bands and their hate for illegal uploads....

[BrenGun 2261]

Let's start with D.I.D.

From D.I.D support tumblr.

At the 6.19 live, Akane kindly asked people not to upload the songs to Youtube. It was even written in English on the CD itself. If you are the one who uploaded it to Youtube anyway, I urge you to take it down as soon as possible. The band is aware and is not happy.This is why we can’t have nice things.

and whoops it's shared....

But in how far should we care of bands wishes for not uploading their music. not uploading their live limited CD's etc?

Or should we really say to the bands "f*ck you it's 2015 now and it's impossible to ask if people won't upload it/share it"

So in how far should we have respect for the band?

In how far should we care to not be able to listen to a release? Should we really want everything?

In how far are they old fashioned?

Should bands gain their money with other merchandise/live gigs only? Should music actually be free?

Edit.

And nope its not a debat, just share the thoughts, askings of bands who asked fans to not upload/share their work.

And if wanted you can share your opinion. But please don't debat.

[Thedane 176]

I don't see why it's so hard not to respect the band's wishes.

 

It's their music, not ours.

 

Some bands don't care, others clearly do.

 

Music should not be free, it's the product of their hard work, and should be treated as such, a product that in order to enjoy/obtain, pay the money you're supposed to.

[JukaForever 758]

Maybe the person can't read English

[Dark Kinma 960]

That a no sence debat, not the first time, and it's just an occasion to settle his account.

 

Off course music should be free to be share with every people, instead of its we always have the right to have inbred speech who syas, band does be with that's, because yes it's 2015.

 

Iif some off indies band wasn't as centered on themselves, maybe we have the chance to discover them, because I THINK spend more than 3000/4000yen in a cd just because the shop doesn't make oversea & shopping service steal us that suxx, or pay 1800/2000 in shipping that suxx too.

 

And the price of cd still continue to increase, because yes for the same price in Europe you have an album, in japan a single... and don't say "the produce cost is expensive", we all know that all off those cd are manufactured in tawain, or other underdeveloped countries who charges all inexpensive...

 

the simple fact to lend a cd to a friends it's illegal, so let us live, that's not the oversea doawnload who kill japanese band, but the simple fact that some japanese band didn't know why they have create this band...

 

I said what I had to say on the subject, for me the debate is closed !

 

Have a nice day !

[emmny 4139]

yeah idk why they worry so much about western audiences lmfao if ur band is flopping its because y'all suck not because 150 gaijins on an online forum didnt buy ur obscure live release demo shit wtf

[seikun 317]

Ironically, ilegal material is what has made Visual Kei bands massively known for a western audience and a considerable portion of it spends money to get the legal stuff after being exposed to it through ilegal uploads.

[violetchain 912]

yeah idk why they worry so much about western audiences lmfao if ur band is flopping its because y'all suck not because 150 gaijins on an online forum didnt buy ur obscure live release demo shit wtf

I don't think it's that they're worried about losing sales from overseas, it's because Japanese fans apparently don't upload releases as much. 

 

I think the logic is that when that gaijin fan uploads a live-limited release to somewhere obvious like Youtube where all their Japanese fans are sure to see it, there's less incentive for Japanese fans to come to any other lives it's being promoted at to buy it.

[Naaaaani 1173]

 

f*ck you it's 2015 now and it's impossible to ask if people won't upload it/share it

This

 

 

Should music actually be free

And this

[YomiNaito 1]

I think that illegally download music/sharing can be wrong on some terms. If people want to share to keep friend or pal interested in the CD long enough to have them buy a physical copy then yes, that is good. If they share just for free music/distribution then that is wrong. If a single is venue limited then by all means, do release to the public if it is highly requested and not available to oversea fans. Disbanded bands should support too because every cent counts unless record label go under too in which case, it count as fair game to either illegally download or buy from place like CDJapan or other music Asia store. 

 

 

 

An example by the gazette, "Inside Beast"  was recently uploaded after album was released long time ago and fans has positive feedback but criticism for long wait. Big record company such as Sony are quick to take down music from random uploader which doesn't belong them because they like to make the money, which is right thing to do. Record companies and website such as iTunes and other purchase music websites do good by allowing previews/samples but sometimes that is not good enough for certain people who want a long preview of song. I know lot of music blogs that put out free music from active band in which case, what that do? Nothing for the artists, maybe gain few fans or 100 but who else illegally download their music too? That large gap for purchasing or keeping for greedy self. 

