On http://www.dprp.net - www.dprp.net alex Lifeson said the following about internet music downloads:

It’s a horrible situation. Every time you download a song offline, whether it be something from ‘2112’’ or ‘Vapor Trails’, you are hurting us. Not so much in the pocket but really in principle and respect. This is what we do for a living. We don't go out of our way to come to your work and expect everything for free and steal your property right? We were told that something like 52,000 downloads were done the first month of the release of ‘Vapor Trails’ on just one website. Then we got insane numbers like ‘One Little Victory’ was downloaded almost 400,000 times.’

‘So yes, we are all for legal regulation of music on the Internet. Bands like us can't take the hit like that and still maintain a major recording contract. I have heard all sides of the argument. The fact is, if someone wants to buy the album online and burn the tracks, at least do it legally. Let there be some kind of number to be shown that your album is indeed selling and moving units. Record labels will drop a band today if they no longer see them as viable.’

I love the MP3's on this site, and to me up-and-coming artists get good exposure this way, but Alex appears to be saying that this can have a negative effect. He is not just talking about whole album downloads, but single tracks too. In the current  Music Industry climate bands could be dropped for not shifting enough units even though they are immensely popular.

There's a good thread on this on the off-topics section called http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=13 - MP3 ... legal or not ? .

I guess we all like to reassure ourselves we're not doing any harm, and that MP3's might actually help to sell albums, but I do sympathise with AL, and what he says.

But what fraction? The artist has massive overheads for studio time etc. The record industry does need some money to invest in new acts. I think part of the problem is as internet users we almost expect everything for free. I think as music buyers we can all smell a rip-off and MP3's are a handy way of protesting the ridiculous charges of the likes of (in the UK) HMV and Virgin. But it can all go too far: on the one hand you have the major labels and retailers moving into music downloads and typically pushing up costs and we the public who will always try and get something for nothing if we can. This said, I always buy albums by my favourite bands,and I just download rare tracks and live stuff. The record companies are not happy with this compromise as recently they shut down The Freedom Of Rush site which was a major archiver of rare Rush stuff, which you could download for free, To me this indicates that the record companies will never compromise on anything let alone the price of new music.

It's a debate that will never end, but goes back to one fundamental - the people who make this music we all love deserve to get paid for the work that brings us so much pleasure.

Yes, material could be made cheaper due to the absence of packaging and the poorer quality of MP3 compared with even CDs, and maybe the record companies could encourage the sale of hard copy formats by emphasising the difference in quality between MP3, WMA, ATRAC, WAV, CD, SACD, DVDA and the myriad other formats out there, but ultimately there must be some recompense for the artists for the work they do.

I cannot imagine a company seekign out my expertise in a particular field, enjoying the fruits of my labour for a while and then refusing to pay me.

The presumption is always there that rock stars have oodles of money and one download isn't going to hurt. That's naive, blinkered and a cop out. When a band like Rush, whose audience base is, however hard anyone may protest, constantly diminishing is hit by upwards of half a million downloads then their future is undoubtedly compromised. Which means they won't make widely available music, you won't have access to their records, they won't be able to tour and they will quit.

This is even more true for new bands who invariably get just one shot to prove their worth to a record label. The days of a five-album deal with space for a band to develop and realise their potential is long gone. A single, with a video to fuel it which in turn should fuel an album which, if it doesn't sell will see the band back on the dole queue. Illegal downloads, which are unmonitored and offer a record company no yardstick for measuring a band's worth are undoubtedly hurting new music.

With radio-friendly pap it is easy for the large volumes of sales to mask the impaxct of illegal downloads. With specialised music it's not. 100,000 downloads of a song might kill a major label debutant band which, and this is true, will be dropped if their first album doesn't shift considerably more than that.

No-one cares about record company profits, these people have and always will be vampires with MBAs with no concern except for the bottom line, but however much major lables might be despised, bands invariably need them simply for the force of their distribution networks if nothing else.

Shop around, find lower CD prices, cheaper official downloads, but  buy the records. I will no longer pay high street prices for CDs and shop solely on the web. I am just one person unwilling to pay €25 for a CD, if all of us insist we'll pay no more than €15 or €13 or whatever then market forces will drive the price down.

