Good article on justifying piracy

[John_C]

Well i dont think piracy hurts the "big guns" so much. When I say big guns I am referring to the Metallica's and Linkin Parks of the world. The large Multi Platinum artists dont really get stung for things like this cause they sell SO much merch, and tickets and albums that it all comes out in the wash.

The ones I feel it affects most are the bands that are on the smaller size but still on labels. Quite a few of the CM artists like Arch Enemy, Nevermore, Machine Head, Exodus I could see it hurting in a big way. I mean even Trivium at this point I believe has pushed to a point where this wont hurt so much. Basically the C level acts who when playing places in the US and around the world are doing clubs instead of big Stadiums / Arenas / Concert halls.

Agreed. Many of the people I know who do download music in fact make this distinction and buy albums from smaller bands, but would happily download a metallica album for free. It's a bit like stealing from tesco vs stealing from a local corner shop, I don't do either but in the end I don't give a damn if someone steals their tesco value bread and lager, but the guy who steals from the corner shop is a cunt.

 

[James Murphy]

guys.. you are forgetting that it's the labels' share of the "A Level acts" that fund the signing of B & C level acts... so when those go down, available funds for signing new bands goes down along with it.

 

[53Crëw]

As I see it, a record deal is basically a "loan". They finance the album for the band. If the record company can't profit from the album due to lost sales from people downloading it illegally, then why would they continue to dump money into the band to finance more albums?

On a side note, I came across this article the other day that had some interesting comments on the state of the music business and how the business model has changed.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38192723/ns/today-entertainment/

 

[guitarguru777]

I feel the same way as long as your stealing from Metallica ... lol

I buy all of my Cd's... Do I look for leaks and download them, of course I do.

Does it stop me from supporting my favorite bands? Hell no

95% of the time I don't even rip my own MP3's I just torrent them, but I still buy the CD. I think that's a big difference between the generations really. When i was growing up in the 80s I didn't have the luxury of downloading songs. Sure me and my friends traded cassette tapes but owning the cassettes / vinyl / CD is the best part of it for me. I have read every liner note in every CD in my collection, its part of the musical experience for me.

FYI I also buy bootleg live shows like a mad man even though the artist doesn't make anything off of them

 

[John_C]

A quick search of published papers seems to say that file sharing is having a strong negative affect on sales, as expected.

 

[John_C]

guys.. you are forgetting that it's the labels' share of the "A Level acts" that fund the signing of B & C level acts... so when those go down, available funds for signing new bands goes down along with it.

Good point

 

[guitarguru777]

guys.. you are forgetting that it's the labels' share of the "A Level acts" that fund the signing of B & C level acts... so when those go down, available funds for signing new bands goes down along with it.

You know I never thought of it that way

I still buy my CD's though, so if any of you fuckers dont get signed its not my fault ...lol

 

[John_C]

http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/intprop/cities.pdf

an interesting in depth study and discussion of the situation.

 

[egan.]

I want to see some serious numbers here. Everyone throws out their opinion of what the effect of piracy on the music business is, but it would be stupid to believe anyones financial claims if they can't back them up with anything more than *at best* limited personal experience.

Here:

In the 21st century, consumers spent far less money on recorded music than they had in 1990s, in all formats. Total revenues for CDs, vinyl, cassettes and digital downloads in the world dropped 25% from $38.6 billion in 1999 to $27.5 billion in 2008 according to IFPI. Same revenues in the U.S. dropped from a high of $14.6 billion in 1999 to $9 billion in 2008. The Economist and The New York Times report that the downward trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future[6][7] This dramatic decline in revenue has caused large-scale layoffs inside the industry, driven retailers (such as Tower Records) out of business...

You could dispute the cause I suppose but I doubt that piracy (regardless of your opinion on it) would fail to make anyone's list of causes.

 

[guitarguru777]

Here:

You could dispute the cause I suppose but I doubt that piracy (regardless of your opinion on it) would fail to make anyone's list of causes.

So are you saying this is not because of piracy?

Are you blaming it on the economy then?

(and to clarify, I am asking a legit question, no sarcasm or attitude intended)

 

[John_C]

Here:


You could dispute the cause I suppose but I doubt that piracy (regardless of your opinion on it) would fail to make anyone's list of causes.

good stuff. I do suspect piracy is largely to blame for this trend and from the papers I'm reading right now this does appear to be the case.

This thread is proving to be both interesting and informative, surprisingly.

edit: i created a thread for thinking about ways to move forward, starting with assumption that piracy is currently damaging the music industry to some extent.

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...ing-music-viable-occupation-modern-world.html

 

[egan.]

So are you saying this is not because of piracy?

