Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 10:43 AM

Hi Peter, Cheers for that. I actually have a CDr of the album that a fellow Mudcatter burned for me along with a photocopy of the sleeve, but @i'd much rather have the vinyl, so I'll keep an eye out for it on eBay (though I have to say I didn't think to try to find out whether John Reilly had any children I could seek out and send a small Postal Order to*). I reckon a legal download reissue of the album would be good news for all those people who haven't heard a copy though... I wonder if Topic do requests?

* Possible thread drift, but one of the contributors to this thread (I won't name him for fear of embarassing him) kindly burned me a copy of his excellent but sadly out-of-print album of a few years back. He didn't want anything for it, but suggested I make a small donation to charity - a fiver to Amnesty seemed a fair price!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 10:27 AM

I hope John Reilly's Topic album, The Bonny Green Tree, makes it on there one day…


The Bonny Green Tree comes up on ebay fairly regularly, one copy sold last week for €24 but I got one last month for a tenner. More than worth it and including the booklet and everything.

Ofcourse I can't offer to put it up for a quick download after all this can I? ;-) (I'll be happy to help out though, if I can)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 10:24 AM

So'B.
Thank you for the kind words.
I'm sure that in time, Topic, will release more stuff. but there is an awful lot of stuff to do!
There is a sound archiving project at the BBC. It's been going for at least 10 years....probably another 100 to go, with more stuff being added every day!
More worrying for a lover of traditional music such as yourself are the lost Leader LPs affectionately known as the grey albums.
Traditional musicians and singers such as Joseph Taylor (the Grainger cylinders), Billy Pigg, Cecilia Costello (those are the three I've got anyway!) amongst others.
Sumptuously produced with pages of information and pictures. Mini books you could say.
Rather than having a go at Topic, who are at least trying to release old stuff, whilst still producing new CDs (Which is how they survive as a company after all).
Why not go after Celtic music to release these masterpieces?

I wish you luck. Everybody else has failed.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 10:06 AM

Ralphie, the Topic releases on eMusic are via their digital distributor, IODA. 227 and counting last time I looked. Good for music fans, scary for my wallet. I hope John Reilly's Topic album, The Bonny Green Tree, makes it on there one day…

The so-called grey releases on so called collectors labels vaguely relevant to this thread have been of 60s/70s psychedelic folk rather than traditional or revival stuff. For instance, before the wonderful Sunbeam Records officially re-issued Bread, Love and Dreams' lovely Amaryllis album, it was only available as a shoddily packaged, unauthorised, needle-drop bootleg from a South Korean label (or on second-hand vinyl for several hundred pounds … or from music download blogs!). Great labels like Sunbeam and Hux are thankfully diminishing the appeal of the dodgy reissue merchants…

I agree with Matt that the blogosphere is missing an opportunity to take over the role of fanzines – though there are some out there that fit the bill, albeit still lacking in the comments department and thus not fulfilling their potential in terms of interactivity. A good example of a download-free music blog is the excellent Folk Catalogue's Blog, which certainly appeals to the anorak in me – it's dedicated entirely to the out-of-print Argo Folk catalogue. Have a read – its fascinating stuff.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 10:05 AM

This is, after all, disingenuous in the extreme. It doesn't take a genius to work out the difference between the impact of the one-to-one "mix tape" culture and the potentially huge damage to sales that comes from making a recent release freely available to anyone and everyone on the internet.

The operative word there is potentially - just as potentially untold damage to projected sales can be cause by one-to-one mix tape culture. My earlier argument still stands - the intended Folk demographic for such product is too anally retentive to break the law, and those who do break the law wouldn't have bought it anyway so - no harm done other than lending a touch of street cred to a music otherwise entirely devoid of same.

Located, downloaded, listened, deleted. Not hard.

Cheers, Diane. Just downloaded 'em; listening as I write. I am charmed & beguiled, Ralphie. Navy Lark makes me want to put the Captain Pugwash video on Ross bought us for Xmas (if I could figure out how to connect the video player) & Vipschottis is music to smile to - just the thing, in fact, for this freezing day on the North Fylde coast where my toes are numb even with the heating on.

Shoot me down. I'm clearly a bad person.

As ever, The Voice of the Reasonable People, Mr Spleen! Thanks for the VOTP link by the way. 20p, eh? Well that's less a third less than I suggested earlier. Time to open the entire archive and maybe stop flogging the old dead horse for the umpteenth time. These recordings our a significant part of our common cultural heritage - a document of national & international significance; way too precious to be reduced to yet more CD Folk Product which in no way does it justice no matter how handsome it might look on the CD shelves.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Chairman Miao
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 09:51 AM

The only download link I can find in the THTM comments on the Causley album is for an ancient Occitan folk LP.   Which looks like it got put in the Causley comments by mistake.   I wonder if Ms. Archer is mistaking that for a link to the Causley album.   If there's a link to the actual Causley album hiding there, it has been hidden very well.

THTM has been very obedient about restricting postings on recent releases, or when complaints are received, over the last year. I would feel much poorer without the collection of 1970s French and Belgian hurdy-gurdy LPs which have been posted there. These are albums whose very existence was unknown to me, despite 30 years of serious record collecting.

The Internet and the personal computer consist of a toolkit for this sort of file exchange. If the blogs and cyberlockers are beaten down, something else will evolve.   The blog+cyberlocker ecosystem is the fourth generation of file sharing. And, in the background, here comes terabyte USB hard drive swapping. Have a copy of my entire collection in 20 minutes.

Moi? I buy every CD I can afford each month. I try to buy the very best of the ones I have downloaded if I can find them. Then I buy 2 or 3 more that I can't afford. Filesharing functions more as radio.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 09:38 AM

Ruth, the download link you refer to on the third comment on the Jim Causley thread on THTM is to an out-of-print album by Perlinpinpin Fòlc. The Jim Causley link was taken down when Doug Bailey got in touch with the site. I'm not justifying the original uploading of Jim's album, just correcting your mistake.