And as for single song downloads I'm with Radiohead, who I believe refuse to allow it. If you want a track from Kid A or Hail to the Thief, it's my understanding that you have to download the whole album. Good on em. 

This has been a big problem for awhile now.  Not just on the side of the bands and the record companies, but for the small record stores too.  Try to find one left in NYC.. even our Tower Records has filed bankruptcy, and HMV has left town.  We're only left with Virgin and Tower.  Of course, the fact that most would rather order from Ebay or Amazon doesn't help them either.. but I think its the downloading that is killing off the small record shops.

During the trial here against Napster, Lars Ulrich gave some pretty good arguements as to how the bands suffer.. and he wasn't just talking money either.   

Radiohead made the entire Kid A Album available for free download BEFORE it was generally released.

Suicide?

History shows!

I bought my copy of the album after downloading and enjoying all the tracks - but there are many who would not, and it is these people that spoil it for the rest of us who support hard-working and talented musicians.

CD's are overpriced.

They always have been, and since the price of the raw materials and manufacturing has dropped significantly over the years - there's far less maintenance than with a vinyl pressing plant, and far less storage costs, lower printing costs, etc.

Arcer is spot on there - I NEVER pay full price for a CD, unless it's really hard to come by. With the internet at my fingertips, that rarely happens.

Prog will never die as long as musicians want to create it. And as long as there are real, talented musicians who want to make great music and not just bubble gum for the masses, fans of real music will stay lucky.

Peace

The problem is already presented by Alex himself, in the last sentence!

IT"S THE BLOODY GREEDY RECORD COMPANIES WHO DONT TAKE ON REALLY GOOD BANDS BECAUSE THEY WOULDNT SELL! MUSIC IS BEING UNDERMINED BY THE RECORDCOMPANIES, NOT THE PEOPLE WHO DOWNLOAD!

threefates wrote: "...I think its the downloading that is killing off the small record shops."

threefates, if by "small record shops" you are referring to actual shops as opposed to Web shops, I'm not sure your statement is correct. I don't buy from record shops (small or large) because the prices are higher than Web shops (at least the Web shops I use) and the range of albums is way, way below the range available via the Web.

In my opinion the retail future for non-mainstream music (and, unfortunately, Prog Rock falls into that category) is the method already adopted by numerous bands: the band's Web site and Web shops (big and small) are the prime vehicle for selling the band's albums.

I would never have been able to buy many of the CDs I own from record shops (small or large). The Internet has enabled me to buy CDs from several continents and at prices lower than I have seen in any record shop.

Prog_Bassist wrote: I download music, but I usually buy the cd when I get the chance to. Even if I burn a whole cd, if I find it for cheap or somethin I'll buy the cd, cuz it's just not the same without the cool booklet and such.

Exactly the same for me. When I download mp3s, it's just because I can't find the music in any store I go to. But sometimes I download songs from a CD just to see what they sound like, and if they please me, I go and buy the album because the sound quality is much better. Thanks to the p2p technology, I can go to the music store and buy an album without hesitating.

I agree with James and I really hope that some day all prog music will be for free. I guess prog musicians (most of them) have great skills: If they would be interested in earnings or money, maybe they would be dedicated to do another kind of music.  

Marcelo wrote: I agree with James and I really hope that some day all prog music will be for free. I guess prog musicians (most of them) have great skills: If they would be interested in earnings or money, maybe they would be dedicated to do another kind of music.

????!!!?????????????????????!!!!?????????????????!!!!??????? ?????

And lo, everyone in the world joined hands, there were no barrriers of race,creed or colour....and the little piggies flew on high wolfing on the pie that did reside there.

Reed Lover wrote: Marcelo wrote: I agree with James and I really hope that some day all prog music will be for free. I guess prog musicians (most of them) have great skills: If they would be interested in earnings or money, maybe they would be dedicated to do another kind of music.     ????!!!?????????????????????!!!!?????????????????!!!!??????? ????? And lo, everyone in the world joined hands, there were no barrriers of race,creed or colour....and the little piggies flew on high wolfing on the pie that did reside there.

