1 for the record companies

[yard dawg]

A record professionally produced can cost as much as a million US dollars and the labels have to get that back. They advertise the artists and cds. They have a right to get there money back and a return. An artist usually gets $1.60 a cd or more if they own publishing or wrote the song too. If a million people rip a cd for a friend you cost that artist 1.6 million or more in royalties. NO ONE HERE CAN HONESTLY SAY THAT IF YOU WERE LOSING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS YOUD BE OK WITH IT!!!!!!

A quality record cannot be produced in a basement. NO WAY. Studios have mics that cost as much as $3500 or more. Pre amps and other outboard gear that is top notch. AD/DA converters that cost thousands. $20,000 monitors and more. There is no way a musician can mix a record with an ear like a professional engineer can. NO way a musician can master a cd like a professional mastering engineer can. NO WAY... Most people only listen to mp3's so they wouldnt know what a great sounding recording is anyway. I can hear a huge difference between an mp3 and a real 16/44.1 recording. BIG DIFFERENCE.. Like the difference between Jessica Biel and Rosie O Donnel.

[yard dawg]

Another thing... You people who steal music will pay $2.49 for a ring tone and not blink an eye but piss and moan all day long about greedy labels over a 99 cent downloaded song. Just pay the buck and get the song you want dont steal it. If you dont want to pay $20 for a cd then do what I do and dont but dont steal it.

[Dan]

Another thing... You people who steal music will pay $2.49 for a ring tone and not blink an eye but piss and moan all day long about greedy labels over a 99 cent downloaded song. Just pay the buck and get the song you want dont steal it. If you dont want to pay $20 for a cd then do what I do and dont but dont steal it.

I paid Years ago for a "Lifetime"membership(Which they changed,we are Grandfathered in) to download songs. Unfortuneately they use a Common DL Program which we didnt know at the time. I Do NOT share my music,I prefer hiding it As for the Sound quality,I Can hear the difference between the Actual CD and a MP3,but some MP3's are getting better,it just depends on the size file,and bitrate,etc.

[Robert Burns]

Far out. It's funny in a tragic way how a major industry can say they're being robbed and not have to produce solid evidence, and practically ruin one person's life (well, in addition to the artists they've got by the balls), but consumers have no recourse against price-gouging.

They also have all the power in the contracts, and are not open to reasonable negotiations before those contracts are signed.

Not to mention it was the MPAA and RIAA who decided on the limitations that CD-R/RW and DVD-R/RW media and recorders available to consumers have. They didn't want people putting the entire Zeppelin catalog on one CD, so they paid for the "industry standards" regarding how much can be put on one disc.

The mathematical formula that calculates how many kilobytes a minute of audio is force-fed into the software and hardware components that govern the recording of audio on a computer, so if you change "1+1=2" to "2+1=2", the computer follows what it is told.

Especially considering that 90% of all artists, only get about 8% of the
profit from CD sales! So like insurance companies.. the record companies
are raping everyone anyway. Wasnt it about $.90 to produce and package a typical CD? I remember a story about Winger.. they didnt see
any checks until AFTER their tour had been cancelled, because of the
Bevis and Butthead cartoon slamming them. Everyone was slapping Kip
on the back, "hows it feel to be a millionaire rock star"...while Kip had himself maxed out on his credit cards! Reb Beach said they didnt even
start to get any small checks coming in, until a year and a half after it
was "Over" for them! Record companies recoup their costs first. Then
finally start to shell out a smidge after their cut of profit. I feel bad for
the lady in this one.

[yard dawg]

Especially considering that 90% of all artists, only get about 8% of the
profit from CD sales! So like insurance companies.. the record companies
are raping everyone anyway. Wasnt it about $.90 to produce and package a typical CD? I remember a story about Winger.. they didnt see
any checks until AFTER their tour had been cancelled, because of the
Bevis and Butthead cartoon slamming them. Everyone was slapping Kip
on the back, "hows it feel to be a millionaire rock star"...while Kip had himself maxed out on his credit cards! Reb Beach said they didnt even
start to get any small checks coming in, until a year and a half after it
was "Over" for them! Record companies recoup their costs first. Then
finally start to shell out a smidge after their cut of profit. I feel bad for
the lady in this one.

You use winger as an example of greedy labels??? They have sold at best a couple million copies. If you knew anything about making a record and royalties and contracts you wouldnt have used WInger.

Labels offer fair royalties. If you dont like it dont sign the contract. Back in the 80s we didnt have the digital studios we do now and record making costed alot more than it does now. Top studios which Winger would have used charged in the neaghborhood of $3000 a day to rent. Back then you had to track,mix,do overdubs and sometimes write in a studio. There were now home studios. It could easily have cost the label a millions to produce and market there albums. It took 6 million albums sold to break even on Def Leppards hysteria. 6 million people!!! Were the labels greedy? NO WAY they invested millions in that album and it paid off for everyone. Def Leppard are not poor musicians. Winger sold a couple million albums and its a fact that labels get there money 1st before any royalties are paid out. EVERY contract is that way. I gaurantee that Winger were making around $100,000 a show or more and that they wasted there money from touring. Labels dont get touring monies. Records dont cost as much to produce now but there is still an investment that needs to be recouped and if you believe the artists are broke youre crazy. Top artists make in the area of $250,000 to $500,000 a show while on tour. Theyre not broke and the labels gave them there start.

