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File sharing doesn't hurt musicians
- Thread starter AaronVonRock
- Start date
Eh, yeah... I never said if I think it's wrong or right, just telling it like it is.
And for the record, I'm pretty sure I spend more money on music than most other people in this thread, I'm a total vinyl-addict, and I've never downloaded a single song in my life. And I buy most of my records brand new, I'm no thrift store hipster. Heck, I don't even download porn...
I wasn't attacking you, just pointing out the often shady justifications many of us go through when what we want comes up against what we can have.
Sure, I get that. On the other hand, I think that people of my age (soon 35) and younger really don't actively try to justify downloading music, movies, software, etc. And I don't think it necessarily comes from a bloated sense of entitlement, to them it's just the norm, and I don't think most of them have actually given it any thought what so ever. It's just the way things are.
FWIW, the topic of this thread is "File sharing doesn't hurt musicians".
Even with the person's "rip cord pull" suggestion to "choose" to work for people who sell their products for lower prices LoL (which is impossible due to prices being already VERY fair for recorded music and due to costs involved with recording/releasing/marketing albums), even that person's suggestion isn't a solution to the problem as I see it.
Do you really think that 99 cent songs on iTunes are over priced? seriously? all the work that goes into making them, and they charge less than it costs to buy a small fries from McDonald's?
It's extremely, disproportionately imho, cheap to buy music these days. It cost me similar amounts 30 years ago, so inflation has been completely ignored in current music pricing. It should cost upwards of $50 to buy an album today based on pricing of the past.
So...
a) the people who hire me (and any other REAL working musicians) already charge crazy small amounts for their products to consumers
b) no matter how cheap it is, they still have to charge money for it or people will refuse to work for them (for free). They lose out on the expertise and technology of the industry, and voila we have no product. How is this a win? Do you really live in the naive world where making a movie or major album should be able to be done in your basement by you and your friends? I mean, yes there are great releases like that, but the thousands of us who take our music work more seriously than that, do you really think we should just give away our skills because it's nice to share music?
From what I've seen first hand repeatedly over the years (remember I'm an internet software developer by day), people who endorse illegal file sharing don't feel that artist/author/developer is worthy of earning a single cent from the music/creation/product.... that much has been made plainly clear repeatedly, where even a 50 cent song on itunes, if it's popular, gets seeded and downloaded hundreds of thousands of times for free using bit torrent and other p2p engines.
Average humans will take what they can get for free, even if it's illegal, as long as they feel they won't get caught.
The known prevention of this established human flaw is to make it impossible to successfully steal things. Security guards, copy protection, magnetic strips, ip recording, enforced user registration before downloading, major threat of brutal punishment if caught (removal of your hand), and even industry released trojans and similar virii have been used to reduce the amount of illegal distribution of music and movies.
However some people would rather spend the time feeling as though they're "beating the system" by developing methods to circumvent these sadly necessary techniques than being effective members of an organized society. Most of the rest of the popular would rather get whatever handouts they can for free than work for them and follow a set of rules that were put in place to ensure those who provide a great service (creation of music, etc) get something in return in exchange for the end listener's enjoyment.
There are well accepted diagnoses for the type of behaviour of hackers and file sharing authors within the field of psychology... and they are not considered "normal" people in society.
Even with the person's "rip cord pull" suggestion to "choose" to work for people who sell their products for lower prices LoL (which is impossible due to prices being already VERY fair for recorded music and due to costs involved with recording/releasing/marketing albums), even that person's suggestion isn't a solution to the problem as I see it.
Do you really think that 99 cent songs on iTunes are over priced? seriously? all the work that goes into making them, and they charge less than it costs to buy a small fries from McDonald's?
It's extremely, disproportionately imho, cheap to buy music these days. It cost me similar amounts 30 years ago, so inflation has been completely ignored in current music pricing. It should cost upwards of $50 to buy an album today based on pricing of the past.
So...
a) the people who hire me (and any other REAL working musicians) already charge crazy small amounts for their products to consumers
b) no matter how cheap it is, they still have to charge money for it or people will refuse to work for them (for free). They lose out on the expertise and technology of the industry, and voila we have no product. How is this a win? Do you really live in the naive world where making a movie or major album should be able to be done in your basement by you and your friends? I mean, yes there are great releases like that, but the thousands of us who take our music work more seriously than that, do you really think we should just give away our skills because it's nice to share music?
From what I've seen first hand repeatedly over the years (remember I'm an internet software developer by day), people who endorse illegal file sharing don't feel that artist/author/developer is worthy of earning a single cent from the music/creation/product.... that much has been made plainly clear repeatedly, where even a 50 cent song on itunes, if it's popular, gets seeded and downloaded hundreds of thousands of times for free using bit torrent and other p2p engines.
