Music piracy

Snufkin · Post by **Snufkin** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 1:27 pm

Piracy is progressive!

*waves pirate flag!*

"Y'arrrrrr!!!"

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:15 pm

Snufkin wrote:Piracy is progressive!

*waves pirate flag!*

"Y'arrrrrr!!!"

Cool. I'll come round and nick yer telly

A_Northern_Soul · Post by **A_Northern_Soul** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:54 pm

"progressive"

Why is there this belief that something that people have put their time, energy, money and other resources should then just be free?

You wouldn't walk out of a restaurant without paying, would you?

I've lost count of the number of times a potential client has turned to me with "unfortunately we can't pay you, but we will give you full credit". I've checked and I can't pay my mortgage with "credit".

I don't buy the argument either that "downloading makes you buy more music". While it might for some individuals, on the whole it does not.

Syberia · Post by **Syberia** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:57 pm

Mexicola wrote:Bands find it easier than ever to reach new listeners, yet harder than ever to make a living from it. Unless you're incredibly fortunate or a total commercial sellout, it's almost impossible to make a decent living from music in 2012.

Go and ask Adam Wiltzie how much hand-wringing he had to do before he let Range Rover use The Dead Texan on it's advertising campaign recently. Or how much money he made off the recent Winged Victory tour/record. I'm guessing he found himself in what Pan-Am used to somewhat colorfully call 'a negative profit situation'.

Better still, ask him his opinion of how his close friend Mark Linkous took his own life (as mentioned in the article that started this thread) after living in virtual destitution despite rave reviews.

More and more, I read about my heroes taking day jobs. One is now trained to mould those expensive in-ear monitors you'll see the 'big' bands using and moonlighting as a guitarist for other bands. Another now illustrates for The Guardian and has completely jacked the whole thing in. His parting shot? 'I thought I was a guitarist and song-writer. I never had any dreams of being a waiter.' Another now selects the tunes for Guitar Hero. That last one once won Album of the Year at the Kerrang awards just 9 years ago and turned down a support slot with the Foo Fighters to front a soldout UK tour with his own band. They also played live on prime time UK TV (Top of the Pops UK pop-pickers).

All three bands in question were established, popular and - frankly - incredible. Two were dropped by their label and the third pack it up after the mobile phone money ran out and they had another round of selling about 3 LP's and a T-shirt.

If all you want are bedroom producers knocking out second rate electronica, then fine. Be my guest. But for all 'the industry' screwed us for years (and it did) every time one of my favorite bands throws the towel in (and it happens regularly these days) I can't help but think things have gone too far the other way. When I can download, for free, a bands entire discography in an hour or so, it can't be right.

Downloading music doesn't effect 'the man', not really. 'The Man' will do what he's always done and move onto something else. Businessmen are businessmen. Music, advertising, iPhones, pharmaceuticals, you name it. They can screw money from us in any number of different ways and they will. Downloading music, however, does screw the artists. We can justify it any way we like, but it is what it is.

I'll leave you with one last thought. I doubt it, but what about if BOC decided not to bother releasing anything because 'it's not worth it anymore'. ie. the 'fans' will just download it so bollocks to them. The artistic ideal is a lovely concept, but these people still need to feed and cloth themselves and their families. If they can't do that through their art, sure they might still produce something. But why should they let you or me experience it?

Very well said, as always

. I'm a total spotify/downloading-addict and I feel ashamed..
I would like to buy more music and go to more gigs but it's hard to come up with the money.

Still, aren't there also a responsibility from the musicians to act on the market, just like anyone who produces anything or runs a business? Something has to change in the way we consume music and the loss of respect we have for the musicians artwork. But the question is if it's up to the pruducer to change or the consumers? The latter can be tough..

I kind of like the bandcamp idea where you can listen for free but if you want to download you have to pay (if the artist want's it) but mostly you can choose how much you want to pay. I find it hard to scrape together $10-15 for every album I like to listen to, but I try to pay at least something when I download from Bandcamp-profiles.

As for the brothers I think that is a very posible theory and I can't really blame them. They are some of the most well known musicians in the electronic genre but I hardly think they are any near wealthy. What more can they do really? Why share when you already given all you have and got nothing back..I can understand the frustration.

But thanks for bringing the subject up again Vballs. It's important to discuss this issues.

Waterbagel · Post by **Waterbagel** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:01 pm

Heh, I wonder if there's any way to do it like the makers of EarthBound (video game) did it..

