Piracy Killed the Music Industry?

[blackdragon6]

i remember everyone saying in that other thread that its not just rap music thats declining sales wise but the whole industry as well.ok so lets say i give you people the benefit of the doubt and say i believe you.but at the end of the day its still the industry's fault.and heres a list of reasons why its their fault.

*the industry spent to much time trying to make hit singles instead of making hit albums.they instead kept trying to cast out a "broad net" to catch anyone and everyone.which leads me to my next point

*singles are whats really killing the industry,today's singles rarely represent the album now.mostly cause the radio friendly singles picks up too broad of an audience.they buy the album expecting it to have more songs like the singles.but instead gets turned off by the rest of the album.so now the public just buy singles now and or go and download a select few from the album (which still mostly includes the singles).

*also instead of concentrating on a particular genre's built in fan base they keep trying to mass market everything.you can't make every genre of music become pure mainstream.they should have tried marketing to core audiences more.and in return they'll get a good solid gold,platinum or 2x plat cd.but nooooo they got spoiled which brings me to my next point

*alot of artists from the 80's and 90's spoiled the industry sales wise.people like madonna,michael jakson,janet jackson,and new kids on the block started selling ten's of millions of records.so now the industry thinks that should be the standard now.after they found out watered down music sales like hot cakes they never looked back.

*people say the buyers are fickle now,well of course it is.thats what happened when you try market to a wide diverse group of people....duh :rolleyes:

*the industry can recover if they stop being greedy and focus on people who they KNOW will buy a certain artists album.keeping the core demographic happy will keep sales steady and consistent.but if they keep trying to target the majority it'll always be a hit or miss.

[leonaozaki]

Here's Rolling Stone's take on it. (http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/15137581/the_record_industrys_decline/3)

Naturally, I distrust Rolling Stone's biases, and I think it's interesting that the article doesn't focus on the pap the major labels have been pushing, but it seems logical that piracy is a major problem the labels can't seem to cope with.

Thoughts?

rob

[rick]

The one quote about how the labels screwed themselves when they shut down Napster is actually pretty spot on.

The major labels had a real chance to set up a decent market for their product six yearsor so and they just didn't embrace it.

I doubt that they would have stopped piracy, but by making their music availble at a decent price without tons of strings at the start they would certainly have saved themselves a much larger percentage of the market, instead of creating an entire generation raised on free downloading.

[Brad Barton]

Whats happening to the record companies is simple technological evolution. When Metallica were involved in the Napster fiasco, James hetfield said something like "Logic tells you that you can't sell your product if the other guy is giving it away for free"...and I think that neatly sums up the music business's decline.
How can you sell what people can get for free?

Now, I don't think that means the record companies are done, because no matter how much an independent artist pushes his music online, or hits the streets and pushes it on tours and in clubs....the best way to get exposure is by signing with a major record label. because of that, they'll always be around, they just won't dominate the distribution of music with an Iron Fist, shoving the music they want us to hear down our throats as they once did...

BTW, 1,000th post ;)

[TheLazy]

That's a bunch of bull. As Beetheb said, their just pissed that they're loosing control of the almost vertically integrated industry that they have created. Most people I know (including me) will download a few songs and if they like the album they'll buy it. Now I'll admit that I have a few hundred random songs on my hard drive that I'm not going to pay for, but I wouldn't have paid for them if I didn't have them. This is a witch hunt because independent artists are getting more power and independent labels are having top 40 hits, nothing more.

They had the exact same reaction when VHS came out, and 20 years later Hollywood had 3-4 of its biggest block busters of all time, earning billions.

:)

[elheffe]

Most people I know (including me) will download a few songs and if they like the album they'll buy it. Now I'll admit that I have a few hundred random songs on my hard drive that I'm not going to pay for, but I wouldn't have paid for them if I didn't have them.
That's how I operate. I end up buying more CDs thanks to sample mp3s. Of course, I do most of my downloading off of blogs rather than peer-to-peer or Bittorrent. The interesting thing is, I don't download much major label music, mostly independent stuff.

