downloading music for free! whats your opinion?

[Aequitas & Veritas]

This is why I buy Vinyl!


I do buy albums that I like on vinyl, I love the old style (I'm 22 btw) but I do download off the internet and do not feel bad or that I'm ripping anyone off because I don't use CDs and Itunes sometimes won't let you just buy singles bad make you buy an entire album because they know one song is more popular so they make it an album only sale.

And to support the bands I like I buy tickets to concerts and merchandise for friends

[CamaroDreams07]

Originally Posted by Caddyroger

The artest are not making any money because every is stealing the music.
The difference between you and RubyCamaro is she not a thief. She ether buys the music or does with out.

Aww, now you hurt my feelings. I so desperately crave the approval of strangers on the internet that this is going to be a major setback for me.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

[Jalberdi99]

Originally Posted by CamaroSkooter

CD

CD? not sure what this "CD" that you are talking about means

[CamaroSkooter]

Originally Posted by DGthe3

I understand that radio isn't free, artists get royalties every time their song gets played. But I'm not the one who is paying for it. The station gets its money from advertisements, but I can't think of a single instance where some product or business was advertised on the radio & I made a purchase because of it. Not once. Suffice to say, I'd say its pretty reasonable to say I don't really pay for the radio I listen to, that radio is 'free to me'. Same goes for YouTube & the various internet radio stations I've tried.

As for artists not providing music for free, the majority of band sites that I've been to have some form of audio and/or video player for you to access their music on their site, for free. No pop-up ads, no subscriptions, you don't have to send in a proof of purchase. Just go to their site & listen.

I'm not DJing on the side or lipsycing or selling copies of the music that I've downloaded or profiting in any way (like the Chinese do). I'm listening to it, and enjoying it. I don't even share my downloads (or especially the CDs that I rip), I'm just a leach.

The ones that are abusing IP are the quasi-cover bands that take a popular song, tweak a chord or two and mess around with a hand full of notes, maybe adjust the temp a tad ... anything to 'change' the song without really changing it. Then they sell it to be used in advertising or sound tracks (often for TV) or even claim it as their own in a live show or on their album. One example that I saw on TV tonight was for a new Conair electric razor or trimmer, the background music sounded sorta like the baseline from Eminem's Lose Yourself (not sure where Em got it from, but thats not the point here). They took someone elses original art (music) and changed it just enough to be called different and then collect the cash. As I said in my previous post, I'd argue that music artists have made more money off me personally because I've been downloading music than if I hadn't. At worst its more or less a wash. Maybe I'm not typical, I don't know. I can only speak for myself.

Well said.

Originally Posted by RubyCamaro

Artists make nothing off album sales because of what piracy has done to the industry. How about I steal the product or services you produce/provide? The quality & variety of the music available today suffers greatly because of what digital music & piracy has done. The quality of the sound of what you get with digital music sucks! It has been so compacted that you lose so much of the separation & quality of sound it is just crap. That is why I hate to see the auto industry taking CD players out of cars. When I want to listen to good music, I want to be able to pop in a DC. Okay enough, This could go on endlesly.

I have a feeling you may still be operating on the false assumption made by the RIAA that piracy is actually hurting the economy. Check out this article:

http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/h...e-u-s-economy/

Originally Posted by CamaroDreams07

You can't steal what I provide unless you hypnotized me.

Also, if you're not downloading CD quality music files, that's just ineptitude on your part. It's digital either way, just depends how it's ripped and compressed.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

I'm guessing some folks here have never heard of the .FLAC file format...

I can download an entire album in .mp3 format with a 320kb/s bitrate. If you can listen to that and tell me it sounds "bad" or like it has lost any quality...then you must have Kryptonian-like hearing.

And honestly, if I want to have a digital version of a song, I would much rather download it from a torrent site "illegally" than try to rip that same song from the CD I purchased at the store. I have found (more often than I care to admit) that when I try to rip a song from a CD, I always do something wrong (or the CD is scratched, or any number of other issues) and the digital version I end up with on my computer has skips or other audible hiccups that annoy me to no end. If I have a problem with a pirated download, I can just try a different source to get the best quality, and it's flawless.

Does that somehow negate the fact that I purchased the CD?

Originally Posted by Caddyroger

The artest are not making any money because every is stealing the music.
The difference between you and RubyCamaro is she not a thief. She ether buys the music or does with out.

I would argue that artists are making less and less these days from album sales because there's a crap-ton more artists/bands in the same market. More artists/bands producing more music with the same (or similar) number of listeners (with limited incomes) means for every new artist/band, every existing artist/band will lose a fraction of a percentage of the market share of music listeners. Add a crap-ton of artists/bands to the market, and that fraction of a percentage gets amplified pretty quickly.

So, if you really want to know how much album sales have been impacted, you have to look at the market as a whole and not at individual artists/bands. The easiest way to do that is to look at the profits of the major recording labels. And the last time I checked, they appear to be doing quite well in this economy.

