Music piracy

As a musician and a listener some of us daily confont and hear the word: music piracy.
For some this word makes their heads spin and for some this is how things supposed to be.

Here's an article (that's very good) that takes up this matter. Unauthorised copying, piracy and lost sales.

Read it here
http://newmusicstrategies.com/2008/04/03/should-i-be-worried-about-piracy/

Yeah, there's been a lot of sites popping out selling music at extreme low prices. as long as they are around, it's moore or less impossible to get somewhat a decent way of selling music here. I do not like the price for the cd's today and I'm not that a big fan of the big record companies either. I would really like to see some new way of selling audio as a digital format. So until all this is solved, I'm very much in for the free stuff and open archives etc...

I'm always slightly confused about this issue, so this will be a long post, but I'm not convinced by the recieved wisdom that all artists now should give their music away for free, just becouse others are doing it or because it will happen anyway...
I saw my album on a free IDM download blog the other day. You don't need to sell many for someone to think it's OK to rip your stuff off. I posted something on the site that's similar to what zerofish has just written. UNLESS free downloads are actually what the artist has decided (in which case fair enough!) it basically just shows a lack of respect for the artist- and not much for the music. I agree its not worth getting stressed about it, at the end of the day its going to happen- but I'm really not convinced at all by the article. Personally, I don't think I see any benefits from people illegally downloading whole albums of mine free. I probably never even hear about it, unless they're on last.fm I never even know there are people playing my stuff- and downloaders who think music is a cheap commodity, worth nothing, are very unlikely to give any feedback to the artist at all, let alone going back and buying their album when they've already got it... As far as I'm concerned, these listeners might as well be imaginary- in which case I imagine they think the music is superb LOL. I also agree those Russian mp3 sites are worse than file sharing and cross the line from theft to exploitation - the money probably just goes to the mafia.
None of the other techniques of getting revenue would work for me either- I can't see people buying T-shirts if they won't even buy the album, Northcape will never be much of a live act even if I play live, and no-one is going to pay me for advertising on my site! All these techniques only benefit big bands and big corporations.
I'm just trying to get a balance- I'll probably continue to give some tracks away free and hold some back for the albums so I at least have a chance of funding some of the equipment costs... The idea of giving everything away for free does have some appeal, but I've still got some resistance to it. At the end of the day I'm probably happier anyway with a smaller audience and some feedback, then you know people are enjoying your music and thats much more of a motivating factor than unknown numbers of anonymous downloads :)

This whole area is obviously very tricky. Here's another point of view.

For various reasons, I've lived pretty much week to week with rent etc. my whole life (sorry to be such a cliche of the poor artist, but I am, lol). Prior to becoming active online, I had never previously been able to buy many CDs (or records before that) and had to accept that lack as a reality of my economic circumstance. I managed to 'vulture' culture in various other ways but it did limit my ability to engage directly and intensely with music for a very long time.

I was pretty excited by P2P when broadband arrived but all of that went out the window when I discovered the huge culture of independent artists offering their music for free and legal download. It was like a dream come true and has enabled me to become more actively engaged with music over the last year or more than ever before in my life, including buying the occasional CD or mp3 download when I've had the bickies. Contributing to the promotion of other artist's music (before I even started getting involved with making music here) was one way of repaying the favor of the great free music I was suddenly and gloriously able to access.

In a broad philosophical sense, I do support artists offering music for free download because it allows access to culture to everyone with a net connection regardless of economic circumstance. This will include the poorer members of our own national cultures as well as people in all sorts of places outside first world economic power centres. I like that a lot.

But I do recognise the extreme difficulty for artists in generating any kind of income from music-making and their right to be able to do that. Like Northcape, I am not performing live at this stage and, as we know, being a live performer is another viciously competitive and highly exploited area of practice for artists in many cases. Merchandising? As a music maker, do you really want to spend a large amount of time focussing creative energy on making t-shirts and other crap? In a lot of instances, merchandising is really quite inappropriate to the music anyway and will just create a trivialised image of it.

I am struggling with all of this too. For example, as an experiment, I put up donation boxes on many of my net pages a few months ago and haven't had a single donation! Don't have any answers but it would be good to keep talking about it.

