The sort of people who just download the mp3s (and the people who also download movies), were probably never going to buy the albums anyway (and by the same token probably have no real friends to see movies with). I know people who just collect mp3s for the sake of having them, they don't appreciate the music, and so the fact that they downloaded them makes no difference to the scheme of things at all. It only makes a difference on paper, because the record companies see it as lost revenue.

These people in turn probably help the mp3s get distributed. So if you accept what me and dan and others have been saying, the help the artists get the exposure that they are craving for.

I see a single mp3 as a trailer for the rest of the album, you don't get charged to see trailers for movies, but a lot of the time they are the best bits of the movies (*cough* adam sandler movies *cough*). Same principle with mp3s. The record companies could use these systems as free advertising. Get a few sample mp3s out there, stamp them with the artists website, bam.

Same principle with mp3s. The record companies could use these systems as free advertising. Get a few sample mp3s out there, stamp them with the artists website, bam.

Both www.epitaph.com and www.fatwreck.com do this, generally posting one of the better tracks from new release albums on their label as a free download.

It's been a great way for me to listen to artists I wouldnt have originally given a second glance in a record store.

The deftones were one band who claim that napster made them what they are today. And its true, i didn't hear a deftones song on JJJ until probably 6 months after i heard them via mp3s.

I got into the deftones via mp3s as well. Never heard any of their songs on the radio, nor have I seen any of their videos. However, I have seen them live twice, and did buy all their cds. Same goes for pretty much every cd I have.

As for using a single mp3 as a 'trailer' for a cd...I usually need more than one song to decide whether or not to buy an album. Way too many cds have only one decent song on them...and one song isn't worth $30. :\

Really? Who were they? Are they still making music?

A quick search on google turned up these artists who put their support behind the napster movement; Prince, Limp Bizkit, Offspring, Chuck D, Alanis Morissette, The Eagles, Radiohead, not to mention all the bands listed here which were bands part of the napster buy cott in which napster encouraged its supporters to purchase the albums of the bands that supported napster.

Some quotes I picked up from some of the artists listed above includ Alanis Morissette's view of napster "this so-called 'piracy' may have actually been working in their(artists) favor". Or from Fred Durst "the only people worried about [Napster] are really worried about their bank accounts".

I think part of this debate is to remember that not every musician fears this new world of digital music and MP3 trading. I believe the RIAA are thinking solely for them selves with regards to p2p sharing of mp3s and generally acceptance of digital media sharing and distribution using the internet.

Case in point, the lead singer of Custard now works at my local post office.

Robby Buck just had him on triple j's Aus Music Show last week and he said he really never made much money from being in custard, because it cost so much money producing the album, that they never saw anything back from the record company. He also added that the band always tryed to create music they liked. He's also still writing and performing music.

As an Internet user I expect everything to be at my fingertips, that largely includes movies and music. Now if the only option I have to download Christina Aguillera's latest song is to do it illegally, than that's the route I'm going to take. If I instead had the option to pay 3 bucks using paypal or a credit card to Christina's producer so I could legally download the song from her site, then I may indeed do that.
Of course the physical media distributers will suffer - but hey.... welcome to the online age where everyone is wired. Why should I even leave my house to buy something I can have sent to me?

if it wasnt for music online, alot pof people wouldnt have heard what they listen to today and actually bought the cd if they liked it... like me. So the piracy is good and bad.. id like to think of it as good way of publisising your music to a broader range.

There's a thread floting around here or on OCAU about how ARIA have said the recent sales slump in Oz (a whole three precent or so) probably wasn't P2P's fauly. Mostly at least. This pretty much puts it at odds with RIAA, who think you're downloading communism whenever you download Britney Spears latest whine.

The simple fact is there has been nothing I consider worth buying for the last few years, except QOTSO and Foo Fighters, and one day I plan to buy their albums. I havn't downloaded their songs though.

Personally, I am both for and against file-sharing. Against, because companies want to make money from things they create or distribute, and I have no problem with that (I do have a problem with the exhorbitant prices they charge, but that's another story).
For, because there are some things that simply can't be bought. Anywhere. Many of the docos on ABC and SBS for example (yes, the BBC releases many docos through the ABC, but not everything is made by the BBC), and the comedy shows like CNNNN and the now sadly defunct BackBerner. Things which are broadcast but are not commercially available are a bit of a grey area. If they do become commerically available, I still think you have an obligation to buy them if you intend keeping them.

a lot of the music i listen to (download) i couldnt buy anyway
even if i tried (ie dj live sets)

i dont want to miss out

Yeh, record companies or whoever need to get off their asses and put some kind of on-line distribution in place.