I dis another longer post but it got lost twice, so bugger it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 09:29 AM

{Rarely any info whatsoever about who these musicians are/were. Never any hint as to whether the musicians in question are dead or alive. Never any info about their current gigging status. Never any hint as to the world beyond in-the-home consumption of alienated product. Never any critical chat about what it was that made these albums good. Never a link to the people that made it or their family or the record label that facilitated the product in the first place.

If the people who ran these blogs really gave a shit about the musicians and facilitators they profess to be serving, they'd try to solicit their contribution. They'd want to hear them live. Or tell us some stories about them. Or give us some info about the styles, the playing. Anything! But they can't comprehend the idea of music being anything other than bytes to consume, filenames on a list, albums to tick off.}

I miss fanzine culture. It was more participative and less unilateral. Things like music blogs have the potential to revive that kind of thing, but all the uploaders and downloaders are way too couch-potato to do anything that might involve actually standing up.


DEAR matt,

I have to say that you might be correct about the majority of blogs but not for all. There are very few people that really care about the artists and they indeed have supported them. (like liz from thtm blog -check the visiting musisians list).
Also i 'd like to add that some artist were so glad to have found their music again music that they thought noone listens to anymore and even some of them did not even have a copy themselves (of their music). Also some found out that the reissue that was online was a bootleg reissue and they had no idea about it, and of course no permition to reissue.
In some cases like SEVENTH DAWN... the artists child found the music of his parent, told them and they were amazed.... They did not even have a copy and were so happy that they even send me unissued music from these days to upload.
Also WAYFAIRNG STRANGERS collection.. i did upload it (propably my mistake because it is not old or expensive) and then one of BECKY SEVERSONS classmates found the link was amazed also and ripped her private release Lp (something like 10copies to friends and classmates) and made it available to us. Check here

whiteray said...
At Echoes In The Wind
An album by a gal who used to sit next to me in orchestra:
A Special Path -- Becky Severson (1972)
45.02 MB mp3 rip from vinyl at 192 kbps
http://echoesinthewind.blogspot.com/
Unfortunatelly the blog is closed now.

I wish i could show you some comments from the blog i was puplishing these (lost-in-tyme)and you could see that not all blogers or artists are tha same

Finally i miss fanzine culture myself also because of small groups surviving only by communication and not this chaos in the www but i am happy to have heard many music that propably i would never been able to listen.

best regards

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 09:14 AM

"Jim Causley's album (has) long since been taken down from THTM."

But it's been re-posted by a contributor/member, and left to stand by the site owners for the past year and a half. You can download it right now (or you could a couple of days ago, when I last checked).

More to the point is that I don't understand how Time Has Told Me justifies posting such albums in the first place. It is a clear and obvious breach of copyright to upload recent releases. It can't be a mistake, or an oversight, to upload an album within the first year of its release (and in the period when free availability on-line is most likely to undermine actual CD sales). The reports suggest that THTM does this regularly, so on some level the owner of the site finds this acceptable.

So what is the motivation behind such uploads? What does the owner of THTM think he is achieving? Moreover, why does he think he has the right to do it? I also find the whole "catch me if you can" attitude distasteful - if you find something he shouldn't have posted, he'll remove it. But why not contact the artist/record company and ask them BEFORE uploading the CD? It's a very disingenuous game he is playing.

One of the artists involved told me that he feels his CD sales have definitely been undermined by pirated downloads. I believe him. I think Ian Anderson is right when he says that these people hide behind the cloak of being "enthusiasts", as if that somehow makes it okay to steal.

I think that THTM's dubious attitude re uploading recent releases and work that is still commercially available undermines the credibility of the site as a whole. While I recognise that the issues around "lost" artists/albums that are no longer available is a separate but related issue, I would not want to support or condone the work of a site which is undermining the livelihoods of artists that I respect, just because it allowed me to get my hands on some hard-to-get old albums that I really fancy. Matt is right - dress it up however you like, but it's just selfishness at the end of the day.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 08:45 AM

Hi Spleen
Thanks. didn't know about VOTP as a download.

I'm pretty sure that Tony Engle would have worked out some sort of deal with whoever.
He's a decent bloke. Certainly played fair with Nic Jones.
And agreed, pirated stuff CD's DVD's whatever from mainly foreign parts available at a car boot sale near you, are more damaging, but I don't think they would bother with our stuff...?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 08:39 AM

"Finaly the reason i stopped blogging is the luck of communication. I was sharing music to get feedback from other people who shared the same feelings and respect for the music (after all in real life (not online) i have very few people-friends with same feelings about this music.
A solution is i think blogs whithout download links...just like music libraries but whith links to the artist site in order to be able to get a normal copy or to push to the direction of a proper reissue"

hear hear.

the most depressing thing about so-called music 'blogs' is the total absence of any kind of real discussion.

The comments are always "Great!! That's brilliant!! You are a real saint and a martyr to music for giving us all these albums for free!!! Now could you put up everything else they've ever recorded?!! Like, immediately!!! LOL!!!!"

Rarely any info whatsoever about who these musicians are/were. Never any hint as to whether the musicians in question are dead or alive. Never any info about their current gigging status. Never any hint as to the world beyond in-the-home consumption of alienated product. Never any critical chat about what it was that made these albums good. Never a link to the people that made it or their family or the record label that facilitated the product in the first place.

If the people who ran these blogs really gave a shit about the musicians and facilitators they profess to be serving, they'd try to solicit their contribution. They'd want to hear them live. Or tell us some stories about them. Or give us some info about the styles, the playing. Anything! But they can't comprehend the idea of music being anything other than bytes to consume, filenames on a list, albums to tick off.

I miss fanzine culture. It was more participative and less unilateral. Things like music blogs have the potential to revive that kind of thing, but all the uploaders and downloaders are way too couch-potato to do anything that might involve actually standing up.

Out of all the many posts here, I think Pip is the only person who has acknowledged the option of voluntarily paying some unsolicited money to the person originally responsible for the piece of art.

