Spot on, indies have always had to gig their hoops off to gain recognition anyway, then after they build a fan-base, release a mainstream single/album.
Limewire
- Thread starter Scoreboard Red
- Start date
Spot on, indies have always had to gig their hoops off to gain recognition anyway, then after they build a fan-base, release a mainstream single/album.
I think 'small artists' should also have a job on the side just in case a music career doesn't work out. The music market is over saturated anyway, there seem to exist thousands upon thousands of artists. Oh look here's another one, just wrote a song, please like it and buy it!
Where did I say that? Of course they deserve to earn money, and they do, otherwise no one would be doing it. What I am saying is I wouldn't listen to anywhere near as much music and certainly wouldn't purchase anywhere near as much. That means that although I have 13,000 songs in my library, you can't directly correlate that with the amount of money lost to the music industry. In fact in some cases, bands who I wouldn't have otherwise bothered to have listened to, gain money from me becoming a fan and going the their gigs, after me initially 'stealing' their music. It's swings and roundabouts.
You have completely missed the point. If a band decides to sign with a label rather than make their own they sign a contract with said label, now, depending on the type of deal they sign they could owe their label hundreds of thousands of pounds - this is because the label will give them an advance so the album can be made with no restraints and the band can live.
A date will be agreed in the contract on when the money will need to be given back in its entirety, this could be a year, 3 months or even by the time a 3rd album is released. Due to piracy live performances and sync deals are the only real way for artists to make their money, for a band starting out this could be a real hard ask if they have a small fanbase, can't get good sync deals due to manager/label/A&R etc etc not being good enough and various other factors.
It's easy enough for already established artists because they are guaranteed to sell out every gig they do at huge arenas, totaly different story for newbies.
Yes, I myself am a musician hoping to get my music out there professionaly within the next two years so I know that to start off you need to pretty much give your stuff away to gain a fanbase *cough* check out Output X guys
*cough* of any kind but we're not talking about unsigned acts here are we, nor are we talking about music released through a distributor.If you can really justify your stealing of music by the (varying) small amount the artists gets from an itunes sale then all hope is lost with you.
And if that happened with every bands music you downloaded it would be fantastic but it doesn't happen, a few yes but not all.
I hope I don't seem too defensive in this thread, I seem to be on my own in the corner like I am in most discussions on this forum, this is just quite a sensitive topic for me as it's the industry I hope to be going into.
Like I said before, I buy the music if I like it and possibly will go and see the artist if they perform within a reasonable distance of where I live and buy some merch.
For what it's worth I don't think downloading illegally and never purchasing after or supporting the artist in another way is acceptable. If a person like's it then they should pay for it, whether that be the actual music or by going to a gig.
There is also the matter of albums being leaked before release. You can't seriously say there's no input by the act and/or record label when this happens.
You have completely missed the point. If a band decides to sign with a label rather than make their own they sign a contract with said label, now, depending on the type of deal they sign they could owe their label hundreds of thousands of pounds - this is because the label will give them an advance so the album can be made with no restraints and the band can live.A date will be agreed in the contract on when the money will need to be given back in its entirety, this could be a year, 3 months or even by the time a 3rd album is released. Due to piracy live performances and sync deals are the only real way for artists to make their money, for a band starting out this could be a real hard ask if they have a small fanbase, can't get good sync deals due to manager/label/A&R etc etc not being good enough and various other factors.
It's easy enough for already established artists because they are guaranteed to sell out every gig they do at huge arenas, totaly different story for newbies.
Yes, I myself am a musician hoping to get my music out there professionaly within the next two years so I know that to start off you need to pretty much give your stuff away to gain a fanbase *cough* check out Output X guys
If you can really justify your stealing of music by the (varying) small amount the artists gets from an itunes sale then all hope is lost with you.
Well then quite clearly, you do not sign a contract stating you will take a load of cash from someone and then pay them back without a forecast of what you will earn on the frog & toad, from iTunes, from TV appearances or whatever, that's just dumb, sorry mate.
You sign a publishing deal and go on the road, earn coin and renew a contract once you have made it.
Sorry pal, I actually do share your sentiments; it's not fair it's suddenly changed but guess what? Tough...anyone who signs a deal like this should be shot, there are no guarantees anymore like there used to be.
One song and you live off it for life, that doesn't happen no more.
Well, it's the only thing left up the MI's sleeve for this dieing area really isn't it
Thats what I mean though, piracy is mostly to blame for this change.
