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U2 Threatens to Release Album Early on iTunes
Uninvited Guest writes "After a rough cut of U2's latest unfinished album was stolen earlier this week, the band has vowed to release the entire album on iTunes if the music appears on P2P networks. Bono told the London Daily Telegraph, 'If it is on the Internet this week, we will release it immediately as a legal download on iTunes, and get hard copies into the shops by the end of the month.' Is this the exact opposite of the Smashing Pumpkins' last album, which the band rushed to release on P2P networks, before it could hit the stores?"
I think the idea is that once it's out, it's out - in its present, incomplete form. Which must be really sad for the band.
On the other hand, bands like the Beatles used to *thrive* on bootlegs - session tapes would get stolen and circulated, and peoeple would STILL pay to see how the final copy came out.
You'd figure that it's all in the title of the Pumpkin's last album. The truth is that, though Billy Corgan loved the idea of free music, the band was only allowed to release it on-line after Virgin decided that they wouldn't make any money on it.
As it is, though the album has some great music on it, it is rough... very rough. Given the sales of Machina, which didn't exactly reach the figures that they wanted, F&E was released for free as high quality mp3's.
So, is U2 the friend, or the enemy of modern music? Is "modern" music that which is envisioned by the likes of Corgan, where expression is free in it's entirety, or is it that which rakes in the cash? I'd say that it's the former, since that's where the real expression comes out. U2's last album was somewhat of a whore for sales... it sounded nice and poppy, none of it was objectionable or edgy... and it sold a lot of copies. U2 is showing their true colors, now, by fleecing us with their name. Their music isn't special anymore, it doesn't have the content anymore, it's just meaningless pandering to the "modern music" crowds.
I'll stick with my Pumpkins for now.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Sometimes things really are that simple.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Doubtful. They like to pain over every single second of that album until it is done...
Before Lateralus was released Tool, on their website, made a list of fake(well, they didn't say at the time they were fake) tracknames and some random music to go with them, just to see how far it would profiliferate on the P2P networks. Shame to, since RiverChrist sounded like such a cool trackname.
I would rather artists wait till they think their work is finished, they should have control over what they do and do not release....but maybe that is just me.
Why would U2 take the actual CD of their incomplete album to a photo shoot? And since it was a rough cut, it almost certainly was a CD-R, so you would think that any old blank CD disc would photograph just as well. U2 has been out of the spotlight for several years, and somewhat forgotten. Then all of a sudden, their CD is "stolen" and they are back in the news. And to top it off, they "threaten" to release their album early to foil those dastardly P2P pirates.
1. Downloading from iTunes isn't exactly fast. And if it is, you're just getting lower quality music. I don't subscribe to iTunes (and neither does the majority of the world), so I'm pretty sure the amount of effort to create an iTunes account with address and payment information, and then download a decent-quality version of the full U2 album will be non-zero. I'd rather
find (easily) the bittorrent for the album and click. No personal information given. No payment information. Easy.
2. Consider that it was a good quality recording that was stolen, so there will likely be at least one non-lossy rip floating around (FLAC, etc.) and at least some good 320kbps rips also. Can I get non-lossy quality from iTunes? Or at least 320kbps-equivalent?
I just can't see the advantage of iTunes. And don't lay legal crap on me. I live in Canada, and P2P has been put to the legal test here, so all I need to do click, download, and play. Yummm...
This story doesn't pass the smell test. Nobody brings a live CD to a photo shoot, where this CD was supposedly stolen. The usual industry practice is to shoot a photo of the packaging, which is provided without the actual CD, which may not even be complete at the time of the photo shoot.
I used to work in product packaging, and many many times I produced package comps (full quality mockups) for CDs, DVDs and VHS tapes that would not be finished for many weeks or months. The advertising production usually precedes the finished product. Anyone who would take the final unreleased product to a photo shoot, where there are a whole lot of bozos floating around just waiting to steal anything that's not nailed down, well, they're just asking for trouble. That's the whole reason to send faked comps instead of live product to shoots.
