Illegal filesharing: let it rock
Posted on Thursday 24 July, 2008
Filed Under Business
If you are the bass player in Uriah Heap – the band pictured right – and happen to be reading this, please accept my apologies; I owe you guys some royalties.
Then again, I doubt very much whether all those cassettes that my friends and I swapped in the playground put that many dodgy 1970s heavy rock outfits out of business. Most of them still appear to be going concerns.
And if home taping was anywhere near the mortal threat it was often claimed to be, how come the standard C-90 was exactly the right length to fit a vinyl album on either side?
At bottom, ‘illegal filesharing’ amounts to no more than an updated version of what teenagers have been doing for decades. Lost sales are surely minimal. When you are that age, you either buy the tracks if you have got the money, or don’t if you haven’t.
As I understand music biz economics, the recorded product is something of a loss leader these days. Major artistes – such as the one formerly known as Prince – are happy to give away new albums to the Mail on Sodding Sunday. The revenue actually comes from touring and merchandise.
Yet according to today’s papers, ‘music piracy’ is regarded as a major problem. The music biz has roped in the leading internet service providers to write warning letters to thousands of prolific downloaders. Gosh, that’ll frighten the average 17 year old.
The fact is, the exchange value of recorded music in commodity form has fallen to zilch, because the amount of socially necessary labour time it embodies is next to nothing.
But given that my generation has in recent years more than made up for adolescent miscreance by paying royalties twice over on all the CDs it has purchased to replace beat up vinyl, record company execs should simply stop whingeing. Their charlie habits seem safe enough for the foreseeable future.
Being as it’s summertime, regular commentators are invited to embarrass themselves by revealing the first 45 they ever bought. I’ll start the ball rolling by admitting to Snoopy versus the Red Baron by the Royal Guardsmen, back in 1967.
<<Go back
Comments
25 Responses to “Illegal filesharing: let it rock”
‘Popcorn’ by Hot Butter. Bought in Caterham, Surrey in 1972 for 50p.
On illegal filesharing I swear by emule. I have also set myself up there as having a completely French profile, name etc. (although in London.of course). Emule appears to have a lot more users there.
Whether this will fool those British investigators looking for illegal downloaders for a minute, I don’t know, but I thought it worth a shot
My parents bought “The Ying Tong Song” for me in 1973 when it was re-released; a few weeks later I got “Twentieth Century Boy” for myself. Never looked back.
As most of our cousins were a good ten to fifteen years older than us, we inheritited their old singles, such records as ‘Chubby Chekker – Whadaywantamake those eyes at me for’, and ‘Bee Gees ‘Massachussettes’. The first album I remember us buying was a ‘Who/Hendrix’ compilation. Anyone else remember that series in the plain covers? My elder sister bought it in Finchley. We even had a couple of 78s, record players inthose days still had a 78 speed. I think (but I could be wrong) that we had Elvis’ ‘All right Momma’ on a 78. Would they have been pressing them that late?
This thread discriminates against those of us too young to remember the heyday of the 45.
I used to buy, swap and copy all sorts of crap second hand tapes but the first single I can remember buying was, inexplicably, Scotland’s official Euro 96 song – Purple Heather by Rod Stewart. On CD, I’m afraid.
Gawd…I remember those 78s (heavier) as well plus 33/45 speeds and accidentally putting on a record at the wrong speed…it was either ever-ever-so-grindlingly-slowed-down-voice or kinda Pinky and Perky on speed…
Ah, the memories….
The whole argument from the music industry is bollox anyway, because the profitability has shifted away from recorded music sales to the money made on tickets on tour – it is the live performances that make the money now, and the recordings are a bit of a loss leader.
The first sinlgle I bought was ‘Sugar Baby Love’ by the Rubettes in, I think, 1974. Still smile winsomely, if you can do that sort of thing in your mid-40s, when I hear it now.
Duran Duran’s ‘Save A Prayer’.
Brilliant track then, brilliant track now.
Ha!
Darren… I bought ‘Rio’…single and LP. Wasnt that big on ‘Save a Prayer’ but hey, us 30-something Duranies need to stick together (even if you are in the States!)
The whole argument from the music industry is bollox anyway, because the profitability has shifted away from recorded music sales to the money made on tickets on tour – it is the live performances that make the money now, and the recordings are a bit of a loss leader.
