What has mp3 done for us?

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2002 8:48 pm

I couldn't agree with you more, Bob.One of my biggest problems with the whole MP3/Napster (and subsequent spinoffs) situation is that it takes control of the music away from the creator. Instead it is placed into the hands of someone who thinks "music should be free for everybody". Hey, go record your own album and then you can make your music "free for everybody". Our music, however, in a lot of cases pays our bills. Thank you, jackass. I will admit that it probably doesn't hurt some of the bigger bands out there that much (Metallica comes to mind), and some of the smaller bands willingly offer MP3s (of THIER music, which is fine), but it does indeed "erode the middle ground". Now more than ever bands either make money or they don't. There isn't a whole lot of middle ground. While there are people who make use of MP3s in perfectly legal ways (albiet at a lower SQ), but by and large, MP3s are traded and copied ilegally at a whim. IMHO at least a portion of the problem is lack of public awareness as to what exactly constitutes copyright infringment. I have some friends that say "I get it online because I don't think I should pay $13 for a CD to the "evil record labels", therefore it's good because I'm thwarting the evil-doers." As far as I'm concerned, trading MP3s with Napster like programs and otherwise is no better than going to a car dealership after hours and stealing a brand new BMW off the lot because you think they're charging too much for it. Yeah the labels may be "evil" in some people's eyes, but that doesn't justify stealing from the artists as well. It's the principle of the thing. Hurting artists hurts the entire music industry, which last time I checked, as engineers, also hurts us.I don't know if anyone out there agrees with me that if it ain't yours to give, dont F#$%ING give it! Just my two cents.-Chris

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2002 5:30 pm

I certainly don't advocate theft of works, but it would be worth a look to determine why MP3's are so popular.1st, self labels aside, who makes the money from a CD sale? The major record labels. We, the people, were promised that the price of CDs would drop from their initial $15 price tag after technology improves. They didn't. Now they are coming close to $20.00. The artist isn't making but a small % of that. If CDs were $10.00, perhaps the MP3 market wouldn't have gone as far as it has.2nd, If I am not mistaken, the recording industry is making a "small fee" of each blank recordable CD. This is money on top of money that the artists don't get. 3rd, Copy protection is never going to be popular. Any solution that someone comes up with that "looks" to the consumer that they will not be able to do with as they please, will not survive. I would look to the Original DivX from Circuit City's master mind. It was a horrible flop. Liquid Audio will probably not see any support from the public either. Any copy protection scheme can be broken by a bored 14 year old on a Sunday afternoon.I am not a successful musician. I am really trying to find my niche in the market. I would never want anyone to "Steal" my music. I would want to make the most from it. I feel that if the musicians and engineers were in charge, things would be different. It's the managers, and producers and major labels that dictate what we make and get in the "biz". I think the MP3 as an independent is a great thing. I have a few of my songs on MP3.com and have had a whopping 61 plays to date.....But, that is more than I have ever had. Phalynx,

