forward 2 leak (grime/blogs)

I'll go for my slightly fascist stance on this. There is no situation where you cannot by vinyl - a record deck can be acquired for £50/£100 easy.

If you won't buy vinyl then you should take what comes with it - in this case, you cannot get these records.

If the artist agreed to a leak by mp3 then fine, otherwise, I think it is completely wrong. Some of these records shift pretty slowly, and it could easily be the case that the artist hasn't broken even on the twelves, whereas over 1000 people are caning the mp3. For me, that isn't on. On an entirely selfish basis, parting with £7 a plate and then getting emails from friends who have picked the track off p2p with no interest of ever buying the record annoys me too.

For the scene to live, it needs to be supported. It isn't big enough that the attitude of 'since there are no CDs, I have to' - you can buy the vinyl. Simple as. For Americans, it is all a bit different with the availability and all.

A guy I DJ with wants me to rip all my grime at 320kbp so he can have decent copies of my records. If he DJs with then, how is that right? He gets paid for playing, whereas he didn't pay the artist the dues of buying the record.

There are many permutations of this and it becomes very confused, but I am generally anti, other than for a try-before-you-buy, which is all I have ever really done.

In the u.s., i can think of plenty of situations where you can't buy grime vinyl! Shipping is exhorbitant!

DavidD said:

In the u.s., i can think of plenty of situations where you can't buy grime vinyl! Shipping is exhorbitant!

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I suppose this is revenge for the early 80s and Chicago house from us!

I think there is definitely a gap in the market - altough the younger generation probably won't pay for the downloads - they'll wait for them to appear on DC++

By grime artists putting up full quality MP3's for official download they are simply making the mp3's more available to possible leechers who will put the files onto DC++ for free download.

They'll end up selling 5 MP3's and then 800 people will download it on DC++ for free.

I don;t think its a question of whether its right or wrong anymore because you can't stop it. Dizzee's first album got bootlegged and then went and sold 250,000 and I reckoned the bootlegging actually helped him reach those sales figures. Artists have to realise the internet has changed everything. Legal download sites are the way forward for the non-vinyl buying public IMO as a lot of people don't want to partake in illegal activity but still want these tunes. Even legal downloads are going to get shared illegally but its a question of making the best of the unavoidable.

DJL said:

Dizzee's first album got bootlegged and then went and sold 250,000 and I reckoned the bootlegging actually helped him reach those sales figures.

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There is a huge difference here. Dizzee had an advance, Beggars Banquet's money behind him and support. 95% of grime tunes doing the round are from people who have paid for their own studio time, pressing and everything, and are distributing it by carting the records to the shop themselves.

I can't think of an equally unfair comparison, but using the one grime artist who is signed to a major label with distribution and everything is really clouding the issue.

3underscore said:

There is a huge difference here. Dizzee had an advance, Beggars Banquet's money behind him and support. 95% of grime tunes doing the round are from people who have paid for their own studio time, pressing and everything, and are distributing it by carting the records to the shop themselves.

I can't think of an equally unfair comparison, but using the one grime artist who is signed to a major label with distribution and everything is really clouding the issue.

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Yeah true maybe not a good example. Guess what I'm trying to get at is that if you have genuine talent bootlegging won't effect you as much.

I guess there needs to be an element of growth here... some of these labels need to take the plunge - pay for decent artwork, sleeves, mastering, pressing... I'm assuming most can't afford it. but then how many people can afford, or at least justify, forking out £7 -> £8 for a muffled 12" in a shabby white paper sleeve? if things stay like that for much longer, the scene will suffer, I'm sure.

with that in mind, I really can't see many of these labels getting a foot in the door with regards to getting tracks into the legit MP3 download market just yet. of course, there's an opening for someone to stick their neck on the line and set something up fresh (i.e. not rely on itunes, napster, whoever)... like warp did with bleep.com... but it's gonna take someone who not only has the finances, programming and business skills, but also someone who's in it for the love, cos grime just doesn't have the backing yet in the more established areas of the industry. here's hoping that the success of pow! and hype hype will change that.

