"Yes, we want unauthorized copies off blogs, there are blogs with authorized material and there are many many other places to hear the songs and albums legally that make these blogs pointless. So basically you pirates are caught up in your own web of excuses and lies. If you want to turn people on to music, then write about it and point to legal places to listen to it. If your only real interest, despite your protestations, is to pirate it and help other people to pirate it, then you will do things like post it and put it on torrents. Take a few moments to step back and be honest with yourself about your own habits and your own objectives."
-PAP
-PAP
Well.. Same people deleted the links again.
They are:
Shawn Gordon (progrockrecords.com)
Hansi Cross (www.progressrec.com)
IQ
Pendragon
first they distorted the genre with naming 80s melodic metal as prog, with bands like IQ and Pendragon. Now they are trying to rename pop and alternative music as prog. (you would like to listen output of these artists at pap mplayer)
Funny that chillingeffects finds nothing wrong on that site, even if they find something they use the word "please to remove", that people find rights to delete the works of real artists. This is called arrogance.
Anyway we wont stop. (9 new servers on the way, will take some time..)
Happy? :)
98 comments:
That is pathetic! Hey Mr. Prosident! Stop that stupid childish policy of yours! We are not interested in Pendragon, IQ or the other prog bands of your little label! Get it? Enough with that stupid advertisment trick!
Guys from prognotfrog i am so grateful for your magnificent work! Please keep upload those incredible gems and never give up! Thank you so much!
we've got nothing to do with whatever is going on with your blog, give it a rest. I will say though that you and people like Sakalli and Lost in Tyme are full of it when you say you'll remove stuff if asked, we've asked Sakalli to remove items and he just keeps loading more.
Maybe, just maybe, that has something to do with your own track record there, and here.
They owe you nothing.
i actually believe shawn, etc.. above. look at the exil post. why would a label bother to remove that? it was removed by the jealous, and ignorant, person who wanted no one to find this rarity. see exil post and comments. so he could horde more trades for himself. it's very sad. rapidshare, or the others, do not ask for proof of copyright. if someone declares ownership, they delete immediately for fear of a lawsuit.
you should re-up exil on another server.
it will be a shame if mr and ms president get their sites hacked.
what a pitty!!!!!!!!!!
i know this person (collector) very well from outside of blog, this deletions didnt done by him. By trolling at our forums we tracked the all the ips and deletions, once i was earning my life with net security. que up google for "shawn gordon" and please read all articles of him if you are interested. from 1999 to 2002. you might have an idea
Nahavanda,
You are such a liar claiming that anyone of us has removed things not belonging to us.
You are also a silly person who tries to be important by claiming taht your taste is of higer value than others.
i dont need to have a higher degree of taste to decide what is prog or not, your output speaks for it
Nahavanda,
What you DO need is to learn to make correct observations. If you think I have removed your posts then you ability to observe or make coreect conclusions are not good enough.
You are a pathetic liar who are blaming wrong people for wrong reasons.
If there's going to be any kind of collobaration between labels and blogs, then you are an obsticle.
But, to be honest, I don't believe that you want co-operations. You just want to take what you want - for free - and to tell people what they should like, and if their taste is different from yours you are doing your best to degrade their taste.
This is my personal opinion.
What you are doing is that you are wrongly accusing people in a way you could be sued for.
I am not threating you here. I am making a point.
I doubt though that you can see the difference.
Fuck all of these fascist, self-righteous motherfuckers who think they are the "music police." Go fuck yourselves.
Even if the Frog dies, 20 other blogs will take its place. Music-sharing blogs will never die, and people who love to share the music they love will never give in to bullies.
There is lot's of discussions regarding copyrights.
Some people feel that copyrights are a bad thing.
I would say that these people have not bothered to check the whole picture.
What is copyright?
It's rather simple.
An example: If a band creates music they have the copyright for it.
Sometimes the band has their work released by their own label.
They own their music. Then it is common that they work together with a record label who either license the rights and pay for that, or, at times, the record label buy the music. Basically there is these three ways to go. Either the band owns the copyrights or a label owns it. If they license the rights they own it for a limited period. If they bought the music they own it forever - if they do not sell it, or hire it to some other company.
Either way the bands get paid.
That anyone else should claim that they should have the rights to use the music without asking for permission is in no way acceptable.
Copyrights are not a bad thing. It is simply a way for the originator to protect the rights to decide about his/hers own work.
It is common sense.
How can anyone disagree with that?
We're not only going to close you down, we're going to close all the blogs down that are sharing copyright material. Bloggers that do this have become the natural enemy of musicians; if that makes us the "music police" by spoiling your fun then so be it.
Musicians are necessary to the future of music and their rights need to be protected. Bloggers serve no useful purpose to the musical world at all so it's you that are going to have to go. We can't co-exist; the musicians must win this battle.
Martin Orford is not an artist, his music is not art, is a product, he is a capitalist, he is a "poppy star", so guys don't waste your time in a discussion with people like this, Orford, Shawn Gordon, the Pendragon poppy group and the other pop stars don't have a brain and feelings to understand the love for the music
Absolutely right - I am a capitalist and I never said my music was art. It's entertainment just like all music. And I make music to earn a living just like anyone else does from their job. All musicians that are serious about music do.Got a problem with that?
damn the man , save the empire
Martin Orford said...
And I make music to earn a living just like anyone else does from their job.
You are wrong my poor friend.
