Great Stuff Records or why youtube gets a worse place for mu

[Shepherd_of_Anu]

If revenues are down for individual artists its because new technology has enabled the consumer and given them the power to buy only what they want. No longer are we forced to by a 14 track album with 11.5 songs that are mediocre at best. Aren't overall revenues up though? Its hard to find reliable information, there seems to be a lot of conflicting articles out there.

Personally I don't really buy into the music industry's piracy fear machine. They are doing good and if not then let them fold. That is capitalism, if they can't succeed they shouldn't exist. A new model will emerge. People love music. Business monetizes what people love. Its not complicated.

There is so much music on youtube that I would have never discovered had it not been uploaded. Youtube's algorithm for "related videos" is a handy and interesting way to find music. Audio on youtube is horrible though. Its only fit for previewing unless you are in a pinch. Like I had a friend who really wanted a rare old ballad for their wedding and ripped it from youtube.

I can't say that i have ever really lost any sleep over the "plight" of music labels. I have said it before and I will say it again. DJing and producing is a rich kids game. If you can't afford to do it without becoming financially unstable then you probably shouldn't be viewing it as a major income stream. Get real with your life and keep your music as a personal passion.

It's not because "everyone is doing it" that it is right. Think about the fact that because of your "love", a million people listened (or downloaded) these tracks and imagine how much revenue the labels and the artists you "love" missed out on. Just because you bought the record doesn't give you the right to upload it. Period.

I doubt the vast majority of people ever listen to a single track on youtube more than once or twice. If its good they may look into getting it. If they had never checked it out at all then there is almost no chance they will pick it up. Youtube is free publicity. Pretty economical method of advertising. If you think the absence of that Youtube user's channel would have translated into more sales then you are fooling yourself.

Piracy doesn't kill off anything that wasn't going to die on its own anyways. Take porn for instance. I don't think I even know anyone who pays for porn. There are tons of internet sites where people access porn for free yet in 2006 the world wide revenue in porn was $97 Billion USD. You want to make money? Go into porn or get some useful skills. How many Djs or producers make big money off it these days? A few hundred, if even a few dozen? you know what I am saying? 6+ billion people out there. Best of luck.

Sometimes I shake my head and grin when I read about producers or label guys complaining about profits. It makes me think about the attitudes of the pioneers of techno / house music who reveled in the opportunity to get something new and fresh out there into the world and blast through the established music industry's barriers. How lame and profit driven its all become... I guess I just have a hard time accepting the music is just another content delivery genre.

This all kind of brings me to something I just came across... I had read another post a few minutes ago about Aaron Carl's cancer diagnosis and after reading this post when to youtube to check out some of his music. As life is... i stumbled across an amusing counter-view to the anti-piracy-label-guy's sort of attitude...

A poster named Augie put up a video of a Aaron Carl track remixed by Quantec... and a Comment posted by Aaron Carl himself.

Thank u Augie, for posting this mix... And for keeping my song alive. :-) I appreciate it, and I'm very honored.

Much love from Detroit,
Aaron-Carl

I am going to buy this guy's music just because he is coming from the right place.

Producers shouldn't be bitter because they are not as successful as they want to be... most producers just don't have that mass appeal and the last people they should be taking their grievances out on are the few people who do love what they do.

[patrick bateman]

Take porn for instance. I don't think I even know anyone who pays for porn. There are tons of internet sites where people access porn for free yet in 2006 the world wide revenue in porn was $97 Billion USD. You want to make money? Go into porn or get some useful skills. How many Djs or producers make big money off it these days? A few hundred, if even a few dozen? you know what I am saying? 6+ billion people out there. Best of luck.

Industry insiders estimate that since 2007, revenue for most adult production and distribution companies has declined 30% to 50% and the number of new films made has fallen sharply.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/10 ... -ct-porn10

[Shepherd_of_Anu]

I kind of chucked when I read that... dude, Savannah Stern is like, probably at the end of her career. What is she? Like 24? Started in porn when she was 19. Sounds about right? Time to put her out to the pasture. Only vivid contract girls make it to their 30's... I hope she saved up when he had that 6 digit salary... lol. Doubt it.

