Well, actually, artists generally make no money from record sales. Most labels, as part of a signing contract, require new artists to front some of the money for production costs (studio and CD writing/distro). The actual artists themselves seen almost nothing, if nothing at all, from CD sales until the CD goes platinum or multi-platinum.
Yes, I talked to one person, a rapper who was rising. He was talking to my girlfriend's cousin who dropped school just to pursue a career in the music industry. The rapper told him that unless he has money to pay for the production cost to get back in school. Very sad, but oh well.
The artists only make any money from their live shows while they tour. Now, one could argue then, that it is practical for people to be able to freely download the artists' music since it would raise hype for the band and drive people in hoards to see the concert. This is not the case. Since the profits from CD sales cover the costs of production, without that form of sales revenue the profits from touring across the world would then be needed to cover production costs and therefore all of our artists would essentially be working their tails off in and out of the studio for free.
That is not the case anymore as it was during the 70's or 80's, maybe even in the 90's. Now a days
they see that record sales will be lower than usual, but then again you must see records still get sold. How could artists like Rob Zombie, Taylor Swift or others still get their platinum, because they have die hard fans. The internet, does not really affect their sales that much, as a matter of fact I see it as a chance for them to improve.
I recall to how the 70's and 80's was the era of one hit wonders. One song was their best ever and they would rack in millions at the cost of people who worked hard for their money. Today you can evaluate the music well knowing that you might only get one or two good songs per album. Let's say for the sake of argument I find an album with 3 great songs out of 15, the album costs 20 dollars. That is 6 dollars per song! (7 if you round.) I am a consumer and if I find a cheaper alternative I would go for it.
This goes back to online music stores. Now let's say I can buy one song for 2 dollars each, that would be cheaper wouldn't it. Not exactly, you are ignorant to what are the good songs in the album, so you buy every song from there. You just spent an extra 10 than you would an a hard copy. See my argument. They should really work with the consumer to not rip them off with "fill ins".
Would you walk into a supermarket and steal a candy bar? No. Would you jump a guy outside the bank and take his credit card? Absolutely not.
Don't you just love these big companies! :biggrin: You would share the candy bar. :drool:
The point to ALL of this absolute rubbish is that YOU DO NOT OWN IT! And therefore, it is not yours to give away. When you purchase a song, you are not buying exclusive rights to the song, you are simply purchasing a LICENSE to listen to that song with limited audience numbers.
I would like to argue the fine line between sharing and giving away. Let's bring that up. Of course with the respect of piracy.
You are also receiving a license to create a PERSONAL backup of that song.
Sony Entertainment seems to think other wise. They seem to think that if you back it up you are automatically breaking the law, in respect to to the DMCA. I would say mostly because some people share their music without knowing. Today I could buy a CD, and back it up on my Music folder that is shared with a P2P client.
Think about how you may react after you just spent hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours tirelessly pouring over musical compositions, endlessly editing and modifying lyrics making sure the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the words are absolutely perfect and beyond reproach. Then you get together with your band and spend hours and days memorizing all the work you did on all this music, and you make yet more changes, more modifications, perfecting it further, doing your damnedest to make that C# sound ever so slightly clearer, making that G sound more like a G, and so on.
Finally you are ready to release your music. You toss a few freebies, a couple singles that are extremely catchy and that embody your group's sound at it's paramount, to some major radio stations all over the world. You send the music to press, after of course spending days or weeks working with a design team on the cover art and track arrangement.
And now, not even days after the release of your album, every one of your songs are all over the Internet freely available in crystal-clear quality for everyone to enjoy. You just gave away over a year's worth of work for free. Your CDs are now on the rack at Walmart and BestBuy collecting dust, or worse in the Sale bin for 15% off, stores just hoping to get rid of the stock.
You seem to think that the sales of albums is non-existent. It is not, people will still buy an album. Honestly, if I were to hear an album where every song made me feel good, then I would go buy the album. I have not heard an album like that since
Slayer: Skeleton Christ and
Rob Zombie: Past, Present and Future, that is why I bought them.
Well if your music is real good, some people will still buy your album. Your record sales go up enough to plan a concert tour. You also count the people who downloaded illegally who might like it, might be a theoretical amount but you can not ignore that some people liked you music without buying it.
Well, at least you have your tour to look forward to so you can bail yourself out of debt. Assuming your label doesn't cancel it because your album didn't sell.
Isn't that part of the game, Social Darwinism, good bands will go on and bad will die. If your album did end up eventually selling a bunch of albums, and you go one tour and no one went, what can you blame. From that point forward you can not blame the internet. You can only blame yourself for being such a (sic)ty artist.
I know some of this sounds very melodramatic, but it's the harsh reality of what Internet downloading will one day do to bands, and is already doing to some. I mean, come on, would you walk into a restaurant and order and eat food, then sneak out when the server wasn't paying attention? This is really no better than that, only we can't get your license plate number on our surveillance system as you pull out.
That is not the same, I would direct you to my picture on the OP, that is what I see as stealing and what I see as piracy. You see how the original is gone, that is stealing, so running away from paying my lunch would be stealing.
It is not really the reality you only point out one side of piracy, which is the record companies and artist losing theoretical dollars, but not the side of the hard workers who buy the albums and get ripped off for having not so good music.
Also you have to take into consideration that some bands have been caught not being the original artist. (e.g. lip syncing someone elses written and sung music under the bands name.) This has happened.