Why not, Reed? Impossible but nice, don't you think so? And if little piggies would be pink and blue, much better

James Lee wrote: I'm not talking about utopia- just more reasonable rewards and less celebrities and tycoons spouting about the pinhole leak in their cash cow.

OK, I guess I'm influenced by Tomas Moro, let me flow in my own bubble

Before MP3 and internet used to buy anything released by a prog' band even without having listened it first, that's the way how I bought And then there were Three, Invisible Touch, Love Beach, A La Carte, OVO, 90125, etc.

But when I was a kid, recieved the money from my parents so didn't really cared and until the 90's I was a young lawyer with almost no resposabilities that could afford to waste couple hundreed bucks in albums that would never listen more than once.

Today can't afford that, I only buy an album if listened at least a couple of tracks, in Perú a legal CD costs between 26 and 36 bucks (the mother fu**ers of the stores sell it with the sticker that says "Best Buy" or "Sale" from the original dealer in USA but the cost is the same, 36 USA dollars -no Peruvian currency accepted-).

I can buy some albums if I like them (even when I'm not rich), but I'm not willing to throw away my hard earned money, so used to download some tracks or samples of the albums I wanted to buy (until Audio Galaxy was closed) to have an idea.

I rarely downloaded full albums, and the only ones I got are:

Magenta....Revolutions (Bought the original album 24 hours after I downloaded the MP3 copy)

Criminal Record and No Earthly Connection: No copies were availlable, A&M decided not to release those albums again, a couple of months ago I bought Japanese releases in US$ 30.00 each one.

Kansas...Device, Voice Drum (Bought the CD and the original DVD a couple of months after I downloaded the MP3 version.

Grand Funk Railroad...Phoenix: Not availlable, but I bought a rare Japanese edition in US$ 38.00

Must also say I know Magenta, Glass Hammer, Le Orme, Trespass, Renaissance, The Red Masque, Pavlov's Dog, etc only because I downloaded songs from their albums, bought at least one or two Cd's of each one.

Also bought at least 300 CD's and 80 DVD's since I use ineternet and download music, a big number for a person that used to believe Prog' was almost dead for  20 years.

Iván

If bands disregarded the necessity of recording their songs to make money and instead made their money by touring alone this whole problem would be solved.

Their CDs would be insignificant to the point that downloading songs would be crucial to actually get their music out there so people would go see them in the first place.

But since image is more important than the music nowadays, this is certainly an issue for the record companies.

Everyone has to start somewhere - and gigging at the bottom end just doesn't pay enough - if you want to play at a place that's any respectable size (ie bigger than a pub, where customers will turn up anyway), you have to be able to guarantee putting "bums on seats" (or drinks down throats). Financing a tour is very expensive - someone has to pay, so if you sell records first, then the job done.

It's not just the record companies that are mercenary!

...I would humbly suggest

I never download. I guess if there was something so obscure I couldn't lay my hands on a CD, I might do, but I cant envisage that scenario.

I agree with AL, too.

Ifind that most albums I want nowadays are modestly priced anyway. I've found real bargains on Amazon. I got the first three Marillion albums from there for under£10 each. I think thats a perfectly reasonable price. Thats one example among hundreds I could mention.

What happened to wanting to own the album, with all the accompanying artwork and packaging?? I suppose that may have went out with vinyl. CD's hardly have a classic collectable quality to them. Anyway, I for one am happy to pay an artist that has worked hard to bring me listerning pleasure.

I usually buy an original CD but that is not because "I dont like to steel".I buy it for the quality of the music that on certaint downloaded files really sucks.However ocassionally I download some CD because I just cannot get it here in Slovenia.So I have to order a cd from UK or some other country.And then I have to pay for the postage more that is a price of the cd.So I wonder who is steeling now.Alltogether 40$ for a cd.This is a robbery.I dont give a s..t about their rights and all that noise that Metallica did.I guess they have too little money.

