There is a site available for those wishing to submit digital ITM albums at http://paddypunx.blogspot.com/ . Submit as comments (i.e. Rapidshare, Mediafire, Megaupload etc...)
This is a great way of sharing ITM or help others discover artists previously unknown to others. Physical CD w/ Liner Notes should be ordered from the artist's site or distributors.
Does Mike McGoldrick or his record company know his albums
are being given away for free from your web site? I doubt his stuff
is in the public domain yet ...
"London- Irish Psycho-Ceilidh Rockers... The bastard love child of Joe Strummer and Shane MacGowan, Neck inhabit a musical niche rich in traditional Irish tunes but liberally dosed with a strong punk ethic"
It's a tricky situation, because there is something inherently distasteful about seeing a brand new, commercially available album - by someone you'd have a few tunes with down the pub - being made available for free. Yet talking about public domain and copyright as if the internet hasn't permanently revolutionised the entire music industry, from Beyoncé to the Bothy Band, is little more effective than Canute screaming at the sea.
When I first started posting on Ceol Álainn I received a lot of commercially unjustifiable criticism (and abuse) for posting rips of old LPs and tapes that are no longer available to buy, as well as rips of private recordings which had found their way from their original recipients to the wider world. These latter recordings I took down after being persuaded by a member here that a number of the artists known personally to them were unhappy about their private recordings for friends being made available to everybody.
I've received one email from an artist, asking me to remove a rip of an old cassette that they'd released in the 1980s, but more emails from a number of artists who were happy to see their music being promoted for the sake of it.
Posting rips of commercially available CDs isn't something that I would do, but I will download new albums to see whether I like them, and would like to purchase them. When I first began to post on Ceol Álainn a couple of years ago I could see clearly that the trajectory of the music scene was changing dramatically, and that the internet's potential for promotion of independent artists was going to revolutionise the industry. Unfortunately there are large numbers of people (and not just representatives of music corporations) who are failing to adapt to the absolutely irreversible changes taking place. Traditional Irish musicians are exactly the kind of artists who would benefit most from the kind of promotion that warez entails, but they may also be the least economically aware. While the internet has helped to humiliate corporations which primarly peddle insufferable, instantly forgettable teen candy, it has created a niche for the self-promotion of indie artists whose livelihood now depends not on the skilful manipulation of the market by advertisers but a return to gigging, MP3 purchase, and the sale of hard copies at concerts. Compare the folk/pop scene as it is today to the 1990s and 2000s and things look a lot better. Illegal sharing has killed CD sales, and taken power away from behemoths like Sony, and put it back into the hands of folkies with a working knowledge of Pro Tools. People who have been smart enough to adapt have done very well, and ticket sales has become an overwhelming priority once again, which means that the quality of music today is vastly superior to the days when Travis were considered to be an indie band.
What this means for traditional Irish music, with its comparatively tiny audience, isn't clear yet, but those whose performances are available for free on the internet are much more likely to sell out the venues in which they perform in the future. Every album I've downloaded and enjoyed has led, or will lead, to the purchase of tickets and CDs, and to the promotion of albums to friends, acquaintances, pupils etc. I've got copies of cottage-industry CDs which are impossible to buy, because only a few hundred copies were made, and the only ones left are in a box in the artist's shed, or in their accordion case. Putting them on Ceol Álainn would lead to a significantly increased interest in their music, and to the potential for more gigs and more purchases. But I'm still wavering in the grey area between the inevitable future, and the obsolescent morality of a pre-internet era. I don't feel I have the right to promote global interest in *** ******'s badly produced, musically brilliant CD without their permission. Yet, by producing a commercial recording, they've actually relinquished the right to keep their music to themselves and their mates down the pub. I would be very surprised if any Irish musicians have been forced to record at gunpoint, so they've entered the arena of global commerce willingly. Economic and technological development has its own impetus, and whining about change, while everybody's favourite pastime, is dull and pointless as far as everybody else is concerned. If you record a decent CD, it will be ripped and posted, and re-posted, over and over, and there's nothing that anybody can do to stop that. If you record a decent CD, you know this already, so there's no point in running to mummy and crying that the internet stole your royalties. Find a way to adapt, find a way to benefit, like so many folkies and indie popsters and rockers are doing. Or, don't record any more CDs.
@DR,
It is the producer of the material that gets to decide whether they want to make money from licensing their recordings or whether they want the recordings put in the public domain so they can benefit from increased tickets sales.
It is arrogant and illegal to put copyrighted materials into the public domain.
Fiddler3, you are confused about what "public domain" means. (though I agree with your general sentiment)
While I totally appreciate what Dragut Reis has done, I believe contacting each set of musicians might have been a better choice. And digitising old recordings is no small amount of work.
Nowadays, however, if the musicians and their producers *wanted* their music to be listenable for free (which it often is in part on websites, myspace, cdbaby, etc.) they would make it available (it still wouldn't be in the "public domain" however). We cannot make that choice for them.
An intelligent person stands up, rather than sitting on an ants nest, complaining that it's not fair, because there was no ants nest there yesterday.
If you mean kill the ants, well, it's never going to happen. Every government in the world would bankrupt itself before it could eradicate internet piracy. It's here to stay, and intelligent people are adapting to the facts, rather than complaining about change.
I don't complain about change and it's a bit of a weak argument to paint those on the other side of a discussion as stick in the muds.
As for ants, you swat them and after that it's 'Once bitten, twice shy' , which probably in this case effectively means items likely to be pirated won't be made available. Quite counter-productive, wouldn't you think?
I didn't personally accuse you of complaining about change Peter, and it's a shame if you've interpreted what I've written that way. I don't doubt your intelligence, and I don't need to resort to those kind of methods to put my ideas forward. I've been persuaded by your arguments before, without feeling that I've lost a contest, and I've disagreed with them without feeling that I'm superior. I was just making a more general point about it being somewhat silly to stand on the deck of a burning ship out of some misguided sense of loyalty to a moral code which has to be re-written. I am not of the generation which seems to feel entitled to free music and entertainment, but it exists and it's changed everything. It only makes sense to adapt, even if you have moral misgivings.
The logic of reactively swatting ants is obvious, and unfortunate for the few who are singled out and punished as an example. Nonetheless, 200 odd years of modern prison systems shows that exemplary punishment doesn't really work as a deterrent to those who are committed to whatever the law determines to be a crime at any one time. Killing a few ants who've bitten you is not going to eradicate a nest which extends for hundreds of metres in every direction beneath the soil, right?
As for being on one side or another, I don't think that's relevant, or even possible. If there is a single member of this website who has not reproduced, distributed, or received illegally copied material over the years, then please make yourself known. I'm not on one side or the other. I download illegally copied material in order to see whether I like it, and decide from that whether I want to make a purchase, so I am complicit, as is anybody else who does so. I wouldn't put a new album up on Ceol Álainn, because I think it's morally incorrect, in a way that putting up commercially unavailable albums isn't. That's a choice based on my own sense of right and wrong, and perhaps it's arrogant as well as illegal.
