Do people downlaod much music?

TheMonster

Just wondering if people here download much music or do they buy it or both?

I must say since I started downloading I have bought more music, it has opened my eyes to new artists that I would never have found otherwise.

Rather than ruin the music industry I think on the alternative side it has defintely enhanced sales.

Tyrrial

i'm the same. i used to buy the odd album... but as i've discovered new music and subsiquently downloaded a few songs from the artist i end up wanting to own their album.. it has also helped me find out wich bands are just good for a single so i don't waste money on them. out of interest what do people use to get music... i use bear share, lime wire and eMule
bear share if i want something fast, lime wire if i want something i cant find on bear share and eMule if i want something rare... eventually.

Goodshape

Back in the good 'ol days of free barely legal Napster I downloaded a good bit and bought more than I ever have before or since. Once the powers that be clamped down on that I chased around a few other programs for a while and continued the trend, but I just got sick of constently having to find a new P2P program that was actually any good. These days I don't download or buy all that much. Mostly copy from friends.

mentalimplosion

i download a fair bit because the CDs i want are impossible to find anywhere and it's cheaper than buying them. that said, after i've downloaded say half an album, if i can, i'll go out and buy it,because i love the actual act buying CDs

garthv

Haven't bought a cd in about 3 years. Dont plan on paying 20 quid+ for a ten track cd tbh. I download music because its free and easy to get. if there was a small charge per song I wouldn't mind paying. I mean a small charge though. How can HMV justify 20 quid per cd? The profits margins on CD sales are though the fùcking roof these days.

Ps. I dont want any self-righteous flamers complaining about how Im destroying the music industry. I download music because I feel like downloading music not because I hate the music industry

Ro: maaan!

Used to download a lot of music. Now it's just too hard to find. Torrent sites getting shut down / Empty files on P2P. I'd get the odd song. Usually copy albums from friends. I'd buy it if I really like the band/album...

mr_angry

I download a fair bit of music these days. In the old days, I used to download singles that I liked from Napster, IMesh, and Kazaa, but recently since BitTorrent became the only way to get anything, I'va taken to downloading whole albums. I rarely buy CDs anymore because its hard to justify doing so when you already have the whole album! If I only had the odd single, I'd probably buy more. In my case, the record industry have probably worsened it for themselves by shutting down individual file sharing systems like Kazaa.

GaRtH_V wrote:

Haven't bought a cd in about 3 years. Dont plan on paying 20 quid+ for a ten track cd tbh. I download music because its free and easy to get. if there was a small charge per song I wouldn't mind paying. I mean a small charge though. How can HMV justify 20 quid per cd? The profits margins on CD sales are though the fùcking roof these days.

I used to work for a small music store (that shall remain nameless). The margins the shop charged were by no means excessive. At the time I left, the labels were charging roughly €13.70 wholesale for a chart CD. The €6.30 or whatever we were making per CD was just about enough to cover costs and keep the business alive. Face it - high-street retailers will never be able to compete with Internet retailers that have big warehouses and don't have to pay as much for premesis, electricity, staff, insurance, etc.

fletch

I download all my music....have not bought a CD in 5+ years now. I don't really like one artist in particular so I prefer to download music & make my own compilation cds.

fletch

Ro: maaan! wrote:

Used to download a lot of music. Now it's just too hard to find. Torrent sites getting shut down / Empty files on P2P. I'd get the odd song. Usually copy albums from frien ds. I'd buy it if I really like the band/album...

I still have no trouble getting my music. In saying that I tend to listen to fairly popular stuff....my Dad can run into difficulty sometimes 'cause his taste in music is more diverse

Chad ghostal

i download most of my music, which at this stage has grown to a bit..
I do buy cd's, but only after i've downloaded the album and i think it has alot of staying power..
and its not to support the band (unless its radiohead :d), i just like having the cd and the cd sound.. listening to some albums on mp3 is just not right ( e.g. abbey road ) .. for e.g. ill be getting both shin's albums this weekend if i can get them, i know ill get alot of listening out of them..

note: if i had a proper portable solution for all my mp3's id probably buy far less.. i.e. a solution that lets me play decent quality copys on my cd player or through a decent sterio..

JimboPope

I have to admit myself I havent payed for an album in over 3 years and I listen to a LOT of music.

I used to buy albums all the time, thats all i ever spent my money on, I'd be working and with every paycheck i spend 80% of it on music. It was like a disease, i couldnt stop.

I have accumulated over 1000 albums and about 300 cd singles from that time. That adds up to a good few grand so I reckon i've payed my dues to the music industry.

I have no quams about downloading music these days, there are places i wont mention here that you can get almost any album you look for. I dont feel any shame about doing it but like a lot of people i would consider paying for music, but the price would want to drop a very significant amount. I think sites like allofmp3s.com have the right idea when it comes to this kind of thing, let people choose the quality of the song and pay per MB download. If a legitimate version of this kind of site with backing from the record labels were to open then i think that would be a huge step in the right direction for the industry. But as it stands €20 a pop just doesnt do it for me.

Sleepy

I had become one of those that rarely if ever bought an album, downloading 90% of my music. What changed things for me was the emergence of cdwow and play. When I can get an album on CD for a tenner or so, I'll buy it. I'm not prepared, however to spend €20+ on one.

