[Doofy]

Originally Posted by ort888 

So who is making money?

Hardly anyone.

Originally Posted by ort888 

If no one makes any money doing music why do they do it?

Boobies.

Plus, most of us would be flipping burgers if we didn't do this. And we'd spit in them. So don't pirate songs unless you want your burgers with extra spit.

[Dakar V]

Or, pirate songs and give up fast food. Win/win.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by ort888 

So who is making money?

- those 2% at the top

- lawyers

- ad space providers on music blogs and download sites

- distributors

Originally Posted by ort888 

If no one makes any money doing music why do they do it?

Drugs and ********?

Most musicians I know that actually make money don't make records. They play in shitty cover bands at shitty parties, weddings, and in shitty clubs.

Some people make records because they want to have something to put on their shelf and feel good about.

Some people actually make records because it's what they do best, and they figure that if they give it their best shot and just keep throwing **** at the wall, eventually something might stick and start to pay off. If not, they eventually cut their losses and turn to a different job to make a living and pay off their debts.

And then there's people who make records because they've figured out that what people on internet forums claim is "that utter crap they're trying to force down our throats" is actually stuff that people will pay money for and will pay their rent and monthly maintenence costs for the studios. Business people.

And then there's people who make records and who've found a niche which will make them money without necessarily putting business above music. These are the rarest.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Am I missing anything?

Yes: that you're still well-off compared to other producers of IP.

Imagine the following world:
(1) Artists buy their own equipment, including studio, instruments, whatnot. They're responsible for financing the record as well.
(2) The band then makes a record/tape/whatever and goes to a label with it, hoping to get published. In order to determine whether the music is any good, the label then asks another musician in the same field to work through the tape, the notes and everything associated to it to determine whether it's any good. Think of a workload of 20-80 hours per tape which your colleague does for free.
(3) If your colleague indeed gives his thumbs up and the exec at the label agrees, you get published. But the band doesn't get paid even though they've transferred the copyright to the label. All you get as a band is the prestige to have published at that particular label.

You think this is total non-sense and has nothing to do with reality? Welcome to the world of scientific publishing! (Despite all this, the publishers still have the nerve to raise prices so that most university libraries cannot afford paying for the subscriptions to many journals anymore.)

Although, of course, the reason why you do it is ideally the same why you make music: you're an artist and you do it, because you enjoy doing it.

Edit: I didn't write this to tell others how bad life is or that it could be worse, but rather that just like any art, you have to like doing it. And then you accept you won't have a steady income like someone working from 9 to 5. You do it, because you like doing it. And then you'll find a way how to do it.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Unfortunately, until sub services like Napster allow me to play the music I've legally licensed on all the hardware I personally and privately use and own, people like boyfriend (or me) have no choice but to strip the DRM from the songs.

You're licensed to play the music by whatever terms the content owner has extended through your subscription to Napster. If you don't like the terms, you do have the choice to not get your music through Napster.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Boobies.

Plus, most of us would be flipping burgers if we didn't do this. And we'd spit in them. So don't pirate songs unless you want your burgers with extra spit.

Out-of-work musicians: Yet another reason to go vegetarian.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Hardly anyone.

most of us would be flipping burgers if we didn't do this. And we'd spit in them. So don't pirate songs unless you want your burgers with extra spit.

So, hardly anyone in music is making money. Agreed. So, what's the barrier to these people making money?

[ort888]

Wait, the word (p o o n t a n g) got censored???

Seriously?

[Dakar V]

And I can still say pussy.

[SpaceMonkey]

...cat.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

So, hardly anyone in music is making money. Agreed. So, what's the barrier to these people making money?

The fact that the punters have grown to expect something for nothing. Probably due to Internet piracy.
If it were up to me, I'd cap all consumer Internet connections at 128 kbps. Let's see what happened to piracy then.

And let's face it, that idea would also get rid of crappy Flash-based web sites.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

The fact that the punters have grown to expect something for nothing. Probably due to Internet piracy.
If it were up to me, I'd cap all consumer Internet connections at 128 kbps. Let's see what happened to piracy then.

And let's face it, that idea would also get rid of crappy Flash-based web sites.

