Ordo

I see this topic popping up all the time about how it's ok to download a song or an album online for free. It only hurts the labels right?

I'm in the music business. I know how things go down. Not only do most bands tour for years, broke and starving in hopes of getting a break with a label capable of puting things into motion for them, but these bands are still broke as shit even after signing with a label.

Here are the facts:
When a band gets signed to a label, they may get signed for 12 points on average. This means they make 12 cents per dollar on each CD sold.

Now, lets say the record label pumps a million dollars into recording, producing, marketing, manufacturing etc for this bands first album.

What most people dont know is that that 1 million dollars is recouped from the band out of their 12%! Not the full retail price of the album!

So, the band owes the label a million dollars. The CD goes out through distro. The CD is $12 in the store, after distro and the rest the label makes around $6-$7 per CD sold. So the band is actually making 72 cents per CD sold and therefore must sell, 1.3 million records to break even!

Most deals are cross collaterlized over 3 albums. Which means, if the label doesn't recoup off the first album OUT OF THE BANDS SHARE, it gets tacked onto the next album and so on...

When a band signs to a label, they are basically giving up any and all profits on their CD in hopes of selling tickets and merch off of the labels promotion of the album. If the label doesn't generate enough interest/revenue off the bands album to justify further investments, the band is dropped. Period.

Music theft isn't hurting the labels as much as it is hurting bands. Because of this, most artists with truly great music end up deciding to stay independent and not signing to a major because after the label dumps all that money into them and their songs have circulated the web, unless they are an widly commercial act that you will end up hating in a week anyway that ends up going multiplatinum, they end up with shit and a shinebox by the time its over anyway.

The point is, stealing music fucks over everyone, especially the artists working their tales off to make a living with all odds against them.

It's no different than someone hacking your sites and posting passwords to your site all over the internet. You work constantly for months, and even years to build a network and everyone is stealing your livelyhood...

Same thing.

The moral is, music is cheap nowadays anyway. $9.99 for most CD's or on Itunes. There is no reason to steal it.

Just my thoughts. Don't kill music by being cheap.

Thanks.

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madawgz

i know its cheap, but if your not going to buy the album anyways... and lets say you have no money online why not download it for free?

its not like you could pay for it anyways

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dial

LOL, I know a LOT of musicians in the industry, some big fucking names too...and you know what they do with their wireless laptops on the road to their next gig? download music from limewire...LOL

if you are going to get people to stop downloading music from share networks, you might wanna start with getting the bands to stop first

dial

and I might add, these are the same musicians that put me on their guest lists when they come to my town to play gigs, and you know what they love grabbing from me when I show up? all the movies I have bootlegged while they have been on the road....LOL

Ordo

If you are too broke to afford a song or CD, you should be spending your time working on making more money promoting InsomniacCash sites, not researching which songs to steal next.

lol

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MetaMan

to bad CDS are made to have like 2-3 good songs now, i only buy albums that desevere it, fuck any cookie cutter artist, they dont deserve to even be called musicians.

dial

because only people with money deserve music?

MetaMan

if you have a good product people will always rather prefer the real thing, ie CD over mp3, ie. real oakleys.fake oakleys.

the only artists that complain about this are those with shitty music.

i think you need to complain to the record companies, not the people downloading, the record companies are the ones who make up the contract.

JD

exactly. I refuse to buy cd's from 99% of bands because most of the tracks suck ass. There are a FEW bands I support by buying their cd. Why? Because I REALLY like them. I'm not going to throw 20 bucks down the drain for cool album art and 2 songs that are good.

dial

I will say this, I love downloading music from places like www.beatport.com and other underground mp3 sources

BlackCrayon

sounds like record companies are to blame

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u-Bob

1. CDs sales were already declining before Napster got popular (so long before todays p2p networks even existed).
2. 15 years ago teenagers spent a lot of money on CDs. These days they spend it on CDs, cellphone, DVDs, Games,... (the nr of cellphones in use 15 years ago vs now........)
3. Downloading music is easy, but so is downloading a game / finding a cd-key/serial... The difference: the gaming industry keeps on growing...

