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Millions chose torrents over Radiohead's own site


Stripey

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but if you download music...the creators get no money whatsoever...

Why do they get no money whatsoever?

If you actually read the thread, you'd see that people were talking about legal downloads. Stripey's comment (that you've quoted) actually talks about people taking control of their own content, making 100% of the revenues from the downloads of the product.

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In some cases legal downloads from reputable sources are just as bad as downloading for free if you do it for "yeah! give the money back to the band!", reasons. Take the album New Ruins by Kidcrash for example; a label they are no longer involved with gave iTunes the right to sell the songs on iTunes. They have never recieved any money from the sales, and after repeated askings for the songs to be removed (as in, hey, we're the band, those are our songs, take them off iTunes), they still remain for sale. It's for this very reason they decided to host all their material online themselves, for free.

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I suppose you buy breakfast cereal for the game of snakes and ladders printed on the back and the free toy that comes with it too?

It always makes me laugh when people go on about "artwork" from mass produced albums printed on cheap paper/card stock. Yes I could understand this if you mean something like a handprinted, hand folded cd sleeve that has been made with care and attention and in numbers less than the hundreds, but to go on about album artwork on the average cd or album sleeve is just as sad as admiring the design of a frosties packet.

I hardly think CD packaging can be compared to breakfast cereal packaging...

after you've listened to a CD do you just throw the packaging away????

of course books and magazines are also mass produced, and you could find the content online if you wanted and cut out the need to buy the actual product...

yet an awful lot of people do go out and buy the actual products...

why cant buying a cd and having the artwork and content on your shelf be any different...

and to be fair there a lot of people who are into packaging design be it frosties or not, theres nothing sad about admiring something your genuinelly interested in...

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In some cases legal downloads from reputable sources are just as bad as downloading for free if you do it for "yeah! give the money back to the band!", reasons. Take the album New Ruins by Kidcrash for example; a label they are no longer involved with gave iTunes the right to sell the songs on iTunes. They have never recieved any money from the sales, and after repeated askings for the songs to be removed (as in, hey, we're the band, those are our songs, take them off iTunes), they still remain for sale. It's for this very reason they decided to host all their material online themselves, for free.

thats fair, and i can respect that, but take a band like, lets say Aereogramme who broke up because they were tired of touring all the time and never getting anything back. When it leads to great bands breaking up, surely there is a problem yes?

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Guest idol_wild
thats fair, and i can respect that, but take a band like, lets say Aereogramme who broke up because they were tired of touring all the time and never getting anything back. When it leads to great bands breaking up, surely there is a problem yes?

Not in Aereogramme's case. They were mince ;)

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thats fair, and i can respect that, but take a band like, lets say Aereogramme who broke up because they were tired of touring all the time and never getting anything back. When it leads to great bands breaking up, surely there is a problem yes?

Isn't it partially their fault for not making money from the band? the music industry is a business after all - if they were touring constantly and not getting a just reward, then they were doing *something* wrong.

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thats fair, and i can respect that, but take a band like, lets say Aereogramme who broke up because they were tired of touring all the time and never getting anything back. When it leads to great bands breaking up, surely there is a problem yes?

Yeah, sure, but that can't have been the ONLY problem! I mean, it's not just Aereogramme that faced / face this problem. If every band that wasn't making what they thought was enough cash, i'm sure there'd be many more calling it a day.

I suppose it just backs up my point that it's just too black and white to say that illegal downloading is bad. I think it's something that's happened, and will continue to happen. It's just progression. Artists and labels are going to re-draw the map. Just like when tapes started the rounds, with all the scared C.O's in their towers shouting "HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC!". A lot of us probably look back on that as being a bit silly, yeah?

The thing is, there are two types of people who download (i reckon). You get people that, like me (i think), are very enthusiastic about about music / buys records when possible / goes to shows / buys merch / mega bigs up bands everywhere possible. I like these people! Strangely, it's formed a community. Say you go to After the Post Rock or something, that place is a hub of activity. A whole hoard of excited music fans. Sure, they download like there's no tomorrow, but they love the music. They recommend each other new and interesting artists, as well as reminiscing about older. Yeah, sure, some of them are a bit cocky, but that's probably because of the size of their hard-drive. But so what; these are the same people that cream themselves over coloured vinyl and extravagant band merchandise. These guys make the difference!

