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I agree a lot of work is shoddy, especially the stuff put out directly by the publishers. But there are independent arrangers, of which I am one, whose work is decidedly not shoddy who get rather miffed when they go to the trouble of going through official channels, because they care about doing it properly in every sense, while others simply do not bother and get lauded for it. Although this thread is making me feel like a mug I still prefer not to risk getting sued.

I have, however, spent some time chatting to fellow arrangers about this today, prompted by the knock offs that were shared here. I gather once people have been doing this work for a while they become resigned to the fact that many people just want everything free, and focus on a customer base of people who deal with them directly because they value quality. Soapbox over, again.

That's nothing new. People have always wanted something for nothing. If it's free, who cares about quality?

I remember some fifteen years ago, being on holiday with a group of young people (well, younger than me, even then....) from several countries. We arrived at a camping ground and set up our tents, then someone discovered there was amplification equipment there in the cooking area. Those with iPods (all the rage then) lost no time in connecting them - one at a time - to it, to show off their favourite music to everyone else.

I was astonished at the astoundingly poor quality of the sound of the pop music they put on (restricted frequency & dynamic range, full of distortion and 'clicks', and simply grossly overloaded), and assumed it was the fault of the iPod technology, or maybe the amplifier, or speakers. I connected my old cassette-tape Walkman to it when I got the chance (classical music of course ) and was rewarded with decent sound from the speakers. Even those pop fanatics could hear the difference, despite knowing hardly anything about classical music, nor heard it before. I showed them my tapes - all original DG/Decca ones that I bought with real money many years ago.

They couldn't believe that old tape technology could easily trounce modern digital downloads. I asked them how much they paid for their downloads. They looked at me as if I was mad - pay for downloads when they could get it free from friends' friends or (illegal) websites which offer them? Why would they?

Why indeed? Why pay $0.99 for Bridge over Troubled Water when you could download a distorted version of the same classic from an illegal website?

Well, these days, you can get excellent quality downloads from.....illegal free sources, or even legal ones. Not to mention streaming. Spotify earns musicians a pittance. No wonder the music industry is on its knees. The battle has long been lost........(and the iPod Classic is long extinct, which is why I use it to house 160GB of classical music - all from my vast CD collection or paid-for downloads. Or even free ones...... ).

Hmmm, I sense a purchase of the new Touch thing (256GB) in the offing, to house all the stuff I'm unable to load into my Classic due to lack of space (all the Mozart symphonies & concertos & operas, for instance).

Absolutely right bennevis. Goodness me I haven’t started doing this for the money, which is akin to the streaming rates for musicians, but simply because I enjoy sharing my work. If I had the brass neck (for the US audience that’s a Scottish phrase meaning cheek) I would just upload to free sites and be done with it. But unfortunately I respect the law and the profession so I do it the “right” way, which means most people won’t ever find it because they object to paying even a tiny amount for skilled people’s time. Hey ho, being resigned to the way people are is the only way to stay sane in this topsy turvy world.

Wow, Shy Pianist, you are anything but shy! Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel as if you are attacking ME. I simply asked for best sources to download music, stating legitimate websites i've used. Please read my first post. Your frustration can certainly be voiced on its own thread, as you have totally hijacked my thread.

If another teacher/pianist wants to share music I've been looking for (and no, the actual composer has not blessed the masses with a full score of the pieces I'm looking for. I totally wasted $20 for a piano book and Light of the Seven was a pathetic short version of the score.) I, naively assumed the music was legit that was posted here.. i repeat again, my post never asked for FREE music, just legitimate websites on which to download music.

Apologies if you feel that way (not an original joke btw), but the bootleg YouTube covers were the last straw. Literally no one cares about the legalities of this. You started a thread asking for legal sites and then jumped on wholly illegal downloads after it was made clear they were illegal. Now admittedly that music is not currently available for ethical independent arrangers to work on, I get that, but my frustration was due to the complete lack of care shown by most of the participants for the actual law and the music profession. No attack intended on you personally, just exasperation at the something for nothing culture on display here.

Like you, I never started teaching for the $. Actually I earned more money in my previous job. Not to hijack my own thread, but I went to school part time while working full time to get my degree b/c I believed that was the best route to take to be the best teacher I could be. After graduating, I learned that having a degree did not equal good teachers. I learned of things like "fake" diplomas, and people who embellished their education. Was I frustrated? Yes. I saw teachers with minors in piano advance because of where they graduated from--teachers who didn't know what "una corde" meant.. Life isn't fair. As long as I love what I'm doing, and give my best to my students, I've done my job well. As I've stated, my intent was to get feedback on legitimate piano music websites - and I completely expect to pay for it.

