[Sunday Business Post] Irish music industry hit by downloading (1 Viewer)

[dudley]

Yes i understand but i don't just mean the main feature.

if people are getting the film for free, i'm not sure how much they care about missing out on the extras. it's not terribly often i find myself looking at the extra material on a dvd.

 

[minka]

It'll surely hit the irrelevant boring rip-off stuff first? The "interesting stuff" is more likely to be made by people who never expected to make any money out of it in the first place. Thats at least the assumption I would've made. Those people are gonna make that music anyway, regardless of whether they garner any commercial success from it or not.

your faith that the best bands will continue to make music for the love of it, even if they are hemmorhaging money (and, as vinnie and i both pointed out above, this isn't just about not making money, it's about losing money, or paying to make your art, however you want to put it), is ... touching. i mean, i'm sure some will, but i'm sure there are lots of others who can't afford to do so.

 

[ratmonkey]

Yes i understand but i don't just mean the main feature. The ability to select commentaries, subtitles and extras is lost in a single file. Plus the quality is never as good..

Depends on whether the DVD is pulled down as an ISO / DVD files or if the video is extracted and compressed.

 

[hugh]

While its difficult to predict, the proliferation of technology like this could make it so that more and more people can afford to produce music.

Digital technology has made it cheaper to produce recorded music all right but this is quite different to the file-sharing thing. This means that substantially less revenue comes back to the artist and this is nowhere near offset by the fact that the CDs were cheaper to produce.

i dunno that i believe people will stop making good music (with singing and guitars and stuff) just because theres less money to be made though. i accept that good studios and mics are expensive and whatever but i really dont see that we're looking at the end of good music, thats just silly.

No, I don't think so either but it may go like this ....

The obvious reluctance to pay for content online MAY kill new work of quality forcing the people who produce it to withdraw into a private sphere, writing only for themselves and their mates.

Having said all that, I'm not sure that file-sharing makes ALL that much difference to smallfry/local bands without an international profile/deal. It might just make the difference between selling "very few" albums to selling "fuck all" albums and maybe the difference can be made up by doing things cheaper, taking advantage of other revenue sources, etc.

I don't think it will make that much difference to huge international bands either as their sales will just go from "massive" to "huge" and, well, no-one's gonna cry if U2 make only 10 million next year rather than 20 but ....

But .... the real potential danger is the impact it has on medium level indie type artists with a reasonable international profile. Take someone like Pinback for example. They are probably scraping by, just about making a living, and doing it full-time. If an important revenue source like CD/album sales is taken away then it quickly goes from being viable for them to do this full time to completely unviable (I know there's all sorts of suggestions put forward here about how this can be made up but I'm not convinced by any of them .. having said that I don't rule them out). Anyway, Pinback can no longer afford to do it full-time, so they go and get jobs. Since they are true artists and love doing it they keep producing music of course, but now they can't tour, they rarely play outside San Diego, they get bugger all money back from what they do so they can't afford proper studios and decent equipment anymore, YOU never get to see them and the only reason you download their stuff (legally or paying for it) is because you knew about them already before the "fall". Ha ha!

By the way, I don't have any fixed opinion on downloading being good or bad. I'm just talking off the top of my head here ....

Edit: I realise there are a whole load of completely unsupported suppositions there and lots if mights and maybes .... as I said, I don't know the answers to this ...

 

[egg_]

your faith that the best bands will continue to make music for the love of it, even if they are hemmorhaging money (and, as vinnie and i both pointed out above, this isn't just about not making money, it's about losing money, or paying to make your art, however you want to put it), is ... touching. i mean, i'm sure some will, but i'm sure there are lots of others who can't afford to do so.

And also, you gotta understand that the more you immerse yourself in anything the better you get at it. No matter how good a non-fulltime songwriter/composer gets, they would surely be better if they had the chance to do it fulltime

 

[Lefty Frizzell]

Depends on whether the DVD is pulled down as an ISO / DVD files or if the video is extracted and compressed.

Yeah but most illegal movies online are 700mb avis.

if people are getting the film for free, i'm not sure how much they care about missing out on the extras. it's not terribly often i find myself looking at the extra material on a dvd.

Sure but at least its some incentive to buy a dvd.

Legal mp3 downloads don't have any such advantage over illegal ones.

Plus tons of old or rare movies simply arent available to download so buying them is the only way.

With patience you can locate almost any mp3 you want illegally online.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

if people are getting the film for free, i'm not sure how much they care about missing out on the extras. it's not terribly often i find myself looking at the extra material on a dvd.

