Filesharing - Give us a chance!

[UFORocks]

The problem with buying music is that if you hate it, you can't return it and get your money back. It's not consumable like gas or food, a CD can be repackaged and sold again. So why can't I return it?

I'd have bought a hell of a lot more music over the years if if I could have listened to it first. And thanks to sites like MySpace and Itunes it's now possible to do so.

Gryphon, I dont think it's going to be that bad. Most people who download music illegally wouldn't pay for it in the first place. Think of it like shop lifting, a shoplifter isn't going to buy something just because they cant steal it, they're going to move on to the next store and steal from there instead.

And I dont think you have to worry too much about a saturated market before your CD is released, really, think of how much music is already out there being shared. Your song files are literally a very small drop in a very, very big bucket. That's not an insult, its just a fact.

[Bengal]

Used CD's? Really? They don't count.

Why? Because the artist has ALREADY been paid for that CD. Right? So that's another argument all together.

Don't try to blur the lines, they are already too blurry.

[Bengal]

The problem with buying music is that if you hate it, you can't return it and get your money back. It's not consumable like gas or food, a CD can be repackaged and sold again. So why can't I return it?

Because "taste" is subjective.

Who decides if it's good or not? The consumer? Hardly.

So we need websites with some authority to decide if a CD is good enough?

Please.

[Newc]

And there is no answer to the question "If you can't afford it, why should you have it?"

You shouldn't have it. It's not a necessity.

Whoever said "you gotta do what you gotta do" in regards to filesharing totally doesn't get it. You don't "have to" have these things. They are not classified as "must haves". They are luxuries. If you cannot afford $30K a year in CDs, then you are just going to have to do without.

[Bengal]

And there is no answer to the question "If you can't afford it, why should you have it?"

You shouldn't have it. It's not a necessity.

Newc,
What do you mean there is no answer? You just answered it.

I would LOVE to have all the original recordings of Frank Sanatra. I would LOVE that. But guess what? I can't afford it right now with all the other shit I HAVE to buy. So I go without.

I don't download it. That is stealing.

[jacksoncsplayer]

frankly I think you're probably having a little fun with everyone, jerking their chain & seeing how far you can take it.
Vass

I agree, Troy isn't this dumb.

[yard dawg]

Do yall PRO music stealers know how much a major studio charges per hour? The ones I have been in start at $2000 a day and go up from there. A professional mastering studio costs from $100,000 to $200,000 just for the gear.

The average cost to record a major label cd in a professional studio such as blackbird in Nashville is around $350,000 to $500,000.

A major label producer usually gets $100,000 or more up front plus points. Session musicians get union scale and some get more. Brent Mason commands tripple scale on a major label project. Thats around $180 an hr or more.

These people deserve to be paid and if you keep stealing their work they will be forced to NOT produce cds.

[Newc]

Used CD's? Really? They don't count.

Why? Because the artist has ALREADY been paid for that CD. Right? So that's another argument all together.

Don't try to blur the lines, they are already too blurry.

I wasn't trying to blur the lines. You asked for "pro" arguments. I gave mine. That's it.

I'm not crawling through fileshare stacks to find stuff I can find on the shelf at a store like some people in this thread. There is no justification for that.

[Bengal]

I agree, Troy isn't this dumb.

I wouldn't have thought so either. But he is either that dumb or he's a troll.

What's worse?

At least dumb people can learn. May take a while but it's not impossible.

Newc,
I see what you are saying. I think we are on the same page here.

[UFORocks]

Because "taste" is subjective.

Who decides if it's good or not? The consumer? Hardly.

So we need websites with some authority to decide if a CD is good enough?

Please.

You miss my point. You're right in the fact that "taste" should have no bearing on whether or not I can return something. But it does bear on whether or not I want to.

You can return just about any non-consumable item you can think of any reason, including taste, so why not music? That's my question.

There are plenty of almbums that I haven't purchased for the very fact that I can't return it if I dont like it, and there was no opportunity to listen to it first.

.... And just to stir the pot a little... Does anyone actually have any evidence that file sharing has had anywhere near the impact on any artists or CD sales that many of you seem to think it's had?

Take CD sales for example....

Pick any two consecutive years in the last decade where CD sales during the second were less than the first, and then compare the following...
1.) The difference in the number of CDs released between the two years in whole.
2.) The difference in the number of pirated CDs between the two years
3.) The difference in LEGAL purcahses of digital copies of music between the two years.
4.) The difference in the number of format conversions to CD between the two years.

I predict that 1.) and 4.) have decreased between two years, and 2.) and 3.) have increased. What you have left is the impact of Illegal file sharing, theoretically speaking of course.

