Money is the new slavery. Simple. There are those who do little and have much, outnumbering those who do much and have little. Its an ideological system that serves only those who created it.

The problem is that piracy is not the right thing to tear the industry down. When someone does not spend money on something, they lose their voice in the marketplace.

I've said it before - we have people like Bieber, Jonas bros, Miley etc. because the tweens and their parents are the ones willing to spend money on it. The tastes of the 20-somethings are not reflected in mass media as well b/c they don't support their likes in the same fashion.

And when you get your new studio built, you must never charge anyone even ONE cent, because "all music should be free in cost."

I do agree that seems to be the main, glaring problem. This is a good discussion.

I think what I am trying to articulate is that, I don't think we will "save" the record industry in its current business model. My hope, is that "we" (as in people who like to make/record/listen to music) save it in some other way that still makes it practical to both create and enjoy. That's where I think we will have to be contented to deliver and receive it in a more pre-wax recording era manner, on a more localized scale. That's just where I see it going. And honestly, the proverbial brick I speak of, I do think has been earned by the music industries foolish defiance to adapt to customers across age groups.

It's a huge culture shift, and piracy is a symptom of it I think, not so much the main problem. I have NEVER been in favor of piracy. However, we have a legal system that is completely BEHIND the ball, and a bunch of suits running the music industry who don't understand the culture shift (or understood it too late). Things are the way they are now, though, and it's hard for me to see a system where the current industry survives intact.

The problem of industry flexibility is more a confluence events than a choice. As noted before, the label industry still makes 72% of their revenue from "old-fashioned" CDs.

This makes the transition to a more realistic digital model virtually impossible as the majors would go out of business tomorrow morning if they ceased to sell CDs. As well, the transition to digital is painful because of piracy and iTunes single-track purchasing.

If you really wanted a healthy music industry, you'd have majors with all-digital distribution selling whole albums at lower prices along with a very tight clamp on piracy.

As per above, this is why one has to be against piracy if you want a powerful music industry to exist. Piracy slows/stops any transition to a lower-cost model that the industry might be able to pull off.

In the current model, all that has happened is that the industry pushes what they think/know they can sell on CDs.

You sir should teach a class.

OK. In the old days it was good to have people hear your music on the radio. The labels even did the whole payola bit. the internet is a chance for EVERYONE to hear music.

Here's a different business model:

Get people to like your music by giving it away in decent quality 320k mp3's on your label website.

Sell nice, "CD Quality" loss less versions and Cd's with great artwork booklets to your "true fans" ( you know, the only one who would ever buy your album anyway)

Completely negate all channels of piracy in the process, reach as many ears as one could hope for, and still come out selling the same amount (or more) of CD's as they would under the current model.

Tour the world. Sell tickets. Sell merch. Get rich. Have a nice life.

What's so bad with that?

FAIL.

Fail.

I still believe that the Velvet Underground is the biggest thing since sliced bread, am I in the wrong?

Jackson Pollock's work is great, and yes it does reflect very well how our world has become. He was way ahead of his time, and his work still makes sense today, from the brush splatters to the color balance in his work.

For me, art and commerce has generated some pretty good money, what's the downside? My self beliefs in music, my decisions on what to release first, and the fact that I am associated with mindless, numbing music. Do I feel the aftermath? yes! Will I change it in the long run? Yes!

I never intended this thread to become a flame war so to everyone who is ****ting their paints - chill out.

i never said piracy wanst wrong or stealing.

The bottom line is all you people who think you will survive strictly on album sales will not survive very long.

A band/artist can give away all their music and still be able to pay the studio.

Also, dont give me this BS about hardware companies not making new equipment because im willing to bet they move more inventory to amateurs then they do to pros. for every zack wild there are tens of thousands of kids playing the his signature guitar. etc..

It doesn't do that at all. I buy your album, upload it on bittorrent. Boom, pirated.

I bought your product? Doesn't matter.

I'm a loyal fan? Doesn't matter.

The more I follow this thread the more pissed off I get. I know so many talented musicians (I admit I place myself in this group) working bull sh*t jobs because of what boils down to people thinking they should get something for nothing. It is a failure of the moral climate of our society of which this is just a symptom. I see people bitch about a $5 cover charge at the pub I work at then blow $50 on booze. I've been buying music since I was 6 or 7 years old (I'm 35) and I will 'til I'm dead or there's no more to buy.
I make a effort to be as conflict free on this site as I can but I can't hold back on this one...
If you steal music - Shame on you!

thanks for posting.

I think you've misread my post. I am simply "asking" the record labels to stop pretending there is no piracy, and to eliminate the need for it by presenting music (in mp3) as way to sell CD's, merch, what have you. It's already all out there, whether anyone likes it or not.

