Steph Cosway's Recent Postings

Pirate Bay has been shut down! The Music Industry is saved!
How naive can the world be?

OK, so police have successfully shut down the world’s largest bit torrent site, jailed the men behind the site and given them a little fine of £1.5million. But can they realistically say that they are one step closer to stopping music downloads forever?

Sites like Pirate Bay index and track torrent files across the web so people can easily find and download music. Think of it like an Argos catalogue - all you have to do flick through the pages to pick up something nice.

Except instead of Argos’ credit crunch beating prices, torrents can be downloaded for the fabulous price of nothing. Pretty nifty in times like these. And you can pick up just about anything you want – books, films, CDs – of course they might take 5 days to download destroying your internet speed and seriously damaging your electricity bill. And there is the risk you’re downloading a virus masquerading as a CD. But hey it’s free at the time! Oh yeah and don’t forget the fact its illegal. It’s easy to forget though.

We all know those annoying adverts about piracy at the start of DVDs which tell you that you wouldn’t steal a handbag (although if it was a pretty designer one I’m sure I and many others would seriously consider it) or that you wouldn’t go into a shop to steal a DVD. Bless, they try their best to stop those pesky pirates and put off their customers from purchasing such pilfered items.

There is just one problem... Pirates don’t tend to copy that bit. Which kind of defeats the purpose.

Everyone knows downloading films or music is illegal but the internet is a big place. Surely its sheer size gives us anonymity. No one will ever guess it was you that downloaded that album or that single. It will always be someone else that gets caught.

Which is exactly the view that hosting sites, like Pirate Bay share. That is until the ignorance starts to wear thin. Authorities are targeting these big sites. Two years ago the biggest invite-only torrent site, Oink, was closed down. Now Pirate Bay the biggest public torrent site has been shut down too. It’s getting scary out there in the hosting world.

It may not be enough to stop your regular Joe from downloading illegally but this might start putting doubts in the minds of those who create sites like Pirate Bay or Oink. And without the handy Argos type catalogue indexing the music you want it’s going to be a case of looking yourself. Might just be easier to buy the CD – they only cost a fiver nowadays anyway.

Just this week another invite-only site specialising in the distribution of leaked albums was closed by its owner for no apparent reason. It-leaked was one of the most popular download sites. Could this be a case of owners running scared?

Probably not.

Rumour has it the owner took a hissy huff at members mouthing off about albums not being put up quick enough. They’re getting the music free and now they want it available faster. Greed comes to mind.

Pirate Bay may be gone but they went down fighting like proper bandits. If you’ve got enough balls to open up an illegal downloading site, in the first place, the prospect of a few record labels and police authorities huffing and puffing isn’t that scary.

The internet is a nice big brick house for the guilty to hide in. Someone is going to have to find a bigger, badder wolf to blow that house down.
 
Think of illegal downloading sites being like the mythical Hydra. Chop one head off and up pops another two. The music industry hasn’t got a chance.
Does anyone remember The Departure? Now that was a band that promised great things. Great things that, perhaps, were a little too eighties for some people, but hell you really can’t beat a good wannabe eighties indie band to get you through the noughties. Especially one that carried the deliciously alluring vocals of David Jones.

And it wasn’t just that snazzy Northampton accent that made him a nifty little frontman. No, Mr Jones is also a former Christian Commune member which sounds fabulously cult-rock if a little ambiguous… Chanting at 6am maybe? Oh and don’t forget he had the eyebrows of a rockstar daintily peaking over those big-ass sunglasses he wore. Convinced yet that their demise was nothing less than world tragedy? Perhaps not.

OK so let’s look at the music. Now here is where my argument regains a little bite. The Departure’s one and sadly only album ‘Dirty Words’, released summer 2005, is undoubtedly a 5 star stonker of a record. Eleven tracks of sheer gold. And if you haven’t heard it I’m more than happy to mail you mine – as long as you send it back unscathed as I am rather attached to it.

Let us start at track 1 which not only happens to be the first stage in this path of wonderment but also one of my favourite tracks off the album – along with those other ten that is. ‘Just Like TV’ is the (pretty) heart-wrenching tale of not being in control of one’s future. Much like TV characters aren’t in control of their lives. OK so the lyrics aren’t exactly the symbolic mastery of Shakespeare but c’mon listen to that voice people! Think a huskily haunting version of Anthony Caleb Followill (Kings of Leon) catching my drift yet?

Music… OK…

First single ‘All Mapped Out’ hit charts for the first time in 2004 getting to an impressive chart position of 30. Alright for a band that had yet to reach the 6 month mark yet had already been signed by Parlophone Records. And here, my friends, is where we start to see what might have happened to The Departure. A band that have only been together 4 months, which have played a mere 3 gigs being signed by a record company?! Now that doesn’t seem right. Bands spend years and eternal giggin’ in the hope of a sniff of a record deal. Perhaps our Departure got swung into the deep end a little too soon.


So what happened after the release of their album? A tour and a few early festival appearances but nothing to really write home about. A couple more singles were released but nothing that received a lot of airplay or chart success. The Departure were beginning to fall. Fast.

But why? The album was worthy of chart topping single after single. The Departure should have been receiving a tonne of radio play. Instead the band was quickly being forgotten.

And what happens to a band that has been forgotten? The arguments start and the cracks start to appear.

At the start of 2006 Lee Irons left the band closely followed by drummer Andy Robson who felt the band no longer had the ability to create decent music. The Departure were already falling apart when they started making the follow up to ‘Dirty Words’.

The new album Inventions was set for release in 2008 with single ‘7 Years’ released in September 2007.

The album never saw the light of day as the band were dropped by record label Parlophone after they decided that The Departure’s new material wasn’t good enough for public release.

On 30th January 2008 The Departure finally departed.

Oh how different things could and should have been. The Departure took off to fast and consequently crashed and burned.

Mr Jones, I’m free if you fancy a bit of comforting...