Opeth : The Ghost Reveries

Nebulous said:
Some one correct me if im totaly off the mark (Andy/ James!) but recently i heard from a respectable source that record companies only PROFIT around $1 out of each cd, if that!
you stand corrected. it's more than that... that's about right for the artist, depending on royalty rate.
 
Fair enough..well, not the fact that the bands get shit all, but that i was wrong.
At least buying albums lets the record companies know how popular a band is and whether its worth them touring or even being kept on the label............
 
Kazrog said:
4) When you buy an album, you're not buying it for the round disc or the packaging, but ultimatley the music inside, otherwise you wouldn't buy it!

When I buy an album I buy everything from packing to the music itself
I love reading booklets, the artwork; without people like nevermore I would never have known artists like travis smith.
It's a joke when company like Earache sell us a mp3 album for 10 dollars!!!!
10 dollars for a binary thing? ahah that's for sure a joke .
But I download music for a "try before you buy", it's really important to me we got nowdays a lot of shit.
Back In the first 90s when someone told you an album was great, that was great indeed, when people told me Cause of death was great it was for sure, now all is saturated, so it's better try and then if you like it buy it, if not delete it.
I love collecting original music / movies, people nowdays don't understand this.
They love collecting mp3 and maybe they say :"hey look I have a 1000 of this shit", without buying original cds .... :confused:
I don't hate people like Static, he says that what he can afford, he buy it
That's good, far better than the assholes that buy nothing, and when I say nothing I say nothing.
sometimes are not just major labels that don't give a shit about music.... sometimes are even indies.
I bought Nevermore's Enemies, was a shity sounding record (but I love all the songs), but I'll never buy the remixed version
seem they're fooling me: 5 dollars for the cd?? they would give me that for less or maybe 5 dollars with packing.

Maurizio
 
Kazrog said:
And yet you have no numbers to back this up. Why do you think that music sales are decreasing so rapidly every year? The truth is out there, and the numbers show the exact opposite of what you're saying. According to Soundscan, the top 100 albums sold 194.9 million units in 1999, compared to 153.3 million units in 2004. That's a 21% drop in sales since 1999. And the effects have been even more damaging to indie labels, who have increasingly had to consolidate. Most bands are being forced to fork over their hard earned tour merch money to the labels now. It sucks, and I strongly believe that illegal music downloading is to blame. The "weed" analogy has absolutely no relevance to this situation.

Just a thing here, did you ever take into account that there are other things affecting music sales? Like the quality of the music on the top 100 charts and so on? I very much believe that one reason for the drop in sales is that the mainstream music of later years have not appealed to as large a crowd as before, when artists like Norah Jones release a CD they still sell shitloads to put it one way...

Just my 2 cents anyways...
 
kaomao said:
I don't hate people like Static, he says that what he can afford, he buy it
That's good, far better than the assholes that buy nothing, and when I say nothing I say nothing.



Appreciated man.

I bought up the mp3 debate in a conversation tonight with some friends, but we really came to no conclusions about it. There's too many aspects to this...

I kind of agree with the dude who said that he was on both sides of the fence. It's a fucking tricky issue man. I'm feeling somewhat conflicted about it. :ill:
 
Impy said:
Just a thing here, did you ever take into account that there are other things affecting music sales? Like the quality of the music on the top 100 charts and so on? I very much believe that one reason for the drop in sales is that the mainstream music of later years have not appealed to as large a crowd as before, when artists like Norah Jones release a CD they still sell shitloads to put it one way...

Just my 2 cents anyways...

I've heard that arguement and think it's pretty silly. If we were talking about a 5% fluctuation that would be one thing but 21% is a serious dive. There are always flagship artist selling tons of records but that doesn't mean there isn't an overall drop or that they wouldn't have sold another million 6 or 7 years ago.
 
I'm not saying that quality differences accounts for the whole drop, just that i think it affects it greatly. Of course illegal downloading will have an inpact on sales.

There are lots of other factors as well, like global economy and so on, i don't have any numbers to show so i can't prove anything, i just think there's more to it than downloading.

I don't think it's ok to download since it IS illegal, however, my CD buying has increased significantly since i started downloading, and i do buy all albums i like, even albums that are just ok. I know that this doesn't mean that it is ok to do it, but at least it clears my conscience about the whole deal...
 
There is so much senseless whining/bickering these days on this forum. Lets just all agree to disagree.

If you like the artist, buy their stuff--that is, if you want them to say around as an artist and keep making music.

