the mp3 debate

[???]

Originally Posted by Rockin' Cherub

yes, i think music should be freely downloadable. music on other storage media should still be sold however.

music should be free to own because that would give everybody the opportunity to choose among a huge pool of artists. live shows / posters / band shirts / top-notch-qualtiy storage media would promote themselves.

i know too little about economics to comment on that from a more scientific perspective

well, that's a first for you, ain't it?

thanks for answering though because now i get to demolish you:

making music free will absolutely kill it, because once there's no profit to be made in it then nobody will want to do it. you devote your talents to creating something that people are gonna want, and then they demand to have it for free just so they can "choose from a huge pool of artists"? that is one of the most grossly ignorant, greedy and unappreciative things i've ever heard, and i certainly expected a more intelligent answer from you of all people. it makes absolutely no sense. if there is a great musician who everyone likes but he or she is unable to sustain a career as one because their fans decide they're not obliged to support them financially, what's the fucking point? should they be utterly selfless human beings who must simply feel "privileged" to do what they do, without earning a decent living from it? are they worth less than a creative person in any other trade, who cooks meals or makes clothes or designs new technology? of course not. i think there happens to be alot of shitty music out there which isn't really worth paying to hear anyway , but that should never be the same for the good artists and there are plenty. if you don't want to pay anymore to support an artist you like, you shouldn't listen to music, that simple. musicians depend on their fans, but their medium has fallen prey to the rabid jaws of digital technology like no other medium has. the only way this will ever be resolved is if people just give up stealing, but of course that will never happen. it is a fucking crime that this is happening.

ed: also, regarding "live shows, tshirts, posters and quality storage media". they might "promote themselves" yeah, and anyone would like to own those things but basically most people are just too tight to buy any of it- i personally have never really had an interest in band tshirts or merchandise outside of music/video and i don't think there is really a big enough market for any of those things to sustain a band anyway. most tshirts/merchandise items are tacky and expensive. as for live music, well nobody can deny that its taken off in a big way and makes big money for promoters, but without good record sales, bands find it alot harder to fund a good next record. even if the musical ability is at a sustained level of quality, the production values are still going down because everything's gotta be done cheaper, faster, made louder and more commercial to try and still make an impression on listeners. its a downward spiral. music fandom has been utterly compromised by the internet and as a result musicians now have to compromise as well. its a disgrace.

[aurel]

Originally Posted by ???

thanks for answering though because now i get to demolish you:

[Rockin' Cherub]

a) making music free wouldn't kill it
b) profit could still be made from it
c) i would still want to do it

so booya

[Rockin' Cherub]

d) instrument prices would drop

[aurel]

Kid Rock Starves To Death
MP3 Piracy Blamed
May 17, 2000 | Issue 36•18

LOS ANGELES–MP3 piracy of copyrighted music claimed another victim Monday, when the emaciated body of rock-rap superstar Kid Rock was found on the median of La Cienega Boulevard.

"How many more artists must die of starvation before we put a stop to this MP3 madness?" asked Hilary Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "MP3s of Kid Rock's music were so widely traded and downloaded by Napster users that he was driven back to the mean streets from whence he came, dying bankrupt and penniless in the gutter."

When found by police, the 28-year-old Kid Rock, born Bob Ritchie in Detroit, was still clutching the cardboard "Devil Without A Place To Sleep Or Anything To Eat" sign that had been his trademark ever since the rise of Napster's MP3-sharing software bankrupted him in January.

Rosen said the RIAA would prosecute the music-piracy firms that are responsible "to the fullest extent of the law."

"Napster killed Kid Rock, there's no doubt about it," Rosen said. "As soon as that web site went up last October, people stopped buying his music. It's not surprising, either: Why would anyone in their right mind pay $12.99 for a CD with artwork when they could simply spend seven hours downloading the compressed MP3 files of all the album's songs onto their home computer's desktop, decompress it into an AIFF sound file, and then burn the data onto a blank CD?"