You can earn money from your music, But don't make music to earn money.
It's entertainment just like all music.
That's right ! Entertainment, not a job.
Mr Orford is acting the troll here, I hope, because if he's not speaking tongue-in-cheek he's not only incorrect but an enemy of his own (stated) art-form (yes, prog was a way to turn pop towards art and Orford evidently wants to turn it 180 degrees back). If all music is just entertainment then we've all made a serious mistake investing so much time and effort into it. I won't refuse to buy artists that fight piracy, but I will refuse to buy artists that support imbecillity. And defiantly say that my record collection does not consist of entertainment - AMM, Stockhausen, Anthony Braxton is art or Dante and Cézanne is just entertainment.
Go on making money Mr Orford, go cash in on the next pop wave. I would have thought a neo-prog metallist had some sense of a higher calling, but obviously not.
Capitalists in music outside pop - what was so hard to understand about stock markets or industry production? Much better ways to earn money, for sure.
And yes, I'm probably kicking in open doors but these stupidities make me loose my temper.
Gs
I'm not speaking tongue-in-cheek at all. Being a Musician is a job just like any other, and to infer that it's any more than that is totally incorrect.
The argument that music is valueless if the person that's made it earns money for it is just nonsense; if that were true then Bach would be a filthy capitalist too for all that money he took off those rich sponsors. But he did get paid and it didn't stop his music being beautiful and well crafted.
I hope my music is too and my desire to earn money from my efforts in no way negates the care and attention to detail that goes into it.
Is an amateur football team likely to beat a professional football team? No. And is an amateur musician likely to make better music than a professional one? Also no, but you can listen to that stuff if you really want to.
As for art, well I wouldn't listen to Stockhausen etc. if it was the last music on earth, that atonal stuff is just horrible. Give me entertaining music any day.
I've seen many blogs come and go, for various reasons. I see people complain about what is posted, and who owns copywright. Fair enough. Yet I don't think a band like Exil will receive ANY monetary reward when a collector is hoarding, trading, or selling their albums. So why CAN'T it be posted? I had never even HEARD of them before this! And besides, it's only subpar vinyl copy that was posted, is that ruining its value on the collector's market?
The most interesting thing is how much TIME these individuals spend searching through these blogs. It seems that THEY spend more time here than the people who are actually checking out the music. It's hard to believe that they aren't downloading this music for themselves!
I do agree that artists who own the copywright on their material can suffer from these free postings. One way around some of these problems is for the administrator to avoid posting any albums that are still in print (e.g. perhaps if they're on CD). That's the most obvious way of minimizing a legal backlash. I'm not sure if (or why) you've posted albums by Pendragon or IQ, but those can be the first ones to be removed. I think they've received enough free publicity from this controversy already.
Toodles,
Claude Reins
"Yet I don't think a band like Exil will receive ANY monetary reward when a collector is hoarding, trading, or selling their albums. So why CAN'T it be posted?"
Hello Claude,
It seems that you have fallen for Nahavanda's lies. Why on earth should anyone at P.A.P. delete that album?
I have no idea who did it.
What I do know is that Nahavanda and his dear friends here at PNF are spreading lies about us and behaving very strange. He comes up with the one strange conclusion after the other and are spreading them as "the truth".
If blogs who were interested in spreading ONLY music of the kind you desribe - totally out of print material with a minimum chance to be released - no one, absolutely no one would care about deleting it. At least none from our group.
So, as you see, I totally agree with you and have no idea from where Mr Frog has drawn his totally wrong conclusions.
Reply to the reply by Mr Orford:
Nowhere in my comment did I imply that music is valueless if the person behind it earned money for it. Neither do I endorse such a viewpoint. I did however imply that if music (Meaning: all music, because that's what YOU wrote) can never be ANYTHING but entertainment and ALWAYS be made to make money I consider it without any value at all (or at least no more value than a sitcom which is pretty close to nothing). I stand by that implication.
If you were talking about just your own music, fine, you can be as shallow as you like and I couldn't care less. But then don't write: "It's entertainment just like ALL music". Choose your words a bit more wisely.
Your comment on amateur vs. professional tells of a value-fundamentalism that astounds me. Can an amateur football team beat a professional football team? Sometimes, but not often. They're game can certainly be more enjoyable for the audience, though.
Is an amateur musician musician likely to make better music than a professional one? Very often, yes (to play along with your use of "better" which i much dislike). Is the painter who gets the most exhibitions always the "better" one? No.
And your last statement is contrary to your previous ones. Stockhausen is per definition entertaining music, as all music is made to be entertainment.
Gs
zzzzzz zzzzzzzzz zzzzz zzzzccccc
Who wakes me up ......????
Mr. Orford, if you only wanna make money is your way (an empty life it seems), but stop to delete the links of these blogs, there are classic gems (not like your music) that you can´t buy in a store, because the mostly is not reissued for the stupid capitalist market that you love, because is art (a word that you don´t know) and not pop like your product.
"Sorry bro, our artists happy here, daily comes 4-5 mails from "real" artists friends,
who aware of the sharing and collective value in music!"
What does this mean?
What is "real" artists friends?
Are they not real?
Are they friends to the artists?
Or ar they artists who is your friends?
"As we repeat many times buying albums are respect to artists work and its a good ethic in this currupted system"
I agree.
So...why don't you buy them instead of downloading them for free?
Always the same pretty talk fom Mr Frogface The Hypocrite.
