your views on downloading music

[popscratch]

I feel like you should support an artist whenever you can-especially if you like them. Their job is to make music, so if you want more from them, it's probably a good idea to pay for it. That being said I see nothing wrong with downloading an album for free if you own it on a different format: vinyl, cassette, even CDs if you don't feel like taking the time to import it to your computer.

[homework]

word.  someone would have been all like "do you even know how to search?  link"

 

Yet, they still get on you about bumping old threads. I don't even?

[firefoxUSSR]

I don't have money to "support the artist" ....

 

Fuck CDs, All a CD is is a copy of the mp3 files on a compact disk ...

 

^ Trolltastic.

 

 

I at one time owned over 700 CDs.  But I gave all but 10% away (you know because most of them sucked).  But that's on me for buying crap.  I do routinely download, lossless if practical.  Nowadays anything I like I will buy its vinyl counterpart if available.  Mostly because the mastering will differ, which usually means a more pleasurable sound (less hard-lmiting/brickwall filtering, dynamic compression, etc).

 

I do urge artists to make available lossless (preferably 24-bit or otherwise gently-mastered) muisc for sale.  I do have a bit of a hangup paying for a lossy file at $1 or more per song.  Any decent band does offer a lossless version for about a dollar a song or less (personally I bought all the Glassjaw Our Color Green singles, RxBandits ...And the Battle Begun, and multiple Finch releases in lossless).

 

I think that the great CD buyer's remorse syndrome I once experienced is gone, which is wonderful.  The more unfortunate side of this is oftentimes a release is only available in a lossy format.  That sucks.

 

I also raise a question to those that say "I'll just go buy a t-shirt or go to the show".... well a lot of the time you cannot see the artist depending on where you live.   Sometimes they don't have any good looking merch.  How do you justify in said case?

 

TL;DR- Kill People Burn Shit Fuck School 

[Team Avatar]

I am a firm believer that all music should be free.  I love the idea of 'free download and if you want to throw us a few bucks, please do', but I don't think people should "have" to.

 

I have bought like two tracks on iTunes and maybe? one album online.  I torrent / get the rest of my music from my friends.

 

I buy vinyl too, obviously, of some artists, but I have what, 30 gb of music and 120 records?

 

 

So I torrent and pirate and the artist suffers greatly, because I haven't paid him $10 bucks for his shitty CD,  I can't see him in concert because he doesn't tour in DC, and his tee-shirts online look like they were made for 14-year-old girls and have comic sans font.

 

But I believe that the number one goal of any artist should be recognition.  They want their music to be shared and heard.  Any musician who is more interested in making money then getting their music out is doing it wrong.

 

If I put out a CD and it was torrented 10,000 times, I would be ecstatic.  That fucking rules.  Clearly, I'm doing something right.  Just gotta keep doing what I'm doing and make back my investment elsewhere, via tee shirt sales and guarantees and what not.

 

People talk up albums they like.  Even if they only have one shitty tumblr account and no friends in real life.  When they reblog something of that artist, they are promoting.  Everything counts and helps.  So many bands seem to get big now via social media alone, and that needs to be accounted for.

 

Besides, what's going to stop me from spotifying or youtubing the album?  If anything it's these programs that ruin the integrity of music.  Instead of listening to an entire album, people here random hits from it and never end up supporting them.  With LTE and stuff, what's the difference between having an album on your phone and looking up the tracks on youtube?

 

There will always be people who buy albums, and there will be people who torrent them, and people who torrent them and if they like them, download them.  I firmly believe that artists need to realize this, play into it, and use it to their advantage. 

 

I still believe myself to be a huge supporter of music and the artists I like, through everything I do.  fuck every washed up musician who still won't give up the dream and blames pirating on his failure. the problem isn't torrents.  it's your shitty fucking music.  get a new fucking job.

 

i got angry.

[firefoxUSSR]

^many has been musicians (especially whom were previously multi-platinum) are the most fervent supporters of anti-piracy schemes. Perhaps they don't like their brand alone cannot sell music.  It has to be you know... popular music.

[The Exquisite Death of NK]

I don't buy digital music, ever. If an album is really good, I'll buy it. If I feel the artist needs the money, I'll buy it. I'm not going to feel bad for downloading a Led Zeppelin album or something along those lines. Yeah musicians need to make a living, but, I'd rather go to one of their shows or buy a t-shirt to support them.

