because there's actually no way to calculate it. at all.

i do agree that sites like rapidshare are operating in a bit of a dodgy area, profiting from ads when most of their traffic comes from illegal downloads, but there is a definite and legitimate need for these sorts of sites as well (they are very frequently used by people distributing any sort of original content that they dont have the bandwidth to do themselves, including, yes, independent musicians).

they do usually remove illegal content when they notice it - its just hard to tell without human intervention whether a file is pirated or not, and the immense popularity of theses sites makes examining every file a very impractical thing to do that would probably end up destroying them. i would treat it like ebay - the place is absolutely loaded with fake stuff, but its clearly an incredibly useful site for all sorts of legitimate reasons as well.

I've done a complete 180 the past 12 months or so - I'm not sure I've downloaded an entire album for free in that time.

It's a few things - most of them to do with boring stuff like web access, but also guilt, now I'm in a position where I can afford to pay for it.

The result is I'm kind of back to where I was before MP3s emerged - I'm listening to a lot less music, but what I'm listening to, I'm listening to more and in more depth than when I had a backlog of 70 million records that I ended up skimming over.

Not everyone who downloads for free would pay for download. This games company studied this and saw that preventing 1000 downloads only created 1 extra sale

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17350

not the article.

emphatically.

why can't journos review albums from low-quality mp3s? i'd much rather do that than sit in some major label office and get to hear an album once, maybe twice, before getting the chance to review it. some have started doing streams and watermarked mp3s but that's not useful when i do most of my listening to music on public transport or in the gym.

Surely they are going to have to start doing this in order to miss out on the mass 'shock profit' made from the initial release of an album.

The one thing that has always struck me about this is that if the average US citizen buys 1.4 albums a year and the report mentions "US broadband users spent an average of $12.50 on music in 2008, compared to $7.80 for UK broadband users, and a mere $0.60 for Spanish broadband users" there must be a lot of people spending nothing to cancel out even people like my parents who might buy 7 or 8 albums a year between them, let alone music fans who think almost nothing of spending £50 a month on records / downloads. If 7digital or whoever will allow me to d/load say 400MB of new records (call that 75 singles for the sake of argument or 6 full albums) and 100MB of older records (to counter older stuff being £3-5 now) for £25 a month I'll take that. Will probably reduce the number of impulse purchases I make and I'll end up spending the same over the year I'd say. They could also offer an option of d/loading an album for £4 and letting me purchase a CD copy it for an additional £2-3

This whole affair smacks of shutting the stable door after the horse has not only bolted but lived a full and prosperous life in the mean time. Even shutting down every p2p and file hosting site will not prevent a generation of music users thinking they can get stuff for free. They'll find another way.

It's ridiculous to assume that students all over the world would be out spending money they don't have if they couldn't get stuff for free. They'd shrug their shoulders eventually and decide that maybe they don't need to hear every Frank Zappa album ever.

you should maybe be using eMusic which is kinda like that? Or if you can wait 'til it goes DRM-free then the new Napster might make sense.

the way people think music should be free hasn't be helped by the irresponsible message Radiohead sent out, which to most people was that music was free (and interestingly the album was huge on p2p http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071018-p2p-vs-radioheads-free-rainbows-why-p2p-can-be-a-hard-habit-to-break.html )

The figure is completely unworkable. Even if it was correct, how many of these downloads can be acounted to someone downloading every single release from one lable all in one torrent? Or someone downloading a huge trance library just for the sake of it. Many many people download things just for the sake of it, because its there. If it wasnt available to them online for free, they wouldnt go and buy it so its notlost money. Its a small percentage of people downloading a hell of a lot of music thats the problem.

I bet illegal downloading is a much smaller culture than we think, its just here on dis we have the perfect breeding ground for it,(music enthusiasts who are generally tech savvy and have a lot of information about leaks and such) therefore we see it as a bigger problem.

that you can't expect everyone who illegally downloaded a song last year would've bought the CD/vinyl had the download option not been available, but a few people beat me to it. I used to look at things that way and it was frustrating, but I think the key thing is to realise that simply isn't the case and find a way around it.

I do think we're going to see a serious increase in products and services similar to Nokia Comes With Music. Broadband providers, mobile phone companies, the Government (perhaps in a similar scheme to TV licences), large online stores and others will no doubt be looking at doing this, and whilst it does bring money back into the system, how does it feed down to us indie labels? The majors will sign deals and take a percentage, so they're sorted, and some of the bigger indie distro's will do the same, but when you consider the thousands of 'bedroom labels' who, between us, make up millions and millions of illegal downloads, but induvidually don't add up to much, we're bound to be overlooked. Unless there's something I just haven't considered here...?

but i wonder, if - as I suggested in my predictions for this year over on my http://seaninsound.blogspot.com/2009/01/nine-predictions-for-2009.html - labels began to sell (access to) their entire catalogue or made it easy to download, say, every Now album, whether people would pay for the package. Rather than what I've done a few times which is download a bands discography because I wanted one album which I could only find to order on Amazon and would take 2 weeks for delivery. Conversely, when we were doing our podcast we found it quicker to buy tracks from iTunes than find the CDs amongst the piles in the office, riddle me that!?