"If we don't do something, this technology is going to destroy the record industry," said Nathan Davis, vice-president of Atlantic Records, Kid Rock's label. "Just imagine if the oil-change industry allowed the public to have direct access to oil and oil filters, enabling them to change their car's oil themselves without going through Jiffy Lube or Kwik Lube. People would stop going to oil-change shops, and the entire industry would collapse. We can't let that happen to us."

According to post-autopsy analysis of Kid Rock's stomach contents by the L.A. County coroner's office, his last meal consisted of newspapers, cigar butts, old CD liner notes, and the partial remains of sidekick Joe C., who had been missing since May 15.

Thus far, relief efforts on behalf of afflicted artists have met with little success. In January, Metallica, System Of A Down, and Powerman 5000 teamed up for a concert tour known as "Us Aid," but the rockers were forced to cancel when concertgoers at the kickoff show in Tempe, AZ, showed up with MP3 recording equipment. An all-star fundraiser CD featuring Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, and Korn was similarly scrapped when an individual known only by the user name [email protected] acquired a promotional copy and made it available to millions of fans over the Internet.

"This is exactly the kind of thing we've been warning our fans about," James Hetfield, the lone surviving member of Metallica, told reporters during a press conference at Hollywood's Grace Church Homeless Shelter. "First, they found Madonna dead of a crack overdose in the alley behind Liquid. Then my best friend and bandmate Lars is killed by cops during a botched hold-up of a liquor store. Now, Kid Rock dies of starvation like a filthy dog in the street. My God, people, didn't we learn the lesson of Elton John?"

John, the British rock star who went bankrupt in 1976 before private ownership of music-pirating cassette decks was made illegal, died of exposure on a Welsh moor that year after creditors repossessed his clothing.

[tcm]

profit killed music. we must return to the days of the starving artist. the true creator who creates for creation's sake. fuck the suits and their stooges. who's with me?

[Rockin' Cherub]

nah i kinda like the stooges

[aurel]

The beauty of this is that it levels the playing fields somewhat between the Majors and the Indie labels/bands. People will only spend money on the physical copy of music that has really kicked their ass when they downloaded it, so the music will stand to a greater degree on its own merits.

[???]

Originally Posted by aurel

Kid Rock Starves To Death
MP3 Piracy Blamed

thats funny but its still full of shit. downloading is having way more effect on music than tape-copying ever did. its on a whole different scale.

[???]

Originally Posted by aurel

The beauty of this is that it levels the playing fields somewhat between the Majors and the Indie labels/bands. People will only spend money on the physical copy of music that has really kicked their ass when they downloaded it, so the music will stand to a greater degree on its own merits.

i do partly agree with this, the playing field is definitely levelling between the majors and indie labels. but i still doubt that most people will buy hard copy music once they've downloaded it. the masses don't really think too much about the quality of the music, they'll only need one copy, the copy they downloaded, because in their minds mp3 is better because its newer or whatever. and those same masses couldn't care less for artwork and packaging either. but i do have hope that since this will put music under greater scrutiny in order to succeed, people in general will start to become more discerning in their tastes and then the best music will dominate the market and the disposable, trendy or rubbish music just won't. this is probably pretty naive but one can hope.

[Rockin' Cherub]

e) maybe radio stations would play a greater variety of music too

(germany has basically no "free" or "alternative" or "college" radio movement)

[aurel]

Originally Posted by tcm

profit killed music. we must return to the days of the starving artist. the true creator who creates for creation's sake. fuck the suits and their stooges. who's with me?

I'm in! Is this a street team? Will we get free stickers and shirts?

[???]

Originally Posted by Rockin' Cherub

b) profit could still be made from it
c) i would still want to do it
d) instrument prices would drop

i would still want to do it too; but with every day that passes i feel more and more reluctant to pursue that ambition, because i know my audience, whoever they may be, would just take and take and take and expect me to keep producing new stuff to satisfy their ever-shorter attention spans and i wouldn't get a thing for it. and as soon as i started to show signs of slowing down, i'd be slated and forgotten in favour of someone else. can't you see? this whole situation is just deluded, an absolute crisis for music- you simply can't justify such greed. if you never have to pay for something, you don't know what its worth. that simple.