[Shellhead]

Let's be honest here. The thing that people really loved about Napster was free music. Why pay if you can have it for free? Some people would prefer to do the right thing and pay for music so that their favorite musicians might make a living out of making music. But a lot more people would prefer to enjoy free music and don't really care about the plight of the musicians. Yes, the evil record companies were also getting a significant chunk of the money, but they provided the marketing and distribution that enabled certain musicians to enjoy massive success.

It's true that the record companies moved too slowly to capture an opportunity for online music sales. But they were understandably afraid of putting their music out there in a format that could easily be copied over and over again for many non-paying users to enjoy. They should have aggressively addressed that security issue instead of just attacking downloaders, but it's almost unprecented to see a new technology just destroy an industry with a new form of crime.

Is piracy killing the music industry? Obviously, yes. People still love music just as much as they ever have. Maybe the current new music is not quite as good as in previous years or decades, but the sharp decline in sales is most obviously connected to piracy, not a sudden new disinterest in music of all genres and years.

Gradually, musicians will find a way to adapt. Most are capable of touring and making a decent living off of live performances. They may never enjoy the mega-success of certain past performers, but that's reality.

The industry that I worry about is the film industry. They are almost as vulnerable as the music industry, but they don't have the option of touring live. Oh, sure, they could do off-Broadway stage performances around the country, and that might work for certain genres like romantic comedies. But for a big-budget action movie, the transition to the live stage would be ludicrous.

[Jonathan Bogart]

The industry that I worry about is the film industry.
I've heard plenty of people say that they download albums instead of buying them, but I've yet to come across anyone who only downloads movies. Everyone is still buying DVDs, whether it's for the extras or because the price-to-content ratio is more acceptable than the music industry's.

For me, movie downloading is more about convenience than anything else (at least it's faster for me to put a movie I've downloaded on my iPod than to rip from a DVD).

[Valmore]

The music industry killed the music industry.

Piracy made millions at the box office!

[TheLazy]

Let's be honest here. The thing that people really loved about Napster was free music. Why pay if you can have it for free? Some people would prefer to do the right thing and pay for music so that their favorite musicians might make a living out of making music. But a lot more people would prefer to enjoy free music and don't really care about the plight of the musicians. Yes, the evil record companies were also getting a significant chunk of the money, but they provided the marketing and distribution that enabled certain musicians to enjoy massive success.

It's true that the record companies moved too slowly to capture an opportunity for online music sales. But they were understandably afraid of putting their music out there in a format that could easily be copied over and over again for many non-paying users to enjoy. They should have aggressively addressed that security issue instead of just attacking downloaders, but it's almost unprecented to see a new technology just destroy an industry with a new form of crime.

Is piracy killing the music industry? Obviously, yes. People still love music just as much as they ever have. Maybe the current new music is not quite as good as in previous years or decades, but the sharp decline in sales is most obviously connected to piracy, not a sudden new disinterest in music of all genres and years.

Gradually, musicians will find a way to adapt. Most are capable of touring and making a decent living off of live performances. They may never enjoy the mega-success of certain past performers, but that's reality.

The industry that I worry about is the film industry. They are almost as vulnerable as the music industry, but they don't have the option of touring live. Oh, sure, they could do off-Broadway stage performances around the country, and that might work for certain genres like romantic comedies. But for a big-budget action movie, the transition to the live stage would be ludicrous.

This was the reaction to VHS, and to TV before it. The industry will evolve, and survive, maybe not as we recognize it now, but it will survive.

