Disaster! No One Pirates Or Downloads Our Music For Free
Written by enigmax on March 24, 2009In the eyes of many artists and record labels, being heavily pirated is just about the worse thing that could happen. But what if there was a worse fate, one where people don’t feel the desire to pirate your music at all? What if you make your music available for free – but still no one is interested? Come back pirates, all is forgiven.
Pirates are pretty demanding consumers, even if they aren’t putting their hands in their pockets all of the time. But just because they’re getting stuff like music for free, doesn’t mean that they let their standards drop. Sure, the decision about what to download is made easer by the lack of a financial penalty should the media prove substandard, but pirates are as picky as any other consumer – and maybe more so.
There have been many cases where bands and music labels have been publicly vocal about the fact that their album has been heavily pirated. Complaining that their business has been torn apart, most of them appear to ignore the link between accumulating many unauthorized downloads and the retail success of their product. Short and sweet – if your product is good, thousands will buy it. If your product is good, thousands will pirate it too – the two scenarios go hand in hand.
One band who thought that evil pirates were taking all their money are Sweden-based Stockholm Stoner. In a recent interview picked up by brokep of The Pirate Bay, the band explained that since releasing their album on January 21st this year, they had sold a pretty-unimpressive 379 copies.
Apparently, however, their music is a smash hit on BitTorrent, racking up an impressive 80,000 downloads. This ratio of legal to unauthorized downloads seems unprecedented and the band were quick to express their dismay. While noting that they aren’t specifically against P2P networks, the band said it “would be fun” to get paid for their work and that “adults must understand that they can not steal,” while saying that the Internet should be filtered – “..the Chinese can do it after all,” they said.
But this is the Internet, and not everything is how it seems. What could be worse than getting pirated 210 copies to every one sold? How about… not getting pirated at all? Unfortunately for the band the download stats for their album were gathered from entirely the wrong place, via scammy links on a torrent meta search engine. As can be seen from this search for Stockholm Stoner, the site shows many thousands of downloads. They are fake – you can type anything in that search box and the site will return ’stats’.
Rather than being relieved, I can’t help but think that having found out that they’re not popular with pirates after all, the band would be hugely disappointed. Searching in the usual places, TorrentFreak couldn’t find any significant downloads of this band at all. Better to be popular and downloaded, than not downloaded at all, surely?
Another artist who claims to be hugely popular with pirates is Indiana “The Internet Police Are Coming” Gregg. In an interview with the BBC, Gregg claimed that one of her albums had been downloaded 250,000 times – a figure we found just too outrageous to be taken seriously, with our own calculations indicating this assessment was inflated by around 240,000 downloads.
Using the publicity from her spat with The Pirate Bay to great effect, Gregg went on to create Kerchoonz – a site paid for by £250,000 of public money where people could download and listen to music for free. Trying to convert ‘pirates-with-morals’ to the site, every listen or download would result in the artists getting paid, emphasized Gregg.
Indiana Gregg herself is touting her own music on the site and is actually the #4 artist in the Kerchoonz ‘Top 100′ list. Since she’s so popular with pirates (250,000 downloads remember?) she must be tearing it up on Kerchoonz. Wrong. Current stats indicate that her tracks have been streamed 1180 times and downloaded just 310 times. Presuming she’s getting paid at the same rates as the other artists on the site, Gregg netted $2 for this effort, which is exactly $2 more than she accused The Pirate Bay of giving her.
Overall it seems that getting heavily pirated is an indication of success, and a pointer that good money is to be made at retail – The Dark Knight was pirated at least a million times but has already made over $1 billion dollars worldwide.
If no-one wants to pirate your music or download it for free, don’t expect to be able to sell it either. Come back pirates, the music industry needs you.
Previously: Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent
Next: TorrentSpy, One Year After the Shutdown
87 Responses
To paraphrase Simon Cowell, Indiana Gregg is an artist you would see and hear on a cruise ship.
false accusations yet again from an artist using dubious stats. guess she is just going to have to accept that her music is much less popular than she thought then, eh?
i laugh at crappy unpopular bands
free publicity again from torrent freak? most artists have their music downloaded during their marketing campaign efforts. I think that her album was out in 2007 wasn’t it? that website that you are talking about is in beta as well. I think your article is a tad silly.
