A devastating response to the "free music" generation.

[JimK]

Most of the music I have, I got in CD form. But an awful lot of the CDs I own I bought used, at goodwill or yard sales or wherever. Now, I've never heard anyone get on a soapbox about the evils of buying used CDs. I think I'm legally and morally clear because I paid for the music. But at the same time, none of the money I paid for the used CD went to the artist.

About 10+ years ago, someone here @TB lambasted me because I mentioned how I bought most of my Miles Davis box sets from Columbia House. In this guy's eyes, Columbia House was the Devil & I was an evil pawn...nevermind I had bought most of those albums once/twice as an LP & another once/twice as a cd.
I asked if ever bought any cd as "used"...crickets.
Like you, I have never heard anything "wrong" about buying "used". Anyone?

 

[Col Pruse]

I stopped reading the article when the author basically blamed file sharing for the suicides of Vic Chestnutt and the Sparklehorse guy.

I like when people come in these threads and flex their moral superiority. "I always buy CDs blah blah blah."

I buy music when I feel like it and I download things as well. Downloading music from the internets has turned me on to so many new bands that I would've never heard of if file sharing wasn't available.

File sharing has been around since the 1990's. It's 2012. Like others have said, it's probably not going to stop. Try something different.

Music artists don't really even need labels these days. You can record yourself and spread it on the internet. Maybe this will weed out all the garbage music that labels put out these days...

 

[bass12]

I stopped reading the article when the author basically blamed file sharing for the suicides of Vic Chestnutt and the Sparklehorse guy.

I like when people come in these threads and flex their moral superiority. "I always buy CDs blah blah blah."

I buy music when I feel like it and I download things as well. Downloading music from the internets has turned me on to so many new bands that I would've never heard of if file sharing wasn't available.

File sharing has been around since the 1990's. It's 2012. Like others have said, it's probably not going to stop. Try something different.

Music artists don't really even need labels these days. You can record yourself and spread it on the internet. Maybe this will weed out all the garbage music that labels put out these days...

I doubt it. It just seems to flood the marketplace with even more crap to sift through. Besides, the "garbage music" that labels put out is generally what sells in quantities sufficient to keep such labels afloat.

 

[DeadGoonz]

I stopped reading the article when the author basically blamed file sharing for the suicides of Vic Chestnutt and the Sparklehorse guy.

I like when people come in these threads and flex their moral superiority. "I always buy CDs blah blah blah."

I buy music when I feel like it and I download things as well. Downloading music from the internets has turned me on to so many new bands that I would've never heard of if file sharing wasn't available.

File sharing has been around since the 1990's. It's 2012. Like others have said, it's probably not going to stop. Try something different.

Music artists don't really even need labels these days. You can record yourself and spread it on the internet. Maybe this will weed out all the garbage music that labels put out these days...

Spot on.+1. The times they are changing, change with them or step aside. My band is releasing our new cd in August and we will try and sell some but we will encourage people to share with others for free. The more people who hear us the more people go to the shows. We are not famous and will in all probability never be, but we have given away 2 of our new tracks last month for free and more people come to see us and join in on singing those songs. It's a win for us. Plus bands and promoters from outside our stomping grounds have contacted us for gigs.

Oh yeah, I'm 38, so I'm kind of a old timer for the music I play. So I remember the good old days of major lable dominance of the music world and I say the further from them we get the better it is for us. That's just one man's opinion.... downloading music gets the music in the hands of the fans so I Like it.

 

[FerK]

Did anybody else catch this little gem down in the comment area of the site where the site people are explaining how they are dealing with the huge number of comments?

"If you play bass we delete."

Hey, I know they're trying to be funny, but that hurts a little.

I did, but further down, close to the bottom, it does say "we don't mean all these things, some are just for fun".

On a different note, am I the ONLY one who read the original post by this Emily girl, and got the idea that she is ONLY talking about buying digital vs buying physical ? Her examples are often wrong, and she does imply here and there that she hasn't paid for a very significant amount of the tracks she has in her libraries. But her whole thesis is about digital vs CDs, e.g.:
- "All of those CDs are gone. My station's library is completely digital now, and so is my listening experience."
- "But I honestly don't think my peers and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience.". Here again, I think she means "will never pay for CDs, will pay for downloads".
- "What I want is one massive Spotify-like catalog of music that will sync to my phone and various home entertainment devices. ". I HOPE she doesn't expect that to come for free.

