How Has P2P Effect Music?

[richiebee]

Originally Posted by lostpossum

It has definitely created a huge drop in albums sales.... But here's the thing... CD's are MUCH cheaper to make than albums or cassettes, so why has the price steadily gone up?

Inflation, constant need to replace equipment... the increased cost of SUV's and gas.

We know that albums can be sold cheaply. Go to Target, they sell new albums for 6.99 sometimes... So it's possible to do it. And sure, they are probably not making much off those records, but....

You can only sell cheaply when you've made your money back... that means selling so many units at a high price before selling the rest at a low price.

The focus needs to be shifted away from the industry and back to the bands. There is no other business that I know of, that deals like the music industry. If I make chainsaws, I build them, and ship them from my factory to each and every retailer... From me to Walmart, and that's where you buy it.
The music industry makes my album, then ships it to a distributor, who buys it, then they mark it up, and sell it to retail. Why do we need the middleman raising the price? Why should they get a cut of my art?

Distributors are out there in just about every product industry.

If we could go out and buy an album for 8 to 10 bucks, more people would buy more cd's. Period. Who wants to pay 18 dollars for a CD, I sure don't.

Agreed.

Number two... Less shitty music. If we have one stupid pop princess, that's enough. This is totally the labels' fault. It makes sense when you hear U2 or Springsteen say that if they came out today, they would never make it past one album. Labels never think longterm anymore. I give you William Hung...

There has always been shit music. There's just more choice these days.

I think the idea of file-sharing is a cool idea. But it's just been used in the wrong way. The bands should have taken control early on and set the market for what was being traded... Offer free live songs, or unreleased tracks here and there. But instead, they all sat back and didn't know what to do. And just waited, got mad, and tried to fight it. All that does is piss off your fans.

Filesharing is wrong. But it has led to a cool idea - services like Napster and iTunes are great. The quality isn't as good as CD, thus giving the CD industry a fighting chance. I listen to stuff on Napster (it costs me $15cdn per month to download and listen to unlimited number of tracks, from a choice of over 1million for a month), but I still buy albums that I think are truly great, and worthy of CD quality. I think Napster has its sceptics in the industry, and partly because of their illegal beginnings... now I can'

I don't agree with downloading everything. I am a music fan, so I buy albums... I will continue to do so, as long as decent music is coming out. Most of the people who are downloading, are just casual listeners, who would never buy the stuff anyway.

I'll continue to buy full albums if there is sufficient good quality material on them. I will continue to support Napster while it gives me a quality service that saves me money.

[snoopy]

Thoughts from Snoopy.......A Different View

I buy a CD and make 10 copies for my friends and they listen to it....they never buy it and the artist gets paid once.
I'm breaking the law and get sued, maybe go to jail.......the artist got paid once.

My local library buys a new book and 1000 people check it out and read it......those people never buy the book and the author gets paid once.
The library didn't break the law........the artist got paid once.

Do we shut down all the libraries so people will have to buy books? ???? That way the authors can be millionares????

Something to think about....most big authors don't make much more than me or you....maybe some of the super group bands could take a lesson here.

[richiebee]

Originally Posted by snoopy

My local library buys a new book and 1000 people check it out and read it......those people never buy the book and the author gets paid once.
The library didn't break the law........the artist got paid once.

Do you know that for a fact? I'm not saying its wrong, but I thought that organizations that rent out - video stores etc, do not pay the same street price as you or I would at Walmart. They pay for licensing. I don't know how libraries fit into this, since they don't rent books... they're free. They do charge rental for CD's and stuff though, which makes me think there's a slightly different licensing arrangement.

[Crandles]

I think it has helped the lesser known musicians get more exporsure. I've read statements from them saying after they shared their music on a p2p network their sales had increased. It has the biggest impact on main stream artists. I think its impact on record sales has been blown completely out of proportion becasue the people I know who use p2p software, use it to get music that's out of print. The industry is just attacking it becasue it's something new and they don't want to have to deal with it. Back in the 20's RCA had a monoploy on radios and only AM existed at that time. Then Edwin Armstrong invented the FM radio but RCA used its power to prevent FM radio broadcasting becasue they would have to deal with manufacturing and producing FM capable radios and get rid of all their current stock of AM radios. p2p is a new technology like FM radio was back then. The recording companies shoudl find a better way to embrace it instead of pissing everybody off by trying to control it.

[TAlderson]

Originally Posted by snoopy

My local library buys a new book and 1000 people check it out and read it......those people never buy the book and the author gets paid once.
? ?The library didn't break the law........the artist got paid once.

Yeah, but you don't get to keep the book. However, the person who downloads get to keep the mp3.

-Tyler

[Crandles]

Originally Posted by TAlderson

Yeah, but you don't get to keep the book. However, the person who downloads get to keep the mp3.

-Tyler

you could use a scanner to copy the book to your computer. some libraries offer ebooks which you can just copy but generally those books are in the public domain and you can get them free online.