# Randy Blythe, worth reading



## fps (May 9, 2012)

BLABBERMOUTH.NET - LAMB OF GOD Frontman Says Record Industry Is 'Dying'

The general point here being that *fans* do NOT support artists if they can steal albums for free, and if they aren't being marketed to by a large corporate machine.


----------



## Ill-Gotten James (May 9, 2012)

Sad, but true I guess.


----------



## ArtDecade (May 9, 2012)

Well, not to be a downer here... BUT ... there is a reason that there is a term, "starving artist." The rise of the record label went hand in hand with a rising middle class that had money to burn. Furthermore, it was label backing that produced the an environment where a pop singer could earns millions. I don't mean to disparage the artist, but the label was the key to the big money. (ie Sun Records discovered Elvis, but it was RCA that generated the cash.) Frank Zappa showed that an artist can live and thrive while not being attached to a big label, but this was after he left his parent label for greener pastures. 

Today, the issue is that digital media is easily pirated and the labels aren't making money "hand over fist" like the old days. Artists suffer because the labels are not as interested in taking risks. If people go into music thinking that they are gonna strike it rich with a record label, they are basically out of their minds. Major labels have limited funds and choose artists that have the widest appeal - neither Lamb or Manson are really within that small group. 

There are more opportunities to get your music heard now, but it also means that you are sharing smaller and smaller pieces of the pie.


----------



## Demiurge (May 9, 2012)

> "I don't listen to [Marilyn Manson], but dude has cred for making his own artistic choices. He hasn't released a record in 3 years and his fans, his HUGE-ASS FAN BASE, could only chart 38,000 records? *That's fucked up. MARILYN MANSON is a MUCH LARGER BAND than LAMB OF GOD, and we outsold him by over 10,000 first week.*



#humblebrag


----------



## MJS (May 9, 2012)

fps said:


> The general point here being that *fans* do NOT support artists if they can steal albums for free, and if they aren't being marketed to by a large corporate machine.



I don't see a single mention of piracy anywhere in there, which is good since whining about piracy is pointless. And people pirating CDs don't care who released them. If anything, people would probably be quicker to buy directly from the artist, knowing that's where their money is actually going.

He's just crediting more sales to having a label (and patting himself on the back for outselling Manson), as opposed to releasing it yourself. And exactly how did he determine that's why Manson sold less? I'd credit it to people using their ears. 

Even if that were the case, unless everyone just lies about how little they make after the evil labels takes their cut, you'd still be better off selling fewer copies and getting all of the money. It's hard to justify the need for a middleman you can bypass, if you're going to turn around and complain about how much they cost you.

There seems to be two thoughts on this and they can't both be right:

1. You need a label to sell records.

2. Boo hoo, I'm not a rich rock star because I only make 20 cents per CD after the greedy corporations take their share.

Which is it? 

I think whining about piracy, CD sales, etc... is just what lazy people do in the free time they should be spending on tour and promoting themselves. You know... actually _work_ for the money.

Common sense would seem to indicate that if your *hobby* can't pay your bills, regardless of where you point the finger, it just might be time to go get a real job... like everyone else. 

Who would have thought that slapping together a few songs in your bedroom and posting on Youtube wouldn't be a surefire way for all musicians to retire in their twenties. haha


----------



## JaeSwift (May 9, 2012)

This has of course nothing to do with the fact that Marilyn Manson's fanbase is nowhere near as large as it used to be. 

Sorry dude, but when I see artists on Facebook/Formspring questioned about how someone can best support their favourite band/artist, they always say ''buy merch''. I think Misha Mansoor got asked this recently and answered just that.


----------



## MJS (May 9, 2012)

JaeSwift said:


> Sorry dude, but when I see artists on Facebook/Formspring questioned about how someone can best support their favourite band/artist, they always say ''buy merch''. I think Misha Mansoor got asked this recently and answered just that.



Correct -- I remember reading that as well. 

It seems like common sense. If you want to support the artist, give your money directly to them... not to some middleman that passes along a fraction of what you spent.

It's the same reason why people with job skills will do side work. Like a mechanic getting paid $15/hour to work at a shop that charges $50/hour... that will do side jobs for $30. Same exact work at a lower price, all because of cutting out the middleman. 

Better yet, a guitar related example: Carvin is a great example of how everyone wins when you cut out the middleman... well, everyone except for the middlemen. 

I wonder if this article/rant was scripted by his label?


----------



## Sikthness (May 9, 2012)

Ill be the first to admit: I download a TON of music for free from blogs. However, I don't think I cause much harm to bands I am a fan of. For one, 90% of the cds I have, I would not have been willing to spend money on in the first place. I simply can't justify spending hard earned money on something I haven't heard yet either on youtube or downloaded form. If I had to pay for my entire music collection, it would be well into the 5 figures. Now, that being said, if I am a fan, i will purchase the cd. I know many like me that are more than willing to go to shows, buy the cd despite having downloaded it, and buy merch. In fact, for a lot of these lesser known bands, I'd argue that illegal downloading is actually helping them financially. More people listening = more word of mouth. I know it sounds bad and unmoral to 'steal' music, but this is the way it is. The music will speak for itself, and if it is good enough than I as well as others will support the band monetarily. People simply won't justify spending money on middle of the road music. 

I know many will disagree w/ me, but that's ok. This is how it is now. Bands need to adapt just like in any other industry, or die financially. Make better music. Fans WILL still give you their money if the music is good enough.


----------



## linchpin (May 9, 2012)

There will always be music... with or without suits.


----------



## ChrisRushing (May 9, 2012)

> For one, 90% of the cds I have, I would not have been willing to spend money on in the first place. I simply can't justify spending hard earned money on something I haven't heard yet either on youtube or downloaded form.


 I think that is sort of a fair statement, though I find it hard to believe that there are any new release these days that don't have some sort of pre-release stream or sample. 
If 90% of your cd collection is shit not worth a dime then something is up with your collection. 



> If I had to pay for my entire music collection, it would be well into the 5 figures.


Apply this to any other item or piece of merchandise and tell me it doesn't sound the least bit ridiculous to you. 

"If I had to actually pay for this BMW, I would have to pick up all the double shifts at Burger King"




> I know it sounds bad and unmoral to 'steal' music, but this is the way it is. The music will speak for itself, and if it is good enough than I as well as others will support the band monetarily. People simply won't justify spending money on middle of the road music.


So what determines middle of the road music? If I feel like Longhorns serves me up a steak that is middle of the road....do I get to just up and walk out without paying because that's just the way it is? 


I am not trying to pick a fight, I am just trying to understand where you are coming from. The way I see it.............There are a lot of great bands/artist out there but the more we as fans/listeners shit on them by stealing their music, how long will they be able to continue? I am not saying they are entitled to an easy million but at the end of the day something is inherently wrong when your justifying theft because of what you describe as a lack of quality. 

Oh and I am guessing that if you could find a way to download merchandise you wouldn't be paying for it either. Just saying..............."This shirt is clearly middle of the road, I can't be expected to pay for this".


----------



## Panacea224 (May 9, 2012)

linchpin said:


> There will always be music... with or without suits.



True, but if the record labels go under it will probably be even harder to make a living as a musician.


----------



## svart (May 10, 2012)

nature's dying... no problem here, I grow my own veggies... but who's to blame when there are no more seeds left because we all took 'em for granted?

Same story for labels, who'll be to blame in the not to distant future when there's no next metallica or megadeth (face it, they WILL retire in the not too distant future)? the labels? Sure there are many labels that are pure BS, but how can a label grab talented artists when their means to grab are cut off?

If it really was that simple and effective, every artist would do it all themselves and newcomers would flourish... 

in the end when, WE the music fans, take the art of music for granted and turn it into a disposable product... all will be lost...

just my 2ct.


----------



## Volteau (May 10, 2012)

ChrisRushing said:


> I think that is sort of a fair statement, though I find it hard to believe that there are any new release these days that don't have some sort of pre-release stream or sample.
> If 90% of your cd collection is shit not worth a dime then something is up with your collection.
> 
> Apply this to any other item or piece of merchandise and tell me it doesn't sound the least bit ridiculous to you.
> ...



QFT!


----------



## Blake1970 (May 10, 2012)

If the goal is to make money just get out there and work your ass off!


----------



## DLG (May 10, 2012)

didn't even know manson was still alive


----------



## Loomer (May 10, 2012)

I honestly can't see a problem with the music industry collapsing, other than the low-level employees who are just doing their job becoming unemployed. 

That said, I'm pretty sure there will always be larger corporations producing the prole-feed for top 40 radio and mainstream clubs. They'll eventually abandon stuff like metal and rock, and I feel we'll all be better off for it. 

And again, as I say in ALL debates regarding this topic:

DIY or Die.


----------



## Oxidation_Shed (May 10, 2012)

I'm not justifying piracy, or saying that it's ok, because in an ideal world it wouldn't exist - but then again all music would be free and I would be able to play it back on my wife (Karen Gillan)'s breasts whilst at my weekend home in Barbados.

However, it is going to be around - at least until the government manage to make it illegal to even think about the pirate bay - for the foreseeable future. Bands, labels and everyone else in the industry need to adapt and find new ways to survive: it's no good standing around and hoping the CD or iTunes download is going to make a magical comeback; it isn't going to.


----------



## Asrial (May 10, 2012)

I don't have a problem with that. It's good that there's promotions going on for the bands, but when an album costs bloody 20&#8364; a piece, I can understand the lack of label support from the customer.

I want to support artists I find good, and hell yea, I attend concerts whenever possible, but I personally refuse to purchase an album that is priced at that pricepoint, simply because of the bloated price. I could understand new albums with way high production value being priced higher than indie 4-tracks, but when Sepulturas "Roots" are still priced 20&#8364;, 16 years after release and still with a not-so-high production value...

The record industry broke itself.


----------



## fps (May 10, 2012)

Some really good posts, emerging points I'm seeing from all this:-
1) we might want to support our favourite artists but due to the harsh, harsh economic climate we can't afford to (I earn minimum wage, £20 for a show ticket? I just can't do it!)
2) some people seriously believe they can download for free an album that is not meant to be free, listen to it more than once, and still think they've done nothing wrong. 
3) re smaller bands. some bands just want to make enough money back from their recordings to cover the cost of the recordings. touring? costs a fortune, everyone has real jobs unless you're still living with your parents, probably STILL if you're living with your parents, so finding the time is hard, work has to be lost, and petrol, accommodation, food, is expensive. unless you have t-shirts and albums, and a fanbase in each place you visit, a tour is a massive loss for a band for the first few years, no guarantees people will come even if you're supporting local acts. where does that money to tour even come from? perhaps if a band was able to recoup their recording budget by people buying their album, where some are downloading it illegally, they'd be able to release another record and begin the process of building a body of work that can be discovered by enough people to justify them going on tour?


----------



## elrrek (May 10, 2012)

Sorry, I'm fed up getting into lengthy rants on the merits, morality and mind-set of piracy and downloading so I am taking a new tact:

*Woo-hoo! Looks like we got some badasses here, running into the music store and stealing all the CDs and saying "fuck you man!" while they do it. FUCK YEAH!*

Theft is theft, if you are ilegally downloading stuff you are a thief.


----------



## fps (May 10, 2012)

elrrek said:


> Sorry, I'm fed up getting into lengthy rants on the merits, morality and mind-set of piracy and downloading so I am taking a new tact:
> 
> *Woo-hoo! Looks like we got some badasses here, running into the music store and stealing all the CDs and saying "fuck you man!" while they do it. FUCK YEAH!*
> 
> Theft is theft, if you are ilegally downloading stuff you are a thief.



Yeah man. Re label hatred (some justify it due to overpricing in the past) I think the labels served as an important buffer in the fan-band relationship. Bands could always say, re CD prices, *look guys our hands are tied by the labels*. The label got the flak for the pricing of the CDs, the bands still got to look like heroes of the working class, so at the top end the bigs bands could continue to rake it in while looking like average guys caught in a system. 

NOW, though, with free downloading, the fans believe that these heroes of theirs have always been willing engagers in philanthropy, giving their music away for free but for the evil corporations who put prices on everything so they could continue, when in fact any pro band is OF COURSE trying to make money from it, make a living, as good a living as they can from what they do. The lie that the people on stage (pros not amateurs) were just like you, fighters of the powers that be, has been blown wide open, every band is terrified of saying it but they're all thinking it- how are we going to get our money out of our fans?


----------



## DLG (May 10, 2012)

elrrek said:


> Sorry, I'm fed up getting into lengthy rants on the merits, morality and mind-set of piracy and downloading so I am taking a new tact:
> 
> *Woo-hoo! Looks like we got some badasses here, running into the music store and stealing all the CDs and saying "fuck you man!" while they do it. FUCK YEAH!*
> 
> ...


----------



## fps (May 10, 2012)

DLG said:


> elrrek said:
> 
> 
> > Sorry, I'm fed up getting into lengthy rants on the merits, morality and mind-set of piracy and downloading so I am taking a new tact:
> ...


----------



## AxeHappy (May 10, 2012)

*Sigh* 

Piracy is not theft. It's copyright infringement. I have no desire to get into another argument about how evil it is or not.


----------



## Oxidation_Shed (May 10, 2012)

I don't think disputing the semantics of piracy and theft is really that appropriate. They're both illegal and both result in you getting for free what you should have paid for whilst the one selling it looses out.
No it's not technically theft, but the end result is pretty much the same in this case.


----------



## svart (May 10, 2012)

fps said:


> Yeah man. Re label hatred (some justify it due to overpricing in the past) I think the labels served as an important buffer in the fan-band relationship. Bands could always say, re CD prices, *look guys our hands are tied by the labels*. The label got the flak for the pricing of the CDs, the bands still got to look like heroes of the working class, so at the top end the bigs bands could continue to rake it in while looking like average guys caught in a system.
> 
> NOW, though, with free downloading, the fans believe that these heroes of theirs have always been willing engagers in philanthropy, giving their music away for free but for the evil corporations who put prices on everything so they could continue, when in fact any pro band is OF COURSE trying to make money from it, make a living, as good a living as they can from what they do. The lie that the people on stage (pros not amateurs) were just like you, fighters of the powers that be, has been blown wide open, every band is terrified of saying it but they're all thinking it- how are we going to get our money out of our fans?



I can add a little story to it. System of a down had a new album out, saw wholesaleprices for distribution over here... 2$ a piece!!! and that album went for sale in Free recordshop(a musicstore chain) for 22!!! but it still was the greedy label to blame...


----------



## slowro (May 10, 2012)

I love how people change the arguement to what they want it to be. I have a simple view on it.

Music cost money, bands need paid for the WORK they do, Record companies have people who WORK to promote etc in a short attention span overcrowed scene
Key word = WORK 
In my world work = pay. It may not be fairly distributed but you can't argue that.

This Cribs culture of I'm 50cent/Simon Cowell/Whatever "I have so much more money than you check out my house and cars you can't afford" makes people think that everyone in the music industry is driving gold plated veyrons. This is NOT the case. Take something for free and its theft. Regardless if you think you should or deserve to pay for it, who cares? thats life

If this was a smaller band than LOG no one would take notice. Randy Blythe talking sense? wow

If someone makes music I love I WANT to pay them to make more so I can enjoy it


----------



## linchpin (May 10, 2012)

Panacea224 said:


> True, but if the record labels go under it will probably be even harder to make a living as a musician.


