F.D.S. (File Sharing Debate)

A fun exchange I had this morning. I'd like to hear your opinions on the subject.


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Angrychairs Even with no information, no titles, no names of bands, all my recent mediafire links (all easily had 2000+ dl's) and my whole account has been suspended. Up til now no link was removed because no one except us knew what they actually were. This is some kind of bullshit.


Brian L. Marshall Why put all this effort into pirating music? Why not just spend time going to a record store and buying the titles out-right?

Paraskevas BonJovi thank u anyway for sharing,Angrychairs rules!

William van der Voort This makes even more chairs angry. Don't give up, keep up the good work!

Cristhian Camilo Serrano Camacho don't give up!! i think it is time for torrents!

Angrychairs To Brian L. Marshall a vast majority of my user base is from South American countries, finding music down there isn't as easy as it is for us. Also Italy, France, Germany, Poland, they too make up a big chunk, importing music is very costly for them, their record stores don't have the same kind of selection as we do. So yes for us we can walk in and buy whatever we want, but for a lot of others out there, their location and financial situation should not let them go without great music.

Brian L. Marshall Stop me if I mis-interpreted your statement....So Angrychairs is a humanitarian mission in that you are providing underprivileged nations with free music? Why wouldn't that free music come from the bands themselves via free downloads via their own websites?

Alvin Razdir maybe u should go to another file-hosting

Bill Goodman Try laying off the major label and ASCAP stuff. That may help. Also, you can't run the type of blog you do and expect it to run unnoticed. Remember what happened to the first site.

Andrea Costanzo some albums are unavailable or almost uncovered in a lot of countries. filesharing has made my love of music survive when i couldnt find it anywhere else. so take the broomstick out of your riaa loving asses

Paraskevas BonJovi I'm from Greece and i'm married with two kids my monthly salary is 500 euro ,an average price for cds is almost 20 euros, although i was never in a good financial condition i have about 3.000 cds and almost 1500 vinyl records (not to mention the huge amounts of music magazines i have bought) but now things have changed globally and the economic crisis make us only care about basic needs for living,so in a way we are ''forced'' to pirate music,our record shops our dying one by one,not because there's no plenty (in most european countries including Greece you can find anything you want ,even the most extrem avantgarde jazz/drone/musique concrete record or something) of records but because of the fuckin' economical crisis,be sure that if we had the money no serious music fan would have downloaded music...

Cory Fox If not for your blog I wouldn't have even heard of most if the bands I listen to now and if people really like the bands they will see their shows and buy their merch. I do. Keep up the good work brometheus.

Cory Fox Of*

Rick Pomerenke II ‎@Brian I live in North Dakota and primarily listen to bands that cannot afford, or arent big enough to be on a known label that would actually ship to ANY record store, never mind one out here. Your idea of music doesn't apply here.
We support our music when we can. When the records are actually printed, because that's the only time they can afford to put them out. When their merchandise is actually in stock, because that's the only time they can afford to carry it, and when they tour, because that's the only time they can afford to lose money.
This is metal bro. Very specific, small, lifestyle choice. Nobody in metal is in it for the money.


Preston Butango Brian L. Marshall, just in case you were unaware; even files supplied to blogs by bands have been taken down by various file hosters.

Rick Pomerenke II Now that i think of it, who, besides Metallica honestly, is big enough to get a CD in most stores? I've seen Amon Amarth CD's for sale at my local Best Buy. That's about it.

Brian L. Marshall Just for the record, I'm not against file sharing. But the line about helping those that can't help themselves is pretty hilarious. I personally think that if one can't afford something, then they should do without. When I was a kid I couldn't walk into a record store and steal whatever I wanted and then say something like "Sorry shop owner, I haven't the money to spend on this but I REALLY wanted it". or "I was going to send this to my friend in Germany who can't find it in his local shop". My point is, call a spade a spade. File "sharing" (LOVE that term) is stealing. Those who partake in it (myself included) are thieves. Being upset about it not working out all the time is just a little silly don't you think?


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To the Detuned-ers who had the patience to read this......what are your thoughts on this?

There for awhile I was using sites like angrychairs as a way to check out albums before wasting my little bit of disposable income on them. The majority of the time I would download them, listen, not be impressed and delete them. Occasionally I'd hear something I really liked and I would go out and buy the album.

Now that Spotify and Mog have taken off I can do the same thing without having to download anything, I haven't visited a file sharing site in months.

My days of purchasing alot of music is over, even if my financial situation improves I don't see myself collecting the way I used to. I've been averaging about 1 album per month over the last couple years and I'm fine with that.

I don't buy that guy's argument about "providing music to South America" that's just silly. He's found an excuse that lowers his guilt about stealing product, that's all. The current generation doesn't think music has any financial value, so they don't want to spend money on something they believe should be free. Of course that opinion is horribly incorrect, but the more young folk I've talked to the more prevalent I'm convinced it is.

I have a couple friends in their 20s and they probably only own about 20 CDs between them and all of them were $1 CDs they picked up in cheap racks. However their computers are filled to the brim with downloaded albums, movies and TV shows.

It's just the way of the world now and I don't see it changing anytime soon.

I know most of you will probably disagree with me, but I usually only download albums that are overpriced, out of print, hard to come by, not on Spotify, etc. I'm sure it has to do with decreasing my guilt, like S.D. said.

I know this thread is supposed to be about a file sharing debate...but the letters "F.D.S." stands for feminine deodorant spray!

