The Flashbulb Promotes Piracy
This was a news post on one of my favourite private trackers that will go unnamed here. Most regular rlslog readers will probably remember when Eric D. Wilkinson, the producer of an independent film called “Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth” contacted us about the piracy of their film and the fact that this piracy had helped put their relatively small film on the map. Well today I have similar news. Benn Jordan, who goes under the artist name The Flashbulb, has uploaded his latest album (Soundtrack To A Vacant Life) to a private tracker with the following message in an HTML file:
The Flashbulb wrote:
Hello listener…downloader…pirate…pseudo-criminal…
If you can read this, then you’ve more than likely downloaded this album from a peer to peer network or torrent.
You probably expect the rest of this message to tell you that you’re hurting musicians and breaking just about every copyright law in the book. Well, it won’t tell you that.
What I would like to tell you is that my record label understands that a large portion of people pirate music because it is easier than buying it. CDs scratch easily, most pay-per-download sites have poor quality and ****ty DRM protection, and vinyl is near impossible to find or ship without hassle.
In many cases I wonder why people buy CDs at all anymore. A few like the tangible artwork, some haven’t adapted to MP3s yet, but most do it because they have a profound love for music and want to support the artists making it. Kind of restores your faith in humanity for a moment eh?So, now what?
Like the album? About to go “support the artist” on iTunes?
Well, don’t.
Alphabasic is currently in a legal battle against Apple because NONE of our material (Sublight Records included) receives a dime of royalty from the vast amount of sales iTunes has generated using our material.Want to buy a CD just to show your support?
If you don’t particularly like CDs, don’t bother.
Retailers like Best Buy and Amazon spike the price so high that their cut is often 8 times higher than the artist’s. Besides, most CDs are made out of unrecyclable plastic and leave a nasty footprint in your environment.If you do particularly like CDs, buy them from the label (in our case, alphabasic.com). After manufacturing costs are recuperated, our artists usually receive over 90% of the actual money coming out of your wallet.
In addition, all of our physical products are made out of 100% recycled material.Want to show your support?
Go here and browse our library of lossless, DRM-free downloads.
Already have that?
Then feel free to donate whatever you want to your favorite artist. 100% will go directly to them.
Hell, you can even donate a penny just to thank the artist.If you really like ‘The Flashbulb - Soundtrack To A Vacant Life’ and want to show your support without it going to greedy retailers, distributors, and coked-up label reps, then click the button below.
[link to http://www.alphabasic.com/index2.htm ]
If you send us your mailing address, Alphabasic may occasionally send you various goodies (overstocks, stickers, even rare CDs) in appreciation and encouragement for your support.
Thanks for reading.
Who knows if my little business plan here will work to fund new releases, but even failure is better than the crappy label/distributor/retailer system musicians have suffered from for over 50 years.
We hope you enjoy the music as much as we do releasing it.
Finally, if you plan on sharing this release, please include this file. The only reason it is here is to show the listener where he can support his favorite artists!Benn Jordan
CEO - Alphabasic Records
Personally I love seeing this kind of attitude in people that create and distribute media. It shows that people still create for the love of creating and that the true joy lies in having people enjoy your art.
hm kinda clever, his album will sure get a lot of attention.
first? ^^
i like…. desk…
i like… flashbulb
That’s fantastic, if only more artists would start doing this…
Great reding!
Props to em but I went to the site and his music is rather annoying.
wonderful! sweet!thats the only way to look at piracy rocks!
that’s beautiful, really is.
maybe it’s a new era
wow retaliers make 8x more profit than the artis thats not very gud, i never buy from iTunes but i do buy from amozon if i cant find it on torrent, p2p (limewire) or my local library
Not bad. I even read the whole thing.
Pretty interesting. I’m looking forward to the next 5 years or so to see what major artists are going to do regarding record labels and such.
Oh Ben Jordan, how I love thee.
Interesting…
bloody great, well done.
“coked-up label reps” - lol.
If you know his favorite tracker check out the album, it’s freeleech.
too long i don’t read the info
BTW: and off topic
where is Dan in Real Life R5
suppose to be release yesterday
I imagine this type of music in computer games, which isn’t a bad thing, cuss most of the tunes are pretty good for that genre. I would suggest to the artist, to maybe get in touch with “Armor games”, a site that hosts flash games and develops them. Ask them if they would like to use your music for any upcoming titles. Cuss they get a hell of alot of people on their site.
He’s giving it away. It’s not piracy. How’s he promoting it?
