27 ms·

Unknown band's album illegally downloaded 100,000 times. Or is it?

42 points by mopoke 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
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  - ihodes 16y ago
    This is posted on every comment like this, but I'll oblige: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." from http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Perhaps this should be required reading before registration?
  - kristofferR 16y ago
    HN isn't just about hacking, programming or startups. Sure, most of the content is related to that, but we also allow truly breaking news (Japan tsunami for example), tech news, philosophy and other intellectual content.
  - dexen 16y ago
    In accordance with HN guidelines [0], please flag (via the `flag' link) submissions you consider spam, rather than commenting on them. If enough users agree (by flagging it too), it will be removed. For the record, I want this article on HN. ---- [0] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - RyanMcGreal 16y ago
    "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)" http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
kristofferR 16y ago
I imagine this must be quite sad for the band. If they're creating music for any other reason that just pure moneterily reasons, it must be quite weird to first believe that you have tens of thousands of fans listening to your music (albeit not paying for it) only to realize that almost nobody at all have even heard of your band.
- dexen 16y ago
  In any case, what matters most for a band is how many attend their public performances. Both for the reasons of revenue (bands usually get reasonable cut of concerts revenue) and for the reasons of publicity. And self-esteem ;-)
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
olegious 16y ago
The "manager" of the band is stuck in the old media model of the music industry. I would be delighted if my album was downloaded 100K times- I'm sure I would see corresponding increase in Twitter and Facebook followers, YouTube subscribers and live show attendance, merchandise sales, etc. When are the music industry people going to get that? I would think that this would be common sense?!
- jameskilton 16y ago
  When you get down to it, common sense ... isn't. And because of this amazing lack of common sense, this band, or at least the name, is pretty much screwed, good music or not.
rick888 16y ago
This article talks about "sampling" music. Grooveshark and last.fm are for sampling, downloading is for getting everything..IE: not sampling. I've heard the argument that most bands don't make money on the albums, only the merchandise and concerts. What's interesting is that piracy has made it this way. When piracy wasn't as mainstream, the bands did make money on albums. Why can't people admit that they are too cheap to spend money on something they know they can get for free with little effort and little consequences? These arguments have been going on since the mid-to-late 90s and every few years, when the record companies listen to the public and comply with the pirates' demands, the excuses change (which is why you should never negotiate with criminals). First it was because you couldn't sample music and it was too expensive. The industry listened and songs are now 99 cents (you aren't forced to buy an album) and you can also preview songs (for free) on a multitude of services. Then it was because artists were getting screwed by record contracts. Now, any artist can sell his music online, without a contract. But the funny part about that is that piracy has destroyed the market for them. Because piracy is rampant, the value of music online has gone down considerably and people aren't as willing to pay for music. This is the real problem with piracy. It's not about stealing that one song, it's about destroying an entire industry of digital products. The value is only what people are willing to pay and as more and more people know they can get something for free, the closer it is to $0. But, it's the age of entitlement...
- dexen 16y ago
  > But the funny part about that is that piracy has destroyed the market for them (...) and people aren't as willing to pay for music. That line of reasoning flies in the face of facts. You assert, ``one can't compete with free'', but every day shows that's not the case. While the data itself is free, or very cheap indeed, the services (here: public performances, endorsement of commercial products etc.) are paid for. The brief period (less than a dozen decades) when the vinyl/tape/CD was the only way are over. No longer media and distribution costs dwarf the music costs. Look at IT for a moment. For nearly every commercial IT product out there, you see free alternatives. Yet the commercial stuff turns decent profit. Some companies sell services for the free product and make a decent buck. And, perhaps surprisingly, developers of free software also manage to get jobs and gigs. Both ecosystems thrive. Musicians can -- and sometimes actually do -- follow that way too. -- As for the ``First it was because you couldn't sample music'' -- look, capitalism 101. Distribution and demand only set the price at the value point if there is information parity between the seller and buyer. Should there be any information disparity, the price will diverge from the value. And given the huge amount of advertising popular artists receive, there sure is a lot of information disparity. Now you were telling us the album prices weren't inflated? And don't even get me started on product bundling -- where you'd have to buy an album with a dozen songs to get one or two decent.
filiwickers 16y ago
Here is a blog post from the band manager yesterday. http://www.camerontilburypublicity.com/post/2011/04/03/Illegal-Downloading-follow-up.aspx http://www.camerontilburypublicity.com/post/2011/04/03/Illeg... I think the band should be very frustrated. Their manager made a invalid claim without real evidence then decided to take swift and public action. Unfortunately, the manager does not understand the situation and refuses to talk to anyone who may understand it. What could the band have done here? Was the lack of sales that much more important than the bands popularity?

