New album out by October??

[U2girl]

I think both is important - good albums, and later, as you promote them, live shows.

 

[BVS]

Clearly I'm the only nut out there who enjoys not spending $15-$17 on an album. All this Napster/Limewire/Kazaa/iTunes stuff was a big joke!

No, but to go from I don't want to spend 15-17(which I'm not sure where you live I haven't seen CDs cost that much since the early 90's) to artists shouldn't get paid is ridiculous. And iTunes and torrents aren't the same thing so you keep contradicting yourself.

 

[BVS]

My point is, did he do more work for that additional money to roll in? He doesn't have to re-record the song every time it gets used in a movie. So there's payment with no corresponding work. This gets to the heart of my problem with intellectual property. Selling 10 songs is the same amount of work as selling a million. You don't have to print any actual discs or anything. They're just files. So the literal work, as in

, is completely divorced from the payment, which I find wrong. Otherwise, I could go to work on Tuesday and do a great job and expect to be paid for years, because hey, I did some great work on Tuesday.

Now I will say you are nuts here. This is just ridiculous. You don't believe in intellectual property? Music is just a file? This is what I'm talking about when I say entitlement, we get these arguments like "it's just something I listen to", it should be free, it's like air...

If the great work you did on Tuesday ends up being used over and over for years to come and it won't depreciate, then please do so, find a way to get paid every time it gets used...

 

[vaz02]

There should be a website where you can download all music for free, imagine the huge target market for businesses to attract consumers from. Businesses will pay the website for banner and other advertisement space. The website will pay the artist for each track a person has downloaded of their music.

You get the jist. Everyone is a winner.

 

[Chill Mike D]

Why do I get to enjoy every South Park episode in its entirety for free?

Or what about all of these TV shows and movies?


There are viable business models for content creators to make a living and still be able to give it to the consumers for nothing or next to nothing. And people do what is possible when it benefits them. High speed internet and efficient file compression made song-sharing feasible, so millions upon millions of people have spoken through their actions that that is how they want their music, and if it's not incredibly cheap then they will find free ways to get it. I have no problem with this. I simply consider this to be an example of what the phrase "get with the times" means.

 

[Rosebud]

Dude. Did you not hear of the writers strike?

 

[Chill Mike D]

Yeah. So what?

 

[Salome]

lets get real
if artists dont have an album to promote
(and you can't promote something that you're giving away for free)
then no one is going to invest in them touring

so they'd be able to do shows in their home town
and maybe the town next to it
but that would be about it

the idea that anyone should do a part of their work for free is ludicrous
the idea that people will be able to enjoy music if we don't pay artists except for part of their work (which would mean increasing ticket prices etc) is beyond believe

i like getting things for free as much as the next person
and i take what i can get
but to make the mental leap to make that into a business model then wouldnt even occur to me after a lost weekend o booze

 

[BVS]

Why do I get to enjoy every South Park episode in its entirety for free?

Or what about all of these TV shows and movies?


There are viable business models for content creators to make a living and still be able to give it to the consumers for nothing or next to nothing. And people do what is possible when it benefits them. High speed internet and efficient file compression made song-sharing feasible, so millions upon millions of people have spoken through their actions that that is how they want their music, and if it's not incredibly cheap then they will find free ways to get it. I have no problem with this. I simply consider this to be an example of what the phrase "get with the times" means.

Mike you can't be serious? So placing episodes that already aired on a website proves something? This is apples and oranges!

I have no problem with this.

Of course you don't, you're not the artist that got screwed.

 

[INSTCUWSUMVC]

Mike you can't be serious? So placing episodes that already aired on a website proves something? This is apples and oranges!

Of course you don't, you're not the artist that got screwed.

This sums up the entire discussion. Mike does not care because Mike is not the one up for days on end working his ass off to create a great album and the someone wants Mike to give that away for free.

 

[LemonMelon]

As a musician, I've got to say that I fucking want to get paid for recording music. Making albums is not easy by any stretch. Mike D used the argument that putting an album together is easy because it's simple. The mechanics of recording itself may not be all that challenging, but where does creativity fit into the equation? Beyond the time it takes to come up with good musical ideas, it takes months to record albums, and time in a proper recording studio costs money. I still have home recording equipment but, hypothetically, if I were to spend a large amount of money on making an album, should I not receive some form of restitution to help pay off these debts?

I'll admit, $17.99 for an album is a travesty. How about a middle ground between free and highway robbery?

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

You're a musician LM?

What instruments do you play? I'm guessing guitars?

I hope to hear your stuff or see you on a lighted stage someday.

 

[LemonMelon]

Yeah, I'm a 7 year guitarist and have been in the same band for a couple of years.

