milena dasukidis wrote:
Well I don't think that it's all to blame on end users who want free stuff. I don't know much about these things (so I risk sounding stupid now smiley: tongue) but I think that the main problem is that the industry got extremely powerful and puts its own profit above interests of artists. That's how we got to the situation that bands and artists who are not doing what they do primarily for money are at loss.

That has always been the case (that music labels are powerful and don't care about the artists). This is why it's always been a struggle being a musician and now the fans themselves are treating the musicians horribly by stealing from them. But labels have nothing to do with the problem of filesahring now. The only problem that exists now is that people aren't buying CDs. This is ONLY caused by the fact that music is very easy to fileshare, portable, and people like to get free stuff. Period.

Of course, awareness is the big factor, but that is something that should be dealt on an individual level and given the circumstances it should also apply to those who are heads of that business and not only to end users. So with the whole system as it is, people are trying to find alternative ways to get the music they want.
For instance, in Serbia (which is too small and insignificant market to be a representative example) where people are mostly poor, buying music legally is quite expensive. It is not something you earn in a day here. So there's no way for me (I'm just putting myself as an example) to buy all the music I like and want to have.

If people disliked labels and wanted to bypass them, then they would NOT destroy the bands in the process of bypassing labels. But people never send money direct to the artist after they have illegally downloaded music. Never. My music has been fileshared innumerable times and I've never received a contribution from that illegal filesharer to compensate for that theft.

But most people have no clue what the situation is between artist and label, anyway, so I don't buy that argument. People think both are raking in "big money", and that is NOT the case with 99% of all musicians and label situations. It actually costs money to print and distribute the CDs, so in the end the labels weren't making huge amounts of money on the backs of the artists anyway (though they were making more than the artists were, obviously. But again, just because labels are making more than the artist you don't say "I"m going to steal from both!" That obviously helps in no way).

And music has always been something you had to pay for. People act like suddenly now music prices are soaring and, like food, you'll die without consuming it. Actually music prices are incredibly low now. I remember as a kid I would have to save up to buy an album I wanted. Now people download 5 full albums a week (or more) and think that's normal consumption. The fact is that people now consume mass quantities and then whine then they are expected to pay.

In the end the people pleading poverty are the worst because they are making someone else poor in the process of satisfying a selfish, non-essential desire to consume a luxury item. If it were food, then I'd say fine. But when it's a luxury item like music, and you're stealing it, thereby making the creator (who is always a poor person) suffer, then that's fucked up. Yet these people pleading poverty still have a computer, computer access, TIME to invest in downloading and listening to music, etc.

Musicians are poor people and the excuse that "my 5000 song library would have been too expensive for me to buy" is an empty and selfish excuse, especially when you realize that the theft of that music has caused great harm to other people. Just because something costs money does not justify its theft. And when people say that music is their reason for living (as most of these people do loudly proclaim) yet still fileshare, thus destroying the artists they claim to love, then their claim is utterly empty and totally based on selfishness.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm defending piracy that causes so much damage to the bands, I'm just trying to explain how things are here. Personally, I don't download music at all, I mostly listen to the radio stations or go to YouTube when I want to hear something in particular. But the result of my awareness is that I don't own a collection of music I love.

YouTube is also bad and just like filesharing. Unless the music is uploaded by the artist or label then it's there illegally. All my music is on YouTube illegally. It's the same thing as filesharing in that, like you just said (which was argued about endlessly in the past and caused big fights here, where I said YouTube was indeed harmful) people DO use YouTube like a radio station and listen to the music there - for free. The problem is that, unlike radio, on YouTube musicians are not compensated for plays. So most people listen rather than buy and the artist never gets compensated for his work. That's why I always ask people never to upload full LAM songs to YouTube but of course no one listens.

Sean

Last Edited By: LAM Mar 23 11 10:20 AM. Edited 2 times.