:)

[ImpulseUCF]

But a lot more people would prefer to enjoy free music and don't really care about the plight of the musicians. Let's be real here. The musicians are lucky to get pennies to the dollar for any album sold. It's all absorbed back into the record companies. Besides, it's not consumers; jobs to support their extravagant lifestyles. It's their fault for failing to produce a product people are willing to pay for. I doubt that downloads are the main problem. Music used to thrive because it was new and creative and innovative. People dug the Beatles, Hendrix, Zeppelin, etc because it was full of passion, creativity, was actual music with melody and was innovative. How do the labels and some artists truly expect to repackage and resell the same crap to the same people without innovation or creativity and get the same results over time? It's absurd.
It's true that the record companies moved too slowly to capture an opportunity for online music sales. People have made it pretty clear they wanted online access to digital music. Just because the model and product is outdated it is not the consumers fault for killing it. Good luck trying to sell a VHS today; it's no longer relevant.
Is piracy killing the music industry? Obviously, yes. People still love music just as much as they ever have. Maybe the current new music is not quite as good as in previous years or decades, but the sharp decline in sales is most obviously connected to piracy, not a sudden new disinterest in music of all genres and years.I don't see how you've come to the conclusion that piracy is what killed the industry. What used to be based on creativity and art is now based on formulas and sameness. You can't sell the same thing to the same people indefinitely, especially when people have made clear they don't want it anymore.
Gradually, musicians will find a way to adapt. Most are capable of touring and making a decent living off of live performances. They may never enjoy the mega-success of certain past performers, but that's reality.And why should they? I personally hate the way the world worships their celebrities and puts them on a pedestal, be they musicians, actors, athletes, etc. They are only paid so much because that is where people have been willing to spend their money. That seems to be changing.
The industry that I worry about is the film industry. They are almost as vulnerable as the music industry, but they don't have the option of touring live. Oh, sure, they could do off-Broadway stage performances around the country, and that might work for certain genres like romantic comedies. But for a big-budget action movie, the transition to the live stage would be ludicrous.Well, illegal downloads can never replace the experience as accurately and completely as musical piracy. You can download movies until the cows come home, but you cannot download the experience of going to the theater. They will always at least have that.

[Shellhead]

Let's be real here. The musicians are lucky to get pennies to the dollar for any album sold. It's all absorbed back into the record companies. Besides, it's not consumers; jobs to support their extravagant lifestyles. It's their fault for failing to produce a product people are willing to pay for. I doubt that downloads are the main problem. Music used to thrive because it was new and creative and innovative. People dug the Beatles, Hendrix, Zeppelin, etc because it was full of passion, creativity, was actual music with melody and was innovative. How do the labels and some artists truly expect to repackage and resell the same crap to the same people without innovation or creativity and get the same results over time? It's absurd.

So you wanna take away their pennies on the dollar? Because some musicians signed an unfavorable contract, it's okay for all their fans to rip them off, too? As for supporting their lifestyles, everybody who works for a living needs to get paid. Some people struggle along on minimum wage, and others get rich. But if you take away a musician's ability to make living as a musician, he will be too busy delivering pizzas or serving lattes to write and perform the music that people enjoy. So the music stops. Have you considered the possibility that some talented people are staying away from the music industry today because they can't make a living at it? And how long could you survive if somebody snuck into your workplace and and stole your work every day until you lost your job?


I don't see how you've come to the conclusion that piracy is what killed the industry. What used to be based on creativity and art is now based on formulas and sameness. You can't sell the same thing to the same people indefinitely, especially when people have made clear they don't want it anymore.

Your argument that people are punishing musicians for not putting out good music anymore implies that people are only illegally downloading new music. I dispute that. People are going to download whatever music they enjoy, and a lot of people lose interest in new music before they turn 30.

And why should they? I personally hate the way the world worships their celebrities and puts them on a pedestal, be they musicians, actors, athletes, etc. They are only paid so much because that is where people have been willing to spend their money. That seems to be changing.

You don't like celebrities, so you feel that you are entitled to steal from them? Some celebrities don't like thieves, and feel entitled to pursue legal action against them. Imagine that.

Well, illegal downloads can never replace the experience as accurately and completely as musical piracy. You can download movies until the cows come home, but you cannot download the experience of going to the theater. They will always at least have that.

I basically agree with this observation, although I personally think that the movie theatre experience has gone downhill since the invention of the VCR and the cell phone. The VCR caused an entire generation of movie viewers grow up with noisy viewing habits at home that they often bring to the movie theatre. The ringing cell phone in the theatre is the most common example of those bad viewing habits.

