Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 20 Apr 12 - 07:12 AM

I see from the Spring 2012 issue of the MU journal The Musician (I read it for the centerfold) that Celtic Music/CM Distribution are on their watchlist (ie check with MU before having any dealings with them).

RtS

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: mikecardenas
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 01:46 AM

Tradition does not require technology, it will exist with or without. The same white guy who felt he was hip "gifting" the world with race records is no different than the modern white guy who feels he's doing the world a delusional favor of hipness by alerting everyone to allegedly hidden Blues.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Reinhard
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 02:35 PM

There is another site on blogspot.com which has just ripped about 20 Steeleye Span CDs up the the most current one. I can't imagine that musicians and label will be happy about theit loss of income.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 03:30 PM

And if you haven't got any digital photos, back up your documents!

Just over a year ago I accidentally moved my 'Tunes' folder to my 'Tunes' folder. OS X didn't like that, and I ended up with an empty 'Tunes' folder. Won't do that again, I thought. Must do a full system backup some time, I thought. Two months later, I accidentally moved my 'Documents' folder to my 'Documents' folder. Three years of letters, articles, essays, and god knows what, up in smoke.

I now use a version of OS X which backs up automatically several times a day. I recommend it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Chairman Miao
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 11:59 AM

For Howard's son, the backup for his music collection is in the cloud. :-) (And on the hard disks of his friends.)

For older people: backup, backup, backup!!!   Even if you aren't downloading music files: back up your digital photograph directories!!!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 10:23 AM

Fitting end to this discussion, Howard.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 05:13 AM

Just to add a postscript, my son's hard disk has crashed and he's lost his entire music collection. Just one of the reasons I prefer CDs.

Of course, he's not too bothered since he hadn't paid for most of it...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 08:01 PM

Cap'n,
The revival I knew was built on the desire to share - MacColl, Seeger, Tawney, McGinn, Ed Pickford, John Pole, Leon Rossleson, Pete Smith........
I don't begrudge a penny of the money due to songwriters where there is money to be made - more power to their elbows; but all too often the (c) mark is a barrier to the songs being sung.
Place the dead hand of 'ownership' on the songs and they never will become folk in a thousand years - if that's what you want!
Jim Carroll.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 01:23 PM

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll - PM
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 02:02 PM

"freedom to starve."
Tsk-tsk - please don't overstate Cap'n.
I respect your position as a professional - but without somebody having shared something with you, you wouldn't have anything to be professional with.
Jim Carroll
no Jim, you miss the point, some of these rare old albums contain modern songs written by the singers, its not just about source singers or revival singers singing traditional material.
so there are professionals who do not sing any traditional material,they sing modern materialwritten in a traditional style[using certain modes etc] there are also professionals who do a mixture,they have a right to have a say abou ttheir own material.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 10:25 AM

Mmmmm, don't forget that you have just over 7 days to submit your tax return to your hideous labour government! With all this pontification going on, you might just forget, and you don;t want the £100 late filing penalty now do you???

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 10:07 AM

Ralphie's right, it's probably time to put this one to bed. I'm pleasantly surprised this has managed to reach well over 300 posts, on a controversial topic, without degenerating into the usual fight. It just shows it can be done!

Actually, my opinion has changed, or at least shifted a bit. I'm now a bit more open-minded to some of the potential benefits, although I remain sceptical that small-scale record producers will see much of these, in particular the part-timers (who make up an important part of the UK folk scene, especially among the dance bands). They mainly rely on selling CDs at gigs and don't have the margins to absorb too many downloads.

However, this brave new world isn't going to go away and we have to adapt to it. Time will tell.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 04:30 AM

Of course dear fellow!
As I've said, I'll wait til the 3 CD set comes out first. So, probably later in the year.
(Will probably re-jig the whole bloody thing before then anyway!).
Atrists? never satisfied Pah!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: the Folk Police
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 04:16 AM

Are you going to let us know the wheres and the whens and the how muches of it when you know, Ralphie?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 03:04 AM

For once Jim No you're not....(Joke Joke!)
It's always interesting to hear about your activities in Ireland. It's not a tradition that I play, or know much about. Loved the story about the singer thinking he had to pay you to record him!
(I do have some connection with Irish music though. I did a short tour with Packie Byrne in his home county of Donegal many moons ago.
I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that he's still with us. Remember going for an Indian meal with him once. He insisted on bacon and eggs....and got it!)
Serious thread drift here, sorry.
But, maybe it's time to let this topic (no pun!) go to the great Mudcat archive in the sky.
I very much doubt if anyone will change their opinions. But, it's been an interesting journey. (and didn't turn into a full blown war for once!)
Ralphie
(You can buy my CD when it comes out if you want to.)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 08:46 AM

"You know, Jim, I really appreciate all these stories you have to illustrate your points."
Thanks T.I.P. and I appreciate being given the opportunity to pass them on.
Nice to know I'm not boring the pants off everyone.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: kendall
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 08:36 AM

I see these free downloads as something like stealing an apple from an outdoor fruit stand.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: brezhnev
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 08:00 AM

Good heavens, SO'P! You're Sedayne, who does that great version of Harp Song of the Dane Women on YouTube. Well I never.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,BoB_Nhjk
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 07:49 AM

I guess that ther must be some distinction between various forms of copywrited material. recordings are sacred. But it is OK to publish my copywrited lyrics on DT even though they can be purchased in book stores. No need to buy the sheet music. You can get it here for free..

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 05:33 AM

I've recently done a 'Folk' album which is only available on Myspace; ten tracks with lots of notes & graphics to contextualise the overall concept of the thing. There is no hard copy, and it doesn't cost anything to listen to it, other than a little time. This album is called Jesus at the Zoo.

My main Myspace page (see HERE) is where I feature my basic CV and other details with a view to general networking rather than self-promotion as such. Here you can listen to tracks in full which are part of my ongoing exploration of music. Right now - amongst other things - you can hear my post-revival take on The Rolling of the Stones, an improvisation on the Black Sea Fiddle field-recorded in a remote medieval Cornish church last summer, a recitation of a Middle-English poem about the Hare self-accompanied on a medieval harp, and the singing of the ballad King Orfeo self-accompanied on a Tibetan Singing Bowl. I doubt this music will ever be available as part of a album - thus it operates simply as document, glimpses & snatches of an ongoing and constantly evolving process.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Stuart
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 05:28 AM

The slowly developing www.raretunes.org resource is an attempt to address some of the challenges of a facility to share Scottish music through the web. Developed, funded (costs are very low) and maintained by a small group of individuals it demonstrates what can be done. See FAQ pages for technical information. The system is easily reproduceable and is scaleable. It archives material in the highest quality possible but allows output at lower MP3 for the popular portable players. As work is voluntary and unfunded the archive is developing slowly as time allows. There is a considerable amount of digitised material awaiting upload and even more still in various analogue forms from 78 rpm to compact cassette. The slow pace allows research in parallel with the addition of new material and users have now become a major source of recordings and information.

Many musicians here in Scotland have "shoebox" archives of personal recordings made throughout their musical lives (sessions, rehearsals, house ceilidhs etc), others have "out of print" recordings which they want out there for one reason or another.

It's not the answer to everyone's dreams but points some ways forward for those who wish to offer otherwise hidden music assuming matters of agreement or legitimacy are addressed. Are there other similar initiatives?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 04:25 AM

T.I.P Thank you appreciate your thoughts!
There are a couple of clips on "ONMVoice"...Actually I think theres a blue clicky nearer the top of this thread!
I'm holding back on releasing the CD until later in the year, because there is going to be a 3 CD boxed set called Duet International coming out in the summer. (at the last look there are possibly 43 different artists on it!),
Which brings us neatly full circle. It is the third in a series featuring all 3 types of concertina, Anglo, English and now Duet.
Lavish book to go with it, with lots of details about the musicians.
God knows what it cost to make. And I've no idea if they have made a profit. (seems rather unlikely!)
And the Duet one is even less likely!
Anyway, I'm holding back, so that they can get as much money as possible.
Maybe when I do release it, I'll do a My Space or similar, with some sound snippets on...But not the whole thing!
(Mind you, I'll have to get some youngster to set it up. I can only just about type!)
I'm happy for people to hear the odd 30 seconds to see if they like it.
If they do, then they can buy it...
Maybe you're right, and theres a whole collection of Duet players in Russia, just waiting for it...Who knows.
But, that sounds like a fair compromise!
And. I agree with thoughts re busking. I'm happy to play for anyone, but, on my terms. I regularly share my playing in sessions for no money at all. But releasing a CD is a big thing when you're on a pension.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,T.I.P.
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 05:45 PM

You know, Jim, I really appreciate all these stories you have to illustrate your points. It brings in fresh perspectives to the discussion. I also appreciate hearing about your situation Ralphie, and it gives me pause for thought. It also makes me want to hear some of your squeezebox playing, which is another thing I've only begun to appreciate since finding folk music blogs. But I also think its very limiting to define your niche so narrowly. The whole point in blogs is that specialized music gets distributed to many more people. So you may only have 1000 people in England who would go for it, but as has been pointed out, Lizardson is Japanese, other contributors to the blog are from Italy, France, Holland, and the other British Folk blog that I know of is run by a Russian and receives mostly Russian visitors. So you may in fact have quite a larger market than you think, and if you embrace the potential that the internet offers, it could be a larger market still. Bluegrass was mostly an old-folks thing for a long time. Than the Cohen brothers got a whiff of it, used it in a movie, and now there's loads of performers, fans, festival-goers, and yes: album-buyers in the younger generation. If you want to target younger people and expand your audience, the internet is a pretty great way to do it.

As for the response to my 'control vs freedom' comment, I'm intrigued by how much anger it has drawn. Of course I threw it in there to provoke a bit of unorthodox thought. But interesting that so many equate releasing control with starving. So far in my life, the times when I've given up control over my life-situation or gone into situations in which I had little control have been the times when I was most happy, learned the most, and was given the most opportunities. In short, the times in which I was most alive. And when I was doing what was right for me, the money always came. I never had to go grabbing after it. Bit of an esoteric principle for a folk forum, I suppose, but let me give an example to illustrate:

When you walk down a pedestrian mall or somewhere, and there's people on the streets trying to make money, who do you give to: the beggar who's shaking their cup of change at you, or the busker who's freely giving away their talent (music, mime, whathaveyou)? When you give without expecting anything in return (in other words, when you release control), people are warmed, and they tend to give in return. In my own experience busking, I've found that when I was playing because I really wanted or needed the money, I would get next-to-nothing. When I was playing just for the love of it and really trying to share my love for the music with whoever was walking by, people would take note, and stop and listen, and leave me a fiver or more. Neediness pushes people away, love and trust draw them in. Just like in any relationship. If you try to control it you kill the magic. But that's just my personal experience, and maybe it's a bunch of '60s hogwash' (wouldn't know, wasn't alive then!).

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 03:54 AM

As I said back there, many people now favour the loss-less FLAC format for file sharing & downloads.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 02:38 AM

Just a sad tecchie point Howard.
As we are discussing "archive" recordings.
You're quite right to say that having converted to MP3 format, you can't put the bits back again.
But, I think that it is unlikely that anyone would notice the fact that "wav" files had been converted to "MP3" files (considering the original source might be anything, cassette, 78, or even a wax cylinder!)
That doesn't alter the discussion as to how and when they should be released or uploaded, I just put my BBC hat on there for a second! Now, back to the subject in hand, (which has been illuminating).

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 02:02 PM

"freedom to starve."
Tsk-tsk - please don't overstate Cap'n.
I respect your position as a professional - but without somebody having shared something with you, you wouldn't have anything to be professional with.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 01:19 PM

But letting go of control is always a hard thing. Until you realize that it actually sets you free.[QUOTE][thats a real piece of 1960s hogwash]
What a load of donkeys plonkers, freedom, freedom to starve.
oh and apropos of the music industry , I sincerely wish people like Dave Bulmer had never got involved in the folk scene.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 01:18 PM

Sorry Howard, maybe I am misreading you - I thought we had moven on to voluntarily sharing recordings on line.
My mistake
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 01:00 PM

Goodness, Jim, you seem determined to take issue with everything I say! By "naively" I meant precisely those situations where some collectors did take advantage, and particularly those where singers may have been persuaded to sign away their own rights in the recordings. I have only anecdotal evidence that this happened, you are far more knowledgeable than me.

I think I was agreeing with you. However I simply thought that this issue is a distraction from the subjects in question - particularly as it seemed to be offered by SOP as a justification for ignoring copyright in commercial recordings.

As for "possessiveness", I fully respect your own approach to the field recordings which you made. However I don't think there is anything wrong in making commercial recordings, neither do I think it unreasonable that someone who invests money in a commercial product should hope to recover it from sales. No one would think it surprising that someone who makes cars or furniture or who fixes a leaking pipe should expect to get paid - why should it be be any different for musicians and record producers?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 11:26 AM

"The point I was making was that there is a difference between them voluntarily (if perhaps naively)"
Why naively, for god's sake? The songs were freely given to them, and they placed no monetary value on them whatever; nor were they in any way possessive about them. A certain degree of pride when they heard them sung by somebody else, yes, but no more than that.
As Walter Pardon said when he heard of two folkie superstars squabbling over which of them would record one of his songs; "They're not my songs, they're everybody's". The ones you mentioned that were paid, received remuneration for their labour, time and inconvenience - they weren't selling their music (even the ones that composed).
The fact that (a tiny few) collectors marketed the recordings deliberately to make money was down to their predatory nature alone.
One of the great sea-changes in the revival (a fairly recent one, in my experience) is this deadening possessiveness. I honestly cannot remember it being a feature even up to twenty years ago - strange, and very sad!!! If it had been around when the revival kicked off half a century ago we wouldn't have had a pit to hiss in - and wouldn't be communicating with each other now.
I have never encountered the slightest difficulty in passing on our recordings to whoever we wished to - we took, and were given the songs totally on trust, on the understanding that they wouldn't die out, and passing them on was an essential part of that - that was the only 'binding contract' as far as we, and the singers were concerned.
I think the legal position is (never had the occasion to consult it fully) that the collectors own the recordings they made, but we have always treated them as the property of the singers.
Some time in the late seventies we were recording a singer named Martin Howley, here in Clare. We arrived here to learn that he was ill, so we drove up to see him.
We were chatting and he asked, "Do you have your tape recorder with you?"
Pat protested that we had heard he was ill and had come to see how he was and spend a little time with him.
His reply still brings a lump to the throat; "I'm a poor man; I have nothing to leave but my songs; I want you to have them".
He gave us another ten songs and died of cancer of the eye later that year.
Naive country-man or what?
Martin Reidy, an old bachelor living on his own not far from where we now live, said to us once, "I'm pleased that you started taking down my songs. I was so worried that they would die along with me that I started to try and teach them to Topsy" (his mongrel dog).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 11:03 AM

Many downloads these days are in FLAC format, which is described as lossless. I don't find MP3s too different from WAVs - but I also like the natural warmth of acoustic wind-up gramophones...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: zozimus
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 10:46 AM

Many thanks for that Howard. I'm not sure if my ears can tell the difference, but I'll do some tests. I had bought some Martin Carthy MP3s and later got a present of his boxed collection, so there are some tracks I have in both formats. I also buy CDs and just added Harry Cox's double Cd to my collection and again can do a comparison there. However, as I am interested in learning songs rather than having a state of the art sound system, I think the quality is O'K.
Regardless of what format I use, herself stills says" Can you not turn that Down"
                                     Zozimus

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 10:22 AM

Zozimus, the quick answer to your question is "no". MP3s are compressed files, they reduce file size by losing a lot of the data. Downloaded MP3s are usually at 128 kbps, compared with an audio CD at 1.4 Mbps they are losing about 90% of the original data. Hopefully this is the less important data, but it still affects the quality - "near CD" as opposed to "CD quality". It's good enough to play back on PC speakers or ipod headphones, but makes a difference on good equipment.

Burning an MP3 to CD won't put back the missing data.

Another reason why I prefer to buy CDs.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 10:09 AM

Hi Zozimus.
I didn't know that Topic were flogging the booklets seperately.
Good for Topic.
So, (postage apart, depending on where in the world you live) The CD set costs the same-ish as the downloads (plus posted booklets).
Why not save all those hours of downloading every CD?
If you want it, buy it!
Saves you the hassle of buying the strange shaped CD boxes to fit the books in. (if you can find them)
My set sits neatly on my shelf. I can pick one to listen to, and the book comes in the box. Convenient, methinks.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 10:04 AM

Jim, I was not deriding the "lack of effort" from source singers, nor their creative input. The point I was making was that there is a difference between them voluntarily (if perhaps naively) offering their songs to a collector who then exploits them financially without sharing the benefit, and a modern musician who has invested thousands of pounds to create a musical product which others are then offering for nothing.

As you say, the motivation for most source singers was to preserve the music. However, I believe I'm correct in thinking that they (or their estates) will own the copyright in their performances, and the collectors own the copyright in the recording. I suspect that these are obstacles to making these as freely available as we might like.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: zozimus
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 09:33 AM

A number of people have mentioned the inferior quality of MP3s as compared to CD. However, it is possible to "burn" MP3s to CD. My question is does this process really give the same quality as a purchased CD ? I cited way up this tread the relative cost fo buying Voice of the People set by download as compared to the CD package. What was not factored in was the cost of postage, which can be excessive. Meanwhile, the kind people in Topic have sold be a full set of Booklets for £10.
                                     Zozimus

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 08:33 AM

"a bit different from making other people's creations available without their consent."
Was anybody proposing this as an ongoing project? I can't see any objection to people who wish to do so donating their material voluntarily on a site.
"it seems hypocritical to complain on the one hand how badly source singers were exploited by some collectors, and yet on the other to want free access to recordings of those singers."
Having arrived at the present situation it seems the logical step to make those recordings freely available rather than leave them in private hands. Virtually all the singers are now dead, so the benificiaries to the ripped off material are the present 'owners'.
In our experience, the driving force behind ALL of the source singers we recorded was that the songs should not die with them; financial rewards NEVER entered into the equasion.
The fact that it wasn't too far up this thread that you were pointing out the 'lack of effort' on the part of source singers compared to the hard work and expense put in by today's folkies, seems more than a little hypocritical to me.
".....far lower quality"
Don't see this; certainly not with song anyway. Present-day technology has put a far higher standard of reproduced sound at our disposal with far less effort, than we were ever able to achieve. Personally, I have always avoided studio-based performances like the plague - people can decided for themselves on the end result based on the recordings we have issued. I think we are talking here about making material available in order to increase access to it for other performers/potential audiences rather than swish, professionally produced packages.
"but they knew their worth and generated significant income from music".
A few did, but that certainly didn't stop them from passing their music on freely. I never once met a singer who refused to sing unless he/she was paid.
The Travellers sang in the streets and pubs, sold 'ballads' (songsheets) at the fairs and markets, and yet, quite seperate from the 'business' side of their activities, were an essential part of our oral traditions. Without them we would have lost a sizeable chunk of our ballad repertoire.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 06:14 AM

Howard.
Couldn't have put it better myself. And I'm not offended in the least! In fact I'm quite flattered that you think 1000 people would want to buy my little offering, or indeed download it. (I can only afford to press 250 copies anyway!)
As for transferring archive stuff to the Web...I stated earlier that to do it properly takes an enourmous amount of time, energy, and money, even if you can find decent machines left for the initial transfer,Re-Equing,Noise cancellation,Editing,Digitising, etc.
And it all has to be documented as well, with atributions as to where and when it was recorded otherwise there is no point in doing it at all.
And before that, you acually have to get the trust of all the various owners in the first place. Most of whom are very protective.
I would love to see a subscription download site with everything from wax cylinders onwards available for all. Wonderful idea.
And the big question, having done all that. How many people would subscribe? 100? 1000? Certainly not in the numbers that would download the latest X Factor single thats for sure.
And as a member of the senior generation. I can't abide downloads. I would much rather buy a CD, with interesting background notes on the artists, either from the artist themselves, or, if it's an archive recording, from a reputable company such as Topic, or Musical Traditions, or Veteran.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 05:24 AM

A lot of what TIP says is attractive, at first reading. But when you go into it in more detail, it's less straightforward.

Comparison with Wikipedia is misleading. There, people are creating new writing, and choosing to make it freely available. That's great. However it's a bit different from making other people's creations available without their consent.

It's easy to talk about "just making archives available". The reality is that these are held by many different institutions and on a variety of recording media, some of them obsolete and many of them fragile. Many of them will require specialist equipment, and expert handling and processing, to convert them to digital media. Hardly a job for bloggers. Web hosting is the least of the problems, and the cost.

I agree that more could be done to widen access to archives which have already been digitised. However, it seems hypocritical to complain on the one hand how badly source singers were exploited by some collectors, and yet on the other to want free access to recordings of those singers.

As for CDs - many of these have limited appeal to a small niche market. With respect to Ralphie, the number of people interested in his recordings of McCann Duet Concertina playing, even by someone with his reputation, is likely to be limited. If the potential total market for a CD is 1000 buyers, then 1000 downloads is going to eat into that significantly, even if a good number of them would never have bought the physical album.

The downloading culture is creating a two-tier market for music - those who understand it and have access to it (mostly the younger generation) and those (mostly older) who don't understand it and don't know how to access it, and who both rely on buying CDs and actually prefer that medium. The problem for folk music is that most of its market currently is in the second group. So far I don't see a vast upsurge of interest from the younger group.

It seems to me we're going to end up with far more music of far lower quality. More recordings are being made without professional equipment and without professional expertise, and without the editorial filtering by a record company that weeds out the total dross. It's then published as low-quality MP3s. Ironically, there's now so much music out there that finding the good stuff is harder than ever.

Finally, I think TIP has a romantic view of the "olde days". Plenty of traditional musicians were professionals - perhaps not full-time, but they knew their worth and generated significant income from music, whether in cash or kind. Musicians like the Bulwers, Scan Tester and Billy Bennington were busy most weekends playing around their local areas, usually for cash or at least for beer.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 05:04 AM

Why do folkies so loathe people who only want to make a small living out of a rare skill that they've worked hard to learn, to give pleasure to others?

Who are you on about there, 'Nacious? Social Workers? Teachers? Prostitutes? Plummers? Nurses? Heating engineers? Nuclear Physicists? Research Scientists? Librarians? Lap dancers? I do not loathe any of these people, nor yet begrudge them remuneration for the essential service they provide to society as a whole. Same goes for Musicians, even Folk Musicians, although there the avenues of qualification & payment are less structured - something perhaps the Folk Degree Course will put an end to, making sure only those suitably qualified might be considered eligible for Professional Status. Otherwise - I'm sure even the odd Nuclear Physicist or Prostitute might retire to their DAW at the end of their working day to lay down another track for that forthcoming CD-R album which they'll sell at their up & coming club and festival bookings. And who knows - if people take it to their hearts (shock horror) it might find itself on a blog available for free-download by those who would never have heard it anyway, and who, if they feel moved to do so, might be moved to buy the official product, or not, in which case - no harm done. So, who is being loathed here I wonder? And loathed by whom? Unless it's you, 'Nacious - loathing yourself, which would seem very likely judging from the bitterness of your recent posts here.

Might I suggest you read what is being said (especially by TIP) and commune with the general spirit of celebration with which I began this thread. Celebration is the heart & soul of music anyway; it is this that moves people to listen, to buy, to download, and for the whole thing to take such a vibrant life of its own. Nothing on this earth can kill music - just upset a few malcontents who have misunderstood the truly folkloric nature of the download-culture and see every free download a loss of potential earnings rather than evidence of someone actually wanting to listen to what they do.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 04:34 AM

Interesting to compare the attitudes of the last two posters with those of the people we got our repertoire of folk songs from - it's why some songs became folk and others never shall be.
In the 1970s somebody gathered together and published a book of political songs without asking the writers' permission. I was one of the people who protested at what I considered the editor's bad manners in doing so, but was told by MacColl (the bogey-man of folk song), "It would have been nice to have been asked, but there is no point in writing new songs if to don't want them circulated and sung".
Thanks for a most thoughtful and painstaking contribution Guest T.I.P. - a great deal to think about.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Greame
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 02:43 AM

As a musician I think thus:

It's interesting, all these learned people saying how good it is for musicians that there music is given away free, yet it feels SO bad and it's felt bad for years.

If it's so good for us musicians, when is it going to feel good? Or look positive? Or even ambivalent?

I suspect it's not really good at all for musicians, but instead good for people who want their music for free. People, who it seems, are extremely good at deluding themselves over their real motives.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Folknacious
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 08:23 PM

letting go of control is always a hard thing. Until you realize that it actually sets you free.

Free to live in a cardboard box in a doorway on the Strand on a cold winter's night. That's what these money-grubbing musicians deserve, ay?

Why do folkies so loathe people who only want to make a small living out of a rare skill that they've worked hard to learn, to give pleasure to others?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,TIP
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 06:40 PM

"So you really think a site like Max Hunter can be put up and kept running for 'next to nothing'? What an insult the people who make that site available to you and me and anyone else who wants to dive in and test the waters. Do you think those songs transcribed themselves? Fact is, there are thousands and thousands of songs, ballads, etc. collected from traditional American musicians available on Max Hunter as well as the Wolf Folkore Collection, American Memory (Library of Congress). This music is 'freely available' as you say thanks to the time and money contributed by public and private sources. But I have a hard time believing that the 'everything should be free' types will be willing to pay for something they would rather have for, well, free."

"My motive in raising the question was to suggest that cash needs to be raised to preserve and make available the songs and music of people most of whom are now dead."

