Well, I too buy a lot of CD's (for my sins) to support the artists, have the original, etc... ...But I also play CD's in my PC, which I won't be able to shortly now that copy protection is taking off. Surely, the reason for the fall in CD sales is that there isn't that many new artists around nowadays, the charts are full of manufactured Pop Idol/Star/Rivals/etc, independent labels have been bought up by majors, etc? I know that there are people out there who don't buy vinyl/CD's and *DO* just download MP3's, but don't go and blame a fairly large percentage fall in record sales on people with PC's downloading MP3's! I mean there's a whole load of people out there who still don't have the bandwidth/time/knowledge to download MP3's, so surely the whole percentage fall can't be attributed to people who download this stuff! I mean, think about it - how many artists have been dropped by record labels fairly recently? Wasn't David Gray dropped by his previous label (Hut) just before he released the album that shot him to superstardom? In my mind, there's a huge number out there, and when was the last best selling album out by one of the "so-called" superstars (Madonna, Elton John, David Bowie, etc)? Ah well, we won't be able to dissuade these useless wankers that the reason the sales are going down is simply that there isn't that much good stuff being released nowadays (apart from, say, Royksopp, Bent, Orbital, Orb - latter two recently dropped by their record label, and the like)... ...Or maybe I'm just getting too old! l8rs, Nick ;-)
On Tue, Nov 19, 2002 at 08:45:22PM -0000, Derek Knight wrote:
I think the vast majority of people on this list are with me when I say that I do download and rip mp3s, but I also buy a collosal quantity of music.
I download NO music, and rip NO music, and I'm still enraged by the current trends in DRM! I don't have a (working) soundcard, and only ever burn CDs on the condition that if the recipient likes the record they'll buy an original. So I feel justified (no pun) in bitching against the (very badly implemented) copy protection being used right now.
Just like hometaping in the 80's, we ain't gonna kill music cos we still plough moneyback into it. The problem is that many many many others are simply downloading and ripping CDs, and not putting anything back into the pot. Whether we like it or not, those dents in record company profits are a bad thing, as it makes them more defensive, conservative and middle of the road.
true true
The fact that it's evil and capitalist and la dee da is irrelevant. Boo hoo. We could stand here all day and rant about how unfair the world is. The fact is that if copy protection stops the continuing, passive pirating of pop music between people who are lazy, selfish and think they can somehow dodge capitalism, then, fuck it, GOOD. I'd rather have a few problems playing my new Lemon Jelly CD than not have it available at all.
furry muff
good point, well made