Probably... but that's no excuse for the music to stop... it simply becomes a hobby again


----------



## RevDrucifer (May 10, 2012)

Not only is it time for musicians/bands to re-think ways of 'making it', but also labels. They've been far too comfortable for too long. 

I've got ZERO ideas on how to put life back into the music business, aside from the idea that the business model has to change. 

I think the Manson example might be slightly off, as his sales have been dwindling for the past few years, while LoG's have only gotten bigger and bigger. That more seems like natural progression of two different bands rather than promotion via big label vs. self-released.

Wonder how much Manson had to put into that record out of his own pocket. Shit, even with selling 38K CD's in a week, he still could have just broken even.


----------



## noxian (May 11, 2012)

slowro said:


> ...bands need paid for the WORK they do...



ironically, perhaps thats the mentality that needs to change.

Scott Kurtz (one of the more successful webcomic artist, an artistic medium that pretty much gives it wares away for free) had a very good quote. paraphasing, because i don't remember the exact wording, "every artist wants to be paid to produce art. but what they need to do is produce art, then figure out how to monetize it".

and just speaking from my personal work, that does seem to be the difference i've seen between those who have figured out how to make a living in this wild frontier that is the digital age, and those who haven't.

philosophically its the difference between spending your time worrying about who has your work and didn't pay you for it, and spending your time trying to sell your work (or sell some good related to your work) to people who don't have it yet.
or to simplify it even further, its the difference between worrying about who isn't giving you money, and figuring out how to get people to give you money.

of course philosophies are easier to say than solutions, but the very least i can leave you with something i was told about this subject straight from the mouth of a label rep once (and once again paraphrasing because this was some time ago and i don't remember the exact words), "no one is going to pay you for your work until you're an established artist with a resume a label can bank on. its up to up-and-coming bands to figure out what to do to reach that point."


----------



## DLG (May 11, 2012)

RevDrucifer said:


> I've got ZERO ideas on how to put life back into the music business, aside from the idea that the business model has to change.





adapt or die my friends. 

I went to school to be a journalist, but with print media dying out and even most news agencies drastically cutting down on correspondents what was I to do? Either starve looking for a newspaper or magazine job or adapt. 

I do still write for one newspaper, but I mostly now blog, write SEO content, and do whatever I can do using my writing skills to carve myself a niche and get paid. If I was stubborn about making a living according to old models I'd still be in my mom's attic eating two dollar ramen at the age of 31.


----------



## prh (May 11, 2012)

jon gomm is a great example of what a modern, talented artist can be - he has no label, releases everything himself, got 'famous' via youtube, makes a living from being incredible at what he does, and his PR agent is his mum


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 11, 2012)

linchpin said:


> There will always be music... with or without suits.







Yeah, I mean, bands will have no trouble at all getting the money to pay for recording and get/pay for tours outside of their home state and generally play music full-time--not to mention get major retailers to stock their albums and get their music airplay, cover fees such as merch and album layout design--without the financial backing of a label or "suit"...


----------



## slowro (May 12, 2012)

noxian said:


> ironically, perhaps thats the mentality that needs to change.
> 
> Scott Kurtz (one of the more successful webcomic artist, an artistic medium that pretty much gives it wares away for free) had a very good quote. paraphasing, because i don't remember the exact wording, "every artist wants to be paid to produce art. but what they need to do is produce art, then figure out how to monetize it".
> 
> ...


 
I understand but I fear that the point may be missed that many people are hugely limited by their social backround. If you can't afford a good home setup etc to make a decent quality record (not a pro quality record just decent) AND put food on the table then why would we, who have a saturated overweight bloated internet forcing things upon them, take any notice of a shoddy record. It may be fine if you stay within a reasonable distance of a new band you could support them by going to a show and buying a shirt directly from them but how could you FIND them? If i did a search for "new thrash metal band" how much garbage would I find that has nothing to do with the search. As a music lover who actively looks for new music it is hard to wade through music online and to be honest promotion is KEY. I do believe that bands can do a lot themselves provided they have the right circumstances but if they have commitments they may just quit music and pay the bills. this is our loss.
How many bands have found their sound after a few releases? If we lose the paid experts in the future where will the skills be to help bands? What if you have no business skills/tech skills/music production skills but write some amazing music? You fail and no one hears you.

I don't see why the moral crusade is forced on the music industry? We pay for food and water to keep us alive, you pay for healthcare to keep you alive, you pay for heat and shelter to keep you alive. Why should we make an example of art when the vital things in life COST and art is subjective. If I can't afford a beautiful guitar I don't just take it and say that because its art the maker should adapt or starve. Where does art end and where does it begin?

Newspapers are dying because they are useless, media that has sponsors is not impartial, they are at best showing day old news and it is dumbed down too much. 
This is not a personal attack on anyones opinions its all IMHO


----------



## Sikthness (May 12, 2012)

DLG said:


> adapt or die my friends.
> 
> I went to school to be a journalist, but with print media dying out and even most news agencies drastically cutting down on correspondents what was I to do? Either starve looking for a newspaper or magazine job or adapt.
> 
> I do still write for one newspaper, but I mostly now blog, write SEO content, and do whatever I can do using my writing skills to carve myself a niche and get paid. If I was stubborn about making a living according to old models I'd still be in my mom's attic eating two dollar ramen at the age of 31.



Absolutely. Music is an industry just like every other job. Sure it has its unique aspects, but its still a business. I work in a job that is mostly hard physical labor, and everyone I work w/ is constantly complaining that manufacturing jobs are being outsourced n there are no high paying jobs for laborers. Instead of trying to think of what THEY can do individually to adapt to the way our country's economy is set up, they want the president/politicians/whoever to bring back the labor jobs so today's world can be like the world they grew up in. But thats not going to happen, its just the way it is. Just like how pirating and the internet is not going away, so musicians and the industry people need to adapt, and make themselves marketable instead of just hoping sometime, somehow, things can go back to how they were, because they aren't going to.


----------



## slowro (May 12, 2012)

true i suppose,
things are the way they are and it probably aint going to change. I think more than anything I wish it attacked the top down. Less beibers, chris browns and soulja boys taking cash from hormonal teenage girls and parading their spoils on MTV would only make society a beter place, I dont need a bling jesus piece and a mercedes with gucci floormats to be happy and to be honest no one does


----------



## linchpin (May 12, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> Yeah, I mean, bands will have no trouble at all getting the money to pay for recording and get/pay for tours outside of their home state and generally play music full-time--not to mention get major retailers to stock their albums and get their music airplay, cover fees such as merch and album layout design--without the financial backing of a label or "suit"...


I was saying how music will continue to be made forever... there's a lot of people out there who have this notion that "Death of record labels = Death of music" and that's thanks to some scaremongering on their part... goes to show people will do and say anything when faced with extinction... they should at least die with some dignity but knowing *what* they are, I doubt it.


----------



## Necris (May 12, 2012)

Nothing that smears from Randy Blythes brain onto a page is worth reading.


----------



## RevDrucifer (May 12, 2012)

Necris said:


> Nothing that smears from Randy Blythes brain onto a page is worth reading.



He's quite opinionated and has a pretty strong ego, whatever he says IS the word in his book. Regardless, he's got some good insights and he's a pretty straight shootin' guy.

I love reading his tweets. His rants can be quite humorous. I also think it's pretty cool that he RARELY talks about LoG, singing for LoG or anything of the sort. 

He seems to live a fairly humble lifestyle. He's had some money rolling in for a while and even bought a used truck instead of spending his rockstar bucks on some new pimped out thing.

Mark Morton seems to invest all his cash into his house, which is in the middle of no where. Both guys are pretty cool. The openness with the public is something not enough guys in the industry do.

And Mark's drunken tweets can be fucking GREAT.


----------



## Isaac (May 12, 2012)

ChrisRushing said:


> So what determines middle of the road music? If I feel like Longhorns serves me up a steak that is middle of the road....do I get to just up and walk out without paying because that's just the way it is?
> 
> 
> I am not trying to pick a fight, I am just trying to understand where you are coming from. The way I see it.............There are a lot of great bands/artist out there but the more we as fans/listeners shit on them by stealing their music, how long will they be able to continue? I am not saying they are entitled to an easy million but at the end of the day something is inherently wrong when your justifying theft because of what you describe as a lack of quality.
> ...



Ok, I'll try and tackle this one. 

Your premise is entirely false, nothing is being stolen. Nobody is being stolen from, the producers of the music still have full utility of the music, the fact that somebody has copied it does not in anyway impact the producers of the musics ability to derive use from the recording(s). 

You are confusing two issues; ownership of the music* and ownership of potential economic value of the music. 

*(you can't really own a pattern of notes or a certain sequence of words in a language so by ownership of the music I mean ownership of the product, a CD or an MP3 or whatever.)

For example you can own your house but you don't have ownership of the economic value of that house. If someone builds a whole bunch of houses near your house and thereby the value of your house is reduced you can't legitimately claim to have been stolen from. 

And I would apply the same logic to music. If a producer of music fails to capture a (perceived) economic value of their music because people have shared it with each other then they can't claim to have been robbed. So file sharing would be the equivalent to the building of new houses in the above example. It's a game changer in other words, it makes deriving economic value from the music potentially harder but that is very different to stealing, as you were suggesting. 

That line of thought must say that there is an innate economic value in all music an that the producers of that music are entitled to that economic value. Actually if you do follow your line of thought then listening to a CD with a friend is stealing (reducing economic value) or lending a CD to a friend is stealing (reducing economic value).

Yes, it's harder for a band to make money from music by following an outdated business model but that doesn't mean they've been stolen from. 

There are lots of facets of property ownership and what constitutes property/IP/copyright that I haven't talked about so this is a simplistic analysis but a valid one. We'd be here for hours talking about abstracts but what I wanted to get across was that copying music isn't theft, the band was never entitled to those profits.


----------



## Ckackley (May 12, 2012)

No business can afford to create a product without some income. Period. Until guitars, drums, recording gear, strings, cables, food, gas , tires, oil, and anything else it takes to record and tour are free, your favorite bands are eventually going to run out of money. My band is in the hole for the last album we recorded. We log hundreds of downloads from illegal sites. If we had the income from ONE of those sites we'd at least have everything payed for. I appreciate that the music gets out, but at this rate we're not going to be able to afford to make and record much more of it. 
We sold the crap out of Tshirts to our local fan base. It's too pricey to tour more than a few hours out. Once everyone has a shirt they're not buying any more. A cut of the door at gigs might buy half the gas for the night. 
It's great that any bedroom musician can record a quality album and put it on line. That guys not going to do live shows. He's not going to road test his songs for audience after audience. 
So go ahead and talk about new business models or how much you support the local scene buy obtaining a product you didn't pay for. I'll be out on a construction site beating on something with a sledgehammer so I can feed my wife and kid. I might have enough to get a pack of guitar strings too. 
Before anyone asks- I've NEVER illegally downloaded. I seldom buy online. I buy a physical CD direct from local artists when they have them and major acts I support local by actually going out in public and buying from a store. The people behind the counter in my city need work as much as a packaging company in Indonesia.


----------



## VBCheeseGrater (May 13, 2012)

Just because a musician can make money by touring or selling Tshirts, doesn't make it OK to steal his or her recorded music. 

You own a mom & pop restaurant, and people pay for chicken and fish but always steal the steaks. I don't think you're going to be acting all cool about that, and blame it on corporate greed. The argument in favor of piracy is just a list of excuses to steal a musician's work. No rationale changes the simple fact - someone is offering something for sale, and people are taking it without paying for it, thereby stealing. It's not complicated.

The labels are pretty much irrelevant to the morality this argument. If someone puts in the work to create music, puts it out independently for SALE, and you go and steal it, you are f*cking them just the same. It has nothing to do with business model, getting with the times, etc...it's just a new way of robbing folks that requires less balls.


----------



## VBCheeseGrater (May 13, 2012)

Isaac said:


> Ok, I'll try and tackle this one.
> 
> Your premise is entirely false, nothing is being stolen. Nobody is being stolen from, the producers of the music still have full utility of the music, the fact that somebody has copied it does not in anyway impact the producers of the musics ability to derive use from the recording(s).
> 
> ...



Sorry for the double post, but i had to tackle this. Your house analogy would only match if someone were living in the house for free, but the houses not sold are empty. When you download music illegally, you take ownership of it. That copy of it is yours, same as that copy of the cookie cutter house you buy is yours. Those houses not bought are not being lived in, just as music not bought is not sitting someone's ipod.

Now i agree, if your music is no good, then no one is going to buy it - that's your fault, but that's no excuse for people to take it without paying the asking price., just as moving into a shack for free when the price is $20K is stealing. "Oh this music stinks, so i'll just take it for free" "Oh this house is rubbish, so i'm movin in for free"


----------



## flint757 (May 13, 2012)

To the bagel analogy earlier it may not be if you steal it you lost anything, but you did lose profit. So if the bagel cost $5 and you sell it for $8 with music you may not lose the $5 that the bagel cost, but you did lose the money you would have made.

I have a complicated opinion on piracy, but the whole I'm taking a copy not the original is ridiculous. Lets blow up the numbers if everyone pirated Bieber's albums instead of buying them he wouldn't be a wealthy prick.

[EDIT]
piracy argument also reminds me of the movie Office Space. (fractions of a cent)


----------



## Isaac (May 13, 2012)

vbshredder said:


> Sorry for the double post, but i had to tackle this. Your house analogy would only match if someone were living in the house for free, but the houses not sold are empty. When you download music illegally, you take ownership of it. That copy of it is yours, same as that copy of the cookie cutter house you buy is yours. Those houses not bought are not being lived in, just as music not bought is not sitting someone's ipod.
> 
> Now i agree, if your music is no good, then no one is going to buy it - that's your fault, but that's no excuse for people to take it without paying the asking price., just as moving into a shack for free when the price is $20K is stealing. "Oh this music stinks, so i'll just take it for free" "Oh this house is rubbish, so i'm movin in for free"



You misunderstand the analogy, it doesn't matter if the houses sell or not their presence would be enough to depress overall market value of the house the person is living in. Thus the presence of file sharing depresses the market value of the music. (What I mean is that the new houses offer alternatives and competition to a potential house buyer, thereby the house seller would have to reduce the price of his house if he were to sell. File sharing allows people to get a product for cheaper (free) so extracting the value of an artists music may be harder for them but that's just too bad because they were never entitled to that value to begin with). 

Now fundamentally you're still making a mistake in that file sharing is not stealing. 

In your shack analogy the squatter is depriving the use and utility of the shack from the owner, that's stealing. Simply copying a CD or downloading a song isn't stealing, no use has be deprived and the band still own the master tapes and are free to use as they wish. The argument you're making has that musicians are entitled to a certain amount of economic value for their musical ideas is nonsense, the market value of anything is fluid and at the moment music has a (perceived) lower market value due to file sharing, if you accept as I do that file sharing isn't theft then it's simply unfortunate that the they no longer have the potential income that previous generations have had. In the same way there is no longer the market there was for typewriters or bi planes. 

Now I'm not suggesting that my beliefs on file sharing and IP mean everyone should download music for free. I suggest people pay what they are willing (sometimes nothing) and that artists and labels do what they can to try and raise their market value; to persuade us to buy.

edit:grammer.