We should also keep in mind that the market is super saturated. I read something earlier... a new porn is being made every 39 minutes in the united states. Even that producer guy admits he feels guilty because he is "exploiting" the situation. Wages don't fall that low unless there is a recession or an abundance of people willing to work for cheap. If the performers refused to work for such low rates then producers would have to pay more. Its supply and demand.

I think its kind of interesting why people think industries and businesses are entitled to succeed. At least that is the impression I get sometimes. Successful businesses change with the times. Look at blockbuster... shares trading at $0.05 last I heard... netflix trading at $170.63. Oh, blockbuster now declared bankruptcy.

[roland]

one problem with mp3 is that everyone can easily multiply it million times on his home computer..

that's unique in the whole economy.. seriously don'tlot of other producst for which it is the same case..

imo something everyone can multiply without any costs or loss of quality isn't saleable.. or at least less saleable.. that affects porn which is watched on the computer but even more mp3s..

If revenues are down for individual artists its because new technology has enabled the consumer and given them the power to buy only what they want.

yeah great.. that's why people only buy the track which is on the mtv top10 and not the whole album anymore.. sure the single track is what they want in the first place.. but you don't know that you don't want any other tracks of the same artist too.. it's an affront to the artist to just buy an a-side or one single song out of an album.. (it's different when you prelisten all of his songs and just like one f.e.) but the majority of people doesn't care about any other tracks of an artist except for the one which happens to be in the top10.. even single cd's had more than one song on it.. mostly two songs and a remix..
for the musical education this developement was devastating..

[PsyTox]

If revenues are down for individual artists its because new technology has enabled the consumer and given them the power to buy only what they want. No longer are we forced to by a 14 track album with 11.5 songs that are mediocre at best. Aren't overall revenues up though? Its hard to find reliable information, there seems to be a lot of conflicting articles out there.

Personally I don't really buy into the music industry's piracy fear machine. They are doing good and if not then let them fold. That is capitalism, if they can't succeed they shouldn't exist. A new model will emerge. People love music. Business monetizes what people love. Its not complicated.

The problem is (and it's a fact that is happily ignored by people using any reason to hide the fact that they are stealing music):

1. that small labels and artists in niche music styles are NOT making money. We're not talking about profit here, we're talking about not losing too much money. I can only keep our label afloat because I make quite some money with my daytime job and a sponsor who puts money in our pocket just enough to pay the basic stuff like mastering and promotion.

2. Come on, digital downloads allow you to buy just the track you want, and not the 14 fillers like on a cd. And that has been for years. Using that as an excuse for downloading illegally is the most retarded reason ever.

3. You say "artists should not be bitter because they aren't succesful". Well, that's the fucking point: many producers make the stuff that makes them succesful in their job (= making good tunes that people like and play in the clubs). But their craft isn't rewarded because everyone plays it illegally and you as an artist can't live of what you do best. And not all producers want to go out and do live acts or dj. God knows we've got lots of crappy parties nowadays because of that system, where producers play dj sets to make money and often they suck at it.

You don't realise how frustrating it is to make a track that goes on vinyl and digital, sells about 100 vinyls and about 50-60 downloads, and then you get tons of emails saying how much people like your tune and you hear it play in clubs. And statistics on a blog that posted them illegally says that it's been downloaded +4000 times! I mean, if even only half of the people would have bought the track, I would have been able to work part time, make more music, get you better tunes, get the label artists paid more, get better remixes, get the best mastering engineers, get the vinyls a nice designed sleeve, etc etc etc.
If you are wondering why Beatport is full with bad sounding standard stuff, well, that's a direct consequence of illlegal downloading: labels simply don't have the money to master the tunes properly and just release everything the way they get it from the bedroom studio of the producer. Or release anything and often release an EP every week...

4. Capitalism, ah yes, now THAT is a wonderful system indeed, we certainly have got many many better lives thanks to that, especially these last few years! But even in capitalism, it's not allowed to steal. Well, not directly anyway

Oh well, whatever. I know people will just ignore whatever does't suit their viewpoint, c'est la vie. I'm seriously thinking of just releasing my own stuff on the label from next year, because it's hardly worth the effort and I feel bad having to tell artists that there's no money being made at all.

[PsyTox]

If revenues are down for individual artists its because new technology has enabled the consumer and given them the power to buy only what they want. No longer are we forced to by a 14 track album with 11.5 songs that are mediocre at best. Aren't overall revenues up though? Its hard to find reliable information, there seems to be a lot of conflicting articles out there.

