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If you've been in the scene for a while, you've no doubt formed your opinions about piracy in the scene. For better or worse, free music has become the cornerstone upon which Monochrome Heaven - and to a larger extent, the scene - has been built upon. It's worked for a decade, and possibly even before that in less organized terms. For as long as I can remember, piracy was seen as a "necessary evil" to build up the scene and to keep it going, and that was the consensus everyone in the scene came to. But times are changing, and with that perhaps the attitudes of the scene are changing as well. A vocal minority of fans and band members are calling for all fans to put more money into the scene and to support their favorite bands with money. Here's an excerpt from a recent Facebook post that's gone viral within the scene. Many people agreed with this person. I want to understand how people here feel about this same topic. Serious replies only, and if you respond please vote in as many of the questions as you can. I will liberally delete any post that I interpret as attacking another member or otherwise not contributing to the discussion. NOTE: This topic doesn't mean that the staff is planning on doing something. We are simply curious and have been discussing this among ourselves for a day or two. NOTE 2: This topic will automatically close in two weeks on March 16th. If you have thoughts, try to share them before then.

I have very, very mixed feelings concerning this topic, so all I say may sound confusing. I may sound cocky too, but you guys asked for opinions. I also tried posting this under spoiler but phone won't let me... Brace yourselves, rant is coming: Of course, just like any foreigner, I got into this thanks to piracy. Of course, I do download pretty much everything shared on the VK section, even if just to sample it and delete it half an hour later (I no longer hoard music I do not like). And, just like many people, I occasionally share rips because I know some people will enjoy them and some others might discover a band they will like and support. Yet I truly despise when my rips are shared outside of this community, even though my common sense (who usually sounds like Yuyo) dictates it's the right way to preserve and spread it. Maybe it is because here it stays within a community of people who also buy and share their rips and it feels more like an open trade. Key word: feels like. But feelings are not meant to be rational, right? I support about 10-12 active bands. A good portion of my salary goes towards VK. I make certain sacrifices in order to make sure my honmei can have their rice and redbull. Hell, I even pay people to get me goods at lives so they can get more money from me in a more direct way than buying second hand stuff. Maybe that is why I feel I 'earned' the right to trade rips of the bands I do enjoy yet don't love enough to include in my monthly spendings. And I feel people who share rips here kinda earned the 'right' to get my rips for free. Because they support the scene too. Sometimes I even dl rips from the bands I do buy from because I'll buy the release with the next paycheck or the following, or sometime in the future when I stop blowing my money on chekis (sorry, Diaura). Which is why it kinda bums me to spend hundreds of dollars on music, share it with people who also support the scene as far as their wallets allow it, and then it gets leaked to people who not only don't support the scene, but feel entitled to be given rips anyways 'because they love the band so much, omg they mah favez!!' I don't mean to say I am a better fan than they are, or a better person, or whatever. I'm probably a pathetic chick who blows her paycheck on asian drag queens who attempt to play metal instead of in... idk whatever shit regular people spend their money on. But it really gets on my nerves to read so many people on social media, especially Hispanics, viewing piracy as a 'right'. Demanding for HQ rips, whining about those 'fucking selfish japs/gringos who get everything and don't share fast enough'. Fuck you! If I buy a release I do not have the moral duty of posting it online. And in those very same communities I see a handful of people leeching, bragging about 'their collections' (virtual collections of course) and sharing our stuff just to make themselves popular. 'Look, I'm such a VK connaiseur because I have two hard drives filled with VK I got from MH. I'm a true fan cuz I have rarez. Now kiss my ass if you want me to share the rip I didn't even originate'. I know a dude who's considered the 'wikipedia of VK' because he's always talking about the many bands he knows and buys. Turns out he doesn't buy shit, he leeches from JpopSuki and here AND HE FUCKING CHARGES FOR IT. HE IS SERIOUSLY MAKING HIMSELF A NAME AND MONEY SELLING OTHER PEOPLE'S RIPS. AS HIS OWN. I understand the role piracy plays in the scene. I know it's exposure, and it helps spread the music and make bands popular. It preserves files online (though I've been all day looking for geek sleep sheep's albums and I cannot fucking find a decent rip, I swear). It also gives way to interesting discussions about music. But I also understand it fucking pisses bands off, many have told me so. It even pisses off western VK bands I know when they see their music up for grabs where they didn't post it. It's sorta disrespectful in a way, to say "yeah, man, I love your art but I ain't paying for it'. I have literally read those words online. I don't know if my point is even understood here... I've even defended piracy when talking to a few bandomen, saying that it actually promotes their music and gains them new fans. And I understand without piracy most of us wouldn't be here today. Boy, I really wish someone would share those Amai Boryoku live limited EPs. But I hate so much that downloads bring people here only to leech instead of for all the other amazing features this community has to offer. I hate that people outside of the community get popular or even get money spreading our rips without even mentioning Monochrome Heaven. I hate the way they talk about us when we don't share fast enough, like we owe them the rips. Like it's our duty to share the day before the release and in HQ... With so many bands posting their previews on youtube, full releases on Spotify and iTunes, is such an open piracy still necessary to promote the music they work so hard to make? (I refuse to use youtube and Spotify, I hate them, so I'm being cynical by just bringing them up myself). All the people who say 'I don't risk buying releases I don't know I'll like' can now hear the previews on youtube/spotify, right? I think I'd really like to keep the DLs here to the community and the people who contribute, so maybe people elsewhere will stop taking us for granted and have a solid reason to complain about us... I'm ready for the MH trolls to go berserk on my feelings and opinions. Keep in mind these are just rather irrational feels and opinions and that my opinions stem from my own experiences and my own reality, which is not the absolute truth and does not account for other people's experiences.

