Big Music fans want better music
p2p news / p2pnet: CDs are too expensive, believe three out of four music fans, and music in general is getting worse, according to an Associated Press and Rolling Stone magazine Ipsos poll.
This is very far from being news and the two findings explain why more and more people are turning to the p2p networks for relief.
A total of 618.9 million CD albums were sold during 2005, sharply down from the 762.8 million sold in 2001, according to Nielsen Soundscan, says the Associated Press. “At the same time, 352.7 million tracks were sold digitally in 2005, a category that wasn’t even measured five years ago. After years where fans had to buy $20 CDs because they liked one or two songs, now they can download the songs for 99 cents a pop, or free if they can burn a copy from a friend.”
Some 60 million Americans had logged on a year ago, says the Digital Media Project, and, say statistics from p2p research company BigChampagne, the numbers are steadily increasing year by year.
During September, 2005, the average number of files available on p2p networks for download at any moment (average simultaneous files) was 2,789,154,393, BigChampagne told p2pnet.
But in this digital era, the Big Four Organized Music cartel is still locked in the last century with outmoded physical business models and, “Many in the music industry grumble that downloading has been their downfall, and the business has aggressively tried to stop illegal file sharing,” says the story.
Quoting poll results, the story goes into detail about corporate downloads, giving the false impression there’s an active and successful commercial online music market.
It also presents unqualified blanket findings.
Pollsters telephoned 1,000 adults, of whom 963 were “music listeners,” from all states except Alaska and Hawaii, between January 23 and 25 and there was a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points, says AP.
It also states: “The poll found that 80 percent of people consider downloading music for free without the copyright holder’s permission to be stealing.”
Of course, 80% of people did nothing of the kind. That was 80% of 1,000 adults Ipsos talked to on the phone.
It’s also highly unlikely that the Ipsos pollsters explained that with file sharing, no stealing is involved, nothing has been taken away, and no one has been deprived of something they used to own.
AP goes on, “People who actually download are less apt to consider it stealing, but there’s evidence that many fans accept the iTunes business model. The poll found that 71 percent of music fans believe that a 99 cents a song is a fair price or outright bargain.”
Again, this wasn’t 71% of music fans, it was 71% of adult, not teenaged, Ipsos respondents.
“Overall, music fans were split on why music sales have been declining for the past five years,” adds AP. Thirty-three percent said it was because of illegal downloads, 29% said it was because of competition from other forms of entertainment, 21% blamed it on the quality of music getting worse and 13% said it was because CDs are too expensive.
So does that mean overall, most of the interviewees attributed the decline in music sales to a mixture of bad product, over-priced CDs and competition from video games, etc?
Also See:
Associated Press – Libraries fear digital lockdown, February 3, 2006
60 million – Content and Control, January 8, 2005
February 4th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
I agree with the fact that music is getting worse. Unfortunately, false advertising of “the artist even doesn’t know how to read music and he is still the best” significantly brought down the average level of professionalism. Indeed, one can master the instrument to highest level possible but it doesn’t give the performer ability to compose high quality music which involves deep knowledge of harmony, counterpoint, musical forms and history of music. Usually, after mastering a few basic chords a “musician” learn to operate within primitive song forms and that’s where knowledge of music theory and composition ends. The other side of this paradox is that the general public doesn’t know much about music either which is the main reason why bad music survives.
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Just the other day my neighbor’s kids asked me to transcribe “Bulevard of broken dreams” by Green Day and Nickelback’s “Photograph”
Here is the chords:
Bulevard
||: Fm | Ab | Eb | Bb
||: Db | Ab | Eb | Fm
Photograph
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||: Eb | Bb | D2 | Ab
You do not have to be a rocket scientists to see that the songs are on the same level with “Twinkle, twinkle little star”. At least first song has the second part. How long a professionally trained musician can listen to 4 chords with mumbling instead of melody? One minute top. But general public seem eat this kind of stuff with a spoon. I truly believe if public stop buying bad product eventually it will be discontinued so you are the one how supports those bands.
“… After years where fans had to buy $20 CDs because they liked one or two songs,…”
Same problem; even very talented armatures cannot get more than one good song per cd. Usually, it’s one or two songs per band’s lifetime.
