SUMERIAN RECORDS’ ASH AVILDSEN: “ARRRGH, DON’T BE A PIRATE!”

Fuck this. That was basically just an ad for the new Born Of Osiris album.

good call on this being a BoO ad. its obvious.

I’m an old fuck so I dont give a shit about Summerian records. Once the kids who are fans of their bands rearch a certain age they’ll probably stop supporting those bands and move on to something else.

This is just a dude crying cause his way of life is on the way out. He doesn’t provide any services that are necessary to the survival of art or music. He caters to wants and lets lazy kids like me live out their rockstar dreams. Seriously the fucking anti piracy argument is retarding artistic progress. I really hope I’m alive to see the day the music and movie industries fucking crumble and art is returned to real honest people. I’m not a criminal for downloading music. I’m under the impression it’s being made for others to listen to not simply a means to a end to put money in your pocket. If that’s why you make music then be honest and fucking say it. You’re not an artist you’re a salesman.

To be honest I got plenty of fucking CD’s, DVD’s, T-shirts, Posters (A higher place hanging behind me from when I pre-orderd that) and I’ve been to lots of shows (Including BoO) to support bands when I was a teenager and in high school with disposable income. Now I need to keep the roof over my own head and food on my table weed in my bowls. Spending $40 to $100 every couple weeks to appease my musical appetite isn’t really realistic. If that makes a criminal then come and get me.

Ash does make valid points – for the most part. As someone that lost his job to downloading (I spent 20 years in the music business, with 15 at UMG) I’ve seen this from both the consumer and label points of view. Illegal downloading will never go away. Free will always win over guilt. Every time a DRM gets put in place, some 15 year-old will beat it in a matter of hours. Same goes for file sharing.

The major labels are squarely to blame for the situation. Continually force feeding cookie-cutter bands with limited talent and one good song to the public led to the current state. With the only option being to pay $18 for a CD, people will always look for an alternative. Rather than embrace Napster and its bastard offspring, the majors sued rather than learn to harness that power. Additionally, the majors weren’t above doing the same thing themselves. In January, the majors had to pay Canadian artists $45 million for including unlicensed songs on compilations. This dated back to the early 1980s. Reeks of piracy, doesn’t it? Add to this that the majors keep employing the same people that created this fiasco, and things won’t change anytime soon. Sony just hired Doug Morris to take over after a decade plus at Universal. It wasn’t until 2005 or so that he even knew what an mp3 was. Sony expects him to lead them into the future?

Unfortunately, what the majors created, the indie label sector has to live with. They have to be creative and find other sources of revenue. Merchandising is one such area. Far too often, however, bands don’t get it right. A couple of weeks ago I went to see Deicide. They had two shirts – and one was from the Legion tour. The only sizes they had were XL and small, and even those were gone before Neuraxis was even done. Blackguard however, who was third on the bill, had about 10 shirts in every size. While not my cup of tea, I give them props for getting it right. A cool design for $15 will almost always get me to buy. $20 for garbage that looks like a 3 year-old designed it will not.

Technology has provided inexpensive and professional recorded equipment that gives bands better opportunities. Additionally, kids get better instruction because of the internet. Look at http://www.playthisriff.com. Lessons on how to play cool songs for $10 a month helps kids learn to play almost anything. More talented musicians will rise to the top, which will create new and exciting music.

Interactivity is the key, and those that find new and exciting ways to connect to their audience will prosper. Those that stick with the old guard will slowly fade away.

He talks like he fronted the money for every band to record their album. Periphery had their shit done before Sumerian got to them and Michael Keene has his own studio and does all their production work.

That said, it’s a no brainer; if you download music without, that’s less money that eventually winds up in the hands of the bands. But then again, free music = more ears hearing the music, which leads to ticket and merch sales. It’s a catch 22.

The bottom line though, is that nothing’s going to change and labels and bands have no choice but adjust accordingly.

I wont sit here and discredit what Sumerian Records does for its bands. So lets be honest here………. Their bands suck.