I probably wouldn't mind paying a few cents/dollars for a single over the net.

Am I really going to go down all the way to a shop and spend $5-8 on a single, or am I going to click a few buttons and have the song in a minute or two?

Legalities aside, it _JUST_MAKES_SENSE_ to download of the net.

As for the Kazaa guy sueing, I think he's silly. kazaa's main use is to download illegla content, which is illegal no matter how you put it. Though it's popularity buy now I would have thought the industry would have something in place to counter-act it, instead of just sueing everyone, which in the end will accomplish nothing.

It's like if they decriminalised marijuana, and shops sold it. Who do you think would make money, the shops or the dodgy dealer? The shops ofcourse. As there would be no need for a dodgy dealer anymore.

kazaa's main use is to download illegla content, which is illegal no matter how you put it.

Unless you put it illegla ;)

All you are doing when you buy a music CD is supporting some muscian's drug and/or alcohol habit.

hahaha fpot, yeh thats why I never bought the vines album, I heard he was a disgrace up on stage at BDO

hmm looks like trogs is being the law.

they should have a reason to why each post was nuked, for the benefit of knowing not to write in the future.

Couple comments here...

Afroman (Because I got High) said in a radio interview that his popularity and subsequent CD sales were solely sparked by P2P sharing of his songs on the internet. He was also right behind it (P2P).

Why haven't the music industry setup their own pay per use Napster clone? There are a few reasons, I suspect hardware manufacturers are lobbying them not to - how many CD pressing companies and CD Player manufacturers are going to lose money if music goes electronic?

More realistically though, they haven't got into electronic distribution because they haven't got a truly solid edistribution method yet that GUARANTEES that they get paid. MP3 can be copied and redistributed too easy, WMA has some rights management but can also be converted into another format (MP3) and redistributed.

Until the Palladium concept takes off (evil farking bastiches) they can't really stop people redistributing music. Once it takes off they will have control over things like - how many times you can play a song, whether you can copy it from one PC to another, whether you can convert it from one format to another, etc.

What they SHOULD be doing is making it available in a simple standard format (MP3/OGG/WMA) at affordable prices. If they make the price more attractive many people will stop pirating the songs and buy them instead. They can use some of the extended features of formats like WMA - include some album art, lyrics, links to their website etc. Even if the track gets distributed on a "free" basis people will check out the extra stuff and end up at the official website and potentially buy the track anyway.

Most of the people who won't fork out a small amount of cash to buy a cheap MP3 are the sort of people who won't buy CDs anyway - either because they have no money or are just too tightarsed to do it. So the music industry isn't really going to lose out anyway.

how many CD pressing companies and CD Player manufacturers are going to lose money if music goes electronic?

Not many more than when we shifted from tapes to cds.
Electronics companies are pretty good like that, alot of cd player manufacturers already provide mp3 hardware solutions.
CD pressing becomes largley less required, but then thats what happens when technology advances. How many factories out there do you think are producing vhs and cassette tapes now compared to 5 years ago.

can't remember who said it, but they are right. the songs i download are songs that i wouldn't buy.. if i really like an artist then i buy the album simple as that.

if they are ok to listen to now and then, i download 'em

so they are not really loosing and money, cause if i couldn't download it - i wouldn't listen.

p2p is like a 24/7 interactive radio station. (or tv for u divx whores)

Unless you put it illegla ;)

lol, ya dick ;)
You made me laugh, so the typo is going to stay.

Really? Who were they? Are they still making music?

Yes as Thrax said, Limp Bizkit (well Fred Durst - lead singer of Limp Bizkit). No they aren't still producing music, but I heard that's because another band member was unhappy with the style of music they had got into, not that they went bust from giving out free music.

What we actually need are mp3s that self-destruct after 5 listens or something.

