A Radical Thought

[Shru1kan]

For the last few years, piracy has been rampant online. Most of the internet population is guilty of stealing at least one song.

Artists, however, have little to fear. If they go through a big name company, around 14 out of every 15 dollars goes to the company, not the artist.

On May 5th of 2008, Trent Reznor (frontman of the project Nine Inch Nails) released an entire album, The Slip, free of charge. This very link [http://theslip.nin.com/] contains a site for the album, where it can be downloaded legally, and free of charge.

Nine Inch Nails went on to sell over 98,000 physical copies with Trent's independent label, "The Null Corporation".

Their resulting tour was sold out at all locations. Reznor then uploaded over 400 gigabytes of HD video footage to bitTorrent, of his concerts, free of charge.


Now, with all of this publicity, surely he has gathered a following? Surely his concerts will bring in more money (which most of will go directly to the band, not a label), thus supporting the artist?


In order to defeat piracy, why not accept it? Why not make your music free when you will get only a minuscule amount of the profit? Can't we just make music FREE for all, and then charge at concerts to keep the artist afloat?

In my opinion, as both a music fan and as a musician, the answer is a resounding yes. If the music is from the soul, you do not need money for it. Of course you need money to live, make a house, pay for the instruments and recording equipment, but not for the music.

Unless you want just money out of your efforts, then the answer should be yes for any artist as well. Music is a form of expression, not a form of gratuitous amounts of income.

This is my opinion of music today. I commend Trent Reznor for breaking free of the money, for making music and enjoying it with little or no thoughts of profit off of it.

So, escapists, do you agree? Any other radical thoughts?

 

[OmegaXIII]

Unless you want just money out of your efforts, then the answer should be yes for any artist as well. Music is a form of expression, not a form of gratuitous amounts of income.

You just ended your own thread there. When i went to see In Flames they shuted into the crowd 'We don't give a shit if you buy our music, download our music, steal our music or sing our music to yourselves, so long as its out there reaching you the fans.' I dare say this sentiment is shared by any artist that does not fall under your comment there.

I love how this thread has popped up immediately after a huge fuck you was delivered to monopolisation of popular music in the UK charts

 

[Arkhangelsk]

Cause then all concerts would have the cost of Metallica. And then Metallica would have the cost of 2x Metallica. I'm the kind of guy who enjoys having physical CD's sometimes, but there should be a downloading system where you pay a small amount of money for periods of time to free downloading. Like Spotify, but the music isn't locked and you can get all music, not only the ones with non-snotty labels.

And not all bands have evil labels. Only the unfortunate ones. That's why bands really should read their contracts, they might end up losing money. Sometimes they have to pay themselves for the studio recording, mixing, mastering, gear, and all that. When they don't have any money to begin with. That's more corporate evil than Kotick.

 

[Quala]

Well, your idea and logic definitely make sense, why not?

Other radical ideas? Teach a Platypus to play the banjo. He/She would instantly be the most popular musician of all time.

 

[Shru1kan]

This was actually inspired by that. I did a search bar and couldn't find a thread like this. Honestly, I was shocked.

My idea would only work when the bands don't charge extra for their concerts. Plus the fact that you barely get any money outside of the concert, by comparison.

 

[Manhattan2112]

I couldn't agree with you more about this. Music is indeed an expression of the soul and the mind, and sleezy producers shouldn't get in the way of the public enjoying God's gift to man.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

Unless you want just money out of your efforts, then the answer should be yes for any artist as well. Music is a form of expression, not a form of gratuitous amounts of income.

You just ended your own thread there. When i went to see In Flames they shuted into the crowd 'We don't give a shit if you buy our music, download our music, steal our music or sing our music to yourselves, so long as its out there reaching you the fans.' I dare say this sentiment is shared by any artist that does not fall under your comment there.

I love how this thread has popped up immediately after a huge fuck you was delivered to monopolisation of popular music in the UK charts

I was at an In Flames concert too recently. It was awesome!

 

[OmegaXIII]

I couldn't agree with you more about this. Music is indeed an expression of the soul and the mind, and sleezy producers shouldn't get in the way of the public enjoying God's gift to man.