Indiana Gregg free, i am not sure i would even download it if she paid me to compensate for the brain damage result of hearing her screeching.
how did you do your math on the downloads and streams. This is what I found which means the artists on kerchoonz would make more money than that.http://www.kerchoonz.com/Ad-Revenue-Agreement/
Whoa, whoa. AFAIK the BAND didn’t say the idiotic China thing, Liza Marklund (a Swedish author) did.
this is free publicity ;)
Great Read.
Uh, what the hell is an Indiana Gregg??? Never even heard. ROTFL.
Sorry, try this one.
http://www.nowtorrents.com/torrents/i%27m-an-idiot-please-rip-me-off.html
good point, but please stop advertising people who think were born with talent or people who think they nurtured it later but sadly they are far from ahving any of it.
@ #7
No, Marklund wrote a column quoting a bandmember saying the stuff about chinese filtering.
Theres so many fails in this article its mind blowing..
Double fail for those stockholm losers..
1: You only sold 379 copies of your cra music FAIL.
2: You dont know how to use the internet and cant tell a scam site FAIL.
And Indiana Gregg is up to like double digit fails.. she will always be known as a complete immature idiot who throws fits on the internet and has zero understanding of technology. She will more then likely be given a Darwin Award when she dies..
Honoring those who improve the species…by
accidentally removing themselves from it!
guys, these “artists” are using this as a marketing tool. How many of you heard of Indianna before any of this?
Now she’s synonymous with bittorrent, piracy, and the TPB.
There’s a few other bands over the past 5 years that have done the exact same, used antipiracy rants as marketing tools.
But, in the end, they are the tools
“Indiana Gregg and Stoner Suck Off Horses Together” has been downloaded ~25000 times according to that site.
where can I get this ‘these search results are bullshit .full.rar’.
Searched every for it. XD
youtube.com/watch?v=GjDmgQS6v2Q
To band Stoner:
We work with bands that agree to distribute their music for free under creative commons license. Sorry to break your heart, but 80,000 downloads isn’t that much. You can get those numbers in 2 to 3 weeks if you promote with well known Creative Commons entities that’ll feature your album.
For you to really start selling your album you need to be a little more patient. 80,000 downloads is really nothing in the great scheme of p2p. This number doesn’t mean 80,000 are listening to your music, maybe they tried it and deleted it.
Once you start having much bigger numbers (+500,000 downloads) you start creating a real fan base, real buzz, then you’ll be able to attract people to come see you play live and sell actual records.
Patience, 80,000 is really nothing. Keep working hard, it’s all about branding yourself, P2P will only help you do that.
I think that your article fails to mention one aspect of file sharing in general. Even if the 80000 downloads were true, it doesn’t account for the number of people that downloaded the music and deleted immediately afterwards. If I keep a record of the amount of data that I save compared to the amount downloaded. I think my ratio wouldn’t be much better than 1:210 (keep:dl). Guess this is why music sites have a preview function.
Oh dear! This is the worst piece of “reporting” I’ve seen in a very long time. Obviously you’re preaching to the converted mainly already but please at least humour me to highlight some mistakes in your article which benefit no-one but perhaps the future of this site.
The artists you’ve mentioned clearly have had sales damaged by torrents. Why? Name me an artist who has not? It’s the nature of the beast. To what level that damage against promotion can always be argued but the fundamental point remains the same: these artists received no money for people getting their music in this way.
To claim The Dark Knight made over $1 billion and yet was downloaded a million times is frankly a stupid comment to make. You’ve taken the most successful film of last year, a huge franchise, a more or less guaranteed hit and used it as your example. Why not pick a lesser known movie? More importantly I wonder what the percentages are for The Dark Knight. How much money would it have made if the movie could not have been downloaded illegally? Do you get my point?
Websites like Kerchoonz (thank you for bringing to my attention, by the way) are a step in the right direction for the music industry. Everyone knows the current climate is in a state of flux when it comes to how musicians make money now thanks to so many sites ripping them off.
Something tells me if Indiana Gregg had been number one on her site you would have had a go at her for that too. Maybe you should think outside of the box for a moment and compliment the woman for coming up with a concept that helps everyone involved rather damaging everyone who uses it.