Just this weekend I spent nearly €70 in HMV because they had a pretty decent promotion on. For that sixty something euro I got 8 CD's, the most expensive of which was €11.99 (Rodrigo Y Gabrielle's Live album if anyone's interested).

I still download music, but mainly stuff that I'd never consider buying (crappy singles that catch my fancy etc.) or stuff I want to have a listen to before buying the album (e.g. the new Stereophonics album, I'd loved their first album and been horribly dissapointed when I bought their second, turned me right off the band, heard Dakota and thought this might be a return to form so I downloaded some of the album to have a listen and subsequently bought the album.

The music industry probably lose some money from MP3 downloading. But I think they probably make money out of it too (Sony producing MP3 players, CD Burners etc.) and people like myself that use MP3's in the same way as my Dad used John Peel's radio show in the 70's.

If the music moguls have sense, they'll reduce the unit costs on albums to ten/fifteen euro each and issue singles as MP3 downloads costing about 50p. To increase sales, they should work on the quality of what they're releasing. I won't buy an album I know to be half filler material.

TheMonster

If you know where to look you can get any album?(well nearly any).
I use Bittorrent and Newsgroups for new albums and soulseek for hard to find stuff. I have found very rare old Irish music on Soulseek, A-House,Something Happens,Revenants,Ghost of an American Airman and Engine Alley to name but a few.

I mostly buy Irish albums though but if I realyl like an album and especially if its buy someone thats bot big I will support them. I also go to lots of gigs, so don't in the least feel guilty.

PiE

Argh, downloading music is illegal which makes music an accessory to a crime BAN MUSIC ETC.

TheMonster wrote:

I must say since I started downloading I have bought more music, it has opened my eyes to new artists that I would never have found otherwise.

That's really the crux of it, right there. The companies complaining about mp3's 'ruining' the industry are the big labels who want you to spend your money on the music they release, rather than some little upstarts they've never even heard of.

Small labels/bands gain a few dorrar that can really make a difference, big labels/bands loses a few dorrar that they won't even notice. Cry me a f*cking river.

BCB

I download most of my stuff on soulseek which is the business.....

Mr E

Yep, many a time I've downloaded an album by a band/artist I've never heard of before, and gone out and bought their back catalogue because of it. So the record companies are making money from some of my downloads.

Bands which downloading has introduced me to include Fountains of Wayne, Gigolo Aunts, Porcupine Tree, Josh Rouse, Rubyhorse....

Having said that, if I download something I'm not crazy about, I'll hang onto it anyway (I'm a bit of a hoarder).

scribs

I use www.allofmp3.com - great site and legit
I would never buys a cd again - I will download for ever more

Kingsize

i download stuff but i still buy, i have to say that i havent stopped buying
stuff since i started downloading. im a music fan & i' more into songs than bands at this stage,but i'll never get hold of enough music.i usually download stuff that i'd never buy so no lost sales there.Music industry are a bunch of whinging tossers i cant see the music industry collapsing just yet when you see the lavish lifestyles of people like samantha mumba - who hasnt released a song in ages (& is shyte) you know that the "industry" is healthy.
Also the party line about companies losing cash & therefor not being able to "develop new artists" is bollix because more so than ever the onus is on artists to do it themselves, major labels only want to put their cash into
"sure shots" which is why we have the current Glut of boybands,pop acts , 70's throwback scrruffy rock acts & norah jones clones.

dudara

I tend to buy these days only from Play and cdwow, and even then, only really from artists I like.

I remember the days of buying an album based on one or two songs and then finding out that the rest was a dud. (Just like that Killers album ). I will still buy if however, I like the band after listening to a download.

nlgbbbblth

I download, on average, about 20 songs a month. If I like it I'll buy the original CD or record.

I started buying records on weekly basis in 1981 and continued at this rate up until about eighteen months ago. Since then I moved out of Dublin and now come up and do a tour of the city's record shops (new and used) on the Saturday after payday each month.
Spend around €250 on average - mixture of CDs and vinyl.

Also buy perhaps 8 - 10 items per month on ebay/online.
Occasionally, I'll get the train to Belfast and do some shopping there.

The thrill of the hunt never goes....

DerekD Goldfish

I dl a lot but I still buy about 100 albums a year

Mutant_Fruit

Since i got broadband, my music collection has expanded hugely. A few years ago, i got started on napster... ok it was illegal, but i owned only 1 or 2 CD's and was of the mind "Hey, why buy it if its on the radio" and i listened to the radio all the time.

But after i got broadband, i discovered that bands had other good songs, that came on things called "albums" Since then, fine i've downloaded music, but i have to say i now have a very healthy collection of original shop CD's, which i'm pretty sure would not be there if i hadn't been able to download. Not everything i've downloaded i've bought, mostly because it wasn't worth listening to. But (nearly) everything i've bought has been well worth it.

Long story short: Having access to online music has made me buy MORE cd's.

lordgoat

i generally use bit torrents to download live stuff from fan/official sites, used to use them to download albums but i'd generally buy them from cdwow/play but for the really rare old albums i found bit torrent to be the **** until they were closed down, but if not for downloads i would prob not be listening to some music that i cannot imagine doing without, and also own on cd...