If owner of record company is dick to fans, why not still support bands on his label if u like them? Forget about mean owner and mainly look to favorite artist to support. Long hours and hard work go into making music, hours and hours of planning and thought to make few songs or days/months for album in which is not worth it to just jack music.

If CD is hard to find? Ok that is one decent reason of if is venue/live then Ok. But if you have money or just want to sample then buy or give preview but do not keep music which you no pay for. 

 

Sure shipping fee is big for us oversea people but it worth it to enjoy nice quality music. Musicians do not make much money but depend on how much music single/EP/album go for. 

More bands need to upload preview of music to keep fans interested so that they buy more. Thank we have lots of online retail for purchasing the CDs of Asia or Europe

If you want CD bad enough, you will save up for it and buy it no matter what the cost. I have found bands I like through YouTube and I buy full single later on when I save up or sometime listen to song constantly to make sure I still want CD. 

[efuru 255]

I get not uploading albums and singles and things that are CD Japan available but those live only released music it's not fair cause they're impossible to get a hold of. And when they are they're obnoxiously over priced. I think as a fan not living in Japan I wanna hear ALL the bands music but without people uploading the rare music it's impossible to get a hold of.

[Owl 347]

First it's useless to rely on people honesty. One person is enough to upload a release.

 

But the moral part here that you shouldn't upload stuff if the band you respect ask not to.

 

Yeah it's 2015. Discovering bands has become easier. Every band has website and most of them provide previews of upcoming releases so you can decide if you wanna buy it.

Thanks to @Trombe we can learn a lot about newly formed bands and their release dates. Try, decide, buy.

And yeah music isn't free. It's weird to see how people claim something they want to be free should be free for real. Music is intellectual property and the result of efforts put into it. So no wonder bands are pissed when their releases are shared. I would've be pissed too if my ideas or results of works were shared to everyone besides my will.

Yeah it's hard to get your hands on every release and buy everything, but I think people should support bands they like.

 

Strange that noone spoke about Nocturnal Bloodlust yet.

[beni 2149]

I don't see why it's so hard not to respect the band's wishes.

 

It's their music, not ours.

 

Some bands don't care, others clearly do.

 

Music should not be free, it's the product of their hard work, and should be treated as such, a product that in order to enjoy/obtain, pay the money you're supposed to.

 

Pretty much nailed it. 'Respect the band's wishes' in this case, especially when they voice that out and react to it. I don't think music should be free, and I'm one to say that, lol. But at the same time, you've got what @seikun has said which is also hitting the nail on the head. Because of sharing, most do discover new favourites, and some even start paying for their music. You can't force others to follow the rules or do the right thing for various reasons, but at the same time their hate for it is understandable. It's a two way thing: more publicity but the majority of the time others are getting it for free without paying.

[Des 289]

There's an implication there this group makes that those who care enough about their music will attend their concert. Are they mad? There's an implication that only money can show interest. No money and no attendance = no interest?

 

Anyway, those desperate "I want people to pay for my music but they are not paying enough so I'll send messages that they aren't paying enough" cries you hear of all the time are so sad it's almost adorable. Ramblings of a capitalist mind who creates art for money but fails at actually making money so he fails at actually being what he strives for: a capitalist. Isn't that cute.

[hiroki 5521]

Ironically, ilegal material is what has made Visual Kei bands massively known for a western audience and a considerable portion of it spends money to get the legal stuff after being exposed to it through ilegal uploads.

That's by far one of the most common defenses for sharing. The reasoning goes along the lines of: 1) sharing is bad; 2) however sharing has some good consequences; 3) therefore, on balance, sharing is ok insofar as the good consequences outweigh the 'wrongness' of the act.