Everyone knows that artists/bands have always made the majority of their money from concert ticket and merchandise sales at the shows. So go see your favorite bands in concert and buy a shirt or keychain at the show. If you want to buy their album, by all means, have at it. But don't sit there and try to tell me that "piracy" is somehow not a victimless crime. I highly doubt there are people losing their jobs directly due to piracy profit losses.

Originally Posted by Jalberdi99

CD? not sure what this "CD" that you are talking about means

But seriously, I'd rather pay to purchase a CD than use the computer malware also known as iTunes

[AGM 1LE]

And artists are making less because of services like pandora and grooveshark. why would someone buy an itunes album that has horrible DRM versus listening to all of the artists music for free unlimited amounts of times on grooveshark or youtube etc.

[CamaroSkooter]

Originally Posted by AGM 1LE

And artists are making less because of services like pandora and grooveshark. why would someone buy an itunes album that has horrible DRM versus listening to all of the artists music for free unlimited amounts of times on grooveshark or youtube etc.

Apps like those pay royalties to the recording labels much in the same way that radio stations do. And in turn, those apps play advertisements every once in a while so that they can then afford to pay those royalties.

Or, they charge their members to download the "pro" version if they don't want to hear advertisements.

[PHXLT1]

This is getting interesting........



So the bands don't make any money from album sales? So if I sell 5 million albums I don't see a penny of the sales? Or not much of it anyway.

[AGM 1LE]

They make a stupid amount of money regardless. I havent heard of any big musicians not being able to afford their private jets or mansions on account of someone downloading music. Some can MC Hammer away their millions being irresponsible but that has nothing to do with pirating.
I would stipulate that musicians make more $ now (accounting for inflation) then they ever have in the past before pirating.

[kalimus]

I buy my music. CD in store, Amazon MP3, Itunes, Vinyl, direct from the artist, I pay for the album (or individual song). Downloading without paying, unless the artist provided it, is stealing. Chalk it up however you like, you're a thief.

[CamaroSkooter]

Originally Posted by PHXLT1

This is getting interesting........



So the bands don't make any money from album sales? So if I sell 5 million albums I don't see a penny of the sales? Or not much of it anyway.

This is a very pragmatic way of breaking it down:

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.c...royalties6.htm

So, yes, if you sell 5 million albums, you'll see a decent profit, but it's not going to be as big as you thought it was.

Originally Posted by AGM 1LE

They make a stupid amount of money regardless. I havent heard of any big musicians not being able to afford their private jets or mansions on account of someone downloading music. Some can MC Hammer away their millions being irresponsible but that has nothing to do with pirating.
I would stipulate that musicians make more $ now (accounting for inflation) then they ever have in the past before pirating.

Popular artists make the majority of their money from everything other than album sales. Album sales are a solid indicator of how popular they are, but that's not where they make their living.

Originally Posted by kalimus

I buy my music. CD in store, Amazon MP3, Itunes, Vinyl, direct from the artist, I pay for the album (or individual song). Downloading without paying, unless the artist provided it, is stealing. Chalk it up however you like, you're a thief.

I never said I didn't buy my music. I just prefer to make sure the CD isn't full of crappy songs before I buy it. And I keep the "illegally" downloaded copy as a high-quality digital version of what I just purchased.

Let me break it down for you:

I download an album and have a listen.
If it sucks, I delete the album off my hard drive.
But if it has more than 2 good songs on it, I go buy the CD.
I keep the "illegal" digital download to have the high quality digital version.

But according to you I'm a thief. Man, I wish everything was that black and white in my world...

[ChrisBlair]

My opinion is that this is going to kill the music industry.

[ChrisBlair]

Originally Posted by AGM 1LE

They make a stupid amount of money regardless. I havent heard of any big musicians not being able to afford their private jets or mansions on account of someone downloading music. Some can MC Hammer away their millions being irresponsible but that has nothing to do with pirating.
I would stipulate that musicians make more $ now (accounting for inflation) then they ever have in the past before pirating.

But isn't that the same as it being OK to steal from a rich person's home because "they can afford it"?

You're saying this piracy is OK because the only people that see a loss are wealthy. That the fact they are wealthy means it's OK for them to have things stolen from them.

To a poor person, I'm wealthy, with my camaro and whatnot, even though I don't even see 60K in a year. Would it be OK for them to rob me?

[GbrilliantQ]

http://www.theguardian.com/music/200...buy-more-music

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2526417

Arrrrrrggg

Sent from my Note 3

[ChrisBlair]

Originally Posted by GbrilliantQ

http://www.theguardian.com/music/200...buy-more-music

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2526417

Arrrrrrggg

Sent from my Note 3

LOL

So if I rob you for 100 dollars and then give your 100 dollars plus 30 of my own money to charity, I'm not a thief?

(if you reply "No that makes you the US government" then I would agree)