It is way too easy to "copy and paste" an mp3, so to speak (I don't mean copy the file per se, but do a loopback recording). And then the technology to have a file self-destruct after a specified time. Think of the wider implications - untraceable viruses, and for the anti-Microsoft, how about an Operating System that "self-destructed" after a period of time... 12 months? 24 months? I'm sure we could fill a whole thread about such theoretical technology, but let's not. ;)

Ro would they waste a lot of money on current OS technology only to have someone write an out-to-disk fake soundcard driver.

Winamp's Disk Writer plugin, anyone?

One of the big bands that got all s***ty about it was metallica i remember, i can recall seeing a flash about them going around to kids homes and bashing them up for using it to dl there songs

Yeah, I got busted by that. It stopped me for maybe a week (at most), but then I found Gnutella. At that stage BPA usage wasn't capped, so I could go pretty wild there (although I only ended up running it for maybe a few hours per day on average). As many have said, the recording industry is going about this the wong way. I haven't heard news of any big labels trying a pay-for-download system. Even if they tried and failed, I'm sure they'd learn from it and maybe a year or two later could come back with something that would work.

And now me. I'm sad to say I don't buy music CDs. The main reason is price, $30 a pop on my current income is a big blow, and I know there are pressing and production costs, but I'm sure they can reduce the price a bit. "Half the profits, twice the turnover." sounds like a good method for the short term. Another reason is that I'm too lazy. I don't want to have to walk 20 minutes up to the shops to buy a CD and bring it home, I know its a great feeling to have a shiny new unscratched legit CD (I still remember the days) with band photos and lyrics inside the cover, but why wait when I can have it on my computer in a matter of minutes.

On that note, if there were to be some pay-per-download system, I'm sure people would miss having the cold, hard CD. Maybe that would be a drawback of the cheaper music. Hey I'm just writing my thoughts here, not the entire complex workings of Sony's upcoming online music sales system. (That bit in quotes - I made it up OK ;) )

mraltz said some good things on page 2.

There are my thoughts on the first two pages, time to move on...

Yes as Thrax said, Limp Bizkit (well Fred Durst - lead singer of Limp Bizkit). No they aren't still producing music

bzzt, they have a new album coming out in a month or two (sans their old guitarist Wes Borland), god help us all.

i'm not gonna pay $30 for 15 songs, but i'd consider $12 or so for 6-7 songs

Ro would they waste a lot of money on current OS technology only to have someone write an out-to-disk fake soundcard driver.

Also digital out on soundcards/stereos whatever, there are always far too many variables to consider if you want to prevent piracy. There will always be a link in the chain that can be broken.

The best thing for the record companies to do is the try and embrace the idea, not demonise the whole thing. The record companies obviously know they are sitting on a nice little earner and don't wish to change it. Hence the number of britney clones out there, or previously, boy bands. Maybe the unsigned and low profile artirts out there should get together and form a royalty based p2p program, that doesn't suck balls, and show up the record companies who give them dick all anyway.

OK Dan you win, I haven't been keeping up with the Limp Bizkit news ;)

Part two of my spam...

I wish only some of the typical movie/music downloaders would create somthing they call their own and sell it, So i can just steal it and give it to m friends, make them feel a lack of income.

I distribute my scripts freely. Sure they are in much lower demand than a lot of music is, but that's the way the coin lands, isn't it? I write them because I enjoy it, same goes for artists.

teen says it all:

As an Internet user I expect everything to be at my fingertips, that largely includes movies and music. Now if the only option I have to download Christina Aguillera's latest song is to do it illegally, than that's the route I'm going to take. If I instead had the option to pay 3 bucks using paypal or a credit card to Christina's producer so I could legally download the song from her site, then I may indeed do that.
Of course the physical media distributers will suffer - but hey.... welcome to the online age where everyone is wired. Why should I even leave my house to buy something I can have sent to me?

Actually I'm not farmiliar with Christina Aguilera, so I wouldn't buy her CD. It would be like placing a $30 bet that I would like the music. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't become an avid listener, thus a lost bet. On the other hand, if I'd had the chance to listen to a few of the songs on the album, I'd be much more likely to purchase her music.

Now for my point of view again. I was never a big music listener, just the morning/afternoon radio occasionally and an album every 6-12 months. A few years ago being an avid internet user I came across MP3s, and Napster. I love music now, I often feel bored or alone without it. It gives me a lot. This gives me reason to buy music, but there are so many obstacles in the way that I just don't do it. Why isn't it easy for me to have legitimate copies of this music. It should be. (See the quote of teen above).

