Judas Iscariot released small vinyl presses of his albums on the basis that they would be something special for A) Hardcore fans and B) Fans that were more format conscious. These small presses should have been enough for the fans.

The problem is that band's can no longer produce special limited items for their fans because people with little or no real interest in the band are attracted by the hype caused by ebay prices and may even buy them with the intention of reselling them at an inflated price.

But then what is the solution to this? Real fans are put in a situation where they have to shell out a large amount for an item or make do with something that isn't so special (A CD version or even a shitty bootleg or mp3s if there isn't a version for the masses) and obviously this isn't ideal. The real fans won't end up with them. The rich fans will.

Repressing an album isn't necessarily the solution either. If a release gets attention because of it's ebay prices then if you press 1000 more, people may lose interest and it won't sell well. If you press 250 more to allow fans to get it then you're producing another collectors item which will sell out (to mainly the wrong people) and then you're back to square one. Producing an amount proportional to demand isn't easy anymore because thanks to the ebay-induced obsession with rare items, if you press 250, 1000 people will want it. If you press 1000, 250 will want it (Hypothetical situation lols).

If ebay didn't exist, how much would these rare items sell for? The reason they sell for high prices is because the boundaries of what constitutes a reasonable price are constantly pushed further and further. If it wasn't for the ebay hype and people only sold their items via message-boards do you really think they'd be receiving offers of $1000 for Moonblood's TOGS and Mutiilation's Vampires DLP? I'd hazard a guess that the typical price for these two in that situation would be around $200 absolute maximum.

What's even worse is that things that aren't really that hard to get hold of become valuble the second they become difficult to find without searching through 4 pages of google. Case in point: Alcest - Le Secret CD sold for $160 about a month ago. If ebay didn't exist, I'd imagine this MCD would still be treated as a "normal" CD (i.e. sold for reasonable prices, traded for one other CD).

Another problem: The constant bootlegging of anything that can fetch more than $15 on ebay. Cassette demo's are quite easy to bootleg as they usually come on store-bought tapes and xeroxed covers. There are many releases that fans would love to own but have next to no chance of getting a copy they can be sure is genuine because of this bootlegging for ebay. Examples include Peste Noire, Alcest, Satanic Warmaster, Mutiilation, Moonblood, any 1st or 2nd wave band that has received even a modicum of recognition. To go back to the no-ebay situation I've already referred to, If it didn't exist, fans would be most likely be able to obtain these demo tapes from older metallers for fair prices. Now they either have to pay a high price for something that they can't be sure is official or just not own the release at all.

Band's don't want to keep reissuing all old releases when there is little demand for them beyond ebay hype.

So it's gay, yeah?

Yes, it's gay. Pretty much stopped using e-bay some time ago, only use it in rare cases. In general I think the internet has brought the Black Metal some good things but also some very bad things.

I wonder who is really the one to blame though: isn't it also the (partial) fault of bands limiting their releases? Of course, in the days before internet, bands like Judas Iscariot couldn't really predict something like this would happen, but nowadays as a band you know that if you release something great and you limit it to 500 or 1000, it's gonna go on e-bay for a lot. (Using the Alcest example again). Of course not every new band gets a record deal with 10,000 immediate pressings, but why don't they do second pressings? It should be possible to find a compromise between the 250 and the 1000 you mentioned.

Written by -tom- on 01.11.2007 at 21:48
Alcest - Le Secret CD sold for $160 about a month ago.

Are you serious? BWAHAHAHAAHA. I own that thing, lol!

I find it funny that bands such as Peste Noir, Judas Iscariot, Countess etc. claim that their output is limited to 666 or 1000 copies at most. Okay it is limited to that but in reality they almost NEVER surpass a sales figure of over 1000, let alone 5000.

It does make sure they are wanted items.

The great thing of e-bay is that a seller has to sell it to the highest bidder when it is above the minimum price. I will never buy a cd, tape or lp, whatever this might be, for more than about 15$. When you bid as much as you want to pay, and someone bids higher, who cares? Real fans don't care about a shitty album, but keep going to the concerts as much as they can and buy their albums there, signed and al. E-bay has only a affect on rich fans as said, not on real fans.

Written by Guest on 27.02.2008 at 15:45

The great thing of e-bay is that a seller has to sell it to the highest bidder when it is above the minimum price. I will never buy a cd, tape or lp, whatever this might be, for more than about 15$. When you bid as much as you want to pay, and someone bids higher, who cares? Real fans don't care about a shitty album, but keep going to the concerts as much as they can and buy their albums there, signed and al. E-bay has only a affect on rich fans as said, not on real fans.

How is a fan with more money not a real fan? because I work for a living and have more spending money than most of the students on this forum, am I not a true fan? I find that hilarious considering i've been listening to thrash metal since before many of MS's posters, including you, were born...

Some people buy items for re-sale, others buy them because they really want them.

