CDs vs. Downloading

I still prefer to buy cds...I got an mp3 player but shoot I only use it really for working out. There's just something about having the physical album in your hands...it's just not the same downloading it. Same goes for DVDs too. And I'm 26. Not to mention I'd rather have a whole collection of songs by that artist then just the one or two hits played on the radio. I remember hearing on the Rod Ryan show awhile back that single mp3 downloads are out pacing whole album purchases. Which is a shame because you miss a lot of gems that way. Course that's not true of the cookie cutter artists, but then I usually don't buy their albums.

I suppose one day all media content will be downloaded and physical media will be extinct...but I'm not ready for that day yet.

 

I hear you. I just don't agree completely.

I know some really unreal jazz musicians - true artists without a doubt - and they will not play for free...ever. Since the dawn of popular music, people have played for money. Even during the renaissance, musicians had patrons that supported them so they didn't have to do anything but compose and perform.

When you look at some of the greatest pop and rock records of all time, they were made well after those artists had become successful. They needed that time to develop and grow. Many of them were making commercial music prior to that.

I agree we are seeing a massive change in the way people make and are paid for music. I just think there is a happy medium between playing for nothing and being a rock star.

 

interesting news out of china re goolge this week. Looks like they're going to launch a "free" music service, ad supported. now that qtrax has crashed so ignominiously, like spiralfrog before them, it'll be interesting to see whether google can pull this off. we may eventually be left with four tiers:

1. the itunes/ipod ecosystem
2. the Rhapsody subscription service
3. Amazon MP3
4. "Free" Google (ad supported)

what sucks is that all of them rely on lossy compression.

 

I don't think the subscription model will work. Ad supported may work IF you can own the music and IF it will work anywhere and IF it is DRM free.

The big problem is that every ad supported or subscription service either doesn't allow you to keep the music if you don't stay with the service or the stuff won't work on iPods.

The first service that offers all of the above and can offer music from all the majors will be the winner.

 

Dude, I'm 17 and I buy only CD's, used ones at least (But that's because I listen to old music). 1300 songs, and NONE have been illegally procured. Anyways, stealing stuff is a crappy thing to do.

 

why would anyone still want to buy cd's? for the cover art? for the nice jewel case that it comes in? to play in their cars cd player, when an ipod plug in is soo much nicer?

CD's are on their way, if not already, to becoming obsolete. Music industry needs to fully understand this and embrace rather than fight against this trend. People are right why the hell would you wanna pay up to $20 for a CD with 3 good songs out of 15? I like the way iTunes is charging .99 but still that ads up to a crazy amount each year. There is a solution here that can make most of us happy, its just a matter of everyone willing to compromise something and record companies just arent willing to do that.

 

I like how in this thread that the cost of a CD is now up to 20 dollars, and there are always only 2 good songs on it.

 

The sad fact is that you could lower the asking price to .50 cents and people would still claim they are getting ripped off to clear their conscience of stealing music.

And if you are like me and listen to bluegrass music, that means paying 20 bucks a cd.

Napster was really the day the music died.

 

Totally agree with this. I'll never understand why some people want to begrudge musicians from making a good living.

I don't think getting paid compromises anyone's artistic intergrity. Far from it. Hell, I haven't done a free gig since 2001, and I'm not even that good. Don't plan on doing one any time soon, either.

Some of the best musicians in the world get paid a lot of money – and deservedly so – to play gigs that a lot of people might consider to be sellout. Too many examples to list, but do you think a guy like Omar Hakim compromised his art by getting paid a lot of money to play with Madonna? Or Vinnie Colaiuta doing the same with Faith Hill? Or what about this guy (my current idol):

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dFonPQZLoRA&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dFonPQZLoRA&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

FYI, he is now touring with Justin Timberlake...

 

Who the Funk is that?

 

I remember recording rap and alternative rock songs off the radio for when I would go to trips overseas I would have something to listen to. I didn't get my first cd player till I was 13. Didn't get my first mp3 player till I was 21.
I think cd's are a relic of the past. Sort of like the VHS/Betamax.

Anyways, I think for alot of obscure artists out there the best thing that ever happened for them was the advent of the music blogs and sites like Oink! In the past, maybe only a couple of hundred people in your local city/village would know of your band, but now with things like myspace, the blogs and Oink-like sites, a band can have a global reach without much effort. A music listener today can be exposed to more music in one year than many people have been exposed to in their entire life 25 years ago.

