And now it's time for an episode of Posting Before Thought Theater!

[annathepiper]

So there's a shiny new Great Big Sea album out in Canada. Fans on the official greatbigsea.com message board, the Online Kitchen Party, are justifiably happy about this and gushing about it all over the board. Those of us in the U.S. don't get it until the 9th, though.

And there's this one fan here in the States. She posted the question of whether it's okay to download the album off the Internet if she intends to buy it later. She specifically asked "how illegal" it would be, as opposed to "how ethical" or "is this right or wrong".

And I just have to boggle. I mean, you're thinking about downloading a bootleg copy of an album that's just been released, and you're going to go and post to the message board of the BAND'S OWN OFFICIAL WEBSITE asking other fans whether they think this is okay?

She got a bunch of answers, including a quote of THE STATEMENT FROM THE BAND IN THEIR OWN NEWSLETTER, that downloading music off the Internet without paying for it is stealing. Period. Then she goes and adds, "But I'm dirt poor! Does this change anybody's opinion?"

Grf. I just don't get it. This person thinks what, exactly, when she's going to go and post on the band's OWN WEBSITE about this? Does she think other fans are going to support her in her intention to steal music from the band we all love? And why does she think that adding that she's dirt poor is somehow going to make it okay?

"Oh, yeah, Alan, you're a hot guy and I really love your unbelievably cheerful energy and your voice and your ability to play your instruments, and Séan, you're an incredible bodhran player and you're a joy to watch dance, and Bob, I admire the hell out of how you play 75 different instruments without breaking a sweat. But I don't like your music well enough to pay for it, so I'll download a pirate copy off the Internet, and it's okay because I'm poor! Too poor to afford a physical CD, but apparently not too poor to afford the online access necessary to download an album!"

I just. Don't. Get it.

Comments

[damara.livejournal.com]

OH! Yes. Must stop by a music store on the way home today.

*grinbounces*

Thank you!

[annathepiper]

You're welcome. :) Me, I'm getting twitchier by the day about having a copy of that album in my hot little hands, too! I haven't heard note one of it yet, and that's all the better! ^_^

[damara.livejournal.com]

*grins*

I'm so looking forward to it.

[annathepiper]

Me too! Though I'm looking even more forward to the B'ys getting themselves back out this way, because BOY HOWDY can I use another GBS show. One at which I can indulge in proper audience participation, because MY ARM ISN'T BROKEN!

[damara.livejournal.com]

Now that sounds definitely like a very good idea.

Good luck and have lots of fun, when they get out there!

[annathepiper]

*fidgets* Just hope they don't come out to play Bumbershoot while I'm at Worldcon, because that would suck. :) I've missed one GBS show already due to that! But BOY do I need me some Alan and Séan and Bob!

Hrmm. I may have to watch the GBS DVD again this weekend. :D

[damara.livejournal.com]

Now that's the best idea I've heard all day!

[annathepiper]

... and this way we still get Darrell. Sniffle. I'm missing Darrell! No more "Excursion Around the Bay" from Darrell at GBS shows!

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

what i totally don't get is how she can "intend to buy it later" if she's also "dirt poor".....

[annathepiper]

Yeah, that part boggles me too! She posted in her initial post that she wanted to buy it from a store in Newfoundland--out of a desire to support the province, apparently, which in and of itself is great. But said that it'd be "the next time she's in Newfoundland"... and if she's that poor, how the hell is she going to afford travelling?

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

if this is the same woman i think it is, her bf is a Newfoundlander. Get HIM to buy it and mail it to her.

She really pissed me off. darthfrog did too. he downloaded the new norah jones CD the other week, and then had the audacity to wonder why i was *buying* it since we had it already. i resisted the urge to tear off his head right then and there in the music store.

[annathepiper]

She did say something in the thread about the possibility of "her boy" buying it for her, yeah. So it would seem to be the same person. If she DOES have an S.O. in Newfoundland, then yeah, she should ask him to send her a copy. Bleah.