I think it's hilarious that serial downloaders seem to think filehsaring is a radical revolutionary democratization of music when it's actually the ne plus ultra of capitalistic consumption: if you can take it, take it, and never spare a thought for the people who made it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 08:37 AM

Another thought though.
That recording was just thrown together at home in a spare afternoon.
But, If I had gone to the expense of booking a studio, creating a finely honed recording, beautiful artwork, distribution and pressing costs, etc, etc. I'd be really annoyed if I found it on one of the sights we've been discussing. For free.
Studio time doesn't grow on trees, and it's not exactly cheap either!
If I had paid for it all myself, (which a lot of artists have to nowadays.)I would be quite frankly pissed off not to be able to recoup my outlay, before even contemplating any possible profit!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 08:34 AM

"May I suggest Topics 24 CD Voice Of The People set if you are after Feral singing... Not available as a download sadly

Really?

It's available as a download from eMusic. 20p a track if you have the subscription I have. All legit and above board:
Voice of the People

Lots of other Topic stuff there, including some they have reissued as downloads but not CDs. This is a good thing, in my opinion. It shows they are engaging with advances in music technology. It also means they get to put out their archive stuff without the financial costs/risks and environment implications of a CD reissue. Having said that, I wish these sites would use good quality VBR files not 192kbps CBR files.

On the other hand, I think the policy of sites like iTunes charging 79p a pop for an mp3 is diabolical and will do nothing to stop filesharing/music blogging (VOTP as mp3s at this price would end up costing more than the CD, despite being considerably cheaper to produce/distribute etc).

Downloads are an obvious answer to the Celtic Music problem and various other problems (such as the disppearance of more-or-less the entire Argo Folk catalogue into the bowels of Vivendi Multi-Mega-Corp's don't give a shit about this music storage facility), that are currently only being addressed - rightly or wrongly - by blog sites such as Time Has Told Me and so on. Yes, putting up Leader/Trailer/Rubber/insert-label-name-here stuff is stealing from Dave Bulmer (and not from the artists in these cases), but stealing something he doesn't seem very interested in. If he could be persuaded to put even part of his immense back catalogue on line, I reckon he could recoup the cost and even make a modest profit (which could even gasp be shared with the artists and/or their descendents). Certainly more constructive than a) railing at him or b) railing at those who are putting up copies of the out of print albums he owns the rights to. Plenty of this stuff will probaly never make it onto CD but could make it onto fairly priced legal downloads.

In the meantime, canny independent artists and labels could do worse than to let some of the better written/more knowledgeable blogs have the odd track for download - this would give them back some control, give them free advertising and allow them to access music fans who might not visit their usual haunts. Moaning about it and spending precious time roaming the internet looking for illegally posted stuff isn't going to help that much - as several posters have already said, Pandora's box is open. I also think its a nonsense to assume that the people who run these sites don't care about music. Why the heck otherwise would they be doing it? They're not making any money from it and putting in a lot of time. I seriously doubt they are killing music any more than home taping was.

Finally, don't assume that just because something has been reissued on CD and you can hand over money for it that its legit. There are plenty of grey/unauthorised CD resissues of stuff from the 60s and 70s, much but not all of it coming from the Far East. In these cases the labels and retailers are making money from the CDs (as are the sites such as Amazon that carry them), but the owners of the recordings or the artists aren't seeing a penny. In many ways these labels are far worse than the music blogs, because money is changing hands.

Point of clarification: Dick Miles, Anonyma and Jim Causley's albums have long since been taken down from THTM. They've kept the written stuff up because they clearly like the music and want to tell people about it. I agree that new/available stuff shouldn't be uploaded without the artists' permission (a friend's album was up there before he'd finished paying for the recording of it - they took it straight down when asked)... but what I also think is that this "someone must do something about it" huffery-puffery and these spurious comparisons with stealing food from your plumber's starving children's mouths and similar emotional reasoning will change nothing. Far better to try to engage with what's out there and use it to your advantage.

Shoot me down. I'm clearly a bad person.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 08:26 AM

Thanks for the link Diane.
If you like it I'm happy for you to download it and make me famous!
As I say, it was an excercise and a teaching aid for a mate.
Not really intended for commercial release, and I've given my permission for you to do with it what you like!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 08:03 AM

Located, downloaded, listened, deleted. Not hard.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:59 AM

"The copying of a record is still illegal, Joan - and on tape or CD-R it can just as easily become a limitless commodity - if you pass it on to someone, who passes it on to two other people, and each of those etc. etc. - which is just as likely as blogged albums affecting the sales of Official Product. This is, after all, a matter of principle."

This is, after all, disingenuous in the extreme. It doesn't take a genius to work out the difference between the impact of the one-to-one "mix tape" culture and the potentially huge damage to sales that comes from making a recent release freely available to anyone and everyone on the internet.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:52 AM

Blimey...You do ask complicated questions!
I'll go and scratch me head!
Later. Am on a different pooter, and the files aren't on this one...Don't ask! But thanks for showing interest in my stuff!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:34 AM

I second that. Link please, Ralphie???

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:24 AM

How about posting a link Ralphie?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:23 AM

You can upload music now...Even computer phobic little old me has done it.
I don't have a website, but there are various sites for MP3s etc.
It's all me playing, and it certainly isn't a commercial release on any record label.
One tune was to help a friend learn a tune she was having problems with, and it was easier than putting a CD in the post..(It was snowing!).
But I would be happy for other people te hear it (not to say amazed that anyone would want to!)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:14 AM

I think a lot of people are missing the point in that this thread was about records unavailable to buy. There's a big difference in that than copying commercial stuff.

In the meantime, look at this picture and ask if it's true.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 07:09 AM

May I suggest Topics 24 CD Voice Of The People set if you are after Feral singing...(What's Feral about singing?).
Not available as a download sadly. It will cost you several hundred pounds, but as it probably cost many thousands to produce. A small price to pay I feel, if you're really interested.