"Art is off to cops like you"
And this means?
There is a more than slight difference in
1. making art and earn money
2. making art to earn money.
Imho 'melodic metal' can never be art but that is another thingie
You self-appointed music police cocksuckers need to mind your own business. Protect your own music if you want--no one cares. Once you start telling other people what to do, you are just holier-than-thou assholes. You will get bored with this shit, and blogs will continue. Fuck you.
Wel "anonymous" (why are you guys always anonymous? If you're going to post, at least have the decency to put your name to it) let's get two things straight.
I don't play "melodic metal" and never have done. Get your facts right if you're going to criticise my recorded output. My music is nothing to do with metal at all.
And to the other "anonymous" I am not a cocksucker. Again, get your facts right and please try to develop some kind of intelligent vocabulary.
Superbrother, I do not play pop music either, though I think there is great value in good pop music; much more so than in deliberately obscure progressive rock.
But whichever way I look at it Stockhausen is still rubbish; it's neither art nor entertainment, it's just a horrible noise.
If bands would put out something worth buying, I would buy it.
No one wants to pay $15 for a CD that only has 2 good songs on it.
I have thousands of LP's and thousands of CD's and I won't pay for crap anymore.
Good job and good luck, Grant
IQ and Pendragon Melodic Metal?!?!
Don't make me laugh Prognotfrog!
Why not just call them "Neooprog" be like all the other "Prog Snob" ignotant assholes out there?!?!
Get a clue!
I might be a little late on this subject but I don't get it why these specific guys are making trouble with Prog not frog? Have I ever seen a Pendragon or IQ release at PNF? No. Why? Because PNF deals with quality music, just like the rest of us.
Before I get some upset replies to my post above: ignore what I said about the quality levels of Pendragon and IQ. Music is music and we all have different tastes.
However, I still do not understand why the discussion is held here at PNF as most of the releases posted here are not possible to find anywhere else.
I have posted some hard-to-find items on some blogs a few times and during more than one year, none of these albums have been downloaded more than 40 times. What is the problem with that? Trading has always existed between enthusiasts in one way or another and before it was all about cassettes for instance.
Alex, P.A.P will only admitt blogs like
http://musicwhatelse.blogspot.com/, which support adds from Progrock Records, Progress Records and Martin Orford stuff and promote their poppy-music for FREE. That´s simple ...
They like to earn money, don´t you ?
proggo, what instrument do you play? The bagpipes, skin flute or both?
the butt trumpet.
Anonymous,
yes - I do like to earn money and as an artist myself I am not sure that music sharing is a contradiction to this. Not many, if any, independent labels have the possibilities to reach as many people as the sharing community does and that is why I believe in sharing.
However, that discussion is related to new albums and I believe we have different ways of looking upon that. My initial post was however actually about PNF specifically. I have seen a lot of blogs run by more or less fame-seeking file sharers but PNF has nothing to do with this as it is not an outpost for newly released albums but a community for enthusiasts with an interest for hard-to-find progressive music.
Trust me, the day I see a Martin Orford or IQ album at PNF, I will lose faith in this blog. I will actually lose faith in life in general also, but as stated earlier, that is another discussion.
Kind regards,
Alex
Hi Alex,
The main problem with PNF is that Nahavanda is spreading lies about PAP members. I have not deleted anything here. I was not even aware of this blog before someone pointed me to it. And what did I find?
Crazy accusations against Shawn Gordon and myself for something we have nothing to do with.
I have already replied once to your previous comment, but for some reason it did not show up.
And, please stop with that childish discussion about what is "real" prog and not. It's kind of pathetique when people try to prove that they have better taste than others.
PAP is working for the artists right to decide about their own work. It has nothing to do with taste.
Well, then I think I understand what the situation is like.
Complicated.
Also, in my case this is not a discussion about "real" vs "fake" prog.
The fact is simply that PNF has given me and others a lot of joy and all by a sudden it is being spammed by people who actually represents music I'm not a big fan of. My reactions to this might be primitive but human nonetheless.
I believe it lies in everybody's interest to put an end to this asap.
Given the fact that no material associated with PAP can be found on this site-- their very presence here undercuts their credibility.
Shouldn't they be "protecting" their "rights" someplace where these "rights" are somehow actually "threatened?"
If it's about protecting your reputation? That is a lost cause, and you brought it upon yourselves.
Mr Shaun Stupid Gordon
I really wish you go bankrupt...
FREE MUSIC TO ALL !!!!!
look hansi, you deleted many blogs and links. but you didnt delete the links here. Be brave as Martin & Shawn. i have no reason to tell lies, noone is giving money to me to send these albums to here, i have no reason to tell lies like you & your relatives.
Hansi, people in your group have come on here and boasted about all the blogs they've destroyed.
You cannot expect cooperation or respect from anyone. You have made it into a question of what will be done about you, or to you, in response.
Just last week, one of your friends was in here proclaiming that all blogs are fair game and he will shut them all down as a matter of personal survival. Comical and pathetic, yes--and where was the disclaimer from you and yours?
If you want any credibility here, you need to start by disassociating yourself and your group from that person, those sentiments, and vigilantism in general. Apologize for that, expel him from your group, remove his band from your petition list. In public.
Let it be known that any information you have on who is responsible for mass deletions will be made public as well.
Otherwise, why would anyone take your word for anything?
Nahavanda,
As often I have no idea what you are talking about. maybe it's a matter of laguage or maýbe it's that you in fact are talking about some fantasies of yours.
