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Bono
 Rep: 386 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

Bono wrote:
russtcb wrote:

The Halen thing is so odd. I cannot imagine why in this day and age, the record company would release it in one country a week early. The ONLY reason I can think of is simply ignorance.

James made a great point with that. Check this out. Anyone heard of GOTYE?  His song "Somebody That I Used to Know"  BLEW UP in mid December/early January. His album was released in Australia(where he's from) in November and likely in other countries as well yet North American's had no way of purchasing it untill January 24th 2012. Now that is insane. I seriously wonder how many sales were lost to illegal downloads for that guy. Considering his album had been out he had a single go crazy on facebook and youtube(with the help of Walk Off The Earth's 5 person 1 guitar cover of Somebody I Used to Know) for 3 months before  North American's could purchase it.
Actually his youtube video was uplaoded by HIM in July 2011. It has over 58 million views and North American's coudlnt' purchase it untill January 2012? That is absolutely fucked!

smoke
 Rep: 77 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

smoke wrote:
Bono wrote:

Anyone heard of GOTYE?  His song "Somebody That I Used to Know"  BLEW UP in mid December/early January.

Totally off topic, but I swear that song could have been a Police song, right down to him sounding like Sting on the high parts. Is the rest of his stuff of this caliber?

Bono
 Rep: 386 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

Bono wrote:
smoke wrote:
Bono wrote:

Anyone heard of GOTYE?  His song "Somebody That I Used to Know"  BLEW UP in mid December/early January.

Totally off topic, but I swear that song could have been a Police song, right down to him sounding like Sting on the high parts. Is the rest of his stuff of this caliber?

Honestly I think his stuff is great. I'll posta  thread in the Black Hoel section if anyone wants to check some of his stuff out

smoke
 Rep: 77 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

smoke wrote:
Bono wrote:
smoke wrote:
Bono wrote:

Anyone heard of GOTYE?  His song "Somebody That I Used to Know"  BLEW UP in mid December/early January.

Totally off topic, but I swear that song could have been a Police song, right down to him sounding like Sting on the high parts. Is the rest of his stuff of this caliber?

Honestly I think his stuff is great. I'll posta  thread in the Black Hoel section if anyone wants to check some of his stuff out

That would be great, thanks!

monkeychow
 Rep: 661 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

monkeychow wrote:
TheMole wrote:

Factors that are MUCH more likely to be reason for the downfall:
- The lack of quality being pushed by big labels
- Focus on singles instead of albums
- No big national network to promote music anymore (wtf MTV?!??)
- Unrealistic pricing schemes
- Economic downturn
- Audiences with shorter attention span, lots more one-hit wonders
- ...

Some of those things play a role as well but:

Quality: Tastes change. People in the 1970s didn't like some of the 1980s music. People in the 1990s didn't like the 2000s music. I think it's artificial to say there's a drop in quality. It's just mainstream culture evolving in different directions.

Singles: Some truth to that. But then if it's all about singles, given they dont really exist in physical form, shouldn't paid digital downloads of singles represent similar numbers to historical album figures? But digital sales only represent 20% of music sales.

Nation Network: True..but then these industries are global. In 1989 I couldn't get MTV in Australia - didn't stop me buying AFD. These days there's youtube, facebook and more ways than ever to be exposed to music you might wish to purchase...the problem is people want it free wink

Pricing: How realistic can it get? I can buy a song for $1.70 on Itunes here...if I buy a Coke at a vending machine it's like $3.50. There is no price that competes with free.

Economic Downturn: Agreed it's a factor...but then are you expecting sales to resume to mid 2000 levels in a couple of years when the economy pics up?

Shorter Attention Span/ More Competition: May be some truth to that.

So, don't get me wrong...I'm not saying none of these are relevant, but to me the elephant in the room is that when you get stuff free there's only 3 or 4 reasons to pay (if its more convenient for some reason, if you want to connect to the maker, if you have a political stance or if you like tactile goods) - but people labouring under those 4 conditions are not the majority of the general public.

monkeychow
 Rep: 661 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

monkeychow wrote:
James Lofton wrote:

Monkey, I've told you since the rov days why cd sales dropped since 2000. It started before then but for people to accept that forces them to drop the 'downloaders are evil' stance. so the statistic is conveniently ignored by those who blame downloaders.