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2002 6:30 pm

Just wanted to throw a couple of points into the pot here :p I've actually been buying MORE music since the advent of MP3, though I know I'm the exception not the rule. Previous to MP3 a friend would tell me about a cool new act, and IF I had the time I'd pop down to the music store and see if I could have a listen. Since MP3, I'll be talking on the phone and someone will recommend some new music......I'll be on to MacSatellite, download a couple tracks, and be listening to them before the phone call is even finished. If I like it, I keep it and add it to my "to buy" list, and if I don't, I trash it. The result is I've been hearing a lot more good music, and have been buying a lot more CDs!I don't know too many people that collect MP3s who have stopped paying for music altogether. Some people have, but these are the same freeloaders who would borrow their friends' music collections and tape them 10 years ago. Or even worse, tape the radio!!! To these people, the quality doesn't matter, and therefore they will probably never pay for music. It certainly isn't right, but there's not a lot that can be done about it. At best, MP3 is a great promotional tool for people like me that like to sample before they buy. At worst, it has cost some artists sales, and that's a VERY bad thing. The internet has had this type of effect on a lot of different industries - we just have to grasp the new technology and figure out how to make the advantages outweight the disadvantages.One last point: up here in Canada you will now pay as much as $25-$30 for a non-chart CD in a store like HMV or Virgin. I wholeheartedly support music, I make my living from it, and believe strongly in paying for my music. But $30 for one CD??? You must be fucking joking!!! Is it any wonder music sales are dropping??? I find it really hard to justify paying that much for less than an hours worth of music, knowing that the reason for it is that I'm paying for the 30 odd acts the record company signed that year that flopped!!!! Instead of signing the occasional act that they really believe in and nurturing them, they sign acts willy nilly (mostly stuff that sounds like another hot chart band), invest $200,000 + in them, and then drop them before the record is even released!!! Then the music buying public has to contend with ridiculous music prices. Not fair on the act, OR the consumer. That might sound off topic, but let me explain. Music sales have been dropping drastically for over 10 years now. At first, people suggested it was because of the advent of things like video games and videos etc, that people weren't as interested in music any more because of other forms or entertainment. What Napster has done is blow that theory all to hell, and shown us that there is still a MASSIVE interest in music as a form of entertainment. Maybe we just have to win back our share of the consumer's entertainment dollar by giving better value for money, by increasing the quality of our product (DVD-A, SACD.......5.1 music mixing, at a FAIR PRICE), and by paying more attention to the demands of the people who DO spend money on music. And how about doing something to give the consumer faith in new formats??? Why is there no music playing machine that supports both SACD and DVD-A??? Does anybody honestly think the general public is going to support another format war (when they now know from experience that the only loser in that kind of war is themselves)???I think it's really easy to blame the "crooks" who download music for dropping sales. In reality, maybe we need to look a little deeper into why something that is essentially a poor quality format could have such an impact on our industry.Be interested to see what you all think of what I've barked on about here!!! Rolling Eyes

Steve Chahley

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2002 11:51 pm

listening to mp3's right now as i type it...people who work for their living should be paid. people who fuck us for a living could do with a little less cash.i buy more records since mp3 came along. i listen to alot of indie music, and i like to pay the bands for it. i like the bands.THEY MAKE MUSIC I CARE ABOUT ENOUGH TO WANT TO PAY FOR IT.however, alot of the bands i like put out CDs for $10 at their shows or on their label websites.GOOD.mp3, and the whole digital music concept should do something for both the consumer and the artist.artist: make money
consumer: convience and value.simple as that. what if every cd you bought came with a little encoding of all the songs on mp3 as well? no ripping needed. you paid for it.i don't want to waste time downloading music, and i doubt anyone does.is it wrong to believe that the mp3 thing could seperate the wheat from the chaff? i want labels to put out great sounding music that i am happy to pay for because it is so convient and good OR i'm gonna take it on mp3, listen to the singles sometimes, and then pop my rainer maria and modest mouse cd's for the umpteenth time.if we can find some way to get the labels to stop their piss poor buisness practices that make them piss on the consumer, good. i want good music economicaly. they put out crap expensively. will anyone argue this point.as my new mercenary audio shirt says [THANKS FLETCHER] "corperate rock still sucks, what are you gonna do about it?"--o

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2002 11:52 pm

addendum:i went into a record store [newbury comics, for the MA kids] that tries to be cheap.cd's ON SALE for 13.88.i walked right the hell out.there were SEVERAL cds i wanted to get. i would probably have gotten 2 if they were $11 or so [i would DEFINATELY gotten them if they were $8, which is around what i think they should cost, $10 i can also deal with].but $14 for the SALE cds?regardless of my plans to "steal" the music via MP3 [it would be too much bother, FYI], the end result for the industry is they same:THEY AREN'T GETTING MY F*#@ING MONEY.not even for my bloody valentine. i am a friggin engineer. listening to music is part of my job. those purchases are tax deductable. i have hundreds of CDs. so many that, upon seeing all of their cases, my father started bitching about how much money i had "WASTED" on music [he did, however, drop his objections to me as engineer hearing my cousin chris athens @ sterling now makes $300k + a year... Wink

].and i still didn't buy shit. i haven't bought a CD in a while. the last record i got i didn't even get the pleasure of going into the store for [the dismemberment plan''s "change--> get it!].

