...that makes me angry...

[Nahkranoth]

Just checked for my nickname at that godawful site... what a relief.
BTW I've noticed that my lousy opuses are being downloaded too often. I guess bots are overactive or I'm being paranoid. Googled for Nahkranoth just for lulz and found some links to disappeared russian mp3 sites.
Is it a conspiracy of some sort? I should get myself some anti-alien crowbars equipped with night vision or some garlic or silver bullets or that stuff Sam smokes on a daily basis

[Saga Musix]

Jojo, how is a proper ogg tag going to help with mp3 aggrigator sites?  :evil:

As the name says, I think they only harvest mp3 files, and maybe wma. The popular file formats, you know. And even if they just steal my oggs, there's still evidence that they're coming from me (if they don't remove all the vorbis tags, that is).

[Rakib]

No one has taken my nick, but guess I'm not popular as you guys.

Regard the listening, I try to listen to all trance/house/electronic songs here. But should be better to comment them.

[Nahkranoth]

No one has taken my nick

Mine either, except from some game-addicted mofo that register at all the gaming forums he know of. But that's another story and I know I was first to claim! :lol:

[TheEagle]

Well, I think neither the nickname itself (type "TheEagle" into google an you'll get 38 million results) nor "mp3 harvesting" is the problem here. In in this "special case" somebody copied the complete songs-list and the comments from my "artist-page" on s3m.com (signature) and pasted them on ctgmusic.

That's curious!

[Nahkranoth]

In in this "special case" somebody copied the complete songs-list and the comments from my "artist-page" on s3m.com (signature) and pasted them on ctgmusic.

That's curious!

If it's not the bot then why the heck someone will impersonate you is beyond me. That's really weird. Maybe you're being promoted by Higher Powers?  :lol:

born 01st January 1930

Man you're old!

[psishock]

Since Sam has gone no one listens to me on modplug

mostly because lack of time uncloned. Barely can even read even new posts, but i'll try to catch up sometime.

[TheEagle]

Maybe you're being promoted by Higher Powers?  :lol:

*LOL* You know the movie "Blues Brothers"?
"We are musicians. We are on the road in the name of the Lord..."

born 01st January 1930

Man you're old!

Well, sometimes I really feel that old... :wink:

[Nahkranoth]

You know the movie "Blues Brothers"?
"We are musicians. We are on the road in the name of the Lord..."

I know the title itself, but not the movie, at least can't remember it. I used to watch 3 movies a day, and that was too much. I can barely remember what was going on in at least 1/10 of those.

Well, sometimes I really feel that old... :wink:

That'shhh the shhpirit, shhhon! I think I know what you mean :lol:

[uncloned]

Since Sam has gone no one listens to me on modplug

mostly because lack of time uncloned. Barely can even read even new posts, but i'll try to catch up sometime.

I didn't mean to sound ... negative - the fact is though listens for pretty much everybody's releases have lessened of late. Sam is usually the only one who slogs through it all. And it seems the pace of releases has slowed also. Maybe someone like Jojo will display some statistics that will contradict me - it's just my subjective observation.

[uncloned]

I was once again traveling today and posting from a black berry can lead to incomplete thoughts.


I would like to say one thing about these aggregation sites.

Back in the late 90's through 2004 I had several websites with varying degrees of statistics.

Aggregators started out being a web page that linked to your site started by some intrepid soul Sometimes they asked, most didn't. I personally was really ok with it.

By about 1998 or 2000-ish I started to notice that most of my traffic was direct links. I didn't like that because that meant people were sucking down my music and not connecting to me. (despite the MP3 tag). My site itself got little traffic but at times I had 50 or 60 downloads per hour for a day or two with new releases. (I think that is because MP3's were hard to come by still - not that I was so great).  The stats that I had - raw access logs - it all looked like a myriad of IPs so I didn't figure out where this traffic was from.

The direct downloads "cut me out of the loop" - no one read my lyrics or production notes - or the story behind the song, etc. etc. So... I felt "disembodied". I've had some time to think about this - and excepting usenet I didn't post music to the internet between 2004-ish to March 2008 at traxinspace when I finally accepted the beta invitation.

I'm going to tie in Louigi's philosophy that after the act of creation the creator no longer "owns" the creation but the creation has its own "life" sort of to speak. There is some sense to this when it comes to these guys making a buck by selling ads around our music. At this point I think its great and wish them luck. Unfortunately for me I have fun with my tags so... I attribute music to my ferrets and other such silliness and forget to put my web site in it or such so no one can find me. Then on the other had I sometimes think having essentially no attribution could make it better to receive - like that midi performance of "Reflections on the Water" by Debussy I posted. I have no idea who did it - but I've very grateful someone did. I chalk it up to someone adding something positive in this world that is too often focused on greed.

