You also can't discount the fact that when Napster came out, music sales as a whole dropped like a rock. I don't think I knew anyone that bought music after this.
Anything digital (like movies, music, or software) is only as valuable as what people are willing to pay. Look at the iPhone apps market. Because most apps are under $10, you will have a hard time selling an app above this price point.
The same thing will happen if the record industry embraces piracy. People will just expect to get it for free from then on. It will be very difficult to convince them otherwise.
It's difficult for me to respect a community that feels entitled to someone else's hard work (and without their permission).
If they really want to make a difference, compete with the record labels. Create a record label with signed artists that gives their music out for free on the torrent networks.
I know this will never happen because it takes too much discipline and hard work. The community also doesn't really care about the artist. If they did, they would have come up with some sort of solution for artists to make a living in the past 12 years (Napster launched in '99).
Until They can show me otherwise, I feel that the entire point of the community is so they can get things for free.
> It's difficult for me to respect a community that feels entitled to someone else's hard work (and without their permission).
Are you talking about pirates or the media lobby / "watchdog" organisations?
While I can't speak for the US based organisations--though it would surprise me if it were any different--the Dutch organisations such as BREIN and BUMA are well-known for being unaccountable money black holes, most of it not ending up at the producing artists, but .. well .. I can only guess that there must be quite a bunch of quasi-non-government-employees living very comfortably.
Other examples, the BUMA feels entitled to be compensated for the hard work of artists paid by Stichting Gastvrij ("Hospitality Foundation"), hotels and restaurant chains that commissioned uncopyrighted ambient/background music for use in hospitality settings (classical, italian, japanese, elevator, etc) free for use by all in the hospitality business. Normally they have to pay some monthly fee for the right to play any music, which, supposedly, in some mysterious sense finds it way back to the proper artists. But the restaurants, especially the smaller ones that could not afford lawyers, of course got threatening letters when they stopped paying this fee, because even though the music they were now playing was rights-free, the BUMA still felt entitled to be compensated for other people's hard work.
And then there's Stichting BREIN, the chairman of which feels entitled to other people's hard work in the form of police-confiscated laptops.
I'm pretty sure that the actual music industry and artists would be much better off without these criminal types ensuring their "protection".
You also can't discount the fact that when Napster came out, music sales as a whole dropped like a rock.
By "dropping like a rock", you mean the 5% and 6.9% in 2000 and 2001, respectively?
If they really want to make a difference, compete with the record labels. Create a record label with signed artists that gives their music out for free on the torrent networks.
I know this will never happen because it takes too much discipline and hard work.
The community also doesn't really care about the artist. If they did, they would have come up with some sort of solution for artists to make a living in the past 12 years (Napster launched in '99).
> Album sales are not the only way they make money.
Album sales are, in fact, a pretty minor way to make money for most musical artists: unless you can reliably sell tends to hundreds of thousands of albums live gigs (and merch sold at live gigs) are much more profitable.
"By "dropping like a rock", you mean the 5% and 6.9% in 2000 and 2001, respectively?"
hmm..what happened to all of the independent music stores? Between 2000 and now..they pretty much all went out of business...because...people aren't buying music anymore.
"Yes, record labels that give music out for free "will never happen""
Did you even read what I wrote?
"Album sales are not the only way they make money."
This is the entitlement I was talking about. This isn't for you to say. If you don't like their music, don't buy it (or download it). If the artist wants to give it out for free, they can.
The same people that hate the record industry because they think it's somehow propping up a dying business model..love the unions..when they are doing the exact same thing.
We could have automated many of the assembly line jobs in the US auto industry (like Japan), but the Unions are preventing it and forcing companies to pay ridiculous wages (which is why they pretty much went bankrupt). If you want me to feel sorry for the jobs lost, I don't.
Nobody feels sorry for the jobs lost when software, music, and or movies are pirated.
This is the entitlement I was talking about. This isn't for you to say. If you don't like their music, don't buy it (or download it). If the artist wants to give it out for free, they can.
First: nice non-sequitur. Nowhere in my phrase does it say otherwise.
But no, I don't agree. The music isn't theirs alone, it belongs to everyone who bought a copy. They -we, since I'm a software developer, which is in a similar situation- shouldn't have any right to maintain that level of control over someone else's copy, no more than Toyota should be able to prevent me from reselling my (hypothetical) car.
The same people that hate the record industry because they think it's somehow propping up a dying business model..love the unions..when they are doing the exact same thing.
Well, I can't talk about this, because I have no idea how your unions are. Ours are certainly unable to prevent the business from dying.
We could have automated many of the assembly line jobs in the US auto industry (like Japan), but the Unions are preventing it and forcing companies to pay ridiculous wages (which is why they pretty much went bankrupt). If you want me to feel sorry for the jobs lost, I don't.
Again, I can't comment on that. But I find it bizarre how you shove an anti-union rant on a discussion about music sales.
Nobody feels sorry for the jobs lost when software, music, and or movies are pirated.
Yes, software is certainly lacking for jobs.
And movies, man, I can tell you that the industry must really be hurting, that with their five years of consecutive record profits.
> The same thing will happen if the record industry embraces piracy. People will just expect to get it for free from then on.
But you can get most mainstream artists for free already. Check out the VEVO channels on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/VEVO
Hell, Justin Bieber now has 2,5 BILLION views on his VEVO channel. If that isn't giving away your music for free, then I don't know what is. And apparently he and his record company is making money anyway.
The industry actually moved on, music is free, as long as you listen to it online in a way that you get occasional ads. It's radio, effectively. If you want to be able to listen to it on any device, offline, without ads, well, then it's 0,99$ a song.
Anything digital (like movies, music, or software) is only as valuable as what people are willing to pay. Look at the iPhone apps market. Because most apps are under $10, you will have a hard time selling an app above this price point.
The same thing will happen if the record industry embraces piracy. People will just expect to get it for free from then on. It will be very difficult to convince them otherwise.
It's difficult for me to respect a community that feels entitled to someone else's hard work (and without their permission).
If they really want to make a difference, compete with the record labels. Create a record label with signed artists that gives their music out for free on the torrent networks.
I know this will never happen because it takes too much discipline and hard work. The community also doesn't really care about the artist. If they did, they would have come up with some sort of solution for artists to make a living in the past 12 years (Napster launched in '99).
Until They can show me otherwise, I feel that the entire point of the community is so they can get things for free.