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What are your thoughts on piracy and filesharing? How is it effecting you as an artist and the music industry as a whole? How do you think piracy should be used/tackled for the benefit of artists and software developers?

Some threads on the subject:

do-you-care-if-your-tunes-end-up-on-p2p-networks-t95872.html
can-we-have-a-pleasant-convo-bout-software-piracy-on-here-pl-t98889.html
piracy-beginning-to-make-an-impact-t83097.html
sad-state-of-affairs-t76055.html

good thread.

Well I personally buy vinyl and i'm building up my collection. I like to think i'm doing my bit for the scene, the artists,
the labels, the cover artists (if there is) and everyone else involved. I'd then record that into Logic and bounce it as MP3 for Ipod/ Itunes.

I hate it when you see a load of comments on the YT vid of a tune saying like, 'Ah man, this is so sick, rip it with video2mp3'.
You can easily buy a full length, high quality digital download from boomkat or whatever for 79p. It's not expensive.
Loads of kids my age, 16, rip off youtube/ torrent.

People who class themselves as Dubstep fans aren't doing anyone any favours by pirating. Burial - Burial LP was a collection of tunes made between 2001 - 2006, all that just for someone to torrent it just isn't right. It should be about spending what money you have on the music, earning it in a sense. To me, after buying a new LP, playing it on my speaker set up for the first time is magical. Hearing that first bit of vinyl static then just getting lost in the music, surely thats what it's all about.

I think pirates are more disposable when it comes to music.
You could pirate 10 albums and maybe only listen to 10 tracks, whereas if you buy it, you'll get your monies worth and have a proper listen.

I know that alot of the artists are not about the money, it's about the music, but the labels and artists need money to live/run.
Support the scene, buy the tunes.

I used to hate shelling out for tunes when I was a kid. Still do too...

That said, I think that giving out music for free as 'promo' is also as damaging as file sharing....

futures_untold wrote:I used to hate shelling out for tunes when I was a kid. Still do too...

That said, I think that giving out music for free as 'promo' is also as damaging as file sharing....

yes and no, the downside is that people feel entitled and expect it after awhile (see the main board here)
the upside is it's great promotion

There's a growing disconnect between the technology and the business model, and I doubt that technology's gonna roll back 20 years or so for the industry; this leaves the burden on the biz model.

Put another way, there's nothing that can be done currently to remedy the situation - and maybe that's for the best since it'll force the bloated, corrupt music biz to finally re-assess how they do business and stop relying on the "but this is how it's always been" argument.

Same thing happened with the advent of radio: ASCAP freaked out and said "but... you can't give music away for free over the airwaves!" which led to the rise of BMI. Radio turned out to sell more records than had ever been sold previously.

This means, though, that any new business models being proposed should exploit the technology divide in play here instead of counting on it to be static indefinitely.

I know an artist who has put out three complete albums for free. When he tries to sell his other albums, they don't fare well.... Doesn't surprise me, as he's left nothing for people to get excited about when he does drop new paid for material...

Personally, I refuse to invest in vinyl (buying or pressing), and won't print CDs either.

The only way I'd drop free promo material would be as part of a mix.

If people want to hear my newest music, they need to attend the events where the DJ's have the scoop

For underground artists like most people on theese boards, 'piracy' is basically essential for promotion and growth in the scene. The sale of music now is worth practically nothing, I see it as promotion only. Live music is where the money is at now. It all depends what your making music for I guess.

To be honest, most of the people who pirate wouldn't buy it in the first place.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if people pirated my music (I'd just give it away for free anyways). Its free promotion and the fact of the matter is I'd be happy to know that people enjoy my music enough to pirate it. However, I completely understand and respect that a lot artists arent like minded.

I'll be honest and admit that I tend to pirate a LOT of music. I don't really have an income to support the massive appetite I have. The music I tend to pirate is mostly the huge label stuff though, where I know less of the money is going to the actual artist. Or, for example, a band where the original members are deceased, and the estate is in some asshole's hands. In a relatively small scene such as dubstep, I think the artists could use the money a bit more, as well as (IMO) deserving it more. Although they do get way more money from playing live

If the music is something I know I listen to a lot, and if its quality music, I'll always buy it.


It'd be cool to see more albums along the lines of Radiohead's In Rainbows' "pay what you want". I remember paying $25 because I liked it so much.

Personally I think to discuss this properly you need to do it in an area where people wont get shutdown for trying to voice opinions FOR piracy.

This isn't a reflection of my views on piracy - dont get it twisted. I just know the moment someone comes in giving a great reason why piracy should exsist everyone else will shoot them down for not "supporting the scene" or the artists, or for stealing, or whatever. And im sure there are alot of other people who are also aware of this, who would otherwise comment.


Basically, what im saying is you're only ever really going to hear one side of the argument here.

Well if there is anywhere where the pros and cons of piracy are acceptable, it is in a thread debating the effects of piracy (here). debating isn't the same as posting links to warez, and as you're not doing that, there isn't a problem here.

I say voice your opinion and if its in favour of filesharing, then be ready to make a good argument if people pick your posts apart.

Friendly and informative debate is the flavour of this thread in the first place!

I hear the Waves suite has some good effects to pirate

IN THE FUTURE FUTURE FUTURE FUTURE
anybody with 5 minutes to spare will be able to knock out pro quality tunes on their ipod thing of the time (contact lenses?) and all music that they pay for will be from programs that randomly generate complex and engaging songs that mix together endlessly.

Worst case scenario from piracy and technological advances:
"squarepusher" electronic artists make no money.
Grandmothers are DJ's
Babies are Producers

As easy as it is to find cracks of waves bundles, I simply can't be arsed to pirate them cuz I don't like their plugins.