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess whether or not it's bad depends on what exactly is going on. Originally, the query this person posted sounded a lot like "this album isn't available in the US yet, so can I pirate it until it is?"

... though once she continues, it sounds like she meant something more along the lines of "I don't forsee buying this album anytime soon, but I probably will eventually, so can I pirate it until then?"

The latter is definitely bad, but I don't think the former is. If an album is legitimately unavailable, and the person 'stealing' the music is genuinely going to be purchasing said album as soon as it's made available to them, the person gets some extra enjoyment out of the music, and the artist loses nothing, so it seems like a win/win situation to me. I've done this several times myself, and I'm probably more serious about paying for my music than just about anyone (as my bank account will confirm!).

Just my $0.02. YMMV.

[annathepiper]

The latter is definitely bad, but I don't think the former is. If an album is legitimately unavailable, and the person 'stealing' the music is genuinely going to be purchasing said album as soon as it's made available to them, the person gets some extra enjoyment out of the music, and the artist loses nothing, so it seems like a win/win situation to me.

Except that #1, the album isn't unavailable. This person has enough online access to post to the message board of a band whose website lives in Canada; she therefore has enough Internet access to go to amazon.ca or other online sites and pre-order an album if she can't wait for it to come out in the States. Furthermore, the album is coming out here in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS. You can't tell me that waiting the extra week and a half is somehow going to diminish the music in quality; it won't. Lastly, there are online venues through which music can be legitimately downloaded and purchased for cheaper than the cost of a physical CD--the iTunes online music store is a good example.

#2, YOU may actually buy the album later, but you have absolutely no guarantee that others using a pirate site won't. By using a pirate site, you are essentially tacitly saying that you approve of its existence and how others use it, and you don't have a problem with the idea that someone else might download that whole album and never bother to pay for it at all. If you want to download it, find an online music store that has it, says I; if you can't find one, wait for the CD to get to you, or order through a venue that can mail it to you. Or find a friend who can. There are plenty of ways to get a legitimate copy of an album without having to resort to theft.

Sorry if I sound cranky about this, but I AM cranky about this. All that downloading the album before you actually pay for it does is give you instant gratification and tacitly support pirate sites. Me--I say that if you love the music, it's worth the wait.

[clauclauclaudia]

I'm not sure I buy #2. It's not my job to police how anybody else uses a site. I think a stronger #2 is "theft is theft, even if you intend to pay it back later and turn it into 'borrowing'".

And I definitely respect the band's anti-Napster position--I read the whole rant through, and I wouldn't download any of their music again now that I know they feel that way. At the same time, 3 or 4 tracks that I downloaded years ago have led to my buying 5 or 6 albums and multiple concert tickets. I understand that wholesale downloading of albums is bad, but Napster-like browsing of tracks that don't get radio play is a great way to find new artists you like. GBS and Da Vinci's Notebook were my two big finds from my brief time using Napster, and there were other artists whose albums I bought as a direct result too.

I'd gladly use "listening stations" in music stores instead, if those weren't entirely given over to major label big releases. :-/

[annathepiper]

I'm not sure I buy #2. It's not my job to police how anybody else uses a site.

Granted... but that's not quite what I'm seeing as the case here. The way I see it is, Joe Q. Albumpirater has a site. You go to that site and you download the album, and then later you do actually go and buy it. But then three other people come along and download the album, and they don't.

All that the guy running the site is going to see is that four people have come to his site, so he thinks, .oO (Well gosh, my site is popular! People must obviously want what I'm doing, so I'll continue to copy albums and make them available to others!)

He doesn't care whether or not his visitors are paying for the album later. All he cares about is that people actually come and download what he's got.

Now, I do see what you're saying about an online taste of the band leading many to actually buying their own copies of their records and attending shows... but this is, at least for me, a thing that was well satisfied just by listening to the snippets of samples they had available on their own web page. Part of what was required for me was just to listen to the samples they had available from Rant and Roar to realize that this was music I was going to love. I generally find that a 30-second sample of a song or a 1-minute sample of a song is going to give me a clear enough idea of what the track is going to be like.