Average humans will take what they can get for free, even if it's illegal, as long as they feel they won't get caught.
The known prevention of this established human flaw is to make it impossible to successfully steal things. Security guards, copy protection, magnetic strips, ip recording, enforced user registration before downloading, major threat of brutal punishment if caught (removal of your hand), and even industry released trojans and similar virii have been used to reduce the amount of illegal distribution of music and movies.
However some people would rather spend the time feeling as though they're "beating the system" by developing methods to circumvent these sadly necessary techniques than being effective members of an organized society. Most of the rest of the popular would rather get whatever handouts they can for free than work for them and follow a set of rules that were put in place to ensure those who provide a great service (creation of music, etc) get something in return in exchange for the end listener's enjoyment.
There are well accepted diagnoses for the type of behaviour of hackers and file sharing authors within the field of psychology... and they are not considered "normal" people in society.
which is just wrong. So don't have a conscience... live in ignorance of who you're screwing over in your behaviour, that makes it perfectly acceptable.
I certainly disagree with you here - many of us teach our children and students how business actually works instead of letting our kids become thieves out of ignorance of right and wrong.
anyway, sorry I suddenly got so involved in this discussion folks.
I normally don't take strong stands on these things.
However rarely have I met someone pro-illegal-sharing who wasn't either:
a) - able to see both sides rationally and either try to come up with viable alternative business plans (real ones)
or
b) just agree after being taught how real musicians make money that they had no idea how the music industry really works and "I'm really sorry".
holy run on sentence batman... LoL
I'll sit back and read now without posting. as you were ;-)
I normally don't take strong stands on these things.
However rarely have I met someone pro-illegal-sharing who wasn't either:
a) - able to see both sides rationally and either try to come up with viable alternative business plans (real ones)
or
b) just agree after being taught how real musicians make money that they had no idea how the music industry really works and "I'm really sorry".
holy run on sentence batman... LoL
I'll sit back and read now without posting. as you were ;-)
Again, I'm not saying wether I think it's right or wrong, just making an observation.
And to put it down to bad parenting? I don't buy it. Most people who download illegaly are otherwise law abiding well adjusted citizens, downloading is not a borderline anti-social personality disorder.
lol, well I meant that hackers who build p2p and anti encryption systems etc and feel it's right to use for commercial media exhibit that personally disorder, not the typical downloading end user.
But yea... bad parenting or bad education if people don't realize they're stealing and ruining musicians lives typically in today's under 35 crowd.
I disagree there too... a lot of people I know are that age and I haven't seen a trend of ignorance that they just accept its ok to download from p2p.... I've been asked by many people if it's ok and what the ramifications are. I know they only mean if they're caught, but at least young people understand that they're not supposed to do that.
Like, if you ask a teenager if it's ok to download an album from bit torrent they'll typical answer with "its ok, you won't/can't get caught", not with "its ok, the artist gets paid anyway, this is legal, you're not stealing".
Anyway, that was just too clarify what I meant... sorry for over posting
I think yours are the kinds of posts folks here need to read. It's very easy for people to come up with all kinds of notions from the "outside", when they aren't actually working musicians. And again, a lot of people are reducing the impact to "effects felt by indie musicians in original bands" and that's only a fraction of the whole scenario.
I'd argue that a sense of entitlement is exactly what it is. These people feel entitled to free music.
It's not entitlement or conviction. They simply want to have the music the easiest way possible. If there wasn't any file sharing, they'd be taking it from their friends or buying the cds. But they don't have to anymore - they can just download it for free. It's ease of access, conveniency, for the most part
The voice of reason. It's nice to see some people putting things in a proper perspective.
Let's complete this picture. In this case people are willing to pay zero because the store window has been bashed in and the furniture is sitting there for the taking and there isn't a cop in sight.
Yep, it's as simple as that.
And once again, I'm not saying file sharing is right, but this whole idea of assigning anyone who downloads music with some sort of character flaw or personality disorder is just wrong.
It's an oversimplification of the entire problem, and anyone who is interested in actually solving the issue are shooting themselves in the foot by pulling the "kids these days" card at every opportunity.
Ok, I'll go along with that for the sake of argument.
Now how do you propose we fix the broken window?
By showing that the criminals will be dealt with by fining and/or sentencing them
Again, extremely costly, and won't work. See "the war on drugs". I pay enough taxes as is.
And are you also saying that labels should just sit back while this is going on, and do nothing towards developing a business model that will make people want to pay for their music again?
As they say; "adapt or die".
Now you get it!
That's similar to my bike lock analogy. The window is DRM and the cops are enforcement. The window was broken years ago and the store keepers were too lazy or ignorant to replace it, so they just put up with the kids taking crap from the store every night. Bad on the thieves, and bad on the store keepers.