Maybe TorrentFreak is threatened by sites like Kerchoonz? I don’t know what your real agenda is here but it is interesting that you are promoting Kerchoonz. Maybe you actually work for them and this is some sort of reverse psychology? What is the point of your blog exactly, other than to attempt to validate your activities? Confused.
You’re confused, alright Ramsay. While I disagree with some of the conclusions of this article, I’m not going to come in and try to astroturf it in the comments section.
TorrentFreak “threatened” by Kerchoonz– WTF? You’d be pulling this comparison from so far out of your ass that your wrist would stink worse than Gregg’s music! Last I checked, TF was a torrent-themed blog, and Kerchoonz was something like an ill-fated vanity project mp3.com knockoff.
Apples and oranges, man…
@Ramsay Stockholm Stoner hasn’t lost sales to pirates. They’re a band no one’s ever heard of who don’t know how the Internet works and took a figure from a scam site as true, and are now playing victim. They haven’t had 80,000 downloads, they’ve had ZERO downloads. The Dark Knight is mentioned for a reason, and you’re missing the point entirely. The point of the article is that high sales = high downloads, despite what idiot bands who can’t use the Web like Stockholm Stoner say in interviews.
And even though Indiana Gregg is a very whiny person who tried to pick a fight with The Pirate Bay to promote her own music and web site, she’s still not worth listening to. Imagine that.
i don’t think she is whiny at all. I think she was telling people about things that were about to happen at the time. the article she wrote for torrent freak makes sense because a lot of that stuff is happening anyway now and not long after it was written.
@Brain P “high sales = high downloads”
Seriously? That was the point? So what you’re saying is something that is “popular” is something that people “want”? Amazing… but you missed my point, what would the sales be if they couldn’t be downloaded illegally? Do you HONESTLY believe The Dark Knight would have been less successful if torrents didn’t exist?
As a side note, from signing up to Kerchoonz today I notice it’s still in Beta mode. Is it not a little unfair of people to be so negative about something that hasn’t officially launched yet? It seems like a good idea and is geared up for discovering music, something that is rather difficult to do on a torrent site.
Like magicanimal said… oranges and apples.
@el pirata : stop spamming your tracker sucks
man i love apple jacks :)
@ ramsay you are an unlucky soul to never have gotten into a tracker, where the sole aim is to trade and discover new music.
+ya sound like a dckhead, so no inv for you.
to waffles and what what wwhhhaaaaaat?
Who the hell is Indiana Gregg? Sounds like a stripper name… or a two dollar whore behind the dumpster at Kinkos.
who??????
never heard of em….
tell them to upload it at http://rockbox.psychocydd.co.uk
F Indiana gregg and her website we know what good and im not crapy unsign bands so let her website die
Wow, this article is frikkin woeful even by this agenda driven blog standards. The unfounded conclusions and implication that you’ve drawn seem laughable without any other evidence than you saying “this happened so my opinion is correct”…
FTA: “Short and sweet – if your product is good, thousands will buy it. If your product is good, thousands will pirate it too – the two scenarios go hand in hand.”
So… popular content gets downloaded many times and sells many copies. Glaringly obvious. But guess what – many copies were also sold long, long before that advent of music being downloaded at all… so what does downloading have to do with it again?
FTA: “Overall it seems that getting heavily pirated is an indication of success, and a pointer that good money is to be made at retail”
So your saying that content that people want – IE popular with some significant number of people – is the content that people purchhase and also download. So – what… ? It’s equally as valid to say that getting heavily purchased is an indicator of success: Stockholm Stoners did neither and Dark Knight did both.
FTA: “- The Dark Knight was pirated at least a million times but has already made over $1 billion dollars worldwide.”
So one case proves the hypothese you’re making? Really – one single case… For God’s sake, at least give more examples to prove your point: why on earth are you using the fact that one movie – the most popular of the year no less, that sold well and was pirated many times to make the case that “lots of downloads means there will be lots of sales”. Seriously. One example how about the top 20 movies by download numbers – that would be much more meaninful.
FTA: “If no-one wants to pirate your music or download it for free, don’t expect to be able to sell it either.”
Please – your effectively saying if people don’t want it for nothing they wont pay for it… an glaringly obvious statement that has nothing to as far as “downloads means you will get sales”. Could it be that very few people had even heard of the band? That is really, really weak TF.