I think one of the main positives of the illegal downloading craze is that there have been a huge surge in concerts/shows and artists going on tour. I support these live shows of bands I listen to, and I don't mind paying anywhere from $10-$50 a ticket. I've seen some bands like Voxtrot, 6 times in the past year alone.

 

Hold it, hold it, hold it. Are you saying it shouldn't be that way, or it doesn't have to be that way, or... could you clarify?

I could totally be missing your point here, but I need to address what I see.
Art is inseperable from the economic/social/politcal/etc context that it comes from. Music composers from say 1500 to 1800 (and onward) survived with patronage from rich families (Monteverdi), as royal appointees (Mozart), as church music directors/Kappelmeisters (Bach). Schubert was the first composer to make a living off of printed music sales (though he had patronage as well.) All of these methods of support had a direct effect on the music being composed, whether the composer liked it or not. It's not like these artists lived in a bubble, you put quarters in the meter, and they spit out exactly what music they want regardless of where the money came from.

The economic aspect of art is important, because artists need to eat food.

The economic aspect of present day pop/rock/hip hop/etc is "business." Capitalism rules the day. The most 'popular' tracks are the most listened to/bought. I'm a professional opera singer, and the classical economic model (in the USA) is different- there is a combination patronage/ticket sales model. No ballet/symphony/opera houses can survive on ticket sales alone- they aren't popular enough. So you get money from wealthy patrons who want to support the arts.

This is taking a long time for me to say that business is a part of art, so long as an artist 1) is not independently wealthy and 2) wants to eat food.

We can wax poetic about the connection between creators of art and observers of art, and it truly is special- but at the end of the day artists are rendering a service and that service has value. And artists need to eat, just like anybody else.

We are at a remarkable moment in music history right now as the economic model that supports it undergoes drastic change. It will indeed have a profound effect on the artists and the quality of the music.



Perhaps we should start a new thread on this topic? I'd love to hear more from Jeff and ima and thegary on all of this.

 

People have been stealing music for a long time. Before the p2p mp3, there was illegally burned cd's and before that people copied tape to tape. I just see it as the evolution of free market economics. I don't know why online pirates of music get such a bad rap when this thievery has been going on for the past few decades.

 

The Great John Blackwell.

That would be cool, but I'm afraid to since I've already started a thread today. Plus, your post was way better than mine!

 

It was inevitable that the discussion would lead to either illegal downloading like the OP didnt want, or the relevance of musical artistry. (Or maybe I just wanted it that way )

With the numbers mentioned of the new Radiohead CD, of only 25% people paying for it, even though it was a free legal download it clearly shows there's a run-on between legal and illegal downloading. That you cant really consider them apart from each other, yet. The rarity is the PURCHASED music. When it should be the other way around.

 

we all gotta eat nolen– artists have to create.

 

I just want to add that this thread is being brought to you by:​

Miss Toni Price​

Dubious Award Winner​

Best Album - 2007​

for​

Talk Memphis​

Available at fine websites everywhere​

(me and Toni did a trade out deal)​

 

I still think you miss the point. Art in the renaissance was what it was BECAUSE their patrons wanted it that way. No one says that the Sistine Chapel ceiling sucks because Michaelangelo painted if for the church and it has religious overtones.

There was a FANTASTIC article about this recently that I posted in my music blog.

http://blogs.chron.com/brokenrecord/2008/01/art_and_commerce_as_media_part.html

He says it much better than I can.

 

While we're on the topic of free music, how about free software? I know a lot of you guys make money programming. Any interest in giving your software away?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/t...9d2021109a2382&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Facing Free Software, Microsoft Looks to Yahoo
By MATT RICHTEL

SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly a quarter-century ago, the mantra “information wants to be free” heralded an era in which news, entertainment and personal communications would flow at no charge over the Internet.

Now comes a new rallying cry: software wants to be free. Or, as the tech insiders say, it wants to be “zero dollar.”

A growing number of consumers are paying just that — nothing. This is the Internet’s latest phase: people using freely distributed applications, from e-mail and word processing programs to spreadsheets, games and financial management tools. They run on distant, massive and shared data centers, and users of the services pay with their attention to ads, not cash.

While such services have been emerging for years, their rapid adoption has been an important but largely overlooked driver of the $44.6 billion hostile bid that Microsoft made to take over Yahoo this week.

That proposed deal would give Microsoft access to Yahoo’s vast news, information, search and advertising network — and the ability to compete more squarely with Google.

But a merger would also allow Microsoft to adapt its empire to compete in a world of low-cost Internet-centered software.

Yahoo’s huge user base could provide the audience and the infrastructure for Microsoft to change how it distributes its products and charges for them.