I suspect it isn't 95% of people who listen to music are downloading it for free but I put money if you even went to dinner parties with your parents and saw their average friends computers, you'd find, they've have 50 or so tracks, maybe rare Dylan bootlegs like my old sociology teacher used to ask me to help him find (not sure if I got extra credit for that).

the Radiohead model means less money for new talent development; where are the job cuts at places like EMI? A&R not in PR and Marketing.

i just think that the number of people who used to buy albums on a whim will now choose to download them instead

though i said 'not be willing to pay for', now i've thought about it in more depth, i just mean that people only have so much money that they can spend on something which they aren't sure whether they are going to like or not, whereas with illegal downloads, you're only limited by the speed of your internet connection and the size of your hard drive.

i completely agree with what you say about buying now, i do the same as you, especially about buying things just to hear what they sounded like, i think that this whole internet malarkey has taken the intrigue out of a lot of music. That doesn't dampen my interest in the music at all, but it does dampen my desire to spend for it when everyone knows how freely available everything is these days

"It means that due to file-sharing via P2P, blogs, IM-ing, YouSendit/Rapidshare-ing zip files, CDR's, hard-drive swapping, etc. the record industry is only making 5% of the money it could potentially be making" is incorrect.

you'd probably end up paying a few pence per track if everyone was being taxed (as the weight would be shared somewhat like radio royalties or insurance) and also advertising would subsidise some of the costs too (i.e. iTunes and all download stores have to pay a performance publishing royalty, for every download)

Interesting article. I question the spin behind the stats here, but the fact remains that the music industry is so behind the times (still) on incorporating downloading into their models. I would have happily paid a fee to OiNK/Waffles, but didn't because the "industry" didn't see that method as something to turn to their advantage. Instead they demonized it, which drove it further underground. Shot themselves in the foot if you ask me.

Solution 2 is the one I prefer of the two options you propose

what uses these millions of people have for p2p? i'm yet to have heard an answer to this.

I think censorship of services is a better option than DRM or closing down brilliant sites like Muxtape is essentially a lot of what I was saying boiled down to a soundbite.

but that's likely to be a viewpoint that's more attractive to industry insiders than the rest of us. For me, DRM isn't a problem because I'll never pay a penny for anything with it, and the loss of Muxtape and its ilk is a very, very, very small price to pay for avoiding the intrusive and awkward measures suggested in Option 1.

The majority of p2p data transfer is almost certainly copyrighted material. But it's also a great way to distribute open source material.

all music should be free. if you don't like the fact you're not going to make money from it, don't do it. Simple. As. That. if it means less music, then that's just tough shit

given that it has numerous useful, and legal uses. It is the basis for software such as Skype/iPlayer and a host of other streaming TV sites/applications. And it has plenty of uses in legal software distribution (lots of open source projects), maybe even legal music distribution (NIN for example). The main problem is that companies have been very slow to get their head round p2p as a means of distribution.

"The record industry is only making 5% of the money it could potentially be making."

That's complete rubbish. I have many an album on my computer that I would never have bought if i couldn't download it for free. If anything, at the moment I spend more on music now than I did before downloads.

There won't be any dissipation in the demand from music listeners for music, and sure as there are creative souls about there'll be those to make the music. The problem is working out a fair solution for all involved, somewhere between old-model industry extortion and the free-for-all technological destruction of copyright model.

For some reason this article kind of shocked me. not the bit about how much is downloaded and how much the music industry is losing, but the fact that a DIS editor took what seems like a pretty hardline view.

Am i the only one that is quietly confident that music will survive no matter what happens to the music industry? I understand that the business side of music is somewhat important in terms of funding the production and promotion of the music, but i actually think that it is much less important than everyone seems to think.

I download stuff, but i always buy cd's that i like. Mostly coz i like having the artwork etc. Obviously most of my money doesnt go to the band, it goes to the plethora of middle men. In a way maybe the best thing for bands to do would be to make their music free online, but then charge more for live shows. If they are good enough, people will want to see them live and will pay for it. i would anyway. if music was free for legal download, i would still probably buy quite a few cd's. i realise i may be in a minority. i'm just rambling now, i really have no solution to the music industries problem, but i guess my point is that i don't really care. I'm almost 100% positive that the best bands out there are not in it for the money.

reading back through this, i realise how shit a post it actually is, but i'm still going to post it.

who gives a shit.

