Why do people shun the buying of CDs today?

[Variant]

Bands make fuck all money from cds anyway, if you want to support a band the best way to spend your money is on merch, as the profit margins on that are much much higher than that of cds.

BAD attitude to have in 2010. This '90s attitude needs to die, IMO. This all depends VERY much on their individual label, distribution, deal, etc. I mean, maybe artists on the big four still get jacked on CD profits, I dunno... the fact remains that, weather they pay out less percentage or not, CD's & [moreover] downloads are still the main means of moving volume of craft for most musicians. Like I said before, unless you're a big time artist (and this term encompass VERY few of the artists we listen to on here) you need to take your spoils where you can make them. Basically, if you're skipping out on buying Muse's CD because you think WB is shorting them on a cut, the maybe you're dinosaur logic still applies, but frankly, if you're torrenting some second- or third-tier artist instead of buying the album from CD Baby or whatever, you're being an asshole.

I mean, I don't mean to sound "down" on the whole merch and concert ticket thing... I'm not... at all. But outside out big music fans, your average Joe obtains a hell of a lot more in the way of the albums than sees shows and nabs shirts or whatever. My closet would be packed with stuff if I had a shirt for every album I bought in the last couple of years.

 

[boni]

I will torrent/youtube some album from some second or third-tier artist and then buy it online if I like it. I won't buy it online only if I didn't like it at all. When it comes down to art, buying is like democratic voting. I have supported like 90% of all bands on my hardrive and they all deserved it because, after all, I kept on listening to them.

Good bands get enough money, considering most fans like to support them (cds, merchs, digital music, packages). Consider NIN. They make unique, freaking amazing genuine music every.fucking.time. Their songs actually have content and lyrics. And they get enough music for the size of their band.

 

[Sepultorture]

these points are more than likely covered but i am too lazy to read all this right now

- CD's scratch, can't scratch a digital file
- they take up physical space, whereas mp3's don't
- changing a CD while in transit is a pain in the ass, clicking an mp3 on is quick and easy
- you can keep your entire library of music in one place on the go, good luck doing that with CD's

one thing i can say, CD or mp3, if you don't buy it, your a shit head. i might by all my mp3's (they are cheaper than CD's) but atleast i DID buy them, too fuckin easy to download a torrent. no money goes the musician, and i have mad respect for musicians.

CD's will one day, in the not too distant future, be dead. digital medium will live on in file form. the only thing now we can see moving forward is hopefully an ever expanding digital audio quality. maybe one day we will be walking around listening to tunes at 96Khz at 128 bit depth on our Ipods

and i don't care if musicians get money from touring, that isn't an excuse to not buy music, atleast you can buy it cheaper online than going toa a music STORE

 

[Customisbetter]

I will torrent/youtube some album from some second or third-tier artist and then buy it online if I like it. I won't buy it online only if I didn't like it at all. When it comes down to art, buying is like democratic voting. I have supported like 90% of all bands on my hardrive and they all deserved it because, after all, I kept on listening to them.

Good bands get enough money, considering most fans like to support them (cds, merchs, digital music, packages). Consider NIN. They make unique, freaking amazing genuine music every.fucking.time. Their songs actually have content and lyrics. And they get enough music for the size of their band.

I'm sorry but all I read was,

"Assumption assumption assumption assumption opinion assumption..."

 

[boni]

I'm sorry but all I read was,

"Assumption assumption assumption assumption opinion assumption..."

ok pedantic troll. are you needy for attention? lonely?


make me a list of each identifiable assumption. then we should talk about it.

 

[JJ Rodriguez]

I download lots of music, but I still buy cd's. I would buy a LOT more if it didn't cost me $30 for a black metal cd with like 7-8 songs on it.

I like having a cd collection. Looks nice on the shelf. First thing I do when I get it is rip it to my PC for my iPod

 

[Werwolf999]

An acquaintance of mine, who plays drums for a very well known punk band, told me that 12K illegal downloads were made of their last single off one pirating site alone before they got it shut down.

 

[Variant]

ok pedantic troll. are you needy for attention? lonely?


make me a list of each identifiable assumption. then we should talk about it.