My personal opinion is that it's a combination of piracy and the subsequent re-prioritizing of entertainment dollars. When kids plead poverty I always point out that ten years ago your average 15 year old wasn't carrying a $400 appliance in their pocket.
Anyway, the point of my comment was that some people claim that the decline of music profits is caused by something else-- usually it's "no good music" or "greed" or other such nebulous evils. However, even if you believe their are other factors involved it's impossible to dismiss piracy as a major contributor.

 

[guitarguru777]

Ahh...

I totally see what your saying. I tend to think that that $400 appliance in their pocket is partly cause they aren't out buying CD's, or more to the point their parents arent buying them CD's so the money gets spent on other things

 

[egan.]

I tend to think that that $400 appliance in their pocket is partly cause they aren't out buying CD's, or more to the point their parents arent buying them CD's so the money gets spent on other things

Right, exactly.

 

[arv_foh]

If record companies and music retailers got their heads out of their asses and started offering FLAC downloads I'd honestly be a lot more inclined to buy digital music. I do buy from Amazon as all of their stuff is at least 256 MP3 which is decent, but I'd rather have the FLAC files to convert to whatever format I want.

I know they have iTunes Plus and LP or whatever now but isn't most of their stuff still that bullshit 128 AAC?

 

[Harry Hughes]

If record companies and music retailers got their heads out of their asses and started offering FLAC downloads I'd honestly be a lot more inclined to buy digital music. I do buy from Amazon as all of their stuff is at least 256 MP3 which is decent, but I'd rather have the FLAC files to convert to whatever format I want.

I know they have iTunes Plus and LP or whatever now but isn't most of their stuff still that bullshit 128 AAC?

Yeah, I don't buy off iTunes, ever.
I guess call me old school, but I tend to only really buy CDs.
I'm okay with a well encoded 320kbps MP3 because it sounds the same as a CD to me, but anything less than that, and there's no way I'd want to pay for that reduced quality crap.

 

[egan.]

You guys are mistaken. Almost everything on itunes is itunes plus which is 256 AAC and DRM free. I agree that more folks should be selling lossless however the market isn't demanding it--- or at least most who would pay for a lossless format are still buying the available lossless format (CD's).

Personally I always thought the majors dropped the ball by not going all-in with SACD hybrids when file sharing first hit. For those that don't know the SACD hybrid had a layer of standard PCM CD (playable on a regular CD player) and a layer of 1bit DSD (comparable to 20bit/96k PCM). This would have greatly expanded the chasm in fidelity between MP3 and physical mediums w/o alienating current buyers the way other technology shifts had in the past (b/c you didn't have to buy a new player if you didn't want). The craziest thing to me is that Sony/Philips owned the technology so there was automatic incentive for Sony Music (Sony, Columbia, RCA, Epic, etc.) to do it.

Anyway, I digress.

 

[arv_foh]

You guys are mistaken. Almost everything on itunes is itunes plus which is 256 AAC and DRM free. I agree that more folks should be selling lossless however the market isn't demanding it--- or at least most who would pay for a lossless format are still buying the available lossless format (CD's).

Personally I always thought the majors dropped the ball by not going all-in with SACD hybrids when file sharing first hit. For those that don't know the SACD hybrid had a layer of standard PCM CD (playable on a regular CD player) and a layer of 1bit DSD (comparable to 24bit/96k PCM). This would have greatly expanded the chasm in fidelity between MP3 and physical mediums w/o alienating current buyers the way other technology shifts had in the past (b/c you didn't have to buy a new player if you didn't want). The craziest thing to me is that Sony/Philips owned the technology so there was automatic incentive for Sony Music to do it (Sony, Columbia, RCA, Epic, etc.).

See that's just it. I didn't know because nowhere in iTunes does it say the bitrate that you are getting when you purchase.

 

[Ermz]

Would be amazing to produce records at 96k, but I don't see it becoming the norm any time soon. We're still figuring out how to get people wanting lossless 16/44 again.

The problem you'd have run into with those hybrid CDs is that all the back catalogue is in 44k, and you'd have to make the push to actually get people recording for the new format, and somehow making it viable for them to spend all that extra CPU overhead and HDD space for it.

 

[egan.]

It's definitely a moot point now. I just think that a big push behind SACD in 1999-2002 could have significantly changed things even if they had only done all new releases as hybrids (ignoring catalog titles). For example, Britney Spears sold 14mil in 99 and N'Sync sold 11 million copies in 2000-- both on Jive (a Sony subsidiary). Add those two and that's probably close to the total number of SACD's on the market.

Of course this wouldn't have stopped d/l but it could have potentially created hype around a different medium. When Napster first hit it was as much a novelty as it was a viable way to get records. That was the moment when the industry had the greatest potential to up it's game and keep some momentum. Of course this is only my theory.