LIES. If illegal file-sharing ceased to exist, I would buy about 1% of the music I download illegally.

So it's difficult to charge for the mp3s, but people are still paying through the nose for mp3 players and phones. Pretty soon no one will have standalone mp3 players, we'll all listen on our phones (particularly with the advent of iPhone) so am I the only person who thinks Nokia's Comes With Music has to be the blueprint here?

I don't know how good their library is, and the phones that come with the contracts are only 2-8gb or something, but give me an iPhone or similar on a contract that costs £20 or so more than the one I have now, with full free access to iTunes or another decent download service, and I will never illegally download a single track ever again.

No?

Another point I might mention - for my sins, I do download music illegally, but not stuff that I would buy anyway. I get things I'm not sure about, haven't really listened too but have been recommended. I've found a lot of music I love that way, sometimes I'll go and buy the album, and often I'll end up seeing the artists live - worth mentioning they get a much greater percentage of the cost of my ticket than they do of an iTunes download.

so many people make naff-all money out of music and carry on doing it anyway, i guess because they like it. i presume if there's no change to their income, they're not going to stop on a whim. now go and get a job. or a lobotomy.

Especially the point about phones and MP3 players. Spotify/last.fm/etc with a 3g phone pretty much achieves most of it already.

I'm not even going to touch this can of worms.

In a nutshell though, outlawing P2P, Rapidshare or anything of that nature is LUDICROUS. Both are use legitamately - for instance, last night I downloaded a new Linux ISO via a torrent and updated the software on my Popcorn Hour using Rapidshare.

Argh. No. I'm not going to do this. The stats from the IFPI are incalculable and bollocks and so are these 'methods' to save the music industry.

The premise of adding 'tax' to the bills of downloaders wouldn't be too hard to implement, surely?

There has to be another catch.

To have a fair music tax system, whereby even the most passive, humble artist recieves fair game, the ISP's and the collection agencies would have to create an infrastructure specifically for the purpose of data transfer / royalty allocation.

This process will cause some serious stirs in collection establishments like the PRS-MCPS et. al. Royalty streams will have to be re-worked and in some cases re-routed, and jobs that were once relevent, will shift into lower levels of importance.

This alone has a MASSIVE impact in the rate of address of these piracy problems. These societies have found their place in our music biz heritage. They have become comfortable in their laziness, and will put up a fight when they're told to change some ethics and develop new platforms to accomodate our need for high-speed digital climate.

Yearly royalty reports are a joke. What is this the fucking 50's?

This is an accellerated culture, get with the program, ey?!

I didnt offer any solutions I just questions how the stats were worked out.

and kinda just said that people are in music for the music and doin it rather than cash.

.

That I don't illegally download music myself. In fact I don't download music at all, I prefer the physical product in high quality.

than anything to do with the article. It's bloody impossible to follow who's replying to who.

making a profit from touring for most bands is difficult let alone making a living.

it's wrong that itunes etc should charge more/the same for a download album than amazon do for a physical product. I understand that music has a value however a digital track can be replicated for (virtually) no cost to the label/band yet the price point is still based on the cost of a physical copy.

If BMW could replicate their car exactly with minimal cost (i.e the cost of technology to do so, in musics case a computer) would they still charge £30,000 for it? Since the production costs is lower we would assume the cost to the consumer could be lower.

So i would suggest for a start downloads should be more realistically priced.

when a mate of mine was telling me he sold 1000 records and when they did a quick -p-p check on the big names etc, they found 6000 copies of his album. in the meantime he was working in a cafe. wonder what the people listening do for a living? So it really does affect the little guy more than anyone else. I think the measures above aren't practical in today's world. especially when you think about wifi access etc.

you need money to make your art sure but i consider making music a luxury. it's fun its not work in the traditional 9-5 sense, so yeh you gotta get money but lets be fair about it, im not going to pay loads of money for something it doesn't cost the band to replicate.

I would love it if they didnt have to and they made a living just from music but I dont see it being very posible for a hell of alot of people.

As others have said, the music industry got pricing on download services wrong and using DRM on legal downloads.

Make album downloads around 3 quid, job done.

I was in favor of this even *before* my computer crashed. Fuck digital downloads...but fuck me because I'm going to have to steal about 3000 records this weekend. But I'm sure I won't feel as bad having to steal them the second time 'round. Heh.

