You know what else ?

How about those porn guys charging people $40. $50. bucks a month for some of the crap there is on some pay site - you believe that? - fucking people in porn making millions.....

Let's steal from them!



:winkwink:

Exactly how does one do great if they're not getting paid for their work? I guess you expect all artists to work for slave wages.

Let me tell you something. I used to be an artist at MP3.Com back in the day when they used to pay relatively decent money to indie artists.

Since I also produce porn, I put together a porn music video to promo my songs. All I asked is that people throw me a song play so I could get paid by MP3.Com --- and they could then get the free video.

Even though it was totally free, people ripped me off in droves. They refused to play a song so I could get paid, and I was hacked to death. I had to redesign the entire site and FORCE them to play a song so I could get paid --- even though it cost them nothing.

Based upon that experience, I sincerely doubt indie artists are doing that well in this environment.

Well I've always been involved in the local punk rock scene with show promotion and all that. None of these guys are living off their music, but they still do it for love of music. They stay grounded and accept that they may not make it big. What happens alot of the time though is they'll get signed to a small local label, then maybe a bigger one, then epitaph. From epitaph some of them make it big and get signed by a major label. That's how we got bands like Green Day and The Offspring in the mid 90's, how we got Blink 182 and Good Charlotte. Not saying I like blink or GC, I think they sold out majorly, but they went the path and got noticed for their music. Times are changing to where you get big from climbing up the ladder, not by some luck of the draw when some record company pig decides that you're gonna be a millionaire.

This discussion goes round and round all the time. Let me set it straight, downloading doesn't hurt sales of good albums. It hurts sales of bad albums because people get to sample it, live with it and tell their friends, "It sucks! Don't buy it!"

If you don't believe me look at the sales of these albums which should be hurt worst by downloading since their target demo fans are the main downloading bandits;

Eminem - 7 Million
Avril Levigne - 5 Million
Justin Timberlake - 2 Million
Christina Aguilara - 2 Million
Pink - 4 Million
Nelly - 5 Million

There's more than that but that's just a sample. What you think about the albums listed is irrelevent. The fact is the fans really liked them. Album sales will, from now on, totally reflect their actual worth to the target audience. Sales will no longer be based on hype because they can't lie about the quality anymore.

This is a good thing.

So yes at the end of the day downloading has hurt the biz but overall it helped a lot. Quality is going to go up. People will never stop buying cd's. You can't compare this to China since they don't even stock legal cd's so none could possibly be sold anyway.

As soon as the downloading is monetized in a semi effective manner it will add even more to the businesses bottom lines since there will be two revenue streams Physical sales and Digital sales. This is a great thing.

The constant whining of 'Downloading is hurting the business, waa waa waa" is bullshit. Look at the big picture. RECORDS ARE STILL SELLING WELL! The only thing different is bullshit is not selling anymore. Get it through your skulls.

I sorta disagree. Most teenagers or college kids that know how to get free music online are not going to pay for it. Why pay 20 bucks for something you can get for free?


All the artists albums you list ARE bullshit. But when something gets hyped 24/7 on mtv, its gonna do decent sales.

Dude take your personal preferences out of it and look at the business. Bullshit or not, each album has multiple singles that fans like. That is what makes a hit album (hit = commercially successful)

There were waay more albums that were hyped this year that had dismal sales. As I said before, just hyping an album is not working anymore. It takes some substance.

Again, you may not like the mtv fluff but there's millions of kids that live and die by it. They are just asking for a bit more than one hit song on a full album now. If you look at the sales figures THEY STILL BUY RECORDS IN DROVES. Sales figures don't lie.

I hope you're right. Although wouldn't you agree that "bullshit" is difficult to define in music or, even, any industry?

How many acts have been called "bullshit" over the years, who went on to sell millions anyway. (Rap is a good example.) And who's to stay there's more bullshit product now than in previous years?

The numbers don't lie. Surely you're not disputing the 20 percent drop in CD sales? That's documented fact.

Even if the adult biz, the most successful webmasters I know make money because their content can't be stolen (at least easily).

They make money on password traffic because the freeloaders can't get the stuff for free. And the freeloaders only buy because they can't get the same stuff for free.

So a few big name acts like Eminem are still selling millions. For all we know, Universal's tactic of flooding Kazaa and other networks with bogus Eminem files helped those sales.

Once again, because they couldn't get it easily for free.

The truth is the entire CD's suck,

they realize it only had one or two good songs so they don't buy the whole CD

Did you really understand my post? I don't try to define bullshit as a personal preference. I define bullshit as an album that doesn't have enough songs that appeal to it's target audience. In other words an album with more than a few singles. I'm here for the business not to play favorites. My taste is always separate when evaluating the business and forming a strategy.

Read my post again so you can see where that dissappearing 20% went.

It's Grammy weekend and I have a couple of parties to attend. I will be back to answer any questions you may have late tonight.

I'm confused...

so you're saying it's OK to steal something if the quality is not up to what you think it should be for your own personal tastes?

:thumbsup

50

:)

Well, I'm still not sure how you decide that there less albums with a bunch of hit singles than there were, let's say, two years ago. How would you know that? I mean ... is there any data on this? I'm not aware of any.

When the whole download debate began, people first claimed it was great for sales.

Then, when sales dropped 5 percent, they blamed it on the recession.

Now that sales are down 20 percent, most are willing to admit that downloading has at least something to do with it.

If sales drop by 30 or, even, 40 percent -- probably a record low in the history of the industry --- I'd say your "There's a shortage of albums with a bunch hit singles" argument is probably wrong.

Tell you what. If that happens (and I'm willing to bet it will), I'll post another thread and call you on it ... LOL