Approve as a musician, in fact have helped me grow in my underground circles to significance locally and even to some extent worldwide. And that’s not unique story, before i’ve posted video on Jungle / Breakbeat culture of 90s in UK - exactly same story, and many of those crazy bedroom producer dudes having huge career living only from music and Drum & Bass now is a popular genre. Same story with Dubstep (it was very different back in a day, than now)…
Although i don’t particularly do art for money, but if not for sharing stuff between like minded people - i doubt i’d have any profit at all.
It’s niche though, i know underground culture is different from major labels and pop, but still.
Well, actually maybe not that different in some cases when you think about it there are some examples in electronic dance music and rap of career starters from basically extreme viral in sharing…
Unfortunately happens a lot to rare / out of print stuff, a lot of times is the only way to actually preserve art!
I’d give a lot for some out of print real vinyls though…
I know an author who puts all his books on libgen (behind his publisher’s back, of course). A great guy, good looking, really smart, kind to amphibians, too. He doesn’t think he makes any less money by doing so.
I mean one alternative is to have a Socialist society where all artists get a living wage paid by the state. But somehow the people opposing copyrights also oppose that… And expect artists to just live of the scraps of donations they receive by begging in the square.
The idea that the artists would starve, if not for ridiculous copyright laws or an all-powerful totalitarian State feeding them is utterly absurd.
Some of the greatest musicians who ever lived were born before copyright laws existed. When J.S. Bach wrote his Well-Tempered Clavier in 1722, anyone who heard him play it was free to write it down, give copies to everyone, perform it, modify it… do with it whatever. Bach was still somehow able to have 20 children.
Musicians back then, at least the good ones, were certainly not poor. In fact, the parents of Joseph Haydn were poor peasants who gave up their child when he was only six years old, in order for him to become a musician and have a better life.
They actually take most of it. I think the artist only gets a few cents per play. It was the reason Tidal was created, artist owned music service or some propaganda like that, but then they copied the same mantra of the other corporate streamers.
I agree with you, downloading and owning music is important. I also think it is important because it is a ‘rage against the machine’ stance. Corporations don’t want us to own anything, software, music, and now it seems even homes/property as they are buying up properties across the US.
100% right. The right to repair is also worth mentioning. You don’t own your smartphone or your laptop, you’re just renting it until it becomes e-waste.
The problem with Tidal, of course, was that every artist was promised a share, but it was all a scheme since the founders got the biggest share by far, the big ones they talked into joining got the rest and every new artist joining got a smaller and smaller share. At the end they got paid less than on Spotify or Apple Music “because they have a share in the company to compensate”.
Exactly. I get why people prefer streaming, it is part of the convenience technology play. The system is a sound idea, almost all the music available on all devices in seconds. Unfortunately it is a well designed system built on a corporate ponzi scheme, especially when you factor in the artist themselves.
Streaming is the future. And honestly, all this would have worked out much better if not the record industry hadn’t actively fought against technological advances for 15 years before accepting it.
For everyone bemoaning the lack of physical copies etc… It is another technological shift. From live performances to music written down on paper to wax rolls to vinyl records to cassette tapes to CDs to mp3s to streaming. it is a logical and unstoppable evolution.
Same with food: People who argue that online shopping and self scanning in grocery stores are “evil” would be the same people who rioted when mechanical looms were introduced. Heck, it’s not even as bad, back then whole families were made unemployed, now the people in the store pack groceries for online shoppers instead of standing behind a counter. No grocery store I know has fired a single teenager over self scanning and online grocery shopping.
Anyway, games, too. Who here would actually have bought even half the games you play if you had to fit it in a shelf and put a disc in to play?
Now all of this is a problem if say… society crumbles. But then we are all frakked anyway. No matter if you believe in Ayn Rand or Marx, unless you know how to make a fish hook out of rabbit bone you’re screwed; your Doge Coins will be worth nothing when your computer doesn’t have power anymore.
