As a musician/songwriter I am a member of a great many online forums which are directed at my colleagues in the music industry. I have been involved in countless discussions about how the music business is dead. No one sees it as necessary to pay for music anymore. We grew up listening to it for free on the radio and now we just expect it to be free as well. Do you download torrents? If you were given the option of the free download at a pirate site or a paid download through official channels, would you always choose free? What would it take to get you to shell out for music? A self-interested question, admittedly, since I still hold out hope that I will one day actually make some music that makes money, but I usually talk about it with others in my position. I would like to get a sampling of views from others outside the industry however.

i havent bought music in approx 7 years. and i dont play on buying music anytime soon in the future either.

It's one thing to download music to give it a listen to see if you're interested, it's another to never support musicians you like. People who haven't bought an album or been to a concert in years are not fans of music, they're self-entitled pricks.

I buy choice albums. For instance I will buy Kanye's "Good Ass Job" the day it drops, and I bought Bun B's "Trill OG" and Em's "Recovery". But I only buy an album every 3 months or so it seems.

I buy the music of the musicians that I like although the musicians that i listen to the most put out a ton of free music. That's probably why I buy most other stuff that they release for sale.

I do buy my music and hit as many concerts as I can during the summer. I did go through a rebel phase a few years ago after my CD collection was stolen out of my car, but I believe I was entitled to that since I did purchase the music to begin with. To tell you the truth, I don't even really know how to download free music anymore because I never cared to learn.

 

Originally Posted by pigalet42

i pay for music - i like supporting musicians - doubt i'm in the majority, though

Same

I still like going to "record" stores and looking for CD's. I like buying CD's and still try to enjoy the CD as a complete work. I think its horrible the way the industry has changed and its so easy to steal music these days. I think illegally downloading music off the internet is no different than walking into a store and stealing something. I guess i'm old school because I still remember the days of buying a vinyl album and listening to it for hours and hours. The music experience was really better back then, except for the fact that it wasn't portable like it is now.
I think it sucks now that groups have to tour for 2 years just to make money these days, because that means fewer albums over the course of their career. Back in the 70's and 80's bands were putting out albums about every year or two. Now, bands make very little off their cd's so they end up having to tour the world for two years to make their money, so the consumer who loves their music only gets a new cd maybe 3 to 4 times a decade now as opposed to 6 or 7.

 

Originally Posted by Scha

Spotify is legal and free in europe. The free version is only streaming and they put in a commercial every x songs. I'm considering paying for a premium account so I get Spotify on my andoid phone (automaticly download all playlists when you are connected via wifi), and get rid of the commercials.

We currently spend about 3 times as much on streaming internet services than we do on satellite TV, but we don't pay ANYTHING for music. I think the last time I bough a CD was about 8-10 years ago.

I was just thinking that a fundemental change in music distribution and payment is the answer to getting Artists the money they deserve. Subscription streaming seems like a good idea.

It still amazes me how the music industry had a ready made customer base ready to sign up and they were to stupid to leverage Napster and instead drove those millions of potential customers deeper underground.

Back when Napster was in it's hay day I would have gladly signed up but the music industry drove millions just like me underground.

Oh what is this iTunes thing any way? I doubt it makes much money for anyone.

I buy the mp3s, They are cheap enough for one hitters, got tired of downloading shit from frostwire.

~4k itunes songs. all paid for

I buy all my music.

Normally goes like this:

Check the rack for new releases on Tuesday, buy at least 1 a week (normally at a discount).

Keep/listen to it in my car until I have 3 or 4 CD's to add to Itunes.

Copy to Itunes and poke around the site for anything that catches my eye and buy if I want.

I have a seperate music file on it's own external hard drive so as not to lose my library (it's happened twice)

Ii am very adamant against paying for music, the artists make a whopping 2% off of record sales. I will discuss more when I don't have to post from my phone, but if you really want to support the artist donate $20 to them and go to their concerts, that's where they make their money. in the age of sharing and the internet the fundamental policies on music have to change spotify is an excellent example of where the music industry has to go. If the thread is still alive later I will present my case but with the research I've done, unless its a small band not signed to a label buying music does not equate to supporting the artist

I don't steal

So that is why I buy all my music on iTunes

No respect for everyone that downloads it illegally.

File sharing isn't illegal.