I think we're just gonna have to get used to the idea that indie labels will not survive. Major labels will have to cut waaay back and eventually they'll die too. Musicians will self-release everything and then have to tour in order make money. Even Silver Jews toured last year!

I think labels provided a terrific amount of band support that will have to be financed by bands themselves (ie bands will interview pr companies and not the other way round) if they want professional management. But unless the price of phyical copies comes waayy down in price, no one will be paying for music for long. The only reason people pay for iTunes now is because I won't give them a what.CD invite. You have to ask me nice. :)

I gave up reading the article after the 3rd paragraph of reactionary hyperbole. I can never take a hysteric seriously. However, I do not disagree that sales are decreasing and I do not disagree that peopel downlaod lots of albums. As a case study for this conversation, it would help if you (gerardTonecity) elaborated more on your comment.

Who is your friend?

What is a p-p check?

Why check big names if they are looking for your friend?

Who has 6000 copies of his album?

How many copies of his album did he press?

What does it matter what "the people listening do for a living" - for his market research?

There is plenty of research and anecdotal evidence that suggest the 'little guy' is not hurt by illegal downloading at all. I know of labels that post their releases on P2P sites as part of their promotion.

I'm interested in hearing more from you, since you are the only person here who seems to be voicing concerns from experience.

One issue I do not see being raised to a satisfactory degree, even in the original article, which only gave it a cursory superficial mention is this:

Major labels spend millions, MILLIONS on initial outlay, marketing, promotion, advances etc... therefore, they need to recoup all this off sales to break even, let alone turn a profit.

This is unsustainable and totally unnecessary.

If someone could tell me a major labels average spend ratio of return per £ investment I would love to see it. Evenmoreso I would love to see this figure for each artist individually like Girls Aloud, Robbie Williams, Take That, Sugababes, Coldplay, U2, Killers and other stadium sized acts.

My point here being that; smaller labels will always survive, because their outlay is so small. Sustainability is the key to anything wishing to survive - as the economic collapse will attest.

I am not concerned about the major labels losing/not making massive money on their massive investments for two reasons. One, they are still making A HUGE PROFIT, and two, that particular part of the music industry, whilst accounting for 95% of sales (I just made that up, but you get the idea, yes?) accounts for only 5% (made that up too) of the artists IN THE WORLD.

It is not true that these smaller profits mean labels are investing less in new talent and A&R. it is an industry that proliferates itself through newness as much as reliability – it cannot find a reliable source of income without discovering itself in the first place.

This is absolutely the most crucial aspect of this debate and one I do not see being addressed.

Apparently the record industry is in trouble and there is some kind of economic crisis crunching everything up. If that were true, why is it so many releases on so many labels have all sold out? Why are those labels still putting out record after record? Why are all the gigs still selling? Why are people still making music?

Why am I still spending £100’s a month on records? I spend as much as I possibly can, which is currently more than I have ever been able to spend before. I fully expect this trend to continue for many years. I realise not everyone is as interested in music as me, as dedicated to buying it direct from the artists (many of whom are not even signed by any label, no matter how small a bedroom it is run from), or as committed to keeping physical releases alive as an art form, not just a fetish or novelty item (I am also committed to downloading it too, how else would I hear so much. How. Else. Huh?).

I say that in opposition to the casual “5-albums-a-year” mainstream that bought the 40 million copies of The Bodyguard soundtrack, 30 Million copies of the Titanic ost, 25 miklion copies of Hootie and the Blowfish, and kept Wet Wet Wet and Bryan Adams at Number 1 for 16 weeks each.

Fuck. That. Shit.

That’s my bit for this.

GxMx

p.s. I do not understand why people buy tracks online. Because they want them instantly? Mailorder arrives the next day people, and when it does it looks and sounds like someone gives a shit about it.

Statistics are ridiculous and so are the solutions.

For me, it is much easier for me to download my music illegaly than legally. Why would I pay for an inferior service?

This certainly is a shame for some artists, but the industry is going to have to evolve for this new market. Services like last.fm and spotify are good examples where the it's free, easy, useful and the artists will still get paid a bit.

...because it's a major hassle (downloads are 100 times the size), just like with TV/movies. Illegal music downloading is simply ahead of those mediums because it uses less digital space.

What the recording industry needs to do is sell the digital music for an appropriate price. A large part of the cost of a CD in a shop goes to the retailer (who has to pay for premises, bills, staff etc.) and the distributor (who has to get the product from the pressing plant to the shops/warehouses). If you break it down to the actual cost of recording and marketing, the price of a track ought to be something like 29p. Apple (iTunes) just announced they're going to do tiered pricing, but the minimum level (59p) is still too high. If albums were £2.99 to buy online (five US dollars would be a nice pricepoint), as they really should be, they'd be a lot more popular.

