Thinner goes to paid downloads: here my reply to them!

[Catching The Waves]

Well said. It's perfectly understandable when "free" musicians and netlabels turn commercial. But some people are involved in the netlabel scene simply for the love of it and don't intend to make money or a career from it. Some try to earn a living from their music while also releasing some free stuff. All three attitudes are valid.

[infernal.techno]

most of the netlabels' artists i fancy usually have official releases up on the big sites like juno and beatport anyways...

pretty kewt pix you made anyways, eldino

[kh4n]

Plenty of interesting replies here. Kudos to Hernangrau and Kenan.

I think that the net-audio scene will continue to thrive. There will be an abundance of music that will remain free if the artists and labels choose this route. This community will keep on doing its thing. Even now after more than a decade of activity, it is still under the radar as far as the average listener or magazine is concerned.

However, I see nothing wrong with a successful net-label selling music on any format, even digital files. Thinner has been working hard for years at pushing quality music, and they deserve some payback for their efforts. Another example would be No Type from Montreal which has been on the netaudio scene since 1998. On their website you will find vinyl and cds for purchase alongside the free music releases. I'm sure that if people liked free releases by Claudia Bonnarelli, Tomas Jirku or The Unireverse, they'd be inclined to support them as well as the label and purchase their release which are available on vinyl or cd... right? I would hope so.

I've been around since the mod scene, and subsequently A large portion of music that I listen to today is available free from net-labels. But net-audio aside, I still purchase plenty of music on an analog format. There is a lot of great stuff coming out on vinyl and cassettes, and I think it was back in 2007 when I bought over 30 new tapes that year! Even in this digital age I still buy records and support my local record shop, however I do buy much less now that ten years ago. More and more I am seeing that the labels releasing these records are offering free downloads of the digital files direct from their website. Now that is nice and convenient, as I don't have to go and find a rip of the vinyl or cd version on Soulseek anymore. I've just purchased the release on the format that I prefer, and I have a quality digital version for my iPod as a bonus.

Anyhow, thats my 2 cents... even though I've gone off-topic.

[0x7f]

ok i took the time to read all the replys (well most of them anyway..)
to get a better picture of your views and in my opinion you have no idea
what an effort it can be to run a label. especially since if it starts as "hobby"
and gets any success the label will require more and more work. the
artist list keeps growing and thus you have to take time to work with each
individual artists (do covers etc) AND you have to do the mastering.
so many labels even pay for mastering of their free releases and that
cant go on for ever if they dont compensate that with a few commercial
releases. or get money elsewhere. ok fair enough some labels may host
their sites on free webhosting services or archive org, but many pay for
their own server and host the files there. so we have to pay for
domain(s),server,traffic and mastering. also not every label is the same
..some do it as hobby and put out a release and dont worry about
mastering or the cover art, but some actually put lots of effort behind it
and you can't expect that they pay just so you can listen to the music for
free. The next thing is some artists have a high paying job and don't care
about if they make any cash with music, but there are also artist who are
trying to make a living. would you call them selfish just because they
want some money for their hard work ? if the artist goes broke he wont
be able to afford his gear anymore and then there will be no music at all.

I write poetry for hobby and I dont want to be paied for it. I spend tons of hours blogging about netaudio culture and i don't want to get paied for it (no banners on my site): i'm enough satisfied if i can succesfully spread my knowledge and people says "thanx" to me. I used to produce IDM and Dub music some years ago and I didn't desire to be paied for it: I used to be a lot happy when ppl was remixing my tunes, jamming, sharing etc Wink

well so you make your money otherwise, but that doesnt mean everyone
else has to follow your rules. expecting artists and labels to pay just so
that you can listen to music for free is just plain ignorant.

Ok, then I shut up and thanx for attention. We will see in the next months how many of you will pay (PAY not Bittorrent, eMule, Rapidshare etc) for releases and support with their money the "new" netaudio scene.

If Aerotone, Ideology, Antiritmo, Aquietbump, 12rec, 8bitpeoples, Kahvi, Camomille and the other great netlabels around will go commercial tho, don't come to me and cry please.

Oh sorry, u wont... coz for u it's fine to pay for what you got for years for free... Because good things must be paied, just sht must rest free. Bah.

You speak about 8bit peoples, well i know them from my micromusic
days and they already sold cd's years ago. so you might want to get your
facts straight. You should be happy that labels give you music for free
and not complain if they also make money with some of their releases.
You have to understand and respect that not everyone see's this as a
simple hobby. Some are actually professional musicians and they also
have a passion for it. Doesnt mean if they are good enough to make
money with their music, that they are just capitalists and dont care about
their fans.

Netaudio is what music must be: a strong wire between musician and listener, without copyright and RIAA craps

While personally i hate the RIAA, copyrights are a necessary evil.
If there would be no copyrights, everyone would just steal others tracks
and release them under his own name. This happenes a lot in this
netausio scene, because there are no proper copyrights enforced. In the
8-bit scene there was a band from sweden i think, who ripped existing
tracks and just put own vocals over it and then played that sh!t live and
sold it. If all was free and no copyrights then people would just steal and
noone would know who actually is the original author. Then the artists
would stop to release since they dont even get credited. There are more
possible ways for the netaudio scene to die other than some commercial
releases. Another example is that even big famous artists rip sh!t from the
net because it has no proper copyrights and without that you would have
to mess with the lawyers of some big recording company that released
your ripped track (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4KX7SkDe4Q).

