Corm
New Member
Please repost this.
There's some messages going around to the tune of "downloading mp3s is killing the punk scene." The one we just received is below. After responding to it that not only were we not interested, but that we were actually against charging money for music downloads, I checked out the www.cahdownloads.com site and discovered that our album the top selling record there - for $8. We didn't give permission for this. Where's the money going?
I've nothing against Nick or CAH Records (or at least I didn't before this), it's a good label and he seems like a friendly, genuine guy. I presume one of the labels who released our album gave CAH Records permission to sell our music online, which we're entirely against. We'll get to the bottom of it and make sure the situation is remedied. I should probably find out what the story is and clear all that up before posting this...but I'm pissed off and astounded at this situation, so I'm not going to wait.
It brings up an interesting issue: that of music downloads. We're completely in favour of them. The fact that some of the biggest DIY punk labels around are against free music downloads has influenced our decision not to work with those labels before. The labels we do work with continue to sell out of their pressings of our records, whether on CD, vinyl or cassette, so although sales might be down on what they used to be, and postage more expensive, it's complete bullshit that downloads are killing the scene.
Music downloads are killing the scene for people who commodify and commercialise punk and make a living out if it. If that's what they want to do, that's their business (literally) and I won't villainise them for it. But when they claim that they're "trying to educate people that stealing mp3s is killing the entire scene right now" and describe selling mp3s on the internet as " total D.I.Y." (it would more accurate to describe it as "total bullshit" or "a load of bollocks"), whilst making a profit from selling our music without permission, then naturally we're going to react.
Our LP and our demo are available for free at http://nucleardeathterror.blogspot.com/ and after the first pressing is sold out of our new 7" EP that'll be up there too. File sharing and free music downloads are one of the greatest threats to property and copyright that have ever occurred. To describe it as stealing is ridiculous. The true theft is when people build on other influences to write original music, and then define that as their own "intellectual property" which they then attempt to protect with copyright. Fuck that shit. People will keep sharing music for free, and we'll support them in this.
Here's the message sent to us:
Hey what’s up? This is Nick from Crimes Against Humanity Records writing. First of all I ask that you read this whole email.
Since we all know music sales have drastically declined in the past few years mostly due to illegal downloading I have decided to start a new website to sell mp3s by independent and underground bands. Would your band be interested in selling your releases at www. cahdownloads. com?
Why you should be interested.
1. cahdownloads. com is the first independent and underground extreme music downloads site with no corporate ties.
2. It’s a fact. Cd sales are declining and vinyl is getting to the point now, and even more so in the future where it’s going to be unaffordable to most people as well.
3. mp3s are already extremely popular. My new album “End of All” has been downloaded thousands of times because people don’t want to buy from itunes and no longer buy cds or vinyl. We’re trying to educate people that stealing mp3s is killing the entire scene right now and with this site people will now have the option to support the scene and bands by buying songs through us for a cheap price.
4. it’s a great way to keep all of your music available to your fans even if your music is out of print.
How it works.
It’s simple. Once we get permission from you (and your label if they own the rights to your stuff) all we need are the files of your music. In some cases I may already have a good portion of your music here in stock so I could start right away.
Also you get to choose how much songs and albums are sold for. If you want to sell your songs for 10 cents or 99 cents each that’s up to you.
how you get paid. We pay through paypal. com. www. cahdownloads. com keeps 33% of the total and your band (or band + label if your label owns the rights to the recording) get the rest.
Some bands and labels do not take mp3s seriously but trust me. Mp3s are huge and will remain so for quite a long period of time. If your releases are up on the internet for free (and we all know they are), why not try to sell your albums digitally and get compensated for your hard work on a non corporate independent website. In other words still total D.I.Y.
Please consider this and let me know asap and I’ll get your more details if you are interested.
Labels participating so far: Crimes Against Humanity, Havoc, Profane Existence, To Live A Lie, Rodent Popsicle, Fistolo, Inimical, Give Praise, Barbarian, Burrito, and several others. So far we have over 2,800 songs posted and sales are already coming in.
We have also printed up 25,000 print advertisements to promote the site.
Thanks for your time. NICK CARROLL
A little more information
I’ll do all the work in getting each release it on my site as it’s pretty time consuming. All I need from you is the songs 192 kbps or cd quality and I’ll convert them. I’d also need the song names and cd cover digitally and the length of each song.. For your Cd releases if you want you can send me the actual Cd and I’ll do everything from there. Some of them I already might carry and could start on them as soon as you give me permission. I’d also need are your 7”s and Lps digitally. This should be easy since most masters are on CDR nowadays. You could just burn the cdr for me.
It’ll work great for labels and bands because once the files are up on my site there’s no work involved for you.
Also we’d like to print and sell your band design shirt at www. cahrecords. com if you are interested let me know and I’ll give you details on how royalties work.