AND I STILL DIDN'T BUY A DAMN THING.i felt insulted, used, and other bad things. my industry, and i still didn't buy in...point: there is a damn good reason people are not buying music: it's not convient, and way way way way over priced.if it takes MP3s to fuck the system up, so be it.i want to make a living. but if i can't afford to buy a buttload of records, who cares?it is even more a principal thing. they lost out on $20 of sale for about $5 in price increase.so no more CD's for me for a while.fuck 'em?feelings kids?

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2002 5:03 am

mp3 was a learning experience...it showed us what amazing potential the net has for independant distribution. keeping the artist in direct contact with the audience. artists and their assistants must get paid to continue to make good music. free music is no answer.record company mega-corporations must be stripped of their excessively powerful grip over distribution and marketing.the net will take care of artists if we are diligent in our battle to keep the artists directly in contact with the audience.the majors will try to buy up the net and turn it into another controlled distribution channel. we can beat them to it, if we work hard to setup independant sites that offer convenience and quality music, legally.CDbaby.com is a great example.it is in our best interest to help find a DRM solution that is open source and not controlled by any one corporation.

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2002 11:32 am

I'll come clean, I was all over Napster and introduced my coworkers to it back then (probably a good chunk of why the company went under . . .), and I had hundreds of songs downloaded. One of the other guys brought in a cd burner so we could take the MP3's home. I wasnt' interested. For me it was really an exploration tool (and a damn good one) and I learned when I decided to listen to a cd instead that I liked listening to complete albums much more. The purpose I thought Napster served was kind of like interactive radio, a well tailored promotional medium, since it was user driven, and not market driven. I got to follow up on years of word of mouth and bought a bunch of cd's as a result.Now, I'm never going to say the current paradigm of major label cd releases is anything close to fair, but if you have a problem with that game, don't fucking play it. There are plenty of indie labels with (at least nominally) more equitable splits of the proceeds and often lower unit prices, and there are plenty of great albums coming out on these labels. Never heard of them? That's what the majors are making their larger cut on, promotion and getting the name out. And they're losing money on probably the majority of their releases, it's just that the top sellers are big enough to keep them profitable. It is a business, and they wouldn't be able to expose the great stuff they occaisionally put out if they weren't selling so much crap for the tone deaf.Artist exploitation? If a musician hasn't picked up that they should have at least some apprehension about the major label deal, the plug should have been pulled because he was already a vegetable. (Decide what instrument he plays on your own.) There are circumstances where it is worthwhile to sign with the majors, and there are circumstances where it is better to stay indie. Neither choice is always right or wrong. Life can be funny that way.Bear

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2002 4:27 am

the balance between art and commerce should be just that... a balance. majors were started by gangsters and intimidators. the industry began that way and has grown in its unbridled power. they feed their own machine the way alcohol companies sell bud light... by shoving the images and sounds down our throats through the ad channels that they control...until finally we beleive that we are receiving good piss-water and we are addicted.mp3 has opened our minds. it is the crack in the Matrix. it will take time for our minds to adjust.because they are so closed.from just the 12 notes in the western scale system...there are millions of possible melodies and harmonies. expressions of individual souls as unlimited as the human experience.how can you judge one expression good or bad?you can't. you have to give everyone a voice and a chance. those which resonate with the most people will find their own way to the masses...and those that are idiosyncratic and arbitrary will stay that way.
Word of Mouth has never been as powerful as on the Net.look at it this way...how many good expressions..songs that could change the world....get squashed by the current media factory because the VP of marketing doesn't believe they have a market? bullshit. someone wants to hear it, but commerce says no.VIVA mp3. VIVA freedom. VIVA indie.

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