Free darbuka downloads.
September 2009.
The consequences of illegally downloading free darbuka e-books, music, videos and other copyright works.
Here is a little story of my experiences with what I would call cyber theft and its direct effect on my life.
I am a percussionist from Melbourne, Australia. I have been playing Arabic percussion for many years now and not only love to perform but also teach.
Many of you would have already learnt something from my YouTube darbuka videos.
Because of this love for teaching and sharing my knowledge of the darbuka and other hand drums I thought to start a little website called ‘Fingers of Fury.’
It’s a wonderful site loaded with content for the darbuka student and new material is uploaded regularly. There is an amazing CD to practice along with, more than 100 tutorial videos to learn from and last but not least an amazing 140 page e-book.
The Fingers of Fury site has been popular and each new member has loved everything about it.
With that said, I have always had a small feeling inside that it should be a bit busier. I know not everyone has spare money to join a subscription site but I still thought it should be performing better. I have even given discounts to some people from countries with a low income.
The penny drops.
Over the last two days I have discovered the problem and what a problem it is!
Illegal downloading: People hacking the website and stealing the content only then to give it away free on other less than desirable websites.
Yes you can find a lot of stuff free on the net these days. Some of this free content is from me! But when something is under a copyright law things change.
If you have or are about to download a free darbuka ebook, darbuka CD or darbuka videos, think of it from a different angle and then please: Think again!
When you take these illegal files for free do you see the following?
*The artist (do you have any musician or author friends? if so, picture them) organising the recording of the CD and spending thousands of his/her own dollars in producing it.
*Four years hard work (self funded) writing a book to help others learn this instrument.
*Spending more than $4000 in fee’s on book design and layout.
*Two years designing a website and over $3500 in costs
*Another further year trying to promote the site only to find that over TEN THOUSAND people out there learning the darbuka have downloaded all of my original and copyrighted works for absolutely free!!!
If you are one of those thousands of people, enjoy! There were a lot of blood, sweat and tears in producing it all and you got it for nothing.Well done.
But did you see it through my eyes or just your own selfish point of view?
Smaller artists are not multinational companies. We actually use profits from works such as I have just described to buy food, pay the rent, pay heating bills and in a really good year- perhaps a new drum!
The next time you are about to hit download, please think about the consiquence it has on the artist dirctly.
Matt Stonehouse (youtube: pacerman265)
Tags: free darbuka downloads
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