Originally Posted by DatingGameExpert

If you want to get anal about it, sure, but Kayne West or whoever produced those beats GOT PAID. In fact, hip hop/rap artists don't bitch about their stuff being thrown out there because it actually helps promote them and drives the creative community. Not everyone is downloading albums would you believe. I think you'll find maybe a small percentage of people are doing this. iTunes is big, Mspace Music is big. the quality of today's music is so dire, cd prices so high that they are sat around wondering why the fuck they aren't doing numbers like 1995, and they are blaming torrents and p2p. People want quality, they don't want to spend $18 on a shitty cd with filler tracks. Why is vinyl blowing up again if people are just stealing all the time? I think the labels blow these numbers up way too much.

Don't see the big deal here.

For all you morons that clearly don't have a clue about this shit.. The artists are being fucked over by the labels. In fact, when music gets distributed via p2p and torrents it helps the artist. It gets there name out there and sells their concerts out, merchandise, etc. You can argue all day about it but it's here to stay, so either the labels and artists need to adopt a clear, concise model or don't. Some artists are and they are doing very well. Sure there are people that just download instead of purchase an album but I don't see how this really hurts anyone, afterall word of mouth is a beautiful thing. Prince gave his last album away for free with a british newspaper, he sold out his concerts and copped something like 16 mill, so when you think about it like that...really nothing to cry about. I haven't seen too many artists crying over it sans Metallica, who were out of touch with reality/fans.