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Interesting discussion about music piracy and artist compensation

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Lukas:
Started by Emily White, a college DJ and 20-year old intern at NPR's All Songs Considered, at http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/06/16/154863819/i-never-owned-any-music-to-begin-with

--- Quote ---I am an avid music listener, concertgoer, and college radio DJ. My world is music-centric. I've only bought 15 CDs in my lifetime. Yet, my entire iTunes library exceeds 11,000 songs.

I wish I could say I miss album packaging and liner notes and rue the decline in album sales the digital world has caused. But the truth is, I've never supported physical music as a consumer. As monumental a role as musicians and albums have played in my life, I've never invested money in them aside from concert tickets and T-shirts.

--- End quote ---


Answer as an open letter from David Lowery, of Cracker and Camper van Beethoven fame, currently lecturing at the University of Georgia on music business, a long but very interesting read: http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

--- Quote ---The existential questions that your generation gets to answer are these:

Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?

Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?

Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who create and sell music?

This is a bit of hyperbole to emphasize the point. But it’s as if:

Networks: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!

Hardware: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!

Artists: 99.9 % lower middle class. Screw you, you greedy bastards!

Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!

I am genuinely stunned by this. Since you appear to love first generation Indie Rock, and as a founding member of a first generation Indie Rock band I am now legally obligated to issue this order: kids, lawn, vacate.

You are doing it wrong.

--- End quote ---

Plastique:
Good points. I don't think digital piracy is defensible, or at least I've never heard a good argument for it.

Scoot Meevo:
I consume pirate downloads as a means of finding out if I like something. I also physically own about 950 records and cds (only about 5% of these are singles). My tastes aren't particularly mainstream so I don't have the benefit of checking it out on MTV or even the rockier channels like SCUZZ or Kerrang! for the most part. I own loads of albums now which I originally downloaded and found myself to be listening to quite a lot.

I don't think there's a ons-size-fits-all answer to this, yes it can be a form of theft but at the same time I don't agree that every download constitutes a business loss. Many downloads don't get listened to, some would never have been bought (if that were the only way to hear them) anyway and I think it's fair to say that the music industry has lost a large slice of the entertainment cash pot to newer technologies such as video games (One game can easily as much as 3 or 4 CDs and you can't buy a 'cheap mini/midi player' to use them either).

As an artist and writer of music with songs for sale on the interweb, I'm not really worried about people paying for it. If they do then great, if not, I'm cool with that. As long as someone's enjoying it somewhere that's the main thing for me. People may think "yeah but you're saying that because you're not in a position to make a big loss" etc but if I wanted to make music for money it would be pretty simple to start up a cover band doing famous songs and make £250-£300 a night (that's a local going rate). It's just not my motivation to be honest.

That's not to say because I feel like this that every artist should of course, but I don't feel it's a simple question to put a right and wrong across the board on. It's also not to say that even I am right or wrong, I'm probably in a minority in that I still want a physical album to own so it may be that my own input is irrelevant as part of the bigger picture.

GodSlayer:

--- Quote from: Lukas on Jun 20, 2012, 02:45:30 PM ---Answer as an open letter from David Lowery, of Cracker and Camper van Beethoven fame, currently lecturing at the University of Georgia on music business, a long but very interesting read: http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

--- End quote ---


Q: Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?
A: I don't spend money on networks or hardware solely for music any more than I spend money soley on music itself, so you can't mean 'value' in the financial sense. And why would I download music if I didn't 'value' it just as I value the medium that allows me to attain it? so what sense of value is there a distinction in?

Q: Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?
A: because we don't live in a social group where everyone knows how to get these for free without any effort or reasonable risk.

Q: Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who create and sell music?
A: This is simply a false premise, much like asking 'why are we happy to pay tax'. Many people are not--we part with the money we have to. You could say we 'gladly give' if we could use what we liked and face only a museum/art gallery donation box instead of the coersion of law enforcing payments in exchange for goods or services. The system we have is the one you have when people only reluctantly give as much as they must.

Q: This is a bit of hyperbole to emphasize the point. But it’s as if:
Networks: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!
Hardware: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!
Artists: 99.9 % lower middle class. Screw you, you greedy bastards!
A: I know, right! omg, like, it's as if:
bears: I respect you so much you kings of the mountains!
sharks: I respect you so much you kings of the ocean!
lions: I respect you so much you kings of the savannah!
cows: fuck you, you lowly peasant piece of shit, I shouldn't even let you eat my grass! you don't even deserve to live! I will kill your family and desecrate their carcasses while you watch!
it's as if "There is no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, then there was at the time of Genghis Khan..."!!
Why you wrongly think music is in any way special in this regard I can only suspect is because it is your passion and pet peeve.

Q: Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!

I am genuinely stunned by this. Since you appear to love first generation Indie Rock, and as a founding member of a first generation Indie Rock band I am now legally obligated to issue this order: kids, lawn, vacate.

A: your hyperbole had a point. does this nonsense have a point?

GodSlayer:

--- Quote from: Scoot Meevo on Aug 09, 2012, 03:48:24 PM ---I consume pirate downloads as a means of finding out if I like something.

--- End quote ---

(not a question pointed to you, I just want to use this concept as a jumping-off point)


suppose you didn't find out (you simply didn't want to risk the crime of using pirated content no matter what your excuse might be): what would happen to/for the artist?

suppose you find out, but since you know that artist doesn't like piracy, you respectfully act the same as you would have acted if piracy didn't exist (paying homage to the world they prefer): what would happen to/for the artist?

(...obviously this is more relevant to the crimes and careers of the past decade than the international broadband international Spotify access world we're moving into.)

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