I’ve just found out that Oink, a website offering torrents of music releases in high quality formats, has just been shut down. As is the norm in today’s media free for all there is a grossly uninformed piece about it on the BBC website, and there is a well written and brilliant piece on the death of this music lovers’ haven on DJ Rupture’s website. The piece highlights the inconsistencies and dilemnas surrounding the whole music piracy debate that has been raging since people who make a lot of money from music realised they’d missed the boat to make more money 8 years ago.
Which made me think about the stuff I wrote earlier on this month regarding internet TV and free TV/movie content available online. Turns out in the guy who ran tv-links was also nabbed recently and the site shut down (though why still puzzles me considering that site was merely a recipient for links to copyrighted material held on other sites – the coporate machine obviously has intricate workings). UPDATE – found this amusing but also on point comment piece on the guardian site about tv-links being shut down.
I’ve never used Oink personally, though I remember hearing the name and reading up on it now it seems to have been a much better version of all the piss poor p2p sites which abound today. I don’t advocate music piracy, I also don’t entirely condemn it. I’m of the firm opinion that there needs to be a system wide shift and a change in the whole process of acquisition and distribution of goods such as music. I’ve bought and continue to buy music regularly, but I’ve also in recent years started to discover more and more music without having bought it. And no not through piracy (for the most part).
I’m in a lucky position I guess being a music journalist and I play the game a different way. In the last few years I’ve worked my self into a position where I’m sent music for reviewing and promotional purposes. A nice situation to be in – the music is free, and my payment for it consists in supporting it via the outlets I work with, should I choose to. After all shit music is shit music, free or not. One thing I have never done is distribute said free music sent to me by labels or artists onto the internet. I’ve passed copies onto friends who are also in the same position as me and have in turn promoted the music in magazines, papers or radio shows. And I’ve in turn received music that way. It’s a nice system and I like it, though it has its limitations. Which is where music piracy can come in. If I want to hear music I’d like to check out but cannot get hold of via my press position I may well have a google and see if I can find something (can’t be bothered with p2p, and googling rapidshare or megaupload turns up things a hell of a lot more quickly).
Most of the time I’ll find myself in the position of downloading something to check it, and realising that I don’t like it and promptly bin the files. In a chain of actions that is probably repeated thousands of times over across the internet by people whose primary understanding of music consumption today is limited to 1s and 0s without any knowledge of the wonders buying a physical copy of a record, tape or CD can provide. Once in a while I’ll find something I actually like, and go and buy a digital or hard copy online or in a shop (this has happened a grand total of maybe 3 times this year – and I’ve googled for stuff maybe 10 times or so).
Music piracy and its implications for artists, labels and consumers is a lot more complicated than any debate in this day and age can really touch on. Some people, like Rupture mentioned earlier, have hit the nail on the head in their writings and commenting of the issue – strangely enough most of these people are generally artists or people with a direct interest in being or not being pirated. I’ve talked about it at length with friends who are in the music biz, whether artists or label owners, generally at the independent level (small or medium sized) and it’s only furthered my opinion that it’s an absolute nightmare situation that can’t really be resolved in the current state of things. It hurts the small people, but it also benefits them. It doesn’t really hurt the giants and it also benefits them. It’s opened a lot of new possibilities for market models unfortunately most of them up to date seem to have been cocked up pretty badly at the beginning and so have in turn suffered and not achieved what can be seen as their full potential. And the other harsh reality is – digital sales and legalising the increasingly expanding digital piracy world is not going to solve the problems, especially the money ones. As years go by there is less and less money to be made from music sales it seems, for a large majority of participants that is. Money can be made with live shows and appearances, but not with sales. Or at least not to the level that was once possible.
Anyways all these asides to go back to the point I made a few weeks ago regarding the possibilities of the Bittorrent format for legal purposes. Possibilities which are highlighted by sites like Oink and the now legal Bittorrent original site. And going back to the remarks I made about online TV, it really just seems to me that for someone to not see the potential to offer programs legally on torrent sites with worldwide audiences who can download and upload them fast, is just incredible. Whatever the legal and actual issues might be, the facts remain that the infrastructure is there, the audience is there but the legal content isn’t, or comes at a price that doesn’t warrant the effort, when the same content is available for free and with less clicks of a mouse.
Things are changing that’s for sure. The rate at which crack downs are increasing seems to indicate that to say the least. It seems that pursuing single individuals who have partaken in acts of online piracy is still seen as some sort of justice by the major players, once more ignoring the increasingly obvious truth that what is needed is a change of business model not turning faceless ‘pirates’ into victims, or as was recently the case with mediadefender and thepiratebay.org, trying to bring down the providers of the illegal content without looking at the real issues at hand.
My musical tastes have expanded loads thanks to the internet. There are some soundtracks, breaks/ dubstep stuff and obscure japanese bands i have gotten into that i would never have known of otherwise.
I hear something i like, so i search for more stuff like it. Most of the stuff i find, i dont like, but a few, i do – something you could never do if you brought in on a whim in a CD shop. Its always great listening to samples on sites like juno.co.uk and seeing whats what.
Plus, mix setsare an excellent way of finding out more artists that fit your style. Ive downloaded some mix sets this year that have been far better than most compilation CDs i have brought – especially the dubstep stuff as its not exactly mainstream music in HMV!
I much prefer digital downloads as the vast majority of my listened music comes in a digital form. The few CDs that i have brought recently havent even been played – they just get burnt straight on to my player. I’d buy mainstream music digitally, but for some reason, a digital album download on HMV.com costs about £4 more than its physical equivalent, with packaging and everything! No wonder music piracy is rife when mainstream music downoads are poorly priced for people who dont use itunes!
I love sites like additech, digital-tunes and juno though – very efficient.