Hard to say really. I’m fairly sure if it was available online for free, less people would have bought it.
When you’re talking only £2000 or so of sales for a small indie release, piracy makes a huge hit to sales. My more popular stuff like trance, the sales drop off a cliff the moment it’s leaked. There was a huge problem with people on promo lists leaking pre-released tracks to warez sites, not sure if the main labels (eg ones like Armada, Anjuna etc) ever got to the bottom of it, but it really hurt the sales of people who aren’t exactly making bank from their music
Whenever I release music myself, I actively block it in Russia, because they relentlessly steal my trance / freeform releases and upload them in warez sites.
Of course geoblocking can be circumvented by a determined pirate but it helps to not be on their radar in first place as a lesser known artist.
As an example, once I released a freeform album. Freeform is a very niche, small scene. It was on Russian forums within a couple of days. Fortunately one of my fans notified me, I had a Russian friend contact the site on my behalf to explain that I’m a poor struggling artist, and they’re literally taking money out of my pocket; to my surprise they agreed to take the links down.
I’m happy with my version of simple messenger, I’ve not updated it for a while… Am I good to keep using that? Can you explain more what you mean by selling out?
That’s amazing, thanks for sharing your fail as I feel slightly less dumb now.
One of the best I’ve seen… was working on a track with a one of my writing partners, he’s messaging his gf who’s asking where his washing machine powder is, he replies, but the response makes him sigh deeply. Asked him what’s wrong, he shows me the message, it’s from his gf and says “babe… Do you realise you’re washing your clothes with dishwasher tablets?” 😂
Hahaha. Reminds me of one of my own similar fails.
I bought this mop… I’m tallish at 6’. For at least a year I used this mop, cursing it everytime for being short. “What is this? A mop for dwarves?!” literally gave myself a bad back using it.
Until one day, something clicked, and I noticed I could extend it. Fuck my life.
I’ve had this before, except I was drunk, and it was a kebab.
I really, really do not like kebabs… my friend convinced me to get one. This kebab was like it had been sent from the heavens, I was in shock, never had I experienced a kebab like this.
The next day, I messaged my friend asking where we had the kebab… neither of us could remember. I had a vague idea of what the door looked like, we searched every time we were in the city centre for many years, but in vain.
She has one of those faces that can look so different with a different hair / makeup combo, imo. I didn’t recognise her at all as Mrs McMurray, despite watching the entire Wynonna Earp series. Though I did have a “Hey, I’m sure I know her from something” feeling in Star Trek.
In all fairness I am a bit faceblind in general haha. Also have to give credit to her acting chops as the way she holds herself / speaks is so different in those roles.
This was about to be my response. Sometimes, when a 5.1 surround mix is forced into stereo output, it causes the ‘speech’ channel to sound quieter than it should.
Try sticking to non-surrounds sources OP if you don’t have surround setup