Anonymous,
I have no idea who is responsible for mass deletions. It is none of my business and frankly I don't care.
Anonymous,
I have neither the right or the will to expell any of the existing members of our group.I am not The leader of PAP. We don't have any leader. We are a growing numbers of musicians and label people who help each other with protecting our rights to decide over our own work.
There is no need for any disclaimers as we are all separately signing our comments.
We are a group with simular interest. Not a group that have 100% the same ideas. Simular, but not identical.
I will not attend here anymore.
If anyone has any questions they must post it at the PAP blog.
I have no interest at all in PNF.
Not even in whatever fantasies or lies is said and publish about me.
I have far more important things to do than spending my time by correcting deluded accusations about me.
Some last words:
Nahavanda,
I don't care about you or your phony ideas or your wacky conclusions about who is doing this or that.
From now any message you may have to me will be ignored.
Quote: "If anyone has any questions they must post it at the PAP blog."
Oh yes, and hope the almighty mod deems it worthy of consideration. Seems there's a lot of complaints about comments gone astray into cyberspace there. My latest comment went that way too. And no, it wasn't rude, just an explanation of why an argument posted by person after person isn't "tired and useless". If, on the other hand, i would have said something along the lines of "fuck you, you asshole!" it would have been published so that everyone could go on about pirates being rude and unintelligent. Completely off my reading list from now on.
Gs
Heh. I was just going to say. Haven't been there in weeks, for the same reason.
And so, what does Hansi do when faced with a tough question, one that would require a demonstration of good faith? Hansi laces up the clown shoes and, nose in the air, stomps all the way back to the (relative) safety of the cult compound, wherein seldom is heard a discouraging word and the blogs are not laughing all day. :)
The guys from PAP are crazy or what??? I have seen that Prog Not Frog only shares not reissued albums, mainly 70s forgotten bands, and mostly of those great and wonderful prog bands, haven't had any support from the stupid music industry!!! But Mr. "Money Lover" Orford and the other "artist", are fighting against this great blog that tributes to the prog golden era... PAP if you only fights for your rights (you are in the wrong blog, this is not a metal prog or neo prog blog), why don't fight against corporations like microsoft or sony???... PAP lacks courage!!!
You're absolutely right, I DO love money and I wish I had some. That's because money enables me and other musicians to keep making records. Musical instruments cost money and so does studio time; try telling the people that provide those services that Art is free!
I'm afraid bloggers are rapidly becoming the natural enemy of musicians; are all the albums posted on this blog here with the artists' permission? I doubt it.
Blogging does nothing to help music, it only damages it.
To Prog Animal,
PAP has nothing to do with this blogs deleted music. It's that stupid Navahanda who has decided for himself that it's so and know he is spreading his lies and don't have the courage to say "Sorry. I was wrong".
what permission? are you talking for other artists? because the albums posted in this great blog are not reissued albums, can you understand that? With this great promotion of this old art, I hope now an "intelligent" label will remaster these albums, I'm sure that many guys like me are buying all the reissued and remastered CDs of these unfairly forgotten bands, so you must go to cry to a neo prog blog or have the courage to fight against corporations, this is not your place. But this is the easy way to cry for PAP.
To "proggo",
Are you sure? Maybe you are a God or Godess to know what do and think the other people, please be serious. I think you have to apologise with Nahavanda.
Hi navahanda,
I once drove for six hours with my wife & two very young children to see IQ play at a festival.
A couple of years later I persuaded a large group of friends, who had never heard the band, to come and see them at the CRS,
NEVER AGAIN!
To Martin:
My own recordings have, in the past , been deleted from this blog.
I don't care who did it, but I DO care which side you are on.
Titus
I'm on the musicians side and most of us don't want our material given away on blog sites without being consulted. If you think blogging is more important than music then that's up to you.
Your choice.
The vast majority will agree on this... blogging is more important than YOUR music!
Isn't strange that these guys posted their complaints about blogging, here, in Prognotfrog, whereas they claim that have not problem with the albums posted here?
So you are posting in the most popular prog blog of the web, for what?
Poor guys, they are starving for free publicity...
Ahhh... true... but in return, they give us free entertainment. ;)
actually we are posting here because are names keep getting slandered here with a bunch of lies and misleading statements, but I do have to thank Naha, if it wasn't for all his links to us we wouldn't have seen such a big increase in sales, so it seems the lurkers are pretty interested in buying music.
It doesn't take much searching in the world of music blogs to find a comment from a musician THANKING the blog for posting the album and giving their band (often long overdue) exposure.
As Captain Beefheart said, "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."
Can one REALLY put a price tag on a thought or an idea? I don't charge friends for advice on girl troubles. Well, you may say "a song is different from an idea because of tangibility." But it took the same chemical reaction, the same synapses to create both. Where is the line drawn? Should we have to pay money for reading blogs, posts or comments? If you side with PAP, then send me 5 dollars for reading my words and thoughts.
"actually we are posting here because are names keep getting slandered here with a bunch of lies and misleading statements"
Yeah...Come on man, just admit it. All started when you realise that accusing people in a popular blog is the best advertisment you can get for free! Yes, it is pathetic, but you have to admit it if you want to take you seriously. You cause all that trouble with your PAP thing, you call us thieves or stealers without even knowing that you actually don't have problems with Prognotfrog's albums! And afterall you accuse Naha for misleading statements!!! Unbelievable!
