Point of Discussion: The Ethics of Downloading Music

[Decurso]

When I lived in Canada I tried to pay for digital downloads whenever possible. I had some rules, though. 1.If the artist is charging upwards of a hundred bucks for concert tickets, then I consider that to be a "download tax". Honestly, I don't think The Rolling Stones care much if you download their discography. 2.If the artist is dead, it's fair game. 3. If I used to have it in another format, I should not have to pay for it twice.

I don't have a bank account in Brazil, so yeah, I download everything. But I also go to four or five live shows a month, and a lot of those shows are by artists I download. I probably would not pay to see a lot of bands without the chance to sample their music, so in a lot of cases my downloading their music results in income in the form of ticket sales.
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100 Punk Favourites

Live Albums

Death Metal

[souplipton]

This post has caused me to adjust my listening habits somewhat. Almost every first album listen is now on spotify, and most second listens. After that, I decide that it's not worth a relisten or it is, in which case I download it to give a couple more listens to decide if it's worth buying. Essential just shifted first couple listens to a streaming service where artist will get paid, and if I like it enough to consider it, I download to determine whether it's worth a buy.

[Sometype]

I only really illegally download music if there is no other way for me to listen to a new album immediately and even then i will either delete it off my laptop if i dislike it or i will invest in having a physical copy if i like it (or wait for it to become available on spotify).

To be honest, with so many exclusives being released recently (Frank Ocean, Travi$ Scott, Beyonce etc.), it feels like illegally download said projects almost becomes justified among everyone. Which i suppose you can't blame people for; exclusives dont benefit fans at all, only the ones lucky enough to already have an account with whatever platform the artist has decided to go for. Exclusives are only done to benefit the artist and risks alienating fans into either not bothering with their once favourite artists or, back to the original sort of point, justifying fans decisions to illegally download the projects/albums that are being essentially kept from them.
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overall / 2017 / spotify

[RoundTheBend]

A few useless rambles:

Remember when hundreds of thousands of mix tapes were being shared all the time and nobody gave a shit about the ethics of it?
Also remember when people owned like 50 albums max because they couldn't afford more?
Remember borrowing an album from someone, listening to it a few times, REALLY liking it, yet you still didn't buy it?
Remember those people you grew up with who all they listened to was the radio and maybe had like 5 albums?

But then remember that time when you downloaded an entire discography of an artist for free? What's funny is you probably would have NEVER, EVER purchased all of those Dylan albums, but now you are familiar with all those obscure Dylan albums?

I personally think these things:
1) pirating has done more to help the sales of music than to hurt it
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21856720
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201...cians-sell

2) Music sales started to drop in the early 2000s because there was a lot of shit music and we have had good music since then, but there is no such thing as a "big band" anymore that everyone loves. The internet has created this double edged sword of one side being a limitless supply of music and on the other side no big artist that satiates the bitter sweet aesthetic of a "real artist" (meaning someone with substance worth remembering) who can also attract a massive following (has enough impact that history will even remember).

3) Also I remember Dave Grohl saying something like if you want to support an artist, go see them live. They get way more money from that than buying their album.

4) Let's not forget that record companies do serve a great purpose and that's who gets a decent chunk of the monies. Yes we hate them for good reasons, but let's not forget that for many artists we love, we wouldn't know anything about them if it weren't for their label. The label also sorts out the wheat from the chaff for us, creating a palatable aesthetic in their own right. Some labels have a fantastic legacy because of this. Having every artist imaginable on Spotify (as much as I love Spotify for some reasons like finding new music, listening to stuff I'd never ever ever ever buy, not having to catalog/organize my music, etc) is very overwhelming when trying to find something to enjoy... it takes a lot of work.

[RoundTheBend]

What is your viewpoint on illegally downloading music?
I'm thankful for services like Spotify which basically make this legal again. I've always purchased music worthy of purchase, but this allows me to find music that I wouldn't normally purchase.

Having said that, I miss living in LA and buying physical records... having said that, the hundreds of albums I've bought, almost none of it went to the artist because I'd almost always buy it used... before and after the interwebs "ruined" the music industry.

Why has illegal downloading become so common and so accepted a thing?
Obvious answer is the internet. The internet is rightfully so a place where all forms of information can be freely transferred, including music. It took the idea of a mixed tape or borrowing a CD from a friend and magnified it. Most people I talk to say they think it is bad ethically, yet still do it... I suppose that means the other reason is that we are all terrible, terrible people. Then again, we came from people that would kill each other for dumb reasons like honor and pride. I'd say we've made huge advancements in that regard, haha.

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 there is a huge difference between "legally" streaming. Those services have gotten permission to do so. If the artist didn't want that... well then I just go find the album on YouTube (which is also ethically terrible).

Having said that, I think Jeffrey Lewis posted on Facebook that he got $12 for 100k hits. I mean, at the same time if that was radio listening (I don't know that much about radio) I imagine that he'd get paid nothing for those "streams". It goes back to my original post... I think people got around listening to music without paying for it in the past and it wasn't illegal or unethical - or at least we never looked at listening to the radio, borrowing a cd from a friend, or making a mixed tape as illegal or unethical.

So on one hand I feel bad, but on the other I feel like something like NetFlix provides the same service for cheaper and nobody gets on to them about it. I guess that's different because the actors are paid differently? Maybe some are paid based on performance of the work and some are just paid a flat rate? idk.

I'll say it one more time: the artists that I would go see live and the artists that I buy the records new from wouldn't change if I didn't have spotify or downloads available to me. Not having Spotify wouldn't change my behavior to then spend gobs of money on a shitty Oasis album... but I'll still spin it once a decade either from Spotify or a friends record collection to make sure they still suck.