^excellent!^

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---Thomas jefferson, Declaration of Independance.

Maybe theft is by definition not music piracy, but you ignore the definition of piracy.



Regardless, theft or not, music piracy is ilegal.

go ahead, break the law... When you get prosecuted, go ahead and tell them its not theft.

Because all they're going to tell you is its ilegal.

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To myself I surrender to the one I'll never please.
But I still try to run on.
You know I still try to run on. But it's all or none.

Eddie Vedder

iTunes is ridiculous. Read this: http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/index.html. Apple takes a 30% cut, the labels a 60%, and the artists get the same 10% cut they'd get even if the labels had to actually pay for the CDs/cases/booklets etc.

I'd consider it if the artists got at least 50%.

The labels are not "losing money". They *never* lose money.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Read it. Weep.

I buy CDs. I buy *more* CDs since now I actually hear music I like (through filesharing). The prices are not too high for me. I get $25 value out of a new Iced Earth CD or whatever. But the members of IE should get at least half of the money that I'm spending.

that deal memo is an ominous document.

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Drugs & Stupidity, Tons of it.

Do you even understand why those percentages exist? Music. Is. Not. Cheap. To. Produce.

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Shut up. I'm GOING to do this whether you like it or not.

Exsactly you have to pay the fat coke sucking soundboard guy to remix the audio and actually make these crappy singers sound good.

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Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

Music costs some money to produce but not anywhere near that much.



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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

But there is profit to be had my friend! I mean honestly it costs money to go to parties and get drunk all time. We have no idea how hard their lives are I mean the limos aren't always stalked with the right beer and the women screaming your name over and over again that must be so annnoying I feel their pain. They put up with alot of crap to give us our music and we should thank them for it.

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From Pate's own article:





One quote for how much it costs to rent a studio. Some bands spend months in a studio.

One quote for how much it costs to produce a CD. Multiply it by 20,000.

Figure in shipping costs, the store's own costs (rent, employees, utility bills), and you might begin to figure out why it costs so much to produce a CD.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

But that's all paid for out of the money given to the artists; the other 90% is pure, unadulterated profit. Most often, the "advance" is the only money given to the artists; every single cent made from the CD sales go straight to the coffers of the label through creative accounting.

I don't care what your links say. A CD can be easily produced for about 3$.. and that includes a booklet with color printing and several pages. While MP3.com was still running, artists would receive as much as 65% of profit. RIAA artists get around 10% or often less.

That means everything else can be taken care of with 45% of the profit, minus the taxes, which can be less than a dollar per sale.

I've produced two CDs, so I think I know what I'm talking about.

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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

[This message has been edited by Flexor (edited February 03, 2004).]

[grrr, wrong button]

[This message has been edited by Flexor (edited February 03, 2004).]

You've produced two CDs with full, actual instrumentation, not synthesized by computer programs? You've packaged each CD, shrink-wrapped it, and advertised it to retail stores? You've spent the money for an advertising campaign in popular musical magazines and TV advertisements? Put forth the money for music videos?

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

LMAO!! Ahhh... thx happydud.



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"Life is like a vending machine, sometimes you don't get nothing."

old newz I posted that a while ago.

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-Your first point is irrelevant.

-The packaging was included in the production cost.

-There was an advertisement campain.

-The album couldn't be sold in stores, as described in the legal contract.

-Material was submitted for radio stations, television ads and such.


After all that, I had a fairly large proportion of my profit left.

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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

My first point is quite relevant. Believe it or not, it does cost money to rent a studio, bring in your instruments, and record music. You can try on your personal computer, but you're not going to get the same professional sound as you would from a full-fledged recording studio's board.

There was an advertisement campaign? You placed ads in several magazines? You paid to have stores put up posters of your band?

Your album couldn't be sold in stores; that is irrelevant. Simply because you couldn't have it sold in stores doesn't mean that the price of producing a CD for retail distribution is the same as yours.

I'm not talking about the music being put into the background of a car commercial; I'm talking about a 20- or 30-second time frame advertising you.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

Would not the ratio of the cost rice to produce one CD and cost to produce 1000 CD's still be the same?

It costs less to package and ship 1 CD than it does to package and ship 1000. Not to mention that you have to actually market it to retail stores.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

I read the article, and that's the same type of information that I've seen in other articles that offer no relationship between file-sharing and/or illegally downloading music with a loss in profit. It's easy to say that these are the culprits, but I've seen no evidence that this is so, as of yet. This speculation may seem logical, but it is only speculation. They really need to prove their case if they want people such as myself to quit downloading illegal music. I'm not going to believe it just because they say it is so.



Ditto. I buy CD's on those rare occasions when I have extra cash and really enjoy the artist. Before file-sharing, I didn't own any CD's. I couldn't get in to anything that was played on the radio or MTV. Once I started downloading music I was exposed to electronic music and then I started buying CD's (most of which were imports).



