Downloading your music vs buying your music

Gavin B. · 06-24-2009, 02:16 AM

If an album or song is out of issue I don't have any ethical problem with downloading it a file sharing website.

I rarely purchase a compact disk anymore for a couple of reasons. 1. The retail price of a cd is grossly overpriced and 2. I'm running out of space to store my record collection. I have nearly 1000 gigs of storage space on my computer and currently have around 75,000 songs on my computer. My computer is hooked up to my sound system and I can rip, burn, remix, dub, crossfade and do mash ups of songs all on my computer. I prerecord my radio show and broadcast it via Shoutcast so I don't even need to leave home to do my show anymore.

Digital downloads of albums are about half the price of a compact disk and you can find a wider range of music in digital modality these days. Indie record stores are a dying breed in the United State and stores like Borders and Best Buy have scaled back on the number of titles they carry because of shelf space. The good part about digital music is it doesn't cost the retailer anything to carry slow selling titles, so you can find a lot of titles that are out of issue in compact disk form.

I download music at AltNet, Amazon and Rhapsody and YouTube. The YouTube stuff is free because I convert the videos into MP3 form and there's no law against downloading videos, therefore converting them to MP3s after the fact is not against the law either. I had a horrific experience with iTunes and will never purchase another music file from them if my life depended on it. iTunes uses spyware and malware in the Digital Rights Management (DRM) software which literally destroyed the hard drive of one of my computers and none of the iTunes software works as advertised.

I happen to know a great deal about how royalty points are distributed and can tell you that file sharing is not stealing very much income, if any, from the artists who make the music. The entire campaign of the major labels to brand file sharing as thievery is bogus because the biggest music thieves are the major record labels who don't pay royalties to their artists.

Roger McGuinn once told me he never received a penny of royalties for any of the Byrds recordings on Columbia Records. The Byrds had seven albums that sold more than a million units in the Sixties and early Seventies and McGuinn told me that with the exception of a small advance to make each album, none of the members of the Byrds saw a penny in royalties for any of their albums. McGuinn now makes his own albums at home, on his own label, and has negotiated a 50/50 split on royalties with any retailer that carries his music. Roger told me he's making more money on royalties now than he ever made when the Byrds were the top selling American rock group.

Most of the royalty money is distributed on the basis of a complex point system which the record label negotiates with each perspective artist. Here's how it works:

Usually an artist can be offered anywhere between 10 to 20 royalty points depending on his/her credibility etc. The second royalty source is "mechanical" royalties. These are royalties payable to the songwriters. Last time I checked the statutory rate was around 7 cents per song (possibly changed again by now). A songwriter who writes 100% of an album's worth of let's say 10 songs will therefore make 70 cents per album sold. This is payable from record one. It is therefore extremely beneficial for artists to write the music they record!

Anyway, the only real drama with mechanicals is that labels somehow get away with paying artists only 75% of the statutory rate, which means labels are effectively witholding 25% of the copyright income. There is absolutely no reason for them to do this apart from the fact that they have always got away with it! This is one thing I would like to see changed. Very successful artists can usually negotiate 100% of stat. New artists, very very rarely.

Let's go back to our "artist" royalties because this is where ALL the problems really lie. Let me explain what the problem is really all about.

Let's say a major label has just signed your band "The Ahmesh Conspiracy" and offered you an exhorbitant amount of money. Your attorney has negotiated an artist royalty of 15 points. Traditionally not bad for a new artist. Here's the way it works...

Every single promotional penny spent on promoting your record, be it video costs, indie radio promotion or retail programs etc, is recoupable from your royalty points in some way, depending on how your contract is set up. Some things are charged to the artist at 100%, some 50%. What this means is that in order for you to recoup let's say $100,000 in promotion, the record company will have to receive income almost 10 times that amount before you clear that recoupment. (Don't forget, you the artist don't see a penny until your recoupment is clear).

How is this so? When $100,000 of income goes to the record label, only 15% of that goes towards your recoupment. You are recouping at a snail's pace because you are recouping at 15% of the pie! That means that realistically, you can never really make money because if records are selling well, the label will continue to spend X amount of promotional dollars which in turn gets recouped at the 15% snail's pace.

