* Portions of this post were already written at XXL, by yours truly. More has been attached to the post soooo, go thru it again. And excuse the Caps but I am stressing important issues. *
I used to spend $20-$100 weekly on music. Now the industry is lucky if I spend $100 a YEAR.
OB4CL2-$10
BP3-$5 burnt copy from my homie
Estatic-$10
Survival Skills-$10
DOOM-$10
Fashawn-$5 burnt copy
Cudi-burnt copy for a blunt
Jadakiss-barter swap (original CD)
Cam’ron-$8
BISD-$15-2 DVDs & CD is a deal
Relapse-$14(deluxe edition)
DTR-4 $1 iTunes downloads
Slaughterhouse-$10
Escape Route-FREE burnt copy
Blackout!2-barter swap (original CD)
BlaQKout-barter swap (original CD)
Rakim-$10
Alchemist-$5 burnt copy
Chamber Music-$5 sale in store
See all the burnt copies? No bootlegs. Bootleg recording is an otherwise unavailable audio or video recording of a live performance or screening distributed without consent. It’s easier for my homie down the road to come over and smoke and I get my music and compensate him for his blank CD usage. He paid for an AVAILABLE recording (store bought) and duplicated the files. I supported dudes who I felt earned my support by buying through the means of the ancient practice, going to a retail store. But as I finish this posting, you will see even this ancient practice really makes no sense these days.
Now peep game people:
Say IF I went to Best Buy, bought “Attention Deficit” for $10, and while I’m at the crib with the homies smoking or playing Xbox or watching the game, dudes want a copy, I burn it and they compensate me with a fiver, who’s stopping the hustle? I’m not trying to retail them in the STREET, LIKE DVD’s, and WHICH IS HARD TO DO BECAUSE OF FBI STUFF AND BLU-RAY CHIPS AND ALL THAT. THERE ARE NO CODES AND CHIPS FOR MP3’S! I’m not posting it on the web nor is it UNAUTHORIZED.
I am replicating the MP3’s for my friends in the crib. And it’s THE SAME QUALITY CD. Most cats don’t want album art. This is one of the scenarios where Billboard can’t count units and the companies can’t control the usage of a purchased CD. A cat could make $50 off of a PURCHASED $10 album, IF it’s that good. Then if a dude likes the album they MIGHT go to the store and purchase it, WHICH BY THEN IT’S CHEAPER AT THE STORE. THE ALBUM BUZZ IS DEAD, the store needs shelf space for the next CD.
Back then, YOU COULDN’T DO THIS WITH AN ALBUM. OR A MINI-DISC. Cassettes lost quality over usage or popped so you had to replace them. You had to know someone in the industry to make white-labels, album bootlegs. How else would you get the mastered reel to reels? And even then you were more concerned with putting out your OWN music (remember scratching and mixing? Those were the days). Mini-Discs could read mp3 and WAV files, but it would convert them to ATRAC files. You couldn’t send it back to the computer to record. Sony actually released “Nastradamus” on MD. And by the way I loved the MD player and format. I would just plug the player into the headphone jack in ANY system, even a TV, and record. Sony dropped the ATRAC format because they got scared they were going to lose money because of the MP3 conversion.
SUCKERS! THEY HAD THE CODES OF THE FUTURE!
BECAUSE OF CORPORATE GREED and TECHNOLOGY, now you can play any CD on your computer while your friend puts his or her iPod/mp3 player in the USB port and he/she’s got that music. Drag the icon. THIS IS EASIER THAN BURNING A CD! My iMac has 5 USB ports! Does anyone even remember when CD/DVD players wouldn’t read burnt CDs or DVDs? The GREED made them give in, when they had the means to suppress duplication from jump-street! It’s even easier now! The MEMORY CARDS (SanDisk) and PDA’s have it to where all you need to do is sync the phone with the computer!
Don’t believe me? OB4CL2 is sitting on 140,000. But it seems like a million plus people know the whole album. Jay is probably really at 3 mil instead of reaching out for 2 mil.
Realize that album leaks come from the transfers of MP3 files through email. Most leaks are INTERNATIONAL VERSIONS OF ALBUMS that are sent to the DISTRIBUTOR FOR REPLICATION AND PACKAGING. The only way to stop someone from taking your music online is THE MUSIC FLASH PLAYER. But don't get too happy, just like you can build a flash player, YOU CAN DISMANTLE ONE.
Have you guys noticed this? If you have LIMEWIRE, YOUR MUSIC FILES ARE LOCATED IN YOUR iTunes LIBRARY? Your entire MP3 library is now SHARED. I know that SanDisk is actually thinking of selling music on the memory card format. But I just showed you this would not change the unit-selling problem. It would be as easy as taking your memory card and copying the audio folder to my phone (gotta have a card yourself or enough phone memory), then going to the crib and synching the phone or card to the computer, then burning a CD and I have Jay-Z’ album ready for the car. Buy that person a drink or some smokes and all’s well. That’s not bootlegging. That’s a technology loophole.
So how do we change game $yk? There are a couple of ways:
Recording an album? DO NOT CONVERT THE FILES TO MP3 AND BURN CDs. Keep them as DATA FILES. HIDE THE FOLDER OR ENCRYPT IT ON YOUR DESKTOP. LEAVE PC ALONE AND INVEST IN MAC (Jewel: When the Feds had Bill Gates cornered, one of the deals was that he had to OPEN UP THE EXPLORER BROWSER LANGUAGE, thus your many viruses). If you need to run around with the music, BUY A MINI-DISC. Put the tracks on there. PLUG IT IN A SOUND CONSOLE WHEN YOU WANT AN AUDIENCE TO HEAR IT. I HAVE DONE SHOWS THIS WAY. Beyond that they can listen on the headphones. And them players are cheap as hell now. No scratched CDs and the music can’t be stolen if you’re not looking. Remember it’s a different file format. Refuse Company’s MP3 email request. Send a DATA FILE FOLDER. Labels used to have reels, DAT players in house. Someone should be there to transfer the data files, whatever program it’s from. And even so, this transfer should happen ONLY when it’s distributor time.
A small time artist? SELL T-SHIRTS, GIVE THE CD FOR FREE. If you have no barcodes it’s a waste of time anyway making a CD. Would you rather sell a 10-15 dollar t-shirt? Or a badly mixed and replicated CD for $5? Doing a show AND have barcodes? Every ticket sold comes with a CD, which would be scanned upon entering the venue. But mufukka’s like clothing. Don’t forget it’s a recession and a t-shirt can be a collector’s item. Do a 50 Cent move, you can’t cop the JMJ doc w/o getting BISD, package them together and scan the CD, not the shirt. SMALLER TIME ARTISTS get the web downloading game going and try to keep your material relevant TO GOOGLE ADS. Make them web hits work, or start looking at another hobby. If I can get Drake’s CD for blunt smoke, why am I buying your street “Listen To My Demo” mixtape? I’d buy some fly ass stickers with cool artwork though. No shots, but think about it.
Got bread like that? First laugh at all of the entertainment companies that actually gave away their security just to ride the wave and then go hire a computer G to find a way make them codes. Just remember I’ve already got a head start on that mission right there. I’m just showing my people how screwed up the game is, and how big corporation wants to blame us for their mistakes (greed). If there were better music and better artists, this issue would still exist. Even with my recording an album game changer, the tech set up out here is on SHARE (compatibility). At least you would have a minimal chance of album leakage and your 1st week numbers won’t look anemic.
N*ggas need them codes. Like yesterday.
The $ykotic Don McCaine
