Magazine Advocates Pirating Music

I don't know how it is in the US, but in Sweden it wouldn't be illegal (unless they have changed the law). People have been doing this for decades with cassette tapes, it's uploading to a bunch of people online that's illegal not sharing with your friends, but like I said don't know the US laws for this.
 
jroe52 said:
speaking of pink floyd... there are only a dozen or so albums i listen to post 1970's... but dozens pre-1970's...

the only ones i really get, and pay for are pre-1970s... yeah its preferance... but its also the era of good music. today what is popular and sells well... does not sell well a year later or 10 years later because it was pop/trendy and well got old. nirvana, as much as i love them are not having record sales... either is tupac.

but sales from 60's/70's music are still big in dvd/music.. from funk to rock to jazz.

then you have to take in consideration:
price of shirts went up, and so did demand
price of tickets doubled in 10 years, so did demand... GET MONEY OUT OF TICKETMASTER FUCK.

they probably could recover every penny they lost by getting rid of ticket master.
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now, to contradict some of my own arguments, part of the reason for what you're saying is because people that grew up in the 60's and 70's listened to a lot more music and valued it more to begin with. But the argument that music of today isn't as good as it was in the old days has been around for longer than most of us have.

And to be quite honest, catalog music sales have dropped dramatically, but that trend started more than 10 years ago. Once people of a certain age had replaced their albums, they quit buying a lot of music.

I bet there are people, right this very second, having a conversation about the good old days when Rap music was good. Others are bemoaning the decline of Grunge, while others are saying at least Hair Metal bands are on the road again.

as for ticket prices, they went up a hell of a lot more htan 2x in 10 years. The prices nearly tripled from 1997 to 2003 (though that doesn't account for inflation).
 
I hope they do a reprint of this advise in Rolling Stone for total irony :p

 
jroe52 said:
but its also the era of good music. today what is popular and sells well... does not sell well a year later or 10 years later because it was pop/trendy and well got old. nirvana, as much as i love them are not having record sales... either is tupac.
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well i dunno.. i don't listen to tupac... but to say it is THE era of good music... just says that was when YOU were young... old people dont tend to like NEW things... i like drum&bass (ive been listening to a lot of the same songs for 10 years now, plus new songs)... thats what i listen too... theres plenty of good music this era.. you just have to be open to it... i respect pink floyd (mainly for being huge pioneers of electronic music) and i like a number of their songs.. but its not what i listen to on a regular basis.. not because it is not GOOD music.. but because it doesn't relate to me or the majority of my generation...
 
oh... i think i went a little to far... i meant that the record industry in a lot of ways has moved away from creating a great album... to creating great singles... then they wonder why their album sales are low.

you know what they did in the 60's? they would put a single on the front and one on the back or a b-song... thats how they made their money...

this is being done online now... but people are not buying 10 singles from that album they are buying 1,2,3...

then you spent 40$ on tickets.. check out your cart... and the final price is 65$ because of ticket master monopoly (i thought those were illegal in the us, who knew)...

so after spending 65$ do you have:
A. 10$ for an album
B. 10$ for 2 beers at the concert

if you are from wisconsin you would choose B.
 
furthermore... record sales are down... its also recession like unemployement, record low wages... more % of americans today live under the poverty line than 1950-1960s....

are the record artists really doing that badly?

then you have movies... ok... more movies are being pirated. but each shitty ass movie grosses more than the hits from the 70's and 80's because ticket prices are 1000% higher...

15 years ago I paid 3-4$ for a movie... now I pay 8... at inflation its not really that big of a deal... but you cant say someone making 300mil on a movie is poor. maybe if they stopped sniffing coke they would have money left over to feed their starving kids.
 
jroe52 said:
oh... i think i went a little to far... i meant that the record industry in a lot of ways has moved away from creating a great album... to creating great singles... then they wonder why their album sales are low.

you know what they did in the 60's? they would put a single on the front and one on the back or a b-song... thats how they made their money...

this is being done online now... but people are not buying 10 singles from that album they are buying 1,2,3...

then you spent 40$ on tickets.. check out your cart... and the final price is 65$ because of ticket master monopoly (i thought those were illegal in the us, who knew)...

so after spending 65$ do you have:
A. 10$ for an album
B. 10$ for 2 beers at the concert

if you are from wisconsin you would choose B.
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I think you're in for a rude awakening starting next year. You think the problem is ticketmaster, but IME, alternative ticket sellers are not much cheaper than TM. Starting next year, TM no longer will have the vast majority of the concert business. I do not expect ticket prices to drop. Now it is possible that fees will appear to go down, but given that Live Nation will promote most of the concerts, sell the tickets and collect money on parking and concessions, it's like that prices will be no less than they were a few months earlier.