You would think that to make the most comprehensive encyclopedia in the world, with entries on every conceivable public figure and relevant event in history, in a multitude of different languages, would take a hellofalotofmoney too. But Wikipedia happened. How? A mission to make things free and a lot of people who were prepared to give a little bit of their time and energy away for free because they believed in the cause and because they had access to work with material that was 'creative commons', in other words, copyright-free. Now, they do have to raise some money from time to time, which as far as I've seen has been entirely donation-based. But the great bulk of the work that's done to create the content of the thing is done on a donation-basis. If the huge archives of field recordings were just made available, then you wouldn't need to pay any transcribers, because everyone who's interested in traditional music could go to the site, listen to some bits, do some transcribing, maybe correct someone else's transcription, etc. Costs of webhosting are pretty small, and since they would only need to increase when the user-base increased, it probably would not be too difficult to get lots of small donations to cover the cost, or to get a grant. The FolkWikiArchive. Or something. Think about it.

The point I already made is, "who would do all this work of digitizing, transcribing, categorizing, reviewing, and uploading for free?" - the people who already are: bloggers. Just give them the tools and the raw materials and their love of the music will be more than enough to suffice for payment. Like the old man and the bullock.

The whole problem of the locked up archives is that they're run in a top-down fashion, with tightly controlled access, totally contrary to the spirit of folk music, which is democratic and center-less. But I think we all agree that those locked archives are a travesty. I'm just proposing that the solution may not require as much cash, or expenditure of any one person's energy, and in fact it would be more in the folk spirit if it was a Wiki-project to which every interested and informed person could contribute.

As for the issue of "I already shelled out lots of cash for my 500 cds, now who's going to buy them"

Well, one thing that I would like to point out is that often in any sort of media industry (be it music, book publishing, etc.), as much or more money is spent on advertising and marketing the product than on the physical product. It doesn't matter if you're in a niche market; it can be marketed. "Esoteric Blues-Raga-Fingerpicking Guitar-Soli" is a pretty niche market too, but it's grown explosively in the past few years, largely thanks to new media and forward-thinking labels (ok, it's still small but the good musicians are making a solid living and the fans are passionately into it. what more could you want?).

Sharity blogs have created niche audiences, visit daily, and the bloggers do the marketing for free. That's a hell of an opportunity, don't you think?

Also, with downloads the whole idea is that the physical product isn't changing hands. So right now you have your 500 cds. If 1000 people download your album for free from a blog, you still have those 500 cds, which you can continue to sell at gigs (those who go to your gigs now aren't going because of the blog, so they'll still buy your stuff, and those who found out about you from the blog may not buy that cd, but they may buy others (or that one, out of guilt if nothing else! yes, it does happen...), or at least you've attracted more paying audience members to your gigs, and earned more fans who will continue to watch you and listen to you and be potential future customers. And you got all that second group for free.

So yes, there is 'potential sales loss' in downloads. But there's also 'potential sales gain'. And yes, in a morally just, ordered, world you should be able to decide whether the gains outweigh the losses. But the world is not ordered according to morals. It's constantly evolving, and we must evolve with it.

And look. I know it hurts when you've shelled out money and time for something to sell and then can't make back your money. My dad is a recording engineer. Since the recession, his clients have almost totally dried up. It's happening to all the recording studios. We know that people are still recording music and buying music, but they're going to the studios less and less. Because they're setting up their own home-recording setups. And I'm not talking about just bedroom amateurs. Professional musicians are too.

Apple distributes Garageband for free on all it's computers. No one has questioned their right to do that even though it's driving many competent, highly-qualified professionals who have invested TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars on their recording setup, out-of business. So my dad's business has fallen out from under him. Is he mad? No. Frustrated? Perhaps, but mostly he's looking into other avenues: live sound, narration, etc. to apply his talents. It may be that he becomes principally an audio consultant: people shift from paying him for his technology to paying him for his experience with acoustics and his impeccable ear. The cultural landscape is changing: technology and reproduceable objects are becoming more and more widespread and accessible, so the premium is shifting to other areas: expertise, appeal, and the-art-of-getting-noticed.

Like the article said, victorian candle-makers must have been pretty pissed at Edison. But technology changed the world, without asking anyone or apologizing, like it always does, and everyone had to adapt if they wanted to survive. Did the candle-making industry die out? No, it just changed. Folk music (as an oral tradition) almost died out because of the recording industry. Composers almost died out because of the recording industry. 100 years ago, 90% of Americans played an instrument. Today, 10% do. Conversely, the advent of recording shifted the importance of music from the composer to the performer, and in the process created the profession of the virtuoso. Being the best in the world does no good if you can only be heard by the people in your district, or wherever you happen to travel. The recording industry, merely by existing, has changed us from being mostly-musicians to being mostly-audiences, which in a sense is completely contrary to the spirit of folk music.

And if you look at folk music, in the olde days, very rarely did people try to make a profession at it. They entertained themselves, and continued the traditions because of what the music gave them, rather than the money they got from it. And no, I'm not trying to paint a picture of money-grubbing folkies; I know you're not in it for the money. But the music is totally rooted in the daily lives and culture of the people (usually farming), and when one becomes a professional musician, you're no longer living that daily life that you sing about. And while that doesn't disqualify you from the profession of folksinger, it does create a disconnect that must be reconciled.

Of course, going back still further, there's the tradition of the bards. They had very little wealth in terms of possessions but lived a good life, had plenty of power and influence, and were well-received and taken care of. But to be qualified as a bard, in olde Ireland at least, you had to spend 19 years of study first, which included memorizing and recounting the epic myths word-for-word, and spending an entire year in silence so that you could earn the right to use words for your people, and to exert the power and influence you'd have. So there weren't that many, and the ones that did qualify were justly looked after by their society, because they were recognized as being vitally valuable.

And that here, is the essence of my point. If folk music is relevant for people today (and I hope it is), it needs to be seen to be relevant and necessary (and enjoyable and entertaining and profound etc). Once it has that, it will be supported. So the question is not, "how can I prevent people from downloading my music so that I can sell some cds to raise some money" or "how can we get a bunch of money to do this archive thingy", but rather "how can we make traditional music and musicians valued by a culture which is becoming increasingly saturated with technology and instant-gratification-culture, and is evermore amnesiac and disconnected from the land and traditional culture" because once that's achieved the money issue will take care of itself: when people value something and then that thing is struggling to exist, they'll support it. Or, on a simpler, more immediate basis you might just say "woah, the marketplace is changing. I'd better figure out how I can be a part of the boom rather than being swept aside, and quick!"

And if you can't do that... then, well, I suggest you take up gardening, plant some fruit trees and get involved creating local resilience, because what with the climate and economy and technology and everything, there's beginning to be loads of unexpected changes, affecting everyone in society, and the more resilient you are the more prepared to take those changes you'll be. And play music on the side, to enrich your and others' lives as it always has (at which point people downloading your music, causing 'potential sales loss' but no actual physical loss to you will become totally inconsequential, and in fact preferable, because more people will be enjoying it). Besides, I just think working on the land and folk music go hand in hand, don't you?

But letting go of control is always a hard thing. Until you realize that it actually sets you free.

-T.I.P.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 03:29 PM

"no one is asking how we make up for not paying Joseph Taylor, Harry Cox et al are they?"
I agree entirely, but faced with the situation as it stands at present the question at hand is what do we do about it now.
We were never in a position to pay our singers and we made that clear from day 1. What we agreed with them was that any money arising from the recordings we made should be theirs by right, and as far as this was possible we stuck to that.
We also agreed with them - in writing - that in the case of us not being able to contact them, ( particularly the situation with the Travellers) the money should be ploughed back into the music somehow.
We have honoured this agreement by donating all proceeds to The National Sound Archive in London or The Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin.
In some ways it is an academic point as any money arising from the use of recordings has been so pitifully small that it didn't really matter - I think you'll find that the avarage punter would be more inclined to buy Martin Carthy singing The Barley Straw rather than Harry Cox - the same goes for Christie Moore's Well Below The Valley rather than John Reilly's.
My motive in raising the question was to suggest that cash needs to be raised to preserve and make available the songs and music of people most of whom are now dead.
None of the singers we ever recorded ever raised the question of payment; we had to do that.
The attitude of singers we met was summed up by Irish broadcaster Cairán MacMathúna's story of recording an old Kerry fiddle player for one of his programmes.
After the session, MacMathúna said, "There will be a recording fee for this".
The old man thought for a minute and said, "I don't have any money in the house at the moment, but I'm taking a bullock to the mart in the morning, so if you come back tomorow I should be able to pay you then".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 03:21 PM

no one is asking how we make up for not paying Joseph Taylor, Harry Cox et al are they?

Quite a few of us are actually, but a very valid point that can't be made too often.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 03:05 PM

All this pious talk of copyright and robbing poor folk musicians is fine...no one is asking how we make up for not paying Joseph Taylor, Harry Cox et al are they?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 03:04 PM

So you really think a site like Max Hunter can be put up and kept running for 'next to nothing'? What an insult the people who make that site available to you and me and anyone else who wants to dive in and test the waters. Do you think those songs transcribed themselves? Fact is, there are thousands and thousands of songs, ballads, etc. collected from traditional American musicians available on Max Hunter as well as the Wolf Folkore Collection, American Memory (Library of Congress). This music is 'freely available' as you say thanks to the time and money contributed by public and private sources. But I have a hard time believing that the 'everything should be free' types will be willing to pay for something they would rather have for, well, free.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Folknacious
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 03:04 PM

Meanwhile, awaiting the boiler man before I can put the heating on...

Did you pay him for his work?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 02:49 PM

Woven Wheat Whispers that is!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 02:48 PM

There is a word of difference between 'freely available' and 'available free' - some form of payment will be essential, either per download or via subscription to keep the thing running & up to speed. But the archives should be 'freely available' to ANYONE, not just for purposes of academic research and other elite access.

Woven Wheat Whispers was a perfect example of a Folk Orientated download site that worked until the person running it got bored with doing it, which was his privilege, but it left a huge gap in a potentially prosperous marketplace which served both obscure artists (such as myself) and more mainstream artists (such as Jez Lowe). Anyone who knew WWW will know there is a sound precedent for folk orientated download site.

However, this isn't what we are talking about here - we are taking abiut an on-line archive of Traditional Folk Music Documents, not Revival Folk Products.

*

It remains to be seen whether smug and feckless 'everything should be free' downloaders will be willing to pay for something they feel is a privilege.

It is this sort of talk that is smug & feckless. You say running a download site costs money - if I so chose could run an archival blog on the scale of the Max Hunter for next to nothing. This isn't what I'm proposing of course, but all of us here who love music invest much time, money & energy into music. That is the nature of music, musicians and lovers of music. Stuart Maconie has some interesting things to say on the matter in his column in the new Radio Times which reveals just who the smug & feckless are in the download culture.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 01:25 PM

"Seems the ideal place for such recordings is on-line, as with the Max Hunter Folk Song Collection - freely available to one and all, with complete notes."

Max Hunter is only 'free' because someone else paid to catalogue and digitize the collection, and continues to pay to keep up the site, etc. Given that the site is hosted by Missouri State University, I imagine there is public money involved. Not so much of that around for folk music, I'm afraid. So an online subscription service may be the way forward. It remains to be seen whether smug and feckless 'everything should be free' downloaders will be willing to pay for something they feel is a privilege.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 12:13 PM

The Tatlock article is very interesting. The technology is here, we can't ignore it and must adapt to it. However I'm not convinced that the models which may work for pop records necessarily translate to the folk world, where the market is much smaller.

Firstly, there is the older demographic of folk fans, many of whom don't like downloading and who still prefer to buy CDs. They also like to listen to their music on a stereo, rather than on a computer or MP3 player. So although legal downloading offers the potential for more sales, in reality this is likely to be limited.

Secondly, most folk artists sell most of their CDs at gigs. If you have to ask someone to go home and download it, you've lost the impetus and quite possibly the sale. You need a physical product to sell face-to-face. The margins on small-scale CD production are small and easily eroded by illegal downloads.

Thirdly, giving away CDs on-line in order to attract people to live gigs doesn't work for the small scale events where most folk artists perform. For the average performer the fees from live gigs aren't big enough to compensate for the loss of CD sales.

So, how can we make it work?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: the Folk Police
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 12:03 PM

Steady on, old chap!

Seriously, we'd throw our hat in the ring if others would too. Could call for a separate "call to arms" thread?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 10:45 AM

Here we have total agreement - and maybe a subscription fee donated to the collecting, annotating, archiving and making available all the other recordings and mss. rotting away in peoples' attics

I think we owe it to the world to do this. And if anyone out there needs assistance in digitising their precious field-recorded archives of priceless field recordings then I'd consider it both an honour & a true labour of true love. And I know just the label we could do it in conjunction with too - an up & coming venture known as Folk Police Recordings whose heart is very much in the right place...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 10:33 AM

Interesting article by John Tatlock on the Quietus website pertinent to this thread: A Decade in Music Filesharing Post Napster: Myths of the Digital Age

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Uncle Rumpo
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 09:48 AM

thank you Jim,

NOW you've reached the eminently valuable conclusion that makes this thread very valid and interesting again.


if its not too naive..

An annual percentage levied on BT and all other internet providers's fat profiteering would be a good starting point
for establishing a permanent subsidy for some kind of well organised and resourced
voluntary sector public digitising and archiving social/cultural/ folk history download library movement.

perhaps.. ???

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: brezhnev
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 09:28 AM

Guest TIP said: "But I'd especially invite any responses that seriously consider the possibilities that the evolving world of information- and music-distribution offer, and look for ways to make the best of it... Isn't it time we started looking for solutions?"

Definitely. There are already half a dozen people on this thread (including Jim C and SO'P) who seem to think an online subscription archive might be a good plan and may be up for trying to do something about it.

A place to start could be to ask the record labels what their plans are for the stuff they're holding and not planning to release. and whether they might consider collaborating with each other and/or willing enthusiasts to make it available online. and if not, why not?

www.folkster.org is available. anyone got 10.99 plus VAT handy?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 05:49 AM

"Seems the ideal place for such recordings is on-line,"
Here we have total agreement - and maybe a subscription fee donated to the collecting, annotating, archiving and making available all the other recordings and mss. rotting away in peoples' attics.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 05:49 AM

By my reckoning, on a 53-year revival cycle, that means we were due another in 2009...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 05:13 AM

"I thought the revival kicked off in 1903"
The present revival started around 1956.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 04:17 AM

The revival kicked off in the 1950s and right up to the 90s it was still possible to select a club and go and listen to a night of folk music and song well performed in most parts of Britain - hardly a brief generationally isolated flowering.

I thought the revival kicked off in 1903 when C# had his Epiphany upon hearing John England's singing of Seeds of Love? Actually there's a touching illustration of this seminal moment in The Ladybird Book of Music if anyone has a copy at hand. Classic stuff! The moment the indigenous music of the working class intersected with the cultural sensibilities of the bourgeoisie who've been trying to sanitise it ever since.

Sorry - I believed for one foolish minute that the scrabble for fair play for the performers might - just might have included the people who gave us our raw material - should have known better!!

Abso-fecking-lutely; this has been my point all along here. As I said back on 04 Jan 10 - 05:22 AM:

Seems odd for a music founded on the bootlegging of Traditional Singers to take such a high attitude to bootlegging in general. It still goes on - The Voice of the People series, and the forthcoming CDs from The Kennedy Archive - material hitherto knocked out on shoddy cassettes & CD-R editions for top-whack. Seems the ideal place for such recordings is on-line, as with the Max Hunter Folk Song Collection - freely available to one and all, with complete notes. But no; we'll get them packaged up in deluxe digitally remastered re-edited editions purporting to be an improvement on the Kennedy editions - and available only to those who are prepared to shell out top-whack all over again...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 08:07 PM

Whoops - too fast on the posting finger.
CS
"So I'm not so sure that the 60's revival really was much more than a brief generationally isolated flowering"
The revival kicked off in the 1950s and right up to the 90s it was still possible to select a club and go and listen to a night of folk music and song well performed in most parts of Britain - hardly a brief generationally isolated flowering.
Nowadays the choice of what you listen to has been all but surgically removed - but it's still very much a part of the original revival; a handful of the people who were in at or relatively near the beginning; Killen, Reg Hall, Anne Briggs, Carthy, Peggy Seeger..... are still very much with us.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 07:54 PM

"well this had been quite an interesting and relatively constructive thread."
Sorry - I believed for one foolish minute that the scrabble for fair play for the performers might - just might have included the people who gave us our raw material - should have known better!!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 04:41 PM

With brief reference to the err 'post revival' thingummy, I'd suggest my own experience fits in pretty well in with that notion. Being a baby of the Seventies, the Sixties boom in commercial folk music completely and utterly passed me by without so much as a fiddle de day. Indeed it was only on researching "traditional English song" online sometime around Hallowe'en 2008 (which I accidentally stumbled on as a consequence of researching Sean Nos) that it dawned on me that old bands like Steeleye Span (who I had a faint disinterested awareness of, in the way one has a faint disinterested awareness of a half empty packet of stale custard creams that have forever resided at the back of your Nan's pantry) didn't actually write all their own songs like other bands!
On discussing my err discovery of traditional song with my peers in their thirties and fourties, it would appear that the Sixties revival has barely left a dent in the consciousness of the majority of people of my generation. No-body I know (outside of fellow members of this virtual community) either has any glimmer of awareness of traditional folk song, or has ever had any interest in 60's folk bands. So I'm not so sure that the 60's revival really was much more than a brief generationally isolated flowering, that essentially faded and withered away decades ago, though with reference to this thread, arguably blogs might now be helping to turn that around?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Uncle Rumpo
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 01:56 PM

well this had been quite an interesting and relatively constructive thread..

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 12:22 PM

"areas of experimental rock, jazz, free improvisation & early classical,"
I assume we can add this to your definition of folk - don't make your list too long, it's more than unmanagable enough.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Dennis
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 11:47 AM

Ah! I see Mudcat Law # 56 has been reached: A thread shall have reached it's natural end when Suibhne O'Piobaireachd & Jim Carroll start blowing their dull virtual raspberries at one another.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Stu
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 11:37 AM

I really really like The Electric Light Orchestra.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 11:06 AM

I suggest you trawl through some of his past postings to see him debunking and devaluing traditional singers by lumping their songs in with those produced by our predatory music industry.

You see it as a devaluation, Jim; I see it as an appreciation of creative musical process in terms of genre, the processes of one are no different to any other. Our Predatory Music Industry has not only given us some of the greatest music of all time, but continues to ensure great music continues to be produced. You may not like (I may not like it) but it lives and breathes in precisely the same way as The Tradition once did and which The Revival, sadly, doesn't. Over on the other the thread MtheGM said: When Child called his collection 'The English & Scottish Popular Ballads', he certainly did not mean what would nowadays be called 'popular' [or 'pop'] songs.

Here's my response in full, albeit without the HTML:

Thanks, MtheGM - this actually distracted me from my more pressing concerns last night & lulled me into nice sleepy reverie in which it occurred to me that the use of Popular in both senses is exactly the same. There has been some sterling discussion on the wellsprings of the Big Boys from the - er - Big Boys (Jim, Brian et al) which has shed light on the nature of an essentially creative vernacular tradition in which ballads were wrought by virtue of an idiomatic mastery in precisely the same way pop songs are today. Jim has even suggested many ballads were, in effect, free-styled, which wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, given that free-styling is often the mark of true mastery in many narrative idioms - from Hip-Hop to that of the Serbian bards.

The essential difference would appear to be one of transmission. Time was the only available recording media was Human Memory - which comes supplied with a pair of excellent stereo binaural microphones and, as is supposed, near perfect recall especially when used in a (mainly) non-technological culture where people are more creative by default - thus playback is apt to emphasise the idiosyncratic nature of the thing. In terms of sampling and remixing of existing material there is evidence enough of the sort of fluidic mastery I've been arguing for elsewhere with respect of Folk Song. This is the exact same mastery that would have been commonplace in the trades of the time, so it shouldn't surprise us that ordinary people (so-called) were making & singing these songs any more than a so-called ordinary person (such as a Susan Boyle or an Alfie Boe) can capture the hearts of millions today with what is, in essence, a natural born talent defined by the traditions of their respective cultures.

The nature of Popular Music in both senses is Idiomatically Creative - the idiom being the very wellspring of its creativity, which is the actual germ of The Tradition, determined as it is by the prevailing Zeitgeist which on one hand gives us The Ballad Tradition and on the other The Hip-Hop / Rap Tradition. Both of which are Popular Traditional Musics in precisely the same sense - but neither are Folk as both the common usage of the term and its 1954 Definition renders it essentially meaningless*. Thus whilst we might lose ourselves pondering What is Folk? - or indeed Does Folk Exist? - the nature of Popular Music remains pretty constant throughout history even unto this day - applying equally to the ballads Child included in his collection and to the music we call Pop in all its myriad forms. Both are the results of living traditions of vernacular mastery and creativity - and both are a perfect reflection of the human society in which they were / are created.

S O'P

* As indicated elsewhere the folkloric understanding of the term community has expanded to the extent that the use of the term in the 1954 Definition becomes so nebulous as to make The Horse Definition look pretty exacting by comparison. Thus Folk is either nothing or everything...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 10:35 AM

Meanwhile, awaiting the boiler man before I can put the heating on...

"The Post-Revival" is a figment of the imagination of people who seem to believe themselves part of a living tradition. As Smedley suggested, it appears to be a term of your own imaginings.

You're correct on one point there, Jim - I only came up with the term on Sunday (whilst wandering the well-pruned winter rose garden in Blackpool's Stanley Park) but I think the Post-Revival is a real enough as a cultural phenomenon with respect of Folk Music. Amongst other things, it encapsulates the experience of those younger folkies (such as myself, born as recently as 1961..) who came to The Tradition via certain aspects of The Revival and found therein something of considerable significance - far greater, in fact, than anything The Revival had to offer - real music in fact. My cultural back-ground is primarily in areas of experimental rock, jazz, free improvisation & early classical, disciplines which lead, invariably, to an appreciation of Ethnomusicology and Folk Music proper. This, in turn, leads to a wider understanding of musical possibility and cultural action which exists at odds to the innate conservatism of The Revival - which I most certainly do not dismiss out of hand, only in terms of a personal polemic that clarifies my particular stance.

The communities that created our traditional songs and music have long moved on and are now passive recipients of their culture.

No individual is a passive recipient of culture, Jim; this is as patronising as it is absurd. Granted you have your personal agendas & experiences on such matters, but only as an outsider looking in on such communities, valuing things according to your subjective desires without appreciation the wider anthropological issues. In this respect, I'm afraid to say, you sound like rather like WAV. You wanted the songs, they wanted the TV. In the end, which is more important - the people or the residual aspects of a former cultural era?

What now passes for folk is a part of a revival of the material that they left us - if we don't get our heads around that fact we will have sqandered even that.

I disagree. It's moved on beyond the revival - maybe it did so many years ago - and found an entirely different level of cultural currency with many younger people, such as myself, see above, for whom The Revival has consequently become, by and large, anametha because of it being founded on a highly conservative aesthetical orthodoxy which is something we don't find in The Tradition. There are many reasons for this, but central to what I'm now calling the Post-Revival is a moving away from the revival conservative orthodoxy and seeking out something of the fire that still blazes in both the music, and the communities who still cherish it.      

Stop whingeing and live with it.

Like you do, you mean? God knows what New Year's Resolution you've made here, Jim but I'm really beginning to worry...

Because you appear to neither like nor understand folk music proper - as amply demonstrated by your constant self-promotion.

On the contrary, it's because I love Folk Music Proper that the increasingly bland MOR affectations of revival depress me so much, a circumstance which necessitates & inspires the Post-Revival. I've been feeling the same way for years - even back in 1983 when I was renting a house off a taxidermist and I hung a label around the neck of one of her stuffed cormorants declaring it a monument to the Folk Revival. As for self-promotion; most people who know me complain I don't do enough, but the stuff I link to around here is not by way of self-promotion as such, more by way of giving example & joining in a virtual singaround wherein all things are equal with respect of what we do & why we do it. I love watching Dick's stuff, hearing Crow Sister, Ralphie, and Virginia Tam etc. and wish more people would do the same. If I sing in a singaround, which I do quite a lot, I do so not to promote myself, but because I feel the essential experience of Tradition Song is communally informal, yet once evoked, the spirit remains potent enough to effect some serious communion, and not just in the choruses either.

The essence of the Post-Revival is the Inclusivity & Celebration of of Individuality & Idiosyncrasy; I am but one individual, part of the Human Community as indeed we all are. Let's start seeing the trees here; for all too long all we've been seeing is the fecking wood.

*

SOP's argument, if I understand it, is that because material was "plundered" from the traditional sources (itself debatable) then its being plundered in turn by music sharers is justifiable. I don't believe that's a valid argument.

That's more what Jim's saying. What I'm saying is that plundering & sampling is the essence of all Folk Music. In the Tradition we call The Folk Process; in the Revival we call it Collecting. The difference being is that The Folk Process is a living breathing - er - process, whilst collecting is just taxidermy. Get this though: Both were done with The Very best of Intentions out of a deep Love of The Music. Please mark that, Howard - because file sharing is done with very best of intentions too. Music will out; it lives and breathes beyond any commodity status we might like to subject it to. No one can claim exclusive rights to their life's work simply because everything we do came from somewhere else in the first place.