[Rockin' Cherub]

Originally Posted by ???

my audience, whoever they may be, would just take and take and take and expect me to keep producing new stuff to satisfy their ever-shorter attention spans

concerning "ever-shorter attention spans"

here's a historical perspective

number of symphonies by joseph haydn: 104
number of symphonies by mozart: 41
number of symphonies by beethoven: 9

[Rockin' Cherub]

i'm pretty surprised to see you care so much about your audience when you think about creating music. i'm not some kind of music ideologist but the work itself is all i care for, audience or not

[aurel]

Isle, make really good music and play really good live and tour lots. Go cottage industry approach and you get all the profit that's going. It's becoming a touring industry which is great for fans of live music. There are dozens of bands that I would never have paid to see live and probably bought a vinyl at the gig if I hadn't illegally downloaded their music first. All of the problems you see are mostly just problems for the bloated and fatuous major labels that need to die anyway.

[Rockin' Cherub]

nah just some aspects of their work need to die

[aurel]

True.

[aurel]

Isle, is all of this about the fact that you may never get to ride in a really big tourbus?

[???]

Originally Posted by aurel

Isle, is all of this about the fact that you may never get to ride in a really big tourbus?

just one red limo?

[aurel]

No! That's how it starts.

[ChristHimself!]

Originally Posted by aurel

It's becoming a touring industry which is great for fans of live music. There are dozens of bands that I would never have paid to see live and probably bought a vinyl at the gig if I hadn't illegally downloaded their music first. All of the problems you see are mostly just problems for the bloated and fatuous major labels that need to die anyway.

On point. aurel isn't the only one who feels like this, and who's been introduced to bands he likes through downloading, only to then spend money on the band. Fact.

If your music is good enough, then the people who hear it and connect with it will still buy it, in my opinion (and going from myself, aurel, friends and other folk online as examples). There is a lot of music out there and from personal experience people listen to the radio a lot less nowadays because it's saturated with commercial shit. A lot of people use downloading as the equivalent of listening on the radio or at a friend's place. I genuinely believe that if most people feel a genuine emotional connection to the music then they will buy it.

You might lose sales from fairweather casual listeners, who are genuine mp3 leechers, but if you were on a smaller label or marketing yourself in your own way (to stay away from radiohead, fugazi come to mind) then you'll reap the financial benefits of the effort you put in.

Maybe a big label isn't doing all the hard work of marketing and selling for you anymore, but then again maybe a lot of talented people out there happened to have an easy as fuck life because people liked their music and they were lucky with their label. I think a lot of people still harbor a dream of being hugely successful rockstars, but they want to have it as easy as possible, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that nowadays you have to settle for less money or put in a lot more effort to successfully go down that career path.

And I feel no guilt for people who create soulless protools music and then have it downloaded time and time again by teenagers who want to keep up to date with the latest autotuned commercial cack.

[???]

Originally Posted by aurel

Isle, make really good music and play really good live and tour lots. Go cottage industry approach and you get all the profit that's going. It's becoming a touring industry which is great for fans of live music. There are dozens of bands that I would never have paid to see live and probably bought a vinyl at the gig if I hadn't illegally downloaded their music first. All of the problems you see are mostly just problems for the bloated and fatuous major labels that need to die anyway.

thanks for the tip, but as invaluable as the touring industry as become, i'm more concerned about the state of recorded music. i personally feel that there's more creative ground left to be explored in recorded music and multimedia projects than in live music. in my case, if i ever get a record deal going i'm eventually going to want to produce work prolifically and on a bigger scale than most artists- like, pumpkins big, roughly. i've got a lot of material and that's how i wanna roll. and i'm concerned that the music industry of 5-10 years time just isn't gonna be able to cater to that because everything else is comparitively on such a small scale. musical popularity these days is more spread out across a wide range of minor artists and people have less patience for major ones. i am working out various possible strategies to cope with that kind of eventuality, but its at least pretty much a given that not only is cheap digital recording (cheap in both senses of the word) here to stay, but also people are always gonna be less interested in the fewer major artists so long as there is an endless supply of new, compartively lesser bands to hold their interest for a few minutes.

i suppose an example would be useful here. say the beatles, or led zeppelin, or the pumpkins were emerging just now, in today's music climate. they would have as much chance of surviving as everyone else because nobody sticks with any band long enough to watch them develop. notions of "loyalty" are practically meaningless now because the current musical climate encourages people just to be interested in what's hot right now rather than who's going to be a long-term or important or defining artist in the future. there is simply too much choice, and its now easy for anyone to make music without even being particularly good at it. everyone has everything yet nobody has anything. its not democracy, its just communism.

