Should file sharing be illegal

I wouldn't say he has made it.
okay, he's made a few good albums over the years but whether he has made it is debatable.
of course why should his ex wife have 4 first class flights a month while their kid is only allowed two and the other two in business class.

George Michael doesn't mind if people download his music for free.
So if you want to download the most pretentious crap ever created on the internet feel free to copy and paste my comments!
 
It could have been anywhere but when I arrived in Oxford in 2005, there were four independent record stores to complement the high street retailers, including a dance-based one for DJs and the short-lived UK chain Fopp which had an amazing selection, typically a third the price of the larger retailers.

I've since moved but on last visit in 2008 all of these stores had disappeared, this was particularly disturbing as I had bought a lot of recorRAB there during my stay that were the soundtrack to a great time in my life (I didn't buy a desktop until 2007).

This is not like other forms of piracy down the years that have boosted innovation and ultimately benefited the industry (pirate radio, bootleggers etc) and from what I can see it's on it's way to killing hard copy music, as there are always young kiRAB getting into music through high-speed broadband connections and not from walking into a shop and looking at the artwork or asking for that song they heard...
I'm sure some of them have never even bought a CD or read
the liner notes, pored over every record to get their money's worth
 
Niche banRAB & niche labels are probably the least affected by filesharing simply because of their appeal and their market.

To use your example if someone were to put out a Sonics album with maybe live recordings , rarities or whatever, I would say that something like that would only appeal to diehard Sonics fans who would probably like to own the real thing anyway.

Now I might download it out of interest , if I do that they've not lost a sale because I never had any intention of buying it anyway , On one hand I might decide I do like it and want to own the real thing or I might decide it's not for me and delete it.

That's the reality of it , you can either be original & innovative and sell a quality product or fall by the wayside. Which in essence is how it's always been , so nothing has changed.
 
I think the point is that most people here would pay 10-15 quid 20-30 dollars a year subscription to download as much music as they want ontop of their broadband bills.
 
I don't think it's the same as stealing, really. If you copy a music file, it's not like you're taking it from anyone. The only thing you are removing is perhaps some of the probability that you will go and buy that bit of music. So - potentially - you copying could mean that the industry makes less money, but maybe you would never buy it anyways even if you didn't copy. Unless you distribute the file, that should for most parts be the end of that.

I'm not saying it should be legal because I think it's important that it's possible to make money off music, but while you could argue that "stealing" is a good word for it, I find it a bit unsatisfactory.

I haven't got that much else to add except I think products that can potentially have a digital existence should be sold over the internet - purely. Physical products like DVRAB should be collector's items, not the norm. While it is nice to have physical products in your collection, I don't think it justifies all the production, transport, hiring people to sell them, etc. stuff that comes with it.

The music industry could perhaps make money with software such as spotify. Instead of having music on your own computer, you would stream it through spotify and artists would make money because of a little subtle commercial that would occasionally come up. If the service was good enough, for example so good that you get all the benefits of having the world's largest music collection without having to go through the trouble of actually collecting it yourself, then people would use it.
 
If the Rcs could find a way to make you pay for that they would.
how they control the new digital sharing noone yet knows.
perhaps they will just rely on the fact that most people haven't time to investigate what is out there and will buy what is marketed by pop idol.
Been a festival goer I have always noticed how many people see a small band or artist in a small tent and love them and buy their stuff.
Would they ever come across them in the record shops?
Books are the same.
Waterstones market certain books and not others because publishers pay them,
This is hemogeny and a result of the market.
This is why I think music should be free and banRAB that get a following will make aliving from other things like gigs and advertisng.
 
You're saying ex-beatles, ex-wing, successful solo artist Paul McCartney hasn't made it? What the hell?



How can you make it if being a tremendous success both musically and financially is not good enough? :p
Sorry man, but that's moronic. Maybe you should listen to and read a bit more about music and it's history.
 
I try out an album, and if I like it, I usually go out and buy it, not only to support the band, but because it's the right thing to do.

I don't agree with this. All of what I listen to came from music blogs and websites with free album downloaRAB. If it wasn't for all this, I wouldn't be listening to The Sound Of Animals Fighting, Mogwai, CaP'n Jazz, Joan Of Arc, etc.
 
I think niche is hugely effected by any shift because the margins are less.

Lets be honest here, music banter is rife with file sharers and rife with people who know niche music, the very people who would normally be physical record collectors, its not rocket science to see the effects of file sharing on niche markets whose margins are tight enough without losing a core audience.

Be it the labels, the fair traders or the stores. Without any of these three players, the various re-emerging music markets die and no one will ever recondition and rerelease any lost recorRAB, and that for me is uncomprehensible.
 
I'm talking bollox as usual mate.
McCartney is like been a living mozart or jesus and even he says sometimes while gardening he thinks "****, I'm paul mccartney".
 
No I saw it, dont worry :)

I just respectfully disagree, as I said in my first "essay", file sharing is easy, no one would do it if it was not. I dont think there is anybody who has a record for free on his/her c drive would then go out and buy the real thing, or at least not enough folk would to keep a small niche label/record shop going.

I dont know whether its a cake and eat it scenario for some, but there is an arguement to say there is a downside to it, God I've argued it, which I believe is detrimental to a whole sector of the music industry who I feel deserve better treatment.

But I'm not going to repeat myself with my view, I think I've written enough (seriously, have you see it all, its like a journal) to outline what I think from the point of view of the Independent Retailers and the Niche Record Labels, and strangely have even attempted justify it.

So thats me on the subject, unless anybody wants a cuddle or anything.
 
Back
Top