Insomnia ([info]insomnia) wrote,
@ 2006-05-03 23:41:00
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A low-quality (presumably analog) version of The Red Hot Chili Peppers new album, 'Stadium Arcadium', has been leaked on to the internet. Presumably, the copy is not a straight mp3 rip, because that would expose the identity of the copier, due to digital fingerprint protection that record labels are now using on advance copies. Michael "Flea" Balzary has posted a long rant about it on the band's site.
(WARNING: MySpace-quality grammar/punctuation ahead!)


"when i woke up this morning
i was was confronted with the news that our record has been leaked to
the internet
it does not come out til may 9 but now it has leaked
and not that i know alot about this kind of thing
but i guess now it is possible to down load it for free if you want
well
that's not very nice
if you down load it now off one of these file sharing sites
you will be getting a pale imitation of the record . . .
and that will break my heart . . .
and it is sad to me for the business reasons of course . . .
for people to just steal a poor sound quality version of it for free
because some asshole stole it and put it on the internet
is sad to me"

Okay everyone... on the count of three!
One...
Two...
Three!

"Awwww!"


Poor Flea! It's like listening to Lars Ulrich from Metallica rant about how much his fans suck for listening to mp3s, only with a nasal whine.

And awww... poor little inferior sound quality mp3! A mean, nasty little asshole made an analog copy of your pristine brilliance! (Note to RHCP fans: next time you share their music with your friends, please be sure rip it to uncompressed digital first! Oh... and please copy the sleeve and all the liner notes too. After all, you don't want to break Flea's heart again, right?!)

And, lastly, we can't forget the real victim here -- i.e. the one who will press charges and initiate lawsuits -- poor little Warner/Reprise Records, America's largest record label, and a subsidiary of the megalithic AOL/Time Warner media empire. Sure, it was the label's fault that the album got leaked early, but we all feel sorry for them, right?!

I have a lot of respect for musicians, but not a lot for those who are either disingenuous about -- or simply ignorant of -- the nature of the modern world. Maybe if the band doesn't want their albums to leak out before they hit the stores, they should reconsider the merits of having a major record label like Warner send out advanced copies to thousands of radio stations, journalists, and music biz people worldwide? I mean, the Red Hot Chili Peppers *DO* know that they are basically paying Warner a ton of money to give away copies of their album, right?

Poor Warner. I mean, look at all those people with BitTorrent, snapping up the new album for free! Why, it's almost as despicable as the dark old days, when people actually taped inferior copies of promo records, and then shared them with whoever they wanted to! Hell, they never got in trouble for it either, unless they tried to sell them.

Of course today, in this enlightened era, we believe that people who distribute copies of an album before it is released -- which everyone downloading this album who is sharing any bandwidth at all is doing -- deserve up to 11 years in prison.

That, incidentally, is over three times the length of the sentence given to Lynndie England, and about 1.5 - 3 times the length of the sentences being handed out to these Tennessee cops, who beat, tortured, and gave electric shocks to a man and for over two hours (while a tape recorder was running --doh!) Really, it's not fair... especially if you know where the guy was getting electrocuted.

Whether you agree with the person(s) who leaked the album or not, you've got to feel pretty frustrated with any musician who basically helps the record labels justify laws and support actions that increasingly turn music fans into criminals, in some cases facing serious time in "pound-me-in-the-ass" prisons. 


"Hey kid... KID! Listen to me when I talk to you! What are you in here for?"

"I got an early release of a new album and I thought it would be cool to share it with some friends. One of them put it on the internet."

(Peels of laughter from nearby cells!)

"Hey, be cool! Don't you tease him! This one is *MY* bitch now!!"


As Hunter Thompson used to say about such things, "ho ho!" ...and who wouldn't feel a little bit stupid if they found themselves traded to a greasy con for a pack of cigarettes, because they shared a few tunes?

You know, I think the Chili Peppers are talented musicians, but that said, they no longer need or merit my support. Hell... I don't care if their new album is available on the web for free. I'm just not interested.


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[info]smashingstars
2006-05-04 08:24 am UTC (link)
It shouldn't surprise me that Flea has a lame MySpace account. Sheesh.

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[info]insomnia
2006-05-04 08:34 am UTC (link)
"It shouldn't surprise me that Flea has a lame MySpace account."

