Yeah I'll go with this. Plus even small bands have merch these days, and they'll probably make more money out of a t-shirt sale than a CD sale. So you've got the album and a t-shirt rather than just the album, and the artist has even more money, everybody wins! Except the label, but screw them, they can't play guitar.
Old and always left your computer bogged down. Worse than Kazaa after it got bloated. There are a bunch of 40 year olds who will cry to see Limewire go though.
Heh, never used it...I got my free downloads legally. How, you may ask? Little site called guvera.com
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/30/93-music-piracy/ Pirating. Check. Defending yourself by saying bands get most of their money from albums, shirts, concerts, etc. and justifying pirating. Check. Arguing that pirating increases revenue due to recommendation and exposing to more people. Check. White. Check.
I dunno if that's supposed to be mockery or you're basically just saying "Telling it like it is. Check."
Well it's no secret that live shows and merch has always provided the majority of a band's income. I paid over £100 to see Opeth this year, they don't even have £100 worth of albums.
Honestly that doesn't even contradict my argument. My argument is this: Piracy is deemed illegal. Doing illegal things are bad and the people who do them should be punished. /argument No matter how you dice it, piracy is still illegal and considered stealing, even if it helps bands. Killing people helps depopulate which is great for human kind and the Earth, but you don't see me using that as a reason to kill people.
that link would be funny if it was true...and in the cases where it is true, it was just whites... I'd buy much more music if an album cost £2 and i'd definitely spend more, i spend about £7 or £8 a month on apps because i don't really think about the cost, but with albums, as it's an £8 thing, i only tend to actually buy one every 2 months, it's a choice i have to make about who to support and who not to, and i don't like making it, but I do
True, but personally I prefer to look to my own logic and morals than just to accept something because it's been labeled in a certain way. If I blindly listened to that then I'd feel as brainwashed as a religious fanatic. Plus... law? Not always the most sensible thing around. In England it's illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament, and in the city of York it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow. There comes a time when you just do what you feel is right. I know that the bands I love most are getting money from me, and I know that I personally have given more money to musicians than many people who buy CDs have.
I heard smoking weed is bad for you because it's illegal. It must be true. I mean alcohol is legal, and it's the best.
Good point. I agree, blindly following laws is stupidity. Though I still think weed is somewhat unhealthy, judging by the correlation between stupidity and use of weed
That's completely irrelevant. Piracy isn't harmful depending on how large of a number of pirated copies are distributed, it's harmful based on how many sales it takes away from the artist. Whether they're popular or niche, piracy is still going to affect them in the same proportions. It seems a few people in this thread think all musicians are bands or pop acts, which is not true. Not all musicians are able to perform their music live. And your comment about artists finding local venues is completely absurd unless you're saying you only pirate local artists. It's very feasible, with the advent of the internet, that an artist can have a fan base of 10,000 fans worldwide. A fanbase which can result in a sustainable career from music sales alone. But those 10,000 fans spread out worldwide might represent a mere 10-50 fans per city, making concerts prohibitive and expensive to anyone except the most popular artists. Similarly, merchandise cannot work for a niche musician. Merchandise is so expensive to manufacture, even if an optimistic 1% of fans will buy something, the expense only ends up canceling out any proceeds the artist earns from it. Musicians aren't in the merchandise business, they're in the music business. If they ask you to buy their music by making it for sale, that's how they're asking you to support them. If an artist chooses to decide file-sharing is a beneficial thing and they choose to put it out for free download, asking for support in buying merchandise, then they're in their right to do that. However, it's their work and it's their decision how they want to distribute it. To distribute it on piracy networks against their will, regardless, is incredibly selfish and infringes on their rights as creators. —File-sharing music freely isnt bad. Doing it against the owner's permission is what makes piracy unethical. I think if you took another look at your music library, you'd realize you probably haven't been to concerts of every small artist you listen to. Unless, as with the guy above, you only listen to local bands. I find it very hard to believe that the obscure Swedish band, who you enjoy listening to occasionally, came all the way to America and performed a concert in your home town just so you could support them. And really, how is you suggesting your pirated music to others helping the artist if you're advocating them to pirate the music anyway? Any artist can become more popular by word of mouth, but if that popularity comes due to piracy, it's useless because you, and all those others, aren't buying the music in the first place. Yeah, i'm sure they "probably" make more from a T-shirt. Let's base our morals on assumptions. Let's ignore the fact that independent labels are completely different from the RIAA. Let's ignore that most indie labels give the artist 50%. Let's be ignorant to the fact that the majority of small artists make almost all their money from sales of music and not merchandising or concerts. While we're at it, let's ignore how vital labels are in funding, developing, and marketing most artist's into being successful acts. I don't try to be blunt, but making assumptions based on ignorance is not a justification for piracy. Look, If you don't want to pay for an artist's music, fine—don't support them. But don't do it and then try to make it seem that what you're doing is in any way ethical. Pirating music (or any other copyrighted work) is highly unfair to creators because you're deciding not to support them, and you're stealing their work against their wishes. But it's also unfair to honest consumers—there is no reason why those of us who get our music legally should pay, while you, for some unknown reason, deserve to get it for free.
You can add the word "probably" to just about any argument to swing it in your direction. Ethics can go hang, I don't care if it's legally classed as worse then genocide. Morally I'm fine, because I'm still giving money to the artists I like. Most likely more than you do.