Agreed. Much as it shames me to admit it, part of me enjoys the effort of tracking down white labels or listen to pirates to hear the stuff. But then I can't spread the word to those with better things to do. Curious but less committed friends are not going to be able to, or be bothered to, go to Rhythm Division or spend £10 on a random white label off the internet. Ultimately this means the only way to get ahead is to sell yourself to a major. Which is fine for the one or two who make it, but denies any scene the chance to market itself on its own terms.

Dizzee's first album didn't get bootlegged. The cd that was bootlegged contained about 2 tracks that actually made the album in the end.

It did get leaked, as with all albums, at the point that it was sent out to the media for review 1 month before it's release.

And by then Dizzee had been paid in full for the record.

The only grime album to have been "bootlegged" is the Roll Deep one. That was leaked before they had even signed a deal, and there were some VERY angry people around at that time.

It is all very well having a tune leaked that you are going to press 500 units of and potentially make £1400 off. If it is an album you haven't even managed to get signed yet which was at the time worth around 200 grand..... that's an entirely different scenario.

I don't know what FWD2 would have really been worth, in relation to FWD1. I'm sure it would have been a fair few bob though.

I agree that an itunes type of thing might be a good look to deal with this. Being a grime DJ in NYC is really not an ideal situation, I end up resorting to downloading just to have new shit. I definitely will speedily and happily buy the vinyl when I get to LDN next but the prospect of buying these expensive ass whites AND paying the ridiculous shipping just makes it really economically difficult. Things may be getting better though, looks like some guys over in Brooklyn are getting a mail order started.

The existance of all this downloading, leaking and mp3 blogging can probably be partly explained by the nature of the scene as it stands at the moment. There's a growing group of casual listeners, who having read about and bought Boy in Da Corner/Showtime/Run the Road are out to get hold of more of the same. Availability then becomes an issue. Speaking to recordshops outside of London, a common comment is that they would like to hear and stock more "grime" but don't have access to it.

Its true that DJs can buy 12s from online shops (and probably will, even if they download it as well. How many DJs prefer mp3 to the physical vinyl?) - but what about the other listeners? Being honest, not that many people have decks and outside of London, raves and pirates are pretty rare. Downloading and streaming are probably the two most accesible methods of getting grime tracks for a large section of its market. Given the current lack of a legal download site, this ends up being via illegal methods. Many grime forums are evidence of this.

At the very least I think the fact that so much grime gets put on yousendit or dc++ shows that there is a market out there. What needs to happen now is for things to be made easier for the punters. Either CDs and 12s need to reach independent record shops outside of London, or someone needs to set up a legal download site. Currently, many outside the core scene don't have an alternative source - thus causing the rise and rise of downloading.

Oh god, this subject has been going round in my head for weeks now. I'm an MP3 blogger who's shared-out quite a few full grime/dubstep MP3s over the past few months, but recently I've stopped in favour of only sharing mixes. Why? I had a few complaints from people, not actual artists themselves, but people within the scene who take a highly protective stance in relation to the rights and earnings of the artists. There's no reason why I should take any notice of these people, but their attitude stung me a bit, cos everything I ever shared was done with love and I know for a fact that there's a lot of people who got into grime from my MP3s. Only today I got an e-mail from a guy in Montreal telling me how I'd changed his life, which is the best compliment I could ever hope to receive. I firmly believe that most MP3 bloggers share their music in a consciencious manner that is of benefit to the artists, as opposed to the rampant wholesale swapping of the P2P networks - Soulseek is anything but soulful. Yet still I find myself doubting whether I should share full length tracks, even though I've got some great tunes which I'm eager to share and I know will not get heard otherwise. I'm sitting on a Virus Syndicate track that I know has been pulled from the forthcoming album, which I'd love to share. I actually tried getting Mark One's permission but he never replied to my e-mails (a simple 'fuck off u cunt' would've sufficed).

