Steve Albini on Piracy

[volcanogeorge]

I was thinking of sodomy

very siggable

I LOVE IT!

sodomy or the sig?

[Genevieve]

Both <3

[mks]

Who wants some free Big Black music?? I have some Rapeman too.

(*jokes*)

[Today]

one study of 2,000 people showed that of those 2,000, the ones who pirated music were 10 times more likely to say that they also buy an undetermined amount of music.
The other "think tank" had a sample size of 1,008 and revealed that of those 1,008, a third admitted to pirating goods. 26 percent of those claim to spend "a little" or "a lot" more on music. hm. 26% of 33% of 1,008. or about 86 people.

......

I'm laughing my fucking arse off at your "evidence"

"More" was the operative word there. Considering that only 19% of the 33% bought less and 47% bought the same, the math comes out ahead for music buying.

the point was that regardless, that math is completely inconclusive. And it says that the remaining 84% of that third paid less. It's bad data and if anything it supports my arguments more. But instead it's truly meaningless.

[fractal]

what's more, the study did not find out truly how much they spent, they use asked a group for an estimation. some shoddy ass science if you ask me.

one study of 2,000 people showed that of those 2,000, the ones who pirated music were 10 times more likely to say that they also buy an undetermined amount of music.
The other "think tank" had a sample size of 1,008 and revealed that of those 1,008, a third admitted to pirating goods. 26 percent of those claim to spend "a little" or "a lot" more on music.

of course they said that. quit being lazy and track purchases if you truly want information.

[kidshuffle]

Who wants some free Big Black music?? I have some Rapeman too.

(*jokes*)

No Shellac? FUCK U BRUV

[tyger]

if you want scientific studies, then you want Felix Oberholzer-Gee & Koleman Strumpf ...

The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis. Journal of Political Economy. 2007. 115(1):1-42.

File-Sharing and Copyright (with F. Oberholzer-Gee). NBER's Innovation Policy and the Economy series, volume 10. ed. Joshua Lerner and Scott Stern. MIT Press. 2009.

the latter includes summary/review of other studies.

[capo ultra]

I downloaded three shellac albums a few years ago

I now have those three albums on vinyl

[dubfordessert]

i honestly think that conceptually, say, ripping audio with audacity and saving and replaying that copy (but also copying and sharing files in general) is no different to memorising and reciting, say, a passage of poetry. the computational and storage power being used is simply external.

i buy music mostly as vinyl and go on nights to contribute to a scene i have an interest in seeing flourish

[magma]

i honestly think that conceptually, say, ripping audio with audacity and saving and replaying that copy is no different to memorising and reciting, say, a passage of poetry. the computational and storage power being used is simply external.

i buy music mostly as vinyl and go on nights to contribute to a scene i have an interest in seeing flourish

Very well put indeed.

[nowaysj]

Haha, jokes. ^

I do only buy vinyl, though.

[garethom]

bootlegging was not nearly as popular as torrenting has become.

this needs a source.

also, inb4 garethom

Staying out of this one haha!

I would say though, one thing I'm skeptical of in studies about whether people that pirate spend more on music than those that don't is the avoidance of guilt. They admit to pirating, but hey bro, I totally spend music on like, gigs and junk.

Not saying it's the case for everyone that pirates, I've no doubt some of them spend incredible amounts of money, but I guarantee for some that it's an attempt to make them look better as they know they might be do something wrong.

[magma]

Classical composers used to detune their instruments so audiences couldn't work out what notes they were playing. Piracy and plagiarism have always and will always exist.

If you decide to become a professional musician, then you are essentially a small businessperson - you need to find your way to making money through whatever combination of record sales, gigging, merch and whatever else you can find... one of my friends does scores for theatre productions on the side of Italo Disco (his main gig) and Splittercore (his hobby)... he realises that being a professional musician is like being a professional anything - if one client/venture doesn't pay all the bills, you need a second. He does limited releases with fancy artwork and daft little gimmicks that his (relatively few) fans tend to lap up.

