Music industry ‘should embrace illegal websites’

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by calculoso

Figures. Music Artists charge too much but Cell Phone companies don't. Again, it shows where your bias lies and how false your "everything goes up, just live with it" statements really are. You do care about what you get and how much you pay, except when you're employed by one of them.

/end thread hijack

Please point to the part in my post I say they charge too much? I just said I was tired of the crap they put in as filler, that's why I don't buy CD's anymore. Not because of the costs or the profits they are making.

But I then CHOOSE not to buy their album. Just like you CHOOSE to have cell phone service, if you are not happy with the product why do you have it? Is Rogers, Bell and Telus holding a gun to your head and forcing you to have that cell phone you complain about so much?

[photon]

The word stealing has been used and I just wanted to point out that a) it's not stealing, it's copyright infringement, two different things and b) at this point in Canada downloading music via a torrent or whatever isn't illegal.

I think in general the industry should be figuring out ways to please their customers and meet their needs rather than using draconian laws and enforcement technologies to beat their customers into submission.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

I download torrents all the time, and it's usually stuff I would never ever buy. The stuff I would actually buy, I usually do buy. So my downloading is exposing me to stuff I would have never listened to if not for free.

I think the music industry should be happy, because there are a handful of artists that I have become huge fans of through this process, and subsequently bought their (next) albums.

The thing you have to remember though is not everyone is like you and me. Just like you I will buy something if I like it whether it be music or games but alot of people will not buy it regardless of whether they like it and feel they have a right to have it for free. A good example is my best friend. I hear him talk about how great all these bands are yet he tells me he hasn't bought a CD in years. He will buy the odd game but most he downloads with no intention of ever buying it.

People should not have to pay for something they don't like but bands also deserve to be compensated for something they created regardless of how successful they are. Bands and record labels need to find more ways to show their material to fans without feeling they're being ripped off. What they should be doing is things like streaming their albums on their website at certain dates or doing what Metallica did for St. Anger and releasing videos of them rehearsing the songs off the album. That way fans can hear an album in full but not at the quality they would if they bought the actual album.

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by Inferno

People should not have to pay for something they don't like but bands also deserve to be compensated for something they created regardless of how successful they are. Bands and record labels need to find more ways to show their material to fans without feeling they're being ripped off. What they should be doing is things like streaming their albums on their website at certain dates or doing what Metallica did for St. Anger and releasing videos of them rehearsing the songs off the album. That way fans can hear an album in full but not at the quality they would if they bought the actual album.

Aren't they doing enough? What about radio singles and free mp3's that bands give on the internet?

We watch movies based on a preview..there is no guarantee the movie will be good...I've seen more than enough garbage movies in my life..that doesn't mean I expect to be able to watch bad movies for free. Same thing with books, I don't know the full content of a book before I buy it. That's the way it goes with anything that qualifies as artistic. You are taking a chance with it.

The more I think about it, the more I think people are really just trying to legitimize getting the material without having to pay for it. As you've stated, not everyone uses downloads as a preview before buying. Most of my friends have ipods full of music. Many of them don't have a single CD around their house. And they aren't paying for music on Itunes. Just so happens these are the same people that would'nt give a rats ass if the entire industry crumbled, because music just isn't that important to them. They'd rather just switch over to mainstream radio and be fine with it.

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by HOOT

I just said I was tired of the crap they put in as filler, that's why I don't buy CD's anymore.

What kind of music do you listen to? If you listen to top 40 manufactured pop music, I agree, they pretty much bank on 1 or 2 hits to move CD's.

But for artists that have a bit more artistic legitimacy, they are in no way trying to put 10-11 tracks of filler on an album. They are trying to make an album a worthwhile listening experience as a whole. And whether you see it as such or not, is totally based on your opinion. So your filler could be someone elses great album track. So who decides whether an album is full of filler, and how much should be charged for it?

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by Igottago

What kind of music do you listen to? If you listen to top 40 manufactured pop music, I agree, they pretty much bank on 1 or 2 hits to move CD's.

But for artists that have a bit more artistic legitimacy, they are in no way trying to put 10-11 tracks of filler on an album. They are trying to make an album a worthwhile listening experience as a whole. And whether you see it as such or not, is totally based on your opinion. So your filler could be someone elses great album track. So who decides whether an album is full of filler, and how much should be charged for it?

I listen to a lot of different music and that is my point I will only purchase the albums that are full of good songs so those artists get their compensation they deserve.

Who decides? I do, as the listener I decide whether that is worth my money. As do you.

What they charge is up to them, it will also have a factor on how many people see the purchase worth the cost or not.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by Igottago

Aren't they doing enough? What about radio singles and free mp3's that bands give on the internet?

For me they are. But then I'm also the type of person that supports the bands I like by buying their albums no matter what. But I've also found I haven't run into an album where I didn't like the majority of the songs.

I just think by with bands showcasing their album on their website like I described not only is it good marketing but it gives downloaders one less excuse about downloading because they're trying before buying. Though in the end I guess it really doesn't matter for some people as they will download it anyway because they can.