For one (or all, can't remember) of the games, they made it so that the game was able to determine whether your copy was genuine. If it determined that it wasn't, it was the same game.. Aside from the fact that you have no weapons or abilities, will not be able to find weapons or abilities, and from the very get-go.. even where there are supposed to be no enemies, monsters flock toward you and assault you making the game virtually impossible.

Of course, music can't really do that.. But maybe it could make it horrifically glitchy? Like, not even the good horrifically glitchy.

No. The bad kind.

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:04 pm

Mexicola wrote:If all you want are bedroom producers knocking out second rate electronica, then fine. Be my guest. But for all 'the industry' screwed us for years (and it did) every time one of my favorite bands throws the towel in (and it happens regularly these days) I can't help but think things have gone too far the other way. When I can download, for free, a bands entire discography in an hour or so, it can't be right.

Downloading music doesn't effect 'the man', not really. 'The Man' will do what he's always done and move onto something else. Businessmen are businessmen. Music, advertising, iPhones, pharmaceuticals, you name it. They can screw money from us in any number of different ways and they will. Downloading music, however, does screw the artists. We can justify it any way we like, but it is what it is.

I'll leave you with one last thought. I doubt it, but what about if BOC decided not to bother releasing anything because 'it's not worth it anymore'. ie. the 'fans' will just download it so bollocks to them. The artistic ideal is a lovely concept, but these people still need to feed and cloth themselves and their families. If they can't do that through their art, sure they might still produce something. But why should they let you or me experience it?

Except NOBODY I know wants that. Not every "bedroom producer" is going to pump out lazy, unoriginal bullshit, certainly not the ones that will become notable.

And someone "throwing in the towel" sends a very mixed message to me. I guess there are some people who just quit whatever it was they were doing before to attempt a "career" out of music. This seems like a very foolish idea. It also shows me that this particular band/artist would not be creating music unless it served as a viable financial outlet. I mean, I get the whole thing about needing to clothe/feed your family, but you're giving the implication that it was once easier to make money off of music in the past (which with bandcamp and whatnot I find this difficult to believe). What about every band that gave up in the past, before all this? What was to blame then, mixtapes?

Time and time again I find myself running this "piracy impacts the industry significantly" stance through my head and it never adds up. Yes, you CAN download a band's discography for free. Regardless of whether you choose to do so, so many people are going to use iTunes, or Amazon, or some other legal distribution service. The percentage far eclipses that of those who pirate and gift cards for those things sell like hotcakes every year. Also, if you felt so horribly about pirating a band's discography why would you do it? Or is it just the thought of it being possible that bothers you?

It's important to look at the reason people pirate things. Often it is because someone lacks the money to purchase something but desires to hear it anyways. Often these people are young as well. I don't know what they choose for their particular rationalization, but I understand the act of doing so as I have been in that position in the past. On that same note, I wouldn't rationalize my initial downloading of music as it being somehow progressive or good, otherwise I wouldn't donate money to the artists I pirated from or purchase every release physically that I once pirated as I have the spare income to do so. A lot of us have our own way to sort things out and just because one dipshit pirates things, never giving to the artist ever because he's a little leech despite having money to do so, doesn't mean that people who pirate for completely alternative reasons should take the same flak a person like that does. It's not a matter of "the man" or any juvenile thinking like that. While I have no problem purchasing BoC releases and giving part of the money to Warp, a real internal conflict occurs for me when an artist is signed onto a label that is owned by UMG or something like that. I'm NOT giving those cocksuckers a dime. They have sued people who made copies of digital files for insane amounts of money, gone after insignificant YouTube videos irrelevant to their sales for "copyright infringement" and there's a whole bunch of other things I despise about them that I really shouldn't go into depth about since this post is already really long. The point is, if I can support the artist in a way that doesn't support the label in that situation, I'm going to do it. I want them to take 100% of what I pay.

And if BoC decided to stop making music for the reason of "everyone will just download it illegally" then so be it, I guess. That'd be a foolish choice in their position as they'd be essentially turning down a whole bunch of money they didn't previous have simply because the 15% of their fanbase that pirates everything they release without ever paying are deemed as "lost sales". Very commonly do people take that stance on the situation; rarely do they consider how catastrophically smaller their fanbase would be if the internet and piracy didn't exist.

A_Northern_Soul · Post by **A_Northern_Soul** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:21 pm

From Tim Burgess on Twitter:

@Tim_Burgess: If you´re particularly militant about downloading music for free stick your job in brackets after your tweet. Maybe offer some free work ; )

That's what it boils down to folks.