Popular things quickly become premium simply because they are popular, that is just the world we live in unfortunately.

 

[cheese_wizington]

For the last few years, piracy has been rampant online. Most of the internet population is guilty of stealing at least one song.

Artists, however, have little to fear. If they go through a big name company, around 14 out of every 15 dollars goes to the company, not the artist.

On May 5th of 2008, Trent Reznor (frontman of the project Nine Inch Nails) released an entire album, The Slip, free of charge. This very link [http://theslip.nin.com/] contains a site for the album, where it can be downloaded legally, and free of charge.

Nine Inch Nails went on to sell over 98,000 physical copies with Trent's independent label, "The Null Corporation".

Their resulting tour was sold out at all locations. Reznor then uploaded over 400 gigabytes of HD video footage to bitTorrent, of his concerts, free of charge.


Now, with all of this publicity, surely he has gathered a following? Surely his concerts will bring in more money (which most of will go directly to the band, not a label), thus supporting the artist?


In order to defeat piracy, why not accept it? Why not make your music free when you will get only a minuscule amount of the profit? Can't we just make music FREE for all, and then charge at concerts to keep the artist afloat?

In my opinion, as both a music fan and as a musician, the answer is a resounding yes. If the music is from the soul, you do not need money for it. Of course you need money to live, make a house, pay for the instruments and recording equipment, but not for the music.

Unless you want just money out of your efforts, then the answer should be yes for any artist as well. Music is a form of expression, not a form of gratuitous amounts of income.

This is my opinion of music today. I commend Trent Reznor for breaking free of the money, for making music and enjoying it with little or no thoughts of profit off of it.

So, escapists, do you agree? Any other radical thoughts?

Well.

I like movies.

 

[Good morning blues]

Trent Renzor is able to make a tidy profit off of his concerts after releasing his album for free because Trent Renzor and NIN were huge well before the Internet was even on the radar of the music production industry. If I start a band now, and I want to have enough money to eat, I can either put up a Myspace page and hope that I just so happen to hit it big, or I can start sending demo tapes to record labels, where my chances are infinitely better.

I agree that record labels are an outdated model and should be embracing the internet for their very survival, but you're acting like musicians should be able to function without seeing any monetary recompense. That's just not feasible.

 

[ReincarnatedFTP]

You guys clearly need to watch this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc0mfw4EFEU

 

[Shru1kan]

I agree that record labels are an outdated model and should be embracing the internet for their very survival, but you're acting like musicians should be able to function without seeing any monetary recompense. That's just not feasible.

My poll didn't go up... I had an option in there expressing your very sentiment.


However, Hollywood Undead got their record deal based solely on their popularity on myspace. Owl City's first two records were released when he was unsigned. It's not impossible these days, where the internet makes unknown bands popular.

 

[sln333]

This sounds good for music, but I'm afraid people would start asking for it for other industries as well. Movies have a piracy issue too, but those take a lot more effort to make from beginning to end. The answer to dealing with piracy for those wouldn't be to accept it. For music, though, making music free is a good idea. Rap artists often make free mixtapes which are as good as CD's, so I don't see why we have to pay for CD's.

 

[Trivun]

I'm an indie fan, which means most of the bands I like aren't signed with the Big Four anyway. And I was a supporter, to some extent, of Rage Against The Machine's bid for UK Christmas No. 1 victory. And judging by the fact that the OP is apparently a musician themselves, I think he/she has really hit the nail right on the head there. Obviously, not everything can be free. The artist needs to be able to support themselves. CDs and organising gigs and creating merchandise and everything costs the artist, and the label, money. But if people are signed to smaller, independant labels (like most indie artists) or remain unsigned and still make a career for themselves, then most of the money will go to them, and after costs have been deducted, they'll still make enough money for their career choice to be worthwhile. At the end of the day, music is an expression of thought and is a creative career. It's an artform. It isn't just there for people to make money. So I agree with the OP. Still have people pay for gigs, and for limited editions of albums, and so on (like, even if they release the standard album for free, they can still charge money for the special version with all live oncert footage or five bonus tracks or whatever). Charge for merchandise but give singles away. If there's the right balance and the artist is still able to earn enough money to cover costs and live moderately well, then I see no faults with that system. That way, the artist wins, the fans win, and the only people out of pocket are the fat-cat Big Four record labels (who make so much money they'll barely notice anyway...).