Personally, I am both for and against file-sharing. Against, because companies want to make money from things they create or distribute, and I have no problem with that (I do have a problem with the exhorbitant prices they charge, but that's another story). ...

... and the rest of what Draffa said.

Sorry for re-iterating what everyone has already said, but I threw in a few things of my own.

While writing these responses, I listened to Hoobastank which I found via a rented movie (Resident Evil) and music piracy. I recommend you go about hearing some of their stuff, particularly "Crawling in the Dark" (from Resident Evil S/T) and "Remember Me".

haha

stupid laywers

first post .. is reviving a 4day old thread with nothing to say?

good job, and welcome

Yes as Thrax said, Limp Bizkit (well Fred Durst - lead singer of Limp Bizkit). No they aren't still producing music

bzzt, they have a new album coming out in a month or two (sans their old guitarist Wes Borland), god help us all.

Yeah, they have an album coming out. Would you class anything Limp Bizkit produces as music? :P

I DID IT ALL FOR THE NOOOOOOKIE!

Would you class anything Limp Bizkit produces as music? :P

yer........ why not

i'm not gonna pay $30 for 15 songs, but i'd consider $12 or so for 6-7 songs

I dont know if you did maths at school but you have said the same thing twice. 30 songs for 15 dollars is 2 dollars each, also 12 songs for 6 dollars is also 2 dollars each... Explain ? :P

i think he was basically saying that you only ever get half a CD of good songs u like

so if u could choose, u pay for what u want

What do you think of the principle of p2p sharing though, which is a side issue? I think that p2p has a great potential, I can imagine hosting sites could save huge amounts of money by reducing there bandwidth costs if p2p could be integrated into say a webpage, for example instead of loading the qgl forums from ausgamers I'd download a bit from every user who was viewing/loading the page at that moment. I think its an interesting idea because the amount of "wasted" bandwidth in the world at any one moment must be huge. Much like the amount of wasted cpu cycles which people are already working on utilising.

It doesn't save on hosting realy ... it just migrates that cost from hosting to the normal network traffic.

That bandwidth is still going to be used, but instead of being organised, and paid for in a professional mannor, it (bandwidth) is currently being exploited by P2P sharing.

Currently with the prices of broadband from most countries (even the states) P2P is totaly making the ISP market hard to live with. Some ISPs have 40% of there average dataflow consists of P2P traffic of one sort or another. Can you imagine how much bandwidth that is for a major broadband supplier?

This is one of the reasons why broadband in australia is so expensive, and why the download limit is going to move to places like America and Europe. Because people increase the network traffic to such a degree that they are a burden on the network.

Now it sounds like I am a big P2P poopy head. I am not, P2P totaly f***ing owns, just not at the moment.

In essence p2p has some good design points, but it needs more sketches. With a bit of work, and a bit of time I think p2p will be a standard of looking for files on the internet. Just like WWW, FTP, and email are today.

In the particular case of music, and putting such a huge blame onto the piracy flow. I think it is mostly there own fault.

Firstly they always say that music cds have droped by 6% for the third year in a row. However they never tell you that Music DVDs are up 150% this year.

Also Teen mentioned something about finding files (such as music), and not being able to unless it is illegal.

While I don't support just going out and juarezing something. I do understand it in cases like this. I also think that Music companies and film/tv entertainment companies have completly missed the start of a new medium of entertainment.

The last time I bought a cd I got around 12 or something songs, and paid $25s (or there abouts). I don't buy many cds before because I only want 1 or 2 songs on that CD... I don't want the rest of those s***ty songs, so I don't purchase it, and I don't download it.

However if I could spend 2 dollers and download a 256kbs version of the song I want from the publisher or from a music store ... well I f***ing would. Namly because it would be no hassle and it would be high quality.

Personaly I think people who make TV shows like Star trek, and SG1 should also release there movies to download and keep. None of this stream and watch once s***.

The only counter that the entertainment companies have is that it would be easier for the pirates to get there s***. Which of course the answer is "easier than my video capture card?".

If i could buy mp3's that i wanted online, i would. Especially if it was something that i really wanted and couldnt find locally.

Kazaa = Spam and Spyware. I am ISP support person and I gotta say I realy hate Newnet Domains or Newnet and the chumps who use it. I hate you Kazaa.

Kazaa Lite.. Works like a treat.