What do you think the music industry should do to survive?
Is file sharing a big problem?
When you discuss this, make sure to follow the forum rules.
You're allowed to discuss downloading and file sharing in general, to debate.
You're not allowed to talk about file sharing sites. Neither are you allowed to offer to send someone a file or to ask someone to send you a file.
Senast redigerat av utomjording den 2008-03-03 klockan 21:05.
The music industry
solution $5-8 dollars per album, not $18.
wow..that would be fantastic.. but i doubt that this is possible... more realistic would be 10€...Ursprungligen postat av SportfreundeFCkeane
but i think the prices would fall immediately as soon that the labels dont try to cash in so much money for themself anymore... the artists suffer by that and its sad as they need the label behind still nowadays and the making of just this cheap plastic product (or even less than that just a stupid mp3-file) is actually damn expensive if you wanna have proper results and high class quality.
mp3s are overpriced too. I mean $1 just for a file? On an album of 12 songs, that's $12 bucks which is pretty much what you pay for an album anyways, and you don't even get a physical album.
They really have to rethink their approach, since CDs they haven't done anything even though the world has advanced. They've been lazy. Maybe include more advanced content or an extra little book or dvd with the album. Then you can charge $13-20 for it, but paying that much for just 40:00 of songs isn't worth it, unless the album is really really good and not that many albums are consistently good.
I have to agree that illegal file sharing is taking money from the artist, and without the possibility of making money or breaking even, what's the point of creating the music we love to hear. However.....
Most artists get their money via their record companies, some of the same record companies that continually say that they are losing money due to illegal file sharing. Is it losing money or just making a lot less?
My history as a music fan has seen many changes. When I bought "Are Friends Electric?" by 'Tubeway Army' in 1979 is was a time where I could buy a 7" single, maybe a picture disc and look forward to an album.
During the 80's the record companies started the multi format idea, particularly in the UK. I could now buy the 7", the 7" pic disc, the 12", the limited 12" remix, the cassette single, the poster sleeve single and I regularly did for the artists that I collected. Basically paying for the same thing over and over. But we chose to do so. It was available and we wanted it.
When CD became more widespread in the mid 80's the record companies must have been rubbing their hands with happiness. We started to replace what we'd already paid for on vinyl with the CD versions of the same thing. Again we chose to do so, but it now turns out at a hugely inflated price.
Once CD was the standard format the record companies had to think of more ways of making us give them our money. The digital remaster!! Lets release the same cd yet again, but with a few extra pictures in the booklet, some demo's and even better sound. Genius!! It worked on me.
Along comes DVD and even more opportunities arise. Lets re-release an album that's only been out a few months, but this time for Christmas with an extra dvd in the package. Who could resist? Not me usually.
Then comes mp3. An mp3 is an mp3. The bitrate may vary but suddenly the multi format money machine starts to grind to a halt. Or does it?
Some artists have their work spread carefully across different formats, with extra tracks only appearing on the pointless 7" vinyl, just to make people pay for something they really didn't want. Do you buy the 7" and hope someone you know still has a record player or do you try to download the extra track instead? You cant? It's on the vinyl only? Mmmm? Maybe someone has illegally ripped the vinyl version to mp3? (Hard-Fi take note!). And while I'm downloading a track I couldn't get on mp3 by any other legal means, have you seen what else I can get this way??
Record companies have made far too much money for far too long and as it starts to dry up they point the finger at illegal downloaders instead of at themselves. They say that they can no longer afford to promote new and unknown artists. Mmmm? Isn't 'Myspace' doing that anyway? I've heard more new bands in the time that 'Myspace' has existed that I ever did in all the years that the record companies were "paying" to promote them.
Some artists have realised that the best way to fund their art is via the money they can make from touring. Both Prince and The Charlatans are recent examples, giving albums away for free. Tickets sales and merchandise can be very lucrative, especially if t-shirts are priced fairly (Kent take note!!). Don't get me started on the booking fees and postage costs for concert tickets, I could rant for days!!!
Living in such an instant access world, record companies have to question their desire to make tracks difficult to obtain, whether it be across multi-formats, in special download 'packages', or just as in the case of iTunes, only available in certain countries shops. I appreciate the licensing deals may vary from country to country, but wake up and get it sorted. They still haven't learnt that making a track hard to obtain may encourage the person who was willing to pay for it to find it in a less legal way. And then the seed is sown.
To conclude, I still believe that illegal downloading is harming artists, but if their record companies hadn't been so greedy for so long they wouldn't be faced with such a bad situation. Or is it my fault for paying for all this stuff in the first place??
Rant over!
Atmo1
Senast redigerat av Atmo 1 den 2008-03-02 klockan 12:20.
