why stealing music online is killing the music industry

[classicstyxfan]

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/201 ... onsidered/

some of what is in this article is really mind-boggling.

[Cassie May]

Really good article. Very thought-provoking. Thanks for posting.

[Boomchild]

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

some of what is in this article is really mind-boggling.

Very interesting article. There is definite "Free Generation" growing in the world today. Which is really sad for the artists and the industry. What will people do if the artists just stop making music because they can't make their living doing it. By living I don't imply being "rich" either.

[Don]

They make ten times as much touring today then they did before, that is why there are musicians who give albums or at least some tracks away for free as promo. That's why bands like Journey and Bon Jovi can still put albums out and not worry about whether they sell or not; they'll make the money back and more when they hit the road. Now, if you don't want to tour, unless you have some killer licensing deals for your back catalog (Steve Perry/Journey) then you are screwed.

[Monker]

Sorry, but I find this article to be very condescending and insulting. It sounds like some old grandpa telling a kid how wonderful it was back in his day with cd's and using cassettes to tape and share music. That's all he had and everybody liked it that way.

Well, except for the fact that record companies hated even that back then.

I think the truth is these kids would not be buying CD's even if they couldn't get them for free. They don't want some big and clunky CD that is useless on an iPod, or whatever device, until they convert it to MP3 anyway.

There was an article posted a while back on how Itunes destroyed the music business. The bottom line is that those who do buy music are buying single songs off of iTunes and CD's have an ever decreasing share of the market. That's been the direction of things for about 20yrs now.

what has really killed the 'industry' is the fact that record companies have refused to adapt...and they LET companies like Apple give the public what they want. I had to laugh when this guy mentioned GrooveShark, which I use all the time. You may as well just blame radio, or streaming radio, and YouTube, and people loaning and giving music to each other, and your neighbor singing too loud in the shower. Ridiculous. Instead of bitching about an innovative way to listen to music, these labels, artists, and others involved should be proactive and come up with their own technologies to give consumers what they want. Instead, their solution is to go buy the CD, which is what they don't want...or basically ask why you are too stupid to click a few buttons in iTunes...which is actually not a big help to the industry.

I'm not condoning illegal downloading. But, insulting an entire gene3ration of people is not helpful in any way...and saying they are to blame for the dysfunctional music industry is just plain wrong.

[classicstyxfan]

What I found most troubling was that with the exception of a small minority, bands and musicians cant really make a decent living at their craft. Our generation wasn't without fault. Who among us didnt copy a friends record onto a blank cassette when money was tight ? But I think most of us also had a record collection and later replaced many of them with CD's

I also wonder how much great music we are missing out on due to the economics of the industry ?

[Monker]

Who among us didnt copy a friends record onto a blank cassette when money was tight ? But I think most of us also had a record collection and later replaced many of them with CD's

And, that's my point. Even if it were possible to completely eliminate illegal downloading, I doubt sales would increase THAT much. The guy wrote this article about a lady who says she has 15,000 ilegal songs. At the very least a song on iTunes cost about $1 to download. Does anybody realistically believe this person is going to go and spend at least $15,000 on these songs. No way....I just don't believe it.

Artists are struggling because the entire industry is struggling.......and that is NOT because of younger people downloading music. It's not a good and healthy thing...but an industry which refuses to change and give the public what they want is a MUCH bigger problem.