I agree that subscription models are generally great for the consumer, but totally unfair on the content-makers. If one user pays £10 and downloads a thousand tracks, they get less than a penny, whereas another might only download 15 and they'd get around 50p (after costs). This makes no sense for them.

...that most people aren't regular/power Internet users (yet). My mum in her 60s is online (and thus counted in the stats for people using the 'net) but wouldn't have a clue how to download music, legally or otherwise.

but i really can't be bothered. being a musician is important and it is a luxury.

i use mp3 fiesta to download tracks, and i pay for them, but the music is so cheap (20 CENTS PER TRACK) that i have my doubts about the legality of this site.

the other day. I mean, seriously, what do people expect when they're charging about a pound for an mp3 (which up until very recently would have had DRM)? This is a site full of music lovers, many of whom are involved in small bands and therefore know how difficult it can be for artists. But does anyone really think that average person is going to pay for overpriced mp3s when a DRM free equivalent is available for free? Would you do it for any other type of product?

I know I'm stating the obvious here, but it seems like the music industry hasn't faced up to the fact that there is no way they can continue to charge the same prices. The draconian measures suggested would work for a bit, but people would find simple ways around them. The music industry has to accept they can not beat the problem of free downloads, they just have to do their best to compete with them. I know many people who would buy legal downloads if they were cheaper, DRM free and they could be assured of good quality. Many still wouldn't - but it would go some way to helping the problem.

Wow! I just wrote and posted a response to this DIS article before reading any responses and they are overwelmingly negative to this article.

Many seem to have the same point which is - Screw the music industry, this giant dinosaur holding court in a Beverly Hills mansion, Living by means far beyond what it deserves, -true artists will find a way to survive, -dont tread on my internet connection!!!

Again, I'm a Profesional Musician. Since 1995 i have managed barely to make a living at music. I started out on an Indie then a major and for the last 8 years back to an Indie. I live in Brooklyn New York USA. My quality of life is not ideal. When I'm not on the road i have to work 2 to 3 jobs 6 some times 7 days a week to pay rent on the shoebox i call an apartment. The days when i work double shifts i ask myself more then once why i do it. When I write and record a new album or play for an appreciative audience then i know why i do it. Why am I telling you this? Why should you feel any sympathy ? Because, If your a true fan of Indie, my life scenario is the same one every working Indie artist faces.

If your a true fan of Indie music, not Britany or Beyonce or Coldplay or U2, Independent music.. You probably listen with an ear thats above average. You care about content and true artistry as opposed to something that seems manufactured and assembled behind close doors by cigar chomping svengallie's with deep pockets and corporate marketing teams. You wouldn't go to a sansburys check out counter line to shop for music . You would go to a Knowledgeable mom and pop recordstore owned by some single geeky dude who is 47, prays on the mojo bible, looks like an aging joey Ramone and has 20,000 vinyl records in his personal collection. You come to his store because in some small way you are a younger version of him.

But these days , it has been suggested, you no longer pay for music .

When as a fan of music did you stop careing about the cover and interior art of an album? On what day or month did you no longer care to read the lyrics that were printed out for your eyes ? Decide the album the artist recorded and intended for you to hear was not in fact the album to your liking?

Was it the sticker price on the CD that turned you off? If it was then i agree, 20 or 15 dollars is to much to pay for a CD. That's the price gouging a major label does. But....... When was any price suddenly to much? When did the creators of music agree to give all music away for free ? As a fan of Indie rock you know that most Indie CD's sold at mom and pop record stores sell from 8 to 12 dollars, convert that to pounds if you please. Still to much? Well factor in what the album costs to record then have a graphic artist design the packaging , have manufactured, boxed and shipped to the mom and pop store and pay the few empolyees who work for circus peanuts at an Indie record Label and the mom and pop store then it's really not that much. It's also easy to conclude that the Indie record label and record store are barely running at a profit. Common sense suggests that this would be a dumb business to get involved in. Must have been started by persons motivated by a Love of original artistic heartfelt music not business men. No one is getting rich here, There just getting one more month of electricity payed at the dingy wharehouse they call a record label office.

Does the Indie Record Buisness sound glamourise to you ? Or does it sound like any other job that your dad works or you work ? Nothing fancy, just a few people trying to provide a product they believe in, pay their rent and not shoot themselves in the head because next month if sales are bad it may be their last.... only now their are no sales.

That 5% Profit/Sales the article mentioned... That's the majors!!!!! That's Beyonce! That's Kanye West and other bad trite comercial rap! That's Coldplay and The Jonis Brothers! The major labels made any money there was to be made this year. The major labels were the only ones that had deep enough pockets to get lawyers involved and sue Napster and other files sharers a decade ago and now. They were the only ones with the money to invent online music stores like Itunes and then control and constrict it's output. It could be said that Itunes chops up an artists catalog and sells it off peacemeal cheapening the music expierence in the only way the marketing department at a major label can.