remember when Satsuki attempted a post-RES band? cause I do, lol http://www.jame-world.com/us/articles-77378-interview-with-moon-stream.html (I'm literally cry-laughing at this interview from his current career standpoint)

This is a great thread topic for discussion. Like others have mentioned I feel pretty conflicted on the subject. When I got into Visual Kei, I was hardly savvy with internet-ing, so if I found something I liked on Youtube, I would save and order it from CDJapan or something. I didn't even know about western VK communities/download forums/file sharing/torrents whatever. But at the same time, since discovering all those things, I have been able to find so much amazing music that simply never would have been available to me. The majority of bands that never make it and had super limited run CD's are lost to the sands of time, but kept alive through some of this file sharing. On the other hand, it being seen as the norm is certainly concerning. The most important point I want to bring up about this whole topic is that this problem is not only concerning the Visual Kei industry. In the western music world, all artists are suffering from a trend over the last 15 years where people simply don't feel that they ought to pay for music. People were eased into this idea through the retiring of physical formats, introduction of illegal downloading, and finally STREAMING. The final nail in the coffin for this issue, is, now, people can pay a small subscription fee that used to be the cost of a single record, most of which won't go to the recording artist, to listen to all of their music. And they have no sense that what they're doing might be unethical. Because they are paying for a legal service, after all. Ask most people below the age of 20 who their favorite artists are? Chances are they may have gone to their show, or seen them live, but the majority of the upcoming generation simply are not buying music (this refers to digital downloads, not even including waning physical formats). I wish I knew a proper solution, but its a strange predicament for the entire industry. The previous generation went to record stores and saved for LP's or CD's. Their most devious exploitation might have been copying a friend's album to a blank cassette, so they could finally listen to an album they'd never be able hear to other wise. Simply speaking, there wasn't a choice. If you wanted to hear specific music, you had to buy the releases or go to concerts. Those were the only ways. The current generation grew up listening to their music on YouTube and Spotify, for the most part. For someone to actually pay for an album, physical or digital, they have to be a diehard non-average music fan (ppl on this forum), not know how to use YouTube/Spotify, or they are exceptionally ethically considerate. To give more of a solid response to the OP, I think promoting the purchasing of music is a good thing, but I don't know if cutting down on illegal downloading is the way to do that. Atleast in the case of the Western Visual Kei audience, there is argument to be made that much of the Western Visual Kei audience wouldn't even exist without file sharing. I may be an exception to the rule having no current bands I really care about, but I can't even financially support so many of my favorite Visual Kei (and Japanese) artists. ( ( Because I can't legally download or buy non-2nd hand cd's from due le quartz, aioria, or yarmulke, etc.) ) I know this is a sort of a wishy-washy answer, but I encourage further discussion of this topic and of buying music that rocks your world.