Under this system Columbia Records wasn't sending McGuinn a royalty check every quarter, rather Columbia sent him a bill for recoupable costs that the Byrds owed Columbia Record for studio time, distribution, promotional and touring expenses and other incidental expenses.

In some ways the digital music revolution has liberated the music artists. Now anybody with a digital mixer can record an album and artists no longer need to purchase studio time. Digital music doesn't require equipment to press an album because the entire physical production of an album can be done at home. Nor does digital music require a distribution network to ship all the albums to various stores across the nation. And finally an music artist can do his own promotion via internet retailers and social networking sites.

Record labels have pretty much outlived their usefulness to recording artisits in the digital age and my best advice to any aspiring musician or musical group is to produce, record, distribute and promote your own music because contract with a major label is a big swindle.

Antonio · 06-24-2009, 02:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoathsomePete

Fail! Gibbs is with NCIS NOOOB :P

yeah, but it's a better FBI name

Dr_Rez · 06-26-2009, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gavin B.

If an album or song is out of issue I don't have any ethical problem with downloading it a file sharing website.

I rarely purchase a compact disk anymore for a couple of reasons. 1. The retail price of a cd is grossly overpriced and 2. I'm running out of space to store my record collection. I have nearly 1000 gigs of storage space on my computer and currently have around 75,000 songs on my computer. My computer is hooked up to my sound system and I can rip, burn, remix, dub, crossfade and do mash ups of songs all on my computer. I prerecord my radio show and broadcast it via Shoutcast so I don't even need to leave home to do my show anymore.

Digital downloads of albums are about half the price of a compact disk and you can find a wider range of music in digital modality these days. Indie record stores are a dying breed in the United State and stores like Borders and Best Buy have scaled back on the number of titles they carry because of shelf space. The good part about digital music is it doesn't cost the retailer anything to carry slow selling titles, so you can find a lot of titles that are out of issue in compact disk form.

I download music at AltNet, Amazon and Rhapsody and YouTube. The YouTube stuff is free because I convert the videos into MP3 form and there's no law against downloading videos, therefore converting them to MP3s after the fact is not against the law either. I had a horrific experience with iTunes and will never purchase another music file from them if my life depended on it. iTunes uses spyware and malware in the Digital Rights Management (DRM) software which literally destroyed the hard drive of one of my computers and none of the iTunes software works as advertised.

I happen to know a great deal about how royalty points are distributed and can tell you that file sharing is not stealing very much income, if any, from the artists who make the music. The entire campaign of the major labels to brand file sharing as thievery is bogus because the biggest music thieves are the major record labels who don't pay royalties to their artists.

Roger McGuinn once told me he never received a penny of royalties for any of the Byrds recordings on Columbia Records. The Byrds had seven albums that sold more than a million units in the Sixties and early Seventies and McGuinn told me that with the exception of a small advance to make each album, none of the members of the Byrds saw a penny in royalties for any of their albums. McGuinn now makes his own albums at home, on his own label, and has negotiated a 50/50 split on royalties with any retailer that carries his music. Roger told me he's making more money on royalties now than he ever made when the Byrds were the top selling American rock group.

Most of the royalty money is distributed on the basis of a complex point system which the record label negotiates with each perspective artist. Here's how it works:

Usually an artist can be offered anywhere between 10 to 20 royalty points depending on his/her credibility etc. The second royalty source is "mechanical" royalties. These are royalties payable to the songwriters. Last time I checked the statutory rate was around 7 cents per song (possibly changed again by now). A songwriter who writes 100% of an album's worth of let's say 10 songs will therefore make 70 cents per album sold. This is payable from record one. It is therefore extremely beneficial for artists to write the music they record!

Anyway, the only real drama with mechanicals is that labels somehow get away with paying artists only 75% of the statutory rate, which means labels are effectively witholding 25% of the copyright income. There is absolutely no reason for them to do this apart from the fact that they have always got away with it! This is one thing I would like to see changed. Very successful artists can usually negotiate 100% of stat. New artists, very very rarely.

