RIP allofmp3.com

And the studio musicians get their money from .... where, exactly? Some of it comes from royalty payments.

I have no problem with sacking up and paying the people most of us have never heard of.

 

As good as you are
Downloading will still go far
Play them in my car

 

How much you think it cost to produce the shirt you're wearing today? Weigh that against the price. Mark-up on clothing is obscene. Doesn't give you the right to steal it.

 

Use this site to search for mp3s using google.

http://www.smacki.com/mp3%20search%20using%20google

Here's the thread where I found this.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=10979325&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

 

Two things.
First, you actually paid for music at allofmp3.com (just not very much).
Second, the music industry simply has to change. Songs should be made available directly from the bands in a digital format that cut down on the waste on their end and the cost on our end -- like iTunes, but cheaper. Then everybody wins.

 

You send checks to the producer, the session players and the non-performing songwriters?

How about the artists who are playing the 500-seat venues? They're raking it in there? And what are these "endorsements" that bring in so much money?

 

Two things:
Whatever not very much you paid there probably didn't go to the people who created the music.
Yes, the music industry does need to change. But that doesn't mean you have the right to say, "You have an outdated business model. I'm going to just take what I want."

 

Three things:

1. Read the post I replied to. He's a fucking taker, not a giver. And downloading is still for foofs.
2. You have a point.
3. Smasher Sloan is right on the money in everything he's posted on this thread.

 

this is baffling

have you been on myspace lately? how many bands offer free downloads of their music? many artists offer entire CDs for free download with the thinking that people will like it so much they'll order other stuff, go to gigs, buy t-shirts and merch, etc.

have you checked out the Live Music Archive? how many bands are on there offering their work for downloading? Several thousand. It's free, it's legal, it's approved by the artist.

what about dimeadozen? bittorrent but also free, also approved by the artist, also legal.

the industry has changed

if you're against illegal downloading of copyrighted music, that's one thing

but making a blanket statement like "downloading is for foofs," when most artists encourage people to download at least some of their music, is silly

 

I agree with Smasher & Coffee on this.

Illegal downloading is theft. It's no different than stealing a book from a bookstore and claiming, "Oh, it's published by Random House. They've got lots of money and they're ripping us off".

And the price of just printing that $30.00 book. Maybe $5.00. And that's just one small cost of producing the end product.

And as far as the music industry goes, God invented it to make the film industry look good.

 

Allofmp3.com charged us money to download, some went to the record companies.
Just not as much as they'd have liked. That was the problem.

 

I wouldn't lean to hard on the royalty argument. The record companies make sure there are no royalties, and studio musicians and producers are paid up front.

Artists get an advance, and only get royalties once the CD earns enough to cover the advance and additional expenses. In most cases the expenses are never covered. (Case in point -- the Backstreet Boys never made a profit, according to the label accountants -- despite being arguably the biggest commercial juggernaut of their era.)

The money for the band comes primarily from the advance for the CD recording, touring, merchandise, and songwriting publishing. Most artists won't see squat from the sale of the CD.

The people trying to make this a black and white issue aren't necessarily doing the labels any great favor, whether the labels realize it or not. I discovered Wilco by downloading a few songs from Kazaa. I now own their entire catalog, either on CD or thru iTunes. Same thing with the Pernice Brothers, who will never, ever get radio airplay. I downloaded a couple of songs after reading reviews; as a result, I now have every single CD Joe Pernice has ever released, a couple of t-shirts, and have seen him live.

I pay for a ton of music, and always pay for bands I know I like. I'm not wracked with guilt for occasionally torrenting a band I've heard about but never listened to. I'm not costing the artist a dime, and if I like it they'll get my money down the road.