Piracy: are we being conned? - SMH article link

[DarkSky]

So, my point was that the fact that 300 people illegally download something doesn't necessarily indicate that, if illegal downloads were prevented, there would have been 300 additional sales (might have been three more sales, or maybe thirty, might be none - who knows!). But that's the kind of assumption that the figures quoted in the smh article are based on.

Yes, I agree. But, and it's a big BUT, it works both ways...

Hi Chris,
Yes no doubt. And as I said earlier, I'm not of defending piracy, just commenting on the hyperbole (and flawed assumption/s) used in the article under discussion.

[The Tasmanian]

if we put anything out into this world that's one's and zero's then we shouldn't be surprised if it adds up to zero.
As far as songs/films/images/software etc being copied and stolen over and over again, Many industries are attempting to fruitlessly try to stop the spread of its "personal" one's and zero's around the globe.
We will never ever be able to stop these ones and zeros moving like one big electronic ever mutating virus soup.

I tend to now see it as free promotion over and over again as the work becomes copied, and for every new person who stumbles across your ones and zero's there will be others that will order the flat plastic version. or the one with extra fancy paper, or the one with the box and manual,
or the photographic book on "the making of the ones and zero's"
This is the playing field we are now permanently in and we are never going back.
People copying vinyl and tuning it to ones and zero's is completely unfair - people should be jailed for that!
At least we can hire our talents.

[rob]

Here's a true story:
A couple of weeks ago a friend handed me a copied CD of an australian artist. I was familiar with this artist who has been around for ages, but hadn't thought to check out any of his recent work.
I listened to the CD and liked it. I handed it to the missus and she liked it too.
A couple of days later she went out and bought a copy of the CD. This involved making phone calls to find a store that had the album in stock and driving across town to put her money on the counter.
I / we have done this a number of times. In this way the copying has led to a sale that otherwise probably wouldn't have occurred.

On another note when I was a kid I would sit in front of the radiogram with a mic plugged into a cassette recorder and copy songs off the radio almost every night. This was the beginning of my passion for music, recording and technology. If I'd been stopped from doing that maybe I'd have ended up .........?

[Drumstruck]

Cassettes and bootleg albums are surely a different level of copying to digital don't you think? My neighbour has downloaded literally hundreds of songs (he revealed as we chatted about how great braodband is). Do you think he would have copied all that music to cassette, while doing his 9 to 5 and looking after 3 kids?

Like JB HI-Fi?
Borders Australia just closed down. Borders in the U.S. are getting scarcer on the ground. Actual retail record stores in downtown London are virtually impossible to find.
There's Amoeba in LA, although I always used to spend an hour or two browsing at Tower on Sunset, now long gone.
OK, it ain't the musical apocalypse, but I think we should also fight to keep the industry going in the face of apparently acceptable plundering of content.

I know more people hanging on with just a little income, than I know those enjoying the industry like I used to 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Hi Chris - sorry about the paraphrasing - just saving some 1s and 0s

I see your point about copying and it's hard to speculate about what others may do. In my case I used to frequent the 2nd hand record shops (remember Ashwoods and The Pitt in Pitt St?) and buy a heap of obscure records, then I'd go out to Matraville and buy a box of cassettes direct from the company (Goldring?). Back home, each record got a clean and then was taped on first play - so I had a cassette copy to listen to in the car. Even though it was in done real time one could set the levels, start recording and come back 20 mins later to pause the tape and turn the record over. Downloads, on the other hand, occur in seconds / minutes and you have to be at the computer pretty consistently to download lots of things. Swings and roundabouts..... and too hard for me to speculate.

Remember a company called "Edels"? They virtually owned the retail outlet market in Oz for many years - I believe they morphed into Brashs but I don't see many of them around now either.... I think Amazon / CDNow etc did more to impact the retail outlets than downloads (or perhaps the combination of the 2?). Now we start to see bookshops (e.g. Angus & Robertson) in trouble. I suspect the next industry will be the printers as the need for sleeves / CD covers reduces...

Your last point is sad to read. Personally, I would love to make my living doing studio work / session playing - unfortunately, it just doesn't offer the income I want for my family's lifestyle so (my choice) I do a job that I don't love......

One excellent part of the "1s and 0s" world is that it's possible now to have quality gear and do audio part time - and technology allows me (being subjective here) to enjoy being a (very small) part of elite groups like this forum. When I was a lad (hahahahahaha) there was no way to meet / chat with people who are at the top of their field unless you "knew someone" or physically pestered people until you "got in" - though having real talent would have helped of course.....

[Milo]

I’m currently reading a book by Glenn Gould, who, besides being a legendary classical pianist, was also a recording fiend, and in fact gave up playing live at an early age and devoted himself to recording, and was an avid user of splicing and programme editing, both on record and radio (I love the way they talked about the difference between splicing ie fault-fixing – and cut-and-paste –the placing of a whole sequence within another take: they called this ‘regeneration’) Writing in 1966, he has the foresight to state that performing venues would decline over the next 50 years, and that by the 21st century people would be able to copy and even edit their home music. He’s speaking in the age of vinyl and tape, even before cassette consumerism.

Interestingly, he did not foretell the demise of the studio, as there was so much expertise and experience required to make a good recording at that time, it seemed there was no way that skill could be passed on to the amateur….well, it still can’t, but they THINK it can: look at the proliferation of Zoom recorders at venues, manned by Mama and Grandpa, undercutting the on-location recording business.

There’s got to be a way round this….somehow….

[mylesgm]

Another interesting article.

http://themusic.com.au/newsletter/court ... ng-s-value