Continuing with your logic, where true fanhood is inversely proportional to income, by going to shows and buying albums there you aren't as good a fan as the guy who can afford to go to the show but cannot afford to buy the band's cd's there, who is then in turn not as true a fan as the guy too broke to go to a show in the first place.

furthermore, you make the assumption that the hypothetical band is still together and actively touring...

Is it eBay, or is it the P2P?

Written by Guest on 27.02.2008 at 15:45

The great thing of e-bay is that a seller has to sell it to the highest bidder when it is above the minimum price. I will never buy a cd, tape or lp, whatever this might be, for more than about 15$. When you bid as much as you want to pay, and someone bids higher, who cares? Real fans don't care about a shitty album, but keep going to the concerts as much as they can and buy their albums there, signed and al. E-bay has only a affect on rich fans as said, not on real fans.

I never bid until the last minute for that reason, I never understood how people haven't figured this out yet. People bid on items 5 days in advance for what? It is sheer stupidity and all they do is inflate the price... I have also noticed that many sellers have multiple accounts so they can jack up the price by bidding on their own item, which is technically against the rules of eBay, but how do you prove this? I can only tell because there will be user accounts that have very few stars consistently outbidding each other.
Amazon has the same problem, where sellers charge an outrageous amount of money for something that isn't that rare, but make it seem that way.
Do they even sell Black Metal merch on eBay anymore? I thought they were banning it....

Written by BitterCOld on 28.02.2008 at 00:41


How is a fan with more money not a real fan? because I work for a living and have more spending money than most of the students on this forum, am I not a true fan? I find that hilarious considering i've been listening to thrash metal since before many of MS's posters, including you, were born...

Some people buy items for re-sale, others buy them because they really want them.

Continuing with your logic, where true fanhood is inversely proportional to income, by going to shows and buying albums there you aren't as good a fan as the guy who can afford to go to the show but cannot afford to buy the band's cd's there, who is then in turn not as true a fan as the guy too broke to go to a show in the first place.

furthermore, you make the assumption that the hypothetical band is still together and actively touring...

I am sorry, I didn't mean to call rich fans bad fans. I meand that a real fan doesn't really have to be rich. Actually, comparred to many of my friends a have pretty much money to spend (because I don't smoke), and so I am able to buy pretty much albums. On the other hand, it is very difficult to be a fan of a band that you have never seen live. In this case, if anyone bids and pays to much for a cd, he is only making the market higher. Others see how much there is bidden and think that they can get that price to en require a higher prices, which makes the prices only go higher. That is a bid the problem with e-bay, with a free market the market does it 's job and so the prices go higher.

There are indeed many bands dead and buried already for many years. I see that problem. But often I think that there will be some rereleases availeble. I am a fan of Horde (though I've never been to a concert) and on e-bay these albums did sometimes almost 100 dollar. While there where three rereleases available for only 15 or so. I am not willing to contribute in that, these rereleases are just great for the real fans without large amoutns of money. These things help really. If there are no rereleases available, than indeed a original is necesarry. For that I have no sollution.

i still disagree with you regarding "difficult to be a fan if you have never seen the band live" - there are a lot of places bands rarely travel to. there are a lot of places bands never go. there are bands (Ulver, Darkthrone come to mind) that do not tour.

perhaps you should stop putting ridiculous qualifiers on determining what makes a person a fan or not.

You are a fan when you like the music of a band. Period.

Written by Guest on 29.02.2008 at 17:49

I am sorry, I didn't mean to call rich fans bad fans. I meand that a real fan doesn't really have to be rich. Actually, comparred to many of my friends a have pretty much money to spend (because I don't smoke), and so I am able to buy pretty much albums. On the other hand, it is very difficult to be a fan of a band that you have never seen live.

Why? What has seeing a band live got to with it?

Quote:
In this case, if anyone bids and pays to much for a cd, he is only making the market higher. Others see how much there is bidden and think that they can get that price to en require a higher prices, which makes the prices only go higher. That is a bid the problem with e-bay, with a free market the market does it 's job and so the prices go higher.

Yeah, but who's fault is this, really? Don't blame the 'businessmen', blame the people who go crazy and offer ridiculous amounts of money for certain objects. THEY disturb the balance of supply-and-demand.

Quote:
I am a fan of Horde (though I've never been to a concert) and on e-bay these albums did sometimes almost 100 dollar. While there where three rereleases available for only 15 or so. I am not willing to contribute in that, these rereleases are just great for the real fans without large amoutns of money.

So, what is the problem? You can buy your favourite album for a reasonable price, someone else thinks getting the first edition is worth the 100 bucks. Otherwise, he wouldn't do it.

Quote:
If there are no rereleases available, than indeed a original is necesarry. For that I have no sollution.

This can indeed be a damn tough pain in the ass. Luckily, lots of albums get re-released.

