I was just wanting to hear from the musicians in bands on this board about their views towards people illegaly downloading their CD for free rather than buying a CD. Is it a great tool for exposure or sapping money from you that you could use to pay the many debts that bands incur? I, of course have my own opinion on the matter that I'll likely post up here soon but I wanted to know how others feel about it. I'm definitely seeing positives and negatives on the matter though.

Here we go again...

So I take it this has come up many times? Shoulda known... Still, I'm hoping to hear some strong opinions here haha

I give away all my stuff for free. There's the option to buy a CD, but it doesn't bother me if someone does or doesn't. Just happy to make music anyway.
Giving it away for free is good exposure too. The bands back from where I'm from in Ireland give away EPs and 3 track samplers for free all the time, and it's only led to them getting more gigs and more people interested in them.
I suppose if you're paying money to make something, like renting a studio, renting practice space, it hurts to see it downloaded or copied. I mean, local bands spending a few hundred on making a demo probably only want to see the money the spent back from sales and no more.
If you're recording it all at home though, as a lot of people do, giving it away is no big deal. It builds up more fans. If they like it, they'll see you live, they'll recommend you to people.
The last album we put up online was home produced and recorded, and we gave it away on torrents with the option to buy. Spent no money bar electricity so it's nothing. Nobody bought it, but 6,000 people downloaded it and we got a random review off a french site. For a band that done it all themselves, for free, with little promotion, that's not bad. This doesn't apply just to me either; One of my mates does it all himself too, and has managed to get his music out to people better than selling hard copies would have.
As a promotional tool, it's useful. It has it's downsides too though. Digital music is easily just glanced over. When you buy a CD, you REALLY listen to it, whereas if you download something for free, you might only listen to a bit of it, once. unless you really, really love it. It kills the kind of bands that require a deeper listen, those bands that when you revisit the album a few times it grows into something different. The middle grounf then would be to hand out CDs at gigs for free, but that puts you out of pocket, and you're still giving it to people who will probably listen to it once and leave it on the windowsill. It takes the sense of worth out of the music and can leave it feeling throwaway. Which is unfortunate for a lot of underground bands, the music they worked hard on is being ignored by the people who would love it.
I suppose i'm contradicting myself. but fuck it. As regards local bands and unknown bands, if they ask for some money for a CD, pay them. You will listen to it, guaranteed. If it's free, download it/take it, and if you like it, buy a shirt. see them live.

tl;dr.

There's pro's and con's. Works for some, doesn't for others. If you can, buy it and support the local/underground/unsigned/whatever bands, especially if you know and like them.

*EDIT* my spelling was horrible and had to be fixed.

Well I have mixed feelings about it. I think that downloading music is a great way to get your band across to thousands of people, but at the expense of not making money that you deserve. So it's kind of a tradeoff; would you rather get the money you earned, but have a very limited audience, or have a much broader range of listeners but not make as much money? Chances are, the more people that listen to the music, the more chances of more people passing your bands name around and eventually buying your stuff.

As far as local bands go, I purchase all the CD's. Local bands I feel deserve the money to continue, and they could use all the support they can get.

Basically put, I don't enjoy downloading, but I don't have any money to spend (don't we all? ) and bands that are doing well, and are on major labels don't really get too much from another dude purchasing their CD (even though I'm not one to say because from what I've been reading, 80% of the money goes to the label...) Bands that are just getting on their feet, with a very small group of people knowing them deserve a boost.

One the flip side, I was talking to someone at Scrape a while back, and he said "If you can't afford it, it doesn't mean you can have it"... which is surprisingly true. So I don't know.