By the way, Fiddler3, I did contact a great number of the living musicians whose work is available on Ceol Álainn. You may not be surprised to know that the response was one of overwhelming indifference. That is probably the reason I haven't received a single genuine take-down notice.
DR, I do find it interesting that you seem to be arguing one thing, while doing another. By your actions, you're quite conservative on this: you post "abandoned" records, and you remove them if they become available commercially. This seems a service, and a good one. However, your arguments suggest that you think it's perfectly reasonable for anyone to distribute any material which can be reproduced digitally, without regard to the wishes of the material's creator.
I may have misunderstood you, though. Could you clear this up for me?
Perhaps a more interesting question, though is this:
Do you think that in the new shiny future that's coming at us there's any reason for a commercial recording to be produced, other than as a sort of demo/publicity gimmick? Or is recorded music now to be the preserve of amateurs only?
I'm not comfortable with it, but it's a fact, and it's not going to stop. Therefore it seems to me to be more sensible to find ways in which to benefit, than to pointlessly complain, and hope that somebody will wave a magic wand and turn back time. I wouldn't do it myself, and I don't think highly of people who do, but I'm not going to waste my time berating them, as if I'm possessed of some sort of moral superiority.
It's not a simple situation, and it doesn't have a simple solution. The moral grey area has existed for a very long time. Few people would consider someone to be morally bankrupt for burning a copy of a CD for a friend. Yet, that is illegal distribution of copyright material, and they are breaking the law. The old 'Bootlegging is Killing Music' stickers were a bit morbid and excessive, and so is this obsession with enforcing copyright law, as if it's somehow championing the rights of the poor, rather than protecting the interests of large businesses. The notion that having a ripped copy of a CD is somehow stealing money from the pockets of struggling artists and their hungry children is absolutely unutterable nonsense. If I don't like the CD, I'm not going to buy it anyway. If I like it, I will buy tickets to see the artist live, and I'll buy the CD off of them directly, thereby becoming complicit in defrauding the taxman. Obviously, I'm not going to buy a copy of every CD that I've got a digital copy of, and not everybody is as keen on possessing shiny CDs, and attending great gigs, as I am. I can only put forward my own arguments, and suggest that illegally copying material, in my own case, has led to me spending more money on music that I like than I ever did before the internet made illegal downloading possible.
I can't speak for anybody else, and I don't. Everybody has to make their own choices, and it is up to the individual to decide whether they break the law or not. Nobody is forcing anybody to download illegally - the choice is yours. Whether you want to do it is up to you. People have the ability to police themselves, and self-righteous breast-beating is, as far as I'm concerned, an extreme form of narcissistic arrogance. Is there an individual on this site who has never copied a CD, tape or LP for a friend, never received such a copy, or recorded a radio broadcast, watched a Youtube clip of an RTÉ program or a TG4 episode? If you exist, then please feel free to take the moral high ground and berate the rest of us for our moral shortcomings. As for everybody else, please try to be a less hypocritical.
Jon, have you listened to Gillian Welch's amazing song 'Everything is Free'? Check it out for the answer to your second question. You might even buy it once you've listened to an illegal copy posted on Youtube...
You know, this is complicated stuff. On one hand I think there's great benefit in having all sorts of things widely available. On the other hand, during a talk on North Clare musicians, someone recently pointed out that the old guys had their own tunes and they cherished each of them while having available anything now has resulted in people looking at them as a just another commodity. And I agree there's something lost there.
I would in general also be happy enough to give people I know copies of whatever I have but I wouldn't think of puttting the whole lot on-line. Because I feel it's not mine to put on-line.
As for no longer commercially available recordings, I have a CD and I have made a deliberate choice not to reprint it after my duet partner died. It will not be available again. But that is my choice and nobody has any business putting it up for download.
Equally there are blogs that have put on-line private tapes I recorded when visiting a friend or that were sent to me by other friends, very poor copies accompanied by speculation and misinformation. I feel that as a breach of the private sphere.
The use of photographs is another issue, I'll let that rest for now but there again, I have in the past enjoyed posting stuff on-line but nobody is going to tell me the internet has now by it's very nature given every Joe Soap the right to use work that is not theirs without any permission.
So yes, once bitten, twice shy. No matter how many ants crawl underground, you swat the ones that bite and avoid being bitten again. Which in effect means you stay out of a position where you be bitten. Counter-productive from the ant's point of view.
Thanks for that reply. As it happens, I bought that Gillian Welch record years ago and it's a great one. I don't think it's really the one I'd pull up to defend your case, though. It sounds to me more resigned than anything else. "Well, I can't do anything else, so I guess I'll just try to survive while all these people take everything I do out of my hands and give it away". And of course Gillian Welch is lucky enough to be an established artist who can sell tickets, so she'll be all right.
I have a few problems with your argument, but i'd rather keep this an interesting discussion and not a fist fight so let me start by saying that I'm trying to work out where a reasonable position would lie, and not trying to attack you for the sake of arguing.
There's an element of the manichean in your argument. "Either one is pure as snow or black as coal". It's a tempting position, but I think that there is a difference between making a tape of a record and setting up Pirate's Bay, and there is a continuous gradation between. Simply saying that there is no point where a few grains of sand become a pile and a pile becomes a head and a heap becomes a mound and a mound becomes a hill doesn't mean that a few grains of sand make a hill. Just saying that we can't easily identify breakpoints where behavior becomes economically harmful to the enterprise of producing recorded music doesn't mean that there isn't behavior which can harm and is harming that enterprise.
That's my first objection to your argument. It's an old objection to an old species of argument, but I think it's not new to claim that "there is nothing new under the sun".
The second objection is that I don't see how it's possible for a musician to understand your position correctly and still bother to record an album. Since musicians in my experience (I'm speaking mostly of local and regional songwriters) make a large part of their money by selling recordings at performances, this puts them in the position of supplicants, simply glorified buskers hoping that their public will choose to serve as retail-level patrons but unable to actually set a price for anything they do, barring private personal appearances. Musicians, by and large, don't want to do this, and I believe that this will change the market for music in accordance with current trends. That is, the songwriting career will become a long audition for writing jobs in television. (see "*** Me, Ray Bradbury", for example, or Jonathan Coulton's songs). We will not see performers like Gillian Welch or Richard Thompson, because these performers only make a living on the strength of a back catalog that nobody will be able to develop in the world you're describing. Back catalog means nothing if you can't sell records for money.
This isn't an objection to the validity of your conclusions, but it does tell me that if these conclusions are valid, the outcome is one we don't want: they are more of a warning than something to be accepted complacently.
The third objection that I have is that I don't see where your argument ends. Is there anything about your argument that doesn't apply to the T-shirt an artist sells at a gig? I can copy a design easily enough, and Cafe Press will produce it for me: is it reasonable for me to compete with the artist's T-shirt sales? What about a book? I can slice off the binding of Grey Larson's flute tutor, run it through a scanner, and with a few minutes' work have an e-book ready for sale. Is it reasonable for me to put this up on my web site, either for free or for sale?
