Post #570435 by Mr. Ho on Tue, Dec 28, 2010 10:08 AM

Not to be a lame-o, but as one of the "The Men" here, speaking for the other musicians on TC and elsewhere, I think you did the right thing taking the site down. If everybody enjoys the music this way, especially exotica which is not cheap to make (unless you go the synthesizer route which takes away the magic IMHO), there won't be any new music to enjoy because musicians won't be able to afford to make new records as everyone gets used to them being posted online for free. Piracy really does hurt, especially for indie acts (even with a few sales from TC, I am $1000s in the hole from producing the latest Esquivel big band CD ( http://orchestrotica.com/album ) and our May 2011 quartet album for Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica). Record sales will never come close to even allow us to break even on these costs, let alone profit from the making of these albums (and we expected that, but seeing this type of thing always hurts a bit).

You could probably get away with some short preview clips ala iTunes etc; and personally, regardless of law, it is one thing when an album is no longer available anywhere and all attempts to purchase it fail - in that case, I think there is an argument to be made for posting the record for download, but that's another discussion for drinks some time.

This is an old discussion of course!

My two cents,

Brian / Mr. Ho