Anyway, the boiler man has gone, now I can put the heating on.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 10:21 AM

"When a traditional singer gives a song to a collector it has cost him nothing"
Howard - you obviously haven't experienced the hospitality, friendship unstinting time and effort received from traditional singers.
I cringe to think of the times we've turned up at somebody's home with a tape-recorder and found the whole family saving the hay, milking the cows, planting.... Yet I can't recall one single occasion when, despite our efforts to make another more convenient date, we have been turned away.
Or our having turned up at a Travellers site to record people who have virtually nothing, and having the family feed you or give you drink - and take offence when you attempt to bring your own, or pay them for their efforts.
Before he was discovered Walter Pardon spent around thirty years of painstaking effort assembling his family repertoire - he never once refused to share it with us, or anybody else.
That people choose to adapt and sell on the songs that they have been so generously given is their own choice. A remake of a traditional song by a revival performer is the the end product of a few weeks/months work - songs from the Pardon/Lenihan/McCarthy/Williamson/Delaney families is the result of many generations of creative efforts on the part of those families. I wouldn't like to be the one to have to put a value on those efforts, I'm just suggesting that the source singers have had some part in their making and deserve some of the cridit.
SPLCR
"why does SO'P saying that he likes listening to traditional singers but isn't so keen on most revival singers such a problem for you?"
It isn't - if that is all he is saying I would probably agree with him to a great extent.
I suggest you trawl through some of his past postings to see him debunking and devaluing traditional singers by lumping their songs in with those produced by our predatory music industry.
"And that last sentence is just plain nasty."
You might well be right - if so, put it down to a tiredness at hearing the same old same old churned out interminably.
You will also find in his past postings a great deal of sniding at people who have researched, collected and attempted to make available the material he makes use of in his own work (from the comfort of his armchair of course).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,SPLCR
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:36 AM

Jim, why does SO'P saying that he likes listening to traditional singers but isn't so keen on most revival singers such a problem for you? Seems like it's not that far from your position. And "post revival" suggests a relationship with folk music that is not particularly musically influenced by or part of the "folk revival", rather than an imagined claim to be part of a living tradition. c/f "post rock"; "post punk".

And that last sentence is just plain nasty.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 09:24 AM

Jim, there is a difference. When a traditional singer gives a song to a collector it has cost him nothing (please understand I am not denying the singer's creative effort involved) and he is losing nothing except the opportunity to exploit it for himself. Someone who produces a CD has invested a substantial amount of money in recording, mastering, producing, packaging and distribution, including paying fees for copyright where appropriate. There is a clear and immediate financial loss when someone else gives this work away for free.

I entirely agree with you that the exploitation of source singers is an appropriate subject for discussion. However, in the context of this thread I think it is a distraction. SOP's argument, if I understand it, is that because material was "plundered" from the traditional sources (itself debatable) then its being plundered in turn by music sharers is justifiable. I don't believe that's a valid argument.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 08:29 AM

"The Post-Revival" is a figment of the imagination of people who seem to believe themselves part of a living tradition. As Smedley suggested, it appears to be a term of your own imaginings.
The communities that created our traditional songs and music have long moved on and are now passive recipients of their culture.
What now passes for folk is a part of a revival of the material that they left us - if we don't get our heads around that fact we will have sqandered even that.
Stop whingeing and live with it.
"The Revival leaves me cold. Why is this??"
Because you appear to neither like nor understand folk music proper - as amply demonstrated by your constant self-promotion.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 07:13 AM

Not at all - I think Post-Revival is pretty much what a lot of us are now dealing with - as indeed some of us have been for the last 30 years or more. I love The Traditional songs & the traditional singers, whilst most of The Revival leaves me cold. Why is this??

A product of the revival? Hardly, Jim - albeit with very significant exceptions as I say. Otherwise the rest of your post paraphrases pretty much what I've been saying on this thread all along.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Smedley
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 07:05 AM

Post-Revival...Neo-Tradition....you do love a bit of Attempted Category Coinage don't you??

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 07:01 AM

Two things here Howard;
Much of what is being pirated here is derived from traditional sources, now matter how far they have been 'adapted'.









"We're talking here about musical products created at no little expense"
Sorry Howard - for me it's a fine line between what you described and taking the songs of field singers and singing them, issuing them on albums, publishing them, without their knowledge, permission or payment - and often without even acknowledgement.
The case of John Reilly that I mentioned above is not typical, but it is indicitive of prevailing attitudes.
On the other hand I do get evry, very, very, very very.... bored with our poster's "nuffing to do wiv me guv" constant whining about a revival he appears to despise but is a product of himself - or are we witnessing a magnificent display of self-flagelation.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 06:53 AM

Kevin's post back there makes for sobering reading. This is the plunder we're talking about. It now resides in ossuaries, well out of reach of the very people it was filched off in the first place, accessible only to a select few for an academic research entirely removed from the cultural jouissance that gave rise to the songs in the first place.

Howard - the only way musicians can have absolute control over their work is to make very sure that no one else gets to hear it - that they never record it, never publish it, and never release it. Least ways then they will be certain that people won't be ripping them off simply by showing an interest in it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 06:33 AM

Can we assume that you don't sing traditional songs - or do you pay for all the traditional songs that you use (maybe a donation to the National Sound Archive or C# House)?

To the Post-Revivalist Traditional Songs are seen in terms of both their contemporary currency & immediate cultural relevance which has long out-grown the structures of The (so-called) Revival. The songs are now part and parcel of a Neo-Tradition which is just as vibrant & diverse & idiosyncratic as the old one and owes nothing to The (so-called) Revival*, the National Sound Archive or else anything done at C# House with the possible exception of the recording of Bright Phoebus.      

"Thou shall not rip off revival singers - though it doesn't matter too much with source singers".

To the Post-Revivalist the term source singer is anathema; Traditional Singer does just fine & accords respect where respect is due, without the wretched implication that the mastery of the Traditional Singers serves merely as a source for the songs sung properly by the folk enthusiasts & professionals of The (so-called) Revival.

* There will always be exceptions; the great voices and passionate souls of (say) Ewan MacColl and Peter Bellamy will ring forever in iconic resplendence however so flawed their ultimate scheme, or else tragically under-valued by the very scene they created in the first place. Such strident idiosyncratic genius will always be acknowledged & welcomed by the Post-Revival. Seamus Ennis and Jim Eldon are, likewise, Post-Revival Icons.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 06:15 AM

With respect, Jim, that's a sightly different situation. We're talking here about musical products created at no little expense in the hope of achieving a commercial return, which are being given away by others who have no rights to do so, and against the wishes of the people who created and own that product.

The issue of whether traditional sources were exploited by collectors is an important question, but perhaps one for a different thread. In any event, I don't see how it affects the subject under discussion. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Crowsis'
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 06:13 AM

"Thou shall not rip off revival singers - though it doesn't matter too much with source singers".

Jim, I think you've misinterpreted SO'P's meaning there.

As for myself, as stated upthread, I did rip off a handful of 60's revival albums last year, simply in order to hear renditions of traditional songs - so I could learn some myself.

I thought of it as err akin to 'borrowing' the songs from those who had recorded them, pretty much in the same way that revival singers themselves had done so from source singers.

I must confess that I didn't feel terribly guilty about it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Kevin Sexton
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 06:06 AM

On the subject of source singers....
Earlier in this thread, somebody mentioned all the Trailer/Leader recordings locked away and inaccessible. The same is true of field recordings in the BBC Sound Archive. They are available for listening only at the British Library, at Cecil Sharp House and some at Birmingham City Library (Charles Parker Archive). The only way of obtaining copies is from the British Library who will make copies for you, provided you have written authority from the BBC. Now, this 'written authority' takes the form of a 'licence' which, for the dozen or so items that I am interested in, would cost between £1500-3000. A little prohibitive.

The song recordings I am interested in were made in the 1950s by Seamus Ennis (and in one case by Peter Kennedy). I understand that the singers were asked to 'sign away' any rights in the recordings at the time. Peter Kennedy (Folktrax) published three on CD and a few more on vinyl earlier. None, of course, are still available.

The BBC recordings in question are:

Amos Beckett (recorded 1952 - Winslow, Bucks) singing – The Broken Token; The Robber [aka The Gallows Tree – perhaps Maid Freed From The Gallows?]; Three Poachers; Watercress Girl; Wild Rover.
Ted Lambourne (recorded 1952 – North Marston, Bucks) singing - Blackberry Grove; Herring Song; Old Johnny Bigger; Won't You Buy A Broom?
Ted Keen (recorded 1952 – North Marston, Bucks) singing Maid Freed From The Gallows.
Mrs C A Perry (recorded 1954 – Loughton, nr Bletchley, Bucks) singing May-Day Carol. (There is also a recording of her describing May-Day local customs.)
Mary (May) Bennell (recorded 1954 – Amersham, Bucks) singing - Barbara Allen; Farmyard Song (aka The Little Cock or Farmer's Boy); May-Day Carol. (The Charles Parker Collection also lists a recording of The Hungry Fox.)


For many years I have been a resident of north Buckinghamshire, noted, I fear, for its dearth of traditional song. (Indeed, all the famous collectors seem to have bypassed it completely.)    Most of these recordings were made within 4 miles of me, the rest within 20 miles. There are Becketts, Keens and Lambournes in my locality and some of these may well be relations of the performers (all now long dead). They may well be able to provide me with information on these people which I could put together in some form of presentation for local people/voluntary organisations, as a glimpse of the 'living traditions' that survived in the local area not so very long ago. The Buckinghamshire County Archive is very interested in having such information, though do not have 'the budget' to obtain the recordings.

If anybody can help in any way, please contact me out of the glare of public gaze at [e-mail].

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 05:55 AM

"or the wanton plundering of The Revival."
'The mice are at it again!!
Can we assume that you don't sing traditional songs - or do you pay for all the traditional songs that you use (maybe a donation to the National Sound Archive or C# House)?
An elderly fiddler once told us the the music started going downhill when money became the issue.
It seems that, according to the tenor of this thread, the present revival commandment is "Thou shall not rip off revival singers - though it doesn't matter too much with source singers".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Timothy Claypole
Date: 19 Jan 10 - 04:01 AM

If you ask me all music should be free except for my music which is £4.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 06:08 PM

If you ask me such wanton piracy is endemic in the nature of Folk Music, be it terms of the pure wildfire process of The Tradition or the wanton plundering of The Revival.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Chairman Miao
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 05:32 PM

On the musician making the decision: All I can do is point y'all to some lengthy essays from Gerd Leonhard about "The End of Control."

http://www.mediafuturist.com/the-end-of-control-essays.html

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 05:07 PM

"But I think the crucial thing here is that the musician needs to be the one to make the decision as to whether or not they wish to make their music available for free download or not."

Precisely.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Maryrrf
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 05:02 PM

There are some good points made on this thread, and I did appreciate the thought that went into the 'guests' who regularly download music for free. It may or may not be true that downloading doesn't affect sales, it may be that it is good publicity, etc. But I think the crucial thing here is that the musician needs to be the one to make the decision as to whether or not they wish to make their music available for free download or not. For someone to decide that another person's music should be made available for free doesn't seem right to me.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Folknacious
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 04:56 PM

as far as the distribution costs of a digital download are concerned, would be good to know how they are other than minimal (50 MB worth of space on a server and costs of upload). or is there more to it than that?

Well I'm a little bit out of the loop here, but what I understand from people "in the biz" is that the distributors who farm out digital recordings to all the various sites like iTunes, eMusic, Napster etc take a cut, and the sites themselves take a cut, just the same as distributors of real records. Just the same as I believe only a bit over 4 quid finds its way back to a label whose CD is sold for 10 quid after the VAT, shop cut and distributor cut have been removed, out of which they have to pay recording costs, artist & writer royalties and general overheads. So it seems to me that if you give downloads away for next to nothing, there's only a minor percentage of next to nothing to pay for that stuff, so nothing very ambitious is likely to get recorded in future. We'll be left with the bedroom types doing vanity productions with Garageband, which I'm sure will make the puritans around these parts very happy but not me. I quite like ambitious, well produced music.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,David E.
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 04:16 PM

I can see the points that everyone has made here but I have to say that if I were a working musician, someone selling my rare and impossible to find vinyl record for some insane amount of money on ebay would bother me more than someone downloading the same for free.

David E.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 01:23 PM

Assume 50 downloads. That may not mean a lot to Radiohead but as a proportion of a run of 500 CDs it's a significant loss.

You're assuming they would have bought the CD in the first place, Howard! A download does not automatically equal the loss of a sale though this seems to be what people are suggesting here. I think the issue here is the artist feeling deprived because their vanity expects payment for their hard work, which may, or may not, run contrary to the spirit of folk I normally espouse, but certainly runs contrary to the way the Download Community relates to music both pragmatically and philosophically.

I'm not advocating anything here by the way, as certain people seem to think, just reporting on basic realities.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 11:30 AM

"the downloads won't effect your material sales in the slightest"
How can you possibly know that? Belief in human nature is one thing, but it stretching credulity to imagine that the only people who will download it will be those who would never have paid for it. Assume 50 downloads. That may not mean a lot to Radiohead but as a proportion of a run of 500 CDs it's a significant loss.

Anyway, I thought the point being made was that there may be losses from individual downloads but the benefits from spreading the word about someone's music will outweigh these. This may or may not be true - I suspect a lot will depend on the individual artist.

"a request to the people involved is all it takes for them to take it down"
That's true of THTM, however there are other sites which make it very clear they have no intention of complying with any such requests, ever. I won't name the site, but the copies of its replies to such requests on its "legal threats" page I find quite offensive in their total lack of respect for the musicians whose work it rips off.

It still leaves the onus on the artist to discover which sites are hosting his music and to make the request.

"it could well take on a life of its own well beyond your control"
That's certainly the reality. Of course it was always the case ever since the cassette tape, but its impact now is potentially far greater. The point is, it's beyond the artist's control only because people deliberately choose to ignore the artist's rights.

It appears to me that it is the small-scale music producers, such as Ralphie or Anne Lister, who are the ones who have most to lose and who are least able to prevent it, or exploit it in other ways - hardly the spirit of folk you are usually so keen to espouse.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 08:38 AM

I'm in exactly the same position as you, Ralphie - but the point being made here is that the downloads won't effect your material sales in the slightest - assuming that happens anyway, in which case, as has been shown, if you're not happy with that a request to the people involved is all it takes for them to take it down. They aren't doing it to defraud or capitalise - they're doing it for the simple love of the music, much as we all are one would hope! Thing is, once something is out there it becomes part of the common cultural lore and it could well take on a life of its own well beyond your control, albeit for the very best of reasons.

But then again, I'm just a naturally optimistic, half-full fun kind of guy who believes the best about people, and music, in the sure faith that 1) the essence of Folk is the intersecting of the collective with the individual which is the very wellspring of The Tradition, and 2) Chaos is the generative force of the universe...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 07:28 AM

Well yes I have read them. And there is a lot of sense spoken there. Thanks to the two posters for their thoughts, and I can see what they're saying.
My problem is this.
I have just produced a 17 track CD of Concertina playing. (so we are talking niche marketing here)
All done at home, No record label, No promotion input, No distribution deal.
It's just myself, hoping to earn a little bit of cash to help with the pension. All production costs paid by me.
Let's say I do a gig. sell one copy of this CD. (£10).
That CD is then uploaded onto a website. People download it for free.
What do I do with the other 499 copies, that cost me possibly £800 to manufacture?
I'm not Bono, or Sting. (thank God!)
I'm a retired person, just using my abilities to make a bit of cash.
Thats all. And I really don't want my work being handed out to the world for free,
(and if that makes me an Angel of Anal Copy Righteosness then so be it. How offensive)
I made something. I reserve the right to sell it. On my terms. Not just give it away.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 06:54 AM

Two bang-on posts there from TIP & Kevin - let's hope the Angels of Anal Copy-Righteousness take time to read them!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Kevin Scott
Date: 17 Jan 10 - 09:25 PM

I would like to offer a perspective from someone who is both a recording musician AND someone who downloads music without paying. I am Canadian, 42 years old.

I am a regular over at THTM and even though I considered myself pretty well-read in terms of British folk before I discovered that page, it opened up a world of music that I either didn't know existed, or DID know existed but could never locate. Anne Lister has given you one perspective on how someone who had their material uploaded without permission to THTM feels; I'm going to give you the other one.

I play in a band called Mr. Pine. Coincidentally, someone made our 2008 album available for upload on THTM and I found out about it naturally. Rather than get upset, I embraced the move and to my delight, sales exploded, we got some enthusiastic emails, and hits to our website went crazy. I spent the next couple weeks mailing copies to international customers. So to anyone who says your sales don't increase when you make your album available for free, I'm proof that sometimes they do. And our album had done pretty well, charting on college stations and getting national attention. Rather than scream and threaten THTM, I was grateful to them, and still am.

Some people are making the observation that it's still illegal. Well, that depends on where you live; our Canadian laws at one time wouldn't go for that. But my main response to that is that just because it's illegal doesn't make it wrong.

The law tells me that I should have to pay for everything I download by a recording artist. But here's an example of where the law makes no sense: When I was 12 or so I loved the Moody Blues song "Nights in White Satin" and I bought the 45. As I became more of a fan of the Moody Blues, I bought a greatest hits package which also contained the song. Later, I bought the studio album on which it was originally released. Then they issued it on CD. Then they issued it on a deluxe SACD. So now I've bought the song five times legally. At what point have I earned a free download of it? Just because the format has changed, should I have to pay again and again?

Another thing that I disagree with is the idea that if you download it, that makes you a thief. Not so. If you download it, keep it and never buy a proper copy, you HAVE stolen it - I'm not going to argue with that. But what about people like myself, who use it as a try-before-you-buy process? I download, listen, and if I don't like it, I delete it, and if I do, I buy it? Am I a thief? Sites like THTM have only ever made me purchase more music, and my CD racks have several thousand now. I do sleep well at night. I don't like being lumped in with people who don't pay for it, even if we've obtained it the same way.

So is it fair to assume that everyone who downloads it is stealing it outright? And, legal or not, what about the different ways this is BENEFITTING the artist? The THTM scenario put our music in the hands of people who never would have heard it otherwise. I am not going to CHARGE them to find out about it; they'd never bother! And how many times was I burned as a kid when I heard one song by an artist, liked it, bought the album, then found the rest of the album was terrible?

(I'm also a college radio DJ, and will play things I've downloaded on the air, giving them exposure they might not have had - another benefit.)

This is a technology that isn't going to go away; I think artists would do themselves a great favour to find ways to make it work for them, rather than insult people interested enough to have a listen and call them thieves. I can appreciate that some people would like to have their permission given first; but from where I sit, as an artist, I don't personally feel the need to give people permission to do something that I think is far more beneficial than detrimental.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,T.I.P.
Date: 17 Jan 10 - 06:33 PM

This is a very long thread about a topic that seems to keep coming up in different places. At the risk of saying something that's already been said, but with the possibility that it's from a different perspective, here are some extracts of a discussion I posted elsewhere a year ago about this sort of thing.

Now, just to let you all know, I'm probably a lot different from you. I'm 25 years old. I'm American. I started downloading music 10 years ago. At that time, I was downloading things like Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead. And heavy metal. The sort of thing you're into at 15. I found some private servers, and was able to listen to people I'd heard of but never been able to listen to. By the time I was 18 I discovered bands like the Incredible String Band. I was leaving heavy metal and headed firmly in the direction of folk. In the college years I was exposed to lots of different sorts of music though friends who would share their collections with me. Jazz, blues, indie, avantgarde. I would browse record stores from time to time and when I had cash (which was rare, being an art student), I would buy something in the field I'd recently discovered. I became obsessed with John Fahey, delved into his roots, and turned on a lot of classmates to his stuff. Thanks to illegal downloading sites I got to hear all the great old dead raw blues guys - guys like Son House and Bukka White and M. John Hurt and Skip James. They inspired me to pick up the guitar and start learning it.

I wanted to hear more stuff from Britain & Ireland, but I just couldn't find any. Eventually I found The Folk Box (Topic or something? 4 discs) on a torrent or private server or something. It was like a whole new world opening. I'd never heard of people like Nic Jones or Richard Thompson before coming across THTM. And I'd never heard of THTM before trying to find info on some of the artists featured on The Folk Box. I'd never heard of any of the artists there because in a lot of cases their music wasn't released in the States, or if it was it happened before I was born. In fact, The only folk music from across the pond I'd heard was the Clancy Brothers, and that off some greatest hits CD for which they probably received very little (RIP Liam). And after my curiosity was piqued by THTM and other sites, I looked around in the local record shop, and all I could find from across the pond was British Invasion stuff. Thanks to online music sharing, my interest had expanded beyond what the record shop could provide. Eventually, I found music sharing communities and started my own blog as a way of piquing the interest of others and expanding their musical horizons, and sharing music that I treasured with others who may not have access to it. And in return I have been given exposure to (and illegally downloaded music from all corners of the world: obscure Indian Classical vocalists and veena-ists, Alan Lomax collections, flamenco, field recordings from Africa, gamelan music, Irish music, Chinese classical music, prophetic street-composers from New York, Brazillian guitarists, American old-timers, and yes, British folk music too.). And people all over the world have been able to hear music from my corner, which they would not have heard of otherwise. I may not have bought any Indian Classical cds and my friends in India may not have bought any bluegrass & blues. But our tastes are expanding, and we continue to support the music around us and buy cds, and if we get the opportunity to see a musician from a genre we've been turned onto, we'll probably go. Now, have any of these musicians lost anything as a result of my practices?

Clearly not. But, you will ask, have any of them gained? Well, yes. I couldn't say that all of them have, but hell, half the music I get is from artists whose work has outlived them, may they rest in peace. But right now I'm living in Ireland. Recently Mozaik (world fusion band with Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny, Bruce Molsky, eastern european & dutch multi-instrumentalists) did a tour in Ireland. I'd heard of them because I'd pirated both their albums, and was really excited by them. So excited, in fact, that I told everyone I knew in the area about the gig, (none of whom had heard of the band, even though it's their generation) got them to come, paid something like 60 euros getting tickets for people, and the people who I brought bought albums. Did I ever pay for the albums I downloaded? Nope. Did I end up giving more money to the band than whatever royalties those albums would have brought? Hell yeah. I should add that I was one of the only people in the audience under 30, and possibly the only one who had ever heard the gadulka before (thank you music sharing community). As has been said before, the means of music distribution is changing. As is the means of information distributing. Maybe if there were more people blogging Mozaik, they'd be drawing a younger audience and maybe even playing stadium shows instead of, say, Coldplay. They certainly have the talent.

I remember a story about how in 1969, Rolling Stone magazine offered to send a copy of Mississippi Fred McDowell's album I Do Not Play No Rock and Roll for free to anyone who wrote to them and asked. And this single act probably caused more rock and roll fans to discover the blues (and subsequently purchase more blues albums, attend concerts, etc.) than any other act of marketing. [i may have some of the details wrong on this account, but you get the point]

Personally, I have become a much more conscious and avid consumer of music thanks to "music piracy". You see, because of music sharing, my interest in and exposure to music has grown 100-fold. If I had to pay $15 every time I saw something interesting and wanted to give it a listen, my musical horizons would have stayed pretty limited. By indulging and supporting my curiosity, the pirates of the inter-seas have made of me a musical connisseur, where once there was just passing interest. Forums and 'sharity' blogs have particularly helped to rouse my interest in unknown artists and forgotten genres. And, since the big-names are readily available for piracy, the obvious choice is to support the lesser-known and local artists, or those who have really given their lives to their music.

In fact, I feel that by distributing the music of Son House and Blind Willie Johnson, I may be helping to open up a whole new world of experience for someone who is used to more polished music, and they may begin to appreciate the raw emotions of flamenco music or Greek rebetica. By posting Harry Partch and Tom Cora, I may turn a few people on to a world of improvisational and microtonal avantgarde music. Growth comes through exposure and experience. You can never know how these things will change someone. They've certainly changed my life. Incidentally, I've received letters from record companies thanking me for the article I wrote (which included a download), and asking me if they could quote it in a booklet for the artist's upcoming release. I've also received numerous requests from musicians to post their material on my blog because they wanted the exposure. And I know more than one band who went from total obscurity to international tours as a result of internet distribution and sharing, some of it legal, most of it not.

Another story, more recent. Radiohead, one of the most intelligent contemporary 'rock' bands, released their most recent album for download from their website before it was released in physical form. Radiohead allowed users to pay however much they liked, including nothing. They made £10 Million or so, on an average of £7.00 or so per user. And none of that money got taken by a middle-man in the form of a retail store or a record company. Now, Radiohead is a big-name band with millions of fans. But the principle works the same for small-name artists. And it shows that people who download can be generous, especially if the artist is generous first.

You see, Radiohead realized that even if you issue an album conventionally, even with copy-protection embedded in the CD, it still gets posted on the internet within a week of release. So why not embrace the new system of music-distribution that is evolving, and experiment to see if it has an equal or greater capacity to support the artists than the (outdated?) distribution system of record labels and retail shops.

Remember, the music industry tried to sue radio on the same grounds of copywright infringement. Eventually, it learned to work with radio's inherent marketing capabilities. And the existence of recorded music itself almost destroyed the profession of composer (the music industry now has to give money to a fund that supports living composers). And do you know who got the laws on copyright and intellectual property to be so strict in the first place? Walt Disney. One of the biggest crooks of the 20th century, I'd say.

And by some people's definition (say, Michael Cooney's), "If you know who wrote it, it's not folk music." So with all this discussion of royalty payments, intellectual property, etc, and this being a folk music forum, the issue could be raised that a great number of these songs are (or should be) in the public domain, and belonging to 'the people' anyway. Now, I wonder how many royalty dollars are going to some AP Carter fund somewhere, for new performances of songs that he neither wrote nor performed, but merely 'stole' from neighbors in the hills and had the sense to copyright when his family recorded them. In fact the whole folk process is a process of 'stealing' - ideas, techniques, songs, melodies, etc, and that's how it lives and grows.