Let's go back to our "artist" royalties because this is where ALL the problems really lie. Let me explain what the problem is really all about.

Let's say a major label has just signed your band "The Ahmesh Conspiracy" and offered you an exhorbitant amount of money. Your attorney has negotiated an artist royalty of 15 points. Traditionally not bad for a new artist. Here's the way it works...

Every single promotional penny spent on promoting your record, be it video costs, indie radio promotion or retail programs etc, is recoupable from your royalty points in some way, depending on how your contract is set up. Some things are charged to the artist at 100%, some 50%. What this means is that in order for you to recoup let's say $100,000 in promotion, the record company will have to receive income almost 10 times that amount before you clear that recoupment. (Don't forget, you the artist don't see a penny until your recoupment is clear).

How is this so? When $100,000 of income goes to the record label, only 15% of that goes towards your recoupment. You are recouping at a snail's pace because you are recouping at 15% of the pie! That means that realistically, you can never really make money because if records are selling well, the label will continue to spend X amount of promotional dollars which in turn gets recouped at the 15% snail's pace.

Under this system Columbia Records wasn't sending McGuinn a royalty check every quarter, rather Columbia sent him a bill for recoupable costs that the Byrds owed Columbia Record for studio time, distribution, promotional and touring expenses and other incidental expenses.

In some ways the digital music revolution has liberated the music artists. Now anybody with a digital mixer can record an album and artists no longer need to purchase studio time. Digital music doesn't require equipment to press an album because the entire physical production of an album can be done at home. Nor does digital music require a distribution network to ship all the albums to various stores across the nation. And finally an music artist can do his own promotion via internet retailers and social networking sites.

Record labels have pretty much outlived their usefulness to recording artisits in the digital age and my best advice to any aspiring musician or musical group is to produce, record, distribute and promote your own music because contract with a major label is a big swindle.

I agree with most of what you said in this but, but you failed to mention a couple aspects of the royalty business. First off it is not the record company collecting royalties, it is companies like BMI that take care of all that for a small cut.

You talked about how the artist you met made almost nothing from the millions of albums sold. This is not uncommon; most artists make there money from live performances and royalty checks from various uses of there music.

Now I agree that the record companies take advantage of artists and are run by hordes of scumbags, but if research is done and a proper contract is agreed on your band does have a chance making good royalties. A smart tricky system calls for tricky consumers.

Our Heliophobic Sun · 06-26-2009, 02:56 PM

I download my music. Illegally. Why? Because I am all for the illegal download industry. Songs should be available on the internet, and people should not be forced to pay for them.

Well, that might have sounded a little blunt, but I also have the arguments to back this up.

Music is about the expression of an emotion, making a statement, giving an opinion on something, etc. The prime objective of any artist should be to do these things, and reach as many people as they can with this, because you want people to feel the way you do, you want people to think about things. Even if people do not agree with your viewpoints as an artist, still you made them at least think a little more about the subject, and that what it is about.

Up and until a few decades ago, the only way to reach a lot of people, was through extensive advertising of your product, and selling it in as many countries as possible. This has changed. Music is no longer only available via the selling of cd's, but also for free, and to a lot more people then you could reach before the coming of the internet. In that aspect, you would think that any artist would embrace the downloading of their music with open arms. In what other way could you bring your message to so many people, could you bring over your feeling to this magnitude of humans?
All the things that music is about, are being strengthened by the illegal download of music, people from all over the world can listen to your music with one click of the mouse. I'd say that that is a dream come true.

Yet many artists are against the illegal downloading of music. The prime argument they make, is indeed not about them not being able to transfer a message or a feeling, or whatever. It is about the money.

This insinuates that the artists do not care one bit about their music, and only care about making as much money as they possibly can through the music.