 Few arguments:

• the biggest noise are making the bands that are loaded with money
• cd cost too much
• It is hard to get a lot of records(here in Slovenia for sure)
• almost all of them have a lot of money

So I have to say that I understand the downloaders even if I am not one of them.I hate greed.I really do.All of their other arguments are sand in the eye.What harm can you do if you download a file except financial...

How's the shareware industry doing?

So we go round in circles again and again... whatever the rationale a person uses, and there are many above, the argument always comes down to the dichotomy between the artist (I want to get paid) and the consumer (I want it for free). In bwteen lies a middle ground. That middle ground is dictated - always - by consumers. If you want ti support the artist pay for their product, if you want value for money shop around. The price you are willing to pay will become the market value if enough people take to shopping around.

If the price of a CD was within reach (and it is via the web) then downloading, aprt from theuseful ability to audition an album, will cease to be a problem.

As far as I can see these days the major threat good music (and that stretches from prog to indie to whatever) comes from the monopolisation of amjor record companies/promoters/media outlets. The green-lighting of the merger between  sony and bmg om the US and EU now means we have just four major lables (Vivendi/Universal, Warners and EMI being the others). Thus we have a further narrowing of the horizon for popular music. The increasing power of Clearchannel via its ownership of promotion, venues and radio stations means that we are entering a situation where the music we are being presented with is dictated by a few massive companies and as in the movie industry, where theglobal marketing of movies matches the entire bufget of most movies, a record company's prmotional outlay on an 'artist' to achieve global penetration means that if Warners are successful with Brtiney, the other 4 simply must develop a Brtiney clone. (as Spiderman begets Spidey 2 and 3 and 4 so Brtiney begts Christina, Jessica et al).

This monstrous financial outlay on promotion means that the company must ensure success by flooding radio with this music in collaboration with companioes such as clearchannel who are happy to promote it at the record company's behest as the accompanying tour of dancers and bakcing tracks will be promoted by Clearchannel.. and blah blah blah.

Thus the old adage of if you throw enough sh*t at a wall proves true. With nothing else being heard, people assume there is nothing else out there and accept the pap they are presented with.

As discriminating listeners (as I've judged by the huge diversity of listening tastes shown on this forum) the people here operate out of that loop, being inquisitive enough to actively seek out music that meets their needs. Others are more passive and so the diminution of populare music as an art form continues apace.

What's the answer? I don't know, honestly. Spread the word, buy the records you like instead of downloading (if your favourite band is a hit, more like them will be signed), got to the shows, form a band, pressure your radio stations, turn off MTV, boycott Top 40 stations. It may be futile but at least you'll feel better about yourself!

It's not so long ago, just 20 years that the singles charts were still a rich breeding ground of talent and the popular song was a vibrant thing, embracing innovation and creativity. The cynics, profiteers and accountants may be winning at the moment, but it doesn't have to be that way, the proliferation of new guitar bands (white stripes, jet, etc) prove it. Vote with your feet, your wallets and your hearts.

End or party political broadcast!

Dick, threefates,

I don't use Amazon that much for the more 'esoteric' stuff, but certainly all the CDs I buy come out cheaper (including postage). I'll give you an example, this year I bought a new, sealed copy of ECHOLYN's "As The World" from a Web shop in the USA and, including international postage to my home, it cost less than US$18. Firstly, new copies of "As The World" must be as rare as rocking horse droppings. Secondly, there is no record shop I know anywhere near where I live who would even know who ECHOLYN are. And thirdly, there is no way I could have got that particular CD for that price from any highstreet or backstreet shop I know.

I also buy Prog CDs from Italy via the Web, and they are also considerably cheaper than Amazon. For example, PFM's Per Un Amico (24-bit) for EUR 11. I buy several CDs at a time so as to keep the postage overhead down. It still works out cheaper than buying from Amazon, and the people I buy from are reliable and don't charge that much for postage.

I personally don't miss highstreet or backstreet record shops. The Web works well, particularly when we have sites such as this to point us in the direction of new sounds, and band's Web sites have sound samples too.

arcer wrote: So we go round in circles again and again... whatever the rationale a person uses, and there are many above, the argument always comes down to the dichotomy between the artist (I want to get paid) and the consumer (I want it for free).

