What should a small record label do?

mgriffin · February 01, 2008, 11:00:22 AM

OK, I was too busy yesterday, but today I put together a letter for these guys. I realize that file sharing can't be totally stopped, and I wouldn't try to take on that whole culture anyway, but it just especially bugs me that these two dirt-cheap CDs are up there for free download.

So, here's the letter in case anyone's interested:

http://www.hypnos.com/forumpix/blogcomplaint.jpg

Mark Mushet · February 01, 2008, 11:15:26 AM

Excellent work, Mike. I think the tide will eventually turn with efforts like this. A few years ago a photo of mine ended up on a John Cale bootleg being auctioned on E-Bay. With the help of the site owner from whose site the pic was hacked we got the guy's account terminated and started a dialogue with him which ended up with his having a new appreciation of copyright!

Unfortunately a Russian site currently sees fit to reproduce a portrait of Fred Frith I did that they hacked from a legit site. It's just a thumbnail but the practice is widespread.

LNerell · February 01, 2008, 12:26:37 PM

Quote from: Mark Mushet on February 01, 2008, 11:15:26 AM
Unfortunately a Russian site currently sees fit to reproduce a portrait of Fred Frith I did that they hacked from a legit site. It's just a thumbnail but the practice is widespread.

Don't even get me started on the Russian sites, their are a ton of pay to download mp3 sites which are selling all of us artists music for download, none of which we ever see a penny of. Try going to http://www.mp3fiesta.com and typing in an artists name and see what pops up. They have nearly all of my albums up for download and for way less then what you would pay on iTunes. They even have things that I have never released on iTunes such as tracks off my first two cassette only releases.

APK · February 01, 2008, 12:54:48 PM

We've never sold an album to russia, india, china ....

Japan, yes.

jim brenholts · February 01, 2008, 03:10:24 PM

Quote from: mgriffin on February 01, 2008, 11:00:22 AM
OK, I was too busy yesterday, but today I put together a letter for these guys. I realize that file sharing can't be totally stopped, and I wouldn't try to take on that whole culture anyway, but it just especially bugs me that these two dirt-cheap CDs are up there for free download.

nice letter, mike. you apparently did not scroll all the way down. i believe that there are 5 or 6 hypnos discs available there.

mgriffin · February 01, 2008, 03:14:45 PM

Yeah, I've been really busy but I'll eventually have time to scroll through and note the "permalink" addresses of each of the Hypnos postings there, and send the same fax again and again until those guys remove our stuff.

mgriffin · February 04, 2008, 10:45:05 AM

For those interested, I just received a "form letter" response from blogger.com stating that they had received my complaint letter and would investigate and send me an update soon.

SiF · February 07, 2008, 09:34:09 AM

Fuck that. Now they also got my stuff available at deletedscenes.forgottendreams. :-\
At least my last live release. Fuck those Guys. And they disabled the comments
section.

Hana · February 16, 2008, 08:19:59 PM

The faunigena blogspot is still open :-\

SiF · February 17, 2008, 01:34:01 AM

Quote from: Hana on February 16, 2008, 08:19:59 PM
The faunigena blogspot is still open :-\

And dont even look at their forum. There is plenty more stuff available.
Not sure if there is anything more by Hypnos, but maybe Mike
should also check this out.

craig · February 18, 2008, 01:34:22 PM

you could report them to www.blogger.com as it's a direct breach of their guidelines and their blog will be closed down. I also run a small label called Herb Recordings and you need to more or less accept these days that people are going to download music whether you like it or not. i think doing them at 320kbps is a real slap in the face, as if people get them at that quality then there's very little chance of them buying the CD.

Recent developments on Last FM via an agreement with all the major labels, has also more or less killed off download sales. Basically the majors have agreed to allow last fm to stream their entire catalogues in full for free. They've also signed an exclusive agreement with a new download company called QTrax who will be giving their entire catalogues away for free download through the site. Simultaneously, online performance royalties have been really tightened and Last FM (other sites will be following suit soon) are now paying the artists who are registered with collection societies for streams online (not downloads though, as that takes the music off the site and the people aren't seeing the adverts anymore when they play them). Download stores will now be paying artists a slice of the advertising revenue, based on the number of downloads they've had rather than paying them a percentage of sales. With the Majors giving away the music for free, it means indie labels are going to have to do it also, to get their music on the download sites in the first place.

I believe there's still a decent enough market for indie CD sales though, as the indie labels' sales of CDs aren't diminishing anywhere near as rapidly as the majors. I think this is more a result of the output though than anything else, as most majors are by and large doing fast food music now and there's a lack of desire more than anything for people to buy it. It's a fact that the majority of people under 30 these days buy less than one CD a year.

We lost a lot of money last year when our distributor went bust and we never got the money for our vinyl sales, even if we got the money on them though we'd have been lucky to break even as there's no profit margin in vinyl at all now. There's still a decent profit margin on CDs though and I think it will be a good while before they become like vinyl and the financial incentive for releasing them is gone.

