Music Industry vs. Piracy

[boswell]

Some interesting statistics.

Edit: Sorry this gets cut off down the side, the full pic can be seen here: http://www.geekologie.com/image.php?pat ... y-full.jpg




Any thoughts?

I personally didn't realise that Rock music far outsold pop.

[RWA]

Interesting. If all of the info is correct that is. It's bloody hard to verify.

But lets assume it is correct. The "pirate" problem is indeed a teen thing mostly. Mosts adults don't have the time or patients for it and prefer places like iTunes to get their music. It's save, you know you'll get the right quality and in combination with an iPOD of iPhone it's deadly easy.

I know from experience how it is to deal with a record company. Usually you deal with 40+ guys that have no clue how to addept to new situations like downloads (legal and illegal) or the general lack of CD sales (because most people .. me included.... don't care for the format anymore and prefer downloading (cheaper and faster). Instead of accepting it the companies keep whining about the piracy thing. Fortunately artists take matters in their own hands more an more.

I have to admit it took me a while myself to accept this (I'm almost 42 do you mind! ) but I accept it for a fact (because it is) and move from there.

Films is more or less the same issue. Most adults don't want to spend hours downloading a movie to find out it's the "North Korean voice over" version with Swahili subtitles (filmed in a movie theatre using an 8mm film camera) or something alike. Instead they prefer something like pay per view. Watch high quality whenever and whereever you want for a reasonable price. Of course movie theatres complain about it but people move on. So should they.

[boswell]

I agree the authenticity of this might be called into question but from what I've read from other sources it seems to correlate.

I'm still undecided where I stand on the piracy issue. Even in my youth (I'm nearly 23 you know, I consider myself older and wiser  :lol: ) I was hardly a scurvy sea dog when it came to piracy. I can count the number of albums I downloaded illegally on one hand. Two if you count the ones which I later bought anyway out of desire for the original.

Even when Radiohead tried out that "pay what you can" scheme I resisted the urge to put £0.00 in the box and I chipped in a fiver. With hindsight this might have been a little generous  :roll:

Like you said RWA, Itunes and Amazon music are just too easy to download from and are quite reasonabley priced (although I tend to avoid iTunes due to the whole DRM thing, and compatibility with other MP3 players - who are they trying to kid?).

Other services such as LastFM and We7 give you the music for free anyway, and in my mind give fantastic exposure to lesser known musicians.

I think I'm of the opinion that in the next ten years actuall record sales will be rock bottom or non existant, and musicians will wind up playing more gigs and other events. I can imagine a whole new industry arrising which gives smaller bands a platform at mini festivals, regular concert gigs and radio appearences, all of which would be sponsored by companies such as Virgin, Carling, Red Bull etc. many of whom are already heading in this direction.

The concept of mega rich celebrity performers that we are so accustomed to today will be a thing of the past, as the music scene is saturated with new, unheard of bands. The best will still rise to the top, perhaps by word of mouth/ word of blog, or unofficial chart websites.

The idea that if the music industry continued to lose out to piracy then the poor artists would not be able to make any more music and they would shrivel away and die - is absolutely ridiculous!! If that does happen there are a thousand others who will replace them, happy of the exposure and willing to perform for a little media attention, a sum of money equivolent to a yearly wage, and a few pints of good beer.

And if those statistics are correct, "Artist Royalties" are a pittance anyway compared to the money the record companies make. Would they consider taking a cut and paying the artists a little more to keep them motivated? Not fucking likely, *ahem* excuse mon francais.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that it takes a lot of time and effort to produce an album (come on, I've watched the Frost* Reports) and if all your going to get at the end is a few ungrateful teenagers pinching it off uTorrent, then I'd imagine you'd be pissed off, and unwilling to do it again. But perhaps the paradigm is shifting, and the age of recorded music is giving way to the age of live performance. Will it be any better? WHo can say, it's not like we've ever been here before  :roll: ....