The Costanza

An interesting view has arisen that fighting people who “steal” music, will cost more than leaving them to do it will. £200 million will be lost in the UK in 2009 because of music stealing, however, a plan to disconnect the internet connections of people who pirate music will cost internet service providers £365 million a year.

So they’re damned if they do and they’re damned if they don’t.

Tory.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/21/musicindustry-internetipos

Sir Elton John, who I actually had no idea was knighted, has come out

against people who illegally obtain music.

The above link, which I note very wisely uses the term “come out” when associated with Elton John, states the pop star agrees with government plans to cut the internet connections of repeat offenders when it comes to illegal downloads.

Sir John disagrees with the FAC, a group mentioned elsewhere in this blog, a group of artists who have no problem with music downloads.

I would have thought, knowing the FAC, John would have taken their view, being a rich famous musician but apparantly, he is on the side of Lilly Allen who also disagees with these rich dudes.

Tory.

Lily Allen has critisised file sharers and some artists in her latest Myspace blog entry saying “music piracy is having a dangerous effect on British music”.

She says bands who sell out arenas such as Pink Floyd and Radiohead are not the ones feeling the effects of piracy but for new acts, music piracy and file sharing make it hard for new acts to emerge.

Allen says while old-school artists are driving Ferraris the new, emerging artists are still trying to pay off record company debts.

She recommends record companies get smart about new technology and make the internet more user friendly for kids to download music legally instead of having to steal parents credit cards or download music illegally.

Tory.

Image from poker-for-me.com

Lady Gaga’s awful song Poker Face has just become the most downloaded song in the UK ever.
This is not an opinion blog and this will not be an opinion piece. I don’t like Lady Gaga but a lot of people do, obviously. Apparantly, this song, which I do not like has had 779,000 downloads in the past year.

If you’re interested, Kings of Leon also rate highly, with Sex On Fire being second most downloaded song in the UK ever. So I don’t doubt the Brits’ music taste because Kings of Leon rate very highly in my books aswell.

read more »

Six men in America have been busted by the federal government for running a massive music piracy ring.

Rabid Neurosis or RNS, tapped insiders who could access music before the norms and supplied members of the public with music not otherwise avaliable in the US.

It has been said that the people in this ring, pirated for financial benefit.

Five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 is the penalty the group face so really do not gain but lose financially.

Tory.

Popular musicians are disagreeing with a government plan to cut off the internet of music downloaders.
Artists from bands like Radiohead, Pink Floyd and Blur say if the plan goes through it will criminalise a whole generation of their fans.
A new group has been set up to represent the interests of these artists and artists like them. The Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) says file sharing encourages people to buy concert tickets and merchandise, despite record sales being down because of it.

Tory.

“We look for interactive media…we need a greater experience otherwise why not just listen to their music online?”
Live shows drive sales of recorded music in the Internet Age and provide opportunities to cash in by selling fans videos of performances on flash drives or DVDs as they leave venues.”

Bands need to get used to the fact that if selling CDs is their only income, they will be living on $1 a day if they’re lucky. I know in America that can buy you a cheeseburger but between a whole band, one cheeseburger a day is not likely to end well.

It all comes back to performing live. This article talks about artists creating better experiences around music aswell as being able to, as a fan, interact with artists in different ways.

Tory.

Image from Sharky_p2p on Flickr.com

Today’s blog is about the reinvention of the music industry. Music is not dying completely, maybe CD’s are dying but music will always live on, just in different forms.

I have two links to post today. But I guess I could do it in two different posts on two different days just to add to my content a little.

I am currently having some issues working out jargon from one link I’ve found. Using abbreviations makes things very hard. Terms like RIAA and DRM are abbreviations a lot of people would have to google repeditively to find out about.

However, this is a good piece about the transformation of the music industry.

read more »

Imogen Heap’s new album Ellipse was released yesterday, meanwhile, an article in the Dominion Post on the 10th of August by Neil McCormick says that this woman is ‘Queen of the Internet’.

The general gist of this article is that Imogen Heap is very well known for her music on the internet and not on the radio or in the general public, unless of course you love indie music. This is new aged music, huge change in the music industry.

read more »

http://gizmodo.com/5344159/second-degree-murder-and-six-other-crimes-cheaper-than-pirating-music

This post is interesting. In the US, you are fined less for committing second degree murder and 6 other crimes than if you downloaded music illegally.

A single mother of four was charged $1.92 million for downloading 1700 songs.

Not very fair when you can murder someone and get charged less for doing it.

Tory.