I totally get that chasingrainbows and it was very refreshing which is why it was disappointing when the YouTube covers were shared. Copyright is a minefield and nightmare and perhaps I’m just a wimp for choosing not to take the risk. It’s more about integrity though and professionalism. You can’t build a good reputation by acting illegally. Lots of people don’t realise that it is still illegal to give away work protected by copyright, and perhaps if they did realise then people would value professional work a little more highly.

It's your right to be "disappointed." It's the right of others to link to Youtube video in their messages, a feature this forum supports. No original content was actually "posted" to this forum in contravention of the forum policies, except that contained in the body of the messages themselves. If you have a problem with whether or not content has been appropriately licensed for posting to Youtube, it's of course your right to take it up with Youtube here, and indeed, if you are the copyright owner or an agent authorized to act on the owner’s behalf, you can even issue takedown notices there, where the actual content is posted.

In general though, takedown notices can only be issued for any site by the copyright owner or an agent authorized to act on the owner’s behalf. So if this describes you, then of course go ahead.

BTW, PW does have a legal issues forum where such things may be discussed.

Nothing wrong with sharing the links Tyrone. I was attempting the futile exercise of pointing out that the content of the links is in flagrant breach of copyright and therefore not what the OP was asking for. Anyhow, I’m done here.

If you can't beat them, join them.

Was talking to a friend, who has a recording studio business. The music industry is not on its knees, far from it. If anything, it is booming. For the majority of his clients, money is now from the streaming services like Spotify.
People now have more access to music than ever, people listen to more music than ever. Personally, I spent more money on music than ever
The music industry as a whole is as vibrant as it ever been.

Just the way they do business is changing.

I don't know who this young lady is, but she is apparently well-known to pop fans:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmc...wift-really-rejoin-spotify/#661d050f373d

Incidentally, from interviews in the BBC, what I gather is that pop stars get themselves well-known from YT and streaming services, but make their money from concerts when they've accumulated a good fan base. In other words, they put up with streaming services because they have no choice, and it's not going to go away. If people can't access legitimate websites, they know where else they could get their music fix for free, and have no compunction about doing so.

Classical musicians also don't make their income from streaming services either, but if they strike it lucky they might get noticed by promoters to get decent concerts. CDs and downloads are their calling cards rather than their source of income these days.

No doubt you're listening to more music than ever, but are you really spending more money on it that goes towards performers - or on other stuff that makes your listening more easy to access?

You don't know Taylor Swift? You had to shut off your eyes and ears to not to know her, I thought. She alone bargained with Apple to get a bigger slice of money for every artist.
Surviving the music industry has never been easy. The top 0.1% take 99.9% of the money. (made up number, but you get the idea). It was like this before, it is like this now.

But now, if you are Valentina Lisitsa, you don't have to suck up with the big labels to get your fame.

And I don't know why Talor Swift was complaining. If there was no Internet, there would be no Talor Swift. She can't get the best of both worlds.

It's not difficult not to know who the latest pop sensations are. I don't mix in those circles.

After all, a lot of people don't know who the dude Korngold is, even though they've almost certainly heard his music......

Oh no no no it's no comparison. Not that wiki is authoritative, but Taylor Swift is described in wiki as one of the world's leading contemporary recording artists and not dead, like Korngold is!! She was also included in Time's most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019.
Also I looked up Korngold, he even has a section under legacy that says "Despite his achievements, Korngold for years attracted almost no positive critical attention"
.....

It seems like we’ve drifted from downloading scores to streaming music.

If so, I’ll put a plug in for Tidal. I stream to my stereo losslessly for $19.99 a month and I think it is an absolute bargain. I literally find dozens of new CDs a month to listen to on Tidal. I hope musicians are getting treated better on there than on other platforms.

I don’t download CDs, I buy what I cannot find in Tidal, and I ripped my entire collection lossless and have Roon find me new music. It’s an awesome setup and I’m so glad I set it up over a year ago. I purchased a lifetime subscription to Roon and I don’t regret it.

I also streamed from the Naxos Music Library, a great resource for classical recordings, but it is a bit expensive at over $300 a year and requires a web browser to stream and only supports 320kbps. I dropped it for a year but I may go back to it. My dream would be for Naxos to integrate with Roon. Qobuz now integrates with Roon so that provides a backup if we lose Tidal, something that I hope does not happen.

I enjoy Idagio very much. They have classical music, and you can pick moods, for instance Peaceful, Optimistic, Joyful, Powerful, Gentle etc. and then they play pieces, or parts of pieces, that are in that mood. I find that it is a great way of getting to know "new" classical music.

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