Nightnoise unofficial site

Ridiculous pricing

I have set up a Google alert on Nightnoise. It sends me an e-mail every time it finds a new page that refers to Nightnoise. The finds are generally pirate MP3 download sites, where you can get an entire album for less than a dollar.

That is in stark contrast to the 99 cents per track charged by the iTunes Music Store (which only has “At the End of the Evening”, “Shadow of Time”, “Something of Time” and “Nightnoise Pure” for sale), and 89 cents at Amazon’s MP3 Downloads store (which has no Nightnoise music at all only 2 albums: “Something of Time” and “Shadow of Time”, plus 2 albums by the Japanese electronic band called Nightnoise).

But it gets worse. Today Google sent me a new alert, and the link takes me to Amazon’s physical record store where they have 6 used copies of “Nightnoise” by Billy Oskay and Mícheál Ó‘Domhnaill, an album that has been out of print for well over 10 years. The prices range from $47.79 to $95.00.

There is absolutely no reason why this album shouldn’t be available as MP3 from a legitimate online music store, at a reasonable price. And Nightnoise fans ought to be able to lay their hands on this album from a legitimate source, while creating revenue for the artists.

Who wins in this situation? Scummy pirate download sites.
Who loses? The artists, their heirs, and the record companies themselves.

Conclusion: idiocy on the part of Windham Hill. (If anyone has a better explanation, I’ll be delighted to publish it).