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Reasons not to pay for music (pg. 4)
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| Ishkur |
cutnpasted from a similar argument on DI:
The argument that downloading music hurts sales is a misnomer because record companies equate every download to mean a guaranteed sale. Just because people download music does not mean that they are willing to pay for that music if the means to download it did not exist. In many cases--most, I'd say--songs are downloaded on a whim, simply for the ease of which it is to obtain them, listened to maybe once or twice, then discarded. If people could not do that, then they would likely just have to suffer not being able to listen to the song at all. Removing the avenues of downloading does not immediately translate to them grabbing their coat and heading out to the store to get the cd.
At any rate: Downloading is not killing music. It is killing the music INDUSTRY, the bloated, slow moving sloth that it is, and that can only be construed as a good thing.
It is time for us to recognize the fact that the age of spending a quiet afternoon writing a song and banking on its success for the rest of your life is over. Album-oriented marketing is coming to an end, and music as a tangible product is quietly being snuffed out. For now on, if you are a musician, the way to make your money in music is to do what you do best: play it. That's something that people can not download; the live performance.
The art of making money by recording and selling your work is at its sunset now. 100 years ago, before the invention of recorded media, musicians made a living by performing their music. In the future, they will return to this pastime.
(and, consequently, in all music contracts the artists are usually the last ones to get paid, and they get screwed 3 ways from Sunday, having to take out of their royalties to finance promotional campaigns and music videos. Many platinum selling artists in the past--Toni Braxton, TLC, MC Hammer come to mind--actually became poorer after their label was through with them, their entire careers crushed by insurmountable debt that they owed their own record companies. There's a lot of money to be made in the corporate music industry; unfortunately, the artists rarely see much of it. Touring is the only way many of them actually make money)
Part of the problem with this is the fact that the industry has too many hands in the cookie jar as it is. It is now a dead and dying carcass clinging onto tangible media, when digital media is the future. So it's not the artists that people are fed up about, really. It's the INDUSTRY that cultivates these artists. Or, rather, chews them up and spits them out. I'd pay $12 for a CD if I knew for certain that at least $11 of it was going to the three forces that created it: the producer, the performer, and the songwriter (one person or group is sometimes all three, but not always). But as it is, that money does not go to the deserved parties. Instead it goes to label designers, marketers, business execs, plastic manufacturers, photographers, advertisers, distributors, agents, lawyers, managers, whole-salers and retailers, and all the micro-industries that depend on the mass production of music from conception to completion of a tangible disc in your hands.
Musicians are the only ones who do not fear file-sharing, because they can always play music to make a living. That is a tangible talent that people respect and will pay money for. Record execs, label owners, marketers and advertisers, designers, and all the people who depend on the "CD market" trade are the ones who despise file-sharing the most, because it is cutting into their business, the business of music commodification and sales. You remove that, and they really don't have any means to make a living in the industry anymore.
It is for this reason that the only people who complain about music piracy are the well-established artists, pressured by their labels and their labels' lawyers to do so. Underground and independent artists never think that way, and 90% of the time are absolutely livid about the spread of their music on the internet. They see the online revolution as a levelling of the playing field. For 50 years the music industry controlled the media bottleneck to what you were allowed to hear, and furthermore, what you were allowed to like. By controlling radio and tv, they were in full control of whatever their customers were exposed to. Not anymore with the internet. It is breaking down barriers and fragmenting demographic markets so rapidly it's no wonder music execs are having a heart attack over this. They're losing control. They're losing power.
And that's really what it's all about. |
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| PersianMafia |
one BIG MUTHAFUCING PLUS ONE. Don't think I have ever seen a bigger +1 than that!
:eyes:
close this thread. discussion is over! |
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| eRRaTiK |
what have i been saying all along?
Ishkur knows all.
doesn't excuse blatant copyright infringement though.
whilst we're on the topic, if you haven't already, check out The Politics of Digital Copyright debate at Cornell University
http://headlesschicken.ca/eng204/media/ |
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| DJFreaq |
I download almost 20 gigabytes of , mostly music. Every month.
How much of it do I listen to?
Almost none of it.
Does my record collection continually grow?
Yes.
I download for these reasons.
A. Some new pop artist releases a CD, and I need it for say a friend or a sibling, and I HATE said pop artist so I get great satisfaction out of downloading their entire cd (instead of just the one good song). So. Spite basically?
B. Archival purposes (currently pushing 13,000 mp3s since I started downloading when I was 14 or so). When I buy a 12" I usually download a nice 192-320kbps release group version of that record just to have it.
C. Too ing poor (or would rather spend money on say improving my own skills). Enough said, I can’t buy all the music I want I simply can’t afford it; as much as I love it.
In the end. I just don't feel bad.
I go to shows, and that's what counts. Live performance is all that matters IMO.
Music can be recorded and perfected in a studio anywhere much like monkeys can eventually write Shakespeare if given enough time.
