Pete Coe
Pete Coe said...
I should point out that I'm unhappy with the albums you have included for downloading, without my permission. Firstly, I have just re-released 'It's A Mean Old Scene' plus 'A Right Song & Dance' (my first two solo LPs) on CD on my own Backshift Music label. Your download facility thus undermines my sales on what is a small independent label. Secondly, the earlier Leader/Trailer LPs 'Open The Door & Let Us In', 'Out Of Season Out Of Rhyme' 'Bandoggs' & Highway LP 'Game Of All Fours' are currently subject to publishing disputes with Celtic Music. It is my intention, once the dispute is settled, to re-release these albums on CD. In the meantime you could find that you may get involved in expensive litigation from other parties. You certainly do not have my permission to make these recordings available as downloads & I would ask you to remove them immediately.
Pete Coe
I should point out that I'm unhappy with the albums you have included for downloading, without my permission. Firstly, I have just re-released 'It's A Mean Old Scene' plus 'A Right Song & Dance' (my first two solo LPs) on CD on my own Backshift Music label. Your download facility thus undermines my sales on what is a small independent label. Secondly, the earlier Leader/Trailer LPs 'Open The Door & Let Us In', 'Out Of Season Out Of Rhyme' 'Bandoggs' & Highway LP 'Game Of All Fours' are currently subject to publishing disputes with Celtic Music. It is my intention, once the dispute is settled, to re-release these albums on CD. In the meantime you could find that you may get involved in expensive litigation from other parties. You certainly do not have my permission to make these recordings available as downloads & I would ask you to remove them immediately.
Pete Coe
posted by Lizardson at 9:41 AM
24 Comments:
Well, Pete, if I'd had a chance to preview your CD, I might have liked it and bought it.
You may not believe it, but many of us do that. We *like* CDs. CDs always sound better than mp3s, have nice booklets to read, and are easy to play in many places. And if you still want the mp3s, you can rip them from the CDs at the highest quality.
I am glad to support the artists I enjoy.
But since you decided to not allow me more than a 30 second preview of each song (if that), I don't think I will be buying any of your CDs. Sorry.
Mr Anonymous No 1 you are right. Most of the cds I downloaded I bought as a CD when I like them.
I never buy a cd when I don't know the cd or I don't know the artist very well.
To anonymous:
fuck off. As if you have any right to get pissed off at someone for asking that their rights be honored.
All the stuff you wrote previous to that now appears to be a boatload of shit.
If you want to win over artists' minds on these matters, you're going to have to lay off adding whiny, vindictive postscripts.
Pete Coe,
there is no reson for me to buy your cds because I do not know you and your music.
Dear Mr. Coe,
If it wasn't for "Time has told me" I would never have heard of you.
Here in the Netherlands you're not well known so I guess you will not "lose" much money here.
Nevertheless I like your music and I'm willing to buy one or more Cds.
Just let me know where I can order them and what the price will be.
All the best.
Karel
The Netherlands
Thankyou, but no thankyou Mr Coe. As has been said,a considerable number of peopkle myself included, have no interest in buying from insignificant small labels without at least some sort of reasonable preview.
And yes I have a number of artists in my collection that I have only heard here on this blog and others. None of these would I have purchased without first deciding that I liked them enough to spend my hard earned cash on. Funnily CDs are one of the few products where the consumer's do not have the right to return if they do not 'like' them. Therefore in your interest any chance of getting your music 'out there', must be good sales technique, for those of us that will not purchase on spec.
I love thes Blogs and TIME HAS TOLD ME is one of the best. BUT i can really see no morale justification for FULL downlaods (often with artwork) of albums still available and in particular when iys on the artists own label or some independant.
What really irks me is the lack of grace when reguested to remove links and the grandstanding and self justification. some of the comments here are really unbeliveable, Not as bad mind as ChrisgoRock blog,, he really threw the rattle away, and that from a man who went mental when someone other blogger didnt credit his links, as he was the creative force behind the work.
Keep up the good work, but lets not pretend its something its not OK.
Tom Og
Please respect Mr Coe's assertations, but I would re-consider attending one of his concerts, and for Mr Coe if he reads this blog, he should be aware how helpful the P2P system is for artists other than the Beatles or Stones who fill stadiums for 200 squids/seat. Mr Coe, you will sell more records by word of mouth than anything you could do yourself. That's what the blogs are for, spreading the love. and that includes the love you gave in making your music.
I can understand Mr. Coe's concern, and if he wants his music taken off of the site, then that's what should be done. But let me say this: Napster and similar P2P/free download arrangements have allowed me to find and enjoy AND PURCHASE CDs and concert tickets and everything else from many bands that I would have never known otherwise. Like a previous commenter said, when I download something I like, I go buy the CD. They are tangible, practically indestructible, have cool booklets and whatnot, and most of all, sound ten times better than an MP3. If I don't like something I downloaded, I am glad I didn't spend the money and falsely encourage some lame artist to produce more crap.
