Why does everything has to be so complicated?

[trak660]

Personally, since I went digital, the labels have received more money from me.

Individual tracks rarely cost more than $2.00, so there's no good excuse to do p2p. Plus, bad vinyl rips and poorly-made VBRs sound awful on a large soundsystem.

A couple of anti-piracy suggestions for labels:

Get Soulseek and start flooding it with dummy files of your stuff.

Maybe start some blogs with the latest tracks, slightly altered.
You could put a few sounds here and there, so they can be identified as the pirate versions, or slightly timestretch them in a few spots so they can't be mixed.

How about putting up the EP unchanged, but have the track titles switched around? They might just ignorantly post their mix with a tracklist, and look stupid.

A techno artist gets most of their profit from playing out, but that doesn't make it OK to steal tracks.

[gustafsson]

yes a good idea was if all underground labels had ....like a company wich protected theyr interests (the majors have IFPI and organisations like that)

and took measures (like the ones mencioned + others) to fight against
piracy

although i really think the best way is simply making each file impossible to copy (or just one copy for safety)

that means each person had to buy 2 files to make a back up

but knowing that those files could be sold by the price of one

there is no way to fight piracy if the measures are not radical

look at whats happening in the softw audio with syncrosoft

there is no piracy....

[miroslav]

there's probably no good way to guard against stupid, short-sighted people who would rather steal things than have personal integrity and buy them.

[Der geile Ami]

Here is what will probably happen:

1. vinyl will be reduced to a minor niche product for collectors and nto consumers or performers because there won't be any distributors. Physical stores will first die out, and hte remaining survivors will be combined online stores/distro. Those that survive longest will also sell digital files to subsidize their vinyl for as long as possible. Consumers can be more patient with their searches, but they will develop greaters bonds with hte music because they can more easily saturate themselves wit ha particular artist

2. Performers will buy files from juggernauts like beatport or niche focused online retailers. This concept will survive for a while because professional performers will value the convenience of these sites over searching for files individually over peer to peer networks.

3. Producers seeking to make money from their efforts will tour more, whether adopting djing, playing live, or whatever new model of performance that may develop. As the music itself used to be more anonymous with audiences, the increase in file sharing will attract more devoted fans wishing to pay for a live performance.

4. Labels will sell less and less music, and instead earn money through artist management. The labels themselves will become direct sources for the music.

5. The job losses at labels could even be negative if additional employees are needed to keep track of new functions the labels provide. The better store and distro employees will recognize that their role could be helping connect people to the music, which is what they were doing before, anyway.

I could be wrong, but that is the natural flow of how I see things happening.