So, you're saying that 100% of musicians made good money before Internet connection speed exceeded 128 kbps?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

So, you're saying that 100% of musicians made good money before Internet connection speed exceeded 128 kbps?

I'm saying that a lot more made a living.

[SpaceMonkey]

In my day, p0rn was something you downloaded overnight.

[Dakar V]

Didn't Napster flourish in a dial-up world?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Didn't Napster flourish in a dial-up world?

Not over here. Most folks prone to piracy are too impatient to wait two hours for that track to download. The equation is "want it now, want it for nothing", and if we remove the "can get it now" a lot of freetards give up. Of course, there was still some going on, but not much - it was manageable.

There's really no valid reason at all for any consumer connection to be above 128 kbps. No, uploading one's video rants about how everyone should leave Britney alone isn't a valid reason.
Stuff like the NN wouldn't be affected at all, since the hampstor only delivers at around 0.03 kbps anyway.

[SpaceMonkey]

I thought university campuses with ubiquitous broadband access were where Napster really took off.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

There's really no valid reason at all for any consumer connection to be above 128 kbps. No, uploading one's video rants about how everyone should leave Britney alone isn't a valid reason.

Hulu.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

I thought university campuses with ubiquitous broadband access were where Napster really took off.

That was probably the main driver, but residential access to broadband was in its infancy back in 2000, and I remember queueing up tracks to be downloaded on a friend's 56k connection back then.

[Spheric Harlot]

And interestingly, those were probably the days when Napster still helped the industry - filesharing that's individual-track-based is probably more helpful for "sampling" some music than the standard situation nowadays, where it's actually easier to find the entire discography of an artist as an 8GB torrent than the one individual song you're actually looking for.

Rapidshare and BitTorrent are not the same thing as downloading individual songs over a 56k modem, it would seem...

[Dakar V]

No it's not, I agree with that.

I do remember leaving my PowerBook with BitTorrent running and hoping to god the line wouldn't disconnect while I was gone.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

Hulu.

Also iTunes and Amazon.

[Doofy]

Hulu:
We used to have things called "TVs", "video recorders" and "PVRs". We survived.

iTunes:
We survived before iTunes.

Amazon:
Used to sell things called "CDs". Quite a popular way of distributing music, IIRC.

[Shaddim]

Downloading patches and software would be a real bitch at 128k, as would video conferencing. Also, some online games would be unplayable at such slow speeds.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Downloading patches and software would be a real bitch at 128k, as would video conferencing. Also, some online games would be unplayable at such slow speeds.

I believe that this is simply a case of "it's there so we'll grow into it". Maybe if people starting honing their code again? Or getting the stuff right first time so nobody had to download 700 Mb patches?

Do we really need video conferencing? If so, do we really need it in HD quality? I'm sure BT's old videophones used to work on dual-channel ISDN.

[Dakar V]

Wow, you sure are willing to give up a lot of stuff on my behalf just so it's slightly more difficult to pirate music.

[CharlesS]

I knew that my agreeing with Doofy was unusual enough that it would have to break down eventually. Ah well.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Wow, you sure are willing to give up a lot of stuff on my behalf just so it's slightly more difficult to pirate music.

I'm just throwing stuff out there for consideration. It's not like it's going to matter in three years time when the sunspot storms hit.

[besson3c]

I think that piracy occurs often times due to an absence of thought, or the presence of pretty circular reasoning.

I've heard people exclaim that artists should only make money at their live performances and not selling recordings. I've also heard people balk at going out to hear live music, likely because it is convenient to listen to recordings. You can't have it both ways. I've also heard people bitch at the stuff that the major record labels push.

I think getting people to think about these sort of things and how the industry is made up, how money exchanges hands a little bit might help a little, although I realize that this is incredibly naive. Then again, I think that many people have no clue how much a decent album costs to record/produce.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I've heard people exclaim that artists should only make money at their live performances and not selling recordings.

Ahh - the "musicians used to be poor wandering minstrels and it should be like that again" argument. This always struck me as a weird one.
If this actually happened, no musician would bother recording anything (they'd just write, rehearse and gig) and thus there'd be nothing for folks to listen to at home, at work, on their iPods or in their cars. Guess who'd be the first to whine?