[ImpulseUCF]

Ah, but where in my argument did I ever say that illegal downloading was okay? :)

Sorry if my first post came off as angry or argumentative. I'm just saying I feel little sympathy for the record labels who have abused and pillaged from artists for decades because they cling to an obsolete business model and promote an inferior product. The music industry got itself into this mess themselves by failing to adapt.

Also, I don't think it's fair to assume that the music will stop just because there is no massive recording and distribution juggernaut to whore out their wares. Music survived for millenia before the groups that comprise the RIAA. Many independent labels are enjoying success, too. The RIAA's numbers are so horribly skewed and inaccurate because they only cover sales from the bigt labels. They fail to consider smaller and independent labels and thus do not give an accurate view of all music, but just their large and shrinking slice. And if you've ever met anyone for whom music truly is a passion and comes from their souls, they find a way to create it and play. The well of riches is drying up and turning away people who can no longer make an absurd amount of money by being a musician? Good. They would probably have been making it for all the wrong reasons, anyway.

As for movies, ugghh. Movie theater etiquette is dead beyond dead and it angers me. I cannot believe some people think it is okay to answer a phone or have a convesation during a movie. Ugh. Anyway...

[Shellhead]

Ah, but where in my argument did I ever say that illegal downloading was okay? :)

Dammit, now you ruined my whole righteous indignation rant. ;)

Also, I don't think it's fair to assume that the music will stop just because there is no massive recording and distribution juggernaut to whore out their wares. Music survived for millenia before the groups that comprise the RIAA. Many independent labels are enjoying success, too. The RIAA's numbers are so horribly skewed and inaccurate because they only cover sales from the bigt labels. They fail to consider smaller and independent labels and thus do not give an accurate view of all music, but just their large and shrinking slice. And if you've ever met anyone for whom music truly is a passion and comes from their souls, they find a way to create it and play. The well of riches is drying up and turning away people who can no longer make an absurd amount of money by being a musician? Good. They would probably have been making it for all the wrong reasons, anyway.

Well, this is probably selfish of me, but it's getting harder to find good music. There is plenty of good new music being made, but it's a real bitch sifting through all the other music out there to find it. There was a time when the music industry did an okay job of bringing some great talent to the masses. Now I have to rely on college radio, word-of-mouth (on and off-line) and even poke around in places like MySpace and YouTube.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

i don't feel sorry for the industry,ther artists on the other hand..

[blackdragon6]

in liu of the other thread i bump this.

[mattx110]

the failings of the american education system lead to this. and the lack of music coming from music companies. when you go out of your way to push 100 "artists" that sound the same, people might notice they only need to buy 1 cd instead of 100.

[bfrank]

yeah, the other thread is right....Piracy was great for the fans, bad for the industry and artist.......

[Brad Barton]

Sometimes it seems people have forgotten the way songs got famous in the thousands of years before the Recording Industry took music over; by being good, catchy tunes that people remembered and spread.

Mozart, Beethoven, Stephen Foster (Camptown races, Oh Susannah) Bach or other famous musicians from history didn't have recording contracts and millions of records of their music floating around to represent them at any moment...all they had were people liking their music and learning to play and sing it.

[The Mirrorball Man]

Mozart, Beethoven, Stephen Foster (Camptown races, Oh Susannah) Bach or other famous musicians from history didn't have recording contracts and millions of records of their music floating around to represent them at any moment...all they had were people liking their music and learning to play and sing it.

Mozart worked for Archbishop Colloredo, Prince Lichnowsky and other patrons. Bach was Leopold of Anhalt-Coethen's Kapellmeister. Beethoven was a freelance composer, but even he didn't just make a living by writing "catchy tunes". In those times, the only way for composers to make a living was to be hired by rich people.

[Floyd The Barber]

Oh Puh-Leaze. The Music Industry is hardly "dead". I can understand why someone who looks to radio or MTV for music might would think so, but if you go out of your way to find music on your own there is lots of good stuff out there and people are still making PLENTY of money off of it.

