Post subject: Point of Discussion: The Ethics of Downloading Music
POINT OF DISCUSSION
This is Point of Discussion, a thread for people to discuss issues and topics related to music in a thoughtful and productive way. The goal of this is to make you think, to make you take a look at what you believe, why you believe it, and what others believe. Good discussion is the key to any society, and this is a place where, hopefully, that can be fostered.
All of that being said, there are a few guidelines.
The Guidelines:
1. Don't be a dick - it's fairly simple, just be civil. Say what you want, believe what you want to believe, that's fine, just don't be a dick about it.
2. All opinions are welcome - no matter how unpopular you may think your opinion is (or how unpopular it eventually proves to be), post it. It's welcome. Just be prepared to defend that opinion if it's challenged.
3. There are no wrong opinions - like, it's literally impossible. These are opinions, so no matter how strongly you feel about it, it's neither right nor wrong, it's just an opinion, so keep that in mind.
4. The conversation can go anywhere - even if the discussion goes off of the original topic, that's fine. All kinds of tangents are possible, just try to keep it semi-relevant.
The Topic:
Since the last one had such a good reception, I figured I'd revive another old topic:
RockyRaccoon wrote:
What is your viewpoint on illegally downloading music? Why has illegal downloading become so common and so accepted a thing? Where is the line between listening to music for free legally and illegally, or is there such a line? What is your viewpoint on using music listening/downloading services that give the artist virtually no compensation for their music (e.g. the controversy that surrounds Spotify)?
I think it's kinda a dick move if you're illegally downloading music from a small band that's trying to make it big. If you like their music then help them out by paying for their music and giving them more money that they can spend on their next album. If you're downloading Beyonce's or Kanye's or Radiohead's music then I think it's fine cause they have so much money that what difference is an extra few dollars to them? That's what I think. _________________ These are my favorite albums right now.
Music should be payed for, I really do believe that. I pirate music, to a point where only reading something like this makes me realize I actually do it, it's just such common nature I hardly realize.
You could argue ethics all day. Is it bad? Yes. How bad is it? I have no idea. People often compare it to shoplifting, but digital piracy is duplicating and not 'stealing' as such - there's no lost stock. I don't pirate (or steal) anything other than music.
My understanding is that live shows are far more lucrative these days than actually selling the music, so the music is usually a way into selling tickets. I may be wrong about that. I've seen many studies that show people who pirate music pay significantly more for music in the long run than those that don't, I can believe that.
There is the fact that almost everyone does it, your mentality certainly rests along 'well it won't matter if I do it too'. I'm guilty of that. I'm not expecting anyone to burst down my door, it's almost expected of people these days.
Piracy can't be 'solved', but there are defintely ways to combat it. Firstly, music is too expensive. I believe this is simply because retailers know people will pirate it anyway, so they might as well cash in on those that do spend money. I would spend so much more on albums if they cost £3-5, instead they usually cost around £15. For 40-60 minutes of entertainment? You can buy video games for twice that price that give you 100+ hours of intertainment these days, and probably cost a heck of a lot more to produce. The value isn't there, and for a lot of people, they want to hear a lot of music, and simply couldn't afford it.
Second, when you do pay for it, you usually get a crappy product in return. I'm not talking about the music itself (although I can't imagine paying for all the albums I've disliked in my time), but digital retailers give you terrible quality rips. Sure I could get the CD, but who wants to wait for that in the mail, or go out to a music store (if they even exist anymore), but I want my music now - it's the 21st century. I should be able to get the downloads, at high quality instantly, and have the CD in the mail on the way - why not?
Services like Spotify are solving the issue by giving people a good product for a good price. However the pennies most artists get from track plays only encourages the live music culture to make money that we're moving towards. I personally don't like the 'culture' of Spotify, but that's down to the individual. Not to mention, not everything is on Spotify - so where do people turn?
It makes me upset to think that some people that simply couldn't afford music would go without it. To a degree I'm glad piracy exists, and its almost helped give birth to this incredible era of music we live in, that encourages listening to new music you may not have tried, before you buy.
Sorry, just found out the topic involves streaming, too.