So, Mr. President, are you happy now? Did you achieve your praiseworthy goals to help musician's unfortunate fate? Did you get your hard-to-gain publicity?
Please, go back to your big sales company and never bother us again.
Prognotfrog is not that bad after all, isn't it?
....the lurkers are pretty interested in buying music.
In our company those people are called customers. Is that what you think of customers?
If it wasn't for Nahavanda's lies and misleading statements PAP wouldn't even be aware of this blog.
Indeed? - Big Mouth was lurking and trolling in the forum before.
This talk of "slander" is yet one more example of the free entertainment provided here by PAP.
You shouldn't let it bother you. Hansi isn't bothered. Hansi went on at some length on the topic of not-caring, before heaving forth a mighty "harrrrrrrrumph!!," clicking the ruby slippers and disappearing into a cloud of methane. We'll never see Hansi here again. :(
Why can't you be more like Hansi? Strap on that party dress, stick your thumb out, hit the road. The night is young.
Your name is mud because of the things you have said, the things you have done, and the fact that you are proud of them. Get used to it. That's your reputation on the cutting room floor. You broke it, you bought it. Trashed. Done.
So now there's a "huge increase in sales" provided by "the lurkers?" That sounds awfully dramatic. (What will be done with those CDs is a separate question.)
Once again, if you credit this to naha, then you owe him an apology, not to mention a cut of the money. After all--and by your own admission--if sales are up, then he has accomplished for you what you are incapable of doing for yourselves.
I'm confused. How often do they issue a P&L sheet around there anyway? Weekly? That sounds very hand-to-mouth, doesn't it? Why can't you people keep your story straight?
Just last week, Shawn was in here claiming there had been a "slight" increase in sales. Just yesterday, Martin whined that he wished he had some money. Meanwhile, all of you seem to have considerable leisure time at your disposal. Can't anybody summon the presence of mind to cut him a check? Take your other hand off the mouse! He NEEDS that money! His kazoo was confiscated at the airport!
Success has its rewards, mmmmmm?
Apart from all the back and forth blaiming in this discussion (which hopefully will end soon so we all can carry on doing what we do best) I think it is pretty interesting to see the different perspectives on art and money;
While being pro blogs and sharing I, as an "artist", see money as a necessary evil - at least at this point as I am not depending on record sales to put food on the table table or buy my kids clothes or whatever. But when my band released our debut album last year we took a bank loan to cover the recording expences and it actually took us 1½ year to pay the money back. I believe that the situation will be about the same for our next album.
This is where I understand what Martin Orford is saying (after filtering out the angry stuff) as he, as a full time musician, is depending on getting some money back into his business (and whether that is considered art or not is not up to me to judge I think).
However, I believe that for most musicians not playing mainstream music, blogs is a superb way to get exposure if you have made a good album.
A win-win situation actually.
Hmmm, starving for free publicity are we? Well that's one of the funniest things I've heard in weeks. Free exposure to a bunch of people that think music should be free and have no intention of buying anything? I can hardly wait to be mown down by the rush of people from this site buying CDs as a result of all this free publicity!
No, the reason I am here is simple. The owner of this blog (Navahanda) has been pretty vocal on other forums about what he sees as the benefits of music blogs. So I'm just popping by to tell you that actually most musicians (certainly all the ones I know and believe me,I know plenty) think that blog sites that offer links to free downloads are abusive, highly damaging and fulfil no useful promotional purpose at all. Far from courting free publicity from the blogs, I'm here to tell you that most musicans absolutely don't want it. Sure you'll always find a couple of people that are desperate or deranged enough to think that blogs are helping their music to be heard but they are not in the majority.
That's why so many blog sites are being closed down every day as thoroughly pissed-off musicians are sending in complaint notice after complaint notice to get this abuse stopped.
By all means have a blog to talk about music, but giving away any musician's work without asking permission is just plain wrong. And by the way, that's not an opinion, it's a fact.
Non sequitur.
It is mutable.
Elsewhere in the world, your brothers-in-spirit are equally comfortable arguing that "a woman appearing in public without a headscarf is just plain wrong. That is not an opinion, that is fact."
Actions are neutral. Some of them are commonly labeled as "right" and "wrong" for those human beings who willingly accept those categories, particularly when a majority or at least a plurality agrees to this.
When the social consensus collapses, the thing is no longer "wrong."
Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but the social consensus you attempt to invoke has collapsed. Years ago, in fact. Your business model soon follows.
A new social consensus is emerging before your very eyes--and you are on the short end of the stick.
In any case, nothing found here has anything to do with you. Uploaders, downloaders, musicians all have one thing in common--nobody asked you. For you to attempt to interfere without asking permission "is just plain wrong. And by the way, that's not an opinion, it's a fact."
You can Google all night but you can't possibly be kept very busy "protecting" "your" "rights." There is so little interest in your music, after all. That is why you have so much free time to play Batman on the blogosphere. The magic of the marketplace has rendered you obsolete.
Our choice.
Or did we miss something? Shawn claims sales are up due to all the "publicity." If that is so, then why haven't you thanked us? You owe us that, an apology, and a cut of the money--because you are incapable of generating such sales on your own. You have nothing to complain of here, if sales are up. Show some humility, and show some gratitude.
Sales are up, "Pirate Killer" says, and he just gave Naha the credit. If that is not so, then why is he lying? Sales are up, he says. If that is so, then why are you poor?
