Downloading Music

[Guest]

Alright, lemme hear your views on music downloading.

Mine: I think it should be legal considering how much they get paid for doing very little aside from having a good voice, and writing down lyrics. I mean of course the conserts they would do would still bring the the bulk income for the artist, but paying money to hear them sing a few songs, or just a song is retarded.

By today's standards they aren't doing this for the love of the music, they're doing it for the cash, as the band Metallica proved when Lars Olrich and them took it to napster.

[Midge]

I very much doubt that concert receipts count for much of an artists income. If you remove royalties from selling records, musicians will be left with a tiny fraction of what they currently receive. In some respects that's not such a bad thing. Wealth usually dulls creativity in musicians. I mean, who has the hunger to write a great song when they're guzzling champagne and cocaine all day? Just look at Oasis...

There are some other arguments in favour of free file swapping. My purchasing of records actually went up after i learned how to download samples from the net as i was able to check out new bands and artists i had not previously had access to.

On the whole, limited downloading of samples and rarities is acceptable to me. But your logic for downloading everything you want to hear bacause you think paying for it is 'retarded' is deeply flawed. Where does that logic end? Is it retarded to pay for your shopping at the supermarket?

[jetset_willy]

Actually, international artistes - Rolling Stone/U2/Madonna make more from tours than they do from their records, because as well as ticket sales, there are TV/radio/internet rights and merchandising revenues to consider.

I don't think free P2P should be illegal, but I can understand why the music industry is pissed off. However, in trying to stop it, the music industry will have to move into the 21st century.

* People listen to songs free on the radio... why not have a number of listens for free until you decide you like the song.

* Don't charge for downloading, charge for burning.

* There will no 'albums' because no-one will want to pay for fillers. I think most people would prefer to buy single songs anyway, if they could.

At the moment, the illegal downloading industry is a bit like the drugs industry... you can probably get it, but you can't vouch for the quality or even if you're downloading what you think you are.. or that you're going to get a nasty virus while you're doing it.

The fact that the Kazaa and others have meant that iTunes and Napster now have serious business plans to a step forward.

The same thing will happen to DVDs when bandwidths improve and then we'll go through the whole thing again. If the film companies had any sense they'd see what the music industry is going through and start doing development work now.

[Danz]

I have downloaded alot of songs, however i have my own mixed cd's with this music....is it illegal or just plain stupid to approach a record company to see if they are interested in buying it???

Regards Daniel

[jetset_willy]

Record companies wouldn't necessarily know that you'd illegally downloaded the songs. You could just as easily bought the songs and then converted to MP3/digital format before mixing them.