How do YOU feel about your music being pirated?

[herodotus]

My do people get emotional about this stuff!

Every time people talk about this subject, kvr becomes something like a group audition for Crossfire or the McLaughlin Group.

Settle down, people!

[Stupid American Pig]

agreed.

I will start a new argument. today is a great day
<response1> No, today is a really great day</response1>
<response2> Thats horse shit, today is a fecking breilliant day, and yer and arsehole for not believing that</response2>
etc. etc.

[Sascha Franck]

I strongly disagree with this observation. In the 80's, big labels would sign 10 bands, record an album for each of them and see who sold and who didn't. A lot of incredibly good bands got to release a full, commercial quality album with proper distribution that would struggle these days to get their demo listened to. Diversity was the first victim of declining sales, hence their current obsession with proven track records. It only gets worse for artists like us while it all gets easier for the big record companies.

This isn't contradicting to what I said at all.
But IMO record companies don't sign a diversity of bands anymore because they just don't want to go through all the tough business of actually promoting them.
Both one hit wonders and big acts don't require much of what I'd call "build up promotion". Big acts allready do have their shit together, so very little promotion for new albums or tours is required, one hit wonders can usually be promoted easily on TV (hence their appearance in sitcoms, "Idols" and whatever).

Things as usual back then, such as small club tours, decent radio promotion and an album released for more or less local useage or whatever just don't cut it anymore.
Back when I started playing live it was possible to make a living out of those gigs and after show LP (and even cassette) sales. On an average gig in an average club there's been at least 50-100 people showing up. And we usually sold around 10-20 cassettes or LPs/CDs.
To make a living out of it it'd only had to be a tad more. Still, a very tough living, possible nonetheless.
These days you don't even need to think about it.
With my last band, we had a major deal with BMG, we had a pretty good agency and we toured as mad (and believe me, we've been a nice live act, we allways got the audience on our side). Still, it has been a financial loss for everbody.
The record company couldn't see us fit their agenda either, so radio and video promotion was WAY less then even only sub-optimal.
The gigs have been the worst experience. Unless it's been some bigger festivals, there's been close to no crowded gigs - even at places where I've played before, with WAY worse bands.
IMO the alltime presence of polished acts in both numerous TV and radio stations has pretty much spoiled the live scene. As a result of that it's becoming really tough to earn your merits as a newcomer act.
And, as a further result, record companies don't seem to support such strategies anymore either. Their bets are on the safe side of things - or, alternatively, they're playing "top or flop". There's just black and white anymore, nothing inbetween. Pretty sad - both for musicians and music lovers.

I know plenty of people in their 30's who used to buy CD's regularly but who haven't bought a single disc since they got broadband. That fact alone makes 90% of th ekrap written here utter bullshit.

Might be true.
Personally, I don't buy much CDs anymore because I'm fed up with most of what I can find in record shops.
As soon as I really like something I'll still buy the CD though.

Actually, as far as my last band is concerned, I think it'd actually helped it our music had been available widely - regardless whether someone paid for it or not. At least we might've had some more people appearing at our gigs.

[_starcraft_]

@ lady j
don't be so arrogant to assume that what is good for you is good for everyone else.
not everyone here has talks over the phone with moby.
if u like your files being shared on p2p then good for u...keep doing so. but don't tell me what i should do with my songs thank u.

[CypherOne]

That fact alone makes 90% of th ekrap written here utter bullshit.

do you mean the songs or the content of these posts?

[Kriminal]

I've found some of my tunes on P2P, i was well pleased

[kaden]

If you look at the cost of doing live shows vs the cost of making an album, we've made 100 times more off CD sales than live performance.

Then you're not very good at this 'music business' thing, are you?...and here's the rub: because the system as *you* know it is irrevocably broken, it's only gonna get worse. When the best y'all can do is wrap your artistically important selves in righteous indignation and wail 'But I wrote a SONG...It's VALUABLE!! YOU"RE SUPPOSED TO PAY MEEEEEE...YOU"RE STEEEEEALING', then you deserve *exactly* the future that awaits you.

You're an adult. suck it up. Right or wrong, the market has changed, and will continue to change, and no amount of whinging from the massed egos here is gonna change that.

So whaddaya gonna do? Besides whine about it, I mean?

Adapt or Die.

K

[emdot_ambient]

...Every time people talk about this subject, kvr becomes something like a group audition for Crossfire or the McLaughlin Group...

WROOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!!