[ChristHimself!]

Originally Posted by ???

notions of "loyalty" are practically meaningless now because the current musical climate encourages people just to be interested in what's hot right now rather than who's going to be a long-term or important or defining artist in the future. there is simply too much choice

See i can kind of see where you're coming from and then you say something like this, that's just a blinkered opinion you have, you've just decided this. i really don't think it applies to 'real' music fans at all, just teenyboppers, who have no loyalty to bands in any musical climate.

[???]

Originally Posted by ChristHimself!

On point. aurel isn't the only one who feels like this, and who's been introduced to bands he likes through downloading, only to then spend money on the band. Fact.

If your music is good enough, then the people who hear it and connect with it will still buy it, in my opinion (and going from myself, aurel, friends and other folk online as examples). There is a lot of music out there and from personal experience people listen to the radio a lot less nowadays because it's saturated with commercial shit. A lot of people use downloading as the equivalent of listening on the radio or at a friend's place. I genuinely believe that if most people feel a genuine emotional connection to the music then they will buy it.

You might lose sales from fairweather casual listeners, who are genuine mp3 leechers, but if you were on a smaller label or marketing yourself in your own way (to stay away from radiohead, fugazi come to mind) then you'll reap the financial benefits of the effort you put in.

Maybe a big label isn't doing all the hard work of marketing and selling for you anymore, but then again maybe a lot of talented people out there happened to have an easy as fuck life because people liked their music and they were lucky with their label. I think a lot of people still harbor a dream of being hugely successful rockstars, but they want to have it as easy as possible, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that nowadays you have to settle for less money or put in a lot more effort to successfully go down that career path.

And I feel no guilt for people who create soulless protools music and then have it downloaded time and time again by teenagers who want to keep up to date with the latest autotuned commercial cack.

solid post. you're right about the "rockstar" dream, and now, in retrospect, i find it utterly incredible to think that up til now big musicians could get to be so incredibly (and sometimes undeservedly) rich- sting etc. i don't believe in that old dream, that rockstars should be made out of money. but then, i don't think hollywood stars should continue to earn the kind of money they do. as a musician myself, i have little interest in the sort of material luxuries that life would afford, i just want to be able to live comfortably (or slightly better) and be able to fund my work so that its always as good as possible. but i think major labels are really the best way to do that.
tcm said earlier that "profit killed music" but its not profit, its just greed on the label's part. unfortunately few corporate businesspeople are going to be as unmaterialistic as i try to be, but if that were possible then fair settlements on all sides could easily be arranged. big labels have the power to bring big projects to life, but so far they've always asked for more than their fair share and tried to screw their artists for everything they've got. but that's human nature i guess. when you start a big company you're always gonna become susceptible to internal corruption or be targeted by corrupt organisations, it all ends up the same way. but i don't think it has to be that way, not everyone's greedy.

[???]

Originally Posted by ChristHimself!

See i can kind of see where you're coming from and then you say something like this, that's just a blinkered opinion you have, you've just decided this. i really don't think it applies to 'real' music fans at all, just teenyboppers, who have no loyalty to bands in any musical climate.

really? so who do you think, out of all the new bands of the last 5 years or so, is going to continue to be an important or successful one in 5-10 years from now? who still makes the headlines? it'll be the older ones, survivors of the 90s and before, because they're established. i honestly still see bjork or paul fucking macca in the paper every other week at least, nirvana on telly and jimi hendrix on the cover of every guitar mag of the last 40 years, and why? because they were great characters and musicians, in times and cultures where that actually counted for something in the public consciousness. true, bjork's maybe not the best example cause people remember her more as a style icon than for her music, but the same principle applies. big labels who control the mainstream have the power to decide whats important or relevant, whats worth promoting. as deviousj said once "they're not like kings sponsoring the arts", but they could be if that was in their interests. they just need the right kind of leadership. as for the teenyboppers- well yeah they don't have a clue to begin with, but they can be educated; give them a good band they can actually grow up with and they'll learn what makes them great. prolonged exposure, man. good music needs to sink in over time, that's what musical "eras" are all about, and the current hyper-consumer culture is totally ruining that. that's what the Zeitgeist is.

