Roots Archives Forum

i'm not really surprised to see that the "download or not" question has surfaced (again) in the "BAF gone?" thread. it's a real question when a record company we all like (more or less) have problems. anyway i'd like to share some points of view about the whole "downloading stuff"

first, i consider it would be a mistake to have a definitive point of view on this question.

the music industry had to survive against the home tape recorder, the CDR and now the MP3s and other digital formats. is there something really new in mp3s ? i'm not that sure of it.

i consider we should take care of who we are talking about when we think about downloading ; small record companies, major companies, major industry leaders ?

in my opinion, there is no doubt blood & fire, pressure sounds, motion records, badda music, joe gibbs europe, trojan, makasound etc ... lose potentially money because of downloading. reissuing records can be seen as an advantage because they don't have to produce albums, pay the studios, musicians, engineers etc ... they can make a deal for far less money than needed if you record a whole new album with new songs from the beginning. in the other part, they have a small business market and probably can't afford more than a very few (if not one) very poor selling album.

as for majors, thinking that downloading harms them is, in my humble opinion, a nonsense. these majors have always been stealing the artists in a way or another. the producers selling their artists songs to the majors are robbing them as well. i don't think many people understand how difficult it is for an artist to know how much he has really sold albums or singles. do you really think he can trust his record company to tell him the exact number of sales and then how much the record company should pay him ? no joke! i had the luck to meet the lawyer maitre andre bertrand who is defending most of the reggae artists in their struggle against major companies, you wouldn't even believe what i've heard and seen.

as for the industry, let's not even talk deeply about it. rather than complaining about the CD sales they should maybe take a look at the figures of their cd + dvd + merchandising etc ... sales. people have been buying these last years millions of dvds and for 90% of us who are not that rich, you have to make a choice between cds & dvds, you can't afford to buy both. so the reason why industry is selling less cds than a few years ago is quite simple; people spend around the same money for culture than before and now they are buying cds + dvds when a few years ago they were only buying cds.

there is another point, specially for us reggae listeners, that comes to my mind. is it piracy to download a record which is out of print for decades ? how could we harm a company for not buying music which is out of print ... when you buy a record at ebay or gemm or others, noone gets money except the seller.

in my opinion, digital formats, protected or not, should be a great luck for record companies to re-release obscure music at very low cost. they don't have to take care of distribution, packaging etc ... if they still have master tapes, even a small remastering for the most known artists could be possible. i would never pay anything for a degraded mp3; but if greensleeves release all their 12" in flac format ... i may buy lots of them for christmas.

once again the artists can't get money because record companies don't want to re-release their music. i often think about it as it's a real shame. in my opinion, if a record company doesn't want to reissue an artist album for more than (let's say...) 10 years, the producer first then the artist should have the possibility to do it by themselves and get most of the money as the record company doesn't consider it's a valuable record.

well i've been a bit long but as a conclusion, downloading music from small record companies should be considered as dangerous for them. these companies make a good job releasing music out of print for long with a decent packaging, often very interesting liner notes, most of time pay something to producers and artists and even sometimes the record has a great sound (even if i still prefer the sound of a mint vinyl, but that's another question). alright, sometimes we can be disapointed by a specific release, but hey that's the rule in buying music. it can't be great all the time. so supporting these labels by buying their music is imho essential for the future of vintage roots reggae music.

as for the big ones, they should try first to put some deontology in their behaviour, make some effort to release interesting reissues (not just one or two bonus tracks without liner notes or anything)and more than all, support their artists. then (but only then) i might modify my opinion about them.

all the best

seb

You're making excellent points about "download stuff", especially not harming anyone if buying some long time out of print material.

But I do not harm B&F if I buy them one CD and download another that I can't pay (it's a bit simple but everybody's budget is limited). You're buying 1, 10 or 20 CDs in a month, you couldn't buy more so if you download those you can't buy, the only thing you do is getting music for free, which is another problem but not related to what the artist will be payed since you do NOT have money to pay his CD. It can only help him because if the music is good enough, you know it and you can advertise it, that's viral marketing.

It just come to my mind that recently, a girl I didn't know bought Makasound repress of the LP Africa shall stretch forth her hands just because I told her during 10 minutes it was a killer, she didn't know at all (she was buying some dancehall and some Bob Marley) but i convinced her. I bought the CD few weeks after but at the time I just had it on mp3. It's not a proof, just an example. Maybe she's buying more roots now...

It's not a definitive point of view but I'm pretty sure that what kills small labels is majors egemony. They don't let breathe small labels : no place for ads, no place in general media (radio, TV, newspapers, magazines...). And reggae is quite lucky compared to punk for example (there's no company like B&F or PS for punk music, only very small structures).

A question for the ppl :

If in your country u cant find reggae stuff so its not possible to buy some good reggae music , and if the price in internet is too expensive for you ( becouse the currency change its not favorable) , will you not download music??. Think about it.

PEACE.


PD: My english isnt fine sorry.

No money no records or cd's simple like that.
Be happy what you can get.


"you couldn't buy more so if you download those you can't buy, the only thing you do is getting music for free"
=/is
"If I couldn't buy more is getting the music out ot the shop for free the only thing"

Stealing is Stealing

Lion

No money no food, no money no home, no money no music.
No music for poor people, it's simple like that. If they don't have money, they must be lazy.

And as I said before, downloading is immaterial so basically, you don't steal a good like clothes or CDs, this is another problem with your conscience but doesn't make small labels fall since the money is NOT available (if you cannot afford it).

"No money no food, no money no home, no money no music.
No music for poor people, it's simple like that. If they don't have money, they must be lazy"


Tipical europe and usa thought


FYAH BURN!!!

Yes Lion...stealing is stealing. If ya can't buy it, then listen to all the online feeds playing the music or radio stations. What I hate is people who never buy anything, but are always looking for hand outs from those who did spend the cash to purchase music. Hook a brother up

"then listen to all the online feeds playing the music or radio stations"

What's the difference ? Online radios are very often outlaws and never pay any rights. And even when rights are paid, they don't go to the less known artists (recently in France, Jamaican artists managed to be paid by SACEM, an organisation like BIEM or SABEM in others countries).

I also hate people who can afford something but always want it for free. Each one has to bring what he can (money or sometimes just help with advertising) depending of what he earns.

How many poor people, Lion & ton1 two little rich s___......

Its not only poor people who download though, is it ! I would suggest in fact that most that are uploading and downloading are not so poor, but still want something for nothing. The internet is worldwide, its not possible to filter filesharing for one kind of person over another. Without diminishing the plight of the poor we could make the analogy that maybe electronics companies or car manufacturers or maybe the local food shops and such should just open thier doors for the poor to pick up goods for nothing, i think we`d all agree thats not good business accumen.

What you have to understand is that music is the wares and product of the artists, producers and labels involved, in particular the producers and labels spend thier money on getting a product recorded and released, that means spending thier money to pay artists, musicians, studio`s and manufacturers to get their finished article, and as such its a long time before they actually get their money back, and sometimes little in the way of much profit made, without the support of sales then releases can only diminish, then what will people listen to. The effect will also be the same for the revive / re-issue labels because they too have artist and producers to pay, and of course the manufacture and promotion of product. With regard to reggae music, very little of it is in the hands of any major company, its mostly smaller labels, with smaller budgets for production, and little or no budget for any kind of secondary income from merchandise, they are reliant on the sales of the music.

What sets mp3`s apart from the old home taping argument is the global availability of the format, home taping, you`d tape your mates records, easy enough but still limited, filesharing from the internet, terabytes of files readily available from an almost inexhaustable global resource, so all in all a far greater impact.