Okay I guess its time to give my view on it, and I think I will also be full of contradictions. Whether it is more good or bad depends on your intentions and goals for your band. If you just want some people to passively hear your music and you are fine making music at your house or wherever and playing a few shows, then free downloads are liekly the way for you to go to reach people. Now the problem I have with is, as it applies to my band is that we have put (like many others) inordinate amounts of money into the making of our cd (producer, studio, artwork, etc...), and into our live show (instruments, banners, lights, transportation, postering, etc...) in the hopes of 'making something of ourselves' and offering up something that is WORTH paying for. So as it stands we are almost 10 thousand bucks in debt from only band related expenses and hoping that all the hard work will pay off. We aren't Metalicca or anything rolling in dough already. We NEED a certain amount of cash to knock down debt and tour so that we may make more fans... but once people have no reason to pay for your primary source of band income... well that becomes somewhat of a problem. Boohoo right?

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the idea of tons of people hearing the music I've spent years working on.. but when you type your band name into Google and see how many pages upon pages of illegal download sites pop up, you can't help but think you are getting a slight bit raped of your hard work. Why would most people buy what they can have for free right? Like the fella above me said, most people who download a CD do not have the attachment to listen to it repeatedly. It has been proven by psychology that if people PAY for something they will value it higher in order to justify having spent money on it. I personaly buy EVERY SINGLE CD I own (I know that isn't doable for some) and honestly it has made it so that I love about 98% of the CD's I have. Anyways, this is entring rant territory and I probably sound like a bitch about this. I just think if your employer asked you to come in for work for free you'd laugh in their face.. I equate illegal downloading to something like that...

Blah

I get where you're coming from, and in your situation I can understand wanting people to buy the CD. it's only fair really. I'm pretty much reiterating what was said already here. If the band are putting themselves out of money to make an album or play live, the least that can be done is support them, by paying to see them live, buying a CD, or buying merch. For smaller, home produced bands, it's easy to give it away for free. It does undervalue the music though.

You could always take the example of Trent Reznor though. Established musician, made his money from albums, then released an album for free with only viral promotion. Made more money off of that one than he did off any other album in his career. This is different though. He's well established and has an extremely loyal, massive, worldwide fanbase, most of which bought a copy anyway. And it was self funded and done without a label. Shame it wasn't a patch on his other stuff. But maybe I'm saying that because I didn't pay for it though.

It always boils down to what everyone says though: Support the local scene. Back home, I've even heard arguments against this, but that's a different (and localised) story.

Well, it's come up at least once on Bloodred, and in every other metal forum I've ever seen.

There's an abundance of strong opinions in this thread:

http://bloodredmetalheads.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2200

Antiquus started the thread, I and others replied in great detail, so it's worth reading the long rants.

(Feel free to keep discussing in this current one though, if you want.)

Just wanted to toss in one thought (too tired to go in-depth right now), in reference to the thread subject line: it's only illegal if the copyright holder deems it illegal. If that person/entity - like slavior - decides to give away his music for free to anyone who wants it, then downloading it off P2P/bittorrent/whatever isn't illegal.

WARNING: These are my raving opinions. Don't get bent out of shape if you don't agree. This has been my short experience thus far.


You will never make a dime off of your music. Something to accept now. With this truth in mind we all should embrace the changing tides and anticipate that our CD's and every other bit of recorded material will be downloaded by someone somewhere. What does this mean exactly? It means that we need to come up with more creative and diverse ways to makes some of the cash back. Unknown bands need downloading to get exposure ... playing the fuck out of your home town and a one off Canadian or West Coast tour isn't going to do a damn thing to get your name REALLY out there. You need to record a colossal sounding release that will turn heads and give people a reason to give a shit. How the hell else are people supposed to know about you? Myspace is only so effective. Get the disc on some reputable distros and turn a blind eye to the music blogs that offer your music for free (if it irks you). Then when you finally do hit the road after the buzz has begun ... you can sell merch ($$) and physical copies of your music. In this case you most likely will only make enough $$ to cover your costs. WE WILL NEVER MAKE MONEY OFF OF METAL!! It isn't going to happen unless you are signed to Metal Blade or Century Media and Jagermeister is throwing down the dough for a 30+ date tour of N. America. There is a substantial amount of money that you have to write off as a band until you do get to that point! I'm lucky because my band seems to have always found a way to get our shit out there with fairly minimum cost. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thrown hundreds if not thousands of dollars of money that I don't have into getting things done.