If you don't like them, then why download their stuff anyway's? Support the music. It's $10! Big Whoop! Get a part-time job at McDonalds; even if you have to work 10 hours a week to pay for music. If you sample on the Net, so be it... just as long as you buy it if you like it! All you freeloaders are a bunch of lazy buggards! :Smug:
 
I dont know... I read somewhere that System's Toxicity album did like fucking 6 million worldwide sales, and I know Mudvayne's Lost and Found has already done like 450,000 in the US... so that isnt bad at all for "metal" bands in today's "Download" market.

I dont think sales are THAT bad, and I KNOW tour attendance has been up in recent times [read that shit somewheres, too], so... I dont think the music world is doing that badly, but, who knows.
 
tricky? its good to see you are having some pangs of conscience about this, but referring to the well established concepts (and laws) of intellectual property and license of said property as "tricky"... man.. Ok, it may be difficult for a layman to 100% understand all the language in the text that explains the law, but the meaning is right there, black and white... same as any other law. hey, they are all written in legalease which is beyond most laymen, but as they say, ignorance is no excuse. but i'm sure you meant "tricky" as in morally and ethically. i'm sorry, but just because it's easier due to the fact that it consists of bits and bytes sitting on a hard drive somewhere and you have some p2p software doesn't make it any more right than trying to steal a TV out of Best Buy just because you didn't see any salesmen watching. i'd like to see the economic model under which "all music should be free" would work. in every single one i have been able to conceive ,or have heard to date, the end result is lower quality... bands doing it on the weekends, in crap studios, and joining the bizillion other bands who put their music up for free download. sound like fun to you? well, don't expect me to lower my standards to yours just because your money is tight. so is mine, but if labels are unable to sell albums they will go out of business and serious bands won't be able to record at the standards they do now... there will be no job market for producers.. the bar will be lowered beyond belief... l'm not willling to accept that, same as i am unwillling to listen to mp3s the rest of my life.
 
Static's justification of his downloading is completely ridiculous to me, first saying that he doesn't believe that artists have the right to depend on their art for their living, then he says that downloading helps him discover new bands so that when he has money, he may buy their cd, and then he says that his actions don't affect the industry because he lives in NZ, where the industry is shite.

No one has the right to determine whether or not an artist should make his living from his art. If someone works hard, they should be rewarded. Period. If it's all about the music, that's cool, then the money just goes into paying for his food and rent while he sits in his room writing more songs.

Downloading has great potential to introduce small or previously unknown bands to the masses, who would have never heard those bands otherwise. I've seen that firsthand, and it's an amazing phenomenon. That doesn't change the fact that 2 or 3 songs or samples off of a band's website(and these days, Myspace has them too) function in a similar and equally accurate way, without spoiling the chances of the band ever benefiting from being discovered by the masses.

Just because someone lives in a country or region that has no music industry to speak of doesn't mean that he or she is harmless to the worldwide music industry, which almost all bands are members of these days thanks to websites and such. Dollars spent on CD's in NZ eventually find their ways into the label's offices, where they are then spent on recording budgets, promotional budgets, staff, and last but not least, the quickly dying concept of artist development. The era of labels being able to give their artists money to rent out a house and write their new album for 2 months is dead. The era of a+r's going out and discovering bands and helping them grow into something great is dead. The era of going into recording studios for longer than a month is, for the most part, dead. As a result, the industry is relying on primarily already successful artists and one hit wonders to keep it afloat. Even then, times are hard for the industry and its artists. Promotional costs can't be cut back due to the constant need for getting their artists out there in the hope of selling any records. So, what other areas CAN the labels cut back on? Recording and development. The two sections of the industry having influence on content quality, as opposed to exposure. I completely agree with Kazrog's idea of having the album uploaded on iTunes the same day it finishes mastering. It's cheap, people get paid, exposure has the chance of being more evenly distributed and the smaller labels have a chance of survival on their own. The declining numbers across the board within the record industry are enough to disprove your ridiculous pseudo-justifications for theft of talented people's hard work and time spent. Download that.
 
Degenerate said:
Check this out http://www.m-base.org/mp3_philosophy.html

"My reasons for providing free music comes from my belief that musical ideas should not be owned by anyone. I believe that ideas should be free for anyone to use (but not to necessarily sell to others or make others pay for the use of these ideas). The concept of a commons area where ideas can be used for the benefit of all but for the profit of no one may seem like an unrealizable concept in the world today. Basically greed runs the world today and it is because of this that the concept of ownership exits."

OK, well this guy has the right to give his music away for free. Hell, I'm giving 5 free songs away right now, not even including some old shitty demos I did years ago that are freely downloadable as well. But we live in a money-based economy. We all need money to survive. Until that changes, working musicians like myself are going to need monetary compensation for what we do. I think $10 for a downloadable album is a very reasonable price. I can't remember paying that little for an album in my life, even on a crappy cassette in the 80s, when most things were quite a bit cheaper.