Very interesting thread. I'm still thinking about this! Its great to be able to discuss it here.
This is the problem:
I am struggling with all of this too. For example, as an experiment, I put up donation boxes on many of my net pages a few months ago and haven't had a single donation! Don't have any answers but it would be good to keep talking about it
My preferred method would be Pixieguts' one of making tracks free but allowing donations- however I don't, unfortunately, trust the majority of people (who could afford it) to make donations. I've heard too many reports like this one. The 'donations' idea also brings very unfavourable comparisons with charity. At the end of the day, I'm just someone making music and there are many people who are infinitely more deserving of the money. BUT basically, I'm making something, so why can't I try to sell it? Of course you can't equate music with money- it has its own intrinsic value that makes the idea of free music somehow much 'purer'- but unfortunately money is still needed for everything else- even making music! Even at the moment I'm still selling a few albums occasionally, and it does help. It would be nice to at least make a small amount from something I enjoy rather than from something I'm basically forced to do... And lets face it, someone actually buying your album is much more of a buzz than someone just clicking on the download button.

However Pixieguts point about making music available to those who can't afford it is a very good one, and my biggest concern about not making things free download. However, if you can't afford to buy my music you can still get quite a lot for free. For example my latest EP is free download. And Im happy to give my album to anyone who emails me to request a copy (and have done so in the past)- the difference is- this takes effort so not everyone will do it. Giving everything away is a step that can't be reversed- once someone has got all your stuff for free, why would they pay for it? Theres also a more practical point - selling your albums means that you can withdraw them from sale ... you still have some amount of control. But once something is out there for free it will continue to be some listeners first and maybe last impression of your music, and if you've got much better recent tracks this may not be the impression that you want to give! There is a point about ownership of music here- but if anyone has a right to own music, surely it is the person who created it...

What richardsydney is saying about it taking 10 years for this to sort itself out is possibly true. Like everyone I'm just trying to work with what we've got at the moment, but I do think that a lot of artists (those who would like to sell at least some music) are shooting themselves in the foot in the long term (making it hard for themselves to sell any music at all in the future) for minimal short-term gains (a few more listeners). I've got no idea whats happening to the last.fm system for paying artists- seemingly nothing- but I'd be very interested to see how that works out. However I suspect the division between artists and last.fm (with by far the majority going to last.fm) will probably make the system worth practically nothing for the majority except big-name artists, so I don't think its the solution yet, but it may be a step on the way there.

A problem with some future models of payment for music makers is that if you started forcebly regulating and recording peoples listening habits then tying that into some sort of automatic payment thing, there would be a lot of 'individuals' who felt threatened by the 'system' even if it were actually fairer. So whatever happens it will be in delicate balance between people being forced into a new model for cultural comsumption. Music is a merely a part of the same issue that governs all current media products that can be consumed privately. The live music experience and cinema aren't going to be going anywhere, but the structures underneath them will be subject to massive change. In reality, it will only probably be once a few record companies have fallen into the ocean that things really start changing on the commercial side. For independant music makers it will just be a case of using whatever mode of presentation or self promotion is the most nuanced and effective. This has always been the case i'm sure. As i said above, it will probably be at least ten years before any widespread codefied changes in the consumer mindset around entertainment start to take hold. A global recession/depression/famine/war period is probably the only way to change perceptions and ideals within the consumer classes as regards deeply held values concerning ownership and cultural responsibility. Shouldn't have to wait long...

It's all about respect. My opinion is the most people don't respect music anymore, because you hear it at every corner, in every commercial in the soundtrack of every TV-show. I don't have a problem with that but the point is. Music is no longer something special. So people are not willing to spend a lot of money on it. Even more for new music.

People don't buy CD's from artists they don't know. The point is how do you get your music to be known. I guess it's with a lot of patiente AND Perseverance. And yeah you just can't control the fact that someone is gonna load your CD in their computer and off you go.

I once openend Limewire and did a search on Distant Fires Burning. I was surprised by the number of hits (not included the Virus-like thingies). At first I was mad, but I came to the point where I had to admit that those people were not planning to buy my CD anyway!

Besides this I'm a little surprised I allready sold 150 copy's of my Messierobjekten. So there are people who buy out there. And with a little effort by promoting the CD you'll eventually get there.

Interesting read....

I normally don't buy alot of CD's... I buy a few (about 8-9) each year and that's it. I download a lot of music for free but it's really not because i don't respect the music. I just don't have the financial means to buy EVERY cd i like.. I like a lot of artists and a lot of genre's... I gotta pay for my studies and studio.. If i had the money to spare i would buy cd's more frequently.

Oh and just as a sidenote; I normally buy cd's from artists that don't get a lot of sales or are rather unknown.. I think they're the ones who really feel it in their pockets.. U2 sure as hell doesn't -_-