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So Matador records has a strategy for marketing albums called "Buy Early, Get Now" and I think a lot of companies can learn a lot from them in terms of marketing music from them. Basically when you preorder stuff, you get a bunch of extras.

Just as an example:

Sonic Youth's The Eternal album.

It was released on June 9th.

However if you preorder it on Vinyl or CD via a website or a participating store, you got the album on April 28th. The album comes in the paper gratefold sleeve instead of the Jewel case and comes with stickers. There are two bonus tracks on the album. You get a free itunes download of the album with an exclusive bonus track. Later, you also get a copy of Sonic Youth's battery park independence day performance on vinyl in the mail, and three exclusive mp3 downloads from their back catalog. So basically you get an extra album and whole bunch of other free stuff early.

Imagine if other companies did that. Wouldn't you want to preorder and get a bunch of free stuff instead of illegal downloads?

I wish it were that simple, but these days jackasses will wait until then can illegally download any extra preordered songs that the people who spent their money on got.

Putting things out exclusively on vinyl and through a password protected site slows that down a little though. Plus not having song breaks on the vinyl and having tricks in the grooves also helps mitigate that. If you've ever tried to rip a record onto itunes, you know what i'm talking about.

So someone who gets the album early, puts it up earlier for people to download illegally before the official normal buy release date...

Do you have to pay extra separate postage to get the 'free' record through later... on top of the postage you paid for the album?

Nope, you don't have to pay anything extra. What if the promo was huge discounts on concert tickets?

I'm not one who is bothered about freebies really, as long as I have the main album I'm happy.

Most musicians make a lot of their money from the concerts/gigs I believe, so I can't see many being happy about giving big discounts just so people will buy their albums legally.

I'm of the view it will make no difference, if people like downloading illegally they are still going to download illegally and can't see many hardcore downloaders changing for freebies and so on.

Well in general, I have no problem with "illegal downloading" except in regards to artists who are either unsigned or are on smaller and independent labels where it really could significantly hurt them financially and may even lead to plagiarism if they haven't copyrighted their songs yet. I guess I have trouble understanding people who ignore the physical component of the artistic product, i.e. the packaging artwork and extras, not to mention the prospect of better sound quality via CD or Vinyl in exchange for some songs that are of inferior audio quality (actually one of the main arguments about why song downloading shouldn't be illegal).

It is different yes, but I would have thought for the majority, they are not going to notice the quality of the music at all.

Like the fact that the bass has no balls and the recording starts clipping with the slightest increase in volume?

Obviously they don't have problems. I've never had a problem playing mp3s through various hi fi systems. I've never tried it EXTREMELY loud but the volume I play the music is fine.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Well in general, I have no problem with "illegal downloading" except in regards to artists who are either unsigned or are on smaller and independent labels where it really could significantly hurt them financially and may even lead to plagiarism if they haven't copyrighted their songs yet. I guess I have trouble understanding people who ignore the physical component of the artistic product, i.e. the packaging artwork and extras, not to mention the prospect of better sound quality via CD or Vinyl in exchange for some songs that are of inferior audio quality (actually one of the main arguments about why song downloading shouldn't be illegal).

Ever heard of FLAC?

I have a lot of experience (as I'm sure many do) with downloading music, and what you come to realize is that there are people who will always support an artist/artists, and those who never would have in the first place. I've actually bought more albums because of being able to download artists I would have never checked out, or heard of before. After vinyl, digital is the way to go, imo. Especially with v0 and FLAC available.

Hmph.
I bet the majority of you download the MP3s illegally in the net as I do.

Use of Limewire/Frostwire isn't illegal; the program itself abides with open source standards. Read the EULA.

flac still doesn't quite hold up to snuff when it comes to analog formats. I guess I ideally want all my music on the worlds longest reel to reel tape played through something with tubes.