FTA: “Come back pirates, the music industry needs you.”
Erm… what are you talking about? The industry did perfectly well prior to downloads being available, why do they need them now?
This article can be summed up byu the following:
No one buys or downloads a band they’ve not heard of and/or don’t like. Th emost popular movie of 2008 made a record profit and was downloaded an enormous number of times therefore if something gets lots of downloads it will also be purchased a lot. The music industry needs pirates because one unknown band made a mistake on how much they get downloaded.
So sloppy…
@Ramsay
Maybe you should spam that site a few more times. Are you on the payroll there or what?
Better yet….
Explain why you came to a torrent/tech related blog, to complain about them reporting on torrent/tech related stories.
I already know, but i think you should elaborate for these kind people. You work for Kerchoonz don’t you?
Statistics you want?
how about the HARD numbers that show, since piracy hit mainstream, movies have made MORE at the box office.
???
This reminds me of a news story on a different site from a while back: An artist named Sapphirecut once gained fame (unfortunately for them the wrong kind) for getting the P2P application “Soulseek” shutdown by their ISP, since the program allowed it’s users to search for music by Sapphirecut using it’s central database server. After Soulseek was taken down by Sapphirecut (who’s music IMHO totally sucks ass and the main reason for them losing money is NOT piracy), soulseek posted a notice on their website asking all users to stop sharing music by Sapphirecut. Now that the music is virtually unavailable on any file sharing network, Sapphirecut not only became hated by the majority of the Pro-P2P community, but also probably lost MANY fans who otherwise might’ve even considered purchasing Sapphirecut music. If anyone needs a citation for this information or doesn’t believe that a file sharing network (which was huge before it was taken down) was actually taken down by a single independent artist, I’ve Included a copy of the original request for all p2p users to stop sharing music by Sapphirecut. “If it applies to you, or to someone you know, you can best help Soulseek by removing tracks by Sapphirecut from your shares. We do not suggest acting vigilant and tracking down users to tell them to do so, nor do we need any reports of who is sharing it. That’s already well taken care of. Do not bother trying it to “see what the fuss is about” (you can hear them on her site if you are curious. http://www.sapphirecut.com). This is the best thing that can be done for the network.” Because of Sapphirecut’s actions, not only did the artist lose fans, but now you can’t really find any Sapphirecut music on any major P2P networks. This may seem like a good thing from an artist’s POV, but the fact that nobody WANTS your music is MUCH worse than nobody PAYING for your music.
@NubCakes
maybe you should read the article, all of it, slowly, maybe even out loud.
Did they say dark knight did well because of piracy? NO, moron, they pointed out it did well IN SPITE of rampant piracy.
How about that movie with sam jackson and travolta, can’t think of the name, but they went on Oprah explaining since the screener got leaked online, they actually made money from a movie that might not have even been heard of, without piracy.
If a bands pirated cd gets downloaded a lot, it means, wait for it, people like it. If the band is some no name no label group, they now have a huge potential fanbase they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten.
So seriously, wtf is with all the riaa shills in the comments?
In addition to post 35, I would like to point out that a record of messages posted on Soulseek’s website can be found at http://z.cccp.at/soulseek
Ramsay, your saying ‘What if’ illegal downloads didn’t exist.. everything would be so peachy wouldn’t it?
Besides the fact that you have zero idea really WHAT WOULD happen if there were no piracy.. its irrelevant. Its here, its staying, deal with it.
The problem is that users are moving way faster than the industry can keep up with.. by the time the industry adapts to whats going on now, we will have moved on to something greater.
People need to shut the hell up and let natural business evolution take place, people have already proven that they will not stand for holding back technology, which is what a lot of these industries are built on. The fact that you have to ‘record TV’ is proof of that.
Sites like these are what keep people informed about whats going, its up to the reader to draw the conclusions.
@Ramsay
Why are you even reading this blog?
people that pirate the movie and like it will buy it.
(Unless their an white american suburban gangster, in that case they’ll think their “g” because they download the latest 50 cent album.)
But seriously most of us pirates actually have morals, my pastor’s been downloading songs since Napster.
We call him reverend pirate
Anything he likes he buys.
