I download all of my music. I will never buy a CD again because they are a dead medium and everyone knows it. Anyone who can’t admit this is blind.
Leading the blind is the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which is fiercely fighting the potential end of their gravy train to the death. In the face of plummeting record sales, the RIAA has become so focused on self-preservation that they can’t see it’s this very focus on the past that is killing them. I have no idea where they got the idea that they could stop the future by individually suing every person on earth, but from I’ve read it seems to be their plan. (Just search “RIAA lawsuit” and see what pops up.) Pardon my French but what the fuck kind of an idea is that? Just sue everyone into the past! What a great strategy, and a good way to get people buying records.
Why would I go out and buy a big hunk of plastic that becomes useless clutter the minute I go home and rip it to my computer? If you expect me to buy this stuff, the least you could do is upgrade the medium from 1982. That shit pre-dates the Internet!
The end of the CD as a dust collector is here and I’m thrilled. I wire my computer through a stereo receiver and instantly have 20,000 songs at my disposal. What? Your disc is skipping? Call me in two months when my music stops playing. Why would I pay for something I don’t want, when I can get something I do want for free? It’s just common sense.
Lets look at some numbers. The average artist on a major label makes roughly 10 cents per song in royalties if they’re really lucky and managed to sign a good deal. Generally they’re not even making a dollar per record sold, and that’s before they pay back their advance. Now if I buy an album and the artist is making a fantastically generous one dollar per record, and they come out with an album every two years, it works out to roughly 50 cents of my money per year. Not much. (I know 50 cents per person might add up, but just hang on.)
I download all the music I want because I don’t have time for dead mediums and a spiteful industry. If an artist I like goes on tour, I’ll go to their show and possibly buy a shirt while I’m at it. I’m spending $40 at an absolute minimum (My girl needs a ticket too), and if you follow my math, that’s more than an artist would make off of me in 20 years. For example, I payed a ridiculous amount of money last summer to go to the Rock the Bells festival in San Francisco. I could have bought every album by every artist that was there and the money they made would not have been remotely close to my share of their fat festival paycheques.
What’s that you say? What about digital music stores like Itunes? I took the time to sign up for an Itunes account in an attempt to buy an album once. They only had the clean version and I hold a permanent grudge over this.
The music industry is a messed up place right now, and until they figure out how to evolve things are going to keep getting worse. Like the publishing industry, record companies need to give everyone a reason to buy music, because right now we don’t have one. Until that day comes I’m going to share music to my heart’s content.
I’ll see you at the show.
