"Music sales are not affected by web piracy"

stimpson

And while we're at it, I can't believe I didn't post this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuxO6CZptck

jjpep

I find it kinda bit weird the argument some folks give for justifying piracy 'oh after the record label, manager etc gets their cut the artist only gets xx %'. How much do you think the artist gets paid when you don't pay for it??

Grayson

jjpep wrote: »

I find it kinda bit weird the argument some folks give for justifying piracy 'oh after the record label, manager etc gets their cut the artist only gets xx %'. How much do you think the artist gets paid when you don't pay for it??

In my case nothing. But I wouldn't buy it anyway. So either way it's nothing.

I own some films. But I'd say 99% of what I download I wouldn't have bought anyway.

jjpep

Grayson wrote: »

In my case nothing. But I wouldn't buy it anyway. So either way it's nothing.

So why would you download something that your not interested in?

Lelantos

Of course piracy has an effect, I'm not too worried about the artists, but the knock on effect is the demise of the b&m stores. Lots of independents closing in the last year or 2 not to mention a certain chain. It's not all down to piracy of course, but its a damn sizeable chunk .

Grayson

jjpep wrote: »

So why would you download something that your not interested in?

I'm not saying I'm not interested. But that doesn't mean I would pay full whack for it.

I'd have no problems paying for a subscription service. But doesn't mean that I want to pay 10 for an album or 30 for a box set.

md23040

Mark Tapley wrote: »

If you wished schadenfreude on someone you would be wishing that they felt pleasure at the misfortune of someone else. Which would be strange.

You're understanding the sentence wrongly, in that I do not wish to feel misfortune on another individual but in this case an exception would be made. But please don't be such a grammatical Nazi.

In the case of drawing the line at victimless crime the OP's POV has been clearly exposed as a sham IMO following earlier contradictory posting in another topic.

By comparison shoplifting is victimless by your parameters, since the supplier is not affected, nor the worker, nor the store as the margin has shrinkage built in, burglary ditto with people able to collect through their insurance, general insurance fraud etc.

Stop trying to use a moral compass to distinguish something that's blatantly wrong, and different from somebody doing the odd bit of downloading.

karma_

md23040 wrote: »

You're understanding the sentence wrongly, in that I do not wish to feel misfortune on another individual but in this case an exception would be made. But please don't be such a grammatical Nazi.

In the case of drawing the line at victimless crime the OP's POV has been clearly exposed as a sham IMO following earlier contradictory posting in another topic.

By comparison shoplifting is victimless by your parameters, since the supplier is not affected, nor the worker, nor the store as the margin has shrinkage built in, burglary ditto with people able to collect through their insurance, general insurance fraud etc.

Stop trying to use a moral compass to distinguish something that's blatantly wrong, and different from somebody doing the odd bit of downloading.

Quick, get this man a pitchfork.

Bipolar Joe

karma_ wrote: »

Quick, get this man a pitchfork.

Because he's thinking about the people lower on the food chain than the ones that own the store?

karma_

Bipolar Joe wrote: »

Because he's thinking about the people lower on the food chain than the ones that own the store?

You know what, you're right. I only skimmed his post initially and completely got the wrong end of the stick there.

Apologies md.

Ruudi_Mentari

Ahhhr, hoist the maxell tape high me mateys.

Mr. CooL ICE

My own band is signed to an independent label, which means that we have had to pay towards print, promotion and recording. We all have full time jobs and know that unless our popularity explodes, we're not going to be able to use music as a full-time income.

However, if I google our band name + album name, 3 of the first 10 hits in google are links to our album on file sharing sites. We have the option of contacting the owners of rapidshare.com/uploaded.net/whoever through our label to remove the material, but we don't because we know that at our stage, people listening to our album for free is better than not listening to it at all. However, when I think of the money and hard work that went into getting the album out there, it really does hurt.

I personally believe that digital downloads is the way forward and that physical albums are now for collectors, but knowing Apple keep 70% as the purchase fee doesn't help. Hell, the cost of getting an instrument serviced requires a few thousand listen on Spotify.

/rant

karma_

LordChessington wrote: »

My own band is signed to an independent label, which means that we have had to pay towards print, promotion and recording. We all have full time jobs and know that unless our popularity explodes, we're not going to be able to use music as a full-time income.

However, if I google our band name + album name, 3 of the first 10 hits in google are links to our album on file sharing sites. We have the option of contacting the owners of rapidshare.com/uploaded.net/whoever through our label to remove the material, but we don't because we know that at our stage, people listening to our album for free is better than not listening to it at all. However, when I think of the money and hard work that went into getting the album out there, it really does hurt.

I personally believe that digital downloads is the way forward and that physical albums are now for collectors, but knowing Apple keep 70% as the purchase fee doesn't help. Hell, the cost of getting an instrument serviced requires a few thousand listen on Spotify.

