EXACTLY.....

I can understand what Jonas is explaining... Copyright infringement is a different matter compared to theft... legislatively (is it the right word? ).

But in this case the two actually falls into one place. Take the age of vinyl records for example when there are no tape recorders yet and you want to get the latest record. You have to by that vinyl disc because the music is on that disc. There are no vinyl copiers available that can cut those lines into a blank piece of disk. So if you wanted to listen to a new record you could either borrow it, but if you wanted it yourself, you'd have to buy it.

It's a totally different matter that TODAY copying music is technically possible. It's only a file. You are, of course not TAKING it away from the artist, since if you copy it, you have a copy and the artist still has a copy. But you didn't pay for the opportunity to listen to it. If the artist did not invest money into recording that music, you wouldn't be able to listen to it now.

Now I know that this has been discussed thoroughly but this was my 2 cents...

Btw I did use to download music a lot. The main reason for it was because many albums or live DVDs weren't/aren't available in ANY stores... not even in Budapest. There are quite a few but many times I'm looking for something from between 1995 and 2000 and it's close to impossible to get it. Let alone all the older records. And ofc I always like to listen to at least a few tracks before buying a CD. Since last.fm and myspace I can narrow down my wishlist and I do buy many original CDs.

I still think, however, that CDs are way overpriced. The price of production and distribution+ advertisement is, in average, only a little proportion of the copy. The rest that goes to the artist isn't that much either. I would definitely buy much more CDs for the 60-75% of the price and music industry wouldn't starve to death.

I like buying from independent labels or from venues of "underground" music, when I can listen to the tracks live and then buy the copy for a reasonable price (50% of the average). I have many great stuff from such places. Ofc, this is not possible for all CDs, especially when distributing internationally. I have no idea how, but music industry must shift its weights and get along with today's situation with a new attitude.

This post has been edited by berko: Apr 5 2009, 10:17 PM

http://www.metalinjection.net/latest-news/...ist-filesharing

That dez guy must be pretty naive if he really believes DRM can prevent music from ending up on the internet. And I mean "all artists should sue itunes and ipod", what the ... He seems to believe that technology is some kind of magic.

Anyway I pretty much agree with John Campbell. But he doesn't answer the one important questions, how are musicians supposed to make money in this brave new world.

Jonas

touring

merch

songwriting royalties

That would mean that concerts are going to cost more. I'm not sure if this would result in less people going to the concerts, which would nullify the benefit. But yes, I guess it's shifting from concerts to promote albums to albums to promote concerts. I'm just not sure if it's possible to make a reasonable amount of money from just playing concerts.

Jonas

concerts HAVE gone up.

And bands are touring more.

And tours have more bands on them.

And they are going to more places.

I have read about record deals now having clauses where the label gets a cut of your merch sales too.

BRUTAL.

Screw the labels I say.

If the band says its ok to download their music then what reason is there not to?

If they release it under a proper license I think there would be nothing wrong with it. And honestly if they would tell me to order a t-shirt instead of a cd, I'd probably do this. I've got too many tshirts anyway

And about concert prices, it depends. Concerts of big bands have gone up. Metallica, or AC/DC have crazy prices but the smaller concerts are still very cheap. And honestly? I don't care about guys who already made millions.

What I care about is the small to medium bands. I love small concerts! I mean when a concert costs less than watching a movie at the cinema the artists, and organizer can't make all that much money.

Jonas

God, I have not been online for some days and suddenly this discussion exploded... I can't answer everything now, I only had the time to read the last 4 or 5 pages once and not everything that was said stuck to my mind, so there will be another longer answer later, but let me comment on some random things that were said right now:

When I go to a concert I don't care about how big or small the band is, I care about the music. I can enjoy big arena shows as much as small club gigs as long as the band is good. Why should a big band be not as good as a small one???

Somebody complained about the fact that cd's are more expensive than vinyl. True, a cd is more expensive, but did you realise that a cd is also almost twice as long? A vinyl album was limited to around 36 minutes of music, most of todays cd's are at least 60 minutes, if not for 74 minutes, so for the price of one cd you get as much music as for two vinyl albums. Considering this, is a cd really that expensive?

Somebody suggested that Emir should change the style of his music to maybe sell more albums... sorry, this is complete nonsense! Emir loves the songs that he wrote, this is the stuff he wanted to play, this is the stuff he wanted to record, why the hell should he do something completely different and record a Brintey Spears album for example????

Copying music, just as downloading IS taking away something from the musician/band, period! If you download my album illegally I don't get paid for my job (yes, I love playing music, but aside from this my music is also what is paying my rent or my food, it is a job, not only a passion), so I lose money. If your friend bought my music and you copy his cd so you get it for free it is exactly the same thing, you don't pay my work, I lose money. A lot of people do not consider downloading something as a big thing because they hide at home behind their monitors, they feel safe there, but sorry, it is illegal, and it might not exaclty be stealing, but it is not any better.

About checking out an album before buying it, no problem with that, I do this too, but do you really need more than one minute samples to find out if you like an album? After all you normally get one minute samples of every single song, for me this is definitely enough to get an impression about the album.