Considering he does his own remix’s he can’t afford to buy every beat he hears, this is where bittorrent came along and helped him.
@phishybongwaters (#34) without heavily going into detail I do work in the music industry but not directly. I am not a musician. I have worn many hats, as they say, over the years but with it I’ve also seen a lot of changes and know the business quite well. The reason I came here was because I’m currently writing an article about this very subject. So my reason for being here is research.
@lol (#38) in response to your comment about piracy being here, it’s staying so deal with it. Well that’s a bit like saying theft and murder is in this world but we shouldn’t do anything about it. Just because something is here doesn’t mean it’s right.
@NubCakes
Why are you reading this blog as well? You seem like the same person as Ramsay. Anyway, there have been many posts on this blog (and you obviously haven’t been here long) that have pointed out links torrenting to high sales and also Oscar winners. You need to read more than one article before you start burning crosses.
this sounds all for an interesting experiment, what about _not_ listing a new album of a famous band on tpb? ok, i know they don´t filter or remove stuff, but this time..please :)
tell the users they won´t find anything for e.g. 4 weeks of artist and link to a blog-entry describing this experiment.
Who the feck is Indiana Gregg?
Ramsay, if you’re here to do research, please take a gander at more than one article. I understand that this article doesn’t necessarily substantiate any of the claims that is has, but that is due to the fact that a lot of the content of this article heavily relies on facts introduced in past articles. Most of TorrentFreak’s readers are those who read it regularly and remember when most of the things that enigmax is talking about happened.
This news site is biased just like any other news site is biased. What you don’t seem to understand, TorrentFreak has articles that SUPPORT the ideological views that the majority of the readers have. Expecting any different would be naive.
@44
http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php
Ramsay..
you just compared murder to file sharing.. im not even going to explain your fail..
@in3rtia thank you for the courteous response. I will make a point of reading back previous blogs here and yes, I appreciate everyone is working an angle in every story. I’ve been around too long not to know that. :) I did focus on this blog though because it is what I’m writing about at the moment, the legal sites vs. the illegal ones.
I hope everyone else can appreciate and respect that is why I’m here like you have. Thanks again.
@lol (#47) just noticed your comment there.
I was using murder in my analogy as it is an illegal act. Although maybe someone would argue what these sites do is kill music. That’s what I’m here to research.
I notice you didn’t have a problem with me comparing it to theft though. Interesting.
Thanks for your thoughts. All helpful.
This was the funniest torrentfreak article I’ve read yet. It was just dripping with sarcasm. I don’t think we need to wonder whose side TF is on.
LMAO @47 classic. but i think maybe the ‘fail’ is on you for thinking that anybody compares donwloading to murder. but that’s ok. it’s all fun anyway.
@45 OMG i read this blog a lot but i don’t think that there is a lot of ‘facts’ being reported. obviously extremely biased, not facts.
You know here in the UK people slag off Tesco everyday, “Tesco has made so many gazillion £££” or “Tesco is wiping out the High St”. But hey, guess where we all like to shop? Yeah, Tesco!! What I am trying to say is, go ahead, slag off Kerchoonz, but if it is good for you and it works, then people will use it.
I don’t think people who rip music or films off, get it! It is just not right, it is stealing. But I don’t think that people feel they are stealing. I work with what society call “professional people” and I know many of these so called professionals download, or buy pirated music or dvd’s. Now if I walked in to HMV with any of these people and filled their bags with a few dvd’d or cd’s and said “come on lets go” without paying, they would be shocked and horrified of the thought of them stealing! I think, because they are not physically picking it up from a shop and walking out with it, then it is ok!
Now I know anyone reading this, especially if you do illegal downloads, you will want to slag me to death, that is fine, everyone has an opinion. Hey even members of my own family think I am a crank when I tell them it is wrong to buy bootleg dvd’s!! I would much rather wait until it comes out on dvd and buy it, also if I don’t fancy paying full price I will maybe wait a few months and buy it for a couple of quid more than what a pirate copy would have cost me, but I know I would have a good quality movie!
