Non-lethal ways to obtain music...

[Tomas]

-DHodges-
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. You understand that this is theft. You called it that.

This seems like such a basic ethical idea that I am kind of shocked I even have to say it: Don't steal.

-Ryan-
I don't even really consider it a moral issue to steal from successful artists. I make less than $30,000/per year, and most successful artists are millionaries, so they have enough money to live comfortably without ever working again, as long as they don't do anything stupid. So no, I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong. The artists who usually make a big deal out of copyright issues are greedy and petty. Like Metallica - they are already multi-millionaires, who cares.

-tomas-
So, when Metallica (the band members) sit down and write new material, the record label execs, soundmen, janitors, roadies, ticket-takers, concessions are gonna work for free when Metallica goes out on the road? Just so thieves like you can waltz in and shoplift because $30,000 per year is chump change?

[Carl G]

Exactly. Ryan is just like the hippies back in the '60s who protested that concerts should be free, and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead was saying but look, cats, it costs money to put these things on.

Hope you got your tie-dye on when you're downloading those tunes, man.

[brokenhead]

Exactly. Ryan is just like the hippies back in the '60s who protested that concerts should be free, and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead was saying but look, cats, it costs money to put these things on.

Hope you got your tie-dye on when you're downloading those tunes, man.

And Uncle Jerry was notoriously liberal. When asked if he minded that there was a thriving market for bootleg recordings of live Dead shows, he said, no, once he plays a note, then it is "out there" and doesn't belong to him anymore. You can't blame the guy for wanting to get paid to appear in the first place, since that was the only real source of his income. No GD albums ever busted charts like those of many other bands, it was the live touring where they made their bread. It is unofficial, but it is said that the Dead still own the record for being seen live in one year by more people than any other group or person in or out of the music business.

[David Quinn]

I don't have any qualms about downloading music from file-sharing sites. For me, it is like listening to the radio, except in this case I can actually hear the sort of music I want to hear. And then, when I hear a band I really like, I'll purchase their CDs and otherwise support them.

Artists should be more concerned about creating great music that blows people's minds. Listeners will happily buy music if it is genuine quality. They need to stop whining about the public's refusal to fork out money for mediocre crap.

-

[brokenhead]

I don't have any qualms about downloading music from file-sharing sites. For me, it is like listening to the radio, except in this case I can actually hear the sort of music I want to hear. And then, when I hear a band I really like, I'll purchase their CDs and otherwise support them.

Artists should be more concerned about creating great music that blows people's minds. Listeners will happily buy music if it is genuine quality. They need to stop whining about the public's refusal to fork out money for mediocre crap.

-

Except listening to the radio is not illegal.

Clearly Quinn knows a "buyer's" market when he sees one.

It must be great being a genius.

[David Quinn]

I don't have any qualms about downloading music from file-sharing sites. For me, it is like listening to the radio, except in this case I can actually hear the sort of music I want to hear. And then, when I hear a band I really like, I'll purchase their CDs and otherwise support them.

Artists should be more concerned about creating great music that blows people's minds. Listeners will happily buy music if it is genuine quality. They need to stop whining about the public's refusal to fork out money for mediocre crap.

Except listening to the radio is not illegal.

With the dross it regularly serves up, it should be.

-

[DHodges]

Except listening to the radio is not illegal.

With the dross it regularly serves up, it should be.

David, do you have public and college radio stations in Australia, or are they all commercial?

In the US, at least, musicians get paid when their music is played on the radio (although it does not directly cost the listener anything).

[Ryan Rudolph]

David wrote:

They need to stop whining about the public's refusal to fork out money for mediocre crap.

David makes a good point, but another point worth noting is that entertainment in general is too overvalued by most cultures, especially the west, and the result is that free market capitalism distorts the price according to people's concept of how important they believe things like music are. For instance: A music CD costs $15-20, but a bag of apples cost $3.49 at your local grocery market. Why wouldn't you steal music if you could? Moreover, it seems to me that if people didn't overvalue music and entertainment in general, then the price of CDs would naturally come down to be at least be equal to the price of most food items.

