Recently I have seen many posts on the 2 scandal fb fan page : s c a n d a l, and scandal magic, asking for download links for pirated Scandal albums. Funny thing is the creators if the pages support the downloading too. What shocked me the most is that the admin or maybe the creator of scandal magic supported a guy who posted the download link forthe Pride album and daid that although he knows it's wrong he doesnt care! I feel that as Scandal fans we need to spread the message of stopping piracy around as soon as possible before things get worse. If we don't put in a bit of effort to stop this, piracy will rise and Scandal, along with the rest of the music industry, will soon die out.

i agree with you there.. but sadly, even if we try and stop them we can't since it's not in our jurisdiction.

What we can do is self regulate - not sharing copyrighted files to social network sites.

Piracy in away separates the casual listeners to the so called "True Fans". On the average those who support piracy are the casual listeners; if piracy ceases to exist they won't buy the original. To put it simply they are excluded from the potential market. Those downloading pirated stuffs sure hurt the music industry but not as bad as it seems because to begin with they are not willing to buy the original.

Not encouraging piracy especially with regards to Scandal but what we can do with that aspect is limited to ourselves.

OT: despite the rampant piracy in the NET surprise how very much alive the music industry of Japan relative to our country.

Nothing can stop piracy in general. If you're looking for something, there will almost guarantee be a digital version somewhere online, be it harder to find, or directly in front of your face.

Just not take music for example. Look at the anime industry and software industry as well. Even with all their DRMs and different methods to try and take files down, they will be re-uploaded onto the net. Especially places with no laws on copyrights, that is the destination for the servers to host all these pirated things. So, it's been a very long time since the first copies of software and anime has been pirated, yet they are both still alive and doing well in the markets, why? Well, I don't know either, but I doubt the music industry is any different. (iTunes, anyone?)

tl;dr: This is the 21st century, the internet has evolved into what it is today.

oh man, I should link you guys the articles saying that digital online purchases have soared up from the previous years. Here is one of them.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/01/10/uk-recording-industry-says-piracy-killing-music-despite-record-sales/

Basically my theory is, if you love it, if you find yourself singing along to it, if you have it on your mp3 player/phone, if you bump it in the car, then it's worth buying. I'm pretty old skool and I like to have phyisical CD's of stuff. I don't see myself buying mp3's from itunes or whatever because I hate Apple and that program itself because it's so slow.

The true fans will buy their music. The true fans will attend their shows. Since I'm in America, I can't really attend their shows without going overseas, but I can at least buy the CD's online.

I found out about Scandal very recently (like the other week!) and I already bought a CD the other day. Yes, I already have the mp3's of this CD, but I'm buying the CD anyway. Didn't think the one with the DVD was any useful since I can't watch it because of the region...


for games and anime, I'm the same way. If it's not worth the time, then it's not worth the money. There are people I know that download games all day as if thats all they do. I unfortunetly don't have that much free time as I used to, but my free time is valuable to me (while I'm still young ) and so I try not to waste it on things that just aren't worth it.

for PC gaming, DRM is killing it. I bought Dead Space the day it came out and it took me almost a year to beat because I was stuck on an objective and I just let it sit. During that year, I had to reinstall windows a few times (hard drive died, spyware/malware etc) and I wanted to beat Dead Space again before part 2 came out. The game wouldn't let me play because I installed it so many times and when you install you have to register or whatever. This forces me to download the game to bypass this...fricking retarded.

its not like i support piracy or sumtin
but in my case i DL their discographies too.. w/o buying it.
im poor so i cant afford ordering stuffs around the net coz i need to prioritize more important things... our only diff is i dun really endorse DLing it publicly.. if you ask me for it privately then ill give it.

to be honest up until now.. i haven't even bought any SCANDAL single/album
i have nanka buttobase here but this is courtesy of SG peepz though i already ordered Pride but im still not counting it coz i dun have it yet xD

to sum it up.. there's nothing we can't do about it :| the world of internet is powerful

I won't say that I haven't pirated any of SCANDAL's albums or singles, but let's face it guys, who haven't? I mean, I still buy their original CDs and albums on a consistent basis, but that's only because I think they are worth spending my money on. Piracy is rife in this world, and truth be told, I have like..10 GBs worth of pirated music in my HDD.