If it's not reasonable, why not?
As I say, I'm seeing the same trends you are, and these are some of the places where I'm having trouble adopting the Panglossian complacency recommended to me.
I think I made it clear that I both observe, and occupy, a moral grey area, so the accusation of manicheanism isn't really valid.
I'm not sugesting that complacency is the answer, rather that blindly trumpeting the rectitude of copyright law isn't. Like I've said, it's complicated, and there's no obvious solution. But to pretend that it isn't happening, and that Sony's lawyers are going to magically reverse the glacial development of this trend, is just silly.
There is need for debate, discussion, and adaptation. There are a large number of reasons why internet piracy is harmful to the economic interests of artists, but there are perhaps more reasons to see the irreversible development of these trends as something which artists can harness to their own economic interests. In fact, if artists don't find a way to adapt (as a very large number of them are), then they will suffer, and it will be at least partially their own fault. There's no point in pretending that artists occupy a sanctified position and that internet pirates represent the forces of evil. The internet, and everything it represents, is a force which cannot be ignored, no matter how comfortable it is to retreat into fundamentalism.
I'm not arguing for the rights or wrongs of the phenomenon, I'm arguing that it needs to be recognised and exploited, by the artists themselves. Things have changed, and that's neither good nor bad. It just is.
I agree that things have changed, and that this "just is", but I don't buy that this is neither good nor bad. I know a number of songwriters, very good ones, who don't write songs any more because there's no point, in their mind. They put that time into other things, and I don't hear new songs from them. To me, this is not "neither good nor bad", it's simply bad, just as it simply is.
"the accusation of manicheanism isn't really valid."
I think if you say that anyone who has ever ventured into that grey area loses standing to claim that someone else has gone over the line, you're taking a manichean view. Anyone could take the same position regarding your site - you're violating someone's copyright if you distribute their material without license, so is it not hypocritical for you to object when they post the entire Compass catalog on their site? Obviously, I don't think this is correct, but it's a valid inference from your argument that anyone who has ever made a mix tape is morally equivalent to the Pirate's Bay. Basically, I don't see how you justify the particular position you occupy in the grey area on any grounds but aesthetic ones.
"There is need for debate, discussion, and adaptation"
That's exactly what I'm after here. But I think the adaptation might require something more interesting than simple blind acceptance that anything which is technically feasible is justified on those grounds alone. The internet and its sticky-fingered denizens might have to adapt as well.
It's always been technically feasible to shoplift, but most of us do not do so, and nobody makes the argument that "putting the chewing gum right there where I can put my hands on it is, ipso facto, abandoning your rights to claim ownership of it". Why do we not just stick the gum in our pockets, and why do we find that argument ludicrous? I think it's perfectly parallel to the claim that "by producing a commercial recording, they've actually relinquished the right to keep their music to themselves and their mates down the pub". Nobody is claiming that someone who makes a commercial recording wants to keep the music to themselves and their mates, of course, but what you mean to say is they've relinquished their ownership of the copyright on that recording. Of course, they've done no such thing, but in practical terms their copyright becomes meaningless unless we take the same attitude of respect for their property that we take for the property of the shop owner.
I'm having a hard time picturing a number of songwriters that stopped writing really good songs because the Internet Pirates steal them right off the shelves. My experience is that most songwriters sing their brilliant songs over and over to everyone they can, hoping someone will listen. Some interest by Pirates would be more like a "dream come true" for them than a reason to quit.
Do you know any working songwriters? If you're working hard to make a bare living at your craft, and you're told you don't deserve even that bare living, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that you might as well do something else. Maybe some are so pathetically self-absorbed that they only want to be heard. If that's all you want to hear, you'll find them strumming their ukeleles on YouTube. Enjoy. I'm talking about good writers who are now good speech language pathologists and good photo archivists, among other things. A gain for those professions, I suppose, but there's a lot of songs there that will never be heard, and it's largely because there didn't seem to be a lot of point putting in hours making songs to sing for free, just "hoping someone will listen".
But if that doesn't make sense to you, consider the cost of recording an album. How much are you willing to put into that project, knowing that your audience can have it for free as soon as you let it out of your hands? If you're willing to spend thousands of dollars just "hoping someone will listen" you'd do better putting that money into a course of therapy. At least that way, you'll get what you pay for.
I see your point. I was thinking of some people who wish they were professional singer-songwriters. I can imagine that there are some (many) professional wordsmiths that have already broken their bank and their resolve on the music industry and moved on.
Fiddler3 nailed it in a tiny fraction of the space taken by all the analyses below. In short: flowerchild1949, do you respect Mike McGoldrick and all the other musicians whose work you made available on your site? If so, then *at minimum* you should find out how they feel about you sharing it. Everything else about copyright law and the business of making money off music is a red herring.
dont own or operate that site... just that it has great albums to check out before you buy, or help share... Digital age vs. the old ways... hahaha. I think its fair to say that it wont change, and that hiding behind a rock won't due much to promote... You have to work with what's available...
Hey, "flowerchild", suppose you're playing at a session some time and McGoldrick comes in. Are you going to tell him that you didn't buy his records, but you downloaded them instead? Do you think he'd be pleased by this?
Or suppose you did operate the site - if you're promoting it, you could start one like it, right? Now, suppose you tell McGoldrick, yeah, I have this web site where I give away people's music without asking them, and people are downloading your records right and left. You think he's happy about that? Somehow I doubt it.
I see that one of Duncan Chisholm's CDs is up there. Duncan owns the label for that CD. The production is hardly on the scale of Sony and the main person to lose out from free distribution will be Duncan himself.
On the other hand, there is a solo piping album by a well known piper, and it's on a label owned by one of the companies in the business with a bad name - and it's quite likely that the piper receives no royalties from legitimate sales of the album. No doubt many would relish the idea of "Mr same name as a well known cider producer" losing out on sales. I can't say for sure that there are many situations like this though.
Anyone producing recorded music - or other media - should always account for the effect of copying on potential sales (this existed to an extent, but not so widespread, before computers made the practice easier). However, the publicising of a source of this copied material on a website with a large proportion, if not all, of its members being part of the potential market for legitimate distribution of the music is very much "aiding and abetting" the illegal practice which leaves people like Duncan Chisholm out of pocket. Perhaps Jeremy should consider zapping this thread, even though the discussion that has followed from it is pertinent to the subject of making a living out of music in the digital age.
There are a number of sites (which I won't advertise by mentioning by name) which have huge numbers of recent traditional Irish music albums available for illegal download. This is only the tip of the iceberg.
It's not really Jeremy's job to police the internet and enforce copyright law, though I take your point. I think people should start thinking more about where the responsibility for regulating behaviour really lies. As I've said before, nobody is forcing people to download illegally. People have a responsibility to police their own behaviour. It's very dangerous to suggest that government agencies and global corporations should be given more powers of legal intervention.
