Bodenständig 2000 are opting out of iTunes

32 Comments

Take this, Steve: iTunes now without Bodenstandig 2000

My friend Bernhard of the German bitpop group Bodenständig 2000 sent out an email blast the other day announcing that the band finally managed to opt out of iTunes.

Bodenstandig 2000 is not available via Apple’s itunes anymore. Some tracks where available there against our will, but we forced our label-like organisations “Pudel” and “Stora” to remove them.

Though Bernhard – technology geek since I first met him some almost 25 years ago – joins the tune of some major artists who blame MP3 for losses of profit – he nevertheless does not want to support Apples DRM technology:

We know that mp3 is part of our relative poverty, but Apples proprietary digital rights management is an extremely stupid answer.

Apple’s IPod? Yes, they look good any maybe they are the last bastion of classical brAun-like industrial design vs. chinese-turkish styling-trash for pimps and bitches, but still: They are crippled and i don’t buy one.

Bodenständig 2000 is offering a few sound bits (sic!) on their cool retro-homepage. I asked the band what they think of the CC movements and a platform like CChits but have no answer so far. I’m looking forward to see some Bodenständig 2000 songs released under CC soon. In the meantime, I hope that not only indie artists begin to opt out of iTunes.

32 Comments

  1. Indie band pulls out of iTunes, cites “crippled DRM”

    Michael sez, “Songs from the German bitpop band Bodenständig 2000 turned up on iTunes without their consent, and it took quite some effort to get them off again. Though they admit that they HAVE losses due to MP3 sharing, they don’t want to supp…

  4. Linux User

    Jontly, if Apple’s DRM is so flexible, how come you can only play the tracks through their players?

  5. dv

    Apple DRM is an extremely stupid answer, yet the answer to the answer is stupid, too, since by doing this, they are only preventing their fans (and potential fans) easy access to their work. I only use iTunes to buy one or two tracks from artists. If I like it enough, I’ll buy the CD, because, yes, I do think DRM is stupid in the long run. Why not at least provide it, though, for the ones who don’t mind it?

  6. AC

    Don’t like DRM? Don’t purchase the intentionally defective DRM crippled products and services – like Apple’s OS-X, iTunes, and iPod, or Microsoft’s new Vista operating system, or the US version of HDTV and related DRM crippled hardware like BluRay and HD-DVD.

    If the perverted, control freak, Hollywood scum had no market for DRM crippled products, there would be no DRM crippled products.

  8. Evan

    I don’t understand why people attack iTunes and the iPod as wholly DRM-crippled, when in fact they’re not. You can use MP3s, AIFFs, WAVs, and Apple’s proprietary (but not DRM’ed) Lossless formats freely and unrestricted in both the software and hardware. And OS X isn’t really DRM-crippled — you can manipulate media quite freely. But if the original source has DRM restrictions encoded with it, then yes, you can’t touch it. OS X, iTunes, and the iPod support DRM, but it’s not mandatory. There’s a significant difference in that — you can use the platforms and hardware, but choose not to support DRM’ed media by not purchasing it.

  9. None of this is Perfect, nore will it be…

    Prolly Ever!!!!…

    When you build a Better Mouse Trap, there will be and always be a “Better Mouse”…

    It’s just the way we Humans are and I doubt ever if we will change…

  10. Network23

    Sure. Listen to idiots with an Atari/GEM screendump behind them… Morons.

    Please publish your crap in .ogg and count the your listerner base on the fingers of your left hand.

  11. shane

    You know – I support another belief – rather than MP3’s (ie I gather they mean pirated MP3’s – all of mine I ripped myself from my own bought CD’s) taking money away from artists…

    My belief is – if your music is good – people will want to buy it. If it’s crap, well… it’s just crap.

    In a shorter way: “don’t blame the record – blame what’s recorded on it”

    shane.

  12. Shane, I tend to agree – to a certain extent. You will always have a percentage of people who will still pirate it, regardless how cheap the price for a regular CD (or track) would be. I still think the Magnatunes example (see my link section to the right) is good. You can listen to any song in full quality, as many times as you like, and if you want to actively support the artist, you can buy any number of tracks for a price YOU determine! If you want to pay onl 0.5 $ pr track – then it’s OK. If you like the song and artist so much that you pay $5 per track – it’s OK too.