How much happier a world it would be if Topic followed the example set by The Max Hunter Folk Collection and put their entire field-recorded / traditional archive on-line where we might explore it at our leisure instead of in selectively edited instalments. As such, it's just another lifestyle commodity for those who can afford it - and a million miles removed from the circumstances of the singers & musicians it was recorded from in the first place. That's some remove! That said, I do appear to own most of VOTP, though I might lament that Felix Doran's spoken intro from The Fox Hunt has been cruelly excised for the CD, much less isolated from The Last of the Travelling Pipers album, which was selected from yet more stuff that has never seen the light of day. And now we're getting the same treatment of the Kennedy Archive, which was controversial even back in Kennedy's day - mutter, mutter. Voice of the People? Give it back to the people - not free; 30p per download should keep the venture ticking over just nicely.

For the gazillionth time: comparing the sharing of one-to-one copies of a CD, or samples of an artist's work (as opposed to full albums) with a friend (in the hope that they will enjoy the music and probably go on to buy some of it themselves) is not the same as uploading whole albums onto the internet where they becomes a limitless commodity.

The copying of a record is still illegal, Joan - and on tape or CD-R it can just as easily become a limitless commodity - if you pass it on to someone, who passes it on to two other people, and each of those etc. etc. - which is just as likely as blogged albums affecting the sales of Official Product. This is, after all, a matter of principle.

I mean, duh. Seriously.

You said it.

MY LOVE for this music will not stop and my respect to the artists is eternal ... they make my soul and mind travel.

That sums up the blogging culture perfectly. Great post.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 06:55 AM

"because the artists and small labels can't afford to do it."

Perhaps. Though I'm sure music will most definitely not die as a consequence, any more than it did after the oral tradition was destroyed by changes in society.

Perhaps technology will ultimately liberate more individuals to upload home-produced music to the internet with no need for middle-men?
I don't know how things will go. I guess we'll find out how musical culture adapts in time.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,janisfarm
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 06:42 AM

Hello all,
this is a very interesting thread

from my point of view.. i have to say that i am an old uploader.

I started because of love for music and willing to share what i love.

I have to say that i would have stoped listening to so much music i like because of money. i am pretty young and did not have the chance to buy these lps when it was cheaper before - 20, 30, 40 years. Now some have just gone to prices like 500$ and more. I love the music and because i am young i dont have a collection that is enough for my ears like some of you (which are older). So what can i do?
Stop listening to new stuff? Buy everything companies say is diamond(you all know the some companies were making reissues or even bootleg reissues of not good stuff and were promoting it like lost diamond---there is a pretty good song about this situation MANY BRIGHT THINGS- RECORD COLLECTOR POTATO) ? spend 1000$ to buy 1 copy out of 10 for an album which artist is lost or even dead? I think that if the artist and company did care about the LP the would have made some official reissue to increase the sales and make som money. they did not do it because the knew (some years ago) that nobody would be interested (they did not smell money)

Also I know that many artists were forgoten and would still be forgoten if these sites and people behind it did not exist.

I have also one guestion for you... why did so many artist get really lost in the late 70s and now( till 5-6 years) they are back, they are online and also have my space page ????

MY LOVE for this music will not stop and my respect to the artists is eternal ... they make my soul and mind travel.

I spend what i can to suppost them and don't get cheated anymore.

Finaly the reason i stopped blogging is the luck of communication. I was sharing music to get feedback from other people who shared the same feelings and respect for the music (after all in real life (not online) i have very few people-friends with same feelings about this music.
A solution is i think blogs whithout download links...just like music libraries but whith links to the artist site in order to be able to get a normal copy or to push to the direction of a proper reissue.

Best regards and love for real music

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 06:41 AM

Well I must admit Ralphie, I was rather steeling myself for an ear-bashing!!

But I thought I'd throw an honest personal response in here and see what happened.
I think my example is no doubt quite unique in folk musical circles (being as I was last year - albeit like most of my generation - utterly folk illiterate), yet of course strictly speaking what I did was nevertheless stealing in the same of research.

Though on the matter of the internet, folk music & research, if every county had a website like this one: Yorkshire Garland how good would that be?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 06:32 AM

For the gazillionth time: comparing the sharing of one-to-one copies of a CD, or samples of an artist's work (as opposed to full albums) with a friend (in the hope that they will enjoy the music and probably go on to buy some of it themselves) is not the same as uploading whole albums onto the internet where they becomes a limitless commodity.

I mean, duh. Seriously.

"But overall, whatever the rights or wrongs of it - it seems to me that musical artists will simply have to come to adapt to a radically changed musical culture."

And music enthusiasts will have to do the same, when no one except a major label can afford to make half-decent albums anymore, and the amount of non-mainstream music actually being produced with any kind of decent production values shrinks to near invisibility, because the artists and small labels can't afford to do it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 06:20 AM

Hello Crow Sister.
I'm probably one of those that you think would be having a go at you.
Well I'm not.
Firstly, your quite right. The lid is off the Pandoras box that is the www. No amount of bickering will put it back on.
Using the web as a research tool, is one of it's main reasons for it existing. And I'm pleased that you've come across some songs that you want to try and perform.
And it's great that you go to gigs/festivals whenever you can afford to. And that's the point. You wouldn't expect to go to Glasto/Towersey wherever without buying a ticket, would you? After all without ticket sales, there would be no gigs.

As has been said many times, the odd sharing of music with friends, etc, is not a problem. Hell, I've just posted a couple of my tunes on a certain specialist website, mainly to find out what other people think of them. Yes they are demos, and I probably wouldn't want them to appear on some download site. but, It was my choice to put them there..(See if you can find them!)

This thread is about unauthorised Uploads of entire CDs, which, if popular enough could be downloaded by literally the whole world.

Unlike other posters here, you will understand that there is very little money in the Folk scene. CD sales (mainly at gigs, not through distributors) can make a real financial difference as to whether your favourite artist who you were looking forward to seeing live this summer somewhere, will still be performing, or will have given up through lack of income. I'm reminded of an Ex Poster here. Fine Singer and instrumentalist (I won't name him) Who after many years performing. Gave up last year. He just couldn't afford to keep going. What part downloading had in his decision I know not. But every CD sale lost could have pushed him further into making that decision.

