You're not hurting the artists as much as you make it seem. You're hurting the labels and distributors who make most of the money off of albums. Artists make most of their money touring, concerts, appearances, etc. CDs cost about $15, right? I remember several artist saying they make .70 to $1.25 off each CD sold. Now I am not advocating that you steal music but I don't like when people make it seem like the artists are just totally getting screwed over either.
My friend posted a promotional music video from his daughter's boyfriend's band on Facebook and asked me to have a listen and review it. I thought it was pretty good and mentioned that it was the type of music that appealed to me. I then made a joking comment (inside joke between my friend and I) that I would just rip the music from the video. His daughter's boyfriend saw the comment and messaged me through Facebook, to please not do that. They are a struggling band trying to get started and it was only 99 cents to buy it. I assured him that I buy all my music and it was just a joke. Moral of this story: There are a number of bands out there who are screwed when folks steal their music.
But, by removing the high money from the music industry will drive out all the people that are in there just to make money, leaving only the true musicians that love music. So aren't we doing the music industry and true artist a favor?! hmm
I didn't say they were not screwed, just not as much as everybody makes them out to be, even artists as those mentioned above. I have some friends who are the same way, local rap/hip-hop/R&B musicians out of Memphis and Little Rock. They sell their 15 song CDs for $2-3 each out the back of the cars, from their homes, etc. They have songs up on iTunes and the like and yet the distributor takes a cut and iTunes takes a cut, the artists end up getting maybe 50-60% of the sales still. Not to mention, the price it takes for these independent artists to get their songs/albums listed which is $30-$60 per album (not including setup) or $7-15 per single (not including setup) because in order to get on these digital sellers, like iTunes, you have to go through a distributor which charges these fees. The only reason my friends go through the trouble is hoping it leads to bigger and better things because strong sales generate interest from bigger and more lucrative companies.....who will then probably end up screwing them over. Do they get screwed over from illegal downloading? Yeah probably but they know they're not like Kanye West generating thousands or millions of sales per week either and that they cannot rely on it for their sole source of income. Hell, my cousin's cousin (Rick Ross) makes enough money from weekly appearances to make up for illegal downloading, or so he says. Again, not saying they aren't being screwed over but it is not as bad as the industry tries to make it seem. I am not saying it is right, I mean anybody who downloads music illegally is breaking the law or multiple laws but let's not act like this is the end of the music biz if it continues. There are always going to be people on both sides, right and wrong, and you do what you can to contain those on the wrong side, which is what the RIAA has been doing over the last several years.
Easynews.com has a web based interface that works well for beginners. They have a free trial and a plan for $9.98 a month. They have a search function that any beginner can operate.
i made the decision to start purchasing music again in the middle of last year. I have long held the opinion that music is overpriced and that the industry has been too slow to change it's model, but have grown disenchanted with the idea of illegally downloading it. Since I've made this paradigm shift, a co-worker with similar musical taste keeps dropping off CD's of music that I don't have. I'm not asking him to do so, and would not necessarily have purchased these cd's, so....