Somebody suggested the analogy of the sweet shop which invites theft by placing products beside the door. What about the honour system, where home-made products are left outside, unregulated, and people leave money for the products they purchase? Surely that is as valid an analogy? Yes, some people steal, but most people observe moral codes that are internalised, not enforced by outside agencies. Sure, download albums, but make a point of buying the originals, directly from the artist if possible, when the opportunity becomes available.
Following my written request, my band's 10 albums are no longer featured on this site. Others may wish to do the same. There are other recordings which we are happy to share on line but not these 'current' studio releases which have cost us and the record company dear. If we do wish to share them 'officially' it will be at a time and via a site of our own choosing.
What proportion of recent traditional albums are available from streaming services that are paid for by advertisement or subscription ? How much of the 'better known' musicians output is available on radio with 'listen later' access on the internet. Those and 30 seconds samples, which must be easy to supply, are a way of finding out what what a CD is like before buying it. (mainly to Dragut, crossing with Coleman)
By the way, people still seem to think that I'm sanctioning the uploading of recent albums as a legitimate, unsolicited marketing service. I'm not. I wouldn't upload commercially available albums on Ceol Álainn, which means that I don't think it's cool. But it happens, and it's not going to stop, so I've accepted it. In ten years, when I get round to recording an album, I'll expect to see it ripped and uploaded before I can say the word 'irony'.
Wow. That's about all I can say reading this thread, and the way DG is giving excuses for an illegal activity. The logic behind the argument is flawed.
Putting stuff out there, without permission.... jeez. Probably cheats at cards, too.
Dragut. From the way you present your 'moral code' regarding your site I am not surprised that you don't get asked to take down 'abandoned' recordings. I have downloaded some and appreciate you making them available. But I don't go along with the acceptance that illegal downloading of available recordings is 'what happens' . The more times acceptability is demonstrated the more people will regard it as acceptable - as in the looting in the UK earlier this year. I am not even going to follow the link in the OP.
As an example: There are five full tracks from Duncan Chisholm's latest CD on his myspace page (with on-screen advertising) and 20 second samples of 18 tracks from earlier CDs on his web site. Those were the first two Google hits for his name. There are dozens of hits on youtube many put up by organisations who hosted concerts. So what's the excuse for downloading an illegal copy of a CD before buying it ?
Coleman - good work getting that stuff taken down. I tried to report the site for copyright violations, but blogspot (ie, google) only accepts such reports from the copyright holders. I did send email to a few people on the list that I know, we'll see what happens. If anyone knows McGoldrick or any of the others being pirated there, you might want to mention it to them.
"What about the honour system, where home-made products are left outside, unregulated, and people leave money for the products they purchase? Surely that is as valid an analogy"
I used to buy honey for mead-making on this system, and it seems to work. But this is still making the same point as the shoplifting: anyone could steal a jar of honey, and nobody could stop them. Somehow, we manage to convince ourselves to actually pay money for something which is "free". This doesn't seem to be the case with the plunderware site which kicked off this whole discussion.
DR - Should you get round to recording that album and need some guitar accompaniment...
As far as this discussion goes I am not going to pretend I have never obtained an album without paying for it. As has already been said I am sure few could. Nonetheless I still feel uneasy at the existence of sites such as the one above, particularly in instances when it is people I know that are being ripped off.
When I was younger I used to justify illegally downloading music in various ways. Now that I'm a little older I find that I've developed a better sense of private property and that includes recordings. There are plenty of old 45 recordings if you want to listen to Irish music for free as well as sites like grooveshark who I believe pay royalty fees and you only have to look at adsense ads on the site. Artists put up free samples/tracks and there is Youtube. I guess there is unauthorized stuff up there, but mostly I watch RTE stuff that isn't available in my country anyway. Actually are these recordings for sale anywhere or what? I'm just an American and really wish I could just tune in my TV and watch stuff like this.
The way I see it, the artist pays good money to buy equipment to record with as well as the space itself, which may be their home but maybe not. They might even have to pay a recording engineer. Think about that when you download and think you could easily learn a tune yourself for free but the recording by a living artist costs them money.
Weejie,
No
I see a lot of white-label CDs passed around.
You don't need portals to operate FTF - it's part of TCP/IP.
Anyione with a website can post any file and just share the link.
The post can be taken down in a timespan that avoids snoopy bots ratting you out to the copy-lords.
Most kids know how to do all this.
There's a generation being taught to hate copyright and avoid it - we are training a generation of copyright boycot ..
Perhaps it will promote originality, but the problem is the 100-year disconnect with tradition through culturally repressive "rights".
It cannot be sustained.
Do you thing recording the music, getiing artwork and pressing CD's is free the the artists? To traditional musicians who often already have to work part time to make ends meet? Who usually go into debt to get the album everyone is shouting for?
You are nothing but thieves. Mozie, you are an idiot.
For folks wanting to share music with others
For folks wanting to share music with others
There is a site available for those wishing to submit digital ITM albums at http://paddypunx.blogspot.com/ . Submit as comments (i.e. Rapidshare, Mediafire, Megaupload etc...)
This is a great way of sharing ITM or help others discover artists previously unknown to others. Physical CD w/ Liner Notes should be ordered from the artist's site or distributors.
Enjoy
# Posted on January 3rd 2012 by flowerchild1949
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Does Mike McGoldrick or his record company know his albums
are being given away for free from your web site? I doubt his stuff
is in the public domain yet ...
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Hup
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
"Neck - Sod'em & Begorrah! (2005)"
"London- Irish Psycho-Ceilidh Rockers... The bastard love child of Joe Strummer and Shane MacGowan, Neck inhabit a musical niche rich in traditional Irish tunes but liberally dosed with a strong punk ethic"
AAAARRGH!
But don't take my word for it...
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by oldstrings
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
It's a tricky situation, because there is something inherently distasteful about seeing a brand new, commercially available album - by someone you'd have a few tunes with down the pub - being made available for free. Yet talking about public domain and copyright as if the internet hasn't permanently revolutionised the entire music industry, from Beyoncé to the Bothy Band, is little more effective than Canute screaming at the sea.
When I first started posting on Ceol Álainn I received a lot of commercially unjustifiable criticism (and abuse) for posting rips of old LPs and tapes that are no longer available to buy, as well as rips of private recordings which had found their way from their original recipients to the wider world. These latter recordings I took down after being persuaded by a member here that a number of the artists known personally to them were unhappy about their private recordings for friends being made available to everybody.
I've received one email from an artist, asking me to remove a rip of an old cassette that they'd released in the 1980s, but more emails from a number of artists who were happy to see their music being promoted for the sake of it.