It sounds to me like your main arguments about the giant dinosaur music industry are really directed at the major labels. Fuck them is my attitude also. Their bad business men in Los Angeles who don't care about music. They are most deffinately struggling but it's a longer slide when your bank account pulls money from the giant conglomerates that own the majors as well as banks, biotechs, pharmaceuticals, textile and weapons manufacturers etc.It's just one of many products they have no personal feeling for but sell anyway.

If major labels are your real enemy then how about you only pirate from the majors? use your sacred internet connection to validate the record label the artist your about to steal from calls home base and then use your independent minded discretion.

Remember please that Indies are owned not by a parent corporation but a 47 year old guy with a Joey Ramone haircut that has a name like Steve. Steve loves music, may bathe irregularly and eat yesterdays leftover Chinese food at the office most days cus he is the president, A and R rep , marketing department and mail clerk all in one. This makes his 9 to 5 longer then yours by several hours. Steve's a geek who loves music and loves that he gets to help a young band write its Nirvana Nevermind only no one wants to pay our Steve any more and in turn Steve can't give his bands tour support or help them with recording costs or even buy them lunch.

When i was signed to a major label our advance was 80,000 US dollars. 1995 US dollars. This payed our rent for a year (my band shared an apartment) bought us a tour van and a few instruments (a bass and some keyboards and a PA) payed for a rehearsel space and a fancy British producer to record us in LA. It was spent within two weeks of signing and we the band had little to no say in the matter. When we originally signed we were told we'd have artistic control. Artistic control became, "Gentleman, you have 3 choices on this list and we are willing to pay for choice one only". Over the next year and a half people at the label were hired and fired regularly. The new people didn't sign us and didn't care about us.Further money was spent on our behalf that we didn't approve and felt was unnecesarry and we went in debt to the label. I never saw any money in my bank account personally and worked a "real day job" job from time to time when we were not touring. We were a succesful underground band but to "indie" for American radio. A lawyer advised us to brake up to get away from the debt we owed and the bad decisions others were making for us. We never played together again. This was typical of the fate of many Independant minded or styled bands that went to a major back then. File Shareing wouldn't be an issue till 2 years later (late 1990's).

My expierence with the Indie Labels i work with is wonderful. First off, there is no big advance (some times no advance). But I can call or visit whenever for advice or an honest opinion or even just to hang and talk with other super music fans. They get me. Ideas about releases and marketing are creative and fresh (they have to be on hardly any budget) . They pay for mixing/ mastering and the physical product. They also have introduced me to other helpers( publicity reps, agents etc) who are also down to earth likeable people .
I record much of my albums on my own and have paid out of my own pocket (remember those 2 to 3 jobs i have). It does cost money to buy software and compressors and microphones and entice musicians to record for you. For example, i payed $2,000 for a drummer, singers, and a horn player on my last recording. It was real effort for me to save that amount. 2 of the musicians have children, i respect them as musicians and wouldn't expect that they could afford to do it for free.
Plus, there is a grey area not mentioned. You who are reading this, get payed at a job for the hours you work. A musician will work hundreds of hours learning software, recording techniques, rehearsing etc. Who do i send that bill to? OK, why should I get paid for that, musicians hang out all day, right? Why should i get payed to have fun?
I often spend my only time off in my windowless rehearsel space. while the weather out is amazing outside, i'm in an enlarged closet space working away while 3 heavy metal bands that share the adjacent rehearsel spaces around me duel to Slayer's "Only a little south of heaven" all day till i feel nauseated from the vibrations of low bass metalness.
To me It sounds about the same as your job, sitting in a cubicle entering data for your bald fat prick of a boss. Though You come in at 9, leave at 5, take lunch, get payed for over time and leave work at work. You'd quit if you didn't.
I don't get payed, work 12 to 13 hours routinely( on days off from my shitty money making jobs) and don't get to leave work at work.

musician's struggle to have any amount of financial savings, medical insurance. For me it's a real fuckin bummer to put as much time money and effort into something and then have people download it , listen to it out of the context i worked hard to put it in to be cohesive. Negate the artwork that helped solidfy it as a true composition and then not pay a cent for it. YO!!! I don't want you to pay for my mercedes! I do want for you to pay my label something so we can break even and allow me to repeat the whole exhausting process over again.