----------



## bhakan (May 13, 2012)

Isaac said:


> And I would apply the same logic to music. If a producer of music fails to capture a (perceived) economic value of their music because people have shared it with each other then they can't claim to have been robbed. So file sharing would be the equivalent to the building of new houses in the above example. It's a game changer in other words, it makes deriving economic value from the music potentially harder but that is very different to stealing, as you were suggesting.


I think a producer can completely claim to have been "robbed" (don't want to get into semantics) in that situation. He owns the music and has the right to charge what he wants. The two main differences between the house analogy and piracy is that building houses next to another is completely legal, unlike downloading music and that when people think that a house is overpriced, they don't just take it for free and live in it anyway. When selling a house or any other product, a seller has a right to overprice their product. Not many people would buy it, but some people would want it enough to pay the overpriced cost. If people think music is overpriced, fine, don't buy it, but with downloading, people feel entitled to pay only what _they_ think its worth. All the awesome free music out there (Sithu, Lithium Dawn, etc) devalues music legally, and artists/record companies/producers don't have a right to stop that, but they do have a right to make you either pay their price for the music, or not own it at all.

TL;DR- You don't have the right to determine the value of your product, but you do have the right to determine the price.


----------



## Mordacain (May 13, 2012)

bhakan said:


> All the awesome free music out there (Sithu, Lithium Dawn, etc) devalues music legally, and artists/record companies/producers don't have a right to stop that, but they do have a right to make you either pay their price for the music, or not own it at all.
> 
> TL;DR- You don't have the right to determine the value of your product, but you do have the right to determine the price.



I agree completely. 

Arguing over whether or not piracy (theft of Intellectual Property) = theft is sophistry whose sole purpose seems to assuage a person's guilt over the knowledge that their actions will eventually result in the demise of the art form they so enjoy.

If you create something, you own that thing (assuming you have established that legally), whether it be a physical thing you've made or an idea you've had. You obviously control how physical things are made and in balance with the market, you establish a retail value for that physical item and any reproductions thereof. What copyright law does is try to establish a similar system for ideas. 

Using someone else's idea in your own piece of music, art or writing is almost universally derided as plagiarism. That's an example of how we as a society recognize that ideas belong to the original creator of said idea and that they should retain control of how it is used, and of any profit that might be made from the use of that idea. Extending that example to the copying of a creator's music in part or in whole should lead us to the same point: that the creator should rightfully expect to retain control of the copy of his work and any profits that can be derived from it. 

All of that being said, I actually look forward to a shift from music as a corporate-driven enterprise to one where the artist retains control of all aspects of their music (both creatively and monetarily). However, even were that shift to occur, artists must retain control of their creation and all copies derived from it (ideally).

Piracy law is no different than the loss-prevention systems retail stores employ to prevent theft of physical merchandise (or should I say, physical copies of patented physical creations ). The most successful loss prevention system would have a 0% loss rate, but anyone who has worked in retail knows that isn't really possible. The same can be expected of piracy prevention. 0 % loss is unrealistic, but the idea should be to bring things to a state where digital copy loss is closer to physical loss.


----------



## Isaac (May 13, 2012)

bhakan said:


> I think a producer can completely claim to have been "robbed" (don't want to get into semantics) in that situation. He owns the music and has the right to charge what he wants. The two main differences between the house analogy and piracy is that building houses next to another is completely legal, unlike downloading music and that when people think that a house is overpriced, they don't just take it for free and live in it anyway. When selling a house or any other product, a seller has a right to overprice their product. Not many people would buy it, but some people would want it enough to pay the overpriced cost. If people think music is overpriced, fine, don't buy it, but with downloading, people feel entitled to pay only what _they_ think its worth. All the awesome free music out there (Sithu, Lithium Dawn, etc) devalues music legally, and artists/record companies/producers don't have a right to stop that, but they do have a right to make you either pay their price for the music, or not own it at all.
> 
> TL;DR- You don't have the right to determine the value of your product, but you do have the right to determine the price.




You sort of have to get in semantics because we need a properly defined concept of ownership and theft or the conversation is meaningless. 

Theft is _In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it_ According to Wikipedia.

Now we can argue over ownership of ideas/intellectual property, I would argue that the idea of ownership/property rights has it's roots in tangible, finite and scarce commodities so one needs property rights to protect his/her property but ideas or information have no natural scarcity: once it exists at all, it can be re-used and duplicated indefinitely without such re-use diminishing the original. Therefore it isn't a form of property at all. It's impossible to own an idea, which is essentially what music, literature ect is.

This would lead me to argue that it's protection under law has no logical or moral basis. so your comment about it being illegal is null. I'm not debating legality I'm contesting the logic, morality and ethicacy from first principles. 

Also the house analogy is only a fairly specific example and isn't a perfect example. Although the rebuttle to your argument would be that the building of the houses isn't the only way to lower the value of the house that already exists. It could have it's value lowered but increased crime in the area, that's not a legal, should the house owner be compensated for that? Anyway it doesn't matter, it was just an analogy.

So if Ideas aren't own-able scarce commodities then property rights do not apply - the artist doesn't own the the patterns and notes that make the music. All they can claim to own is the _recording_ ie a CD or MP3 file not the creative content.

And file sharing doesn't in anyway deprive the original owner of use of it, the original CD/MP3 ect is still exactly as was before the copying. Therefore is not legitimately theft.

This is a complex issue so I hope I'm at least being semi coherent  If not I apologise.

Look Shakespeare wrote plays for a living long before any any copyright/IP laws existed, indeed people invented things for commercial gain as well, so the idea that if we accept file sharing is fine we'd all stop paying and the industry would collapse is a fallacy. 

Look at fashion, they have no such copyright/IP protections. A fashion artist can come up with a clothing design and have it immediately copied and sold by anyone, yet it doesn't happen (well no to the detriment of the industry). Fashion is a lively and vibrant industry doing well and progresses rapidly as new creative ideas are thought of and pursued. There is no reason to believe the same wouldn't be true of the music/film/technology industries. 

tl;dr
file sharing is ok ya?


----------



## ArrowHead (May 13, 2012)

Who cares if piracy is right or wrong? It IS. 

Do you debate if the bear is hungry or not, or do you run? Stop worrying about changing what CANNOT be easily changed, and spend a little time learning to innovate or monetize in new ways.

After all, that's ALL that the record industry IS!!! The last remaining vestiges of the last group of people that stepped in and figured out how to monetize on music. 50 years later, it's OUR TURN. Who has ideas, and who wants to just bitch about piracy?


----------



## ArrowHead (May 13, 2012)

Also remember, piracy or no piracy, the arts always rise and fall. When is the last time you went to a ballet? An opera? What's the last piece of classical music you went to see performed? Last time you went to a museum, or spent more than $1000 on a painting? Last poem you read aloud, or poetry reading you attended? 

The people saying we need a new model, will the new model help? Or has music just lost it's footing in popular culture, taking a back seat to television, film, and internet video? Music will never die, but I don't think it's nearly as culturally important as it was in the 40's through the 90's.


----------



## Mordacain (May 13, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> Who cares if piracy is right or wrong? It IS.
> 
> Do you debate if the bear is hungry or not, or do you run? Stop worrying about changing what CANNOT be easily changed, and spend a little time learning to innovate or monetize in new ways.
> 
> After all, that's ALL that the record industry IS!!! The last remaining vestiges of the last group of people that stepped in and figured out how to monetize on music. 50 years later, it's OUR TURN. Who has ideas, and who wants to just bitch about piracy?



I agree in principle; musicians should definitely be more concerned with adaptation for survival at this point than combating a societal problem that is better left to technical / legal minds.

That being said, I personally have a problem with essentially condoning piracy at a societal level (be it software, music or movies); to me, it sets a standard for true moral decay, as evidenced by so many that chime in saying they don't believe it to be ethically wrong to pirate. I might not agree with the over-reaching pieces of legislature that have seen the light of day in action, but I do agree with them in purpose: piracy is no different in effect than theft and as a society, should not be condoned and should be punished (at least civilly, if not criminally).


----------



## ArrowHead (May 13, 2012)

I see it like this, as an artist: Piracy has absolutely NOTHING to do with it.

Before, I had a 1 in 10,000 chance of "making it". Of those that did make it, I had a very very GOOD chance of getting screwed, and owing the label recoupables for the rest of my life. Things did not look so good for the everyman musician, even with education and all the right decisions it was still a gigantic game of luck that few won.

Now, I see an artist like Keith Merrow. He put a few thousand dollars into his hobby, music. He built a studio in his home, and began creating art. He then used social media, internet forums, youtube, etc... to market and distribute this material freely. Where did that get him? Rich? No. But suddenly I saw the guy's gear getting much, much better. And his studio got new toys. And suddenly it seems like a lot of companies are VERY interested in sending him guitars, pickups, and toys to put into his internet videos due to the views his original music and videos attracted.

Sure, before all musicians had a one in a million shot at fame and fortune that may or may not last longer than a fortnight. But now it seems like the average musician has a much more likely chance at free stuff, exposure, and the branding and merchandising that go along with it.

It's a new model. If you want the old model with the touring, merch sales, album royalties, radio play, etc... - you're not going to get it. Blame labels. Blame downloaders. Blame the young whipper-snappers. Whatever, times are changing. Embrace it, there's WAY MORE BENEFIT TO BE HAD for the average musician.


----------



## bhakan (May 13, 2012)

^Putting stuff out for free definitely seems to work in the modern world, but if an artist chooses to not embrace it and charge for their music, I think they have a right to be payed the value they choose for their music (or just have people not listen to it if they don't want to pay).


----------



## ArrowHead (May 13, 2012)

When did artists EVER get paid what they think their music is worth, before or after piracy?

People seem to think that back in the glory days musicians made lots of money off album sales. It's just not so. On average for a $12 CD a band was paid $.75-$1. Which was recoupable, meaning that the band didn't get a cent of any sales until they paid back the label's tens of thousands of dollars in loans. Many, many, MANY bands never paid back those recoupables, some weren't even given the chance and were dropped on the first album of a multi-album deal. Those thousands of illegal download? Wouldn't even make a dent in recoupable expenses with a major label.

And for independent artists, it was much worse. Pressing 500 CD's for $3000, and spending years trying to sell them out of a box at shows? That was so fun, lemme tell ya.

MTV, in part, gave everyone in an entire generation the idea that if you made a popular song you were an instant millionaire. Cars, women, actually showing MONEY in the videos, CRIBS, etc... - I remember thinking warrant must be millionaires with their fancy videos of expensive cars, supermodels, all their expensive gear and big shows, etc... - years later I see Jani Lane broke and drinking himself to death on national television.

People need to break with this erroneous impression that piracy is the be all end all of bands getting fucked. There was never gold in them thar hills. Not for artists. They've always gotten fucked. Piracy is just replacing labels as the new "fucked". And I must say, it's actually a nicer fuck. Piracy is flowers and chocolates, whereas labels were rubber gloves and rough sodomy.

This is the first time in MY lifetime that the average musician has any shot in hell of getting their music out without signing away all rights and getting financially raped in the process. I'm so shocked that the average musician's response is "oh my god they're stealing our moniez!!"


----------



## Mordacain (May 13, 2012)

bhakan said:


> ^Putting stuff out for free definitely seems to work in the modern world, but if an artist chooses to not embrace it and charge for their music, I think they have a right to be payed the value they choose for their music (or just have people not listen to it if they don't want to pay).



Agreed. Putting music out for free can certainly work if you intend to make your career touring and performing. However, I don't think people should be forced into that. If someone wants to record in their spare time and put that out and only recoup enough that they cover the recording costs than I think they should be able to do that, be it with advertising on their website, via donations or by charging a nominal fee to download an album. Whatever the means, they should be able to do it freely and let the market decide if there is enough value in the price they've set.

We're on the cusp of an age where more people can express their creativity and obtain an audience. I would hate to see that ruined by a populace that feels it is entitled to another's work by virtue of their capability to obtain that work duplicitously. It cheapens humanity as whole when our art, our expression, is thought to be worth nothing. My


----------



## ArrowHead (May 13, 2012)

Mordacain said:


> Agreed. Putting music out for free can certainly work if you intend to make your career touring and performing.



I think that's dying too. Less shows, more expensive tickets, and the cost of touring is much harder to cover without tour support from labels. How many local venues do you have? How many did you have 20 years ago? I think in general people aren't going outside of the home for culture and entertainment nearly as much as they did a generation ago.


----------



## Mordacain (May 13, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> I think that's dying too. Less shows, more expensive tickets, and the cost of touring is much harder to cover without tour support from labels. How many local venues do you have? How many did you have 20 years ago? I think in general people aren't going outside of the home for culture and entertainment nearly as much as they did a generation ago.



I can see your point, and I agree things look that way currently, but I'm not sure if they'll stay that way. There is an eb and flow to entertainment and cultural trends. While more people might be enjoying more cultural things at home, I think we're still in a phase of "newness." File-sharing as culture is an idea that's in its infancy; I think after a time people will hunger for genuine contact. Of course, its all conjecture at this point but I don't think the human animal is solitary by nature (and that's coming from someone who is a shut-in).


----------



## simonXsludge (May 14, 2012)

The whole music piracy discussion has little to do with the music industry and how it has to adapt, it's that "why would I pay when I can get it for free?"-mentality of today's consumer. Why do you think so many bands have programmed drums on their albums these days? Because they can't afford a studio anymore. So many bands have growing fanbases while their sales are going downhill. Because NO, many people are not gonna pay for an album at the end of the day, just because they think that what they just downloaded for free from mediafire is great. A fraction does, but the majority doesn't.

If people aren't willing to pay for what they _want to_ consume, bands won't be able to afford actual recordings anymore. And it doesn't matter if they're DIY or professional. You can't just degrade art to a hobby all the time and then rant about that modern music gets shittier and shittier.

Quality takes time, effort, hard work and investions. Degrade art to a hobby and you won't get as many quality products. 

Do yourself a favor and watch this Billy Corgan interview on the matter:

Viral: Mashable Chromeless Video Player


----------



## elrrek (May 14, 2012)

DLG said:


> elrrek said:
> 
> 
> > Sorry, I'm fed up getting into lengthy rants on the merits, morality and mind-set of piracy and downloading so I am taking a new tact:
> ...


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 14, 2012)

linchpin said:


> I was saying how music will continue to be made forever... there's a lot of people out there who have this notion that "Death of record labels = Death of music" and that's thanks to some scaremongering on their part... goes to show people will do and say anything when faced with extinction... they should at least die with some dignity but knowing *what* they are, I doubt it.



And I was saying, how many bands without funding made up of members who have to work full-time jobs unrelated to music are likely to have the time to put out an album every year, or every other year, or even every five years? Your argument is not well thought out.

And if you truly believe the record industry is facing extinction, well, maybe for metal it is, but for music in general? Last year there were over a billion units sold, which was a step up from the year prior. 2011 U.S. Album Sales Still Strong After Three Quarters | Billboard.biz

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/retail/the-2011-music-sales-boost-by-the-numbers-1005339412.story

Doesn't sound like extinction to me.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 14, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> And I was saying, how many bands without funding made up of members who have to work full-time jobs unrelated to music are likely to have the time to put out an album every year, or every other year, or even every five years?



You'd actually be shocked how many of your favorite bands already have full time jobs. Even WITH label support.