Posting rips of commercially available CDs isn't something that I would do, but I will download new albums to see whether I like them, and would like to purchase them. When I first began to post on Ceol Álainn a couple of years ago I could see clearly that the trajectory of the music scene was changing dramatically, and that the internet's potential for promotion of independent artists was going to revolutionise the industry. Unfortunately there are large numbers of people (and not just representatives of music corporations) who are failing to adapt to the absolutely irreversible changes taking place. Traditional Irish musicians are exactly the kind of artists who would benefit most from the kind of promotion that warez entails, but they may also be the least economically aware. While the internet has helped to humiliate corporations which primarly peddle insufferable, instantly forgettable teen candy, it has created a niche for the self-promotion of indie artists whose livelihood now depends not on the skilful manipulation of the market by advertisers but a return to gigging, MP3 purchase, and the sale of hard copies at concerts. Compare the folk/pop scene as it is today to the 1990s and 2000s and things look a lot better. Illegal sharing has killed CD sales, and taken power away from behemoths like Sony, and put it back into the hands of folkies with a working knowledge of Pro Tools. People who have been smart enough to adapt have done very well, and ticket sales has become an overwhelming priority once again, which means that the quality of music today is vastly superior to the days when Travis were considered to be an indie band.
What this means for traditional Irish music, with its comparatively tiny audience, isn't clear yet, but those whose performances are available for free on the internet are much more likely to sell out the venues in which they perform in the future. Every album I've downloaded and enjoyed has led, or will lead, to the purchase of tickets and CDs, and to the promotion of albums to friends, acquaintances, pupils etc. I've got copies of cottage-industry CDs which are impossible to buy, because only a few hundred copies were made, and the only ones left are in a box in the artist's shed, or in their accordion case. Putting them on Ceol Álainn would lead to a significantly increased interest in their music, and to the potential for more gigs and more purchases. But I'm still wavering in the grey area between the inevitable future, and the obsolescent morality of a pre-internet era. I don't feel I have the right to promote global interest in *** ******'s badly produced, musically brilliant CD without their permission. Yet, by producing a commercial recording, they've actually relinquished the right to keep their music to themselves and their mates down the pub. I would be very surprised if any Irish musicians have been forced to record at gunpoint, so they've entered the arena of global commerce willingly. Economic and technological development has its own impetus, and whining about change, while everybody's favourite pastime, is dull and pointless as far as everybody else is concerned. If you record a decent CD, it will be ripped and posted, and re-posted, over and over, and there's nothing that anybody can do to stop that. If you record a decent CD, you know this already, so there's no point in running to mummy and crying that the internet stole your royalties. Find a way to adapt, find a way to benefit, like so many folkies and indie popsters and rockers are doing. Or, don't record any more CDs.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
@DR,
It is the producer of the material that gets to decide whether they want to make money from licensing their recordings or whether they want the recordings put in the public domain so they can benefit from increased tickets sales.
It is arrogant and illegal to put copyrighted materials into the public domain.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Fiddler3
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Fiddler3, you are confused about what "public domain" means. (though I agree with your general sentiment)
While I totally appreciate what Dragut Reis has done, I believe contacting each set of musicians might have been a better choice. And digitising old recordings is no small amount of work.
Nowadays, however, if the musicians and their producers *wanted* their music to be listenable for free (which it often is in part on websites, myspace, cdbaby, etc.) they would make it available (it still wouldn't be in the "public domain" however). We cannot make that choice for them.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Tirno
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
It is stupid to sit on an anthill and expect not to get bitten.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
And what does one do to ants when bitten?
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
An intelligent person stands up, rather than sitting on an ants nest, complaining that it's not fair, because there was no ants nest there yesterday.
If you mean kill the ants, well, it's never going to happen. Every government in the world would bankrupt itself before it could eradicate internet piracy. It's here to stay, and intelligent people are adapting to the facts, rather than complaining about change.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I had a quick look and see that there are several albums I play on included. It is very dissapointing indeed!
CG
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Coleman Gow
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I don't complain about change and it's a bit of a weak argument to paint those on the other side of a discussion as stick in the muds.
As for ants, you swat them and after that it's 'Once bitten, twice shy' , which probably in this case effectively means items likely to be pirated won't be made available. Quite counter-productive, wouldn't you think?
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I didn't personally accuse you of complaining about change Peter, and it's a shame if you've interpreted what I've written that way. I don't doubt your intelligence, and I don't need to resort to those kind of methods to put my ideas forward. I've been persuaded by your arguments before, without feeling that I've lost a contest, and I've disagreed with them without feeling that I'm superior. I was just making a more general point about it being somewhat silly to stand on the deck of a burning ship out of some misguided sense of loyalty to a moral code which has to be re-written. I am not of the generation which seems to feel entitled to free music and entertainment, but it exists and it's changed everything. It only makes sense to adapt, even if you have moral misgivings.
The logic of reactively swatting ants is obvious, and unfortunate for the few who are singled out and punished as an example. Nonetheless, 200 odd years of modern prison systems shows that exemplary punishment doesn't really work as a deterrent to those who are committed to whatever the law determines to be a crime at any one time. Killing a few ants who've bitten you is not going to eradicate a nest which extends for hundreds of metres in every direction beneath the soil, right?
As for being on one side or another, I don't think that's relevant, or even possible. If there is a single member of this website who has not reproduced, distributed, or received illegally copied material over the years, then please make yourself known. I'm not on one side or the other. I download illegally copied material in order to see whether I like it, and decide from that whether I want to make a purchase, so I am complicit, as is anybody else who does so. I wouldn't put a new album up on Ceol Álainn, because I think it's morally incorrect, in a way that putting up commercially unavailable albums isn't. That's a choice based on my own sense of right and wrong, and perhaps it's arrogant as well as illegal.
By the way, Fiddler3, I did contact a great number of the living musicians whose work is available on Ceol Álainn. You may not be surprised to know that the response was one of overwhelming indifference. That is probably the reason I haven't received a single genuine take-down notice.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
DR, I do find it interesting that you seem to be arguing one thing, while doing another. By your actions, you're quite conservative on this: you post "abandoned" records, and you remove them if they become available commercially. This seems a service, and a good one. However, your arguments suggest that you think it's perfectly reasonable for anyone to distribute any material which can be reproduced digitally, without regard to the wishes of the material's creator.
I may have misunderstood you, though. Could you clear this up for me?
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Perhaps a more interesting question, though is this:
Do you think that in the new shiny future that's coming at us there's any reason for a commercial recording to be produced, other than as a sort of demo/publicity gimmick? Or is recorded music now to be the preserve of amateurs only?
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I have sent a request to Paddy Punx asking that all references to my recordings (10) be removed forthwith.
I will advise you of the outcome.
CG
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Coleman Gow
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I'm not comfortable with it, but it's a fact, and it's not going to stop. Therefore it seems to me to be more sensible to find ways in which to benefit, than to pointlessly complain, and hope that somebody will wave a magic wand and turn back time. I wouldn't do it myself, and I don't think highly of people who do, but I'm not going to waste my time berating them, as if I'm possessed of some sort of moral superiority.
