Will piracy kill off prog rock ?

You can be curious but you cannot ask (Rule 5)

I'm curious to know how many people have a copy of the Beatles 'White Album', or better known as the Esher demos, on a bootleg of some type?

Yep.  Western music CDs are around $10 or more generally.  Sometimes can pick them up for as low as $5 if they have been in stock too long without takers. 

rogerthat wrote: Not to mention that the price differential between CDs and tapes was massive.  I know a lot of Western art music snobs look down on tapes but they were popular in third world countries precisely because they were so affordable.  Music at some price is better than no music at all, at the end of the day.  We could get brand new cassettes of film soundtracks in India for no more than a dollar at most in the 90s but the CD version of the same would cost at least $4-5.  That was too much of a premium, no matter the superior performance delivered by the CD. Today, CDs are sold for as low as $1.5 or $2 at the most.  And that's without taking into account inflation so that tells you how costly CDs were in the 90s.  Costly mistake.  First pirated mp3s came into the market, offering the same songs for a much lower price.  It was until the late noughties or so that music labels here responded with legit mp3 CDs but by then, it was too late.  Today they release soundtracks on Itunes simultaneously with the physical version but it takes a big name composer like Rahman to guarantee healthy sales.

npinho73 wrote: No. In my opinion "piracy" make prog rock reach to persons who don´t have the possibilites to know a gropu or album in other way. I gave you my example, if wasn´t for "piracy" i almost for sure never have listened to Van Der Graaf Generator, or Flower Kings, and maybe never had the chance to know Riverside an others. So in my opinion "piracy" is good for prog rock, in fact is good to all kinds of music. Of course bands soul less records than a few years ago, but they have more concerts and more people talking about them now and it´s because of that.

Piracy is no excuse for that nowadays, there are lots of legal streaming services you can use to discover music before buying them, and even if they don't receive much from it, it's still more supportive than illegal downloads (those three artists you mencioned are on Spotify by the way)

How much more prog concerts do you see in our country?

Davesax1965 wrote: One from npinho73 -  "<span style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px; : rgb248, 248, 252;">Of course bands soul less records than a few years ago, but they have more concerts and more people talking about them now and it´s because of that. </span><span style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px; : rgb248, 248, 252;"> "</span> <span style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px; : rgb248, 248, 252;"></span> <span style="line-height: 14.3999996185303px; : rgb248, 248, 252;">Er, no. Beforehand, you recorded albums, and the sale of the album funded a live gig. Now, you can't get the working capital to do a live gig, it's incredibly expensive, you have to generate sales and interest, hire venues, PA's - then five people and a dog turn up as it's "prog rock" and not mass market. Established bands can just about get away with it, but they only just break even, making money from sales of merchandise. New bands ? - can't even afford CD or vinyl releases. Sorry to have to mention this but I'm a musician, take it from the horses' mouth, honestly. </span>

I hear you Davesax,
Good point, even when a musician manages to self fund the cd production, it is very difficult to sell enough to break even with the costs. Not easy, most do this for the love of music while having another day job.
Hugs    

One from npinho73 - 

npinho73 wrote: No. In my opinion "piracy" make prog rock reach to persons who don´t have the possibilites to know a gropu or album in other way. I gave you my example, if wasn´t for "piracy" i almost for sure never have listened to Van Der Graaf Generator, or Flower Kings, and maybe never had the chance to know Riverside an others. So in my opinion "piracy" is good for prog rock, in fact is good to all kinds of music.

No. In my opinion "piracy" make prog rock reach to persons who don´t have the possibilites to know a gropu or album in other way.
I gave you my example, if wasn´t for "piracy" i almost for sure never have listened to Van Der Graaf Generator, or Flower Kings, and maybe never had the chance to know Riverside an others.
So in my opinion "piracy" is good for prog rock, in fact is good to all kinds of music.
Of course bands soul less records than a few years ago, but they have more concerts and more people talking about them now and it´s because of that. 

I am afraid the bitter retirement of Martin Orford as well as another band that broke up claiming the piracy situation made it hopeless, contradicts this view.  On the other hand, the top selling pop artists still record healthy volumes.  It may not be anything compared to the blockbusters of the 80s or 90s but they still regularly go platinum or multiplatinum.  Of course prog rock fans like to take the convenient view that pop listeners are to a man fickle and will scavenge on illegal copies if they can, a view that is based more on personal prejudices perhaps than reality.  The reality is that pop stars have access to a much bigger audience which would necessarily include more people who will either buy CDs or buy songs or albums off ITunes.  I think there's one thing prog rock bands could definitely do to mitigate the impact of piracy on their prospects.  At least in the beginning they should only offer individual tracks for sale via digital media.  At that price point, more people would be prepared to pay.  Sure, there are lots of people who now want music for free all the time.  But the only way to get people back into paying for recorded music is to sell it in smaller parcels.  A parallel can be drawn to the introduction of hair shampoos in small sachets by the likes of Unilever and P&G for the Indian market to capture those customers who couldn't afford or didn't want to buy a full bottle of shampoo.  Certainly a $1/2 download of a song is more enticing than a $15 CD plus shipping, there is less likelihood that a person might postpone the purchase.  Yes, prog rock bands and listeners alike are hooked to the album format.  But if listeners will only pirate albums and not pay for the format they supposedly love so much, it's time for the bands to adapt, at least for the sake of their own survival.  It's not as if this is a brand new idea anyway.  Some if not a lot of bands already offer individual tracks in an album for download.  I would only take this a step further and suggest that initially they shouldn't even invest the effort and money involved in putting together an entire album.  Just release songs for sale and as the response improves, they can probably offer more tracks together at a time for sale.

Edited by rogerthat - October 01 2014 at 22:02