So, the consequences of Wholesale bootlegging could be no gigs to go to. Yes an extreme case I know, but you see the logic I hope?
Enjoy your singing, I hope you find that one song that really moves you, and if you know it's source, and the person is still alive...buy him a drink as a thank you.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 05:50 AM

Quickly dipping in...

Ethical or not, musical culture has simply changed (once again). Musical consumers habits have changed. Technology changed it. Just as the industrial revolution destroyed the oral tradition in the first place (and that had been around a lot longer than the record industry). It's out of the box and I can't see anyone putting it back in again now.
Unfair it may be, but artists must come to adapt to the new conditions they find themselves in. It seems people are going to live gigs much more again now - and that's where the music industry is making money, not in records. I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing.

Confessional: as a kid I used to get tapes off mates. In my twenties I bought shed loads of music, that I would sometimes loan to my mates. In my thirties I've bought less of it (due to financial restrictions), but I never bothered with downloads (legal or illegal). I did do so however *for the first time* last year when I illegally downloaded between half a dozen and a dozen albums (I couldn't name them - so I've no idea if they are still available), each of which I listened to a couple of times a piece before earmarking those traditional songs I fancied learning to sing.
I probably learned no more than a dozen songs off of those albums. But they were indeed very useful for a couple of months. YouTube however has proven to be a much more valuable resource to me since.

I don't read music (though I'm teaching myself now) so for me it was a purely pragmatic exercise. I'll delete them from my iTunes when I get around to tidying up what's on there, because I never listen to them for the sake of it: despite the fact that I sing traditional songs in pub sessions, I've not yet gained a personal taste for listening to revival folk records - and I suspect I probably won't. Live music on the other hand.. Well I'll definitely do a festival or two this year.

I'm sure the vast majority of people on this thread will deeply dissaprove of my actions. But there was no way I was ever going to buy those albums. I guess if I wanted to be strictly principled I could look up the songs I learned on Amazon and pay for them individually.

But overall, whatever the rights or wrongs of it - it seems to me that musical artists will simply have to come to adapt to a radically changed musical culture.

P.S. My thanks to those traditional folk enthusiasts here (who will remain nameless) for pressing upon me further helpful bootlegged material - I'm looking forward to the promised ballad selection very much indeed!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 05:37 AM

May I suggest Topics 24 CD Voice Of The People set if you are after Feral singing...(What's Feral about singing?).
Not available as a download sadly. It will cost you several hundred pounds, but as it probably cost many thousands to produce. A small price to pay I feel, if you're really interested.
Am trying to get my head around the concept of "Folk Producers busy assessing the market-place & working up their profit projections".
Try as I might, I can't think of one!
Oh and I did like the bit "A consumer-commodity born entirely of demographic marketing".
Well blow me down, I never realised that is what I was doing all those years, I stand corrected.
I thought I was playing the concertina. Thanks for putting me right.
Must go back to the studio and record some more "PRODUCT" then. (I call them tunes, but what do I know eh?)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 05:12 AM

All I'm seeing here is the same old righteous mithering about a theorectical loss of potential income by the actions of a few wayward souls who have been so moved by various albums to want to share them on their blogs - much, indeed, as people used to tape albums in the past, or might now rip them onto CD-R for friends who might be interested. This is common cultural practise in popular music - the lifeblood, indeed, where fans will buy the official product and yet gleefully partake of the treasures to be had down below, which serve as an essential sub-strata, freely available, with a life of their own facilitated by the broad-band internet. Last night, for example, I downloaded the complete recording of Joy Division's last ever gig (hitherto available incomplete on Still which I bought both on vinyl on the day it came out & twice more on subsequent CD editions) and New Order's legendary Western Works Demos from July 1980 which have never seen any form of official release. That we have bought pretty much every release by Joy Division / New Order these past 32 years is by the by - we continue to buy it now in new editions, deluxe editions, box sets, DVDs. I could make the same claim for Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, Frank Zappa, Third Ear Band...

So - where did we go wrong with Folk, I wonder? Why isn't there any form of cultural underground dealing in, say, those plundered field-recordings still languishing unheard in the ossuaries of the EFDSS only ever appreciated by way of academic research rather than the jouissance which gave the songs life in the first place? In fact, the entire Folk Ethos is choked by the dry academic dust of the rotten bourgeois corpse that gave it birth and which prevails in the stuffy righteousness we have seen here - barbed in its mercenary & superior brutality as it serves up the spoils of cultural plunder but only for those who are prepared to pay top-whack for the privilege. The marketing is, of course, as meticulous as the musical fabrications; an ill-founded myth of musical amelioration (nice word, Anne!) by which songs wrought from wild & feral vices (& voices indeed) of Traditional Working-Class Singers are sanitised & served up as bland MOR after-dinner adult-orientated easy-listening pap for the fashionable & affluent middle-classes as an essential aspect of their well-earned post-graduate professional life-style.

As I have said, several of my past works are currently on-line for free download - doesn't bother me in the slightest because I'm more concerned with the ongoing documentation of musical process than I am with marketing of PRODUCT, which is all I'm seeing here by the way. This is perhaps unsurprising, but none the less depressing, because that's all Folk has become - a consumer-commodity born entirely of demographic marketing, replete with copy-righteousness and ever-so-principled huffing & puffing that would suck the very life out of the music assuming it had any in it to begin with, which is debatable. But no music ever suffered from being listened to, shared & enjoyed. This is what we all do with music we love, and this is precisely what is happening here; people sharing music for the love of it. Musical Love, it would seem, is now the sole reserve of the listener / consumer; the producers - especially the Folk Producers - are too busy assessing the market place & working up their profit-projections to be too bothered about the pure love of the thing. A music which has been created solely as PRODUCT isn't even music at all, which is maybe why modern folk sounds the way it does - slick & soulless reconstructions a million light years away from the glad reality of the thing. The real mystery is why it keeps finding its way onto the blogs...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 05:02 AM

I suspect if you were to go on a photography forum and brag about downloading someone's photos from a free download site without the photographer's permission you'd get a similar response, but this is a music forum so we're discussing music

If you download a photo from a photographer's site you're in the same league as clipping a photograph from a book and putting it in a frame on the wall.