It's not a simple situation, and it doesn't have a simple solution. The moral grey area has existed for a very long time. Few people would consider someone to be morally bankrupt for burning a copy of a CD for a friend. Yet, that is illegal distribution of copyright material, and they are breaking the law. The old 'Bootlegging is Killing Music' stickers were a bit morbid and excessive, and so is this obsession with enforcing copyright law, as if it's somehow championing the rights of the poor, rather than protecting the interests of large businesses. The notion that having a ripped copy of a CD is somehow stealing money from the pockets of struggling artists and their hungry children is absolutely unutterable nonsense. If I don't like the CD, I'm not going to buy it anyway. If I like it, I will buy tickets to see the artist live, and I'll buy the CD off of them directly, thereby becoming complicit in defrauding the taxman. Obviously, I'm not going to buy a copy of every CD that I've got a digital copy of, and not everybody is as keen on possessing shiny CDs, and attending great gigs, as I am. I can only put forward my own arguments, and suggest that illegally copying material, in my own case, has led to me spending more money on music that I like than I ever did before the internet made illegal downloading possible.
I can't speak for anybody else, and I don't. Everybody has to make their own choices, and it is up to the individual to decide whether they break the law or not. Nobody is forcing anybody to download illegally - the choice is yours. Whether you want to do it is up to you. People have the ability to police themselves, and self-righteous breast-beating is, as far as I'm concerned, an extreme form of narcissistic arrogance. Is there an individual on this site who has never copied a CD, tape or LP for a friend, never received such a copy, or recorded a radio broadcast, watched a Youtube clip of an RTÉ program or a TG4 episode? If you exist, then please feel free to take the moral high ground and berate the rest of us for our moral shortcomings. As for everybody else, please try to be a less hypocritical.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Jon, have you listened to Gillian Welch's amazing song 'Everything is Free'? Check it out for the answer to your second question. You might even buy it once you've listened to an illegal copy posted on Youtube...
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
You know, this is complicated stuff. On one hand I think there's great benefit in having all sorts of things widely available. On the other hand, during a talk on North Clare musicians, someone recently pointed out that the old guys had their own tunes and they cherished each of them while having available anything now has resulted in people looking at them as a just another commodity. And I agree there's something lost there.
I would in general also be happy enough to give people I know copies of whatever I have but I wouldn't think of puttting the whole lot on-line. Because I feel it's not mine to put on-line.
As for no longer commercially available recordings, I have a CD and I have made a deliberate choice not to reprint it after my duet partner died. It will not be available again. But that is my choice and nobody has any business putting it up for download.
Equally there are blogs that have put on-line private tapes I recorded when visiting a friend or that were sent to me by other friends, very poor copies accompanied by speculation and misinformation. I feel that as a breach of the private sphere.
The use of photographs is another issue, I'll let that rest for now but there again, I have in the past enjoyed posting stuff on-line but nobody is going to tell me the internet has now by it's very nature given every Joe Soap the right to use work that is not theirs without any permission.
So yes, once bitten, twice shy. No matter how many ants crawl underground, you swat the ones that bite and avoid being bitten again. Which in effect means you stay out of a position where you be bitten. Counter-productive from the ant's point of view.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Thanks for that reply. As it happens, I bought that Gillian Welch record years ago and it's a great one. I don't think it's really the one I'd pull up to defend your case, though. It sounds to me more resigned than anything else. "Well, I can't do anything else, so I guess I'll just try to survive while all these people take everything I do out of my hands and give it away". And of course Gillian Welch is lucky enough to be an established artist who can sell tickets, so she'll be all right.
I have a few problems with your argument, but i'd rather keep this an interesting discussion and not a fist fight so let me start by saying that I'm trying to work out where a reasonable position would lie, and not trying to attack you for the sake of arguing.
There's an element of the manichean in your argument. "Either one is pure as snow or black as coal". It's a tempting position, but I think that there is a difference between making a tape of a record and setting up Pirate's Bay, and there is a continuous gradation between. Simply saying that there is no point where a few grains of sand become a pile and a pile becomes a head and a heap becomes a mound and a mound becomes a hill doesn't mean that a few grains of sand make a hill. Just saying that we can't easily identify breakpoints where behavior becomes economically harmful to the enterprise of producing recorded music doesn't mean that there isn't behavior which can harm and is harming that enterprise.
That's my first objection to your argument. It's an old objection to an old species of argument, but I think it's not new to claim that "there is nothing new under the sun".
The second objection is that I don't see how it's possible for a musician to understand your position correctly and still bother to record an album. Since musicians in my experience (I'm speaking mostly of local and regional songwriters) make a large part of their money by selling recordings at performances, this puts them in the position of supplicants, simply glorified buskers hoping that their public will choose to serve as retail-level patrons but unable to actually set a price for anything they do, barring private personal appearances. Musicians, by and large, don't want to do this, and I believe that this will change the market for music in accordance with current trends. That is, the songwriting career will become a long audition for writing jobs in television. (see "*** Me, Ray Bradbury", for example, or Jonathan Coulton's songs). We will not see performers like Gillian Welch or Richard Thompson, because these performers only make a living on the strength of a back catalog that nobody will be able to develop in the world you're describing. Back catalog means nothing if you can't sell records for money.
This isn't an objection to the validity of your conclusions, but it does tell me that if these conclusions are valid, the outcome is one we don't want: they are more of a warning than something to be accepted complacently.
The third objection that I have is that I don't see where your argument ends. Is there anything about your argument that doesn't apply to the T-shirt an artist sells at a gig? I can copy a design easily enough, and Cafe Press will produce it for me: is it reasonable for me to compete with the artist's T-shirt sales? What about a book? I can slice off the binding of Grey Larson's flute tutor, run it through a scanner, and with a few minutes' work have an e-book ready for sale. Is it reasonable for me to put this up on my web site, either for free or for sale?
If it's not reasonable, why not?
As I say, I'm seeing the same trends you are, and these are some of the places where I'm having trouble adopting the Panglossian complacency recommended to me.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I think I made it clear that I both observe, and occupy, a moral grey area, so the accusation of manicheanism isn't really valid.
I'm not sugesting that complacency is the answer, rather that blindly trumpeting the rectitude of copyright law isn't. Like I've said, it's complicated, and there's no obvious solution. But to pretend that it isn't happening, and that Sony's lawyers are going to magically reverse the glacial development of this trend, is just silly.
There is need for debate, discussion, and adaptation. There are a large number of reasons why internet piracy is harmful to the economic interests of artists, but there are perhaps more reasons to see the irreversible development of these trends as something which artists can harness to their own economic interests. In fact, if artists don't find a way to adapt (as a very large number of them are), then they will suffer, and it will be at least partially their own fault. There's no point in pretending that artists occupy a sanctified position and that internet pirates represent the forces of evil. The internet, and everything it represents, is a force which cannot be ignored, no matter how comfortable it is to retreat into fundamentalism.