42 points by mopoke 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- ihodes 16y ago
  This is posted on every comment like this, but I'll oblige: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." from http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Perhaps this should be required reading before registration?
- kristofferR 16y ago
  HN isn't just about hacking, programming or startups. Sure, most of the content is related to that, but we also allow truly breaking news (Japan tsunami for example), tech news, philosophy and other intellectual content.
- dexen 16y ago
  In accordance with HN guidelines [0], please flag (via the `flag' link) submissions you consider spam, rather than commenting on them. If enough users agree (by flagging it too), it will be removed. For the record, I want this article on HN. ---- [0] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- RyanMcGreal 16y ago
  "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)" http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

kristofferR 16y ago

I imagine this must be quite sad for the band. If they're creating music for any other reason that just pure moneterily reasons, it must be quite weird to first believe that you have tens of thousands of fans listening to your music (albeit not paying for it) only to realize that almost nobody at all have even heard of your band.

dexen 16y ago
In any case, what matters most for a band is how many attend their public performances. Both for the reasons of revenue (bands usually get reasonable cut of concerts revenue) and for the reasons of publicity. And self-esteem ;-)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

olegious 16y ago

The "manager" of the band is stuck in the old media model of the music industry. I would be delighted if my album was downloaded 100K times- I'm sure I would see corresponding increase in Twitter and Facebook followers, YouTube subscribers and live show attendance, merchandise sales, etc. When are the music industry people going to get that? I would think that this would be common sense?!

jameskilton 16y ago
When you get down to it, common sense ... isn't. And because of this amazing lack of common sense, this band, or at least the name, is pretty much screwed, good music or not.

rick888 16y ago

This article talks about "sampling" music. Grooveshark and last.fm are for sampling, downloading is for getting everything..IE: not sampling. I've heard the argument that most bands don't make money on the albums, only the merchandise and concerts. What's interesting is that piracy has made it this way. When piracy wasn't as mainstream, the bands did make money on albums. Why can't people admit that they are too cheap to spend money on something they know they can get for free with little effort and little consequences? These arguments have been going on since the mid-to-late 90s and every few years, when the record companies listen to the public and comply with the pirates' demands, the excuses change (which is why you should never negotiate with criminals). First it was because you couldn't sample music and it was too expensive. The industry listened and songs are now 99 cents (you aren't forced to buy an album) and you can also preview songs (for free) on a multitude of services. Then it was because artists were getting screwed by record contracts. Now, any artist can sell his music online, without a contract. But the funny part about that is that piracy has destroyed the market for them. Because piracy is rampant, the value of music online has gone down considerably and people aren't as willing to pay for music. This is the real problem with piracy. It's not about stealing that one song, it's about destroying an entire industry of digital products. The value is only what people are willing to pay and as more and more people know they can get something for free, the closer it is to $0. But, it's the age of entitlement...

dexen 16y ago
> But the funny part about that is that piracy has destroyed the market for them (...) and people aren't as willing to pay for music. That line of reasoning flies in the face of facts. You assert, ``one can't compete with free'', but every day shows that's not the case. While the data itself is free, or very cheap indeed, the services (here: public performances, endorsement of commercial products etc.) are paid for. The brief period (less than a dozen decades) when the vinyl/tape/CD was the only way are over. No longer media and distribution costs dwarf the music costs. Look at IT for a moment. For nearly every commercial IT product out there, you see free alternatives. Yet the commercial stuff turns decent profit. Some companies sell services for the free product and make a decent buck. And, perhaps surprisingly, developers of free software also manage to get jobs and gigs. Both ecosystems thrive. Musicians can -- and sometimes actually do -- follow that way too. -- As for the ``First it was because you couldn't sample music'' -- look, capitalism 101. Distribution and demand only set the price at the value point if there is information parity between the seller and buyer. Should there be any information disparity, the price will diverge from the value. And given the huge amount of advertising popular artists receive, there sure is a lot of information disparity. Now you were telling us the album prices weren't inflated? And don't even get me started on product bundling -- where you'd have to buy an album with a dozen songs to get one or two decent.

filiwickers 16y ago

Here is a blog post from the band manager yesterday. http://www.camerontilburypublicity.com/post/2011/04/03/Illegal-Downloading-follow-up.aspx http://www.camerontilburypublicity.com/post/2011/04/03/Illeg... I think the band should be very frustrated. Their manager made a invalid claim without real evidence then decided to take swift and public action. Unfortunately, the manager does not understand the situation and refuses to talk to anyone who may understand it. What could the band have done here? Was the lack of sales that much more important than the bands popularity?