The problem with this scenario is that the narcissistic dream of becoming rich and famous through entertainment would be destroyed, and entertainers would be left working for the same income as a farmer... how disgusting!

[Carl G]

another point worth noting is that entertainment in general is too overvalued by most cultures, especially the west, and the result is that free market capitalism distorts the price according to people's concept of how important they believe things like music are. For instance: A music CD costs $15-20, but a bag of apples cost $3.49 at your local grocery market. Why wouldn't you steal music if you could? Moreover, it seems to me that if people didn't overvalue music and entertainment in general, then the price of CDs would naturally come down to be at least be equal to the price of most food items.

The problem with this scenario is that the narcissistic dream of becoming rich and famous through entertainment would be destroyed, and entertainers would be left working for the same income as a farmer... how disgusting!

I think I get it. You're saying that because we rip off farmers we should also rip off musicians. Good point, actually. Fuck 'em all.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Carl,

I think I get it. You're saying that because we rip off farmers we should also rip off musicians. Good point, actually. Fuck 'em all.

Many farmers aren't being ripped off because they are also being subsidized by the government to cover a huge percentage of their operating expenses. Consumers are basically playing a mental game with food prices because what they aren't paying for apples at the grocery counter, they are eventually going to pay on their income tax anyway to subsidize farmers. My point is that entertainment shouldn't cost more than essential necessities, but we believe it should because we believe an entertainer should be able to live above the average, and should be able to become wealthy off his creativity.

Moreover, if you calculate the expenses to manufacture a CD, and distribute it, the total is probably quite low. So the rest of the cost is basically the subjective value of the person's creativity combined with whatever possible mark up the artist and record label can get away with.

Markup is basically what a company can get away with based on supply and demand, competition, and what the public believes the service or product is worth...but people believe music is worth too much...way too much in dollars.

[Carl G]

Ryan,

Many farmers aren't being ripped off because they are also being subsidized by the government to cover a huge percentage of their operating expenses. Consumers are basically playing a mental game with food prices because what they aren't paying for apples at the grocery counter, they are eventually going to pay on their income tax anyway to subsidize farmers.

Here in the U.S. there is no subsidy for apples, or any other fruit or vegetable, nor for meat. Grains and cotton make up the lion's share of the paltry 16 billion(around $2.00 per citizen per week) given out last year, and most of that went to the ludicrously few huge farms that grow an inordinate percentage of the nation's crops.

[Shahrazad]

Carl, you guys need to stop subsidizing the rich.

[David Quinn]

Except listening to the radio is not illegal.

With the dross it regularly serves up, it should be.

David, do you have public and college radio stations in Australia, or are they all commercial?

Here in Brisbane they are all commercial, except for one undergound station, 4ZZZ, which plays alternative teenage rock - not exactly my cup of tea. There is no jazz station to speak of, and no world music station, and the two classical stations only play the popular stuff. All in all, a very impoverished scene.

In the US, at least, musicians get paid when their music is played on the radio (although it does not directly cost the listener anything).

Well, with the commercial parameters set so narrow, most musicians never get played on the radio, so that is hardly an issue for them. For them, the facility to download and sample tracks becomes a modern form of radio. It becomes the main avenue of exposure for their music.

In the past, people used to trade home-made cassette tapes. The artists were never paid for this exchange, but they did get their music exposed. A listener would hear a piece that he likes and decide to buy the band's LPs on that basis. I'm not sure that the situation is any different nowadays with mp3 files and CDs.

On the other hand, a lot of underground artists have already accepted that they won't make a living out of music. They use their day jobs to fund their musical endeavours. Some of them have even abandoned the CD industry altogether and have started giving away their albums for free. So it's all changing in that respect.

-

[DHodges]

My point is that entertainment shouldn't cost more than essential necessities, but we believe it should because we believe an entertainer should be able to live above the average, and should be able to become wealthy off his creativity.

Nonsense. There is no particular reason entertainment "should" cost a particular amount.

Markup is basically what a company can get away with based on supply and demand, competition, and what the public believes the service or product is worth...

