The chickenfarmer's lament

[AFK]

Their capacity to make music, record albums, is tied to the number of units they move, records they sell.  And I have to say, as we demonize record labels here, it needs to be understood that not all record labels are the same.  Some are very supportive of their artists and will do a lot to help them succeed.  So it's easy to point to the big dogs and carry that across the industry but I'm not sure it is fair, nor accurate.

And another thing, the whole idea that artists get supported through concert tickets and merchandise sales.  So, do we really think that all of these "fans" who pirate or steal songs are attending concerts for all of these bands and artists?  Instead of paying the $15 for an album they are paying 50 to 60 per band to attend concerts?  Yeah, I'm not believing that.  And if we tell artists to not worry about album sales and focus on selling t-shirts and other merchandise then there will be even more emphasis put on using gimmicks and concocting an image than there has already been.  So you will be encouraging the bloat you see in scenes like hair metal, nu metal, grunge, etc.,  It will become less about the music and more about the products.  Every band will be following the KISS model of putting your name on everything. 

[Iason Ouabache]

M O N E Y.  As awesome and creative as they were they were unable to create money out of thin air.  That's why underground bands and bands not in the mainstream need label support and why piracy hurts these bands.

Another thing that's hurting labels, which in turn has them trying to pass the hurt onto everyone, is how inexpensive it is for artists to record their own albums these days. Sure, it takes money, but on a scale a Starbuck's employee can afford rather than on a level a major executive can afford.

I'd like to point out that this two posts contradict each other. Is producing an album so incredible expensive that alreay established bands need a giant faceless corporation to front them the money or is it so cheap that any schmuck with a guitar, a laptop and a couple grand produce it by themselves? It can't be both, can it?

And we need to remember that the current model for recording and selling music is only roughly 60 years old. Musicians were  making money through their music before records and will still make money after mp3s are long dead. Recorded music should be viewed as advertisement for live performances and/or various physical merchandise. You aren't going to make money any other way.

[Iason Ouabache]

Their capacity to make music, record albums, is tied to the number of units they move, records they sell.  And I have to say, as we demonize record labels here, it needs to be understood that not all record labels are the same.  Some are very supportive of their artists and will do a lot to help them succeed.  So it's easy to point to the big dogs and carry that across the industry but I'm not sure it is fair, nor accurate.

I love the concept of smaller independent musician run labels. That is the kind of model we should be aimming. Get rid of the asshole corporate labels that squeeze the life out of good artists.

And another thing, the whole idea that artists get supported through concert tickets and merchandise sales.  So, do we really think that all of these "fans" who pirate or steal songs are attending concerts for all of these bands and artists?  Instead of paying the $15 for an album they are paying 50 to 60 per band to attend concerts?  Yeah, I'm not believing that. 

Why not? How do you expect to build a fan base if you people don't hear your music? The previous model was to slip some payola to DJs in the major markets or MTV. The new model is to get your name out there through the internet and tour yourself to death. Slowly build your base through word of mouth (or go viral, like OkGo).

And if we tell artists to not worry about album sales and focus on selling t-shirts and other merchandise then there will be even more emphasis put on using gimmicks and concocting an image than there has already been.  So you will be encouraging the bloat you see in scenes like hair metal, nu metal, grunge, etc.,  It will become less about the music and more about the products.  Every band will be following the KISS model of putting your name on everything. 

Are you saying KISS and hair metal weren't entertaining? Their pyrotechnics were awesome.

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

There was a band, I think Coldplay, who dropped their label, recorded an album and put it on the internet for free download with a donate option.
Most people donated 5 bucks and they made more off of that than they ever did with the record company sales. And they got to keep all their profits, promote themselves through the web and tour and make more damn money.

Pretty clever and a good way to go about it if you ask me.

[Iason Ouabache]

There was a band, I think Coldplay, who dropped their label, recorded an album and put it on the internet for free download with a donate option.
Most people donated 5 bucks and they made more off of that than they ever did with the record company sales. And they got to keep all their profits, promote themselves through the web and tour and make more damn money.

Pretty clever and a good way to go about it if you ask me.