The vkei facebook groups are full of white knights who feel they are above piracy from a moral standpoint, and listen to their music through YouTube while completely disregarding the irony that the vast majority of vkei on that platform in fact comes from piracy (and to add on another level of irony, said music most likely stems from this board). I have a lot of thoughts on the subject that I'm having trouble putting together, but most of it boils down to "Westerners don't buy CDs + can't go to a gig in Japan, and the Japanese don't like streaming + have no interest in playing here, so unless one side gives no one is going to be happy." That being said, vkei has a lot of novelty tax associated with it because no one actually buys it, so they're trying to make as much money off of each sale as they can. Pressing 400,000 copies of a U2 album is probably a lot more cost efficient for everyone involved than pressing 100 copies of the next Datura single. I also get that music isn't free, it costs money to produce it, you're being entitled, Ayn Rand was a good writer, etc etc etc but for as much as people come across as entitled, the counter argument is hard to not interpret as rabid gate-keeping. As an aside, here is an article a friend shared on facebook regarding Streaming: https://pitchfork.com/features/oped/how-to-be-a-responsible-music-fan-in-the-age-of-streaming/ Basically, streaming doesn't yield a lot of money to bands either, and the author's proposed resolution is pretty interesting.

As someone who joined the file-sharing scene in the late 90's when Gnutella and P2P (centralized networks for file sharing) were at it's infancy, I have so many questions that I'd like to ask the users. I just want to understand, so please forgive the ignorance. I'm looking at all this from the outside in, and I'm simply perplexed at what became of file-sharing. Wtf happened? Such a simple idea to create exposure and salvage media that would otherwise be lost if not archived, to this? I've heard of people becoming entitled, but to what degree? I've always been an advocate for "sharing is caring" but after talking to people online, that saying is now a toxic ideal.

To begin, we must pleeease understand that the correlation of piracy = loss of a sale is FALSE. People pirating releases ARE NOT making musicians lose money, period. If people hadn't shared, I don't know, batsu game's latest release, I would NOT buy it. I would simply go on without listening to it, because I don't care enough for them to go out of my way to buy a physical copy of something that would cost me 3 USD if it was an itunes release (btw the single sucks). This is true to 95% of the vk listeners, and has been widely discussed in sample pools much larger than a niche japanese music scene, like videogames for example. People buy what they like, period. If you do not let them at least try, why the hell should they buy your music? That being said, people vastly, VASTLY overestimates the importance of western fandom to the scene. We are not the main target, we are not their main income source, the music isn't made for us. We are a plus in the scene, and every single release a westerner fan buys, it's an EXTRA income for the band. They are not counting with our money, people gotta understand that most of the bands simply don't care if we are listening to them or not, as long as their onemans are filled with japanese girls doing dance steps at their songs. Very few bands have the desire for more international exposure, and if that's the case, they sure have to adapt to our ways, as we are not obliged to accept their 90's thinking in the age of streaming. IF japanese fans started pirating instead of buying, THEN we would have a problem. Music is dogs eating dogs everywhere in the world, why would be different for japanese boys in make up? Bands that are actually good, or at least are able to gather interest in their music will flourish, no matter what. People fail to understand that the scene is small because of it's characteristics, because boys dressing like girls and shredding guitars is niche and most importantly, it's foundation is what holds it back. No ammount of western pirates will make or break a band, period. fun fact, UNiTE. shared most of their discography on Spotify, I don't know if it is restricted in japan (which would be a smart thing to do). Yeah they are bigger than most vk acts around, but that does show they are not following the outdated tunneled vision most bands are, and see us as what we are. Extra income, if they get to book a concert here and there, fine! If not, fine aswell, their focus is where it should be, their growth in Japan, without closing their doors to us, the outsiders.