----------



## VBCheeseGrater (May 14, 2012)

Isaac said:


> In your shack analogy the squatter is depriving the use and utility of the shack from the owner, that's stealing. Simply copying a CD or downloading a song isn't stealing, no use has be deprived and the band still own the master tapes and are free to use as they wish. The argument you're making has that musicians are entitled to a certain amount of economic value for their musical ideas is nonsense,
> edit:grammer.



I get that when someone downloads music, it's still available for the artist to sell - correct, there is a difference there. My main point is that the item is posted for sale yet is taken - basically the definition of shoplifting. If everyone just takes it, the revenue will not be there to put the time & money into making fully realized records, movies & games. 

Obviously we are not gonna agree on this, but that's all good, some good discussion here. Peace


----------



## drgordonfreeman (May 14, 2012)

shitsøn;3008042 said:


> If people aren't willing to pay for what they _want to_ consume, bands won't be able to afford actual recordings anymore. And it doesn't matter if they're DIY or professional. You can't just degrade art to a hobby all the time and then rant about that modern music gets shittier and shittier.



I understand what you are saying and the point you are making; however, I disagree with it. Here is why:

Music was never meant to be consumed. It was meant to be heard. By turning music into business, you necessarily sterilize it in the interest of greater profits.



shitsøn;3008042 said:


> Quality takes time, effort, hard work and investions. Degrade art to a hobby and you won't get as many quality products.



I agree that quality takes time, effort, and hard work; however, I do not agree with the rest of your post.

Music has been and will always be a labor of love. When you turn something into a business is when you tend to lose and sterilize anything that made it art. Art and business rarely go hand in hand. This is necessary in order to increase profits, as the the wider your customer base, the more money you'll make. Everyone has different tastes, and as a result, you have to sterilize the art in order to broaden its appeal to a larger base. Moreover, philosophically speaking, business is clinical, while art is not. The two are mutually exclusive.

It's the kids sitting in their bedrooms right now playing as a hobby, just because it makes them feel good, that will write the songs of the future that go down in history as classics. Throwing money at those kids, sterilizing them and packaging them into an easily digestible consumable product isn't going to make their music any better. It's going to make it worse.

Pandora's box has been opened, and the scene is such now that kids are not paying for music anymore. Many aren't even going to shows anymore, due to being raped on prices by companies like TicketMaster ($25 base fee plus an additional $929,352,835,328,848,492,382 for a "processing fee" LOLwut). 

The future mega bands and rich rockstars will be the kids who will have figured out to adapt and survive in the new world. Maybe the new world is partnering with a site like YouTube, uploading your latest music, and then receiving royalties off of the page views based on advertising dollars. Who knows?

Moreover, the scene may simply turn into a situation where people have to have real jobs in order to support their _hobby_. Or maybe the music scene will have to revert back to what it was 100 years ago where people sat around a campfire strumming songs for each other before its able to figure out its new path.

Regardless, either way, rarely is more business and more suits the answer to innovation.


----------



## flint757 (May 14, 2012)

^^^I don't agree with piracy and I'm not going to go in to benefits/consequences since it is impossible to really tell since life has no redo feature.

I do agree though that it is a labor of love and a hobby, piracy may destroy touring for some bands, but it will never cause degradation of records. A lot of people pay out of pocket for their gear and don't expect compensation for their work so if it being a hobby were destructive this wouldn't be the case. I do agree that if record labels get eliminated from Metal artists it will be significantly harder for bands to do tours that are much further than their hometowns.


----------



## drgordonfreeman (May 14, 2012)

flint757 said:


> ^^^I don't agree with piracy and I'm not going to go in to benefits/consequences since it is impossible to really tell since life has no redo feature.
> 
> I do agree though that it is a labor of love and a hobby, piracy may destroy touring for some bands, but it will never cause degradation of records. A lot of people pay out of pocket for their gear and don't expect compensation for their work so if it being a hobby were destructive this wouldn't be the case. I do agree that if record labels get eliminated from Metal artists it will be significantly harder for bands to do tours that are much further than their hometowns.




Absolutely, it will become much harder. It already is much harder than it was 20 years ago. It's real hard to tour out of state, or even in state, if you live in a state like Texas, when gas is $3.50 or more.

Success as a band may take longer to achieve in the future. Success as a band _will necessarily_ have to take longer to achieve in the future, as energy prices sky rocket and opportunities to play diminish.

For example, a band may spend 5 years playing the same club every weekend in order to establish a base. Then, they spend another 5 years establishing a base around the city. They may spend another 10 years using limited opportunities to piggy back off of bands in other cities to establish a base in those cities, as bands from other cities piggy off of that band to establish a base in their city.

So you're 20 years in just establishing a fan base within your state, assuming you don't live in state the size of Texas or California. If you live in a state the size of Texas or California, then God help you.

This is why music is a labor of love and mostly a hobby, not a business. You'll need a really good job to sustain your real professsion: a musician.

Success also highly depends upon the style of music you play.

For example, I would starve trying to establish my heavy metal band in the local scene.

However, I will play 6 nights per week to huge crowds at any venue in the state I desire, make awesome money, and retire before I'm 40 by playing in a Top 40 Country band.


----------



## elrrek (May 14, 2012)

drgordonfreeman said:


> Music was never meant to be consumed. It was meant to be heard. By turning music into business, you necessarily sterilize it in the interest of greater profits.



This point of view does not work in a monetised environment though! If you apply this reasoning to music then you can apply it to food.

Food was never meant to be bought it was meant to be eaten!
Therefore, I am going to "download" the carrots from this random farmers field because it is there and I am entitled to take it - without compensating the farmer - because food was never meant to be bought.

Now, if the element of wrong is not plain to see here, how much more simplified can I make it?


----------



## ArrowHead (May 14, 2012)

drgordonfreeman said:


> Pandora's box has been opened, and the scene is such now that kids are not paying for music anymore. Many aren't even going to shows anymore, due to being raped on prices by companies like TicketMaster ($25 base fee plus an additional $929,352,835,328,848,492,382 for a "processing fee" LOLwut).



Yup. And it gets worse as I age, because my reward for being a long time devoted fan of artists is that they become nostalgia acts, and jack up prices tenfold.

So while I'd love to see Iron Maiden, System of a Down, and Van Halen this summer, that would cost my fiance and I almost $700. SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! Hey, just because these guys got richer over the last 20 years doesn't mean us fans did too! At least offer some $50 nosebleed seats. For Van Halen, it would have cost $140 per ticket to sit BEHIND the stage with no view. WTF?!


----------



## ArrowHead (May 14, 2012)

elrrek said:


> This point of view does not work in a monetised environment though! If you apply this reasoning to music then you can apply it to food.




You're misreading his argument. He's explaining why music would persist WITHOUT monetization. You're arguing piracy. Completely unrelated arguments.


----------



## Isaac (May 14, 2012)

I think this is a subject that rouses a lot of emotion and it explains why rational discourse can sometimes be drowned out in cries of 'I just don't agree with piracy' or similar loaded statements. I know these are just my opinions and so mean little to nothing in grand scale of things so i'll try and be succinct. 

I argued on the previous page that file sharing is simply an action through which the economic status quo is in some way changed. It's a signal, essentially that can be interpreted as the sign of a business model that is failing to properly entice consumers. Record companies and artists will find new business plans and ways of maximising income once they (mainly labels) finally stop trying to get politicians to regulate the internet on their behalf. Once they finally accept file sharing as inevitable it won't be long before we see novel new business practices and the ingenuity of the free market take over. At the moment they clutch to their political influence in denial of the new reality, the sooner this stops the sooner we'll see a 'resurrgence' in the industry. 

Also the internet has provided a platform and a stage for everyone and their mums to get music out their on to youtube and other social media outlets. It's opened up the distribution and consumption of music in a way that was impossible in the past. 

In fact I wonder if the 'loss of revenue' experienced by the like of Manson may in fact be linked to the diversification and broadening of peoples music tastes (as manifested in the purchasing habits) as they become more and more aware of obscure and distant music. I know this is just speculation but do you not feel that as you spend more time on the internet looking around you find more interesting bands. And if you only have a set amount of money you can spend on music then it's less likely to go on another Metallica greatest hits or a live Dream Theater dvd but to some weird post-metal band from Russia, for example. Maybe we're seeing a diversification of music sales as well or instead of an overall decrease. Perhaps that's a load of bollocks but I never see it brought up in these discussions(perhaps because it's balls).

I don't know but when I see the cheaper recording equipment and a free and easy medium of distribution and promotion on line I see a dearth of new music that I never would have seen in the past. The music scene, as I see it is more vibrant and accessible than any time I can remember. What I see is record labels clinging to a monopoly that is eroding, screaming bloody murder and convincing you that 'piracy' will be the end of music and that music can't exist without their financial backing. I dunno about you guys but I don't see that at all.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 14, 2012)

Isaac said:


> In fact I wonder if the 'loss of revenue' experienced by the like of Manson may in fact be linked to the diversification and broadening of peoples music tastes




It's the typical life cycle. You love music, buy music, go to shows, and are passionate about artists. Then you pair off, settle down, and make babies - buying less music and going to less shows. Not to mention wearing less Marilyn Manson t-shirts. Then the babies grow up, things settle down, and mom and dad get nostalgic. Suddenly Manson is huge again, selling out stadium tours. Meanwhile Lamb of God will be experiencing their own downward trend.

See bands like Motley Crue, Poison, Bon Jovi, and other acts from the 80's that are selling out stadium tours right now, but no one would touch with a pole 10-15 years ago. Randy Blythe seems to be amazed with himself that he's noticed a musical cycle that's existed for the entire life of the recording industry.

Is piracy a part of a decline? Yes. But only a part. Not the sole cause. Music is just more readily available, from streaming services to


----------



## bhakan (May 14, 2012)

Regardless of loss of profits and the economics of it, my main gripe with downloading music is that it goes against what the artist wants. We are not all entitled to free music. It isn't ours, it is the property of the artist (or the record label), and they have the right to determine what is done with it. 

By the logic a lot of people have used in this thread, if you ask to borrow someone's car and they say no, you can still take it, since they are on vacation and you will take care of it, so they will get it back unharmed and it won't deprive them of it. It won't harm them, but it is still theirs and they should be able to determine how it is used.


----------



## ArtDecade (May 14, 2012)

bhakan said:


> Regardless of loss of profits and the economics of it, my main gripe with downloading music is that it goes against what the artist wants. We are not all entitled to free music. It isn't ours, it is the property of the artist (or the record label), and they have the right to determine what is done with it.
> 
> By the logic a lot of people have used in this thread, if you ask to borrow someone's car and they say no, you can still take it, since they are on vacation and you will take care of it, so they will get it back unharmed and it won't deprive them of it. It won't harm them, but it is still theirs and they should be able to determine how it is used.



You are going to have a real hard time in the digital age.  As William Gibson put it: &#8220;The future has arrived &#8212; it's just not evenly distributed yet.&#8221; Everything is consumed online. Everything. Ever been to a porn site? Guess what, someone made that movie and wants to generate income from it. Rest assured, you probably watched it for free. I don't see anyone condemning porn sites. 

The internet is the game changer. Its a complete and utter paradigm shift for everything from commerce to libraries to politics to war. I feel for the average musician that wants to make a buck doing what he loves. But, the old rules no longer apply. Adapt or die. If it is digital and can be aggregated, it will be. 

Use the media and social networks for the easy promotional abilities they offer. Give away the music if you have to or use a "pay what you want" scheme, ala Radiohead. Find new ways to merchandise or make money through physical means. There are other money making options out there. Album sales are not the way of the future.

The car is a bad example. Full stop.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 14, 2012)

bhakan said:


> Regardless of loss of profits and the economics of it,



But isn't that the entire premise of the thread? Can people distance themselves from morality long enough to discuss the reality of the situation? You're not going to convince others not to download. And those who download aren't going to convince me to stop buying and preordering albums. So if it is what it is, how is it effecting the industry?

That's the topic, as I understood it when I read Randy's rant. That downloading is killing the industry and Marilyn Manson's career. And here I thought it was the fact that it's been 25 years, and most of Marilyn's fans are busy raising babies and listening to the wiggles (I'm dating myself - wiggles aren't cool anymore, are they?).


----------



## MF_Kitten (May 14, 2012)

I will just come out and say that i REALLY like and support the way Louis CK, and later on other comedians, decided to sell his recent show. He put up for $5, no DRM, and direct download. No bullshit, no inflated prices. He gets the money straight into his pockets, after having funded the production himself, and having edited it himself.

It's directly between artist and customer.

This is what i like about things like Bandcamp. You actually have some control over your stuff. 

And anyone can get reasonably far with marketing it themselves, it just takes some effort and thinking outside the box.

Of course, if you want to be "proper huge", you need major marketing forces and stuff like that, which requires lots of money, which is what major record labels can provide. But there's always that tradeoff.


----------



## lemeker (May 14, 2012)

How is this any different than trading tapes back in the day? 

On a side note, I am going to make the assumption that a lot of what we download comes from someone else. Now this could mean "they" lifted it, in the cases of leaked cd's......or someone bought it (therefore there was money exchanged to whomever it went to) and it was ripped and put on a server to share somewhere.

If this is the case, that would mean we all stole growing up when recorded tapes from our friends or songs off of the radio (I never paid for songs that I recorded from a national broadcast, does that mean I stole it......I think not). Now you can say that the radio pays to play (they could, honestly I don't know), or something to that nature.

I also understand the difference between digital quality, and a 3rd gen quality tape wont be near equal, but the principle still remains.......

Also how many times is a consumer supposed to pay for the same indispensable item.....for example, I have my entire Anthrax catalog on tape.......now that cassettes have been phased out, why should I have to pay them again for cds? According to the basic piracy principle here, I did not steal as I have already paid a dividend for the product once already. 

I think it all boils down to one thing and one thing only and that's this.....when the economy was doing well no one seemed to care because we were all making a decent working wage/living expense ratio.....but now things are so fucked, everyone's gotten greedy not cuz they want to (in some cases) but because they have too, an everyones penny pinching to the max.

my two cents right or wrong........

ohh yeah, to the post about copyrights...... Its not copyright infringement until you try to claim you wrote it and are selling it as your own work.


----------



## ArtDecade (May 14, 2012)

^ I agree with a lot of what you have written above, but you are wrong about the copyright statement. What you have defined is plagiarism. To violate a copyright is to spread or create derivative works based upon the copyrighted material.

I'm a librarian - I deal with this stuff all the time.


----------



## flint757 (May 14, 2012)

Yeah a copyright gives you sole right to sell or use something and by not paying for it or distributing it you are infringing on that right.


----------



## VBCheeseGrater (May 14, 2012)

Isaac said:


> I argued on the previous page that file sharing is simply an action through which the economic status quo is in some way changed.



sounds good doesn't it? unfortunately, the truth is its nothing more than shoplifting, and all attempts to rationalize it are just that, rationalization. /thread.


----------



## lemeker (May 14, 2012)

ArtDecade said:


> ^ I agree with a lot of what you have written above, but you are wrong about the copyright statement. What you have defined is plagiarism. To violate a copyright is to spread or create derivative works based upon the copyrighted material.
> 
> I'm a librarian - I deal with this stuff all the time.





I stand corrected thank you!!!!


----------



## elrrek (May 15, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> You're misreading his argument. He's explaining why music would persist WITHOUT monetization. You're arguing piracy. Completely unrelated arguments.



