What should a small record label do?

[mgriffin]

I wonder, what should be the appropriate reaction for a small record label, to a place like this:

http://faunigena.blogspot.com/

Today, this blog is linking to downloads at 320kbps quality, of a couple of Hypnos CDs that we sell for $8.99.  I do understand the argument that sometimes, people hear something they've downloaded or reeived for free, and they like it so much they end up buying it.  I also understand that many who download it and listen, would never have purchased the CD in the first place, so in such cases there is no "cost" of a lost sale.

Still, despite all my attempts to look at this from some different angle or other, it's hard not to feel a bit annoyed about that.  So much for the argument that people only download music because "$18.99 is too much for a CD with only two good singles on it," or to "screw the major labels!" 

I wonder, separating out any personal annoyance or sense of being "cheated" I may feel, if people who make available downloads like that one realize that labels like Hypnos often sell such a small number of CDs as to make it just barely worthy of continuing, from a financial point of view? 

Or that the loss of a few hundred CDs sold could quite literally be the difference between a label continuing for another year, or not? 

Or that even if the label survives, a given artist's CD sales might be borderline enough to begin with, that the loss of just a hundred CDs sold might be the difference between the label opting to pick up the artist's next album, or passing on it as not viable?

One of the two albums available for download on that site, has just within the past year or two, finally sold enough copies to have paid for the expense of pressing it in the first place, nearly a decade ago.  It realy makes me wonder, without being hysterically possessive about the music on the label, or without being unrealistic about the complex matter of how and why music is shared without any money flowing to the label or the artist, if people actually have any idea of the financial realities of a small label like Hypnos, or Infraction, or Umbra?

This isn't meant to be an angry rant, nor to take an unrealistic view of file sharing, not at all.  I just wonder, what would be the right response in a case like this?  Should I write to those people and ask them to remove the downloads?  Should I just shrug it off and say, you can't control the impulse people have to take a shortcut, and you can't counter the rationalizations they will make in order to make themselves feel better?  I'm inclined to do nothing, but maybe I ought to be more active in searching for, and communicating with, people who run sites like that.

[LNerell]

Today, this blog is linking to downloads at 320kbps quality, of a couple of Hypnos CDs that we sell for $8.99.  I do understand the argument that sometimes, people hear something they've downloaded or reeived for free, and they like it so much they end up buying it.  I also understand that many who download it and listen, would never have purchased the CD in the first place, so in such cases there is no "cost" of a lost sale.

No excuse, they could post excerpts if that were their main goal. But to post entire CDs in mp3 format of the highest quality is rediculous. I suggest you do what I do whenever this comes up, first off you complain to Rapdishare or Megaupload or any other sites that they are using to host their downloads that they are offering copywritten material for download. These sites then have to take down the material and most will within 24 hours. Second, complain to the blogger site about this blog is being used for the purpose of illegal downloads, it will also be shut down. Personally I find most of these people are total scumbags and should be slapped upside the head, especially when they do this to small boutique labels like Hypnos or Soleilmoon. 

[jim brenholts]

there are some very cool cd's there. i wonder what klaus schulze and tangerine dream will do when they find out they are being pirated. or eno!
i agree with loren, mike. complain and complain.

[mgriffin]

If my initial post comes across as whiny,  I should clarify that I really meant this in more of a general "what should a small label do?" sense, rather than, "poor beleaguered Hypnos."  Hypnos is doing quite well, selling more CDs all the time, and we feel our direction is definitely upward despite file sharing, CDR swapping, bittorrent, rapidshare, limewire, or whatever else.  Re-reading my first note, I see I described a more negative and dire situation, than what we're really dealing with here. 

We wouldn't be scheduling more and more CD releases all the time if we didn't feel many people still enjoyed buying CDs.

[LNerell]

If my initial post comes across as whiny,  I should clarify that I really meant this in more of a general "what should a small label do?"

And if I came across as whiny, well then I am. 

Sorry but this has been a petpeeve of mine since about two weeks after Terraform was released when I found that CD on a bittorrent site that listed it being downloaded more times that first two weeks of its release then we have sold of the CD in now almost two years.

[mgriffin]

And if I came across as whiny, well then I am. 

Sorry but this has been a petpeeve of mine since about two weeks after Terraform was released when I found that CD on a bittorrent site that listed it being downloaded more times that first two weeks of its release then we have sold of the CD in now almost two years.