And here is a list of people who actually care and buy their albums……………

One of the most important assumptions that the anti-piracy argument makes is that a download = a lost sale. This is simply not true. And like Lewis pointed out above, there is actually evidence that piracy can INCREASE sales. Here’s author Neil Gaiman talking about how piracy has affected his own book sales:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI

I came close to getting a record deal a few years ago, and the label essentially wanted our demo to be the near-final recording, which we had recorded ourselves on a desktop. There was no talk of studios, producers or promotion. I’ve had other friends that have signed with labels, and they have all been shitty deals. And you know what else? A lot of those functions he was talking about in the video are often the responsibility of either the band themselves, or their manager (if they have one). I’m glad to see that most of you are not buying this BS.

Great post- finally not a your band sucks, no your band sucks comment stream.

The issue for me is: where do the artists stand? I don’t care 2 shits about the labels, distributors etc. I pay for everything I down load because I want the artist to get paid. Whether they actually see a sufficient cut of that price, I’m not so sure and that’s a whole other issue.. I don’t buy CDs anymore b/c frankly I no longer have the space (my 5 yr old takes up that space now)..

I’m all about piracy. When napster came out, I found someone posted a few of our 7″s and I was pissed. They were all still in print, why not order from us? Then I thought about it. I’ve played in bands for 19 years and never made more than 600 bucks on a tour. I didn’t pick up a bass to make money. I am stoked anyone would spend any time uploading my shit. I feel honored by someone pirating me. “I can honestly say I don’t give a fuck about your money, because it means so much to you” – embrace

This is a stupid topic. If you want to buy it, go ahead, if you don’t, fine by me. I mean, I don’t ask money for scripts/coding stuff I did, and I’m still a student with little to no cash on daily basis.

If this “piracy” is killing the so called industry, how come it still fucking exists? Don’t you think mp3 would’ve killed the physical copies after those 17 years? Don’t you think there wouldn’t be any new rich artists that come out of nowhere? So really, this entire video is just a cry for money. If I was the artist, I wouldn’t give a fuck how you get my music. The fact that people would listen to it and are actually excited to hear it, is more than a kind gesture. Imho.

CDs cost .09 cents to make, the distro marks the price between say $10 and $18. The band isn’t gonna make a dime off that until you move over a million units if you’re lucky. Labels big and small fuck over bands everyday in this respect. Most bands pay for all their recording and touring anyway. It’s a misconception that the label pays for anything. They may pay upfront, but you owe them.

Listening to an album in its’ entirety before buying it is not what the video is about. I don’t consider listening to an album music piracy – whether it’s downloaded, streamed, or at a listening party. If you listen to a record before buying it to make sure you like it, more power to you. The point of the video is to let people know the negative impacts on both the bands and the scene when people choose to pirate albums “because the bands never benefit from their album sales.” After researching in to the online music pirate world, I found so many kids saying they steal everything because bands don’t need to sell records anymore and labels are obsolete. That simply isn’t true and if it was, all your favorite touring bands would be unsigned.

My favorite part was when he said that the only bands who don’t see money from record sales are the ones who don’t recoup the costs that the label pays. The problem with that statement is that most bands don’t do that, and that was true before piracy became widespread. I can’t speak for Sumerian’s 50/50 deals or whatever, but they’re most certainly not the norm in the industry.

If I may use a turn of phrase I heard from Arthur Von Nagel, an album is basically a promotional tool to sell t-shirts. Yes, the music is something that an artist puts literally his entire self into, and that the fans connect with on a deeply personal level, but on a business level, it is essentially a marketing expense.

I won’t pretend that I buy every album I like that I’ve downloaded, but I’ve certainly spent more on music recently than I would have without it; even if I don’t buy that awesome album I downloaded, there’s a very good chance I purchase the band’s next album when it comes out, especially if it comes with a shirt. The artist is only better off when I pay for music if I pay for the music AND the other stuff of theirs that I’ve bought.

Basically, piracy opens too many doors in the industry for labels and artists to want it squashed.

doo doo