Waterbagel · Post by **Waterbagel** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:28 pm

Rodheh wrote:Time and time again I find myself running this "piracy impacts the industry significantly" stance through my head and it never adds up. Yes, you CAN download a band's discography for free. Regardless of whether you choose to do so, so many people are going to use iTunes, or Amazon, or some other legal distribution service. The percentage far eclipses that of those who pirate and gift cards for those things sell like hotcakes every year.

I just wanted to argue this point. Sure, many more people turn to legal distribution services for the purchase of music, but the nature of these people and their computer-savvy-ness usually translates to a few songs bought.

The people with the terabyte libraries of music.. Sure, some of the motivation of collecting everything ever does stem from the fact that they can get it for free. But, by their own nature, they're the kind of people that simply wants a lot of music. So, if you're just gonna get a couple of songs, why not buy them? But, if you're looking to get thousands of songs, you'll probably end up pirating a good bit.

So the many people that buy a few songs, as far as I can see, would be dwarfed by the few people that pirate many many many songs.. looking at net worth, here.

The music industry might be able to take a lesson from Valve/Steam. They see a fairly low piracy rate thanks to the fact that they do huge sales often and consistently, and they make it so ridiculously convenient to purchase things.. Along with handling updates and whatnot as well, and providing a fairly sleek (and customizable!) interface. Of course, some of these aspects don't apply to the music industry, but for analogy purposes.. meh.

The music industry kinda has the convenience thing going on.. At least with iTunes/Amazon and whatnot. But with video games, it's a little harder to pirate. Especially when it comes to cracking CD keys and whatnot.. Almost becomes some risky business. If you're well-versed with key-cracking and torrents and whatnot, it's probably not so bad.

If music could, somehow, become this difficult to crack as well.. Maybe the same thing could happen? Maybe if the music files were, themselves, split into compartmentalized folders and whatnot without sacrificing small size/quality. Music files are easy to pirate as they are simple one-file-sized mp3/flac/wav/etc. If they were as seemingly-complicated as video game folders, then maybe the average pirate would find it "not worth the hassle" and would go through the online distributor instead.

Novel over.
Fin.

EDIT: little addendum, here..

About the whole "BoC would be foolish to not distribute it over the 15% of lost sales"..
I get the feeling that they don't really feel a need to distribute it in the first place (aside from any contractual agreements). So, if they aren't going to make a terribly great profit off of it, and if people are going to just pirate it anyways.. Why not keep it for themselves, seeing as (again, as far as I can tell) they made it for their own creative purposes in the first place? I can see the logic there.

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:40 pm

Waterbagel wrote:
Rodheh wrote:Time and time again I find myself running this "piracy impacts the industry significantly" stance through my head and it never adds up. Yes, you CAN download a band's discography for free. Regardless of whether you choose to do so, so many people are going to use iTunes, or Amazon, or some other legal distribution service. The percentage far eclipses that of those who pirate and gift cards for those things sell like hotcakes every year.
I just wanted to argue this point. Sure, many more people turn to legal distribution services for the purchase of music, but the nature of these people and their computer-savvy-ness usually translates to a few songs bought.

The people with the terabyte libraries of music.. Sure, some of the motivation of collecting everything ever does stem from the fact that they can get it for free. But, by their own nature, they're the kind of people that simply wants a lot of music. So, if you're just gonna get a couple of songs, why not buy them? But, if you're looking to get thousands of songs, you'll probably end up pirating a good bit.

So the many people that buy a few songs, as far as I can see, would be dwarfed by the few people that pirate many many many songs.. looking at net worth, here.

The music industry might be able to take a lesson from Valve/Steam. They see a fairly low piracy rate thanks to the fact that they do huge sales often and consistently, and they make it so ridiculously convenient to purchase things.. Along with handling updates and whatnot as well, and providing a fairly sleek (and customizable!) interface. Of course, some of these aspects don't apply to the music industry, but for analogy purposes.. meh.

The music industry kinda has the convenience thing going on.. At least with iTunes/Amazon and whatnot. But with video games, it's a little harder to pirate. Especially when it comes to cracking CD keys and whatnot.. Almost becomes some risky business. If you're well-versed with key-cracking and torrents and whatnot, it's probably not so bad.

If music could, somehow, become this difficult to crack as well.. Maybe the same thing could happen? Maybe if the music files were, themselves, split into compartmentalized folders and whatnot without sacrificing small size/quality. Music files are easy to pirate as they are simple one-file-sized mp3/flac/wav/etc. If they were as seemingly-complicated as video game folders, then maybe the average pirate would find it "not worth the hassle" and would go through the online distributor instead.