[Brad Barton]

Mozart worked for Archbishop Colloredo, Prince Lichnowsky and other patrons. Bach was Leopold of Anhalt-Coethen's Kapellmeister. Beethoven was a freelance composer, but even he didn't just make a living by writing "catchy tunes". In those times, the only way for composers to make a living was to be hired by rich people.True, but many unkown composers did the same thing at the time, what allowed Bach and Mozart to carry on through the ages was....being good.

Seriously, someone's motivation for writing a piece of music doesn't really matter in the end, all that matters is the music. And remember that in his time, Mozart was thought of as average, at best...it was only when his generation passed that people could look at his music completely objectively and judge it on merit....which is what will undoubtedly happen to todays music five or six-hundred years down the road.

[The Mirrorball Man]

what allowed Bach and Mozart to carry on through the ages was....being good.
True, but you can't write good music if you can't make a living off it.

[ImpulseUCF]

True, but you can't write good music if you can't make a living off it.How absurd. Of course you can. You may not have as much time to do so but that hardly prevents people from doing it. Ever heard of the starving artist? That's most artists. :p

[Brad Barton]

True, but you can't write good music if you can't make a living off it.hate to harp on Mozart but....he died a peasant, as have many other historic musicians....so yeah, good music comes from the soul, not a paycheck.

[Floyd The Barber]

How absurd. Of course you can. You may not have as much time to do so but that hardly prevents people from doing it. Ever heard of the starving artist? That's most artists. :p

Amen. It's actually very rare that true art and capitalism merge. They've actually been quite known to spoil each other.

[The Mirrorball Man]

How absurd. Of course you can. You may not have as much time to do so but that hardly prevents people from doing it. Ever heard of the starving artist? That's most artists. :p

I applaud your romanticism, but the fact is that most memorable pieces of music in history have been written by professionals.

[The Mirrorball Man]

hate to harp on Mozart but....he died a peasant, as have many other historic musicians....so yeah, good music comes from the soul, not a paycheck.

That's not true. Mozart was a professional musician until the day he died, and he earned quite a lot of money, even in his later days.

[Brad Barton]

That's not true. Mozart was a professional musician until the day he died, and he earned quite a lot of money, even in his later days.Looks like, in a way, we're both right.

From Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart)

Because he was buried in an unmarked grave, it has been popularly assumed that Mozart was penniless and forgotten when he died. In fact, though he was no longer as fashionable in Vienna as before, he continued to have a well paid job at court and receive substantial commissions from more distant parts of Europe; Prague in particular.[citation needed] He earned about 50,000 florins per year,[12] equivalent to at least 142,000 US dollars in 2006, which places him within the top 1% of late 18th century wage earners,[12] but he could not manage his wealth. His mother wrote, "When Wolfgang makes new acquaintances, he immediately wants to give his life and property to them." His impulsive largesse and spending often had him asking for loans. Many of his begging letters survive, but they are evidence not so much of poverty as of his habit of spending more than he earned. He was not buried in a "mass grave" for paupers but in a regular communal grave according to the 1784 laws in Austria.

He made money, but couldn't hold onto it, so the result was the same: Poor.

I guess I should note this part of the article said "citation needed", so someone disagreed with this...

[Jonathan Bogart]

hate to harp on Mozart but....he died a peasant, as have many other historic musicians....
He died a pauper. Even when he lost all his fortune, he sickened and died too quickly to have to take up subsistence farming to support himself.

(Edit: wrote and posted the above before the previous exchange happened. But my real point was the misuse of the word peasant.)

As for the larger argument, the situation is far too complex for blame to be assigned solely to downloading, or to industry mismanagement, or to wider cultural change, or to anything else any armchair quarterback can see. They all play a part, and inasmuch as there's a problem, instead of merely a difference, everyone's to blame.


How absurd. Of course you can. You may not have as much time to do so but that hardly prevents people from doing it. Ever heard of the starving artist? That's most artists.
That artists have historically been inadequately compensated and ignored by society is a good reason for fucking them over today?

