If I buy a car and when it eventually breaks down, I can get it fixed. If it's still under warranty, I can get it fixed for free. Under certain circumstances, I can return the car to the dealer. When I test drive a car, I can tell how I feel in the car. I can see how well I see the road, etc. Of course I can't judge how long it will last me without breaking down. So I agree with you there, there's a leap of faith I have to take. Now, granted I only buy a new car every 3 or 4 years, but for argument's sake, let's say I buy a new car once a week. The first four cars I buy give me no problems at all. Then the next few cars last me a few days, the next one, a few weeks, so on and so forth. My next new car purchase won't be as easily purchased. I'm going to be afaid that although the test drive (the one or two songs I've heard off a CD) were good, the rest of my driving experience (the rest of the CD) will not be very good. Unless, I can get some of my money back from the store, then I digress, because, no offense, it's not a proper analogy.
i download songs and burn them. Haven't bought a cd in 3 years. I don't sell them, it's all for my personal use. I don't give a damn what the industry says, this is something that will continue no matter what they try.
You can't get your money back for a car just because you don't like it. And yes, most products you can bring back in thirty days, but there is a reason you can't do that with a CD, because it can be copied.
For freeloaders like me who may not be aware of it: Your local library probably shares a few hundred CDs. Might not be what you're looking for, but make of that what you wish.
Where do you buy your cars from? If I buy a car, and within a few days, if I don't like it, the dealership is taking it back. My point about the CD's was that whether or not it sucks, I'm stuck with it. I was just trying to fit my argument into your car analogy.
And I agreed that most products you can bring back in thirty days. But the point some people were making was that they download music because they didn't like the whole album. That's what I was responding to in the beginning. You are right, you are stuck with a CD and if you are saying that you download a CD to listen to it and then either buy or erase it, then yes I can't argue with that. But there are people freely admitting that they download with no intention to buy and that's what I'm responding to.
That has nothing to do with downloading files. There are many reasons that singles aren't around anymore. It has nothing to do with the Internet and everything to do with the record companies. The record companies no longer needed to sell singles when they changed the way charts were formulated. It became more about airplay than sales. Not to mention that they want to charge way too much for a CD single. This allowed them to dictate what was a "hit". I used to buy 45s for about a dollar or less. The bottom line is that the public are demanding that they re-think their business model. Until they learn this, nothing will change. They are raping their artists and us all at the same time. CDs cost almost twice as much as they did back in the mid 80s. The cost to produce CDs has dramatically decreased since that time yet they charge way too much currently. Apple is on to something. $1 per song. That's fair. $8 for a CD-Single with a song and 8 remixes is stupid. I miss B-Sides. I personally see nothing wrong with downloading music to see if i like it. If I don't, I delete it. If I do, I go and buy the CD (when it's on sale. I refuse to pay close to $20 for a damn CD). There are plently of music lovers like rockHEAD and myself who do this. It's all about price gouging. It's not like they are paying their artists more. Those of you who think that file-swappers are screwing the artists need to get a grip on reality. No one seems to care about how bad the record companies are srewing the artists. Something has to change, and it will. I look forward to seeing what comes of this. It's only a matter of time before the record companies get left behind. Maybe if they spent billions on technology rather than lawyers and lobbyists they would be ahead of the game. They could have dictated digital music distribution but NOOOOO.... They saw it as a potential threat and tried to squash it. They will not win this battle in the long run. Their evil greediness has been exposed and the people are not going to take it. They are just like the airline industry in the sense that they choose to continue using an outdated business model.
Then where do the sales figures come from?? Its a chicken and egg argument, I'm sure they will just completely eliminate the production because no one buys singles anymore because they are down loaded. But I will admit that's not the basis of my argument, its just an example of product that has been almost made extinct because of downloading, for good or for bad.
I thought the contribution of dropping sales in the music industry was directly related to the crappy music that is shoved down our throat starting around 1997. They want me to buy a CD, then promote someone worth buying. I'll download a few singles once in awhile to get a taste of the bands. Music now is worst then the one-hit wonder 80's bands- at least their one-hit song was better, and their were more bands. The grunge scene left me penniless for about 5 years. I would spend every other paycheck on new cd's. As far as the price of the CD, I remember spending $15 a cd even then, right now they would be so lucky I would even download and even listen to their artists for free. What good new groups are out there?
Dude, you are so wrong on this. The record companies stopped marketing singles way before the Internet was mainstream. Like I said before, they died with vinyl. No one wants to spend $8 for a song and a bunch of remixes to that song. The Internet did not kill the single. The record industry did. And by the way, charts are not based on singles sales. It hasn't been for a long time now. It's mostly about airplay.
Dude, I'm not basing it on charts, I'm basing it on actual figures of singles shipments to retailers, the same place you get the info on all C.D. sales. I'm sure vinyl singles sales decreased when people stopped buying vinyl in general.
All you need to do is just transfer the files from your Shared Folder over to some other folder on your computer. There was a time I would have felt badly about downloading music off of the internet without having to pay, but then all I need to do is look at my cd shelf and notice that 80% of the CDs I own are total crap. I'll go to some concerts or purchase some CDs if they're cheap, but I will not burn $16 on a cd that has maybe 2-3 good songs on it.
Here's a question: What about downloading music I've already paid for? Being older than most of you, my wife and I have an extensive album collection (for you younger guys, albums are the large black vinyl disc that music used to be sold on). We probably have close to 700 albums, all of which were bought at a record store. Since our taste in music is decidedly older, why am I forced to repay for music I already paid for once? The majority of my downloads are songs from the eighties and earlier. And for those with two computers networked together...do what I do: I run Blubster on one for downloading, and store the files on another for playing. There's never more than two or three files in my share folder.
Show some of these "actual figures" then, and show actual figures that show the decline of cassettes and records----same thing has nothing to do with file swapping. Its simply a change in the industry and they (RIAA) have been slow to adapt. Your arguments on this issue are weak.
I showed an actual figure and I here is the link to the figure. I have no idea what point you are trying to make with sales of records and tapes. Anybody who argues they deserve something as arbitrary as music as free is weak. Hell, we all deserve to eat, but there's no such thing as a free meal. http://www.riaa.com/news/marketingdata/pdf/year_end_2002.pdf
darn... i knew i should have added a "winking smiley" or something. it was a joke, behad. remember the story not too long ago about madonna and kazaa? you know... her "what the f**k do you think you're doing?" mp3? sigh... nevermind.
