U2 Threatens to Release Album Early on iTunes 572
Uninvited Guest writes "After a rough cut of U2's latest unfinished album was stolen earlier this week, the band has vowed to release the entire album on iTunes if the music appears on P2P networks. Bono told the London Daily Telegraph, 'If it is on the Internet this week, we will release it immediately as a legal download on iTunes, and get hard copies into the shops by the end of the month.' Is this the exact opposite of the Smashing Pumpkins' last album, which the band rushed to release on P2P networks, before it could hit the stores?"
sooo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just don't get that.........
U2 encouraging p2p? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sooo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Speed up long awaited releases? (Score:2, Insightful)
Tonight's task (Score:3, Insightful)
Stage 2, post them to P2P programs but prevent anyone from succesfully downloading them.
Stage 3, wait until someone hired by the record agency finds them listed and assumes the worst. Presto! The songs are released to iTunes weeks early.
Mission accomplished.
Don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
if it's a practically perfect copy, then why haven't they released it already? (hint: outdated distributed method defended by useless middlemen unwilling to die gracefully)
maybe they're scared that p2p will allow people to "try before you buy", and just want people to be able to pay for it before they've heard it, cf MPAA wanting mobiles banned because people can talk to friends about crap movies as soon as they've seen it.
Re:sooo? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if it's available only illegally, then a fan who wants to hear the album has no choice but to break the law. Having acquired the music, the fan will be less likely to pay for it when it is released legally.
Once you understand that this is not meant for the people who never would've paid for it, the logic becomes quite simple.
Two words: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sooo? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words you can either compete with the black market, or just roll over and play dead. U2 has decided to compete.
Re:sooo? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:U2 encouraging p2p? (Score:5, Insightful)
U2 sucks now anyways... (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, take the release of their albumb POP back in 1997 or something. It was an interesting albumn; it sorta picked up where Zooropa had left off. It was a lot more "experimental" (at least for them) and just by listening to it I sort of got the felling that U2 didn't really give a fuck and just wanted to make the music they were inspired to make. Well, the critics and many of the fans totally wrote the album off as too "electronic", and a few years later U2 releases the completely horrid All That You Can't Leave Behind, which I never even had any interest in at all, but the songs I did hear were just so boring and cookie cutter. But the kicker is that the album went on to sell VERY well, not to mention a US tour with people willing to sell their momma's own titty just to get a ticket. Shocking!
Anyway, I think the "threat" of putting their new album on iTunes because it's been stolen just shows how out of touch celebrities get when they hit the big time. And I don't mean just famous; I mean HUGE. U2 has been a big band for nearly 20 years now, if not more, and as far as the politics that they might have been aligning themselves with before that association is obviously completely gone. Personally, I don't believe in that shit anyway, as politics in popular forms of entertainment seems to me to be just another marketing tool, but that's my own take on things.
Re:U2 encouraging p2p? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sooo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
I just realized how screwed up this world really is. A major police operation has been launch to find a CD. Aparantly all other crimes have been defeated.
Re:sooo? (Score:2, Insightful)
Threatened? Vowed? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no justification for the emotive terms "threatened" or "vowed".
Screw You and Our Fans Too (Score:5, Insightful)
...Yeah, and????
I mean, is that a threat? Because I truely am baffled. "By golly, since somebody stole our copy, we'll release the entire damn thing on iTunes!" Ok, so we're going to punish the large majority of our innocent fanbase who still easily outnumber the
Aside from the potential bonus of making iTunes more popular, there's no freakin' logic to this action. Millions of people who have never downloaded a song in their lives are being cut out of the loop for.... Uh, what was that reasoning again???
Yeah... You go U2. Show em who's boss. ^_^
Mod up! (Score:3, Insightful)
Huzzah for major bands being more important than violent criminals.
Re:sooo? (Score:3, Insightful)
I suggest listening with your ears (and brain), not with your eyes..
Or in other words, such lists can be very nice for suggestions, but wont tell you what is good or not. Add to that the fact that most people don't have a clue about the difference between good/bad music and like/dislike.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
To my knowledge, one of the biggest bands to rely on bootlegs and such are the Grateful Dead. They weren't big on studio work and there are shitloads of bootlegs available. A buddy of mine in high school was a huge Dead fan and had 4 shoeboxes full of bootleg tapes.
Metallica once thrived on bootlegs to get recognition. Then they got it and decided that it was a bad thing. That is a band that has lost a lot of respect from a large portion of long-time fans and they're not likely to win many back.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sooo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Learn to separate a realistic expectation of human nature from condoning such. People break laws all the time, and you've probably broken speed limits several times. If you did, then you probably did it because you wanted to get somewhere more quickly, there was no legal way to do so, and the chances of getting caught and punished are slim.
I was trying to explain why U2 thought this was a sensible thing to do, because somebody asked. I was trying to predict what would happen, not trying to justify what hasn't even happened. Do you actually disagree that their album sales are likely to be hurt otherwise?
Re:sooo? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:sooo? (Score:5, Insightful)
I come to this from two sides, I downloaded the Lillywhite Session from the Dave Matthews band, and purchased Busted Stuff when it came out. While I fully enjoy the Lillywhite Sessions for what they are, in fact often enjoy them more than I do Busted Stuff, I do also recognize that they are not finish material. For the band to "complete" the album, they had to totally re-envision the songs, and in that since Busted Stuff is good and great to have as a comparison and contrast of what happens when creative vision is derailed.
I think U2's desire is to get something out that they feel is close to a finish product rather than having an album out for months that isn't near what they wanted the final album to be. For me that's a respectable decision. For their part, they've vowed to work rapidly on the album, canceling vacation plans and other activities so they could finish it at a reasonable production level. Note, I say production level, because it could be months or years, before whatever creative impulses that drove them to do this album return to a level that would be good enough to allow them to proceed "normally."
and you're complaining because....? (Score:2, Insightful)
a band that has said it doesn't care about people downloading their albums, as long as they don't make a profit on it... they've actually released concert bootlegs for people to download - legally!
they do understand that the more people listening to their music the better - they are one of the bands that "gets it". the big issue here is they're worried about unfinished demos hitting the internet and people getting a wrong taste of their new album. this isn't a band that is worthy of slashdot bashing.
but then, my handle tends to give away my bias
Simple logic? (Score:2, Insightful)
[...]the logic becomes quite simple.
Speaking of logic, you committed the fallacy of the false dichotomy. A fan who wants to hear the album DOES have a choice: wait. Or download illegally.
Downloading is never the ONLY option.