Dude just calm down the netlabel scene won't die just because some
labels go commercial. Many of them will still put out some free releases.

You just expect that everything has to be free and as soon as some
music costs money its not underground anymore and mainstream. Thats
so redicilous. Beeing on beatport doesnt mean sh!t. There are hundreds
of labels there and many of them will stay unknown forever as they just
release sh!t even comercially. Mainstream is if you get play'd on MTV in
my opinion. But hey thats just my opinion doesnt mean everyone has to
think like that and you need to understand this point. While your ideals of
all music beeing free may be kind of nobel, its unrealistic if you look at
our current society. Do you get food for free ? Do clubs let you in for free
and give you free drinks all night ? They might do that once for
promotional reasons, but not all the time since they'd have to close after
the 1st night ... you think anyone could run a successfull club without
charging for the entry? no artist would play there, only newcomers who
would play everywhere just so they can play - that also means people
would go to different clubs with a "real" lineup.. show me one professional
artist who doesnt care if he gets paid ? and give me his adress so i can
book him

[kh4n]

If Aerotone, Ideology, Antiritmo, Aquietbump, 12rec, 8bitpeoples, Kahvi, Camomille and the other great netlabels around will go commercial tho, don't come to me and cry please.

Oh sorry, u wont... coz for u it's fine to pay for what you got for years for free... Because good things must be paied, just sht must rest free. Bah.

You speak about 8bit peoples, well i know them from my micromusic
days and they already sold cd's years ago. so you might want to get your
facts straight. You should be happy that labels give you music for free
and not complain if they also make money with some of their releases.
You have to understand and respect that not everyone see's this as a
simple hobby. Some are actually professional musicians and they also
have a passion for it. Doesnt mean if they are good enough to make
money with their music, that they are just capitalists and dont care about
their fans.

Eldino also mentioned Camomille, which has a sister label Apegenine that has been releasing cds since 2004.

[eldino]

What many of you don't get is that netaudio or free software or some other niche "scenes" are a matter of culture before being something else. anyway, you can obviously disagree with this

especially since if it starts as "hobby"
and gets any success the label will require more and more work. especially since if it starts as "hobby" and gets any success the label will require more and more work.

until you get pleasure by doing it, it's not "work", it's hobby. when it starts being a "work" for you, you have to chill down and get a real life. if your hobby takes 12hours/daily is not a hobby, obviously, at least if you have 24hours days and you need to work/study/stay with your girl/sleep

the artist list keeps growing and thus you have to take time to work with each
individual artists (do covers etc) AND you have to do the mastering. so many labels even pay for mastering of their free releases and that cant go on for ever if they dont compensate that with a few commercial releases. or get money elsewhere. ok fair enough some labels may host their sites on free webhosting services or archive org, but many pay for their own server and host the files there. so we have to pay for domain(s),server,traffic and mastering. also not every label is the same ..some do it as hobby and put out a release and dont worry about mastering or the cover art, but some actually put lots of effort behind it
and you can't expect that they pay just so you can listen to the music for free.

Don't fool me please. Domains costs start from 10€/year, hosting is cheap tho. There are a lot more expensive hobbies out there (car kits, airplanes kits, stamps, comics..) that opening a website. If you want to start you netlabel you have some totally free alternatives as well: platforms like wordpress or blogspot for the website + archive.org or scene.org for hosting the releases, so you are not really obliged to pay if you think that you hobby is not worth of your money.

I agree, equalizing and mastering tracks is a pain in the ass, but if you are skilled, you don't need weeks to master a track. Same for covers: doing a cover it's a matter of hours, not a matter of days if you know how properly use the tools (Photoshop, Illustrator..) and if you have a bit of creativity and aesthetical taste. If you have not, you can contact some guys at Flickr or Deviant Art sites: they will be joyfull of providing their art to you for free.

Everybody of us who do and share things for free with a professional taste do things with lot of effort and passion, not just netlabel owners, but this doesn't mean that we have to be paied. There is no link between the effort you put in you hobby and the money. If you put your effort into your job, you deserve to be paied for it, but hobbies are not job by definition, at least inside this Universe. Following your sentences, it seems that every good thing done with effort must be paied.. come on dude

Check software world: a lot of good softwares are shared for free by their authors and they don't ask a cent for em. Check ebooks tho.

There are a lot of things done with effort out here that are free since ages.
This not means that their authors don't need money, but it means they believe into the free culture. CULTURE. Culture! Start go over the money society

You speak about 8bit peoples, well i know them from my micromusic
days and they already sold cd's years ago. so you might want to get your
facts straight. You should be happy that labels give you music for free
and not complain if they also make money with some of their releases.
You have to understand and respect that not everyone see's this as a
simple hobby. Some are actually professional musicians and they also
have a passion for it. Doesnt mean if they are good enough to make
money with their music, that they are just capitalists and dont care about
their fans.