And you are not reading enough into what I was saying. Admittedly you need to make some leaps yourself but going by the rest of your posts in this thread I would have expected you to get there (that's a compliment by the way).

My point if view is very simple, when a product/art becomes commercially available anyone who argues that the artists is not entitled to be compensated for their work and acquires the art/product outside an association with the artist then that person (anyone) is a thief. Your discussion over the topic of artists needing to adapt and find new delivery and compensation models is entirely valid but in the existing model downloaders are thieves, and that cannot be argued with.


----------



## Isaac (May 15, 2012)

elrrek said:


> but in the existing model downloaders are thieves, and that cannot be argued with.



Yes it can. I feel I have done just that thoroughly on page two, you may disagree but to to say it cannot be argued is not true.


----------



## elrrek (May 15, 2012)

Isaac said:


> Yes it can. I feel I have done just that thoroughly on page two, you may disagree but to to say it cannot be argued is not true.



I read your post and I completely disagree and the reason I say this is your very last statement:



Isaac said:


> the band was never entitled to those profits.



An artists who commercially releases a recording of piece of music that can only be legally obtained to listen to through licensed broadcast or purchasing a copy of the music IS entitled to profit from that recording. Therefore, to obtain to a copy of that piece of music without having paid for it is theft. You cannot argue with that.

Your house analogy is wrong, because the house is a physical object. The value of a house may be economically reduced by the appearance of another house that is very similar but this the same for all physical products. A piece of music is NOT a physical product. The economic value of the piece of music pays for the license that allows the listener to experience the recording of the piece of music. If you have not paid for the license then you have stolen the right to listen to the recording, stolen = theft. I don't know how many times I have had to type this 



Isaac said:


> That line of thought must say that there is an innate economic value in all music an that the producers of that music are entitled to that economic value. Actually if you do follow your line of thought then listening to a CD with a friend is stealing (reducing economic value) or lending a CD to a friend is stealing (reducing economic value).



This is partially correct, in some countries lending a recording (and the license) is illegal, but not all. Listening to a record with friends is usually covered under "private use".


----------



## simonXsludge (May 15, 2012)

drgordonfreeman said:


> Music was never meant to be consumed. It was meant to be heard. By turning music into business, you necessarily sterilize it in the interest of greater profits.


I agree. But this is hairsplitting, or I wasn't being clear enough. I wasn't trying to say that an artist couldn't be _creative,_ if there was no business or money involved. Creativity and inspiration doesn't come from $$$, I guess we can all agree on that.

However, in order for music to be heard, it still has to be produced. And every single bit of that costs money, from the recording, to the artwork, to the pressing of CDs / vinyl. With music videos and free download or streaming singles, an artist gives away something for free beforehand, in most cases. With that, he's trying to gain interest for the full package, and that's where the money comes into play.

If the majority ends up just downloading that full package digitally and without paying for it, the production costs are not gonna get covered. And no money is going to be there for the next production, so the artist will have a very hard time producing his art or music and getting it out there. So I believe that an artist should be payed. You're paying for pretty much anything else that has been crafted by someone before, so I really don't get why people expect downloading albums for free is ok and cool.


----------



## Isaac (May 15, 2012)

elrrek said:


> An artists who commercially releases a recording of piece of music that can only be legally obtained to listen to through licensed broadcast or purchasing a copy of the music IS entitled to profit from that recording.



Yes this what the law says, I'm not arguing the law. As I've stated ideas cannot be property _if you are talking in the western capitalist sense, which is the basis of our whole societal concept of property and ownership_. If it can be owned, logically having a state granted monopoly of an idea is a non sequitur. Therefore as stated before file sharing can't be theft as the musical ideas aren't property and hence there is no owner. It's also not theft through file sharing as the artist does own the recording and file sharing does not deprive use or utility. No theft. (I have intertwined two separate arguements here to explain why it isn't theft. I might be helpful to be aware, if not already) 

As for the entitlement to profits. Nobody is arguing that simply putting a lot of labor and investment into making an album entitles anyone to a certain profit. Given file sharing isn't stealing it's just another economic factor to be taken into account when making the decision to invest time and money into a commercial project. 



elrrek said:


> Therefore, to obtain to a copy of that piece of music without having paid for it is theft. You cannot argue with that.



Even now now the law states downloading music as copyright infringement not theft so i don't know where logically or pragmatically you've decided it's theft. I disagree with that statement as does the law. woops 



elrrek said:


> Your house analogy is wrong, because the house is a physical object. The value of a house may be economically reduced by the appearance of another house that is very similar but this the same for all physical products.



The analogy was used to illustrate a simple line of logic and reason, it's not perfect in every circumstance but it's still valid against your criticism. 



elrrek said:


> A piece of music is NOT a physical product. The economic value of the piece of music pays for the license that allows the listener to experience the recording of the piece of music.



Tackled above.



elrrek said:


> If you have not paid for the license then you have stolen the right to listen to the recording, stolen = theft. I don't know how many times I have had to type this



The whole system on licensing is illegitimate and immoral. Therefore you may type it a whole bunch more times but it won't make it any more true or valid.



elrrek said:


> This is partially correct, in some countries lending a recording (and the license) is illegal, but not all. Listening to a record with friends is usually covered under "private use".



If it changes between countries then it can't be based on reason or logic surely? Why does copyright run out at all? Why only 70 years after you die? Why did it used to be 14 years now it's ~100 what fundamental axioms changed or shifted? why not in all countries? Why do patents have to be applied for whereas copyright is automatic? why why why? It's an indefensible system built on an indefensible foundation of (really) nothing.

Anyway it's an interesting debate, no hard feelings.

Edit:grammer


----------



## ArrowHead (May 15, 2012)

elrrek said:


> And you are not reading enough into what I was saying. Admittedly you need to make some leaps yourself but going by the rest of your posts in this thread I would have expected you to get there (that's a compliment by the way).
> 
> My point if view is very simple, when a product/art becomes commercially available anyone who argues that the artists is not entitled to be compensated for their work and acquires the art/product outside an association with the artist then that person (anyone) is a thief. Your discussion over the topic of artists needing to adapt and find new delivery and compensation models is entirely valid but in the existing model downloaders are thieves, and that cannot be argued with.




Knowing what I know...
Knowing I can't prevent it...
Knowing I can't control what anyone but myself does...

With all that considered, if someone downloads my music, I call them a "fan", not a "thief". I would never tell a fan they're doing it wrong, even if I don't agree with what they're doing.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 15, 2012)

Isaac said:


> Yes it can. I feel I have done just that thoroughly on page two, you may disagree but to to say it cannot be argued is not true.



On a technical level thievery and piracy are different things. True. 

However, it's also one of the most commonly used defense of piracy. "piracy is not theft". Of course it isn't. But it's still illegal and immoral, much like theft is.


----------



## elrrek (May 15, 2012)

It is an interesting debate but it still doesn't get away from the fact that while we can counter one another with interpretations of law, language and intent the fact of the matter is, that artists who should be able to expect to be protected by a system that allows them to be compensated for their work are being robbed by illegal down loading and the downloaders -often- refuse to admit that they are in the wrong.

The use of the words "illegitimate and immoral" are very interesting, because I would use them to describe the justifications used by downloaders to continue what I consider to be theft.


----------



## elrrek (May 15, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> Knowing what I know...
> Knowing I can't prevent it...
> Knowing I can't control what anyone but myself does...
> 
> With all that considered, if someone downloads my music, I call them a "fan", not a "thief". I would never tell a fan they're doing it wrong, even if I don't agree with what they're doing.



And that's your entitlement which I respect. I've had music released that I've played on and I know that there are people out there who have not bought the music but are listening to it. And I know that other people who did buy the music made it available for other people in digital format to listen to without having to pay for it.

I also know that the guy running the label runs the label on the brink of existence because he is sitting on copies of records that people have not bought, because they could wait until someone else bought it and down load it from a blog. Perfect example of where illegal downloading and the culture of believing that there is no harm in down loading and it is not wrong is false.

If you don't want to tell someone that what they are doing is wrong even if you don't agree with what they are doing then fair enough, but if I feel strongly enough about something then I say something. It's a total pain in the arse and I tried not to this time but at least this debate this time has been pretty damn intelligent and not comprised of ignorant leeches, so cheers!


----------



## Isaac (May 15, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> On a technical level thievery and piracy are different things. True.
> 
> However, it's also one of the most commonly used defense of piracy. "piracy is not theft". Of course it isn't. But it's still illegal and immoral, much like theft is.



Yeah I mean it's definitely illegal. In terms of morality it's really a moral minefield best navigated by those far more knowledgeable than myself so I try not to get drawn into it too much but I doubt it's as clear cut as that. For instance I first got into Devin Townsend through downloading one of his solo albums, I ended up loving it and now because of that I have everyone of his albums, box sets and the live dvd on pr-order right now. This is something that has happened to me a lot, so in a real sense I've bought and contributed to the music industry far more than I've cost them in terms of file sharing. I'll quite often download leaked copies of albums I have on pre-order as well. Have I been immoral? perhaps but it's not so clear cut, see what I'm getting at? 

I can't remember the study but it came to the conclusion that those who download and file share the most generally also buy the most. So the morality of it is not so plain I'd wager. 



elrrek said:


> It is an interesting debate but it still doesn't get away from the fact that while we can counter one another with interpretations of law, language and intent the fact of the matter is, that artists who should be able to expect to be protected by a system that allows them to be compensated for their work are being robbed by illegal down loading and the downloaders -often- refuse to admit that they are in the wrong.
> 
> The use of the words "illegitimate and immoral" are very interesting, because I would use them to describe the justifications used by downloaders to continue what I consider to be theft.



If the basis of your society, morality and philosophy aren't rigorously thorough and reasoned through fundamental axioms, and principles then you can justify anything and it means fundamentally nothing. It's only by ridding ourselves of emotional urges and reactions and the application of reason, logic and continuity can we get to a sound conclusion.


----------



## Vyn (May 15, 2012)

The amount it would cost to implement and police a global piracy system would be astronomical and that's only at the surface. Getting each country to actually agree to such a system would be a nightmare as they'd constantly be fighting over different methods amongst other things. And even if we lived in that "perfect world" and managed to get such a system in place, someone will find a back door. Only have to look at MegaUpload getting shut down, users either went to new file sharing sites or to new ones that popped up in it's place.

As socially/legally/whatever illegitimate and imoral piracy is, it doesn't change the fact that the industry is screwed under the current model. It cannot continue to operate the way it has been because it's going to cost far too much to create the right environment. Adapt or die.


----------



## ArtDecade (May 15, 2012)

Aerosmith books a studio and a million dollars later they sell a record for 10 bucks on iTunes.
I have a home studio with Logic and Apogee and later sell a record for 10 bucks on iTunes.

Aerosmith will have a distribution deal that will place their CDs all over the planet.
I have a blog that mentions when my music is available. 

Aerosmith will charge an arm and leg to see them live.
I'll play a local show with a 6 other bands for 5 bucks at the door.

I can understand why Aerosmith is pissed about people ripping off their music. 
Me? I'm just happy if you like it. 

Here is the strange thing. We are both musicians, but my home studio, my instruments, and my gas to get the gig have all cost me a lot more than I will ever make back from my music. To me, I play music because I love it. I will always run a cash negative music business. Its a crappy way to go about it, but this is what artists have always done since the dawn of time. We invest ourselves, our money, and our time for the love of our craft. The idea of making it big is a new idea that was only made possible through record labels. Guess what? The record labels are getting out of the business of music, because the money is drying up. On top of that iTunes and Amazon have created a pricing situation where no one makes money, unless you are the distributor. 

Furthermore, if you look at copyright law - it is designed to protect the label, not the artist. The actual wording of the laws are so dense that copyright lawyers speak a completely different language. A majority of the laws are based upon agreements that have been made and changed between various parties over the years. These laws are dynamic and fluid. Once the labels slip out of the business, the laws will be left behind but they won't benefit the artist in a reasonable way.

Its time to stop worrying about making money back from your work based upon old "label" thinking. The Internet has changed all of this. There are ways to promote yourself like no other time in history. This alone is the greatest benefit to an artist! Your voice will be heard, but this doesn't always mean that you will be paid. Welcome to the digital age.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 15, 2012)

Another curious note:

I don't have a problem with piracy, and don't have a problem if someone downloaded my music free.

I get irked by youtube covers of current artists (like bulb, merrow), and find the whole idea of mashups/remixes/covers completely fucked up and annoying. 

Double standard? Am I a hypocrite? I feel that too many people would rather play covers than try and write an original riff or song. Maybe that's the reason. I just can't make the leap from "hey look, some guy on youtube playing some killer riffs" to "hey look, some guy on youtube playing some other guy on youtube's killer riffs!"


----------



## Mordacain (May 15, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> Another curious note:
> 
> I don't have a problem with piracy, and don't have a problem if someone downloaded my music free.
> 
> ...



Personally I hate remixes, mash-ups and the endless youtube covers myself. If I create something, I want to exert as much control over it as possible until it is delivered in its final form to the listener; I want people to experience it as I intended it to be heard. 

That being said, I can understand a fan wanting to learn to play something and that's fine, but the dozens of youtube playthroughs played against the actual song are what bother me. I don't mind an original cover though, where someone re-imagines the original or plays it in a different style. I don't mind these guys' covers for instance:



And just to restate, I don't think we should all just give up and accept piracy as a given. There has never been an end to murder, theft or other criminal actions but as a civilized society we continue to fight against those actions, as those actions are detrimental to society as a whole.


----------



## drgordonfreeman (May 15, 2012)

ArtDecade said:


> Ever been to a porn site? Guess what, someone made that movie and wants to generate income from it. Rest assured, you probably watched it for free. I don't see anyone condemning porn sites.
> 
> The internet is the game changer.



This is such an excellent example that it effectively ends the piracy debate.

If you don't pay for porn, then you probably shouldn't complain about people pirating music. 

One form of piracy can't be more acceptable than another. Either piracy is bad, or it's acceptable.

Moreover, I can say with 99.9999% confidence that not a single person in this thread pays for porn.



shitsøn;3009573 said:


> I agree. But this is hairsplitting, or I wasn't being clear enough. I wasn't trying to say that an artist couldn't be _creative,_ if there was no business or money involved. Creativity and inspiration doesn't come from $$$, I guess we can all agree on that.
> 
> However, in order for music to be heard, it still has to be produced. And every single bit of that costs money, from the recording, to the artwork, to the pressing of CDs / vinyl. With music videos and free download or streaming singles, an artist gives away something for free beforehand, in most cases. With that, he's trying to gain interest for the full package, and that's where the money comes into play.
> 
> If the majority ends up just downloading that full package digitally and without paying for it, the production costs are not gonna get covered. And no money is going to be there for the next production, so the artist will have a very hard time producing his art or music and getting it out there. So I believe that an artist should be payed. You're paying for pretty much anything else that has been crafted by someone before, so I really don't get why people expect downloading albums for free is ok and cool.



I agree with your post here, and I fully understand what you're saying.

First, I want to get on the same page with you. I also agree that an artist should be paid for their hard work. I agree with you on all of your points, actually.

The disagreement comes in, however, because I think you have a rather antiquated view of the music industry. Your view seems to be of where the music industry was, rather than where it currently is and is going in the future.