Um, yeah I think it's completely relevant. Being that if the folks that pirate the music would have never bought the album otherwise and they just want to 'sample' the band, then the band is losing NO sales from said pirate, small niche band or world-wide success. If the pirated music piques the interest of the pirate, then they are more likely to buy merch/concert tickets or future albums... Not everyone that pirates music does so just so they can get an album from a band they know and love. I personally would pirate an otherwise unknown to me band's music to sample it so that I don't waste my money on some shit music. If I like it, again they get my money in future albums and I've actually gone back and purchased albums that I already have pirated because the music was worth it to me. If I don't like it, then I don't keep it in my library. Thus I might as well have never had it and the band again loses no money... And how is piracy exactly proportional regardless of how many copies are pirated? So by that logic, if I was the only one to pirate an album by a band and keep it to myself, that would be directly proportional to one thousand people pirating another band and distributing it as much as possible throughout the internet? That makes no sense... No, what I am saying is that to make it in the music business, you need to gain exposure, in person, by holding concerts. That is, unless you just write jingles or the such. You don't always have to be a headliner if you have only 10 fans in a particular area. You could go to a local bar, like I was referring to previously(local venue) and play for free if that's what it takes... I've grown up around and have friends in bands such as Between The Buried and Me as well as Annuals who, guess what? Got a shit ton of recognition from playing their asses off while performing excellent shows in local venues, as well as writing great music, sometimes for free... I too used to play bass in a few bands and we played quite a few free shows. It calls doing whatever it takes to achieve your goal. I'm not sympathetic toward those who choose not to play live shows because they can't headline or play large venues. Sorry, that's no excuse. It seems you think that the only venue for concerts these days are giant stadiums and that they must be part of a tour which make it prohibitive to smaller bands, groups, musicians, whatever you want to call them.... There are a ton of relatively cheap means of getting your merch produced online. You're statement would have held water 15 to 20 years ago, but not now. Have a good day sir and/or madam
Morally you're not fine. Only if the artist was giving you permission to take the music for free would you be morally fine. You're still stealing the artist's work without their consent. And Midian, I am certain I could look at your library of pirated music and very easily pick out several pieces of music you downloaded and enjoy listening to but have never paid a penny in support to. If i'm wrong, fair enough. But the chances of you being completely morally fine borders on being highly unlikely to ridiculously implausible.
There are plenty of ways to sample music legally. The radio, YouTube, Spotify in Europe (and soon the US), and nearly all artists let you listen to their songs on their websites. Piracy is not a necessity for 'sampling' music. I don't understand your point here. You're saying artists have a responsibility to play gigs if they want to make money? And then you say they should play gigs for free if they have to? If everyone's pirating the artist's music, and they're playing local free gigs, how are they making any money? You'll need to explain that one a bit more. Yes, and the profit margins are incredibly small through those online facilities. It's ridiculous that you believe a musicians job should involve tacky merchandising. If they want to do that, that's their own prerogative. But if they want to make music and make money from selling the music, that should be entirely up to them as well, and not determined by you simply because you believe you should be entitled to it for free.
Never said it was a necessity, but it is an option. Again, no, what I meant was that to gain notoriety and thus build a following and in-turn make more money, I feel that bands have a responsibility to play shows and get their names out to the masses. Whether it's a two-thousand seat stadium concert or a dive bar for free. Not that that is the only one option to get noticed though. Never said anything about 'tacky' merch. In fact, one of my best friends bands(Cloacal Kiss) has a lead singer with great art talent that creates almost all of the t-shirts(not just design, but actually very inexpensively creates the screen-prints on the shirts at home). He also designed their album covers. Yes, bands deserve to try and make money anyway they want to. But in this day and age, it's always best to diversify what you can bring to the table as a band(which in itself is a company). If you only offer CD's then don't expect the same return as if you had a mass of other offerings. I don't feel entitled to get my music for free. As I said before I pay for quality, garbage goes in the garbage can. I hope that cleared things up for you. Take care
Yes, but it's an illegal option. If there were no other options, you might have a point, but there are plenty of legal equivalents for hearing the music before buying it. This is not a valid reason for piracy networks to exist. And I don't disagree that artists need to market themselves to gain popularity. I don't see how this stops piracy of their music, though? If you're suggesting the answer is to grow popular enough that you can earn your money from touring and performances, I think that's being incredibly unrealistic. Almost any musician can attract fans to their music, but not all musicians make music that can be popular with mainstream audiences. You probably don't like the music I listen to, and I probably wouldn't like the music you listen to. If musicians could only find success by appealing to HUGE audiences, all it would do is result in crappy pop music, and smaller niche artists couldn't support themselves, because even though they had several thousand fans, they wouldn't have enough fans centralized in one place to make a live performance a viable approach. All they have to rely on is their music sales. We should be supporting a diversification of music, not punishing it. If you pay for your music as you say, I'm finding it confusing why you're defending piracy at all? It's interesting that you talk about your friends with bands. Maybe you should consider asking them what they think about piracy someday? Those doing music as an occasional hobby probably don't care much, but a lot of musicians who are trying to make music for a living will tell you how much of a negative impact piracy has on the music industry. Heck, I worked in it for several years and I could tell you. I think a lot of people don't understand how much it disheartens musicians to see people taking and sharing their music without caring. And I know you're still pushing this idea about merchandising but it really isn't a solution to the problem of piracy. I mean that's awesome that the lead singer of your friend's band can paint some great art to sell some T-shirts, but how much does that really have to do with the music? And how many T-shirts can you really sell to a person? Not all fans even care about buying merchandise from artists. In fact, I don't think I ever have, nor do I know many people who do buy artist merchandise, and those who I can think of maybe own one or two T-shirts out of hundreds of musicians they listen to. Merchandising is a very poor solution to funding music. Music should be about selling the music, not about trying to sell some unrelated goods. If the artist wants to sell merchandise, they're free to do that. But artists still retain their right to be able to sell their music as well, and piracy is just taking those rights away. And I'm sorry but the rights of creators are far more important than anyone's right to download stuff without paying for it.