There's no reason why these artists/labels can't get their work legally online. There's several smaller legal download sites specialising in dance music now, and at least one label, Hotflush Recordings, now have their catalogue available at Karma Download. I can't see how the other labels are gonna be able to stay financially viable without online sales. I'm lucky that I have a local record store which stocks a decent selection of tunes, most of which are sourced straight from the boot of a car in London! Yet the internet has been the pivitol force in spreading this music's popularity around the globe and I find it slightly ridiculous that these labels aren't exploiting the potential that download sales offer.

Nick Gutterbreakz said:

There's no reason why these artists/labels can't get their work legally online...*snip*...I'm lucky that I have a local record store which stocks a decent selection of tunes, most of which are sourced straight from the boot of a car in London! Yet the internet has been the pivitol force in spreading this music's popularity around the globe and I find it slightly ridiculous that these labels aren't exploiting the potential that download sales offer.

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well there's the rub... how many labels run out of car boots do you think could enter into legally binding contracts with download services? how many of them are declaring their earnings to the taxman? how many of them have proper contracts with their artists (on those occasions where the artists are not running their own labels) that will ensure that any income from online sales is properly distributed? it's gonna take a big step to get some of these labels to the stage where proper online retail could work - it's all within reach, of course, but I wouldn't have known where to start going "legit" if I was 19->20 yrs old, only getting as far as pressing up a few whites at JTS and putting releases in local shops.... I think it's gonna take someone from the other side of the deal to approach these guys and make it easy for them... i.e. "I've set up this website for grime downloads, here's a contract, let's do business".

There has to be some balance. If people don't hear it then they move onto something else and grime needs the support to grow but it also has to retain some form of organic growth, surely? I agree with the point about just sharing sets... If it's circumstances where someone requires a track i.e. an American journalist, I would send something that has been out on vinyl because I don't see that as leaking, rather helping things move along and I think the artist would agree. And with Tofuhut MP3 blog I'll only give tracks/samples of tracks I've been given permission to use on there or tracks which have hosting over so can't be bootlegged as such (a clip from Lord Of The Decks for example).

isn't the simple answer to this to do what they do on radio and on mixtapes - sabotage the track slightly, talk over, stick over some effects, fuck around on the mixer and then let that version get rinsed all over the net in anticipation of building up to a proper release? of course the bootlegging will go on after the release, but at least it won't kill those initial sales.

also I can't help thinking that in the years ahead music will not be funded by music purchases but by sponsorship/marketing deals... perhaps in the same way that football relies less on gate receipts than on sponsorship and global branding.

Nick Gutterbreakz said:

everything I ever shared was done with love and I know for a fact that there's a lot of people who got into grime from my MP3s.

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Nick, it's generous, knowledgeable people like you that are the reason why you've got people out in Vancouver or Vienna wanting to get their hands on any bit of grime action they can possibly find in the first place.

If you've fucked up in any way, it's not taking a commission for increased vinyl sales caused by your site traffic. I'm sure that if you let whoever's downloading a track you've put up click a button to send an email to the respective artist/label, rating the track and/or showing interest in purchasing it (as in: "I love this tune and would buy it on sight, but seeing as I live out in Bumblefuck I will never even see it because the run of 700 ain't enough to go round, so get your shit straight and let me improve your business!") there'd be no problem.

I don't know what difference it makes at the end of the day (in money terms), but it's people like us (over the hills and far away) who, in ways more and less modest, spread the word, put in the mail orders, travel to the gigs, play tunes in clubs, make mixes for people, convert the heathens...

I don't think I speak only for myself (almost certainly not: I'd wager there's a few others here in similar situations of high grime demand and low grime supply, or worse - there's two, maybe three Vienna wax suppliers with regular small stashes of whites coming in, I can't complain) when I say I'd be hard pressed to find a better place to get an informed opinion or friendly bit of advice than here and the adjacent blogosphere. So big up ya chest.