The rest of it was knowing that mamishka had the album and it sounded REALLY GOOD, and then my friend Thomas saying to me, "You should listen to these guys, I think you'd really like them."

[veiledpanda.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, a lot of groups don't have those snippets available. So while that is certainly valid for GBS, it's not true for everyone. And if you don't have a friend with the album suggesting it to you, then you're out on that route also. I also think I agree with Claudia on the revised #2.

[veiledpanda.livejournal.com]

*nods* I've done the same on occasion - downloading something that I can't get my hands on quite yet, and then as soon as it IS available, purchasing it legitimately. If that was what she was planning on doing, to be honest, I DON'T see that hurting the artists. However, if the artists themselves have come out and stated that their feelings are that it is ALWAYS wrong, no matter what, even if you plan on buying it the very split second it is available for you to purchase... then I feel like you ought to respect those feelings and just be PATIENT.

(And I also agree that the second she started talking about being poor, rather than simply not being able to get it because it hasn't beel RELEASED yet, it became a 'I will probably buy it eventually... someday... probably' kind of thing, in which case I DON'T think it's excusable at all.)

[annathepiper]

*nods* I've done the same on occasion - downloading something that I can't get my hands on quite yet, and then as soon as it IS available, purchasing it legitimately. If that was what she was planning on doing, to be honest, I DON'T see that hurting the artists.

Here's how it hurts the artists: by supporting the existence of the pirate site and those who use it to download copies of their work without paying for it. You might pay for it, but others won't. That's the part that hurts them. Here's what GBS has to say on the matter:

Many people have asked us what our thoughts are on Napster, MP3, Gnutella, etc. Here is our rant:

On the face of it, we are supporters of new technology. After all, we were one of the first bands in Canada to have a real website, and from day one we have made our records available through it to our friends around the world. Still, we are utterly bewildered as to how free distribution of our music is helping us.

Unlike most bands, we actually own our records. We ultimately pay for the recordings ourselves, as well as art-work, producers fees, equipment rental, etc. In return for the rights to sell these records, our various record companies pay for manufacture and promotion. Still, our revenue from these records is relatively small. Our up-front costs are well over $100,000 per album when you take videos into account.

It's easy for bands like Limp Bizkit to push Napster. After all, when you are selling millions of records, what's a hundred-thousand downloaded for free on Napster? It isn't really going to hurt you. However, when you are talking sales of 150-250,000 albums, as is the case for GBS and most other Canadian bands, those numbers start to look pretty scary.

Napster fans often compare using it to taping albums on cassette. The essential difference, however, is that most of the tapes in our collections were taped from CDs we actually owned. Many Napster users, on the face of it, anyway, seem to have no intention of actually purchasing the CDs they download. Why would they, when they are getting a top-quality product for free?

Of course, the downloads aren't free. GBS has paid to produce every single cd on the market, including those downloaded through Napster. It's just we aren't getting paid for them. In our view, downloading from Napster is theft, plain and simple. The only difference between that and shoplifting is with Napster and its brethren you probably won't get caught.

Another Napster argument is that free on-line music distribution is the way of the future, so shut-up and get used to it. Well, we can see another future. The cost and profits of cd production and sales is over half our business. If no one has to pay us for our records, where will we get the money to produce them in the first place? And without new records and music to support touring (the other half of our business), how will our audience continue to grow? You can see where this argument is going. Unfortunately, no one at Napster.com can answer these questions. We love our work, but we can't afford to make records if no one is buying them, or tour if no one is coming to see us.

From day one, we have made not ripping off our fans our motto. We have consistently given 110% at every level of the business. We have produced records and played concerts for one reason only: to please our fans. So if anyone wants to know what we think of Napster, MP3, Gnutella, etc, here's the answer: We don't like getting ripped off.

[chrysoula.livejournal.com]

> Why would they, when they are getting a top-quality product for free?