Field recordings and folk song archives should be available to the public for free. Full stop. The library of congress, the Alan Lomax Collection. They belong to the people. Lomax was publicly funded. And in many cases, the musicians got nothing. When he recorded Son House and Willie Brown the unit of payment was a bottle of coca-cola. Willie Brown got the coke and Son House got nothing. And Rounder wants to charge us for it? Now the question has been raised "but who would spend countless hours ripping these old archive recordings and making them available, when there's no money in it?" Well, there's already a group of people doing essentially that: bloggers. Let Topic hand over its vault of unissued recordings to dedicated fans, collectors and bloggers who will do the work for the love of it. They even make homemade covers. And they will be able to distribute them and generate interest much better than the labels do (they already do this). And you will have a huge resource to folk music, which will serve musicians and create fans, saving both the trouble of buying the works of dead people and liberate them to spend that hard-earned cash in support of living musicians.

And if we can do that, maybe we can take a tip from organic farming and it's methods of CSA ("Community-Supported Agriculture") and generate a scheme of "CSM" (community-supported musicians), like France does for its artists, so that they are freed of the continuing struggle of trying to make a living with music in a crazy market economy, and instead are given a sufficient and consistent amount of money or food or housing or whatever is really needed to keep creating a better musical world for us.

Now, those are all issues of rights, morality, and money. I realize that these issues go deep with people. I don't pretend to have definitive answers to them, but I've tried to demonstrate my thoughts around them. I invite responses that confirm or contradict what I've said.

But I'd especially invite any responses that seriously consider the possibilities that the evolving world of information- and music-distribution offer, and look for ways to make the best of it. We've had 150 messages arguing about ethics, which doesn't change the situation a bit. Isn't it time we started looking for solutions? This is the largest online folk-music community in the world that I'm aware of. There's huge potential to actually do something positive instead of just getting upset, dontcha think?

Like, when a musician finds their album being downloaded on a blog, instead of saying "take this down immediately or I'll take legal action," what about saying "this album is still available at ___, how about just giving 2 tracks as a sample and providing a link" or "would you make a post of my upcoming tour dates so that all the people who read your blog and have been turned on to my music will be able to come see me live?" When you treat people like criminals, they behave that way. When you treat them like friends, they'll go out of their way to support you.

I'd say in my case, music piracy has transformed me from being an ignorant consumer to being a highly informed, broad-tasted connoisseur and collector and even expert in some arenas of music. I spend more on music now than I ever have, and pirate more too. And because I've downloaded for so long and I know all the right places to look, in most cases I can choose whether to get an album for free or to buy it. So I am free to support the artists I feel are most worthy (Jody Stecher springs to mind). And I do, because I realize that by supporting them, they can continue to make, perform, and record music. But in order for me to be able to really appreciate Jody Stecher (who I first heard on a download), I had to have already been turned onto bluegrass, old-timey music, Celtic music, Indian classical music, etc., which never would have happened without the online 'sharity' community. I know that as a musician it can be incredibly angering to find someone else giving away something you've worked so hard to create. But try to see it in the bigger picture, and maybe you can swim with the current rather than against it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: brezhnev
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 02:55 PM

folknacious
sorry, i didn't make myself clear. i was talking about an album that had already been recorded and had previously come out on LP, tape and CD. so, no recording costs and no digital transfer costs. and there are loads and loads of them for sale on the web.

as far as the distribution costs of a digital download are concerned, would be good to know how they are other than minimal (50 MB worth of space on a server and costs of upload). or is there more to it than that?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Folknacious
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 12:29 PM

As far as i can work out, the costs of the digital download version are: recording - nil, manufacturing - nil, distribution - almost nothing, artist royalties (almost nothing). Hmmmm.

So that's where it has got to, a belief that it costs nothing to record a track that will be digitally downloaded, and that there are virtually no distribution costs either.

It's very good to know that music has now become so devalued by the activities of the thieves, pirates and bootleggers that everybody else in the music industry has decided to work for nothing. I was so inspired by this discovery that I thought I'd go and start recording my first album now, but it seems that nobody's told Abbey Road - the man there was quite rude in fact.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 12:12 PM

Of course it's theorising, in the absence of statistics it's difficult to know the actual impact. But it seems probable that if something is available to the wide world then more copies will be made than if it's just left to people passing around copies between friends. It seems to me to be equally "hysterical theorising" to assume that music sharing is benefiting musicians by making them more widely known.

It's one thing for a well-known band to shrug their shoulders and accept downloads as free publicity to attract people to live gigs. For most folk artists that's not really a solution. Despite all the protests from music sharers that they're really doing musicians a favour, it's noticeable that it's the musicians themselves, to whom every CD sale is significant, who are objecting.

I'll say it again, if you want to discover new music then most musicians have examples freely available on the internet - on their own websites, Myspace or Youtube. It's not necessary to download a pirated album.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 10:28 AM

Also no-one's doubting the sites' intentions, merely the effects.

Not true, Howard - I for one very much doubt the effects - and I also question the smugly superior tone of such posts as yours, especially such statements as:

To repeat it for the umpteenth time, copying an album for a mate is one thing, making it available for hundreds, perhaps thousands, to download is different.

Which is just hysterical theorising than runs contrary to the overall spirit of this thread. Otherwise, I agree with Sean's post entirely.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 06:05 AM

But I wonder if anyone else has had the same problem as me. I have been a fan of 'folk music' for over 30 years and have legally aquired cassettes, lps, cds and mp3s. I have also downloaded music from blogs and artists sites. Most of the albums I have downloaded have been in my 'legal' collection at some time but been lost, stolen or destroyed over time and the downloads are simply to replace them. Is this acceptable practise?
As for illegal copying of music I do remember my friend Dave Bradley of Swan Arcade (such a great fun guy, god rest his soul) giving me a tape of 2 Ry Cooder lps that neither of us had actually purchased. I reckon that nearly everyone in the music biz, perhaps with the exception of Sir Cliff, will have carried out such 'illegal' activity. I think this is how people learn new songs and appreciate other artists and maybe buy their music or book them for gigs etc. I think that downloads are just the modern way of doing things.

Anyway my problem is that I have ordered cds from a band website (Childe Rolande, paid though PayPal and am still sitting waiting for any response from them. (My first introduction to this band was through an illegal download from a friend, I liked the music and purchased 3 other albums!)

No wonder people download music!!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 05:31 AM

Sean, have you actually read the other 200-odd posts? It's obvious that sites like THTM benefit music consumers, it's the consequences for musicians which is the issue. Also no-one's doubting the sites' intentions, merely the effects.

You believe you ought to have the right to do what you like with albums you've bought. The fact is, you don't. That's clear under copyright law in most countries, and in the small print. You've only bought a right to listen to the music - you can do what you like with the physical media it came on, but your use of the music itself is limited.

Those who favour music sharing like to think they're standing up for downtrodden musicians against the big bad record companies. The fact is, in the folk world, that's nonsense. Contrary to what Gedi seems to think, there aren't any fat-cat record producers getting rich by exploiting musicians. In the UK anyway, folk record producers are virtually a cottage industry, and many artists produce their own albums. Rip them off, put them out of business, and there won't be any folk albums in future.

If you want to explore new artists, most of them have demos on their websites, on Myspace or Youtube. You don't need to rip off their albums. As for maybe going to their gigs, the chances of a downloader from a global site being able to get to a folk musician's gigs is remote. I guess from the language you use that you are American - the person who hosts THTM is I believe Japanese. Are either of you going to travel to the UK to see, say, Ann Lister (who was one of the first artists to contribute to this discussion)?

Most record labels don't have the resources to digitise their back catalogue. The Nic Jones situation is exceptional - here the person who owns the copyright to Nic's (and other artists') albums is for some unfathomable reason simply refusing to release them except as occasional CD-R copies. If you read the thread, you will see that there is a consensus that it may be acceptable to post albums which are no longer available, but only after a conscientious effort has been made to contact the copyright owner. There can be no justification for posting currently available albums.

To reply to your final point, it's easy to envisage a "a world in which, if you weren't lucky enough (or alive enough) to snatch up an original vinyl copy of a record, you just...don't have it". That was the normal situation until just a few years ago.

The reason no one in the folk world is likely to become a millionaire is that many of their so-called "fans" will spend more on their beer in an evening at a folk club than they're willing to pay for a ticket to get into it, and prefer to download their albums rather than pay for them.

To repeat it for the umpteenth time, copying an album for a mate is one thing, making it available for hundreds, perhaps thousands, to download is different. Legally they are the same, but downloading has a hugely greater impact.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Sean Earnest
Date: 14 Jan 10 - 05:38 PM

I guess I stumbled into the "Mighty Wind" consortium here. The notion that everything was categorically better back in your salad days is as elitist as it is puerile. The times they are a-changing and the way music is accessed and appreciated is changing also. I am perpetually indebted to websites like 'Time Has Told Me' for initiating me into an appreciation for artists I would never have heard about otherwise. I think the demographic of people who compulsively download every file only to never listen to them is very small indeed. Downloads at THTM and other sites are almost exclusively low quality - if you like what you hear (as I do), you are inclined to seek out a better quality copy. You are inclined to research the artists in question. You are inclined to--dare I say it--see them live in concert. You are inclined to incorporate them into your life. THTM is a niche site catering to obscure music enthusiasts, not hobbyist amateurs out to find a free copy of the latest pop record. You don't find sites like THTM by accident - you usually have at least a vague idea of your query.

All of the above considerations pale in comparison to what ought to go without saying: that rare, obscure, unreleased, and antiquated recordings belong as much to the listener as to the artist. If I own a vinyl copy of an record that is stuck in remastering limbo with no hope for re-release, it ought to be perfectly within my rights to offer it to anyone who wants to hear it. If I have a taped live recording of my favorite band, it ought to be perfectly within my rights to make it available to those who wish to hear it. As alluded to above, a record made to escape contract is a record nonetheless, and it becomes the property of those who bought it.

It's asinine to cast all music sharers in the dark light of thievery. Everyone knows that the prevailing motive behind all of this is benign - to propagate good music, to raise awareness. It would be one thing of THTM charged a fee and profited from downloads, but this is not the case. Now it is unfortunate that there are artists not being paid for their work and yes, it is counterproductive to offer contemporary releases for download. But is it really that big of a surprise that folk music doesn't exactly generate multi-millionaires? The artist's financial woes should be directed not at loyal fans but elsewhere. A few people downloading old Nic Jones albums is a drop in the ocean, because let's face it, there aren't that many people doing it.

What confounds me is that there exist certain artists who decry the music sharing community--their own fan base--only to wonder why they haven't moved product. Such artists see their audiences as walking pocketbooks and nothing more. Get a clue and get hip to the reality that the more people you turn on to your music, the wider your sphere will be. You think contemporary music is bad today? Envision a scenario in which there were no shared/traded unofficial recordings in circulation. Envision a world in which, if you weren't lucky enough (or alive enough) to snatch up an original vinyl copy of a record, you just...don't have it. This would be catastrophic. The obscurist underground folk music culture is what is fueling the good music being made today. Snuff that out and it all goes away.

So, artists: release your old shit! Your fans want to hear it. Cf the Grateful Dead template for music sales, taping, etc. If you're out to become the next one-minute-millionaire, perhaps folk music isn't for you.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Gedi
Date: 14 Jan 10 - 09:20 AM

Pip said a few posts back; "I agree 100% with the second argument, but not with the first one. Someone who buys Nic's first album from Celtic is doing absolutely nothing illegal, and neither is Celtic by putting it on sale. But Nic's still being ripped off, and I think that's what really matters. "Always try to make sure the artist gets paid" strikes me as a better policy than "Never download, copy or tape" - it's more workable, too. "

Absolutely. I dont agree with ripping off artists and dont advocate downloading albums, but one has to ask who is ripping off the artist more, the downloaders or the music industry who pays the artist a matter of pennies for an album which sells for anywhere between £5 and £15.

I know this is not always practical but I would like to see folk musicians (especially) produce & market their own material so that ALL (or very nearly all) of the revenue goes to them rather than some fat-cat producer (sit down, have a cigar). Obviously some sales would be lost due to downloading, but I still reckon they would get more from the people who pay than they would if they went through the music industry. I would far sooner buy directly from the artist (as I did just recently from Mary Humphries & Anahata for some of their excellent albums) than buy something off Amazon or go into HMV.

And if I were to download It would be nice if the performers of past material had websites with a paypal link so that I could then make an appropriate donation.

This is obviously a complex area, not at all black and white, but I do think things need to change for the future. I think a lot of people who have downloaded in the past are now getting the message but I still think a means of getting money direct to the artist, rather than relying on the royalties system would help.

Ged

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: brezhnev
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 12:55 PM

not really like a mortgage. think of it as being a subscriber to a national folk music library service. like paying the licence fee for the BBC or buying a lottery ticket for the EFDSS. You know, value for money.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 11:18 AM

Sure, sales of 'product' are down, but plenty of people still buy CDs and even vinyl (my preferred pressing plant is United Record Pressing in Nashville, TN). I don't like downloads for a number of reasons: compressed sound; hard-drive crashes; nothing to look at or hold, etc. And the playback format - ipods, etc. - seems tailor-made to turn everything into background music. I don't need music all the time, I need a certain amount of silence to help me appreciate the music. Like white in a black-line drawing.

"eventually all music will be free. You pay a yearly subscription and you get all your music free."

Yes, and my housing is free - I pay a monthly mortgage and I get all my housing free.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 11:02 AM

And them self-styled folk-singers, well I must bring 'em in,
With their home-produced albums and they think it no sin,
To call it a CD, when its a cheap CD-R
Which will cost you a tenner but won't play in the car!
Honesty's all out of fashion -
These are the riggs of the time, time me boys!
These are the rigs of the time!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: brezhnev
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 10:47 AM

Folknacious,
Despite what the BPI said last week ("entertainment retailers across the board worked with their suppliers to end the year with a far better result than anyone had expected". Ah, bless!), the longer term evidence points to the CD (physical packaged product) being in rapid decline. 176 million albums were sold in CD format in the UK in 2004, 112 million last year.

I've lost my calculator, but that gives the CD, erm, about...

Re online rip-offs, it would be interesting to know what makes up the price of your average £8-£10 online album these days.

I was looking to buy a digital download the other day of an album that I first owned on vinyl, then bought on tape when the record got too scratched, then bought on CD when the tape got chewed up, then the CD was nicked. (it would have been the fourth time I'd have coughed up for the same product if I'd gone ahead - great sales model while it lasted).

As far as i can work out, the costs of the digital download version are: recording - nil, manufacturing - nil, distribution - almost nothing, artist royalties (almost nothing). Hmmmm.

Presumably that's one of the reasons why more people are doing more illegal file-sharing - that and the fact that it's the ONLY way you'll ever (according to Ralphie's doom-laden account of the spiralling costs of digitisation) get to hear one of those "rare old folk albums" that started off this thread.

P.S. I see that Ronan Keating says today that he thinks "eventually all music will be free. You pay a yearly subscription and you get all your music free." Not if you're into folk music you won't, Ronan.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 08:48 AM

It is slightly odd to say that It's OK to have the music because the artist who recorded it isn't getting any money anyway.

I'm not saying that either.

I'm saying that I owe Nic a royalty for downloading one of his 'lost' albums and for buying one of the others from Celtic.

My point is that there are two different arguments here, which get mixed up when people talk about bootlegging music. One is that bootlegging is a violation of property rights: whoever owns the property has the right to sell it or not, and all we can do is pay whatever price they want to charge. The other is that bootlegging rips off musicians, and that musicians should be paid for their work.

I agree 100% with the second argument, but not with the first one. Someone who buys Nic's first album from Celtic is doing absolutely nothing illegal, and neither is Celtic by putting it on sale. But Nic's still being ripped off, and I think that's what really matters. "Always try to make sure the artist gets paid" strikes me as a better policy than "Never download, copy or tape" - it's more workable, too.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 05:14 AM

Well. My point is that I don't have the right to own anything without paying for it. Whether it be a CD or a Download. This is particularly applicable to Celtic music.
It is slightly odd to say that It's OK to have the music because the artist who recorded it isn't getting any money anyway.
I don't HAVE to own a particular song or record. I quite possibly would wish to own such an item. If so, I would purchase it from a reputable supplier, safe in the knowledge that a proportion of my money would end up in the artists bank account. Anything else is simple theft.
And yes, Pip, you're right. It is happening. And lots of people are taking advantage of the possibility to download stuff for free. You can't stop them, true. But publicising the fact that sites like this exist, is not particularly helpful.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 03:29 AM

This is what I said miles further up: that there is no financial difference to former Leader / Trailer artists whether their music is downloaded from a pirate site or put out on CD-R by Celtic. Neither, however, is morally right.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 13 Jan 10 - 02:59 AM

Nic's only source of earned income is his royalties. None of his released material is 'authorised for royalty-free resale'.

So there's no difference, as far as Nic is concerned, between a download of one of the early albums and a CD-R re-release put out by Celtic.

Ralphie - I wasn't advocating "royalty-free resale", far from it. Just pointing out that it is happening - and that a lot of the people who fulminate against bootleggers don't seem to have any problem with it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 06:13 PM

Echoing Nigels post.
The 4 CDs named, (and the Halliard re-issue) are available from Mollie Music.
Penguin Eggs and Game Set Match, are freely available for purchase from any outlet that has dealings with Topic.
The lost 4 LPs are just that ...lost.
And as Nigel says. Nics sole income (apart from invalidity benefit) is from CD sales.
And you ask about Royalty free re-sales?
Dream on.
God, he's hardly getting that much anyway. You want to deprive him of more?
Go and buy them. Preferably from Mollie Music. As I've said. the lost albums are just that....LOST.
Not my choice, but, life isn't always that fair.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 04:45 PM

Nic's only source of earned income is his royalties. None of his released material is 'authorised for royalty-free resale'.
                                                             NP

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 02:46 PM

Is any material released by Nic authorised for royalty-free resale?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 12 Jan 10 - 12:53 PM

The following Nic Jones albums are available from www.molliemusicrecords.co.uk
                         "Penguin Eggs"
                         "In Search Of"
                         "Unearthed"
                         "Game, Set, Match"

No material released by Nic or The Halliard is authorised for free download.

                         Nigel Paterson (Mandolin, The Halliard)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Charlie
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 06:27 PM

Eeh! Remember the days when you bought an lp from the local recors shop (with hard earned cash) and gazed at and digested the imagery and info on the sleeve on the way home and treasured it and played it for friends (in it's entirety), maybe taped it for them -remember the old 'home taping is killing music!'

Everything is there now at the touch of a button. I remember (and I'm only talking the 1980's) walking round three record shops in a small english town looking for blues records of any description. How many did I find? none!! But when you did find this stuff you treasured it!!! Now it is all available and disposable. Stop the world, I wanna get off!!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 06:19 PM

from several days ago

"Topics 24 CD Voice Of The People set .....Not available as a download sadly. "

It was last Feb....ALL of it... at no cost if you knew where to look. It may still be there for some, and I have little doubt it will show up again. As I have said, everyone needs to decide personally how to deal with such things....because **someone** will eventually upload it. THOSE are the ones I am curious about. If it is not uploaded, my morals are not tempted.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 06:03 PM

if the recording is no longer available no-one has been deprived of a profit if it is copied. The continued availability of the music in mp3 format could, however, stimulate enough demand for it to be re-released.

Yes and yes. The big question for me is, what message does the availability of deleted music for free download send to the owners of the rights? I think the main message is

Remember this? We do!

And I think it's a powerful way to send that message - possibly even more powerful than starting a thread on Mudcat...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Smokey.
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 03:54 PM

Very little of the retail price of a commercial recording actually relates to the music itself - it's mostly bits of plastic and cardboard, and the biggest slice is the retailer's profit. The real value of a downloaded mp3 file of respectable sound quality, which contains perhaps 20 - 30% of the information of the original sound file, is much less than is generally perceived. The prices charged for legal downloads of commercially released recordings are ridiculous and such blatant profiteering should be boycotted. Whilst it can be argued that (for a variety of reasons) many people can't hear the difference between mp3 and the 'real' thing, I don't think that justifies the price. Data-wise, an mp3 file is the equivalent to (roughly) a thirty second sample of a three minute song, except that it creates the illusion of having heard it all.

Send your fivers to the artists, I applaud that with all my heart, (and both hands) but be aware that the sale of a single commercially available album (from an established record company/distribution network) would be unlikely to generate 5p, let alone £5 for the artist. Even in the case of artists producing themselves and being their own retailer, still only a small portion of the price of a CD is for the music itself. Obviously, if the recording is no longer available no-one has been deprived of a profit if it is copied. The continued availability of the music in mp3 format could, however, stimulate enough demand for it to be re-released.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 01:40 PM

Just bought an old used cd album for $45. It is in excellent condition, although ex-public library. Unfortunately it has not been re-issued. I may make a copy, but for my own use only.

The stuff available as downloads is not the best in reproduction quality, and lacks the accompanying information/booklet.

I most certainly will not buy albums or tracks that are copyright and have been ripped off by some enterprising thief.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 06:07 AM

To be fair Spleen, I don't think that that was what was meant!
Drifting from the Original point (again!) for a minute. The reason I don't do downloads is threefold.
1. If I had all my music on a Hard Drive/I Pod whatever, The Drive would probably crash or I'd lose the I pod!
2. If I lived on downloads, I'd soon forget what was on it!
With CDs I often glance along the racks and go, Hey, I'd forgotten about that one..
3. Listening to music on a computer, particularly Windows media player with those stupid scrawly things going on makes my blood run cold.

It was suggested earlier that one could download VOTP. Great, and it ends up about 50 quid cheaper. What you don't get is the wealth of information in the booklets that come with the CDs.

As for availability (due to shops closing down etc). If I want a CD I'd firstly buy direct from the artist, That way they get a bigger slice of the cake. Failing that, there are plenty of specialist on-line shops catering for all tastes. (I tryand avoid Amazon though..It's a bit too corporate for my tastes)
And, I quite like the idea of witing for the postman to turn up with a package! Everyday feels like Christmas!

Downloads just feel soulless to me! If that makes me a Luddite, so be it!
None of that solves the original problem of Legal/Illegal downloads, It's just my personal viewpoint.
So, back to the subject in hand.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 09 Jan 10 - 05:01 AM

"Real music fans, quite a small percentage of the general population, still prefer real things to collect and the figures would indicate they're buying just as much"...

Real music fans (well, this one at least) resents the implication that he's a lesser species for buying downloads. You can't listen to the packaging!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Folknacious
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 12:40 PM

Those figures I quoted above from the Guardian are UK ones of course. I forget that they read this in the old colonies.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Folknacious
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 12:21 PM

The old model of packaged product may be in its death throes . . . traditional distribution channels (including the latest online rip-off merchants).

Reality check!

I think the idea that the old model of packaged product is on the way out is mostly folklore, misinformation and media-led wishful thinking. Today's Guardian reported that 2009 album sales were down only 3.5% on 2008 and this in a year claimed to be the worst recession since the 30s with many high street outlets for CDs closing. Can't find the report quickly, but within the last month they also reported that the UK's CD prices were the lowest in Europe and that it was online retailers who had pushed the average price down. Hardly "rip-off merchants" then.

I also think that the majority of falls in CD sales over the past decade have been almost entirely singles (which the same report says were their highest ever last year, but 98% downloads) and the sort of impulse-buy TV advertised pop product that the great unwashed might have grabbed in Woollies or Virgin (RIP). Real music fans, quite a small percentage of the general population, still prefer real things to collect and the figures would indicate they're buying just as much. Not, however, concentrated on the sort of stuff the mammoth multinationals like Sony or Universal put out, but spread across a much wider range of music and independent labels.

I've been led to believe that the total units sold are not really decreasing but they are spread over more titles, so the average quantity sold per title is less. Also that what looks like a big fall in CD sales is only when you measure it by the total income from them because prices have dropped so much. It doesnt seem so long ago that the tabloids were screaming that nonsense about "CDs cost 50p to make, sell for £14, record labels are ripping us off for £13.50 profit", ignoring costs like VAT, shop margins, distributor margins, recording costs, promotional costs, songwriter royallties etc etc etc. Now the average sale price of a CD is probably more like £8-£10 via those "online rip-off" merchants.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,ralphie
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 09:55 AM

Breshnev Old Fruit!
I will expand.
I was there when they set up the BBC archiving project 10 or so years ago.
Young enthusiastic people, with an eye on a career in broadcasting, would come in bright eyed and bushy tailed. Up for the job..Within three months they would either get another job, or just leave.
Have you ever watched paint dry? That is what this job would entail.
When I said I could do 15 tracks a day, I was being a bit hopefull.
First find your 78 player..(professional quality) 1/4 inch tape machine that still works...DAT machine..(Haven't been made for years. rare as hens teeth, and the Beeb have already brought the few hundred that still exist)
Time spent to transfer, edit, re-eq, master, put on a server, upload to the web, and that is without all the documentation that, hopefully would go with each track...when recorded, where, who by.
Everything being carefully catalogued.
So one person to upload the material.
One person to edit/mix/master each track.
One person to do the admin.

You'd maybe get 3 or 4 tracks a day. If you're lucky!
I was referring to me uploading an already mixed track in my attic.

You have to remember I spent 33 years as a sound engineer at the BBC. I know just how long it takes to do the simplest of things.
We had a saying.
90% of the work takes 90% of the time.
The other 10% takes the other 90% of the time.
And you still haven't come up with who exactly is going to fund all this.
Not, who you think should fund it, we all know that. But who is going to put their hands in their pockets.

Sorry mate. I know exactly how impossible this would be.
It really isn't feasable without a financial input of something approaching 3/4 of a million pounds.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Stu
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 09:20 AM

Well-said Howard.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: brezhnev
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 09:19 AM

Ralphie/Howard, one person transferring 15 items a day. That's over 4,000 tracks a year! Excellent. There's no rush, they've been lying around for decades. I'll set up the transfer suite in my spare room. 200,000 for the kit? Maybe someone who knows can tell us, but my guess is a lot less.