It's all in the use. Republishing, that's a different matter. But really, let's be realistic, do you really think folkclubs, folkfestivals and the like seek out photographers to offer payment for use of photographs in their publicity material? More often than not they contact photographers and demand better copies and then go on how they have no budget and surely we'd understand.

Endless grey areas there again too. And to be honest, the world is a lot better if you cut a bit of slack here and there and don't try to pinch a penny out of everything, within reason.

Let's be realistic, if you put a CD out there you know for each copy a few more people than the buyer alone are going to hear it or have copies of it. It comes with the territory. Yes it happens 'I just gave so and so a copy of your CD'. So fecking what! What do you do, stop talking to people who do that, send them a bill? Be sanctimonious and pretend you've never done anything like it yourself? Pretend it is realistic to charge everybody who sees a photograph or hears a tune? For godsake, really.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 04:51 AM

Let's get real. Albums are expensive to produce. Oh, you can sit down in your bedroom with a cheap mic and a free copy of Audacity, burn it to CD-R and stick a label on it. However to do it properly you need a professional recording studio, professional engineers, professional production and packaging, and professional distribution. All this costs money. Even a low-key folk album will cost several thousand.

Some bands may be able to afford to give away music in order to attract punters to big concerts, selling thousands of tickets at £50 or more a seat. That's not an option for most folk performers. Of course, an album is a promotional tool, but it's also an expense which must be recouped. If you want to continue to benefit from well-produced albums, you have to be prepared to pay for them.

Music copying has gone on for decades, and we've probably all done it. However I suspect that most people have a conscious or unconscious budget for what they are prepared to spend on buying albums, and copies are in addition to this. One-to-one copies for friends are probably those albums which the person wouldn't buy, and they do help to spread awareness and possibly lead to future sales. That still doesn't make it right, but it reduces the negative effects.

That all changed with the coming of the internet and music downloading sites. Suddenly people could download an entire record collection for nothing. Putting an album on-line makes it available to the whole world. The impact is completely different, and cannot be compared with making individual copies. Spreading awareness isn't much help if it just means more people downloading the music for free. Most artists have their own websites and Myspace pages where you can sample their music before buying - there's no need to steal whole albums in order to check out a new performer.

There can be no justification for uploading current albums, or those where a re-release can be expected. There may be some justification for making deleted albums available, but even this isn't clear-cut, as we have seen from some of the responses to this thread.

The fact that some people choose to perform for free, or to make free software or music available, is immaterial. That's their choice. You have no right to make the choice for them, and no amount of posturing or self-justification can alter that.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Uncle Rumpo
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 04:20 AM

so how many folk have never nicked a chip and bit of sausage off a mates pub lunch plate
or cadged a swig of his pint
in order to see if you like it enough to buy the same for yourself ?

or happily scrounged & received 'free samples' from a friendly barman
who cannily knows how to 'adjust' the stock accounts behind the bar.

..thats a bit like the benign and casual attitude of many ordinary folks to how they regard the new phenomenon of music download sampling..

However, of course I can see why some of the more strident and self righteously dogmatic anti download fanatics
will start shrieking on about how none of it is any different to pinching an entire 3 course family meal off the pub counter
and scarpering out the back door with all the nice steaming grub sloshing about on a rickety tea trolley..

[like in The Dandy and The Beano]

..but they do sound so tiresome when they always go overboard with their clumsy extreme "its like stealing x from y" metaphores.


And yes I've bought far too many CDs than I can reasonably afford
by artists from all around the world
that I'd never previously heard of
as a direct result of stumbling across interesting unauthorised
blog write ups
and illicit 'try before you buy' mp3 file downloads.

Including a fair few rare and expensive 'folk artist ' CD's that needed much subsequent research and tracking down
to find a seller to purchase them from.

I acknowledge I may now be in a minority of older pre-digital buggers
who actually prefere posessing tangible items
and are prepared to pay for the pleasure of owning them.

But even so, for any amount of dubious downloading I can be bothered engaging in,
its aggrievating to get constantly lumped in with all the hoards
of teenagers who've never bothered paying for any music
they habitually pilfer off the internet.

Just got to keep it all in sensible perspective.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 03:12 AM

Well GUEST.
I see you are using a computer?
Maybe running Microsoft Windows?
Who developed the system? Bill Gates.
Don't often see him at my local soup kitchen.
He has been paid (maybe too much, but hey!) for an idea that he once had.....
An idea that he copyrighted, and protects I assume!
Just another example of intellectual property.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 02:53 AM

"Nothing worthwhile has a price tag, never has had.
You have been seduced by Mammon.
Where are the shanachies when you need them?"

Can we assume that Guest doesn't have a job, and has no need or desire to be compensated for his labour? That he freely donates his labour to make society a better place? That he has no mortgage, bills, need to buy food?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 01:50 AM

The String person has spewed out this sort of self-justifying bollocks before, sounding for all the world like a fake Pollyanna on the South-West coast screeching "the music belongs to everybody". To which I respond "wot Jim Royle says". Thanks to Howard for having the patience to churn out such a detailed riposte.

You might as well say that because everyone has the right to a non-leaky water supply, plumbers should work for nothing. Even Marx concurred that plumbers and musicians ought to be treated equally; workers by hand and brain should be paid according to ability.

If you go in the sweetie shop and nick what you want without paying you risk being arrested for shoplifting. Stealing music is no different.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 07:10 PM

Guest, graphics and text are no different from music, they're also covered by copyright. You have no more right to photocopy a magazine or download a photo than you have to download music. Similarly, putting a photo or poem by someone else on the internet is no different from posting someone's music (as those who put copyright lyrics on Mudcat sometimes have to be reminded).

Intellectual property of any kind is subject to copyright. And yes, the creator does have the right to sell it to someone else, but that's their choice to do so.

