Comments on: The Frustration of Wanting Something You Can’t Buy

By: STEVE LIEBERMAN

STEVE LIEBERMAN — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:33:24 +0000

yeah–i’m the gangsta rabbi who covered it -on my 2006 cd ‘jewish pirate’-a charity album-raised hundreds for charity.

i remember ‘forgotten years’ from 1990–16 years before i did it–couldn’t find it anywhere either–sorry if my version was off

By: Carter

Carter — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:04:06 +0000

Having been on both the “content” side and the “digital retail” side of this conversation I support your comment that only ubiquity can fight ubiquity.
You’re a well off, content-employed music lover with deep artistic support mores. Of course you settled for the video. The other 99.9% of consumers would simply take what they want from P2P as they were offered no other choice to satisfy themselves. Particularly the fans under 18.

The labels need to deepen their digital catalogs and lower the barrier (cash grabs) for new business models. This will occur once the “old guard” are stop smarting from the MySpace and YouTube cash flow exclusion, remove their protectionist mandates and endorse more innovation.

By: Ethan Kaplan

Ethan Kaplan — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:16:06 +0000

Ameno – in most cases the radio station gets promo. The copy they play however is usually digitally delivered. Its not the same model at all with radio, or video channels, or itunes, etc.

By: Ameno

Ameno — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:51:30 +0000

actually, illiterate, I wrote that the radio station didn’t pay for the album. They pay a royalty for public performance… sharing in the revenue they garner through that public performance. But I can guarantee you they got the album for free.

By: ethan

ethan — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:04:25 +0000

actually, moron, the radio station pays everytime they play it.

By: Ameno

Ameno — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:45:05 +0000

You sir, are an idiot. I googled “Midnight Oil Blue Sky Mine rapidshare” and COULD HAVE (but didn’t )downloaded the album in 5 minutes on a direct download.

If the band is unwilling to put the album on iTunes for sale or on their own site as a paid download, then they have left you no choice.

What is your problem? You heard it on the radio for free. Do you really believe the RADIO STATION PAID FOR THE ALBUM?

By: Elisabeth Nortje

Elisabeth Nortje — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:53:41 +0000

Well I can’t buy anything from iTunes here(South Africa) even if I wanted to. Therefore the cd with Blue Sky Mine is sitting hapily in my cd collection….

By: Troy Nothnagel

Troy Nothnagel — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:53:14 +0000

One advantage of hard-to-find works on physical media is that you can usually find it for resale. Used CD shops, bookstores, vintage stores, even art auctions fulfill this need. Yet it’s not legal to do so with digital media.

By: Scott Gamble

Scott Gamble — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:32:11 +0000

This articulates the exact same frustration I have had in locating obscure (and sometimes not-so-obscure) media. We have become accustomed to the instant-gratification of services like Amazon and Rhapsody but there are clearly gaping holes in their catalogs.

Maybe it would have been easy for you to find what you are looking for on the seedier side of town, but I applaud you for sticking to your principles and not going there. I have friends who honestly _try_ to do the right thing, but when they run up against a wall as you did they resort to other means to acquire what they want. Unfortunately this blurs our ability to quantify the true demand for legitimate media, but I believe that if the legal selection were larger the aggregate amount of piracy would decline.

By: Daniel Hollister

Daniel Hollister — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:13:32 +0000

I am very much against music piracy and purchase every track legally. And, like you, if something I want is not available for purchase, I generally just suck it up and don’t get it. But in a situation where there is no legal method of getting what you want, I certainly understand where the people who do are coming from.

What’s interesting is how much I’ve been relying lately on iTunes and AmazonMP3. There were a couple albums I wanted for months that were only available on CD’s imported from the UK. A couple years ago that would be no problem. But I’ve been so spoiled by digital music sales that having to buy imported CD’s felt borderline offensive. After months of waiting, though, I ended up just buying them anyway.

In short, when music isn’t available at my fingertips within a few seconds, it almost feels to me like it isn’t available at all. That’s how spoiled some of us are by these services.