa and the mindless crap they unleash on the public (paris hilton had an album. oh, you say it flopped? NO FUCKING SHIT IT FLOPPED, WHO WANTS TO LISTEN TO THAT?) certainly doesnt help in building any kind of good will between content providers and the customers they hope to attract.
While I do disagree with this blog somewhat, please allow me to respond to someone else (hannah) who said that illegal downloading hurts indie artists:
WRONG. It helps them by allowing their music to spread and by putting them on an equal tier with other artists. There are so many artists (especially electronic music artists) I would have never known existed without illegal downloading, and I've bought more of their albums than albums of artists I have found without the help of the Internet (hint: zero, although there are two artists I've heard on TV or the radio which I liked and may have eventually found out about).
Buying music is philanthropy these days. People are much more likely to buy from artists who are more obscure.
Try again.
Of the many threads I've read about the OiNK shutdown this past day or so, this is by far the most intelligent (even if I haven't agreed with every post in the comments thread- which is how it should be!)
dave- I've bookmarked yr blog and am looking forward to reading more of your writ.
The Daily Telegraph has published an interview with Alan:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/25/ninternet125.xml
as a musician who used oink as a prototypical distrobution method i have to say that it is a big loss, my band ports of call is about to release our first album this december, but while we're waiting to have it pressed our guitar player put it up on oink...this lead to a bunch of blogs making note of various songs, some that we had available on myspace and other we didn't, ultimatly getting more people interested in the record, so i have to say that for those who decry this whole pirating thing as the satanic spawn of a newt or whatever, it can and has helped many artists to either expand their reach or even begin to get a foot hold. ps. thanks for digging the track on skatterbrain dave
FACT 1: Irrelevant.
FACT 2: Irrelevant, and kinda stupid.
FACT 3: Irrelevant.
FACT 4: Irrelevant.
FACT 5: Irrelevant and incorrect.
FACT 6: Irrelevant.
FACT 7: A good idea, but irrelevant.
FACT 8: Irrelevant, wrong and ridiculous.
Wrap up: IR-effing-relevant.
Update: Weak and irrelevant.
It's time to argue the law, not your better-business theories on electronic music distribution and promotion. The law says it's a violation of copyright statutes. In fact, every user of Oink was a willing participant in these violations.
I really, REALLY hope each and every one of you get a visit from the authorities. I REALLY do.
that last one was definitely Lars Ulrich.
If your looking for some alternatives to Oink, visit;
http://blog.buttermouth.com/2006/10/undiscovered-ways-to-get-free-music.html
"Downloading is never going to cannibalize CD sales"
Come on... there's a million and one studies which show direct linkages between the two!
Dave, I love your blog and I think this post is right on, moreso after reading the defense of it through your comments. I still haven't seen Matt defend HIMSELF when he's obviously a trolling hypocrite. It honestly baffles me that Fluxblog does as well as it does, but I guess that's the benefit of "coming semi-first", though I feel the content is *usually, though not always* complete crap.
The model needs to change, period. The successful (yet illegal) models keep getting run out of town on a rail, followed by "the industry" whining about how their model doesn't work. You'd think in this entire marketplace, more people would be pro-active.
Adam, who I assume works for Beggars (great label, btw), makes a valiant point, but my personal thing is this: I DO care about the music. and I download a LOT of it, I write about a lot of it on my blog, and I sure as hell BUY a lot of it. I buy it so I can write MORE about it. I heard Midlake on an mp3 blog, something radio never would have given me, and now I own their entire catalogue and I've seen them live twice. What does that say to the value of downloading/filesharing?
I don't get why you're getting ragged on for advocating piracy. You're obviously advocating buying music here and desperately hoping for a change in the model. Is that idealism so bad? I say no.
Thanks, man. I'm just trying to help.
Hmmm.
I like beer.
Yet astonishingly, when I run out of beer at home, no one brings me an ice-cold six-pack of Anchor Steam. There are grocery delivery services available, I guess, but they're too expensive and they don't deliver late at night.
IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND AND FUCKING SEVEN, THE BEER INDUSTRY HAS NOT FIGURED OUT A WAY TO DELIVER EXACTLY WHAT I WANT, IN THE EXACT WAY THAT I WANT, AT THE EXACT PRICE THAT I WANT.
Fortunately, there's a liquor store with an inattentive clerk just a block away from my apartment. So it's totally the BEER INDUSTRY'S FAULT when I stroll down there and shoplift a sic-pack.
Does that help you entitled assholes see how stupid you sound?
So wait.
In this world of illegal beer-sharing, what happens if you get comped at a bar?
Can you then be sued for depriving the beer industry of a potential sale?
