open letter regarding file sharing from monolake

sorgenkind · Post by **sorgenkind** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 2:21 pm

copy/paste from ableton forum:

An open letter to music journalists regarding file sharing

Berlin, October 13, 2006

Our new release "Layering Buddha" has been put on soulseek already,
encoded by two different users (protox2 aka Maurizio and tipsch), more than three weeks prior to release date.
Less than one hundred music journalists got a copy of the finished product at this time. We are a very small label. We do promotion with nice and expensive finished products. We send out promo copies to everyone who asks for it.
We are embarrassed, frustrated and annoyed by the fact that two of you worked so massively against us. We at imbalance do not think DRM is the way to go and we believe in our customers as being honest and supportive. But:

This case changes the way we will do promotion in the future.

We will either give away CDRs with tagged versions for each individual journalist and we will only do so if we have a guaranteed review, or we will send out CDRs with excerpts. In the case of the tagged CDs we will be able to trace it back if the music appears online and we guarantee we will take every possible legal action against this person. This is sad for those of you who did a great job of supporting us for the last ten years, but we do not want this experience again.

Robert Henke
monolake / imbalance computer music

plaster · Post by **plaster** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 2:36 pm

so far never saw any legal actions about anyone. mainstream artists are known for doing that. still...what could be really done to prevent illegal distribution of music? new format?

sorgenkind · Post by **sorgenkind** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 2:48 pm

plaster wrote:so far never saw any legal actions about anyone. mainstream artists are known for doing that. still...what could be really done to prevent illegal distribution of music? new format?

I think illegal music distribution, like drugs/alcohol abuse it's impossible to stop. It's up to us to decide wheter be part of the game or not, wheter support this kind of things or not.
I'm pretty pissed off of the people who are connected 24/7 to soulseek or similar p2p services and then they moan that no one buy their music (I know a few producers acting like this)

winston · Post by **winston** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 7:07 pm

back in the day they exchanged mixtapes, now they exchanges mp3
if you like the music, you'll buy it.

as for soulseek, i dwl to listen to it, if it's good i'll buy it on beatport or whatever, my vinyl days are over, if i don't like i delete it and i ain't gonna buy it
45 second sample don't do it for me
i know artist who don't care that there music is on soulseek, they see it as a sort of marketing

just my 2 cents

plaster · Post by **plaster** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 8:15 pm

winston wrote:back in the day they exchanged mixtapes, now they exchanges mp3
if you like the music, you'll buy it.

as for soulseek, i dwl to listen to it, if it's good i'll buy it on beatport or whatever, my vinyl days are over, if i don't like i delete it and i ain't gonna buy it
45 second sample don't do it for me
i know artist who don't care that there music is on soulseek, they see it as a sort of marketing

just my 2 cents

i do actually the same after burning a few times. i know it doesn't justify the action, but the 45 second sample slip is really not enuff for me to buy a track aswell. i think only foundsound has a full track length in low bitrate on their promotion.

stringfello · Post by **stringfello** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 12:56 am

I have to chime in...

The downloading thing is going to be a topic for a while. The point is right about the mixtape. Now they are mp3 and they are on a larger scale of sharing so it does affect artists. You know that all of us on this forum will probably be stolen from at one point. And who really cares it is art and art was ment to be shared.

To say that you won't buy vinyl anymore is bold statement. And one that has been going around for the last few years and you know what vinyl is still hear. It is actually my goal to release on MP3 format and I really want to release for vinyl. It is still the reason why people buy analog gear. I still have not been able to find a download of any Perlon tracks. And you know what, I repect that. It seems that people have bought their records and left them out of the file sharing.

I could be wrong. I guess my point is DON'T PEOPLE WANT TO SUPPORT OTHER ARTISTS ANYMORE. WHEN IT IS YOUR TURN THAT SUPPORT MAY NOT BE THERE.

plaster · Post by **plaster** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 2:57 am

stringfello wrote: And you know what, I repect that. It seems that people have bought their records and left them out of the file sharing.

i thought about saying this or not, but ur wrong about that.

stringfello · Post by **stringfello** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 3:38 am

Really..... I have looked... and I feel bad about that. I am actually looking at finding their vinyl copies but I don't have money right now.

One thing. Don't get me wrong. I know that everything is moving digital. I am a digital kid.