There's some messages going around to the tune of "downloading mp3s is killing the punk scene." The one we just received is below. After responding to it that not only were we not interested, but that we were actually against charging money for music downloads, I checked out the www.cahdownloads.com site and discovered that our album the top selling record there - for $8. We didn't give permission for this. Where's the money going?
I've nothing against Nick or CAH Records (or at least I didn't before this), it's a good label and he seems like a friendly, genuine guy. I presume one of the labels who released our album gave CAH Records permission to sell our music online, which we're entirely against. We'll get to the bottom of it and make sure the situation is remedied. I should probably find out what the story is and clear all that up before posting this...but I'm pissed off and astounded at this situation, so I'm not going to wait.
It brings up an interesting issue: that of music downloads. We're completely in favour of them. The fact that some of the biggest DIY punk labels around are against free music downloads has influenced our decision not to work with those labels before. The labels we do work with continue to sell out of their pressings of our records, whether on CD, vinyl or cassette, so although sales might be down on what they used to be, and postage more expensive, it's complete bullshit that downloads are killing the scene.
Music downloads are killing the scene for people who commodify and commercialise punk and make a living out if it. If that's what they want to do, that's their business (literally) and I won't villainise them for it. But when they claim that they're "trying to educate people that stealing mp3s is killing the entire scene right now" and describe selling mp3s on the internet as " total D.I.Y." (it would more accurate to describe it as "total bullshit" or "a load of bollocks"), whilst making a profit from selling our music without permission, then naturally we're going to react.
Our LP and our demo are available for free at http://nucleardeathterror.blogspot.com/ and after the first pressing is sold out of our new 7" EP that'll be up there too. File sharing and free music downloads are one of the greatest threats to property and copyright that have ever occurred. To describe it as stealing is ridiculous. The true theft is when people build on other influences to write original music, and then define that as their own "intellectual property" which they then attempt to protect with copyright. Fuck that shit. People will keep sharing music for free, and we'll support them in this.
Here's the message sent to us:
Hey what’s up? This is Nick from Crimes Against Humanity Records writing. First of all I ask that you read this whole email.
Since we all know music sales have drastically declined in the past few years mostly due to illegal downloading I have decided to start a new website to sell mp3s by independent and underground bands. Would your band be interested in selling your releases at www. cahdownloads. com?
Why you should be interested.
1. cahdownloads. com is the first independent and underground extreme music downloads site with no corporate ties.
2. It’s a fact. Cd sales are declining and vinyl is getting to the point now, and even more so in the future where it’s going to be unaffordable to most people as well.
3. mp3s are already extremely popular. My new album “End of All” has been downloaded thousands of times because people don’t want to buy from itunes and no longer buy cds or vinyl. We’re trying to educate people that stealing mp3s is killing the entire scene right now and with this site people will now have the option to support the scene and bands by buying songs through us for a cheap price.
4. it’s a great way to keep all of your music available to your fans even if your music is out of print.
How it works.
It’s simple. Once we get permission from you (and your label if they own the rights to your stuff) all we need are the files of your music. In some cases I may already have a good portion of your music here in stock so I could start right away.
Also you get to choose how much songs and albums are sold for. If you want to sell your songs for 10 cents or 99 cents each that’s up to you.
how you get paid. We pay through paypal. com. www. cahdownloads. com keeps 33% of the total and your band (or band + label if your label owns the rights to the recording) get the rest.
Some bands and labels do not take mp3s seriously but trust me. Mp3s are huge and will remain so for quite a long period of time. If your releases are up on the internet for free (and we all know they are), why not try to sell your albums digitally and get compensated for your hard work on a non corporate independent website. In other words still total D.I.Y.
Please consider this and let me know asap and I’ll get your more details if you are interested.
Labels participating so far: Crimes Against Humanity, Havoc, Profane Existence, To Live A Lie, Rodent Popsicle, Fistolo, Inimical, Give Praise, Barbarian, Burrito, and several others. So far we have over 2,800 songs posted and sales are already coming in.
We have also printed up 25,000 print advertisements to promote the site.
Thanks for your time. NICK CARROLL
A little more information
I’ll do all the work in getting each release it on my site as it’s pretty time consuming. All I need from you is the songs 192 kbps or cd quality and I’ll convert them. I’d also need the song names and cd cover digitally and the length of each song.. For your Cd releases if you want you can send me the actual Cd and I’ll do everything from there. Some of them I already might carry and could start on them as soon as you give me permission. I’d also need are your 7”s and Lps digitally. This should be easy since most masters are on CDR nowadays. You could just burn the cdr for me.
It’ll work great for labels and bands because once the files are up on my site there’s no work involved for you.
Also we’d like to print and sell your band design shirt at www. cahrecords. com if you are interested let me know and I’ll give you details on how royalties work.
