sah5150":1pva5y8b said:
squealie":1pva5y8b said:
Henderson is a guitar god. But I think his snifter of brandy went straight to the skinny part of his dreds on this one.
One second he's talking about how people are poor, and suffering in this economy, in the next breath, he calls them 'thieving motherfuckers' for downloading music.
The whole thing is debatable. And has been debated ad nauseum. You can't stop people from downloading. You either figure out a way to make your product marketable, or you don't. Or you get out of the entertainment business. Quit crying.
You're right - no one is going to stop downloading music...
HOWEVER... while I have no horse in this race, and as such, really don't care, IMO stealing someone's hard work is fucked. Pure and simple. There is nothing debatable about that. I don't care how poor you are - you don't steal other people's work and take the bread out of their family's mouth.
He's drinking a glass of red wine, btw...
Steve
Guys, please stop using the word "stealing". Because, by definition, downloading music is NOT stealing. It is
copyright infringement.
You cannot prove that the person who downloaded the music was actually going to buy the album. Therefore, it is NOT a lost sale. In fact, it's possible that the person who downloaded that music illegally may actually go out and BUY the album if they like it. Heck, I've bought some albums on vinyl that I also have on MP3 from downloads. That's like a $30+ sale (sometimes more depending on the rarity of the album) that would never have happened if I hadn't listened to it in MP3 first to see if it was good or not.
Walking into a music store and taking CDs Empire Records style IS stealing. It is the acquiring of
material property without paying for it. MP3s are not material property, they are intellectual, and as such fall under an entirely different set of (sometimes even more unfair) rules. For example, I could download MP3s and go to court with the RIAA, where they would literally try to ruin me financially (think upwards of $100000+ in "punitive" damages for as little as an album's worth of MP3s). However, I could go into a music store, steal a CD, and walk away with a pittance in fines, and if I'm extremely unlucky, a few days jail-time and some probation.
Unless you're selling hundreds of thousands of records, you're going to make significantly more money touring than selling CDs. My mom knows a band in Wisconsin that made $2000 for a piss-easy gig at a restaurant. They're not huge, they aren't selling millions of CDs. But that's a lot of coin for a couple hours work.
Personally, with my band I would throw the music up on iTunes and give CDs away for free just to promote. I don't care if people spread our music; more people listening means more people likely to come to our shows. More popularity = bigger gigs = more exposure = more money from ticket sales. Album sales are a bonus.
But that is just my opinion. For me, I only care about making the music and people having access to it in any way possible. If that means I give my stuff away for free, fine. That doesn't mean we can't sell CDs at a show, or make money with gigs, etc.
And with services like Slacker Radio and Pandora... honestly, musicians need to stop deluding themselves that album sales are going to make them rich. Heck, once you become more focused on getting rich rather than making a good living doing something you love, I think you've missed the point anyway.