It began a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, a growing number of CDs sound as if they were overmodulated during recording, which cannot be true. No. They sound good elsewhere. The stereo can't be blamed, can it? It's the consumer electronics mafia and their pseudo-CDs, I am sure, who lead my beloved extraordinarily reliable CD player at the brink of suicide.
Have you noticed the minimal amount of discs decorated with the Compact Disc sign nowadays? Despite this being an extraordinarily poor logo it's no good reason.
The Germans – formerly a people of lonesome late-night bidders for Mickey Mouse magazines – have developed into a nation of bootleggers. The nostalgic hymn on the good old days of self-recorded tapes fits in a time when everything is taken from the internet and so-called auctions provide cheating on a grand scale. Every day, I wait for someone to close the whole thing down. And the free data exchange, battled by consumer electronics businesses and music companies, is by far not the root of all evil. Nothing to be blamed for an artist's breakdown. Could an artist abandon a contract with a major label and still make a living? And live happily? There would be a realistic chance of not becoming an international mega star – which is something worth enjoying. Moderate minds might be thrilled by this idea. But enough of putting lipstick on the pig.
Illustration by Martin Rathscheck
The copy itself is not the problem. The selling-on is. On ebay, just pretending to sell genuine material seems enough to turn illegal copies into licensed gold. What's up? Skimming is getting popular. A bunch of fat spiders is occupying the web. Netting on a large scale. Given the case, one community from one end of the world is taking care in providing the bootleg of an unreleased live recording to fans for free – within few hours, copies of this previously free bootleg will be sold for skyrocketing prices in other parts of the world. Promoted with bold labels such as »genuine«, »rare« and »This is no CD-R«, those deceptive products find their way to expectant buyers. However, reading this on a bootleg cover - misleadingly giving the impression of a proper original - makes my day: »IMPORTANT NOTICE: TO ALL ASSHOLES TRYING TO MAKE MONEY OUT OF THIS ON EBAY: FUCK YOU«.
An absurd notion, but the fans themselves – not the music industries – have to stand up against counterfeit and other rubbish. It is increasingly hard to tell what on the market is approved or even produced by the artists. Each WOM store provides several strange-looking bootlegs that do not inspire much confidence in their production quality. »But there is a well-known brand label on it. Should be a proper CD. Poor quality? Well, each person is different, just a matter of taste, we can't do anything about it.«
Carelessly flooding the market with increasingly expensive new publications, that's a problem. As a fan, I don’t consider music downloads as long as I'm convinced of the added value of a hardcopy purchase. Easy formula: packaging, expertise, cover, lyrics, photos. I bought all Pet Shop Boys albums again two years ago, despite I had won these before in an MTV prize competition. (By the way: Sony, I've never received all of the promised discs, but ok for now). Why did I buy the reissues? With each album came a bonus compilation »Further Listening« including 12 inches, B-sides and unreleased material. Besides, they provided an illustrated booklet with pictures, complete lyrics and the artists' comments on every track's background story and idea. Each bundle came in a nice glossy box for less than the cost of a regular double CD box. That sounds like music in my ears. Luckily, to return to my initial thought in the first paragraph, these discs haven't started to produce rasping sounds within the first three tracks (otherwise this purchase would have been limited to one edition).
The consumer electronics industry should start pushing the right buttons instead of railing against the mean consumers, being potential criminals. At one point, the customers might think of spending less interest and money in being scapegoats. Maybe, they have lost their fortunes to sellers of unlicensed products. Or they are simply reluctant, because they suspect a strategy behind the constant changes of storage media, pushed by the entertainment industry. First, we design a car CD player, afterwards, we protect CDs through elaborate rights management from being played in it. First, we invent the multimedia PC, then we design it to reject DVDs.
Last time I was at a cinema, I was completely surprised. Of what use is the gigantic advice before the movie, telling me on a several-square-meters-screen I should not do any recordings in the cinema, otherwise I would be mean and surely punished. »Oh. Well, I didn't know. Darling, would you please put away the camcorder?« Same idea, more useful: banning mobile phones from the auditorium.
I can't believe it.
A different problem is the availability. As a record label, you cannot keep all the old stuff on the market. And you cannot provide every snippet of your material, publish every bloody live gig. Still, this does not affect your responsibility to do something against the distribution of copies! You can enable your artist to publish their additional stuff on the internet. You can add to the additional value. This is a chance only few seize yet.
Today's common publishing strategy rather is to release three maxi singles in two parts plus two DVD singles per album – to literally squeeze the relatively new format into the households. Although I do not support the overstuffing of sound recording media, I question my role as the fool in this play written by gold-diggers. There is plenty of space on a CD for clearly more than three radio-appropriate songs. DVD maxi singles make things worse as they provide a video plus two more songs together with the most amazing TV screensaver. I reckon, this is for the purpose of wide distribution of Hi-Fi equipment integrating video and audio. I assume further that this will annoy fans pretty soon.
I won't keep up longer myself.
Eventually get rid of the stupid country codes on all devices. And do not use DVDs for traditional CD content, just because there is DVD technology! My CD player produces miserable sounds, whenever I accidentally try to feed him with a DVD. Good grief.
And don't you dare bothering me with more »hidden tracks«! DVD's kindergarten phase of life is over, I cannot stand more DVD covers actually promoting »amazing hidden tracks« as a fabulous feature. I am asking to lock the responsible people in an unlighted dungeon. The door key would be to find on a DVD of their choice – a »hidden key«. Have fun!
