No more pots of gold at the end of this rainbow

Tory Regan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:51:11 +0000

The recession is hitting the music industry hard. This video is fantastic because it says everything that I’ve been saying in my last few blogs.

Even in a recession people will pay to see a concert. $40 American to see British reggae group UB40. The concert sold out. The band believes that the way to make a living is to perform live. No longer can you become a billionare from selling millions of records.
Record sales are down even if concert sales are up. A lot of people choose to legally download their music as opposed to buying CDs because it is cheaper to download music.

UB40 believe people enjoy going to concerts because it takes your mind off real life and the recession for an hour or 2.
They say that last year they sold 60 million records but really the number would be about 100 million if the illegal downloads were counted. This explains why a $40 concert ticket for them, is more profitable than selling records. 40 million people just ’stole’ their record anyway.

It’s interesting how downloading is both benefitting and disadvantaging the music industry. Legal downloads which are cheap and easy are popular at the moment and are a good alternative to buying CD’s.
Where as illegal downloading which is also popular means that artists don’t get almost half as many sales as they previously would.

Green Day (lead singer quoted above) are coming to New Zealand in December. I like this band and want to go however it is in Auckland and costs $110 per ticket. Not to mention flight prices and accommodation.
I guess I’d be a hypocrite if I said I wouldn’t go to this concert because it is too expensive. If I’m getting their CD’s cheaper online, I should give them some money by attending their concert.

As much fun as concerts are though, almost $300 to attend one (all things added up) may not be a smart idea in a recession and as a student.
Hard choices.

“Music – that’s been my education. There’s not a day that goes by that I take it for granted.” – Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day)

Tory.

They believed the lie

Tory Regan — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:44:33 +0000

Over the last few years we have been made to believe the lie that our music piracy is making musicians poor and corrupting the world. But on the 18th of June, just 4 days ago, it was announced that in fact our music piracy is benefitting the world!

Basically, this article from the UK says that some guys from some well thought of US universities are publishing a paper which asserts the benefits of internet piracy.
In my last blog I covered a few of the many reasons why people would want to pirate music. Obviously there are a lot more reasons, both good and bad.

Reading some of these articles makes me realise why I’m a journalist. I have to put these big words and big ideas into little bitesize pieces so that it’s understandable for anyone to read. Right now, I need someone else to put all this complication into bitesize pieces for me!

The basic jist of this article so far seems to be that economists say that the point of copyright, which stops piracy, is so that artists are able to make money off their product, ie: their music.
Their study shows that while a ‘business model’ may be destroyed by the technology of file sharing, artists will still produce new work.

An example of this according to them is that if music becomes free, people may have to pay more to see an artist perform live so that the musician still makes some cash.
I don’t know about you but I’d be happy to pay almost any amount of money to see the bands I love perform live.
My understanding has always been that artists make like 10c off every CD and make most of their money from performing live. Although I’m not sure how true that is but it sounds like if that is true, not much is really changing.

Left to right: Bob Bryar (drums), Frank Iero (guitar), Gerard Way (vocals), Mikey Way(bass), Ray Toro (guitar)

The next point is interesting. What about bands who don’t like live performances? I can see how stressful performing live could be and I personally understand why not every musician would want to follow in the footsteps of a band such as My Chemical Romance who performed live for 3 years straight (I think).

As much as I love this band and was glad they were touring a lot (therefore coming to New Zealand a few times), I do wonder how much of a toll 3 years of touring would take on a person’s mental health aswell as physical health.

Electronic devices such as Ipods and MP3 players have recieved a boost in sales because of ‘file sharing’ and music piracy. I guess this is because people put music from CD’s onto their computers so they can listen to it anywhere they like rather than just where there is a CD player.

Gone are the days of CD Walkman’s where you needed a physical disc to play your music. You can get music files straight from your computer to your ears now.

Physical album sales have fallen which is predictable. However, more albums are being created than ever! This means that music piracy and file sharing have not affected the quantity of music being created even if it’s not being sold in the conventional ways. An interesting point to me is that there has been no research into the quality of the music being released. There may be more of it but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily better than CD’s.

The whole paper by the economists can be found here. If you think you can make sense of it.

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” – John F Kennedy.

Tory.

Picture: My Chemical Romance from Quizilla.

The Costanza » benefitting

No more pots of gold at the end of this rainbow

They believed the lie