An interesting thing about music piracy Options

[azn_r4pf4n]

http://forums.boajjang.com/index.php?showtopic=12873

2005-02-14 : The Hypocrisy of American Record Companies

The 21st century (and the latter half of the 20th) saw incredible changes in the world. The phrase, "global community," actually means something in this day and age. One can watch on a computer events that are happening that very same second 5 thousand miles away on the other side of the globe. The past few years have seen an exponential growth in technology and its users. But like always, new technology spawns controversy.

Millions of youth (and older adults) use the Internet to download music, movies, games, and software on a daily basis. American record companies claim that this is the reason for dropping record sales. Their blind conservative views have led to an all-out campaign against big torrent sites such as Loki and the infamous Suprnova.

Record companies are simply using "illegal filesharing" as a scapegoat for their own incompetence. The reason for low album sales is because of a lack of quality in music. If there was no Internet, record sales would be even lower, not higher, contrary to their claims. So-called "hit music" in America, recently, comes across as rushed-out, pure, utter crap. It's why thousands upon thousands of people flock to Asian music and "amateur" or "underground" groups. Instead of spending time and energy on wiping out "illegal filesharing" sites, they should focus their efforts on producing quality music that people will actually buy.

Look at this site for example. One cannot even begin to fathom the amount of monthly bandwidth that crosses BoAjjang's forums, IRC channels, and other ventures. Companies would probably claim that by fostering free music downloads, we're cutting out their profits. Bullshit. By offering music and videos of BoA, we are converting and creating new fans and followers who go out and purchase her media. We have always and will continue to advocate the purchasing of media. If people who downloaded music did not buy her CDs, then how can you explain the fact that the average BoAjjang member has at least 3 BoA CDs? How can you explain our YesAsia affiliate account's page hits growing excessively?

+ credits; JWu from the Boajjang fourms


This article is pretty much true. I wouldn't be listening to asian music if it wasn't for the internet.

[antix10_kos]

I support downloading and trading files via mixes. A lot of music I listen to, I can't just go to the record store and pick up their album on a whim. I have to order it, wait for it to ship, and a half the time it's out of print or an import and I can't afford it anyway. P2P is the greatest promo tool since the mouth, really. You downlaod something, and if you like it, you tell others who are into the same thing to download it and word spreads like fire and bands that never would have had a chance in hell of getting on the radio or anything like get HUGE. The best examples of how this happens is to take a look at the emo and hardcore scenes. Neither one was very big or very well publisized until P2P got big. Then BAM!, both scenes got huge. Emo was first and then came their pissed off little brother scene, hardcore. Right now, hardcore is growing so fast that no one can keep up with it. It took the rock and metal scenes by storm. A copule of years ago, there were only a few well-known hardcore bands, like Hatebreed, Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage....now all you have to do read the t-shirts at Hot Topic or watch Headbanger's Ball and a good 70% of it is hardcore.

However, people should respect that artists DO lose money if you a) never buy albums or b) never go to their concerts or buy their merchandise. and also respect that some artists just aren't cool with you pirating or making pirate copies of their music. My boyfriend and I wanted to burn a few copies of Blue Eyed Christ's "American Whore" cd to give to friends. We asked Blue Eyed Christ via Myspace if this was ok and he was like "Uhm, the album is only $4 on my website right now, tell 'em to help me out and buy it."

Also, the music industry needs to come together and make a downloading service that is truly comparable to the P2P networks. iTunes is good, but you have to have iTunes to use it and also, the selection is kinda limited. Especially in the way of industrial, metal and punk music. iTunes is working towards making a better downloading service and they should be commended for what they are doing. However, they need some compition that offers pay per song mp3 downloading since iTunes files are m4p. The music industry needs to stop bitching about downloading and embrace it. There are lots of people (my self included) that would stop or at least reduce their amount of illegal downloading if there was a decent legal alternative.

PS-Hit music is crap. Every GREAT once in awhile, a good song becomes a hit like "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"....but it doesn't happen nearly enough.