It’s ok for artists to want to make a buck but everyone else is just plain greedy. It’s not like they have kids to feed…
so.. torrent?
Sooo…. where do we get the album? is it on public trackers already?
This is truly, good for the future, i hope other artists follow the same pattern soon.
Cheers!!!
Please, an unknown director and an nobody musician tell us that P2P is OK. Wow…this changes everthing!
Could you smell the sarcasm? These nobodies won’t make a dent. If a few ‘big’ artists would say things like “I condone P2P traffic om my work”, THAT would be a big thing. However, those ‘big’ artists all had a taste of wealth, and there is no way that they will shait on their own dollar bills.
I know you all like to grab at straws when it comes to P2P, but please stay at least realistic. It’s illegal, artists don’t like it (because they are told not to), but I will keep enjoying it anyway.
@21
A nobody musician?
He’s well known in the genre of music he specializes in. (IDM/Breakcore)
hay i need bitmetv.org invite
please invite me my email dedek.mraz2@email.si
i have scenetorrents.org invite for swap
thats the way it should be!
@18 - parablok
Was gonna ask the same thing.
Its to much trouble go to their site and click multiple times to download the music.
One click for god’s sake. Torrent is the way.
I’ll bet he will make more money that way than other artist not doing it.
i just donated 10p lol
I love The Flashbulb.
For those who want a torrent, go search on thepiratebay.
Make sure to seed as much as possible! This is my first torrent i’m seeding for more than 150%.
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4006823/The_Flashbulb_-_Soundtrack_To_A_Vacant_Life_%5B2008_MP3_V0_(VBR)%5D
At last someone understodd whats going on
He put it all there, plain and simple. It’s the truth. It’s people like these that change the world: in a positive way
I absolutely love his mentality
+1 for you Benn
What great read lets hope more label/distributor/retailer and musicians adopt this idea I definitely will be checking out Alphabasic ^5 to them!! Oh and thanks Releaselog for the fantastic job you do with releases and current news and trends!
I have no problem donating to the cause.
This could be an evolution in downloading/piracy/direct buying, respect to that dude
@21
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Flashbulb
20k listeners, 1M played tracks… you know way too little, dude
yeah i never understood why we have to feed a few hundred stomachs if we buy cds/dvds, given the fact that we could just pay the artist directly. this needs to be developped
http://rapidshare.com/files/88361779/The_Flashbulb_-_Soundtrack_To_A_Vacant_Life__Uploaded_By_Afaz_.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/88361778/The_Flashbulb_-_Soundtrack_To_A_Vacant_Life__Uploaded_By_Afaz_.part2.rar
ONE CLICK RAPIDSHARE PREMIUM LINK - 106MB
http://rapidshare.com/files/88361810/The_Flashbulb_-_Soundtrack_To_A_Vacant_Life__Uploaded_By_Afaz_.rar
Enjoy
@35
http://www.last.fm/music/Jay-Z
355,088 listeners. 9,400,000+ tracks played.
http://www.last.fm/music/Madonna
672,187 listeners. 16,000,000+ plays.
you still think 20k and 1m+ makes as big of a difference as a big mainstream artist?
You’re “favourite private tracker”(misspelled favorite) is: ********
Proof:http://www.bennjordan.com/blog/uploads/2008/02/****
Since I guessed it, do I get an invite? gillist43605@yahoo.com
ReeGed: No actually my spelling of “Favourite” was correct. I speak English, not American.
http://www.bennjordan.com/blog/uploads/2008/02/frickensweet.PNG
i think this is great, now i start to see that “crappy label/distributor/retailer system” is organised like a maffia system, no wonder they want to keep their kingdom, but not to long…
@39
“You’re” should be ‘Your’
“favourite” is not misspelled - it is the standard spelling in countries other than the USA.
@39: misspelled “your”
love benn, got all of his albums and they’re all great. i had preordered this cd way before he uploaded it @ what, he was telling this kind of stuff for some time now in his blog, and he used to upload his own stuff @ oink too so dunno why only NOW it got so big. wrong, i know, @ oink they never put him on the front page with freeleech, heh. one of the more clever and talented, yet down to earth artists around.
Never heard of them… but just reading this I will give them a listen. Thanks.
I’d always usually be wary of attention-seeking like this, and ‘Don’t get it from a greedy corporation…get it from us here instead!’ messages, but personally, I believe the guy!