I suspect if you were to go on a photography forum and brag about downloading someone's photos from a free download site without the photographer's permission you'd get a similar response, but this is a music forum so we're discussing music.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 05:38 PM

Why are things we *look* at (paintings, graphics, books, magazines, etc.) different than things we *listen to*? I have copied, downloaded, and (yes) paid for all kinds of visual materials— from creators rich and poor— with never a shrug. Yet, when one wants a copy of a tune that is otherwise *completely unavailable*, oh jeez, hold 'er boys don't let 'er rare.

---

Please note that anonymous posting is no longer allowed at Mudcat. Use a consistent name [in the 'from' box] when you post, or your messages risk being deleted.
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 04:57 PM

"4. Who does music belong to?
Surely it belongs to the person who creates it"

Only true if that person hasn't sold the rights to someone else. Intellectual property is, after all, property.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Surreysinger
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 04:49 PM

SOP ..."All this angelic righteousness is just the thing for a cold 12th night / Epiphany. Do keep it coming though - either that or take the bother to read what this thread was actually about."

The second of your two quotes was actually from my one and only posting on this thread. You seem to be making the assumption that some of us have not been reading the whole of the thread - I can assure you that I had read all the postings before commenting (and since). Since all the comments which I would have wished to make have been made by others, some of whom are actually affected by or personally involved in these issues,I don't propose to add anything further .

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 03:54 PM

Stringsinger, this sort of crap is wheeled out all the time by those who support free downloading. There may be an element of truth in some genres of music but surely it's less applicable to folk, at least in the UK where it cannot be said to be part of the "recording industry" - it's mostly a mixture of small record labels and self-published albums. Perhaps it's different where you are.

Turning to your questions:
1. Isn't it about money?

Yes. It's about the rights of musicians and record companies (producers have to eat too) who have invested time and money in creating an album and hope to get some of it back. Is that wrong?

2. Who are the thieves? Those who download without paying or those record companies who exploit the artists and pocket the profits?

Certainly those who download without paying. If record companies are exploiting the artists, that's got nothing to do with downloading, unless you're going to make a payment direct to the artist every time you download. Free downloading just deprives the artist of their measly royalty.

3. What about the quality of the music? There was a time when the recording industry wasn't doing so well and people came to live concerts. Recordings were only calling-cards for concerts. As Sol Hurok once said, "If people want to stay away, you can't stop them."

Most of the musicians I know rely on concerts to sell their albums, which are a significant part of the evening's remuneration. We're not talking stadium gigs here.

4. Who does music belong to?
Surely it belongs to the person who creates it

5. Can artists be supported on the basis of their artistic merits and not some dubious
business practices?

What does on earth does this mean? If you want to support an artist you buy their albums and pay to get into their concerts, don't download or sneak in through the back door.

6. Doesn't genuine artistic talent surface anyway because people want to support it in their own way?

Talent may surface, but it still has to eat. Professional artists need to get paid. People supporting them "in their own way" is only any help if it involves passing money to the artist.

7. What about musical imperialism where taste is dictated by the pocketbook and crooked businessmen?
WTF? We're discussing about folk artists here. Who are these fat cats who dictate taste?

Many of the artists who've been discussed on this thread either have a good relationship with their record label or have published the album themselves.   Pretending to be standing up for them against the big bad recording industry bears no relation to reality, and does them no favours.

It's true that some musicians did enter into less than advantageous contracts. In some cases this was due to naivety on both sides, between friends who never expected the rights under the contract to be transferred to others. But ripping off the record company through free downloads doesn't do anything to help the artist.

If you've managed to find a way to give away albums and somehow recoup the money in other ways, I'm sure a lot of people would love to hear about it. Until then, most of them expect to be paid for their work.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 03:04 PM

"Stop complaining if you are an artist associated with an unscrupulous recording company (most of them are) and you are buying into the commercial music hype. And stop trying to get rich through a corrupt system. BTW, there is an analogy here between the music business and the capitalist system which needs to be revamped."

Frank, you have got to be kidding. Know anyone getting rich off folk music? I sure don't. I am so sick of this tired old 'class war' bullshit about how anyone seeking honest renumeration for their musical output is some sort of money-grubbing 'capitalist'. Does your plumber work for free? How about the housepainter, or the electrician?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Stringsinger
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 02:20 PM

I've read all the above posts.

1. Isn't it about money?
2. Who are the thieves? Those who download without paying or those record companies who exploit the artists and pocket the profits?
3. What about the quality of the music? There was a time when the recording industry wasn't doing so well and people came to live concerts. Recordings were only calling-cards for concerts. As Sol Hurok once said, "If people want to stay away, you can't stop them."
4. Who does music belong to?
5. Can artists be supported on the basis of their artistic merits and not some dubious
business practices?
6. Doesn't genuine artistic talent surface anyway because people want to support it in their own way?
7. What about musical imperialism where taste is dictated by the pocketbook and crooked businessmen?

Solution: If you like an artist go his/her concerts and buy a ticket. If you are a booker,
make sure the artist gets a fair share. Forget the recording industry. It's rife with
mismanagement, crooked dealings, shoe-salesmen who become taste makers, too many damned attorneys cashing in, and stupid media hype.

If you like a recording company and you think they are honest, support them. That's the only kind of recording company that's worthwhile.

Stop complaining if you are an artist associated with an unscrupulous recording company (most of them are) and you are buying into the commercial music hype. And stop trying to get rich through a corrupt system. BTW, there is an analogy here between the music business and the capitalist system which needs to be revamped.

Also, ASCAP and BMI, what about offering an outlet for Public Domain music?

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 01:36 PM

so many very different circumstances are represented in this discussion

Yes, as I have been saying. yet you keep dishing out blanket condemnation and black and white views.