Edit: I'd also like to state, so as to clarify... even though I have some serious issues with the current state of the record labels, and I do think that the only thing they should do differently is go ahead and "promote' their "product" by giving away their music, I do not support piracy. I have just accepted that it is here to stay.

Much respect for your success!

I think I'm going to start painting. Nobody can upload and share my original art!

discern... THANKS FOR POSTING.

You get it, it seems to me. People here in the west have an amazing sense of entitlement. We have been fortunate for SO long, and we think we're being ripped off.

Oh and before you say it... that doesn't justify piracy. But discern has posted exactly why nobody owns the moral high ground, peeps.

So as long as there are children starving in Africa, we're not we are not allowed to complain about anything here?

Who cares if your work is being stolen? So many others have it worst off. We live in an inherently unjust world.

etc.

Apathy does not negate morality. Humans are intrinsically capable of determining right and wrong. But there are always those who want to do whatever they want - damn the consequences for others. That is why we have laws and enforcement.

And fortunately, we are finally starting to get both.

Two-thirds of Irish users face three strikes rule | THINQ.co.uk
Music Week - Three-strikes law in France moves closer to implementation

All your esoteric imaginings about "how the world works" are yours to keep, and you are welcome to them. Laws are a bit different.

As we sit here, speaking of things to do. Someone did something.

Wow. This is just the kind of thing the MAJORS need to grasp.

(as do many here)

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/work-...ml#post5511153

(also: I am in no way whatsoever affiliated with this guy) I did donate though, you should too.

I KNEW someone would respond like that mobius, and I tried to disarm it with my little disclaimer.

As I said, I don't condone piracy, and I don't think people should roll over.

However, the TRUTH is there are people right here in this very thread with an attitude of ENTITLEMENT, that the world OWES them a working wage just because they create music.

The post above that I commented on, though, was really about MORAL SUPERIORITY. Read it again. People who criticize those pirates need to understand the big picture... again, nobody owns the moral high ground. Our incredible overuse of the world's energy resources in the west is just a start. Then it's our toxic waste that we send to other countries. Etc.

Well actually, I think it's they feel entitled to be paid for music that is obviously in demand enough for people to spend their time pirating and listening to.

If people don't like the music and don't want to hear it, they shouldn't get paid.

Sure, but one injustice does not negate another. If there is any underlying thread to all this it is that people will take what they want when they want if they can.

• Why do us westerners use all that energy? Because we enjoy the luxury and are advanced enough to get and use it.
• Why don't most people want to see increased foreign aid? Because they would rather it spent on themselves and don't really believe in charity.
• Why do people pirate music/games/books/software? Because it saves them money on entertainment and no one is really trying to stop them.

Yes, people are selfish. Yes, people will take what they can get at the expense of their fellow man.

Again, that is why we need laws to maintain order. It doesn't change the fact that one person's intellectual property is not yours to take, and laws across the globe are being updated to reflect this.

great post!

That would be fine if everything else would be free as well. It isn't.

It doesn't matter if music about emotion or if artists are passionate about their work or if someone manage to have a day job and write books or compose in the evenings. It doesn't matter if many artists have't been ripped off in the past either, even when their record sales are high (because all the money ended up elsewhere). To use the lack of profitability involved in record making in the past as an argument for not getting paid for work today is pretty similar, logically, to claim that workers in cotton fields shouldn't ask for money for their work because in the past, slaves ere doing this work.

What matters is that if someone has a job (writing/recording/producing music), he needs to pay his bills, otherwise he'll end up with thinking more about money than on music.

How can one person even feel entitled to have an opinion about whether someone else should get paid for his work or not? If someone thinks somebody should work for free... work for free, don't ask others to do it.

And the idea about requesting that people who are into a financially risky business segment (producing recorded music) should have to dive into another risky business (touring) to get paid is just nonsense. Lots of tours are not generating any profit at all, especially for the main artists. Why? Because everybody else (hired musicians, sound crew, the people renting out the PA equipment, those who sell tickets and wast the floors of course expect to get paid. Most of them wouldn't even consider doing their job if they wouldn't know for sure that they would get paid, how much they would get paid and when the money would arrive.

In all segments of the music the music industry, there are people trying to make the originators of the whole music business work for free, especially young musicians. If they give up on recording albums or tour, and try making music for TV stations - even jingles for a TV show, they'll soon meet someone who'll tell them that they can't pay them much but at least they'll get some exposure for their music and their name.

If a librarian is passionate about books, or a chef is passionate about cooking, would someone ever suggest that their work should be free, or that they should go touring, on order to demonstrate their skills for a paying audience, in order to cover up for their free work in libraries or restaurants back home?

Should books, cinemas, theater, concerts or paintings be free?