Likewise I think your estimate of 1,000 downloads a month is a bit conservative.

It's good to know that you'd love to see it happen. As my grandad used to say: where there's a will there's a way. The alternative is to leave them to gather dust and rot. And then they'll be gone. Forever.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 09:14 AM

I only said Argo were "supposed to be" digitising their back catalogue. They clearly haven't got to Bellamy yet. I'm not sure about taking on your bet about getting an answer from Argo about Counterpoint Mobile Recordings and the masters before Won't You Go My Way? goes out of copyright because Neil Wayne of Free Reed evidently found a way to include certain tracks on his compilation a decade ago.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: brezhnev
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 09:00 AM

Borchester Echo, can you point me in the direction of your info on Argo's plans to digitise its back catalogue? The only reissues I can find on their website are from the classical catalogue and the "forthcoming releases" section is empty. Am I looking in the wrong place?

About the copyright thing, I was thinking about recordings that came out pre-1960: like Alan Lomax and the Ramblers, Shirley Collins' Sweet England, stuff on Topic and Beltona...

Unfortunately Kevin Daly, who produced Won't You Go My Way, is dead. As you suggested, I have written to Argo to ask them to chase up Peter Self, who did the recording with his mobile studio. Would you accept a friendly wager that the album will be out of copyright before I get a reply?

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

Hi Howard...Missed your post.
Was too busy typing mine!!
But I think we agree!
Cheers Ralphie

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

brezhnev.
Putting aside for a moment all the ownership/copyright problems.
Lets just be practical here.
Right.
Just suppose we have the rights to upload all this material to the web.
That includes all the recordings held by Record companies (either extant or defunct), the EFDSS, National Sound Archive, Reg Halls collection, John Adams project, and sundry others.
So. We've got this warehouse full of recordings, anything from wax cylinders to WAV files on computers (via 78's, DAT tapes, CD-Rs at al)
All recorded at different times over the last 100 years.
Lets also assume that we get Arts Council funding (Big Laugh!!)
I pose the question...who is going to do it all?
My little upload earlier in the thread, putting on one side the 6 hours it took to record, took me 30 minutes to put up on the site. And it's only a 3 minute track.
So, the many 1000s of tracks that we have amassed would take how long?
And we will flog them at 10p a track?
Where will the transfer suite be located? who will pay the rent?
How many staff would be employed?
One person in an 8 hour day could probably transfer 15 items...Having transferred them, cleaned them up digitised them, etc.
These would be pretty skilled people, so we are looking at 30,000 pounds salary per person per year.

To be realistic we would have to employ 100 transfer technicians cost 300 grand...Don't know about equipment...200 grand? premises rent Gawd knows.
And in the end, even if 1000 people a month downloaded (which would be optimistic) 1 track each...
Income would be 100 quid.
I wouldn't want to take such a business plan into the Dragons Den would you?
It's a lovely idea. But,apart from us few enthusiasts, nobody out there cares. X Factor is where the money is, not traditional music.
It's a shame, but sadly, it's true.
If you can come up with a business plan that works, great. I'd love to see it.sorry to sound negative. But all these dreams cost money.
And the money isn't there.

Ralphie

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 08:21 AM

doesn't that make sharing pre-1960 recordings legal?

Not sure, but Won't You Go My Way? wasn't recorded till 1971. Argo is supposed to be digitising their back catalogue but I don't see any mention of that one. It was a live recording done in Norwich and the notes to Wake The Vaulted Echo gives full recording details. No idea if the original masters ended up in a Paris skip but if so, surely Argo could ask the named engineers if they have the tapes.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 08:12 AM

Brezhnev, you have a point. However most of the complaints in this thread have revolved around making current albums freely available. If THTM had restricted itself to the claim it makes about making available out-of-print rarities then I think it would have been viewed rather more pragmatically.

There are two quite separate issues here. One is the availability of archive recordings. With modern technology it is now possible to publish these, but most record labels (especially small folk labels) don't have the resources to do it themselves. What you suggest is a possible solution, but would still be very demanding of time as well as money and I wonder whether it would be economically viable, and whether it is of sufficiently wide interest to attract public funding in these straitened times.

That still leaves the problem that there is some fantastic music in the archives which people understandably want to hear. Maybe there is a public-interest case which outweighs copyright, ethically if not legally, although as has been pointed out this is far from clear-cut in some cases. What I am sure of is that posting dubious-quality tracks off well-worn vinyl without even bothering to seek the consent of the rightful owner is not the best way to address this.

The other issue is that of posting copies of current albums. I don't propose to repeat the points which have already been made at length, but it should be obvious that this is quite a different matter.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: brezhnev
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 08:05 AM

Forgot to ask - does anyone know how long copyright lasts for recorded music these days? Has the planned EU extension from 50 to 70 years taken effect? If not, doesn't that make sharing pre-1960 recordings legal?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: brezhnev
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 07:34 AM

I like SO'P's idea for online archive of lost recordings, but I can't see it happening for a few years yet.

The old model of packaged product may be in its death throes, but the music industry (including the labels that put out folk music) are going to hang on in there and squeeze the last £10 out of the last punter for the same-old-same-old CDs and mp3s before they think seriously about doing anything with the tens of thousands of tracks that have been lying buried in their vaults for decades.

And why shouldn't they?

They can't afford to digitize and release those old recordings in the traditional way and through the traditional distribution channels (including the latest online rip-off merchants). They're in business to make profits and under the current model they can't make the sums add up. The trouble is, the sums are never going to add up again.

Someone's got to be brave enough to try something new. So why shouldn't it be the folk labels, who've always nurtured an image of championing 'the people's music' and keeping THE MAN at arms length? What is there to stop them taking the initiative collectively and being the first to try a different model by clubbing together to start an online public library of their archive recordings?

TOGETHER they could set up a not-for-profit organisation and go for public funding to get it all off the ground. They could even involve the EFDSS. I'd sign up for £25 a year membership and 10p a download if enough labels got involved.

Who knows? One day even the bad guys (Decca, EMI, Celtic Music etc etc) might be persuaded to see the sense in joining in. They're not going to make much money out of those recordings any other way. And they might even get a buzz from doing the decent thing. Why not?

In the meantime the argy-bargy about the rights and wrongs of sharing lost treasures through online communities seems a bit pointless. What are people supposed to do if they want to hear Peter Bellamy's Won't You Go My Way? Wait with saintly resignation for a re-issue? For all we know, the master tapes were chucked into a Paris skip years ago.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jan 10 - 01:38 AM

http://torrentfreak.com/bono-puts-policing-piracy-into-his-next-decade-top-10-100103/

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 05:17 PM

emusic.com charges 12 credits for albums from some of the US folk labels, like Folkways and County and Document. It charges one credit per track for Rounder, and for UK labels like Fellside and Topic. That can get expensive on long CDs, as Zozimus says.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Surreysinger
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 04:22 PM

"You think graven images of Francis Childe are a problem....Lucy Broadwood is far more scary!.(And I've seen the graven image to prove it!)"
Ah come on Ralphie -not totally fair! When in her thirties she looks civilised ... it;s the pic of her in her 50's that scares me .... and I've never considered genuflecting in front of her - perish the thought!!!

"I'll take a lark with me for company, She can rise in the air, dew or no dew on her breast. and give me a birds eyed opinion of its structure."
But will she also be your morning alarmer???

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 04:20 PM

Getting back to "Voice of the People" being available on e-music, a downside to e-music is that you pay per song, not per album. Thus, to buy the full set of 484 tracks at 20p costs £96.80, whereas to buy the 20CDs, which also includes the booklets, cost £137.70. The fact that the CDs have 20 to 25 tracks each accounts for this.
Ann Lister might be interested to know that Fellside are also selling their back catalogue on e-music, and so far have about 36 albums. It would be interesting if Ann were to ask Fellside to but "Burnt Feathers", a Fellside recording,up for sale in this way and let us all know how well it sells and what the deal is.
People like myself who use e-music make a monthly subscription for 50 downloads per month, so I I tend to browse under Labels such as Topic, Fellside, etc. known for folk music. If "Burnt Feathers" was there, I, like others, may have bought it.
                                           Zozimus

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Captain Beefheart
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 02:47 PM

"I don't want to sell my music. I'd like to give it away because where I got it, you didn't have to pay for it."

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 01:45 PM

Grouch Old Chap.
Thanks for injecting some humour into a thread that was beginning to chase it's own tail in a moribund (but Trad arr) way!
You think graven images of Francis Childe are a problem....Lucy Broadwood is far more scary!.(And I've seen the graven image to prove it!)
Onwards....Let the Download Wars BEGIN!
Ralphie.
Looks like several folks have downloaded my 2 little concertina tunes. Will be ordering the yacht in St Tropez in the morning (I'll take a lark with me for company, She can rise in the air, dew or no dew on her breast. and give me a birds eyed opinion of its structure...)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Stu
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 01:44 PM

". . . that first flowering of poetic passion in which the youthful heart opens to the beauteous song that is sung unsullied by the darker realities of the marketplace which we all must deal with, just in music there's a whole lot more."

Ah right. That'll be this then.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 12:42 PM

I would like to know more about these "Folk Producers" who are "too busy assessing the market place & working up their profit-projections to be too bothered about the pure love of the thing." Can you name some?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 12:38 PM

matt: 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.

I agree that cost-free downloading does seem to bring out an odd sort of Must Collect Everything Now mentality in some people - a cross between butterfly-collecting and trolley-dash consumerism. But I don't think it's universal. For one thing, I don't think that's at all a fair description of the music blog I keep plugging, Jeremy Browning's Good job I kept my turntable.

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

Not really. It's true that being a capitalist consumer is about buying commodities rather than about the quality of the actual things you acquire, but the buying part is fundamental, You could argue that the commodity is "consumed" at the moment you pay money for it - the shine goes off it once you've actually started using it (cf. 'box-fresh' trainers). Free downloading isn't the ne plus ultra of consumerism but a way of short-circuiting it. Even when they're acting like consumers ("Great! More! Now!"), downloaders aren't actually consuming music-as-product. More to the point, downloading is quite consistent with a more quality-oriented, more respectful attitude to the music itself. According to iTunes, I've played every track on _Ballads and songs_ (bought on CD from Mr Bulmer) between 6 and 12 times, and every track on _Nic Jones_ (downloaded) between 14 and 25 times. (And no, I haven't yet bunged Mollie Music a lost-royalties payment, but I will do - in respect of both albums.)

Spleen - stop being so reasonable, you'll spoil all the fun.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 12:28 PM

I started, disappointed that this forum, of all forums, should have contributors who clearly want to hear the music without feeling they should support the musicians who create it.

I think it's more in the spirit of music itself which touches the soul in terms of passion & joy - rather like your friend who made a copy of your album in a spirit of genuine wonderment, innocent of any offence, not by being inconsiderate, but by being natural. It is this that music inspires in us - especially folk music, which lives and breathes as a consequence of our very collectivity. We can, therefore, only go so far in claiming our intellectual property without running contrary to very spirit of music itself; an artist in having chosen (or having been chosen) to touch the collective hearts of both friends and strangers alike must accept that such things are apt to run wild and free for the very best of reasons & intentions, thus returning one to the reason one might have been called into music in the first place - that first flowering of poetic passion in which the youthful heart opens to the beauteous song that is sung unsullied by the darker realities of the marketplace which we all must deal with, just in music there's a whole lot more.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Anne Lister
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 12:03 PM

I'm still left wondering why anyone who disagrees with illegal file sharing/uploading/downloading is anally retentive, a capitalist lackey, restricting access to music for the deserving poor, paying a fair price for the plundering of traditional music and all of the other epithets.
I've used the Anonyma album as an example, although yes, now it has been taken down, simply because I came across it by sheer chance and it's my music. Not my copyright, but my songs, my performances and my first commercial recording. There are many other recordings affected by THTM and many, many other artists, some of whom may still not know that their music is on a blog. Yes, THTM did take my album down when asked, but not pleasantly (as I've said before) and it then turned up on another blog and we had to repeat the process.
I have still heard no good reason why the bloggers (who, I have no doubt, are enthusiastic about the music) can't do a very small amount of homework and seek out the musicians they admire to find out the copyright position for an album they want the world to hear.
And I still fail to understand why musicians and songwriters should be expected to give away their recorded product (which does not come cost free, and is generally intended to at least recoup those costs, if not make a profit) and smile happily when someone else decides to give it away for them.
But that's probably because I'm an anally retentive capitalist lackey - although I don't think anyone who knows anything about me would describe me that way. I'm just a working musician and songwriter, trying to make a living out of my music and my recordings.
I think I'll leave this thread alone now. If there were some good reasons to be stated I'm sure they would have turned up by now, and there's a huge amount of repetition going on. I remain, as I started, disappointed that this forum, of all forums, should have contributors who clearly want to hear the music without feeling they should support the musicians who create it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 11:52 AM

" . . . 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."

Who, pray tell, are these "Folk Producers" of which you speak? Names, please!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 07 Jan 10 - 10:57 AM

Spinachy: "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"

I have been told by certain younger folk artists that their CD sales have taken a hammering as a result of downloading. You have to remember that not every folk fan is middle aged or older - younger fans who are more conversant with the "download culture" don't necessarily see the difference between downoading a major label release and downloading a CD effectively produced by a cottage industry, and if they can get something for free, they'll take it and spend the money on something else instead (probably some music that isn't so easy to find for free). So I see a definite correlation between making these albums available on the net and the reduction in sales for a certain type of folk artist. But the "wouldn't have bought it anyway" argument certainly justifies a multitude of sins, doesn't it?

Spleen: If I'm mistaken, then I apologise. I clicked on a download to see if the link worked and something started to download, at which point I aborted it. But the issue of why these albums were uploaded in the first place, and the morality of it, and the fact that the onus is still on the artist or label to find out about it and ask for it to be taken down after the horse has bolted, as it were, seems to be the bigger issue here.

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.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 11:26 AM

Possible thread-drift warning!!!!
Although there are aspects of this question that concern me, I've avoided becoming involved as from where I stand as someone who has only encountered the commercial aspect of folk music from the point of view of making field recordings available, this thread bears all the hallmarks of a family squabble.
By and large our traditional performers have been handed the shitty end of the stick by much of the revival: marginalised, denigrated, ignored, taken up then abandoned, and commercially preyed upon in some quarters; spectacularly so in the case of one collector (who shall remain nameless, as it is a no-no to speak ill of the dead, I'm told).
Our first dealings with 'the market' were with Topic who, as far as paying the singer concerned went, acted honourably. The problems came later, and this, I believe impinges on the Celtic Music fiasco. Topic, without consulting us in any way, sold on some of their catalogue to another company, which then reissued the album under a different title, along with some of the tracks on a sampler; neither our singer nor his family, following his death, received any more payments for his efforts.
This practice became even more unacceptable in the case of Tom Munnelly's recordings of the Traveller, John Reilly. As John had died (ironically, of malnutrition in an abandoned house in Roscommon) before the release of 'Bonny Green Tree', Tom donated the proceeds of the album to a school for Traveller children – the school never saw a penny from the re-releases of tracks by the company which bought the catalogue. To add insult……. the aforementioned rip-off collector issued a pirated copy of the recordings which, despite pleas for it to be withdrawn ot payment to the school, it remained in the catalogue up to the death of the individual concerned.
A footnote, which, to me sums up an attitude prevalent in some parts of the revival.
To my knowledge, the only copyright of John Reilly's most important song, The Well Below The Valley, now resides in the possession of a well-heeled non-folk musician.
The only other dealings we had with Topic were in supplying tracks for the 'Voice of the People' series, where we requested a 'single use' option, which, hopefully, they will honour.
Other bodied we have dealt with have been above board in their financial dealings, though one of those, an internet magazine, has proved less than satisfactory regarding its attitude to some of the singers – but hey – nobody's perfect!!!
We have always avoided benefiting in any way from our field work. Where it was not possible or necessary to pay the singers directly, with the agreement of them or their families we have donated any money raised to where it can be put back into the music; in our case to The National Sound Archive at The British Library or to the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin.
It has been suggested before, but can I reiterate the idea that a small (voluntary if necessary) levy be applied to any venue where traditional music is sung or played, or on any commercial recording of traditional music, and be donated to bodies that are likely to use it for the furtherance of that music.
Who knows, it might make a difference to its survival – just a thought!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 11:21 AM

What the site seems to do is to retain information about the album (sleeve image, track listing, reviews, and any comments) but to remove the download links. It can be confusing at first glance, since the link is not very obvious. The download links for Nic's albums have been removed.

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

I just had a look - and am equally well not posting any link .... but I was also not able to find a live download link to either Unearthed or ISONJ still live, or indeed the two Lost items on that particular site (although somebody seems to have posted a link to an alternative blog site only a couple of weeks ago). 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.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 10:31 AM

Hmm. I could see posts about those albums (plus Anonyma's and Dick's), but not actual download links - and I did look. Ditto for two Harrogated NJ albums, which have been up on THTM in the past but don't appear to be now.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 10:15 AM

They're there, as well as two "Lost In Harrogate" ones but I'm not posting the link. That would only encourage cheapskates to go and steal them.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 10:05 AM

I'm not a fan of THTM - I've seen some very ungracious & unco-operative responses to completely reasonable take-down requests (often for material that they should have known not to put up in the first place).

However, I've just had a trawl through THTM, and neither ISONJ nor Unearthed is currently up there, as far as I can tell. I also couldn't see a download link for _Burnt Feathers_, or for Dick's album.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 09:52 AM

As download outfits go, E-Music is (a) reputable and (b) not free. You can be quite certain that Topic wouldn't be letting them market their product without all legal safeguards in place with regard to firstly own their profits and (b) income due to Nic Jones. If Zozimus didn't like Game Set Match and Penguin Eggs, tough but at least they were paid for.

There are two other Nic Jones CDs still (as far as I know) legally available, the independently-produced In Search Of and Unearthed and it is a disgrace that they remain up on THTM despite innumerable pleas to remove them.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 09:12 AM

Ralphie - the Nic Jones albums available on emusic (and iTunes) are _Penguin Eggs_ and _Game Set Match_, so it must have been one of those that Zozimus was unimpressed by.

But the Celtic Music story is (I'm afraid) highly relevant here. A while back, not knowing the background, I bought a CD of _Ballads and songs_; I was disappointed in the quality of the packaging and the CD itself, but I thought that paying money for the CD rather than seeking out a download was the right thing to do. (The problem with the CD isn't the sound but compatibility - it won't play on older machines, presumably because it's actually a CD-R.)

Then I discovered that none of the money I'd paid would go to Nic, or indeed to anyone who'd had anything to do with making the record. Mr Bulmer has also re-released _Nic Jones_, but when I discovered a site offering downloads of that album I didn't hesitate. I really don't think that paying Celtic Music for a shonky CD-R is morally superior to downloading a bootleg, or copying a cassette (thanks to the Catter who lent me a NJ cassette 18 months ago, by the way!). In all of those cases I'm acquiring an album without paying royalties to the artist.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 05:08 AM

We can but dream: Clitheroe Pop Festival, June 1970

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 04:59 AM

They don't write 'em like that any more.

Ain't that the truth, Smokey! There is a small but dedicated enclave of on-line Third Ear Band fanatics beavering away - the Facebook site is worth a look for some nice scans of old International Times features & links to other stuff. Then there's You Tube, where several people have even made fan vids using old session tracks - myself included: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfj0oOv240M.

Hasn't been much emerged for a while though, despite the amount of radio sessions known to be still extant. Some pure gold in there though - one of my favourites being New Forecasts from the Third Ear Almanac recorded in January 1989 with Ursula Smith on violin - see HERE for the cover of original cassette release.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 04:16 AM

Hi Howard.
My point exactly. It's the sheer potential scale of downloading that's the problem.
If I did a copy of Noahs Ark Trap for you to listen to. it's hardly a hanging offence. I would have paid for the original LP years ago, Nic would have had his slice (probably about 25p!), and you can't buy it for yourself today even if you wanted to.
But, making it available for free as a download.....very different kettle of fish.
For many years the only official NJ LP/CD available was Penguin Eggs (on Topic). Year after year it was in the top 10 selling list, and quite honestly, the income made a huge difference to Nic and the family. Imagine what he might have earned if the other 4 LPs had been available.
It's all immaterial anyway, I can't see Celtic Music being that philanthropic to just give his vast collection away for nothing, can you?!

And it's not too late. Look how well these lavish box sets of, Sandy Denny, June Tabor, Fairport, Thompson do...
I'm sure that one of the bigger Folk labels would love to be able to do a similar project for Nic. including the Bandoggs stuff, and there are still a few other bits and bobs lying around, not enough for a solo CD, but as a bonus CD in a set.

My twopennorth

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 06 Jan 10 - 03:29 AM

In the context of this discussion, the Celtic Music situation is a bit of a red herring (and it's been discussed at immense length). Much as we all dislike the situation, Celtic Music owns the copyright and is entitled to do what it wants. Personally, I find Mr Bulmer's behaviour in refusing to re-release these albums bizarre - this is not a record company with some long-forgotten items in its vaults, these are the gems of his collection for which there is undoubtedly a demand. But they're his property, and it's his choice.

In these circumstances I suspect many of us would see little wrong MORALLY in making these albums available for download. But it would still be wrong legally, and you could expect Celtic Music to take swift action. Besides, putting them on the particular website under discussion for free download would still not help Nic and the other artists.

There's no getting away from the fact that copying has gone on for decades. The difference now is the scale. Whilst legally there is no difference between putting an album on the internet and copying it for a mate, the practical difference is immense. Taking one or two copies for friends has negligible impact compared with making it available for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people to download.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 09:55 PM

Zozimus.
You may well have bought downloads of the first 2 Nic Jones LPs from e-music.com (whoever they are).
If they are a reputable company (and I'm sure they are) They would have done a deal with Celtic Music. A certain Mr Bulmer, who owns all the rights to the 4 lost Nic Jones LP's (Oh, and about 150 other titles that are squirelled away somewhere)
You'd have to check with Mollie Music, but, it's highly unlikely that the family have received a brass farthing fom the sale.
I don't know what you paid for them, don't really care, but anything you may have paid will have been split between the download site, and Celtic Music. Not the artist.
All absolutely legal. You have done no wrong, neither has e-music.com, and neither has Celtic music.
Where does that leave the artist, who was critically injured at the height of his fame, nearly 30 years ago, and has been denied many, perhaps tens of thousands of pounds in royalty income in the intervening years?
Legally right...absolutely....Morally.......Well thats up to you, I know where I stand.
Pip.
You can't legitimately get new copies of Noahs Ark and Devil. is all.
You might find second hand vinyl on E Bay, which, is fair enough.
Or Bandoggs, Tony Rose, Pete and Chris Coe, Dick Gaughan, Vin Garbutt, even Mike Harding!

Until the whole sorry saga of Celtic Music is resolved. These lost LPs (along with all the other titles....go to the MusTrad database and search for Leader/Trailer. Pages of the stuff) will remain locked away.

I see no resolution to that problem in the near future. and maybe not in my lifetime. It would be too late for Tony Rose anyway now.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Smokey.
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 08:30 PM

Ta for the 3rd Ear link, Sweeney.
They don't write 'em like that any more.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 05:20 PM

To Anne Lister,
Thanks for the link to Mollie Music, I wasn't aware of it. I bought the 2 Nic Jones CDs from a legal download site, e-music.com. I believe the artists get the same cut from these sales as they do from CDs. If artists cannot get there music re-issued as CDs, there is always this option.
The point I was making about the music industry encouraging copying was to demonstrate that the music industry looks after itself, sometimes depriving artists by refusing to re-issue, and also depriving collectors and fans. by turning them into criminals.
There is a long history of artists being mistreated by record companies, but yet they can't resist the temptation of signing up, instead of going D.I.Y. In folk music in particular, most collectors are looking for songs, not a snazzy overproduced studio masterpiece.
To people who have lately taken an interest in folk music, and who read threads like this and learn about heroes of the past and out-of-print albums that they must hear, what do you suggest they do?
I would imagine most fo those who find fault with downloading already have copies of the these so-called goodies.
                                    Zozimus

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

A good example is the recent Hux re-issue of Dr Strangely Strange's Kip Of The Serenes compared with the dog's breakfast Island made of the CD version a decade or so back.

They mastered it at the wrong speed didn't they? But I agree, the Hux edition is an exemplary piece of work (though I was tempted to spin the vinyl on New Years Eve for Auld Lang Syne); better still though, was the Hux Halcyon Days retro which was a real eye-opener and a fine document besides. I've got a CD of Heavy Petting which sounds great, does its best to replicate the original cover in miniature but misspells the Tims as Jims! What you don't get, is the hypnotic effect of the original Vertigo label, much less a surface area on which to skin up a decent spliff...

So I get it just fine, Ian - but in the case of And Now it is So Early (and the Third Ear rarities I linked to) what are the alternatives?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ian Anderson
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 04:39 PM

I dare say some of this has made it onto CD, but I'm sure the music loses its soul in the process.

Unlike the very early years of CD, no. My recent experiences of going back to original master tapes in a good studio and mastering for CD is that for the first time I hear on CD how it sounded in the original studio. I'd forgotten how good some of my guitars sounded back then. A good example is the recent Hux re-issue of Dr Strangely Strange's Kip Of The Serenes compared with the dog's breakfast Island made of the CD version a decade or so back. Helps if the artist or original producer is involved, mind you.

On the other hand, some lowlife eejit plugging a cheap USB turntable into a PC and making shit dubs of a dubious vinyl pressing and then posting the result on the web as compressed mp3s for people to steal does nobody any good, even the thieves, but especially the music.

You just don't get it, do you?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 03:58 PM

We got one of those things and I haven't even figured out how use it!   But I still have a roomful of vinyl. And a manual lawnmover. And an old, cast-iron hot smoker. And . . . oh, you get the idea.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 03:48 PM

We now have "state of the art" record-players with usb connections and all the software to copy from our old vinyl pushed upon us.