Paul Vnuk (Ma Ja Le) · February 22, 2008, 09:45:28 PM

Mike, click on the older posts link on the bottom of his pages and you will find 15 Hypnos releases...maybe more, but I was so pissed off I stopped counting, and yes one of them was one of mine...I realize it is 5 years old but I am still ticked!

Paul

lena · February 23, 2008, 08:52:18 AM

Hi Paul!

Yeah, we know about that already, but thank you for telling us anyway! (I spent some time one day scrolling through all their stuff & saving each page with a Hypnos release on it, & it literally took hours).... >:( GRRRRRRRRRR! I feel like emailing each one of the artists I've found there individually, so we can all gang up on them. (I'll bring the Vaseline if you can provide a big boot)... ;)

lena · February 23, 2008, 08:59:14 AM

Quote from: craig on February 18, 2008, 01:34:22 PM
you could report them to www.blogger.com as it's a direct breach of their guidelines and their blog will be closed down.

We already did that, (see page two of this thread. It was a real pain in the a#*). This is something Mike posted on February 4th:

"For those interested, I just received a "form letter" response from blogger.com stating that they had received my complaint letter and would investigate and send me an update soon".

So far, we haven't heard anything back, & Fauni Gena is still in business as far as I know. Unfortunately.
>:(

Mark Mushet · February 24, 2008, 10:07:02 AM

Quote from: craig on February 18, 2008, 01:34:22 PM
I also run a small label called Herb Recordings and you need to more or less accept these days that people are going to download music whether you like it or not. i think doing them at 320kbps is a real slap in the face, as if people get them at that quality then there's very little chance of them buying the CD.

Here's an excercise for everybody: ask someone, anyone, below, say, the age of 35, to define "ethics" and see what you get.

I ran into a teacher recently who I suggested this to awhile back. None of the students got it right.

ffcal · February 24, 2008, 11:51:48 AM

I have a somewhat pessimistic view of all of this. I think you will see fewer manufactured CDs by indies over the next few years, and more download only or CDR micro releases because of continuing declining CD sales. Having entire CDs available for download certainly won't help. I still buy CDRs, but would be surprised if many them would still play 5-10 years from now.

Forrest

mgriffin · February 28, 2008, 04:19:59 PM

The good people of the copyright violation investigation unit at blogger.com wrote me this message over a week ago:

QuoteHello,
In accordance with the DMCA, we have completed processing your infringement complaint and the content in question no longer appears on the following URL(s):

http://faunigena.blogspot.com/2008/01/rod-modell-michael-mantra-sonic.html
http://faunigena.blogspot.com/2008/01/m-griffin-d-fulton-most-distant-point.html
Please let us know if we can assist you further.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

Hmm, it says they're "sincere" and everything. Of course, the CDs are still available for download on the Fauni Gena blog, despite what they say. I wish I had more time to pursue this... maybe I will soon.

SunDummy · February 28, 2008, 04:34:27 PM

This is such bullshit. blogger.com will always claim that since they are not actually hosting the files, all they can (or will) do is delete links.

What about the A-holes at Z-Share, Share-Bee, and their ilk who actually have the pirated material on their servers? It seems that if the record industry is willing to file suit against individuals who share files via Napster-style software, they should be willing to go after the huge server farms themselves. Or has this been tried unsuccessfully in the past? Or are the servers all offshore, in a country that doesn't care?

I spent some time following links from blog to blog; you can download new movies, new software, etc., all of it copyrighted. As soon as something hits a digital medium, it can be ripped and put up for the world to see. I gotta agree with you, ffcal, it looks like the horse has left the barn; I don't see how this trend can ever be stopped.

bunkdata · February 29, 2008, 06:40:37 PM

I agree with you SunDummy, I don't think it can ever by stopped. Being a publicly viewed forum, even this forum thread has more than likely introduced new leechers to the links at faunigena and in turn contributed to more illegal downloads! That's why I am investing most of my time in net.labels. Check out this link about the new business model:

Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free?currentPage=all

Best,
Nathan
www.bunkdata.com

mgriffin · March 02, 2008, 11:32:22 AM

Quote from: bunkdata on February 29, 2008, 06:40:37 PM
I agree with you SunDummy, I don't think it can ever by stopped. Being a publicly viewed forum, even this forum thread has more than likely introduced new leechers to the links at faunigena and in turn contributed to more illegal downloads! That's why I am investing most of my time in net.labels. Check out this link about the new business model:

Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free?currentPage=all

Best,
Nathan
www.bunkdata.com

Nathan, that article's point is that some businesses succeed by giving one product away, enabling the company to make more money selling a related product.

Give away the razor, sell the blades.
Give away the "shareware" Doom PC game, sell the full version to players hooked on the demo.
Give away the cell phone, sell the cellular service.

Explain to me how netlabels fit this "business model" exactly? Netlabels give away the music, and sell... what? How does the word "business" apply here?