I agree with him... even rep'd him. I guess I know exactly what he is getting at without him needing to put in a ten page dissertation. Also, he's neither being pedantic (we're not talking about what feeling you get from your favorite color in the rainbow after all... this as serious discussion about largely empirical subject matter), nor is a troll (check his post count, now check yours).

The NIN mention is about as anecdotal as you can get. It's really easy to be an artist that was a household name before the internet thing took off. Trent could fart into a cheap Bluetooth headset and get paid. Now, take someone like Devin Townsend: You'll get little debate about how good of a artist that he is. Shoot him an email, ask him if he thinks he's "getting enough money". I doubt you'll get the same response. There's a lot of guys in here in very established and known bands simply not making ends meet. Unless you're under the assumption that the top 1000 artists in the world are the only ones worthy of making a comfortable living off their music, the economics of this angle just don't jive. The music market and current economic model for full-time musicians is fucking broke, end of story. The market changed, peoples attitudes towards musicians have degraded, and it's still not corrected itself.

An acquaintance of mine, who plays drums for a very well known punk band, told me that 12K illegal downloads were made of their last single off one pirating site alone before they got it shut down.

^
This. And that just direct from the site, who knows how much more got passed around out side of their server. Though there's no real means of tracking this sort of behavior (short of comparing an aggregate of the most popular artists now versus their equally popular counterparts twenty years ago and asjusting for world population increases) but it's been estimated somewhere in the 90-95% range in terms of what percentage of music is downloaded without paying. Shit, imagine if 90% of people were sneaking into movies.

 

[Acatalepsy]

BAD attitude to have in 2010. This '90s attitude needs to die, IMO. This all depends VERY much on their individual label, distribution, deal, etc. I mean, maybe artists on the big four still get jacked on CD profits, I dunno... the fact remains that, weather they pay out less percentage or not, CD's & [moreover] downloads are still the main means of moving volume of craft for most musicians. Like I said before, unless you're a big time artist (and this term encompass VERY few of the artists we listen to on here) you need to take your spoils where you can make them. Basically, if you're skipping out on buying Muse's CD because you think WB is shorting them on a cut, the maybe you're dinosaur logic still applies, but frankly, if you're torrenting some second- or third-tier artist instead of buying the album from CD Baby or whatever, you're being an asshole.

I mean, I don't mean to sound "down" on the whole merch and concert ticket thing... I'm not... at all. But outside out big music fans, your average Joe obtains a hell of a lot more in the way of the albums than sees shows and nabs shirts or whatever. My closet would be packed with stuff if I had a shirt for every album I bought in the last couple of years.

That's not what I said.


The point being that if you are going to spend £10 and £10 only on a band, buy their shirt. Because they make more money from that, and it's advertising for them at the same time. I've been in a few bands and I can absolutely confirm that there is more money to be made in merch than CDs. I was not advocating downloading or whatever, I just wanted to dispel the myth that bands make all their money from record sales.

 

[Rick]

these points are more than likely covered but i am too lazy to read all this right now

- CD's scratch, can't scratch a digital file
- they take up physical space, whereas mp3's don't
- changing a CD while in transit is a pain in the ass, clicking an mp3 on is quick and easy
- you can keep your entire library of music in one place on the go, good luck doing that with CD's

one thing i can say, CD or mp3, if you don't buy it, your a shit head. i might by all my mp3's (they are cheaper than CD's) but atleast i DID buy them, too fuckin easy to download a torrent. no money goes the musician, and i have mad respect for musicians.

CD's will one day, in the not too distant future, be dead. digital medium will live on in file form. the only thing now we can see moving forward is hopefully an ever expanding digital audio quality. maybe one day we will be walking around listening to tunes at 96Khz at 128 bit depth on our Ipods

and i don't care if musicians get money from touring, that isn't an excuse to not buy music, atleast you can buy it cheaper online than going toa a music STORE

Yep.

 

[Customisbetter]

ok pedantic troll. are you needy for attention? lonely?


make me a list of each identifiable assumption. then we should talk about it.

I don't know what the word "Pedantic" means and I'm too lazy to google it.