While the admins of that facebook page is wrong for supporting piracy, but honestly, even if he didn't give it, simply using google would have gotten the people who asked it what they want.

And personally, another factor for me is that I'll have to wait days before I'm able to properly get the physical copy of the CD, and I sure as hell won't wait that long to listen to SCANDAL's new songs xD

I don't want to start a flame war here, but here's my point of view:

I have some singles and albums from SCANDAL and many other artists, and I have downloaded them, sadly for the western countries like the one i am living on right now, ordering stuff from across the world is very, and I mean VERY expensive, regardless of the fact that the singles only contain 3 songs, and some people just cant afford the luxury. Another fact is, in third world countries like Peru (where I was born and raised until 19 years old) pirated stuff is at a decent price, say 2$ per music CD, when an original can be up to 20$, so the only, and I mean ONLY time I would buy an original is when I have money I've gotten as a gift, since I know its gonna support the band and it was just a gift, otherwise I would save that money for something else.

I share Noodle's view, shipping prices, customs duty, etc makes buying SCANDAL CD's here sooo expensive!
There is a store here that sold the BEST SCANDAL CD for $40 (AUD).

Right now, I haven't got any Japanese CD's, but I'm planning to go to Japan in April and stock up on Scandal DVD's, Temptation Box, Haruka and bunch of other albums & goods from all my favourite artists.

The only Japanese songs which I buy are the various Vocaloid Music I like from iTunes through KarenT. Albums are only like $10-15, and I can sample before I buy.

Mind you I'm a student at the moment, with no job or anything, all the money I get is from my parents. And my parents will not allow me to use credit cards to buy things online.
After I get a job, i'll go crazy on ordering stuff online :p

I believe that piracy does hurt the music industry, but you can't really condemn all pirates out there. Sure, there are those that download indiscriminately without sparing a thought for the original artist just because its free. But there are also the real fans who can't get their hands on the CDs due to geographical or financial reasons. Let face it guys, if it wasn't for piracy, some of us wouldn't even know SCANDAL existed (me included, if I didn't download a copy of BEST SCANDAL I'd never become a fan).

Despite the so-called rampant piracy, the music industry is actually surviving when many predicted it would collapse due to the free nature of the Internet. This is in part due to the fans who devote their wallets to their favourite artistes. As long as fans exist, the impact of piracy will always be cushioned somewhat.

on a personal note, I do admit I download music, but I make it a point to buy at least one, if not all the albums of the artists that I really like. Singles don't appeal to me because I don't see the value, but that's just my opinion.

asuna wrote:I believe that piracy does hurt the music industry, but you can't really condemn all pirates out there. Sure, there are those that download indiscriminately without sparing a thought for the original artist just because its free. But there are also the real fans who can't get their hands on the CDs due to geographical or financial reasons. Let face it guys, if it wasn't for piracy, some of us wouldn't even know SCANDAL existed (me included, if I didn't download a copy of BEST SCANDAL I'd never become a fan).

Despite the so-called rampant piracy, the music industry is actually surviving when many predicted it would collapse due to the free nature of the Internet. This is in part due to the fans who devote their wallets to their favourite artistes. As long as fans exist, the impact of piracy will always be cushioned somewhat.

on a personal note, I do admit I download music, but I make it a point to buy at least one, if not all the albums of the artists that I really like. Singles don't appeal to me because I don't see the value, but that's just my opinion.

I agree with this completly, actually after I downloaded John Mayers "Where the light is" album, check out what I bought




ONLY because it was 9$ for 2 CDs, I mean, thats a very reasonable price and for an awesome pack of CDs if you ask me.

If I could buy say, Pride for less than 20$ I would, and I hope I will eventually.

i read a post somewhere that "piracy" actually leads to more sales for japanese producers.. they say so because foreigners usually discover songs and animes on the internet or somewhere else.. then once they get addicted to it, they'd be tempted to buy the originals xD

Noodles wrote:

asuna wrote:I believe that piracy does hurt the music industry, but you can't really condemn all pirates out there. Sure, there are those that download indiscriminately without sparing a thought for the original artist just because its free. But there are also the real fans who can't get their hands on the CDs due to geographical or financial reasons. Let face it guys, if it wasn't for piracy, some of us wouldn't even know SCANDAL existed (me included, if I didn't download a copy of BEST SCANDAL I'd never become a fan).