I agree that some instances of downloadable material overstep the mark. Yet, a lot of them don't do much harm at all, see the example I just gave two posts down.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 01:24 PM


I don't see any problem with downloads of albums that are long out of print, sometimes by musicians who are long gone

Perhaps, in a very limited number of cases, but so many very different circumstances are represented in this discussion. The family of Tony Rose, for example, would definitely not agree. Indeed, before his untimely death he re-recorded a set of his favourite songs to try and compensate for the loss of income from his "Harrogated" Trailers. In the case of Nic Jones, he wasn't even able to do that and so good friends set to work to make compilations of live recordings and outtakes. Lal & Mike Waterson's Bright Phoebus was re-recorded by others to keep that marvellous songwriting out there.

It is undoubtedly true that traditional musicians have been cheated and ripped off in the past. This is inexcusable but it's not the same thing as professional performers today being deprived of a livelihood. The first is purely a moral issue, the second has legal implications even if Celtic manages to skate just within the law.

If you look at a dodgy site (like THTM) on a daily basis (I don't, though I look often enough), you'll see disputed uploads going up and down like the proverbial tart's drawers, and links are more and more cunningly concealed. That's because, as I said before, they get complained about by the actual living artists, zapped and re-uploaded by uncaring tea-leaves who just don't get it that they're stealing and causing untold distress.

As for those who cover original, in-copyright work by living artists (Dylan and Richard Thompson have been cited), the answer lies with the venue management who ought to be ensuring that PRS returns are properly completed so that dues are properly re-distributed.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 12:20 PM

Thing is, we've lost so much choice. Go into HMV, look on iTunes and see if much of the rarer stuff can be found. HMV's folk section has become Flannagan and Allen and iTunes seems confused about what folk actually is (The Lightning Seeds?). No chance of picking up a Paddy Canny album there.

I wonder if that's completely true. On one level there's the trend, especially among Irish musicians, of releasing albums privately and sell them on to distributors like Claddagh or CIC. Now, the advantage of this is that the artists retain full control (that is if they stay with the above distributors and don't fall for the ones that pay a pittance or not at all).

I did an album with a friend a few years ago and was surprised how far the reach of the distributors actually was. Copies could be ordered from Tesco UK! (although I doubt anybody did in fairness).

It's easier than ever to buy on-line, directly from the musicians or from distributors or other on-line retailers like Custy's who often have an amazing selection.

I don't see any problem with downloads of albums that are long out of print, sometimes by musicians who are long gone. Speaking of Clare musicians, the Ceol Alainn site put up an extremely obscure lp which included Bobby Casey, Raymond Roland, John Roe, Liam Farrell and a few tracks by Gay McKeon. It was released on Breandan Mulkere's label and to be honest I had never heard of it or seen any reference to it ever. I had no qualms whatsoever downloading it. It's nice enough not great maybe but nice in a rough and ready way. I was happy to have been introduced to it that way. And yes, I have since bought the lp on Ebay, nobody else bid on it so I got it cheap too, not that it makes a difference as the musicians wouldn't get anything from that sale either.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 12:14 PM

I have just discovered this thread. There has been a similar discussion on the Time Has Told Me blog with some of the posters appearing on both blogs.
I have been copying music for years, firstly reel to reel from the John Peel Show. Then tape to tape when cassettes were popular. Then cd to cd copying on a computer. Then ripping mp3s. Such activity has helped me to develop as a music fan, especially folk, and I have bought thousands of lps, cassettes and cds over the last 30 years. I have also played some folk songs either written or arranged by other artists in pubs and clubs. I'm sure that people do this every day in venues around the world. how many people will have paid Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson or whoever to be able to play their songs? Are performers stealing the work of others by performing their songs, or are they helping to introduce new audiences to great songwriters.
As for file-sharing haven't our public libraries been involved in this for years by lending cds etc to borrowers who will make copies.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Stu
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 12:00 PM

"That would only encourage cheapskates to go and steal them."

You might be right, but what we're witnessing here is the inevitable consequence of an unregulated free market economy. People have always swapped music and always will. I agree there's a world of difference between making a copy of an album for a mate and posting it for the great unwashed to download but many people simply do not see music as commodity, and if there's one person whose posted on this thread who's never copied an album I'd be very surprised; those copies were still theft, regardless.

I had a look at SOP's links, and followed on to the Irish trad one which has a plethora of stuff I would dearly love to hear, but I personally don't download illegally any more (I did when Napster was about) and buy online or in record stores, although I suspect unless I win the pools or some other miracle occurs I'm resigned to the fact I'll get to hear the work of those musicians, most of whom are dead (and boy, I really would like to hear some of these recordings of the Clare musicians). I have good friends who are professional musicians and so always buy my music (direct from them if I can).

Thing is, we've lost so much choice. Go into HMV, look on iTunes and see if much of the rarer stuff can be found. HMV's folk section has become Flannagan and Allen and iTunes seems confused about what folk actually is (The Lightning Seeds?). No chance of picking up a Paddy Canny album there.

It's the system man, the system.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Anne Lister
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 11:59 AM

Yes, the link for "Burnt Feathers" was removed. The reason I've mentioned it is that it was sheer chance that I discovered it was there (and operational) in the first place, and then was able to alert some other performers that their material was also on THTM. And although the link was removed there was some residual correspondence which was far from pleasant.

Once again Suibhne goes on about "angelic righteousness" - sorry, Suibhne, but we're talking about legal stuff here and you don't have to be angelically righteous to be legally in the right. As to the dust about the Revival - again, Bob and Carole Pegg's album (which kicked this thread off) isn't in that category, nor was "Burnt Feathers".   Nor, I'm sure, are quite a number of other albums we might mention in this same context. Stop confusing the issue with emotive language. Whatever wrongs you're referring to are not justified or ameliorated by people doing the wrong thing now.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 11:27 AM

but I'm not posting the link. That would only encourage cheapskates to go and steal them.

Some of the argument for and against the recordings being up on site sounds remarkably similar to that here, and the self justification is equally reprehensible.

All this angelic righteousness is just the thing for a cold 12th night / Epiphany. Do keep it coming though - either that or take the bother to read what this thread was actually about. Meanwhile, interesting to consider if the same copy-righteousness had been around back in the day there would have been no folk tradition, nor yet the mass cultural plundering that went on in the name of The Revival the spoils of which bulk up much of these pirated albums.