As for Indiana Gregg, some of the things people have written about her, well I feel they are just a bit unfair. I have met Indiana and I wish the world had a few more people like her in it. Yes I am an “unsigned artist” and yes I do have songs on kerchoonz and myspace. Indiana has given lot’s of good advice to artist’s like me, she is very helpful and I tell you, you could not wish to meet a nicer person. So I know some people may feel she has a secret agenda to try and publicise her own music, I honestly don’t feel that is the case, but hey, your mind is already made up! Right??
Darnell
What? No mention of “World of Goo”?
So surprising!
ROFL
go back to my name is earl darnell.
maybe you can get a record deal on there =D!
Ramsay wishes he could troll as well as I can.
Give the case that it is completely illogical thus to go after non-commercial file-sharers, but people who are in charge make stupid decisions all the time, that clearly such nonsense ought to stop – and the way to do that is to unite: pirates of the world, unite!
@Hmmmm
NubCakes is new here? No, you must be new here. He gets called a troll alot, yet he had higher rep than anyone but Roze during the Intense Debate period. Mainly he’s just kinda cranky.
XSS anyone?
http://tinyurl.com/clhx7t
As snoop said once back in the day it is when people are not downloading your music that you have a problem.
My best wishes to Ramsey with his studies, but as many have pointed here TF is biased, and it would be good for him to take a look on other sites such as P2Pnet.net,that not only comments whats going on in the P2P world but has tons of external references links as well.. Oh.. By the way, sometimes P2Pnet links to TF too! lol
There would be much less piracy if everything that is available to US residents would also be available in the rest of the world.
I am from Eastern Europe and I tried recently to buy a song, first on Amazon then on ITunes and both were only for US residents.
And the things that are available usually arrive late.
The Movie “Traitor” will only arrive here in the cinema on April but the US premiere was on August 2008.
You shouldn’t have said the “come back pirates, the internet needs you” part. #1, it makes no sense, #2, it makes you look biased for pirates instead of objective and reliable. nice article though.
well bob too bad when your ISP regardless of whether you pirate or not makes it
A) too expensive to download anything even legite shite.
B) IM one of those so called pirates that has bought a ton a what i dled for RPG ebooks and gaming
C) as for tv id be ok with commercials that are supposed to be paying for the show, but they want more and more and more
AIG GREED ALL OVER AGAIN this time form obama/biden
ramsay and nubcakes you both assume copyright to be valid. downloading isn’t theft. copyright is a violation of people’s human rights. namely the right to do what they wish with their Physical property so long as the don’t harm anyone else. you can’t own anything intangible, even the government of the united states acknowledges that. that is why the charges are for infringing copyright. copyright never affected many people before the advent of the internet so it wasn’t an issue. now people can download things, they don’t feel like they are doing anything wrong (cause they aren’t they are just asserting their human rights) so people will continue to do it reguardless of what industry shills and bought politician try and say
fuck [FullVersion] 997 kb/s 7822
mm interesting 7822 people like to download fuck
yeah indiana greg lolol is that even their real name
those hippies should get a real job
@Nubcakes 33
in all due respect. you have revealed a point. Music and film have thrived both with or without piracy. The factor that makes music and film even worthy of download has a lot to do with the marketing. How much have people even heard of a product before they download and/or buy it.
If I were to be allowed to be very objective, this will make sense to most of you (maybe all of you).
If we take the two bands/ artists from this article that torrent freak wrote about. One of them has had a lot of television and radio coverage. Indie artist releases album has some sales and also has illegal downloads (reported by BBC to be around 1/4million). I was exposed to music videos and even some tv adverts on morning programs and had heard of indiana. so, i’m not shocked about the downloads. i think i even saw her record in shops. i also remember that a lot of shops in the uk stopped stocking records in mid 2007 and it was a time when singles disapeared too.
the second band listed i don’t know anything about. but, maybe they have had a lot of pirated downloads, maybe not. all i know is is that when music is out there on the market and exposed, it gets downloaded. i think that this doesn’t effect artists who have bent over and taken it up the backside from major labels. but it effects indie artists who have chosen to release records on their own. and not all indie musicians try to get label deals. some people just love to make music, write songs, and help other musicians. but, when music gets released and people download it because they heard about it through marketing and the band doesn’t have another few million quid to throw into the game, it ends up killing the music that we would like to discover and support. this is a ramble. but, if everyone who downloads would just donate a quid or something or even really did buy the music that would be different. but the truth is, you don’t need to download if you just throw away the crap you download because you can find it on myspace or spotify and probably you’ll find it on kerchoons or whatever it’s called. but it does make me think because i think that sometimes we are being cruel due to this ‘industry’ and ‘copyright’. people make music and they take great pains to do so. and they deserve to have some love and respect. we all have different tastes but we all enjoy films and music. (end of rant)
If you Ramsay were actually “doing research” you wouldn’t be engaged in the conversation the way you are. Epic fail.