  13. mark

    iPods suck but I’ve never been able to put it into words, until now:

    “classical brAun-like industrial design vs. chinese-turkish styling-trash for pimps and bitches”

    Well said.

  14. Tom

    @mark

    You do realize you read that the wrong way ’round right?

    Guess you’re into the pimp/bitches style.

  16. The iPods hardware and design is nice, and if you replace the original apple software with rockbox (www.rockbox.org), you can have all the funtionality of a cheap mp3 player and more inside the nice package that is an iPod.

  17. […] Due to the Warholian 15-minutes-fame moment of my Bodenständig 2000 iTunes post and its appearance on BoingBoing, the artists decided to put some more songs available for donwload onto their webpage. Everybody who thinks they are making neo-nazi rock can listen to it and hopefully see how wrong this assumption is. I’m still trying to talk them into releasing some material to CC:Share Music or CC:Sampling. I’ll keep this blog updated on that matter. […]

  18. johnnsy

    wow, well this band is remarkably stupid. mp3 is to blame for their relative poverty? maybe their music just isnt selling. and whats wrong with apples drm? music bought on itunes will play on 77% of the mp3 players out there (i.e. apples market share). and i’d wager to bet that there’s an even higher perecentage of people who use itunes as their music player. so 80% of consumers can buy their music…but dont. yeah, blame apple for your “poverty”

  19. I agree with Evan. OSX, iTunes and the iPod are not DRM-crippled because DRM is not REQUIRED. I have a few songs that I’ve gotten from iTMS, but they are few and far between. The vast majority of my music is DRM free, thank you very much.

    People need to research before they say stupid things. The iTMS is DRM-crippled, but not OSX, the iPod and iTunes. And iTMS is only DRM-crippled because of the record labels.

    oh, and “Bodenständig 2000” spelled “IPod” wrong. Dumbasses.

  20. Record Industry

    Bye! Close the door as you leave the building.

    Bodenständig 2000 are the stupid ones. The industry does not except stupid want-to-be statements like them leaving iTunes. Their money will dry up with stupid business decisions like the one they just made.

    Mark this day as a turning point in their sales. The political statement they just made will last 8.5 seconds on people’s care meter. In the future they will simply disappear with no one really caring.

  21. Record Industry

    Also.. I can appriacate what Nate said above about, “Most bands make more money selling t-shirts and live performances then they do selling albums, even if their record sales get millions of dollars worth of sales.” You are right that is how the system works. That is why for B2000 to bail from the major marketing that the iTMS brings you is amazingly stupid.

  22. ShareMore

    If all copyright restrictions on music are removed then as Nate said, more people will be exposed to the music, more people will go to concerts and buy more CDs, merchandising, beer, etc. The musicians will benifit from closer contacts with there fan base, enjoy making music (if you don’t enjoy it, why do it?). Just push the record labels into bankruptcy, I for one, wouldn’t miss them.

  25. Take this, Steve! iTunes ohne Bodenständig 2000

    Bern, hart rockender Wissenschaftler von Bodenständig 2000 erläutert, warum er verhindert hat, dass seine Tracks weiter bei iTunes vertrieben werden:
    We know that mp3 is part of our relative poverty, but Apples proprietary digital rights management is

  27. Excellent move and reasoning from Bo 2000! I certainly hope they will NEVER release anything under a CC licence, the ultimate capitalist soft scam

  28. […] I have been recently accused of pulling off a publicity stunt regarding my Bodenständig 2000 iTunes blog entry. I don’t know wether the bands record sales skyrocketed afterwards – my AdSense income for sure hasn’t. When the story broke I got well over 6000 unique hits – and not a single AdSense click! This blog has not been started to make me rich (though I wouldn’t object). However I have a few expenses to cover and it would be nice if it could pay for itself. So I changed the advertising strategy for technozid.de – no more annoying ads inside the articles. From now on, there’s only 2 ads on the frontpage: one AdSense ad below the first post and an Amazon ad below the second post. On the comments pages there is another AdSense linkblock. That’s it! Hope this is a good compromise between refinancing the blog and not being too annoying with ads. […]

  30. music is for enjoying not profit

    maybe music should be about music, not money. has anybody ever thought of that?
    forget money. if you loved playing music and loved the music you made you wouldn’t worry about how many records you sell, you would be happy that people are listening. fucking sellouts

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