Re: CD SALES DECLINING?

[David Trenkel <improv@peak.org>]

Wow, interesting situation. All I can say is that you should go ahead 
and release the disc. The fact that someone uploaded it says that 
somewhere, someone is interested enough in your music to spread the 
word about it. That probably says that there are enough people who 
would buy it to make it work. Our discs have been floating around on 
trading sites for a couple of years, and we have still made a profit 
from both of them. Not everyone in the world is computer-literate 
enough or has a fast enough connection to participate in P2P. Some 
people actually refuse to download CD's for ethical reasons. Some 
people like to have a physical disc. I know it's kind of creepy to have 
your stuff circulating "out there" without your control, but in this 
new era, once you put something out there, you leave yourself open to 
this kind of thing. We allow people to tape our shows, and I've found a 
few embarrasingly bad performances of ours on tape trading sites, and 
I've wished that we could pull them down, but we can't, so we live with 
it, try to play consistantly better in case someone is taping, and go 
on.

On Sunday, January 8, 2006, at 02:16 PM, Bill Fox wrote:

> All this talk on the list about "Putting Out a CD" and "Decreasing 
> Sales" makes me think of my situation.
>
> Last night, I was at a party where a friend told me that he saw my 
> entire new album for free download at some Sweedish site.  WE HAVEN'T 
> EVEN RELEASED THE DAMN THING, YET!!!!  I'm a NOBODY.  My band is 
> UNKNOWN; not Genesis reformed or the Beatles reincarnated.  Holy moly. 
>  In the little niche of Progressive Rock, we're not even Spock's 
> Frelling/Fracking Beard!!!  Who the hell would want OUR music?
>
> Ignore the cost of instruments, computers, software, interfaces, 
> cables, amplifiers, speakers, years of learning how to play, write, 
> and arrange music, gas costs and vehicle maintenance to get to 
> sessions.  We paid $BIG to have this mastered at the studio owned and 
> run by Jeff Glixman (Producer of Kansas, Yngwie Malmsteen, etc.).  We 
> paid $BIG for the cover art from someone with some cache to his name.  
> We will pay $MODERATE to the guy who is doing the layout.  Will will 
> be paying something on the order of $1500 to have 1000 CDs pressed 
> LATER THIS MONTH!!!!  Total cost of this CD is well over $3000.  Small 
> budget as far as pro CDs go.  Chump change to some.  Skipping 
> breakfast, eating peanut butter for lunch, and eating spaghetti for 
> dinner until December, 2007 for me.
>
> 1) Should I bother to spend any more money on what the world can 
> already get for free?
> 2) I might be flattered that SOMEONE wants my music to be exposed to 
> the world.  But at what cost to me and my band?  Can we afford to even 
> FINISH this CD?  Can we afford to ever make another one ever again?
> 3) I feel betrayed that some trusted friend let our music out to the 
> world to allow this to happen.  All trust worthy friends will now be 
> punished by not getting so much as advanced CDRs of tunes in progress, 
> all because of one bad apple.
> 4) What is my hard work and dedication worth?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bill
>