Pink Floyd had Dark Side of the Moon bootlegs in stores....
"Pink Floyd played a concert version of Dark Side at London's Rainbow Theatre in February 1972. To their dismay, a bootleg recording of the concert sold 100,000 copies about a year before the official release." Article
And look what it became...
"In the USA, DSotM is the 18th best-selling album of all time and has spent a total of over 740 weeks on the Billboard magazine music charts with the longest continuous period lasting 591 consecutive weeks. It reached the #1 chart position in the US, Belgium and France; even in 2002, thirty years after the album's release, over 400,000 copies were sold in the United States, making the record the 200th bestselling album that year. "Time", "Money" and "Us and Them" have become radio call-in favourites (with "Money" having also been a bestselling single in the USA)." Wikipedia
If it is good enough people will still buy it. So if this record is phenomenal U2 should just finish it.
IP of all sorts will get copied in spite of all the DRM and other crippling technology people can devise. It's not just music, if we can't prevent kids from downloading in rich countries, how can we expect to prevent motivated adults in countries without a history of IP protection from duplicating. In China, they clone cars , that's surely not frictionless. Someday, IP of all sorts will be marketed like other perishables with a finite shelf life. Copyright and trademark laws will need to adapt to this reality.
Musicians and Authors will be like Engineers and Programmers and Farmers, if they want to live off their IP, they will need to keep producing more of it. Which was kinda the whole point of IP laws in the first place
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
I don't know if anyone attempted to use Kazaa lately. But 98% of anything I download off Kazaa has been decrypted with an annoying buzz noise. You can't even get songs off Kazaa P2P anymore.
And sharezilla sucks, everyone I know who installed it has gotten blue screens of death. Is there a linux P2P alternative? There, U2 shouldn't worry.
They've done it before. You've heard their album Pop, haven't you?
I personally don't consider a band experimenting and dabbling in different musical styles (which is pretty much what U2 has done with every one of their albums) to be pissing on their fans. In fact, I think if anything I would say it's more pandering to release album after album that sounds exactly the same, though that would include some of my favorite bands. Maybe I'm defensive, but I think Pop is a great album. I've always been a big U2 fan, and I'm willing to follow them musically in whatever direction they decide to go, as long as I enjoy the music that comes out of it. So far, I pretty much always have.
I also don't think it's pissing on your fans to want to have some control over the distribution of your own music, especially when the issue in question is the timing of the album's release, most especially if it's not finished. I think the slashdot backlash to the anti-p2p movement is going way overboard here. I would be very disappointed to hear about U2 trying to drag people into court for downloading their music, and I think the response they are threatening to a situation that they do not want is about as adult and mature a response as one can have. They are admitting that they cannot control what file sharers do, which is something a lot of the music industry has yet to come to grips with, but they are putting their money where their mouth is by saying that the actions of file-sharers will ultimately cause the end product to suffer. I don't think any true U2 fan would like to see that happen, and hopefully whoever stole the unfinished album will feel the same way.
I will admit that this mentality has cut into some record sales, as I have bought far fewer albums that are complete--listen to it once and throw it away--crap. On the other hand, when an album comes out that's actually good I always buy it, after all, I want to support the artists (which is really what the whole thing is about in the first place), so they can continue to make more.
What we really need is a better way to preview music that is not:
- Illegal
- Lame -- Like only giving you the first 15 seconds at 20kbps of a song
- Firmly in the grasp of large record companies that concerned only with their top-40 performers. It's a shame that most internet radio has been a huge letdown in this regard.
- Impractical -- If you charge $100 a month, or have horrible DRM, or only work on windows with special software the screws everything else up, etc....
- Obscure -- There needs to be a way to find stuff. There are some great radio stations out there that nobody knows about (and aren't available in your area).
You know what the worst part is? Most P2P applications only fail on #1, while most legal stuff fails on at least half of these bullets.I read the internet for the articles.