Why You Should Buy Music

[Zerox]

Here's an article I did on my blog talking about why I think people should buy music. I would love if you guys could give me any feedback on it, and give your thoughts on this huge issue. http://goo.gl/zEiZb

[keithace]

it's not an issue... PAY FOR YOUR DAMN MUSIC...ESPECIALLY IF YOU GET PAID TO PLAY SOMEWHERE...

that is all...

[Zerox]

It is an issue when most people get music for free, new DJ's seem to be doing this a lot lately.

[DJDoubleYou]

i think the problem is that people see a track and think, it's good, but not good enough to pay for it. So they download the track "knowing" that they would not have downloaded it if costed any mony. I think that's the way most people justify it for themselfes.

[Otacon]

another good reason to buy music is sound quality. If you illegally download it, theres a chance it will have degraded quality. Thats no fun

[SpeshulEd]

This topic has been covered so many times

I think people download music illegally because it's easy. Unfortunately, that's not going to change. They don't see or feel any harm to the original artist. For most people, the song fills a need for a day, week, month and then it holds no value any longer. If the artist never makes another song, they don't really care...what they downloaded made them happy for the day and they will move on to the next artist/song/album.

That's a harsh way to put it, but its a fact. In today's market, you need to set yourself apart from the pack and give the listener something special. Unfortunately, you almost need to have a gimmick. Or you need to be awesome. Everything will be stolen, but if the listener has a reason to come back or see you live, you'll make money.

I'm not advocating illegally downloading music, I'm saying the old way of the music industry is flawed and can't compete with the way music is heard today. There needs to be a new system. I think services like Spotify are on the right track, but things still need to evolve more. There are other ways for artists to make money.

Also, I have a job, I can afford to buy tracks. Kids that don't have a job, don't have money. I go on Beatport and download a dj chart and it costs $20. I can go to a record store and buy a vinyl for less money. I used to be able to buy brand new cd's for less than $10. Now a 10 pack of digital files costs $20? Be reasonable. Greed destroys a lot of things. It destroyed the record industry, now it needs to be put back together again. Smart people will figure it out and make money, others will fall through the cracks.

[racoon]

since we can now (in 2011) easy listen to music without the need of buying it before we can listen to it, the industry mechanics needs to adapt before they can make the big profit again.

there is still a percentage of people which WANT to have the music in an lossless quality and spend money to get it, but there are a lot of people out there which listen to youtube quality "music" and don't bother further.

Telling them that "they are ruining something" isn't only wrong, it also starts from the wrong viewpoint. Or are you thinking that the customers which choose from the existing options are responsible for the lack of the big industry-players of not placing their own options there where the customers choose from? ^^ loal

[keithace]

greed also pushes up the price for us people that do pay for things...

i blame it on the class action lawsuit a few years ago against the music industry for price fixing the price of CDs...

http://www.stereophile.com/news/11461/index.html

we got boned when we bought CDs...

[SpeshulEd]

I'm not trying to defend the illegal downloader here, just trying to push the conversation forward....

Keithace, I think your link is a prime example of why people don't really care about stealing from record companies...the link you pointed to states that the big five split a $143million payout....in an industry that pulled in $5billion annually. That 143 was split between anyone that bought a cd between 1995-2000 and filed a claim. So the music lover got a few cents back for all the albums they bought. Wow, thanks big business for supporting the people that made you rich.

Take the artists out of it (they're making pennies on the dollar for each album sold) and look at who is really making money off of album sales - big business...the people that gouged the consumer so they could make an extra buck, the people that make a random nobody a star because they will appeal to certain demographic, the people that ruined radio and charge you for satellite radio if you want to listen to anything besides the top40 bs they want you to listen to...All of sudden, your no longer stealing from the artist you love, you're stealing from big business (who doesn't care about the artist you love anyway).

Everything is different when it comes to small techno labels, as they probably do have the artists best interests in mind. I dunno, I'm rambling. Personally, I'm a big fan of artists that sidestep the norm and post something on their own site and make it a $5 download...the money is going directly to the artists without the middleman. Louis CK (comedian) did that recently with one of his videos. He asked people to pay $5 for the video, made it drm free, asked people not to torrent it and promised to do more if it worked out. He made over a million dollars in less than a month. He provided a good at a reasonable price, people paid for it without issue and he made more money than he ever would have going through the industry standard. I want this to happen more! When I buy an album, I want the money to go to the person that made the piece of art that I love, not the suit in the corner office that has no passion for music, only the money it makes him.

[synthet1c]

if you really want to support underground artists don't buy tracks from beatport, my mate has released a heap of tracks all in the top ten of trackitdown, trackitdown pay per download, beatport absorb all the profits and leave him paying for a manager/distributer to get his music on beatport, he gets his name to a larger audiance with beatport but receives nothing in return. I always buy from trackitdown and juno or the actual label webpage for this reason, beatport is always a last resort for me if I can't find it anywhere else.. that and the beatport charts are always pretty crap LOL