Novel over.
Fin.

EDIT: little addendum, here..

About the whole "BoC would be foolish to not distribute it over the 15% of lost sales"..
I get the feeling that they don't really feel a need to distribute it in the first place (aside from any contractual agreements). So, if they aren't going to make a terribly great profit off of it, and if people are going to just pirate it anyways.. Why not keep it for themselves, seeing as (again, as far as I can tell) they made it for their own creative purposes in the first place? I can see the logic there.

Well, that's assuming that "a few songs bought" is the case. It isn't the people who are particularly computer savvy that are using iTunes, generally. In fact, it appears to me to be the opposite. Despite how unbelievably easy it is to run a torrent client, most people I encounter on a daily basis would be too confused to figure it out. People are that horrible with computers.

With these people, they buy a lot of stuff on iTunes. Whole albums and whatnot, my dad and sister have spent hundreds each on iTunes for example.

I agree with the second portion though. They could probably sell more and minimize piracy if they offered sales. However, first they need to get rid of all that DRM shit.

And for the BoC thing...well, if they wanted to keep something to themselves then alright, that's their choice. My point is that it was a bit of a nonsensical hypothetical. I don't see why BoC would create an album and then not want to capitalize on it. It's not like they're RDJ or something (who will soon become no longer a relevant example of this).

Syberia · Post by **Syberia** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:09 pm

="Rodheh"

And for the BoC thing...well, if they wanted to keep something to themselves then alright, that's their choice. My point is that it was a bit of a nonsensical hypothetical. I don't see why BoC would create an album and then not want to capitalize on it. It's not like they're RDJ or something (who will soon become no longer a relevant example of this).

Well maybe not..but still, If I were them I wouldn't feel stressed to finish the new album..(and I don't think they are). It's like people take it for granted that they will just share it with everyone for free. And our generation takes it for granted that every thing should be produced as quick as possible. I can just imagine that they can be kind of tired of people demanding so much from them. But I don't know them, so i don't know.
Sorry for jumping of the subject a bit..also you guys have probably discussed this hundreds of times in the General new release speculation topic, but there is nooo way I can catch up with every thing in there

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:18 pm

Syberia wrote:
="Rodheh"

And for the BoC thing...well, if they wanted to keep something to themselves then alright, that's their choice. My point is that it was a bit of a nonsensical hypothetical. I don't see why BoC would create an album and then not want to capitalize on it. It's not like they're RDJ or something (who will soon become no longer a relevant example of this).
Well maybe not..but still, If I were them I wouldn't feel stressed to finish the new album..(and I don't think they are). It's like people take it for granted that they will just share it with everyone for free. And our generation takes it for granted that every thing should be produced as quick as possible. I can just imagine that they can be kind of tired of people demanding so much from them. But I don't know them, so i don't know.
Sorry for jumping of the subject a bit..also you guys have probably discussed this hundreds of times in the General new release speculation topic, but there is nooo way I can catch up with every thing in there

It's okay. the GNRS topic is a hellhole anyways at this point.

Some people do take it for granted. Personally, I hate that mentality. Maybe BoC does feel very tired of all the questioning about a new album. I just doubt it is related to the piracy though, keeping in mind that BoC basically doubled its fanbase due to the internet and file sharing.

IanRedpoint · Post by **IanRedpoint** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 7:03 pm

Rodheh wrote:Some people do take it for granted. Personally, I hate that mentality. Maybe BoC does feel very tired of all the questioning about a new album. I just doubt it is related to the piracy though, keeping in mind that BoC basically doubled its fanbase due to the internet and file sharing.

Although it wouldn't surprise me if the sales for TCH were significantly smaller than Geogaddi or MHTRTC.

I know a lot of people (generally younger than me) that have grown up thinking that music is free as it is just as easy to use Spotify or YouTube to find and buy absolutely anything without paying a cent. If people don't think of music as having any monetary value then the idea of paying for it never occurs to them. Legally accepted streaming has effectively killed the need for people to own and pay for music.

Piracy grabs the headlines as it is easy to spot the villain, but it is technological advances (faster networks, the Cloud etc.) and the ramifications of that, that I think are driving the last nails into the coffin. When I read that the owner of Spotify is the 10th richest music industry figure in the UK, I felt utterly sickened. All our money is going to the corporate media providers and fuck-all to the artists. Thank heavens for sites like Bandcamp. At least I can feel that I'm rewarding the right people whenever I can.

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 7:13 pm

IanRedpoint wrote:When I read that the owner of Spotify is the 10th richest music industry figure in the UK, I felt utterly sickened.