Nowadays a cd costs around $10-15. So what you are trying to say is despite the inflation music CDs actually got cheaper because $20 in 1980 it’s like $50 in 2006.
“…file sharing, no stealing is involved, nothing has been taken away, and no one has been deprived of something they used to own….”
That’s a very stupid thing to say. If you believe that taking a physical music CD from a store without owners permission is stealing then the question is what exactly the thief is after? ..shrink wrap?.. the case?.. plastic CD?… or data. Isn’t it obvious that cd without data is just a blank cd? So the cd itself is just a container for data you want. So, every time you make a copy of this data and share it with other people is stealing. Data is a physical object like everything else in this world, and more files you have on your drive the less space is left because data is a physical object. If you think differently then go back to school and get your diploma. According to your statement making copies of commercial products should be legal. Then why should we copy music? Copying money is much more fan. And when you get caught you can always use your mantra: “…no stealing is involved, nothing has been taken away, and no one has been deprived of something they used to own.” And that’s true, you have your own laser printer, paper and ink. You didn’t steal it. All you did was making perfect copies of one hundred dollar bills and sharing them with the rest of the world.
“…decline in music sales to a mixture of bad product, over-priced CDs and competition from video games, etc?”
This is not true either. 1. It’s poor economy situation of many countries forces people to save a buck on everything they can. 2. Human nature – greed; why pay if I can get it for free.
ViC Phoenix
February 4th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
After the 80s music died totally!Nirvana and the grunge movement led to the crap we have today,which is crap rap.The black eyed peas and no talents you hear on the radio today.Who even wants it for free?
BETTER START MAKING BETTER MUSIC NUMBER ONE!!!!!!!!!!.STOP SUING YOUR FRIGGGINN CUSTOMERS AND WAKE UP YOU JACKASSES!NUMBER TWO
February 4th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Excuse me…. Nirvana are a classic band, and in my opinion one of the last classic bands of all time.
Kurts lyrics and guitar riffs are just amazing, clearly you don’t know what you are talking about.
I agree with the first poster about greenday etc, however chords are generally pretty simply anyway. Playing complex riffs are more difficult.
I think the two classic bands of all time for me have to be The Doors and Nirvana. I do like some modern bands like coldplay though, they have some nice lead guitar riffs which i often play/
February 5th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
I like the part about music getting worse. To that I can only add that a root cause is payola and the performance collectives license scam used to collect and distribute songwriter royalties. So, almost all of potentially good songwriters that are not performers have decided that if there is no money to be made in songwriting, promoting their music through phony music publishers is not worth the hassle.
However
“Isn’t it obvious that cd without data is just a blank cd? So the cd itself is just a container for data you want. So, every time you make a copy of this data and share it with other people is stealing.”
Ah, but the so called data is frequently public domain or the data’s owner allows copying and downloaders cannot know the copyright status of the data, nor when the data enters the public domain (remember that copyrights are of limited life).
“All you did was making perfect copies of one hundred dollar bills and sharing them with the rest of the world.”
This comments equates sharing/copying for personal use with copying for profit and worse, counterfeiting money, an act clearly illegal by very clear laws. Copyright laws are extremely confusing, beyond comprehension. Also copyright expires, after which copying is legal. Copying money is never legal. Also, the paper used for printing money is very special and is not sold to anyone other than the government so that anyone cannot print money easily, where as blank cd and DVD for copying music are sold very cheaply, even by RIAA members, who would like you to buy their blank media and then not use them for the intended purpose.
No, data is not physical. A file on a hard disk is similar to a photo on a screen or in a memory device. After you view it, it disappears or you erase it if you want.
A final point. Downloading of music is not bad for musicians, who can now compete with the take all labels on a level surface and who through p2p can gain live concert audiences. Downloading is bad only for the middle person who allege to make investments (hardly true) and deserve huge profits which are hardly shared with the artists and the songwriters and who wish to keep a profitable but obsolete and ecologically bad distribution system. The artists and the songwriters many times get nothing of the profits of the labels.
As an example, RIAA members Sony and Sonolux have made over five million records with songs composed by my father, without license and have never paid one single cent in royalties for the use of those songs to us, the owners of the copyrights.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
February 7th, 2006 at 7:05 am
After the Sony rootkit fiasco it’ll be a cold day in hell before I EVER trust big music again!
February 8th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
nuff said