Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
e-bay, amazon.com or any other source of purchasing a physical CD online does not have any of these CDs for sale? Could you contact a store that sells the physical copy and get them to mail them?
Or is this band that doesn't sell CDs at any store in the world? were they killed after they recorded their one demo song and it is their legacy to have this one song being torrented around the world?
You are really grasping at straws here.
Give me an example of one band.
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If you want an example, I dare you to find a new copy(either e-copy or the real thing) of the Latterman/Nakatomi Plaza Split from 2001 anywhere - either online or from a physical store. I would also dare you to walk into a music store and find a Battle!, Life Long Tragedy, Sojourner, Withdrawl, or Bitter End albums/records. Contrary to popular, major label music, many non-mainstream releases have limited runs that make it impossible to get once all copies are sold(unless you find a used copy). For example if you take a semi-popular, now defunct hardcore band like Sinking Ships. They are big enough that their last record/album was re-pressed...but the third run is only 328 copies. Have fun finding that album five years from now without resorting to torrents. Two weeks ago at a show the vocalist from the band Continuance encouraged people to check out their music via downloading because "they don't care". It's about the message, connecting with others, doing what you love, etc.
The main brunt of people who download are the ones who either listen to the album/record to make sure its worth buying, or the people who would never have bought it anyways. Especially for the latter, the band would have likely never made a dime off that person anyways. At the very least the band is getting some exposure. Maybe that person will recommend or bash the album to friend, maybe they'll get off their ass and go to a show, or maybe they'll buy a piece of merch. Attention is a currency. If you take away downloading you're going to lose thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions, of people who might not ever check out that band.
The recording industry needs to take it's head out of it's bum and evolve with the current generation. I don't know how they plan on catching up, but tbh I am content with the current system...in Canada at least.
Plus, who cares if a crap band like Metro Station loses a couple thousand record sales...?