I agree with most of what you say in your post, but please remember that the artist makes art and the consumer makes purchases, by definition. What you could say instead is that the music industry wants to be paid, and the consumer wants the lowest possible price.

A semantic difference? Not entirely- an artist will follow their calling without any guarantee of money, and consumers are not always thieves (although the current system of commerce does tend to tacitly idealize theft on both sides of any transaction...a business would love for you to pay them for nothing, and of course nobody would say no to a free lunch if they can get it).

And the difference between an artist and an entertainer is fairly crucial, in my reasoning- an entertainer requires an audience, and therefore fits very nicely into the commercial world of transactions, while an artist is focused on the completion of a work, only entering the business realm if their work is offered for sale.

Also, one of Alex's points was that it was impossible to track how many times a certain song or album is downloaded (his phrase was "moving units"). To be honest, I find that kind of thinking gross and calculating on the part of an artist, and have a hard time enjoying music by someone who has made it clear that they are doing a job and their work is fundamentally no different than selling cans of potted meat. An 'artist' like that doesn't care if you listen to their work or simply use the record to brace your window open, as long as they get money for it. If we have no problem with that line of thinking, then why are so many people on record- especially on this site- dismissing "popular" or "commercial-sounding" bands, songs, or albums?

Business has long been a necessary evil for art, but it is NOT fundamentally a part of it. When we are talking about 'artists deserving to get paid', there are some basic flaws in that concept; nobody 'deserves' to get paid for anything, and what we end up paying for is almost never just the work of the artist (it includes packaging, marketing, advertising, promotions, mechanical costs, administrative costs, etc.). There's two different questions here: 1) Is the artist entitled to get money whenever people enjoy their work? 2) Is the investor receiving a just and legal return on their investment? The first is ludicrous to me, and the second has nothing to do with art.

I submit that we've grown too accustomed to attaching a moral component to financial matters (such as the concept of theft) as well as relating too closely the 'product' with the worth of the concepts and ideas within.

BTW: Ivan, I really miss AudioGalaxy too...it always seemed to have so many more obscure songs available than any other P2P client out now. 

James Lee wrote: BTW: Ivan, I really miss AudioGalaxy too...it always seemed to have so many more obscure songs available than any other P2P client out now.

I really miss Audio Galaxy too!!!  And stuff didn't take so long to download, cause you knew what was available at the time.  With LimeWire.. you sometimes have to wait days to get something to download, if it ever does....

James - your points are lucid and well made (and annoyingly don't contain the amount of typos mine did - damn!!!!) but there are still several I would dispute.

I am not an artist - I could have been but a small problem called 'startling lack of talent' hamstrung me, curses - but I still require some form of reward or remuneration for the labours that I perform in my chosen career. I could provide these services free of charhe, throw them out into the ether with all the goodwill in the world but when all the effort had been expended and the goodwill spent I would likely starve.

Utopian ideals of happy minstrels bringing joyin return for the smile of a child are all very well but musicians need feeding too.

And distributing music as donationware (in some of lovely barter system) is no solution either as, I feel sure, the majority who would download the music would, at a comfortable electronic remove, feel absolutely no shame in not submitting a donation. Colour me cynical but, when it comes to emptying someones wallet over the web, the kindness of strangers is non-existent.

And I have no problem with Alex's description of downloads a 'moving units', apart from its debt to vacuous marketing speak. He, like millions of others, does what he does out of love and dedication. He just happens, by the nature of his success, to do only that. It is easy for hobbyists and semi-pro musicians to wax lyrical about 'doing it for the music, man' when they hold jobs in the real world that allow them to separate art from putting food on the table.

Granted Alex's feasts are liable to be somewhat more sumptuous than most pro musicians' but the modus operandi remains the same. He is a musician, it is his livelihood and sole form of income. He has no choice but to regard it as a vehicle by which he can maintain a lifestyle. It may be art but is also his business. There is no separating the two.