The other type of music download'er is your average teenage who loads up limwire every night to get the new bangin' choons. They don't give two shits about the artist, the label, the effort, the meaning. They don't care where it's come from! They are the polar opposite to the above. These people need to be weeded and stopped, because they're holding back the idea that downloading and sharing music, like those of the former, could evolve into something pretty interesting...

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I hardly think CD packaging can be compared to breakfast cereal packaging...

after you've listened to a CD do you just throw the packaging away????

of course books and magazines are also mass produced, and you could find the content online if you wanted and cut out the need to buy the actual product...

yet an awful lot of people do go out and buy the actual products...

why cant buying a cd and having the artwork and content on your shelf be any different...

and to be fair there a lot of people who are into packaging design be it frosties or not, theres nothing sad about admiring something your genuinelly interested in...

I think people still go out and buy things like CDs and hardcopy newspapers (which IMO should be extremely heavily taxed with the aim of completely banning them in the near future) because they're either technologically deprived, or completely passive brainwashed consumers that are just the last hangers-on to the 20th century paradigms of how content "should" be delivered. In the same way, the mainstream music industry is desperately hanging onto that old paradigm despite the genie of p2p/mp3 being well and truly let out of the bottle years ago, because it hasn't yet found a way to effectively (bollocks to itunes) adapt its business model and industry hegemony to fit the new reality while still retaining their absurd level of profit making. They realise they're finished and have resorted to intimidating people into complying with them, because those same people have the power to finish them off completely if only they would have the intelligence to realise it instead of blithely, unwittingly helping rebuild all these pointless profiteering power structures in the online domain.

Anyway my point is, cd artwork, lyric sheets, wierd cd cases that don't fit your cd-rack are just "value adding" tat which is supposed to make you feel ok about paying over the odds for a CD. I think people have been artificially inculcated over the last 50 - 60 years with a misguided view of the value of music because of the insane lengths the industry goes to in order to market its products. Getting people to believe that packaging, or for that matter the physical storage format matters is a huge con that only benefits the industry middlemen.

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Yeah, sure, but that can't have been the ONLY problem! I mean, it's not just Aereogramme that faced / face this problem. If every band that wasn't making what they thought was enough cash, i'm sure there'd be many more calling it a day.

I suppose it just backs up my point that it's just too black and white to say that illegal downloading is bad. I think it's something that's happened, and will continue to happen. It's just progression. Artists and labels are going to re-draw the map. Just like when tapes started the rounds, with all the scared C.O's in their towers shouting "HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC!". A lot of us probably look back on that as being a bit silly, yeah?

The thing is, there are two types of people who download (i reckon). You get people that, like me (i think), are very enthusiastic about about music / buys records when possible / goes to shows / buys merch / mega bigs up bands everywhere possible. I like these people! Strangely, it's formed a community. Say you go to After the Post Rock or something, that place is a hub of activity. A whole hoard of excited music fans. Sure, they download like there's no tomorrow, but they love the music. They recommend each other new and interesting artists, as well as reminiscing about older. Yeah, sure, some of them are a bit cocky, but that's probably because of the size of their hard-drive. But so what; these are the same people that cream themselves over coloured vinyl and extravagant band merchandise. These guys make the difference!

The other type of music download'er is your average teenage who loads up limwire every night to get the new bangin' choons. They don't give two shits about the artist, the label, the effort, the meaning. They don't care where it's come from! They are the polar opposite to the above. These people need to be weeded and stopped, because they're holding back the idea that downloading and sharing music, like those of the former, could evolve into something pretty interesting...

*applauds*

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The thing is, there are two types of people who download (i reckon). You get people that, like me (i think), are very enthusiastic about about music / buys records when possible / goes to shows / buys merch / mega bigs up bands everywhere possible. I like these people! ... These guys make the difference!