I can't agree with this argument because it falsely casts sharing as the precondition for people to find out about new bands and presumably become interested in buying CDs. Some users say that well yeah it's 2015, so filesharing is inevitable (which is true, although its inevitability has no bearing on whether it's the right thing to do). What these people also fail to point out is that precisely because it's 2015, the ease with which a band can advertize themselves and raise awareness of their music, and the extent to which this has already been done, is unprecedented. On the consumer end, it used to be the case that the only way to get to know a band is to rely on word of mouth, rent CDs from Tsutaya (or your friend), or low-quality illegal rips on the Internet. Fast-forward to 2015 where there's Youtube and Twitter and Facebook. Most bands today upload previews for their releases way before they go on sale, and some even upload the full title track and PV in 1080p. Like Owl mentioned there's even Trombe's news for all of us who don't know Japanese or are too lazy to scour Twitter. It's ridiculous to think people who still buy CDs make purchases by randomly taking a stab the dark and find new favorites by buying arbitrary releases from new indies bands they haven't heard. So the more pertinent question for me is: are these materials not sufficient for one to make informed judgments whether a CD is worth buying? If they are, then it's untrue that without filesharing the vk band will fail to gain appreciable reach to international audiences. The alleged "good consequences" credited to filesharing can now be achieved through numerous other means. If no, then said person probably won't buy the release even if someone shares a rip with him/her--in which case this entire position collapses into a poor excuse for not paying for a commodity one desires. It's surprising how some people cheerfully ignore the potential of these social media avenues for supplanting piracy as convenient (and hopefully morally more acceptable) ways to know about a band, but are always more than happy to adduce their emergence as rather dubious 'evidence' of how piracy is now ok "because it's 2015."

I also have issues with the third premise because the problem of magnitude is tricky. It draws all our attention to the miniscule gain in sales the band enjoys from the handful of people who, apparently, couldn't make up their minds whether to buy their CD after watching the band's youtube preview and had to listen to the FLAC to make their final decision--and sweeps under the rug all the losses in sales that band suffers as a consequence of this. Even if we grant that not everyone who downloads free music would have bought the music had it not been available for download, it isn't difficult at all to weigh the scales; for if it's indeed the case that piracy benefits the band in the purported way, we'll have to seriously wonder why bands bitch about illegal downloads every few days. As such it's probably less appropriate to think of the inadvertent losses incurred as some kind of 'collateral damage' that accompanies the larger good of getting international fans to buy music, than it is to conceive of the small gains in the latter group as being incidental to the harm piracy inflicts on overall band sales.

Anyway, before I'm accused of being hypocritical: obviously I'm one of those who download sometimes since I can't afford to buy every single CD I want to listen to (nor can I find all of them), and I've have been complicit in sharing a fair bit of my music. Honestly I don't think the situation now is ideal because there are a lot of things vk bands (and the industry in general) can do and should be considering to mitigate the problem. So there's still work to be done. All I'm just saying here is that I'm not convinced by the usual self-righteous rhetoric that attempts to justify unregulated filesharing, and hopefully fans can endeavor to do a little more to support their favorite bands.

Tl;dr: The pseudo-utilitarian argument of 'small harm is justified because of bigger good' fails because (1) the good can be brought about, or at least reasonably approximated, via other less damaging ways today; (2) it's highly suspect if the harm is in fact smaller than supposed good.

[JRD 5156]

It's ridiculous to think people who still buy CDs make purchases by randomly taking a stab the dark and find new favorites by buying arbitrary releases from new indies bands they haven't heard.

 

..........I do this sometimes hahahahahaha That's how DWP came in to my life, randomly bought 6P.

 

People also fail to realize that 90%+ of VK bands are not trying to sell to you at all. You're not going to their lives and buying like 20 chekis until you get the right one, multiple copies of CDs for instore privileges, etc. Live limited releases are a make sure your fans come and buy your release directly from you(more money for the artist, they don't have to split with CD shop and distribution), especially if they haven't heard it and if they like downloaded it somewhere and they thought it sucked, then they're definitely not going to come to your live and purchase a copy.

Live limited releases are fair game as well on auctions, if you think about it this way, I just spent 3500yen on a ticket to go buy this 1500yen single, add in transportation, etc. You're looking at more than 6000yen, compared to the 3000yen they're asking for at auction.

If you love the band enough, you will always find a way to get a release. Even if it takes years.

[JukaForever 758]

Most bands today upload previews for their releases way before they go on sale, and some even upload the full title track and PV in 1080p.

 

You can still get burned just by the previews (even the full album previews ones). Sometimes the rest of the album/single doesn't live up or match the quality of the title track.  And the previews that tries to give you a "build-up" of the title song can burn you when the rest of the track is lacklustre. This happened to me to some of the releases I bought lately. 

