Why pirate music?

GnikXela · Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 77

This guy says it better than I could have myself!
http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

nico · Administrator Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 824

I am still reading the piece (damn, it is a long blog, but well written), and it reminded me of an article I read in a dutch newspaper a few weeks ago in wich they cited a research project that showed that people that downloaded lots of music bought more music legally than people that don't download music. The research covered europe, but I think if it was done in america, you would see the same results.
I do think that the music industry is shooting themselves in the foot with their trigger happy attitude, and they should reconsider their stance in the downloading and sharing of music.

Greetz Nico

Acid_Christ · Joined: 28 Aug 2004 Posts: 502

I like to download a couple songs to make sure I am going to like the cd. No point in spending 15+ on a cd I am not going to like. First time I did that I bought Otep. Great album, and among my favorite bands now. Second time my friend told me to buy Flogging Molly. Needless to say that was the last time I bought a cd before checking it out. I am still haunted by that crap.

Bejeezus · Joined: 12 Dec 2004 Posts: 1712 Location: Right Here

I'm in the same boat as Acid_Christ.

I often download a couple songs to sort of test the water. If I like what I hear, then I'll go out and buy the CD. Rarely do I download entire albums or such, mainly because of the crappy quality the downloads tend to have.

I don't mind spending a few dollars for quality. And if what nico says is true, then neither do a few other people. There are much bigger issues in the world than the pirating of music.

Acid_Christ · Joined: 28 Aug 2004 Posts: 502

Thorns · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 848 Location: Rath

MaksymG · Joined: 24 Apr 2006 Posts: 174

I agree with what was said here but the other point of view must be taken into account as well. When the music companies complain about the illegal downloading of music they are surely aware of the fact that it spreads awareness of the quality of the artist and thus an artist receiving the most downloads over limewire or emule is probably the one selling the most CDs. However the issue is with people downloading hit songs (I have been guilty of this on more than one occasion, getting a mix CD for a party, making a best of, etc.) and not buying any other material. From the point of view of the person downloading it is completely reasonable as noone wants to pay $15 for an album containing only three decent songs, it is in essence like paying a dollar a song for the three songs you like (once again reasonable) and then paying a dollar a song for the 12 songs that will not merit a second listen. It is obvious that there are many people who actually listen to the entire album and thouroughly enjoy each song and in fact there are artists out there capable of producing that kind of material, however there is a large number of people who want just the one song and it is so much easier to hit it up on limewire than it is on iTunes.

Craze · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 5379 Location: Indiana, U

I've never bought CDs, mainly because their easily breakable.
For a long while I got any music I wanted straight from limewire, but that took several hours a song. So I use itunes now. $1 a song, takes 10 seconds to download.

lennin · Guest

if it took u an hour to download a song from limewire somehting is wrong with ur computer, when i use limewire it takes liek 10-15 seconds

Craze · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 5379 Location: Indiana, U

I never said my computer was fast Sad

Avata · Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 372

Personally I think that saying people who pirate more music also buy more music is not looking at the facts accurately.

What the study is really showing is that people that like music a lot buy more music than people that don't like much music, regardless of whether the people that like music a lot pirate or not.

Think about it. Do you buy more CDs than your Great Grandma who lives in the nursing home? You bet you do. But wait, you pirate music and your grandma doesn't, so that must mean pirating increases record sales!

Saying that you pirate music to "try it out" is mostly bunk. Just about every band in existence has samples (often of entire songs) on their website, their myspace page, etc., or if you were really interested you could just ask your friend to borrow a CD.

Pirating may not hurt big record labels or big bands like metallica in a significant way, but you're still stealing their intellectual property. This really starts to matter when you start talking about bands that might not necessarily go platinum with their albums - pirating really makes the smaller bands suffer. Again, if you want, you can just go to their website and listen to samples without pirating.

Pirating does have widespread effects. In the late 80s and early 90s, the Commodore (and its more advanced computer, the Amiga) was abandoned specifically because pirating had become so rampant that it was more profitable for developers to simply concentrate their efforts elsewhere.

Will it get that bad in the music industry? Of course not. Still, pirating things does make a difference to the people you are pirating from. The next time one of your small-time favorite artists decides to fold up and call it quits, maybe then it'll be time to reexamine why you have a bunch of ripped mp3s instead of $50 worth of their CDs.

Craze · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 5379 Location: Indiana, U

Thorns · Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 848 Location: Rath

I actually like going into my local music store and buying a random band's CD. More often than not though, it's a band I've heard about before, from my friends or the college's radio. I just like discovering something new.