Can the illegal downloading culture be changed?
Posted by: Heath on 29 February 2008
I don't usually pop up on here too often, but I felt moved to have a rant, when in the space of a week, three people have said the same thing when I challenged them about their illegal downloads.
Their response was perhaps what you'd expect, 'well they're rolling in it' or 'they should be doing for the love of it, not money' FFS, for the love of it! Should they have a day job too, to support their love of music? And as for the rolling in it, I tried explaining that artist can wait years for money from record sales whilst the record company recoups its investment.
This fell on deaf ears, as did my suggestion that music may become less diverse as the major labels cut back their costs. Of course there are indie labels to provide diversity, but they cannot survive if their output is made freely available for no cost.
Part of the problem is the very nature of the download itself, as you don’t build up a physical collection, so the illegal download amounts to much the same as the legit one. There’s no pride of ownership, which many have in collecting all the works of a certain artist etc… Also the main reason I and most people on this forum don’t use mp3 downloads as a primary source for music is poor sound quality, but the vast majority of people find mp3 perfectly acceptable, even a poorly ripped one.
So how do you go about persuading people used to free music, to pay for it? Do we have to start showing videos of starving musicians in a Band Aid stylee? I’m at a loss, as my arguments were rejected by all but one person, who said that copies, illegal mp3s etc felt grubby, and she would always buy the original, saying that a tenner or less was good value.
Their response was perhaps what you'd expect, 'well they're rolling in it' or 'they should be doing for the love of it, not money' FFS, for the love of it! Should they have a day job too, to support their love of music? And as for the rolling in it, I tried explaining that artist can wait years for money from record sales whilst the record company recoups its investment.
This fell on deaf ears, as did my suggestion that music may become less diverse as the major labels cut back their costs. Of course there are indie labels to provide diversity, but they cannot survive if their output is made freely available for no cost.
Part of the problem is the very nature of the download itself, as you don’t build up a physical collection, so the illegal download amounts to much the same as the legit one. There’s no pride of ownership, which many have in collecting all the works of a certain artist etc… Also the main reason I and most people on this forum don’t use mp3 downloads as a primary source for music is poor sound quality, but the vast majority of people find mp3 perfectly acceptable, even a poorly ripped one.
So how do you go about persuading people used to free music, to pay for it? Do we have to start showing videos of starving musicians in a Band Aid stylee? I’m at a loss, as my arguments were rejected by all but one person, who said that copies, illegal mp3s etc felt grubby, and she would always buy the original, saying that a tenner or less was good value.