Despite the so-called rampant piracy, the music industry is actually surviving when many predicted it would collapse due to the free nature of the Internet. This is in part due to the fans who devote their wallets to their favourite artistes. As long as fans exist, the impact of piracy will always be cushioned somewhat.

on a personal note, I do admit I download music, but I make it a point to buy at least one, if not all the albums of the artists that I really like. Singles don't appeal to me because I don't see the value, but that's just my opinion.

I agree with this completly, actually after I downloaded John Mayers "Where the light is" album, check out what I bought




ONLY because it was 9$ for 2 CDs, I mean, thats a very reasonable price and for an awesome pack of CDs if you ask me.

If I could buy say, Pride for less than 20$ I would, and I hope I will eventually.

yeah....
that is true....uhuh.

because I think many people didn't know how to buy they favorite CD in his country....
like my country, I must bought online to get my Favorite CD "Pride" Yesterday...

In my opinion, piracy is important to the music industry, especially for oversea artists. Just like asuna said, I'm one of those that wouldn't pry more into SCANDAL without downloading their albums/singles. I'm actually one of those that requires more than a PV to be satisfied and despite the existence of Youtube, I still download albums. I'm still a student, I'm not exactly capable of financing my music needs/wants. (yes, I'm poor even though I do spend a lot on gadgets and hardware, physical things that can't be downloaded do actually gain more priority in my point of view..... and yes, this sound more like a excuse, but i do find it reasonable).

However, this cannot be justified for a fan site to share/support piracy of their "supported" artist/brand. Basically, I find piracy something that one should not be proud of. In the case as stated by 7350legend, a facebook fan site shouldn't be sharing/requesting links for downloads.
1: Only people who like SCANDAL already would have joined the fan page, meaning that the piracy shared within that fan page wouldn't help spread SCANDAL to others that hasn't heard of SCANDAL.
2: Piracy is something that wouldn't be liked by the artists themselves, if you're a fan page, you shouldn't really be doing something that's against your idols wishes.

In a nutshell, piracy should be something done behind closed doors and shouldn't be something to be "wow-ed" at.

As for me, all my Scandal music is pirated, but I stick to only the ones that already have PVs online to avoid removing the insentive to buy whole albums. I've now ordered Temptation Box and HELLO WORLD DVD Edition and a VIP ticket to the HELLO WORLD Tour concert in London.

For me I have to listen to something quite a lot before I decide I really like it, so I would never have been willing to pay about £50 pounds for 2 CDs and a £20 premium on my ticket for a high-five if it wasn't for a little bit of piracy.

I don't condone at all downloading whole albums off the internet. We can all save up for the albums and there's no need to be that impatient. Furthermore, I have done that for UVERworld albums and now I feel no desire to pay huge shipping costs for their albums when I've already listened to all the songs hundreds of times and still have them there waiting, plus I have hoardes of other Jrock and Jpop to collect. So I can definitely say that me downloading their albums has hurt their sales a lot (cos I love those albums and if I didn't have them, I'd be buying them)

Mmmm, this is a very emotive subject !
It is easy to be noble about it when you have money, I have been buying J-Pop since 1980 and it is damned expensive as many people here know.
A single is usually around 1500 yen and the shipping is the same amount and as for albums and DVD's

My wife rightly points out that I must have spent a fortune on my collection over the years but you cannot buy J-Pop in the UK.
But I have a good job, what about the fans who are still at school or University ?
What I do know is that Japanese artists work damned hard and I would never want to rip them off.
There are even members here who have asked me to burn copies for them because they never open the CD's they have bought but I think that is just sad and I would never do it.
A CD is not a work of art, it is to be listened to and enjoyed and they dont wear out like records !

But I am not going to condem those fans who cannot afford to buy J-Pop, each AKB single has 7 different versions...yes 7 which I think makes the Japanese companies plain greedy and I would never buy all 7 versions because I think it is a rip off.
CDJapan try to get me to buy fan stuff almost everyday, if I bought all of it I would have no money left for food !

tonymiller wrote:My wife rightly points out that I must have spent a fortune on my collection over the years but you cannot buy J-Pop in the UK.
But I have a good job, what about the fans who are still at school or University ?
What I do know is that Japanese artists work damned hard and I would never want to rip them off.
There are even members here who have asked me to burn copies for them because they never open the CD's they have bought but I think that is just sad and I would never do it.
A CD is not a work of art, it is to be listened to and enjoyed and they dont wear out like records !