Simon Napier-Bell, a band manager & promorter for many years, wrote a very interesting and scary article on the corrupt and cut-throat music industry (read it here: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,2241544,00.html )
If anyone feels uncomfortable about downloading mp3s off the internet, and think it might support crime, well, fact is that the people you’re downloading from are criminals, slave-drivers, money launderers and thieves in the first place!!
didnt know the artist. now i do. and i like it.
weird not feeling any guilty downloadin’ a release.
great news.
@18 You’re right, this by itself isn’t going to change the world, but you have to see the big picture. P2P must promote all kinds of artists and not just some that we think may succeed commercially. That’s what separates p2p from the RIAA. Sharing is caring. really good motto. BTW, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and increasingly more big artists are catching on.
That’s a very nice statement he made - one I’d like to see more artists make - but more importantly, the album itself is bloody amazing. I’ve been waiting years for an IDM record to wow me like this again. Well worthy of my pennies, I’m definitely gonna see about buying this. Now if only all these net labels didn’t only take creditcards; it’s that much more of a hassle for someone like me without one.
@Rlslog: Its maybe woth to put up a extra section for this kind of authors?
would give em a good push,…for both sides
What kind of music is this?
Sorry, I’m too lazy to go to his site and find out.
@ 39
ReeGed: No actually my spelling of “Favourite” was correct. I speak English, not American.
Lol, that is a decent quote I might use. Funny how ignorant Americans can be :/
They think they are the only ones who speak the language even though they are just an imitation.
ha you Europeans are crazy
I really enjoyed readin the post on The Flashbulb Promotes Piracy, especially the part that Flashbulb wrote. It shows that he has a heart and he is in it for the music and the listners and not the money like all the other greedy people.
Way to go @42 and @51 I also spell Favourite the same way as you and I too speak English.
Sorry about the “favourite” “favorite” thing. I just figured ReeGed would like to know if something was misspelled in his post. Firefox pointed out the “mistake” to me, I didn’t know you could spell it favourite.
I did get owned on “you’re” and “your” tho!
Oh well, thanx ReeGed for the post!
Whoa!!! Flashbulb could be considered an avant-garde hero. You´ve got to have a little old-school as well to come along with such cool attitude. I don´t care what genre his music is, I´ll listen. Finally someone who understands the new consumer, not limited to going to the mall and checkout the stands to see what´s new. Of course I say this not really knowing at all anything about trends, mostly cause I live in a third world country where a soda cost $0.50 and our minimum wage is $110 a month. So it pleases me not paying $15 dollars per album and instead using that money to eat 3 meals for 3 days. Not that I´m poor but in other countries like U.S. you could consider me very low middle class. Where I live, a 128kbps internet connection is considered extremely fast so I don´t even download that much anyway. Final thought - “You´re going down RIAA! (also MPAA and any other crappy-money-greedy-heartless organization)”.
@ QuadrupelQ
Trent Reznor, ever heard of him? *cough* NIN *cough* claimed in interviews he was a member of the fallen oink.cd, RIP, and pirated music regularly, mainly for the speed, quality, and the exclusive content available only on oink
Hmm sound nice.
ill gave him $5 just becouse of this! didn’t even listen to his music first….this is the right way to go!!
Brilliant! Not getting the album, but it’s great to hear that Apple is terrible and evil and so are music retailers
way to go, cant belive it thougt
@50, its brilliant music. Check it out
It must be a good day rlsloggers, we have great electronic music being posted on RlsLog (DnB Post) & now a brand new Flashbulb album!!
Its pretty sad that he talks about sublight though, what a great label, and now it doesn’t exist anymore :’(
btw for anyone who cares his last album goes under this rls name:
the_flashbulb-reunion-2005-fwyh
lol, i dont know any artist from that label, but i just donated some cash … that sh*t is just priceless!
more power to them!
I donated a Buck!
Martin from Germany
It is kind of funny he asks for your mailing address. Plot to track pirates?? Ahh i’m just crazy. Anyways cool artist, ill have to check him out now.
Beautiful!
It is good to see artists adapting, realising that attempting to fine and imprison people who share their material does not work as there are so many file sharers. Those that realise this will be the ones that survive in the future.
wouldnt it be great if we had a site where people like ben and of course that other guy with the movie could just plonk it on trakers and promote their stuff. I mean a site with out the other ‘ illeagl ‘ content. Just one purely for promotions so all users including those against the piracy can download it and feel good about it,
can i get an invite to the private tracker??€? i can exchange invites…. if tats wat u require…. plz…
Wow! i think i’ll have to check them out
I agree with you 100% ReeGed, artists and distributors shouldn’t be so greedy to assume they’re so great that people should have to pay for their artwork just because they want gratitude for making it, more artists should appreciate they’ve become known as well as they are and that somebody enjoys their work enough to pay for it, not just assume they should get paid.