To play devil's advocate for a moment, just for fun, a fairly good argument could be made that virtually all of the people who downloaded it would never have purchased it, even if the tracks had never been available for download from any source.

Of course, the counter argument would be that any lost sales, even if only a small percentage of those who downloaded the material, are harmful to the artist and thus unfair.

An even more devilish devil's advocate might say, you might have gained more sales by people who heard the download and loved it, than you lost from people who would've purchased the CD but never did because they had the digital version.

[APK]

It should be up to the artist, and label, responsible for the music to decide whether they want to make that music available for free ... not  anyone else.

Looks to me like this blog is primarily a way for the blog owner to get kickbacks/commission from Rapidshare.

Not sure what the best thing to do is ... beyond an email or two.

[APK]

While I appreciate that a lot of people will hear the music who would not otherwise have bought it. And that may lead to later sales.

I also know that a lot of people who would have bought an album, did a search first and found it for free, and so did not buy it. This for sure happens as well. And probably much more than we think.

[LNerell]

To play devil's advocate for a moment, just for fun, a fairly good argument could be made that virtually all of the people who downloaded it would never have purchased it, even if the tracks had never been available for download from any source.

Sorry Mike I don't buy that (pun intended). 

[APK]

The point (as I see it) is that, as Mike indicated, there is little realization that small labels are making very little money ... usually just enough to keep putting out albums and paying operating costs. Small label owners don't get paid for the sheer amount of time they put into these things ... and at a certain point they say "forget it, its not worth it" then quit.

I know Databloem/DataObcura would not have lasted long without a fairly loyal group of paying customers supporting us.

[mgriffin]

Right, there is a core group of extremely loyal people who will stand by a small label and buy pretty much everything they put out.  In the case of Hypnos, because we sell other labels' music, and the self-released CDs of independent artists, our operation is also further supported by our reselling of non-Hypnos CDs.

There are individuals out there (some on this Forum, but mostly not) who seem to buy every single thing we put up onto the Hypnos store.  It's inspiring, gratifying, and a little scary!

[jblock]

These sites seem to be popping up more frequently. The next generation of P2P I guess. But with the miniscule sales in this niche of ours I find it detrimental and completely unethical. Regardless of all our cosmic or earthbound babblings when describing this music there are still some basic rights that should be respected. I'm all for more outlets and giving away long excerpts or even full tracks if that's the artists and labels decision but as others pointed out nobody's becoming Richard Branson running a label. At least ask.

[Seren]

I agree with the idea of complaining.

another option is to make friends with a good hacker and get them to crash the site....see how they like an individual affecting their liveihood

I sound pissy too, and I've not been had by such sites yet as far as i know!!

[jeff pearce]

I've had a lot of people over the past couple of years write to me and say "you cd is available for free on___" And I have major mixed feelings on that (I like it when people buy cd's, but a lot of my cd's aren't available for download- none of the Hypnos cd's, in fact).  However, this guy who posted it, and the comments he left, definitely made me laugh http://files2you.livejournal.com/177778.html

....glad he thought that it was "worth buying to support the artist".  That ALSO tells me that he knows posting cd's for free could be HURTING artists.   

[Wayne Higgins]

No, mgriffin, you are not coming off as whiny.  Every disc you have for sale that is on this site for free is not going to be sold by you! 

[SiF]

Mike is totally right with everything he said.
Its a shame that people are to lazy to buy
a perfectly crafted disc for 9$. I'm from
germany, and most of the cds cost like 20-25$.
So i love to spend most of my money by buying
cd's in america or canada. There is nothing more exiting
than receiving a package with cds instead of unraring
a damn archive with mp3's.

My Label just started in late 07, and i'm glad i didnt
found any link till now, but i guess in the end there
are a few loyal people who don't give a damn about
the downloads and so they buy your cds.

[Mark Mushet]

I don't know why anybody (without ulterior profit motives/schemes) would give anything away for free in a wholsesale way thinking it's in any way beneficial. Labels should make samples easily available and give away bonus tracks or single tracks for promo occasionally. Nothing more.