Ebay is SUUUUUUUUUUCH a joke. i bought a Nattefrost shirt on ebay and it turns out it was a censored version of another shirt. DOWN WITH UNTR00 EBAY BLACK METAL T SHIRTS hahaaha

Written by Introspekrieg on 28.02.2008 at 05:49

I never bid until the last minute for that reason, I never understood how people haven't figured this out yet. People bid on items 5 days in advance for what? It is sheer stupidity and all they do is inflate the price...

Yeah, I agree with you. I always bid in the last few minutes, it's dumb to do otherwise unless it's not really a rare item.

Lately I've been collecting vinyls on Ebay. I can tell some sellers want to get rich, or maybe they're desperate for money. I'm not sure how much some of these items are worth but once I saw a Burzum box set for about $800+. But some stuff is abviously not worth as much as they want to sell it for. Sometimes I see Xasthur vinyls for $100. But it's not just Ebay, on Gemm.com there's a Xasthur - Nocturnal Poisoning LP for $207.00. It's ridiculus, no one's ganna buy it.

I would hope that only actual fans of black metal are selling limited items on ebay, because I honestly don't know how someone who doesn't listen to the genre even knows about said rare items and what their value and rarity actually is.
Another downside to old records on ebay is a seller can set a reserve, meaning a certain high bid has to be reached otherwise they don't have to sell it to anyone even if a few people bid already - it's fucking dumb.

I've seen some pricey BM stuff on there, mostly Burzum albums and other 2nd wave BM bands. I just checked and found a few things in the hundreds for old vinyls, even some Drudkh vinyls start at $60. I think it's like buying anything off ebay, you just have to luck out to get a good deal, and so far the only BM related stuff I've got off there is a Mayhem shirt for regular cost, and the Carpathian Forest DVD for $14 with shipping.

One other thing.. I saw the Peter Beste photography book that was released in Japan on ebay a while ago, and the seller was selling the book for $130 or so I believe, and then $50 for the signed print. They only released 1000 in Japan, but my wife bought me one of these sets from Peter Beste himself for $130 which included the book and the signed photo. People on ebay can be real douche bags.

Written by Bitter Dawn on 17.05.2008 at 11:43

I would hope that only actual fans of black metal are selling limited items on ebay, because I honestly don't know how someone who doesn't listen to the genre even knows about said rare items and what their value and rarity actually is.

yeah, they are BM fans. I know one user that sold numerous copies of the latest Clandestine Blaze LP/7" special edition and made a fortune. Fortunately, it kind of back fired on her. Back in late 2006, a copy of the Horna/LoD split sold for $113 so she bought a bunch of copies of the reissue to try and cash in but they mostly sold cheap so she probably made a loss.

Written by -tom- on 17.05.2008 at 19:41

Written by Bitter Dawn on 17.05.2008 at 11:43

I would hope that only actual fans of black metal are selling limited items on ebay, because I honestly don't know how someone who doesn't listen to the genre even knows about said rare items and what their value and rarity actually is.

yeah, they are BM fans. I know one user that sold numerous copies of the latest Clandestine Blaze LP/7" special edition and made a fortune. Fortunately, it kind of back fired on her. Back in late 2006, a copy of the Horna/LoD split sold for $113 so she bought a bunch of copies of the reissue to try and cash in but they mostly sold cheap so she probably made a loss.

Ha, good! I just don't think people should be making a big profit off of black metal in any sort of manner, it just goes against the whole ideology of the genre. I'm still not even sure what to think about making a living off of creating and performing BM, I'm sure it's a great thing to be able to do but there are alot of moral and ethical complications behind it which seems ironic since the ethics are somewhat lacking in that genre to begin with.

all blame people who sell stuff at high price on ebay . don't worry i don't like those kind of people , but i blame the stupid guys who buy those stuff at high price , if they didn't buy , people didn't sell stuff at high price . you know what i mean ?

Written by Anton Alcolust on 18.05.2008 at 00:47

all blame people who sell stuff at high price on ebay . don't worry i don't like those kind of people , but i blame the stupid guys who buy those stuff at high price , if they didn't buy , people didn't sell stuff at high price . you know what i mean ?

True, but it's about supply and demand. I personally wouldn't pay more than $30 on a cd and if I collected vinyl I can't imagine paying more than $100 at most. But yeah, if something is limited then people are willing to spend a stupid amount of money on it just because it's rare and I think people on ebay are rather competitive and want to win sometimes just for the sake of winning.

I'm afraid there is no answer for bands. The best thing they can do is create fan clubs and only sell to them. Next best is to only sell copies at gigs. At the end of the day you're not going to stop EBay or people looking to make a profit. Luckily I think the black metal scene is so obscure that only real fans can hope to make a profit.

The internet has changes all the rules... but to be fair these small bands wouldn't have as many fans if the internet didn't exist so there is a big upside for everyone.