Why I believe music will be free.
 

Why I believe music will be free.

I believe that music will end up being free. CD's are now an old system. Mini Disc could have replaced CD's, but Sony messed up on that. Now MP3 (digital) is the new format and the players are getter cheaper and better. In fact my new mobile I have just ordered has an MP3 player built in.

MP3 files are everywhere (free). Why would you want to buy a CD now?

Lets face it the music industry got greedy. CD's in the UK cost over £12, yet DVD's cost £10. I am sure it costs more to make a film (say £10 million or more) than it does to make a CD music disc).

The reality is that people are going to share MP3 files and its a pointless task to try to stop it.

As such it makes more since to give it free.

Now at this point you will say, but how will they make money from doing this?

The simple answer is from the groups or singers doing concerts. Most small bands make a living doing this at the moment. I would think they would get more fans if people can hear there music by spreading a few MP3 files on the net.

You are an idiot.

Do you think the music executives are just going to roll over and give up?

Never. Too much money.

How do you think they will stop it?

Go to any UK pub and you will have someone selling you a CD full of MP3 files. How do you stop that.

As I say they could make a lot of money from concerts.

In truth most music firms (such as Sony) are making the money now from computer games and selling DVD films.

Even selling MP3 files on the net is short term as these files will simply be sent to friends, on the net.

Giving MP3 files for free does make sense.

Think of it this way. ~You have a studio. Simply bring in groups, record, then transmit. No costs of reproduction (such as CD's). No cost in promotion. Its very low cost. Simply send out a song or two on the net. Get people interested. Then sell tickets for the concerts.

The Canadian government turned down the case to release the names of citizens who were downloading off of p2p networks.

I guess we're safe for now up north.

time for me to move to canada

its legal to download in canada but not to upload...its not enforced though, privacy laws are such that they cant release names

It's not going to completely go away just like people still use records there will always be a market for physical music but the genie is out of the bottle and it can't be put back in. Like any industry if they don't adjust they will die...

Prosecutions... and lots of them.

I've been thinking about and hoping for that for quite some time now and I hope it happens that way. Someone already said the genie's out of the bottle and that's a great analogy. I have no doubt the record companies will fight this to the grave, but that's where they're going if they keep fighting it.

Consider the old taoist proverb:

Confucius was walking along the Gorge of Lu where a great waterfall plunges for thousands of feet. The waters churn below. He and his students saw a man leap from the top into the foaming river below. They thought the man must be committing suicide, and Confucius? students hurried to the river?s edge. When they arrived, the man was standing, shaking off the water, and beginning to sing. Confucius approached the man and asked him, ?How did you manage to swim through such dangerous waters??
The man answered, I have no particular method of swimming, except that when I am in the water, I do not fight the water?s superior power. I float with it and sink with it instead of trying to force my way through it. I started my learning with what was given to me at birth, continued with what was natural for me to do, and completed by trusting what was meant to be.?

I bought 2 CD's 1 month ago.

mp3s are kindda expensive! so i don't think everyone can afford to have that one!

I have to disagree with the guy who started this post. The music industry will continue to thrive. Yes sharing of files will always be around in my opinion, but people will always buy cd's. Look at the rappers.. if the music industry was going to shits. How could they buy all that stuff. From concerts? nah. from their cd's going platinum.

To be honest, CD's are as expensive because in the UK the supermarkets make them this price. I bet they buy them for around £8 a go. Sell them on for sometimes as much as £15. I recently bought 3 CD albums for the car and it cost me £43.

Now I don't believe they will be free, I do however see the supermarkets try to claw back some of the income going to piracy sellers. I see a price war happening with big places such as Asda and Sainsbury's and shit. They'll drop the prices.

Aint nothing for free in this world. NOTHING.

Do you really think artists make shit for money on album sales? That's almost entirely money for the record company, not the artist. The artists make their money on concerts, t-shirts, and other merchandise.

I presume you mean the players.

But then again most PC's and pocket PC's/Palms and so on can play them.

I would think that mobile phones will have them included soon as well.

The big problem with players is storage. Due to the low cost of memory cards, it makes good since to be able to plug in memory cards such as SD and XD cards.

Last time I heard, they were buying the discs for £2 or less. Often record firms give (free) the CD's to the shops, simply to boost sales and get the CDs into the charts.

I also see a day when music will be "free" so to speak.
First off I must say all the stealing is just fucking wrong and I hope those that do steal get it somehow.
That said, I can see a day not to distant from now when two things will happen.
1. Music will be sold by the song, litterally vending machine style at a price under a dollar. Machines will be either plug in, select titles, pay, download, or select titles, pay, spits out a CD. Price will be so low and convience so high that any retail location that can hold a small vending machine will be able to be a full record store. I also see these machines wired, so they can be instantly updated with the latests hits.
2. Free to consumers. Record industry will look outside of the box for revenue striving to replace what has been lost via theft. They will turn to big business. Everyone from fast food giants to magazine companies will give away download credits like toys in a happy meal. Record industry gets paid, consumer gets free songs.

