Very cool, if true

There is no option for "the artists I am willing to pay money for have not put out an album in the past six months."

My thing is that for an established artist that I know I like and want to support I'll buy the CD. If it's just someone that people are talking about (Lady Ga Ga)I'll pirate the album to see if I like it and/or be able to have an intelligent conversation about it.

If it ends up being really good I'll buy that album or their next one.

So, yeah the next time Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Danzig, John Lydon, Metallica, Axl Rose, Velvet Revolver put out an album I'll be down on Virgin Records.

Justin Bieber, not so much.

From:

Just wondering why you wouldn't use Spotify for that? It'd make a lot more sense, if it's something you're pretty sure you won't want a permanent copy of, to just stream it legally as many times as you want, rather than download it illegally...

From:

France has draconian copyright laws that block both that site and Pandora. (Though there was a six month window when we could use Pandora before French officials realized what it was.)

The good news is that their copyright laws don't extend to videos, so I can hear any song I want to on YouTube, but that's not helpful if I want to hear an entire album. (The law itself confuses me because it does block Hulu.)

From:

Are you sure about that? Spotify themselves certainly seem to think they operate in France... - http://www.spotify.com/fr/about/features/ . Is this maybe some insane policy of your ISP, rather than French law?

From:

Well, I've tried on several ISPs (because I don't want to always work from home) and they all deliver the "This Content Is Not Available In Your Country" message.

It could be that the various ISPs are terrified of getting fined (since they did get fined over Pandora.)

The French government has made it very clear in many, many news articles that they consider streaming music to be against the law.

The various organizations that regulate music licensing in France tend to behave like rabid dogs.

One of my friends owns a bar and pays the 1,000 euros a year to have the right to play downloads and CDs in his bar. He mostly does so by linking his iPod to the bar's sound system - and he still gets those guys in a couple times a year to inspect his iPod and make sure that all the music on it was legally purchased.

From:

That's terribly odd, because Spotify is legal - they license the music properly.

From:

They might not license it properly in France where it is considerably harder to do so than in the rest of the world.

France doesn't considering it legally licensed for use in France simply because it's been legally licensed in the United States. You have to go through their endless bureaucracy (which is why when a new bar opens in France you often won't hear any music inside it for the first six months or so that it's open.)

From:

No, seriously, they're part-owned by a bunch of music labels, and their big selling point is that they're entirely legitimate. They've licensed music in the areas that they exist in, which is why they're only available in about 6 countries (the USA isn't one of them, as they're still sorting the licensing issues there).

From:

Then Free and Orange may just not want to deal with it.

It's France, I'm used to things not making sense.

From:

skington.livejournal.com

I'm with Orange in France here (Périgueux), and I get French-language ads on Spotify. So must be your particular ISP.

Although it complains that I'm not in the location I've specified in my profile (I'm in Scotland most of the time), so that might be it.

From:

And I can't find any reference to Spotify being blocked in France. Very odd.

From:

I don't know what to say. My entire experience with Spoofify has been people on Facebook telling me I should try it, me going to the site and it telling me to fuck off.

From:

I'm baffled :->

Oh well, should you ever visit Edinburgh I'll show off the marvels that are denied you :->

From:

No, they definitely *do* license it properly in France, but *don't* license it for the US. They've got licensing agreements in Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and the UK.
I've tried googling and found no evidence at all that Spotify is illegal in France, and plenty of sites talking about them operating there perfectly legally...

From:

Then the Montpellier ISPs are fucked up.

I wonder if some asshat in the Langedoc prefecture for some reason doesn't understand them and just told them to block it down here.

From:

Entirely possible. And absolutely disgusting... Maybe you should complain to your ISP? I certainly would, if mine were blocking legit sites (or indeed non-legit ones for that matter...)

From:

There is no point in complaining to any company in France ever.

From:

That's... absolutely bizarre...
Pandora's slightly different because they've only ever legally operated in the US, so I can see why that would happen, but as far as Spotify goes I can't see any reason why it would be a problem. If they're going to criminalise the easiest and simplest way to *stop* people filesharing, then I can't even begin to imagine what their thought process is...

From:

Nobody understands the thought process of French bureaucrats.

I think part of it is that you not only have to get permission from the French government, but before the government will sign off on it you also have to get permission from the four or five unions that represent international artists in France.

From:

It might help you understand if you knew that the licensing issue here isn't to distribute the money to the artists themselves, but to distribute the money in the form of pensions for buskers when they retire (and for any other French citizen who claims they made the bulk of their income during their working years playing music.)

From:

A thought which in principle I find quite nice. France seems to me, from my limited knowledge of its infrastructure, to be a heady combination of Good Ideas and Bad Execution.

From:

Pretty much.

From:

khbrown.livejournal.com

There is a new Danzig album out at the moment, Deth Red Saboath.

From:

Just to clarify my own answers, I have *also* downloaded music for free in the last 6 months. There hasn't been much of it, and what there has been has mostly been either music I already own on vinyl and can't be bothered ripping, or music that I couldn't obtain legally (bootlegs, iTunes only bonus tracks etc). But 90%+ of the music I've obtained has been legally purchased, and would continue to be so if it became legal to file-share (though that would depend on my own income - when I have little or no disposable income, as at the moment, the amount I obtain by file-sharing goes up proportionally, and if I was struggling to feed myself or my wife, as I have in the past, then I wouldn't bother paying for something I could get for free.)

It might be interesting as well in this context to see what percentage of people pays for streaming music - I pay for Spotify Premium, and occasionally also for a last.fm premium subscription.