I do enjoy attention, although that is not the reason that I posted in this thread.

I am quite lonely but I'm starting a relationship and getting back in touch with some old friends so i think that wont be much of an issue much longer.

I do not need to point out anything in your post other than that you forgot to capitalize anything in your tiny fragments which you confused for real sentences.

 

[Variant]

That's not what I said.


The point being that if you are going to spend £10 and £10 only on a band, buy their shirt. Because they make more money from that, and it's advertising for them at the same time. I've been in a few bands and I can absolutely confirm that there is more money to be made in merch than CDs. I was not advocating downloading or whatever, I just wanted to dispel the myth that bands make all their money from record sales.

Yeah, and I'm saying if you want to listen to a band's music and wear their shirt, you spend £15. You want a Honda car and a Honda motorcycle, you don't buy the car and steal the bike just because there's a bigger profit margin for them on the car. You go without riding a motorcycle, or go without driving a car.

Really, though, downloading is only part of the problem... and stealing can even help a band by getting their music out there. There's Catch-22 all over that. Truth is, the whole industry, radio, and the distribution chain is a wasteland right now. I've heard a few good ideas come up, but it lies somewhat out of the context of this particular conversation, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[BenInKY]

MP3's sound like poo on anything but earbuds so I always buy CD's or DVD A's in the limited releases on that format. In the days of online ordering, you can easily get what you want for $10-$12 in tangible media. It costs pretty much the same to download it on itoooooooooooooooooooooons.

I bet in a blind test with a well-encoded mp3 vs. CD quality you wouldn't be able to tell the difference

 

[Antimatter]

I will torrent/youtube some album from some second or third-tier artist and then buy it online if I like it. I won't buy it online only if I didn't like it at all. When it comes down to art, buying is like democratic voting. I have supported like 90% of all bands on my hardrive and they all deserved it because, after all, I kept on listening to them.

Good bands get enough money, considering most fans like to support them (cds, merchs, digital music, packages). Consider NIN. They make unique, freaking amazing genuine music every.fucking.time. Their songs actually have content and lyrics. And they get enough music for the size of their band.

Nine Inch Nails is one guy. Trent Reznor does everything, and all the other guys are just live.

 

[boni]

The NIN mention is about as anecdotal as you can get. It's really easy to be an artist that was a household name before the internet thing took off. Trent could fart into a cheap Bluetooth headset and get paid. Now, take someone like Devin Townsend: You'll get little debate about how good of a artist that he is. Shoot him an email, ask him if he thinks he's "getting enough money". I doubt you'll get the same response. There's a lot of guys in here in very established and known bands simply not making ends meet. Unless you're under the assumption that the top 1000 artists in the world are the only ones worthy of making a comfortable living off their music, the economics of this angle just don't jive. The music market and current economic model for full-time musicians is fucking broke, end of story. The market changed, peoples attitudes towards musicians have degraded, and it's still not corrected itself.

1) Culture changed. Culture evolved.

2) Art is not a way to make a living in the current culture, specially if we are talking about audio codified into bits sustained by electrons (which are free) and moved with energy (which costs almost nothing per song).

Artificial scarcity describes the scarcity of items even though the technology and production capacity exists to create an abundance. The term is aptly applied to non-rival resources, i.e. those that do not diminish due to one person's use, although there are other resources which could be categorized as artificially scarce. The most common causes are monopoly pricing structures, such as those enabled by intellectual property rights or by high fixed costs in a particular marketplace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity

See? Economics 101

3) Yes, our current culture is amazing by the simple fact that our economic production is immense and there is less people suffering than in any other time in our history. So yeah, our current culture is by definition the best that has ever existed. I like CDs and I still buy them in special releases and packages (I like to appreciate the booklets that some artists produce). But generally, they are a thing of the past.

"But, now that social scientists have started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward: Far from causing us to become more violent, something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler." Steven Pinker Edge: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE By Steven Pinker



We are heading to a -near post scarcity condition in many fields http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity

Shit, imagine if 90% of people were sneaking into movies.

People can't sneak into movies because movies screenings are held in private properties, protected by the constitution of any democratic country.

