Is Piracy Really Killing The Music Industry? No!.........?

[SLICES]

this is the trouble with this capitalist society we all live in. the fact that art must in some degree have to equal money; unacceptable, in my opinion.

You´re right but musician is also a job so it should be possible to get paid for it. If people can spend money for a beer why should they get music for free through piracy?

[Casanova808]

You´re right but musician is also a job so it should be possible to get paid for it. If people can spend money for a beer why should they get music for free through piracy?

I totally love the whole "dude, art should be free, you are scum if you think you should be compensated for creative WORK."

I am not an artist, I am a worker in sound. I create a product that has value and I fully deserve to be compensated for it. I have to PAY rent on a room for my music equipment every month, I have to PAY for the equipment itself, I have to PAY for the maintenance of the equipment, I have to BUY recording supplies in order to make music, I have to SPEND time in order to run the equipment, I have to SPEND time in order to build my musical skills so that I can have something worth hearing when I use that equipment, I have to SPEND time using that equipment to make music.

None of that is free. You are forcing me to subside your cultural enjoyment when you steal my work. You are no better than a corporation like Walmat who forces its laborers to subsides their low prices and profit margins through intentionally unfair labor and wage practices.

It would be wildly more profitable for me to just chuck out music and get a job at McDonalds. Why should I put time and effort into building a skillset that requires a high degree of intelligence and consideration when people place more objective value on a Big Mac Extra Value Meal than my creative LABOR? You will spend money ten bucks on a meal at a restaurant, but you wont spend the same money on something that required even higher degree skill and effort.

Creative work is LABOR and it deserves to be valued and rewarded just like any other activity that creates a product.

[infernal.techno]

You are no better than a corporation like Walmat who forces its laborers to subsides their low prices and profit margins through intentionally unfair labor and wage practices.

that's quite a stretch

[A-Dreamer]

Creative work is LABOR and it deserves to be valued and rewarded just like any other activity that creates a product.

if you see it as labor, that doesn't mean every creative artist does.
again, i do see your point and i don't support piracy. i understand that you put money into your activities and expect to be compensated, i'm just laying out another side to the story

[PsyTox]

You are no better than a corporation like Walmat who forces its laborers to subsides their low prices and profit margins through intentionally unfair labor and wage practices.

that's quite a stretch

hmm, although he made it sound like an anti-Wal-Marx manifesto, I do believe he's not far from the truth. Piracy forces artists to tone down your art to fit the taste of the audience that's left. If you don't, you simply vanish and all that's left is "formula written music".

Still, I think the state of today's music also forces people in 'the bizz' to be creative: we also went to find a sponsor for the label and we go to events and clubs to ask for showcase stages, we throw remix contests, work with magazines etc etc. A label isn't just the middleman between artists and distribution anymore these days, we act pretty much like a PR company. I see that as another side of music that I never had to consider before, but I learn and adapt. And keep it fun like that, while our artists hopefully can continue to worry about placing that bleep at the right spot next to the boom. But of course, it depends on why you started a label, if all you want to do is get your music and your friends' music out there, and you dj and produce and don't want to lose time with all that business stuff -which is your good right-, then yes, this new way of doing music business can surely turn out to be less fun.

Anyway, there's less money to be made for sure, but when I first started out back in 1988 that also was the case... That made a real underground: if you can't make money, you don't need to care about what an audience will think, thus giving people the chance to be creative without boundaries. I can only hope that this current crisis will also instigate a new wave of underground, innovation and new music. Pray with me, beloved.

[siddhu]

You´re right but musician is also a job so it should be possible to get paid for it. If people can spend money for a beer why should they get music for free through piracy?

I totally love the whole "dude, art should be free, you are scum if you think you should be compensated for creative WORK."

I am not an artist, I am a worker in sound. I create a product that has value and I fully deserve to be compensated for it. I have to PAY rent on a room for my music equipment every month, I have to PAY for the equipment itself, I have to PAY for the maintenance of the equipment, I have to BUY recording supplies in order to make music, I have to SPEND time in order to run the equipment, I have to SPEND time in order to build my musical skills so that I can have something worth hearing when I use that equipment, I have to SPEND time using that equipment to make music.

None of that is free. You are forcing me to subside your cultural enjoyment when you steal my work. You are no better than a corporation like Walmat who forces its laborers to subsides their low prices and profit margins through intentionally unfair labor and wage practices.

It would be wildly more profitable for me to just chuck out music and get a job at McDonalds. Why should I put time and effort into building a skillset that requires a high degree of intelligence and consideration when people place more objective value on a Big Mac Extra Value Meal than my creative LABOR? You will spend money ten bucks on a meal at a restaurant, but you wont spend the same money on something that required even higher degree skill and effort.

Creative work is LABOR and it deserves to be valued and rewarded just like any other activity that creates a product.

Amen brother! It really is amusing that there are so many people (trying to be artists themselves) who don't think one should be able to make a living off doing amazing art.

[pafufta816]

i argue that it is a bad idea to expect a living from audio work or production. sure it may be a profession for some people. aren't you forgetting that you submit to a digital economy? i have no trust for this market place. mp3 sales do not even come close to ensuring the livelyhood people involved in the music industry. beatport, juno and itunes do very little to support the artists they are selling, instead they serve as a marketing place. yes you can get your name spread quickly and easily on mp3 download sites, but you forget that your product is literally worthless in our economy.

the music industry has killed itself. just look at the modes of distribution. it's alll digital!! it's insane, the banking industry relied on nearly imaginary forms of currency, traded between automated computer networks, and it nearly collapsed on itself. how can an economy based on digital forms of exchange survive? it's much too volatile.

digital products exist in a very unstable marketplace. this is because the product's capability of infinite reproduction. supply and demand are absolutely irrelevant now, neither controls how many people ultimately consume.

let's say autechre make a new song, and sell it on beatport. in reality, one person need download it, and then share it (p2p, torrent, http/ftp) for the entire worlds population to have access to it!!!!! so for this business model, you can only assume that you'll sell it once. at the moment iTunes relies on the supposition that it's consumers are to ignorant of the internet or fettered with guilt to "steal" music. the reality is that we aren't too ignorant to find what we want for free.

[jackbrazzo]

the music industry has killed itself. just look at the modes of distribution. it's alll digital!! it's insane, the banking industry relied on nearly imaginary forms of currency, traded between automated computer networks, and it nearly collapsed on itself. how can an economy based on digital forms of exchange survive? it's much too volatile.

digital products exist in a very unstable marketplace. this is because the product's capability of infinite reproduction. supply and demand are absolutely irrelevant now, neither controls how many people ultimately consume.

I am afraid this is oh so true, I really think the whole EDM thing needs a complete shakeup, or perhaps thats just me being an older, primarily vinyl user.

Djing doesnt seem to have half the appeal as it used to, perhaps thats because its just become more available to everyone and I am being a bit elitist.

We've got Mixed in Key, DVS systems, endless looping tools -its got more technical, but for hasn't got truly better, just more accessible. I've got and used all the above, but its taken 3 or 4 years of using it and now I find it boring.

Music is seen as disposable, nothing wrong with that in a sense but people dont want to pay if that case?

When I go down to Phonica I feel like a fucking dino now, I stand their tapping my foot with other vinyl addicts, we are a dying breed. Music is there to be taken, stolen, and used I believe in the future purely as a promotional tool.