And thanks for the kind word. I download albums myself, but make sure to buy all albums I'm truly interested in when I can. It's only fair.

 

[sue4u2]

I'd pay for your album LM.
I love a good studio album as much as the next person, but after a while I want to hear it live. If an artist doesn't make any money off their tours or albums then I won't get to hear the live version of their art - in concert or on dvd, etc. If an artist doesn't have a problem with me having a bootleg, then I'll go in search of it.
I'm not going to steal their lively hood from them just because I can, much like I don't steal in other areas of my life.
(that could change, though, if gas doesn't stop going up. jk)

 

[martha]

Downloading albums is not stealing. Period. Full stop.

Bullshit. Full stop. Taking something you didn't pay for is stealing.

 

[popacrobat]

Bullshit. Full stop. Taking something you didn't pay for is stealing.

I think the answer is not as easy as that, but I agree with this side more than the other. I can see it as being sort of a free radio (obviously) and if I download a song that I really enjoy I typically go out and buy the album. have i downloaded albums before that I thought sucked and never gave them the time of day and never listened to or bought ? sure. Have i downloaded albums that I went out and bought because I enjoyed it? Many times.

So I agree it's stealing, but I would hope that a lot of people do the right thing and at least support the artists they like. Not saying I'm an angel or anything by any means, I do download music, but I pay for nearly most of it afterwards if I enjoy it.

 

[mobvok]

Bullshit. Full stop. Taking something you didn't pay for is stealing.

Why does the rest of what I said not apply?

 

[Yahweh]

In the end it comes down to how important is music to your daily life, and whether you have morals for living life. I am in the computer industry this does not only affect music it affects software, movies, documents and anything else that can be transmitted in a digital format. If people can get something for free and it is easy to do they will do so as a majority, the minority will have some morals and decide that it is right to pay for it.

If you could download food or electricity or gas theoretically I gurentee you most people would not pay for it, no matter what the cost of it was. This is only going to become a bigger problem in the future for many other industries as more and more things in this world become transferable in a digital format. I dont know that their will be any way of stopping it, because any security that can be developed can also be cracked with the use of mathematics.

In the end it is up to the consumer if they can live with stealing or not, if they can they must believe that there is nothing wrong with it. In my experience at least 80 percent of people will go with the free option if they can. Torrents will only make this easier for people to do.



Just my 2 cents.

 

[AtomicBono]

Bullshit. Full stop. Taking something you didn't pay for is stealing.

No, mobvok is right. Legally, it's copyright infringement. When you download a file, you're obtaining an unauthorized copy. Whether you regard that as stealing is a matter of personal opinion, but under the law it is not theft.

 

[martha]

Why does the rest of what I said not apply?

I should have told this to the band whose albums I bought the other night. They were opening for Russian Circles and I liked them so I bought two cds. I should have said: "Guys, it's not really stealing if I download the albums for free from Limewire. It's only copyright infringement, so don't feel too bad."

And then I would have hugged them.

 

[martha]

Whether you regard that as stealing is a matter of personal opinion, but under the law it is not theft.

I was stating my personal opinion.

 

[mobvok]

I was stating my personal opinion.

And I wanted to establish that perspective as opinion, and not literal fact. But you or AtomicBono viewing it as equal to stealing is OK!

I might as well explain my views- I see a very small distinction between streaming content and saving that content to a hard drive. In a way, this is the old Betamax Supreme Court argument which decided that it was legal to record TV shows to a tape. Yet we've come to a different conclusion with more recent decisions about music. With that changed perspective in mind then, the difference between safely/legally viewing YouTube videos and recording that music to a hard drive is venturing down that vague grayer road of less significant lawbreaking that's akin to breaking the speed limit. It's wrong! But it's not a huge jump. Of course, this argument doesn't apply universally. In an ideal world, bands release singles for free, dangling the albums as reasonably priced rewards. However, I keep an open mind about all this and am always willing to be persuaded otherwise.

Have a very nice day.

 

[Chill Mike D]

As a musician, I've got to say that I want to get paid for recording music.

As a musician you should do what it takes to get your music into as many ears as possible. A middle ground is fine but it has to be on much more on the consumer side of the middle than the artist side of the middle. Otherwise people just flat out won't pay at all. That's the reality of it. 99 cents per song isn't a bad idea, but that shouldn't extend all the way up to the whole album. If somebody actually decides to buy an entire album, they should be given some sort of incentive to do that. Like the whole album for $4 or something.

I know for myself that most of the music on my iPod is music I would not have paid for, because most of it I got from Limewire or my friends. I like listening to it, but not enough to buy it. That's what artists are up against. They have to offer their stuff at a low enough cost that it is right next door to being free, so anyone, kids and teenagers included, since they account for a large portion of music consumers, won't hesitate to spend a couple bucks.