But I am not going to condem those fans who cannot afford to buy J-Pop, each AKB single has 7 different versions...yes 7 which I think makes the Japanese companies plain greedy and I would never buy all 7 versions because I think it is a rip off.
CDJapan try to get me to buy fan stuff almost everyday, if I bought all of it I would have no money left for food !

 Yeah, I'm 16 and I'm still in school and my family's not very well-off, so I can't buy most of what I want to but I still have Christmas, birthdays and a bit of birthday money from my Uncles each year to buy a couple of albums. Luckily, I'm not an AKB48 fan, and I'm quite happy to have 1 version out of the 3 Hello World options (though I sort of want the T-Shirt, but I really can't buy 2 versions). Haven't bought myself any new clothes since last Christmas... lol

I Know It's Wrong But Let's Be Honest Who Hasn't At Least Did It Once ?

Especially For Avid Music Listeners, Some Old Vintage Stuff Is Hard To Find So It'll To Download Online

As Far As SCANDAL Goes I Support Them

Piracy will always exist since it's the easy way to go. Would I have bought SCANDAL's CDs if I didn't pirate it first and get to know their other songs? No, definitely not. But since I pirated BEST*SCANDAL and TemptationBox and fell inlove with both, I bought them, along with the latest albums to date since. I'm not gonna lie, I don't have ALL of SCANDAL's singles; I don't think it's justified to buy 2 or 3 different CDs of the same single just for 1 different song or something. 

If you are against piracy and has NEVER ever pirated a song in any way, good for you. Stick to your standards. But actively criticising someone for their choice about this topic is just being, not very nice, to put it lightly. Music piracy has been around since Mozart's time and maybe even centuries before that.

I am still to graduate, then look for a job. Only then can I order SCANDAL and SKE48 singles/ albums. Actually I have DLd all of SKE's singles...

Like what others have pointed out, that very same act of piracy which is punishable by law has produced two different effects. Good and Bad. Good for fans who can't afford but are truly interested on the music. But can also be bad in connection with the profit of the artists. It would be better though if we can produce more on the good side.

I'd go on a buying-spree and rampage too once I get a job...

Yes I know it is easy to be high and mighty when like me you can afford to buy their singles but our girls work too hard to steal their stuff !

Yes, I agree with you... Most of people in my country pirates the music with download it illegally. It's really confusing me. I don't understand why they do that whereas the price of music (for CDs or download via iTunes) so really cheaper than any country. In Indonesia, you can buy a foreign music from iTunes just Rp65000 (about $5) nor CD just Rp85000 (about $7) for an album. But they still download music illegally.

But, with new government, Indonesia start to ban and block the illegal music sites. I'm so proud with this decisive steps. I hope soon that the people like this will appreciate another people's work.

Why is no one complaining about the record companies who are a much more severe reason artists suffer financially?

The record companies always take the lion share and the artists only get a small fraction and often even end up getting nothing despite making the record company millions.

There are many articles explaining what happens with the money and how even big stars don't make that much from CD sales, if you want examples:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml
https://bandzoogle.com/blog/record-sales-where-does-the-money-go
http://www.investinganswers.com/personal-finance/rich-famous/who-really-profits-your-itunes-downloads-3818
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-new-economics-of-the-music-industry-20111025?page=5
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/how-much-musicians-make-spotify-itunes-youtube

Concerts are usually the most profitable for artists:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=86535&page=1
http://distractify.com/old-school/2014/05/20/book-your-band-1197696082

Piracy increases the demand for live music:
http://theconversation.com/how-piracy-is-changing-the-music-industry-landscape-31919

It is not easy to be independent of record companies but it is not impossible either:
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20130401/03115322523/macklemore-explains-why-not-being-label-helped-him-succeed.shtml

I don't know the situation of the music industry in japan but I don't expect it to be very different to the western world, if you have information that says otherwise please post it.