[grinch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jon Beilin Here's what I don't understand: if you can't afford a BMW, you can't have one. If you can't afford a CD, you pirate it. Why do so many people think it is ok to steal music?

i love this analogy. people think that just because they want something, it's their right to have it. mp3s sound sucky anyway (unless i encode them, of course).

 

[penvzila]

I got about 500 mp3s from Napster until I discovered some really great bands and started hating the ****ty sound. I still pirate like mad, but I also spend quite a bit of money on music. There's about 10 or 12 groups that I won't download, unless that's the only way to get it (like for out of print imports).

Case in point: Ae's Chiastic Slide, 36$ on amazon. I saw it in a store here for 12$ but that was a while ago, and it wasn't there anymore. Nor is it anywhere online (I searched for a few days) So, I downloaded the thing. Apparently i didnt search for long enough becasue a week later I find forcedexposure.com has it and great shipping too.

I feel a little bit sorry if you are a musician and think you'll never be able to make money doing the thing you love. A little bit. Maybe music making can't continue to be an industry anymore.


Although, If there was a service that offered high speed transferring of high quality digital music (mpc, flac...), I would pay close to the per song price of an album.

 

[penvzila]

Depending on your taste in music, there are a lot of great online cd stores. Almost all are more expensive than a brick and mortar store (if you have no sales tax) because of shipping. But then, you can find a much larger selection online.

The ones I have used:

amazon - great for used cds (got The Fragile for 2.99!)
forcedexposure
wrecked



I havent used cheapcds.com, but, at least according to them, they have a HUGE selection. I don't know how reliable they are about updating, since I have never used them.

 

[dngl]

pen is right. There are affordable places to get CDs. Do it.

 

[svezel]

I use mp3 a lot but not as an alternitive to cd´s but rather as a tool in finding new bands. I have bought a lot of cd's after listening to the band on mp3 and just resently discoverd the bands Blind Guradian and Dream Theater on the internet. Because the record stores where I live don't sell BG albums I had to do with mp3 until I ordered 6 cd's on CDNOW (now amazon). So don´t badmouth mp3 because you think it is ruining the music industry, its actually just helping bands who make good music selling their albums and bands who make sucky albums not.

 

[BlindSeer]

Quote:

Originally posted by glasskangaroo I'm a composer. I make my living creating music.

I'm curious - what portion of your income comes from CD royalties? The popular conception is that royalties are almost negligible for musicians and that the vast majority of their money comes from touring; I wonder how true this is.

I personally download music and buy some of my favorites and the obscure stuff on CD. I'm not happy to "steal" music (I'm a musician myself, though unprofessional at the moment), but let's face it: CDs are EXPENSIVE, much more than they need to be, I think. I'm a student, and if I bought 100 CDs at full price, I'd be nearly broke. I can't afford to buy bad CDs. I buy what I can used, but the pickings are slim in that area for the kind of music I'm into. There's got to be a way to make recorded music affordable; until then I'll buy what I can and download the rest. I don't see any harm in that. One of my favorite artists, a fairly small-time singer-songwriter named Peter Mulvey, has released many outtakes and live recordings on his website and had this to say about internet music:

"The greatest thing in the world. Helps the little guy, hurts the big guy and the big guys are fighting it. Metallica suing that ****? Well, those guys have yachts to think about. It levels the playing field. It makes music what it used to be, little marbles that kids trade."

I hope that eventually, the music industry will be able to reevaluate the way it distributes music so that we can put all these legal issues aside and appreciate music for what it is at its core: something to be shared.

 

[penvzila]

There can't ba a music 'industry' anymore.