U2Kitten said:
What he meant by that was that they seek out stuff that sells mainstream like boybands and copycat groups and divas. I don't believe the sad fact that record companies don't allow artists to hang around and build a career is due to the downloading. Bono also said that 'crap music' was the main reason for the decline in the industry!
Since you seem to be the expert here, would you please, please answer my question about what makes what the kids today are doing different from when I used to make my tapes off the radio when I was growing up? Nobody said a word or called it 'stealing.' No artist or record company were hurting for money.
As I said in my post above, there were ways of getting the songs you wanted by recording them onto homemade tapes. I thought of another one. One record station would play new release albums on Tuesdays at midnight. You could tape the whole thing! I bought what I could afford, War, Synchronicity, even Scandal with Patty Smythe, but I was a kid who didn't have much money so I made a lot of compilations on tape. I really don't see a difference in that and what the kids do now with computers. Can you please explain to me why that's a crime and radio taping wasn't in the old days? Thank you.
BONO did not say that in 2005 at the Hall Of Fame awards. The industry is selling less albums, which means they are making less money and have less money to spend on new artist. Why is that so difficult for people to understand?
1. Cassette taping did not impact music industry sales back in the 1980s. Sales continued to grow and grow and grow. The reason seems to be is that with cassette taping there was always a noticable decrease in the quality of the copy made. With todays technology, there is still a "technical" decrease in quality, but not a noticable decrease in quality for the average listener.
2. In the 1980s, copying a new album or any album meant you had to know someone with a physical copy of that album and either give them a blank cassette or bring their album home and do the copying yourself. You had to play the whole album unless you did not mind having an even more quallity reduced copy of the album you were recording.
Today, one can download an entire album of material in just a few minutes to their computer without ever talking or asking anyone for a physical copy of the album, leaving their home, or spending the time needed to make the copy.
Today, a person can obtain a record collection in one weekend for FREE that would have taken someone in the 1980s many years and over a thousand dollars.
The speed of obtaining quality FREE copied music, that does not require the person to even leave their home, is light years in difference from slow reduced quality cassette taping of the 1980s that required you to usually leave your house to obtain what you needed to make the copy.
In the 1980s, Kids, teens, adults would only spend money on albums they really liked, and would then perhaps record some stuff on cassette from friends that they thought was ok or were uncertain about. If they really liked what they heard, they would go out and buy the album because the cassette was at a noticable reduced quality level.
Today, there is no noticable quality difference in the quality of the copied music. People are not spending money to buy albums for their favorite artist because they can now obtain perfect quality CD's for FREE. I know multiple U2 fans, hardcore U2 fans, who no longer buy U2 CD's. Ever since All That You Can't Leave Behind, they have been obtaining the albums for FREE! That really doesn't hurt U2, but it is forcing new artist to find a different career as they get rapidly dropped from the label or don't even get signed.
A generation of music fans is now out there that believes music should be free period. They have only purchased a couple of albums and have downloaded the other 100 or 200 for free. That was not the case in the 1980s. Music sales continued to grow throughout that decade with the economy and population.