This was said of records when CD's came out.

Yet when I go to the music shops its jus CD's I see.

How can these chaps make cash if the music is given away.

Some suggestions:

When music vids are played on TV they pay per show.

Concerts.

Clothes. (such as t--shirts)

DVD sales. Though music may be free, I would suggest that music/vid DVDs could be sold. Not only contain music vids but interviews and current info on the artist. Also better sound, such as surround sound.

As for rappers, well I do not see why they would not get people going to there concerts.

If anything it would allow small unknown artists to become more well known.

I am in the UK and used to listen to MTV2 on Sky. This was music from EU. Often France and Germany. Often they played some very cool music. Yet you would never hear this in the UK as the music industry is dominated by a few big firms who are only interested in selling tripe boy bond groups.

To be honest I would say the CD is dead. DVD has taken it over for storage.

But for music its out of date. Its not really portable. Who wants to walk around with a big cd player.

For the same price as a decent cd player you can get an MP3 player.

For portability I see MP3 players as the next big thing.

In fact the Sony mini Disc many years ago took over the CD, except Sony messed that up and so it has not taken of as it should have.

And once mobile phones start to include MP3 players (which they are now doing), well that will be the beginning and the end.

There are simply too many people coping these files to put a stop to it. Its a bit like trying to ban porn. It just could never happen.

I used CD for a lack of a better term for cheap writable media. The machines could be updated when consumer demand warrants it. Machines could spit out dvd, cd, etc. while also still being plug in play type kiosks. Plug your player in, drop in some change, zap its on your player.

They do the same stuff to us in America as well. We see all sorts of headlines for people and groups like Britney Spears, N Sync and other crappy faddish junk music groups (and I use that term very loosely). Much of the stuff I like listening to now is not stuff that I will ever hear of in newspapers, radio, etc. Guess how I heard about many of them, P2P filesharing!

These groups now have my patronage and they would not have had it without "music stealing" programs. If they sell a CD, each band member makes something like $0.20, if they get that much. However, they make a hell of a lot more then that when I go to their shows and buy concert t-shirts. Had P2P not existed, they would have nothing from me, because I wouldn't know of their existence.

What happens if your player or your computer takes a shit and you lose everything. Are you going to buy those MP3s again? I've got a couple of albums I've bought 3 times, but I'm not going to buy them again. The record companies have gotten plenty of money out of me. I've got some cassettes, which are now almost worthless. I've bought the albums once, why should I buy them again?

I would suppose that is what a personal backup would be for.
I see no difference if your player or pc takes a shit and you loose everything, or if your house gets robbed and someone takes all your CD's.

Stuff becomes worthless with time. Be it cassette tapes, vhs tapes, or a car. You got the use when you wanted it, and if shit happens to it or you want an upgrade or better version you buy it, not steal it. The car companies have gotten enough out of me too, but I am not gunna go to a ford car lot and steal a car when my old one gets in a crash.

I do think having to go to a shop or whatever defeats the object.

Who wants to go out side. Drive to the shop (when its open). Spend cash on a machine that may or may not work and may or may not have the record you want.

When you can go on the net. Do a quick search in google. Then download for free.

Actually I have heard on the radio (talk sport - UK) that people have gone out to buy the cd after listening to the MP3 track. And that if they had not heard it, they would not have bothered to. So even giving the music away can actually get sales.

The analogy fails because when files are shared, the original is unaffected. The owner retains the original, unlike with a stolen car.

No because you mentioned you bought a few several times and were not going to buy the newest upgrade because you gave enough to the record industry.

You simply back up your files onto CD or MP3.

I do this with all my files.

I just hate stealing of any type. Intellectual property theft really gets under my skin too.

Again, the original is unaffected, unlike with a stolen car.

Further, I am buying the same information that I had already bought. An album is not a physical thing, only the medium is. The music is non physical and I have already paid for a copy of that non physical product. To have to pay for it when there's a media change is just fucked up. I suspect that's one reason why P2P is so damn popular with older people. They love their old albums and want to listen to them sometimes, but are not willing to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to upgrade their music library to a new form of media. When CDs are made obsolete by the next kind of media, people are going to have to go through that again? Fuck that! Consider this a small scale revolution.

Both pointless since anyone that knows how to use the internet can get any song for free.

Suppose it's already been paid for once.

Suppose the band actually wants people to share their music.

What then?

Music is already free . And artists are making a killing out of it right now ... cauz they are more popular then they have ever been

What if you don't want to do concerts? How do you make money?

Music should NOT be free. Who works for FREE? No one. Don't you try to make money from getting people to PAY for porn? You are a tad hypocritical.