Some music is cheap to produce. You may not like electronic music, but there are talented musicians/composers in this world that can create professional music from the comfort of their own studio in their basement (and many of those artists purchase used equipment and/or create their own). Some music is expensive to produce though, I just wanted to point out that you can't make such generalizations when dealing with matters that aren't black and white.





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http://www.napalmdeathsquad.com

Oh, right... THe RIAA is destroying the music industry .
Face it. What's destroying the music industry is people downloading music illegally, which provides no compensation, which in turn makes in incredibly difficult for an artist to get a record deal, thereby limiting music variation. If the music industry were working like it ought to be, we'd have a lot more new artists being recognized each year. As a musician myself, I love to be able to show off my stuff and even play for free, but music is expensive. A competitive drum sets costs anywhere from $1000 to $4000, and that's being conservative (not to mention the fact that to play competitively, I need to buy about 2 pairs of nice drum sticks every week. Other instruments are the same (my friend bought a Tayler accoustic guitar which, at the time, retailed for around $2300). Then there's the electronic equipment, mixers, amps, mics, cords, speakers, and the like. On top of that, you have manitanence costs (ie. drum sticks, heads, guitar strings (which can break quite easily). My point is, it's dang expensive to be a musician, and its hard enough when you're actually getting paid for your work, but when very few of your cd's are selling because people are simply making their own copies of your music, it's impossible to afford the equipment necessary for any professional-quality work. Who knows, the next Jimi Hendrix could be sitting at home somewhere, completely unrecognized because he doesn't have the money for an electric guitar amp.

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Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin
http://www.writings-emag.net The next big thing since individually wrapped cheese slices (coming soon).

Plus...
Not true at all. Here's something for you to try. Go to a music store and look at the software/hardware for recording music. It's very expensive. On top of that, you have to buy a computer capable of running said software/hardware. I would not be surprised if your total costs for creating your own basement studio came to well over $5k. The price could be reduced some for used/homemade equipment, but it's still a dang expensive hobby.

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Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin
http://www.writings-emag.net The next big thing since individually wrapped cheese slices (coming soon).

Yes, actually I do. Most of my points have been made, though.

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Shut up. I'm GOING to do this whether you like it or not.

Wolfy, you seem to find it hard to accept that you don't know everything. I'm just not gonna bother and let you drown in your ignorance. Not that it matters to me anyways.

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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

I don't know everything. What I do know is that trying to compare your comparatively miniscule production of a couple of CDs to a comparatively gargantuan commercial production, release, promotion, and distribution of a CD doesn't work.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

The bigger the production, the larger the profit is in proportion, seeing as you only have to pay equipement and studio fees once.

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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

One could make that argument, but I think a more realistic argument would be that the RIAA is going where they don't need to be. They're taking unecessary stances/actions that will lead them nowhere good. They're making themselves look very bad to the public, and in a sense that is harming the industry.



Can you prove any of that? The RIAA has been unable to do so, and I fail to see why people keep making these accusations with no evidence. Aren't there going to be any facts presented or at least more unrelated analogies that involve tangible goods?

You do realize that many people who download music illegally are also buying music, right? Do you honestly think that all of the remaining music sales on this planet go only to those people who don't illegally download music? That would be rather naive on your part. What about those of us that only download and don't share music? Are we keeping the artist from being compensated, even though we weren't really going to buy their album at that price anyways?

The sharing and/or downloading of music (legal and illegal) can be a form of compensation in itself. I don't share music online, but because of those who do, I've been introduced to a number of great artists whose CD's I have purchased. I sometimes burn music and distribute it amongst my friends which has led to numerous sales for particular artists. For instance, I've never purchased a Dune album, but I gave some of their music to a few friends which resulted in each of those friends purchasing a few of their album's each. These happen to be friends that are like me that would never purchase music without listening to it first. That's one out of a hundred instances that I could give you where I have compensated the artist without actually purchasing their album. In my opinion, that sounds like a good deal, considering the fact that I would have never purchased their albums anyways. They made over $40 because I illegally downloaded and distributed their music.



Of course that all depends on what your goals are and what software/hardware you need to suit those goals. I've shopped around for software online and found that you could get some great software for great prices and I think you would be suprised at just how cheap. Depending on the individual, you may not even need to purchase a computer if they already have one. Besides, I could build a system that could run most music software that you could throw at it for less than $700.

Don't get me wrong, you could easily build a basement studio that went up into the tens of thousands of dollars, but you could also build something much cheaper to start with. You simply work your way up from there, as many artists do anyways (even in the electronic genre).

Like I said before, it all really depends on your goals. Even if we went with your initial price of $5k, that's chump-change for anyone who really puts their time and energy into such a hobby, and this is coming from someone who made under $8k last year.

/me lets Flexor take on Wolfy for awhile, while I get some homework done. ;]

We really need to get a music forum around here like Flexor once suggested. We have a few talented musicians here and we should take advantage of it.