[???]

anyway gtg out now, bbl

[ChristHimself!]

Originally Posted by ???

really? so who do you think, out of all the new bands of the last 5 years or so, is going to continue to be an important or successful one in 5-10 years from now? who still makes the headlines? it'll be the older ones, survivors of the 90s and before, because they're established. i honestly still see bjork or paul fucking macca in the paper every other week at least, nirvana on telly and jimi hendrix on the cover of every guitar mag of the last 40 years, and why? because they were great characters and musicians, in times and cultures where that actually counted for something in the public consciousness. true, bjork's maybe not the best example cause people remember her more as a style icon than for her music, but the same principle applies.

One last post before I phone for chinese; i know no one who is heavily into their music and yet takes headlines in papers and guitar/music mags/websites really seriously. There are people out there who do, but those people are basically teenyboppers, or the adult equivalent, who need to be told who the next big thing is. Fuck those people. People I know find out about genuinely great up and coming bands through friends, the net and word of mouth.

Real music fans don't let magazines and papers decide who is important to them, and I think what i was trying to say from my previous posts was that the rockstar as we know it is essentially dead, because big labels would rather pump money into music that sells to teenage girls and boys than fund a band/artist because their music really means something or has a great emotional impact. Read any bio from someone in the music business, they all talk about how everyone in the business who really cares about getting real music out there is out, and everyone who cares about making mad fund$$$ is in. The internet did not cause this to happen. mp3s are not to blame.

Originally Posted by ???

as for the teenyboppers- well yeah they don't have a clue to begin with, but they can be educated; give them a good band they can actually grow up with and they'll learn what makes them great. prolonged exposure, man. good music needs to sink in over time, that's what musical "eras" are all about, and the current hyper-consumer culture is totally ruining that.

There is no way to essentially program people with completely different tastes from you into liking good music. A lot of folk like what naturally catches their ear, what would come off as annoyingly polished, gimmicky, and overly reliant on hooks to others. You're essentially talking about brainwashing them into thinking they like music that's not their thing, that's just as bad as big labels pushing the next britney spears and it really wouldn't work in the long run.

[ChristHimself!]

Delivery will be an hour. Bastard.

Essentially you consider yourself to be a true music lover/fanatic/purist/whatever, but you have to accept that not everyone is. It's like films. Not everyone can view a movie from a critical aspect, they want the next blockbuster to come along with pretty effects so they can sit and go wooo!!! - and who are you to say there's something wrong with that?

It's the same with music. Some people just want something to sing along to in the car or to work out to, music may not mean as much to your neighbour as it does to you. That doesn't make real, great music any less pure, and it doesn't mean that small bands out there making that music, and putting the effort into marketing themselves are less 'successful' - although you may see it that way, they may just be less recognised by a society that has become so reliant on the media to dictate their tastes to them.

In closing, don't be pissed at the internet, don't be pissed at mp3s. Be pissed at the general media that is spoon fed to people through magazines, newspapers, bad tv shows and crappy websites. And if you want someone tangible to be pissed at, be more pissed at the people who actually listen to what they're being told.

[wpc33]

I love music just as much as you ???, and I don't buy cd's because I can't afford them. Sure, I can afford an intenet connection, but it's for work. I have a computer that I bought after despersately wanting one for nearly 20 years. I bought it by selling my cd collection.
I'm in debt and have trouble paying the bills...No sympathy! I am not complaining. I have it great, but part of that greatness is the chance to hear the new album before I get hit by a bus and discover that the afterlife doesn't have NIN remixes.