Music Piracy, topic for my paper

[Silenced Fred]

I have to write a paper, I chose to do it on Music Piracy and how it affects the music industry and bands.

 

Anyone have any advice, articles, or websites to share? Mainly, I am focusing on the more recent stuff, I read a great article in Rolling Stone about Record Store Day and how they are trying to team up to fight illegal downloading.

 

Thanks

[Blackie]

............aint no stoppin it.............

[SHO]

There's a band here in Sweden called The Ark who are just releasing a new album right now, but without using the record stores. They're issuing a magazine instead, which happens to have their new CD coming along with it. So instead of record stores, you can get the CD in any store or whatever that sells magazines. And since it's a publication they get a lot less sales tax on it. I think it will go for about 90SEK which is about half of what you pay for a CD normally. They are hoping this will get more people to actually buy the CD, as a part of something more than just a disc and a booklet. The magazine is like 100 pages or something nuts like that.

 

Too bad the album isn't all that great, because that's a pretty smart way to release it in my opinion. Time will tell if it will be a success or not, but at least someone is trying to come up with new ways to get the music out there.

[daveinspain]

Well in DJ land all the professional DJ's get their music from www.beatport.com and some other sites like it... No one buys vinyl or CD's anymore. They just go to sites like beatport and down load an MP3 file. Each track costs about 2 or 3 dollars. It's good for record companies because there is no marketing cost for shipping, packaging or manufacturing. Good for the artists because you don't need a record company to get your stuff out there. You can hear any song you are interested in and if you like it down load it.

 

This is the future of music sales. get use to it.

 

Bad for record stores good for consumers... Think about it, hear it, like it, buy it, down load it... Affordable quick and easy, all done from home...

[Jeff-7]

You can look back to any articles written by major media since file sharing programs surfaced like Napster, Bearshare, Limewire etc. Honestly it's a blessing for the music to be online from legit sources like Rhapsody and iTunes, physical cd's just get scratched and lost - think I bought the Core album by STP 3 times from overplaying and scratching the damn thing. Extra songs released only by downloading the album, videos from backstage and tour diaries are a very cool addition. Think I downloaded like 30 songs from napster before I was banned by Metallica back when I was in my early teens.

 

I still dislike Lars because of this, even though he was in the right.

[SHO]

Over here services like Spotify are pretty popular now as well. Subscribe and stream whatever you want and much as you like. Works for cellphones too, and you can keep a couple of thousand tracks on drive too for when you are off-line. I use the free version still, as I pretty much only use it to check out new stuff so I can live with the commercial messages while I do that. Some complain about the music available but I can find most stuff I listen too. A surprising amount of old stuff I can say for sure I wouldn't be able to get at the local store is all there, and some of the pretty rare stuff I'd never expect them to have is on there. I have more hits than misses to be honest.

[Blackie]

.........Napster ?......that was great.......not for the bands .......but I had like 5000 songs and counting......until I got messed up on

drugs and such and started counterfiting 20's...........then in an act of paranoia I ripped the drives out and microwaved um.

[Jeff-7]

I'll give ya one thing Blackie, you've had some pretty damn off the wall experiences in your life. Props.

[milod]

Nathan...

 

On an individual basis, folks have been recording off radio for years - at least back into the 1970s.

 

Then CDs came out and golly whiz... they cost so much more than vinyl and so did the players at the time. Ah, but we were told they'd last forever.

 

Then came the Internet.

 

I wouldn't touch the peer-to-peer sites myself for fear of viruses, but I easily understand the reasoning.

 

ASCAP and BMI have a decreasing degree of respect from a lotta musicians; but then, so does the musicians union of which I once was a member myself. ASCAP and BMI are clutching at antiquated modes of distribution such as sheet music and recordings as well as various sorts of broadcast media.

 

I don't think right now anybody really knows what the future is. The big recording companies are being ignored increasingly by artists because nobody's doing the degree of promotions as was done years ago.

 

Personal opinion is that we're seeing a far bigger paradigm change than during the ASCAP strike.

 

http://www.swingmusic.net/Big_Band_Era_Recording_Ban_Of_1942.html

 

There's a lotta history there. You may wanna look up ASCAP and BMI, too. Their propaganda is kinda a matter of them acting as copyright agents for artists, but the problem is they also have tens of thousands of honestly "folk" stuff and classical stuff they claim to represent - and none really checks what saloon musicians or small concerts are playing...

