yea, people still buy music, huh?
i've seen many bands go down because people simply stole music. now there is simply no money in it so people have to find other occupations.
What band do you know of that was destroyed by piracy?
not even going to get into this. i've run a local internet radio station in dallas since 2000. worked with no names and national acts. had a lot on the brink and sales didn't support the tour yet "fans" would come up and say they just downloaded their songs and LOVE the band...
believe what you want. this isn't debatable to me.
I would agree it flies in the face of common sense. Something stolen is something not sold for a profit.
Having said that it is also a form of free advertising as weird as that sounds. It's hard to explain but if I pirate a movie and enjoy it, I then tell everyone I know how good it was which leads to legit sales or rentals.
There have been video game developers that said they welcome the piracy because it increases their exposure.
I'm not condoning it, just admitting that it's a convoluted topic with many factors to consider.
ok.
advertising for what? also, people can pick and choose *how* they advertise. they can't pick or choose whether or not someone steals their music.
bands can and have given away their music and today, they pretty much accept it going in. to "succeed" today you need to be an illiterate 14 year old or put yourself in a position to where you simply don't need to be signed, you're do it yourself.
no labels will sign a band they need to invest in. period. those days are gone. why?
cause no one is buying music.
for a band who's good but doesn't have much funding now needs to go spend thousands of dollars in studios or for the equipment to do it at home and spend more. as for "well it's advertising".
when you advertise you hope to sell something. that would be *you* in this instance because you can't sell the music anymore. you can try but people just steal it anyway or load up a playlist and don't bother to buy it. the overall need is gone but that's not the same as piracy. piracy itself is dying simply because i can pay slacker or amazon or pick one to load up all the songs i want from anyone i want and play them whenever i want.
the concept of "ownership" isn't the same today so the "pirate" argument isn't either. the bands i speak of are long ago and honestly this is a dead argument. i told a friend over a decade ago buying songs would become pointless because you're always connected to a source that will play whatever you want for a small $3.99 a month fee. why spend $10 on a CD or mp3's? the money has shifted and this argument for the most part is dead. this friend told me i was crazy and nothing would replace physical ownership.
oops.
but again - advertising? piracy? these are really legacy concepts and a band today just knows there will be no money or help in the short term. it makes it very difficult for bands to succeed as again, they must do it all on their own.
but they can. they do every day. all those saying rock is dead are only seeing the massive sales of the 80s-90s. today has shifted dramatically and even a band who does get a ton of streams doesn't get much $$$ to go with it. it's a ***** of a business to be sure but here's an example of a small band i'll bet no one has heard of that hit 27 on the charts recently and just got off their first US tour.
dude can friggin sing it.
it's a huge investment and piracy isn't the issue. it's where *will* the money come from?
BMI? ASCAP? SoundExchange? hardly. i pay them so they can pay the artists but the funny part is, they never ask me who i'm playing.
slight disconnect.
i'm for sure not an expert on the industry, but i do have 15+ years of internet radio experience and working with bands to pull from. if someone has more i'd love to hear their input but debating piracy is like debating bell bottom jeans.
those times are gone and the argument has shifted. but there is no denial piracy cost tons of bands in the crossfire of technical evolution.
