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| Since all of these songs are always instantly available | to me, these artists are still within reach, even the | one-hit-wonders from yesteryear. If I ha

by AlexC04 16y ago

| Since all of these songs are always instantly available | to me, these artists are still within reach, even the | one-hit-wonders from yesteryear. If I hadn't downloaded | Fastball's "Outta My Head" back in 1998, I would never | have gone to see them perform at the Viper Room in 2008 | (it was the illegal download of a B-side that made me | appreciate them more than hearing "The Way" on the | radio). While that may be true that the piracy had an unintended benefit for the band. I think you're making an appeal to the fallacy "the ends justify the means". In this case, the record label and by extension the employees of the record label lost out on their share of the $1 you should arguably have spent on the track. (assuming an itunes download at approximately market price). So that works out to say $0.80 cents not paid to the workers at the store, the marketing department etc... In the end, the band might have benefitted on balance, but in an alternative scenario, you PAID for that song, liked it and still went to see the band at the Viper room. I'm fully aware that there are a number of people who violently disagree with me on this. In my own opinion, the question of whether it's "better for the music industry overall" or not is irrelevant. The people who own the rights to the music, own the right to decide whether it's OK to get the song for free or not. If that costs them a customer at the viper room in 2008, it's their choice. "Theft plain and simple" is probably an overstatement - but (again, in my opinion) - there is definitely some moral ambiguity to this. Let's imagine that for some reason at YC11 a band shows up. In their pitch meeting PG and team feel suitably Rocked and Rolled so he decides to throw in the seed money for their studio time. The terms are that YC gets to keep 80% of the money from record sales (come to think of it, this happened on an episode of Dragon's Den UK). You download the song. Go to the concert. What happens to the share owned by YC? Do they make money? Do they deserve money? I do understand where you're coming from... but I also disagree.

ABrandt 16y ago
Let's imagine that for some reason at YC11 a band shows up. In their pitch meeting PG and team feel suitably Rocked and Rolled so he decides to throw in the seed money for their studio time. The terms are that YC gets to keep 80% of the money from record sales (come to think of it, this happened on an episode of Dragon's Den UK). You download the song. Go to the concert. What happens to the share owned by YC? Do they make money? Do they deserve money? You're addressing a whole other issue here. First off, there is a movement among record labels to grab a portion of revenues beyond record sales (the 360-deal [1]). Second, you raise the question of whether record labels are needed at all in the first place. Similar to bootstrapping a startup, a musician can take a very DIY approach to their careers. In fact, one could argue that a musician is virtually identical to an entrepreneur. They build their band/company by creating music/a product that fans/people want. Startups are incredibly cheap to do today because of changes in technology--open source, cloud computing, etc etc. In that same regard, starting out as a musician does not require the millions of dollars from Warner Bros. execs that it once did either. Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) can produce quality recordings, social networks allow for cheap marketing, CD pressing isn't required for distribution, and on and on and on. As "founders", musicians deserve to be rewarded for their work. Not to be screwed over by record labels ("VCs")[2]#. --- # I am in no way suggesting that VCs regularly screw over startup founders [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal [2]http://www.negativland.com/albini.html http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
chc 16y ago
It's not "The ends justify the means." It's "This is not theft. It's something quite different that can actually be beneficial in ways that theft reasonably cannot." To wit: What share does YC get if I never become a fan of the band at all?
byoung2 16y ago
In this case, the record label and by extension the employees of the record label lost out on their share of the $1 you should arguably have spent on the track. (assuming an itunes download at approximately market price). The year was 1998, and there was no iTunes. My only other alternative was to buy the full CD at $12-17. As a poor college student, I could only afford to buy maybe 3 CD's a year, and Fastball's album would not have been one of them. I would therefore never have heard the song (or paid for it) and never would have gone to the Viper room.
- AlexC04 16y ago
  Then so be it. You're using a post-hoc justification of the end result to claim that the piracy was acceptable. It wasn't.

by AlexC04 16y ago

ABrandt 16y ago

Let's imagine that for some reason at YC11 a band shows up. In their pitch meeting PG and team feel suitably Rocked and Rolled so he decides to throw in the seed money for their studio time. The terms are that YC gets to keep 80% of the money from record sales (come to think of it, this happened on an episode of Dragon's Den UK). You download the song. Go to the concert. What happens to the share owned by YC? Do they make money? Do they deserve money? You're addressing a whole other issue here. First off, there is a movement among record labels to grab a portion of revenues beyond record sales (the 360-deal [1]). Second, you raise the question of whether record labels are needed at all in the first place. Similar to bootstrapping a startup, a musician can take a very DIY approach to their careers. In fact, one could argue that a musician is virtually identical to an entrepreneur. They build their band/company by creating music/a product that fans/people want. Startups are incredibly cheap to do today because of changes in technology--open source, cloud computing, etc etc. In that same regard, starting out as a musician does not require the millions of dollars from Warner Bros. execs that it once did either. Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) can produce quality recordings, social networks allow for cheap marketing, CD pressing isn't required for distribution, and on and on and on. As "founders", musicians deserve to be rewarded for their work. Not to be screwed over by record labels ("VCs")[2]#. --- # I am in no way suggesting that VCs regularly screw over startup founders [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_deal [2]http://www.negativland.com/albini.html http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

chc 16y ago

It's not "The ends justify the means." It's "This is not theft. It's something quite different that can actually be beneficial in ways that theft reasonably cannot." To wit: What share does YC get if I never become a fan of the band at all?

byoung2 16y ago

In this case, the record label and by extension the employees of the record label lost out on their share of the $1 you should arguably have spent on the track. (assuming an itunes download at approximately market price). The year was 1998, and there was no iTunes. My only other alternative was to buy the full CD at $12-17. As a poor college student, I could only afford to buy maybe 3 CD's a year, and Fastball's album would not have been one of them. I would therefore never have heard the song (or paid for it) and never would have gone to the Viper room.

AlexC04 16y ago
Then so be it. You're using a post-hoc justification of the end result to claim that the piracy was acceptable. It wasn't.