Show you some gratitude and humility to a bunch of bloggers???! You've got to be flippin' joking sunshine.
Bloggers are the enemy and always will be as far as I'm concerned. Let's put it on record here and now that the hatred is mutual and hope our paths never cross again.
You people are the scum of the earth.
Anonymous,
Yes, you have missed something.
You have missed the fact that many downloaders do no longer want to be associated with people like nahavarnda and yourself and your stupid "poster" and have now started to buy music instead of downloading it for free.
As you can see there is no reason for thanking or for apologies.
What happens here is that you are turning people against yourselves with your lies and unpleasant behaviour.
To Martin Orford, proggo and P.A.P.
You can have whatever opinion you want, but this doesn't make you right.
Your world will fall down very soon.
Bye bye "proggers"
"You people are the scum of the earth."
Congrats Mr. Orford. I don't know how did you conclude that, but i guess you hate the fact that we put your music in the same league with 50 Cents.
Nancy, Sluggo, whatever? Martin, that's it. Martin.
You are uncensored here. This is a courtesy you are incapable of granting on your own site. We all know why. Because your position is based in error, you cannot win any game you have not rigged. You proclaim your "ethics" and yet you are incompetent to prevail in an honest debate.
This isn't the PAP theme park you're posting on. This is the real forum, the one people actually read. This is the place where you can't pretend our points have not been made. This is the place where you fail to answer them. This is the place where your "logic" collapses in plain sight.
Hatred? Oh dear. Such language. Make yourself some valerian tea, assume lotus position. Close your eyes. Breathe deep. Count downwards from 100. Find your happy place. Ahhhhh! Don't you feel ever so much better now than you did playing whack-a-mole on the blogspot? Savor that. There may be hope for you yet.
Remember, while you sat there deleting albums you'd never even heard of--your competitors were writing songs, rehearsing, recording, playing gigs, winning people over, and furthering their careers. Don't you wish you could get back to that? You would be a musician again. It was a good thing, being a musician, wasn't it? Of course it was, until something went wrong inside of you. Now you spend all your time on the internet, seething at people who never did you any harm and didn't even know you were alive.
It's not unlike a VH1 "Behind The Music" segment, minus the fifteen minutes of fame.
Hate you? Apart from this site, I've never even heard of you. Perhaps if I had ever heard your music I might hate you. As it is, you're good fun.
So, Martin-- answer the question, please.
If sales are up, why don't you have any money? What fault could that possibly be of ours? Might it have something to do with the material itself? Your philosophical stance? That winning personality? I'm fully prepared to go decades without buying one of your albums, but apparently somebody did last month and Naha has been given credit for that.
That is by PAP's own admission, just a few posts back. We didn't say it, "Pirate Killer" did. Duly noted. Prognotfrog doesn't share your albums, so it's rather bizarre of you to come here to complain. I've never even heard them. I never will.
Why are you poor?
It's cowardly to blame the blogs. The blogs ignore your output. It can't be that. We all know better. It must be something else. Think it through and get back to us. Gulp that tea, it will calm you down. There's a good boy.
Our sales are NOT up; they've been absolutely torn to pieces. We can no longer invest in new acts or even in our own projects. The torrents and blogs that offer free downloads have systematically removed the funding that we needed to make new music and we're now all heading for a musical Dark Ages that will last for 25 years or more. Are you so-called music fans happy about that? Seems like you are. Well thanks for nothing.
Music cannot be made without money. If you'd ever made an album yourselves you'd know that. So music will die. "Art" is not free and music is not free; it's extremely expensive to make.
You may not care for my music in the slightest but I've spent the last 15 years investing in new bands that were making interesting but non-commercial music often with no profit to show for it. But the abusive culture that the blog and torrent fans are so proud of has made pretty darned sure I'll never be able to do that again. May I ask you who will when labels like mine have all closed down?
Martin...
First of all the blogs that You and P.A.P. attacking aren't deal with your music.
Second I don't care if you can't sell your music or not. That's your problem. There is not harassing from blogs like this one, so what are you talking about ?
Third : you label ? Shawn's label ? Hansi's label ? Nick's label ?
What the F**k ???
Why all of you start Your own label ?
Have something to do with your previous contracts with other labels ? or it's easier to have a label for your self ?
You're trying to do what others did to you.
Stop complaining and make some good music !
Only this can save your sales.
"You're trying to do what others did to you". Bullshit, you don't know anything about my label and my relationship with the artists on it. I've never behaved in an abusive or disrespectful way to artists, but you do.
And by the way there is plenty of great music on the label if you could be bothered to listen to it. But you'd better buy it if you want to do that because we'll be wiping it off any blog or torrent site we find it on. We're music people and we don't wish to be associated with your vile "downloading culture".
And by the way can I say how amusing it is to be called cowardly by someone who calls themselves "anonymous".
And by the way can I say how amusing it is to be called cowardly by someone who calls themselves "anonymous".
Posted by Anonymous Anonymous | 4:25 PM
Martin started way before I started ProgRock Records and I know for a fact their sales are greatly reduced from those times. I'm referring to current increase in sales for myself, but I've seen the same pattern that Martin has, basically you have an established act that comes out with a new album, it is widely regarded as their best work yet, it has more advertising, more distribution channels and less sales than previous releases. We've personally talked to many of the people who download this stuff, so we know what is happening.