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http://www.napalmdeathsquad.com


[This message has been edited by MentatMM (edited February 03, 2004).]

The RIAA is saying they think record sales would be similar to those of 2000 if not for file sharing, which is a little odd because that was really the height of Napster. Go figure.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

I agree with Wolfy that some CDs cost less to produce than others; I'm sure that a full Orchestra with a backing choir would be quite a bit more expensive than Flexor's albums.

But still, the labels are making 90% profit on *every* CD sold. The only chance of them making less than that is if the 10% of each CD sold does not add up enough to fully cover the band's advance.

Let's assume Matt and the Magicians are signed to record their CD Mattracadabra (you know you want to buy it). The labels give us 200,000 dollars for an advance, and a 10% royalty deal.

So we spend that 200,000 and record our CD with great production, et cetera.

Then the CD is released to massive fanfare and I get hot groupies and Delta Goodrem worships me blah blah blah.

Let's say I sell 100,000 copies, an awesome feat, at $20 an album. The label nets a cool 1.8 million. I net 200,000. Not bad, eh? But, oh, I have to pay off my advance with that!

Net profit to the labels: 1.8 million dollars.
Net profit to me: Nothing.

The labels would have made their money back from a mere 11111 copies sold. But I would still owe them money. 180,000 dollars, to be (a little less than) precise.

Where's the justice in that?

Please point out these so called Communists. The world has never seen a true Communist Government. I realize you were being sarcastic or whatever, but it just pains me to know that some 12yr old might actually take that statement seriously. They would then fall back on their ignorant knowledge of what Communisim truly is, and mistake it for the false image that the US Propaganda depicted during the Cold War.

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"At last, we have come to find the truth to our souls. Though, the truth is not what we expected. I now fear my own soul."

.....er yeah I recall being a bit naive at 12, but not brain dead.

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Hahaha, clownsuit.

... I don't think you could have latched on to something more irrelevant if you tried

Uh oh, thread officially steered off course...ahh well it was headed for an iceberg anyways.

pfft. And you're the one asking me for proof? Just because that's how you and your friends do it, does not mean that that's how everyone (or even the majority) does it. I agree with you that for some people it comples them to purchase more cds, but I would say that for the majority, it probably doesn't (note that I said probably. I don't make out claims to be 100% accurate if I can't back them up).

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Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin
http://www.writings-emag.net The next big thing since individually wrapped cheese slices (coming soon).

The fact that no government on Earth has managed to be a "true" communism by itself negates the entire possibility of communism being a valid, rational possibility for government.

I'm not saying that it's right for the artists to be gypped as they are; I'm saying that downloading music illegally isn't the answer. If you don't the like the RIAA's practices, don't buy music under their labels.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

The thing is though, the RIAA is essentially a trust, which means labels that have the music you like are most liekyl going to be in the RIAA.I looked at such a list once, and it was amazing how many labels the RIAA encompasses. It's a HUGE number. Anyways, for the rest of the argument, there have been many who argued the point much better than I could, so I won't go there. However I'll jut say this. Becuase of file-sharing, I have bought an incredible amount of albums. My CD collecion is about 200, and with the exception of a few artist, I have donwloaded a song, liked it, then bought the album. The RIAA and their labels has gotten a lot of money from me, and I wish they would just consider the possibility there are people like me out there. Their mindset is completely closedminded. If they opened up to new possibilities, there could be change. but they won't, bbecuase they don't have to becuase they are the closest thing to a Monopoly there is.



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"Buildings that we have created to be aesthetically pleasing are slaughtering birds."

dumb bands and manufactured artists are part of the major label deal... do all of the work yourself and you'll see a nicer return, i mean, people signing to majors are either stupid, gullable or arrogant, i couldn't see any other reasons, so i don't buy major label cds, because i'd prefer my cash to go somewhere better.

edit

nubs - the list would be a hellish amount smaller if the five majors were removed, alongside all of the labels owned by them... i dont believe the problem lies with the RIAA at all.

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Drugs & Stupidity, Tons of it.

[This message has been edited by Septic Yogurt (edited February 04, 2004).]

...it's nice of you to get all upset on behalf of all those artists out there.

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Shut up. I'm GOING to do this whether you like it or not.

I fail to understand the RIAA's claims when no real evidence seems to supports what they're saying. A loss in profits could be caused by any number of things. I can't understand why the folks on the other side of this debate are so ready to accept what the RIAA says as fact.



Agreed, although I never claimed otherwise. I was just pointing out that it would be naive to think that there aren't thousands upon thousands of people who download illegal music that also purchase CD's.



That's the problem with an issue such as this. We'll never really know the answer. Your opinion has no more validity than mine, and it's always going to be that way. The difference is that the RIAA is most likely on your side with this particular issue.

It's all going to be very interesting if any real evidence ever comes about.

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http://www.napalmdeathsquad.com