Why do we pay for music?

[radroach]

I suck at arguing, but giving money to the artists/creators is the most fair way that they can make money from their work, even if they continue to make money from it for years for a successful hit song even if it took them an hour of studio time to pull it off.

Not saying that it's not unfair to compare to those who put in work 8hrs+/5 days a week, but those people aren't creating their own product, they're working under somebody else's product (business or store brand). It's only fair that people can make lots of money if their unique product, brand, or licenced patent finds marketable success, especially for independent artists.

Big record labels though can go suck a big leek. As well App stores like itunes. Fuck you apple it didn't cost you .30 cents on every dollar just to host a few megabytes for a paid app or a song.

I'll make another exception for bands like the Rolling Stones. It's retarded that it costs a college radio station 10 grand to play one of their hit songs. That's one of the worst examples of money grubbing record labels I can come up with.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Special_K

And I'm with you right up until you say that I'm convincing myself I'm doing something noble. They day I call myself noble is the day Leonardo DiCaprio wins an Oscar and Tupac once again roams the earth. Like speeding and jaywalking, I know I'm doing something illegal and have no qualms with it. There are plenty of things that keep me up at night, but Pirating the high seas isn't one of them.

You remember those anti-piracy commercials?

Sounds like we aren't that far apart then, its all good...

And I would totally download a car if it were possible. It probably will be this time next century.

Although, in the end, I'd rather download Moose Girl.....

[Poodles]

Originally Posted by Jyn

Whether intentional or not, completely missed the point. But please, do go "further into this" with credible sources instead of the typical theorycrafting that most people that support downloading normally result to.

Not that it's going to change your mind, but at least have a cursory look through google...

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/10/...increase-sales

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...od-thing.shtml

https://software.intel.com/en-us/blo...t-from-fiction

[radroach]

If you pirate music from independent or developing artists, you should at least feel somewhat embarrassed for it. I could only imagine if I met one of my favorite touring bands and they asked me if I bought their album, I'd feel pretty darn guilty if I said no.

I'm as guilty as anyone here for downloading music on p2p services and then listening to their songs a thousand times over and not contributing a dime, but it's not an honorable thing to do.

Luckily a lot of artists today are making some of their music free to listen to, using streaming services like Soundcloud. I love it that using services like that meet the perfect balance of being able to put music out there that's free to listen to, share it with friends, and also make their whole music album available for purchase.

https://soundcloud.com/msmsmsm/sophie-lemonade

[VTR]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2370718/

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Although, in the end, I'd rather download Moose Girl.....

Yep! Over and over again all night long.

[brianhj]

Paying for digital music to listen to in your home is stupid. Artists should tour and sell merchandise if they want to make a living making music. It shouldn't be a "job" for them. They should do it because they love to do it not because they want to make a lot of money. Music shouldn't be an industry. It detracts from its artistic value.

[radroach]

Originally Posted by brianhj

Paying for digital music to listen to in your home is stupid. Artists should tour and sell merchandise if they want to make a living making music. It shouldn't be a "job" for them. They should do it because they love to do it not because they want to make a lot of money. Music shouldn't be an industry. It detracts from its artistic value.

Your ideas are only based in ideal circumstances where everything is freely given. If every band acted like Jesus's deciples and sold all they had except their socks and sandles, the music industry would be fucking sad.

An independent band, in order to promote and tour requires them to take on massive debt in order to fund a tour. Time is money, money spent especially for these bands, and most don't break even anyway. Doing stuff takes money, period, and without it you don't get things like bus tickets, airplane tickets, food, lodging, decent equipment, everything that goes into doing that kind of shit.

See Horse the Band Earth Tour for example:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlI0AI66Ibk"]HORSE the band's EARTH TOUR- Official Trailer! - YouTube[/ame]

A world tour, they took out huge loans to bring their music all over the world, and never broke even. Without making up some of the money, would they ever be able to tour again, or just go bankrupt never be able to pay the banks back and be broke forever? I downloaded their tour dvd and donated $10 to their fund with this in mind.

[dem00n]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4fcqces5vA"]Thad Jones/Mel Lewis - Consummation (Full Album) - YouTube[/ame]

[radroach]

Originally Posted by bcj

Oh. We're on to beepy-boopy electronic games now.
Urgh. Nevermind.

The Hotline Miami soundtrack would have a word.

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by VTR

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2370718/

Anybody have a torrent? Hook a brother up.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by brianhj

Paying for digital music to listen to in your home is stupid. Artists should tour and sell merchandise if they want to make a living making music. It shouldn't be a "job" for them. They should do it because they love to do it not because they want to make a lot of money. Music shouldn't be an industry. It detracts from its artistic value.

The bottom line is musicians that don't do it for the money aren't called musicians...they are called waiters who play on their breaks.

That's like saying movie actors should not get paid for movies, but only the live version of their show they perform in front of an audience.

Sorry @brianhj but reality is different. At one point when musicians, and artists, and other creative persons had "benefactors" that worked. But even then they were paid for their skills. Now, the public as a whole is the benefactor and if you want to make a living for playing you have to do it where the money is.

Also, I have to add, the very few musicians that are able to make a living consider it a "job". They typically consider themselves very fortunate to be able to do so. It is a very small percentage of musicians that make a fortune in the business. A slightly larger percentage make a decent living playing gigs, teaching, writing. The vast majority only manage to make it a hobby that supports itself while they do something else.

I'm in the IT business and I'm surrounded by people that are musicians by training or by avocation but do IT "stuff" to pay the bills.

[Jyn]

Originally Posted by Poodles

Not that it's going to change your mind, but at least have a cursory look through google...

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/10/...increase-sales

I read slashdot, so I've read this article. The study shows that while piracy has increased, sales have also increased. It, however, does not mean that there is a linkage between the two, hence the usage of >can< in "piracy can increase sales." In fact, it would take more work and research to show the correlation and causation effect.

Originally Posted by Poodles

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...od-thing.shtml

Congrats to Neil. While he may have thought piracy helped him in the beginning, I think it's fair to say that officially releasing stuff for free (much like artists do on SoundCloud) isn't the same as users pirating content.

Originally Posted by Poodles

https://software.intel.com/en-us/blo...t-from-fiction

Taken from the conclusion paragraph:

I have an immense amount of respect for everyone in this industry; and Piracy is not something that should ever be condoned.

And still, the article seemed more focused on arguing the F2P model, not necessarily that pirating doesn't hurt sales.

[Jyn]

Originally Posted by brianhj

Paying for digital music to listen to in your home is stupid. Artists should tour and sell merchandise if they want to make a living making music. It shouldn't be a "job" for them. They should do it because they love to do it not because they want to make a lot of money. Music shouldn't be an industry. It detracts from its artistic value.

So when you interviewed for your job, did you tell your boss that you will just do it for free because you love to do it?*


*this assumes you have a job that you enjoy. If not, then I can understand why you have this mentality - you hate your life.