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 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

i'm a computer

can you YSI me some candy?

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

what.....the......fuck

This thread has gotten me curious about Finnish rap. What's the best examples right now?

re: "they don't like people downloading that stuff because they're trying to make a living with their music, and filesharing hurts that"
How do Finns (or Finnish rappers in particular) feel about the sale of virtual items in general?
I kind of had this idea that there would be a perception of virtual sales as being in the same category of "American consumerism spawning degraded versions of regular things" like wonderbread and lite beer or something equally tacky.

the second-hand records question is kind of interesting. not that it validates downloading in some backwards way but is it "bad" in the same way?

re: 2nd hand records, I know of no society on Earth that believes that once you buy a physical thing, you have any obligation never to resell that thing.
If buying 2nd hand records is "bad" that would tend to imply an obligation that no one thinks anyone has.

Surely second-hand record sales are collectively *tiny* compared to downloading?

haha did Tuomas really want to frame this thread so that we'd all just say "I guess not" and then lock the thing?

NB all these analogies about making prints of visual art are kind of off -- illegal downloading would really be the equivalent of if some other person had a print and you made a very high-quality copy of it

illegal downloading is wrong, etc., but for the record my suspicion is that the main thing that makes people feel okay about it isn't grand moral justifications or ethical gymnastics, it's sitting in front of your computer and not being able to see how it makes any difference to anyone in the universe whether or not your computer plays some record you want to hear at that moment -- I think this is why there's such a workable market for legal pay downloads, because the issue for (many) people isn't really free downloading versus paying eMusic $20 a month or whatever, it's being able to decide you want something and grab it right there in the moment

haha that said I probably do have moral queasiness about all the money I've spent in 99-cent increments on iTunes because I suddenly want to hear, like, "In a Big Country" while walking to work -- I should be filesharing that shit

Note that games are outselling music AND video

― Dante ... Bruno . Vico .. Passantino (Tom D.), Thursday, May 28, 2009 2:48 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i find this really sad for some reason?

also just realised that i don't actually know what computer games look like in uh...physical form.

or even if they have a physical form, maybe they are like programmes that you install on the computer?

Buying an used album isn't the same as downloading, because it takes a physical copy of the music out of the marketplace. So the next time someone comes to the store asking for the same record, and they don't have any copies anymore, they might order a new one, or the person who asked about it might order one himself. There's a limited pool of physical records in the marketplace, whereas with filesharing the pool is unlimited.

(xxx-post)

here is a picture of one, lex:

http://www.volunteer.blogs.com/winewaves/images/starfruit.jpg

illegal downloading is wrong, etc., but for the record my suspicion is that the main thing that makes people feel okay about it isn't grand moral justifications or ethical gymnastics, it's sitting in front of your computer and not being able to see how it makes any difference to anyone in the universe whether or not your computer plays some record you want to hear at that moment

my suspicion is most people do it because it's free music!

and i do it most often to hear stuff that i might wanna buy, then i buy it and delete the old files--just like i used to tape stuff off the radio (or at the station when I worked at a radio station) and then buy the stuff that i really liked

but for the record my suspicion is that the main thing that makes people feel okay about it isn't grand moral justifications or ethical gymnastics, it's sitting in front of your computer and not being able to see how it makes any difference to anyone in the universe whether or not your computer plays some record you want to hear at that moment

I definitely agree with this. That's why hearing those Finnish rappers actually saying in their songs that people shouldn't fileshare their music, it hurts their chances of making a living out of music and continuing to release records. Because I like Finnish rap and I want to support the people doing it, I'm not downloading that stuff.

"That's why hearing those Finnish rappers actually saying in their songs that people shouldn't fileshare their music, it hurts their chances of making a living out of music and continuing to release records, was a sobering experience."

Do these rappers rap in English -- do you think their appeal could go beyond their local record-buying public?
(You might not want to disclose who they are because chances are, I may in fact download them)

lately when i've mentioned how it feels a little weird to be releasing a cd (because who buys cds anymore), i've had multiple people say things like "maybe you guys can give it away for free or use it as promotion to get people to the shows?" this frustrating because i thought that was the justification for not making any money playing club shows, to promote the album.

pretty sure the only way to make money in music these days is to play a lot of weddings and corporate picnics, so if you guys download something you like maybe you could just tell your fiancee or your boss about it?

"play a lot of weddings and corporate picnics"
Don't most weddings hire DJs now? And all the corp. picnics I've been to were at a venues that provided their own entertainment.

probably, but i'm playing a wedding and a corporate party (at a baseball game!) in the next week, so.

Do these rappers rap in English -- do you think their appeal could go beyond their local record-buying public?

No, 95% percent of them rap in Finnish, hence their potential marketplace is quite limited to begin with.

Anyway, if you're really interested in Finnish rap, here's a few of my favourite tunes and artists:

before I view any of those, I would like to be assured that they are on YouTube legally

Haha, I guess that's kinda hypocritical. Some of them are official music videos, but there's a few unofficially uploaded tunes too. Well, at least you can't download them from Youtube, so if you like the music you have to buy it.

before I view any of those, what's Finnish for "Yah Trick Yah"?

or just listen to it on youtube a lot.

xp

huge L

The L stands for Lapp.

Oh man now I want to change my name to Huge Lapp Dogg.

"Huge" is a Helsinki slang word for "Mark", the currency we used to have before the Euro.

Is the gun imagery from the first vid inspired by US gangstaism or is there already a heavy Finn gun culture from I guess military service?

I think it's supposed to be a bit of a satire. There's not a big gun culture here, nor do Finnish rappers rap about guns. The song is about the Armageddon though.

russia invading?????

No, about the environmental destruction of Earth.

mine seems scarier

aren't all rap songs about Armageddon

asher roth's are about carmageddon

"probably, but i'm playing a wedding and a corporate party (at a baseball game!) in the next week, so."
This is pretty amazing. The only entertainment they showed at the game I attended was a bunch of grainy youtube clips of Carlton from Fresh Prince dancing.

Did I hear them do a shoutout to flava flav in 'koputa puuta'?

Kinda, but what the dude actually says is,

I'll soon be 30. ("Is it easy?") Not really,
My back goes "crack!", like Flavor Flav.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8073068.stm

Around seven million people in the UK are involved in illegal downloads, costing the economy tens of billions of pounds, government advisors say.

Researchers found 1.3m people using one file-sharing network on one weekday and estimated that over a year they had free access to material worth £120bn.

The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP) warned it may be hard to change attitudes.

The government says work must be done internationally to tackle the problem.

Intellectual property minister David Lammy said the report put into context the impact illegal downloads had on copyright industries and the UK economy as a whole.

But he added: "This is not an issue confined by national boundaries and I am sure that other (EU) member states and their copyright industries will find this report of use in the development of policy."

An alliance of nine UK bodies representing the creative industries recently joined trades unions in calling on the government to force internet service providers to cut off persistent illegal file-sharers.

They said more than half of net traffic in the UK was illegal content.

Copyright confusion

Internet service providers say it is not their job to police the web.

The latest report for the SABIP, said the new generation of broadband access at 50Mbps could deliver 200 MP3 files in five minutes, a DVD in three and the complete digitised works of Charles Dickens in less than 10.

It said the seven million people who access files illegally could not all be students and that many of them were uncertain about what was illegal.

The fact that so much on the internet is free only added to the confusion, it said.

Dame Lynne Brindley, SABIP Board member, said: "This report gives us some baseline evidence from which we can develop a clear research strategy to support policy development in this fast moving area."

You convinced me: I will stop downloading all Finnish rap.

Bootleggers get they legs broke.