...

But surely there's an argument that musicians and records labels have historically earned a bit too bloody much for their produce; a mark-up in price arising out of the maggot-like all-consuming, idol-worship of 'difference-makers' like you?

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But surely there's an argument that musicians and records labels have historically earned a bit too bloody much for their produce; a mark-up in price arising out of the maggot-like all-consuming, idol-worship of 'difference-makers' like you?

Sorry, i don't quite understand what you're trying to say here. Could you rephrase / try again? Thanks!

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Do you not believe music is expensive? Attending gigs, buying cds and merchandise, must add up a bit?

Not incredibly expensive, no. I think the last gig i went to was Off Minor in Edinburgh. Ticket in was about a fiver, shirt was about 8, new lp was about 8. So, what, a total of 21. That's a smidgen on what some dude prolly spent on a boozer later on the same night.

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Mainstream music is overly expensive gig-wise these days, but CDs are very inexpensive these days. I don't think you would've picked up a chart album for under a 10 10 years ago and if you take into account inflation it's even better these days. Less mainstream music is very inexpensive these days as people strive to increase the numbers through the door.

It is actually a really good time to buy music/go to gigs financially these days.

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Not incredibly expensive, no. I think the last gig i went to was Off Minor in Edinburgh. Ticket in was about a fiver, shirt was about 8, new lp was about 8. So, what, a total of 21. That's a smidgen on what some dude prolly spent on a boozer later on the same night.

Assuming that was an enjoyable night, I agree it sounds fairly reasonable. How old are you? Do you not drink? How often do you attend gigs?

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But surely there's an argument that musicians and records labels have historically earned a bit too bloody much for their produce; a mark-up in price arising out of the maggot-like all-consuming, idol-worship of 'difference-makers' like you?

I think that's entirely subjective, whether or not you believe that musicians have been making, 'too bloodly much'. If you really like a band, surely you'd want to see them do as best as they possibly could? Money wouldn't really come into it.

If you really enjoy something doesn't that make spending money on it seem worthwhile? It's like saying going on holiday to Florida's expensive, but, if you really like Florida, why not?

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I think that's entirely subjective, whether or not you believe that musicians have been making, 'too bloodly much'. If you really like a band, surely you'd want to see them do as best as they possibly could? Money wouldn't really come into it.

If a band can't do 'as best as they possibly can' without my money, then they're probably gash anyway. What do you want them to do? Make videos and wear flash jeans? How many people in the music industry are crawling around on the pavement searching for pennies and half-smoked fag-ends anyway.

These guys are selling a product, which is equally subject to the valuation of consumers as anything else. The only reason you consider paying more, is because you think music is something worth placing on a pedestal and idolising, when it rarely is. Neither the music industry or the rockstar lifestyle our society drools over are commonly associated with poverty - we have just gotten ourselves into a trend of over-paying.

I suppose what I'm saying is this. How much is too much? Bear in mind, that we're not really talking about the four-gritty-lads-in-a-beat-up-old-van-selling-badges-after-gigs-to-buy-fuel-and-beans,' but illegal downloads of major artists.

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Assuming that was an enjoyable night, I agree it sounds fairly reasonable. How old are you? Do you not drink? How often do you attend gigs?

I'm 20. I don't really drink, no. Maybe the odd glass of wine / pint here and there, but i don't go out to get slashed. I'd definitely rather spend my moniez on other stuff, innit. I've been to 3 or 4 gigs over summer, i'll probably go to more / any good ones once i'm back in Aberdeen. I don't buy a shirt and LP at every gig i go to though, mind.

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Guest treader.

why does it need to be about money!?

i often send people our most recent EP over the internet for free because they have expressed interest in hearing it. i'm not too bothered about making money from it. just want people to hear it.

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Guest treader.

true dat. but even if it was my full time job, i would like to think i wouldnt be like "goddamn, stop downloading my music" because surely people are still making enough to cope while their music also gets downloaded heaps as well.

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