Touring shows you the positive effects of downloading. People know your tunes and there is little chance that they ALL mail ordered your CD ...

So long story short ... downloading is your friend if you plan for it.

I agree with Shawn above.

Auroch just finished a month long tour of Canada, played some great shows with bands like The Agonist, Hellacaust, Woods of Ypres and Inquisition. Played incredible venues in Montreal, Victoria and Thunderbay. We grossed $5000 in combined door and merch sales.

We DID NOT see ONE PENNY of that.

Being an unsigned band and having to cover your own transport, fuel, food and accomodation is murderous.

Was it worth it though?
Fuck yes! As Shawn said, you have to accept that until you blow big bucks, your not going to make any money.

I fully support downloading as a means of exposure.

Hmmm, i didnt want to get in on this one, but I gotta say this.Every band I have played in has had a bank account and used the bands name as a buisness.
We've always invested the money back into the band and parlayed into more money.Its seems the wise thing to do.
The current band grosses a decent account at the end of each year because we use a strategy whereas we plan what to put this money into to generate more revenue, so we dont struggle on merchandise and things we need.
I dont really like discussing finances, but after all the "Your never gonna see it" talk I had to say,the band im in is supported just fine financially.
Not making a living at it, but as far as an artistic hobby goes, no money comes out of the musicians pockets, it all come from the bands account. Except of course, strings and personnel items.

Definitely good advice!! ... But still the initial start up $$ has to come from somewhere. Also remember that we're talking about unsigned (virtually unsigned) bands here that need to gain exposure and establish a fan base. Thus at some point you do have to write off a chunk of money. You will maybe make it back (bonus!), but you might not (reality). You do need to approach this art from a business side at some point, otherwise you will be dead broke forever. I'm not saying that only when you strike it big can you fund your endeavours, as a little label support goes a LONG way, but losing money on any art comes with the territory.

Agreed, you have to invest in your future always no matter, the band is an entity , organic, that is going to grow or die outside of your regular life.
So like anything alse, signed or not,initially theres is a start up fee like any other buisness venture, from there its 24/7 buisness world never sleeps.
There always has to be a plan and a vision no matter what level to keep the engine running properly.
Regardless of the band, but then at the end of the day there has to be something that the consumer wants also , so there goes the wholke thing off on another rail.
Not every band is going to be marketable. There has to 100 million bands doing the same thing.Tough gig.My advice,try creating something new, death metal, black metal, thrash metal,speed metal, done to death, UNLESS, you got some twist on it like Diocletion or Mitochondrion or something like that.
Of course theres exceptions, take war metal for instance, as long as your ross bay aproved or NWN approved your gonna do alright popularity wise no matter how much of a cookie cutter band your in.
Gotta look at it as a buisness is the bottom line.

Well here goes this mother-fucking-bomb... I only buy cds of bands that i can't download, i have about 25 cds of local bands that i dig alot. I also have rare\obscure cds of bands from around the globe.I download alot and check out what bands have to offer me musically. You could argue that is why myspace is there. But the bands that i do like and listen to i go to their shows,i buy their t-shirts and i collect band dvds (i got way 100 last i checked) If im at a show and hear a band that ive never heard before and i dig it, usually i'll buy a t-shirt and proceed to downloaded their album(s). However going back to it,the alot of the obscure bands that aren't download able,locals included so i end up buying there discs if i dig it. But i would rather use my cold hard earned cash to buy concert tickets\band merch\band dvds. Record labels usually make all the money anyways,but on the other hand if your band can sell 20,000 to 50,000 units your label might more willing to promote your band and giving you more support. Also i trade burnt discs with my buddies and have got them into going to shows for a band they'd never otherwise hear or vise versa. In the world of metal you'd better be able to put on a good live show (most of time). Oh yeah and to close this goddamn fucking rant if you download you make Lars Ulrich mad!!!

I'm actually downloading a car right now