-Steve

[zeegler]

Watch out Mark, soon we will be called out as "old".

Zeeg,
It's a tough one for us older folk to swallow. (Here we go with the "back in my day" speech) We didn't have what is available today to see if we liked something or not. Radio sure as shit wasn't playing Slayer or Venom or Metallica or Megadeth or Overkill.

I, and my friends, bought albums usually based on album covers. Sounds strange but that's what we did. We got burned more often than we found an Overkill's Feel The Fire. But thats the way it went back then.

So it's hard for me to get behind that arguement being burned quite a few times before. But that was also the fun of it too. Sometimes they sucked, sometimes they were good. It was like an Easter Egg Hunt!

I know what you mean man. I used to do exactly the same thing. I would be at the record store twice a week, and took a chance many a time judging from the album cover, and the picture of the band on the back. I discovered Death Angel, Testament, Forbidden, Sodom, Onslaught, Destruction, and many, many others this way. Unfortunately, that type of record store is gone from around here. Sure, I could go to Walmart, but they only have shit music anyway. The record stores don't carry much better than what's at Walmart either.

Now keep in mind, I was a teenager/young adult when I was doing that, and didn't have much else to spend my income on. Even if the situation were the same at the stores, I couldn't do that anymore anyway. What I do, really is no different than listening to some tracks on a Myspace page, but it's more convenient. I'm not stealing anything. Maybe borrowing for a short time, but if the artist makes music I like, then they also get to make a sale. That's good for the artist, not bad. The ones that I delete, and don't buy?, well tough shit for them. They should have written better music.

[Bengal]

Steve,
I didn't miss your point at all.

You said something like "if I don't like it, why can't I return it?"

For one, who's to say you didn't rip it and then return it?

And I said before, who is to decide if it's good or not? The person that bought it? I think their opinion is somewhat suspect. So then who?

As far as I know you can't do that with DVD's and Video Games either. Other mediums that are ripped off all the time.

I don't see an issue with not being able to return CD's. Makes sense to me.

[khabibissell]

I'm pro filesharing, but to an extent. I wouldn't want to hurt anyones livelyhood, but the easy availability of downloading music we've enjoyed for the past 10 yrs or so actually works both ways IMO. I've downloaded stuff in the past and if I liked it, I bought the CD (to name two examples Nevermore and Symphony X). I look at filesharing as free publicity and an easy way to get your stuff heard. People will be more likely to check it out if there is less "risk"... In this case financial. I highly doubt a new band is going to get a contract that is advantages to anyone other than the record company anyway... Like stated above, merch and live shows are where most of the money is made. Established bands will tell you the same thing.

Like Newc, the only time I've downloaded whole albums is when the stuff is either no longer available or is a bootleg of some sort.

I love how Bengal is trying SO hard to get into an argument in this thread.

[Bengal]

I love how Bengal is trying SO hard to get into an argument in this thread.

How am I going to get in an argument when 90% of the posters see it my way?

Believe me, I don't have to try that hard to get in an argument. All I have to do is go home.

Defend it all you want, it's still stealing. No way around that.

If that's trying to "start an argument", step on up.

[shobet]

Do yall PRO music stealers know how much a major studio charges per hour? The ones I have been in start at $2000 a day and go up from there. A professional mastering studio costs from $100,000 to $200,000 just for the gear.

The average cost to record a major label cd in a professional studio such as blackbird in Nashville is around $350,000 to $500,000.

A major label producer usually gets $100,000 or more up front plus points. Session musicians get union scale and some get more. Brent Mason commands tripple scale on a major label project. Thats around $180 an hr or more.

These people deserve to be paid and if you keep stealing their work they will be forced to NOT produce cds.

What I would like to add as well is, even though the myspace model of the music industry seems to have freed up people to make music that they want to play. Can those artists afford the top line studios with their top line sounds and the producers that go with that? Can some spud from the backwaters afford to pay for Abbey Road for 2 months whilst they record? I doubt the record companies will be willing to take the risk of paying an advance for something like that? Conversely you could argue you don't need a great studio while you have pro tools on your computer, you can do it all and sound just as great in your underpants sitting in your bedroom! Swings and roundabouts.

It's all very complimicated and I have no idea where it's all heading. I can see the record companies grabbing more of the gig and merch money in the near future to compensate for the lost revenues of the albums they're not selling.

The thing with the iTunes model as well is that Apple and the companies are still doing ok out of it. From talking to friends of my better half, they say they're worse off %age wise than they were when the old album model was the norm. But having made their money in the 90s' they're not really that effected by it.

I dunno, who knows what the future holds for musicians...