As long as people use internet and other means to promote that one group of people - music makers - shouldn't get paid for their work while everybody else should, these futile discussions will exist.

Even worse, there are people out there, like Wired's Chris Anderson, who promote the same idea - wrapped into 'pseudo-visionary' arguments - and make a lot of money in it. As mentioned in another thread (Chris Anderson, promoter of free music, charged $60.000 for lecture about the topic), he charged circa 60,000 USD last year to talk about free music, that musicians have always had daytime jobs etc.

He thinks music should be free, and takes as much as he possibly can for his lectures because when lecturing he has to 'spend time away from his family'.

Does he really think that people who are spending weeks or months in recording studios are less away from their family than he is? And, if he is passionate about giving lectures, writing books about musicians working for free, or about editing Wired, shouldn't he consider getting another job, so he can work in Wired for free, at home, after the kids have fallen asleep?

To those involved in such discussions who use the 'money isn't really important' argument... I have a bank account number for you, and I generously accept bank incoming money transfers anytime.

It is not a paradox. By your rationale, you should even have no right to complain if a mugger mugs you or someone raids your house, because others in the world don't even have houses or fancy watches to be stolen.

That makes no sense. One injustice does not justify another.

Yes, and enforcement is not difficult. 3 strikes with ISP suspensions/throttling/fines is easy and cheap to do and good enforcement IMO.

See, you're looking at it at the wrong level.

It's NOT about what is justified or acceptable. Drop that line of thought for a moment.

It's about moral indignation, moral superiority, that people who create are expressing. The entire picture is full of a lot more color then you are using to draw the picture.

The point is, we are all guilty. That doesn't JUSTIFY anything. It certainly doesn't justify piracy. It also doesn't justify our errors of overconsumption or our lack of long term vision of what we're doing to the environment.

We spend a lot of time in these threads indicting all the pirates. Some of that time can certainly be spent on ourselves. While we pretend we have the moral high ground, we don't... and as a matter of fact, we might be closer to the moral LOW ground where it really counts, environmental, economic world issues that impact people's lives every day.

NO, taking is not justified, but it's OUR moral superiority we use to justify our indignation that we should step back and examine.

If you don't condone "sucking the world dry" and have some way to stop it, run for office and maybe try to change it?

Piracy laws are treated like j-walking because there are even lesser penalties for it.

Actually it's already changing.

Canada is passing a new law that forces ISPs to forward notices from copyright holders to customers who infringe, and keep all records of past notices on file for if needed in future lawsuits or injunctions.

Britain's Digital Economy Bill (that just passed) goes farther and forces ISPs to after three warnings place infringers contact information in a registry accessible to copyright owners to allow for lawsuits.

Ireland is on the verge of having 2/3 of their population subject to 3 strikes ISP account suspension.

France's HADOPI, which is probably the most aggressive 3 strikes of any of these new laws coming up, just got approval from the French privacy authority, and will begin sending notices by next month.

The thing all these laws have in common is none violate the privacy of law abiding citizens. It is only those who repeatedly pirate, despite warning, who will have their identity revealed. As it should be.

A few additional thoughts....

Money at it's most basic level is a tool, it's a voucher that enables a simple exchange of a portion of my labour for a portion of someone else's.

The first lesson in my economics class was "there's no such thing as a free lunch", very simply this is because even as hunter gatherers (the "state of nature" as some philosophers describe it) someone has gather the food, the act of gathering is labour and labour has value, or in economic terms a cost even if that's only an opportunity cost.

The advent of the religious, philosophical and artistic castes come around at the same time as agriculture, so a society with surplus can use some of that surplus to feed "professional" priests, philosophers or artists, who in turn offer something that the society assigns equal value, their art, their thoughts and notions or religious salvation.

On a basic level that is exactly the same as it now.

I work hard, I create surplus, with that surplus I choose to pay professional football (soccer!) players to entertain me. They demonstrably earn more than me because apparently more people are prepared to give a portion of their surplus to Rooney, Ronaldo, Messi et al than me. In a market economy this is linked to scarcity and their skill (or level of skill) is more scarce than mine.

There, on an economic level, have always been professionals and enthusiastic amateurs, great works have been demonstrably done by both. The existence of one does not preclude the existence of the other and neither requires the destruction of it's opposite.

I'm quite happy to play football (soccer) down the park for free, for the pleasure of the act and nothing more. However to argue that professional sport should be destroyed because I can't earn a living at it or because civil society ascribes too much value to it seems ridiculous.

The other thing that I really offensive about these threads is the individuals who's "superior" taste in music should set the agenda for everyone else.

I don't like Lady Gaga, Britney et al ergo no one else should be allowed to like them either. It's not the style I prefer therefore there is no skill in it and they should not be rewarded for their labours.