I need to know these things.
you know, I would be more inclined to buy albums produced by record companies these days, if they would stop signing and promoting these shitty no-talent artists that claim the spotlight on the MTVs and reality TV shows. Maybe if they were producing GOOD albums I would buy them...not this Kanye West and 50 Cent shit. Most of the stuff i downloaded from oink was older music, or independent stuff that you literally can't find in stores...
yeah, i'm with anonymous up there right above me. I only download independent stuff because i don't like what the majors are putting out.
THAT MAKES IT OKAY BECAUSE THEY'RE INDEPENDENT AND YOU LITERALLY CAN'T FIND THEM IN STORES!
Since they're not part of the major label system it doesn't matter if you steal them anyway, they just wanna be heard, they're not in it to get any money at all. DON'T YOU PEOPLE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT MUSICIANS! They hate money and paying bills, they just wanna rock out for you so you can hear it and feel good. That's ALL THE PAYMENT THEY WANT OR DESERVE.
Duh, guys. Duh.
So, I go into this restaurant the other day and I wanted to get a hummos plate, but without the radishes on the side. The server told me that they don't make substitutions, and that the radishes were going to be on the plate. I was, like, pissed off that they would force me to buy something that I didn't want, so that I could get what I wanted.
So, I ate the hummos, pita and other veggies, left the radishes and ran out of the restaurant without paying.
Ha, ha, suckers, if I can't get my hummos plate radish free, I'm just gonna steal the whole thing!!!11eleven
FACT: I went to the car dealer the other day, and test drove a few cars. And by test drive I mean drove them to my house and parked them in my garage. But dudes, i TOTALLY buy cars sometimes, like I'm a huge car fan and a car buyer.
FACT: i think it is UP TO ME as a music consumer to determine just how a band MAKES THEIR MONEY. Like, i don't want them making money from CD sales. They should only make money from tours and merch that I don't buy.
FACT: with this, and that calvin harris post you have proved yourself to be an amazing, next-level dickhead.
Dave, I am genuinely asking -
* Do you think that just because the internet breaks SOME artists and that illegal downloading is so common, that it makes it ok for YOU to decide whether, when, or how much money a musician should make for their art?
* "recordings are no longer something that's going to be effectively monetized"...so it's ok that you steal them? to reflect the broken system? does that really make sense to you? For that matter, does referring to "the music industry" as one massive unified entity make sense to you? REALLY?
* EVEN if you think you've made a nice theoretical argument here (which I don't think you have) let's look at this as a practical patter for a moment.
Using you as a working example (passionate musiclover that you are) care to share what albums or songs you've PURCHASED NEW in the last six months? And if you're really brave, would you like to also include (over the same six months) the list of albums you've downloaded illegally from OiNK (or any other similar site, for that matter) that aren't among the releases you've received as a writer? I'll trust you to be 100% honest. Should only take 15, maybe 20 minutes, no? I have five real, american dollars to bet saying you haven't spent more than $30 on new (not used) releases or downloads in the last six months.
LET'S SEE IT!
I'd like to extend that challenge to anyone here who says that OINK was the best and or anyone who has trash talked on Matthew, Maura or anyone else who has spoken out against Dave whining like an entitled little baby.
Let's see the truth.
c'mon!!! do it!!!
"Do you think that just because the internet breaks SOME artists and that illegal downloading is so common, that it makes it ok for YOU to decide whether, when, or how much money a musician should make for their art?"
Regardless of how Dave or anyone else would answer this question, it's an irrelevant point. File sharing isn't going anywhere. As many as hundreds of millions of people worldwide do it and less than 20,000 of them have been sued (with only one case actually going to trial). The way of thinking has changed for many people and it's only going to continue to do so. You can dismiss illegal downloaders as thieves all you want, but the fact that so many people do it says a lot about the mindset - more and more people view music as something that you acquire a lot of and don't necessarily spend money on. You want to morally judge that? Fine, it's your right. But you're going to argue in circles with people, because putting morality into file sharing is as irrational as saying that God exists because you can't prove he doesn't.
If you honestly think that shutting down OiNK and other torrent sites is going to curb file sharing and bring things back to the way they used to be, with people buying millions of CDs, you're more naive than someone who thinks it is their right to get free music.
That era is never coming back, and arguing about the rights and wrongs about file sharing isn't going to change that. At some point, something has to give - and it's looking more and more like that "something" is going to be at least one of the major labels filing for bankruptcy or even folding within the next decade...maybe even five years, if things continue as they have.
" "recordings are no longer something that's going to be effectively monetized"...so it's ok that you steal them? to reflect the broken system? does that really make sense to you?"