I think this discussion we're having here is good, and an important one. Attitudes are affecting the course of the music business, ultimately.

And yes, there may be other factors in the decline of music sales, but I think saying that "the quality of popular music going downhill" has very little merit. I actually think that a lot of the mainstream music coming out now is better than the stuff coming out in 1999. I love the new Foo Fighters, Coldplay, albums, etc., and I think that Norah Jones and John Mayer are two of the most talented pop artists to come along in a long time. So not everyone feels that pop music is declining as an art form!
 
Let me throw this out there, and mind you, this is not an attempt to justify illegally downloading music. Just me typing out loud.


What about used CD sales? That has to be hurting the "industry" on some level, but nobody ever mentions it.

Certainly not to the point of illegal downloading, but it has to take a good chunk out of the bottom line. I started buying used tapes and LP's when CD's were still an emerging format and I still buy mostly used CD's. I had absolutely no idea what artist royalties were back then, and it was a total non-issue until Napster.

So... It's legal, but the artist doesn't get paid and doesn't get soundscan (even though they did the first time), etc... All the same things that are hurting the industry when applied to illegal downloading.

Does that make me a bad person? I dunno. If I can legally buy something for half the price if I go to Amoeba (huge used record stores in LA and SF) instead of Tower, what's a guy to do? Has Lars Ulrich ever bought a used CD? I wonder.

I would bet there's at least one store in most cities that sells used CD's. So on another level, I suppose that used CD sales at least keep some of the mom & pop stores afloat when chains like Target and Best Buy use $8.99 new releases (and CD's in general in Best Buy's case) as LOSS LEADERS to get people in the door.

If Best Buy can argue that business is business, so can Amoeba, and so can the people that shop at both stores.

How do you all feel about this? I need coffee.
 
I don't think i'll ever buy a downloadable album, i like having the CD with accompanying booklet and whatnot, and nowadays you can buy CDs extremely cheap directly from the labels and indie distros. Take Willowtip for example, all albums are 12 bucks including shipping anywhere in the world, and that's not just the albums on the label, that's everything they distribute.
 
black sugar said:
Let me throw this out there, and mind you, this is not an attempt to justify illegally downloading music. Just me typing out loud.


What about used CD sales? That has to be hurting the "industry" on some level, but nobody ever mentions it.

Certainly not to the point of illegal downloading, but it has to take a good chunk out of the bottom line. I started buying used tapes and LP's when CD's were still an emerging format and I still buy mostly used CD's. I had absolutely no idea what artist royalties were back then, and it was a total non-issue until Napster.

So... It's legal, but the artist doesn't get paid and doesn't get soundscan, etc... All the same things that are hurting the industry when applied to illegal downloading.

Does that make me a bad person? I dunno. If I can legally buy something for half the price if I go to Amoeba (huge used record stores in LA and SF) instead of Tower, what's a guy to do? Has Lars Ulrich ever bought a used CD? I wonder.

I would bet there's at least one store in most cities that sells used CD's. So on another level, I suppose that used CD sales at least keep some of the mom & pop stores afloat when chains like Target and Best Buy use $8.99 new releases (and CD's in general in Best Buy's case) as LOSS LEADERS to get people in the door.

If Best Buy can argue that business is business, so can Amoeba, and so can the people that shop at both stores.

How do you all feel about this? I need coffee.
you can feel good about yourself.. you are not a "bad person": labels and distributors, and the RIAA are well aware of exactly which of their customers sell used product as well.. and i believe the largest ones at least pay a blanket fee to the RIAA which is distributed to all aritsts equally and make various deals with lables and distros to stay "in the good-books" with them. this was the way it was when i worked at a new and used music store in the early 90's, and i'm sure it's in place still today, or maybe not, but you can be certain that this issue is handled , albeit behind the scenes, so it's a non-issue.
 
Used music sales have always been available, making it kind of null and void. Obviously, it would be better for the artists, labels, and the industry for you to buy new, but the damage is already taken into account in terms of their marketing and sales strategies. The only real problem with the used market these days as opposed to years past is that now people can rip the cd's to their pc and either return the cd or sell it used, essentially having the record company getting the money for one cd when two people(or more) are listening to it. On the other hand, a lot of the used cd stores that I know also sell new cd's as well as merchandise. By making money on used cd's, they're able to offer more affordable prices on the new cd's and merchandise as well as ensuring the business' future, meaning that they'll be able to provide income for the industry for longer than if they went under, if that makes any sense.

Sorry if my posts are kinda rambling today, it's a subject very important to me, but I'm really tired and bored at work, and my posts are reflecting that :cry: .