If you buy tickets for a band in multiple markets, you'll quickly notice that places that have free parking (or parking is off site) are generally 5-10 bucks more than those that have on site parking (which tends to set you back 10 bucks or more/car).

As for albums, the problem is the kids don't like albums. And while I agree that that's a huge loss, I'm not sure you can blame the labels.

  1. The focus on albums were an anomaly. People mostly bought singles up until sometime in the 60's (or maybe the 70's).
  2. The 70's and 80's had Album Oriented Rock stations, which, in theory, played several cuts off of most albums...though I suspect we'd find that by the 80's (perhaps even the late 70's) that was the exception, not the rule at AOR stations.
  3. These days everyone wants every song on an album to sound like a single they've heard dozens of times after a single play....that never worked....not even with the so called classic albums.

Ultimately, I think the problem rests at least as much, if not more, with radio. Radio has been bad for a long time. Yes, it's a business, but it needs to be focused on presenting good new songs and good, new artists. Instead, we've got oldies stations (now called classic rock) and various CHR stations that are split between R&B/Rap and R&B/Pop/Rock. And to top it off, most radio stations really sound dreadful. I don't know what happened in the last 10 years, bt t the sound quality has gotten dramatically worse....occasionally I'm in a market where the radio stations sound good, but they're the exception to the rule.
 
I think that the generation gap has a little something to do with it. Kids, teenagers and early 20's kids grew up with the internet, and sharing music is nothing new to them. Why pay when you can get it for free? And the music they have is ... well ... dumb. Most of it.

I listen to a lot of new stuff, but I'd say 5% of it is new stuff. I love the old stuff from the 60's, 70's and some 80's. Early 90's when I was in high school was my thing, but my dad was a big time classic rock lover (and still is), so I grew up with Floyd, Lynard Skynard, Neil Young, etc. He pays for his MP3's, and so do I. We pay for good music and support the artist. 99 cents a song is not bad at all. But, it's when they charge $17 for a CD or an MP3 download that sucks. Get rid of the middlemen and pay the bands what they deserve, since they did most of the work (and the recording studio itself).

As far as ticketsales and Ticketmaster. They suck. Even Pearl Jam sold out to them and fans are getting raped.

The music industry needs to realize that the fans are what makes them money. You alienate them, and your industry falls down. The Napster and file sharing was just a bump. Yes, illegal. But, a good way to distribute your media. They could have easily played with that and made some moves to make it a good thing. But, they pissed off and sue whoever they can. Fans declined. There are a lot of people that won't buy CD's (well, some don't want to spend money when they can get it for free) just because they don't want to support a lawsuit happy industry. I don't. I buy only DRM free media, and a lot of it is indy material marketed by the indy studio or the band themselves.

The industry needs to wake up and realize that Cosmo is right. This happens EVERY day. They need to think of some way to use it to their advantage (I don't know what right now... But, I'm not getting paid the big bucks to think of ideas).
 
gaspah said:
well fair use aside.... i don't know anyone 'in the real world' that have legit dvd backups on their pcs streaming around their house etc.... but EVERYBODY i know that owns a PC and has the internet have pirate movies...
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i do.

i have a 1tb drive in my home server that is nothing but dvd rips of movies i own. since my dads medical issues i moved back home to an upstairs apartment, and i brought a rather large movie collection with me, so i showed them how to hook their pc to their television, that way they can watch movies without coming up to borrow them all the time, and also if we happen to wanna watch the same thing or if i'm downstairs working on something i can stream a movie anywhere in my house.

so yeah living proof
 
gaspah said:
well fair use aside.... i don't know anyone 'in the real world' that have legit dvd backups on their pcs streaming around their house etc.... but EVERYBODY i know that owns a PC and has the internet have pirate movies...
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Bizarre statement, I can only think that you didnt clearly go through it in your head before posting.
Tons of people who are into PCs and have a DVD collection are going to convert them to play from the PC.
I myself have done it and its way preferable to having to find the disk to play, risking scratching it or losing it and having to walk to the PC to play a movie.
With a couple of mouse clicks I can now play my movies.