I think Mick Jagger’s answer is very wise he said " i’m fine with sharing as we were screwed for the 1st 15 years by the record companies. we and our friends the Beatles were virtually bankrupted by them no artist made any money till we arranged our own tours and cut out the record companied
That’s the thing I have repeated already: Record companies are… predators. Always has been.
ESPECIALLY after it became much cheaper to produce and distribute music. I can see taking a proportionally higher percentage when it was your job to physically transport, package and sell the artist (so to speak). When all you have to do is to make a file avaible online… not so much.
I personally don’t like streaming but again we are forced into these types of platforms not always by choice. Same with self scanning at the check out. I don’t have an issue with people sharing or downloading stuff if they are doing so because they want to listen to the artists music. But those you want to share it or download it to use to sell and profit off of i have a problem with that. That to me is theft. But as @Beardedgeek72 say’s the biggest criminals have been the recording industries who have taken advantage of a lot of Artists over the years and it still goes on today. Artists can’t make any money at it any more.
I’ll admit it has some logic, but if you are streaming then you are only renting the music and it can be taken away from you at any time. That’s one (of several) reasons why I buy the music I like.
Look at the way the various film/TV streaming services are locking their content behind their subscriptions and not making it available to anyone else. Either you keep switching which service you’re paying for and watching as much as you can that month, or you fall back on the good old physical product of DVDs, which you can buy/rent and make backup copies.
Streaming is not the only choice. Heck Hipsters have bought Vinyl back.
That said we live in a market economy and that means it must be viable to print and ship physical copies.
Also, of course, people confuse medium. Streaming music, or TV, or movies, is NOT the same as buying them and “having a collection”; it’s just a Better Cable / FM Radio. Streaming should be compared to FM music stations just as Netflix should be compared to cable movie channels. NOT with having a library in the basement with 800 VHS tapes.
Unless you were a real music freak, nobody had that many records. I don’t recall any of my friends owning more thna maybe 20 singles and 10 LPs at most; 90% of their (and mine) music consumption was either music radio, or tapes recorded from said radio, or copies on tapes from each other’s records.
In fact it was quite often we took turns, one of us bought one LP per say 6 months, and all the other 10 of us brought our Maxell or TDK casette tapes and copied it.
Nothing wrong with that, but you were not “average”.
Just like there are people who have 20 full height mahogony bookshelves full with every book they have ever owned, there are people with entire rooms with records, or 4TB of mp3s on their NAS.
But again, different medium. Spotify shouldn’t be thought of as a replacement for that. Spotify is meant to replace “Rock FM” on your morning commute. Which it does VERY well.
I also am a music freak
I and my friends must be freaks then vinyl collection of over 1000 albums the same with CDs its music you own you paid for,
If you buy one physical copy you own it. But the record companies try to claim you only paid to listen to it they own it not you not the singer. So you own it you can share it with your friends. I don’t want nasty lossless Mp3s
For me, music streaming meets my needs. I discovered lots of new songs and don’t have to worry about pricing. I do like to check the download toggle just in case the internet goes out. My gripe is that random songs mysteriously becoming unplayable because “licensing” issues with record labels or geographical restrictions. It is the disadvantage of not owning what we stream.
Would love a lossless “CD quality” option. I can hear the compression on my Android phone via headphones, but to be fair, it could just be the custom ROM, AUX port, or maybe the Spotify app.
I pay for Spotify Family (£16.99/month), so I’m kinda locked in. Here’s to hoping other vendors start taking a Linux desktop client seriously!
have helped me grow in my underground circles to significance locally and even to some extent worldwide. And that’s not unique story, before i’ve posted video on Jungle / Breakbeat culture of 90s in UK - exactly same story, and many of those crazy bedroom producer dudes having huge career living only from music and Drum & Bass now is a popular genre. Same story with Dubstep (it was very different back in a day, than now)…
