[Smacle]

Brenda Brenda:

Now, all you have to do, is record a song.

Hahaha. Is that all? All you really gotta do it win a few votes, become president, maybe buy a pain brush and paint the mona lisa. If it's so easy Ms. Brenda, then lets hear what you wrote. You could be a millionaire.

[Brenda]

Smacle Smacle:

Brenda Brenda:

Now, all you have to do, is record a song.

Hahaha. Is that all? All you really gotta do it win a few votes, become president, maybe buy a pain brush and paint the mona lisa. If it's so easy Ms. Brenda, then lets hear what you wrote. You could be a millionaire.

It IS that easy. Record a song, upload it to iTunes, Amazon and cdBaby, and let the cash roll in! Oh, don't forget to copyright it.

Of course no one is gonna buy it, but hey, it IS what people expect nowadays, isn't it. You don't have to do the bar-gigs anymore, you don't need a record deal anymore, you don't even have to be good anymore. Auto-tune is amazing and makes every fucked up voice sound decent.

(I take it you missed the sarcasm in my post, but whatever)

[Lemmy]

Smacle Smacle:

No lemmy. The artists make money from those CDs too as part of their contract with the record company.

So does the Fuji film employee benefit from film sales and lose benefit from photos traded on the internet rather than processed into prints. Why aren't Fuji film employees crying about the internet costing them business?

Smacle Smacle:

So you are stealing their profits from their art when you download their music. You have no contract, no legal foothold, no justification. You are breaking the law and stealing, no argument to be made.

Not at all. I've paid for Pink Floyd's "The Wall" three times over. I own those songs. I'm not stealing from anyone when I download them.

You've also conveniently skipped over the fact that the artists are making out better under the current system. They're the ones benefiting most from having their music traded (whether legal or not). You can't say I'm stealing from their profits when I'm contributing more to their profits than ever before. And I'm not stealing from the record companies either. I'm just choosing to no longer purchase their product. I'm going to get a better product from a new competitor. Free market, literally. I'm buying the automobile and rejecting the horse and buggy.

[Smacle]

Brenda I did miss the sarcasm. :p

Lemmy. You owned 3 album copies, the record label owns the music. The artists gave it to the record labels in exchange for a percentage of their profits because The musicians can't advertise like a record label can. Without the record label the musicians wouldn't make nearly as much money and without the musicians the record labels would not make any money. Except maybe if they sold blank burnable CDs for you to put your illegally downloaded music on to.

Fuji film doesn't make royalties because nobody would buy it if every time they took a picture they had to pay fuji a fee. It's all about the deal that you can negotiate for yourself and the contract that you agree to. In fujis case they sell a camera and roll of film to you for a one time cost then it's yours to do with what you will, except copy the technology and make a duplicate to redistribute, that's a copyright infringement. Much like taking an artists song duplicating it and redistributing it without the consent of the artist. That's the free market.

How are you benefiting for the rights holder when you give their creation away?

This should be entertaining.

[Lemmy]

Smacle Smacle:

Fuji film doesn't make royalties because nobody would buy it if every time they took a picture they had to pay fuji a fee.

BINGO! That's it exactly. Except in 2012, that applies to music too. With current technology, no one will buy it (the song) if in order to hear it they'd have to pay the record company a fee. File sharing has lowered the market price of a song to $0. The song is worth nothing. Music no longer has economic value in recorded form. The equilibrium price of an mp3 file is $0. You can pass any goddamn law you want, you won't alter the equilibrium price established by the market.

Smacle Smacle:

How are you benefiting for the rights holder when you give their creation away? This should be entertaining.

Don't we measure benefits as NET benefits? The entire system, the entire music industry, is better for musicians now than before file sharing. They're not giving their creation away. They're just distributing it differently. The artists are getting the whole pie instead of the paper-thin slice the record companies used to give 'em. Someone should name the newest file sharing platform Robin Hood because that's what this technology is for musicians.

[Smacle]

Lemmy Lemmy:

With current technology, no one will buy it (the song) if in order to hear it they'd have to pay the record company a fee.

Bingo. That's why they are trying to enforce the illegal downloading of music. To give value back to that music and help the artists and their partners earn the money that they deserve.

Lemmy Lemmy:

Don't we measure benefits as NET benefits? The entire system, the entire music industry, is better for musicians now than before file sharing.

I guess that depends on how you look at it. For YOU it's better. For the creators of the product it's worse. What is more fair? enlighten me.

[Brenda]

Smacle Smacle:

Brenda I did miss the sarcasm. :p

[Smacle]

Also, you take money away from the record labels. They give a lot of money to people who are passionate about music. They record it for them and make it sound amazing, sometimes they even help the artist write the music. Then they use all their expensive technology to put together the best art that they can possibly create. They record it onto CDs or put it into a digital MP3 format. THEN they advertise it, build up hype so that people will absolutely DIE to get it. Then they make it available across the world.

All you gotta do is press a button and BAM all that work... for nothing.

Record companies don't work for free. They aren't going to help new artists who aren't highly likely to make good enough art to produce revenue. All those risky, edgy, artists with new ideas which can expand the music culture no longer have all the resources of those record companies... The next greatest musician to ever walk the earth might miss their opportunity to become famous and share their gift because they don't have the resources to advertise and, quite frankly, they're too busy flipping burgers for minimum wage to really focus on their work because THERE IS NO MORE MONEY IN MAKING MUSIC. Thank god that we can share files instantly though. Too bad it is all starting to suck.

[Lemmy]

Smacle Smacle:

Bingo. That's why they are trying to enforce the illegal downloading of music. To give value back to that music and help the artists and their partners earn the money that they deserve.

