[Rumori] re: Songwriters Say Piracy Eats Into Their Pay

[David meme]

I have been thinking about this a lot. When I buy CDs and vinyl of 
unknown artists they are learning how to write music and I am giving 
encouragement both in monetary and in terms of moral support. And yes 
sometimes I buy real crap. But people take time to develop their skills 
and sometimes they produce good songs and sometimes not. But if I only 
ever bought the *good* stuff then some of the people I have been 
unconsciously supporting would give up. Why would they bother as no-one 
helps them to develop and they can't pay the rent. Many first albums 
are real bad (Radiohead/Divine Comedy/Some Aphex is awful and so on)

I don't deny that something is happening with music and certainly the 
tectonic plates of the industry are shifting but you fail to understand 
that labels perform a very useful filtering process (not perfect by any 
means I'll grant you) but at least it removes 90% of the crap. And some 
labels are very experimental ( http://www.staticcaravan.org/ )  We need 
to replace the old system which had become corrupt but the new *has* to 
give musicians an income, surely!

Making music is very very very expensive to do. While we are all 
waiting for the radical new business model of free music to 
miraculously generate an income for musicians the reality is that the 
labels are not selling enough music, they *are* dropping signed acts 
left, right and centre and the quality is reduced to easy sellable, 
mainstream, safe music.  Why do you think labels are merging all the 
time? And musicians who cannot earn a living instead get jobs. This is 
not good and not what we want, I hope?

As I have said, the choice to release free or open-source is always 
there but why should anyone have the right to rip-off anyone else? That 
is unethical and unnecessary. Respect for peoples choice is crucial and 
in the crazed mania to sample and download whatever you like, spare a 
thought for the person who wrote the track and gave you the listening 
pleasure.






On 7 Jan 2004, at 19:53, matt davignon wrote:

> When I download mp3's, it gives me an idea of whether I like the 
> artist. If I do, I buy their cd because I want to listen to it at 
> places other than my computer. If I have a whole album, admittedly, 
> I'll often buy a different album, but I do buy something of the 
> artist's.
>
> However, most of the artists I'm introduced to by mp3's are 
> "underground" artists. A lot of the major label stuff that the 
> download lawsuits are based on are based on a "singles" market rather 
> than an "album" market. (MTV-type music producers focus more on making 
> the singles "really great" than making the albums "good overall". 
> You're supposed to buy the album because the single is good.) With 
> illegal mp3 downloads, I think people are finding they don't need the 
> whole album.
>
> So that's 2 reasons why the larger record labels don't like free mp3 
> downloads: 1) It allows unrepresented artists to be presented on not 
> such a skewed playing ground. 2) Since non-single tracks are being 
> offered as samples, more people know whether or not they'd like the 
> album before buying it.
>
> Now, if the issue is loss of artist/songwriter revenue, why aren't 
> they going after the sale of used cd's?
>
>
>> From: David meme <david at locarecords.com>
>>
>> Arguing about whether or not the man lost money is ridiculous. 
>> Fundamentally I think it is a no-brainer to accept that if someone 
>> downloads an album then they are hardly likely to shell out cash for 
>> a physical CD (unless the quality is bad). Cassette culture worked 
>> because we didn't just rip all musicians off but instead we wanted 
>> the *higher quality* better looking cool vinyl/CD so went out to buy 
>> it. That is how musicians make money - from CD sales. MP3 culture 
>> could be the same but if people are swapping CD quality stuff then 
>> inevitably sales will suffer.
>>
>
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