I remember when the second Botch 7” sold out, Phyte Records-owner Mike Mowery sent us a statement showing the net profit of the pressing. It was around $30. All parties involved were fine with that. A few years later when Botch released We Are The Romans, I remember a friend of mine who owned a record store mentioning that the wholesale price on the album was so low he was stunned that Hydra Head Records could turn a profit on it. I bring these examples up to reinforce the distinction between the recording world we lived in and the recording industry most people in Western culture are familiar with. It’s not to say that we were against making money; it’s just to say that we preferred to create a microcosm in which the band, the label, and the folks buying our records were all getting treated fairly. It was a system that valued art over business.
. First of all, if you’re listening to albums with only one or two good songs, you’re listening to the wrong albums. Quit listening to the shit you hear on the radio or saw on TV. Secondly, it’s true; most artists don’t see royalties. But I would again argue that most artists worth listening to are probably smart enough to negotiate a deal where they get a fair cut of the profits. I know my bands always did. If we weren’t seeing royalties, it was because the label wasn’t making a profit either. So you’re not “sticking it to the man” when you rip an indie artist’s album from your friend’s computer
I do agree that piracy helps promote artists. We live in an age where it’s so much easier to learn about and access new music. We Are The Romans sold more copies than any Russian Circles album. Yet Russian Circles draw far more people when we tour than Botch ever did. I credit that to the internet. Do the increase in ticket sales offset lost royalties? They certainly do. But again, this isn’t about money as much as it is about entitlement and maintaining a sustainable underground infrastructure.
It's an interesting perspective he's got, but I dig on it. There's a lot of bands I wouldn't have found without piracy, but once I did, I support them wholeheartedly. Case in point, Zozobra. Just saw them last week, bought a shirt, CD, got some friends into them as well. Wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been able to track their albums down on torrent sites, since they're tough to find otherwise.
I completely agree with Brian on basically everything he said.
All of my mp3s are either songs that I ripped off of CDs I own, songs that made me go out and buy the album afterwards, or 1 or 2 singles off of albums full of shit that I refuse to pay for. I pirate music all the time to try it out. If I like it, I buy it. If I don't, I delete it. If I find that I only like one or two songs and the rest is crap, I keep the singles and delete the rest. (and yes, I feel perfectly entitled to keep the singles for free, because fuck you if you can't make more than 2 good songs on an album).