For a group of people that love the language of egalitarian, libertarian intellectuals it's a surprisingly totalitarian point of view.

To continue the flawed sporting analogy, I "don't get" cricket, baseball or golf. I'd rather undergo an unnecessary medical procedure than watch any of them. I do have friends, colleagues and family who positively adore all of the above. Why would I be right and they be wrong ? In a market economy we all vote with our wallets and that seems like an equitable compromise to me.

So to the music is free camp, may I offer my encouragement ? Do something amazing, make some music that blows my mind, that raises the bar, enriches society, that gives us all hope and joy!

To paraphrase a wise man you are things you do not the things you say!

In the meantime would it be OK if I do my thing the way I want to do it as well ?

James

Seems to me music is and always has been free to consumers. Or better said, consumers have never paid for music. All we've paid for as consumers in the past is for the distribution and duplication of high quality copies. The current downloading trend is not a reflection of an increase in criminal activity, it's just the side-effect of the transition to a new music economy.

Here's what I mean. In the "old days" I paid $10 for an album. Had I then "purchased" the songs? I don't think so. Eventually my album wore down and I had to pay another $10 for another copy of the songs. I personally repeated this process many times for my favorite albums in the 70's. If I had really purchased the songs, I could I go back to the record company and pay perhaps $2 for another copy just to cover costs of duplication. Nope. The record companies view was I had purchased and owned nothing but the physical medium. The entire $10 applied only towards the vinyl medium and packaging. They even fought vigorously to prevent me from even making my own backup copy on cassette tape. In their view I did not own the music, I did not purchase the music, or even a personal license to it. The music was owned by the record company, publisher and/or artists. All I paid for was the physical copy, and if I lost it or wore it out, I needed to pay a full price for another copy.

The record companies can't have it both ways. In the digital world the cost/value of high quality duplication and distribution has gone to practically nil. Consumers know that instinctively and that's why they don't have any qualms about downloading. It's just a fact. You can't convince the majority of people that something of no value or minimal value actually has value. That's why the majority of people download. Not because they're criminals. Not because they don't value an artist's work. It's because they assign (and always have assigned) no value to simply listening to a song (e.g. listening to a song on the radio is free to them) and they're not wiling to pay ridiculous prices for something they know costs almost nothing to deliver.

It's just a fact of where we are today. There's no value in downloads and digital copies.

However, there is still value in high-quality replication, distribution and delivery of music. There is value in organizing the vast world of music available and making it instantly accessible and discoverable. There is value in providing easy, fast and convenient ways to search for new music, find artists, songs and albums that fit the consumer's interests. There is value in high quality music files with accurate lyrics, artwork and liner notes. There is value in knowing your music collection is of the highest quality. There is value in eliminating the need to fart around with torrents, downloads and other crap you have to deal with to get "free" music. There is value in being able to go to a single place to get, as an old Saturday Night Live commercial parody once said, "every song ever recorded". There is value in having all your music accessible from everywhere instantly - PC, phone, tablet, car, etc.

When "record companies" get this -- or when some entirely new company gets it and convinces "record companies" to work with them, the industry will have found their way out of the current mess/downturn and on to a new music economy where consumers pay a reasonable price to have "free and easy" access to the vast and creative world of music, old and new and not yet created. Artists will have new ways to create communities of fans/followers to promote themselves and their music to a worldwide audience. They will sell lots of merch, drive a lot of fans to revenue generating shows, license their songs for commercial use, arrange for high-paying "guest appearances" at private venues, and perhaps even sell some high-quality physical media, e.g. a personally signed copy of their latest album or a limited run vinyl print with great packaging and liner notes.

However, I have to agree with the OP. The old way of selling music will never work again. If your business model as an artist depends on selling records (high-quality physical copies) or selling downloads (high-quality digital copies), you need to re-think your business model. To survive, record companies, much against their nature, have to become service oriented (i.e., provide a quality service to artists and fans). Artists have to build as big a fan base as possible, leveraging the almost zero cost of digital duplication and distribution, acknowledge that the vast majority of those fans won't "pay for music" in the old way, and find new ways to free fans from their cash.

That's how I see the situation. As far as my personal desire? I'd love to see a system where consumers can pay a fair price to get access to all music (e.g. a low-monthly subscription service) where the service provider gets a fair cut (10%-20% max) and the artists (and I mean writing and performing artists) get the majority 80%-90%. I don't think it can happen, sadly.

What keeps me hopeful is: good artists, good songs and good performances will rise above all this, whether they are financially rewarded or not. 100 years from now we probably won't be talking about today's record companies that screwed so many artists and eventually screwed themselves, but we'll probably still be talking about the Funk Brothers and their transcendant and transformational artistry.

..ant