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> No wonder the music industry loves piracy. For every tablet/phone/computer sold, they’re literally pocketing [...] With "the music industry" presumably you m

> No wonder the music industry loves piracy. For every tablet/phone/computer sold, they’re literally pocketing [...] With "the music industry" presumably you mean record labels, or even something else? Surely this money doesn't go to artists — how would anyone know how to distribute the money. Even distribution among record labels is super unclear.

golergka 2y ago
If you're an artist who sold the rights to your music to the label, the money has already gone to you.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  and if you're independent, you're screwed yet again. this is why I buy merch from the artists I love lol
8fingerlouie 2y ago
In case of the Danish levy, the money does actually flow back to whomever holds the rights to the music. I purposely do not write artists, as there is no guarantee that they are holding the rights. The reasoning behind the levy is to compensate artists (mentioned as artists in the law) when people make “private copies” (I.e. backups, copying media from yiur PC to your smartphone, etc, not to be confused with pirate copies). Allegedly artists are missing out when you purchase a song from some service, and then copy that song to a media player somewhere. Considering that a lot of people stream music today, and rights holders are compensated per play, this makes it even more absurd that you need to pay a tax for every device capable of streaming media. I don’t have any hard numbers for the streaming vs purchased music, but judging from the number of record stores now and when I was a kid, as well as the size of said stores, hard copies of music doesn’t look like it’s a thriving business, Of course you can buy music digitally on iTunes/Youtube/Google/Amazon/whatever, and I’ve personally done just that for a couple of decades, but even I had to eventually give in when the kids wanted to listen to music. I still purchase “classics” that I know I will listen to over and over again, and I have a respectable music library that I own (DRM free), but for everyday listening it’s just streaming, and with a family subscription it’s also cheaper than when I was a teenager and was buying albums weekly (we did have better music back then though :-D )
- skydhash 2y ago
  > Allegedly artists are missing out when you purchase a song from some service, and then copy that song to a media player somewhere. I don't know much about copyright law for media, but wasn't the core issue commercial usage and distribution? I believe once I buy something, I'm entitled to consume it however I see fit, whether it's from a CD player, or a file on my computer. I love CDs as a physical artifact, but the convenience of digital files is superior. > hard copies of music doesn’t look like it’s a thriving business. Most people I know only do ambient music or party music. Focused listening is a rare thing. For the first two option, streaming is great, as you don't need to worry about where the files comes from and if you've synced them to the player. But once you've got a collection albums you really do like, the current state of streaming software makes it difficult to manage them there. As for me, the albums I do like to listen to, I already have them in my collection. For anything else, I go to youtube.
  - 8fingerlouie 2y ago
    Don’t get me wrong, i think streaming is great, and it has allowed a lot of artists to publish music that probably wouldn’t have made it otherwise. Some only have one or two songs in them, and with streaming that’s fine. With record labels they’d have been forced into a record deal producing one or two good songs, and 3-5 mediocre albums. Likewise, for pop music, streaming is great. Pop usually has a very short lifespan where a song is popular, and after that the majority thankfully fades into oblivion. I would hesitate to purchase pop music even on iTunes despite most tunes being $0.99, but with streaming i don’t think about it.

golergka 2y ago

If you're an artist who sold the rights to your music to the label, the money has already gone to you.

dingnuts 2y ago
and if you're independent, you're screwed yet again. this is why I buy merch from the artists I love lol

8fingerlouie 2y ago

In case of the Danish levy, the money does actually flow back to whomever holds the rights to the music. I purposely do not write artists, as there is no guarantee that they are holding the rights. The reasoning behind the levy is to compensate artists (mentioned as artists in the law) when people make “private copies” (I.e. backups, copying media from yiur PC to your smartphone, etc, not to be confused with pirate copies). Allegedly artists are missing out when you purchase a song from some service, and then copy that song to a media player somewhere. Considering that a lot of people stream music today, and rights holders are compensated per play, this makes it even more absurd that you need to pay a tax for every device capable of streaming media. I don’t have any hard numbers for the streaming vs purchased music, but judging from the number of record stores now and when I was a kid, as well as the size of said stores, hard copies of music doesn’t look like it’s a thriving business, Of course you can buy music digitally on iTunes/Youtube/Google/Amazon/whatever, and I’ve personally done just that for a couple of decades, but even I had to eventually give in when the kids wanted to listen to music. I still purchase “classics” that I know I will listen to over and over again, and I have a respectable music library that I own (DRM free), but for everyday listening it’s just streaming, and with a family subscription it’s also cheaper than when I was a teenager and was buying albums weekly (we did have better music back then though :-D )

skydhash 2y ago
> Allegedly artists are missing out when you purchase a song from some service, and then copy that song to a media player somewhere. I don't know much about copyright law for media, but wasn't the core issue commercial usage and distribution? I believe once I buy something, I'm entitled to consume it however I see fit, whether it's from a CD player, or a file on my computer. I love CDs as a physical artifact, but the convenience of digital files is superior. > hard copies of music doesn’t look like it’s a thriving business. Most people I know only do ambient music or party music. Focused listening is a rare thing. For the first two option, streaming is great, as you don't need to worry about where the files comes from and if you've synced them to the player. But once you've got a collection albums you really do like, the current state of streaming software makes it difficult to manage them there. As for me, the albums I do like to listen to, I already have them in my collection. For anything else, I go to youtube.
- 8fingerlouie 2y ago
  Don’t get me wrong, i think streaming is great, and it has allowed a lot of artists to publish music that probably wouldn’t have made it otherwise. Some only have one or two songs in them, and with streaming that’s fine. With record labels they’d have been forced into a record deal producing one or two good songs, and 3-5 mediocre albums. Likewise, for pop music, streaming is great. Pop usually has a very short lifespan where a song is popular, and after that the majority thankfully fades into oblivion. I would hesitate to purchase pop music even on iTunes despite most tunes being $0.99, but with streaming i don’t think about it.