That was Radiohead. Trent Reznor did something similar too. They had the help of big time labels marketing them for decades so they aren't a good analogy for what people will need to do in the future to make money in music.

I think Jonathan Coulton is a better example. He did an interesting project with Thing a Week and got attention from geeky websites. He's turned that into a pretty lucrative career without the use of a label.

Jill Sobule raised money to make an album by asking fans for donations and rewarding them based on how much they gave.

Are either of them as rich as Radiohead or as famous as Britney Spears? No, of course not. But they are making money through selling their albums and merchandise online and doing small tours. The Golden Age of record making is officially dead. Crying about it is about as worthless as weeping for buggy whip makers. Saying that it will kill good music for all time is ridiculous too. Just remember that the record industry gave us Ashley Simpson and Loverboy. And yet, we all managed to survive.

[Triple Zero]

Yes, it is pretty well known that album sales have gone down across the music industry.  

Can I have a citation on that?

Cause last thing I read the supposed losses suffered in the music industry from piracy were completely fabricated numbers, made up by the RIAA and some big record labels, not based on any actual research and basically just copied from report to report because the other report seemed a "reliable source". [http://torrentfreak.com/australian-govt-draft-says-piracy-stats-made-up/ , http://torrentfreak.com/us-government-told-piracy-losses-are-exaggerated-100616/ , http://torrentfreak.com/bogus-piracy-report-misleads-eu-legislators-100318/]

On the other hand, there is research that shows that people that pirate music do in fact spend more on music, than non-pirates. Probably because they are this generation's music lovers, and understand what they're doing. Like me. I really, really doubt I would have bought less CDs because of pirating. But I do know, that without pirating, I would have never come to hear Shpongle. And OTT. Which goes for about 25% of the CDs I own of which I am very happy to own them, I would not have bought them if I had not come into contact with them via privacy (and in this case I also count the pre-Internet piracy of my cassette-tape copies of the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy and the first burned CD-R I got via mail from a pen-pal "I care because you do" by Aphex Twin). All of those I ended up buying, as well as the newer albums by the same artists or their label.

Of course, those statistics could also be made up.

[Triple Zero]

M O N E Y.  As awesome and creative as they were they were unable to create money out of thin air.  That's why underground bands and bands not in the mainstream need label support and why piracy hurts these bands.

Another thing that's hurting labels, which in turn has them trying to pass the hurt onto everyone, is how inexpensive it is for artists to record their own albums these days. Sure, it takes money, but on a scale a Starbuck's employee can afford rather than on a level a major executive can afford.

I'd like to point out that this two posts contradict each other. Is producing an album so incredible expensive that alreay established bands need a giant faceless corporation to front them the money or is it so cheap that any schmuck with a guitar, a laptop and a couple grand produce it by themselves? It can't be both, can it?

As far as I know, recording a drumset and guitars is pretty hard, you need good equipment to get decent quality.

The mastering and mixing of different tracks is something that you can do at home now. But it is also something that requires great skill, time and effort. So you need another band member that is capable of doing that stuff, or otherwise you gotta pay someone and they are rather expensive.

Then there's some kind of diminishing returns going on. For instance the Chemical Bros are studio wizards, their newest music sounds so slick it's almost not cool anymore. But their equipment is hella expensive, and IMO disproportionately more expensive than the sound quality difference between "Exit Planet Dust" and "Push the Button".

And we need to remember that the current model for recording and selling music is only roughly 60 years old. Musicians were  making money through their music before records and will still make money after mp3s are long dead. Recorded music should be viewed as advertisement for live performances and/or various physical merchandise. You aren't going to make money any other way.

Before there were records, musicians were all starving and they couldn't make any new records because nobody would buy their records.

And where are all those musicians now? All of them, dead! I heard some of them were actually KILL BY PIRATES.

[Pæs]

I don't really have a lot of contribute to the debate here between "Piracy is bad" and "Piracy is good", but when given the opportunity to download the latest Gogol Bordello album or not listen to it at all, personally I choose to steal it from them. I don't even really help advertise, because everyone I share it with steals it as well.
Still, I don't lose any sleep over whether or not I cheated them out of something because, well, piracy is here and it's not going away. Given the opportunity to steal a physical copy of their album, without threat of consequences, still I would not do so, because I would consider this to be immoral. Somehow I don't see the piracy as the same as physical theft, though perhaps it is. I'm going to think on this further and continue my reply later. Apparently it's time to go to a party or something.

To be continued.

[Scribbly]

I usually pirate in order to test the waters. If I like what I've pirated, I'll go and buy it. If I don't, I'll delete it and never bother again.

All pirating really does for me is speed up the process I would follow anyway. I wouldn't buy a DVD if I didn't know I was going to like it beforehand (mostly, sometimes they are so cheap these days it's an impulse thing), and I wouldn't buy an album without knowing I like the band. I used to have to wait to either come across it on the TV/radio/whatever, or for a friend to pass it on. Now I can download it on a whim, and if I think it is worth it, make an informed choice as to how to spend my money.

I'm curious as to whether it counts as piracy if you download something you've already bought a CD of, too. My Dad recently asked me to download the Pink Floyd discography for him, because the majority of his CDs are scratched and broken, and he wants to put it on his MP3 player. Is it morally wrong to regain access to that lost product, even though he's probably bought the albums dozens of times over the years? If it were any type of physical art, the option wouldn't exist. But I can't see much objectionable about it.

[AFK]

Um, yeah, about the Radiohead experiment:  http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9832659-7.html

Nobody other than Radiohead and its handlers know how much money the groundbreaking promotion generated, and they aren't sharing figures with the public. Nonetheless, there are signs that the revenue was less than spectacular.

Last month, ComScore, a traffic-tracking company, stirred controversy when it estimated that 62 percent of those who downloaded In Rainbows did so without paying a cent for the music.

Radiohead pulled the plug on this only after 3 months and hinted it was probably something they wouldn't do again.  So it seems it wasn't really all that successful. 

[AFK]

M O N E Y.  As awesome and creative as they were they were unable to create money out of thin air.  That's why underground bands and bands not in the mainstream need label support and why piracy hurts these bands.

Another thing that's hurting labels, which in turn has them trying to pass the hurt onto everyone, is how inexpensive it is for artists to record their own albums these days. Sure, it takes money, but on a scale a Starbuck's employee can afford rather than on a level a major executive can afford.

I'd like to point out that this two posts contradict each other. Is producing an album so incredible expensive that alreay established bands need a giant faceless corporation to front them the money or is it so cheap that any schmuck with a guitar, a laptop and a couple grand produce it by themselves? It can't be both, can it?

First, there are different levels of "already established bands"  Sure, a band like Aerosmith or Metallica is sitting on gobs of money and doesn't have to rely on the record company.  However, your seceond, third, and fourth tier bands (like pretty much any underground metal band) doesn't have that luxury.  So they do require assistance and support from a label, which means they need to justify that support by moving units.  I mean, sure, I can use some $50 music editing software to make my music.  But it's going to sound exactly like someone used a $50 editing software to record music.  If I want to record a good sounding album I need good production equipment , someone to mix it, and someone to master it.  That shit ain't cheap which I'm sure LMNO can attest to. 

[AFK]

Their capacity to make music, record albums, is tied to the number of units they move, records they sell.  And I have to say, as we demonize record labels here, it needs to be understood that not all record labels are the same.  Some are very supportive of their artists and will do a lot to help them succeed.  So it's easy to point to the big dogs and carry that across the industry but I'm not sure it is fair, nor accurate.

I love the concept of smaller independent musician run labels. That is the kind of model we should be aimming. Get rid of the asshole corporate labels that squeeze the life out of good artists.

Great, but, in the meantime, piracy is hurting these artists who are relying upon these labels to record and release their music.  So I don't think part of the solution should be wanting to screw the lablels through not paying for music because you end up screwing the artist at the same time. 

And another thing, the whole idea that artists get supported through concert tickets and merchandise sales.  So, do we really think that all of these "fans" who pirate or steal songs are attending concerts for all of these bands and artists?  Instead of paying the $15 for an album they are paying 50 to 60 per band to attend concerts?  Yeah, I'm not believing that. 

Why not? How do you expect to build a fan base if you people don't hear your music? The previous model was to slip some payola to DJs in the major markets or MTV. The new model is to get your name out there through the internet and tour yourself to death. Slowly build your base through word of mouth (or go viral, like OkGo).

Getting your name out on the internet through having one or two songs available for download is one thing.  Having your entire album freely available, against your wishes, is quite another.  It then becomes why bother buying the cow when you are getting the milk for free? 

And if we tell artists to not worry about album sales and focus on selling t-shirts and other merchandise then there will be even more emphasis put on using gimmicks and concocting an image than there has already been.  So you will be encouraging the bloat you see in scenes like hair metal, nu metal, grunge, etc.,  It will become less about the music and more about the products.  Every band will be following the KISS model of putting your name on everything. 

Are you saying KISS and hair metal weren't entertaining? Their pyrotechnics were awesome.

Right, and the general rule of thumb in those days was that the bigger the hair, the more makeup and the more pyrotechnics on the stage, the worse the music was.  When the scene becomes about selling an image then you get bands like Firehouse and Trixter.  Generic bland fluff.

[AFK]

The argument "it's stealing because the artist loses potential profits" only holds if the artist was going to make profit if their media was not pirated.

That is, if person X would not or could not pirate music Y, they would have bought it.

If the person wasn't going to buy the music in the first place, if they couldn't get hold of it for free, where are the lost profits?

I'd say over 95% of my mp3 collection falls into this category. Yes that means my entire music collection would have been 20 times smaller if I couldn't pirate that. In either case for that 95% the artists make exactly the same amount of money, regardless of whether I was pirating or not. The only thing they're losing out on is free advertising when I play music to my friends I otherwise would not be able to.

So if you really don't like 95% of your music collection that much.  Why do you still have it? 

[Triple Zero]

Yeah I ignored that question before, because I thought the answer was too obvious to bother with, plus not really advancing the discussion at hand--I'm with Cram on the idea that it would be more useful to discuss how musicians (and other artists relying on IP) can make money given how things are now and how they inevitably are going to be, than whether piracy is moral or not.
I'm not entirely sure about the morality. It's not as immoral as stealing, because as soon as I feel I would have bought the album otherwise, I usually do so. But it's not entirely moral either, because in some cases, I don't.

So to get back to your question, first, if I really don't like it, I do throw it away. For anything else, I'd need to start keeping ratings or something (because often you need to listen to something 3 times before you can really know it sucks) and then think and decide, and harddisk space is cheap, so why bother? No really.

Then, of course, there is your argument that if you want the artist to make another album, you gotta buy the first one. And really in a lot of cases, it's pleasant music, but I dont care if they make another album. Sometimes less is more.

Sometimes one track is pretty cool, the rest of the album is crap and you know (just know) the next album is going to be crap too. I could keep the single track and throw away the rest, but don't. It's for completeness. A lot of people do throw it away, but there's something about preserving context and archiving. I won't play the rest though, so it's almost like I threw it away.

Do you buy all music you like? I mean, just like to hear? Like, putting on the radio and hearing music that is good? I throw all that leftover stuff in a big playlist, perhaps filtered by some genre or tags (that I picked myself) and enjoy it as background music. The end result is better than the radio, and only slightly better than Pandora (which is a free service).

BTW is it pirating if I play music videos on Youtube?

Anyway, there are lots of reasons to not delete stuff you download. Most important one (to me) is, there is actually no real good reason to delete it in the first place. Unless you're absolutely sure you never want to hear it again.

[LMNO]

You know, Cram is right in that we should be considering how to support artists in the current environment; however, it troubles me that some consider pirating to be less immoral, just because it's easy to do.

A person has requested that you pay money for their music; you take the music and ignore their request.  It's really that simple.

As far as radio, youtube and pandora go -- if a band uploads a track to Youtube, they are offering it for free.  That's not stealing.  If a fan does it, that's a bit more questionable.  It's not a perfect copy, and it's streaming, but the band isn't getting any royalties.  For radio and pandora, the bands are getting royalties, so that's ok.