(lots of ".....", don't feel like typing, my neck hurts like hell...)

my point: Things change.. People who used to spend their money on CDs now spend it on something else. CDs = something of the past...

tony286

the people defending stealing music online would be the ones screaming from passwordtraders or someone giving away their content lol

dial

damn straight, what does that have to do with anything

I am charging the price of a lap dance for thousands of hours of jerking material....try to go rent the dvd equivalent of what I have in my paysite at a rental shop or on PPV...LOL...you would be in the poor house real quick

everyone knows that cd's are a ripoff, and it all boils down to $1500/hour for studio time and record execs that make too much

I have had cd's printed up in the past, and for me to do a small run was less than $1.00 per cd, so I know they are getting the cd's for $.50 a piece...where is that other $12-15 going per cd?

you know where your money goes when you buy a membership to my paysites

biftek

album sales are down mainly due to the fact that albums are crap , the trend has shifted towards singles

like any business they need to listen to the what the customer is saying form a strategy to win back support , it's about market research finding out what your customer wants and trying to fit there needs , while its true your never going to please everyone but you can please a good majority of them

as mentioned above , ppl are spending the money elsewhere like ipods , mobile phone bills where they rack up a huge bill due to sms and ringtones

then there is also that percentage of ppl that were never going to buy the album in the first place

working i a radio station i see a shitload of albums come in with the majority having rehashed songs from other albums

american pervert

the music industry sucks, steve albini wrote this about it-
http://www.thebaffler.com/albiniexcerpt.html

unless you are huge selling artisit, you dont make shit

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SilentKnight

Not necessarily.

Over the years I've only downloaded MP3s of stuff I've already paid for once...in one format or another. Mostly to replace worn-out, cheap-ass, store-bought cassettes or vinyl.

The band and record companies have already made their money from my original purchase. Its not my fault the quality of the mass-produced medium sucked and it wears out in a short time.

i.e. - my van halen collection started as all vinyl. Bought every album they released. When cassette came out, I bought'em all again. Then along came CD and I bought most of them a third time.

I feel fully justified d/ling MP3s of tunes I've paid for in the past.

ZEK

100% true.

There is no money in music - not in underground / dance stuff anyway - I think the money gets better when you do mainstream commercial shit though.

dv2

This topic is always fun and I find one thing is usually left out of the argument.
Not only did cd sales start tanking before downloading had really become huge but after downloading got huge music fans like myself were able to listen to some songs before deciding if they really wanted to drop 15 bucks on the entire album. The majority of the time I find that hearing some songs from an album I was thinking of buying sucks sooo bad that I am spared the insult of having to support that crappy band. In other words, even though I buy about 10-15 cd's a month, I don't buy cd's that I know suck. And this is putting a huge dent in sales.

kane

Like dial and others I have been in and around the music biz. there is a lot of good info that is mostly correct in here. But there are a few things that are not correct.

1. yes music sales have been on a decline and that started before napster. It is what is commonly called the Chumbawumba effect. If you know that band you know they are the band that put out the song that goes, " I get knocked down, but I get up again/they'r never going to keep me down." It was huge hit ( a decent song ) and was everywhere. So they release a CD and it sucked ass. There were people demanding their money back. The band disappeared. Now people are wary. They hear a song on the radio and they don't just run out and buy the CD. however, since napster and P2P got big sales have gone down even more. This can be explained in many ways but the bottom line is that even when you addin sales of dowloaded songs off places like Itunes sales are down across the board at a much sharper rate than before.

2. Most big acts, unless they have some kind of kick ass deal, could care less if you buy the CD. sure they like to get platinum records and stuff like that, but they get big advances from the record company and know the company is going to screw then out of royalties so they don't care if you buy it. they do care if you hear it then buy tickets to their shows and T-shirts and stuff like that.