I don't know how much of this is new to anyone - but you think a lot when you are stuck in a car for 6 hours




And Psishock and everyone else - if you want to listen or not that's up to you. What I've noticed is that when I release a composition on multiple sites generally it is only popular at one of the handful I post to. It is still surprising to me and I've yet to figure out what I'm doing that appeals so I can't predict even after years of statistics. Things that I've done I've liked a lot is usually the kiss of death for the listener.

[uncloned]

No one listens to me on modplug. Apparently not even the bots!

I guess it's because a majority of your tracks are improvisations. Some people (like me) have a prejudice about that. You gotta make tarnce to please everyone LOL  :lol:
As for me I am very picky these times. Can't even listen to what I have at home, takes a week to digest an album.

You are certainly free to listen or not of course - but you raise an interesting point....

What is your prejudice? I don't think improvised music is any less valid than not. Some of my best work is improvised and some of my worst is scored.

And think of classical Eastern Indian music - the entire tradition is built around improvisation - and during the Baroque period in Europe all performers were expected to improvise - so much so the written music score was not complete. And lets not forget Jazz and Blues is also built around improvisation.

And some of the best guitar solos by the best players, especially on live albums, are improvised.

If you don't like my music - well... nothing to be done for that and I'm totally cool with that. I'm not going out of my way to listen to Disco, House or Dance believe me!!  :twisted:

[Sam_Zen]

At least don't listen to rumours, guys !
I'm gone.. into my 66th year today, on a daily basis.

Hm, this thread is a bit chaotic, with some semi hijack elements, but never mind.

0. I understand Eagle's anger. But sh^t happens.
One must be aware of the fact that almost anything published on the Inet can be copied / multiplied.
Whether it's a nice thing to do or not. I stopped being angry about it, but it irritates me too.
According to the Netiquette, a deeplink is not done. as Clones stated, because it is just a download,
not a visitor. If, like in this case, people copy other related stuff as well, .. awful.

1. This MP3 harvesting.
Some years ago I discovered, that the part on my server with all the albumtracks was completely downloaded.
I found in my stats, that it was a provider in Hungary. Visiting there, I saw a complete mirror of the DL-pages.
I was pissed off too then. So far, my tracks were MP3 format, and I heard about 'slurper-bots'.
This was the main reason, as Jojo, to re-convert all my files to the OGG format, to avoid those bots.
Since then, I've never found another attempt in my stats.
And, as said here, filling in the ID3 tags should be done.
The embedded coverart is a nice suggestion by Jojo.

2. Abuse
I agree about the notion, that, as soon as a piece of art is made and published, it's on its own in the world.
A unity, free from its Author.
But this could be seen as a child.
So you want it to grow up in a good, trustfull environment, not to be exploited, or covered with ad stickers.
Or claimed by some loser, who is not the father.

3. Silent listening
Don't worry Clones, I checked all the tracks. But sometimes I just keep my big mouth shut.
Plus the fact, that playing a composition by some Debussy or such, is a performance, not a work.
And I'm not into western classical music whatsoever, so I don't know.
What should I say ? 'Well played' ?

4. Improvisations
People with a classical knowledge about music, or classical musicians, can't handle improvisation.
They think, if you improvise, you just do whatever you like. This is not true.
Improvisation is just another art form than composing.
With its own rules and also happening within a framework.
Even within free jazz there were some themes and agreements between the musicians about their roles and the time.
Many of my compositions started from scratch, without any pre-plan, just a few samples was enough to inspire something.
So this could be called "improvised composing".

On the other hand, sometimes recording an improvisation is not that interesting for an audience.
First, because it's just a registration of what's happening during a time.
So often the piece is too long in the first place. A shorter version could have had the same essence.
Listening to long improvisations of good musicians can be exciting if you are in a nightclub or hall,
but listening at home to the same could be quite boring.

Checked : my nickname wasn't found at ctgmusic.com

[uncloned]

About harvesting - since I'm using a flash player for my (older) albums I imagine this prevents easy duplication - that may be a preferable way than to direct link from a page.

But then again if you put a direct link onto a site like CTG or here you lose control.


an aside - improvisation is a lost art for the classical musician - composers wanted control after the Baroque - then composers like Cage threw dice - strange world indeed.

[Louigi Verona]

Mmm... Well, someone carefully released your music on another site, kept all the titles and your authorship intact, posted even the comments and went through all the trouble of putting links to your music. It's not so bad, is it.

Still it is interesting. Perhaps someone on CTG who wanted to increase the activity of the dead site.

Anyway, Eagle, do not be angry about it. A good solution would be to ask CTG administration (if any still exists) to give you the account. Another good solution would be to not care, really.