Yet Another Reason to Hate Metallica

Digital music has presented a number of new challenges to the recording industry which I believe they have been slow to react to and haven't gone about it in the best ways (remember all the lawsuits thrown at people downloading music?).

Along with the easy access to free and or cheap music, I think we have to consider part of it was a backlash against CD prices that were getting a little out of control before Napster came along. I know I'm guilty of downloading free stuff, but I've since changed my ways. I think $9.99 is a pretty reasonable and fair price to pay for albums. But I recall a few years ago seeing CDs going for $19.99 and above in some of the big music chains and just being totally disgusted by those prices. I feel bad for the artists who have been caught in the middle of the battle between the industry and consumers. But I place most of the blame on the industry.

Digital music has presented a number of new challenges to the recording industry which I believe they have been slow to react to and haven't gone about it in the best ways (remember all the lawsuits thrown at people downloading music?).

Along with the easy access to free and or cheap music, I think we have to consider part of it was a backlash against CD prices that were getting a little out of control before Napster came along. I know I'm guilty of downloading free stuff, but I've since changed my ways. I think $9.99 is a pretty reasonable and fair price to pay for albums. But I recall a few years ago seeing CDs going for $19.99 and above in some of the big music chains and just being totally disgusted by those prices. I feel bad for the artists who have been caught in the middle of the battle between the industry and consumers. But I place most of the blame on the industry.

I agree. The industry failed to realize a game changing technology was taking hold and that efforts to thwart it would ultimately fail. If they had opened their eyes to digital music early on they could have been in on the ground floor of iTunes and so forth and probably had made a better position for themselves. I think it is pretty reasonable to pay .99 for a song. I do it it now after spending years of just "stealing" the free ones. The industry needed to figure out ho to make money this way and totally blew it when they didn't.

A part of this that is often overlooked is the relationship between the "industry" and artists. Most artists don't make all that much money off album sales (relative) because labels take most of it. They make their money touring and so forth. These artists don't have much motivation to fight piracy because of that. If the labels had realized that their best assets in the fight against piracy were the artists themselves then they could have worked better deals for the artists to motivate them to fight this. Only the mega artists like Metallica have a true stake in album sales nowadays. You know who else is a dick about this stuff. Good ol' Kid Rock. Another fight the establishment type. He doesn't even let his stuff get sold on iTunes.

I agree. The industry failed to realize a game changing technology was taking hold and that efforts to thwart it would ultimately fail. If they had opened their eyes to digital music early on they could have been in on the ground floor of iTunes and so forth and probably had made a better position for themselves. I think it is pretty reasonable to pay .99 for a song. I do it it now after spending years of just "stealing" the free ones. The industry needed to figure out ho to make money this way and totally blew it when they didn't.

A part of this that is often overlooked is the relationship between the "industry" and artists. Most artists don't make all that much money off album sales (relative) because labels take most of it. They make their money touring and so forth. These artists don't have much motivation to fight piracy because of that. If the labels had realized that their best assets in the fight against piracy were the artists themselves then they could have worked better deals for the artists to motivate them to fight this. Only the mega artists like Metallica have a true stake in album sales nowadays. You know who else is a dick about this stuff. Good ol' Kid Rock. Another fight the establishment type. He doesn't even let his stuff get sold on iTunes.Didn't he come out recently telling fans to steal his music? I think he was giving it away for free on his website.

There's also the people involved that aren't the artists: the people who design the cover art, the people who package the CS, the people who deliver the CDs to the stores, the people who stock the shelves, etc. Compensating them has to be taken into consideration.

If the music companies had actually cared about the product they were putting out this wouldn't have been such a big issue. OOOOH a good single, hurry throw 10 other crap tracks on it and package it for 15 bucks and refuse to sell the single as a "single". Hell I can't even remember the last time I saw a "single" packaged anywhere. It became either buy the whole album of crap or find another way, people found another way and with the success of I-tunes it shows people are willing to pay for a product when it's priced accordingly.

There's also the people involved that aren't the artists: the people who design the cover art, the people who package the CS, the people who deliver the CDs to the stores, the people who stock the shelves, etc. Compensating them has to be taken into consideration.

Excellent point SS.

The sales off records does not only take money away from the band but takes money away from the song writers and others involved with the music. My cousin is married to a man who writes songs along with other stuff and each month he gets a list of his royalties for what he writes. Its pretty neat how he gets a penny here and a penny there each time a song he wrote is plyed on the air. We talked about this and he personaly cans say with modern technology he has seen a decline in his royalties for music he writes.
Great point, FD. People focus on the labels, but ignore the non-performers drawing their salary and livelihood from CD sales.

There's also the people involved that aren't the artists: the people who design the cover art, the people who package the CS, the people who deliver the CDs to the stores, the people who stock the shelves, etc. Compensating them has to be taken into consideration.

Sorry I can't trust you considering the fact that you work for the man. Who are you to tell us we can't have our free downloaded music? Next thing you know you'll be tellin' us to hand over our guns.