3. downloading hurts small bands. This is a half truth. Yes if everyone who liked a small band went out and bought the record it would help them, but the bottom line is that most young bands sign very bad record deals and would never see much - if any - money from the record company. Most young bands need to hope for a radio hit so they can get performance royalties, licensing thier music to commercials and TV and building a fan base to sell concert tickets to make it. Take a band that sells 5 million albums and never tours and never has their music downloaded for free and I'm willing to bet they make a lot less money than a band that sold 1.5 million albums toured like mad and had thier CD downloaded millions of time.

4. I agree that the same people that think it's okay to steal music or software are the very ones that would lose it if they saw their entire members area for download on a torrent site.

In the end, of course, it is theft and should be look at as so. If nobody buys the records eventually the bands will get dropped and will have a hard time finding a market for their music so if you like a band go buy their CD then go see them play when they come to your town.

CaptainHook

Hey all....don't be cheap, just go out and get the cd. Or burn one of your friends cd's that u like...

Jessica,
Webmaster Relations
Empress Entertainment
www(dot)empresscash(dot)com (COMING SOON!!!)

sacX

bands make most money from touring and merchandise. Steal the music, but go to the concert.

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GregA

Where is this magical store w/ $12 CD's?

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nikki99

then you all should by my album here
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/edonis ...

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dial

amazon.com has them for $12.98 usually

Empress_JoinRightNow

Blame the internet for that and also the Apple.

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fetishblog

I pay for my MP3s. www.AllOfMP3.com is in Russia and they charge anywhere from a penny to twenty cents per MP3, so I can get a brand new CD for about a buck fifty.

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r-c-e

I thought it was only the performer who had the money taken out. If you write your own music, you get the 50% regardless of promotion.

People who don't write their own music might get fucked. They should write their own music.

L-Pink

Interesting point of view ...

.

dial

hmmmmmmmmmmm

so, basically, even though you are paying, the performers aren't getting a dime...WAY TO GO!

quantum-x

If I download an album, it's not revenue lost. I wasn't gonig to buy it in thefirst place.

WHEN will people understand that fact?

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JerseyPuma

HAHA! This is pure comedy gold.

Aside from this amazingly amusing post, its true, the music industry is by no means perfect. It's pretty much the opposite. Tons of bands get fucked by their management and record deal. It's the nature of the beast. I happen to think that dinosaurs will die, and that the business will eventually right itself out of necessity. Until then, I'm going to keep downloading new albums and buying the ones I really like and want to keep listening to. I think most logical human beings should feel the same.

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Dirty Dane

So.. that also means its ok that surfers that wouldnt signup for a paysite, share stolen adult content?

Martin3

I haven't bought or downloading any music in years. Why? because all the new stuff is shit!

But that's not the only reason for declains in sales, nor is piracy. The CD was a crappy concept from the beginning. Sure at first people thought that shinny disc was cool. Then they realized how easy the brake and scratch carring them around between your home and car.

People like simplicity. CD sales are in the crapper, Itune's is booming. No one wants to pay $15 when all they want are a couple songs. When they have the option to download mp3's(legal or illegally) so they can load only the songs they want and don't have to load up 10 cd's just to get an hours worth of decent music, which way do you think they'll go?

Movie industry is having the same problems. Theater sales suck, DVD sales are up. Why? Because with the advancement in home theater it's pretty easy to get better picture and sound at home then in a theater full of loud people. Yet instead of focusing on DVD sales, they're blowing money trying to revive the dieing theaters sales and blameing piracy. Yet that same piracy isn't efftecting DVD sales


Truth is no other industry is behind the times more then the movie/music industry. Sad because they use to be the innovators. If they want their sales back they need to pull their heads out of their ass and realize they are new and more appealing methods for consumers to get their media.

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babsy

What really annoys the shit out of me is when the RIAA/MPAA start bandying around those gobsmackingly idiotic statistics of losses in their various media industries to piracy. The real joy is how they, of course, count every single download as a "lost sale", happily ignoring the fact that many of those people simply wouldn't have bought the album otherwise, but then at the same time fail to subtract from their outrageous claims the value of the lost market exposure should their albums have not been downloaded.

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quantum-x

There are people downloading full sites over Bittorrent and P2P etc. They are NEVER going to pay for porn, so there's no point saying that they are lost revenue.