This March is so awesome: Pura, Buck-Tick, Gaze new song, Nokubura, Kamijo new album + Hatsune Miku duet and so on and forth!

I don't think Sadie ever did something so good

why do certain bandmen try to look as female as possible? something to ponder...

Sounds Amazing <3

L.A bash all the emotions 1st single, "Get fxxk Hxx" (1000 yen) will be released on May 31. [tracklist] 1.Get fxxk Hxx 2.Fxxkin face

More details will be announced on 2018.04.01. Members : 環(Tamaki) 武(Takeshi) 雪(Yuki) 心(Kokoro) Twitter : https://twitter.com/KGKI_official

There's a lot of music out there, but it seems like every release has at least a small following of supporters that vouch for how great it is. I've had my fair share of underwhelming discoveries that I'll abandon on the first listen, but sometimes a release will compel me to spend time with it and learn to appreciate something new. How open are you guys to finding new music? Are you the type to make a final decision based on an initial listen, or do you like to listen to something a few times before making a decision? Do you ever revisit music you initially disliked to see how your opinion on it as changed? I used to be very black and white about what I enjoyed listening to. If it wasn't from a certain band or genre, I would be very close minded to accepting it. For a while I exclusively listened to Jrock and mostly Dir en grey, Mucc and GazettE. Anything else wasn't appealing to me. In recent years, I've grown to love the challenge of understanding music I would typically not listen too. As a result, I feel like my tastes have expanded tremendously. The release that transformed me was "Cast the first stone" by Ion Dissonance. I had never heard of this band before but a lot of people were really hyped for a new album they were releasing. When it came out I listened to it but couldn't digest it. Their music lived up to their name featuring lots of grindy, mathrock chaos that was just abrasive and depressing. But, it felt like I just didn't get it so I kept listening to it. And, eventually it clicked wiith me; the chaotic bar changes, harsh vocals, and dissonant chords all came together into some kind of nirvana-like experience. It was like a gateway album that opened my ears to other genres like black metal, funeral rock, and other avante garde or experimental music that I used to shun. I may not visit this album very much these days, but I'm grateful to have pushed myself into learning from it because I'm so open to all kinds of music now.

Me:

If I really want to buy something, I will buy it, doesn't matter if I've already illegally downloaded it or not. How many acts of piracy are actual "lost sales"? IMO a lot of people weren't going to buy in the first place. Some others prob download to see if they will like it or not and maybe buy it - that could count as a lost sale. Making your discography avaiable on itunes and spotify might help with the whole foreigners pirating thing since it will be less expensive for us. Regarding the last question, I voted that things would stay the same because people would share things somewhere else. We always find a way. We have always found a way.

I agree that Hydra sucks. My hot take is that Macabre might be their worst album

Happy birthday, mod buddy! ♥ Hope you have a wonderful day!

Parabéns, xará de signo! mtas felicidades!