I downloaded a krill.minima CD thinking "This guy (Marsen Jules) shouldn't be giving away such decent files, complete, for nothing." I played it at a party and one guy really got into it and asked about it. I mentioned it was available for free download. But I didn't follow-up with the details because I knew he wouldn't buy it. I know too many relatively wealthy people who will just take and take (which is partly why the world is deteriorating on every level). I, of course, bought the final CD version from Native State. But I'm rare.

As for it not being the business of anybody but the label to determine whether to give things away for free...that is rubbish. It's called "undercutting" and should be punished. The form of punishment is up for debate however. If we get pissed off at price fixing schemes we need to get pissed of at people willing to drop the bottom out  a market.
Ask yourself how you'd feel if someone began offering your services for free.

Some of us make a living at selling our personal creative work. It's not a hobby or a sideline. One thing I've found with some "indie" labels is that they behave exactly like the majors when dealing with visual artists. They view it as "work for hire" which is bullshit.

[Ben Fleury-Steiner]

I've nothing against netlabels--love many of them--but everything against pirating. 

I think most of our goals is to make enough to do more releases, break even, and maybe up the quality of future releases etc...

For those of us who love the special packaging/material item, my label, gears of sand, for example, just spent a bit more for our new live series--all of these releases will be packaged in chipboard boxes with genuine letter press printing (#1 should be available in the hypnos store soon)--so my feeling is that this kind of blatant pirating is devastating to small labels, especially those that aspire to keep improving in terms of product quality and constancy of releases...

For labels like Hypnos, Native Sound, or Infraction that regularly spend $1,000+ on a single release, I think the effects of pirated downloads is only negative...In this context, I don't buy the "added exposure" argument at all...The fact is this: many who would buy a disc but listen to a lot of music will opt for the pirated download simply out of expediency...And that can't be good for small labels...

But screw it all, we soldier on releasing these sounds for the love of the artform...

[APK]

The best thing to do is email Blogspot.com complaining about the illegality of this particular blog.

Or a few of us complain about it at a similar time to lend the complaint some weight.

[mgriffin]

Just as EBay makes it incredibly difficult to complain about an auction gone wrong... just as AOL makes it incredibly difficult to unsubscribe from their service... so, Blogspot makes it difficult to complain about copyright infringement on their blogs. 

I'm sure it's hard for them to keep track of millions of blogs written by all kinds of mostly-anonymous individuals, so the way they manage that responsibility is to make it difficult enough to complain, that most people don't bother, or can't figure out how to do so.

Here's the content policy page at Blogspot (blogger.com)...

http://www.blogger.com/content.g

This page contains the following language:

COPYRIGHT: It is our policy to respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. More information about our copyright procedures can be found here:

That last "here" is a link to this page...

http://www.google.com/blogger_dmca.html

Following an extremely wordy "warning" that you shouldn't accuse a blogger of infringing on your copyright unless you're really, really, really sure (lest you be penalized by huge fines, so be REALLY sure), there's the following set of rules/instructions as to how one should assert one's copyright is being infringed:

To expedite our ability to process your request, please use the following format (including section numbers):

1.Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon. This post must include identification of the specific posts, as opposed to entire sites. Posts must be referenced by the permalink of the post. For example, “The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on http://johndoe.com/test/2006_01_01.html#2106.

2. Identify the material that you claim is infringing the copyrighted work listed in item #1 above.

YOU MUST IDENTIFY EACH POST BY PERMALINK OR DATE THAT ALLEGEDLY CONTAINS THE INFRINGING MATERIAL. The permalink for a post is usually found by clicking on the timestamp of the post. For example, “The blog where my copyrighted work is published on is http://copyright.blogspot.com/archives/2006_01_02_example.html.”

3. Provide information reasonably sufficient to permit Google to contact you (email address is preferred).

4. Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted material described above on the allegedly infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.".

5. Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

6. Sign the paper.

7. Send the written communication to the following address:

    Google, Inc.
    Attn: Google Legal Support, Blogger DMCA Complaints
    1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
    Mountain View, CA 94043

    OR fax to:

    (650) 618-2680, Attn: Blogger Legal Support, DMCA Complaints

Please note that a copy of each legal notice we receive is sent to a third-party partner for publication and annotation. As such, your letter (with your personal information removed) will be forwarded to Chilling Effects (http://www.chillingeffects.org) for publication. You can see an example of such a publication at http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=861. A link to your published letter will be displayed in Google's search results in place of the removed content.