[fjell_strom]

It strikes me all the references I see to STEALING. What would I do if someone came into my house and STOLE everything. How would I like it if people were STEALING my music? Call it what you like but at the end of the day it's nothing more than STEALING.

I think this very much deserves a closer look, because in some of the posts you can nearly see the author running around with this word in their hand like a flaming sword.

It is very much not stealing, and drawing parallels to someone routing an apartment, or lifting a loaf of bread or an onion or any of the other ridiculous objects which have been refered to by name cannot hold their stock. Why? Because what is being done by the perpetrators of "music piracy" is quite literally DUPLICATING, and while the difference my be very tenuous - and it is - skirting the issue by calling stealing and duplicating both by the same name simply does not hold water. In the case of stealing, outright stealing, something is diminished by the act of taking from it, either from a person or from a supply of something. In the end, in the case of stealing, the thief has diminished the supply of property from which he or she stole. When a person duplicates, I know it nearly goes without saying, but a person has actually multiplied the supply of something. Has has actually increased the amount of that thing. There are more of them at the end than when he began.

Duplicating cannot so easily be lumped into the same camp as stealing. Stealing is always illegal and will forever be a very personal afront. Duplication is in some instances illegal and people have mixed feelings about it. This thread is the proof for that. I don't think a thread on outright thievery would generate so much controversy.

And yet by saying this, I do not assume that the simple act of calling for a clear separation of these acts is in itself a defence for pirating digital music. It is not a defence at all. In the minds of some, this duplicating is just as bad, perhaps, as stealing. In the minds of others, it is not.

But this insistance on calling the act of duplicating data "STEALING" I think only further buries the crux of this debate, and clouds an important distinction on why some people feel one way and why the other.

Again, this post was not written in order to state that "stealing" is bad and "dupicating" is fantastic. Duplicating might turn out to be evil incarnate, but I have trouble listening to folk who go on and on about how it is theft. This is drivel.

You might instead ask me how I would feel if someone came to my apartment and made a perfect copy of everything I own, including personal things. I assure you I would have quite a different reaction to this than to someone quite literally removing it all.

[shamann]

And simply ask them how they would feel if someone did the same to them in regards to how they make a living: how would you feel if someone thought you should work for free just because they think you do a good job...

I would get another job then.

I love how people break out the far-fretched analogies in these kind of debates. Let's try talking about thing exclusively on its own terms, instead of what the thing might be like.

[nuffink]

[Quaternion]

YOU"RE SUPPOSED TO PAY MEEEEEE...YOU"RE STEEEEEALING'

Please forget about money and markets for a second. I'm not a businessman, and don't care about it. There's more to it than money, e.g.

its illegal because it is being done without the express permission of the owner of the copyrighted work and the artist has no control over how its presented. i.e. compression, no. of songs and song order - these things may be unimportant to you but they matter a whole lot to me.

What about that?

Another question: If you condone piracy of music, do you also advocate warez?

[kaze]

Unfortunately, the only kind of pirates who take an interest in my music are the old, rum drinkin' kind who have damaged their hearing from a life spent firing cannons and having had their (buccan)ears cut off in the numerous battles they have fought seeking Spanish bullion. So I'm pretty indifferent really.

[kaden]

BUT IT'S STEEEEEEALING! THEY"RE SUPPOSED TO PAY MEEEEEE.


Wankers. You wrote a song, on spec, and assume it has economic value. Sorry, dudes (and dudettes)...what makes you so freakin' special that you expect every single piece of creative output you do to automatically be worth money?

Once again, for the Hard of Thinking: The system you are used to is broken, and in the midst of change. Yes, Bad Men are stealing from you, and we're all *very* sorry that this is happening. Sadly, even if we can find a way to make them stop, the system is still broken, and you're still faced with a very hard decision: Adapt or Die.


Waddayagonnado?

K

(and I can see the responses now..."But...they're STEALING")

[Lady J]

@ lady j
don't be so arrogant to assume that what is good for you is good for everyone else.
not everyone here has talks over the phone with moby.
if u like your files being shared on p2p then good for u...keep doing so. but don't tell me what i should do with my songs thank u.

Did I tell YOU what to do with your songs!?!? That message was all about what *I* did and what worked for ME. How dumb is it to assume I advocate that for you. I'm not saying what you should do but you wanna be a rock star listen to people who were successful in promoting themselves. l was one of these people. If you choose not to listen to me go back and build more Wraiths.