We read it in the news everyday. The major music industry players like Sony BMG or EMI are reporting losses all over the place and blame it solely on internet pirates. Internet pirates are actually a very good excuse for bad times. Hard facts do not exist and no one is able to check on the numbers the MI provides for losses due to internet pirates.
They don´t seem to realize that they criminalize their own customers with measures like copy protected cd’s and rootkit software installed on customers pc.
More and more customers are becoming aware of this and are looking for good alternatives. Don´t buy Cd´s from the major record labels anymore but still enjoy music, is that possible at all ?
Yes it is possible, there are numerous ways one could get his daily dosis of music and even download it to his personal computer without feeding the dragon.
1. Buy used Cd´s
This one is pretty obvious. As soon as a cd is released it shortly thereafter appears on virtual marketplaces like eBay and amazon as used cd’s. The MI won´t see a dime if you buy a used cd instead of the original one.
2. Record and Listen to (internet) radio:
Thousands of independent internet radio stations exist. Sites like shoutcast.com offer a large variety of genres and suit every music taste. The traditional radio stations tend to become less of an alternative to internet radio. The main reason is that is difficulty to record “clean”, meaning without someone babbling at the beginning and end, versions of a song and transfer it to the computer.
Recording internet radio has never been that easy, I’ve written a tutorial about this, just take a look at my guide to streamripping
3. Trade Cd´s with friends:
The cd and tape trading that our fathers excelled at is slowly been put to rest. Its far easier to download the latest album and have it immediately on the pc than to trade it with a friend and copy it by some means.
Trading cd´s has some advantages and also some disadvantages. To trade cd´s one must have some, e.g. buy them. Then you need someone with the same music taste to trade cd´s. The big advantage is, that its 100% legal to trade cd´s with your friends. In most countries you are even allowed to copy the cd and then trade it and keep the copy. Check your local laws on this.
4. Download free music:
Independent musicians and bands often offer their work for free on the internet. Portals like amazon also offer music downloads of known artists for free download. I compiled a incomplete list of some.
Take a look at redferret.net and the wikipedia entry for free music for good lists.
Amazon Free Music Downloads
Altsounds
Audiostreet
Epitonic
Iuma
oddiooverplay
oggle
singingfish
Soundlift
5. Audio Blogs:
Audio Blogs offer another possibility, they have become increasingly popular since 2003. Visit monkeyfilter.com for a large list of audio blog sites.
6. Support local bands
Local bands tend to produce and sell their cd´s on their own. Visit festivals and concerts, buy cd´s there and support those independent bands and musicians.
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“If you like the story…” Man… I realize that you’re trying to make additional money on ads and such, but this is almost whoring.
#7 Borrow CDs from the library and load on your computer.
Don’t forget the Etree!
etree (taper scene) http://etree.org
archive.org’s Live Music Archive http://www.archive.org/audio/etree.php
A lot of stuff on there is also available as a stream. As may be obvious, these are all live shows, taped by a dedicated hobbyist taper, usually to a DAT deck, then uploaded. The site only accepts bands who encourage and allow free trading of tapes of their live shows.
The intentions behind what you are saying are potentially noble, but your arguments are completely misguided.
At the end of the day, it costs money to make music, and there are many jobs at stake. Money makes the world go around, and until that changes, music cannot be free. Supporting local bands is important, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle.
What about studios? producers? etc. How are they supposed to make money? Making a quality album takes money, certainly not millions, but definitely thousands of dollars. How are companies that make music equipment supposed to make money, if all of the artists and producers are broke?
The type of industry “downsizing” you are advocating, which is essentially downsizing the industry until it does not exist, is going to make it virtually impossible for artists to continue making music, and is going to cripple a vast set of industries internationally.
Ultimately the labels have failed to find a way to monetize the internet, and Apple has bailed them out with iTunes. While iTunes is a step in the right direction, ultimately to succeed it will have to continually prove its advantages against outright stealing.
What is this “music industry”? Does this represent the artists themselves? The producers? The record label owners?
It is one thing to feel resentment toward those that own the labels and capture the majority of the profits, but this guide is actually saying that we should “enjoy the music” without giving a penny to the people to write, perform and record it. Like simple peer-to-peer filesharing, this is not productive at all.
The so-called “music industry” begins with musicians, who will (perhaps inadvertently?) shoulder the consequences of the boycott that you advocate. There has to be another solution.
also you can buy cds at concerts because that money usually goes straight to the band
Easy to say and not so easy to do
i totally agree with you. there are other ways to enjoy music without shelling out 19 a CD. CD prices are insane! I like your first suggestion the best, Buying used CDs. I don’t understand why all people don’t do that (unless they are giving a gift).
Yoy should add podcasting to the list. The podcast music netowork is great and there are so many music based podcasts.
Good article but you left out one important resource–the local library!! My nearest library has 1,000′s of CDs, and if they don’t have the one you want they’ll get it for you if it’s anywhere in the library system. It’s a good way to start or round out your collection.
I say support the unenumbered MP3 services that reward artists. Bleep (bleep.com) is my favorite.
I suggest allofmp3. Cheap Music ($0.03 US/MB). Run By Russians. Reputible. No DRM. anywhere from 128k to 320k MP3s… I havnt tried the other formats.
Oh yeh… the record companies see absolutely NO cash from this. Neither do the bands, but it’s the same deal with CDs anyway. BUY RAMMSTEIN SWAG!!
-jX
oops… typo… It’s $0.02/MB… MAKE THE FONT IN THE TEXT BOX BIGGER, SYSADMIN!
http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
A great way of cutting out the music industry would be to steal the record by downloading the tracks on a peer-to-peer network, and then just send a check written out directly to the artist themselves for the price the record company is charging. That way everyone who counts wins: the artist and the consumer, cutting out the middle man completely.