People listen to music differently now. With iTunes, Amazon, etc, people rarely download entire albums anymore, let alone actually purchase physical CDs. Some people may, but they're not in the majority. I'm sure you've noticed that many top artistic acts aren't even putting out entire albums anymore. They're putting out a single song at a time, usually what would have been the hit singles from the album.

People are more willing to pay $0.99 for a hit single than they are $15 for an entire album that really only has 2 or 3 songs they want to hear. This could also help combat piracy. Paying $1 a time is significantly different than paying $15 a time. Maybe I'm wrong about this aspect, though.

Moreover, this may even be a preferable method of releasing music from a business point of view, as it's the hit singles that make bands famous, rather than the B-sides. 

The costs associated with distributing music are mostly marketing now, rather than real production costs. For example, any 12 year old kid can produce a professional sounding song in the bedroom. Just listen to some of the songs people post on this message board. High quality, impressive stuff.

Further, one of my arguments is that in the future, being a full-time musician may not be feasible. People may have to actually get real jobs in order to support their music _hobby_.

A person will have to save and use money from their day job to pay for the costs of their _real_ job: being a musician.

The world is so fragmented now that everyone has ADD. It's almost impossible to catch a single person's attention, let alone, an entire group of people's attention. 

In the past, in a less fragmented more attention-oriented world, people paid to hear you play. In today's world, you pay people to hear your play.

I don't agree with how the game is changing, but refusing to adapt to the new rules of the game will guarantee a losing outcome.


----------



## flint757 (May 15, 2012)

Ya know people make that copy a car argument, but if you put that into perspective (that everyone could copy your neighbors car) I'm pretty sure no one would ever make cars again, no more innovation, new safety features etc. Why? Same reason it affects music because they are losing profit. Medicine is similar, it is overpriced to pay for R and D, does it suck yes, but I it least know 10 years from now something better will exist. (however right now patents are ending and there are no new drugs sadly and there may not be for a long time )


----------



## Mordacain (May 15, 2012)

drgordonfreeman said:


> This is such an excellent example that it effectively ends the piracy debate.
> 
> If you don't pay for porn, then you probably shouldn't complain about people pirating music.
> 
> ...



That's actually not an excellent example. The bulk majority of the porn people view on the internet for free are either samples of longer videos from "professional" video production houses or DIY clips. There is still a revenue stream generated from those sites in the form of advertising dollars. Also, there is still a healthy market of people paying for full access to sites from their free samples.

Extrapolating that to music would essentially create this scenario: someone hosting their own site to spread their music and allowing low quality, 60 second samples, cut from various parts of a particular song.

Its just not an apples to apples comparison.

I'd like to see some real tracking statistics (though I know there's no way to tell really) but I doubt most people go to the trouble of torrenting full DVD rips of professionally produced porn; they'll get their rocks off on a few of the free clips that don't take forever to download - immediate gratification.


----------



## ArtDecade (May 15, 2012)

^ Not to sound like a total pervert, but you are on the wrong sites. And just to double back, porn is a billion dollar industry despite the fact that you can get it free anywhere. On top of that, I couldn't tell you a single mate that actually owns any.


----------



## Mordacain (May 15, 2012)

ArtDecade said:


> ^ Not to sound like a total pervert, but you are on the wrong sites. And just to double back, porn is a billion dollar industry despite the fact that you can get it free anywhere. On top of that, I couldn't tell you a single mate that actually owns any.



Actually, on the opposite end of that, almost all of my friends own (or have owned) porn of some variety, be it dirty mags or DVDs. Of course, my friends are all 25-40 years old and it is a small sample set.

And if I'm on the wrong sites, its safe to say that many others are as well. What matters is what can be found easily. Most people that pirate music are not terrifically technologically savvy; they are finding what can be found easily. That's one reason that Pirate Bay is targeted, its easy to find and makes no bones about what it contains.


----------



## ArtDecade (May 15, 2012)

You are missing the point. Porn is a billion dollar a year industry despite rampant pirating. Music can be too. You just need to unlock how to promote and take advantage of the technology.


----------



## Mordacain (May 15, 2012)

ArtDecade said:


> You are missing the point. Porn is a billion dollar a year industry despite rampant pirating. Music can be too. You just need to unlock how to promote and take advantage of the technology.



I think you're missing my point, as industries the two are not comparable.

Porn continues to be a billion dollar industry because loss to pirating is minimal (as most freely available clips are not the full product) and the industry owns the sites where you can view streaming content. In essence, they saturated the market with free versions of their own product so they can continue to make money off of advertising (how many banner ads and pop-ups do you see if you just perform a random search for porn?), while maintaining control of exclusive content. The legality of porn itself is also something that is always in dispute (in the US at least) so there is next to no effort spent trying to countermand piracy through legal channels; 100% of the effort was spent in devising distribution methods to make money.

You can't necessarily apply the same model to music distribution. Also, the producers of content are completely different in ethos. I doubt most people making porn are doing it as an art form; it exists purely to take advantage of the basest of human desires - sexual gratification - for the purpose of making money. Although, one could argue that glam-metal was no different in ethos 

I agree that distribution methods for music are different now and that the industry has to adapt or die (preferably die). What I argue is that piracy itself devalues music as an art form and should not just be accepted by civilized society as morally condoned behavior.

And as a side note, I feel musicians should not be concerned with marketing to be able to survive, they should be concerned with making music; the quality of the music can only suffer when one has to not only contend with funding their passion themselves, but to spend their precious free time (outside of a full time job) researching marketing strategies to generate revenue from an ungrateful, entitled populace.


----------



## MJS (May 15, 2012)

lemeker said:


> How is this any different than trading tapes back in the day?



It's no different at all. That's why you never see any geniuses trying to compare it to stealing cars, robbing banks, etc...  

A lot of people can't seem to grasp the difference between stealing money from someone and not giving someone money. 

I doubt there's anyone whining about piracy that isn't a hypocrite anyway, which is just one of the many things that make the piracy threads retarded. Especially on a forum full of thieving pirates that refer to Reaper as "free" software.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 15, 2012)

Artdecade, Mordacain, I'd disagree with you both.

1) The porn industry is a GREAT parallel to the music industry. In fact I'd say music and porn were the two greatest contributors to all the technology and innovation we've seen on the internet. 
2) The porn industry is NOT just fine, despite piracy and free content. It's hurting the hell out of them, just like it has the music industry.

Porn Industry Struggles Against Free Content, Piracy - ABC News


----------



## MF_Kitten (May 15, 2012)

A few points i would like to see people discuss:

-What about piracy as a protest against the industry?
-What about instances where the artist condones piracy of their own material, like Devin Townsend or Trent Reznor?


----------



## flint757 (May 15, 2012)

^^^well then it isn't technically piracy 

I'm not sure how porn survives except for the fact that any ho will do it, it only takes a day to make a full production movie and it is all pretty low budget despite high production making the budget smaller. Saturation helps too.

I think music industry if you include all musician's is financially alright, it's labels who are suffering and only their losses get taken into account.

People should feel a tad worse for pirating porn over music honestly because one takes a little more from you in the end.


----------



## simonXsludge (May 16, 2012)

drgordonfreeman said:


> The disagreement comes in, however, because I think you have a rather antiquated view of the music industry. Your view seems to be of where the music industry was, rather than where it currently is and is going in the future.
> 
> People listen to music differently now. With iTunes, Amazon, etc, people rarely download entire albums anymore, let alone actually purchase physical CDs. Some people may, but they're not in the majority. I'm sure you've noticed that many top artistic acts aren't even putting out entire albums anymore. They're putting out a single song at a time, usually what would have been the hit singles from the album.



First of all, I really appreciate the discussion. You're bringing up good points and I agree to the point that people are listening to music differently, even in underground music genres now - which is unfortunate. This might be my main gripe with it. The mainstream listener has always been quite single-focused, but the mainstream formula has taken over many underground scenes now.



drgordonfreeman said:


> The costs associated with distributing music are mostly marketing now, rather than real production costs. For example, any 12 year old kid can produce a professional sounding song in the bedroom. Just listen to some of the songs people post on this message board. High quality, impressive stuff.



Which isn't a bad thing by any means. At the same point, if no one pays for the music, there won't be money for promotion and marketing either. Yes, there is YouTube and Facebook and what not, so yes, you can promote yourself, but it is rare that you can gain much of a fanbase with that, especially when you're starting from nowhere. You can only do so much.



drgordonfreeman said:


> Further, one of my arguments is that in the future, being a full-time musician may not be feasible. People may have to actually get real jobs in order to support their music _hobby_.
> 
> A person will have to save and use money from their day job to pay for the costs of their _real_ job: being a musician.



And I guess this is something you can hardly adapt to as a musician. It surely starts as a hobby and everyone uses money from their day jobs to pay for it. Taking the step up to being a fulltime musician, because there is enough demand for your band to be seen and heard, makes it more than a hobby, though. If your fans are not willing to spend some money on you, you won't really be able to fulfill that demand for more, because you have to work pretty much full time. This will result in your fans losing their interest in your band.



drgordonfreeman said:


> The world is so fragmented now that everyone has ADD. It's almost impossible to catch a single person's attention, let alone, an entire group of people's attention.
> 
> In the past, in a less fragmented more attention-oriented world, people paid to hear you play. In today's world, you pay people to hear your play.



I agree. I believe that social media _and_ illegal downloading play a huge part in that. If you can have all the music you want to for free whenever you want to, the value of the music itself decreases, because it simply gets lost. It's unfortunate, but that's what it is right now.

I also believe, that "you pay people to hear your play" can't work for artists in the long run. That might be an antiquated view, but I do believe that.



drgordonfreeman said:


> I don't agree with how the game is changing, but refusing to adapt to the new rules of the game will guarantee a losing outcome.



Yeah, sure. I mean, I play in a band as well and we just signed with a bigger Metal label with worldwide distribution and offices in the EU and US. But the recording budgets are still getting tighter for us, so we have to adapt. This results in recording all the guitar and bass tracks at my homestudio. We could only afford the studio time for drums, vocals and mixing. The mastering we're doing ourselves, too.

It is cool that you're able to do these things today, with the technology that's given, but even to afford all this stuff, you have to make some money in return at some point. I guess I don't have to mention that I paid this equipment out of my own pocket, though...haha. You can and have to adapt, but as an artist you can only do so much, if you want to keep artistic integrity and a certain level of quality.

A fan has to understand that, if he wants his favourite bands to stay alive.


----------



## drgordonfreeman (May 16, 2012)

shitsøn;3010912 said:


> First of all, I really appreciate the discussion. You're bringing up good points and I agree to the point that people are listening to music differently, even in underground music genres now - which is unfortunate. This might be my main gripe with it. The mainstream listener has always been quite single-focused, but the mainstream formula has taken over many underground scenes now.
> 
> 
> Which isn't a bad thing by any means. At the same point, if no one pays for the music, there won't be money for promotion and marketing either. Yes, there is YouTube and Facebook and what not, so yes, you can promote yourself, but it is rare that you can gain much of a fanbase with that, especially when you're starting from nowhere. You can only do so much.
> ...




You make some good points here, and I can't really disagree.

I think the elephant in the room is the fact that we're all caught in an awkward transitional period. The past is changing into the future, and while the future holds just as much success for innovative artists as the past, people haven't figured out how to bridge that gap. I think this can be said of the entire world, especially in economic terms, but that's a different discussion.

Nonetheless, you can point to external factors and say it's pirating.

You can point to internal factors and say the artists need to figure out how to adapt to a new business model.

Either way, people are understandably suffering from extreme cognitive dissonance right now.

My proposal for a solution is old-world:

0.) Figure out when you have free time, such as the weekends.

1.) Get a band together to jam during that free-time.

2.) Write some inspiring songs while jamming.

3.) Gig during your free time until you have a fan base that wants to listen to your music during their leisure time. 

4.) Take the songs you've been playing live, and record those in the lowest cost way while still maintaining a professional quality.

4.) Give away CDs at shows or allow fans to download the music off of your website for free so that they can listen to your music at home.

5.) Continue to gig supporting your songs until your fan base has increased to a point to where you can put on your own concert.

6.) Instead of raking your fans over the coals through TicketMaster, book some independent location. For example, a neighbor, who owns a farm several miles outside of the city, was telling me the other day that a local band paid him $1,000 to lease a small part of his land to hold a two hour concert. It was BYOB, and they charged $10 per person, all of which went straight to the band. They covered costs and walked away with a about $1,000 in profit. Not much, but it's a great start. The absolute key here is gaining control of your ticket sales and being able to set a reasonable price for your fans that both motivates them to attend and motives you to play.

7.) Apply this same process to anywhere you want to gain exposure, including using the promotional utility of the internet.


I think this a great theory, but I don't really know how this would work in the real world. From my view point, I think it'd work well, simply because I could easily follow a business strategy like that while maintaining my current job.

The only problem I can see with the above strategy is that it takes a long time. Per an example I outlined in a previous reply in this thread, maybe *20 years or more *to really establish your band.


----------



## slowro (May 21, 2012)

From Misha's facebook

"Just for the record, i am not going to waste my time saying that Piracy needs to stop, because it will be just that, a waste of time, it is what it is. 
With that said and established, i really don't think that it is too much to ask that IF you are going to pirate a band's album that you don't overtly rub the fact that you stole their music in their faces. 
Remember guys, merch nets bands more money, but cd sales determine their profile in the music industry, buying either helps ensure that the bands you love can afford to keep making the music that you love."


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 26, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> You'd actually be shocked how many of your favorite bands already have full time jobs. Even WITH label support.



Again, I have to disagree--many of the bands that are my "favorite bands" tour nationwide. Thus, I doubt they are working a full-time job in various countries throughout the year. Small progressive/metal/rock/jazz bands, yes. The bands run by those big labels? No. You are talking about the extinction of record labels, and I showed that it isn't a reality as you claim.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 26, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> Again, I have to disagree--many of the bands that are my "favorite bands" tour nationwide. Thus, I doubt they are working a full-time job in various countries throughout the year. Small progressive/metal/rock/jazz bands, yes. The bands run by those big labels? No. You are talking about the extinction of record labels, and I showed that it isn't a reality as you claim.



Disagree all you'd like but who are your "favorite bands"? I used to buy my bagels from the singer of Shadows Fall between their tours. In fact about 10 years ago some of the biggest and brightest national acts came out of this neck of the woods, and I can tell stories about how most of them need other work full time between tours. I don't want this to turn into a giant namedropping debate, but I'm not just making shit up - I have a lot of friends in national touring acts. Some pretty big bands, label wise (big acts on Century Media, Eulogy, Metal Blade, etc...). They don't make what you think they make.

Clearly you don't work full time DURING a tour, but in between for most musicians it's a full 40+ hour workweek at the same typical shitty jobs the rest of us work. There's a few exceptions, but in the metal world it's VERY few. Some are lucky enough to get other music related gigs, clinics, recording, etc... - but many others work in restaurants, factories, warehouse, landcaping jobs, and any other shitty job that will hire them.


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 27, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> Disagree all you'd like but who are your "favorite bands"? I used to buy my bagels from the singer of Shadows Fall between their tours. In fact about 10 years ago some of the biggest and brightest national acts came out of this neck of the woods, and I can tell stories about how most of them need other work full time between tours. I don't want this to turn into a giant namedropping debate, but I'm not just making shit up - I have a lot of friends in national touring acts. Some pretty big bands, label wise (big acts on Century Media, Eulogy, Metal Blade, etc...). They don't make what you think they make.
> 
> Clearly you don't work full time DURING a tour, but in between for most musicians it's a full 40+ hour workweek at the same typical shitty jobs the rest of us work. There's a few exceptions, but in the metal world it's VERY few. Some are lucky enough to get other music related gigs, clinics, recording, etc... - but many others work in restaurants, factories, warehouse, landcaping jobs, and any other shitty job that will hire them.