So you are in fact finding out that music is currently dying? LOL. Just stick to bashing chefs in poor restaurants…
Ramsay, I’d be interested in seeing this article, an industry produced work with research into the alternate side would, no offense, certainly seem a first. From my place piracy is something of hobby used to expand my horizons. I have little enough money that basic necessities are no small triviality sometimes, much less to even contemplate traversing the globe to partake of all that the world has to offer, and so I turn to the net and downloading for some part of that experience.
Perhaps my tastes are somewhat eclectic at times, or perhaps it’s simply a more broadened experience that’s left me with tastes outside what the mainstream provides in such bulk amounts, honestly I don’t know anymore. Regardless though, in experiencing other culture not only through movie and film, but by being engaged through them in alternate perspectives and debates I find more opportunity to positively impact the world around me.
It’s been said often enough that a purloined work is not a lost sale by necessity. Simply put if it would not be purchased then it’s availability otherwise is not going to change this fact. I’ll spare you from my sometimes far too long rambles for the time being, but I’ll just say hopefully you find your time here enlightening, as I expect one would provided it’s taken with an open mind..
@ Ramsay 26
Of course The Dark Knight would have been successful if pirating didn’t exist. My point was that if you’re looking for a central point to this article beyond “popular = high downloads,” you’re reading too much into it. I like TorrentFreak, but it’s not high art and it’s not exactly Reuters. There’s not a secret meaning or agenda to grasp here. It’s a blog about torrenting and file-sharing with a clear and freely admitted bias towards those things. And some of it requires a previous base of knowledge, like in3rtia pointed out.
As for the Dark Knight stuff, well, I’ll say this: a million downloads is not the equivalent of a million lost DVD or ticket sales, not even close, for a myriad of reasons I’m not going to go into here (but you’ll find a lot of them going through the TF archives). And if a million downloads represents any actual lost sales, it’s a tiny drop in the bucket compared to $1 billion made. Maybe you think that’s rationalizing and, like a lot of industry executives who don’t really understand what they’re dealing with would have you believe, think a download is equivalent to a stolen DVD or movie ticket, end of story. I don’t, and a lot of people reading this site don’t either.
You will all burn in hell for stealing music.
If you download an album or a movie and you liked it, please BUY it. That way, everyone will make some money.
Music is not going to die because people share. Au contraire, people now have the possibility of distributing their own music for FREE in the comfort of their own desktop. It might become more of a hobby, but wouldn’t we all rather listen to someone who makes music for the love of music rather than the love of money?
The music/movie industry needs to adapt its format to the users instead of trying to force the rest of us into compliance.
No way am I paying for an entire album if I can only be bothered to listen to 3 of its tracks (which is very often the case). CD’s are crazy expensive (at least where I live). I gladly pay if I know beforehand that I like a reasonable percentage of an album, and if someone figured out how to sell customizable albums at affordable prices I personally think that more people would be on board.
It’s only a question of time before the whining stops and the progression begins – history has already shown multiple times that the technology that Hollywood is so keen on stopping can be beneficial to both sides if only the industry would stop vicitimizing itself and learn to adapt like everyone else.
I also agree completely with Brian P. A download is not equal to an unbought ticket/DVD/CD. There is no guarantee that a downloader would pay any money for a product if piracy was not an option.
This article does seem atypically biased and pointless. The only legitimate point that I noticed was that there are dishonest links on torrent meta search engines which could be used to greatly exaggerate piracy. This is the point that should have been elaborated on in great detail.
The rest of it seems like a poorly thought out rant. TorrentFreak’s writers usually produce much better work than this…someone was drinking.
that Ramsay guy is trolling nigga
what i don’t get is that in the article he/she is taking a pop against a site that is actually trying to do good and is only in early stages of beta. i think it’s trying to give people free music while trying to also help the artists and bands who use the site to promote their music. what’s wrong with that? it sounds like he is for free music but against artists and bands getting any kind of help or compensation for the music and also where does he get the idea that the website is using public money? i’ve never heard of that before. that doesn’t exist.