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by Inferno

For me they are. But then I'm also the type of person that supports the bands I like by buying their albums no matter what. But I've also found I haven't run into an album where I didn't like the majority of the songs.

I just think by with bands showcasing their album on their website like I described not only is it good marketing but it gives downloaders one less excuse about downloading because they're trying before buying. Though in the end I guess it really doesn't matter for some people as they will download it anyway because they can.

I think though, it has become an expectation for many people (not including the more hardcore music fan like yourself or me), that music is free. That they should be able to freely download whatever they want, and they should never have to pay for it. The problem is, that if enough people start thinking this way, the industry as a whole has nothing to stand on. Music would pretty much stop becoming a profession, with an entire business infrastructure built around it having collapsed. Sure the internet has been very good for building fanbases for some bands, but I think the further the expectation of free music continues, the more doomed that the industry is as a whole. I'm talking another 10-20 years, when kids who have never ever paid for music, have established that as the rule. Right now, I'm in my 20's and I can remember the days of having to go pay for a CD, and so do many people, so its staying afloat for now.

But I can't see any other industry where this would be a generally acceptable trend. Why do people expect it to be acceptable for music?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Igottago

I think though, it has become an expectation for many people (not including the more hardcore music fan like yourself or me), that music is free. That they should be able to freely download whatever they want, and they should never have to pay for it. The problem is, that if enough people start thinking this way, the industry as a whole has nothing to stand on. Music would pretty much stop becoming a profession, with an entire business infrastructure built around it having collapsed. Sure the internet has been very good for building fanbases for some bands, but I think the further the expectation of free music continues, the more doomed that the industry is as a whole. I'm talking another 10-20 years, when kids who have never ever paid for music, have established that as the rule. Right now, I'm in my 20's and I can remember the days of having to go pay for a CD, and so do many people, so its staying afloat for now.

But I can't see any other industry where this would be a generally acceptable trend. Why do people expect it to be acceptable for music?

There are still viable ways for the music industry to make money other than forcing customers into DRM and lawsuits. For instance, extending media charges (like the one on CDs) to mp3 players.

The idea that piracy will kill music is a fallacy... musicians make their money of touring, it's the labels that make their money of CDs. So what happens if you take away the labels? People listen to what they like, instead of what gets crammed down their throats. The ones who get rewarded are the truly talented, instead of the well-marketted and their middlemen.

There's plenty of musicians who don't want the RIAA's lock-and-litigate business model brought to Canada, here's their website. At it's not just small fish like kermitology

http://www.musiccreators.ca/wp/

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by Igottago

I think though, it has become an expectation for many people (not including the more hardcore music fan like yourself or me), that music is free. That they should be able to freely download whatever they want, and they should never have to pay for it. The problem is, that if enough people start thinking this way, the industry as a whole has nothing to stand on. Music would pretty much stop becoming a profession, with an entire business infrastructure built around it having collapsed. Sure the internet has been very good for building fanbases for some bands, but I think the further the expectation of free music continues, the more doomed that the industry is as a whole. I'm talking another 10-20 years, when kids who have never ever paid for music, have established that as the rule. Right now, I'm in my 20's and I can remember the days of having to go pay for a CD, and so do many people, so its staying afloat for now.

But I can't see any other industry where this would be a generally acceptable trend. Why do people expect it to be acceptable for music?

The music industry will not die, wasn't there a big uproar over the fact you could then take a blank tape and make a copy of a tape your friend had? Wasn't the music industry saying then that this new technology would kill them and bands a like. I remember when they were trying to find ways to block people from taping what they heard on the radio, another reason the music industry was going to die.

They always find a way to keep on going and if musicians stop making music because of this, there will just be another person behind them just as talented willing to do it for the love of doing it.

I wish more people would go buy what they like after downloading it because then it would truly reward the people that deserve it. There is one CD I have probably bought and lost about 8 times in my life and I just downloaded it for the first time the other day, for how much I love that CD I would never want to listen to it in the quality it was off the internetz.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

As technology enables the home recording engineer to manifest a better and better product, more emphasis from the mainstream audience and the media will be placed on the live show/performance. This is where the future bread of the music industry is, and personally, I say, bring it on.

Of course, there are a lot of changes that need to be made in the way that live shows are done. It used to be that a band would book a gig in a particular city and get a radio station to sponsor it, the station would play their music on-air and promote the event, thus ensuring that there was a local audience by the time the band comes to town. However, now that's less of an option: radio stations just don't have the audience or the authority to create a following for a musician; listeners are using new media forms to make their own decisions about who they'll listen to. So the challenge for musicians (and promoters) is that rather than having 1000 fans in one market created by radio play, they'll have 100 fans in each of 10 markets. So we're seeing increased use of festivals as a solution: firstly, it allows bands with small followings to pool their audiences and resources, and secondly, it creates more of a 'destination' that fans will travel to see. It also allows musicians the opportunity to perform for potential fans who have not heard their music but are fans of similar bands.