Right and wrong doesn't come into it.

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Dirty Dane

Some people, not all, but some would have been tempted to pay for it, if it wasn't that easy to get for free. Beside the revenue, there are two other main reasons why it is illegal:
- Why should someone have the right to enjoy my art, by stealing it? If they want it, then pay for it. If they don't want it, skip it.
- Why helping websites and software developers to grow and make money on other peoples work? They make money from some sponsors, with stolen material from others. Thats not right, is it?

Bottom line, it is the copyright holders decision, if it is free or not. NOT the consumer...

quantum-x

Sounds like you work for *AA.
It's the copyright owner's decision, sure, but if they can't provide mechanisms for people to get their content easily and readily, there's no point jumping up and down.

Anyhow - this digresses from my original point.

If someone NEVER planned to pay for a product, they are NOT lost revenue.

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SmutGiant

just get Napster

ANAL PASTE

MP3 Sugar legal, charges premiums and contributes.. and cheap

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invertiga

An item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

If that happens to be zero, then unfortunatly for the owner or producer of the item; thats all that person is willing to offer, if you don't like the idea of zero then they'll chose an alternative or steal it.

*I think*, people paying for porn, music, etc, there needs to be more flexibility. Although logically a system that sells content at a price everyone is happy to part with is probley impossible to implement. Example, Maybe potential customer A is willing to pay $25 a month for access, fine sold. Maybe potential customer B is willing to pay $1 a month for access. Your better off getting that $1 a month off B because anything more he's just going to go steal it or look else where. Basic economic concept, it's not flawless because of many factors but bleh, would be nice if we could all charge what people are willing to pay.

Dirty Dane

.. but why do you say people dont understand that? Its still no excuse!!! Consume is consume, no matter how you gained it!
ok, I can't explain it simpler than that

potter

CDs for music suck ass, I won't even bother with CDs anymore. To me they are old pos technology. In this day n age my music is listened via my computer and mp3 player. Which can connect to any stereo in the house, and even my truck.

So, If I'm listening to my music via mp3 - on all my media centers (computer/handheld/home & car stereo). Why am I going to buy the CD just to bring it home, rip it to my comp, then throw away the CD? Or, purchase a devilishly encoded media file of iTunes that throws a shit fit if I try to transfer it.

The moral of the story is, no one listens to CDs anymore. Fuck if I'm people will pay for something they don't need. If there was an iTunes type service that allowed users to download unlocked mp3 format music. It would most certainly be in massive use (even if it required payment)..

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balls-a-plenty

There are very intelligent people at GFY. This thread makes me smile and have hope.

potter

btw.. Just want to say. I do have an iTunes account and use it all the time. As 98% of the my music played is from my desktop. But it's an extreme pita if I want to make the music mobile and bring it with me. So it's not my "main source" for music.

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Dirty Dane

I dont think its so much about willing with money, otherwise why steal something that has zero value? ...unless it gives you a kick to steal... I think its more about able to pay and the time willing to spend.

AlienQ - BANNED FOR LIFE

Any band that signs a label these days is a total idiot.

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quantum-x

I didn't say it was an excuse. I didn't try to justify piracy.
I am saying this: A person who NEVER planned to buy your product DOES NOT do you economical damage by NOT purchasing your product.

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jollyperv

I was just about to post that link...Albini is a man who I definetely respect.

I am in a band, and I am also a producer of music. One thing I know is that the reason I ever got involved in either one of those things was the fucking love for it. That is why I don't mind anyone downloading and listening to our songs off soulseek or something. All our releases are on vinyl anyway, so anybody who has actually taken the time to rip our music off vinyl, well good for them.

Now what I do have a HUGE fucking problem with are cocksuckers like http://www.last.fm/ who are cataloguing every band, be it mainstream or underground, listing their songs and upselling the full albums to people. And guess what...the bands don't get fucking SHIT. How is this shit legal? Or am I completely wrong about them?

Dirty Dane

Agreed. But the moment someone USE the product, stolen, then it IS loss, because he have no right to use it without paying for it, no matter what he is willing/able to pay