I myself have a little solo project as well, and I am trying, through that solo project, to wake up those artists, and show them that if they really care about the music, and if they really care about the essentials of music, they would embrace the downloading of music with open arms. My solo project is called "Our Heliophobic Sun", my songs are on myspace (/ourheliophobicsun). You can not buy my albums, the only way to possess my music, is by asking me for the mp3's (acdeicide@live.nl). I do not accept payment in any form, I want to let people know once more what music is actually about, what it should stand for, and the reasons why one makes music, or, at least, should make music. Not for the money, not to make as much people as possible like you, but to bring over a feeling, a message, whatever.

- Theo Therion

~~someonecompletelyrandom~~ · 06-26-2009, 07:59 PM

Musicians have to eat too.

Five words just destroyed most of your argument.

+81 · 06-26-2009, 08:11 PM

I can't afford to buy every single thing I want to hear. I may not even like it.

Anteater · 06-26-2009, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonace

Musicians have to eat too.

Five words just destroyed most of your argument.

You didn't really; musicians in need of extra moolah could always do prostitution on the side.

clarksided · 06-26-2009, 10:04 PM

I generally download music, then I buy it if I like it. It's a process, of sorts. It can also take a while. For example, I downloaded For Emma, Forever Ago, probably at the beginning of 2008, and it's probably one of my favorite albums of the last five years, but I still haven't bought it. I will eventually though.

Our Heliophobic Sun · 06-27-2009, 02:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonace

Musicians have to eat too.

Five words just destroyed most of your argument.

No, like I said, I myself am a musician, and I don't let anyone pay for my music. Yet I make enough money, I just don't make money because of the music, I make money with a job. I do spend every free moment I have on music, but my money comes from elsewhere.
There are thousands of bands in the world. Some of these bands limit their albums to 100 or even 14 copies, yet they keep making music, and I think they are more true in their music than many of the big bands and artists.

Freebase Dali · 06-27-2009, 03:17 AM

I can't believe some of the complete bullshit I just read in this thread... Especially from you, Heliophobic.

If you think bands are tirelessly touring across the country night after night and working endless hours in a studio to cut their next full length JUST because they like doing it... you need to get your head out of your ass and let it dry off in the real world, because that shit is work. While you're flipping burgers at Wendy's, they don't have time for a job because they're busy making music that YOU love and you're not even attempting to contribute to their ability to stay alive long enough to see some kind of pay-out for their trouble?
Bands can't stay alive without an income. And they can't give you the music you love if that income is in the form of them having normal full time jobs. Their music is their job, whether you twist that little stick up your ass to the left or the right.

I'm not saying that all downloading of music should stop in all forms... But I'm saying we need to use some fucking judgment in this. Yea, your friends send you over some albums you may have not bought in the first place.. no big deal.
But if you head over heels love and get something out of a band and have been forever and you're intentionally skirting the responsibility of paying for the labor that you're benefiting from, then you're fucking your favorite band in the ass. It's not just because YOU'RE doing it, though, but us collectively. All our dicks, together, just so happen to be big enough to do some unrepairable damage...

Make a fucking effort to support the bands who've been supporting you all these years. It's a matter of principle.

