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Musicians, Y U DO DIS?
13 years ago
This is the third time I've encountered what I'm about to whine about, so I presume that it's secretly an epidemic.
If there's one thing that really bothers me, it's marketing a product in a way that punishes legitimate customers. Obviously, this usually refers to video games. I'm looking at you, Ubisoft, you boycotted sons of submariners. Recently, though, I've discovered that I'm having a harder and harder time getting legitimate copies of music, especially from foreign musicians. The first time was when I tried to get a copy of Gilgamesh by Gypsy & The Cat, an Australian band. I couldn't find their music for download anywhere, getting a physical CD seemed impossible, and even though they had their album on iTunes, it was region locked on there to only sell to AU and EU iTunes accounts, which just makes no sense to me at all. I finally pirated a copy and tried to just donate a reasonable amount to them as payment, but they didn't have a donate button either. Didn't end up liking their music as much as I'd been led to believe I would, don't really regret it. The second time was trying to get a copy of Little Grace by Yasushi Yoshida. I couldn't even find a website for this guy, though, and pirate sites were the first hit on Google for his music altogether...
The newest one is Lisa Ekdahl, who Evoc showed me a couple times on YouTube now, and I've liked every time. I decide to buy an album, look online and... surprise freaking surprise, no Bandcamp account. No MP3 downloads on her website. In spite of her website being in English, no English sites listed to purchase her music. Check iTunes; She only appears for single songs in a few various artist albums. I can actually get her albums in physical on Amazon this time, but they're super expensive for being 'imported.'
Uh-huh. I see how it is. Well, screw you very much too. :|
My point is, when companies that make potentially digital product start making their customers jump through hoops to be able to own the product, eventually they're going to decide to walk around the hoops, grab it, and run instead. And, when it comes to someone like me who asks nothing more than that you make your product available for me to possibly have in my possession, there is a certain point where those 'customers' aren't even going to feel even remotely bad about getting their something for nothing. It's like you hate money!
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat pizza and listen to some Caravan Palace, a couple of things that I happily paid my hard-earned cashmoney to obtain. Because it was possible for me to do so.
If there's one thing that really bothers me, it's marketing a product in a way that punishes legitimate customers. Obviously, this usually refers to video games. I'm looking at you, Ubisoft, you boycotted sons of submariners. Recently, though, I've discovered that I'm having a harder and harder time getting legitimate copies of music, especially from foreign musicians. The first time was when I tried to get a copy of Gilgamesh by Gypsy & The Cat, an Australian band. I couldn't find their music for download anywhere, getting a physical CD seemed impossible, and even though they had their album on iTunes, it was region locked on there to only sell to AU and EU iTunes accounts, which just makes no sense to me at all. I finally pirated a copy and tried to just donate a reasonable amount to them as payment, but they didn't have a donate button either. Didn't end up liking their music as much as I'd been led to believe I would, don't really regret it. The second time was trying to get a copy of Little Grace by Yasushi Yoshida. I couldn't even find a website for this guy, though, and pirate sites were the first hit on Google for his music altogether...
The newest one is Lisa Ekdahl, who Evoc showed me a couple times on YouTube now, and I've liked every time. I decide to buy an album, look online and... surprise freaking surprise, no Bandcamp account. No MP3 downloads on her website. In spite of her website being in English, no English sites listed to purchase her music. Check iTunes; She only appears for single songs in a few various artist albums. I can actually get her albums in physical on Amazon this time, but they're super expensive for being 'imported.'
Uh-huh. I see how it is. Well, screw you very much too. :|
My point is, when companies that make potentially digital product start making their customers jump through hoops to be able to own the product, eventually they're going to decide to walk around the hoops, grab it, and run instead. And, when it comes to someone like me who asks nothing more than that you make your product available for me to possibly have in my possession, there is a certain point where those 'customers' aren't even going to feel even remotely bad about getting their something for nothing. It's like you hate money!
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat pizza and listen to some Caravan Palace, a couple of things that I happily paid my hard-earned cashmoney to obtain. Because it was possible for me to do so.
Also a lot of musicians hate itunes in particular for all sorts of reasons, including the ones you've listed. I know there are multiple artists out there which outright encourage the piracy of their work, just because it allows it to spread more easily.
Also, I am sypmathetic to artists against iTunes. Some of those artists that encourage piracy of their own work over iTunes of their work are among my favourites. For this reason, I try to use iTunes as something of a second-to-last-resort, looking for a Bandcamp page or their official page first.
I appreciate you presenting the other side of the argument to my rant. :)
I think Gabe of Valve put things well when he said that Piracy is really just a service issue.