 

[notverygood]

Did anybody else catch this little gem down in the comment area of the site where the site people are explaining how they are dealing with the huge number of comments?

"If you play bass we delete."

Hey, I know they're trying to be funny, but that hurts a little.

As for the article, it just re-iterates the fact that nothing is really free. Somebody, somewhere pays for it or it stops existing. The Entitlement Generation appears to be h*ll-bent on learning this lesson the hard way. It's the same attitude that expects a six-figure salary job for a college degree in the history of medieval basket weaving. And BTW, the degree was paid for with borrowed money. Welcome to the real world.

The Entitlement Generation? You should stop picking on the Baby Boomers. They are the only generation in history who, as a whole, will never have to feel the effects of their entitlements. Their kids will. Sorry if this comes off as nasty, but this "hate the young" thing is getting old. Let's face it, we all live in glass houses.

 

[ubermiguel]

This guy's article bugged me for 3 reasons:

(1) He basically says "I don't want to lay blame for my friends' suicides on you" after he did exactly that. Very uncool.

(2) the whole thing read like a charity plea (those actually come at the end!). Yes I "should" buy music, and yes I "should" donate money to staving orphans...but guilting me into giving money is NOT a feasible business model.

(3) He doesn't address the basic economic issue of incentives. People respond to incentives. What's my incentive to pay for a digital file that I could get for free? Is there any other product that works like that? There isn't. I actually write a paper about copyright issues on the Internet...in 1998. One thing I didn't see coming then was P2P or bit torrent. That really in the Pandoras Box that cannot be closed. Fighting file sharing is really useless. You have to change the incentives. Autographs, fancy packaging, amazing album art can't be reproduced digitally...those are incentives to buy physical copies.

And this guy is teaching music business classes? I pity his students.

I'm still pondering the future of the music business, but I have no doubt it will include much less selling of actual music and far more amateurs and people actively participating not merely consuming. Will go read that article someone linked now...

 

[ubermiguel]

*starving orphans

 

[joebar]

i have always bought and will continue to buy music on disc.
i feel it is wrong to take it for free because i am a musician as well.
pretty soon, if you take any more monetary gain away from musicians, the only ones left playing music will be the ones who play it because they love to.
the genie is out; mankind always seems to find a way to destroy himself with technology.
congratualtions, we have created a generation of thieves.

 

[BIG97BEN]

What's my incentive to pay for a digital file that I could get for free? Is there any other product that works like that? ...

The "incentive" is doing the right thing. There's always gonna be people that will steal and do other horrible things because they will not be caught. the only reason this is a problem is because there is no accountability. If people were being fined or having to go to court and getting charged for theft, then probably about half you you that think it's ok to do this would not do it because you'd get in trouble. It is what it is but don't try to justify it, if you cover a turd in chocolate it is still a turd.

 

[FilterFunk]

The "incentive" is doing the right thing. There's always gonna be people that will steal and do other horrible things because they will not be caught. the only reason this is a problem is because there is no accountability. If people were being fined or having to go to court and getting charged for theft, then probably about half you you that think it's ok to do this would not do it because you'd get in trouble. It is what it is but don't try to justify it, if you cover a turd in chocolate it is still a turd.

Excellent post. And the "I download music to get the word out, and others will buy it" is exceedingly lame. If you like it enough to buy it, then buy it and tell others about it. If you don't like it enough to buy it, then steer others to where they can buy it if you think they'll be interested. Are we to believe that people are illegally downloading millions of songs they don't especially care for just to promote artists they clearly don't care about?

 

[ubermiguel]

The "incentive" is doing the right thing. There's always gonna be people that will steal and do other horrible things because they will not be caught. the only reason this is a problem is because there is no accountability. If people were being fined or having to go to court and getting charged for theft, then probably about half you you that think it's ok to do this would not do it because you'd get in trouble. It is what it is but don't try to justify it, if you cover a turd in chocolate it is still a turd.

"Doing the right thing" is not an incentive. The only industry based on what people "should" do is the charity industry. I hope you don't suggest musicians should become charity cases.