Now who were you calling a pirate when you confessed that everyone you know has pirated media. Surely you are withholding information that the authorities would like?
Careful how much tar you put on that brush.
 
I guess you guys were too manly to read the magazine.

It said, that your friends could burn their mp3a to a CD and you can swap with them. Just like saying open a port on your computer to allow your friends to have your music.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I listen to a lot of new stuff, but I'd say 5% of it is new stuff. I love the old stuff from the 60's, 70's and some 80's. Early 90's when I was in high school was my thing, but my dad was a big time classic rock lover (and still is), so I grew up with Floyd, Lynard Skynard, Neil Young, etc. He pays for his MP3's, and so do I. We pay for good music and support the artist. 99 cents a song is not bad at all. But, it's when they charge $17 for a CD or an MP3 download that sucks. Get rid of the middlemen and pay the bands what they deserve, since they did most of the work (and the recording studio itself).
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  1. Where are these stores that charge $17.00 for CD's, and why do people by from them? Most CD's are easilly available for $15.00 or less.
  2. If you adjust for inflation, a $17.00 cd is less than you paid when you were in highschool. It's also less than when your dad was in highschool


As far as ticketsales and Ticketmaster. They suck. Even Pearl Jam sold out to them and fans are getting raped.
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Compared to most bands, PJ is a bargain. Same goes for Dave Matthews. Most bands are currently charging in excess of $100.00 for the best seats. Next Year a new ticket company takes over....nothing will change...except that the online system likely won't work as well.

There are a lot of people that won't buy CD's (well, some don't want to spend money when they can get it for free) just because they don't want to support a lawsuit happy industry. I don't. I buy only DRM free media, and a lot of it is indy material marketed by the indy studio or the band themselves.
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that may be, but for most people, it's all about free music. Personally, I don't buy lossy audio. I'd consider buying files if, and only if, it was distributed in a lossless format, or the lossy sampled at a much higher frequency than CD's....I think NIN did that with their latest online offering.

I want lots of HD Audio, not crappy mp3's. mp3s are for earbuds (both crappy and decent...almost none are great), not for any system with a decent set of speakers.

The industry needs to wake up and realize that Cosmo is right. This happens EVERY day. They need to think of some way to use it to their advantage (I don't know what right now... But, I'm not getting paid the big bucks to think of ideas).
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It's already happened....bands are focused on touring and increasing tickets to even higher levels. The record companies can only save themselves if they get a piece of the merchandising and touring.

It's a done deal. Too many people believe recorded music has no monetary value.
 
Nenu said:
Bizarre statement, I can only think that you didnt clearly go through it in your head before posting.
Tons of people who are into PCs and have a DVD collection are going to convert them to play from the PC.
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I can't say I've done it, but another benefit, IMO, is it'd eliminate the dreaded layer change pause.

Occasionally they're almost seamless, but normally they're not.

I ripped most of my CD's to FLAC and stored them on DVDs a few years ago....one of these days, I'll move them all onto my HD (though I have vorbis there now). I'm pretty sure I'll go that way with my DVDs one of these days. When I move to BD, I'll probably start ripping from day one (makes life easier than doing tons of them at one time).
 
nilepez said:
It's a done deal. Too many people believe recorded music has no monetary value.
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Recorded music does in fact hold no monetary value, it's just advertising to get you to come to the live shows and buy merchandise directly from the band. Because thats where you make the real money.

I said it before and i'll say it again, i'll happily go see the bands show. i'll happily buy from their gf's selling shirts. i refuse to give my money to any major label. Thats coming from a musician too.
 
Manaknight said:
Recorded music does in fact hold no monetary value, it's just advertising to get you to come to the live shows and buy merchandise directly from the band. Because thats where you make the real money.

I said it before and i'll say it again, i'll happily go see the bands show. i'll happily buy from their gf's selling shirts. i refuse to give my money to any major label. Thats coming from a musician too.
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That's a fairly recent change in the business. Up until 10 or 15 years ago, most bands toured to promote albums, which increased sales. The change isn't even a terribly good one...it causes bands to play more hits based sets, which are fucking boring if you've seen a band more than a couple of times in your life.
 
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