Interesting Article About Music Downloading

[ckitz]

Does torrenting music destroy the music industry? Not according to Janis Ian

Janis Ian - American songwriter, singer, musician, author and multiple Grammy-winning writer of "At 17," "Jesse" and "Society's Child": Reading Room: Performing Songwriter Article: In Memoriam: The Internet Debacle: An Alternative View

I came to this article through StumbleUpon, and though that it would make a decent read.

I'm not sure if this belongs in here, or miscellaneous, so mods, feel free to move it if needed.

[Raven2k360]

An old article, but a good read -- I've been saying much of the same for years, since the whole 'napster debacle' hit the fan. I'm still unwilling to go out and pay $15 for a cd, and pretty much the only CDs I do buy now are from smaller acts at live shows I attend, or 'special releases' by certain artists. I've always been tempted to mail a check/money order for $5-10 directly to the band whenever I downloaded an album...at least I'd know it ALL went to the band, rather than just a few pennies of the store price for an album.

[Dub Wood]

I would like to hear what she would have to say about the situation now with itunes and similar outlets being involved and a decade later. It was a good read. Thanks for posting.

[champbassist]

From the article:

Realistically, why do most people download music?

To hear new music, or records that have been deleted and are no longer available for purchase. Not to avoid paying $5 at the local used CD store, or taping it off the radio, but to hear music they can't find anywhere else

I'm sure people will point fingers at that point, but this is exactly the reason why people download music in places like India where you can get probably 1% of the music coming out of the west. Being from such a place, I'm probably not even party to the debate (if music companies don't consider us a market profitable enough to provide material here, it's obvious that downloading the material we don't get here won't hurt them either, plus we buy anything and everything we can get here) but I can see why someone would make that point.

[bassbrad]

This is just another way people justify what I consider "content theft". They want/need to spend money on the newest and brightest digital toy to show off to their friends but feel it's okay to steal the artistic content, whether it is a movie, music or a program. To so many if the content is not free it's a rip off.
Was the old Music Industry a corrupt business model, yes it certainly became that but for a long time it was the only game in town so that seemed okay. With the dawning of the Digital Age and digital delivery became a realistic way to get music it killed the old physical medium model, so gone are record stores but also gone are the revenues that artists deserve from the public for access to their creation.
There are real world consequences to artists in the digital age, I can cite one example. I have a friend that had a brief period of some creativity and notoriety. His music in a physical medium was for the most part hard to find, collectable and often expensive boot legs from which he gained no benefit from. Enter the digital age Napster and other free downloading sites and suddenly he became an underground sensation with thousands of downloads of songs and albums. Did he benefit? Not one thin dime! All the while he was disabled, broke and was forced to decide what to spend money on groceries or medication. The few hundreds or thousands of dollars could have seriously made his life deservedly better.

[kuys]

Originally Posted by bassbrad

This is just another way people justify what I consider "content theft". They want/need to spend money on the newest and brightest digital toy to show off to their friends but feel it's okay to steal the artistic content, whether it is a movie, music or a program. To so many if the content is not free it's a rip off.
Was the old Music Industry a corrupt business model, yes it certainly became that but for a long time it was the only game in town so that seemed okay. With the dawning of the Digital Age and digital delivery became a realistic way to get music it killed the old physical medium model, so gone are record stores but also gone are the revenues that artists deserve from the public for access to their creation.
There are real world consequences to artists in the digital age, I can cite one example. I have a friend that had a brief period of some creativity and notoriety. His music in a physical medium was for the most part hard to find, collectable and often expensive boot legs from which he gained no benefit from. Enter the digital age Napster and other free downloading sites and suddenly he became an underground sensation with thousands of downloads of songs and albums. Did he benefit? Not one thin dime! All the while he was disabled, broke and was forced to decide what to spend money on groceries or medication. The few hundreds or thousands of dollars could have seriously made his life deservedly better.

I'm sorry for your friends plight but your own example is bordering on a false dichotomy. You said yourself that during his run his material was hard to find and mostly out of print. Which seems to have hurt him during his hey-day. Going on that information, I fail to see how downloading his material in these last two decades hurt him. Again by your own admission there were no physical copies to buy in the first place. Most people are good and if given the opportunity will do the right thing. If the guy had put up a web-presence with material available for sale I believe he would of made some money off his renewed popularity. I personally think a lot of older artists who complain about this new age of digital distribution have no right. They let, or are letting, the potential for a new revenue stream pass them by. Either due to their own fear of technology or misplaced anger at a situation they haven't really examined or don't really understand.

One of my favorite bands (Skeleton-Key) is putting out a new album this year and when they needed the fans to help finish the record. What did we do? We sent them double the money they needed to finish the album because we want to hear another album. People are good, and will do the right thing if given the chance. You can't blame consumers when your product for all intents and purposes, does not exist in a physical form. Or the price is outrageous due to rarity.