Live performance is where an artist must truly shine in order for them to be worth a salt. (Granted a lot of the GREAT producers either don't perform live as much or haven't YET or are still too small, realize I am generalizing)
So yea. DURP! GARRRR (/me starts DC++) Another wasted 15 minutes when I could have been queuing up songs.
EDIT: I defer any complaints about ed up logic or poor grammar to lack of sleep. |
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| CleverName |
I don't want to get too involved in this debate but I definitely have one comment to add.
I have heard people say (both in this thread, others, and in real life) that they would far rather own the actual cd than have the exact same thing on the computer. They say or imply that there is an intrinsic value native to the media device itself (the cd, record, cassette, whatever) that the music itself doesn't have.
I just want to point out that this is NOT true - there is nothing wonderful and magical about the cd itself. You have been brainwashed by artificially high prices and scarcity into thinking that the little plastic thing has value that the information on it does not have. Its the same concept that went into the artificial inflation of diamond prices. "Just charge a lot and people will assume it has value."
The only benefit of purchasing the "actual cd" that I can think of is the slip notes, which can easily be packaged with a legit digital download - the biggest downfall of most online music downloading vendors is that they fail to include cover art and slip notes with the product.
I hope that wasn't too controvertial, and I know that my argument isn't 100% true in all cases. But it is definitely something to think about and keep in mind the next time you want to go out and buy the "actual cd" - are you doing it to support the artist, or have you too been led to believe the lie of the $20 hunk of plastic? |
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| Benno de Goeij |
Nice opinions so far!
As for the performances: There are a lot of people that make recordings possible, but don't perform. Like producers and engineers.
As for myself I like to create recordings more than performing them. Just a matter of taste for me. Should I get punished for that? In EDM it's a bit harder to perform as well, not mentioning DJ'ing off course. And to get that opportunity, one has too make good records in the first place. And btw: people that create great music are not always good performers, and vice versa.
I saw some other question why studio updating is needed. The thing is: to keep the music evolving technical investments are needed. And they ain't cheap! As technical possiblilties grows, so are growing the software and hardware that allows new kinds of music to come around.
But I am not complaining here, I think artists that make good songs will be supported by album sales or whatever. I know most people want good songs and the real cd anyway. Just like myself!
But one side effect might be affecting the newcomers: as record companies want to play safe nowadays, they don't invest in new talent, and don't want to take the risks. And the risks of pressing records and not getting them sold are huge!
Anyways, if people decide they don't like my music that much for buying it, that would be a message for me to quite if it would come so far. But I am not giving up yet ;) |
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| Coup |
I openly admit to downloading MP3's, but i also opening admit to having 2 huge CD racks on my wall full of CD's (singles & albums) from everyone from Sasha, Fleming, Corsten & U2. If i like the music enough i'll prob keep the MP3, but i'll also go out and buy the music. I think MP3 is great for that, but obviously its open to abuse.
MP3's are great for live sets tho, which you cant buy. :) |
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| isoterra |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ishkur
cutnpasted from a similar argument on DI:
And that's really what it's all about. |
brilliant brilliant post... had thought of some stuff to say but that covers it all and then some
i download & keep some stuff which i don't end up buying, i'll admit. i know it's wrong.. however these are mostly tunes i wouldn't spend money on either way. if i *really* like something then i'll hunt down the vinyl, not purely to 'support the artists' (it's a retail industry, not a charity for crying out loud), but because i enjoy vinyl mixing, enjoy owning music in a physical format, and consider some releases to be of high enough quality to warrant spending money on.
and i'm a producer too. and guess what, it's a hobby of mine. i don't bank on getting paid lots for it in the long run. i have a job for that. |
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| Mike_Foyle |
i think the main problem is that people cant find legal music downloads as easily as illegal ones. u can find almost anything on p2p, but anything thats a few years old is very hard to find as a legal digi download. i dont really have a problem with people downloading my music as long as a) they dont use it in their sets.. because that is filthly and cheap, and they cant expect to make money out of music they havnt even paid for ..
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b) they wait till its released. sharing leaked mp3s which arent even released yet is very damaging, both to an artists reputation and to the record sales.. there is no doubt about that. |
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| Aquarian |
A big +1 for ish's post.
You need to realize that alot of people don't have the money to buy a tangible copy of every song they own. If I'd have paid for all my music I probably wouldn't even have a home right now. So yes, buying CDs will bring the artist a little 50 cents of profit, but if you can't affort to pay 20 bucks a CD, you're doing the artist a huge favor by downloading the tracks rather than not listening to them at all - ESPECIALLY in less known genres like EDM. I've been hanging around people who didn't even know EDM existed, and through me, they were exposed to it. How many of these people ended up buying reccords because of it? And of those that didn't, how many ended up influencing others to buy reccords? I myself might not even know what EDM is if someone who pirated music hadn't sent me illegal copies of AVB tracks and sets. Apply that on a bigger scale, and you could say electronic music probably wouldn't even exist if it weren't for piracy. |
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| Benno de Goeij |
| I don't have the money for a big BMW X5, but i am not stealing to get one. |
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| Aquarian |
| Difference is, you need physical materials to build one of those. That argument holds no water. |
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