Plus, as a side note, this would also make it much easier for new acts to break into the industry. Just a thought for you there...

 

[Haunted Serenity]

Music is music. I buy CD's if i like even one of the songs on them. Then it all goes on to my hard drive. It just annoys me with the pirating ads that say "you wouldn't steal a car, you wouldn't steal a tv. Piracy is stealing." 1) Piracy is a form of stealing. Getting pirated stuff sometimes is better. eg Spore doesn't have the 5 time installation crap before you have to get ahold of EA to install it again. 2)I would steal a car or TV if there was no way for me to get caught/known and it would save me money. Plus no negative actions following.

As for Radical thought. Nuke a gay whale for Jesus

I actually saw this as a bumber sticker. It made my day

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

While it may make it easier for new acts to break in to the industry now, if everyone did this it would effectively destroy new music. What people forget, and a frequent justification used, is that the big music companies are getting fat off the profits of sales, and the big artists don't need more money.

True, but smaller artists, trying to crack into the industry, lose more money relatively off downloading than big artists, since they aren't well known, so they don't have a dedicated core of legal purchases to keep them afloat. New music is in danger of dying out, while the really big businesses are still sticking around.

(I'm a struggling new guitarist, who knows several other musicians, all in this position. Whenever something seems to be going well, record company picks it up etc, suddenly a whole load of illegal downloads, your sales of singles drop, no money, no tours, end of career.)

 

[reg42]

I only ever feel guilty about downloading music when it's a band who are just getting a start or are independant, otherwise I couldn't care less. Like, it's really stupid for someone like Metallica to fight piracy, as they have an entire tour bus just for old guitars so, they're hardly suffering financially. Metallica bitching about piracy... Can you imagine if that happened?
"hint, hint"

 

[Arkhangelsk]

I'm an indie fan, which means most of the bands I like aren't signed with the Big Four anyway. And I was a supporter, to some extent, of Rage Against The Machine's bid for UK Christmas No. 1 victory. And judging by the fact that the OP is apparently a musician themselves, I think he/she has really hit the nail right on the head there. Obviously, not everything can be free. The artist needs to be able to support themselves. CDs and organising gigs and creating merchandise and everything costs the artist, and the label, money. But if people are signed to smaller, independant labels (like most indie artists) or remain unsigned and still make a career for themselves, then most of the money will go to them, and after costs have been deducted, they'll still make enough money for their career choice to be worthwhile. At the end of the day, music is an expression of thought and is a creative career. It's an artform. It isn't just there for people to make money. So I agree with the OP. Still have people pay for gigs, and for limited editions of albums, and so on (like, even if they release the standard album for free, they can still charge money for the special version with all live oncert footage or five bonus tracks or whatever). Charge for merchandise but give singles away. If there's the right balance and the artist is still able to earn enough money to cover costs and live moderately well, then I see no faults with that system. That way, the artist wins, the fans win, and the only people out of pocket are the fat-cat Big Four record labels (who make so much money they'll barely notice anyway...).

Plus, as a side note, this would also make it much easier for new acts to break into the industry. Just a thought for you there...

But there are still bands stuck in horrible contracts desperately needing the few pennies they get to cover costs and buy themselves food. Many bands aren't that rich as they seem to be. While album sales isn't as big as concerts, royalties, merchandise, etc, it's certainly a fraction that could count for a lot. I'm all for free music, but it seems like it's hard to find a way that balances good. One thing that has definitely helped is the Internet. Small bands have an easier way to get their music out, selling their merch, and getting more fans. Before, musicians had to settle with whatever kind of people were in their hometown (imagine a death metal band in a stereotype redneck hillbilly state). But I think Spotify has set a good ground, if only they could convince all labels, and let me put the songs on my bloody iPod!

 

[Shru1kan]

I'm not advocating piracy. And movies are a completely different matter.

I really wish my poll went up with the "Record Label Reform" option.

 

[Andantil]

I like it. Bands make most of their money off merchandising anyway, so you should just pirate the music and buy band shirts.