/rant

Do you think there is any long term benefit to the success of your band by having your early work disseminated in that fashion?

Mr. CooL ICE

karma_ wrote: »

Do you think there is any long term benefit to the success of your band by having your early work disseminated in that fashion?

Yes. As said, if people took the effort of uploading it to a number of sites for others to download, it means that there is a chance, albeit a small one, that people could spread the word. And any word of mouth is highly valuable at our stage.

Besides, if we got the files taken down, they would probably be re-uploaded within days, so reporting them would be to fight a losing battle. I'm not being defeatist by saying that, just trying to be realistic

PogMoThoin

This doesn't surprise me.

Trent Reznor admitted uploading NIN's own music to thepiratebay, said it was the best advertising you could get. They purposely left usb keys lying around in the toilets, at their concerts so their music would be found and leak.

Radiohead released an album on their website and let fans pay what they felt it was worth. Afterwards, they said they made more money on that album, than they made on all other albums put together, as there was no greedy hands taking big slices of the pie.

Bipolar Joe

PogMoThoin wrote: »

This doesn't surprise me.

Trent Reznor admitted uploading NIN's own music to thepiratebay, said it was the best advertising you could get. They purposely left usb keys lying around in the toilets, at their concerts so their music would be found and leak.

Radiohead released an album on their website and let fans pay what they felt it was worth. Afterwards, they said they made more money on that album, than they made on all other albums put together, as there was no greedy hands taking big slices of the pie.

I'm not a fan of Trent Reznor (He's a dick), but the ARG surrounding Year Zero (The USB stick thing) was fantastic marketing.

krudler

I download tv shows, Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad mostly, now, if either of those were made available online, with a price for the season to watch them legally and in HD, I'd happily pay for it. HBO has an online service but you need to be a HBO customer to use it, which kinda negates it. I don't know why more tv companies run like a season pass to one particular show, say 15 quid to watch all 10-13 episodes of whatever. They make money, you see the show in a decent quality format without downloading it off a torrent, everyone's happy.

krudler

PogMoThoin wrote: »

This doesn't surprise me.

Trent Reznor admitted uploading NIN's own music to thepiratebay, said it was the best advertising you could get. They purposely left usb keys lying around in the toilets, at their concerts so their music would be found and leak.

Radiohead released an album on their website and let fans pay what they felt it was worth. Afterwards, they said they made more money on that album, than they made on all other albums put together, as there was no greedy hands taking big slices of the pie.

the comedian Louis CK recorded a show and charged people 5 bucks for it, no DRM, not anti piracy measures, was available in different formats, once you downloaded it the do what you wanted with it, and it made him over a million quid. When will record companies and movie studios realise if you try prevent people using your products on whatever device they want they'll just download it in a different format. I paid for Louis' show cos I love the guy and it was a fiver, the entire thing was on youtube but feck it, support worthwhile artists and all that.

Prodigious

"You wouldn't steal a car"

If it was on Pirate Bay I probably would!

Ruudi_Mentari

Truth is these days it really is the case that the most naive people, actually buy. the most insufferable crap

and even scarier it is often merely because they want them to be rich and famous, like most if their lyrics demand. Nikki show dem how it's done / taking money just for fun... 2 sticks in my bun so if you think about it is quite the savvy angle these illuminum are brainwashing our kids with. Fame and fortune is what's popular, the self to the detriment of others not a sense of the che guevara that was so prevalent and I wonder just how newtered we are on the face of it due to this when most of the youth emselves are actually aspiring to the fat cats

and obviously the majority of the consumers are very young and actually buy into this so I don't see a comeback for music as having such major cultural and social relevance as it did, in this computer age and I think the most counter cultural / punk thing of the moment coming to the surface seemingly being a fuppin folk revival is most telling. But more power to it, tbh because it rlly is that bleak.. give music back to actual musicians, must start somewhere before we can reclaim the streets but if people just want to be in a monotonous, metronomous computerized 'trance' then its goodnite irene.

so yeah the issue is more profound than mere piracy!

Irish Guitarist

The only music I've downloaded is albums that aren't available on CD or concert recordings that have never been officially released. I used to download loads of Neil Young and Pink Floyd bootlegs. I did download them illegally. Even if I had wanted to pay for them (which I didn't) they wouldn't have been available on the likes of iTunes, as most of these recordings were made years ago by someone in the audience with a tape recorder. If these recordings were available on CD I would buy them. I certainly wouldn't pay to download them (or anything else) though.

Why people pay to download music that's readily available on CD is beyond me. I had a look at iTunes a while ago and looked at the cost of an album. I worked out that it would actually be cheaper to buy the CD.

As far as I'm concerned the best way to listen to music is to listen to an album all the way through on a stereo through a decent pair of headphones.

People that download music often say "I wouldn't buy a CD just to get one good song". I avoid this problem myself by listening to musicians who have more than one good song.

Prodigious

Its people like this who cause the problem. See attached.