It doesnt appear to be affecting cinema numbers - not in this country anyway, cinemas are busier than ever. And I think cams and screeners are still seen by people as a prelude to the actual cinema experience rther than an a replacement for it.

And DVD pricing means that most DVDs are still cheap enough to be an impulse by in the way CDs aren't. Also there are new services like screenclick that people use.

 

[broken arm]

here's a solution

the jimmy cake cake book.

each band member nominates a dessert recipe and discusses why the recipe is special to them and their music.

€19.95.

sell thousands and cover the cost of the next album/tour.

it can be spun off to an irish bands cook book. same idea. we'll all be billionaires.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

here's a solution

the jimmy cake cake book.

each band member nominates a dessert recipe and discusses why the recipe is special to them and their music.

€19.95.

sell thousands and cover the cost of the next album/tour.

it can be spun off to an irish bands cook book. same idea. we'll all be billionaires.

Anyone who photocopies a recipe is banned from thumped for a year.

 

[Space]

Yeah but a lot of people won't even bother now.
There will be less bands as a result of this and guess what? It's gonna hit the most interesting stuff first.

I don't agree with this because I believe most of the people who are into "interesting" stuff are the people who will keep buying physical copies of albums.

I know I will anyhow.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

most DVDs are reduced to reasonable prices at some stage [mainly online sales] which means that demand for them is likely to continue. Buying something on release date is always going to be pricey and should be avoided.

the 'cinema experience' can be costly especially when you factor in cost of ticket, food, travel fees etc.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

In the eyes of the law both are equally guilty.

The hypocricy of Sony who copy-protect their cds AND sell mp3 products is hilarious.

the law is an ass in that case.

Mr A has purchased all of the CDs / LPs legally and the artists have been paid.

Mr B hasn't contributed anything.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

the law is an ass in that case.

Mr A has purchased all of the CDs / LPs legally and the artists have been paid.

Mr B hasn't contributed anything.

Mr A took the music he bought and made it freely available to Mr B though. Maybe he should have checked the copyright situation of each track on the mix before deciding to download it.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

Mr A took the music he bought and made it freely available to Mr B though. Maybe he should have checked the copyright situation of each track on the mix before deciding to download it.

see where you're coming from but there's no getting away from the fact that Mr A's contribution [i.e. what he purchased] is significant.

Treating both of them the same way is wrong.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

see where you're coming from but there's no getting away from the fact that Mr A's contribution [i.e. what he purchased] is significant.

Treating both of them the same way is wrong.

i think maybe its a bit like drugs - suppliers are treated more severely than consumers ( i think they are anyway). no comparison in terms of the product i know but the principle is the same

 

[broken arm]

the law is an ass in that case.

Mr A has purchased all of the CDs / LPs legally and the artists have been paid.

Mr B hasn't contributed anything.

how about mr 2nd hand record store man who buys them from someone who may have bought them from a legit store only to then make a profit on the resell.

that's at leat two financial transactions with nothing going to the artist

 

[nlgbbbblth]

how about mr 2nd hand record store man who buys them from someone who may have bought them from a legit store only to then make a profit on the resell.

that's at leat two financial transactions with nothing going to the artist

true, but in my example, Mr A had bought all them 'new'.

with a mix CD [one track per artist] Mr B may have been encouraged to seek out more of their work - i.e. buy albums by some of the bands.
would that have happened if Mr A didn't bother making the mix in the first place?

 

[broken arm]

with a mix CD [one track per artist] Mr B may have been encouraged to seek out more of their work - i.e. buy albums by some of the bands.
would that have happened if Mr A didn't bother making the mix in the first place?

like myspace and that.

 

[aoboa]

I don't agree with this because I believe most of the people who are into "interesting" stuff are the people who will keep buying physical copies of albums.

I know I will anyhow.

As the major acts stop releasing cds/vinyl - the pressing plants will shut down. Those that remain will be too expensive cos they'll have to make up the shortfall somewhere.
Meaning that it won't make financial sense for people who make interesting music to release records any more.
They'll be stuck trying to flog the odd mp3/flac which people won't buy cos all music is free now.
Music now has no value, so no one reviews it, meaning the people who make interesting music have no form of feedback except for gigs which they can't get cos no one knows who the f**k they are.
There are no record labels anymore, so there is no filter for shit music. As a result, it becomes too hard to find good music, so no one bothers anymore.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

you paint a very bleak picture Alan.

where do you see the relentless reissuing / remastering of back catalogue stuff?

no sign of stopping and there's a relatively healthy market out there - albeit some releases being limited editions like Rhino Handmade / Hip-O-Select etc