Oshare gods of generic songwriting are still trying hard in 2018

Feliz Aniversário! E que Grimoire te traga muitas felicidades xD

Happy b-day Platy! <3

Prepare for trouble M A K E I T D O U B L E I will be so sad if there's not other members called Jessie, James, Butch, Cassidy and/or Giovanni

2018 tour kicks off tomorrow in Chiba! This time they're doing two shows in each city with a split personality concept. First day is their Gerunika (evil/harder) side/costumes and the second is their Doppelganger (good/softer) side/costumes. Gonna try to do some reports after each weekend, but we'll see how far I get because I'm following the the whole tour like a crazy person, work has been brutal, and I've fallen into the Star Wars reylo trash bin...orz

It's a really interesting topic. Nearly a decade back, I was a little weeb and was all "JAPANESE MEWSIC MASTER RACE" and I refused to like any music outside of Asian countries. A few years later I started to really open up and give a fair listen to European and American bands that weren't Linkin Park (because I've always liked them, they were my introduction to rock and metal), and now most of my music consists more of Western bands than Eastern ones. When I got into Western bands, the first band that really took me time to get into was Periphery. I really thought that a lot of their music was just a mess, and listened only to songs with simple structure like Erised and Priestess. I didn't get odd time signatures and poly-rhythms. But after a while, it actually clicked with me, and Periphery is one of my absolute favorite bands, and Periphery II: This Time It's Personal and their Juggernaut albums are albums that I consider to be masterpieces. Another band that took me time to get into was the godfather of Djent, Meshuggah. I still have a hard time sometimes to get into them, but I'm appreciating their music more and more. Apart from bands like these, I also discovered that what I look for the most when I listen to songs is good songwriting. A song can be authentic and full of energy and performed with character, but if I think that the songwriting sucks, I just won't be able to stick to it, no matter how many times I listen to it. That's why I'm not much into popular music, into much of visual kei, into much of metalcore and deathcore(even death/black metal for that matter): 80% of the songwriting in this genre is either bland and generic as fuck, or just plain bad, and that's coming from someone who's favorite genre is metalcore (and prog metal). Of course it's not just songwriting that I look at, but that's the most important factor for me.

Damn, really? Didn't really know what to say so, thank you Tonight's post is... old self portraits

Ben is the winner of this season anyway. She killed the entire thing. At least the newest rumours were not true and Morgan will not end up dead in front of a club tomorrow morning. lol

Vintage scans from uv vol.93, way back in 2003:

3/4's of them ripped their look from multiple stages of DADAROMA.

環 (Tamaki) is ex-Chiodo-->アンフェイト (Unfate) and 心 (Kokoro) is f.k.a. 彩 (Aya) A photo of a session all the members did a few months ago:

Lately ...

My cheki of Mei came in today, definitely a few more sets I want to get, and I'll update the album when I do. Full album: https://sta.sh/21j561tvuh6l?edit=1 Some favs

browmakers work is really stressful(´･ω･｀) but it's my first work i really enjoy(*´ω｀*) yay finally

nobody listens to exist trace in 2018

They are amazing.

Ba. Haku (UNiTE) is support in the MV

The last one I went to was last year in Osaka in September at MUCC from their tour called 「殺しの調べ This Is Not Greatest Tour」😭. It was my last concert for the year in Japan as I had to fly back home (fun fact : my flight was on the day MUCC had their next concert from the same tour but this time it was in Yukke's hometown. So as I was boarding my sad ass in the plane they were holding the live). It was probably the best concert my eyes could ever witness because they had a setlist full of favorite songs and plus they started the live with a cover of Iconoclasm from BUCK-TICK, so two of my favorite things in one gig was beautiful 😂. Anyways I cried the whole concert and had friends console me and rub my back multiple times and we took loads of pictures, but I look too disgusting in them 😂. The only one I'm proud to show off is this. Three happy maskots chilling XD. This picture was taken while we were waiting around the venue for the queue for the merch to start and we got to see the members pass by us in their van and yeah, awesome sauce of a time XD

this 100% Sadie always had DEG influence and everyone knew Mao was a Kyo fangirl. But it was painfully obvious in Madrigal De Maria. They learned and decided to make an album with less DEG as possible and we all know how GANGSTA turned out. I personally like about 50% of that album. But damn Voyage is the greatest song they've ever done

99% of the "revival" kote bands are absolutely terrible.

This looks fun. I've never done this before but this forum gave me this need to keep track with my music XDD.