In a time where there are more people in the world than ever and it's possible to download studio quality recording software for free, there is more competition between musicians for a share of the market than ever. Thousands of "scenes" and niches exist all over the place - but not many of them are big enough to support the kind of sales that a band like Led Zeppelin would've seen.. the music buying market is completely fragmented these days. The best way of securing an income good enough to support you from a single band/venture is to crossover to as many scenes as possible - this is widely regarded by snobs (like us ) that inhabit the scenes as "selling out" a la Skream and Benga. In reality, they didn't "sell out". They learnt the game, became businessmen and started hawking party vibes to the masses instead of a few chinstroking nerds and got themselves PAID.

So yeah, it's not piracy's fault that people don't get paid. People get paid if they want to get paid.

[collige]

In reality, they didn't "sell out". They learnt the game, became businessmen and started hawking party vibes to the masses instead of a few chinstroking nerds and got themselves PAID.

So yeah, it's not piracy's fault that people don't get paid. People get paid if they want to get paid.

That's kind of the definition of selling out tbh.

[magma]

In reality, they didn't "sell out". They learnt the game, became businessmen and started hawking party vibes to the masses instead of a few chinstroking nerds and got themselves PAID.

So yeah, it's not piracy's fault that people don't get paid. People get paid if they want to get paid.

That's kind of the definition of selling out tbh.

Well, you either do something for a living or you don't. Skream and Benga had the bollocks to dream they might be able to make a hobby into a living, at some stage you have to make a compromise in order to do that. I used to fiddle about with computers as a hobby - as a hobbyist, I got to do only the stuff I wanted to do - now, I do it professionally. As such, I have to point myself into directions and learn technologies that people will pay me for rather than the ones that make the most amusing tinkering - but I've never known anyone to call me a sellout because I stopped learning PHP and MySQL in favour of Powershell and Active Directory.

The only way to stop people 'chasing the dollar' is to make all music of no value... and then you have to give up on some of the beautiful things that come out of expensive studios (Steve Albini's work for instance or the entire Motown catalogue). The most successful professional artists strike a balance between their personal artistry and the demands of a market that are willing to pay for their art and associated products - Aphex Twin, Goldie, The Beatles, Björk, Radiohead...

[tyger]

I've never known anyone to call me a sellout because I stopped learning PHP and MySQL in favour of Powershell and Active Directory.

sellout!

[nowaysj]

They wouldn't nec have to make that compromise, though, if they could sell records. They could continue to make interesting innovative music, but instead, the only revenue stream is party music.

[ambinate]

Also, there is a shortage of good music being produced. There is an abundance of shit saturated with piss. We are seeing a decline in quality and an unprecedented surge in suppliers.

ok i know this happened 2 pages ago but this is silly. a SHORTAGE of good music? and it's somehow related to bad music that's also being released? the beauty of the internet (and the rise of independent labels as well) is that the surge in shitty music being released has no effect on the amount of good music being released. maybe the shitty music is crowding your rss feeds or whatever but that does not at all mean that there is a shortage of good music. i don't have anywhere near enough time in my life to listen to all the good shit that is being made these days.

[garethom]

i don't have anywhere near enough time in my life to listen to all the good shit that is being made these days.

[wormcode]

I don't like Steve Albini's opinion on this. It reminds me of people using how Nine Inch Nails gave their albums away for free, and still made a lot of money and got booked from them. Yeah, they're fucking Nine Inch Nails. It's not so easy for normal up and coming people to wade through the shit, get sales or bookings in this insanely oversaturated world of electronic music where every kid on the internet is spamming youtubestep tracks everywhere.

Semi-relevant. Just saw this on the old 'tube and it made me laugh:

ah man, so much rates for uploading the full version, where did you find it out of interest?
TheHPJC

Sources are best left undisclosed.
Or you could go buy it, mr pirate.
debtwck in reply to TheHPJC 8 thumbs up

Alright lets be real here! Pirating has been and will always be around artist make a good chunk of their cash from shows.
Bottomline:The only people hurt by piracy are those whose jobs were pointless to begin with.
AnbusKi in reply to debtwck 53 thumbs up

The fuck? 'Murdering has always and will always be around. A good chunk of the human race survive.
Bottomline: The only people who get murdered are those whose lives weren't worth living anyway.'
You're just refusing to take responsibility for the fact you're nicking somebody's hard work by claiming that it isn't causing a problem. Because you can't be bothered to pay less than a pound for it. Give me an example of an underground artist 'making a good chunk of cash' - as in actual figures.
WeirdAndGeeky in reply to AnbusKi