Bottom line is if you dont like what they are doing then dont buy cds but dont steal the hits they produce and then say the labels are the thieves. The thief is in the mirror if you download music illegally.


I dont buy cds. If I like a song I pay the buck and get it from itunes. I grew tired of paying $15 one good song so I quit and thats how we get the labels attention.

[jacksoncsplayer]

Right on Yard Dawg! The Artist does not have to sign anything that is going to Screw them. The production and marketing costs of making an album are Huge, and run into the millions. A smart Artist owns their own studio and operates it as a business and is able to make a little cash by recording their album in their own facility. They hire the producers and the mastering facility, (usually outsourced) and if they need other stuff done they can quickly take their tape or external hard drive to another facility and have it done at a cost and write it off as sublet. The artists who understand the fundementals of business and who have not spent money foolishly usually do not complain about the deals they sign. If businesses did not make money they would not be in business. Stealing music is theft. Go ask a good successful artist if he or she minds you stealing his shit from a p2p site and see what they say. They make money from us buying their music. I buy music for a couple of reasons, 1) I love the fact that they write music that affects me in some way and I only buy what I find enjoyable.(freewill) 2) I have a huge amount of respect for the guys who influenced my playing and I Thank them with a purchase of their music. 3) I want my influences to keep writing and recording, and if they stop making money doing what they love because some bag of shit is repeatedly robbing them, then I lose, they lose and you lose. Buy your music and show the artists you love you support them. Royalties are their retirement.

[VitaminG]

yarddawg, your example of Hysteria is just as flawed a choice as you say Robert's choice of Winger is. Hysteria may have required 6 million albums sold to break even, but Def Leppard did spend 4 years making it. Which is why it is such a bloated, over-produced, monstrosity of an album, and why it lead to one of the members drinking himself to death. Hardly your "average" situation of a band recording an album.

jacksoncsplayer, I agree with all your points on why to buy music, and that's just why I do, but I disagree with your argument to not download tracks.

I'd love to ask any of the many artists whose music I enjoy now and whom I'd had no previous exposure to if they mind that, having heard about them online/in a magazine/wherever & having never heard their music before, I downloaded a couple of tracks to see what they were about, liked what I heard, and then went out and bought:

• 2,3,4 of their albums (usually more than one, depending on how many they've released);
• their concert dvd;
• tickets to their show next time they came through town; and
• a tour T or other merch at the show.

I bet they'd be really pissed about those 1 or 2 tracks. Especially given that if I hadn't been able to check out a couple of songs first, I would never have got into their music and bought any of their stuff. Plus they've now got another fan hanging out for the release of their next album. Their fanbase has grown.

Of course, I'm not talking about Madonna, U2, Michael Jackson, et al. Bands who have the full weight of the label's promotional machine pushing their names & new albums into living rooms across the free world. The same label that continued to push the "new" single from DL's Hysteria 4 years after it's release to ensure they well exceeded the required break-even point. The only time I see that kind of push from the labels on smaller bands is after the band, through their own hard work/touring/promotion, has had some kind of breakout. And THEN you'll see the small band's ads on tv "Buy this album. 1 million copies already sold!"

Check out that article that Thrust posted. It pretty much sums up how bands have been able to increase their exposure through the filesharing of mp3s, even for more established bands. When was the last time you saw a life-size cutout of Chuck Billy when you went into your local music shop? And yet, on a couple of other music forums I check out, I see young guys raving about their new discovery, Testament. These kids probably wouldn't have got into Testament if they hadn't been able to download, and Testament inject their fanbase with some enthusiastic young fans, ticket sales, and move more units of their old albums as at least some of these kids start buying up the back catalogue. Seems like a win/win to me.

although, having said that, with the advent of MySpace I really don't download anything anymore. I don't believe I even have Kazaa installed on this machine anymore. Been a long time since I checked. I can check out a couple of songs on a band's MySpace page now and really have no need to download at all.

[Chad]

The retailers make more money off a cd than the artist, record company, and pressing company combined. Just like ticketmaster, they make a shitload of cash off the tickets they sell. Are they both a needed evil?

Source? More info?

[GodOfRhythm]

that's because Metallica decided to "keep it real" and revisit their Garage Days to try and win back the old fanbase that abandoned them with the two Loads they released.

He meant revisited (aka 1987).

[VitaminG]

He meant revisited (aka 1987).

huh? who? whu?

[jacksoncsplayer]

Source? More info?

Read the whol article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/magazine/02rubin.t.html?_r=3&oref=login&oref=slogin&oref=slogin