Let's Pretend you were a fan of my music. Would you not pay 10 dollars ( ? pounds) for my cd knowing what i go through financially and mentally to put it out ? Wouldn't it seem like a fair price? With everything you spend money on that you don't require to live - socks, magazines, booze, wouldn't that ten dollars make you feel like at least it was well spent ? Or going to a good cause? If you can convert dollars to pounds you can do the math and see that your paying for my CD is the only way I and the label and the distributor and the even independent record store break even. You'll pay 10 dollars for a movie ticket. You can only see that one time. Your welcome to listen to my album as many times as you want.

I don't want to put and end to your internet access. I do want you to pay a bare minimum for my music. I don't want to put it out in a compromised state like a shitty demo that i did in my bedroom with a rubber band a micro recorder. you wouldn't want to hear that either!

You don't want to hear the idea of a song. You want to hear A song, that is my guess.

Eventually that is the only way musicians will bring music to you because that will be the finances of their reality. And then all music will sound like a cheap underproduced demo.
Music will become a devalued pencil drawing on a napkin instead of a colorful textured painting on a canvas. Shi-at!!! I agree that musicians need not be wealthy. Why does a footballer really deserve millions or Tom Cruise, 20 million per film? C'mon T Cruise? Get tha fuck outta hear!!! But at the very least pay the Indie record label 10 dollars to put the record out of the band that you are a fan of. I don't have the time or marketing expierence or connections to do Steves job and I don't want to. I just want to make music.

My expierence is the expierence of every Indie musician. Drowned In Sound seems like a Indie music site to my Yank eyes and ears. You wouldn't come to DIS if you didn't care about This kind of music and the bands that are meant to play it. Why then would you not do your part to support the Indie community?

That's what this is. Garaunteed the people that are running this web sight are music nerds that barely make a living but love good music so much that they do this rather then something more financialy viable. They probably thought it was funny when the profiteering major labels started to suffer because of file shareing. Then quickly realized that Indie Labels would die out much sooner. The majors have enough money to go a decade while working on a way to stop file shareing.
An Indie label has NO money to live off of, NO legal recourse to mount an attack and NO prospect of survival if you are downloading their music with out paying for it.

If you know all this and would still willingly pirate independent music then i have to ask...

Were you ever trully a fan of independent music?

I don't think anyone on here has complained that CD prices are too high. The labels charge too much for downloading. The price shouldn't be anywhere near the price of a CD when the overheads are much lower

manufacturing an actual CD costs very little. it's the studio time, engineers, producers, mixing, mastering, promotion etc that the £8 you spend on a CD is recouping, and those costs are still there if the album is distributed digitally.

wasn't that banning downloading would result in people buying more music but it would mean people developing services like Spotify, we7, etc...

I mean, the stats would kind of suggest they were, but I just haven't read any article that offers any sort of case study or whatever, plus there seems to be a lot of y'know, good bands about still. Obviously people get dropped, but I mean, are there good people who've been forced to give up, are there any sort of loose stats about the average working wage of a jobbing band member, etc?

I'm kind of ambivalent about the whole thing, in that selfishly as a consumer I haven't seen anything getting worse for me, and so I kind of find it hard to get as overly worked up as people clearly are here.

And just expressing the general view of bands, music industry, etc. which is part myth created by the bands and industry themselves and in part a creation of the music lover who likes to imagine their favourite artists as being somehow beyond the grubby world of commerce that the rest of us live in.

The fact is that bands ARE being massively effected by this and yes the majority of the industry types are also losing their jobs/businesses. They just don't advertise it publicly. Bands always cite other reasons for them leaving labels or splitting up - to say you've been dropped or that you can't afford to be in a band anymore is equivalent in the public eye as saying "we are shit" so it rarely gets said.

The people who are squawking about the end of the world for music are simply the canaries down the mine shaft who can see the long term implications for music. It's not that anyone gives two shits if Madonna or Elton John lose a few million in the next few years in record sales; no-one cares about Simon Cowell and his protegees of evil. We can just see the knock on effect actually happening right now with bands at all levels being dropped and finding it hard to make a living.

People talk about the live scene being the saviour but even that has had a nightmare in 2008 with only the very big shows and small regularly attended venues actually doing well. The mid range shows with ticket prices around £8-10 are not selling out as they used to because a) people are going out less because of the general shitty economic situation and b) less new and interesting bands are being promoted to a level where they can sell 600+ tickets a night across the country for a tour. Promoters are offering less money to play as a result and tours are just not being planned because, hey, they cost a fortune even if you do it all in a van and sleep on floors.

