mp3 downloads | argument for the industry

The once all powerful music industry is in shambles. The RIAA is trying desperately to bail out the sinking ship with a small teaspoon, hoping that if they make an example out of a little bit of the water, the rest will follow. And it isn’t working. MP3 downloads are on the rise, and most of it isn’t legal. Oh sure, there are a few companies that are riding a wave of consumer guilt, Apple, Amazon, and Emusic, to name a few. But for the most part the average twelve year old finds it much easier to download a copy of lime wire and get an MP3 download than it is to convince a parent that they should give out their credit card to download something legally. This problem is just creating a generation of freeloaders, and as the funds from the honest people slowly starts to dry up, the music industry will start to shrivel like a grape left out in the sun. Artists will no longer be able to afford the recording studios they once used, and the complex and expensive equipment will be out of reach for even the moderately successful artists. If you don’t think this will affect the quality of music, then you haven’t listened to the difference between complex and simple music studios of late. Listen to any top release of late, and you’ll notice that it is perfect. Or so close to perfect only the artist would know the difference between perfection and imperfection. This isn’t because the artist quality has been improving, artists and performers have been around for thousands of years, there hasn’t been a sudden jump in performer quality…

No, the perfect sound comes from the studio magic that could only be funded by the music industry that everyone seems to abhor. Yes, perhaps there are quite a few greedy tycoons who are making billions off of the exploits of a band that gets paid little to nothing. But at least that band gets to perform and live the lifestyle of a rock star right? If they didn’t have the music industry, their music wouldn’t sound incredibly good (on the album), and they most likely wouldn’t have very good tours because they’d have to pay their own way to the venue they would play at. Then what would become of the music industry? People need to start paying for their MP3 downloads, or the very music culture we love is going to collapse. Say what you will about the industry’s corruption and greed, without it, there would be very little culture at all. This is going to happen eventually if we don’t start buying our MP3 downloads, and all it takes is a little extra money a month to pay for it. We don’t all have to pay tons of money, we all just have to pay a little. Surely you can sacrifice a couple afternoon late decafs for that new radio head album?

Laridar wrote: Artists will no longer be able to afford the recording studios they once used, and the complex and expensive equipment will be out of reach for even the moderately successful artists. If you don’t think this will affect the quality of music, then you haven’t listened to the difference between complex and simple music studios of late. Listen to any top release of late, and you’ll notice that it is perfect. Or so close to perfect only the artist would know the difference between perfection and imperfection. This isn’t because the artist quality has been improving, artists and performers have been around for thousands of years, there hasn’t been a sudden jump in performer quality…

This is so not true. Today you don't need a big studio to record a great album. Sure, a big studio can be a great help, no question about it. But today even home studios can be used to record great music that sounds just like a professional production. Whether artists can actually pull that off depends on their engineering/mixing/mastering skill, not so much on technology anymore. And the technology keeps improving ... it becomes more and more affordable, and is thus taken out of the equation. In the 70s artists needed the industry because they financed their recordings (at least that was the motivation, the fine print in the contracts was another story) and to promote the music. Today artists can record/produce their music themselves, and the promotion is done via internet.

Laridar wrote: No, the perfect sound comes from the studio magic that could only be funded by the music industry that everyone seems to abhor. Yes, perhaps there are quite a few greedy tycoons who are making billions off of the exploits of a band that gets paid little to nothing. But at least that band gets to perform and live the lifestyle of a rock star right? If they didn’t have the music industry, their music wouldn’t sound incredibly good (on the album), and they most likely wouldn’t have very good tours because they’d have to pay their own way to the venue they would play at. Then what would become of the music industry? People need to start paying for their MP3 downloads, or the very music culture we love is going to collapse. Say what you will about the industry’s corruption and greed, without it, there would be very little culture at all. This is going to happen eventually if we don’t start buying our MP3 downloads, and all it takes is a little extra money a month to pay for it. We don’t all have to pay tons of money, we all just have to pay a little. Surely you can sacrifice a couple afternoon late decafs for that new radio head album?

I lost my livelyhood due to this Napster thingy and the internet. So I have some views........ But then again; we in the music industry was digging our own graves long before Napster arrived. The ignorance and the arrogance in the music industry is well known. We thought we were unique and we could charge whatever we wanted. We looked at Michael Jackson and said "we too want to become millionaires". But we were digging our own graves because we were competing against Pizza Hut, the local kebab shop, Walmart, Coca Cola and the emerging DVD scene. It is not a god given right that the consumer would choose us instead of Coca Cola. In fact; I think we were equally killed off by Coca Cola as by Napster.

I agree with Necromancer. The genie is out of the bottle and it is impossible to put it back. Illegal downloads is here to stay. I have no idea what will happen next. But ten years ago, I retrained and got a new livelyhood. That was my only option back then and I stand by my choice.