Messy list

early Laputa was the shit: mid-era Laputa was the shit: (JOY! JOY!) late Laputa was the shit: Favorite albums: 翔〜カケラ〜裸 their most accessible and incredibly solid all the way through. The only stinker is Refrain Limit / Drug Habit. 絵〜エマダラ〜斑 the one-two-three punch of ALKALOID, LOWSPIRITED and MONOCHROME is better than whole discogs of lesser bands. 眩めく廃人 the ultimate version of 奈落の底 is here. plus, an eternity and Vertigo. God, they were good.

Multiple bands of the same era will hold a memorial live. Details: 松村達明 追悼LIVE GAZ presents「Chain」 2018.7.8(日)目黒鹿鳴館 開場16:00 / 開演16:30 前売4,500円 / 当日5,000円 『出演』　 theNightBreezeZinnia 黒蝪蝶 GRIMM THE CAPSULE（tsubaki,TAKUYA） 堕天使 superbrunch Little Vampire 他 詳細は随時発表 拡散希望！

To preface this, I'm not in the vkei scene (neither Japanese nor international) and I don't know about its situation in regards to piracy. Aside of DIR EN GREY, I own maybe 30 albums/DVDs physically, and none of them is vkei stuff. So this is more about general piracy in the music scene. I hardly knew about MH before joining, I almost never use it for vk downloads since I only listen to DEG (and their related bands) anyway, so I'm not here to grab any rips from random no-name vkei bands. I also have never been on batsu or used jpopsuki before. But I have been using piracy for 99.9% of all music I've ever acquired. I don't say this with pride, but with indifference. I don't care if the artist doesn't make as much money because of me, because there's no scenario in which he would. Even if I wouldn't download the album, I still wouldn't buy it and I'm not a fan of streaming, either. So there's no potentially lost money, because there is no potentially won money. And while I'm aware that this position makes my vulnerable to those with the moral high ground, I won't change this either. I currently have 100 artists scrobbled on my last.fm, that's about 1/5th of all artists I've ever pirated an album from. Imagine if the only way I'd be able to listen to those artists would be by buying their music. It would be impossible. I would not even be able to DIR EN GREY alone if I'd only listen to their bought music (and I do buy their music, of course). So the logical conclusion to me is: Either I pirate their music and listen to the band without paying them, or I don't bother with them and they won't get my money, either. It's a lose/lose situation for them. And I think that this sentiment won't change, ever. Most people simply don't have enough money to buy all the music they like, it's literally impossible. So from my perspective, the artists are asking us to either chose them (for the purchases) or don't listen to them at all. I don't think that's the way to handle their fanbase, since the band needs the fans, not the other way around. I think that instead, the band needs to find other way to make money. They need to go with the flow, they can't be stuck in the "if we act like this, people will surely buy our music instead of pirating it". Nope, that won't happen. People will simply drop you and listen to other bands.

I live in Australia and shipping costs are really expensive so its hard to justify buying releases unless it's on itunes or something. But if the vk piracy scene died I would just buy the (relatively few) releases I'm interested in and share them on slsk (this is assuming jpopsuki is dead too). I'm lucky enough to live in a first world country so I would be able to do this. The main problem would be live limited releases which would completely fade out of existence to the West (or should I say more then they are now). The other problem would be there would be less discussion about bands/releases because many people wouldn't be able to listen to them and it would be harder sorting the bad from the good.

Literally same. We were having so much fun and I blinked my eyes once and the whole internet exploded. Also, from what I've seen in Japan with some friends who are into vkei, they don't really seem to spread things online but rather copy them on cds or dvds and give them to their friends (especially the old stuff that you can't get your hands on anymore or anything that was limited). They don't seem to share their treasures with just anyone and kinda get scared when it comes to that. I see when it comes to international fans we literally like to share amongst our fellow fans by uploading them on sites. I'm also trying to understand all points of views because tbh I've never actively done this before, aside from sharing music with my best friend.