They are right stealing is stealing, there's no guilt free thievery that can be done, if anyone downloads an album with out paying for it, it's stealing. I've downloaded shit loads of stuff, and yeah I could try to argue that, I don't have the money, I would never find this stuff at the local wal-mart, I'd like to hear something before I buy it or any other excuse under the sun, but it's just plain stealing. But on the other hand, most of the shit I do download, is stuff not easily available, and I have downloaded albums, jammed them and was like, damn that sure sucked, glad I didn't spend money on that, and delete it. But as for downloading, shit everybody does it, you shouldn't bitch is a site shuts down or you can't get the files, it's like shoplifting , sometimes you get away with it, and sometimes you get busted, sometimes you get what you want, and some times you ditch that shit so you don't get busted.

I love when these file sharing addicts try to defend their behavior like "Well, how dare you? I'm not a thief. I just live in an impoverished country where this material is hard to find."

News flash: Amazon.com (and lots of other web sites) will gladly ship anything you want worldwide. If you can afford an internet connection, than you can afford a fuckin' CD. Give me a break.

...and besides that, as Spec sez in his original post, back in the Dark Ages before there was an internet, what did you do if a band you liked put out an album and you wanted it? You either did the leg work and found a copy of it somewhere, or you did without it. So shaddup, snapperheads.

The ones who run file sharing sites and justify it by saying they're Robin Hood, i.e. "I am not encouraging stealing, I am posting these links as a public service for people who can't find this music in their area" are full of shit too.

Please don't think that I am up on any kind of high horse by the way; when I first started using the Net in the early '00s I sure as hell downloaded my share of stuff (I downloaded my share, and your share, and his share, and her share... I did a LOT! Haha) but after a while I had stacks of CD-Rs everywhere that I barely listened to... and I still got more satisfaction out of owning a genuine "hard copy" of a real CD so slowly but surely I got out of the habit. Nowadays I might download a live bootleg or some rare/out of print tr00 arcane steele every now and again but those are few and far between.

I never tried to convince myself that what I was doin' wasn't wrong, either... I KNEW it was, I'm not an idiot.. but y'know how it goes, you think to yourself "Hey, wow, hmmmm, so and so has a new album, tell ya what, I'll download a copy just to tide me over till I can buy the actual CD," ...next thing you know it's two years later and you still haven't bought the CD and you know damn well you're never going to get around to it.

Your so right with what you said there Fred, it's so easy to find and album now a days if you really want to, just go to places like E-bay or Amazon, hell you can even pick em' up pretty cheap sometimes, it's like one big ass digital yard sale of shit you actually want. Yeah having CD-R's is really only good for backups, like an album you jam in the car or something, at home it's nice to see the actual art work, and be able to read the lyrics and liner notes and feel that you contributed to this bands success by actually paying for the album. There is a lot of downloading repentance the whole world needs to do, but like that's really gonna happen? I don't think so.

Looks like Spec's comments are making him some new friends...

DJ Dodd hey @brian nobody really askedddd youuuuu, soooooo....


I LOVE guys like these who justify their downloading by treating it as some kind of Jihad war against the evil recording industry. On a side note... Brian, you're a rich punk? I had no idea. Can I borrow a couple of bucks?

Adam Eagan Brian is a rich punk who has more money than he knows what to do with. He obviuosly isnt about spreading the word. He says he is but really isnt. He'd make a great politician. His kind would like to suppress music. Thats all i hear coming from this rich punks mouth. Fuck him and spread the word people. He isnt worth arguing with. Support bands. Go to the shows and buy merch and cds when you can. Keep music alive!!! Viva Angry Chairs!!! Cant shut down all the sites!!! Spread the word! Theres plenty of SS Brians out there!!!


Cristian D. Rubi ‎@Brian, next time any of your pals asks you to burn them a CD tell them "naw man, thats stealing" you sound like a smug prick with your comments.

...I was tempted to respond to that last one, "he may be a smug prick, but he's right. So I guess that makes me a smug prick too."

These idiots think they are "sticking it to the man" but in reality they are just sticking it to musicians.

Yeah, I stopped looking at their comments. I would have stayed all day responding. I can't be clever or intelligent for more than a 5 minutes at a time. Obviously I am out of my time if I don't believe that file sharing is the right way to support music.

Just for the record (although you all know this already), I AM a smug prick.

SpectreFate wrote:

Just for the record (although you all know this already), I AM a smug prick.

We've never noticed.

S.D. wrote:

These idiots think they are "sticking it to the man" but in reality they are just sticking it to musicians.

I totally agree with this statement man, if musicians bust there ass to make an album, they deserve to make some money off it.

I still buy records. Artists should make money off of their releases, and having a physical copy is nice to have. People who solely download music and never support artists they enjoy are total assholes.

However, file sharing as a whole is a wonderful thing. I've been able to discover so much great music because of it, and being able to share music is not a bad thing. Plus let's face it, artists still make money primarily off of touring and merchandise, etc, which I think has always been the case.

Yeah the people that are adamant about file sharing are annoying little pricks, but so are artists who make a big deal out of it. Just be happy people are listening to you.

Yeah, I like to download albums. I ended up buying a lot of albums after hearing what some of these albums really sounded like, but I'm from the generation that still buys albums. You also get to hear some of these mystery albums that some collecters have put on a pedestal, ask a ton of money for and find out how they might suck!!!!!

I've gotten a LOT of live bootlegs through file sharing as well. I think that it is a great way to beat the bootleggers. As far as I know, the band doesn't get money from those bootleg albums and bands like the CRB actually support that.

One band that I can think of Micah have actually benefitted from file sharing. They have rereleased their only album on vinyl.

Like S.G. says "Just be happy people are listening to you."