 

Also, if I remember correctly, there was a study that people who illegally download music spend more money on music then people who don't.

I believe this is the study you're referring to: http://entertainment.time.com/2013/03/21/illegal-music-downloads-not-hurting-industry-study-claims/

 

Really great piece on the lack of ability to have secondary markets with (legal) digit music:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/04/05/176335511/episode-449-the-hidden-digital-wealth-in-your-pocket

[The Exquisite Death of NK]

And I'll just throw this out there from my personal view:

 

I was in a semi-successful indie band in the mid-2000s (toured fairly extensively, self-released our music) and all of us were totally cool with people downloading or copying & sharing our music.  We had the pretty much the same view as the guy from Deftones that was quoted earlier in the thread.  And being as we self-released our albums, we could have really used the money from our music sales.  But we felt like the fans we gained from shared music (either digitally or copying of CDs) made up for the loss in revenue from them not potentially buying the release.  And they probably wouldn't have bought our music anyways being as they hadn't heard of us prior to getting the shared music.

[Guest]

anyone who has a firm moral stance against downloading needs to lighten up.

[Stickman31]

I think it's alright as long as you see a show and buy a T shirt or the vinyl. If you just download and don't bother supporting them you've hit a very high level of douchebaggery

[ronniegwilliams]

I download music, a lot of it actually.  If I dig it enough I often tend to buy a physical copy of it.  There are just far far too many bands out there that I would like to listen to, and there is no possible way I would be able to fund purchasing every record ever.  I know that a band would much prefer me to download their album, go to a show, and spread the word about them vs never listening to them at all because I didn't have an extra $10 after all of my bills have been paid.  As far as downloading things from bigger labels, I will download the shit out of those records with zero shame.  A majority of the time the bands see nothing from album sales due to repayment of their loans to said label.  

Download if you want, don't if you don't want to.  Why is this even a thread?

[Guest]

I think it's alright as long as you see a show and buy a T shirt or the vinyl. If you just download and don't bother supporting them you've hit a very high level of douchebaggery

 

i dont have vinyl from 75% of the bands on my itunes. and 100% of the bands on my itunes were obtained illegally. fuck off.

[SpazzyMcGee]

I'll listen to samples, download, then delete if I can't get into it and buy the record if I dig it. Only for old old jazz and classic albums do I download and even then I'm hardly on my laptop so it's merely background music

[codeine]

I think one of the best reasons to buy physical is for the liner notes. Who performed what, who produced, engineered, mixed, mastered, who did the artwork and layout, lyrics, thanks, etc. Artwork can expand upon the atmosphere the music creates in much the same way that a good live production can, only you can bring it home and don't have to live in whatever city, or travel.

I like knowing these things (album personnel) so I can figure out who's doing the stuff I like and follow their career. One example could be: a band you love might lose a member and their new albums sucks, so maybe you'll go check out other bands instead, based on who's in them. Like if one guitar player leaves, and they were a main creative force within the band, and now the band sucks since they left, maybe you'll go check out that guitar player's new band, instead.

[thebiglebowski]

If vinyl didn't have such high resale value I'm not sure I would buy it. I do see some positive utility out of things like liner notes and big artwork, but the lack of being able to listen outside the house dominates this.

I buy vinyl because it has a collectible market. Pretty much it. My next choice would be illegally downloading. I just don't see mp3s as something to pay for. Pretty much make enough doing things like selling 1st presses and replacing with represses to cover all my music costs.

Maybe I'd do one of those monthly subscription services (analogous as to how I pay for Netflix but occasionally download to supplement). But iTunes? Nah. I'd just listen to a ton of stuff on YouTube before that and I have hundreds o CDs for my car.

[codeine]

I still buy CDs... I was born in '86 though.

[Guest]

I still buy CDs... I was born in '86 though.

 

so was i. haven't purchased a cd in at least 4 years.

[thebiglebowski]

Same age

Once in a while I think about just offering $1 each on one of those mega cd lots on here. At that price, accounting for my time I'm actually about indifferent between downloading or just buying used.

But I don't. I still go CDs 98% of the time in my car. Like the process of sorting through all my stuff from '07 and earlier to find the one album I'm gonna jam vs. just plugging my iPhone in.

