For a while I've been wondering actually how many people download music illegally and how many actually buy it. So, I present to you...anonymous poll asking if you pirate music and if you're a musician.

And in this case, I think musician should mean a little more than "Durr, I can play geeeetar!" and should be something along the lines of what Seb does, where it's more or less his life, or like Zecks, where you're going to college studying music.

I'm not falling into your RIAA-sponsored trap!

And wrong forum.

"OMG I GET MORE ATTENTION THIS WAY LULZ"

I just use iTunes and pay the price of 99 cents per song. Definitely saves the hassle of pirating songs.

ITS A TRAP

Absolutely.

If I'm buying albums I'd rather go and buy a CD, but if someone says "Oh amazing Martyn, Baron of ManSecks, dost thou have the classic Last Christmas by Wham! on your hard drive? I must verily hear it immediately you bastion of impish good looks" I'll just click on the store, search for it, one-click buy it and queue it up in a few tracks time whilst reveling in the glowing admiration of my veritable herd of good friends (with appalling taste in music)...

...or something.

My 'Second cousin's sisters uncles lobsters roommate' tends to download bands his interested in, before he actually knows what they sound like. If he likes them, she buys their album, if she doesn't like them, he gets rid of the file.

Buying music doesn't support the artist, it supports the publisher and the record label. I will gladly by an album from an indie label. But I'm far less inclined to buy something from any of the companies supported by the evil money-grubbing music-destroying RIAA.

Yes..that's how my aunt's grandmother's nephew's granddaughter twice removed does it. Just trying to get a feel for the types of music before knowing if it's worth paying for or not.

Yeah, I pirated some Velvet Teen, and now I've bought all their albums. I'm even buying one soon that's only available in Japan for like 3100 yen.

LMFAO @ Lobsters roomate. I agree with that roomate.

Technically, not a musician, though I do throw down some freestyles at parties, and I do write lyrics sometimes. And I pirate the **** outta music.

Unfortunately, sometimes iTunes doesn't have certain artists (whose labels either don't have agreements with Apple because they're huge or dried up in the late 60's/early 70's :ninja:).

currently at 17105 songs, 49.5 days, 97.29gb of wonderful pirated music

(actually about 10gb of it is pearl jam bootlegs, which are perfectly legal)

A good portion of my music is pirated, I dabble in the iTunes store every now and then, and I have recently begun buying CDs again, of which I have about 40.

Music library stats: 11308 songs, 29.1 days, 54.85 GB.

I steal pirated music from people like my brother.

I don't buy CDs that aren't indie labels. Period.

you are awesome

This is correct good sir. I mean, you knew that, I'm just agreeing.

If you want to make a retarded catchall statement, buying music that is put out by a major label probably does more harm to artists in general than does pirating. At least people hear their music, and they still make less than minumum wage, rather than losing any money at all.

It's like a "win-still lose just as much but at least not worse" situation.

I most certainly buy labels who are are directly involved with the artists and such, or independent musicians though.

Given the DRM, isn't it less trouble to pirate?

They also offer DRM free tracks (at $1.29) I believe.

I use the internet to find obscure artists that record stores don't usually carry. and when something -really- tickles my fancy, i just make them order it.

For example, Niacin is a side project of billy sheehan, john novello and dennis chambers. stores in my area don't carry it in stock, but after listening to their catalog, i ordered a DVD, and then have made the store search for two more albums

sad point is, i,m desperatly trying to find paul gilbert's latest CD since i love it and want a hard copy, but i'd have to drive 2-3 hours to get it.

And on another note, i think computer digital medium is a much more permanent way to store music than CD's. when you're careful.

Also, being a teacher, it really helps to have a huge amount of material to pick from, even when you don't listen to it.

Until they offer DRM free tracks of the music I want to buy, I'll keep pirating.

Apple only offers EMI tracks DRM free, and I don't really listen to any EMI music.

You have to drive 2 hours to get one of these, where I have to click 4 times to get all of them:
Niacin - Time Crunch
Niacin - High Bias
Niacin - Niacin
Niacin - Organik

That's exactly how my circle of friends works. Only we don't steal from siblings. It's more or less everyone downloads something and then every few weeks or so we exchange pirated music. It's actually been a fairly good way to keep my library fresh.

Hells yeah

I buy non-indie labels. Def Jam most notably...in fact I'd say 30% of my music is on Def Jam Records. Can't help it so many badass bands are on there.

I still pirate the **** out of music--me buying it is just my way of trying to catch up. It'll take a long, long time though.

I don't pirate.

I like to buy used CDS (It's legal, and the RIAA gets nothing from the deal, so it's a win-win situation).

Then, I rip to FLAC or 320kbs mp3.

I'm averse to iTunes because the bitrate quality is inferior on some files and why pay $.99/track when I can get the whole CD used for a couple of dollars on Amazon?

A lot of the music I listen to is oddly encoded at 96k and costs $1.25 on iTunes. Why in the world would I pay 1.25 so I can actually listen to a song that isn't even properly ripped, all the while misusing the internet in support of a bat**** retarded music industry.

If I'm going to legally download albums online, it'll be directly from an artist. Were there an iTunes that had absolutely NO recording industry middle man, just the artists uploading their tracks, I would drop illegal downloading all together.

In-fact, an intelligent artist would not agree to itunes at all. The Recording Industry is literally getting paid for making a deal with itunes, and that's it. No more, no less. Just the industry taking the tracks you recorded, and handing them to itunes. They don't package anything, advertise anything, or sell anything. Would you agree to pay someone 90% of the money you make on your lemonade stand because they watch you pour it, then hand it to the person that hands it to the customer? That's a pretty stupid deal.

For me, the bitrate is fine because I neither have an ear for it, nor a beast of a sound system. And yes, buying 2nd hand is great

What codec are the 96 kbs itunes files encoded in? For mp3, that is very bad quality, but for something like ogg vorbis it would be somewhat better (but still not great).

There shouldn't be really such term as "pirating music", since all music artists are COMMUNIST so if you're buying their records, you're supporting COMMUNISM .

Are you sure you want to do THAT ?

I have no problem being a dirty commie if it means I'm not spending every dime I make on overpriced CDs.

gasp

Methinks you mis-read his post...

No. Phopho just wants to shoot Jews.

This is why I want you back in #massassi. That, and it's that time when you always used to be around and now nobody is around.

Sorry, apparently you need a hypocrite or brown-nosing license to get in these days! Unpleasant risotto, I say.

No one has said anything in that channel for hours. I miss my fgr.

http://snocap.com/

http://magnatunes.com/

The thing is, with a major label (and iTunes) you have a better opportunity to get your music noticed.

Add to the word music the words games, movies, tv series and funny pictures, and you got my circle of friends
(though I'm guessing you don't actually restrict yourselves to music only either)