In addition, the only even moderately successful (on an artistic level) musicians I can think of who never quit their day jobs are the composer Charles Ives (whose fame was entirely posthumous) and some of the more obscure punk outfits of the 80s and 90s. You don't get good at something until you can dedicate yourself full-time to it -- at least, you don't get as good as those who can.

[Jonathan Bogart]

Oh, and:

Another piracy/music industry argument. Hoo-Ray.

[Brad Barton]

Oh, and:

Another piracy/music industry argument. Hoo-Ray.You didn't have to post ;)

[mattx110]

True, but many unkown composers did the same thing at the time, what allowed Bach and Mozart to carry on through the ages was....being good.

Seriously, someone's motivation for writing a piece of music doesn't really matter in the end, all that matters is the music. And remember that in his time, Mozart was thought of as average, at best...it was only when his generation passed that people could look at his music completely objectively and judge it on merit....which is what will undoubtedly happen to todays music five or six-hundred years down the road.

aw damnit.... 500 years from now is so gonna invent a time machine just to come back to now and tell us how much our music sucks.

[Brad Barton]

aw damnit.... 500 years from now is so gonna invent a time machine just to come back to now and tell us how much our music sucks.yeah, unless music sucks even more in 500 years....then they'll look back on band like Good Charlotte and Avenged Sevenfold and think they're baroque...

[Spike-X]

If anything has "killed" the music industry, it's DVDs and video games. People only have so much money to spend on entertainment, and the plebs have always preferred things with pictures.

[Valmore]

I killed the music industry.

In the billiard room.

With the candlestick.

[DDM]

The music industry seemingly killed itself since it failed to adapt to the new technology; instead, the music industry went after potential consumers by by suing them a la Napster. Furthermore, fresh music is always on the underground, on the fringes, yet the music industry failed to exploit this avenue to make it mainstream. Ironically, the independent labels are doing it themselves with no help from the big labels. Who needs them?

However, the music industry is not dead. The music executives need to adapt & competely change their business models for the new technology. They seem to be getting the message a little too late...

[Rattlehead]

I've personally noticed that it's only the Big Labels that are hurting in any way shape or form. Most of the music I buy comes from smaller, fringe labels and they are outright flourishing at the moment. The reason for that is that they put out a better product. Big Labels need to start focusing on actual musicians again and not the newest pretty face or flavor of the month. If they concentrated on putting out timeless music they would be making money. Instead they want to fucus on fleecing the teenage market with yet another untalented pretty face. Real music fans are always going to buy music, but the Big Labels stopped catering to the real music fans some time ago.

[MartinRedmond]

Maybe people just got bored of "gangsta" and not really rap itself. The reason I don't buy many bands is that tons of artists sing horribly off key and songs that are catchy are pretty rare. You say watered down, but all the artists you mentioned had catchy melodies to their songs.

Normal people have better things to do than listen to a 3 minute song for hours and days trying to decypher it's meaning.

[Shellhead]

Does anybody think that illegal downloads of music have declined in recent years? I would be surprised to hear that.

If major labels are hurting primarily because they aren't putting out good music these days, then there should be a decline in piracy, too. Or else the "independent labels" are getting hurt more by the piracy these days.

If the "independent labels" are doing well these days, can we get some specific
company names and sales figures?

[TheLazy]

Does anybody think that illegal downloads of music have declined in recent years? I would be surprised to hear that.


People still download a song, they just don't find that the quality of these teaser single justifies spending £10 on the whole shebang

:)

[mattx110]

Does anybody think that illegal downloads of music have declined in recent years? I would be surprised to hear that.

If major labels are hurting primarily because they aren't putting out good music these days, then there should be a decline in piracy, too. Or else the "independent labels" are getting hurt more by the piracy these days.

If the "independent labels" are doing well these days, can we get some specific
company names and sales figures?

well, you can pirate anything ever, but buying old cds doesn't help that evil record company trying to sell you spice girls 3.0.

i think the problem is, people listen to crappy music, and record companies put out crappy music. and nobody involved thinks the music is worth the money. maybe if the price of school books, gas, and milk went down, kids would have more money for CDs.