What about digital music? How can we protected it? Unfortunately, you can't do anything to protect it. If you have any idea how to protect it, you are already a billionaire. And I'm not advocating piracy, I'm just expressing a fact from physics, information theory and computer engineering.

You could protect it if we lived in a police state, monitored 24hrs. So yeah, piracy will always win. Artistic production will decay. But popular art, be it either genuine or good or bad, will still remain. There's no going back. I buy 90% of my music, 90% of all the bands that I listen to frequently. Why? Because if I dont buy it, the artists probably won't produce their art. And I like their art. In the next century, it will be even more obvious that you can't be a musician being 100% sure that you are picking a job/way to make a living.

The situation is pretty self-explanatory. People could argue all day about ethics, right vs wrong. But the situation won't go away, there is no going back. Digital information is free by definition, specially if we are talking about videos/audio.

We can all be sorry for the economic situation of many people. But there's no going back. It's the technological development and the economic development, things change. The music as an industry is dead. And if you think you can revive, you are already a billionaire. It's not about being offended. People who work closely within the music industry are aware of this, so gradual changes in their models are happening because they can't do anything to prevent it. If you can come up with anything contrary to what I've said, then you could be a billionare. Otherwise, we can just be sorry and come up with solutions to our current technological conditions. That's the core of laissez-faire capitalism

 

[AK DRAGON]

I rarely buy CD's for multiple reasons:

1. Cheaper at itunes/amazon
2. not paying for packaging
3. being able to find most songs online

 

[josh pelican]

Regardless, I pay for music. Whether on CD, Vinyl (yeah, I still buy and play vinyl) or digital, if it's sold, I'm not going to steal it.

I am with you there, dude. Stores around here don't carry many CDs from the bands I listen to, but I still pick one or two up once in a blue moon. Over the last several months, I've definitely ordered a good number of vinyl.

EDIT: Hell, I just spent $42.00 on a vinyl two weeks ago.

 

[Swippity Swappity]

Yeah, and I'm saying if you want to listen to a band's music and wear their shirt, you spend £15. You want a Honda car and a Honda motorcycle, you don't buy the car and steal the bike just because there's a bigger profit margin for them on the car. You go without riding a motorcycle, or go without driving a car.

I really hate to argue against your point, cause I like it, but ya really can't download a bike and to steal it takes some real skill. Stealing music is EASY.

Whether the business wants it or not, music, at least right now, might as well be free. The mentality just isn't there in most people to not take something so easily taken. Humans, in general, like "free" things, even at the expense of others. Especially if they don't have to see those "others" suffer.

So I have to agree that, if yer gonna buy one thing to ease the guilt or whatever, buy the shirt (Which cannot be downloaded.). A person should buy the music as well, but especially with the economic downturn, I'm not gonna get my hopes up.

 

[Winspear]

I don't know anyone who looks down upon it as such...
I love to buy CD's though, but most of my friends just enjoy to highlight a bunch of stuff on Limewire and download it. I don't know how they could stand their music being that unorganized
I've downloaded a good amount of stuff (entire discographies of about 5 bands), but I fully intend (and have been) buying their CDs very slowly. I'll own them all one day, even though I've known all the songs like the back of my hand for years.
I simply cannot afford to buy more than 4 or so CD's a year (ok that's a huge lie - but I have more important things to buy).
I do however really despise the idea of things like the iTunes store. Of course it's a nice way for artists to get their stuff out - but I can't imagine choosing to buy on iTunes when you could get the CD. I'd only use it to get things like bonus tracks that are only available there - but I'd rather they released it as a single on CD and I payed 5x as much

 

[prh]

I rarely buy CD's for multiple reasons:

1. Cheaper at itunes/amazon
2. not paying for packaging
3. being able to find most songs online

wow im the opposite, i find itunes and amazon a hassle and would rather sit on a bus for 15 minutes to go to the cd shop than go spreading credit details around the internet (that and i dont have my own credit card...)

i pretty much buy CDs FOR the packaging, makes it worthwhile having liner notes and that new cd smell

agreed that the internet is the easiest route to go though