The popular opinion among pirates is that downloading music hurts no one. I've heard a variety of justifications for this, but the most popular opinion is that the free publicity (which presumably leads to album sales) counteracts lost sales. I'm no expert, but you're sure as fucking hell less of an expert than I am. What I will say is that, if this is true, it's true only for small bands and independent labels. The big boys can afford to buy as much publicity as they want. So they're right, it is hurting their sales. It's not hurting their sales by the number of copies downloaded times the full sticker price of the album, but it's hurting them nonetheless.
Don't mistake this for a bad thing. The big labels would have you believe that without them, there would be no music. Listen, bud. There was music before you came along, and there will be music long after you are laid to rest. What we will see the death of is McMusicians, singers and bands that everyone has heard of and that the most gullible of us consider to be the epitome of good music. You know who I'm talking about.
What will be left without the big labels? Musicians that aren't in the business of making millions of dollars. Record labels that are employed by the musicians, not the other way around. A world where the music industry is easier to break into because people are more open-minded about music they haven't heard on the radio at least 15 times. A world without the fat, corrupt husk that pretends to serve the needs of musicians and music-lovers alike.
The best bit of all: you can live in that world today. Listen to internet radio and find new bands. Go anywhere with live music, be it a concert, bar, club, coffee shop, or street corner. Buy independent records from independent record stores. Learn to play an instrument yourself! The labels aren't afraid of downloaders. They're afraid we'll realize that we don't need them. Downloading music won't hurt them as much as the realization that you never need to buy anything from them, ever again.
Naturally, all of the sentiments above can be directly applied to the film industry as well. Notice how movies are all shit these days? Try independent cinema. Trust me, there are still movies being made that don't suck.
Okay, that's all for now. I'll see you on Monday, or better yet, OnionRings will. I'll see if I can make him do an article next time.
A brief update: apologies to anyone that was expecting this to be a pun and for me to cover command-line stuff. I think OnionRings is indeed planning to get his series going again for Monday, and I'll try to get a little further ahead on my posting as well.
6 comments:
"Okay, that's all for now. I'll see you on Monday, or better yet, OnionRings will. I'll see if I can make him do an article next time."
Yea, I'm sure Onion will be all for writing another article. ^-^
I agree with your stance and i too have been actively fighting the big labels for many years now. The sooner that we get on to a model where musicians are paid for performance rather than endless residual incomes for one of studio sets, the better. The real problem that I see though is finding more performance venues. As the world becomes ever more of a dictatorship and artists find it more and more difficult to convene public meetings such as concerts. American now follows China in this respect with new totalitarian laws. I reckon that the losses of freedom of assembly are going to make a big difference to the model that we would prefer. How can artist get paid for their performances if dictatorial governments will not let them perform?
BTW, do you use "Recaptchas" as woed verification?
@ketchup:
Sure, go ahead and doubt me. I don't see you writing anything ¬¬
I'd be inclined to say the lack of venues stems from the lack of artists to fill such venues, or rather, the lack of people willing to visit such venues. I don't blame (most) governments for this; they have no serious interest in going up against public sentiment in this regard. Believe it or not, we do hire them, which means they wouldn't put their asses on the line for something that has no direct benefit to them. When it does benefit them, sure, electorate be damned.
No, I see this as a product of good ol' supply and demand at work. If you demand more access to independent music, more access will be supplied.
i dont agree that we should have to pay to listen to music, but i do believe that if you enjoy what you listen to, you should give some money to the artist. the problem is in the music industry, the money you spend on the album hardly gets to the artist. i support independent artists more, but i still have high expectations for them. the reason there aren't many live performances is because the normal person won't go watch people they've never heard of. the ones whose name they know would cost the venue thousands of dollars to book. until people open themselves to independent artists and decide to donate to artists the like, the current system is never going to go away. oh also when artists choose to stay away from record labels and do their stuff on their own.
You know, I'm not sure how it would go over, but I'm contemplating mailing letters to my favorite artists saying, "I downloaded your album. Here's $20."
On that note, one of my fantasies is to go to a Metallica concert and ask them to sign a burned CD of their latest album. (Or better yet, a leaked pre-release album.)
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