[Dakar V]

There'd be bootlegs.

[besson3c]

it is a strange argument Doofy...

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Hulu:
We used to have things called "TVs", "video recorders" and "PVRs". We survived.

iTunes:
We survived before iTunes.

Amazon:
Used to sell things called "CDs". Quite a popular way of distributing music, IIRC.

We also used to survive before recorded music.

Oh, but I see you're O.K. with *that* particular bit of progress.

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Ahh - the "musicians used to be poor wandering minstrels and it should be like that again" argument. This always struck me as a weird one.
If this actually happened, no musician would bother recording anything (they'd just write, rehearse and gig) and thus there'd be nothing for folks to listen to at home, at work, on their iPods or in their cars. Guess who'd be the first to whine?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

We also used to survive before recorded music.

Oh, but I see you're O.K. with *that* particular bit of progress.

I'm OK with the other progress too. And I'm OK with the pirates getting reamed by Bubba. In fact, I'm OK with everything except this chord change which is messing up my left hand something rotten (to the point where every so often I have to stop and do something else for five minutes. Like engage in this conversation).

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

I'm saying that a lot more made a living.

So, how many musicians made a living pre-128k, if only 2% are making a living post-128k?

Do you know anyone who lost their ability to make a living as a direct result of piracy of their music?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Do you know anyone who lost their ability to make a living as a direct result of piracy of their music?

That's a difficult question because there's a wide variety of factors involved, all of which are converging into a clusterfk.

Musicians: Due to my chosen genre, most musos I know are lifers with hardcore fan bases. Of those who've gone on to become burger-flippers and real-estate agents, it's difficult to tell whether it's a lack of sales caused by external influences (piracy) or whether their star simply waned. It happens.

Studios: These are falling left, right and centre. The clients just ain't walking through the door any more. Whether this is because the clients don't have any money due to piracy or because the next generation think they can get away with a copy of GarageBand in their drummer's *cough* garage, it's difficult to say. Obviously, those of us who know what we're doing are building small-but-proper studios in our basements these days, for use on our own projects - which is also contributing to the studio shutdown. It's all essentially turning into a cottage industry, where you create your own personal working environment and don't worry about anyone else (for example, I'm not currently geared up for recording anything other than myself and my guitarist. And that's the way it's staying - newbs can go spend their own eleventybillion on their own studio if they want to record themselves). Not good for training up the next generation of studio folks and not good for bands seeking entry into the biz. Good for not bothering to change out of your pyjamas though.

The support structures: The labels, the techs, etc.. These are all going burger-flipping real fast. When there's no support structures left, only the strong will survive. Suits me fine. Might not suit the peeps who make the music that you like to listen to though.

So, on a personal level it's difficult to quantify. But when you're involved with a somewhat incestuous game like the music biz, there's always a feeling you get coming off the grapevine. You just get a feel for these things, y'know?

Let's put it this way: I wouldn't like to be up and coming. There was always a 6' high brick wall there to get over. Now it's 12' and they're still laying courses.

[Spheric Harlot]

Acquaintances of mine were "up and coming" a few years ago. They were in rotation in all the right places, were featured band of a prominent radio station here, were signed to the renowned Columbia label, had an album out, yadda yadda yadda.

Then one day, they called up their label contact, and the phone line simply wasn't connected.

Turns out that Sony had decided to completely kill the Columbia label overnight, and thus, anything anybody could ever do for them.

They didn't get their rights, and their second album was finished but unreleased and sat with a label that no longer existed.

End of band.



Other friends were signed by a big big big label that promised the moon, but completely froze any promotion after a while.

Two years of court proceedings later (find a musician who can afford to go up against the machinery!) they *finally* walked away with full ownership of their back catalogue.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

That's a difficult question because there's a wide variety of factors involved, all of which are converging into a clusterfk.