VinLieger

Not surprising, study after study has show if people have access to media in the exact way they want they will pay for it even more so if they KNOW theres no middle man and it goes straight to the artist.

There is no reasonable way for me to watch all the tv shows i want to as they air so I stream them from free sites, although recently i have been introduced to the wonder that is a VPN with a US netflix account and i may give it a try.
But still pisses me off that Irish netflix subscribers have to wait such a ridiculous amount of time to get access to something thats immediately available in the states.

The_Gatsby

I download quite a lot of stuff illegally. However, a lot of the artists I listen to actually promote free music and the use of torrent sites to get access to music. A big ambassador for free music is Gramatik. He even posts links to his torrents.

Anyway, I'm a poor student. I don't buy a lot of music but the artists I do like, the games I'm a fan of and films I really want to own; will be paid for. I go to gigs and I still go to the cinema. Piracy isn't a victim less crime, it's just one that indirectly affects others. I know this and yet I still "pirate".

I don't really think there's a way to stop it. Things like netflix help and recently I've considered getting netflix because I don't want to wait while a film downloads. I'm not even paying for the film, I'm paying for the privilege of not having to wait for a download.

I wouldn't buy the new Bowie album but I could download it, end up liking his music and buy a €80 ticket to one of his concerts. I'd say Bowie has made some money, as oppose to nothing if I didn't pirate his album in the first place...

Irish Guitarist

This "I support artists by going to concerts" argument is ridiculous. No one goes to a concert to 'support' anyone. They go to be entertained.

The only reason people pay to go to concerts is because it would be incredibly difficult to sneak in.

I wouldn't have bought even 1% of the stuff I downloaded.

Peregrinus

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

This "I support artists by going to concerts" argument is ridiculous. No one goes to a concert to 'support' anyone. They go to be entertained.

The only reason people pay to go to concerts is because it would be incredibly difficult to sneak in.

Well, yes. But because artists can control entry to concerts and can effectively exclude non-paying customers, they can build larger margins into concert prices, and so earn real money from performing (assuming they have a following that is willing to pay).

But, because pirating recorded music is so ridiculously easy, they can't do this so easily when selling recorded music. The more the recorded music costs, the greater the incentive to pirate, so there is real pressure to keep the cost down. And that squeezes the margin.

The result is that musicians tend to do better out of performing than recording, so concert-going patrons are doing more to support artists than recording-buying patrons. (Both, of course, do what they do in order to gratify themselves, not to support the artists. I'm talking about the result of what they do, not the motivation.)

This is why some artists - especially established artists - are increasing embracing the free distribution of their recorded music. It's not, if the truth be told, that they have an ideological commitment to freedom of distribution; it's that they see free distribution as a tool to increase demand for concert tickets, which is where the real money is. That, and licensing popular tunes for commercial use in, e.g., advertising.

Mark Tapley

md23040 wrote: »

You're understanding the sentence wrongly, in that I do not wish to feel misfortune on another individual but in this case an exception would be made. But please don't be such a grammatical Nazi.

In the case of drawing the line at victimless crime the OP's POV has been clearly exposed as a sham IMO following earlier contradictory posting in another topic.

By comparison shoplifting is victimless by your parameters, since the supplier is not affected, nor the worker, nor the store as the margin has shrinkage built in, burglary ditto with people able to collect through their insurance, general insurance fraud etc.

Stop trying to use a moral compass to distinguish something that's blatantly wrong, and different from somebody doing the odd bit of downloading.

No you are misusing the word. Also if I am any kind of Nazi it would be a vocabulary Nazi.

Mr. CooL ICE

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, yes. But because artists can control entry to concerts and can effectively exclude non-paying customers, they can build larger margins into concert prices, and so earn real money from performing (assuming they have a following that is willing to pay).

But, because pirating recorded music is so ridiculously easy, they can't do this so easily when selling recorded music. The more the recorded music costs, the greater the incentive to pirate, so there is real pressure to keep the cost down. And that squeezes the margin.

The result is that musicians tend to do better out of performing than recording, so concert-going patrons are doing more to support artists than recording-buying patrons. (Both, of course, do what they do in order to gratify themselves, not to support the artists. I'm talking about the result of what they do, not the motivation.)

This is why some artists - especially established artists - are increasing embracing the free distribution of their recorded music. It's not, if the truth be told, that they have an ideological commitment to freedom of distribution; it's that they see free distribution as a tool to increase demand for concert tickets, which is where the real money is. That, and licensing popular tunes for commercial use in, e.g., advertising.

That's not necessarily true. Whenever a concert is performed, the venue gets paid. The bar staff get paid. The promoter gets a fee. The security, sound engineer(s) and everyone working at the gig get paid. More often than not, the last people to get paid are the performers themselves, despite the whole event being centered around them.

monkeypants

Whenever I hear about music piracy, copyright and damages, I always think of this:

Further detail found here.