Obviously not, but the internet should be seen as a positive for the music industry. It's enabled musicians to communicate directly with their audience, cutting out the record labels who traditionally took the majority of revenue from record sales. Musicians can reach a much greater audience, both geographically and demographically. Now anyone with talent can become a musician, which has made it a more competitive industry than ever, but this can only be a good thing musically, looking at it objectively.
If there weren't people in corners, there would be no debate.
Music is a unique type of business though. It depends on people's personal taste, which is kinda weird for determining a proper sales price. I for example really like INXS Kick album and I'd be willing to pay ca £3 for it. I also very much like Opeth's Blackwater Park album and I wouldn't mind paying £15 for it. I know it's common practice but how can most albums always cost the same?
Another thing is that some people think they are entitled to a salary only because they are musicians. It's a strange concept: I like playing and writing songs, I write a few songs, I enjoy playing it, I play it to my friends, and then somewhere in this beautiful fun process of exercising my hobby I decide ok, now I want to get paid for it and I want to make this my daily job!
I guess what I'm trying to say is if one can somehow make it in this industry and get to the point where things work out for him and he earns enough money by simply having his hobby as a job, then congratulations. But he shouldnt be (by default) expecting something to materialise only because he knows how to play a guitar and writes a few songs.
Yeah but piracy has been around, and in force, for ten years now mate; artists, especially new ones, need to adapt and they cannot sign these contracts no more.
Let's get it right, a load of twenty-something kids in a band can't cry wolf when they've been downloading music since their early teens, can they?
The way it is is the way it is, you can't change it. As I say, it's dead simple - don't sign stupid contracts giving you loads of money you have to pay back when you have no means to do so, if you want to be rich then go get a job unless you're really good and gig the hell out of it risking a menial existence monetary-wise (unless you got a rich dad) until you get a break or conclude you're not good enough, and get a decent job.
That's the harsh reality mate, sorry.
Oh yeah, without a doubt, it's definately given people like myself a platform to build on but something definately needs to be done in regards to piracy. Unfortunately though, thats much easier said than done, the only thing I can think of is a yearly one off payment to be made by each household, sorta like the TV license, only problem with that is the fee itself would have to be very low and the industry would probably get less than they do now!
You could say that for any job though really couldn't you? I mean, thats kinda like saying you shouldn't expect to become a doctor just because you went to med school
No, there is nothing that can be done about it but I don't see it as a massive issue, well only for the record labels.
Don't get me wrong, i've got back up plans but I aint giving up my dream!
And that problem for the labels transpires down to the musicians.
You're working on the assumption that musicians have some sort of divine right to earn millions. Why should they not earn a modest wage, having to work their balls off for it? Perhaps the internet has a forced a shift in the amount of financial importance placed on not only music, but consumable entertainment in general.
No i'm not, I never even suggested that, i've just been saying that because of piracy musicians arn't getting they money they deserve be it £20 or £75 trillion
And some musicians do work there balls off for their millions, do you think lets say, Gaga, just sat down for a few minutes and wrote her album there and then?
And some musicians do work there balls off for their millions, do you think lets say, Gaga, just sat down for a few minutes and wrote her album there and then?
But what defines the value they should be getting?
I'm not saying they don't, but just because they do, doesn't in itself entitle them to millions of pounds. My mates a bricky. He's skilled at what he does, work's his nuts off every day, and makes little over £20,000 per annum. What makes musicians any different to him?
Not really. A doctor provides a service that he can charge me for whatever he wants really. I need a doctor. But I don't need songs. What I mean is that you cannot put a fair price on it because your expectations may be too high and the demand too low. Let's say you write an album and want to charge £9,99. If hundreds of thousand of people would buy it, you earn some decent money. But what if people hear it and say, the music is ok and if I'd have to attribute a monetary worth to it, I'd say it's worth 50 pence- but I don't want to pay it anyway. You'd earn nothing, and that's even without all the piracy stuff. I play piano and I've written quite a few songs but I could never put a price tag on any of them, it just seems such a strange thing to do. I'm glad if people like it but I wouldn't expect them to pay me for it. So having this kind of attitude and accepting the reality of the current music market, with all the downloading and whatnot, I think I just wouldn't have a strong enough justification to demand from the public to pay me money for the songs that I write. That is completely different than demanding and expecting to be paid when I meet a client, invest time sorting out his insurance papers or whatever, and provide a service from which he will benefit.
Don't get me wrong, i've got back up plans but I aint giving up my dream!
I implore you not to mate, keep at it...
By how much of their music is pirated. Abit like if your mate had some of his bricks nicked, he'd be owed the value of the bricks stolen.
Fair enough, I don't have anything to say to that.