06-24-2009, 02:16 AM	#101 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	If an album or song is out of issue I don't have any ethical problem with downloading it a file sharing website. I rarely purchase a compact disk anymore for a couple of reasons. 1. The retail price of a cd is grossly overpriced and 2. I'm running out of space to store my record collection. I have nearly 1000 gigs of storage space on my computer and currently have around 75,000 songs on my computer. My computer is hooked up to my sound system and I can rip, burn, remix, dub, crossfade and do mash ups of songs all on my computer. I prerecord my radio show and broadcast it via Shoutcast so I don't even need to leave home to do my show anymore. Digital downloads of albums are about half the price of a compact disk and you can find a wider range of music in digital modality these days. Indie record stores are a dying breed in the United State and stores like Borders and Best Buy have scaled back on the number of titles they carry because of shelf space. The good part about digital music is it doesn't cost the retailer anything to carry slow selling titles, so you can find a lot of titles that are out of issue in compact disk form. I download music at AltNet, Amazon and Rhapsody and YouTube. The YouTube stuff is free because I convert the videos into MP3 form and there's no law against downloading videos, therefore converting them to MP3s after the fact is not against the law either. I had a horrific experience with iTunes and will never purchase another music file from them if my life depended on it. iTunes uses spyware and malware in the Digital Rights Management (DRM) software which literally destroyed the hard drive of one of my computers and none of the iTunes software works as advertised. I happen to know a great deal about how royalty points are distributed and can tell you that file sharing is not stealing very much income, if any, from the artists who make the music. The entire campaign of the major labels to brand file sharing as thievery is bogus because the biggest music thieves are the major record labels who don't pay royalties to their artists. Roger McGuinn once told me he never received a penny of royalties for any of the Byrds recordings on Columbia Records. The Byrds had seven albums that sold more than a million units in the Sixties and early Seventies and McGuinn told me that with the exception of a small advance to make each album, none of the members of the Byrds saw a penny in royalties for any of their albums. McGuinn now makes his own albums at home, on his own label, and has negotiated a 50/50 split on royalties with any retailer that carries his music. Roger told me he's making more money on royalties now than he ever made when the Byrds were the top selling American rock group. Most of the royalty money is distributed on the basis of a complex point system which the record label negotiates with each perspective artist. Here's how it works: Usually an artist can be offered anywhere between 10 to 20 royalty points depending on his/her credibility etc. The second royalty source is "mechanical" royalties. These are royalties payable to the songwriters. Last time I checked the statutory rate was around 7 cents per song (possibly changed again by now). A songwriter who writes 100% of an album's worth of let's say 10 songs will therefore make 70 cents per album sold. This is payable from record one. It is therefore extremely beneficial for artists to write the music they record! Anyway, the only real drama with mechanicals is that labels somehow get away with paying artists only 75% of the statutory rate, which means labels are effectively witholding 25% of the copyright income. There is absolutely no reason for them to do this apart from the fact that they have always got away with it! This is one thing I would like to see changed. Very successful artists can usually negotiate 100% of stat. New artists, very very rarely. Let's go back to our "artist" royalties because this is where ALL the problems really lie. Let me explain what the problem is really all about. Let's say a major label has just signed your band "The Ahmesh Conspiracy" and offered you an exhorbitant amount of money. Your attorney has negotiated an artist royalty of 15 points. Traditionally not bad for a new artist. Here's the way it works... Every single promotional penny spent on promoting your record, be it video costs, indie radio promotion or retail programs etc, is recoupable from your royalty points in some way, depending on how your contract is set up. Some things are charged to the artist at 100%, some 50%. What this means is that in order for you to recoup let's say $100,000 in promotion, the record company will have to receive income almost 10 times that amount before you clear that recoupment. (Don't forget, you the artist don't see a penny until your recoupment is clear). How is this so? When $100,000 of income goes to the record label, only 15% of that goes towards your recoupment. You are recouping at a snail's pace because you are recouping at 15% of the pie! That means that realistically, you can never really make money because if records are selling well, the label will continue to spend X amount of promotional dollars which in turn gets recouped at the 15% snail's pace. Under this system Columbia Records wasn't sending McGuinn a royalty check every quarter, rather Columbia sent him a bill for recoupable costs that the Byrds owed Columbia Record for studio time, distribution, promotional and touring expenses and other incidental expenses. In some ways the digital music revolution has liberated the music artists. Now anybody with a digital mixer can record an album and artists no longer need to purchase studio time. Digital music doesn't require equipment to press an album because the entire physical production of an album can be done at home. Nor does digital music require a distribution network to ship all the albums to various stores across the nation. And finally an music artist can do his own promotion via internet retailers and social networking sites. Record labels have pretty much outlived their usefulness to recording artisits in the digital age and my best advice to any aspiring musician or musical group is to produce, record, distribute and promote your own music because contract with a major label is a big swindle. __________________ There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff. Townes Van Zandt Last edited by Gavin B.; 06-24-2009 at 02:24 AM.

