Questions about MP3s and Downloading

Being anti-capitalist, what do you think about bootleg copies of your albums? Is it possible to get your albums in MP3 format?
Bootlegging and MP3 are two different genres. In bootlegging someone is usually trying to make a quick buck from releasing a crap quality live recording or some dodgy studio out-takes, whereas MP3 is more about people downloading music free of charge. We'd be much less likely to object to MP3 than to a bootlegger because selling records without our permission is vastly different to people having access to our stuff for free. Having said that, our record companies and publishers probably take a different view as they don't make any dosh out of MP3. Well, not yet anyway. I think it is possible to get our last album in MP3 format but we weren't the ones who put it up on the web. As for our old stuff, Anarchy, Showbusiness and Swinging with Raymond all went through One Little Indian and they are as unlikely as Universal and EMI to put them up on the web for free. When WYSIWYG was first released, EMI slapped a 'copying is killing music' logo on it without discussing it with the band first; when we contacted the label and explained we didn't believe or agree with the sentiment the label agreed to remove it from subsequent pressings. I was surprised to hear that Metallica are suing fans for downloading their album from the internet. That must be because Metallica are really skint and can't afford to let a few cybernauts get hold of their album for nothing, and if you believe that then Britney Spears isn't the latest in a long line of teenage Barbie dolls in an industry run by middle aged men obsessed by pre-pubescent flesh. [Dunst adds: We did actually have an "unofficial" album of ours bootlegged years ago called "Jesus H Christ". It was a litigious forerunner to "Shhh". I doubt it's still available anywhere unless someone has a pile of them under their bed somewhere. We were pleasantly surprised when this happened as for us to put out that album would have been fraught with difficulties and legal problems. The first time we were ever aware of bootleg t-shirts was at Wolverhampton Civic Hall years ago. I went outside to get some and they were really crap quality. At a show in Italy once bootleggers actually set up stalls outside the show. They were the sort of people you wouldn't really argue with - and neither would the police as it happened. Again the t-shirts were crap quality - which for me is why i wouldn't buy stuff outside a gig as it's usually crap. Jesus H Christ though: I'd love to get my hands on one of them!]
Some of our stuff is available on i-Tunes in various countries now.

I bought Un and was horrified to find the cd wouldn't play on my computer, which is where I listen to most of my music. What's that about?
For a while now (probably since some long-forgotten halcyon era of huge record sales), the Music Business has been in a bit of a panic about falling revenues, and one of the responses to this perceived threat has been to introduce various CD digital copy-protect systems. These systems usually involve some digital code being written onto the CD so that it can't be read by the CD reader in your PC (it's very technical - you wouldn't understand - well, neither do I, really). Amongst the reported by-products of these systems have been that some older CD players refuse to play the disc, that some in-car CD machines also can't accept the CD, some iMacs have refused to spit the disc out of the slot, resulting in repair bills, and, of course, the big, big problem - you've bought the CD and now you can't rip it onto your iPod or other mp3 player.
So, why would the Record Company want to stop you playing your CD on your PC? That would seem inappropriate in this age of the iPod . It would appear that what they seek to stop, by whatever means necessary, is the copying and subsequent unauthorised distribution of the contents of the CD.
The two major means of this unauthorised distribution are:
1. Commercial Piracy - where copyright material is copied to be sold, typically on Bootleg CD's.
2. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing, where contents of your hard-drive are shared with others for no profit.
Putting copy protection on CD's has little or no effect on the Pirate , who simply bypasses the whole thing, perhaps by buying a stand-alone CD duplicator for a few hundred Euros, although there any number of cheaper options.
The people who it will affect are the P2P file-sharers, who the Record Business seems to have taken a dislike to - presumably on the grounds that being able to download music for free, these people will stop buying CD's. Well, I'm not one to believe statistics and the like, but most recent independent research clearly shows that these same people who illegally download music on P2P networks also spend more money on legal downloads (from sites like Napster, iTunes store etc..) and buying CD's than those people who don't venture into this shady world.
History has a habit of repeating itself - consider some earlier examples of the Music Business getting hot under the collar: early US records (eg Brunswick Records, who released, among others, Robert Johnson) had "Not for play on Radio" stamped on them, for fear that radio play might harm Sheet Music sales. Later, in the 1970's, the Record Business claimed "Home taping is killing music". Don't make me laugh - home taping was a fantastic, free way of promoting records, just as Radio play (and P2P file-sharing) is.
With all this in mind, we asked Edel not to use any copy-protection on A Singsong and a Scrap . So, despite the warning on the sleeve, it is not copy-protected. I have successfully played it in both Mac and PC (Windows 98 and XP). If anyone finds otherwise, we would like to know. Happily, Copy Protection has never been an issue with No Masters. Commercial Piracy is one thing (and copy-protection won't stop it), but buying a CD only to find it won't play on your PC is just such a piss-off, it's enough to drive you to P2P downloading.