Anyone who downloads music "to reflect a broken system" is a moron. If you're acquiring music to prove a point, you probably don't even listen to music to begin with. I understand that you have an overly inflated sense of right and wrong in your ivory tower, but if you want an example of WHY recordings can no longer be effectively monetized, think about this for a second.
Let's say you buy one of those new 160 gig iPods. And, let's say that you're a pure individual who never, ever downloads anything and never has in his or her life (yeah, right). If you were legitimately buying albums off of iTunes, do you know how much money it would cost you to fill up that iPod?
Over $32,000. THIRTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS. Or, the price of a BMW 3 series, an average teacher's salary in the US, and the price of a medical bill for someone who cut off a finger (without health insurance, of course). You're probably sitting there saying, "Oh come on, who even fills up an iPod that big?"
Someone must be. They keep getting bigger and bigger. Lest we forget that 5 years ago, when a 30 gig iPod came out, it was considered massive and unwieldy. Now? It's suddenly small. Every time Apple brings out a bigger iPod, it's like they're daring consumers to fill them up. "Hey, bet you can't fill up 160 gigs!" "Oh yeah?" says the college student with a T1 connection, "Watch this!"
Apple is making bigger iPods because the market dictates it. It's what people want - more and more storage space. Why? Because they're downloading more and more music and need somewhere to put all of it. Sure, iPods store video now. But how much of THAT do you think is legitimate (probably even less than the music, but that's a whole other story)? And I guarantee you they aren't filling the iPods up legitimately. So really, can music be effectively monetized when a music player/storage device is being sold that is designed to hold thousands upon thousands of albums? Yeah, maybe if each album cost a penny.
You want to curb illegal downloading? Sue Apple for increasing iPod sizes at a staggering rate. Have fun with that.
"For that matter, does referring to "the music industry" as one massive unified entity make sense to you? REALLY?"
For one thing, when Dave refers to "the music industry," I'm pretty sure he's referring to the major labels.
And based on how they've acted the past decade, using the RIAA as their attack dog, I don't see how you COULDN'T refer to "the music industry" as one massive, unified entity.
Anonymous - right on! Lots of great points, and yes, I'm primarily referring to the majors and retail CD releases (as opposed to touring, etc) when I say "music industry."
I can't understand why you don't just use eMusic. It may not have every record ever put out in the history of time (or certain labels) (or pre-release leaks), but there's an unbelievable amount of stuff on there available for LEGAL download. So baffled.
Thievin asshole. Fuck your Oink.
Let me throw some things into the mix.
1. The big named artists make absolutely absurd amounts of money. Many people work harder than them and they struggle through life.
2. The music industry charges too much for shitty products. Even at 99cents per song. That BS. Ill listen to a song a few times and get bored and move on. $15 for a CD is crap too. 90% of songs on cds are crap and no one listens to them.
3. The music industry and indie artists would make MUCH more money if they sold a song for like 1 cent. Many of their fans dont have money to spend hundreds of dollars on music.
4. Oink provided quality, download speed, and collection that is not found in any pay site. If there was a REAL alternative i can see people really coming down on oink. But oink was just simple supply and demand.
5. The big record labels are greedy but thats their job. They are corporations that have responsibility to produce profits for their shareholders. It is a shame that art is so mixed up with money.
6. I tried other music services. They did not compare to oink. Oink was so lite. Barely any programs to download. No computer slow down. It was simply paradise.
7. I agree that the riia is doing a terrible mistake when suing its own customers.
8. There are literally hundreds of ways to get illegal music. People sell it on the street, there are still massive p2p networks in operation. Hundreds of bit torrent communities. MIRC. Myspace. Google searching. It is sad that the illegal version of the business provides a much better service than the legal versions.
9. You can search google for torrent files JUST like u can search oink.
10. I definetly see the other perspective... that it IS similar to stealing. Although the loss is not direct because u are not actually taking something someone directly misses. It is stealing sales. Big name artists are overpaid so i do not regret that. I think it is unfair for britney spears to have all that money for example when people are starving. I think the big name artists should be paid like 500,000 per album. TOPS. They should get paid like a decent lawyer gets paid And even that may be too much.
What i feel bad about is smaller artists who are not rich will be negatively affected by sharing. Basically my point is, if they sold it cheaper, they would make more money because the volume would be much higher.
As I read somewhere else...
Why don't we just do away with the idea of huge national and international rock stars? Just reduce it all, make it all more even, and have people earn their money with NEW music, playing live, etc, selling CDs to those who want them and downloads to those who want THOSE. On a smaller scale, a more local level.
It would certainly help the music, which will always rise to the top anyway. Maybe that's what's happening...
thanks for you sharing !!good post!
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