 

m

[Big Bill]

[mcmurray]

If you haven't already, look into the history of sites like Oink, What, and Waffles. Oink was involved in a huge class action lawsuit but nothing came of it.

 

There's a HUGE underground movement of "archivists" on those sites that aim to build the biggest music libraries in the world, and they're succeeding. What they've come up with should be used as the basis for future sales on sites like itunes, a one stop shop where you can find anything you can dream of in any format you like.

[Silenced Fred]

I should clarify: I don't think that it will end. The main reason of this paper is research, and it was at least something to do with music.

 

I just used the Rolling Stone article as an example, but I want to kind of focus on how it affects bands, the lower level people. Why it became so mainstream, and how it got so socially acceptable. I buy all of my music, its a pain in the ***, its expensive, but I believe it to be right. People make fun of me for paying for music, I don't get why it has become so "wrong" to do what's "right"

 

Music Piracy is a big issue though, I don't necessarily know how it affects bands in general, but I thought some people here might know.

[mcmurray]

Why it became so mainstream' date=' and how it got so socially acceptable. [/quote']

 

One word: "Napster".

 

Oh and you have the idiots that invented mp3 to thank for a large part of it also.

[Jeff-7]

People make fun of me for paying for music' date=' I don't get why it has become so "wrong" to do what's "right"

 

[/quote']

 

With the fees and contracts that studios sign bands to honestly it hurts the artists a lot less than the companies. A lot of artists make their money from touring. Most are happy just to get signed and have the masses enjoy their music that they will sign a contract spanning 7 years (in Cali) to even longer with most of the profits returning to the label. Most bands I'm interested in finally get a sizable portion of the money from albums after re-negotiations or under a new label once they have a little clout.

 

I still pay money for my music after my initial blocking from Napster. If I like someone's music I want to hear more, so I enjoy giving a little for the gift I get back.

[Silenced Fred]

I didn't think it would really hurt the big name bands that much, but for indie bands, possibly?

 

I feel I should pay for the music, because even though the artists hardly see any of it, a) It's stealing, and I feel that if they worked for it, I should pay for it, like any other service.

 

I have noticed a lot of bands doing more free downloads of their music though, but I feel it should be the artists choice

[mcmurray]

Don't be ashamed of paying for music Fred.

[milod]

Okay, here's where I'm coming from... There's a new paradigm coming. Heck, it's here.

 

First we had only mostly memory work or perhaps some writing of lyrics by music folks until professionals really started to get into putting notes on paper. Once notes started to go onto paper, the printing business started to figure how they might get into printing reproductions of the notes. They eventually became the "music publishers" who, one way or another, made music from that which had been written, or at least put into notation, by others.

 

When the phonograph entered the arena, folks were trying to figure more ways to collect on their compositions. ASCAP and later BMI forced one sort of answer by some "interesting" tactics, but the question remains: What "rights" and fees are due the composer or, for that matter, the performer, and what "rights" for the person who pays?

 

ASCAP and BMI "sample" sales and broadcast play, a process that benefits a few big "names" in the biz and leaves out the little guy - or worse, but we won't go there.

 

"Piracy" was an issue when there was a tangible medium. There is no tangible product today and notice the bullying by vested interests for themselves, not the artist (excluding a few "known" acts); not the listener.

 

Nobody is "stealing" anything any more than listening to the radio is stealing.

 

That's where we are. "We" can learn to make money in that paradigm or to complain a lot.

 

m

[freak show]

People make fun of me for paying for music' date=' I don't get why it has become so "wrong" to do what's "right". [/quote']

 

Well, concepts like "right" and "wrong" have always been open to interpretation, haven't they?

 

You seem to assume that the old "Thou shalt not steal" is "right", but not everyone agrees.

 

For example: Record companies have often exploited and continue to exploit musicians to the point where the artists in question make little or nothing from their art. It's done "legally", but it's certainly not "right". The Rolling Stones get nothing for many of their most popular songs, because a slick record executive took the rights from them with the use of a deceptive contract. That's stealing. It's different than sticking a hand in someone's pocket, but it's still stealing.

 

Now, to answer your question, i.e. "Why do many feel that it's ok to "steal" music on the Internet?"

 

My answer would be: These people feel they're stealing from the thieves.

 

I personally feel no sympathy for the record companies.