Exactly. Prices are determined by market forces. If you think that price is too high, you should not to buy that particular item. Find your entertainment elsewhere.

[Carl G]

Prices are determined by market forces. If you think that price is too high, you should not to buy that particular item. Find your entertainment elsewhere.

Ryan does find his entertainment elsewhere. He steals it off the Net. We've come full circle here.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Prices are determined by market forces.

Pretty meaningless. As those mystical "market forces" include a complex system of credits, investments and loans that together with non-stop advertising and herd behavior creates the illusion of a good deal or an affordable, acceptable price. Deception is one of the oldest force on the market place after all.

But not only prices are surreal, the product through the mechanics of reproduction cannot retain the same value as the original. Unlimited reproduction capabilities nullifies value in the long run. Anyone realizing this should not try to make money with things that are so easily reproduced. It's a fantasy that can only be maintained by insane regulation and the digital market of the last decades already shows exactly where value lies: in goods (services, skills) that are not reproducible or only with great effort.

The market is always slow to catch on to its realities.

As for pricing of digital recordings the label+artist+technicians only receive less than 20% of the total pricing. The other 80% is packaging, transport and shops. Which is all not needed really with P2P networks present. So a $15 CD should be around $3 when you'd download it in the wild. Only when the industry can bring the price down to that level and below and wrap it in an easy-access online shop that competes and modernizes the old concept of a 10 bucks vinyl that you copied around on tapes for bus, car & friends, that is: continuous cross platform access to a vast collection of material online and offline, only then there's a service one can pay for, perhaps even beyond the mere cost to create it.

Only this way the industry can respond to the real 'market forces'. The longer they postpone it, the more relentless the force of p2p will hollow out their outdated modes of commerce.

[Shahrazad]

Great post, Diebert.

[brokenhead]

Only this way the industry can respond to the real 'market forces'. The longer they postpone it, the more relentless the force of p2p will hollow out their outdated modes of commerce.

You are missing the big picture, Diebert. There is music, yes. And there are movies, books, computer software, you name it, any commodity that can be packaged as information. The Internet has made transporting some of the most valuable cargo instantaneous and virtually free, while the physical nature of that cargo has made it possible to replicate it exactly without loss and without damage to the original. P2P is hollowing out a lot more than outdated modes of commerce. It is trimming the fat off the land.

[Ryan Rudolph]

I agree with Diebert here, the internet could easily replace hard copies of cds and dvds sold at stores in malls very easily, and then the price would fall drastically, and companies such as ITunes have started to capitalize on this new more efficient area in the market, but people are slow, and they cling to the past, cling to the desire to want a hard copy of everything.

One could say the same thing about newspapers, if people weren't so stuck in the past, newspapers would have been totally abandoned on a global level years ago, but they persist. Why? because market forces reflect the blind awareness of human beings, who are caught in outdated habits and consumer values.

Dhodges wrote:

Exactly. Prices are determined by market forces. If you think that price is too high, you should not to buy that particular item. Find your entertainment elsewhere.

you just proved my argument, meaning that how people perceive the value of a service or product affects its accepted price. and that perception can easily be manipulated by powers who do not want to lose huge profit margins. The point is that if everyone agreed that buying hard copies of CDs is overpriced and outdated, and moved to cheaper venues like Itunes, then more companies would get into the online music world, and the price would fall even more. The problem is that people cling to the desire to want a hard copy of an "album", and that drives the price up, because as Diebert pointed out, that I didn't myself realize until I thought about it - Selling CDS at a place like HMV in a mall costs a lot more than an online store such as ITUNES, so the price is going to be higher in malls than online. A very relevant point.

[Shahrazad]

Ryan,

One could say the same thing about newspapers, if people weren't so stuck in the past, newspapers would have been totally abandoned on a global level years ago, but they persist.

You need not worry about this for long. Once the youngest member of my generation has died, the generation that was not raised with the internet, everybody will be reading online news. This sort of technological change has happened many times in the past, and it only takes one generation to get over the romantic attachments to the past.