Who is Peter Coe?
I respect Pete Coe's position: as any other artist he is entitled to make money out of his CDs ... I'm fine with that!
BUT he forgets that in order to sell his CDs people have to KNOW him and his music, and since he is not very well known, what better way to do that than to let as many as possible people to listen to it to see if they like it?
As has been pointed out by others: I BUY THE MUSIC I LIKE, to support the artist, and to listen to it at the highest possible quality whenever I want to. (Compressed mp3 files are no substitute for the real CD!).
I don't think Mr. Coe is going to lose customers in Costa Rica where I live, where almost NOBODY has heard his music or his name. If he wants to "promote" his CDs, Mr. Coe should first advertise it, that is he should give people the opportunity to listen to it ... and in my opinion that is what TIME HAS TOLD ME does for FREE, reaching possible customers all around the world!!!!
The above outraged comments all make the point that music has to be heard before a potential purchaser can decide whether to go ahead and buy. Fair enough. Why, then, are there postings at 320 kbps with full artwork? This does not make a 'taster' - this is the full package. If sample tracks were available at 'good-enough' quality, your moral high ground might support you, but lets not pretend that high quality downloads are just to get a "feel" for the artist.
Stu
Stu has a point, as does the outraged anonymous 3...but it's true you wouldn't knew these artists otherwise.
Just start offering items that are available in low quality mp3s like 128 or even 96. Problem solved.
I'm almost speechless after having read some of the comments here (and also the comments after the Cordelia's Dad post). The level of hypocrisy and absence of any kind of self-awareness or indeed civil human politeness is absurd. Why does anyone need more than a 30-second snippet of every (!) song off an album to decide whether they like them or not? We're not talking symphonies here.
To conclude, the initial poster above is an utter, utter dickhead. The poster who referred to "insignificant small labels" is a total cunt. Reading these posts is a depressing, alienating experience.
Hey Pete, with an attitude like that, I feel like telling you to eat shit and die MF.... you really should be glad people are still interested in old fossils like yourself... how else can we get to find out about you ?? especially if we live in other countries or aren't (luckily) in the small elite circle of folk luminaries that you seem to count yourself as one of... self righteous toad.
Hey, #3, easy there. Same to you, #14. You must think clearly now, and you can't when you are angry.
It is really too bad -- so much of the "music industry" just does not get it. CDs are expensive enough that most people do not want to make them as impulse purchases.
Many years ago, record stores were downtown store fronts, not big chain stores at the shoppers mall. Most of them would play a record for you before you bought it.
What improvement do we get for 50 years of progress? A 30 second preview, and you can't choose which 30 seconds!
You can't listen in the shops any more either. You will hear what the kid running the cash register wants to hear, or what his boss thinks will sell more CDs.
Maybe you are with some big media company or the RIAA, or perhaps you are an artist who does not want to change.
But you will have to change or you will go out of business. More and more of us are done with buying music we've never heard.
Of course we do not need to download 320 bit mp3s. That is fine for music that the media companies have abandoned, let go out of print, because they don't think they can make any money on it (and they may be right).
But when it is something we can buy, just give us a medium rate stream, radio quality or even less. We just want to hear before we buy, like we could 50 years ago!
Then let us buy reasonably priced CDs that we can use as we wish, including transferring the music to mp3 for our portable players.
And give us high quality downloads that don't have silly restrictions. When we have bought them, we should be able to use them exactly the way we would use a CD. Amazon and E-music can do this, why can't the others?
You can swear at me and call me bad names all you want. It will not help. Your anger and hatred demonstrate the futility of your position. Rage will not change the shape of things to come.
The magic box is open. You can't close it. Your old way of doing business is dead. The future is not yours unless you change to meet it. Good luck.
No wonder Titus Luxor says folkies scare him. Some of the comments here read like Pete Coe just came and kicked someone in the nuts. He didn't. He's a nice guy, a hard-working and excellent musician, and he doesn't want his albums on here. That's all. It wasn't a personal insult to all the 'anonymouses' who now seem intent on showering the guy with shit. If he'd been nasty about it I might have joined in, but he wasn't.
Maybe some of you will 'reconsider attending one of Mr Coe's concerts' but if I get the chance I'll certainly go. Because I like folk music and respect the people who play it. I thought you lot did too.