OMG I was thinking exactly that. My point was that it's not that record companies are losing money and can't break even. It's that the bastards wanna make as much money as they did before downloads. They don't wanna be rich, they wanna be extremely mega rich those executives and everyone. THEY'RE not willing to take a small paycut. So instead of taking the paycut and being rich instead of super rich, they pay artists less money and spend less on promotion etc. There isn't any danger or anything, people still buy cds and purchase music, it's just that the record companies aren't willing to take a small pay cut.
It would be like if a new form of oil (this is a strech) that was somehow illegal came along and everyone could have easy access to it. Some younger people with newer tech in their car or some kind of car modification would get the new oil but other people would STILL get oil. So some top worker might make $1 million per year instead of making $1.8 million. But that douchebag isn't willing to take the cut so instead, he'll pay less to his workers.
Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei...it's that story.
Hey Target has 10 dollar cds. They just don't carry Kent or any band I actually want to listen to. But man you get good deals on 2 disc greatest hits CDs!
I bought my Kent albums off of Ebay at a good price. I mean compared to Sam Goody in mall, it was cheap. I had to spend 25 bucks on Radiohead's Ok Computer. Insanity, but worth it.
bygg något vackert som krossar allt
Pisses me off when you go for a 'clear out' sale and the any album older than two years is like $18
i think buying mp3s instead of real recrods isnt a bad thing nowadays. my way of listening to music has now mostly changed from playing the cds to listening to mp3s via my computer. the poor sound quality of mp3 would def be overcome in years. ppl who appreciate great music would still pay for it to show their support, just the price has to be cheaper compared to the current price of mp3s.
and would it make the artists get fewer financial earning since reasonable mp3-price wouldnt be as expensive as real cds are? well, cds might become a "item" for collectors, but not in a major sales wise. (yeah, that's why i still buy the ltd TTS cd, just for collection's sake.) bands would have to change their way of earning money by selling records. touring should be the main way in the near future. (and is it the reason kent start very heavy touring this summer?)
and for the record company? to me maybe the "evil file sharing" is a sign for them to stop making crappy bubble gum pop music to get profits from under 16yr kids. instead, promoting "real music," stopping the money-waste promotion, and saving those promotion costs and music-sales profits to the artists would be the final solution.
I have found that recently, the only reasons that I would purchase a CD would be if:
01) the CD has a track that I can't find anywhere else (e.g. b-sides on singles).
02) the CD comes with bonus material (e.g. bonus tracks, b-sides/remix disc, a DVD...but not just any DVD...the content must be interesting and exclusive. A DVD with just the music video for the first single doesn't really appeal to me. There is so much information that can be stored on a DVD. To put just one music video on there is such a gimmick and a waste!) or the CD is a "limited"/"special" edition.
03) the CD is by an artist that I really like and are consistently good (Kent falls in this category).
I download mp3s to sample music so I can make an informed decision on my purchases. There is so much music out there and it is priced so prohibitively expensive that I couldn't possibly afford to purchase it all just to sample it and find out that I didn't like it. If after I've heard it and I like it, I will always buy the CD though because I'd want to support that artist and also because I'd want the disc in my own collection. I have discovered so many new artists this way, so if anything, I think file sharing has helped expose new artists to the record buying public (e.g. the success of the Arctic Monkeys was through file sharing...though I think they're crap, lol). I never buy mp3s because I prefer physical formats. I don't think mp3s can replace physical releases because I feel that the artwork and packaging is integral to the presentation of the album. A digital booklet in PDF format just doesn't cut it!
Many artists earn the majority of their revenue through touring and merchandise anyway, which might explain why concert t-shirts are usually priced so high (I spent SEK600 on 2 Kent t-shirts on their last tour :|).
Senast redigerat av sakermanser den 2008-03-05 klockan 17:11.
Well, it's all about profit margins. Produce cheaply and sell for as much as you can. So the crappy bubblegum-pop (which also serves well for mobile ringtones for 2euros/each) is in fact where the money lies. People are willing to pay for sh*t, sad but true.
And raising the prices to counteract the losses caused by illegal downloading isn't exactly going to be a huge success, what a miracle...
It's almost a decade ago that Napster got popular and still the only answer the music-industry could find are lawyers. That's just pathetic.
Senast redigerat av kevlarhead den 2008-03-05 klockan 17:18.
It pisses me off that I can't get Kent ringtones.
bygg något vackert som krossar allt
I wasn't at aiming at Kent with that statement!
*Psssst* You can make your own...oops.
I figured you weren't, but it made me think about how frustrating it is that I can't purchase their ringtones online without a big hassle. Not to mention ridiculous international transaction fees and multimedia messaging I'd have to pay for.I wasn't at aiming at Kent with that statement!
I plead the fifth.
bygg något vackert som krossar allt
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