I don't think he does. The link is to the RHCP website.

My point is that his writing style/quality is *COMPLETELY* like something you'd see on MySpace. No capitalization, no punctuation. No style. I've seen eight-year-olds who are better writers.

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[info]smashingstars
2006-05-04 08:44 am UTC (link)
It was because of the writing that I assumed he had a MySpace. Heh. I have seen some supposedly intelligent people completely lose at life when it comes to writing online. That includes one of my English professors back in the day. I don't know if it's some Internet Stupidity Ray or if good writing just is so underemphasized that many people can't write coherently.

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[info]al_iguana
2006-05-04 08:46 am UTC (link)
there is also a high quality version on BT.

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[info]insomnia
2006-05-04 09:12 am UTC (link)
High quality? That should make Flea happy. I wonder if his heart is feeling any better yet?

Really, if you must risk jail for 11 years, at least do it for high quality digital!

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[info]al_iguana
2006-05-04 09:39 am UTC (link)
well, I don't know why he's so surprised. they're one of the biggest bands on the planet, of course its going to get ripped.

they should take a stance like The Dresden Dolls (quote): "i know you've downloaded it, and i am proud of you. now go buy it."

i made a post about the whole "jail for rippers" last week. It amazes me.

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[info]adudeabides
2006-05-04 01:30 pm UTC (link)
Actually, I assumed that was their stance. I've been at concerts where they told people they were about to play a new song and encouraged bootleggers to distribute it. Most recently while I was in Vegas.

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[info]pope_guilty
2006-05-04 10:57 pm UTC (link)
You know, once again, I adore the Dresden Dolls.

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[info]ratkrycek
2006-05-04 09:28 am UTC (link)
Well, the recording companies have othing to fear from me on that score; I haven't been able to figure out how to use my BitTorrent client. And usually I'm good at this stuff, too.

*cries*

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[info]insomnia
2006-05-04 09:59 am UTC (link)
If you have a PC, I would advise getting BitComet. It's the easiest to use, I think. Azereus is great for the Mac, and http://www.isohunt.com is a good search engine for torrents. Just click on a torrent download link and open the file rather than saving it to your computer. It should automatically launch any installed BitTorrent client.

Most of what I use BitTorrent for is for foriegn TV broadcasts, which are less likely to be considered illegal. (British television, odd Asian things, fansubbed anime, documentaries, etc.)

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[info]a517dogg
2006-05-04 03:30 pm UTC (link)
Azereus is good for PCs too, except that annoying little pop-up window that tells you when you lost a connection. It drives me crazy.

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[info]galateadia
2006-05-04 07:26 pm UTC (link)
i second the Azereus is great for PCs too thing.
and i don't get pop-ups at all on it. (maybe that has something to do with my cable modem connection? i dunno.)

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[info]nova_starr
2006-05-05 12:49 am UTC (link)
azureus is ridiculously processor-intensive. bitcomet is by far a superior client.

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[info]a517dogg
2006-05-05 02:16 am UTC (link)
I'll check it out. Hopefully it has no goddamn popups.

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[info]nova_starr
2006-05-05 03:06 am UTC (link)
no popups. awesomely configurable... uses more RAM than azureus does, but really, i've never seen it take up more than 70mb.

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[info]pope_guilty
2006-05-04 10:57 pm UTC (link)
I would also point you all to uTorrent, which is teeny yet feature-rich.

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[info]ratkrycek
2006-05-05 01:03 am UTC (link)
Thanks!

What are some good foreign TV broadcasts to check out? They sound interesting!

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[info]adudeabides
2006-05-05 03:49 am UTC (link)
I can never get BitTorrent to work on my Mac. lol

Old-fashined straight-downloads are quite fast enough for me and less trouble. I may have to dig on the 'Net to find the leaked version (on a non-Torrent site heh).

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[info]insomnia
2006-05-04 09:38 am UTC (link)
I have to wonder whether the whole statement from Flea is an orchestrated act of disingenuousness.

For instance, assume that the album got released early on the net and a reporter found out and asked the label for a statement. Alternately, the label discovered it -- they track illegal downloads, of course -- and they suspected that reporters and fans would find out, so they took the initiative and used the leak story -- not an uncommon incident at all, lately -- to float a story to reporters, promoting an example of how mp3's hurt the artists.