I'm not arguing for the rights or wrongs of the phenomenon, I'm arguing that it needs to be recognised and exploited, by the artists themselves. Things have changed, and that's neither good nor bad. It just is.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I agree that things have changed, and that this "just is", but I don't buy that this is neither good nor bad. I know a number of songwriters, very good ones, who don't write songs any more because there's no point, in their mind. They put that time into other things, and I don't hear new songs from them. To me, this is not "neither good nor bad", it's simply bad, just as it simply is.
"the accusation of manicheanism isn't really valid."
I think if you say that anyone who has ever ventured into that grey area loses standing to claim that someone else has gone over the line, you're taking a manichean view. Anyone could take the same position regarding your site - you're violating someone's copyright if you distribute their material without license, so is it not hypocritical for you to object when they post the entire Compass catalog on their site? Obviously, I don't think this is correct, but it's a valid inference from your argument that anyone who has ever made a mix tape is morally equivalent to the Pirate's Bay. Basically, I don't see how you justify the particular position you occupy in the grey area on any grounds but aesthetic ones.
"There is need for debate, discussion, and adaptation"
That's exactly what I'm after here. But I think the adaptation might require something more interesting than simple blind acceptance that anything which is technically feasible is justified on those grounds alone. The internet and its sticky-fingered denizens might have to adapt as well.
It's always been technically feasible to shoplift, but most of us do not do so, and nobody makes the argument that "putting the chewing gum right there where I can put my hands on it is, ipso facto, abandoning your rights to claim ownership of it". Why do we not just stick the gum in our pockets, and why do we find that argument ludicrous? I think it's perfectly parallel to the claim that "by producing a commercial recording, they've actually relinquished the right to keep their music to themselves and their mates down the pub". Nobody is claiming that someone who makes a commercial recording wants to keep the music to themselves and their mates, of course, but what you mean to say is they've relinquished their ownership of the copyright on that recording. Of course, they've done no such thing, but in practical terms their copyright becomes meaningless unless we take the same attitude of respect for their property that we take for the property of the shop owner.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I'm having a hard time picturing a number of songwriters that stopped writing really good songs because the Internet Pirates steal them right off the shelves. My experience is that most songwriters sing their brilliant songs over and over to everyone they can, hoping someone will listen. Some interest by Pirates would be more like a "dream come true" for them than a reason to quit.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by y-nought
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Do you know any working songwriters? If you're working hard to make a bare living at your craft, and you're told you don't deserve even that bare living, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that you might as well do something else. Maybe some are so pathetically self-absorbed that they only want to be heard. If that's all you want to hear, you'll find them strumming their ukeleles on YouTube. Enjoy. I'm talking about good writers who are now good speech language pathologists and good photo archivists, among other things. A gain for those professions, I suppose, but there's a lot of songs there that will never be heard, and it's largely because there didn't seem to be a lot of point putting in hours making songs to sing for free, just "hoping someone will listen".
But if that doesn't make sense to you, consider the cost of recording an album. How much are you willing to put into that project, knowing that your audience can have it for free as soon as you let it out of your hands? If you're willing to spend thousands of dollars just "hoping someone will listen" you'd do better putting that money into a course of therapy. At least that way, you'll get what you pay for.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I see your point. I was thinking of some people who wish they were professional singer-songwriters. I can imagine that there are some (many) professional wordsmiths that have already broken their bank and their resolve on the music industry and moved on.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by y-nought
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Fiddler3 nailed it in a tiny fraction of the space taken by all the analyses below. In short: flowerchild1949, do you respect Mike McGoldrick and all the other musicians whose work you made available on your site? If so, then *at minimum* you should find out how they feel about you sharing it. Everything else about copyright law and the business of making money off music is a red herring.
# Posted on January 4th 2012 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
dont own or operate that site... just that it has great albums to check out before you buy, or help share... Digital age vs. the old ways... hahaha. I think its fair to say that it wont change, and that hiding behind a rock won't due much to promote... You have to work with what's available...
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by flowerchild1949
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Hey, "flowerchild", suppose you're playing at a session some time and McGoldrick comes in. Are you going to tell him that you didn't buy his records, but you downloaded them instead? Do you think he'd be pleased by this?
Or suppose you did operate the site - if you're promoting it, you could start one like it, right? Now, suppose you tell McGoldrick, yeah, I have this web site where I give away people's music without asking them, and people are downloading your records right and left. You think he's happy about that? Somehow I doubt it.
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
"flowerchild"s argument seems to be "its OK to steal things because lots of people do it".
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by David50
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I see that one of Duncan Chisholm's CDs is up there. Duncan owns the label for that CD. The production is hardly on the scale of Sony and the main person to lose out from free distribution will be Duncan himself.
On the other hand, there is a solo piping album by a well known piper, and it's on a label owned by one of the companies in the business with a bad name - and it's quite likely that the piper receives no royalties from legitimate sales of the album. No doubt many would relish the idea of "Mr same name as a well known cider producer" losing out on sales. I can't say for sure that there are many situations like this though.
Anyone producing recorded music - or other media - should always account for the effect of copying on potential sales (this existed to an extent, but not so widespread, before computers made the practice easier). However, the publicising of a source of this copied material on a website with a large proportion, if not all, of its members being part of the potential market for legitimate distribution of the music is very much "aiding and abetting" the illegal practice which leaves people like Duncan Chisholm out of pocket. Perhaps Jeremy should consider zapping this thread, even though the discussion that has followed from it is pertinent to the subject of making a living out of music in the digital age.
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by Weejie
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
There are a number of sites (which I won't advertise by mentioning by name) which have huge numbers of recent traditional Irish music albums available for illegal download. This is only the tip of the iceberg.
It's not really Jeremy's job to police the internet and enforce copyright law, though I take your point. I think people should start thinking more about where the responsibility for regulating behaviour really lies. As I've said before, nobody is forcing people to download illegally. People have a responsibility to police their own behaviour. It's very dangerous to suggest that government agencies and global corporations should be given more powers of legal intervention.
Somebody suggested the analogy of the sweet shop which invites theft by placing products beside the door. What about the honour system, where home-made products are left outside, unregulated, and people leave money for the products they purchase? Surely that is as valid an analogy? Yes, some people steal, but most people observe moral codes that are internalised, not enforced by outside agencies. Sure, download albums, but make a point of buying the originals, directly from the artist if possible, when the opportunity becomes available.
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Following my written request, my band's 10 albums are no longer featured on this site. Others may wish to do the same. There are other recordings which we are happy to share on line but not these 'current' studio releases which have cost us and the record company dear. If we do wish to share them 'officially' it will be at a time and via a site of our own choosing.
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by Coleman Gow
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
What proportion of recent traditional albums are available from streaming services that are paid for by advertisement or subscription ? How much of the 'better known' musicians output is available on radio with 'listen later' access on the internet. Those and 30 seconds samples, which must be easy to supply, are a way of finding out what what a CD is like before buying it. (mainly to Dragut, crossing with Coleman)
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by David50
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
At least they had the decency to remove them at your request. You've got to love a polite punk...
