i think it depends what type of music.

If your talking about mainstream shit, i'd say file-swapping... simply b/c those prices are jacked up anyways, they've been making billions off innocent buyers all throughout the 80's and 90's anyways.. and most artists get commercial and movie deals now anyway....

if your talking about underground, its good to an extent b/c it helps share music where its otherwise unavailable.... take the USA for instance... you can't find shit for trance over here... TA and AG are the only ways really.... except for the commercial trance like Safri Duo which you can get on the odd imported trance collection CD's... (that also have castles in the sky...)

...and livesets... if it wasn't for AG, nobody but the people who ripped them would ever have them.

The DJ industry whole-heartedly supports the music industry IMO b/c you have to buy vinyl to spin it... so there's no arguement there.

I think only the pop, hip hop, and mainstream rock industry would be hurt by this... but those guys make so much money anyway, who cares?

LoL
-ABT-

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Peace.

Hmmm...tough one...

File Swapping evens the playing field for the new artist and (in the words of Chuck D) gives the new artist a choice of being "pimped" by the record label that would "represent" them or not.
RIAA is shitting their pants because they are rapidly loosing their distribution power because of the Internet and are trying to strangle-hold everything that's eating away at their pie.
Napster, Morpheus, Scour and even Internet Radio Streaming (NOOO!!! :whip are all holes in the gas tank for RIAA that they have to plug for them to even exist in the future. If they don't plug them FAST they risk their own existance, hence they react by killing the new technology or bending them to their own rules.
Look at the Vinyl-CD paradigm; it took less than 10 years for vinyl to be come pretty much obsolete! (Minus you DJs... )
I'm waiting to see what exactly they're going to do when it comes to the PtP (Peer-to-Peer) technologies like Gnuetella, iMesh, etc where there is NO central servers to choke. They'd have to close down the Internet lol!

Now morally if you like the artist, then hell yea, I'll buy the CD. But I'm not shelling out $20 bucks for a CD that has one song on it I like (and for how long?). It was bad enough with vinyl albums never mind the small cost of creating a very inexpensive CD.
This to me is FAIR. There is an expectation from me (the customer) for their favorite artists to PERFORM and not produce any crap just to fill the rest of the CD so I'd buy that ONE song.
Gendre of music (mainstream or not) has absolutely nothing to do with whether I'll buy the CD or not, if it's a good CD, it's a good CD. But you won't catch me running out to buy the latest Britney or a prefabbed 'boy' band - ick. These are great examples of industries reaping the benefits of their own creation, which are so large they eclipse smaller more deserving artists that I'd normally not even know existed without the Internet and people like yourself who all have a common interest. Trance!
Long live Trance and TA!!!

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"...End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take.
The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

I honestly cannot buy a CD unless I enjoy 60% of the songs on it. Otherwise I feel like I'm getting ripped off. I wouldn't by a DVD where the first half of the movie was good and the end was shitty. And the prices have gotten wayyyy too out of control. $20 for a CD that costs them 10 cents to make.

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Trance...a state of mind.

basically this all goes into economics. the one quote from a pop music artist i truly believe is that of Brian, umm someone (he makes RnB music), but he said: "I wish that all music was shipped in white boxes with only the name of the artist written on it, because then music would be about talent and craftsmanship, rather than image." its an interesting idea. bands like Radiohead maintain a following without pop hits, yet MTV keeps telling me the life of a pop star is 'really hard' because they have to be out there everyday 'selling' their music. THATS the fucking problem. MUSIC NEEDS TO SELL ITSELF.

in this day and age, as Devbert said- i NEED to know that more than half of any cd i buy is quality. frankly then, p2p or file sharing only helps the RIAA - even if they dont give a shit about the music i listen to. if i KNOW that the cd is good, ill buy it. if i have no way to tell (and with trance a 30sec clip on CDNOW doesnt cut it) - i WONT buy that cd, until i know. its not like they can 'fool' me into buying shit with salesmanship.

beyond that the RIAA cant save itself by stopping Napster and every sharing utility that follows - and they CANT stop them all...their money hungry practices are destroying them from the inside. a cd that is selling on a wide market would NEVER cost more than 2 bucks for them to produce, yet they overcharge. it gets even more rediculous when the artists being sold arent getting more than a 5% cut of THEIR music. the music industry is fucking itself...now i have to go cry for all the Cash Money Millionaires that wont be in 5 years...boo hoo/

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'That's like telling a Kodiak bear to stop fcking older men.'

And notice how it is all the rich as fuck artists complaining, not the up-and-comers.

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Trance...a state of mind.

quote:

Originally posted by Devbert And notice how it is all the rich as fuck artists complaining, not the up-and-comers.

AND i bet that largely has to do with the fact they realize that the RIAA is fucking everyone over, and THATS why they are so concerned about losing money. they either realize that they arent raking in enough dough to survive, or that thier product wont last, so they need money now!! ugh/

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'That's like telling a Kodiak bear to stop fcking older men.'

If it wasn't for online music, I never would have been introduced to trance. Now it is my hobby.

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Trance...a state of mind.

quote:

Originally posted by Devbert If it wasn't for online music, I never would have been introduced to trance. Now it is my hobby.

it USED to be my hobby about 1.5 years ago. back in the infancy of TA and the boom that was Napster i had all sorts of shit. now i dont because AG can stick itself, but beyond that i almost stopped coming to TA because this scene started to stagnate and turn into petty bickering (ie Dre and Metallica). obviously its improved, and could never be on their level. i still stay away from the music discussion tho...strange/

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'That's like telling a Kodiak bear to stop fcking older men.'

When did the scene get stagnate?

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Trance...a state of mind.

Here is my opinion

For yrs....ppl have been paying too much for cd's and getting ripped off by record companies and now that technology has improved...cd companies realize that ppl realize that ppl have found they don't need them. Record Companies (big 5) are also being sued for cd price fixing by the us dept of justice. This should be interesting and i frankly have given up with the whole songs thing....i like live sets personally even tho they are illegal too. Metallica, dr dre can rant all they want about being screwed.....imo artists are being screwed by record companies and ppl are starting to backlash. Last i heard, all record companies made huge profits last year. Metallica can be quiet because in 1984, they released an album that got them sued because they covered other groups songs without permission and put it on an album. Funny how things change when you have money. Dr Dre, he ain't an angel, currently being sued by george lucas for using lucas's trademark thx in an album without permission. See everyone is dirty, normal users for not paying for music and downloading things without permission, record companies for cd price fixing, artist for violations...........where does it all end....no one in this whole issue seems to be an angel. All this while record companies are making record profits and still complaining that mp3 file sharing is wrecking their profits. Ppl it is quite simply about greed, artists who have much and wanting more and not remembering that they bent the rules.

Livesets so kick ass. I didn't know they were illegal though.

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Trance...a state of mind.