My wife bought me one of these USB turntables for my birthday with the intention of getting some priceless vinyl onto CD-R, but six months on & all it's done is re-awakened my love of playing vinyl. Not one transfer, but many happy hours enjoying some of the most wonderful vinyl ever pressed - Codex Gluteo by Atrium Musicae de Madrid, Versalii Icones by Peter Maxwell Davies & the Fires of London, Bonny Bunch of Roses by Seamus Ennis, The Singing Molecatcher of Morayshire by John MacDonald, Won't You Go My Way? by Peter Bellamy, Times & Traditions for Dulcimer by Roger Nicolson, Jake Walton & Andrew Cronshaw, an original yellow label Bakey copy of the first Backdoor album... I dare say some of this has made it onto CD, but I'm sure the music loses its soul in the process. My dream remains to spin a vinyl copy of And Now it is So Early...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Anne Lister
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 03:24 PM

Dear Zozimus
People have had the facility for years to copy recordings they've bought or borrowed. As to the copying of vinyl - again, bootleg copies were around way before the advent of USBs, MP3s and the whole shebang. It is now, as it was then, illegal. I have all the equipment I might need (as one day I might finally get around to putting my vinyl collection onto my iPod). However, I cannot legally make CD copies of the vinyl Anonyma album and sell them - and so, surprising as it may seem to you and Suibhne, I don't.
I am getting tired of the suggestion that we all behave the same way. I don't claim to wear a halo, but I personally don't make illegal copies of music for resale (or gift, come to that) or upload or download music I have no rights to. That's the choice I've made in this situation - I suppose I have a vain hope still of "Do as you would be done by" as an operating system.
Years ago I remember attending a party where a good friend brandished a wrapped gift she'd brought for the person whose birthday we were celebrating. "Guess what it is?" she said. "I made her a copy of your album. I knew she'd like it." She didn't understand why I wasn't pleased and flattered, but then she hadn't paid for the studio costs and manufacturing costs of the album in the first place, which I was still recouping with sales. And that was well before uploading was even a twinkle in anyone's eye, but the issue is exactly the same one - except now the joyful givers of other people's music don't know how many people might be receiving it, don't care and still don't understand why we're not pleased and flattered.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 01:44 PM

Not as good as you were led to believe

So, did you get them from Mollie Music or did you opt for some dubious CD-Rs from Celtic? I imagine Nic Jones would like to know when calculating his royalties (or absence thereof).

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: zozimus
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 12:44 PM

It has been mentioned that artists do not have the right to re-issue their oldies, as some record company holds the rights. The music industries biggest selling CD of all time is a blank one, encouraging people to copy or "rob" what they consider uncomercially viable to re-issue. We now have "state of the art" record-players with usb connections and all the software to copy from our old vinyl pushed upon us. If you think anyone who has purchased this equipment is going to obey the rules and just make a copy for the car, you are not living in the real world.
Many musicians, again thanks to advanced technology, can now make there own CDs at home, and sell them   at gigs or over the internet, having complete control over royalties,copyright etc.
Are such musicians doing better than those who sold their rights to record companies?
Many collectors or enthusiests chasing after these lost unavailable "treasures" , and downloading them for free because the are not been re-issued, are into nostalgia and hero worship that musicians should be proud of. They already have bought the available stuff. The main reason they are not being re-issued is because they are'nt really great. Through previous similiar threads I purchased 2 Nic Jones CDs. Nice stuff but not a good as I was led to believe from the postings of his many fans, In other words, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 12:31 PM

However much I wanted that very rare LP from 1950 or whenever. I'd find it via legitimate means.
And I've been very good and not even mentioned Nic Jones.

I think you should mention Nic Jones, Ralphie - the scandalous non-availability of at least two of his Leader/Trailer albums, by any means other than borrowing/sharing, is very much to the point here.

Put it another way, what are the "legitimate means" you'd suggest for finding a copy of From the Devil to a stranger?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 12:28 PM

I am still in business.http://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 12:24 PM

At least this site does appear to respond to requests to take down albums. However, the point is that it should not be up to the artists to complain. The website does not have the right to put the stuff up on the first place. It is not theirs to give away, whether or not a charge is being made.

I had never heard of this website until SOP drew it to our attention. Fortunately the album I made with the Electropathics isn't there (I'm not sure whether to be relieved or offended). How many other similar sites are there which we're now going to have to check to make sure there isn't a dodgy copy being offered? The onus shouldn't be on us, it should be on the website to get permission.

If an album has been unavailable for some time and a website has made a reasonable effort to contact the copyright owner for permission without success, then I accept that there may be a public interest argument for making the album available. However there is no excuse for putting up current or recent albums, especially where either the artist or record label are still in business.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Jon Dudley
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 12:04 PM

Having being alerted to some 'Reynardine' activity by a good friend, we emailed with a well-reasoned argument as to why they (he? she? them?) should at the very least have had the courtesy to ask for permission from the (easily contactable) living artists - and the items were taken down.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 11:40 AM

It's a matter of principle.

Like I said below, Joan - I don't think my rods & cones can stand the glare of your holy righteousness! But a nice post all the same, even if you do persist in missing the point by several broad & not-so-merry country miles.

Eleven pipers piping, etc.

S O'P.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 11:38 AM

I find myself in agreement with Ian Anderson.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 11:24 AM

Spinachy:

There are a number of issues here. Firstly, you say you would download something "in the same spirit in which it had been uploaded". Well, the point I've been trying to make is that I'm not sure I like the spirit in which many of these albums have been uploaded, and in particular, I think the the initial site that you linked to is very dodgy indeed. It is all very well to say that this music is being uploaded in the spirit of selflessness and sharing - but it is not the property of the person doing the sharing in the first place, and it is not in his gift to share it. Someone suggested earlier a very simple process that would remove all of the moral ambiguity: contact the musicians or the label. Get permission to upload the music. If they say no, respect that decision. What is subsequently available on line might be a smaller selection of music, but you can then enjoy it with a clear conscience.

One of the people whose music has appeared illegally on the Time Has Told Me website - and I've come across quite a few of them in the past 24 hours - made a point which has been reiterated several times here: there is a big difference between lending your friend an album or a CD and uploading an album onto the net for anyone and everyone to take as they please. A number of folk artists I've spoken to feel that downloading has had a substantial impact on their album sales, and consequently their ability to make a living from their music. They have seen certain trends which support the theory that downloading is the culprit, and I believe them. I've been told about people walking up to bands and tour managers and asking where they can download the music for free, and not understanding why the bands get cross. One response: "But I'm a student!"

So I'm afraid this idea that folkies are too moral to take something when it's presented for free doesn't really wash. It's happening.

In the case of albums still in copyright, they should never be uploaded onto sites like Time Has Told Me in the first place. The owners should be far more scrupulous, especially about recent releases. The onus should not be on the bands to discover for themselves that their music has been stolen. The site should immediately respond to any take-down requests, and remove any subsequent posts of the same material by contributors. And regardless of the rare gems that they may make available that you really, really would love to have, no one who has any respect for working musicians should support or publicise this site and others like it. It's a matter of principle.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 11:13 AM

Clearly in both cases stealing someone else's work and selling for profit is not only immoral it is illegal.

No one's making any money here though, they're just sharing music. The issue appears to be what impact, if any, this has on subsequent sales of Folk Product. Of course when the album in question is no longer available for sale the issue becomes just a matter of theoretical hysteria - and name calling, begad! Nice one, Joanie.

After all. It's the same thing as you are advocating.

What utter bullshit, Ralphie - as you'd realise if you actually bothered to read what I've said here. I'm not actually advocating anything, just giving fair account of, what is, after all, common cultural practise. Can there be anyone here who does not own a cassette copy, CD-R or MP3 of music they have not actually paid for?

On second thoughts, don't answer that - sounds too much like an invitation for the Avenging Folk Angels to descend in a blinding light of Holy Righteous & Infallible Innocence and, to be honest, I don't think my rods & cones could stand the glare...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 11:13 AM

Yes photographs, I was thinking of that before too. Google image search is a great friend of the concert organiser looking for a shot of an artist for his advertising or the newspaper editor looking for a shot to go with an obituary of a traditional musician.

I have had photographs used without permission in situations like the above despite clear copyright notices. A nice shot of fiddler Joe Ryan taking the cake when appearing in several UK based publications and an Irish American one.

But there too it's not all Black and White. I have a policy of asking people who have already used photographs on websites without asking permission to remove them. But then again, if nobody sees them, they may as well not exist. So there's a sliding scale there too.

Was asked earlier today if I could supply photographs to illustrate a CD booklet for a re-issue of 78 rpms by William Mullally that ITMA is producing. At least a fee was offered 'if required' but would I have refused if there wasn't? There's always a give and take that also applies to music, there's no the need to squeeze it for every penny you can get. But either way, it's to the owner to decide and only to the owner.

For those interested: Traditional Musicians of Clare Calendar a fundraising project.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 11:10 AM

Sorry So'P
Cross posted.
Obscure recordings that have vanished out of site are one thing. and maybe making them available is a good thing (Citing IAA's comments re old Blues recordings further up the thread)
Bootlegging new CD's of artists that are currently available for sale is definitely a No No.
Many artists provide 30 second snippets of their work on their own web sites, to attract the passing surfer. Surely that is enough for anyone to get an idea of who is doing what, without putting up the whole damn CD?
A taster is a brilliant idea, and I have brought many a CD after hearing a few clips on You Tube or whatever. Nowt wrong with that. Good marketing.
But....to have some third party anonymous website, uploading entire recordings is just plain wrong.
However much I wanted that very rare LP from 1950 or whenever. I'd find it via legitimate means.
And I've been very good and not even mentioned Nic Jones. Have a Gold Star!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 10:56 AM

So'P
OK then. Please leave all yout banking details, Pin Numbers, Sort code etc. here, and we'll all help ourselves to a tenner a week...
Sounds fair to me.
After all. It's the same thing as you are advocating.
So, Hey, Why not!
All property is theft after all.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 10:49 AM

if people like you weren't stealing from them

Let's stick to the facts here. I am not stealing anything, nor yet am I advocating theft. If I want an album, I go out & buy it; if it is a passing curiosity lifted from the dark mists of near archaeological obscurity (as in the case of And Now it is So Early - which I hadn't even heard of until a fellow Mudcatter brought my attention to it) I will download it in the same spirit in which it has been uploaded. Be sure, if I ever I saw And Now it is So Early in Oxfam I would pay good money for it - as I often do with such cultural treasures - but I think the chances of that ever happening are about as remote as some enterprising label reissuing it on CD. Is it still theft in your book, Ruth? Should we just walk on by least we dirty our ears with such tainted music? Or, for the love of such a beautiful & unholy racket do we give thanks that we have a chance to hear it at all? Because one thing's for sure, you will never hear its like in today's climate of bland corporate Folk aestheticism. Like I say, no one is losing out here - and, more to the point, no one is gaining anything either, other than the opportunity to hear something wonderful that they wouldn't otherwise have heard.

The issue of otherwise available albums is something very different but I will say that I do firmly believe those of the Folk Mindset would never do such a thing because the consequent guilt would destroy them. In the past, friends would sent me cassettes of their favourite albums; these days they might send me a blog link. If I do choose to download the album - and it's a big if - and I like it (an even bigger if) - I will then go out and buy it, just as I bought the albums I liked from the cassette copies of yore, so I might appreciate them in their full glory - cover and all. God knows the amount of music I've bought from such recommendations and long may it continue to be so!

People share their passions, and sharing music is part of that exchange; broadband internet makes the sharing easier, especially in the context of personal networking. It's a fact of life, and a fascinating aspect of folklore to boot. One can but wonder how analogous this is to The Folk Process - people copying songs from other singers and broadsheet sources and singing them on in the days before recording technology made copyright & ownership an issue thereby making music into the commodity that it is today. As Peter says, music is so much more than a commodity - it certainly didn't start as a commodity, nor yet does it affect us as a commodity; music is a vivid dimension of our natural born spirituality - it carries meaning that transcends the commonplace & the mundane, and if people hear something they are moved by it is pretty instinctive to wish to spread the word, which is all, I think, that is happening here.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: MikeL2
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 10:47 AM

hi everyone

Happy New Year

I have read with interest the various views on this thread.

Can I say that my wife is a professional photographer and we have been here before....a sort of deja vu for us. I will add before it gets too confusing, I mean with pictures NOT music.

But the princple ( if not the practice)is the same.

Clearly in both cases stealing someone else's work and selling for profit is not only immoral it is illegal.

However in the case of my wife it was many years ago when the Internet was new and policing was conspicuous by it's absence.

Photographers like my wife were naive to what could happen to their work.

The problem then was that they had to first of all prove in court that anyone copying something displayed on the web was illegal, and this took years to prove through the courts. I will say here that the American law was more severe on this than our own British one and we lagged behind more than somewhat.

Finally it was proved and accepted that photographs are intellectual property and although the picture might be published it still remains the property of the photographer.

I will say that this is a very simple explaination of a very complex and convoluted process.

So there is no doubt at all that downloading without permission of the legal owner of the property is a crime.

But ...........the tortuous and costly route to this has made not one jot of difference in all but a very few cases.

There are a numbers of reasons which simplified are :-

1. It is difficult to trace the perpetrators
2. Few lawyers find it attractive
3. It is hugely expensive for the claimant.

There is really no protection from the law that is financially satisfactory for struggling photographers and musicians.

It is a moral situation - you either choose not to do it or you contact the rightful owner and ask permission.

Obviously in my own postion it is clear where I stand.

But as someone has already said above, the real position is not as black or white as I have had to portray it. There are many shades of grey that cloud the issue.

One thing is certain though.....it will continue and if anything get worse.

Cheers

MikeL

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 10:01 AM

"No one owes anyone a living, surely? How many Folk Musicians do you know who actually make a living out of it?"

Well, a few more of them might be a bit closer to earning a living from their music if people like you weren't stealing from them. Bloody hell, is that so hard to understand?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Folknacious
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 09:51 AM

Another fine Mudcat mess, collapsed into insulting artists who have done nothing to deserve it. I.A.A. had better check Ebay too, if its the one I think he means theres another just appeared, currently only 9 dollars but it has 5 days to run. He may want to remove the thing from public consumption by the sound of it, though the seller seems to think it's "Progressive & Art Rock" and "Gorgeous". No accounting for tastes!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 09:51 AM

It's because musicians have precious few safeguards to what income they can garner from their art that they often have to resort to rubbish jobs to make ends meet.

No one owes anyone a living, surely? How many Folk Musicians do you know who actually make a living out of it? The real stuff, I find, isn't born from those sort of considerations anyway; the real stuff is what people do & have always done - very seldom does it ever get recorded, let alone pirated.

However, to describe nastily his work as "tidy, well-ordered musical MOR blandness" because he has objected to his CD being pirated is not only being mean to a fellow musician but patently inaccurate.

I described his music as tidy, well-ordered musical MOR blandness because that's precisely what it is. There is nothing nasty in me saying this, nor yet do I think he should roll over and allow his music to be pirated if he can stop it. The point of this thread was to alert the Mudcat Community to one very fine old LP which they could get a shot at hearing. Typically, it heads off into realms of the surreal. I hadn't even heard of Jim Causeley before today.

Oh and to be pedantic, It's a finely crafted Italian Melodeon, not Accordian.

http://castagnari.trad.org/index.en.html

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 09:40 AM

Spinachy, the 90 seconds you managed of Jim is at least 60 seconds more than I've ever managed of your "music" - the tradition which, I can assure you, never will be. I think anyone stealing anything you've recorded is the least of your worries - finding anyone you could give it away to might even prove a challenge.

Have a nice day.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 09:35 AM

"Oh, and can we keep personalities out of this conversation?"

Actually, Ralph, that's part of the problem. Downloaders forget that there are real people behind this music, who are just trying to earn a living. It's okay, they're not real people: they're an article in a magazine or a picture on a CD cover. Downloading their music for free isn't the same as nicking ten quid from their pockets.

Right?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 09:32 AM

Hardly petty, Ruth - I thought it a pretty fair assessment myself for the purposes of establishing the simple fact that anyone given to listening to stuff like that would never stoop so low as to pinch it. You'd have to be a better person to appreciate such music, a superior sort of person indeed, one who still believes in C#'s vision of moral betterment through Folk Song. I think, perhaps, in the music of Jim Causeley (at least the 90-seconds of it I could bear to listen to) C#'s vision might, at last, have been realised. The music has been heartily plundered & torn from its once vibrant source; stacked and dried it can now be reappraised by a younger generation carefully selected for their bland middle-class muso slickness - everything, in fact, that The Tradition never was. Sad really - certainly a lot sadder than a few free random downloads...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 09:26 AM

SO'P.
Fine. Carry on stealing then. nobody can stop you, so it seems.
Steal my work (If you can find any).You probably wouldn't like it anyway.
Oh and to be pedantic, It's a finely crafted Italian Melodeon, not Accordian.
Ralph.
Oh, and can we keep personalities out of this conversation?
Various artists who are just trying to make an honest living have been named (and abused IMHO)
Desist.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 09:06 AM

The illustration of Jim Causley in waiting mode illustrated the point vividly for me. It's because musicians have precious few safeguards to what income they can garner from their art that they often have to resort to rubbish jobs to make ends meet. However, to describe nastily his work as "tidy, well-ordered musical MOR blandness" because he has objected to his CD being pirated is not only being mean to a fellow musician but patently inaccurate.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 08:57 AM

Spinachy, never confuse facetiousness with hysteria.

I think it is unfortunate that you choose to have a nasty and unwarranted pop at one of the finest young singers on the current folk scene - and why? Because you want people to have the right to steal his music? I'm confused. And you certainly do your cause no favours with such petty outbursts.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 08:49 AM

Here's a rundown of performance right societies and royalty collection organisations so everybody can work out for themselves whether or not it's worth joining.

And here is a current discussion on this forum regarding PRS

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 08:00 AM

(Actually, I don't think Jim does work as a waiter anymore - I'm just illustrating a point.)

Not very well I must say, Ruth - and still ever so slightly hysterical, if indeed hysteria would have pinching finely crafted Italian accordions, CD-hard copy & cups of coffee as being in the same criminal league as downloading a digital duplication of something you A) wouldn't have bought anyway or B) couldn't buy on account of it being long unavailable. As I say, Jim Causley fans would never stoop so low as to break the law; his is tidy, well-ordered musical MOR blandness for the well-behaved Folk Fan insider for whom the lawlessness of the feral wilderness is anathema*.

Spinachy O'Popeye (who loves spinach!)

* This assessment based on Jim's Rolling of the Stones currently playing on his MySpace page - though I had to switch off at the instrumental break at 1.35 on account of consequent nausea. More spinach I think...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:57 AM

Oh, I don't think that's true. Artists with relatively modest sales / airplay have affirmed many a time on this site that royalties paid out easily exceed the PRS membership fee. And there's the dded benefit of being a member of an organisation that fights for musicians' rights.

You were replying to something I posted.

Fighting for musicians rights. Fighting for the rights and interests of the big names some would say. You will also have seen the many complaints on this site of the organisations harassing pubowners for money because they allow a session on their premises, that's another side of the story.

As with the whole download issue, it's a multi faceted thing. There's no black and white but loads of shades of grey that are part of the equation. I know a lot of musicians who do not feel membership is beneficial to them and I feel the same way (some other issues around the Irish Music Rights Organisation entered my considerations but those are not relevant to this discussion).

Bottom line of it all is whether you look upon music as just another commodity or choose to cut it all a bit of slack in order to let people enjoy it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Anne Lister
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:34 AM

I can't help noticing that those advocating free downloads are very quick to assume that those of us who are pointing out why it's a bad idea are righteously hysterical, weeping, moaning, feeling hard done by etc. I'm none of those things. I'm just plain irritated that people who are supposedly enthusiastic supporters of other musicians in the same minority genre are throwing so much dust in the air about this issue.
Ralphie has it right - we're talking about theft. It's not big, it's not clever and it's not helpful.
I was told by Lizardson that being featured on his blog would mean more sales - not true. I've also been told (by a poster on his blog) that protesting about his inclusion of the Anonyma album would mean some lost sales. Who knows? The fact remains - it's a copyright piece and it is illegal to offer it for free download without permission from the copyright holder.
As to the folk revival and wholesale plundering ...oh, purlease! Even if you had a point there, two wrongs don't make a right. However, my recordings have nothing to do with plunderings, nor do Bob Pegg's. In fact, I'm not sure whose do, but I'm sure you'll make a point of telling us in order to throw yet more dust in the air.
Please, Suibhne, give me one good reason why it's OK for a blogger to give away something that doesn't belong to him without bothering to contact the owner of the copyright in question. I haven't heard one yet.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:31 AM

I was replying above to someone who was saying PRS membership (which you need to collect royalties) wasn't worth it. It's vanished.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:28 AM

Oh, I don't think that's true. Artists with relatively modest sales / airplay have affirmed many a time on this site that royalties paid out easily exceed the PRS membership fee. And there's the dded benefit of being a member of an organisation that fights for musicians' rights.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 07:21 AM

Which would you rather have: a beautiful re-issue artefact with best possible sound, notes, and maybe some income to the artist of their family, or crap dubs from badly pressed vinyl as a file on your computer or a handwritten CDR?

In an ideal world, of course; but the world is far from ideal, or yet even idyllic, though you'd hardly think so hanging around here. Still, one might at least dream of a deluxe edition of And Now it is So Early, with full restored artwork & complete with extra tracks all lovingly remastered from the original wax-cylinder recordings. Maybe that's what still draws me to Folk - the re-Imagined Village as virtual bucolic utopia, just like those old Shirley Collins album sleeves would have had us believe; and even unto this day might I warm the cockles in the nostalgic glow of the VOTP CD graphics. Anyhoo, whatever misgivings as might exist over your back-catalogue, methinks you might draw some comfort at least from the fact that you never stooped so low as THIS.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 06:07 AM

Grab me a Castignari while you're there, Ralph. It's okay, I'm just sampling to see if I like it. I wouldn't have bought it anyway, so that makes it all right.


Hey Sweeney (or Spinachy O'Popeye, as one of my friends likes to call you): pop into the restaurant where Jim works and tell him that people defending his right to be paid for his music is righteous, middle class hysteria. Have a coffee - but don't forget to pay for it, and at least leave him a decent tip.


(Actually, I don't think Jim does work as a waiter anymore - I'm just illustrating a point.)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ian Anderson
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 06:02 AM

Will Mudcat let me post today? Yes, if you read this.

Maybe this is part of the problem with Ian A Anderson's contentious album - can middle-class English white-boys really sing the blues?

Almost certainly not, though I'm still slightly proud - with a certain degree of amusement - of my failed attempts to be a 65 year old Missssippi blueser at the age of 19. To that extent, when the master tapes of the 1969 album I made like that were unearthed in EMI's vaults 18 months ago, I was able to prove that ownership had reverted to me, spent a fair bit of time with an engineer doing a decent remaster, wrote some new notes and that nice Mr. Suff at Fledg'ling re-issued it. I may even see a few bob.

The one I mentioned above was a bad attempt at being a singer/songwriter. I was given one 4 or 5 hour session in which to record it. It obviously resonated so well with listeners at the time that it sold only a couple of hundred copies. Unfortunately (see many other examples in the strange world of record collectors) rarity boosts value. It sells for £200 on eBay on the rare occasions it comes up, has frequently appeared in books about rare LPs and recently had a half page in Record Collector dedicated to it, complete with a pic of the godawful cover. None of which improves the quality which I was dreadfully ashamed of at the time, and tried to prevent even its original release.

To find - this is my other point - badly dubbed - copies of an already poor recording (not, I think, my fault) of a not particularly good performance (again, not entirely my fault under the circumstances) posted up on the web by some blogger solely, I believe, to make his or herself look good because they've tracked down a rare album, distresses me a lot. Of course they didn't ask first, because I'm on record as saying I hated and regretted the thing from the outset.

I'm lucky enough to now own virtually all my other masters, having taken care to get them back or (later) protect them contractually over the years. I've just done a (I believe) well remastered and nicely packaged compilation of my other albums from around that time made for Village Thing which is out soon. I'd be very pissed off if that also started to appear on pirate download sites as it would rob any chance of recouping the investment in doing a decent re-issue, which we're also planning for other Village Thing artists to mark the 40th anniversary of the label - though whether they'll do much more than recoup costs is questionable.

A properly remastered, for example, Nic Jones or Tony Rose re-issue (other Harrogate problems permitting) in the kind of well designed, environmentally friendly CD packaging that's now available would be a wonderful thing to have, but preparing such a thing for release isn't cheap. If sales are marginalised by pirates then it'll certainly never happen. Which would you rather have: a beautiful re-issue artefact with best possible sound, notes, and maybe some income to the artist of their family, or crap dubs from badly pressed vinyl as a file on your computer or a handwritten CDR?

And do you condone theft?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 06:00 AM

I don't really like downloads. I like something to look at and read about.
Next time I'm at a festival, I'll just go grazing round the record stall and take what I want...Then I'll pop over the musical instrumaent stall and have a couple of guitars and a concertina.
That will do nicely.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 05:57 AM

should be "...for whom such malpractice..."

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 05:48 AM

No evidence as such, Ruth - just a hunch based on the prevailing righteous hysteria of this thread. I think the middle-class conservative mindset that buys into Revival Folk is less inclined to the instinctive lawlessness that afflicts the rest of us lesser oiks for such malpractice is simply par for the course.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 05:33 AM

"Just because someone downloads your album doesn't mean you have been robbed of a sale. Chances are they wouldn't have bought it in the first place. They download it as part of a casual culture of oral transmission & recommendation facilitated by the convenience of the broadband internet. These people are not your intended audience - they are not folkies in the Mudcat sense; they are lovers of music regardless of the affectations and intentions of the artists..."