From:

Oooh, that last part is a good one - I pay for Spotify Premium, because it makes listening to music on my phone a delight.

From:

despotliz.livejournal.com

I think I've bought one album in the last six months, but I have listened to a lot more new music because Spotify makes it so easy. I have a premium account too, primarily for my phone.

From:

Yeah -

drdoug recommended the new Chemical Brothers album yesterday. Thirty seconds later I was listening to track one, and this morning I have it on my phone to listen to during the day. In the olden days I wouldn't be able to do anything anywhere near that convenient.

From:

theweaselking.livejournal.com

Notably, in my location copying music for personal use *IS* legal.

Allowing other people to copy music from you, not legal. Copying it yourself? Legal.

From:

I meant to copy it _from other people_.

From:

theweaselking.livejournal.com

It *is* legal to copy it from other people here.

It is not legal for them to let you copy it, but that's *their* problem, not yours.

EDIT: To be perfectly clear, I'm not talking about format-shifting or backups. I'm talking about hitting up Soulseek or TPB and downloading an entire album at a time.

Edited Date: 2010-09-10 02:22 pm (UTC)

From:

In fairness, I have stolen way, way more music than I've bought in the past six months. How much or little I pay for music depends pretty much entirely on how much money I have, and lately I've had none. The amount of music I actually acquire doesn't really ever change - when I can't afford it, I stop paying for it. If have money my first stop is Amazon, if I don't I steal. Same applies to Films/TV on DVD. I may not be ethical - it may not even be moral in the opinion of some - but my habits give me no pause, and that's speaking as a musician.

From:

Seems perfectly moral to me, as another musician. It's not like anyone's losing out on anything, if you don't have the money to pay...

From:

cleodhna.livejournal.com

when I can't afford it, I stop paying for it.

I've done this with food.

From:

Which I think even fewer people would find fault with.

From:

seph-hazard.livejournal.com

Yeah, this is exactly how I operate too :-)

From:

momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com

I have not bought music in the last 6 months simply because nothing I've heard has sufficiently tickled me.

With streaming, it effectively IS free, apart from not being able to put it on my iPod. But I think I would still like to pay for an album I really liked.

From:

usmu.livejournal.com

I collect (mostly) 80s vinyl quite rigorously, so I'm buying quite a lot from second hand dealers. Though not always in mint condition, it's quite a fun way to buy a lot of music quite cheaply. Haven't really bought a lot of new material, but if I like a band enough I will buy their cds to support them. Last bought include Plastic Beach by the Gorillaz and Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons.

From:

i_kender

I like services like Pandora and Spotify but I must confess, don't think I've used them in the last 6 months. The radio is usually enough for me.

But I would never stop buying music, if only to support the artists I love.

Amanda Palmer and Jonathan Coulton (among others) have tried to address this by letting fans buy/download/stream from them directly, bypassing the music companies. I could see that working as a model going forward.

From:

pseudomonas.livejournal.com

I really only buy music on CDs at the moment.

From:

stevegreen.livejournal.com

About two months back, I listened to a preview of Laurie Anderson's new album on NPR, but didn't have the time to assess it properly, so downloaded it to audiocassette for further investigation. Not sure which ticky box that would fit.

From:

amberite.livejournal.com

I have bought music and have also downloaded it. Granted, I haven't bought much music in the last six months, but when I have money, one of the things I spend it on is buying the albums I've DL'ed illegally for free. Just like I spend some of it on buying books I've checked out from the library and enjoyed enough to keep around.

From:

Hm, thinking on it I should've said b rather than a for the second question as I guess Last FM is more like Pandora than an ordinary radio station.

Maybe one day I'll let go of the idea of owning the music I want to listen to repeatedly, I dunno. I think I just haven't managed to let go of that yet (even if I've to a large extent begun to let go of the need to own a physical rather than digital copy of the things I love. I think it's partly about being able to browse people's houses for their tastes and have them browse mine).

As it stands, I use Last FM to hear new music, and then if I like it I download it.

From:

In my case I guess it was more that my switch to MP3s happened when I realised I hadn't even opened my box of CDs in over a year, and my switch to Spotify happened when I realised that I only listened to my MP3 collection when I was listening to music in the living room or kitchen (where I had music things set up that didn't support Spotify).

From:

See, I sometimes listen to some sorts of music where you really ought to listen to a whole album. And when you do that, it's nice to be able to put on a CD and just play it from beginning to end. That's generally when I pull CDs out, and it's the sort of CDs I now tend to buy - indeed, when I do download that sort of album I'm likely to burn it to audio CD for that purpose.

From:

All of my Spotify playlists, apart from maybe two, are albums (albeit a few of them have tracks I don't like removed from them). Listening to albums beginning to end is how I listen to music most of the time.

From:

octopoid-horror.livejournal.com

I pay for Spotify (not the on-phone thing just the no-ads service), and also buy a lot of CDs and some MP3s. If you were to include CD/mp3 purchases, gig tickets and Spotify, I've probably spent close to £500 on music this year. And that's down on previous years, just to my tastes changing a bit.

Edited Date: 2010-09-11 10:06 am (UTC)

From:

ashfae.livejournal.com

In the interests of full disclosure, there have been times in the past when I have both bought music legally and downloaded it for free during the same time-period. Which seems contradictory I imagine. But some things I'd like to buy just aren't available, in which case I'd find them where I could...*shrug* Nothing of that sort lately though.

I would be using Pandora if I were still able to from the UK. *sob* If anyone knows a way around that please let me know! (or I could just get around to trying Spotify, I really don't know why I haven't yet)

From: