What is Digg?109 Comments
- ricksickle, on 08/03/2008, -4/+58The music industry is full of redundant people who make excessive amounts of money off other peoples work. Go get new jobs as something useful instead you leeches.
- kokoshka, on 08/03/2008, -4/+43Took 2 hours to get In Rainbows off their website.
10 minutes over bittorrent. - tweedius, on 08/04/2008, -2/+22I understand the music industry wanting to get their traditional CD sales back. However, when a band takes things to extremes as is the case with Metallica, the backlash is also something to fear. This is a tough call, for any business to make, but if they could find a way to let us keep downloading free music...the way we are going to anyways...AND profit, why not? If the Radiohead experiment actually worked out in their favor, the RIAA may need to take a look at their business model and adjust before it gets completely left behind. I still buy CDs if I want to support a band that I like and go to their concerts. But, I will never buy another Metallica CD ever, ever again.
- munkyxtc, on 08/04/2008, -0/+17Exactly why I used torrents. The first couple of days the download kept stalling so I turned to a torrent that had over 1000 seeders and downloaded in a few minutes. I still paid $5 for the download on Radioheads website, but I never returned to collect. I figured we were then even. I figured sooner or later someone would come out with figures saying "See, look how many people 'stole' it", but honestly I wonder how many people were in my position, paid and only used torrents for the speed.
- tsunamisteve, on 08/04/2008, -3/+19They really should embrace something like Creative Commons. If you've ever made a film you know how ridiculous licensing fees are for "real" music. Why not make it affordable for YouTubers and the like to spend $2-3 (or free if the artist allows) and be able to legally use music in other productions? Am I crazy?!? We're the remix culture, let us work.
- WiretapStudios, on 08/04/2008, -1/+16When they sign a record deal with a major label, they do about the same thing. They get very very tiny returns off the album sales and usually lose most publishing rights. So yes.
- Br3ach, on 08/04/2008, -1/+16How is it "illegal" to download an album from a torrent site that you can get a free "legit" copy from the official website? I liked Radiohead's attempt to shake things up abit, though it was misguided.
Trent Reznor really nailed it to me though. Cut the middle man out, sell directly to your fans. Part of the new music was free, a little bit more for the rest, downloadable in almost any format you could think of. And real CDs for those people too in a few different sets. Something for everyone, and Trent didn't have to share the revenue with anyone.
The industry is on the brink of a violent, fiery death, and they know it and have known it for years. In their last moments they are stabbing at the very heart of music. An industry that alienates its very consumers is destined to fail hard. - kenedamick, on 08/04/2008, -0/+13The gig is up - time for these corporate music ***** to deal with the inevitable. If you can't beat 'em join 'em.
- NoisyFoot, on 08/04/2008, -2/+15this is a crazy idea but maybe they could make money by charging people to see them play live.
- orangederange, on 08/03/2008, -1/+13I agree musicians have long and ranted about the music industry in general long before illegal downloading came about. rarely did they get to see any of the monies being made... Radiohead, NIN they are truly bringing about awareness and trying to change things...
- f4nt0m4s, on 08/04/2008, -1/+13Consider the potential of the Internet. An unnamed band writes/records a song. They put the song on Youtube or Myspace. People start viewing that song, the band gains popularity. People start to go to the band's website which could have ad revenue (money for the band). People then go and purchase the band's album from the band site through paypal (where the majority of the money goes to the band, not to some big corporation). And, yes, then they make even more money off of concerts and merchandise.
Or, the alternate route. Small band never gets picked up by the major labels in the first place. Bigger band does get picked up, but they only see 2-3% of profit per album sold. Aka, very little.
Surely the first scenario would be more ideal for the musicians in the long run, no?
Right now the industry mass produces band after band that sounds the same, they stuff it down society's throat and sell it at a marked up price. Most of the money never gets to the bands, it goes to the industry. Well, now thanks to the massive social network of the current generation aka "The Internet", the industry is not needed to advertise for bands. More and more people are discovering smaller and more independent bands/labels thanks to sites like MySpaceMusic, Pandora and Last.fm.
Torrents are just the icing on the cake. Distribution made fast and easy. - Kenzan, on 08/04/2008, -2/+13Hmmm..
So if i understand correctly, musicians should give away the music for free and only make money off of concerts, T-shirts, swag and other merchandise? - sodade, on 08/04/2008, -2/+12I gave them $20 because I had downloaded all of their music. They gave me a chance to give money to the artist directly and I decided that $20 was a reasonable price to pay for all their CDs as compressed music. I wonder how many people did the same.
- johncap, on 08/04/2008, -10/+19***** THE RIAA!!!
- Rock3tsauce, on 08/04/2008, -5/+14When established business forums like FT are calling for the music industry to embrace free downloading, the tide is in music lovers' favor. There's none of the hysteria in this article like during the OiNk raid, just rational analysis (and begrudging resignation). This kind of stuff might not be the sole reason that the RIAA eventually caves (For example: I highly doubt they'll stop taking people to court tomorrow), but the trend is clearly in the direction of freeing music.
Yes, musicians need revenue, but the fact is that times change and business models will either adapt or perish. Music won't be dying anytime soon, but major record labels as we know them just might. Smart artists will find ways to make money. I'm sorry that Britney Spears won't be as wealthy as a small island nation off record sales, but the truth is that huge portions of that money get pissed away in burdensome contracts. I don't see her, or for that matter less mainstream acts, getting screwed out of anything. - plainOldFool, on 08/04/2008, -0/+9or you could support them by paying them (directly, not to bloated label fat cats) to buy their music.
- barstegry, on 08/04/2008, -2/+10If illegal downloading is embraced, is it still illegal?
Charging only for live music will make "making a living in music" nearly impossible for a vast number of your favorite musicians. As fuel costs increase, so does the cost of traveling, decreasing the already slim profit margin for most musicians. Ticket prices will have to rise just to get your face on stage 500 miles from home.
What we need is more "pay by the download" options. Don't make your fans download a whole album, just the songs they like. And fans, if you do like your artist, pony about a buck or two to help support their effort.
The world will miss out on it's fair share of good artists if "Creative Commons" is the only way to distribute music.
Your results may vary. - wolferz, on 08/04/2008, -1/+9Buried for contributing to the idea that the only options are allowing illegal file sharing and not allowing illegal file sharing.
There is also the option of allowing legal file sharing as well as making formerly illegal file sharing legal and it it THIS that they should embrace. - Stavrosian, on 08/04/2008, -0/+7My dad and his friends all swap CDs in the pub every week. They're the biggest music pirates I know, and they are nearing pensioner status. Old fashioned piracy refuses to cave to these digital upstarts.
- XtheXlanternX, on 08/04/2008, -1/+8I've been saying this from the beginning. If the digital copy of the album was around 3-4$, and you had the selection of the large torrent tracker sites, you'd see a lot more music being sold instead of illegally traded. People want to support the artists (most of the time), however the RIAA has made itself into the villain and has made it easy to justify stealing music. Lower the price + get a real selection (ever tried finding anything non-mainstream at a brick and mortar music store?), and they'd see some changes, at least I think they will. Or they can just continue to deny the inevitable.
- dekuscrub, on 08/04/2008, -2/+9It is time for the music industry to find a new business model. Clearly, consumers are not going to be raked over the coals any longer.
What they fail to realize is that the "illegal" sites offer a superior product. Bittorrent (blazing fast compared to traditional downloads) along with sites like Oink, offered ease of use, awesome and innovative search techniques, and DRM-free tracks.
The "legal" sites offer slower downloads, out-dated search techniques, and DRM-infested tracks. i.e. Inferior Product
Who wants to pay for something that is actually worse than what you can get for free? - Kenzan, on 08/04/2008, -1/+8Interesting. But won't the musicians end up making less?
I mean, I'm not paying 300 bucks a ticket, no matter how good they are, you know?
What's to keep people from making illegal swag? (I mean, more than they do now.)
It just seems like a raw deal for the musicians. - shakeZ, on 08/04/2008, -0/+6when first starting out you ain't gonna be selling CDs anyway. and what sort of music is unsuited to live performance?
- ZZeke, on 08/04/2008, -0/+6 All the exposure in the world isn't worth getting raped by a bunch of suits. Ask Reznor, that's why he's done making records for them....The guy has his own production co, he records and produces his own albums, develops his own interactive media....and then the suits try to take credit for all of his work when all they do is mass-produce it and distribute - oh, and they charge more for his CD than the next guy, simply because he "has a core group of fans that will pay whatever we charge".
The record execs are too greedy to embrace sharing - there's not enough $$$ in it for them, they want to take the majority of the profit from every copy of every song. This is what killed the music biz even before D/L'ing became so popular. The internet has only magnified the problems which already existed in the record biz. - lcmatt, on 08/04/2008, -0/+6Artists don't generally make money from album sales as they have to pay back the production, studio and other costs back to the label. Merchandise and touring is the only way they see any cash.
- meells, on 08/04/2008, -1/+6So I am just asking, can you not make enough with ads on a website, some merch, some direct DLs, and touring small venues? I am not trying to be a jerk, I am seriously wondering. What is 'enough'? Or better yet....why are you a musician? To make money? I was always under the impression that art was practiced by artists for the love, and if you could also get a little scratch for it, well all the luckier. And, yes, it is lucky. There are thousands upon thousands of artists in every style who never see dime one generated by what they naturally do for free anyway...because of the love, the need, the complusion to create what is in their soul. Every 'artists' that comes along doesn't automatically get monetery rewards, and for most that do it can take quite some time of just doing it before people take notice. Perhaps some artists have a false sense of automatic and immediate reward? I dunno....but if you wouldn't create for free because it is who you are....maybe creation isn't for you.
- ddotccDPU, on 08/04/2008, -1/+6As has been my practice... I download a track or 2 from an artist, and if i like them, then I pony up and buy the album or merch from their websites.
- c010rb1indusa, on 08/04/2008, -0/+5The Woz pretty much made Apple, the Apple II was his design but everyone needs someone like Seve Jobs to get the company out there and going, this is where the recording industry falls. Sure they make money off it but their musicians benefit with exposure. The music industry needs to move to an ad-based medium to distribute music because music is to expensive. The piratebay makes boatloads off ads, it must be the stuborness of those CEO's to abandon their way of selling music but it must be done.
- hkbebe1, on 08/04/2008, -1/+5ppl who dont have interwebz still buy bootleg copies of albums for 5 bucks.
- RedSepher, on 08/04/2008, -0/+4So Say we All
- lisaawesome, on 08/04/2008, -0/+4As a child my version of piracy was recording songs off the radio and the MTV onto my little tape. My parents would rarely purchase albums for me so I came up with a way I could still have the songs I wanted when I wanted. I thought it was a genius idea when I was 9.
- shakeZ, on 08/04/2008, -1/+5it's still illegal to distribute copyrighted material without authority even if the proprietor doesn't charge for it
- wolferz, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3Allow me to help you out here by repeating your own words back to you.
That includes cd sales.
Now allow me to rephrase that so that even a 3 year old would know what I mean.
That includes BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO cd sales.
See what I did there?
There is no reason file sharing can't be profitable... even more so than cd sales. It's also more convenient for the consumer, ie your fans. I have and will continue to pay for music online when possible. Of course I also promptly strip any DRM out of the music so I can listen to it when where and how *I* choose to.
Maybe there are people here making excuses... but there are also those of us who still pay for our music and at the same time agree that file sharing is the future of the music industry. - masterstan, on 12/06/2008, -2/+5can I get an amen?
- NoisyFoot, on 08/04/2008, -2/+5If anything musicians should embrace illegal downloads as they make far less money from CD sales than they do from touring in general. Free music leads to a larger audience, which leads to greater ticket sales. If record companies become more involved with promoting live music instead of expensive CD's it's a win-win situation.
- wwwonka, on 08/04/2008, -3/+6I've got "something" for the music industry to embrace!
- XtheXlanternX, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3At least in my experience, while the locally owned stores may have a deeper selection, they are more often after the fact. What I mean is, they get things after the local music scene has people coming in asking for it. Thus, you have to often wait for it on order or they'll only order a couple copies at once. It is hard to justify buying 5 of a CD that only 10 people in the whole town may be interested in when you're a locally owned record store. You can't walk into your local store and look for underground stuff you've never heard of but someone mentioned to you on the internet, but I could go to waffles and get the super rare limited edition promo only advance copy with bonus tracks album.
- JorgeGT, on 08/04/2008, -2/+5You don't get it. Unknown people now has 5.000.000+ views/favorites in Youtube, Myspace, etc., that's the point
1. You post a homemade video on youtube.
2. Your friends like it, they pass the url to their friends.
...
3. You're now famous.
Example:
See Chocolate Rain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA , which has been viewed by 26,780,003 people, the population of a midsize country. Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_rain for details. - blarch, on 08/05/2008, -0/+3if people weren't being gouged at the record store, they could go to concerts more often
- mcneely11, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3I'm talking about making a living as a musician. It's becoming increasingly impossible to do. I'm not out for riches but I don't want to have to supplement my income with a job at taco bell. I will teach as well as perform, sell cds, whatever. But most venues pay peanuts unless you are a huge name.
- coyote1284, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3No, unless you are self-produced. It works for Trent Reznor and Radiohead, but not so much for starting bands. Record companies have any artist that wants to get to be a household name by the balls until they've fulfilled their contract.
Poe is trying to go the route of Radiohead, but she's been entrenched in legal battles with FEI for almost 8 years so she can continue to release music as Poe. - wolferz, on 08/04/2008, -0/+3If they were making money from advertising at "authorized outlets" then it would be illegal to share that music on p2p networks.
I think...
It might just be a violation of terms of use... *shrug* any one know more about it than I do?
Oh and trent did have to share the revenue... with his hosting company, and advertisers, and the government. *shrug* the only differences are that his hosting company isn't trying to cheat him or control him and he he's not in a contract with them. - mcneely11, on 08/04/2008, -1/+3Well advertising before lil wayne's newest hit song is fine but if I want to listen to something with artistic value to it im not going to accept advertising.
- locojones, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2It's illegal because it violates the copyright holder's exclusive right to distribute copies, whether or not the copyright holder chooses to charge for those copies, period.
And it's fine for Trent Reznor to give his stuff away for free now, why don't you stop to think what would happen when NIN first formed, and see how they would make a living giving it away then. Yeah, damn those record labels and their promotional machines who built NIN up to the level of success they are at now......hypocrites. - locojones, on 08/04/2008, -1/+3Infringing the copyright of another is still illegal even if you buy a physical copy later on. Go to law school before you post next time about what you think the law is.
- wolferz, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2oops sorry, forgot one additional point:
"Oh it's no problem.... I'll just live from gig to gig."
Allow me to share with you the words of a philosopher named Epictetus.
http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
The point of all that is simply that I can not control what happens to me. I can only control how I deal with it. I can deal with it well, or I can deal with it poorly.
If you accept that the first part as correct then by trying to force people to stop sharing files you are automatically dealing with the situation poorly because you are trying to exercise control over the actions of others, rather than yourself. And the whole gig to gig thing is a total ***** cop out. Why don't you, i dunno, try turning p2p to your advantage. Others have. Why not you?
I'll tell you why. Cause just as you claimed others are you are simply too busy making excuses. What other people do is none of your concern, only what you do. - MScrip, on 08/04/2008, -3/+5The music industry is already a raw deal for the musicians. Bands make only a tiny percentage of sales now. If they sold DRM-free tracks for 50 cents then more people would be willing to buy music and thus the bands would make it up in volume.
Music is already devalued to the point where songs are either 99 cents or free. If they made the price cheaper and legal for high quality downloads, and the copyright cops won't bust down my door, then I'd buy more music.
Millions of songs are traded each day on P2P, and the popular artists are still making money. And if you're a starving artist, you weren't making any money anyway. All artists can still make money from concerts and t-shirts. - wolferz, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2"File sharing by definition is not profitable. It's redistributing without paying to do so."
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file sharing
English - Noun
1. (uncountable) (computing) The process of making files available to others to download from the Internet.
2. (uncountable) (computing) The use of a file sharing network, or peer-to-peer software.
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
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File sharing is redistribution content of some kind in a format used by computers to keep different sets of data separate over the internet. No where does it say that the people running a given P2P network (or tracker networks in the case of bittorrent) can't pay royalties. Hell they can even give the music away free and still pay royalties if they can make enough off of advertising.
Also many small artists (I'm assuming you are a small artist since the overwhelming majority of artists are) have used P2P as a form of advertisement to drive cd and merchandise sales. Some have even become so popular through P2P that they attracted the attention of major labels.
And FYI, some of the P2P services are pay services and CAN pay royalties if the royalties are not too high. They could pay more if the recording industry would support them instead refusing to do business with them unless they arbitrarily make their music more inconvenient for consumers (DRM for example)... something they have no control over.
"And I don't understand your first point."
*Arches an eyebrow* My point was that saying "...but most bands need income from a couple sources. That includes cd sales." implies that there are other sources of revenue that could support or help support bands OTHER than CD sales and that by using the word includes rather than saying something like "that means cd rom sales" you were acknowledging this.
On that note I'd like to take back the "3 year old" part. My intention was not to insult you... but now there is no way it could not.
"Why should musicians give up a large portion of income because people are too cheap to pay?"
The popularity of file sharing has less to do with people being cheap and more to do with people being lazy.
When napster was new most people had no idea it was illegal. Most people I talked to at the time, which since I was working professionally on computers at the time was a *lot* of people, were in love with how convenient it was to get just the song they want and not have to lug around a book full of CDs. Yes they could have ripped it, but the average joe didn't know that back then. Hell! The *average joe* still doesn't. They liked not having to go to the store and look through shelf after shelf of poorly organized cds and tapes while loud music blasted (this was a major complaint of older people. They liked being able to download songs from artists they had never tried before and listen to them and if they liked them download more of them (and yes some people actually did buy albums of artists they discovered via Napster, I'm one of them). And, yes, some of them loved how it was free, though most assumed it was because they made the money to pay royalties via advertising and ad/apyware.
Now what has changed? People now know it is illegal and the RIAA is busy suing every one and his brother leaving people to be scared.
Some have gone back to buying in stores. My 60 year old mom hasn't. My 63 year old dad hasn't. My 75 year old ex-army Huey/Cobra pilot and instructor uncle and his life long house-wife haven't. My in-church-7-days-a-week older cousin hasn't. My older clients and even business clients haven't. None of them are poor. They know it's illegal. They don't care. Why? First off the risk of getting caught is low. If it was higher I'm sure they would care more. Secondly it's still just as convenient as it ever was. Why don't they use iTunes? My mom and dad do. But there is a lot of music they have wanted in the past that wasn't available on iTunes (beatles for example).
I personal have multiple reasons for not going to the store. I can never find what I want in the store (half the time I can't find it on iTunes ether). I don't want a bunch of songs I'm never going to listen to. I'm sorry but I don't. There are very few albums out there that I listen to more than one or two songs on. Even my favorite artists, such as NIN (and no I'm not a recent convert) and Cake, don't produce albums I listen to straight through. I'm sure they put lots of time and effort into making them and I'm sure there are people out there that think ***** is NIN's best song ever and Every Day is Exactly the Same is their worst (while my thoughts are pretty much the opposite). If an artist has a problem with what songs his fans choose to like then sucks to be him.
But the biggest problem in recent years is the RIAA and their members' practices and methods of dealing with file sharing. Perhaps most people they sue are guilty. Perhaps even the over whelming majority. Perhaps, legally, they have the right to defend their IP. Perhaps even MORALLY they have the right to defend their IP. They do NOT, however, have the right to bully those they sue into early settlements. They do not have the right to legal manipulate the system in the name of lowering the cost of suing people. They do not have the right to engage in shady practices such as trying with all their might to have every case seen in a court where the judge almost ALWAYS sides with the copyright holder... even when that court should not have jurisdiction over the case. They do not have the right to sue people with no solid evidence to support their claims just to abuse the court system as some sort of big ass baseball bat to beat evidence out of people with.
Their shady practices, combined with more personal issues such as enforcement of anti-consumer technologies such as DRM and root kits, their insistence on controlling how I listen to my, yes MY, music, and their general anti-consumer attitude, and their instance on all these practices in the face of what can only be described as the "Writing on the wall" is the reason I have chosen to take a stance against purchasing CDs, or using music that is in any way DRMed. If I can't get the music from a legal source without DRM and not on a factory CD then I'll just have to settle for listening to it on the radio or not at all.
BTW care to explain to me why iTunes couldn't support file sharing of files already in it's catalog? It would lower iTunes' overhead by reducing the amount of bandwidth they need. People woud still have to pay to authorise the downlaod and just to be sure part of the file could be only downloadable through the software from the itunes databse itself. Lets say the first .5 megs of the song, with all the headers and meta data in it. And, in case you don't already know, no header means no playing the song. Headers can be reconstructed but you have to know what your doing or download software that isn't very common place (never mind the DRM iTunes uses which even further complicates the matter).
P2P is here to stay. It doesn't matter if it is legal or illegal, moral or immoral. It doesn't matter if they spend the next 50 years suing people. It doesn't matter what laws are passed (unless this becomes a 1984 style society). It doesn't matter what happens from here on. P2P is here to stay, full stop.
The only way the recording industry and other content providers are going to survive is to ether embrace it or find a way to compete with it directly. It's not a legal or moral decision. It's a BUSINESS decision. They have a higher chance of making solid long term profits if they stop fighting a losing battle and find some way to get on the winning team. Until then they, and all of their artists, will suffer for it. - dekuscrub, on 08/04/2008, -0/+2Dude calm down.
For years, consumers have been forced to spend 20 bucks for a CD with 15 songs just to listen to the 1 or 2 tracks that are any good.
THAT is being raked over the coals.
"Pay for what you consume" = I agree with that. But what I'm saying is I don't wanna pay for an inferior product. -
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