Evidence, please? Lots of people want something for nothing; folkies are hardly the exception. If you can prove to me that Jim Causley has not been robbed of sales as a result of his album being freely and illegally available for the past year and a half on the site you linked to, I'd be very interested to see the evidence.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 05:18 AM

What about the case where an artist has good reasons for NOT wanting an album to be available any more? In my case simply because it was crap, but I can think of many others: a bad and/or unauthorised live recording, songs that carry unwelcome emotional baggage, songs that espouse a viewpoint that the writer no longer holds, songs that have been previously or subsequently recorded in better performances or sound quality.

That bad album you want to see dead & buried could well be the pride of someone's record collection - the album of their lives indeed; the negative emotional baggage for you just might be the happiest of associations for someone else. Thus the work takes on a life of its own - no longer the reserve of the artist, but common cultural currency with an ethnographic status that renders it invaluable. What the artist feels about their work & how it is valued by Culture as a whole is an interesting sort of dichotomy - for example, none of the members of Joy Division are particularly happy with Unknown Pleasures, but this in no way detracts from its assured cultural status as masterpiece. Nor yet might such feelings stem the tide of bootleg & unofficial recordings that are the lifeblood of a very particular cult (Joy Division that is) that is still going strong (almost) thirty years after they ceased trading under that name.

In this sense recordings operate as document, rather than product; they are a field-recorded feral archive in which all issues of artistic control is a complete anathema - and, if ever implemented, undoubtedly detrimental to the music as a whole. To Folkies (of whatever stripe) the present phenomena ought to be appreciated in terms of its folkloric / ethnographic value rather than in terms of conventional legality, or even ethics, even though many regard it as being criminal. This is, I fear, to miss the cultural value of what is occurring here - fact is, the music is out there, part of the virtual ether where it lives & breathes in another dimension far removed from anything the artist could have possibly envisaged whilst they were in the studio - and quite irrespective of their sensibilities in later life.

Just because someone downloads your album doesn't mean you have been robbed of a sale. Chances are they wouldn't have bought it in the first place. They download it as part of a casual culture of oral transmission & recommendation facilitated by the convenience of the broadband internet. These people are not your intended audience - they are not folkies in the Mudcat sense; they are lovers of music regardless of the affectations and intentions of the artists. If they were folkies, they would not be downloading it for fear of violating the ethical consensus - as we have seen on this thread people who seemed happy to download at first soomed turned-tail when they realised they were running contrary to the mob-feeling. In effect, waiting to be told the correct thing to do, in line with a general level of cultural compliance which is, alas, the Folky Mindset.

And all this despite the fact that The Folk Revival is founded on a far greater cultural plundering than a few computer geeks with folkish sensibilities having a casual listen to Anne Lister CDs. Maybe this is part of the problem with Ian A Anderson's contentious album - can middle-class English white-boys really sing the blues? Well, they did once, and now the truth is well and truly out there.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 05:08 AM

For those who say, "I've bought the album and I can do what I like with it", the answer is of course that they're wrong. What they've purchased is the right to listen to the music. Of course, they can sell or give away the physical medium it came on, but in doing so they also give away their right to listen to the music - they're not allowed to make a copy. It is usually made plain, somewhere in the small print, what their rights are (which nowadays may include permission to rip a copy to an mp3 player for their own personal use).

Furthermore, the price they have paid reflects these limited rights. If they were to contact the record company to negotiate wider distribution rights then they would have to pay considerably more.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 04:56 AM

Ruth - yes, that is the risk. That's the trouble with suppressed demand - you can't demonstrate it without satisfying it. But I think the fact that those two Nic Jones albums have had reissues (of sorts) suggests that demand for free stuff does indicate demand for stuff to buy.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 04:49 AM

"Actually making a 'lost' album available for download gives tangible evidence that people want that album - and if the blogger pulls the album when it becomes available again (as Jeremy B. consistently does), the impact on sales will be minimal."

On the other hand, making a 'lost' album freely available to download may remove the demand and completely undermine the market for a re-release in the first place.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 04:36 AM

In the 1960s I was part of a movement (probably started by Harry Smith) that saw nothing wrong in "liberating" old '20s & '30s 78s and re-issuing them on vinyl since the labels that theoretically owned them didn't even know they had them, or that anybody wanted them, and certainly weren't about to do it themselves. And so people then went looking for artists like Son House and Skip James who, as a direct result, got second careers, and in the end the likes of Sony did re-issue their Robert Johnson boxes to the benefit of his (claimed) heirs.

Somehow, though, I find it difficult to equate today's pirate ego-bloggers with that.

Lizardson at THTM, maybe not; Crimsonking at Folk Yourself, definitely not. But what Jeremy Browning (crazy name, crazy guy) is doing at http://witchseason.blogspot.com strikes me as very close to what Ian and friends were doing with the old 78s: taking stuff which is unavailable, which copyright owners appeared to have no intention of re-releasing, and making it available again.

There's massive suppressed demand for the deleted work of Nic Jones and Tony Rose, for example; with a bit of marketing, a new edition of the Noah's Ark Trap or On banks of green willow could do well, both for the label and for Nic (and Tony's estate). But that's the problem with suppressed demand - in the nature of things, it can't make itself heard. Folkies can moan in places like this, but who cares about that - folkies can always find something to moan about. Actually making a 'lost' album available for download gives tangible evidence that people want that album - and if the blogger pulls the album when it becomes available again (as Jeremy B. consistently does), the impact on sales will be minimal. It's just the same kind of approach that Ian describes, and hopefully will ultimately have the same effect (although we may have to wait for Sony to buy up Celtic Music!). Even the rather unsatisfactory reissues of Nic Jones's first two albums only came out in the last couple of years, i.e. after they'd started to be shared over broadband.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Anne Lister
Date: 05 Jan 10 - 02:51 AM

In view of Q's post above it may be of interest to note that "Lizardson" is Japanese, so that could explain how this particular album ended up on his blog.

And yes, the copyright owners to an album may well not be the artists themselves - we had this very issue with THTM about the album "Burnt Feathers", recorded by Mary McLaughlin and me as Anonyma in 1986. The copyright owner is Paul Adams at Fellside. We don't have the right to put downloads from this album on our websites, free or otherwise, despite the songs themselves being our own (copyright) material. Should we be grateful to Lizardson and friends? Not really. Like Ian Anderson above, we'd rather choose what happens to our older recordings ourselves.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: JohnB
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:58 PM

I have the perfect answer on my computer to stop ALL this illegal downloading.
Just for a laugh I followed the link in the first posting, followed all the instructions and am able to download 55.something meg of music.
My answer to the problem (or maybe my problem to the answer) is of course "Dial-Up" now connected at the amazing rate of 49.2kbps. It should only take me half a lifetime to download it.
If every computer in the world was connected at this rate illegal downloads of anything bigger than "Pong" would not be a problem.
What are you all crying about?
JohnB

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:23 PM

In the case of Art Thieme, Kicking Mule was sold and the company who bought them own all rights to his albums, two of them if I remember right. He cannot reissue them on his own and they will not. We had a letter-writing campaign years ago to try to get them to.

Also, even if an artist is dead, there may still be an estate which collects whatever royalties there may be, so just because they are gone doesn't mean the product is up for grabs, free of charge.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:22 PM

It's probably appropriate to note that the copyright holder is not necessarily the artist--who owns the recording is a matter of legal contract.In any case, though, recordings still in copyright are not up for grabs, whether or not they are currently in print.

This may be esthetically unfortunate, but it's nonetheless true.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:52 PM

"And Now it is so early" was re-released on th Japanese Vinyl label as a cd in 2006. Sold out at present, but may be re-stocked later.

Dunno who holds copyright, but an inquiry to the Copyright Office (costs ?) would answer that.

"Rebellion," Nigel Denver, Decca 1964, has 11 tracks trad. arranged Nigel Denver, 2 credited to McColl and Peggy Seeger, one to Hamish Henderson.
Inquiry to Decca probably would determine who holds copyright.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Anne Lister
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:22 PM

My earlier attempt at posting didn't get through either.
I can't think of any other art genre that would look happily at people who have no part in creating a piece of copyrighted material distributing it indiscriminately with no regard to the opinions or financial rights of the owners of the copyright.
The facts are (and this is not my opinion) there is a law of copyright and illegitimate downloads are illegal. People have been prosecuted for it and fined heavily. It is one thing to lend someone else your copy of a recording and entirely something else to upload it to a site where there are no restrictions as to who will download it. Not that long ago there was small print on albums to remind the purchaser that buying a copy of the CD did not confer broadcast, distribution or commercial rights. It still doesn't. I know there is a huge sub-culture with today's kids whereby copying music is a normal part of what they do - it still doesn't make it legal, however, or fair, or right.
I am, like others on this thread, very disappointed that there are Mudcatters who haven't worked out that publicising blogs like THTM is not a way to support musicians working in a minority genre who need all the financial boosts they can get.

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

Ian Anderson has been having technical difficulty posting to Mudcat today (like many of us, I suspect) so he asked me to post the following on his behalf:


The problem with sites like this is that they rely on the artist contacting them and asking them to remove the album. The same technology which makes it easy to copy and distribute the music also makes it easier to track down and contact the copyright holder. If these sites would make the effort to get permission before putting albums up for download a lot of these problems would disappear. This would then leave a small number of albums which it is reasonably safe to assume will never be re-released, and there may be a moral case, if not a legal one, for making these available for posterity.

Well put.

What none of the diverse and in some cases hypocritically self-justifying other posts here deal with is the situation I described in post 15. What about the case where an artist has good reasons for NOT wanting an album to be available any more? In my case simply because it was crap, but I can think of many others: a bad and/or unauthorised live recording, songs that carry unwelcome emotional baggage, songs that espouse a viewpoint that the writer no longer holds, songs that have been previously or subsequently recorded in better performances or sound quality. Also, in my case, piss poor dubs off bad vinyl pressings. As well as having the right to gain even a tiny amount of income from back catalogue, artists ought to at least be given the respect of being allowed to decide whether something that has deliberately been made unavailable stays that way, or given the respect of only making their music available in decent quality.

I appreciate that shouts of hypocrisy could be aimed at me too. In the 1960s I was part of a movement (probably started by Harry Smith) that saw nothing wrong in "liberating" old '20s & '30s 78s and re-issuing them on vinyl since the labels that theoretically owned them didn't even know they had them, or that anybody wanted them, and certainly weren't about to do it themselves. And so people then went looking for artists like Son House and Skip James who, as a direct result, got second careers, and in the end the likes of Sony did re-issue their Robert Johnson boxes to the benefit of his (claimed) heirs.

Somehow, though, I find it difficult to equate today's pirate ego-bloggers with that. If we'd had the internet in the 1960s to help tracking down the artists first it would have been a very different story and - if the models of exemplary re-issue labels who grew out of that era like Arhoolie and Ace were followed - the artists would get paid.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:50 PM

If musicians are feeling hard done by, why don't they make available their out-of-print stuff themselves and charge for it on their web pages?

The problem is very often that the musicians don't own the rights to their published work - this is why you can buy Nic Jones's Unearthed from Mollie Music, but not any of the Leader albums. Also, in some cases the musicians have the misfortune to be dead.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:45 PM

why is it necessary that you hear those tracks right now?

It's not. But I have heard them, my life has been enriched by them, and anyone who tells me that I shouldn't have heard them is going to have to have somd good arguments.

What I suggest is that someone should not UPLOAD full albums without permission from whoever owns the rights.

Google "Celtic Music" some time.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:35 PM

(and, why is it necessary that you hear those tracks right now?)

Well, anything can happen, can't it? I would hate my life to be cut short whilst waiting around for some record company to get their shit together to release And Now it is So Early because my ethically superior Mudcat conscience would make the music turn to ashes in my ears if I were immoral enough to download one for nowt.

Sometime soon, someone had better deal with the issue.

I couldn't agree more. The situation is well out of control even unto the verge of a national crisis. The answer is a huge government-funded archive containing every track ever recorded in the history of recorded sound in MP3 ad FLAC formats. These would available for download by anyone for a nominal cover price of 14p (MP3) and 19p (FLAC). There would be no hard-copy allowed - not even CD-Rs. Record companies would simply record their artistes and upload their albums for punters to download onto their specially equipped hi-fi systems & computers etc., complete with text and graphic material where appropriate. Each file would be encoded in such a way that any form of duplication would result in a deadly virus being unleashed into ones system. I reckon that should sort it out no bother.

See my thread: BS: Petition for Government Sound Archive

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:33 PM

Here's a few thoughts:
If musicians are feeling hard done by, why don't they make available their out-of-print stuff themselves and charge for it on their web pages?
The reason a lot of L/Ps are hard to get is because only a small number were pressed, in some cases about 500 ,to be sold at gigs. The musician is paid for having sold 500. end of story. Why should he be paid if I want to make a copy for a friend, and in so doing possibly add to his fanclub?
Ian Anderson moans that an album he would rather forget, that he rushed just for contractual reasons, has become available. do you not think , Ian, that you cheated all those who bought it?
Buying on e-Bay is buying second-hand, often at rediculous prices. As such, the artist gets nothing from it.
If a person has the right to sell a second-hand L/P for £40 or £60, doese he not also have the right to give it away for nothing?
Finally, do these download sites not regenerate an interest in old gems being re-issued that otherwise would be forgotton?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:25 PM

Pip Radish said"If you can suggest how else I could have heard these tracks I'll be more sympathetic to your position, which I take to be that I shouldn't download anything ever."

What I suggest is that someone should not UPLOAD full albums without permission from whoever owns the rights. Once they are uploaded, I'm not surprised that MANY download them. It may be that whoever own those rights may be planning to re-issue it as a CD. Why bother to buy that CD if they already have it? (and, why is it necessary that you hear those tracks right now?)

All I can do is hope that YOU would buy it if it became available. Since the technology exists to easily copy and upload albums, we are getting into a VERY murky situation about the economics of music production.
What I DO think is that the owners of rights to older stuff, like LPs, should either make them freely available and creat a database where the public could look to KNOW what is permitted, or make it very clear that they do NOT wish certain properties to be copied. This won't stop piracy, but it would avoid a lot of gray areas.

Sometime soon, someone had better deal with the issue.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Goose Gander
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:05 PM

"Fact is bootlegging is part & parcel of the music industry & the most interesting recordings are very often the unofficial ones."

True, but the site you linked is equivalent not to bootlegging (making 'un-official' recordings available to fans) but rather to counterfeiting.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 02:55 PM

Wow, this thread has been a real eye-opener (so was a PM). Not so enthusiastic now...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 02:50 PM

I was just talking to Jim Moray, who tells me he had to have Low Culture taken down from Time Has Told Me a few months ago. So if this site claims to only post albums that are rare and difficult to find, why is it posting recent releases which are very obviously still in copyright and readily available from many outlets to purchase? The onus is then on the artists to discover their music has been stolen, and ask the site to take the album down. This doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the "enthusiast" perfoming a service: this seems to be the action of someone who thinks he has the right to steal music, and provide it for free to other people who feel they are entitled to receive something for nothing.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 02:05 PM

From the OP link I did download And Now It Is So Early. Then I had to find some software that can unpack a .rar archive. Then I ran the software, which showed me a list of tracks. Then I tried to extract some of the tracks and was asked for a password, which I don't have. That's as far as I've got.

If I eventually am able to extract any of the tracks, I'm more than willing to pay somebody some cash - possibly the suggested fiver (being somewhere between the price of a CD if it were available and the fraction that would go to the performers).

Who should I pay it to? Bob Pegg? Carole Pegg? Sydney Carter's estate? Some to each of them?

Richard

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,spooboo
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:58 PM

The people who run these download sites are thieves and the people who download the albums are thieves too. Is there any more to be said?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Charlie
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:36 PM

Hey ! Just a thought..havent all you anti-downloaders considered that this whole thread is a great advertisement for the bloggers to taut their wares to curious folkies...nice one my friends!!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:33 PM

Well, it would be nice if the site management asked that contributors not re-post links to albums which have been taken down, and where copyright is very obviously being infringed:


Jim Causley's Fruits of the Earth

the third comment, which has been allowed to remain on the site since 2008, contains another link to the album, despite Doug Bailey asking them to take the album off their site. Who does that? What inspires such selfishness in people that they think stealing from artists is not only acceptable, it is their right?


S O'P: "My wife has early CD issues of June Tabor's Topic albums which have to be the shoddiest pieces of shit I've ever seen. Great albums they were too, in their vinyl incarnations - maybe things have improved, but Folk Product always looks limp & overpriced to me."

So that makes it okay to nick it?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:24 PM

oops, it would seem Dick didn't do his research very well.

:-D

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 01:14 PM

Dick, they have removed the download link for Cheating the Tide. They have left up information about the LP itself, which I for one don't see should be a problem - if you want them to remove all references to the album, I suggest you contact them again. However, although the album sleeve will be copyright (presumably owned by the artist who designed it), I don't think you could prevent them from publishing the track listing.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 12:35 PM

I mean, I wouldn't take it for granted that on a site of that size all comments would get read all the time by the people running the site.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 12:31 PM

If you don't mind me saying, a comment to a blog post would seem less effective, or appropriate, than a direct e-mail to the actual poster of the album in question, establishing your rights and requesting them to remove the album.

Did you try both approaches?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 12:02 PM

OUT-OF-PRINT & RARITIES SELECTED BY LIZARDSON & FRIENDS

Thursday, April 02, 2009
Dick Miles
Cheating The Tide (1984)


Greenwich Village GVR227

Dick Miles has been singing at Folk Festivals, Folk Clubs and Maritime Festivals, for thirty two years. His special love is traditional song and the concertina. He has recorded 4 cd's and 5 lp's, one of them, "Cheating The Tide", features excellent guitar playing from Martin Carthy. He also has written two concertina tutors, one on song accompaniment, and one book of self penned songs (The Sailors Dream), available from his website.

Musicians:
Dick Miles: vocals, concertina, baritone concertina
Martin Carthy: guitar
Sue Miles: bass clarinet, clarinet, chorus
Sam Richards: piano, harmonica, whistle, chorus
Tish Stubbs: vocals, guitar, chorus
Stephen Cassidy: recorder, bass recorder, bass crumhorn
Jenny Critchley: tenor crumhorn

Tracks:
01. Lady Diamond
02. Washington Post
03. Rebel Soldier
04. Bill Charlton's Fancy
05. Tommy's Lot
06. Pakefield Parson
07. Poor Boy
08. There's No One With Endurance Like The Man Who Sells Insurance!
09. Wages Of Death
10. Dillpickle Rag
11. The Curse Of Hoxne Bridge
12. The Cott
13. The Battle Of Bosworth Field


http://www.dickmiles.com

posted by Ailis at 3:43 PM
4 Comments:

Blogger cianfulli said...

    I posted it on Folk yourself long ago.
    Nice it resurfaces here
    03 April, 2009 12:29   
Blogger Freg said...

    This is a gem, i love it. I'd never heard of Dick Miles before.
    Thanks, Ailis
    04 April, 2009 21:04   
Anonymous dick miles said...

    you have mylp cheating the tide , avialable on your site . pls remove it.>thanks DickMiles http://www.dickmiles.com
    03 July, 2009 16:48
so,they were asked to remove it on the third of july,and I am still waiting.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:40 AM

Bonus quote from witchseason.blogspot.com:

"The Witchseason name as used here is not connected with, but is partly a homage to, Joe Boyd's Witchseason Productions, which was responsible for some of the best music to come out of the late 60s and early 70s"

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:25 AM

If these sites would make the effort to get permission before putting albums up for download a lot of these problems would disappear.

Quotes from witchseason.blogspot.com:

"Most of the rest of my albums are now available on CD (and so I won't post them) - but every so often I discover that an album that *was* available isn't any more. So I pounce. Oh, you may be able to buy it from ebay, or from Amazon in the 'used and new' section, but the *artist* doesn't get anything from that so I have no problems with giving it away instead."

"Until recently a lot of the tracks on these albums were available on compilation CDs - but now it seems they're not any more. If I'm wrong, or if they are re-released, I'll be taking them down pronto so you can buy them."

"Laura Nyro update: both Seasons Of Lights and Mothers Spiritual are, or will soon be, available from http://www.iconoclassicrecords.com/ (along with Nested). I have therefore removed the links to these downloads."

I don't have any qualms about downloading from this guy.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:25 AM

All CD re-issues should offer incentives to purchase, as many pop albums do of course, but not many folk ones. My wife has early CD issues of June Tabor's Topic albums which have to be the shoddiest pieces of shit I've ever seen. Great albums they were too, in their vinyl incarnations - maybe things have improved, but Folk Product always looks limp & overpriced to me.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Casey fan
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:16 AM

How do you know, Peter, that Compass Records - the owners of Mulligan - isn't planning to reissue 'Taking Flight'?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Howard Jones
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:06 AM

The problem with sites like this is that they rely on the artist contacting them and asking them to remove the album. The same technology which makes it easy to copy and distribute the music also makes it easier to track down and contact the copyright holder. If these sites would make the effort to get permission before putting albums up for download a lot of these problems would disappear.

This would then leave a small number of albums which it is reasonably safe to assume will never be re-released, and there may be a moral case, if not a legal one, for making these available for posterity.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 11:05 AM

Thanks Chris. I am not particularly after Casey's albums I have hours and hours of his music and I had Reg Hall's tapes that became 'The Spirit of West Clare' over a decade before the CD was released. I merely used 'Taking Flight' as an example of a recording that is no longer available and is unlikely to be released ever again. Which I think is a great loss to people who don't have it.

My general remarks are really based on Ceol Álainn to which I posted a link on this thread. The other site, at which I had a brief look and appeared similar, I don't know much about. Roughly speaking I don't see much harm in making available, free of charge and not for profit, albums that are no longer available of artists no longer with us. This enters a grey area where artists are still alive (and still have control of the material, which is often not the case) and certainly, in my opinion, shouldn't cross into material that is still available commercially.

I am a bit in two minds about it all but I think the perceived 'damage' done in a lot of cases outweighs making music available. I do think though musicians should have control over their own output.

Having 'Legit' distributors doesn't mean artists get paid either by the way. Ah, the stories... But that's another territory.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 10:48 AM

Bill - I don't know about "I want I want I want", but I will say that I'm very glad that I have been able to hear Tony Capstick singing the Ballad of Accounting, Tony Rose singing the Bonny Light Horseman and Nic Jones singing Miles Weatherill, to name but a few. If you can suggest how else I could have heard these tracks I'll be more sympathetic to your position, which I take to be that I shouldn't download anything ever.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 10:43 AM

Peter,

If you're after recordings by Bobby Casey there's a wonderful CD of old recordings from the mid-60s to the early 70s, 'The Spirit Of West Clare,' available from Copperplate Distribution.

And it's legit.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 10:29 AM

Peter Laban,there is a Vinyl lp,Cheating The Tide,on this site,it is up there without my permission.
I have objected ,it is still up there.
it is not ok, when will people realise.
quote SOP" Interesting thread though, if only for what it reveals about the anal-retentions of the folky mindset. I must say, I can't say I'm too surprised, and this despite years of being ripped off by folk club organisers, folk festival organisers and folk artistes - a lot of whom expect something for nothing, but such is the human way.
see this thread, dick miles june 8 gig

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 10:15 AM

*IF* those who post music online without permission of the artist or owners of the copyrights were merely doing a service (reminding folks of nice old music) by posting short samples, they 'might' have a point: but when they post **FULL ALBUMS**, along with full size pictures that can be used to create a CD, there is only one description of the practice that fits....piracy.

   I do not care what justifications and rationalizations one employs, what they are saying is: "I want what I want, and I don't care how how I get it, and those who think like *I* do will continue to 'share' stuff, no matter what the legalities are or whether the artists still alive & are due royalties.

You will notice they don't actually host the downloads themselves, but post them to Rapidshare, which makes a huge profit selling "premium accounts" to those who download lots of music & porn and can't wait for 'free' downloads.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 10:02 AM

I think you have it there Pip.

A few people, maybe a few hundred people downloading material that is not available or very hard to come by.

As I said, in some cases I have mixed feelings about these things but as long as there's not someone on the download side making money at the cost of the artists I really can't see the damage outweighing the benefit of for example making Bobby Casey's music available again to those who wouldn't otherwise have access to it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 09:55 AM

H'nh h'nh... he said "record industry"...

P. "young at heart" R.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 09:52 AM

if the majority of illegal downloads really were just "curiosity/see what it sounds like" downloads, the record industry quite simply wouldn't have noticed. It wouldn't have even registered as a blip. Instead, it's taken a massive hit.

Is the record industry going to take a massive hit from downloads of old Leader/Trailer albums?

You're arguing against huge numbers of people downloading commercially available material. I'm arguing in favour of small numbers of people (e.g. the population of Mudcat) downloading unavailable material - and I think that's pretty much what SO'P is advocating, too.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 09:48 AM

It may not be the majority of downloads but it will be a considerable portion of the downloads from the few sites mentioned on this thread.

I didn't mention 'roadtesting'. I said I download or go to the library for recording I wouldn't otherwise buy.

As for libraries and loans royalties, that's an illusion. I never received any anyway, or from broacasting. The crux there is you need to subscribe to your national music rights organisation to receive anything and in most cases of the artists on the download sites in question the membership fees for these organisations will way outstrip the royalties due.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 09:29 AM

True. But those sort of downloads can't be anything like the majority : the number's just don't add up. The point being that if the majority of illegal downloads really were just "curiosity/see what it sounds like" downloads, the record industry quite simply wouldn't have noticed. It wouldn't have even registered as a blip. Instead, it's taken a massive hit.