Exactly. Piracy alone cannot be blamed as there's a wide variety of factors involved. And, IMO, piracy is a symptom of the issue. I think people are finally getting sick of the major labels, they're starting to see the low and carbon-copied quality of what they produce and their perception of the value of music is dropping. As a result, they don't see anything wrong in downloading music for free. Although, you can probably still blame the Internet for this realization on the part of music consumers.

Same thing goes for movies. I can't remember the last time I went to see a movie in the theatre and didn't feel I was being ripped off. The stories just aren't very creative anymore.

As for TV, people already perceive that as free

[CharlesS]

Well if you don't think music / movies / whatever is good enough today, why do you have to watch / listen to it in the first place? Why not just go get some older music / movies / whatever that you perceive to be better quality and just stick with that instead of stealing and listening to stuff you think isn't worth your time anyway?

Stealing something because you think it isn't good enough isn't exactly the strongest argument you could be making.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Stealing something because you think it isn't good enough isn't exactly the strongest argument you could be making.

I agree completely. Personally, I no longer listen to music from any of the major studios (I don't even find their stuff worth free); everything I listen to through my headphones or car speakers are podcasts. I only ever find a movie worth my time (and my money) maybe once every two or three months; if iTunes can download movies faster (the last few times I've tried it's taken hours to get the movie) and have more movies available for rent, I might watch more, but finding a movie worth the time is still challenging. As for TV, there's only a few shows that I find worth the effort to go out of my way to watch, but I often find the timing of these shows inconvenient to watch; it'd be nice if the distributors of these shows would implement mechanisms (like, welcoming Hulu in Boxee) that would allow me to watch the shows I like at times that are convenient for *me*.

I'm not really defending copyright infringement through P2P. I've only been saying that I think people's motivations go beyond just getting it for free and that content producers and creators should try looking at these motivations as opportunities rather than treating as criminals these people who still value their product enough to P2P it. Because, the next step for those people is probably where I am with music and where I'm headed with movies and TV; a complete loss of interest in the entire product and my dollars and time going to competing forms of entertainment.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

I've only been saying that I think people's motivations go beyond just getting it for free

Well, their rationalizations certainly do. Not so sure about their motivations.

and that content producers and creators should try looking at these motivations as opportunities rather than treating as criminals these people who still value their product enough to P2P it.

They do. That's what iTunes, Hulu, Amazon, Napster, etc. are.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

If it were up to me, I'd cap all consumer Internet connections at 128 kbps. Let's see what happened to piracy then.

Nothing, people would just pirate slower.

Also the millions apon millions of college students (who, by far, are the biggest pirates) will still use their ultra-fast campus networks to download and share files to their hearts content.

No to mention no streaming Netflix to my Xbox, no gaming online with my Xbox, no sending giant PDFs of site plans to our sub-contractors, etc...

For someone I thought was about personal freedoms, limiting everyone's internet speed seems like a really Fascist thing to do.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Acquaintances of mine were "up and coming" a few years ago. They were in rotation in all the right places, were featured band of a prominent radio station here, were signed to the renowned Columbia label, had an album out, yadda yadda yadda.

Then one day, they called up their label contact, and the phone line simply wasn't connected.

Turns out that Sony had decided to completely kill the Columbia label overnight, and thus, anything anybody could ever do for them.

They didn't get their rights, and their second album was finished but unreleased and sat with a label that no longer existed.

End of band.



Other friends were signed by a big big big label that promised the moon, but completely froze any promotion after a while.

Two years of court proceedings later (find a musician who can afford to go up against the machinery!) they *finally* walked away with full ownership of their back catalogue.

Yeah, business is a bitch...what does this have to do with piracy?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by sek929 

Nothing, people would just pirate slower.

I disagree.

Originally Posted by sek929 

Also the millions apon millions of college students (who, by far, are the biggest pirates) will still use their ultra-fast campus networks to download and share files to their hearts content.

Not if the college was legally liable - the admins would soon put the clamp on that.

Originally Posted by sek929 

No to mention no streaming Netflix to my Xbox, no gaming online with my Xbox, no sending giant PDFs of site plans to our sub-contractors, etc...

Back in the day, we used to have things called "video rental stores". Sometimes you'd even meet a new girl in them.