Yes there will be exceptions, no-ones saying there aren't, and I for one hope that a DIY punk ethic will take hold and a workable model for create, release, tour and survive will appear for bands and small labels/businesses such as happened in the late 1970s. The worrying difference between then and now is that back in the 70s/80s/90s the DIY labels were offering a 'choice' to a consumer between the corporate releases of the majors and themselves; people would still buy records and you could sit down and say "If we sell x number of albums we can cover costs". Back then you knew there were people out there willing to support you and pay some money for a copy of your album - nowadays, can we be certain anyone will pay for recorded music?

So if you can't make money from your recordings and touring is also becoming less and less the magical cash cow for bands, I think its fair to say that the sound of the canaries squawking is becoming deafening to those who can hear them.

I mean fer fooks sake - Iggy Pop is selling car insurance! What more signs of the impending apocalypse do we need (joke, I think).

So whats the answer? Maybe there is no simple all encompassing answer. Maybe it is going to be shit for a few years at least but on the bright side if it means that the Brit Schools and their like close down and stop perpetuating hoards of crap careerist no-marks (Adele, yes I mean you!) into the world then maybe its a good thing. Maybe a cull is needed?

But why the fuck do I care if you spent 12 hours in a windowless room? You chose to do that. I don't expect to get paid for reading the newspaper, cooking dinner, making someone a birthday present, or any of the things I might do in my spare time. You can have the 9 to 5 job that plenty of other people have if you want, so I think you should hardly complain about your own choices about what to do in your leisure time.

is cringeworthy yet hilarious.

with the "pay what you want" option. People who can't afford an album can listen to it legally. People questioning whether to buy the album can listen to it and decide whether to pay or not. That helps artists strive to make better albums to generate more income. This could also be applied to Cds except it would be necessary to pay a small fee for manufacturing and shipping.

I'd go with the tax option every time. It's got to be the future.

You simply cannot restrict the internet. Surly the last ten years have told us that.

Where as a tax on the money users pay the ISPs is brilliant. Exactly like a TV license in the UK. People don't even think about it. Each territory/country has to enforce it within it's borders. Country's can be forced into playing ball by restricting the actual physical speeds at which they're connected to other countries.

Although l'd add, Spotify is absolutely brilliant, listening to it now, and l hope it succeeds. I'm just not sure if it can generate enough money through it's very limited advertising to pay the musicians for the use of their work.

NB

To get around rapidshare/yousend it you have to offer a better alternative ie. Spotify.

Monetizing size, as mentioned in solution 2, will encourage artists to put size (ie. length, quality) at a premium.

The idea that those 95% of downloads are 'lost sales' is ridiclous - as a former Oink and Libble member I can tell you that I would download who discographies by bands I didn't even really like, just because I could and it was free.

The Oink closure scared me enough to move to legal alternatives like last fm, emusic.com and now spotify. I now realise that piracy IS theft - ok so I might never have bought most of what I downloaded illegally but I would have bought between 2 and 5 albums a month - instead I downloaded that many every day for a while and bought 0. I guess the same can be said for many people.

Now that we have plenty of legal ways to get high quality, cheap (even free) music LEGALLY then I guess it is time to get tough.

ISPs should start by blocking access to illegal torrent sites, blog hosts should close down illegal blogs quickly and file hosts like Rapidshare should be made to hand over the identity of uploaders whenever an infringment is found.

Note to 'pirates' - the 'try before you buy' argument is no longer valid (see spotify/last fm etc)

The DRM argument is no longer valid (see emusic, amazon, play.com and itunes).

The price argument - ok itunes is too expensive but emusic isn't, and if you don't mind streaming the music every time you listen to it then spotify is free.

Or make it worth their while. Which isn't easy considering you can get it for free, illegally, but with little chance of punishment.

I reckon back-catalogue boxing is one way to go.

solutions that you were referring to, surely?

Here's my two solutions:

1. Stockholm syndrome music bloggers stop thinking up new and exciting ways to harm music and stifle freedom.
2. Music industry RIP

so, sean is worried about coldplay's sales. that the mega benda are not selling 20 million copies as they once used to!...
the question on my mind is- why would he care? he's not in coldplay. aren't you, sean?

unless you're greedy corporate music industry cunt working undercover for, before this article, previously decent DiS.
that's the only way i can understand your solutions.

and let me ask you something else, while we're at it? what would change for the listener if god forbid your solutions would ever work? would records get cheaper? would you feel satisfied paying 15 euros for an album that you got on itunes just as much as you were when that same industry forced you to pay 15 euros for something as ugly (sounding) as CD. that, by the way, since i can see you're into the numbers, was worth around 50 cents to produce in that same china you're mentioning as an example!

i mean, WHY THE FUCK would anyone sane on DiS worry about music fuckin industry!

i'm only glad vinyl sales are going up. coz music deserves soul packageing.

what's the answer then?