Is Downloading OOP Music Wrong?

Something I stumbled onto a while ago was the Avant Garde Project, now hosted here:

http://avantgardeproject.conus.info/mirror

Some guy took a bunch of long OOP classical LPs, described as "20th-century classical, experimental, and electroacoustic music [...] whose music has in most cases never been released on CD" - and did needledrops and hosted the files. The idea being, very few people bought these LPs in the first place, the appeal to a small segment of the population, they never made money anyway, so why not make them more available to folks? Over the years I have seen music voluntarily pulled from the site when it did end up seeing the light of CD reissue - a Harry Partch LP comes to mind, and I think maybe one of John Cage's too. You may find their copyright policy interesting. Shades of grey, shades of grey.

 

I doubt the law would go after anyone for having a copy with a mastering difference as long as they owned a physical CD of the same title.

 

Absolutely. If I bought them the money would go to a private individual, not the artists or labels.



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A big label could do something like this, charge a reasonable per-download fee, and profit from vault material that's gathering dust. Without the shades of grey! Instead of innovation, it's DRM and lawsuits.

 

Typically you're actually giving the download free with whatever else you're putting the code on. The code costs around 25c, you pay. No per-download profit unless you set up your own collection scheme for it. (and you pay up-front for those codes, not just when they're used)

You're right, the costs aren't similar. You make less.

There are other distributions that are more artist-friendly. Tunecore comes to mind.

 

I say it depends on the band or artist. If it's someone big like the Rolling Stones, then I think it's perfectly fine.

 

They're already doing reissues for popular music. How many versions of In The Court Of The Crimson King exist? All these reissues. People buying the same music over and over again. It's almost as bad as the bottled water phenomenon. I swear, if someone would have told me that you could put water in a plastic bottle, charge $1.25 per bottle and people would gladly pay, eschewing the comparitively free water flowing from the tap, I would have called you insane.

Truth is, labels make a lot more money doing reissues on old standards than they would ever make doing with long OOP stuff. It's long OOP for a reason. The cost of remastering this old stuff would likely be more than what people would pay for, regardless if it was priced low or high, and putting it online wouldn't save much either. Fact is, no matter how you slice it, not many people will ever groove to the funky tunes of Harrison Birtwistle.

 

I tend not to want to buy music if the artist is dead. It just seems unfair that I'm giving money to someone who is profiting off the artist's works that they had nothing to do with, other than bloodline or a contract.

 

Assuming the music is still copyrighted, it's illegal -- but in my opinion, not immoral. "Wrong" is too broad a word to assign to this, because there are too many shades of gray.

 

illegal. You all can rationalize it anyway you like, but still illegal. Maybe you'd feel different if you ever owned a copyright or were an artist (I'm not and don't but I imagine it would make at least some people feel different).

 

For me, this is my one gray area. I don't like illegal downloads. Besides the sound quality being horrible, it's stealing music that you should pay for. That being said, however, there are a lot of OOP records and CDs that I'm willing to pay the record company to get a legit, brand new physical copy of but for whatever reason, they no longer have it in print in the stores or available on any online platform.

So if I do a search and find that someone uploaded a 320 version online or a needledrop from their copy they bought in Germany 20 years ago and this is the only way I'll ever get to have something that for years I would pay money for, I'll look the other way as I hit click. I've gone as far as to emailing people on the label to reissue a title or at the very least put it online as a paid download. But when nothing happens and I've waited years/decades to get it, what am I going to do? Is the record company saying that I don't have the right to own or listen to something that for various reasons, is not around to buy a legit version of?

And you can forget me going onto eBay or other auction sites to get something. The record label doesn't get to see any of the money and the original seller is over inflating the price of the disc anyway.

 

It's a freight train that will never stop. The music business in all their arrogance and lack of customer service did themselves in and continue to do so.

The only thing they have going for them right now is the very small sales of vinyl to the younger kids getting into it. Myself included, except age.

Unless your selling 500K plus albums a year (which back in the day was nothing) and you're with a major, you're probably in debt to the major label. If you're distributing it on your own, ala, Trent Reznor, then you're making some serious money.

I haven't downloaded illegally in a long time. Since Napster. But even then, I would download albums I already had only because I had no way to get them on my PC. Now I'm in reverse and spend about $100 a week on new music.

Most albums come with a free-download code nowadays. I almost always give those to friends. Is it unethical? Music is the promotional tool to get you to see them live. That's where the real money is at

 

Illegal and wrong.

 

How come this never came up with recording off the radio a song? I used to make mix-tapes based on certain radio shows.

 

that would be a good thing if the artists themselves benefited from the improved prices; but not if some guy sells The Cars Gold DCC for $600 on ebay

you pay once to set up a small server and gradually increase capacity when it becomes more profitable. setting up an e-commerce system is fairly cheap nowadays

no one is disputing the legal aspect in this thread.

 

if a recording is out of print how does the download equal a lost sale ?

 

The big sellers subsidize all the obscure acts a label has that don't bring in much in the way of profit.

 

That is illegal too. There's a specific exception in the USA to allow recording of TV shows to watch later (but not keep), but it does not apply to radio.

 

Where in the poll does it mention legality?

 

Completely different thing.

 

Won't somebody please think of the collectors??

I'm still grumbling over the fact that I paid well over $200 for the privilege of acquiring the DCC Aqualung (and being mildly disappointed at "that's all there is?" as it was just not recorded well in the first place) but you can bet I would have happily downloaded it had I been able to find it. After all I already purchased it twice, once on vinyl, once on CD.

 

I'm going to automatically assume that anyone who looks down on people who download OOP discs are currently or have in the past or are thinking of in the future trying to hock OOP titles online for a substantial profit.

In other words, they don't have the artists' or labels' interests at heart...merely their own pocketbooks.

 

Easily obtainable online for free.

 

Copyright laws are to protect the copyright holder from lost revenue.

If the copyright holder isn't losing revenue, then what's the problem?

No harm, no foul

 

It wasn't three years ago.