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

I don't understand this seemingly endless pursuit some people have to give their illegal downloading habit this queer moral justification. I download shit and break the law while doing it with no illusions or general regard about nuffins. I wish these guys and gals could realise their rock star dreams but I don't lose sleep over the fact that they had to take a post at 7/11 instead. It really is up to them and the labels to come up with something that can entice people to buy stuff in the internet age if they want to keep at it. 

 

I personally don't care about the bands wishes, but I don't expect them to want to high five me either if I go to them "Yo I came to yus show 2 support bcuz I got dat last album from rutracker. I shared it with my buds and yus got like five more fans nao!", much like I don't expect anyone to be friends with me if I'm caught with my hand in their back pocket. 

[relentless 254]

If this is strictly in regards to illegal uploads of "live distributed" material, then the band can go fuck off. Yeah, the band is within their right (as the free market dictates) to try and prevent unauthorized uploading; but then it makes me wonder what the fuck was the band doing putting that shit on a disc in the first place? At that point, you're not just going to a concert to listen to a band perform music -- you're going to a concert to be given free gifts and told "please don't pass this around anywhere else because this is totally very special.". You're no longer part of an audience enjoying the music of a band you love, you're part of a marketing focus group: they are directly relying on you to tell people how good this "super rare super awesome track that I can't show you because the band told me not to and besides you can totally get it when it gets released for $25 at a later date but i still won't show because i love the band" is. Why not treat your audience with some fucking respect and play that "super secret, super special, and super new material" for them instead of slapping it on a CD and handing it out?

 

I'm sorry; but there's nothing particularly special about a run-of-the-mill VK band, so the thought of them giving you a special song on a disc and saying "don't show anyone else" is so petty. It's a lazy -- and somewhat counter intuitive -- means to drum up any interest in your product by manufacturing demand for a song not based on its musical merits; but due to its rarity. That's not called "making music you want large audiences to appreciate", that's called "marketing".

 

But, when you're a no-name Japanese band relying on a visual gimmick to sell tickets and CDs in the first place, there's probably not much hope for your music career.

 

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Just put your stuff on spotify / bandcamp or something jfc 

 

 

There's going to be people who want to collect CDs, but the vast majority of people don't because streaming is the current medium people consume music. 

 

 

No one cares about a band's wishes. You don't owe them shit.

[nekkichi 6043]

I think Akane should just sit, his current label will not even afford a distribution deal outside of Japan anyway.

 

I don't think bands care about illegal file-sharing tho, it's their pissed off management who has very little opportunity to sell VK outside of Asia because it daznt spik englisa, and goth subcultures are a hot-topic territory in north america

no one will take D.I.D. seriously here unfortunately.

(my basic pedestrian friends absolutely adore Akane's studio vocals, btw.)

[PsychoΔelica 648]

I think asking people not to upload and distribute rips of music and videos is fucking ridiculous because:
a- those bands would be shooting themselves in the leg as this is how they get more fans outside of Japan and more people talking about them.

b- it's pretty natural to want to listen to the whole album before deciding if you wanna buy it, instead of some 15 second promo clip which gives absolutely indication. It makes sense to me anyway. I'd rather knowing what I spend my money on before buying a release, and not buy some shit then regret it later. 
Maybe it's not completely fair for the artist, but I don't think that putting up music online is automatically equivalent to disrespecting the band's time and effort in creating their music, because as I said this is what gets people talk about them. Eventually those who really like the music will still purchase it. At least I try to. Either way getting mad over this is pretty useless now that anything finds its way to the internet. Perhaps labels should really find a better strategy to sell more music. Although who would really consider lowering prices for some poor gaijin if Japanese fans are going to buy it anyway? Not to mention making  3+  versions of the same cd. Then why do you even expect anything else?

[Zeus 7997]

This question comes up again and again like there's going to be some new revelation that's going to change everyone's opinion. There is no new revelation. File sharing and the culture surrounding it has not fundamentally changed. File sharing continues to have its positives and negatives. In our little sphere of the world, there are markedly more positives than negatives when it comes to piracy. This is literally the only reason why this site is still active.