Gaming online? If the game needs more than 128k, it's crappily designed. I've spent many a long hour kicking Ghost Recon ass on dial-up.

Sending PDFs? We used to have something called "planning" - you know, figure out what every needs for tomorrow and queue it up to send overnight. My up speed is 256k, and I'm pretty sure that the song files I send to folks are much larger than your PDFs.

And, perhaps without knowing, you've just described the problem with the modern age: "instant". Folks want their instant food, their instant house, their instant movie, their instant new car, their instant marriage, their instant divorce, etc., etc..
Combine "instant" with "retail" and you get things like credit crunches. Combine "instant" with food and you get a nation of fatsos.

[Dakar V]

This really sums up the music industry. The best way you guys know how to solve your problems is to drag all of us into the past.

[besson3c]

There is no way to solve this problem with technology or limiting access to technology. It will be solved when people decide that it should be solved and start practicing restraint, just as people don't masterbate in public (usually

These decisions probably won't be forced until people see some consequences from their actions. The mistake that the industry makes is in trying to impose consequences which usually just riles people up and makes them want to be even more defiant. Our best hope is for the major record labels to collapse, and for bands that people like being seriously threatened and their music affected in a very tangible way.

My two cents.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

This really sums up the music industry. The best way you guys know how to solve your problems is to drag all of us into the past.

Oh no no no. The best way is to club the pirates over the head with a morning star mace and then bill their family for cleaning the bloodstains out of your jeans. But namby pamby governments won't let us do that.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

I disagree.

I had 2000+ songs when I had Earthlink Dial-up, people will pirate with 4000 baud modems.

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Not if the college was legally liable - the admins would soon put the clamp on that.

Colleges are already legally liable, and already try to put the clamp on file sharing. Guess what, it still happens and terabytes exchange hands. When I lived on campus 6 years ago they were shutting down Direct Connect servers daily. I still filled my hard drive within a week.

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Back in the day, we used to have things called "video rental stores". Sometimes you'd even meet a new girl in them.

These video stores, they carried 100,000+ titles? My video stores have plenty of copies of Big Momma's House, probably scratched too.

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Gaming online? If the game needs more than 128k, it's crappily designed. I've spent many a long hour kicking Ghost Recon ass on dial-up.

I think online gaming has gotten a smidge different in the last 8 years since that game came out. Not to mention new map packs for one of my games take up over 1.5GB of space. Try downloading that on a 128k versus 6Mb.

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Sending PDFs? We used to have something called "planning" - you know, figure out what every needs for tomorrow and queue it up to send overnight. My up speed is 256k, and I'm pretty sure that the song files I send to folks are much larger than your PDFs.

..and we have things called 'revisions' and 'bidding' which requires sharing new information from the architect with all your sub-contractors ASAP, not 'over the course of the night.' What works for you must work for everyone else right? Jesus, I never thought I'd hear you talk like this.

Originally Posted by Doofy 

And, perhaps without knowing, you've just described the problem with the modern age: "instant". Folks want their instant food, their instant house, their instant movie, their instant new car, their instant marriage, their instant divorce, etc., etc..
Combine "instant" with "retail" and you get things like credit crunches. Combine "instant" with food and you get a nation of fatsos.

Haha, oh man you are about to get smacked-the-f**k-down. My dad, who cannot live without the high-speed internet, has basic TV, owns cars for a decade, is in perfect physical shape at 60, saved for his house and built it himself, and doesn't even own a microwave. He also doesn't even know the meaning of .torrent. But yeah, screw that dude all he needs is 128k...

You think you know everybody right? Their needs and wants, what they deserve and what they don't. Sounds like you'd fit right in with the green movement.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by sek929 

Jesus, I never thought I'd hear you talk like this.

It's fun to watch someone lose all sense of objectivity.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by Doofy 

Oh no no no. The best way is to club the pirates over the head with a morning star mace and then bill their family for cleaning the bloodstains out of your jeans. But namby pamby governments won't let us do that.

I bought several albums last year.

My advice music industry, make music that doesn't suck, promote bands that inspire people to actually want to help them financially and, like the car industry, stop clogging the market with millions of **** products that will evaporate in one year.