[x] T4 Project: would this count as an Internet-only release

The T4 Project is this huge musical side project from members of about a billion different bands (well not really, but a lot, including Pennywise, Strung Out, Naked Aggression, Bad Religion, Porno For Pyros, etc.). So far they have a Myspace page with all the info for their album (including cover art) that hasn't been released since it's unsigned still. Also has a listing of every member. I was wondering, before I enter this into the queue, would it count as an Internet-only release?

Check the page out and someone let me know. I want to see what everyone else thinks of this and if it's acceptable for the site or not.

[myspace.com] http://myspace.com/t4project

Has it actually been released? I think they have posted certain songs sometimes (looks like the songs in full). I guess each song could be a release on its own in that case - as long as they were available in full and on an ongoing basis. That might be where they fail for now - the need for it to be a release and not just a temporary posting. Band members seem very clear and I think on balance without knowing too much that they could get in but for songs - not the album. That's just my view.

They have posted certain songs in full on the Myspace, and the album has not actually been released since it's unsigned as far as I know.

I think you could actually enter the release of all three songs as one item called "Story-Based Concept Album." Usually on these myspace pages, the year, label, or album title appears in the bottom left section of the song box. This seems to be no exception. We really haven't developed a scheme that makes me feel good about internet releases so far, so my preference is to replace internet-only releases with physical releases whenever possible. But for now, the band has demonstrated a clear intent to release those songs, one of which has been played almost 21,000 times.

Mark -

this is the image supplied of what is to be the front and back cover. I can't seem to crop it so that I just get the front cover. any help would be appreciated:

[img.photobucket.com] http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v21/allxhopexaside/t4project.jpg

(I wasn't sure if you were able to view it on Myspace, so I put it on my Photobucket page)

I cropped it and stuck it in the queue by a fake band called Test as an album called T4 Cover. You should be able to download the image from that entry and then reload it into a new T4 Project entry. You can also find it by searching on Jay Bentley. If that doesn't work, let me know.

Got it, it's entered in. Thanks. Just having a bit of trouble finding Trotsky's real name (he plays in the Subhumans but even that into a Google search isn't doing me any good).

I have a question about this "release." I don't know the history of their MySpace page, but right now, the songs are only streamable, not downloadable (and their main website is under construction). If this has always been the case, then how does this qualify as a release? You can't buy them, and you can't download them. You can only listen to them on MySpace.com.

So my question is, does this site's definition of "publicly released" include stuff that's only streamable off a particular website? I happen to think that's a pretty big stretch.

Here's where I have a problem: The songs are not "fixed" in any real sense. The band has no physical releases, and doesn't have anything that you can buy or even keep for free off their website. It's entirely ephemeral. What if they disbanded tomorrow, and took the site down? There wouldn't be anything official that you could trade, or give to someone, or even share over the internet. It would be gone for good. Sure, it might be bootlegged, but we've never counted bootlegs here.

I wouldn't have a problem if the songs were freely downloadable, or purchasable somewhere, or if they sold/gave away CDRs of the songs at their live shows. That, to me, would be perfectly fine. But in this case, they don't appear to have ever been available in that way.

It looks like this will be released someday, so it's only a matter of time before it gets in. Why not wait?

Well, Mark already made it live. Maybe he has an answer for you as to why it's in so quickly and how it qualifies, because I guess it does.

AJ's right, I think. The stream-only nature of those songs makes them basically the same as if they were played on the radio and otherwise unavailable. It's an interesting issue though--we've never defined "public release" in terms of ownership.

Hmm, well the album already went live. Should we just leave it?

Although paperxwalls argument isn't very persuasive, based on the current interpretation of our rules, i would have to agree with him.

We allow promo only releases in the dB. This is where much of the stuff played on the radio comes from. Both the promos and the T4 songs exist in a "hard copy" form somewhere and can't be purchased by the general public. With these, you are limited to listening to them on you computer.

I say we either leave this in or we kill the promos as well.

I'm not against the band being in if there exists today a promo release of some kind that you can acquire, but I am against the current release being in there based on three MySpace audio streams. If the band can be represented by a promo release, that ought to be fine (since the site appears to hold that promos are considered "publicly released," though that's an issue for another thread), but it ought to be for that promo, not for what's in there now.

I don't know too much about what the exact rules are. My main concern is if this is too complicated for the site, then why was it made live. I asked if it was acceptable for the website and it seemed to go live before any of these other arguments were brought up.

*ps- Scott, I'm also a "her", btw.

Ha. I had no idea. Sorry about that.

As for it going live, i think we are always re-interpreting rules, so when something goes up (and then people look at it) issues surrounding it then get discussed. Not a big deal.

^It's quite alright, heh. I haven't really been too specific about letting you guys know that I am female, probably because I've been keeping things professionally when posting at the board. I'm pretty sure Mark knows (I think), and I know AlexCraig does. It's no big deal, just thought I would give you a heads up for future reference.

As for the T4 topic, unfortunately I'm going away for the weekend so my contributions in this debate may be minimal at best. But if I see the T4 entry deleted from the dB by the time I get back on Monday, I'll assume it's because someone finally decided it officially is against the rules of the website. And of course I'll come back to this thread/threads to see what you guys officially decided.