Work is slow right now and I feel like ranting...
I'm a college student who makes $8 an hour for my campuses IT support dept and quite frankly, I cannot afford to pay $10-$20 for a CD. Yep, I'm a pirate and I have been for a very long time. Although I do buy music on occasion. This last month, I've bought two CD's. One being Frontier Ruckus's new album and Cursive's new album, both absolutely worth my $14.
If music is free and I'm short on cash, I'm absolutely going to download it. Even if all of a sudden the main stream music industry started putting out genuinely quality work, I would still not buy it -nor would 98% of the other people my age. Hell, I can personally say that I do not know a single person my age that does not steal music.
Morally, there is little difference from stealing a CD in a store that stealing it online. It's just that when your sitting in your bedroom clicking through TPB or Demonoid it simply does not feel like stealing, especially since you know that your chances of getting caught are very, very low.
It's been said a million times, but the days are changing and the recording industry is not.
It's unfortunate considering the amount of people that feed their families through this industry, but maybe in the end of all this people will start focusing on their art, rather than money. If piracy continues, maybe more really great art could come out of it. Art obviously doesn't necessarily feed a family though, but was it ever supposed to?
Now, dear recording industry, if you can give me an unlimited library with lossless songs... hell, I'd probably pay twenty-sum bucks a month for that. Unfortunately, I'm assuming the other %90 of the population that can't recognize the difference between a lossless file and one of those bullshit 128kbps songs you can pay a dollar for on itunes. So yea, in regards to making money with music, we musicians are mostly just effed. I'd start promoting your concerts more and make a few nice t-shirts, cause that's usually what people my age spend money on when they support a band.
In the mean time, I will personally be giving my music away for free, because it is, quite frankly, not worth $10 for an album. I just like it when people listen and enjoy my songs.
Thanks for listening to my rant. It's been a long day.
With love,
Joe Hertler
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I've read tons of your messages so far and I would first like to say thank you very much for commenting on my rant. I know it came off as inconsiderate and arrogant and I apologize for that. If you'd like, I wrote a response to all of this on page four. It's a bit long, but I'd ask you to read the whole thing if you get the chance. I didn't mean to offend anyone and I hold great admiration for those on this forum who have taken the plunge into professional music and succeeded.
You can read my response by clicking here.