See, again, you're dropping names of labels that aren't very big. If you want to tell me I'll be seeing Tori Amos or Bruce Dickinson, maybe John Mayer or John Petrucci, selling bagels, I'll say you're intuitive, but not correct. In fact, give me one artist on Universal, EMI or Warner who will be selling me bagels tomorrow--I dare you to. 

You're arguing with sales, and you're losing. You can have your opinion of the dying industry all you want, but sales say differently, and ultimately, you have no proof whatsoever. In case you haven't noticed, most metal bands, and most metal labels, are not considered big-time. The majority of people don't care about Shadows Fall--they don't make nearly enough to be considered a big-time act. The lead guitarist plays in a cover band to scrape up dough in his off-time. Maybe "big" means something different to you than it does to me, but to me, the big bands with national tours are making at least a couple hundred thousand a year, which most metal bands can't even lay claim to. I love metal, but it seems to deceive a lot of people who listen to it into believing that it's constant rise and fall reflects the entirety of music. It doesn't.


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 27, 2012)

MF_Kitten said:


> A few points i would like to see people discuss:
> 
> *-What about piracy as a protest against the industry?*



Well, since I believe cars are overpriced, why don't I protest the car industry by stealing cars? 

It may be the "reasoning" _now_, but let's face it--people didn't steal music to stick it to anyone. They just took it because they could and they wanted to. Let's not give credit where it is definitely not do.


----------



## Scar Symmetry (May 27, 2012)

MF_Kitten said:


> A few points i would like to see people discuss:
> 
> -What about piracy as a protest against the industry?
> -What about instances where the artist condones piracy of their own material, like Devin Townsend or Trent Reznor?



Good points raised.  

Also, what about POWER IN THE HANDS OF THE ARTIST?

This is just the transition phase. Look at bands like Periphery, they hold all of their own chips.

This is progression people, not global thievery. That argument is so fucking dumb it makes my brain hurt.


----------



## MF_Kitten (May 27, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> Well, since I believe cars are overpriced, why don't I protest the car industry by stealing cars?
> 
> It may be the "reasoning" _now_, but let's face it--people didn't steal music to stick it to anyone. They just took it because they could and they wanted to. Let's not give credit where it is definitely not do.



good point, though not entirely applicable. You jump to something that is much more substantial, and that is worth much much more than an album. I guess a more applicable version of your example would be protesting the price of new cars or something by only buying used cars for cheap.

the "piracy" way of thinking is found in many many people. Where you have to pay for each plastic bag in the store, people often ignore the cashier asking if they want a bag, and then after paying, ask to get one. They know the cashier most likely won't bother, and will just give them the bag. It's not a nice thing to do, if you think about it. This is a low-priced thing though, so you won't be too surprised by it, but it's in the same vein of thinking, don't you think?

Knowledge of the thing you're stealing is also a contributing factor. You know the plastic bags cost damn near nothing for the store, and they aren't losing anything substantial because of your stealing it. When people know that the artist won't notice that they downloaded the album when the checks come in, they won't feel bad about it. Nevermind the fact that thousands of people do just that, right?

In the end though, i'm feeling myself much more willing to part with my money when the price of an album is lower, and it's easier to get. It's also a major boost to me when i know that the artist is personally involved in it, and is getting the money. When Louis CK sold his standup show on his site for 5 bucks, and you could just download it right there, with no DRM bullshit, that made me throw my wallet at the screen. I've bought AAL and Periphery stuff, and more recently the new Chimp Spanner album, because the price was right and the access was instant. The world of music production has changed, the world of music consumption has changed, and the industry has to change too if people are to stay interested.


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 27, 2012)

MF_Kitten said:


> good point, though not entirely applicable. You jump to something that is much more substantial, and that is worth much much more than an album. I guess a more applicable version of your example would be protesting the price of new cars or something by only buying used cars for cheap.
> 
> the "piracy" way of thinking is found in many many people. Where you have to pay for each plastic bag in the store, people often ignore the cashier asking if they want a bag, and then after paying, ask to get one. They know the cashier most likely won't bother, and will just give them the bag. It's not a nice thing to do, if you think about it. This is a low-priced thing though, so you won't be too surprised by it, but it's in the same vein of thinking, don't you think?
> 
> ...




Millions of stolen albums > me stealing a car, even if each album was one dollar. See, you can't compare buying used cars because you'll still be paying--people simply take music without paying. That is theft. 

If you want to pick and choose, why don't we talk about books as a comparison, as they are roughly in the same price brackets. Maybe I see it differently because I am a writer, and if someone stole my hard work, something that took me months to perfect, even if it was only a copy of it, I'd be fucking pissed off. Why? Because you're taking money out of my pocket, no matter how insubstantial the amount may seem to you and your justifications. I don't care if you think it is too expensive--if it is, then go without. Millions of people do it daily, and music is not a necessity. You are still stealing from me. You can say you will, but you will not die of starvation without stealing my product. Do you have a right to steal it? No. Do you feel arrogantly entitled to? I guess so. 

So, to sum up what you said, if the price is what you want to pay, you'll pay it, and if not, fuck it, just take it? Nice logic.


----------



## Labrie (May 27, 2012)

So if I go to a library and take out your book and read it, is that theft too? You might have got your cut when the library purchased your book but now literally everyone has access to the material and everyone that reads your story has that information now in their brain and they did not directly pay for it.

The same can be said for any renting or sharing service. Be it for books, videos, music etc. The problem for me is that people working in the "arts" sector that work hard making one original story, video or song, have this over-inflated sense of entitlement to money for the infinite potential of copies that can be made from that original product.

Forget about the paper or plastic that the media comes on and forget about the money it costs for the gear and equipment to make the music or book. As far as I'm concerned that is part of the costs of running a business. If I make something tangible that cost me $10 in materials, that means every time I want to sell another one I have to pay $10 to make it. It's not the same with music where I can literally make as many copies as I want. If what I'm supposed to be paying for is the original "idea" then why should you be entitled to the same amount of money for every copy of a song or book sold when you didn't put in any new work to make that copy?

Or if what I'm paying for is the *right* to have access to that original material then I should have the *right* to get a full refund if I am not satisfied with said material.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 27, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> See, again, you're dropping names of labels that aren't very big. If you want to tell me I'll be seeing Tori Amos or Bruce Dickinson, maybe John Mayer or John Petrucci, selling bagels, I'll say you're intuitive, but not correct. In fact, give me one artist on Universal, EMI or Warner who will be selling me bagels tomorrow--I dare you to.
> 
> You're arguing with sales, and you're losing. You can have your opinion of the dying industry all you want, but sales say differently, and ultimately, you have no proof whatsoever. In case you haven't noticed, most metal bands, and most metal labels, are not considered big-time. The majority of people don't care about Shadows Fall--they don't make nearly enough to be considered a big-time act. The lead guitarist plays in a cover band to scrape up dough in his off-time. Maybe "big" means something different to you than it does to me, but to me, the big bands with national tours are making at least a couple hundred thousand a year, which most metal bands can't even lay claim to. I love metal, but it seems to deceive a lot of people who listen to it into believing that* it's constant rise and fall reflects the entirety of music.* It doesn't.



Speaking of constant rise and fall, I believe I said TEN YEARS AGO that I was buying bagels from the singer of SF. If you take only that one example, at the time Art Of Balance was #15 on the billboard charts, and they were just off a gigantic tour.

The four artists you lists as your favorites are ALL legacy acts. Any examples of folks that broke into the business less than 20+ years ago?

Any examples of anything at all? Your argument is coming across very aggressive, and a bit rude (sorry if it wasn't meant that way), but you're making very little effort to support your argument with facts, or examples. It leads me to believe your opinions are based on very little ACTUAL experience in the industry. Am I incorrect in this assumption? You're right that metal isn't the largest percentage of the industry, but it's the biggest part of my own experience, and it's what this ENTIRE THREAD was about dude.

I mentioned Shadows Fall for two reasons - they're not really a relevant touring band right now and I'm not friends with them. I don't think any of my friends in current acts really want me discussing their finances with strangers on the internet. So sorry if I'm not name-dropping big enough labels for you, but I'm talking about the MAJORITY of gigging and touring bands, not the top few percent that have achieved massive fame and fortune in music.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 27, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> You're arguing with sales, and you're losing. You can have your opinion of the dying industry all you want, but sales say differently, and ultimately, you have no proof whatsoever..







Just to get back to where this whole argument started (because it's gone so astray since)





SenorDingDong said:


> And if you truly believe the record industry is facing extinction, well, maybe for metal it is, but for music in general? Last year there were over a billion units sold, which was a step up from the year prior. 2011 U.S. Album Sales Still Strong After Three Quarters | Billboard.biz
> 
> The 2011 Music-Sales Boost, By The Numbers | Billboard.biz
> 
> Doesn't sound like extinction to me.




[edit] Looking at the article you quoted, you're confusing the rise in digital sales with total sales, and more importantly year over year sales. Easy to do, as those articles use some pretty misleading wording. I misunderstood myself at first. Then again, it's Billboard magazine, of course they hype the industry.

The reality is that the industry has lost money year over year well over a decade now.



















Those are horrifying numbers, man. Units are units, not dollars. A 99 cent song download is a unit. An entire physical album is a unit. That's a $10+ difference per unit.


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 27, 2012)

Labrie said:


> So if I go to a library and take out your book and read it, is that theft too? You might have got your cut when the library purchased your book but now literally everyone has access to the material and everyone that reads your story has that information now in their brain and they did not directly pay for it.



Lol good try but libraries cannot buy books that are not approved for their usage by the publisher. If I didn't want my book in a library for people to read for free, it wouldn't be there, because the library would not be able to purchase it. 





> The same can be said for any renting or sharing service. Be it for books, videos, music etc. The problem for me is that people working in the "arts" sector that work hard making one original story, video or song, have this over-inflated sense of entitlement to money for the infinite potential of copies that can be made from that original product.



Really? It's over-inflated to feel entitled to payment for your work? Okay, why don't you try working for free, then. You don't need that paycheck at the end of the week--it's only your over-inflated senses that desire it. 




> Forget about the paper or plastic that the media comes on and forget about the money it costs for the gear and equipment to make the music or book. As far as I'm concerned that is part of the costs of running a business. If I make something tangible that cost me $10 in materials, that means every time I want to sell another one I have to pay $10 to make it. It's not the same with music where I can literally make as many copies as I want. If what I'm supposed to be paying for is the original "idea" then why should you be entitled to the same amount of money for every copy of a song or book sold when you didn't put in any new work to make that copy?
> 
> Or if what I'm paying for is the *right* to have access to that original material then I should have the *right* to get a full refund if I am not satisfied with said material.



If you think all of this, you should try doing C-Class business taxes (self-employed, which means musicians as well, taxes). You'll see how misinformed the entire first half is, and then the second half... well, you can get a refund. I return things I am not satisfied with all the time. But I don't steal them on the pretense of possibly buying them later on.


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 27, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> Speaking of constant rise and fall, I believe I said TEN YEARS AGO that I was buying bagels from the singer of SF. If you take only that one example, at the time Art Of Balance was #15 on the billboard charts, and they were just off a gigantic tour.
> 
> The four artists you lists as your favorites are ALL legacy acts. Any examples of folks that broke into the business less than 20+ years ago?
> 
> ...



He is talking about the music industry. So am I.

Yes, I named two: John Mayer and John Petrucci. Less than twenty years ago, both broke through. Then you have bands such as Bend Folds Five, The Killers, Disturbed, FFDP... I can go on and on and on about bands that show the industry is not in fact dying. 

If you talk about the majority of non-big label bands, of course they aren't making much--because they are big label bands. Then, you have to consider that audiences factor in. 

As for the "I know people but I don't want to say names," cool. But don't argue as if knowing nameless people makes you an expert on the industry. I'm not an expert, but I can clearly see that there are still tons of acts making tons of money. Metal is a very small portion of music. 

As for how metal breaks down, here you go: http://www.metalinjection.net/its-just-business/bands-money-touring


And no, I'm not angry--read how you wish. I'm being honest. 




ArrowHead said:


> Just to get back to where this whole argument started (because it's gone so astray since)
> 
> 
> Looking at the article you quoted, you realize the 1% increase in sales vs. last year is compared to 19% DOWN from the year before that? So how exactly is 1% UP from 19% DOWN example of the music industry thriving.
> ...



Way to look through the article without reading and pick the smallest number to try and argue with. If you had read it, you'd know that your statement is far off. 






As for after this, I'm done arguing this. Thieves will always have excuses for their actions--you can walk in a courtroom any given day and hear people tell how breaking the law was justified because A, B and C. But we always get down to the bottom line of you're wrong because the law says so.


----------



## xhellchosemex (May 27, 2012)

Sikthness said:


> Ill be the first to admit: I download a TON of music for free from blogs. However, I don't think I cause much harm to bands I am a fan of. For one, 90% of the cds I have, I would not have been willing to spend money on in the first place. I simply can't justify spending hard earned money on something I haven't heard yet either on youtube or downloaded form. If I had to pay for my entire music collection, it would be well into the 5 figures. Now, that being said, if I am a fan, i will purchase the cd. I know many like me that are more than willing to go to shows, buy the cd despite having downloaded it, and buy merch. In fact, for a lot of these lesser known bands, I'd argue that illegal downloading is actually helping them financially. More people listening = more word of mouth. I know it sounds bad and unmoral to 'steal' music, but this is the way it is. The music will speak for itself, and if it is good enough than I as well as others will support the band monetarily. People simply won't justify spending money on middle of the road music.
> 
> I know many will disagree w/ me, but that's ok. This is how it is now. Bands need to adapt just like in any other industry, or die financially. Make better music. Fans WILL still give you their money if the music is good enough.


what this guy said. im really not going to pay for music which i could dislike or something. i always check out and then buy the cd or merch.


----------



## MF_Kitten (May 27, 2012)

Lots of great points being made back and forth here.

I think the only real thing i can say, is that yes piracy is wrong, but yes it is happening for a reason. It's not just people being stingy and lazy. Things have drastically changed in the world, yet the industry is still trying to apply the old logic to the new conditions. This causes a mismatch between what people are willing to put up with, and what they are being offered.

So even though it's really sad that it has come to this, for the artists, piracy is the consequence of the industry lagging behind.the same applies for video games and movies too, by the way. Exact same issues.


----------



## Labrie (May 27, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> Lol good try but libraries cannot buy books that are not approved for their usage by the publisher. If I didn't want my book in a library for people to read for free, it wouldn't be there, because the library would not be able to purchase it.



And by the sounds of it you wouldn't have your book in the library because you would equate people reading it there to be stealing it. Which, imo, is absolutely absurd for someone who CHOSE a career in writing.

If you wrote a book that sold 1000 copies does that mean that you spent your own personal time writing out 1000 copies? I don't think so. But yet you think you're entitled to the amount of money for the time it would potentially take for you to write out your book that many times. If you're making the argument that you don't work for free then I'm making the argument that I don't pay someone to NOT work.