Yeah I hear ya James but I really think those issues are localised to America. As I've said earlier in the thread...around here in Australia there is no shortage of legitimate places to buy a CD in easy access to most of suburbia. For people near me - it comes down to if you can be fucked paying or not for it. It's seriously like if I was able to download milk and bread. I'm at the store, picking things I might like and thinking "do I want to pay or just go home and torrent it?"

Sure there's people who download then buy legitimate copies...and it does work to promote tours and stuff to an extent....but there's way more people who just take the free ride.

monkeychow
 Rep: 661 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

monkeychow wrote:
TheMole wrote:

It's naive to think that downloads equal lost sales in even a marginally significant number of cases. And yet that's the leap people make over and over again. I don't care how many times it has been downloaded, I would like to know how many sales have been lost. The actual sales figures don't support the "piracy-is-bad" doctrine, and that is a fact.

I'd agree with the first part - that it's silly to think every download would have equated to a sale and I agree the industry has an unfortunate tendency to do that.

But the fact that people wouldn't have purchased *everything* they took free doesn't negate that many people simply take free things they would have paid for historically too.

But I think you are seriously misguided to say that the sales figures don't show it.

How many records had to be sold to be the number #1 act in 1998? And how many records+downloads does the number #1 have now? There's been an absolute slump in sales - yet actual useage of music has not slumped. Illegal Download figures grow and grow.

If it's all about music sucking now and the attention spans shouldn't the live scene also be collapsing? It doesn't because there's no way to pirate an experience and people will only pay for things they can't get free.

monkeychow
 Rep: 661 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

monkeychow wrote:
russtcb wrote:

I still believe that successful products are priced at what the market will bare.

I agree but what the market will bare has direct relationship to the fact that you can get the same product without paying at all now.

The ability to get the product for free surely has to be a factor that pushes down the price.

Are some products overpriced now? Yep. I agree it's silly that digital albums are usually near the same cost as physical - when you don't get the packaging, keepsake, backup of it etc.

The choice to pay for an album these days is surely influenced by the fact that if you wanted to own it without paying for it you can.

Bono
 Rep: 386 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

Bono wrote:

All I know is  I've gone out and purchased 7 cd's in 2012 so far and I can promise you there are  WAY MORE people on this earth who have illegally downloaded 7 albums this year than there are those who have paid for 7 albums whether it be a file version or a physical cd.  Regardless of how many puchases I've made as a person who always chooses to pay for his music as opposed to taking it for free I'm in the vast minority. I honestly dont' think it's a valid argument to say that illegal downloading isn't a problem no matter how you slice it.  People illegally download stuff every single day without a second thought and many of them are people who used to purchase albums but the fact is EVERYTHING is readily available for free so...... 

And I don't say this to offend anyone here but how many times have we discussed certain bands and stuff and someone has posted something along these lines ... "Nice I'll have to download some of there stuff" or "I'll have to download that album I haven't heard it in years".  I see people post things like that all the time and I don't buy for one second that when it's done with such consistency that the intention to go out and buy the material afterwards is there.  In some cases yes but most cases no way. Once you have it, you have it and life gets in the way and other things become a priority.

I'm not trying to take a moral stance here or anything I'm just pointing out that the idea that illegal downloading is NOT a problem is simply glossing over the one contributing factor to the decline of the industry that actually benifits the consumer.

Axlin16
 Rep: 768 

Re: Duff: Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA

Axlin16 wrote:

Time and time again small-time artists have shown that big-time, pure profit can be made on album/material releases simply by pricing it according to what a consumer feels is just. The consumer feels $5 bucks for a comedy show DVD is a just price, so it'll sell like gangbusters. $10 bucks is pushing it.

GN'R same thing. I'm sure the recent internet-PPV's would sold completely different had the price range been that of the old televised PPV's of the past, rather than $4-8 bucks (depending on what deal you got). Alot of people like myself when I got the "GN'R Fan Club Discount" rate, felt that $5 bucks for a GN'R PPV was a steal, even if it wasn't streamed in HD.

This shit, and most music is just that -- shit... has been over-priced for years and years.

I'm telling you... price it right -- they will come back.

There is now album today, older than 3 years ago, that should cost a dime over $5 bucks in-store. Digital albums should never cost more than $5 bucks. Deluxe Editions and concert DVD's should never cost more than $10. Box Sets should never ever ever cost more than $20 bucks, no matter what (especially considering TV Shows on DVD sees you nab 22 hours worth of show on 6 discs, usually for $12 bucks these days).

Price it right, otherwise...


You will continue to die.

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