For anyone starting now, we've set the expectations down. I'll just give you an example, a new artist now with what we consider to be very good distribution and promotion can look at selling less than 2,000 copies in a year on average. Of course looking at various trackers, we'll see 50,000 downloads.
And get off this stupid rant that we're going after stuff that isn't ours. I found a bunch of our material in the PNF forum before my ip was blocked, I have no idea if they are still doing it. Also blogs that are hosting 1,000 albums and 10 of them are ours, we ask to have them removed, we're told to fuck off, we file a complaint with blogspot, and the whole site gets shut down. If the guy running the site wasn't such a prick, he could have just removed the material he was asked to remove, but didn't.
We're getting about 1,000 visits a day on the pap blog, it really wouldn't surprise me if there are a lot of people disgusted by you pirates attitudes and are doing some vigilanty justice. Believe me, we're all way to damn busy to go around messing with a bunch of blogs for no reason. The only reason we stop by here is to see if Naha is ever going to pull his head out of his ass and stop posting lies about us and his stupid little banner. I've invested over $500,000 in developing artists and releasing them, that's hardly killing music. I'd like to know how much you've spent.
shawn
Mr. Orford
According to several sources IQ's 'Dark Matter' sells really good. But you claim you don't have enough money to make a new record. What's the deal here?
P.S. I was thinking about that '50 cent' i wrote above and i concluded that i shouldn't say that. I'm sorry, tt was really rude and unfair. My apologies.
Darkhorse - do you have access to Soundscan and its equivalants in europe? Unless you do, then you have no idea what IQ sales are like, not to mention Dark Matter came out years ago, so even in a normal sales cycle without pirates, the sales would have fallen off a lot. You also don't know what sales were of previous albums, so saying "I hear it sells really good" with absolutely no underlying proof of sales or metrics comparing the total sales and sales cycles of previous albums, you have no way to say something like "What's the deal here?".
Come on! There are hunderds of unknown bands out there that produce a record every year (with the same production standards as the big names)! And those bands don't have a heavy name that dont need an introduction, they have to promote themselves by playing good music! In the other hand If a big old famous band like IQ release a new record everybody will know it because of blogs, magazines or web sites. So why they have to promote themselves and spent money on it?
If you want to give you a number of small bands less popular than IQ that produce more records than they do, let me know! And please, don't give me that pirate thing again, because every band have to deal with piracy not just IQ or Pendragon. They just don't whine about it.
And please, put a name under your text to know who i'm talking to.
"You people are the scum of the earth."
Biblical rhetoric with genocidal overtones most often heard from the extreme right wing and religious fanatics. Leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.
Gs
Bloggers/pirates like to tell everyone how the music industry works. They claim that their posting of albums for free download helps up sales. They say that lowered sales have nothing to do with free downloading. They say this and they say that.
And then they are contradicted by professionals in music business telling them that their theories are incorrect.
Then we hear all this swearing angry language from the bloggers who are screaming wildly that they know better than the professionals.
I have worked several years with different parts of the music industry and I can honestly tell you that their are so many details you don't know anything about.
It is tiring to hear your endless tirades on how you believe it works, or how it should work. Not even one suggastion coming from your end has any value of how things work in reality.
You are like passengers telling the driver how to drive - but you have no driving license.
How come you blog people believe you know more about the music industry than those who work with it?
"Come on! There are hunderds of unknown bands out there that produce a record every year (with the same production standards as the big names)! And those bands don't have a heavy name that dont need an introduction, they have to promote themselves by playing good music! In the other hand If a big old famous band like IQ release a new record everybody will know it because of blogs, magazines or web sites. So why they have to promote themselves and spent money on it?"
This is one of these typical comments coming from downloaders, comments that lack true info.
1) Blogs are giving it away for free. The "PR value" is almost nothing as the genre of listeners it reaches are the one's who want it for free.
2) Web sites and magazines are part of the PR area that do cost money. Free CD's + postage ends up costing pretty much. Maybe you thought that mags are buying the CD's they review? Sorry, that's not how it is. The labels pay lots of money for sending free promotional CD's all over the world.
BTW...name 10 of these bands that produce a record every year (with the same production standards as the big names). Please also define which bands you conder as "big names".
If you want professionals to consider your arguments you must be more clear and precise in your comments. The way you present it really looks like you are only justifying yourself and doing your best to proove that you know very much...without prooving it at all.
If you were seriously interested in doing anything for musicians or any kind of "music community" you should start with listening to people like Shawn and Hansi. They know what they are talking about. They have worked with this for several years.
Hi, just dropping by to say: I'm not impressed with Pendragon's & IQ's outputs anyways.
hahaha
Seriously though, I'm truly NOT.
As regards to all this rabble, I stand by Nehavada.
Be seeing ya!
Interesting that they seem to think it's we who need to concern ourselves with being taken seriously by them.
They are not censored here. Their own forum is moderated to filter out anything they're incapable of dealing with, and whatever might make them look bad or us better. They can't even conduct a conversation honestly on their own site. Their arguments are too weak to withstand that.
Thanks to their crusade and their website, they have squandered any good will there ever might have been for them. Once lost, it has to be earned back. How will they be doing that?
They want our money--not only want it, they need it. We have no interest in their "art." They are unrepentant about their harassment of the blogs. And we're supposed to be worried about being taken seriously?
That's one of the funniest things going. They are not turning a profit. They give us NO reason to care if they survive. They need our money. They offer us nothing in return. Leeches. They EXPECT us to feed them, and they can't offer one reason why we should.
