I mean, it’s not like contemporary musicians, or even their soulless executives, are the people who invented the means to share the information in bulk — that was the geeks. This isn’t poetic justice. (It might be poetic justice if we were talking about software piracy, but that seems not to be as big an industry because the geeks are also really good at protecting the stuff.)

In any case, the “It’s only music” argument, from my perspective, is exactly why people shouldn’t make grandiose liberty-or-death for their right to free music. How exactly did my generation get this spoiled?

What a rip off, I spend less on my internet connection and i can download as much as i want.

-Anon

Correct. And in classical piracy, on the high seas, what is enshrined in law is the ability to take a shotgun to said pirates wherever and whenever you like with impunity.

The market worked that out and it’s been a workable solution ever since.

Who the hell do you think buys your BS about “piracy is the new way” and producers must “adapt to the new” ?

What lesson has every major producer of goods learned about this “new market” from chinese pirates producing inferior copies ?
When Ping produces a set of golf clubs using the finest metals on earth and some Chinese asshole knocks out a replica set using aluminium, what lesson should they take away about this “new market” ?

That if they want to compete with criminals ripping them off they should screw over the consumer too ?

What ? Tell us you intellectual fraud.

Once again I agree. So many people have an overly romanticized concept of reality.

The truth of the matter is, the worm turned a good long while ago.

I’ve always maintained that the danger associated with crushing citizen’s liberties for something so obviously trite as music is shameful. And there are a lot of artists who are really a bunch of greedy hypocrites, looking for an elite, cool, cash-rich lifestyle. Hold on while I grab my wallet…

If I don’t believe in Jesus, why the hell am I going to elevate some “star-wanabe’s” myth status when I can do what he/she does at home, on my own, for free? It’s work, but it’s not labour. Playing live is labour. And should be rewarded as such.

It has always been possible to freely reproduce works at no cost to the original author. This is precisely why copyright law was devised (back in the 1600s, believe it or not). The only difference now is that piracy now costs nothing to the pirates either.

I agree with the original author: Recorded music will eventually be an add-on service for your cell phone or ISP.

The average brain surgeon makes a lot more money than the average musician. In fact, the average brain surgeon probably makes more money than the average rock star. The guy you see standing behind the counter at 7-11 makes more money than the average musician.

The only truly rich rockstars are the ones are wrote and recorded many albums over many years that were consistently bought by millions of people. One-hit-wonders and contemporary pop stars eventually have to get day jobs, or end up on “Celebrity Mole.”

http://pluking.blogspot.com

$0.17 Musicians’ unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists’ royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead[/quote]
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6558540/walmart_wants_10_cds/quote

Ok so where do they get off charging $35-$40 (25-27 Euros) then? The greedy leeches can shove their crap where it belongs!!