First off, there are not that many sites in the upper crust of J-music piracy. This site is one of them. J-MP3 and jpopsuki are the only other two I can think of. The rest of the piracy scene (in Japan) is hosted on private servers or over a distributed, decentralized network like soulseek which means it's monetarily intractable for record companies to track and shut these operations down. If these record companies really wanted to get serious about stopping piracy, we're the first or second place they're likely to find. And just because this website is in English doesn't mean these companies and these bands don't know about us. They most definitely do. I can think of at least two or three times where a band has either shouted us out or linked to an article on this site. I'm also pretty sure YOHIO stalks this website and that NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST's passive-aggressive "no piracy" comments are really aimed at us.

 

Now you see, there are reasons why I think they let us be. The most important is that our primary language is English. Trombe singlehandedly does all the promotion for the entire visual kei scene for the entire world and then some on the side for other scenes. The record companies would be absolute fools to stop that flow of information. They may not aim to capitalize on it but it's free exposure that they need to do nothing to maintain. And in the off chance that a band in Japan does make it internationally, we know about the news almost instantly. Because of this, they need to do the bare minimum advertising to reach us. That's actually saving them money in the long run.
 

Next, the entire international community for visual kei is in one place. Separated and disparate, we would not be able to organize effectively. But since MH serves as a meeting place for all of us, we can organize ourselves into "street teams" and ask bands to tour internationally. The amount of j-bands alone that have toured in Europe over the last ten years (2010~2015) is more than the amount of j-bands that have toured Europe in the five years (2005~2010) before that. To me, that's proof that we're partially responsible for this increase. I think we're so responsible that you can gauge international interest in a band by checking how popular they are here. Our silly posts are an invaluable resource of information for these record companies. The bands that get the most hype here tend to keep an eye on promoting themselves internationally, if y'all also haven't noticed. For example, I'm pretty sure KAMIJO wouldn't have organized a US tour if we didn't hype his album throughout all of 2014.
 

At the end of the day, piracy is a matter of perspective. Piracy is also symbiotic. It is great when it gives more to a band than it takes. But when it starts taking more than it gives, bands and record companies suddenly start expecting more. Half of these Japanese bands that complain about piracy need to remember that the alternative to piracy is no piracy, and no piracy means no exposure, no international tours, no leverage points for signing a major contract, and most importantly no money. The average person won't buy music from a band they don't know about, doubly so if this band speaks in a foreign language. This isn't whitewashing; this is fact.

 

Perhaps I can demonstrate this fact in real life by suggesting everyone not download the next NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST single and await the band's reactions to our non-reactions to their new single?

 

Or perhaps I can even prove this point by asking another question: if I were to shut down the forum permanently right now, what would be the next most efficient way for indie visual kei bands to reach out to us? Where would a fan go to get news? Where could you sample music from a five year old Japanese rock band?

 

The answer is nowhere.
 

[BrenGun 2261]

As I said, NO debate, no discussion. BUT POST's from BANDS who asked/RANTED about it to FANS. that they HATE that their stuff or other things (like live reports) are published online by fans.

 

Live reports?

Yes, lot's of Japanese Acid Black Cherry fans said that Yasu said in a MC at a live gig that Yasu doesn't like if "Japanese" fan write live report. and if people want to see him live that fans should go to his live. (which isn't possible easy since his gigs are almost pretty sold out...). One of the reasons fans said that Yasu doesn't like it, is that fans wrote NEGATIVE live reports.

 

 

Also I saw resent Tokami 1000 writing on his blog that he didn't like that someone uploaded THEIR PV to youtube and that he was truly angry about it that someone DARE'S to do it.

I can understand him, because he does help Kiwamu also a lot with video editing and stuff.

But I still think they should upload more to youtube than trying to sell it on DVD.

 

 

 

So... what I've asked for are stories from BANDS who hate it. Not only your opinion about it, because this topic isn't meant to be a debate topic. 

[Bear 1817]

 

Yes, lot's of Japanese Acid Black Cherry fans said that Yasu said in a MC at a live gig that Yasu doesn't like if "Japanese" fan write live report. and if people want to see him live that fans should go to his live. (which isn't possible easy since his gigs are almost pretty sold out...). One of the reasons fans said that Yasu doesn't like it, is that fans wrote NEGATIVE live reports.

 

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Same. The delusion is palpable