"You are like passengers telling the driver how to drive - but you have no driving license."
Oh??????
Yes.
We do.
Who do you think you're talking to?
Who do you think you're kidding?
It is in OUR power to revoke yours.
We pay your bills.
Or not.
We put gas in your tank.
Or not.
YOU have a career at OUR behest.
Or not.
Don't get uppity.
Remember your place..... boy.
They delete links.
They harass blogs.
They waste their time.
Worse--they waste ours.
WE are supposed to feed them?
Why?
We need nothing of theirs.
THEY have the gall to be rude to US?
They deserve to starve.
They deserve to rot.
Remember your place.... boy!
"Remember your place.... boy!"
As someone at PAP pointed out.
You want artists to be amusement slaves. It seems they are right.
It seems you people take the bait every time. I saw that weeks ago and it made me chuckle, so I made use of it.
What you ignore here-- slaves would have a function at least, and fill a need. PAP does neither.
If you own a dictionary, you might want to look up the term, "sarcasm." Then thumb your way over to "hyperbole."
Sometimes it is necessary to resort to "hyperbole" to make a point, particularly to one who is too dense to recognize "sarcasm."
The point remains.
"They deserve to starve
They deserve to rot"
Is that "sarcasm" too?
Well, never mind.
You are a selfish idiot who's ideas are crap.
"Hyperbole." Or not.
You are in no position to discuss ideas. Because you don't approve the contents, and because you make no money there, you are willing to burn down a library. Your kind are worse than useless.
The point stands.
"The point stands"
Sarcasm?
How are sales? :)
You must not be making very much new music proggo & company. It seems you spend your time typing comments in here. Fuck you all you idiotic record company jackoffs!
None of us can afford to make new music anymore; the bloggers and file-sharers and their ridiculous "free music" ideology have seen to it that we can no longer fund our projects. Well done; you killed music - are you happy about that? Future generations will curse the file- sharing community for turning the world into a cultural desert.
I really want to know what IQ and Pendragon has to do with those 70's bands like Roundatable, McChurch Soundroom, etc. which does not exist anymore.
It is serious, what those neo-prog bands has to do with bands which made one output and died a few months later?
I can't understand M. Orford. He claims to know many artists, but I presume they aren't old enough to have produced albuns like Sweet Smoke's. I have a guitarrist friend from Brazil who played in Bixo da Seda *a prog band from the 70's there*, and he says he gives a shit to downloads.
I understand that bands which actually lives to earn money from cds complains with their albums posted. But what those 60~70's bands that doesn't exist anymore has to do with it?
Ok, Hansi said that it wasn't him that deleted those posts, but who did? And why?
In the late 80's, while still in my teens, I owned a Commodore 64 home computer. Me and everyone I knew traded tapes with "cracked" games and soon had hundreds of them. Once in a while we bought a game too. Somehow, the games kept being released depite this (and the games were probably more expensive to make and didn't yield much in the way of licensing incomes from ads and radioplay). Seems familiar, somehow.
The "Piracy kills music" argument is a value judgement. A lot of bands and projects are started to get girls/boys, to be admired, for the sheer love of music and it will continue to be so. What's at risk is commercial music. Then again, it's only music if Mr Orford says so, I suppose (and if it ain't commercial it cannot be music at all right?).
Gs
as someone said earlier, the amount of downloads of the albums posted here are really small.
as many have said earlier, this blog mostly presents albums that are really rare and out of print.
"piracy kills music" - maybe, but not the music posted here.
so this is definately the wrong place to direct your anger and frustration if your records don't sell, and definately the wrong place to have mindless debates on right and wrong. it's just water dripping from a duck's back.
P.S. C64 games were relatively cheap to produce. way cheaper than an album. a lot of the games were produced by "freelancers" (=15 year old kid coding in his bedroom after school), also the gamehouses didn't spend a lot of time on a single game and their teams were usually small. but Gs was right about piracy's role on C64 game business. there were lots cracking groups (usually with a supplier working "on the inside") and kids were copying games like crazies, but that didn't kill C64. In fact C64 survived amazingly long.
It's really sad seeing someone like Orford, whom I really used to respect and for a while briefly knew, caving in to the bitterness caused by the false belief that file sharing is a detriment to working musicians. It is only damaging to luddites who stick to old-school business models in this new age. Every time I post links on PAP to treatises on how to actually monetize your creativity in an age where "everything is free", they never come through the blog owner approval. Odd, that.
It's also sad to see Mr Orford demeaning his contribution to the musical world, because IQ - unlike most of their ilk - have actually contributed some very good music indeed; music that I would consider art, even if he seems to not think that his creativity is quite up to that term (I can assure him it is).
Nonetheless, if he cannot leverage enough die-hard fans to pay at least subsistence wages, then obviously his art isn't as potent as I seem to feel. Maybe if he actually did give it all his heart instead of treating it like just another job, he could make a reasonable living off of it without having to resort to threatening to sue people, hanging around with authoritarian death fetishists (one of the PAP clowns thinks file sharing should give the death penalty) and clinging to a dead business model.
Free thy mind and thine gluteus maximus shall surely follow.
sold my 14 IQ CDs to a local market trader. Now he will make a profit on them, and I will recoup some of my Hard Earned cash.
I wonder if Martin Orford will try to close him down. Wont be buying your stuff anymore mate.
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