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?

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

http://www.richthofen.com/france_at_war/dead_horses.jpg

if we could download dead horses we would

Pretty sure I downloaded the Junior Boys' Dead Horse EP.

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?

A) no they don't. i mean, they really, really don't

2. you're positing a version of competitor indexing as the only determinant of pricing. Other commonly accepted models: cost-plus, demand-based, value-based pricing, rate of return

goddammit tuomas

im more willing to "donate" to the artist (i.e. buy a cd that i already downloaded even tho i know i'm not going to do anything with the physical cd except but it on a shelf) if the artist is on a major label. especially for r&b/hip-hop, it's very likely that a label is going to look at the artist's album sales and say "well, you only sold 120,000 copies in the first month, so we didn't make any money off this record, and you probably won't be putting one out for another 2-3 years" whereas fatcat didn't look at the sales of animal collective's 'feels' and go "well, you guys only sold 6,000 copies of this record this month, so we probably won't be putting out any more animal collective albums for a few years"

― hazmat yayo (J0rdan S.), Thursday, May 28, 2009 9:28 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

which i guess i mean to say that i know that the neither a large or mid-sized indie band nor a major artist is going to make money off of my singular purchase, but that my "vote" so to speak matters much more frequently when it comes to artists on major labels than ones on indie labels

― hazmat yayo (J0rdan S.), Thursday, May 28, 2009 9:32 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

umm j0rdan.. this is kind of nuts. if you think sales don't affect what indie labels release, you are very very wrong. and since you are most likely in a smaller pool of "voters," your "vote" will count way more!

what Jordan's describing is a little backwards, but he does have a point. major label artists can get their next album shelved for 4 years if they don't sell enough, indie artists are generally going to release stuff regardless fo how it sells.

plus there's the even more twisted logic that word of mouth matters more in indie, so just downloading but also reviewing/blogging/raving about an album but not buying it has more positive impact w/ an indie artist than a major label artist

I've actually bought major-label albums because they weren't as easy to find download links for as Pitchfork-approved indie releases generally are.

hey kids, stop all the downloadin'!

it's kind of an underlying assumption to tuomas's argument, and a lot of the corollaries, that music (& other cultural products) are directly comparable with other life-improving luxury goods like, say, cadbury creme eggs

i mean, sure, maybe a new single is worth more than two cadbury creme eggs, just saying it's kind of wack that you can make the comparison

barff

i would also like to point out that the number of people in anglophone countries who actually have enough money to keep buying records in significant quantities continues to fall year-on-year

this is why sales keep falling guys

ur welcome

puke

also, hands up who in this thread refuses to buy second hand records

ps. if u raise ur hand ur gay and a liar

I download like a sonofabitch but, being that probably 85% of *actual* record purchases are/have always been from the used market (just cause I'm a cheap bastard and all), I don't think my role in the game has changed much. Plus, I hype music I like on Facebook & in the blogosphere, attend concerts & occasionally buy merch. So I like to think I'm erring on the right side of wrong, or thereabouts.

we get it, you don't like cadbury creme eggs

xpost

no you don't

jokes bruv