Has the reading comprehension of a gnat…
Sue – “That’s all right” was Elvis’s first single (in the US), from back in 1954 (a few years before 45s took over from 78s). In good nick, it’d be worth several hundred quid.
I didn’t buy a 45 until the summer of 1976 when I was seventeen. It was Eddie and The Hot Rods’ Live at the Marquee EP and I bought it because the singles review (NME I hope) said it was more punk than the Ramones. My first LP was Dr Feelgood’s magnificent Stupidity.
Both bands are still playing gigs, although whether there’s any similarity between their current and early incarnations I’ve no idea. The Feelgood’s singer, Lee Brillaux ceased feeling at all good in the 90s. Has anybody seen these bands recently?
Looks like we had pretty much the same tastes circa ’76. Strap me behind a Telecaster and I can still ‘All Through the City’ and ‘She Does it Right’, both of which I used to cover in my early bands.
I did catch Wilko Johnson in Brighton a few months back. Pretty disappointing, I have to say. Stretched out many numbers with long solos, which is not a good idea when the entire point of your guitar style is to avoid the need for that sort of thing.
Aye, these b******s had us paying best part of 15 quid for years on CD’s before Amazon and the supermarkets forced them to drop the price.
When I was involved in the music industry the artist got the princely sum of £1 for every CD album sold.
And EMI are still selling the Beatles red compilation on 2 CD’s when it could quite easily fit on 1 so that they can charge a premium for it.
Alvin Stardust ‘My Coo Ca Choo’
Sending letters to downloaders!
You couldn’t make it up. (Has the government entirely lost its marbles?)
Probably “Devil in Disguise” by Elvis was the first I actually paid for. (but I was taken to “Rock Around the Clock” by some ‘big girls’ when I was around 6, or 7.)
Downloading’s all very well, but mp3 audio quality is inferior to hi-fi. Inevitable with any compressed data format.
It’s all down to cost and no one should have to pay more than a fiver for a CD or a downloaded album, of which the artists should get at least 20%.
Unfortunately not all artists are capable of touring and some of them were severely ripped off in their hayday and need royalty revenues to survive.
Just by chance I happened to come across the sad story of what happened to Kathy Kirby recently.
Very middle of the road, but surely one of the finest female singing voices of the 20th C. Like Dusty Springfield, an Anglo-Irish girl who went to a convent school.
Sadly now broke and suffering mental problems, but being remembered in a new musical.
Whatever revenue system emerges must be designed to protect people like her.
Kathy Kirby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0fe2m_4c7E&feature=related
Article by Sarah Freeman
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/highlights/In-search-of-Kathy-Kirby.3957362.jp
Musical
http://www.secretlove.info/
perhaps this will encourage bands to make their money by touring a lot more instead of releasing an overpriced album every three years.
and also the record companies are dinosaurs, the sooner they die off the better.
and i think quite a few artists are waking up to the fact that they’d be better to ditch the middle man and go straight to their fans.
Uriah Heap? Jesus wept! I’d rather admit to having broken the law with an offence involving a sheep than anything to do with that sort of twaddle.
Captain Sensible. “Happy Talk” (ahem, but I did follow it up by buying “Wot”; both complete with a “Home taping is killing music – and it’s illegal” skull and crossbones on the sleeves. We didn’t even have a bloody cassette recorder, and the reel-to-reel with a microphone attached held in front of the Dansette wasn’t very good at copying either.)
The music biz has roped in the leading internet service providers to write warning letters to… laser printers. Don’t forget that one.
Rainbow by Marmalade 196??
Yeah, I know Liam. I was *young*. But even that is no excuse.
Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris.
Solidarity amid the horror of war – you can’t go wrong!
There’ nothing wrong with Uriah Heap!
I can’t remember the first 45, tho’ I vaguely remember buying “Surfin’ Bird” by the Trashmen, because I thought it was funny. (That would have been in 1964, I think.) The first lp was a present from my parents on my sixth birthday: the Toscanni recording with the NBC symphony of Beethoven’s 6th—the “Pastoral”.
“Part of the Union” The Strawbs.
Can’t imagine that getting to Number 2 these days.