There's also something slightly spurious about that "road-testing" argument. At what point do you decide that, actually yes, this is an album you quite like and might have bought. A week later? 6 weeks later? a year later? 6 years later? There's a lot of imponderables there.

(and at least with libraries, there's a little loans royalty. it's titchy sure, but at least it's some kind of kickback to the artist)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 09:17 AM

Plus the brute fact remains that if downloading weren't around, they would HAVE to have bought it

That is not necessarily the case. Speaking for myself, recordings that I would download and/or borrow from a library and copy would be the ones I would be curious about but wouldn't immediately fancy buying. Or they would be ones no longer available for sale.

I can not imagine I am unique in this.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 09:04 AM

that was me above by the way.

"    People who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study. The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 a year on music – £33 more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/illegal-downloaders-spend-the-most-on-music-says-poll-1812776.html"

I've read that article and others like it. There's so much wrong with it.

When you really think about it though that argument's meaningless.

All it tells you is that people who really like listening to a lot of music tend to be the people who consume more of it. And that the big decline in music sales is proportionate: the people who always spent the most money on music still spend the most money on music, but there is simply less of it all told (due to downloading!). The ceiling is much lower.

I suspect that the music that they buy tends to be the music they can't immediately download - and that if they could immediately download it, they wouldn't buy it.

Plus the brute fact remains that if downloading weren't around, they would HAVE to have bought it. And anyway, is that article suggesting that, were someone to be caught out downloading and fined, they would somehow take revenge on the music industry by never buying any music again?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:56 AM

"matt, if you're even thinking of suggesting that I might prefer Tony Rose & Tony Capstick dead...

The B*lm*r situation makes things complicated. Nic Jones's first two albums have been reissued on CD - I've got one of them. The selling price is low, the packaging is cheap & I believe the disc itself is a CD-R (it doesn't play on my 1990s CD player); it's a fair bet that, as before, the royalties aren't going to the artist. So if I owe Nic the royalty for my downloaded copy of Nic Jones, presumably I also owe him in respect of my 'legit' Ballads and songs and my tape-of-a-tape Noah's Ark trap.

(I have a plan for dealing with this situation, involving Mollie Music and PayPal. If anyone can find a way to bung a few quid back through time to Tony Capstick, I'm all ears. And if they can dry the bugger out and get him singing again, that'd be good too. Sorry, I've been watching too much Doctor Who.)"

I was very careful to write "surviving" a few times in my posts!
I'm not suggesting you'd prefer anyone dead! It's just that I've read a few comments on the THTM website where it almost seems as if they prefer their "lost folkies" to be as lost as humanly possible.

It sounds like you know much more about the ins and outs of Nic Jones' back catalogue than I do. My attitude is simply that it really doesn't matter where you get whichever album from; it doesn't stop you from going to the website of Nic Jones or Dave Burland to see if there's a contact address to post a fiver to (or something). Put money in the hat. In my opinion, what you 'owe' someone is what you feel they've given you is worth. I like the busker model.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: bobad
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:53 AM

Illegal downloaders 'spend the most on music', says poll

Crackdown on music piracy could further harm ailing industry

By Rachel Shields

Sunday, 1 November 2009

    People who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study. The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 a year on music – £33 more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/illegal-downloaders-spend-the-most-on-music-says-poll-1812776.html

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:31 AM

This one's better; got a better write up too that mentions the protagonists by name!

Masstishaddu : Shekinah (remastered CD edition, 1999)

...the remastering job by Colin Potter, Masstishaddhu's Shekinah can be heard again and appreciated for its insanely mystical tone and occult allure. Everything about this release suggests esoteric happenings: the title, the cover, and the music all recall bloodied altars, unfathomable rituals, and mystical learning.

And it's only a click away!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:21 AM

Working Musician - might I suggest that any inconsistencies in my approach arise from you misunderstanding what I wrote back there. Fact is bootlegging is part & parcel of the music industry & the most interesting recordings are very often the unofficial ones. Which reminds me, does anyone have a copy of the original radio broadcast of Anthems in Eden they might share with me? Or maybe it's part of the Within Sound sets Pip has linked to...

When I say a lot of us are in a similar position I mean that many of us did records in the past which are no longer available at realistic prices (one I was involved with goes for £100+) and have, therefore, found a place in the blog scene. I find it quite heartening to be honest. Here's a Dark Folk album we did back in 1988 for United Dairies, which actually saw a CD reissue ten years ago in the USA, but I never saw a penny for either, though in both cases I received a few free copies:

Shekinhah : Masstishaddhu : 1988 As one comment has it: This is the most fuckedup abyss of daarkness i've ever heard. Sounds about right!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:01 AM

THTM will remove uploads when an artist complains it's there without permission but it takes a while and even then, there are plenty of selfish users who just put them back up. I mentioned to Pete Coe that some of his back catalogue had been posted (carefully not mentioning that I'd had a sneaky listen) and he was not a bit pleased and got them taken off. Ex-Leader/Trailer artists are up and down with remarkable rapidity and I would imagine that this stems from Celtic keeping a close watch and squealing when ill-gotten gains from their CD-R re-releases might be threatened. This matters not a lot to the artists themselves as they are getting nothing out of it either way, except that "free" downloads could prejudice future legitimate re-releases. What is unforgiveable is the uploading of recordings made from live and outtake performances compliled specifically to circumvent the Celtic impasse and generate income. This is not just unethical - it's theft.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 08:00 AM

matt, if you're even thinking of suggesting that I might prefer Tony Rose & Tony Capstick dead...

The B*lm*r situation makes things complicated. Nic Jones's first two albums have been reissued on CD - I've got one of them. The selling price is low, the packaging is cheap & I believe the disc itself is a CD-R (it doesn't play on my 1990s CD player); it's a fair bet that, as before, the royalties aren't going to the artist. So if I owe Nic the royalty for my downloaded copy of Nic Jones, presumably I also owe him in respect of my 'legit' Ballads and songs and my tape-of-a-tape Noah's Ark trap.

(I have a plan for dealing with this situation, involving Mollie Music and PayPal. If anyone can find a way to bung a few quid back through time to Tony Capstick, I'm all ears. And if they can dry the bugger out and get him singing again, that'd be good too. Sorry, I've been watching too much Doctor Who.)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:49 AM

"A lot of lps come up all the time on ebay and I generally prefer to get them that way."

And original pressings are, in fact, a limited commodity (in the case of some old folk albums, very limited indeed). It is the contrast of the limitless commodity represented by the download, which effectively makes mass consumption possible with little benefit to the artist, and which removes any demand for re-releases which might actually provide some remuneration for the artists, which is morally dubious.

And if the artists/original labels have not approved their music for download, it's bloody rude as well.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:48 AM

just to reiterate, I wasn't suggesting that the albums can be easily bought, I was suggesting that you can contact the *people* who made them remarkably easily these days.

(Assuming they're alive, of course.)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:35 AM

"Tony Rose, On banks of green willow
Nic Jones, The Noah's Ark Trap
Capstick, Burland and Gaughan, Songs of Ewan MacColl

Any suggestions where I can buy these?

The idea that all this stuff is legitimately available is just not true - lots and lots of albums are gone and aren't likely to come back, and scrupulous uploaders like the guy at GJIKMT are doing us all a favour."


The important thing for me is whether or not you've given any of the surviving musicians you mention above any money or not. Or posted a link with a contact email address on the website you used to acquire them, with the suggestion of doing that. (Or even just sent them an email to tell them how much you enjoyed their album - there are other ways of 'paying' people besides giving them cash.)

It sometimes feels on those sites as if some of the users prefer their folkies dead, because it further abstracts the product from having any connection to a producer of it who works and eats and sleeps and does all the things that require money.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:27 AM

A lot of lps come up all the time on ebay and I generally prefer to get them that way. For everything else sites like Ceol Álainn are there. In fact I am quite sure whoever runs it outbid me on some of the lps that are up there. I do think it's a service to have Bobby Casey's 'Taking Flight' etc available. There are grey areas though, I know that too.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Working Musician
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:26 AM

That last guest post was me. But as I'm posting as a guest anyway, it doesn't make much sense clearing that up!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:25 AM

Suibhne O'Piobaireachd - Surely you can see the difference between Peter Bellamy bootlegging himself and selling it at gigs for his own profit and a website which offers illegal downloads of dozens of artists? Surely, you can see there's a massive leap between those two positions.

Your first line - "I think a lot of us are in similar positions here" if you are implying that a lot of us are in similar positions where we stand on this issue, please, let me make it perfectly clear that I am nowhere near the position you're taking and I can't see many others who are on this topic.

Then you end with a little dig at folk club organisers, folk festival organisers and folk artistes for seemingly all expecting something for nothing. What complete hypocrisy considering what you're advocating is exactly that - something for nothing.

If musicians cannot rely on the support of their fellow musicians even - what hope is there?

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:23 AM

Pip, the only thing I'd reiterate, in mitigation of the points you've raised, is the point that Matt made regarding the fact that that comprehensive file sharing of these titles may undermine future official re-issues. And I also think it's not a bad idea, if someone is going to go to the trouble of setting up a file sharing site like the one above, that they include some means of compensating the artists - and even the label, who, after all, invested in the artists and made the original recording available in the first place.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:22 AM

these people are rarely so 'lost' that they can't be found with about 3 clicks of a mouse

Here are a few albums I've acquired without paying:

Tony Rose, On banks of green willow
Nic Jones, The Noah's Ark Trap
Capstick, Burland and Gaughan, Songs of Ewan MacColl

Any suggestions where I can buy these?

The idea that all this stuff is legitimately available is just not true - lots and lots of albums are gone and aren't likely to come back, and scrupulous uploaders like the guy at GJIKMT are doing us all a favour.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:14 AM

Small clarification. I wrote:

At the end of the day it's no different from taping an album you've borrowed from a friend.

What was in my head, but didn't make it to the keyboard, was

it's no different from taping an album which is no longer available that you've borrowed from a friend.

I agree completely with the comments about pirated versions of currently-available albums. Many, many folk albums currently aren't. I've acquired several albums without paying - either by downloading or by borrowing tapes from friends. Is there any other way I could have got hold of those albums? Barring a lucky find in a second-hand shop, no. Will I replace my mp3s with legit CDs, as and when legit CDs become available? Yes, finances permitting.

A great example is the Within Sound box set, which I'd dearly love to own. Unless and until it's reissued, being able to get hold of the tracks which are in the box set and aren't available anywhere else doesn't seem like such a bad thing. (The relevant post is here.)

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 07:08 AM

This site still includes, within the Comments thread below the feature, a link to a free download of Jim Causley's Fruits of the Earth. This seems to actually be a response to the effrontery of Doug Bailey from Wild Goose records sending them a take-down notice and explaining that the album is stiill commercially available.

Nice.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:58 AM

Yes, I agree it's a minefield of conflicting thoughts and feelings.

I admit to not being much of a downloader myself, I have enough to listen to. Sometimes I see people put up stuff for whatever reason of themselves and I think it's all to aggrandise themselves, the old 'look at me how great I am for making this available to you'. I also see people put up stuff for the genuine love of it. And a few shades in between too.

Fact remains that music doesn't exist if it doesn't get heard. And I like to think there's more to playing music than a bit of money changing hands.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:47 AM

I don't really have much patience for the "they got ripped off by record companies anyway" argument.

It's the first thing serial downloaders always say. Fact is, however bad their deals were, they got *some* money out of it.

You mention Peter Bellamy "bootlegging himself". Well quite right too - fair play to him. But the crucial point is he got some money out of it.

What I find is really depressing about the rampant download sites is they way they spew out all this self-righteous cant about 'championing lost figures' but that they never put their money where their mouth is. All too often it's self-serving sophistry anyway - these people are rarely so 'lost' that they can't be found with about 3 clicks of a mouse.

There are so many possibilities with the Internet for re-instituting the kind of convivial, "face-to-face", direct-from-the-maker kind of trade.

Imagine how surprised and pleased one of makers of the albums mentioned above would be to receive an unsolicited payment for an album downloaded without his/her knowledge.

If it happened more often, it would totally alter the antagonistic nature of musicians versus downloaders.

But it would never occur to serial downloaders, who have forgotten there is any people on the end of the abstracted product to consume: just more names on an impossibly hyperinflated iTunes library that would take 20 lifetimes to properly engage with.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:43 AM

Take it from me, pipers rarely get paid.

I meant detractors ofcourse. I was distracted and pre-coffee.

Sometimes I have some misgivings about the site I linked, Ceol Áilainn. On the other hand, most of the artists who's lps are up there never got anything much at all for the initial release. As I said, the downloads are there and it's up to every individual to decide whether or not they want to avail of them. If anyone is going to call in the lawyers, that's their prerogative.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:34 AM

I think a lot of us are in similar positions here; a fair few of my old albums are now freely available on-line in this way, but then again I don't remember getting much money from them back in the day and on this point, and many others, I remain philosphical. I wonder what percentage of each sale Mr Pegg got from And Now it is So Early? anyway? And how many were pressed? 500 perhaps? Or as many as 1000? Which puts it into the realm of the seriously endangered. How many here have even heard of this album, let alone seen a copy? How nice it must be to exist in the realm of Pure Principle alone...

It is well known that Peter Bellamy was reduced to bootlegging his own albums from the Topic & Argo vaults during his lifetime, such was the generally apathy that existed with respect of his singular genius. I have several, bought from his own fair hand at various gigs. I also have in my keeping several audience tapes of Bellamy performances - including the first ten minutes or so of what is quite possibly his last ever gig before his tragically premature passing. The official product was released some months earlier as the Songs & Rummy Conjurin' Tricks cassette, but nice though S&RCT is, he's on much better form on the audience tape. If anyone would like to hear it, I'll put it up on a file-share...

Interesting thread though, if only for what it reveals about the anal-retentions of the folky mindset. I must say, I can't say I'm too surprised, and this despite years of being ripped off by folk club organisers, folk festival organisers and folk artistes - a lot of whom expect something for nothing, but such is the human way!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:32 AM

Indeed, Matt. Having a look through the sites I have found a number of recordings by friends of mine, none of whom is getting rich from this music and all of whom deserve to be paid for what they do, regardless of whether the recording is a bootlegged live performance or an out-of-print commercial release. If you claim to love this music, have a bit of respect for the people who make it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:10 AM

let's try that again more coherently:

you don't have to recognise or agree with the arbitrary contingencies of legality, or their codification via copyright, to recognise the fair exchange of paying somebody for a service they've provided.

Download what you want, from wherever you want it, but make sure you pay the piper.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: alex s
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:10 AM

Pay 'em - they earn little enough these days. Bookings are becoming scarcer and fees are down in many cases.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:08 AM

"Distractors will bring up Copyright issues."

yeah, damn those pesky "distractors". Always "distracting" people by pointing out that they haven't given anything in exchange for what they've been given.

you don't have to be recognise or agree with the arbitrary contingencies of legality, or their codification via copyright, to recognise the moral right of wanting to pay somebody for a service they've provided.

Download what you want, from wherever you want it, but make sure you pay the piper.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 06:02 AM

it took me precisely 4 seconds to find this link:

http://www.bobpegg.com/nupage1.htm

the page has a phone number and postal address.

So you now know where to post the cheque that will enable you to enjoy the album you have downloaded even more, knowing that you have reimbursed the maker of it for the time, effort and, therefore, money he invested in it.

Of course, as every good anarchist knows, there are plenty of currencies besides money. You could always offer him another service, such as washing his windows. Or perhaps even proselytising to the unconverted on websites such as "Time Has Told Me" about the necessity of paying people for nice things they have done for you, or about how the word "free" has been hijacked by a generation of passive consumer-capitalist couch-potatoes to simply mean "taking everything you want and never giving back anything at all".

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:58 AM

Ceol Álainn is another site of the same sort. Distractors will bring up Copyright issues. The recordings are there anyway. Mostly Irish Traditional from the sixties to eighties.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Working Musician
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:36 AM

Suibhne O'Piobaireachd - It seems to me that Topic are one label who'd have every right to sell deluxe digitally remastered re-edited editions purporting to be an improvement on previous editions. Afterall, Topic, I'd venture to say, are hardly a Pop label (i.e. top 40 / X-Factor) are they? I'd say, that ploughing money back into Topic is almost Charity work! - of course my tongue is in my cheek - but they're one of the good guys, the way I see it.

Of course, one doesn't have to buy it or steal it - one can just leave it well alone - the same way The Beatles in Mono has barely entered my conciousness.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:30 AM

"All this is way off thread. What we want to here here is not (yet more) dreary folk-righteous pontificating on the morality of bootlegging, but a celebratory list of freely available downloads of long out of print albums whose very existence might be considered legendary."

Ooh, I think it's pretty cheeky to claim it's "off-thread" to raise questions about money and copyright in a thread that's been crowing about the wonderfulness of magical "free" albums. And I think you know damn well it is.

That's a disingenuous "we" as well. Speak for yourself mate. I, for one, DON'T want a "celebratory list of freely available downloads of long out of print albums". What's "celebratory" about the fact that the people who made these long out-of-print albums aren't receiving any money from their shiny new digital "availability"?

I do hope you're going to contact the Peggs, and Martin Carthy and the other surviving musicians you mentioned to give them some money. It's ever so slightly more effort than clicking "DL", but it's really not much more so.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:22 AM

PS - Seems odd for a music founded on the bootlegging of Traditional Singers to take such a high attitude to bootlegging in general. It still goes on - The Voice of the People series, and the forthcoming CDs from The Kennedy Archive - material hitherto knocked out on shoddy cassettes & CD-R editions for top-whack. Seems the ideal place for such recordings is on-line, as with the Max Hunter Folk Song Collection - freely available to one and all, with complete notes. But no; we'll get them packaged up in deluxe digitally remastered re-edited editions purporting to be an improvement on the Kennedy editions - and available only to those who are prepared to shell out top-whack all over again...

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:21 AM

oh and I think it's a disingenuous thread title:

"free rare old folk album downloads"

To describe something as "free" when it's being given away without the authorisation or knowledge of the person who made it is very misleading.

It also encourages a "take without paying" attitude. There's nothing stopping you getting in touch with Bob Pegg, or many of the other names you mention, and giving them a fiver via paypal.

I'd have a lot more patience with unauthorised copyright-infringing download sites if they encouraged people to do so. Or if they had the courage to contact the musicians whose product they distribute. Or if they volunteered to set up paypal accounts for them, or at the very least posted up a link to their website.

they never do. but they do often ask for donations to pay for the webpage space.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:13 AM

Time Has Told Me has a lot of albums that are still in print.

But more to the point, the argument that just cos something is out-of-print, it's fair game is a bit spurious.

For all they know, a label might be planning on re-issuing an album on CD. It robs labels of the power to reissue things.

I mean, Topic are in the process of reissuing their back catalogue currently. I don't imagine all these websites will scrupulously check their records and take down the links to these albums.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 05:10 AM

Sorry to disagree with you S'oB.
Many musicians (from many countrys/genres)have been ripped off over many years.
If we just talk about the UK folk scene. Name one artist who earns over 15k a year....?
Downloading for free is just a rip off.
I'm very happy that you have a 28 CD box of Sun Ra recordings....Hurrah!
I've got hundreds of John Peel and Andy Kershaw sessions...So?
Would I release them commercially????? No Bloody Way.
I admit I haven't looked at the sites that have been referred to yet. Maybe I will,but if the name Dave Bulmer or Celtic Music turns up. I will be very angry.
Bootlegging of impecunious artists work (without their agreement) is a despicable act.
End.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 04:55 AM

All this is way off thread. What we want to here here is not (yet more) dreary folk-righteous pontificating on the morality of bootlegging, but a celebratory list of freely available downloads of long out of print albums whose very existence might be considered legendary. How often do you find a vinyl copy of And Now it is So Early? Or else the Standard Library Music LP featuring some choice Third Ear Band sessions recorded in 1968 under the name of the National Balkan Ensemble? I bought the album from Japan years ago, but have since passed it on to fans of the band who wouldn't otherwise get to hear it. It's now quite freely available (along with other rarities) HERE & elsewhere.

In popular music, bootlegs are very much a part of the cultural reality; cherished unofficial recordings of studio demos, radio sessions, & concert recordings are part and parcel of the experience & celebration of the music. Likewise in Jazz - I'm presently on with the 28-CD box set recorded off the mixing desk during a Sun Ra Xmas & New Year residency 1980 / 81. Such recordings capture the wild diversity that exists contrary to the Official Product - they are field-recorded cultural document, a feral archive of wonders that make life just that little bit more worthwhile somehow. Seems odd, therefore, that this aspect of things is almost entirely absent from Revival Folk Music - one can but ponder!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Working Musician
Date: 04 Jan 10 - 04:05 AM

There's been a fair few ding-dongs on Time Has Told Me comments boards regarding the ethics of illegal downloading, in general and from sites such as THTM. Although they have now removed links to Nic Jones downloads (of his readily available recordings) they'll only do it if you spot it and ask them.

I agree absolutely with Ian Anderson's last line -

"They're not the only ones doing this, but I'm annoyed by the way they hide behind the righteous cloak of being "enthusiasts". Enthusiasts have respect and don't steal."

Websites and website such as these seem to be ran by people who love music but have no regard for musicians welfare whatsoever. I'm amazed to see people on Mudcat advocating visiting it and - yikes - defending it.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: GUEST,Ian Anderson
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 07:46 PM

The people behind the Time Has Told Me site have a very bad track record in terms of putting stuff up for free downloads without consulting the copyright holders or the performers (whichever is most appropriate)

I can confirm this from personal experience. They're continually having to be asked to take stuff down, some of which is even bad dubs from old vinyl copies when the material is currently available decently on legitimate CD re-issue - and even on releases owned by the artists themselves. The only good thing I can really find to say about them is that they do take the stuff down when asked, but it seems they can't even be bothered to run simple checks to find artists - many of whom are easily traceable these days through the wonders of the internet - to ask first before posting. I was particularly upset to find them putting up a badly dubbed copy of a crap album I did to get out of a major label contract in 1969 and had hoped had vanished without trace. If I wanted it heard again (I don't), I would have made sure it was at least re-mastered properly from the original tapes - and would also have earned something for the indignity!

They're not the only ones doing this, but I'm annoyed by the way they hide behind the righteous cloak of being "enthusiasts". Enthusiasts have respect and don't steal.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 07:16 PM

Hmm...I think I'll do as Don and give it a pass. Thanks, anyway. I'd be steamed if I found someone did this with my brother's symphonic music, even though we haven't been actively producing CDs in a number of years.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 06:41 PM

a good percentage of what they offer is currently commercially available

I'm pretty sure that's not the case with GJIKMT - or, for that matter, with the Peggs' Sidney Carter album.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: DonMeixner
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 06:19 PM

I guess I'll pass.

D

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 06:02 PM

Whatever the case, I shouldn't think And Now it is So Early is scheduled for an official CD reissue any time soon - which is a shame because it's a charming little album as anyone will discover if they follow the above link.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Kev Boyd
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 05:45 PM

Pip Radish wrote: "they're run by enthusiasts and dedicated to putting otherwise unavailable music"

I've never heard of GJIKMT before but I've had issues with THTM for a while as they claim to offer "out of print and rarities" but a good percentage of what they offer is currently commercially available. In at least one instance I'm aware of they've offered a new album by a currently working act within eight months of the official release.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Anne Lister
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 05:41 PM

The people behind the Time Has Told Me site have a very bad track record in terms of putting stuff up for free downloads without consulting the copyright holders or the performers (whichever is most appropriate).
Yes, it's great to get a free gift, but please check with the people who came up with the music in the first place as to whether the downloads are legitimate or not.
And the analogy of taping an album you borrowed from a friend is a good one - that's not a legal practice either, and might well be depriving the performers of a sale. Just because it can't be detected or stopped doesn't make it legal or fair. A lot of folk performers depend on sales revenues of their recordings in order to subsidise more recordings. If my friends like albums that I play them, I encourage them to buy their own copies rather than copy mine.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: DonMeixner
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 05:31 PM

Hi Pip,

That may be philosophically so but here in the States the RIAA doesn't feel the same. People have down loaded recordings to replace stuff they already own and have worn out. Like recording a back up of a bit of software. This practice is at issue.

Before I go adventuring into that website I'd like to know I won't be selling my house to pay for a song about a Shepard.

Don

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 05:26 PM

I can recommend both Time Has Told Me and Good Job I Kept My Turntable - they're run by enthusiasts and dedicated to putting otherwise unavailable music back in circulation. The guy who runs GJIKMT is extremely scrupulous about only making available albums that aren't on sale any more - I've seen him take down links not only to albums but to individual tracks when he's been notified that they're still out there. At the end of the day it's no different from taping an album you've borrowed from a friend.

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 05:16 PM

Nothing is for nothing. I don't go near sites like that

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: DonMeixner
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 05:13 PM

With all the worry about file sharing of late is this download with out concerns of the file sharing cops?

Don

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 04:53 PM

Look for the small DL - click on it and it'll take you to the download page; choose the Free option. If it's busy, go back & try later!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 04:35 PM

I must be dense. I didn't find anything to click on to listen to...what am I missing or, did I misunderstand? Thanks!

Subject: RE: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 03:02 PM

What an amazing website - thanks for the heads up. Cheers -

Subject: Free Rare Old Folk Album Downloads
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 03 Jan 10 - 02:58 PM

Copped a few of these of late, including the ultra-rare & long unavailable And Now It Is So Early - Bob & Carole Pegg's album of Sydney Carter songs, featuring Sydney himself! A curious but heartening piece of work.

Follow the above link and you'll also find Nigel Denver's Rebellion, featuring Martin Carthy, Dave Swarbrick & Felix Doran (!). Might have a listen on the strength of Felix alone...

Any others????