David, I can't answer your questions I'm afraid.
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
By the way, people still seem to think that I'm sanctioning the uploading of recent albums as a legitimate, unsolicited marketing service. I'm not. I wouldn't upload commercially available albums on Ceol Álainn, which means that I don't think it's cool. But it happens, and it's not going to stop, so I've accepted it. In ten years, when I get round to recording an album, I'll expect to see it ripped and uploaded before I can say the word 'irony'.
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Wow. That's about all I can say reading this thread, and the way DG is giving excuses for an illegal activity. The logic behind the argument is flawed.
Putting stuff out there, without permission.... jeez. Probably cheats at cards, too.
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by Wyogal
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Dragut. From the way you present your 'moral code' regarding your site I am not surprised that you don't get asked to take down 'abandoned' recordings. I have downloaded some and appreciate you making them available. But I don't go along with the acceptance that illegal downloading of available recordings is 'what happens' . The more times acceptability is demonstrated the more people will regard it as acceptable - as in the looting in the UK earlier this year. I am not even going to follow the link in the OP.
As an example: There are five full tracks from Duncan Chisholm's latest CD on his myspace page (with on-screen advertising) and 20 second samples of 18 tracks from earlier CDs on his web site. Those were the first two Google hits for his name. There are dozens of hits on youtube many put up by organisations who hosted concerts. So what's the excuse for downloading an illegal copy of a CD before buying it ?
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by David50
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Coleman - good work getting that stuff taken down. I tried to report the site for copyright violations, but blogspot (ie, google) only accepts such reports from the copyright holders. I did send email to a few people on the list that I know, we'll see what happens. If anyone knows McGoldrick or any of the others being pirated there, you might want to mention it to them.
"What about the honour system, where home-made products are left outside, unregulated, and people leave money for the products they purchase? Surely that is as valid an analogy"
I used to buy honey for mead-making on this system, and it seems to work. But this is still making the same point as the shoplifting: anyone could steal a jar of honey, and nobody could stop them. Somehow, we manage to convince ourselves to actually pay money for something which is "free". This doesn't seem to be the case with the plunderware site which kicked off this whole discussion.
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Is anyone here a Kopimist? We wouldn't want to be accused of religious persecution now, would we?
# Posted on January 5th 2012 by ethical blend
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Had to look up Kopimism, and was stunned by what I found, ethical blend. Will wonders never cease!
# Posted on January 6th 2012 by AlBrown
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
CTRL+C and CTRL+P be with you, brother Al.
# Posted on January 6th 2012 by ethical blend
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
DR - Should you get round to recording that album and need some guitar accompaniment...
As far as this discussion goes I am not going to pretend I have never obtained an album without paying for it. As has already been said I am sure few could. Nonetheless I still feel uneasy at the existence of sites such as the one above, particularly in instances when it is people I know that are being ripped off.
# Posted on January 6th 2012 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I'll have to get around to that road trip north first...
As for unease, plenty of that to go around. But who knows, maybe SOPA will succeed against all the odds.
# Posted on January 6th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
And me to that trip south.
# Posted on January 6th 2012 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Won't you spontaneously combust if you travel too far sooth?
# Posted on January 6th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
I hope not. Come Independence I plan to lead the invasion forces. I didn't envisage a kamikase squad.
# Posted on January 6th 2012 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!
# Posted on January 6th 2012 by Dragut Reis
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
"No Cause For Alarm likes this."
# Posted on January 6th 2012 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
When I was younger I used to justify illegally downloading music in various ways. Now that I'm a little older I find that I've developed a better sense of private property and that includes recordings. There are plenty of old 45 recordings if you want to listen to Irish music for free as well as sites like grooveshark who I believe pay royalty fees and you only have to look at adsense ads on the site. Artists put up free samples/tracks and there is Youtube. I guess there is unauthorized stuff up there, but mostly I watch RTE stuff that isn't available in my country anyway. Actually are these recordings for sale anywhere or what? I'm just an American and really wish I could just tune in my TV and watch stuff like this.
# Posted on January 7th 2012 by Earl Cameron
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
The way I see it, the artist pays good money to buy equipment to record with as well as the space itself, which may be their home but maybe not. They might even have to pay a recording engineer. Think about that when you download and think you could easily learn a tune yourself for free but the recording by a living artist costs them money.
# Posted on January 7th 2012 by Earl Cameron
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Dragut Reis - you have articulated this issue in the clearest way I have seen to date - well done!
My analysis is that the practice of copyright for the remuneration of the artist can only operate on a physical medium.
New conditions are established by digital copy and the internet.
Those moving forward in it can only be remunerated by use of patronage, subscription and donation.
These are the only models (known) that can deliver remuneration for the actual work (costs, time and effort).
These models presume the copy (result of work) is beyond feasible control.
The only way to be remunerated in the new environment is to get paid up front before release.
Of course, this prevents the obscene riches that can be syphoned through charging per copy.
But that's a good thing - musicians will then concentrate on their work - not their wealth.
Better music should result.
THose who see it first will benefit first.
Those who fight it will become lawyers - not musicians.
# Posted on February 11th 2012 by Mozle
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
"New conditions are established by digital copy and the internet."
I see that Paddypunx is now virtually defunct. Is this what you are talking about?
# Posted on February 11th 2012 by Weejie
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Weejie,
No
I see a lot of white-label CDs passed around.
You don't need portals to operate FTF - it's part of TCP/IP.
Anyione with a website can post any file and just share the link.
The post can be taken down in a timespan that avoids snoopy bots ratting you out to the copy-lords.
Most kids know how to do all this.
There's a generation being taught to hate copyright and avoid it - we are training a generation of copyright boycot ..
Perhaps it will promote originality, but the problem is the 100-year disconnect with tradition through culturally repressive "rights".
It cannot be sustained.
# Posted on February 13th 2012 by Mozle
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Mozie, what annoys me about you is not that you make me sad, it's that you don't give a f u c k.
It's not that you are a nasty selfish thieving child ... it's that you don't give a f u c k.
You don't give anything. It's all take take take.
# Posted on February 13th 2012 by ...
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
... I wouldn't mind if you had some kind of moral philosophy, misguided or not, like "Property is theft" for example ... but you don't even have that.
# Posted on February 13th 2012 by ...
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
Theft is theft, it's that simple.
# Posted on February 13th 2012 by Solidmahog
Re: For folks wanting to share music with others
To flowerchild1949 and other ignorant thieves.
Do you thing recording the music, getiing artwork and pressing CD's is free the the artists? To traditional musicians who often already have to work part time to make ends meet? Who usually go into debt to get the album everyone is shouting for?
You are nothing but thieves. Mozie, you are an idiot.
# Posted on February 13th 2012 by Minerva McGonagall