Personally, I've always been much more Trent Reznor than Taylor Swift: Music is much more fun when you don't have to spend $10 upfront just to hear it. But like Trent Reznor today, I've learned to really love Apple Music, which I think does at least a decent job of getting people jobs, at least with the exclusives. (I also really love that most of the artists Apple recruits for the exclusives are very Apple-like; the roll-outs almost always have a sense of wonder, mystery, and sex appeal to them. Or maybe I'm just an elitist douchebag Apple fanboy)
Look, people often spend up to $70 on a gym membership every month and don't even go. If music really is your life like it is mine, is it such a terrible thing* to spend a small fraction of that on so much of the music in the world? I know it doesn't solve the economics problem completely, but it's at least a music easier step than many realize.
Of course, the other (very) obvious part of this is that so many amazing releases in "world", avant-garde and modern classical music are so hard to find legally on the internet. Show me an RYMcore hipster that says downloading is wrong, and you're showing me either a liar or someone with a grossly inflated ego of his music taste. (It still is great to get some of these releases on CD if you love them and can find them, though.)
*I hope I don't sound bitter to people who don't like streaming services, for many of the smallest music nerds I know use them. But most of them also buy plenty of physical releases and gigs, so it all works out anyway.
It happens. It'll probably always continue to happen. I try not to do it very often, and when I do I'll try to make sure I buy the album if I like it & delete it if I don't. Though it depends on the size of the band. I'll be less fussed about downloading a Rolling Stones record than something by Red Fang or Dillinger Escape Plan for example, because The Stones are obscenely wealthy & dudes in relatively popular but still niche metal bands are usually barely getting buy or have to work day jobs to support their music. Like the guy in Pig Destroyer who works for some US government agency. I dunno, if you're in work yourself and can afford to support people whose work/art you enjoy then it seems like a fair enough thing to do. If you can't afford it for various reasons then I generally think with Spotify & the like downloading isn't quite as justifiable as it was when I was a teenager & Napster & Audioseek were the big things for music but I'm not going to lose much sleep over someone doing it. But then if my hard drive dies in the future before I back it up it'll probably take me less time to just download a lot of things rather than taking a trip to my parents home, digging out boxes of old CDs from the attic & re-ripping them.
That said, there are artists who I will never support financially whose music I still enjoy. Which you might regard as hypocritical but look, I'm not giving any money to the murdering Nazi behind Burzum, no matter how much I love Filosofem & Hvis Lyset Tar Oss. But the line probably has to be quite extreme like being openly racist.
Spotify is harder to deal with. Because god it is so convenient. But at the same time it is barely better than outright piracy for the artists. I don't see it as more than a stop-gap. It's already gotten to a point in the UK where most bands who break through to any extent are from upper-middle class backgrounds because they need their parents financial support for longer than most normal families could support them. At the same time, owning MP3s or flacs, it's just not very compelling. But I'm old, I'd miss being able to just browse through the shelves at a record store if everything went digital.
I've come to the point when I have gone bankrupt or decided not to eat so many times for buying records in my life that I feel entitled to the illegal downloading I do. There's a totally egotistic position for you.
Pirating music is an ethical dilemma. How many bands would remain totally unknown if piracy didn't exist? But, those who create the things we love should be compensated. I want to see my favorite artists to be able to continue creating.
I think the biggest point missed in arguments about the payout from streaming services has been that a stream or illegally downloaded record doesn't necessarily equate to lost sales. I know I've bought records based on streams or illegal downloads. And on the other side of it, it's very likely that if we still lived in a physical only market then we'd have limited funds to purchase music anyway. God knows that those amongst us could never afford the massive quantity of records we stream and download.
We're in a transitional phase and streaming is a viable sensible future that does a good job of dissuading the less ethical practice of piracy and puts some control back in the artists' hands _________________ http://jonnyleather.com
Look, people often spend up to $70 on a gym membership every month and don't even go.
In what kind of world do "people" "often" do that? Most people don't even have that kind of money to spend on gyms. Or records.
Okay, maybe I my data is biased from being in an upper-middle-class gated community But I know several lower-middle-class families that consider it worth it, and most gym memberships are at least $15-20 a month. I guess the thing I think about is whether these people really enjoy working out twice as much as I love music. Because music means the entire world to me, and the idea of getting 75% of the entire world for $10 a month just feels like a no-brainer.
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But I know several lower-middle-class families that consider it worth it, and most gym memberships are at least $15-20 a month. I guess the thing I think about is whether these people really enjoy working out 
