Why are we even arguing about this? The fact is people will continue to "steal" music until drastic action is taken, which I can see happening soon once record companies get their own way, such as shutting down torrent sites (TorrentSpy has been shutdown, but through choice) and somehow finding people sharing music and suing them like they already have done.

I for one will carry on using torrents as a "try before you buy" though I will admit there are albums on my computer which I haven't bought, including Candlemass' entire discography. But saying that I've actually decided to delete it all and buy the albums I like

\m/Steve\m/ wrote:Regarding taster tracks, how would I know the rest of the album will kick as much ass as the taster track?

For fuck sake, perhaps you'd like them to thrash out the whole album for you in person in your living room, for free, and if you like it you might then go out and buy the album (but keep the receipt)???? Honestly, where is the fun being spoon-fed metal totally disinfected of all possible disappointment from some faceless nob end on the internet?

Gorebastard makes a reasonable enough point regarding totally out-of-print albums perhaps, but for the BRAND NEW Testament album I see no excuse for it.

James wrote:Gorebastard makes a reasonable enough point regarding totally out-of-print albums perhaps, but for the BRAND NEW Testament album I see no excuse for it.

Why?

In both instances the band in question is going to receive fuck-all money.

Testament are in a slightly better position than most bands as well seeing as they had the savvy to take Atlantic Records's knob out of their arses and set up their own label. I think they made close to a million out of the live album they did but it all went tits-up when they struggled to find a distributer for Demonic. To be fair, it was shit.

Either way, I'd rather have the money to piss against a wall than rest safe in the knowledge that Testament are a couple of quid better off.

Somebody's getting touchy on the subject, maybe you should send a petition to No. 10 or something

I'll say no more here, other than the new Testament is ace, it no longer exists on my computer after only listening to it once, and I have pre-ordered it from HMV.com

\m/Steve\m/ wrote:Somebody's getting touchy on the subject, maybe you should send a petition to No. 10 or something

I'll say no more here, other than the new Testament is ace, it no longer exists on my computer after only listening to it once, and I have pre-ordered it from HMV.com

What if you get the urge to listen to it between now and the time it comes out?

You people are all being really closed minded about this and maybe should look at the big picture!
Yes record companies have a bad rep but the things is if a band and label have a dispute the band go around saying all the terrible that the label did in ripping them while the label puts out more albums.
Of course you will Take the bands side as they are artists and the big bad record company are only in it for the money.
Because of the downloading boom it makes record labels make contracts more one sided in there favor but taking a percentage of band merch and other such sources of income. Which means more and more will fold as they can no longer afford to tour as a chunk of their income is being slashed.
So if you download music instead of buying cd/lps/mp3s you will slowly be a part of killing what you claim to to love.
In 5 years people will be pissing and moaning about there being no metal scene and how come no bands tour anymore!

\m/Steve\m/ wrote:Why are we even arguing about this? The fact is people will continue to "steal" music until drastic action...

which is why Warner is proposing a $5 tax on all internet connections per month in the states. They are serious, it will make them $20 billion a year (they currently turn over about $10 billion a year). For the $5 tax you will be able to download and listen to any track (as long as you pay the tax).

Note as long as you pay the tax, implying they have some sort of remote turn off your music switch... so they'll have you by the balls and they will pump your head full of bullshit commercial music. sweet

This thread is really fucking depressing.

xTomx wrote:So if you download music instead of buying cd/lps/mp3s you will slowly be a part of killing what you claim to to love.
In 5 years people will be pissing and moaning about there being no metal scene and how come no bands tour anymore!

And then what happens is that enough people download an album for nothing that the prices of cd's in t'shops go through the roof,and folks without internet access,who spend REAL MONEY THAT THEY'VE WORKED FOR on stuff,end up having to pay more,simply because you tight arses want to save a few quid.
Eventually it will become economically unviable for record companies to produce albums at all,tours will slowly get smaller and less frequent,and on and on...

i've seen this a hundred times now, this argument can go on forever. For me the thread might aswell be locked/deleted, it has the main arguments on both sides.

No one will change their views/thoughts no matter how strong another person's argument on a forum is.

It would take the police on their door step charging them for every single illegal download to change their mind.

EvileOL wrote:It would take the police on their door step charging them for every single illegal download to change their mind.

Yep, truth.

Fuck tha Police!

I'm gonna download a can of whoop-ass for everyone here.

THIS ONE IS ANTI-COP!! FUUUCK DA POLEEEEEEEEECE!!!

f da po po

brap111!!!11ting

I think a lot of the anti-downloading people are missing the point here. Yes, downloading albums via P2P or what have you is a illegal, but just because something's illegal it doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it. Honestly, if you go through all the stupid things that are illegal yet that you have done, you'd turn into a gibbering mess pretty damn quickly.

If I get busted for downloading things, yeah, I'll sob like an eight year old girl but it's just one of the things I could be done for. I'm less worried about being busted for downloading something than I am for, say, assaulting a barmaid, which has also happened...

Metal Iain wrote:I think a lot of the anti-downloading people are missing the point here. Yes, downloading albums via P2P or what have you is a illegal, but just because something's illegal it doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it. Honestly, if you go through all the stupid things that are illegal yet that you have done, you'd turn into a gibbering mess pretty damn quickly.

If I get busted for downloading things, yeah, I'll sob like an eight year old girl but it's just one of the things I could be done for. I'm less worried about being busted for downloading something than I am for, say, assaulting a barmaid, which has also happened...

The thing is I'm not anti downloading... I'm just anti 'bands not getting rewarded for their work'. I think everyone agrees that bands should get a reward for their work. It may be a bigger fan base, better gigs, more revenue whatever. I'm just not sure it's all working at the moment.

I've been an artist before as well (in a sense): An XBox game I worked on called Carve, we released a beta version to Microsoft to be tested and about 12 hours later we downloaded it off of a hacker site. We laughed... but Microsoft went mental and we had to add a shit load of stuff to the game (to entice people to buy the game not stick with the near perfect beta) and then they dropped the game and asked for their £1.2 million back... which we'd spent making the game so we couldn't really give it back! Then the lawyers got involved and to be fair (for once) Microsoft weren't complete cunts... they just forced us to give over all future money from the game until they got their cash back....

Anyway, we couldn't tell it was the hacked release that broke the camels back but it certainly didn't help and caused a lot of stress and we lost a lot of money (about £500,000)