Personally I don't really buy into the music industry's piracy fear machine. They are doing good and if not then let them fold. That is capitalism, if they can't succeed they shouldn't exist. A new model will emerge. People love music. Business monetizes what people love. Its not complicated.

The problem is (and it's a fact that is happily ignored by people using any reason to hide the fact that they are stealing music):

1. that small labels and artists in niche music styles are NOT making money. We're not talking about profit here, we're talking about not losing too much money. I can only keep our label afloat because I make quite some money with my daytime job and a sponsor who puts money in our pocket just enough to pay the basic stuff like mastering and promotion.

2. Come on, digital downloads allow you to buy just the track you want, and not the 14 fillers like on a cd. And that has been for years. Using that as an excuse for downloading illegally is the most retarded reason ever.

3. You say "artists should not be bitter because they aren't succesful". Well, that's the fucking point: many producers make the stuff that makes them succesful in their job (= making good tunes that people like and play in the clubs). But their craft isn't rewarded because everyone plays it illegally and you as an artist can't live of what you do best. And not all producers want to go out and do live acts or dj. God knows we've got lots of crappy parties nowadays because of that system, where producers play dj sets to make money and often they suck at it.

You don't realise how frustrating it is to make a track that goes on vinyl and digital, sells about 100 vinyls and about 50-60 downloads, and then you get tons of emails saying how much people like your tune and you hear it play in clubs. And statistics on a blog that posted them illegally says that it's been downloaded +4000 times! I mean, if even only half of the people would have bought the track, I would have been able to work part time, make more music, get you better tunes, get the label artists paid more, get better remixes, get the best mastering engineers, get the vinyls a nice designed sleeve, etc etc etc.
If you are wondering why Beatport is full with bad sounding standard stuff, well, that's a direct consequence of illlegal downloading: labels simply don't have the money to master the tunes properly and just release everything the way they get it from the bedroom studio of the producer. Or release anything and often release an EP every week...

4. Capitalism, ah yes, now THAT is a wonderful system indeed, we certainly have got many many better lives thanks to that, especially these last few years! But even in capitalism, it's not allowed to steal. Well, not directly anyway

Oh well, whatever. I know people will just ignore whatever does't suit their viewpoint, c'est la vie. I'm seriously thinking of just releasing my own stuff on the label from next year, because it's hardly worth the effort and I feel bad having to tell artists that there's no money being made at all.

[trak660]

DJing and producing is a rich kids game. If you can't afford to do it without becoming financially unstable then you probably shouldn't be viewing it as a major income stream.

Most of the people who have records for sale and spin every week also have a "day job." Whether someone expects to survive solely off of music isn't the point.

I don't know a DJ under 25 who pays for music or spins with anything other than pirated Ableton. These DJs are getting paid, so it's only fair not to cheat the artists and software developers who make it possible.
The investment required to be a DJ is so much less than when I started in the 1990s. Seriously, you could get that $150 Numark with Traktor LE + a $200 used laptop and totally go off.

What if a person got your credit card number and bought $10000 worth of mp3s with it? The transaction would be fully digital. There would be no physical money involved, and the bank might even put it back on your account. Would it be stealing?

[Ciaran_]

I don't know a DJ under 25 who pays for music or spins with anything other than pirated Ableton.

I'm 23, and I now play fully vinyl. I don't get paid for playing, but still buy as many records as I can afford from my (crappily paid) full-time job.

When I first started 'djing' I used (pirated) Ableton, and was downloading 1000's of mp3s illegally. This wasn't because I didn't love the music I was listening to/playing, but it was because it was so easily accessible, and from the age of 15, finding tracks, and downloading them for free was the cheapest and easiest way for me to find new music, and enjoy it.

After reading posts in various forums about the struggle label owners and artists have in getting their music out there in whatever form, it made me feel pretty guilty, but at the time it was the furthest thing from my mind in

I don't think people 'steal' the music in a malicious, fck you way to the artists or labels, they just don't realise the work and money that goes into it. Not trying to justify this, but people just dont understand and appreciate things enough to pay for them sometimes.

Since starting to buy records, mp3s have become much more unattractive and I never play them when I play... dunno if I just matured, or my tastes have changed.. maybe I saw the light