Music body says 95% of downloads illegal. Obviously this comes as news to no one. Any avid internet user is aware of the frequency and ease of access of FREE, illegal internet downloads from sites such as mediafire and megaupload. The music industry's response to this activity was to focus more on concert sales and touring, as these have been the responsible for the majority of artists cash flow for decades. The problem now is, with the stingy economy, people aren't attending as many concerts as they have in the past. Adding to the issue is the tyranny of ticket brokering systems such as Ticketmaster and Livenation. People don't have the money to spend on concert tickets, and on top of that, people don't feel obliged to pay service to these companies presenting the tickets to them.
What can we do to combat the evils battling the music industry? I think we need to ride out the storm. Good music continues to flourish, maybe now more than any time in the past ten years. With revolutionary bands like Animal Collective, Phoenix, Grizzly Bear, Pretty Lights, and Bon Iver, music has been blossoming into beauty recently. Add to that resurgent past acts such as the Flaming Lips and Phish, and I'd say us music listeners are lucky. The future looks bright based on the present, despite what the numbers might tell you.
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I totally agree with you!! Like I said in another post, some of the music is now legal to download and free as well. However people in the music industry do believe that music will continue to be a profitable business because of touring. I personally agree; even though we are having a rough time with the economy people do want to have some extra pleasures once in a while. It has been proven that people still go out! For instance movie theaters have had an important number of people coming and paying to see the New Movie. So it may seem hard to imagine that people will actually pay to go to concerts considering that some of them are highly expensive, meanwhile I do believe that it could work.
ReplyDeleteAhoy! Ride out the storm, we must, I think. But instead of calling it a storm, I don't think we should look at this dominance by illegal downloads as a harmful one on the music industry, but simply as a misunderstood and as yet misused tool that more and more artists are learning to utilize to maximize their appeal to their listeners. It would be impossible to name the countless artists who are now offering their songs for free in a compressed, lower-quality format (mp3 and AAC being noteworthy examples), and selling the higher quality copies at low cost over digital music download sites such as garageband.com and itunes store. In fact, I can't wait till this becomes the standard practice, as it will force bands to produce higher fidelity copies of their music and make them available, and nudge the public in the right direction and paying artists for their product.
ReplyDelete@ Joe -
ReplyDeleteI agree, flac (free lossless audio codec) could be huge in the revival of digital downloads. Many bands offer flac recordings of their shows for download on sites such as livedownloads.com, for a fee of ~$13. However, flac files are bulky, and are most practical when burned to a cd. Unfortunately, anything that can be digitally composed can be attained illegally (music, software, movies).
@ Apolline -
You're right, movie theaters saw a huge influx of people this holiday season with the uber-blockbuster Avatar, now the top grossing movie of all time (before adjusting for inflation), spearheaded a lucrative holiday movie season that included Sherlock Holmes, The Blind Side and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Movie tickets are anything but cheap.
While Ticketmaster and LiveNation merged a couple days ago, the two tyrants are now one. They own virtually every music venue around the country, which sucks for us concert goers. In my opinion, the best way to combat both this tyranny and the suffering music industry is to support local music. Go to bars, pay the cover to see the local bands we love. All hope is never lost, this being no exception. Tipitina's, perhaps the best venue in New Orleans does not work with LiveNation, and has groovy shows. Frenchmen street is another fine example. Blue Nile, Spotted cat.....just go down there on the weekend and follow the music. Sure you might have to pay 5 or 10 here or there, but c'mon, support the music and the city!!!