 

[BVS]

If somebody actually decides to buy an entire album, they should be given some sort of incentive to do that. Like the whole album for $4 or something.

99 cents or 11 for $4? Interesting marketing

I like listening to it, but not enough to buy it. That's what artists are up against. They have to offer their stuff at a low enough cost that it is right next door to being free, so anyone, kids and teenagers included, since they account for a large portion of music consumers, won't hesitate to spend a couple bucks.

I like driving a BMW, but not enough to buy it... When whatever you do for a living gets replaced or people find a way to steal it, I hope you are as fine with it as you are this...

 

[Chill Mike D]

You know what can't be "stolen", copied or replaced from musicians? Live performances. That will never, ever go away.

 

[rihannsu]

As a musician you should do what it takes to get your music into as many ears as possible. A middle ground is fine but it has to be on much more on the consumer side of the middle than the artist side of the middle. Otherwise people just flat out won't pay at all. That's the reality of it. 99 cents per song isn't a bad idea, but that shouldn't extend all the way up to the whole album. If somebody actually decides to buy an entire album, they should be given some sort of incentive to do that. Like the whole album for $4 or something.

I know for myself that most of the music on my iPod is music I would not have paid for, because most of it I got from Limewire or my friends. I like listening to it, but not enough to buy it. That's what artists are up against. They have to offer their stuff at a low enough cost that it is right next door to being free, so anyone, kids and teenagers included, since they account for a large portion of music consumers, won't hesitate to spend a couple bucks.

I get the impression from your posts that what little value you ascribe to music is bound up in either the actual physical process of recording or the entertainment value of the live performance. You have indicated absolutly no monetary appreciation whatsoever for the actual creativity of the original work. You talk about how any one can record music professionally now and that is true. But anyone can use a word processor too to put words on paper that doesn't make them a novelist. Just because a musician can make a recording doesn't mean anybody will want to hear it. Live performance does not require original creativity either but rather the ability to perform. Sinatra didn't write any of his own songs but he was a fabulous performer. Some of the best songwriters are actually not fantastic performers. Bob Dylan would not have had the impact on the music world that he did had he had to rely solely on his voice or guitar playing. He often remarks that he's made a career of playing guitar very badly. This is the point I was making in my earlier post. The person doing the actual work of creating has historically gotten the least reward. Talk to B.B. King about the idea of getting rich off of live performance. The man has toured heavily for the majority of his life and has very little to show for it. Same goes for people like Fats Domino. Most musicians barely make a living on just performing. The percentage of musicians out there that can play arenas or larger is fairly small and that is where the real money lies. The average bar band barely makes ends meet and that doesn't necessarily have any relation to how good they are. I grew up in South Louisiana where talented musicians are a dime a dozen. There were always festivals around with fantastic live music which the musicians barely made beer money for but they were better than the majority of the "big" artists. Bottom line is that people still don't value creativity in a monetary way. Most art is profitable to the people who exploit it rather than those that originally created it. Elvis makes more money now that he is dead than he ever did when alive. How is that right?

Dana

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

Dana, one suggestion if I might, have you ever considered adding some paragraph breaks to your larger posts?

I'm sure a lot of what you say has merit but to be completely honest, I have a hard time reading them because all the sentences are bunched together with no breaks...

Just a suggestion, I hope you don't take any offence

You know what can't be "stolen", copied or replaced from musicians? Live performances. That will never, ever go away.

I fail to see how this allows you to justify stealing from (or infringing on Copyrights of) musicians...

 

[tomtom]

Dana, one suggestion if I might, have you ever considered adding some paragraph breaks to your larger posts?

I'm sure a lot of what you say has merit but to be completely honest, I have a hard time reading them because all the sentences are bunched together with no breaks...

Just a suggestion, I hope you don't take any offence



I fail to see how this allows you to justify stealing from (or infringing on Copyrights of) musicians...

I feel the same way, but was kind of scared of bringing it up till now lest I be thought rude...the posts of yours that I've read are usually well thought-out and articulated with good research, but I'm guessing a lot of people skip through them because of the large paragraphs. You'll get a lot more mileage by breaking it up.

Geez, what an anal prick I am...

 

[Salome]

You know what can't be "stolen", copied or replaced from musicians? Live performances. That will never, ever go away.

out of curiosity
how many concerts a year do you go to?

do you buy merchandise at all those shows?

basically, how much money do you spend on music?

 

[BVS]

You know what can't be "stolen", copied or replaced from musicians? Live performances. That will never, ever go away.

You keep coming back to this, but you keep ignoring the hundreds of people that work in the recording process that don't tour, studio musicians, those that need backing in order to start touring... With your logic new bands would never be able to tour.