Waves plugins are worthless they don't even command me to check out there demos/cracks....

music, and the act of listening to music, have very little value. it's not a pastime for people anymore-- people, the general populace, don't get together to listen to records/cd's/etc any more. Even the process of duping something from a friend-- i remember when a my friend's dad got a double cassette deck that had the hi-speed dubbing thing on that, which was AMAZING. even burning cd's required time, but now? 10 seconds and yr done.

music is quickly disposed of, regardless of content, and the time spent on it as a focus has shrunk. look at how many venues have closed the world over in the last 10 years... the village voice here in NYC used to be lik 14-16 pages of the weeks shows, now it's about 4 or 6.

I don't think piracy can take all the blame-- the ipod and the ease of acquisition have put mobile music into a place WAY beyond where it was with a walkman in the 90s.

w/ that said, it DOES separate the men from the boys, so to speak, and the wheat from the chaff. Sujan Stevens will likely outsell Katy Perry this week, as no one actually wants to BUY katy perry's music-- they just like it well enough in the background.

If you as an artist want to actually connect with people, you need to have more than just some songs-- you need to create something worth connecting to. This, in a way, isn't that different from where it was a few generations ago-- there were plenty of bands that sounded like the Stones, but only 1 stones. Likewise, there's a ton of folks ripping off Skream...

You can use piracy to put the current state of music, and the music industry, into focus, but don't get it twisted-- piracy's not "the problem."

to be fair, i don't think you can even call the current state a problem. The game has shifted; as an artist, either you deal with it and grow, or you don't, grumble about it, and get left behind.

I have a few thoughts about this, feel free to agree or disagree as you like.

First and foremost, I do not think that as a blanket rule "piracy is bad". It helps to get artists out there, in many ways. If you're a good artist, you're going to be requested for at some point due to your productions. The more people listening to your music, the better it is for you in the long run. There was an article not too long ago that showed that people who pirate are also more likely to buy albums, with regular stops to iTunes, Juno.etc. If it wasn't for Piracy, I may have never discovered Dubstep until it became mainstream (it will happen, give it time), at which point I probably would have never enjoyed it. Because of Piracy, I've been able to support the local scene as well, supporting both the great local talent we have in Sydney, as well as the internationals we get. You going to one show of Truth for example (if you like them) is worth more to them than buying a few CDs.

I think for an artist where music is basically what they do for a living, this can be a very harsh reality but in all honesty - move away from labels and move away from the music industry in general as these guys are eating up possible profits for yourself. What artists get out of a CD is so miniscule I don't really understand the motif behind it, especially considering that the internet is the great enabler and you can make a buck so long as you know how to market yourself.

Now, being someone who works professionally as a web developer and only doing music as a hobby - I am intent on making all my music free. For me it's more about the people listening to the music I create rather than making any cash, but again - this is because I am well taken care of because of my job. I get such a high out of people simply posting nice things about something that I have created, that it is more than enough for payment. I guess one day I might like to play at events, but that's a pipe dream and I really am just stoked to be creating music that I and others can relate to

my 2c.

I really wish I could treat music as a hobby again and just know that I have enough money to live with. I'm in a situation where I enjoy making tunes and the discussing music, but it contibutes 0 to the weekly grocery bill.....

Thus anything I spend time doing either has to contribute to making ends meet or be a social activity with my family and friends.

The amount of disposable entertainment we have today is insane. As I mentioned beofre, I can't be bothered to pirate software like Waves plugins. Likewise, I can't be bothered to pirate films that I'm not interested in. the few films I'm interested in I go see at the cinema. For old rarities and oddjob films, I tend to reach for crusty 700mb torrents.

I guess I need to check out some proper film catalogue paysites... Perhaps they allow old films to be bought/rented/viewed for a pound or two?

just to kind of flip the script on you a lil as a web designer how would you feel if you spent an assload of time custom designing a site for someone and someone just straight jacks the code and uses it as a template.
pretty much what dave said echos true. something i posted to twisted individual the other day:
Grid Recordings why do people seem to think its ok to upload full length versions of unreleased and released tracks to youtube? any ideas

Mike Higbee because it's a me first gimme gimme culture now, other reasons are vinyl only labels not catering to the digital side, the ones that do not being easily available to find in shops like itunes amazon, that and p2p and piracy being commonplace and accepted. far as unreleased tunes, it's the same ol dubplate culture shit, just in a new medium with the exception now being people who don't produce and just have the latest dubs etc on their youtube manage to get gigs and a following. strange times we live in

Grid Recordings its a double edged sword really... its good promotion, and its the way people find out about new music these days, but because its there, people don't have to then go and buy it.. which then means there is less in the pot to put into new projects etc.. oh well.. interesting times we live in. As long as people keep going out, and dont start cyber clubbing for free, there's still hope

Mike Higbee best way is to start an official channel and toss watermarks over your own stuff so it's up there, you have control over content and can make claims to rights to shut down people just reupping your material, easily accessible, and you can try to capitalize off youtube for a bit of ad revenue if the channel gets big enough. regardless the stuff is going to pop up, just better to try to cash in on it.

People will always go to live nights because the vibe of meeting with friends and fellow revelers is irreplaceable.

the more exclusive you try to make something , eg: dubplates, unreleased tracks, vinyl only etc, the more its gonna blow up in your face.
its absurd that good tracks should fade into oblivion because someone wants to control who has the tune.
those tunes should be uploaded and distributed, and if the label or producer wont do it, so be it that someone records the vinyl to an mp3 and uploads it.

and prices for nights/booking bigger , established etc names will go up to compensate for those lost record sales (assuming they want to keep the same style salary)
there's a yin and yang to it all