The record industry has tried suing people and jailing them. Didn't work. People are still downloading. And suing people is expensive, only the lawyers get rich. Time to think of a better plan.

The paradigm shift many people have missed is that downloading is unlike theft in that no-one is deprived of real property. There's a lost opportunity to sell an analogue product, but it's likely the downloader wouldn't pay anything to have it anyways, so it's not really a lost sale. People that view the marginal cost of production as $0 are willing to pay roughly $0.

 

[BIG97BEN]

Well it's hard to debate the point with you when you say that it's not stealing because you won't get caught and the value of something is zero because people wont pay for something they can steal.

 

[ubermiguel]

Well it's hard to debate the point with you when you say that it's not stealing because you won't get caught and the value of something is zero because people wont pay for something they can steal.

Not exactly what I was saying. More like: it's not stealing because after the first file it costs you $0 to make more. And you're not being deprived of any real thing, I'm just copying some 1s & 0s.

Kids (20 and under) have never lived in a world where you couldn't download any music at any time for free. In their eyes there is unlimited music. Making the same point another way, if the supply is infinity then the demand for the product (average price someone will pay) becomes $0.

And don't think these are my personal views. I'm trying to get into the head of downloaders because there are so many if them, and there's more coming.

 

[iJazz]

Want an astute, authoritative, insightful perspective about the issue? There is surely not a single person alive today more qualified to offer such a perspective than Todd Rundgren.

A recording artist of singular success, record producer of historic dimension, iconoclastic performing artist, and the man Time Warner turned to to develop the idea of music on demand, in this short video Todd clearly explains that the music industry of the past 110 or so years is an aberration we need to get over; that music is a service, not a product, and that it is Time For The Music Industry To Evolve.

Aged though this video is, I've never heard a better opinion about the shape of the music business than Todd's.

iJazz - Just watch the video.

 

[bass12]

Not exactly what I was saying. More like: it's not stealing because after the first file it costs you $0 to make more. And you're not being deprived of any real thing, I'm just copying some 1s & 0s.

No. This is why the notion of intellectual property exists.

 

[hdracer]

Want an astute, authoritative, insightful perspective about the issue? There is surely not a single person alive today more qualified to offer such a perspective than Todd Rundgren.

A recording artist of singular success, record producer of historic dimension, iconoclastic performing artist, and the man Time Warner turned to to develop the idea of music on demand, in this short video Todd clearly explains that the music industry of the past 110 or so years is an aberration we need to get over; that music is a service, not a product, and that it is Time For The Music Industry To Evolve.

Aged though this video is, I've never heard a better opinion about the shape of the music business than Todd's.

iJazz - Just watch the video.

Easy for him to say after he made his millions and his carrier has been over for a while.

 

[ubermiguel]

Want an astute, authoritative, insightful perspective about the issue? There is surely not a single person alive today more qualified to offer such a perspective than Todd Rundgren.

A recording artist of singular success, record producer of historic dimension, iconoclastic performing artist, and the man Time Warner turned to to develop the idea of music on demand, in this short video Todd clearly explains that the music industry of the past 110 or so years is an aberration we need to get over; that music is a service, not a product, and that it is Time For The Music Industry To Evolve.

Aged though this video is, I've never heard a better opinion about the shape of the music business than Todd's.

iJazz - Just watch the video.

+1. Great video, thanks for sharing.

One thing Todd touches upon that I think is going to be an important idea going forward is user participation. People are no longer satisfied to simply consume their media, they participate, reimagine and create using other media as a jumping-off point.

 

[ubermiguel]

No. This is why the notion of intellectual property exists.

You are correct. IP was created to make sure the creators were rewarded for their work. A couple of issues have arisen with IP.

Creators are not being rewarded to create anymore, now IP laws protect corporations interests from other corporations. And they're more interested in protecting existing IP than creating new IP. The system is broken.

When IP laws were created (400+ years ago) the ability to make exact copies, easily and for nearly free didn't exist. This makes enforcement nearly impossible.

 

[Tupac]

Not a bad article, read about half. But I don't think it addressed (from what I've read at least) how some artists actually encourage bootlegging and piracy. How do you explain that?