Of course Pete Coe has every right to ask for links to be removed. And of course very few people here would ever have heard of Pete Coe without this great page that has promoted his music. Here's where Pete Coe's records can be bought:
http://www.backshift.demon.co.uk/disco.htm
As a musician myself, I don't mind when my works appear on blogs that I like. In fact, I find it quite a compliment to my work and a way o be spread
Yes, but, with all due respect you’re not everybody (the musician poster above). I can see that making available entire albums, complete with artwork, can be a help for young, up-and-coming bands. They probably aren’t expecting to make much of a return on their investment (money, time, effort) in the first place; and they can gig their arses off and sell T-shirts or whatever. Fine. Today’s generation of musicians can adapt to that relatively sudden loss of a hitherto available and expected revenue stream (money from recorded music). But older musicians, who might be relying on back-catalogue sales? Who perhaps don’t have the stamina for night-after-night crashing-on-floors tours? It’s not like there are pension schemes for folksingers…
That’s why so many of these posts are so offensive. All this talk about “ways of doing business”, all of these interminable unilateral demands. Like Pete Coe was Warner Bros. Why should the musician do all of these things to make your life easier, when you’re not budging one jot in the opposite direction, and in fact insulting him to boot.
The naughty words I used above had nothing to do with any kind of personal vested interest (I’m not a musician; I don’t work in the industry); they were anger directed at some extraordinarily selfish parasites who don’t seem to realize that there is a person actually making the product they enjoy. They acknowledge it has a value (as a pleasure-giving work of art) but refuse to acknowledge it required cash investment to get there in the first place. And I will only give the benefit of the doubt to any of the “Preview listening only” brigade when they start offering to set up Paypal accounts for the artists featured, or post them a cheque.
I don’t even think low-quality rips of entire albums is cool. Given the choice of a premium product that costs money over an inferior product that’s free, many people will go for the freebie. Nobody on this site has explained why being able to preview, say, a minute of all songs on an album is insufficient. Or alternatively, say, 6 of 10 songs in full. Are your ears not properly attached to your brain or something?
I think there's another problem, nobody pointed out by now.
How many people can afford to buy more than, say, a cd a week?
There was a campaign telling taping was killing music, but taping kept music alive, instead.
How many records I've bought on the heels of a tape, including Peter's ones, I have got all of them, how many gigs I've seen.
Downloading is exactly the same than taping and let music circulate.
I'll keep on buying your cd, Peter, but I can't agree with you.
Well, firstly, that is once again yet another reply that is totally from the consumer’s point of view – all about ME ME ME and MY needs to listen to MY music, irrespective of what the maker of that music’s needs might be. It’s almost comical that it’s considered a fundamental human right to POSSESS at least 5 new albums a week, irrespective of anything else. (Such as any parallel considerations about the financial predicament or indeed the work/leisure time sacrifices made by the maker of those albums.) Funny how someone can ask the question “how many of us can afford to buy more than 1 CD a week?” without receiving any patronising or aggressive comments; yet to ask the question “how many musicians can afford to put out albums with little chance of breaking even?” elicits a barrage of immensely condescending comments like “the world is changing under your feet” from a bunch of couch potatoes.
But more to the point, even if we assume that’s true and that everyone’s health will be seriously put at risk if they don’t get to listen to at least 10 CDs of fresh music EVERY week, there are already plenty of ways to hear music out there for free that DO have the blessing of the people who made it.
Oh, and another thing – the analogy with taping is not a good one. Obviously, in theory, downloading and taping is basically the same thing. However, in practice it’s completely different. When you taped an album off a friend, you did at least have to know a friend who’d bought the album. Now, you can go to slsk or wherever and download pretty much any album you like within a day of its release. (Often even before it’s been released.) You don’t need to know anyone who’s bought the album. (Or rather it’s like the entire world is your friend who’s bought the album…)
It's the scale and ease and speed of access to this music that makes downloading a completely different beast.
Factor in the amount of memory you get on a PC, and you don’t even have the paltry expense you had with taping of having to buy a new C90 cassette to tape onto… Put very simply, taping didn’t inhibit CD sales. Downloading already has. Taping didn’t stop musicians being able to make money out of recorded music. Whereas downloading will.
You can sample Pete's music on his site. He, in fact, last I looked, had full length downloads of a few songs as samples. I can testify that Pete is a tremendous singer and great guy. This whole attitude of 'Give it to me free now or I won't buy it down the road' is, frankly, childish justification of theft. No one likes that word. Or the word illegal. They want to talk circles around it and muddy the issue with all kinds of muck. But Pete is a small operator. You might as well walk into the corner grocery store, grab a box of cereal off the shelf and start eating it. Just tell the guy behind the counter trying to feed his family that you need to try the cereal before you buy it. If he doesn't let you try it for free, then you'll never buy it from him ever. It's bully tactics, people.
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