If an artist is A) not super rich, B) on an indie or self-owned label, and C) his records are available where you live, is there any excuse for downloading them instead of buying them?

but a dollar a song is not an unreasonable price anyway. i think the ownership culture and people wanting to own more music than anything else that can be quantified (inc. books) has led to music being under-priced if anything. but of course if you want to own copies of 15,000 songs on a PC you probably wouldn't want to spend $15,000 doing so.

xpost - But that's just it though: there is no historical precedent for being able to make an exact copy without any cost whatsoever while leaving the original intact. Even bootleg CDs require an investment in some physical media. If it was possible to do this with food, farmers would go out of business and 50,000 years of agrarian culture would be snuffed out, but starvation would end. I wish Shawn Fanning had worked on this problem instead.

this is my pledge that if you fuckin guys turn me into one of those super-rich artists, I will start releasing it all for free, both digitally and on vinyl

or stop releasing it entirely, your call, I don't give a shit, just get me rich and we'll figure out the rest of the terms of the agreement when we get there

Tuomas, is there ever a moment when you're not wondering what the right thing to do, say, or think is? Live a little bro.

i know the argument is that something like emusic makes it hard for musicians to make much money. i understand that. but that's the nature of the current marketplace.

conspiracy to provide finnish rappers with more material about bein' broke

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a dollar a song is not an unreasonable price anyway.

sort of depends. i've bought individual tracks for that -- singles, basically. but if i want a whole album, a dollar a song works out to about the same as plain old physical-media record-store pricing, which was too high to start with.

anyway, everyone sets their own levels. i'm basically willing to pay 25 cents a song. people who charge more are pricing themselves out of my market.

a dollar to own a song you like is pretty cheap in my book.

you can buy my book for only €25.00, or d/l it for free. your choice.

plain old physical-media record-store pricing, which was too high to start with.

high compared to what? books, games or films? why should music cost less than those? just because people tend to want to own more music than other media?

i would accept 'yes' to that last question tbh

AFAIC, music that's so easily transferable and downloadable etc is worth more to me as an end user than it was on a cassette or a CD (ie just on a CD).

Yes, the cost of transferring the medium has gone down, but i don't think that that's necessarily an argument that the price of a song/album should automatically go through the floor.

why should music cost less than those?

are you suggesting that the only basis for price is cost relative to an arbitrary basket of similar items?

just because people tend to want to own more music than other media?

rofl

Yes, the cost of transferring the medium has gone down, but i don't think that that's necessarily an argument that the price of a song/album should automatically go through the floor.

take it up with adam smith

Tuomas what did you vote on that poll Should Filesharers Be Disconnected By Their ISP's? (and discussion about future laws) ?

just because people tend to want to own more music than other media?

A visit to any major "record shop" would dispel this notion

high compared to what? books, games or films?

compared to actual cost of production and distribution, for one thing. everybody knows the story of the massive price jumps that came in with the introduction of cds. they got away with it for a lot of years, and made a gazillion-zillion dollars by rereleasing all their back catalogs. (and then repackaging and rerereleasing them in bonus/remastered editions, etc.) then that changed, too bad for them.

are you suggesting that the only basis for price is cost relative to an arbitrary basket of similar items?

not exactly. all of these media share characteristics in terms of how they're produced, levels of personnel involved, means of distribution. what else would you base it on?

rofl

is that funny? as far as art/entertainment media goes don't people in general own (legitimately or not) more music than other?

A visit to any major "record shop" would dispel this notion

No it wouldn't

Give me the stats on that

Games sell more than music these days, don't they? I'm sure that was on the new a while back.

Maybe people own more music in terms of physical items, but perhaps you should be measuring how much people own in terms of how long it takes them to consume? And even then not just "an album is 50 mins, a film is 120 mins, a book takes 260 mins to read" etc, but in terms of... "I'll listen to this album x times, watch film y times, and read book z times, adding up to...." etc.

I bet more people by dvds than cd, i bet more would download films than music if it was as easy as it is for getting music. I bet more people go to cinemas than gigs.

*buy

oh and i would bet more buy/play videogames than buy/listen to music they bought

good job you're not a betting man then

If you walk into any major record shop, the first thing you'll see is racks of DVDs

cinemas != to gigs, unless bands can distribute themselves in new and alarming ways.

take it up with adam smith

killfiled that mf months ago.

Games are typically more expensive than albums so the idea that your average person owns more games then albums seems weird and unlikely to me - regardless of free downloading (which increased ownership of both). Same goes for DVDs/films.

If you walk into any major record shop, the first thing you'll see is racks of DVDs

or peoples homes

Not mine... oh you mean normal people

steve my point is people are more likely to buy a game than a cd. Even pre-filesharing days that happened. At my high school (1984-1990) almost everyone had the latest big game that was out, and about 1 person had the latest big cd(which then got taped for everyone who wanted it)

haha yeah, normal people.

actually most people didnt have a cd player at school, when my folks got one i always had to tape people any cds i got bought for me

Here's what I was looking for, and that's despite this

higher overall sales doesn't prove much, considering games generally cost more and are generally more hassle to copy/pirate

at school you don't own much of anything so it's not a great comparison! still we Amiga owners copied games as much as music if not more so

I just downloaded the Early Plates comps of both Manix and Rufige Cru, and I did it legally (i.e. I payed for it), so fuck all y'all...gifts aside, free music kinda sucks...there's no investment on your (the listener's) part, nothing at stake, no leap of faith, no "you" in it...

Games and dvd's made the last couple of years, here at the store.
Exactly for the reasons pointed out by Tom and Pfunkboy.

Nick actually makes a good point re valuation being based on how long it takes to experience something once. Is this a fair method? Still not sure.

Note that games are outselling music AND video

live a little, bro

Are games actually outselling or is it just that they generate more revenue due to general higher prices? Bear in mind they tend to come out at two-three times the price of a new music CD (even if many drop to average album cost months down the line).

The cost of developing a new video game is astronomical and seems to get higher as technology progresses. Albums are fucking cheap to make compared to either video games or films.

chinesedemocracy.jpg

whoa what if chinese democracy was a VIDEO GAME

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/thumb/9/99/Kevin_Costner

Haha yeah I kind of meant except Chinese Democracy.

Chinese Democracy as a video game = Duke Nukem II

If their music is available to buy in the format you want then you should pay. Or, download it for free but then go to one of their gigs and throw some money at them.

― Hard House SugBanton (blueski), Thursday, May 28, 2009 9:28 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i would seriously punch someone in the face for throwing money at me at a gig for fronting on some shit like that.

Nick actually makes a good point re valuation being based on how long it takes to experience something once. Is this a fair method? Still not sure.

― Hard House SugBanton (blueski), Thursday, May 28, 2009 3:45 PM (1 hour ago)

It's not just the value of "time it takes to experience once", though - it's about how often you go back to something to repeat the experience. I must've played THOUSANDS of hours of ISS and never touched another computer game in the last 5 years. Total cost, if I've played 3,000 hours, is £0.0083 per hour. Can we do the same with a DVD? An album? A book? I've watched The Dark Knight maybe five times on DVD, it cost me about £15, and it's 3 hours long, so that's £1 an hour (so far). I've listened to MPP maybe ten times since I bought the CD, the CD cost £8, it's an hour long near enough, so 80p an hour (so far).

well indeed. the market kinda sucks because all works of the same format have to cost roughly the same, regardless of both wildy varying production costs and single/multiple experience duration.

lol are you guys talking about the ethics of filesharing again