[codeine]

Old habits die hard. Actually I had an 80gig iPod that wiped itself and didn't have the stuff backed up. Buying off iTunes doesn't seem like buying so much as renting, so I think that illegal downloads actually make more sense, in a way. If I'm going to buy, I buy physical. I like to support the artists, especially my favourite bands. I like some weird shit and some of those bands struggle. If you are downloading some huge artists I could care less but if you are downloading the entire discography of a struggling band that's pretty weak and buying a t-shirt doesn't really make it any more legit.

I like .wav quality audio... I also have a boner for analog, but tapes get eaten/stretched and for vinyl there's inner groove distortion and you need a pro TT set up to fully enjoy that shit... The *best* format is 2" reel-to-reel tape. Has to be all analog though, from source to output. It's funny to me when ppl have a big boner for vinyl but the album was recorded in protools. I use protools myself but maaaaan, something about all analog, amps, drums, mics, a Neve console, analog tape. BONER.

[Guest]

Same age

Once in a while I think about just offering $1 each on one of those mega cd lots on here. At that price, accounting for my time I'm actually about indifferent between downloading or just buying used.

But I don't. I still go CDs 98% of the time in my car. Like the process of sorting through all my stuff from '07 and earlier to find the one album I'm gonna jam vs. just plugging my iPhone in.

 

car cd player fucked up, and i just never considered getting it fixed. 6 disc changer that's full, but doesn't recognize anything being in it, so it doesn't eject. so my car basically ate daisy, brothers blood, omni, mean everything to nothing, dead weather, and something random that i meant to listen to, and never got the chance to.

so i probably haven't listened to a cd since.

[codeine]

car cd player fucked up, and i just never considered getting it fixed. 6 disc changer that's full, but doesn't recognize anything being in it, so it doesn't eject. so my car basically ate daisy, brothers blood, omni, mean everything to nothing, dead weather, and something random that i meant to listen to, and never got the chance to.

so i probably haven't listened to a cd since.

That blows dude, I remember when I was a little kid... way before downloading. I was huge on albums even then and I had a 25 disc changer. One day it fucked up and wouldn't open... I tweaked and ripped the front compartment off and dug my 25 CDs out. The ones that were in there would have been my fav 25 at the time. So yeah I was like so headstrong about getting my CDs out of there that I tore the CD player apart hahahahhaa. I was a kid. Seems kinda silly/spazzy now but I also remember a little while before that my older brother's Panasonic CD player shit the bed and he brought it in to be repaired and the repair guys fixed it but stole his CD out of the tray, didn't put it back... dunno if it was intentional or not, (in hindsight, it seems like it must have been intentional cause after fixing it you could use the CD that was already in it to test if it was working properly or not) so I was like 'fuck bringing this thing in and losing my CDs, I'm rescuing my CDs and bricking this fucking piece of shit in the process. I don't regret it.

[homework]

What have I done.

[dm]

I listen to albums pre possible purchase.

If I like it I´ll buy it and that evens it out for me.

If not I delet it.

[emptyhanded]

I listen to albums pre possible purchase.

If I like it I´ll buy it and that evens it out for me.

If not I delet it.

This is pretty much what I do except I don't delete them immediately. I keep them around for a while if I think it's something that could grow on me. I figure all this is doing is giving the artist another possible buyer later on, where I wouldn't have been one initially anyway

[firefoxUSSR]

Personally I think there's simply too many bands out there.  As the Dillinger Escape Plan put it-- Option Paralysis.  There are endless amounts of independently/commercially-produced records nowadays.  The ease of digital (and low bar for sound quality) has accelerated this trend.  

 

Oh and artists/labels... if you release anything exclusively on fucking iTunes or any lossy download service-  I will always steal it.  It's bad enough the master has to be obnoxiously loud.. now it has to be a lossy file too? 

 

It's harder for me to justify spending $5 on a low-bitrate download than it is for me to justify $20 on a decently mastered 12" or $10 okay-mastered cd/lossless download.  Furthermore- my wallet begs you for a decently mastered high-resolution download..... but i digress....

[codeine]

This popped up today:

http://bubblesandgutz.tumblr.com/post/47707409160/artistsagainstpiracy-vs-artistsforpiracy

Article by Brian Cook (bassist of Botch, These Arms Are Snakes, Russian Circles)