Somebody said that musicians should look for alternate ways of making money... well, yes, we have too, but isn't this ridiculous? If being a musician is my job, should I really have to look for a side job to make a living? Does a baker have to look for other ways of making money or should he focus on baking good bread?

Somebody said that bands make enough money with touring and shirts... well, shirts have to be produced too, you need to pay somebody to paint the design/album cover or whatever you want to be on your shirt, you have to pay somebody to print the shirt, you have to buy the shirt itself, you have to transport the shirts to every gig and in the end the venue comes and demands 30% of your merch money or you are not allowed to sell anything at the concert... does this sound like big money to you? And a band on tour has some expenses... PA, light, trucking, nightliners, plane tickets, crew, production, backline.... do you guys have any idea how much an average show costs? ( and I am talking about the expenses that that band has to pay to make the show happen, not about the concert ticket)

Well, as I said, those are just some random comments, some more will follow during the next days.

Just to make sure I'm not misunderstood.

When I was mnetioning other ways of making money, I'm not saying that the bands are expected to do that and its ok to steal their music and hurt cd sales.

I was commenting on how they DO make money in the face of not making it on cds.

And yeah, people are bootlegging t-shirts too......

If it was just about the music I could just stay at home or go to some sort of disco. For me concerts are about the atmosphere. And yes the atmosphere at a concert is quite different if you know at least half of the people in the little hall or club. And you'll probably disagree with me on this one, but I think less known bands tend to be far more passionate about their shows than super stars which are on tour since half a year.

To make money. Not everybody can have his hobby as job. Other professions are exactly in the same situation. Do you think I enjoy writing every piece of software I do as part of my job? Nope. My job is to create the software the customer wants. If I want to do what I just feel like I have to do it in my spare time.

If you are referring to me, I'm thinking about other ways to make money from creating music. But if you can't make a living from doing what you love to do then you'll have to do other things to earn money. Is this ridiculous?

- Jonas

PS: If this sounds a little bit harsh to you, it wasn't meant to.

To me this seems so simple......Illegal Download=Stealing.....PERIOD!!

no argument here.

I, for example, live in a country where downloading copyrighted material is legal, only uploading/publishing it is not. But I think thats not the important point here. I think the interesting point is how can artists make a living in a world where filesharing is a reality.

Jonas

Do you think its dishonest to take music you didnt pay for?

I think people should accept the authors interests and their decisions. To some extent. I think it is ok to play music while friends are over without getting a license and I believe that private copies are ok. I think its ok to create a cover of a song for non commercial purposes. As singing Happy Birthday to you in the public should be.

I'm not sure if copyright itself is a good idea. By "a good idea" I mean of if provides more benefits than harm for an entire society , not just for the artists. Because that's the point behind it (it was invented as a tool for censorship but anyway). But right now we live in a world that's quite dependent on it so copyright is a reality just like file sharing is.

Jonas

After all that I didnt see an answer in there.



Do you think its dishonest to take music you didnt pay for?

My answer is it depends. If the artist released it under a CC license, then it's obviously not. If it's against the authors will through public filesharing, then yes. But even there I see exceptions. There are cd's where theres simply no (reasonable) way to purchase, mostly older ones anyway. And yes I would download those from the internet without any feeling of shame or dishonesty.

Jonas

I don't think that a big band is less passionate by default than a small one, it all depends on the band. I have seen Kiss in front of 30000 people for example and they just rocked the place to the ground, while I have seen small bands in small clubs that were boring me to death. But this is a matter of personal taste I guess, there is nothing wrong in prefering clubs over arenas or vice versa, in my case I just like both.

About this money making thing, sure, if I play in a band and my albums just don't sell because nobody cares about my music, then I will have to look for a different way of making a living, the fact that I would like to be a successful musician of course doesn't make me successful by default. But here we are talking about a slightly different scenario, we are talking about musicians that have a (more or less) big following, just that the following doesn't pay for the music cause it can be downloaded for free on whatever filesharing sites. This is just wrong! And it is the same about Emir, he recorded a great album and if everybody that "has" the album would have paid for it he would have made some money. Now you suggest he should change his music to maybe sell more next time? Why should he change, he didn't do anything wrong, he did his job very well, just his "customers" didn't do their "job" at all, they prefered to download the album instead of paying for it.

About the legal situation, this is slightly different from country to country. here in Germany a privat copy is legal too, as long as you don't work around any copy protection. As soon as something is copy protected a privat copy is illegal. And downloading is not really illegal here either, just the uploading, but there is no filesharing system that lets you only download without offering the file for uploads too.

I did only read the last 2 pages and found the discussion very interesting, but in this point you are mistaken.
It is not really a problem for people to download whole discographies with fullspeed without uploading anything.

But, hey don't get me wrong. I buy the music I like(and I paid for all your albums )
though, I think there is nothing wrong with copying the music from the cd to your mp3 player oder pc. If there is a stupid protection on the cd I would download the album.