I've been reading all this shit (and that's exactly what it is) that
many of you have been hurling at Bil and I just had to voice my support
for his actions. Both his website and response letter to Warp should
have been applauded instead of scrutinized. I live in Houston, which
has an extreme shortage of warp/rephlex related material for a city of
its size so a website like his is a godsend to me and my friends. I was
just about to use my T1 line at work to grab some of the tracks from his
page since it takes forever over a 28.8 connection. Unfortunately that's
not happening anymore.
I agree 100% with Bil that if I saw any of that material in a 200
mile radius of where I live, I would gladly put down the cash for it. I
believe wholeheartedly in supporting the musicians which bring so much
enjoyment to my life. So to the guy that chewed him out the most by
saying he sounded like a real software "pirate," I say fuck that. You
totally missed the boat with the point :
"not everyone...is a rabid record collector, and i'm sure many of those
900 were glad to get hold of some
music for free. place a bit of vinyl in front of them some time in the
future and ask them to pay out money for something they already have a
95% accurate copy of."
What you've failed to consider is that for many people there is no one to
"place a bit of vinyl in front of them" period. If there were, then
there would be no need for such an mp3 site. I know a handful of idm
fans who live in Waco, Texas and they have it even worse off then I do.
They're lucky to find a copy of "Come to Daddy" at their local Best Buy.
Mp3 sites may be the only way they can obtain this kind of music.
If what Greg from Warp said is true about Autechre truly being
offended by Bil's actions then I'm sorry to say it, but I've lost some of
the utmost respect I had for them. If they saw the tracks he had put
online, then I can't imagine why they would have a problem with it. Even
if they did have a problem, the way they handled it was bullshit. What
if they would have said something more like :
" Bil, Autechre was extremely flattered that you would go to the trouble
of offering mp3's of their harder to find material, but since Warp is
planning on releasing those tracks in wide distribution soon, we would
like you to remove the files from your website."
I think that would have been a cool way they could have gone about it.
This will never happen of course because a cd like that is just wishful
thinking (unless they take the Orb's lead) coupled with the point that
Warp does not even own the majority of the tracks that were put up to
make such a cd.
here's another gem...
" i don't think anyone can deny that making freely available copies of
music with the quality of mp3 will take away a certain amount of revenue
from the record company that owns the recordings."
Ok, let's say I'm a cheap bastard and I want to go onto the Aphex MP3
archieve and download every single song onto my hard drive. What good
does that do anyone for long-term enjoyment!? I don't know a single
person who primarily listens to music off of their hard drive, number 1
because of space limitations, 2, sound quality degradation, 3, insane
download times, 4, and most importantly, zero portability (even if you
have a laptop, battery power only lasts for so long). So even if you
have songs on your hard drive, I don't think that can come close to
competeing with vinyl or a cd. The advantages of playing music in your
car and on a home stereo system outweigh the allure of having the music
for free.
This brings me to the issue of burning Mp3's onto cd. I've only
done this once using my school's equipment, and it's well worth the work
for material which you know is extremely hard to find elsewhere. I made
an Aphex Twin live cd consisting of 74 minutes of the best live tracks
available on the grand Aphex MP3 archive. This project took close to 2
days worth of work to put together. First I had to download all the mp3s
and then convert them to wav format (the easy part). It got harder when
I began deleting the silence and excessive clapping before and after
songs. Also, since I had taken tracks from 4 different concerts, I had
to equalize each track's volume levels. Even on a Pentium 233 with 64
megs of RAM, this process is extremely painstaking. Finally after I got
each track the way I wanted, I was able to burn the cd. The cd turned
out terrific and to anyone who wants to put in the work to make such a
cd, I say more power to you.
The main thing many people forget is the reason we are all here on
this list to begin with. It's not about money or who has the biggest
collection or who was "down" from Artificial Intelligence 1 and so forth.
It's the feeling you get after listening to Squarepusher's "Beep Street,"
that's why we are here. ( my personal example of course)
Warp is taking the 1st step to settling this whole debate for future
recordings by joining forces with Trent Reznor's Nothing Records which
has great distribution. But even that may not be enough. Where are the
U.S. Plaid, Autechre, and Squarepusher albums?? Why wait so long to put
out records which are approaching the one year old mark? If the answer
is money then I think these companies need to reevaluate their tactics
and reasons for being in business. Bring the music to the masses I say.
we are reasonable people (or so they claim)
Ario.
_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at
http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]