But as previously discussed, the amount the music is pirated isn't directly related to the amount of money lost. It would be an extremely crude way of calculating it. That doesn't even take into consideration how you define the value of something which is subjective, especially so when the demand isn't obvious.
It isn't even comparable to that. My mate having his bricks stolen is comparable to a musician having his guitar nicked.
Not really.
I download an album and the artist, label or whoever hasn't lost anything, they've just not gained anything.
Someone makes off with a wheelbarrow full of bricks and his mate's lost a wheelbarrow full of bricks.
All good points, replace that comparison with knocking the finished wall down then, rebuilding it would be at the cost of your mate just as downloading a finished track would cost the musician
The musician/label has lost a sale, replace downloaded an album with stole a CD from a shop.
Edit: Actualy that brings up another interesting point, I think some people hide behind the word 'downloaded' to stop themselves thinking of it as stealing. I reckon 90% of the people who download illegaly would never even try to take a CD from a store.
No it wouldn't. Whatever was spent on the track was spent. They just didn't gain anything from it from whoever downloaded it. If a song is downloaded the artist doesn't have to completely remake the track. If a wall is knocked down the bricky has to compeletely rebuild the wall.
Then it's no longer piracy, it's petty theft.
The musician/label hasn't necessarily lost a sale though. It may have been, as it probably is in the majority of cases, that had the music not been free the consumer wouldn't have otherwise bought the song.
Downloading and stealing a CD from a shop is quite different as well, as with a CD you have the production costs of physically producing the CD, as well the fact you are stealing from a shop, which has already paid for the CD.
Downloading and stealing a CD from a shop is quite different as well, as with a CD you have the production costs of physically producing the CD, as well the fact you are stealing from a shop, which has already paid for the CD.
What I am trying to say is it is still money lost, money that is rightfully the musician/labels.
Erm, how is piracy any different to petty theft? The only difference is the CD is a physaical copy..
Piracy is different because if a shop has 50 copies of a CD and a group of scrotes come in and swipe 6 off the shelf and leg it, the shop then has 44 CDs that can be paid for. Plus that's probably going to affect the shop and not the artist/label.
As was said to me countless times during my minstrel fiasco, stealing is stealing. It's exactly the same in my view.
You can't download a minstrel.
It's still technically 'stealing', yes but in the same way you stealing a bag of minstrels is very different to you stealing a car and even then it looks past the fact that downloading is replicating not deduction.
Ah wait yeah I get you, the shop would have paid the label for the CD's so the only thing effected would be the shop itself.
I still think it's essentialy the same though, even if the label/artist isn't directly effected if you take from the store, you are still stealing the music.
Ha! Thats a band name/song title/album title right there!
It is stealing in the sense that the downloaded item has been acquired illegally without correct permission. But as nothing physical has actually be taken, the artist/label do not lose anything, they just don't gain anything from it.
Replication.
Not necessarily. I wouldn't have bought even a tenth of the thousands of songs I have had I not been able to download it.
It's not fair
Same here. By chance I listened to some downloaded stuff from a Tunisian guitar virtuoso, liked it very much and decided to buy so far 4 CD's, simply because I value his music, I like to have a CD collection and I like the booklets inside.
I also find that the sound is so much better on a CD than on a downloaded file. I remember listening to an album by Morten Lauridsen where I instantly felt that the files are just not good enough so I ordered the CD the next day, and the sound is just pure awesomeness!
Same goes for many other artists which downloaded music I listened to, Opeth for example, listened to all their albums and now started collecting their CD's (so far 5, including a DVD set, and a concert visit and merch). I absolutely don't mind paying for something that I deeply value. But if I feel a song is garbage, I don't see why I should pay for it.
Artists aren't the ones that lose our massively in all this. They make shit loads out of touring because they can be as pedantic as they like, which has always been where they make their money. If a singer relies on CD's then they're pretty fecking shit singer who needs a shit load of work done to make their voice sound half decent.
The people that get hurt the most by download sales are producers and record labels but they saw it coming a mile away when they had the audacity to charge $30 for a fecking cd with 12 tracks on it.
Kinky's really the only persons music i've bought in the past 3 years because I see that as not only supporting a independent music writer and producer, but an investment for the future not just for me, but hopefully for a lot of people, unless he goes mainstream then he can feck off and give me my £5 back.
The people that get hurt the most by download sales are producers and record labels but they saw it coming a mile away when they had the audacity to charge $30 for a fecking cd with 12 tracks on it.
Kinky's really the only persons music i've bought in the past 3 years because I see that as not only supporting a independent music writer and producer, but an investment for the future not just for me, but hopefully for a lot of people, unless he goes mainstream then he can feck off and give me my £5 back.