They may have asked Flea if he'd be willing to write something about it, ideally mentioning that the quality was inferior to a master CD -- even if it was a fairly high-quality rip -- so as to discourage downloading, not only of this album, but in general. (i.e. Only the labels are able to give you pristine rips.) The label people then contacted the journalist and got the article spun a bit more in their favor, making sure the reporter mentioned how steep the penalties were for doing such things.

Damage control + free publicity, with a well-managed press, who never seems to report on the other side of the story.

That said, this could backfire badly for the band. I think there are a lot of RHCP fans who will be very put off by his statement, and view it as a betrayal, in much the same way that many old Metallica fans are now ex-fans.

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[info]al_iguana
2006-05-04 09:44 am UTC (link)
yeah, probably. there's high quality rips on BT, so a press-release saying "its low quality crap" and Flea boo-hooing is intended to put people off downloading it.

Of course people will buy the cd. By the bucketload. But yeah, demonising half their fans isn't going to do them any favours.

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[info]solri
2006-05-04 10:29 am UTC (link)
Nice point about the first wave of music piracy panic. Back in the 1980s the record companies (and a few gullible musicians) were wailing and gnashing their teeth about people copying LPs onto cassettes. There was even talk of a levy on blank cassettes, with the proceeds being distributed among the top-selling artists (and presumably their managers and record labels). If it had become law, this would have meant that as a local band with no record label, we would be paying Michael Jackson whenever we sold our cassettes at our gigs.

And to all those artists who moan that illegal copying is going to bankrupt them, I say "GET A JOB, HIPPY!" ;-)

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[info]insomnia
2006-05-04 11:31 am UTC (link)
There is a charge on blank tapes here in the US.

From this article:
When the recording industry finally became aware of a threat to record sales because of the cassette revolution, the record labels successfully lobbied for a tax on blank tapes to appease their fears of being left out of the income stream for blank tapes. (By the way, to this day recording artists get no share of that income.)

The strange thing is, I know people over at the EFF who *wish* there were a tax on CD-R's and DVD-R's, so long as it meant that people's right to copy data (and the innovator's right to create new products) aren't stifled.

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[info]ratkrycek
2006-05-05 01:01 am UTC (link)
I believe there's a tax of sorts on CD-R's labeled Music CD-Rs, and I'm pretty sure CD-Rs are still taxed in Canada.

Check out the <a href="http://cd-rfaq.org</a>CD-R FAQ</a>; I think I have the URL correct. If not, a quick search on Google will do it.

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[info]flying_blind
2006-05-05 04:50 am UTC (link)
Record companies attempted for many years to have blank recording media and consumer recording devices taxed for the companies' benefit, but did not succeed until 1992, after the first digital tape recorders were introduced. Story here.

The record companies managed to get a much higher tax passed in Canada, but not until several years later. I'm not sure that one went into effect, though. I haven't been able to find anything more recent about it on the Internet.

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[info]obvious
2006-05-04 01:24 pm UTC (link)
I mean, the Red Hot Chili Peppers *DO* know that they are basically paying Warner a ton of money to give away copies of their album, right?

They are also paying for xmas parties, managerial lunches, t-shirts, jackets, VIP concert tickets, assorted memorabilla, etc. I used to work within management at a major chain record store. The record compaines used to hook us up with anything we asked for.

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Yeah, it's not fair.
[info]nosty
2006-05-05 02:44 am UTC (link)
Of course today, in this enlightened era, we believe that people who distribute copies of an album before it is released -- which everyone downloading this album who is sharing any bandwidth at all is doing -- deserve up to 11 years in prison.

That, incidentally, is over three times the length of the sentence given to Lynndie England, and about 1.5 - 3 times the length of the sentences being handed out to these Tennessee cops, who beat, tortured, and gave electric shocks to a man and for over two hours (while a tape recorder was running --doh!) Really, it's not fair... especially if you know where the guy was getting electrocuted.


Don't forget 11 years is more time than Anthony Kiedis served for sexual battery in 1989. It's amazing what money can buy.

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[info]stanleylieber
2006-05-05 03:07 am UTC (link)
interestingly I didn't know the album was on the Internet at all until seeing Flea's rant.

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