And no, the last time I checked, I wasn't able to return digital copies of albums. If I'm paying for the right to listen to a piece of music and it turns out to suck ass, then why can't I return my "right" to it and get my money back?

You can't be naive about it. If you choose a career in music you have to expect that people are going to "steal" your product. That's just the way it is regardless if it's right or wrong. If you don't like it then choose a job where you get paid by the hour.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 27, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> Way to look through the article without reading and pick the smallest number to try and argue with. If you had read it, you'd know that your statement is far off.




Read the subsequent edit.

I'm trying to share some of what I know from going to school for music, studying the business, gigging and playing in bands for 20 years, and putting out a handful of demos with a handful of bands. One actual worldwide release that wasn't all that successful. _Nothing huge_, and I don't want to be preachy or condescending, but it's what's formed the basis of my opinions. There's people on here that are big giant bears, and I'm a tiny ant. But some of my friends are bears, and I've shared stages with bears. I've worked in factories with bears that got chewed up in the 80's and 90's and were spit out as ants. I'm trying to relate some of that experience in this discussion.

You seem intent on arguing, but it seems to be based entirely on facts that just aren't correct. Like the age of DT, the health of the industry's profits, or the difference between piracy and theft. Ben Folds is an example the industry isn't dying? Their last album was over 12 years ago. Disturbed? First album was 13 years ago. Same With Mayer, 12 years ago he was selling multi-platinum albums. Dream Theater's first album was in '89, and now twice you've told me that it was less than 20 years ago they "broke through". More importantly, most of these artists have sold significantly less and less and less albums since their debuts as the industry curls up. So far you've not listed a single current example. Your examples are all rooted in the late 90's and early 2000's. 

And you say my example of Shadows Fall is not a "BIG" band, yet Dream Theater is. In 2002, 10 years ago, Shadows Fall's album "Art of Silence" was at #15 on Billboard. Dream Theater's album that year, "6 Degrees of Inner Turbulence", maxxed out at #46. So if Shadows Fall was selling bagels, DT was working full time as well. Except Petrucci was selling instructional videos, doing clinics, endorsing gear, and building up a brand instead of asking what kind of cream cheese his guests wanted. Full time work is full time work, dude.

Please, I don't mind a good discussion, and this thread IS a good discussion, but don't de-rail it with inaccuracy and unfounded opinions. It's so hard to argue each and every non-fact you throw at me without feeling like I'm completely de-railing a thread that was going very well.


----------



## ElRay (May 28, 2012)

Isaac said:


> Your premise is entirely false, nothing is being stolen. Nobody is being stolen from, ...


Sorry, wrong. You have my product and you did not pay me for it. You stole it. End of story.

Try to tell an Architect that you didn't steal the result of their effort by copying their plans.

Try to tell a professor that you didn't steal their research just because you copied their data.

Try to tell a photographer that you didn't steal their photos just because you copied their drive.

You're confusing the physical media with the intelectual property/work product. Pirating is still theft and you can play all the sophist games you want, but it doesn't change the fact that you took somebody's work, effort, intellectual property, without compensating them.

Ray


----------



## TheSpaceforthis (May 28, 2012)

If the porn is of good quality, people will pay for it, same goes for music. End of story.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 28, 2012)

TheSpaceforthis said:


> If the porn is of good quality, people will pay for it, same goes for music. End of story.




How many will pay for it? 
How many of those will post it on youtube/redtube?
How many people will then download it free from these types of sources rather than pay?

Not end of story. Just the end of your interest in it. And the beginning of an interesting discussion.


----------



## Labrie (May 28, 2012)

ElRay said:


> Sorry, wrong. You have my product and you did not pay me for it. You stole it. End of story.
> 
> Try to tell an Architect that you didn't steal the result of their effort by copying their plans.
> 
> ...



So should I feel bad for turning on the radio every morning? As soon as I hear that song in its entirety I technically have that artists intellectual property don't I? I made the same argument with the library analogy and was told that the library cannot buy books that haven't been approved for that use by the publisher. The same goes for radio which furthers proves my point that it's not as black and white as you are making it out to be.

If it's stealing end of story, then you're also saying that every time I hear a song being played anywhere and I haven't directly paid for the right to listen to that song, then I am committing a crime. And that sounds incredibly silly because it is just that. 

I can't believe how many people think this issue is purely black and white. It is obviously so many shades of grey.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 28, 2012)

ElRay said:


> Pirating is still theft



Piracy is piracy. Theft is theft. Different crimes. Different laws. Different punishments. Different concepts.

Both illegal. Both are immoral. Both profit on the work of others. But I'm so tired of people trying to say one=the other. We're not trying to justify stealing. I think piracy is completely WRONG. But it is NOT theft. Is bootlegging theft? Is counterfeiting theft? No. 

It's not theft. If we can't establish this fact, this entire discussion gets completely derailed again and again.



> *Copyright infringement* is the unauthorized use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's "exclusive rights", such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, spread the information contained within copyrighted works, or to make derivative works. It often refers to copying "intellectual property" without written permission from the copyright holder, which is typically a publisher or other business representing or assigned by the work's creator.





> Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as theft. In copyright law, infringement does not refer to theft of physical objects, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization.[6]* Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for instance, in the United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property and that "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright... 'an infringer of the copyright.'"* In the case of copyright infringement the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law is invaded, i.e. exclusive rights, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held


Get it, everyone?

They're not the same thing because they're NOT THE SAME THING. More metaphors about cars and stealing will not change this.


----------



## flint757 (May 28, 2012)

Labrie said:


> So should I feel bad for turning on the radio every morning? As soon as I hear that song in its entirety I technically have that artists intellectual property don't I? I made the same argument with the library analogy and was told that the library cannot buy books that haven't been approved for that use by the publisher. The same goes for radio which furthers proves my point that it's not as black and white as you are making it out to be.
> 
> If it's stealing end of story, then you're also saying that every time I hear a song being played anywhere and I haven't directly paid for the right to listen to that song, then I am committing a crime. And that sounds incredibly silly because it is just that.
> 
> I can't believe how many people think this issue is purely black and white. It is obviously so many shades of grey.



Someone got paid for it being on the radio, same with the library. If it is up on youtube officially some bands profit from the advertising. You didn't pay to use it, but someone did. If you go on the web and just download it then you are definitely in the wrong. While it is not in a legal sense theft you are taking something without paying for it and without permission.


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 29, 2012)

Labrie said:


> And by the sounds of it you wouldn't have your book in the library because you would equate people reading it there to be stealing it. Which, imo, is absolutely absurd for someone who CHOSE a career in writing.
> 
> If you wrote a book that sold 1000 copies does that mean that you spent your own personal time writing out 1000 copies? I don't think so. But yet you think you're entitled to the amount of money for the time it would potentially take for you to write out your book that many times. If you're making the argument that you don't work for free then I'm making the argument that I don't pay someone to NOT work.
> 
> ...




I assume you negged me to strengthen your case, but you didn't: You are trying so hard to make a point that you are over-reaching miles. 

I would have no trouble with a library using my book because they are paying for a specific right and I know exactly what that right entails--people get to borrow my book for a week before *returning* it. *They don't give out mass copies* to anyone who holds their hand out.


In summary of everything you have said, I have the right to take any product made by any manufacturer that did not make it directly. So, according to you, since James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson are no longer alive, I have a right to take all Johnson & Johnson products for free because they aren't the original products, only copies that their hands had no part in making. In fact, every product in every store should be free because the original creators, in most cases, are dead and thus did not create them--they're only copies. See how stupid your logic sounds when applied to something that you aren't safe behind a computer screen to steal?

And naive? Are you kidding me? It is naive to think that you have the right to take my product without paying, not for me to expect compensation for my product. You think bands owe it to you to give you free music. I think your ego is too big to fit through a doorway.


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 29, 2012)

ArrowHead said:


> Piracy is piracy. Theft is theft. Different crimes. Different laws. Different punishments. Different concepts.
> 
> Both illegal. Both are immoral. Both profit on the work of others. But I'm so tired of people trying to say one=the other. We're not trying to justify stealing. I think piracy is completely WRONG. But it is NOT theft. Is bootlegging theft? Is counterfeiting theft? No.
> 
> ...





Yes you are trying to justify stealing. Just because the definitions are different, doesn't mean you still aren't taking what is not yours to take 

When you have a stated right to take the music, then you can complain that piracy is not theft because it won't be. Until then, stealing is defined as taking without permission or right. 


Nice try, though. 





xhellchosemex said:


> what this guy said. im really not going to pay for music which i could dislike or something. i always check out and then buy the cd or merch.




Tell that to the clerk next time you go to buy your groceries. "I'm not going to pay for this food that I could like or dislike. I'll eat it first, then let you know if I feel like paying now that I already have had it."





ArrowHead said:


> Those are horrifying numbers, man. Units are units, not dollars. A 99 cent song download is a unit. An entire physical album is a unit. That's a $10+ difference per unit.




We weren't arguing that over time, music sales have gone down. That is common knowledge. In fact, they're down 52% from 2000 thanks to P2P and downloading in general. Despite the fact one of this charts is three years out of date and another is speculation on the author's part if you look it up, we are discussing the death of the industry, which you claim has come. The industry is nowhere near in danger of dying off. Metal certainly is in a worse predicament than ever, but only a small majority of the population listens to it. 

You've got a billion dollars being dragged in through pop, rock, and everything commercial. As long as there is a Lady Gaga or a Just Bieber (and let's face it, if the name's not the same, they still find power acts), the music industry is safer than safe. You need proof, just look up their sales.


----------



## linchpin (May 29, 2012)

I'm gonna say this, I wasted a lot of money back in the 90s... thankfully, i'm a little more careful and conservative nowadays because my buying is very specific, organised and well thought through rather than erratic buying for the sake of buying... I'm not exactly what you'd call a full-blown consumer.


----------



## petereanima (May 29, 2012)

linchpin said:


> I'm gonna say this, I wasted a lot of money back in the 90s...



Me too. I have bought "Load" and "Reload" unheard/"blind" when they came out. 

Nowadays, I listen to 2-3 songs online (youtube mostly) in advance, if I like what I hear, I buy it.


----------



## Labrie (May 29, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> I assume you negged me to strengthen your case, but you didn't: You are trying so hard to make a point that you are over-reaching miles.
> 
> I would have no trouble with a library using my book because they are paying for a specific right and I know exactly what that right entails--people get to borrow my book for a week before *returning* it. *They don't give out mass copies* to anyone who holds their hand out.
> 
> ...



First off I didnt neg rep you, I never neg rep anybody but I would definitely have the balls to admit it if I did. Secondly, if all you are going to do is twist words and throw insults then I'm done with this thread. If you want to have a conversation, a debate even, I'm all for it but when you resort to calling someone a keyboard warrior with an inflated ego it to try and make a point, it makes you look like kid throwing a tantrum.


----------



## Genome (May 29, 2012)

TheSpaceforthis said:


> If the porn is of good quality, people will pay for it, same goes for music. End of story.



Clearly you've never been on Redtube


----------



## ArrowHead (May 29, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> Yes you are trying to justify stealing. Just because the definitions are different, doesn't mean you still aren't taking what is not yours to take



I've said how many times I'm against piracy, and do not download music illegally, and yet you say I'm justifying piracy. You need to listen to what people are saying, instead of reading what you want into it. 

That's insulting.



ArrowHead said:


> Both *illegal*. Both are *immoral*. *I think piracy is completely WRONG. *





SenorDingDong said:


> Yes you are trying to justify stealing.



How do you get from A to B there, man?


----------



## SenorDingDong (May 29, 2012)

Labrie said:


> First off I didnt neg rep you, I never neg rep anybody but I would definitely have the balls to admit it if I did. Secondly, if all you are going to do is twist words and throw insults then I'm done with this thread. If you want to have a conversation, a debate even, I'm all for it but when you resort to calling someone a keyboard warrior with an inflated ego it to try and make a point, it makes you look like kid throwing a tantrum.



Yes, I am throwing a tantrum by using what you said against you. 

























So it wasn't an insult when you said I (because I work in the arts and you made the generalization to all people who do) have an


> over-inflated sense of entitlement


, which is the same as an ego? 

But I didn't get offended, because I can refute everything you are claiming. Basically, you have not rebuttal that is less than ridiculous and uninformed and you are now angry that everything you have said has been subjected to logic. 

I didn't call you a keyboard warrior--I basically said you feel safe stealing things that you can get anonymously. If I'm wrong, why don't you go on to the local CD store and steal some CDs--after all, you don't know if you'll like them, and thus you shouldn't have to pay for them. And remember, in your words, you aren't stealing because the bands did not handcraft those CDs as they did the music they contain. They're only copies, right?

As for ego, yes, I do believe you have one to think anyone owes you anything, especially if they spent their time creating it. You've got your hand out, expecting someone to fill it. That takes ego. 




And I'll bring this back up, just because it is so absurd:



> But yet you think you're entitled to the amount of money for the time it would potentially take for you to write out your book that many times. If you're making the argument that you don't work for free then I'm making the argument that I don't pay someone to NOT work.



See, you're inferring that by you paying for the album, you are buying someone's time, which you are not. Again, this is where your entire concept of the working world becomes a surreal--you are not paying me to work, you are paying _for_ my work, and a copy of it, no less. If you don't want to pay for it, you don't need it so badly. Just as you go to the store every day and buy one of millions of copies of every single thing you purchase, you buy a copy of a book or a CD. You will never find the "original" Hostess Twinkies, or the "original" bag of cookies that spawned all the rest because they are either gone, or not for sale. Likewise, most are made by machinery, just like books and CDs. So please, go steal everything that is not an original, or the direct product of the creator's hand. 


I really am done with this discussion now, because the quality of most of the arguments, or the lack thereof, is becoming desperate.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 29, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> the music industry is safer than safe. You need proof, just look up their sales.



I did. I posted them for you. 

You don't understand the thread, my point, or even your own point. Add to that how much you've side-tracked this thread, thrown out false information, and talked down to people with far more information and experience than you while giving ZERO facts to support your argument... And you've repeatedly put words in my mouth and attributed points to me that I have not made.

You're rude, insulting, and worse yet you're diluting a great thread with a bunch of shitty unfounded opinions on an industry you don't know a damned thing about.


----------



## ArrowHead (May 29, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> But I didn't get offended, because I can refute everything you are claiming.



Then DO IT!!! Post a fact, a law, a definition, an article, some figures, ANYTHING to back up what you're saying other than your attitude and opinion! I posted the legal difference between piracy and theft - your refutation consisted of "nice try though". 

Can you imagine how frustrating that is? How can anyone argue with you, if you won't back up your argument and won't accept what others show you?


----------



## VBCheeseGrater (May 29, 2012)

SIGH....i guess a little red looks good on the rep bar and nothing wrong with a little time off......So...not aiming this at anyone in particular....

When your mommy gives you your allowance, you need to save that for things you like to buy. If you run out of money, you are not supposed to just take things without paying. At that point, you can do one of a few things....

A) Go ask your mommy for more money so you can buy "Dick split open by a wooden spoon"
B) Get a job, work for your money - providing your boss doesn't decide he doesn't feel like paying for you - why should he, right?
C) Quit your bitching and moaning and wait until you can afford the product like a respectable human being. 
D) Get it for free via pirating, all the while raising the finger to those who put the time, heart, and effort in producing the music


----------