I posted a followup article http://www.ghacks.net/2005/11/11/how-to-live-without-the-music-industry-feedback/
that comments on feedback given ;)
Buy and sell on ebay!!! as for trading songs with the kids I know, I have a small USB hard drive. Plug it in and trade trade trade. Always keep a back up and check for virus befor instaling into your main system.
We have also set up a small WiFi lap top server and leave it open to the public every were we go. This would be great in a dorm setting as it works well next to the highschool next to my home. It’s always fun to see what has been uploaded buy the kids. It has kinda become a cult thing at this point.
Last question why is a CD $15 when a DVD movie is $15? who do you think is the real thing. The Dumb Blond or an actor who puts in 3 years of time on a set?
There is lots of free music @ thepiratebay ;)
Lots of those comments are about actually stealing music, the russian stuff, and suggesting ripping songs from library CD’s for example. You should probably can them to maintain any sort of integrity in this article.
I don´t see lots of comments that advocate illegal means of aquiring music, I see none actually. As long as this is the case I don´t see a reason to censor news entries.
Well i edited two of them, one for being rascist against whites and one for displaying the url of the russian mp3 portal. Its illegal in my country to link directy to it. Can you believe that ?
There’s a cool little Windows program called Screamer Radio
www.screamer-radio.com
It plays and records Internet radio. You can either have it record everything it plays, or just hit record when you hear a song you like. Even if the song is about to end, you can get a complete copy of the song because it is held in a cache.
My take is SONY-BMG take on DRM is not so much on the piracy but rather to force Apple to open up their Fair Play license so they can compete ITMS by selling song online directly to iPods users. Because, firstly SONY-BMG cd’s will only allow user to rip into WMA files and won’t allow them to tip to iTunes (unless you are a Mac user). They are stupid enough to think that by strong arming its customers, they will force customers to abandon iPods and ITMS. What a joke.
The best allover download spot on the net must be download.com It´s legal too.They have free software,games, music and videos.Another site is sourceforge.org for free windows software.All legal !!!!
At the end of the day the record companies provide the artists with the money to make an album, market it and do all these big worldwide tours. Artists can’t walk into a bank and ask for a loan, so they have to goto the record companies for the finacial support and that marketing power to help the bands get on the radio and television. Fair enough, the record companies do screw the artists, although the best artists will manage to make something of it like making their own label and starting their own clothing lines etc. All artists have to start somewhere and kiss some ass to get a start and deal with the shit, like with everything in life. Of course the record companies are going to be pissed off. They are the ones that funded the album and whatever made the artist. They just want their investment back. A lot of people still wouldn’t legally pay for music even if the record companies lowered their prices or dropped copy-protection, and the people who say they would are lying. It is illegal, I do it. Although I wouldn’t steal a car, because it isn’t as easy as stealing music.
There are many unsigned bands that are giving away their songs and even albums for FREE. Even good bands – check out Monika Bullette’s debut album – “The Secrets” – given away free of charge with great Internet praise.
http://www.bullette.net to download the entire album.
If you want a physical copy with original limited edition artwork you can buy it from her site – the money goes straight to the artist.
It just makes me wish there were some way to get all of the music pirates to agree to stop pirating music temporarily just to demonstrate to the MI that it’s their treatment of their customers and/or lack of budget causing their losses. If anything, I bet stopping the piracy completely will end up hurting them even more. I haven’t downloaded a music file from file sharing networks for at least 2 years and I haven’t bought a CD in that time either. I have no intention of supporting these corporate crooks. Nor do I have any sympathy for their pain.
Just one more thing. Like gun control laws and the like, these ‘protection’ measures only serve to inconvience the honest people. The pirates that the MI is supposedly targeting will just find the workaround and continue as normal.
Most artists (and especially the smaller ones) make their money from shows and merchandise, and not from direct CD sales. So support the bands you like by going to shows and bringing some friends along.
Look, what this is about mainly is a music industry that hikes its prices and markets its products at a demographice that can barely afford them anyway. They do a great job of getting kids to get their parents to shell out £16 a pop for a CD, when the children actually have no idea about music whatsoever. Yes, industry professionals like producers should be able to make a decent living from their craft, but I think this living is dependant on the integrity of the musicians that they agree to record. I have to admit, I am biased and don’t think music should be a business at all, but since it is, there should be a collective ethics involved in the industry. For too long, the marketing moguls have been at the head of the music industry. If an act that you like has gone to a record label with questionable business practices, stop buying the records!! Stop downloading them, stop listnening! They know what they are getting themselves in for when they sign that deal, and they don’t deserve your hard earned cash!! This applies to ANY band, on an Indie label (who can be bloody pushy sometimes) or a major. Stick with your own sense of business ethics and hopefully the industry will clean itself up. As NOFK say “The dinosaurs will slowly die!”. Peace
I have my own theories about downloading music which remains illegal. That being said, my main contention with the Music Industry is how they use their money. We only see commercials for bands that are established. Seems I have to go underground or surf the net for like eleventeen hours before I find any good new music. How do they expect to sell any albums when they don’t advertise their own product?
Lots of “independent labels” are popping up all over the place, and doing very well for themselves. These labels will sell over 10,000 copies of a CD and consider that awesome, see a return on their investment. What is so messed up about the larger Music Industry that they don’t see the same thing? I’ll tell you: too many people not doing enough work and getting paid too much for it. I’ve never made a record or promoted it myself, so I may just be running my mouth, but doesn’t it seem a bit odd that an “independent label” can do so much more with a few bands than a ginormous label like Sony can do with a lot more capital and a LOT more bands?
God bless the internet, now bands don’t have to wait to hear their first single on the radio at 1:00am in the morning.