Because it's the right thing to do?

Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine. A large number of people don't need to be forced to do the right thing. Assuming everybody does is insulting.

That peeve shared, of course I can see where they're coming from.

If the GBS album is going to be on iTunes, I'd have encouraged her to drink lots of Pepsi if she wants free music. :-) Steve Jobs is there for you, baby!

[annathepiper]

>> Why would they, when they are getting a top-quality product for free?
> Because it's the right thing to do?
>
> Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine. A large number of people don't need to be forced to do the right thing. Assuming everybody does is insulting.

I don't often say this about myself, but you're less cynical about this than I am. :} Unfortunately, while many folks don't have to be forced to do the right thing, just as many in my experience, if not more, do.

(I've learned this lesson time and again just with the amount of crap that our neighborhood has suffered, with wave after wave after wave of students who don't give a shit if they're trashing the neighborhood for others as long as they get to party themselves into drunken oblivion. And even if the cops come and tell them to shut the hell up, they'll only do it for as long as the cops are in the area, and then they will go right back to making loud, drunken nuisances of themselves.)

[veiledpanda.livejournal.com]

GBS states upfront that they are "unlike most bands" in that they are paying for and producing their own records, and they are a fairly small fish in the "great big sea" of music, if you'll pardon the pun. They've clearly stated their feelings on the matter, so, as I said before, knowing their opinions, those opinions should be respected. And their /fans/ WILL support them. Folks who don't care how the artists feel, even knowing that they pay for and produce their own work, are not folks who would go out and pay for the album if they couldn't get it for free anyway.

There's a lot of music you CAN'T buy anymore - it just plain isn't being sold. And music files aren't the only thing you can share and transfer around, using these programs. (IOW, illegal uses are not the only uses.)

I also agree with the comment about folks buying the album /because it is the right thing to do./ I've used the programs to preview albums before buying them. Usually I've wound up purchasing the album after doing so, and in the instances I haven't, it's because the music was lousy! Since the result is the same as borrowing a friend's copy - in this case, simply a person I haven't met - again I do not find myself struggling with questions of morality over it. I don't have so much money that I want to spend $15+ on an album for which I've only heard one track - the one they chose for radio release - only to discover that the rest of the album sounds nothing like that one track and I can't stand it, and essentially have an expensive new coaster. If I had a friend who owned the CD and I borrowed it for a listen before buying, no one would have a problem with that. In this case, I'm borrowing it from soneone I don't know, but the result is the same. The person who likes it paid for it, and I didn't pay for an album I can't stand. On the other hand, when I find something I DO like, I DO go out and buy it, and I know others who do the same, so I know that I'm not the only one who isn't completely bereft of morals.

[risu.livejournal.com]

> "Oh, yeah, Alan, you're a hot guy and I really love your
> unbelievably cheerful energy and your voice and your ability
> to play your instruments, ..."

I *really* expected this mocking example to continue with "and I'd love to try to seduce you, but would it be okay if I just kidnapped you Misery-style instead? It'd normally be wrong, but I'm dirt ugly!"

Rebecca

[annathepiper]

*snorfle!* Only because I didn't think of it! And I take my hat off to you.

I REALLY wanted to post a suitably angelic picture of Mr. Doyle and add, "Can you look this man in the eye and tell him you downloaded a copy of his album off the Net without giving him due compensation?" But I didn't, mostly because I don't have a copy of a suitably angelic picture on hand, and also because it just... makes me unnecessarily antsy to post snark. >_

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

angelic??!?!?! ALAN??!?!?!?!?!?!???!!??? oh come ON, Anna. that's right right up there with "military intelligence" and "postal service". the man's face is in the dictionary, next to "mischief" :)

[annathepiper]

*chortle* Ah, but there is the one picture I've seen of him... up on gbslive.ca, as I recall... where the shot was this pure white spotlight on his face, and he had his eyes closed as he was singing, and he looked ABSOLUTELY angelic. ;)