06-26-2009, 10:04 PM	#108 (permalink)
clarksided Music Addict Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 77	I generally download music, then I buy it if I like it. It's a process, of sorts. It can also take a while. For example, I downloaded For Emma, Forever Ago, probably at the beginning of 2008, and it's probably one of my favorite albums of the last five years, but I still haven't bought it. I will eventually though. __________________ http://www.last.fm/user/Folkwire http://rateyourmusic.com/~Folkwire

06-27-2009, 03:17 AM	#110 (permalink)
Freebase Dali Partying on the inside Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 5,584	I can't believe some of the complete bullshit I just read in this thread... Especially from you, Heliophobic. If you think bands are tirelessly touring across the country night after night and working endless hours in a studio to cut their next full length JUST because they like doing it... you need to get your head out of your ass and let it dry off in the real world, because that shit is work. While you're flipping burgers at Wendy's, they don't have time for a job because they're busy making music that YOU love and you're not even attempting to contribute to their ability to stay alive long enough to see some kind of pay-out for their trouble? Bands can't stay alive without an income. And they can't give you the music you love if that income is in the form of them having normal full time jobs. Their music is their job, whether you twist that little stick up your ass to the left or the right. I'm not saying that all downloading of music should stop in all forms... But I'm saying we need to use some fucking judgment in this. Yea, your friends send you over some albums you may have not bought in the first place.. no big deal. But if you head over heels love and get something out of a band and have been forever and you're intentionally skirting the responsibility of paying for the labor that you're benefiting from, then you're fucking your favorite band in the ass. It's not just because YOU'RE doing it, though, but us collectively. All our dicks, together, just so happen to be big enough to do some unrepairable damage... Make a fucking effort to support the bands who've been supporting you all these years. It's a matter of principle. __________________ Last edited by Freebase Dali; 06-27-2009 at 03:30 AM. Reason: Added more vulgarity.

06-26-2009, 02:56 PM	#104 (permalink)
Our Heliophobic Sun Groupie Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 4	I download my music. Illegally. Why? Because I am all for the illegal download industry. Songs should be available on the internet, and people should not be forced to pay for them. Well, that might have sounded a little blunt, but I also have the arguments to back this up. Music is about the expression of an emotion, making a statement, giving an opinion on something, etc. The prime objective of any artist should be to do these things, and reach as many people as they can with this, because you want people to feel the way you do, you want people to think about things. Even if people do not agree with your viewpoints as an artist, still you made them at least think a little more about the subject, and that what it is about. Up and until a few decades ago, the only way to reach a lot of people, was through extensive advertising of your product, and selling it in as many countries as possible. This has changed. Music is no longer only available via the selling of cd's, but also for free, and to a lot more people then you could reach before the coming of the internet. In that aspect, you would think that any artist would embrace the downloading of their music with open arms. In what other way could you bring your message to so many people, could you bring over your feeling to this magnitude of humans? All the things that music is about, are being strengthened by the illegal download of music, people from all over the world can listen to your music with one click of the mouse. I'd say that that is a dream come true. Yet many artists are against the illegal downloading of music. The prime argument they make, is indeed not about them not being able to transfer a message or a feeling, or whatever. It is about the money. This insinuates that the artists do not care one bit about their music, and only care about making as much money as they possibly can through the music. I myself have a little solo project as well, and I am trying, through that solo project, to wake up those artists, and show them that if they really care about the music, and if they really care about the essentials of music, they would embrace the downloading of music with open arms. My solo project is called "Our Heliophobic Sun", my songs are on myspace (/ourheliophobicsun). You can not buy my albums, the only way to possess my music, is by asking me for the mp3's (acdeicide@live.nl). I do not accept payment in any form, I want to let people know once more what music is actually about, what it should stand for, and the reasons why one makes music, or, at least, should make music. Not for the money, not to make as much people as possible like you, but to bring over a feeling, a message, whatever. - Theo Therion

06-26-2009, 07:59 PM	#105 (permalink)
~~someonecompletelyrandom~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 4,538	Musicians have to eat too. Five words just destroyed most of your argument.

06-26-2009, 08:11 PM	#106 (permalink)
+81 Rats off to ya! Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: House of the Ju-Ju Queen Posts: 1,609	I can't afford to buy every single thing I want to hear. I may not even like it.