Hold on, the Supreme Court of Canada has said it's not illegal. That issue we haven't debated yet. You can't give "value back" to something that no longer has value. The horse-drawn carriage has value of $0 (unless you want to bring Mennonites into this discussion). Nothing can change that. Likewise, recorded music has value of $0. Can you steal something that's free? The artists and their partners better find something else to package with the CD if they expect to sell any.

Smacle Smacle:

I guess that depends on how you look at it. For YOU it's better. For the creators of the product it's worse. What is more fair? enlighten me.

It's not better for me. I used to pay $30 for a concert ticket. Now they cost $200+. The creators are making more money than ever. How is that worse for them? What is more fair? There are 3 parties in this economy: the artist, the record company and the consumer. Before file sharing, the record company got most of the benefits. The consumers and musicians got screwed. Now the musicians and consumers are sharing most of the industry benefits and the record companies are getting screwed. I just don't see how that's not better than before.

[Smacle]

Before, the record companies had an agreement with the musicians and the consumers. Now, the consumers are screwing over the record companies to try to help the musicians.

The difference? The one where everyone gets what they've bargained for, fair and square, is legal, moral, and fairly negotiated. The one where the consumers screw over the record labels and in turn the musicians is illegal, immoral, and unfair to the binding agreements (contracts) that were negotiated before hand.

[Lemmy]

Smacle Smacle:

Before, the record companies had an agreement with the musicians and the consumers. Now, the consumers are screwing over the record companies to try to help the musicians.

The difference? The one where everyone gets what they've bargained for, fair and square, is legal, moral, and fairly negotiated. The one where the consumers screw over the record labels and in turn the musicians is illegal, immoral, and unfair to the binding agreements (contracts) that were negotiated before hand.

It sounds more to me like you think we should subsidize the record company at the expense of the artist and the consumer. I'd rather remove the parasite from the equation.

[Thanos]

Brenda Brenda:

Of course no one is gonna buy it, but hey, it IS what people expect nowadays, isn't it. You don't have to do the bar-gigs anymore, you don't need a record deal anymore, you don't even have to be good anymore. Auto-tune is amazing and makes every fucked up voice sound decent.

You got that right. For all their villainy the record companies acted as a necessary and vitally important filter that kept the market, especially commercial radio and the music video channels, from being flooded with unlistenable crap. Even the alternative acts had to at least demonstrate some technical and musical proficiency to get an opportunity to press an album or a single. And sadly it's no longer this way. What should have be left behind in someone's parent's basement or garage automatically goes to the internet. If it gets enough hits on YouTube it makes money for something that doesn't even remotely deserve it.

Rock 'n' roll is now functionally dead because of this effect. And pop music has been overwhelmed by a horde of ridiculous pop-sluts that make Madonna look like Luciano Pavaroti in comparison as far as simple talent is concerned. The slaves might have been freed from the record label planatation but they're really only burning down the countryside and literally destroying what it took the last forty or fifty years of rock and pop music to build. As a lifelong listener I can't think of a single moment in my lifetime (not even from the darkish days of the disco era or the 1980's Britpop inundation) where mass music has been in such a deplorable state of basic quality or listenability. It's disgusting and beyond tragic to see things come to such a sorry state.

[Smacle]

That would probably be cheaper. However, how many artists own their own equipment to record? How many of them know who to contact to advertise their product? How many artists can put money upfront to buy thousands of blank CDs, pay someone to mix their music to make it sound better, hire someone to organize public events.. the list goes on...

I'm not saying that record companies aren't out to make as much money as possible. What I'm saying is that you reap what you sow. If you agree to buy an album for $20 then you can't be angry at anyone but yourself. If you agree to let a record label hold the rights to all of your music then you have nobody but yourself to blame. If you decide to steal the content, upload it online, and remove any value from it without the permission of the artist or the record label then you belong in prison because you just ruined the lively hood of a lot of hard working or very talented people.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Smacle Smacle:

That would probably be cheaper. However, how many artists own their own equipment to record? How many of them know who to contact to advertise their product? How many artists can put money upfront to buy thousands of blank CDs, pay someone to mix their music to make it sound better, hire someone to organize public events.. the list goes on...

I'm not saying that record companies aren't out to make as much money as possible. What I'm saying is that you reap what you sow. If you agree to buy an album for $20 then you can't be angry at anyone but yourself. If you agree to let a record label hold the rights to all of your music then you have nobody but yourself to blame. If you decide to steal the content, upload it online, and remove any value from it without the permission of the artist or the record label then you belong in prison because you just ruined the lively hood of a lot of hard working or very talented people.

Several years ago now, Sony records added a rootkit to every cd they produced. This rootkit would install on your computer even if you weren't ripping the cd to your hard drive and were just listening to it.
This rootkit left people's computers vulnerable and was added without informing the consumer. Sony records thought $150 per damaged/ruined computer was adequate compensation. How does Sony justify claiming tens of thousands in damages for d/ling one song that they sell for $1 on iTunes? How does the gov't and legal system justify it while handing out a "slap on the wrist" to those that shoplift the physical cd?
I can agree with the legislation when it comes to entire cds/DVDs/etc but a single is like a business card. You hand it out to generate interest and to hopefully make people remember you.
How does the artists make money when the radio plays their singles? Radio stations don't pay royalties for playing songs.
I've even purchased cds I never would have purchased if I hadn't downloaded a song or two from them, simply because I'd never heard the artist before.

$1:

However, how many artists own their own equipment to record?

They don't need it. There are loads of indie labels that give studio time for much cheaper than the big name studios as well as actively promote new talent.
Metallica's and Megadeth's first releases were on indie labels. You may have heard of them?
And many big name artists DO have their own studios these days, as an answer to the naked greed of the recording industry. While some bands take their music straight to the internet hoping their songs get downloaded.

[Tricks]

Radiohead had it right. When they released an album a few years ago, they released for donation.