I agree that we are being forced to pay for a whole host of ancillary (and largely wasteful) businesses when we buy music. Indeed some of them are utterly parasitic. But surely that makes a legal download the purest form of support for the artist - you buy his or her music and nothing else. If he or she is hosting the music themselves there is no vampiric middleman, no wasteful packaging, hype etc. Even in the event of the music being third-party hosted the gap between 'donation' and artist is narrowed.

Finally, while it's noble to talk about artists making 'art' - I've never met yet an artist (musician, painter, poet, novelist) who didn't want to get paid.

Honestly, most of the artists I know talk about it quite often, or especially why they aren't getting paid yet 

It's the tricky bordeline between dedicating yourself to quality (in anything, not just art) or becoming nothing more than a calculating merchant. It enrages and disgusts me to hear people like Madonna being called an artist- not for her music (which would be a tough case to make, unless you were a fanatic) but for her media savvy and shameless trend-mounting. I tend to consider art in the same way religious folks consider faith- something that only ever suffers when diluted by worldly concerns. Although I'm not too far gone to laugh when I hear that Subway calls their employees "sandwich artists".

Funny that we're talking so seriously about the art of rock music when not too long ago the whole genre was thought of (even by some of its better contributors) as a pop culture phenomenon not long for this world. Maybe that was ultimately a better situation than all these pretentious little wannabes calling themselves 'artists'- I'm sure you can come up with an example or two...

Arcer, your comments are definitely food for thought (to prolong the feast metaphor ). It is perhaps too disillusioning for many of us to realize that the music which means so much to us is really, for the creators, a job like any other. The difference between a major artist and an obscure one is often simply business acumen rather than amount of talent. Certainly I'd rather have an honest one admit his involvement in that end rather than a deceptive one who pretends to know nothing about the distasteful machinations of the industry. It never hurt my impresion of Zappa when he discussed candidly (and intelligently, and at length!) his views on the 'job' of making music, and this quote is not going to affect my opinion of Rush's music. I guess I'm just happier in my ignorance; there have been a few times I've tried to learn more about a band and come away less of a fan. The concept of a happy innocent succeeding among sharks is always a powerful one (Jon Anderson, anyone?).

Still, I can't help thinking that the mp3 debate is usually a little misguided; one one side we have artists and record companies who are right to say that unauthorized use means a loss of justified income, and on the other side people rightly claim that the semi-monopoloistic corporations extort an exorbitant profit and mp3's actually encourage sales. Personally, I think the days of the 'rebel billionaire rock star' are already long past (with obvious atavistic holdouts), and I hope things like internet sales and P2P indeed result in a generally more equitable cottage-industry situation where the working musician (and the consumer) has more options but less chance of 'making it' in the old sense of superstardom.

** I intentionally left the typos in this time around 

 totally agree with you on the investigating bands and coming away disaoppointed. Having met a number of them in a past life i came away with a little adage which i believe largely holds true:

'you don't have to be stupid to be in a rock band but it certainly helps'

or to put it another way, you should never meet your heroes by any means - even over the phone/internet/seance

Final thoughts on art/commerce? For me, I think the bottom line is, if I could make a living making music, why would I want to do anything else. Therefore I don't begrudge giving Alex Lifeson a few bucks for making his own dream real.

100% agreed there! I'd never wish to see Rush in financial straits, they've earned their success over long years of struggling. And if a multimillion dollar recording contract suddenly fell in my lap, I don't think I'd refuse...and you can be darn sure I'd get a financial and legal advisor who knew the business! Though hopefully I could maintain a little of my foolish idealism in the process...

ah yes, indulge that foolish idealism by opening a refuge for tired and emotionally needy supermodels or establishig a colony on Mars with the 85 billion dollars coined from adoring fans - that's my kind of artistic freedom heheheheh!

doh! now the truth comes out

too right, screw rock n roll, the only way to get truly rich is to found a bogus religious cult!! Now where did i put that Tv aerial/divining rod/antenna of the gods.....

arcer wrote: Now where did i put that Tv aerial/divining rod/antenna of the gods.....

you dropped it right here:

http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/183_eltanin1.shtml - http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/183_eltanin1.shtml