Is that true man?!? That's truly, truly disgusting.

As an aside:

"I think part of the problem with most of that is just the foundation of respect or entitlement," he said. "I think 'entitlement' is probably the better word. I think, just in general, our society has gotten to the point where just you click a button, you get what you want when you want it. So until we get to a point where we realize you don't necessarily always get what you want when you want it, we're gonna have a problem. So it stems from there.

The singer added that "until somebody has actually written a check to record their own record and see everything that goes into it, they don't really understand that if you just take it… The current state of music, I'm sure there's a lot of creative stuff going on out there, but there certainly isn't — of course, I'm being nostalgic — but it doesn't seem like there's as much, creatively, going on, 'cause most people can't afford to do it." - Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer) on the issue of piracy.

IanRedpoint · Post by **IanRedpoint** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 8:17 pm

Mexicola wrote:
IanRedpoint wrote:When I read that the owner of Spotify is the 10th richest music industry figure in the UK, I felt utterly sickened.
Is that true man?!? That's truly, truly disgusting.

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sect ... 049337&c=1

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 10:57 pm

IanRedpoint wrote:
Rodheh wrote:Some people do take it for granted. Personally, I hate that mentality. Maybe BoC does feel very tired of all the questioning about a new album. I just doubt it is related to the piracy though, keeping in mind that BoC basically doubled its fanbase due to the internet and file sharing.
Although it wouldn't surprise me if the sales for TCH were significantly smaller than Geogaddi or MHTRTC.

I know a lot of people (generally younger than me) that have grown up thinking that music is free as it is just as easy to use Spotify or YouTube to find and buy absolutely anything without paying a cent. If people don't think of music as having any monetary value then the idea of paying for it never occurs to them. Legally accepted streaming has effectively killed the need for people to own and pay for music.

Piracy grabs the headlines as it is easy to spot the villain, but it is technological advances (faster networks, the Cloud etc.) and the ramifications of that, that I think are driving the last nails into the coffin. When I read that the owner of Spotify is the 10th richest music industry figure in the UK, I felt utterly sickened. All our money is going to the corporate media providers and fuck-all to the artists. Thank heavens for sites like Bandcamp. At least I can feel that I'm rewarding the right people whenever I can.

Well I wouldn't say that, music on YouTube is of horrible quality and is not as portable. If "legally accepted streaming" has taken a huge chunk out of record sales I would be legitimately surprised.

I agree on the Spotify thing though. One of the reason I was never into it. It seems to me merely a way to make people who are afraid to pirate feel comfortable with a service that essentially does the same thing, but is a company so it appears "legal". At that point you might as well pirate something, at least then you have the actual audio files and you didn't give money to someone who wasn't the artist.

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 4:44 am

Question for you then.
When the new BOC album arrives (I'm going to say 'when', not 'if' - positive thinking!) will you buy it?

If so, by which means.

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:31 pm

Mexicola wrote:Question for you then.
When the new BOC album arrives (I'm going to say 'when', not 'if' - positive thinking!) will you buy it?

If so, by which means.

Assuming it's on Warp, yes, I will buy it. On CD most likely and rip it to flac, because I feel digital downloads in mp3 format are somewhat of a ripoff.

If I find out "hey, BoC signed to x, subsidiary of x the conglomerate and this is what the album is on" then no, I won't purchase it. I may pirate it and then buy one of their older releases again, digitally from Bleep or something and then just not download it.

Fortunately this isn't one of the groups that I really have to worry about the latter situation with.

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:49 pm

Ok. Do you pay when you go to watch movies at the cinema? Or when you go see a live band?
Or do ya get all ninja and sneak in round the back...

A_Northern_Soul · Post by **A_Northern_Soul** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 6:09 pm

Rodeh - what do you do for a living?

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 6:43 pm

Mexicola wrote:Ok. Do you pay when you go to watch movies at the cinema? Or when you go see a live band?
Or do ya get all ninja and sneak in round the back...

Rarely do either of those things, but yes. The last time I snuck into a theater was when I was 16.

And if it's a Universal film I generally just don't see it at all. I mean, UMG and Universal Studios are two separate things but both of them have their fair share of dickery and it bothers me in an OCD sort of way to support them.

Rodeh - what do you do for a living?

I'm a clerk at the moment. Music isn't expensive to the point where buying an album every once and a while is impossible, and considering there's only about 40-50 bands/artists I listen to in total it's not like I have to pirate out of necessity.

Also, why does everyone keep calling me Rodeh?