“Microsoft makes its money selling licenses to millions and millions of people who install it on individual hard drives,” said Nicholas Carr, a former editor at The Harvard Business Review and author of “The Big Switch,” a book about the transition to what the technology industry calls cloud computing.

“Most of what you need is on the Internet — and it’s free,” he said. “There are early warning signs that the traditional Microsoft programs are losing their grip.”

Certainly, analysts said, Microsoft’s revenue — $51 billion last year, most of it from software — is not yet suffering in any meaningful way.

The company said, to the contrary, that business is booming, and that Microsoft Office, a flagship product, is having a record-breaking year.

“Last year was our best year, and this year is better,” said Chris Capossela, a Microsoft vice president with the Office division.

At the same time, though, the company has lowered prices. Last year it began selling its $120 student-teacher edition to mainstream consumers, who had been asked to pay more than $300 for a similar product.

The bulk of the company’s profit comes from selling to corporations, which unlike consumers may be slower to adapt to a system in which proprietary data is not stored in corporate-owned data centers.

Microsoft said that corporate customers prefer using software that they are familiar with and that provides more functions and better security.

But the corporate business, too, is coming under increasing assault from lower-cost Internet competitors, including Microsoft’s archnemesis, Google.

On Thursday, Google took its attack to a new level. It released Google Apps Team Edition — a version of its productivity software that includes word processing, spreadsheet and calendar programs. In a form of guerrilla marketing, the fans of Google Docs can take it into the office, bypassing or perhaps influencing decisions made by corporate executives, who until now have overwhelmingly bought Microsoft software.

Google, while it gives such software free to consumers, charges corporations for a premium edition, though the fee is less than what Microsoft charges for productivity software, analysts said.

The change is coming not from corporations but on the computers of a growing base of individuals who increasingly expect their software to be free — and for it to be processed and managed over the Internet.

Kevin Twohy, 20, a mathematics student at U.C.L.A., uses a free service on Facebook to store and share photos, a program called Picnik to edit the images, and Gmail.

For his English class last semester, he wrote a term paper about William Blake using Google’s free word processing software, even though Microsoft Office had come loaded on his personal computer.

The advantage of the Google program, he said, was that it allowed him to keep his information on Google’s servers so that it was accessible at any computer, whether he was working at his fraternity, a coffee shop, a campus computer bank or the library. The experience, he said, has persuaded him not to pay money for software.

“I don’t ever see myself buying a copy of Office,” he said.

Those individual users may be able to do what an army of lawyers and regulators in the United States and Europe have never been able to do — rein in Microsoft’s monopoly power. There is some evidence that the erosion in its pricing power has already begun.

Last fall, Microsoft lowered prices of its most powerful productivity software for students, whom it regards as important future customers. For a limited time, it said, students could buy a $60 downloadable version of its most feature-rich version of Office, which ordinarily costs around $460.

Microsoft has also had ad-supported online competitors who have challenged other prominent brands, like the Encarta encyclopedia and Microsoft Money, personal finance management software.

“If Microsoft had to start over today, it wouldn’t even think about charging money for its software,” said Yun Kim, an industry analyst with Pacific Growth Equities. “Nobody in their right mind is developing a business in the consumer market to charge” for software.

Mr. Kim said that he expected Microsoft at some point to introduce a free ad-supported version of Office for consumers, though the company insists that it has no such intention.

Mr. Kim, however, expects that Microsoft’s corporate business is more entrenched and resilient, and less susceptible to the influences of free or ad-supported cloud computing.

Microsoft’s online competitors disagree. Among them is Zimbra, a division of Yahoo that offers Internet-centered productivity software for e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets.

Consumers pay nothing for the product, but corporations pay as much as $50 a year per license. About 20,000 companies, most of them small, are paying customers.

For Office software, Microsoft charges $75 a year per license to large companies, and up to $300 for small companies, according to Forrester Research.

Satish Dharmaraj, general manager of Zimbra, said the company could undercut Microsoft because it costs far less to create, maintain, fix and upgrade software that runs in a central data center instead of on thousands of individual computers.

But the relative quality of Microsoft’s software continues to attract customers, argued J. P. Gownder, an industry analyst with Forrester Research.

He said that Microsoft has an opportunity to develop a hybrid version of its software that combines the convenience of cloud computing with the security of processing on the desktop, thus helping it maintain and further its empire.

“This is the predominant reason why Microsoft has gone after Yahoo,” Mr. Gownder said. “The ad revenue is a nice short-term achievement, but in the long run it is much more about delivering apps over the Web.”