I know. But you misunderstood me, I'm not 100% against paid models if they are respectful of the underground scene (I bought myself the 12rec.050 cd also if it was freely downloadable and I reviewed it on my blog). See Archipel: free users can get all the releases that money users can get, just a bit late. That model is fine to me. Thinner model isn't coz free users (= people who made Thinner what it is now) gets just occasional releases for free = the sh!t or the unsellable tracks.

While personally i hate the RIAA, copyrights are a necessary evil.

Nope, they aren't. Creative Commons is a more modern way to license stuff properly in the Web era. Many collecting societes are recognizing CC licenses and they are starting implementing em as options for the artist (ex. in Netherlands).

Mainstream is if you get play'd on MTV in my opinion.

Sorry, I disagree. Mainstream as concept (not as music genre) is what is done for earning money from it, not for the pleasure of doing it. It's a matter of culture, im so sorry if you can't still get it.

While your ideals of
all music beeing free may be kind of nobel, its unrealistic if you look at
our current society.

There is something called Open Source and something else called Linux around. Check them please, you will learn what normal people like us can do sharing our time for free

Do you get food for free ? Do clubs let you in for free
and give you free drinks all night ? They might do that once for
promotional reasons, but not all the time since they'd have to close after
the 1st night ... you think anyone could run a successfull club without
charging for the entry? no artist would play there, only newcomers who
would play everywhere just so they can play - that also means people
would go to different clubs with a "real" lineup.. show me one professional
artist who doesnt care if he gets paid ? and give me his adress so i can
book him

You are going offtopic here. Clubs are not netlabels. Clubs are jobs, with employed people inside that deserves to be paied, with drinks to pay etc. You can't comapre a website that costs 20euros/years with a club come on dude Try again

And btw, I don't know what you mean with "Professional Artist", but for me a professional artist is somebody who has a contract to do music and gets already a living from its music. There are few professional artists into netaudio scene (vladislav delay for example), the rest are newcomers.

[revy]

eldino - you've got some valid points here and there and you seem to care a lot about the concept of free music...

but...I still think you're missing the point of Thinner's decision.

Thinner has clearly evolved beyond a "hobby." Over the years it has blossomed into an amazing collective of talented artists releasing material on par and usually much better than most commercial electronic music. They really don't deserve to be "attacked" with slanderous cartoons and forum trolling for their decision to move onto something new. Especially when they still are going to release things for FREE! If there was a clear distinction between the quality of what they sell and what they put out on CC in the future maybe they would deserve to be criticized. but considering how prolific and influential they have been on the "netaudio culture" you seem to care so much about, I'm sure they will continue to release even more outstanding music as they have in the past.

If you really think this change will be such a loss for the netaudio world...I'd like to see you fill their shoes. You claim to be some kind of guru with all these "netaudio skills"...do you have what it takes to start up the next Thinner?

[eldino]

They really don't deserve to be "attacked" with slanderous cartoons and forum trolling for their decision to move onto something new.

Sebastian expected some criticisms about his decision, so I don't see anything bad about discussing about it, cartoons or not. Criticisms have been not enough in my opinion, but i liked very much some Vincent's words (Camomille owner) and that article by wennEsAnfaengt (you can read it here: http://www.lastfm.de/user/wennEsAnfaeng ... r_netlabel). A very mature and complete article, in my modest opinion.

If there was a clear distinction between the quality of what they sell and what they put out on CC in the future maybe they would deserve to be criticized. but considering how prolific and influential they have been on the "netaudio culture" you seem to care so much about, I'm sure they will continue to release even more outstanding music as they have in the past.

The point is that I care so much because they are what they are. It's like one day Linus Torvalds wakes up (after years spent believing in OpenSource culture) and says "Hey guys, open-source model as is it's dead, we are gonna do commercial software now because it's the only possible evolution". Come on. Thinner is not a minor netlabel, it's the guide, maybe the most important netlabel after Tokyo Dawn Records times. If Thinner says "actual netaudio is sh!t, Beatport is the future" can easily de-stabilize the whole scene. I don't personally care so much if minor netlabels go to Beatport, but I care if Thinner does.

If you really think this change will be such a loss for the netaudio world...I'd like to see you fill their shoes. You claim to be some kind of guru with all these "netaudio skills"...do you have what it takes to start up the next Thinner?

1. more respect to the netaudio fans (= free users can download all the releases as they ever did); no occasional releases thing (WTF? ARE U FOOLING ME?);
2. open the doors to newcomers: there are a lot of talented guys around, you can easily replace those artists who don't like the netaudio way-of-things and push em to a record label if they care so much about money.

or

1. stop using the term "netlabel". 10 commercial releases/yearly and 1 free IS NOT NETLABEL, it's an indie label with some occasional goodies to download for free.

or

1. Be coherent with your past and open a sister label for commercial releases (like Camomille and others did): so Thinner1 = netlabel (because it releases only free stuff as usual) and Thinner2 = label.

You don't need to be a guru or whatever else to be respectful of your fans.