Isn't most of the money (for the artists themselves) made in touring? ie giving away your album will get you more fans who will pay to come to your gigs.
Or make it cheaper (probably avoiding this whole piracy thing in the first place!) like Amazon do (£3.99 album of the week kind of thing, but permanently) and stop charging £15.99 for a CD, like HMV used to do, got greedy doing it, and are wondering why no-one buys anything from them anymore and they're going bust.
Dan
I use spotify and I happily pay the £9.99 a month because I get a hell of a lot of use out of it.
I'd be a lot happier with paying for Spotify (which I do do) if its coverage was broader. Far too many times recently it doesn't have the song I want to listen to.
I tried Spotify for a few months must canceled because of the lack of coverage. Many artists are missing altogether and it was very frustrating to see that many artists/albums were available in the UK but not the US.
Quote: Aaron @ January 19 2012, 2:18 AM GMTThis. It's entirely their own fault, but they're all too f**king retarded and stubborn to realise. And again, they reckon they can legislate human behaviour and their own customers' demands. Moronic.
I totally agree with Aaron. Over the summer months, I realised that the flat screen television and trainer footwear vendors were charging too much for their products, so I took action.
When will companies realise that their impatient, lazy and spoiled customers demand everything right now and for next to nothing? They've practically put a gun to our heads and forced us to illegally download everything for free.
The problem is that the inherent contract is two-fold; people making music or films who want to make good work and make a living, and the audience who are happy to support that because they get entertainment/culture in return, and then the commercial companies who want to set the value of that work for profit that isn't to do with reasonable returns or enabling better work, and the audience who feel that they're lining corporate pockets and being dictated to in terms of what their side of the 'contract' is. A new way of production and distribution needs to be found. The days of record or film companies telling the general public and serious fans what their financial and cultural role is are O.V.A.H over (incidentally I'm still saving up for the Kath and Kim boxset-do even reasonably well-off people have eighty quid to spare for one product?)
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ January 19 2012, 12:53 PM GMTI totally agree with Aaron. Over the summer months, I realised that the flat screen television and trainer footwear vendors were charging too much for their products, so I took action.
When will companies realise that their impatient, lazy and spoiled customers demand everything right now and for next to nothing? They've practically put a gun to our heads and forced us to illegally download everything for free.
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ January 19 2012, 12:53 PM GMTThey've practically put a gun to our heads and forced us to illegally download everything for free.
It's not that cut and dried. Take American television shows, for example. They are broadcast free to any American with a television set but the availability online is a muddled and confusing mess. Some shows can be watched online, others can't. Some shows are available the next day, some within the next 7 days. Most "expire" and are removed after a few weeks. (This also brings up the relatively new moneymaker: the often expensive DVD release of shows that originally aired for free.)
On the other hand, my computer automatically downloads the shows that I watch, without any effort on my part. The shows are in HD, typically available within 30 minutes of the end of the broadcast and all the commercials have been edited out. No time limit for viewing them, either. I pay a small monthly fee for the ability to download the shows and I'd gladly put it in the networks' pockets if I could get the same features for the same monthly price.
As usual, the entertainment corporations are lagging behind the curve. There are ways to make lots of money from their product but they have to change the way they do things.
There's a guy in the housing estate need me sells tins of dog food in pubs. I'd gladly pay the 5p he charges to the Winalot company.
He just has the advantage of avoiding the cost of boiling down grade c meat adding ash and then stuffing it in tins with jelly. He just nicks it from Morrisons and thus has a more streamlined operation.
Quote: Gavin @ January 19 2012, 2:07 PM GMT
But I'm being very patient and haven't downloaded it for free, because I think there is a difference between catching up on missed episodes of something or listening to a recommended song and blatantly nicking something. I understand the argument that using anything someone else has put on the internet that you haven't paid for is theft, but frankly at eighty quid (or whatever value one ascribes to something) I completely get why people feel like they're being held to ransom and despair that they feel like criminals when they're not trying to make a profit, they're actually massively enthusiastic about someone else's work. The corporate middle-man needs to go. I'd give my last fiver to support someone whose music/comedy/art I like, but I'm not choosing between being able to buy food and missing out on seeing something brilliant that nearly everyone else has access to because some millionaire wants a new porsche.
My friend's band recently dumped their major record label and started their own. They figured that they could do a better job than their former label for a lot less money. They sell hundreds of thousands of records even though all of their albums are/were streamed online. It's all about building a rapport with your fans. Add in touring revenues (expensive tickets being one result of piracy) and they seem to be doing fine.
Quote: AJGO @ January 19 2012, 3:27 PM GMTI'd give my last fiver to support someone whose music/comedy/art I like, but I'm not choosing between being able to buy food and missing out on seeing something brilliant that nearly everyone else has access to because some millionaire wants a new porsche.
Of course, when AJGO's smash hit sitcom 'Monkey Shaggers' hits the DVD and download charts and she gets a cut from every purchase made, she will immediately forgive every single pirate bay site in existence.
In fact, she will ride around the town centre on her bicycle distributing free copies to all and sundry saying 'Do not pay expensive prices for my hard work, I'm only a writer, we deserve nothing!'
'Will there be a second series of Monkey Shaggers?' the people will cry.
'No. The first series didn't make enough money.' AJGO will retort.
And then pirates attack! 
Quote: swerytd @ January 19 2012, 10:27 AM GMTIsn't most of the money (for the artists themselves) made in touring? ie giving away your album will get you more fans who will pay to come to your gigs.
Or make it cheaper (probably avoiding this whole piracy thing in the first place!) like Amazon do (£3.99 album of the week kind of thing, but permanently) and stop charging £15.99 for a CD, like HMV used to do, got greedy doing it, and are wondering why no-one buys anything from them anymore and they're going bust.
Dan
Quite.
Quote: swerytd @ January 19 2012, 10:27 AM GMTIsn't most of the money (for the artists themselves) made in touring? ie giving away your album will get you more fans who will pay to come to your gigs.
I imagine this is even more and more the case, what with more people stealing the music rather than buying it.
Well BCG would be in trouble eventually when the law passed, because unless Aaron and mark have cleared all the images on directory or news, it infringes copyright, also anyone who has avatars that they didn't make. The same.
It's not just about whinging "artists" because they aren't getting paid enough, it's about big business having a hand in government deciding what you can and cannot look at.