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Originally Posted by Effigy  Sorry, but I dont buy your arguments. I'll try to put together a proper response to your points, but 1 of them I'll hit straight off.
Poor excuse for theft of an artists work.
There's a thousand industrial radio stations on-line. You want to listen before you buy? There's your answer.
You seem to argue that downloading is a victimless crime. You dont seem to grasp the concept that it takes time and money to create the music you seem to think you have the right to use and abuse as you wish.
Try telling Faderhead, who's just announced that he's quiting the scene for this very reason, that downloading is "the saviour of music".
Bullshit mate, total bullshit. |
It's not theft of an artist work. I'm in a band releasing commercial work, In know how it operates. The theft of artists music comes from the record labels who rarely pay artists, and from the distro/stores that want to gouge ever greater profits. All at the expense of two groups. The artists and the fans.
Downloading began because the record labels refused to sanction legal downloads. Sony installed a rootkit/backdoor/trojan onto your machine to cripple your CD player! The record industry regard everyone as criminals, freeloaders and rip off merchants. And instead of coming up with a "value added" solution early on to MP3/p2p they tried to strangle it at birth. The record industry contrived to keep prices high/fix prices. They are organised crime.
And yes, downloading is a victimless crime if you discount the criminals in the record industry.
Faderhead quitting music? Big deal! He can dry his eyes and acquaint himself with the harsh realities of the big bad world - Not enough people want to buy his stuff! If he's an artist he'll keep writing and releasing and get himself a job where he can continue his labour of love. Alternately he can keep kidding himself on he's big time and it's nasty downloaders to blame. I have *zero* sympathy with anyone who thinks that music/art owes them a living. The naked city is filled with 8 million hard luck tales. Artist or accountant?
Did Picasso give up because he was rooked? Nah, he sucked it up and kept going. Mozart? No one is owed a living from this business.
He could also try and find new ways of making a living from the industry - merch sales, touring, online sales, building relationships with fans - for example, Einsturzende Naubauten, NIN are two good examples.
One guy on myspace was imploring fans to "buy two copies of every industrial artists CD you like"! Yeah, because music is charity and I should support the greed of an industry that knows no limits. What utter garbage! Buy two, keep Faderhead in his BMW! F*ck that.
Theft of an artists work starts at source. The record label. And then the record store. Way, way down the list of theives are fans. You do realise that's who you're calling a thief right? You can't download a tshirt. Or a gig.
MP3/compressed music quality sucks. But Itunes will sell you an MP3 album for not much less than the price of an album, and if the record industry gets it's way it would have been the self same price! No physical product, no distro cost, no packaging cost. Butthe same price for less quality. THAT is a rip off. The record industry maintain that you should buy digital copy of a track for your MP3 player. Another for your car, and another for each device you own! Tod Rundgren described a CD as a "circular plastic license to listen to my music". What a lot of nonsense.
Also, the most "ripped off" artists are doing pretty well thank you. Bono, Prodigy, Madonna, NIN don't seem to be thinking of quitting.
Try reading Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business by Fredric Dannen for a better idea of the kinds of people that those in the record industry are.
Downloading was a solution to a problem made by the record industry and greedy people (some artists!) by a group of people who were sick of getting ripped off.
A download is not a lost sale, it's a potential fan. A potential gig goer, a potential merchandise buyer. The rules of the game are changing. Changing not because of music theives, but because of the record industry's short sightedness and greed.
Downloading is an issue where the record industry routinely make up figures pertaiing to. The exaggerate like made to justify a fall in sale similar to the fall in the 70's at the height/end of the disco era. Punk was born as a reaction to that time. Downloading is the 21st century reaction. Cyberpunk.
Translation : When Faderhead says "I'm quitting music because of all the nasty downloaders" what he actually means is "I'm having a hissy fit because I'm not even half as popular as I think I should be and I'm not selling many records or making as much cash as I would like".
The industrial scene is tiny. And it's dieing. If not already dead. Killed by an utter lack of good bands, by a lack of innovation. By a bunch of fuck lazy cissies that mime on stage, and by greedy idiots that think the world owes them a living.
NIN, Ministry, Marilyn Manson and Front 242 are still the big fish in scene. They are all over 20 years old. Why is that? Did big bad p2p downloading stop people getting into new bands too? Or is it just that the scene got taken over by accountants who'll sell you endless knock off sound-a-like bands instead of seeing the music progress?
They are best because they progress. They grow and change, picking up fans along the way. How many new bands will release multiple albums? Or at least albums that sound different and don't bore people utterly to death? Not very many.
Combichrist have a half chance of rising out of this, Modulate could too, a fair number of the rest are heading down the same plughole grebo went before, and Goth, and all the other genre's that sub split into even smaller and sillier sub genres.
I'm in the industry and I don't fear downloaders. Ears are my friend, not my enemy. If my stuff is good enough it'll sell. If not? You know the rest.
The cream of the crop rise to the top.