Ben Gordon got busted by the RIAA for promoting his own music in rlslog…check out the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8V_1PVY6E4&NR=1
well, it’s Limewire for me for music, and with that itunes gift card, i’ll have to ‘rent’ movies (and copy them with tunebite…hahaha) itunes can go 0screw0 em’ selves!!!
i guess the only way to support the artist is to download their music, then send them a cheque.
cooool!
I love The Flashbulb. Amazing to see him poke his head out of the IDM cave and do something like this. To whoever mentioned Jay-Z and Madonna, I’d rather see good music make moves into new ground than utterly faceless homogenous slop. What exactly does it say about these “Huge” artists, when they’re still anxiously raking in money while already being insanely rich, and having these smaller, poorer artists give up their precious resources instead.
Brilliant really. He uploads it because he knows it will be uploaded eventually anyway and puts a note in there saying to donate directly to him if you like it. He makes %100 of the profit instead of a lousy %5 or so he would get if he was signed to a major label. I think I will do the same when I get my LP together. F*#k the record companies!!
Another insider saying all that ‘piracy hurts the artists’ is total crap.
Piracy hurts the pockets of the records labels and middle men.
Well said man. I hope your cd is a success.
Great read indeed, I usually never go looking for new popular music. It always get pounded in to your head from the radio eventually anyway.
And i refuse to pay top dollar for an album with less than 50% music i like, just to give the artist 5% of the money i paid for it. That system is just too inefficient for me.
Benn Jordan sounds like he’s got something here, I’ll be sure to check it out.
Can someone send an invite to this “Which DVD” tracker? My ratio on private tracker various from 3 to 41 )) You can see this at torrentbits, torrentzilla, ugamer, moviex, midnight etc…
My mail is: M-I-B (at_sign) yandex.ru - please, send an invite!
What an idiot
I like the way this guy thinks… but please support his art!
Eric D. Wilkinson
Producer
Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth
http://www.manfromearth.com
http://www.myspace.com/manfromearth
Great idea, and I would support him but I just don’t like this sort of music. I wish some country artist would sign on to The Flashbulb concept.
Peace.
“Rage Against The Machine” …( but really mean it) ..this is cool
I am impressed. Not my taste of music, but i believe this is the way to go…
Ahw…invites at this tracker is closed too…pitty(
Good idea, hopes that the bigger bands do it also.
well its nice to see but unfortunately this system doe’nt work
radiohear failed and so did trent reznor with saul williams
they all admitted this yeilded less money that they could have got going the normal(Uglier and meaner) way
I would love to see this system work but then its tough to change a lot of things a t once a more considerate one step by step approach is needed
This is not something new, I uploaded my album and other albums from my label to oink while the site was up, the response was huge. The thing with the donations is an excellent idea, I think then if ppl can donate whatever amount they can spare and the money goes directly to the artist, then that solution is a lot better!
Check out my label if you wish:
http://www.oxo-unlimited.com
Interesting. I actually went to the site out of curiosity. The music isn’t too bad, sounds like chiptunes or something out of a 16-bit game.
Maybe this can’t be a successful business model at this time, but perhaps over time more people will catch on to it.
Where do I fill in my mailing address? I want free gifts! LOL
Benn, my man !
Its great to see somebody stand up to the terrible Music Industry.
Its funny, all the company’s that hated piracy had a brain fart in 2000 and said “If you can not beat them join em !”
So they offer downloadable MP3’s at a cut price, then fast forward 8yr’s and look, they have copied the Scene again.
“When in Rome do as the Romans do” they said, so some sites are offering DRM free music, great !
But who actually benefits from the sales of any copyrighted music ?
No the artist, not the producer or anyone involved with making or buying the album at all, in fact the only people that benefit are big BIG labels like Sony BMG and Money hungry retailers with Huge margins.
For me this has been painfully obvious since CD’s got really popular (late 90’s) but to the rest of the worlds population, they have been told they are support the artist and the economy, when in fact the only people they are supporting are the Fat CEO’s on the uptake.
Good post and i hope other artists follow This band !
Go Benn!
Giving the new album a listen right now. Planning on donating soon.
Benn Jordan is a great artist and true revolutionary of the digital era. I want to personally thank you for sharing your music with all of us.
Thanks,
A Great Fan
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