Ramsay I never said comparing it to THEFT was ok, don’t be so foolish to assume that, that deducted major points from your intelligence and wit.
I only pointed out how incredibly dumb it was to compare it to murder.. there relation is that of earth to Pluto.
I’d ignore them Indiana and remember that all publicity is publicity for Kerchoonz whether or not it is true, that is the nature of most of the media – At least someone is helping musicians for a change instead of just ripping them off
Most unknown bands are going to tell you they WISH people would pirate their music. Massive piracy means you have people who know who you are and who like your music.
OK, not exactly sure what a “troll” is in this world but I’m pretty sure I’m not one of them.
What I have discovered from this site and a few others is the illegal p2p users appear a lot more passionate about it than users of legal sites. That is an interesting dynamic to me. I’ve also noticed though that with that passion comes some negativity in the form of venomous attacks. I wonder why that is? Perhaps it’s just the basis of people can hide behind a keyboard or is there more too it than that. That is something I tend to explore.
Thank you everyone for your comments. It has been very interesting thus far. Apologies for straying off-topic.
Ramsey,
I think what annoys me most about the whole situation, is the completely unrealistic profit margins your industry believes is acceptable to make on music. You have in effect priced your audience out of the market, and this is why people pirate; for example, I have a 120gb ipod, which will hold between 15 – 20 thousand tracks. if all these were purchased through itunes, i would be carrying round between £10000 – £15000 worth of music without any physical item ever having been received! How can the music industry warrant this? especially when the larger demographic, is the youth and young adult market whose annual salaries will be between £5000 and £22000. I think the music industry have backed themselves in to a corner with their own collective greed.
By updating their business models to reflect this change in music trends, they would have been able to keep up revenue streams, my personal belief is in a pay per play system, by making downloads free, hosting relevant advertising on their sites, and using scrobbling technologies and charging a small royalty per play. similar to prs royalties. People would rather play music legally.
You have to remember that not everyone who listens to music earns enough to purchase music at the price and rate you expect, and therefore turn to piracy.
However i believe you have taken this too far and have alienated a large part of your market and now the best thing for music, as we may now start to see artists that want to make it so much, they are prepared to put the effort into self marketing, and have the quality to succeed. the cost of creating the final product is now negligible as there is no physical media to provide, and the quality of home recording is not far of that of a studio. The recording industry’s failure to adapt and embrace technology was their downfall.
Dan.
You must have got the idea for this after downloading the last U2 album.
More rubbish from our friend Indy she really needs a life. I can not help think her attitude is biased to her silly Q tracks clone.
now that her business is failing (because last fm is better) she starts by blaming us! what the hell is up with that.
They can have her back we sure as hell don’t want her.
feminist Extremist ALERT!
Have you seen her Wikipedia page she looks like Medusa
Kerchoonz EPIC FAIL (Guardians To Bad Rubbish)
EPIC FAIL
Delusions of grandeur perpetuated by bad publicity. A retarded pile of douchebags.
@41
Dude, i smoked that too, but i dont remember having such dumb thougts, yeah i sometimes tink that a dog is a cat, but thats because there are very tiny cats!
Murder – piracy…
Something is here – doesnt mean is right…
O.o
The sky is blue, therefor i like cookies!
thats all i had to say.
I’d like to point out that even if a torrent has been downloaded 80,000 times does NOT mean that the relevant item (movie, song, application etc.) has been downloaded that many times. I almost always dl multiple torrents for a single item I want and then use only one (the one I deem best). I may even start to dl several versions at once but soon stop the slowest.
@87 Downloading torrents is different from downloading using torrents.
snatches != # of times torrent file was downloaded.
the torrents you stopped midway aren’t counted as snatches.
What a lousy pirate you are. You’ll have to walk the plank!
enigmax–you have a spelling mistake. Sorry to do this but i won hell of dollars at a spelling bee so i am like that.
“In the eyes of many artists and record labels, being heavily pirated is just about the *WORST* thing that could happen.”
Once again sorry for being a tool.
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