What artists say about piracy - a compilation

D

D-Fence

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Just stumbled about this site:

http://pirateverbatim.com/

They basically collect what artists say about pirating their music.

There are suprisingly many artists that see it as a form of gaining new fans who will then pay money for concerts and merchandise or will eventually buy the album, some do not promote piracy but accept it as a given, and some are complete assholes.

Justin Timberlake:

It [illegal downloading] didn?t affect me so much- when it came out I was probably about 19. So I understood both sides of it. If I hadn?t dropped out of school, I probably would have been at university and I probably would have been downloading music if it was that easy to. . . So I identify very emotionally with the defendants, being college kids, that these labels were going after. . . The record companies should take responsibility for not being of the time and not paying closer attention to what was going on. I don?t think one person sitting in a dorm room killed the music industry. . . On the other side, I know songwriters who had to take up different jobs because they don?t get to perform onstage, they don?t have endorsement deals. They get a small piece of the small pie to begin with.




Green Day

?We leaked the whole record before it came out. We couldn?t stand people not hearing it anymore. At the end of the day, if you write a good enough record, people are going to pick it up. Steal the damn record, I don?t care. If some kid doesn?t have any money and his buddy gives him a copy of the record. . . he?ll pick it up when he?s 20.?



Guns N Roses

I hope he rots in jail. It?s going to affect the sales of the record, and it?s not fair. The Internet is what it is, and you have to deal with it accordingly, but I think if someone goes and steals something, it?s theft.?


KISS

How are you going to get paid for it if people can just get it for free? . . . The record industry doesn?t have a fucking clue how to make money. It?s only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there?s no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid?s face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. . . [They] may as well be wearing a bandit?s mask. . . Doesn?t affect me- but imagine being a new band with dreams of getting on stage and putting out your own record. Forget it.?

?Make sure your brand is protected. Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don?t let anybody cross that line.?





Well I for one know two bands which will never ever see a dime of my money.
 
Labels care about the money, artists (except the assholes) just care about getting their music heard.
 
^ well they only know one way to make money via the "charge an arm and a leg for recordings" method. Once they can't do that anymore (ie. now) well they are up shit creek.
 
Meh, the number of sold records over here is hovering between 145 and 150 million a year for the past seven years. There was a small dip around 1999-2002, but it's stable since. Add sold downloads to the stable number of physical records and they actually have been gaining in sales for the past seven years. Can't really say they're up shit creek.
 
They also can't sell whole albums of crap with a single good song on it anymore. Now you can just buy the singles and not waste any money. I think it's mostly the old bands that hate downloading. They made millions and haven't put out a decent album in decades, but still expect to make millions each year. So they blame illegal downloading.
 
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Generation gap? I think that's a major part in what certain artists think of piracy.
 
^ well they only know one way to make money via the "charge an arm and a leg for recordings" method. Once they can't do that anymore (ie. now) well they are up shit creek.

Exactly. Selling a product to the masses is not the only way to make money. Auto racing, for instance, doesn't make it's money from ticket sales. It's mostly from business partnerships, advertising and other.

If the record companies can't change their business model with changing demand then they deserve to go out of business. Not that album sales are going to get to that point any time soon like Narf said.
 
Funfact: Most of my music collection has been bought is CD form or downloaded from itunes

I think I like Iggy Pop's the best:
I?m in favour of all forms of piracy.

Also, I am shocked that slash not axl said that for GNR, especially since I'm sorry, I have read the books by bands like GNR and most of them have no right saying a damn thing about theft after the shit they did.
 
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I think the difference is that it's a lot easier for people to find out different artists they like, so you can't control what people buy. Heavy radio airplay of whoever doesn't matter to people who don't actually listen to the radio anymore, and can easily find artists and genres they would never have even heard of without the internet. I know damn well that I wouldn't own my favorite CD - My Bloody Valentine, Loveless - without the internet, because I lived in radio hell, where you could only hear bad country and the hits of the '70s. Not conducive to finding shoegaze - which I didn't until 2002. I mean, fuck, I'm listening to Boris right now. How the hell would I have found Boris in rural Saskatchewan?

Great for small bands - hell, the Melvins cracked the Billboard top 100 - but it also kills any chance of those million selling phenomenon, especially as people decide that, you know what, I don't care how hard you're pushing Lady Gaga, I've got other things I want to listen to. The fight against piracy is as much about the majors scared shitless about losing control as it is about lost sales.

Also, Kiss wasn't going to see a dime of my money long before Gene Simmons spouted off.
 
^ Def Leppard also made a great point, they have suddenly a great deal of new fans dues to internet sharing because kids would not have necessarily heard their music before if it wasn't for it.
 
I can definitely agree with the negative side to the albums getting ripped off pre-release. IMO that does really suck and probably has the worst effect on sales. I know I would be ticked if I recorded an album and it got leaked before it was suppose to be out. Afterwards though, and in the long run, theres probably little difference. And some of those artists * cough GNR cough* could totally bitch less. I somehow doubt 100,000 to a million people are losing jobs over it.

I like this quote;

Emily Haines

I feel like people who make a big stink about it, it?s like, there?s so much music out there that you?re lucky if someone could be bothered to steal your stupid fucking demo.
 
*Downloads the entire KISS discography.
 
They can't put the entire blame on the pirates. How about the companies that made it possible in the first place? How about blaming Apple for creating the iPod? What was wrong with carrying CD-players?

Sure, the mp3 standard existed long before iPod but it was damn difficult to pirate. There were very few special programs (Audiograbber), which you had to pay for, that could rip Audio CD's into MP3. Now every program does that, making pirating music easier than ever. Whose fault is that - the user? I don't think so.

And then again, it's not like an album was leaked and then it failed to sell. They still sell music. Just like during the 70's - my father copied most of his music from tapes from friends. Wasn't a big deal back then - why should it be now?

Or how about creating music that you can't help but going out to buy it? Like Michael Jackson's "Thriller", like AC/DC's "Back in Black", like Metallica's Black album...sure you can download them, but they are so good that you want to buy them.
 
Most bands make most of their money by touring and selling merchandise.

The record label is the one who loses when people DL their music. So as an artist, if you care THAT much about DLing, you're either a lazy asshole, or a stupid asshole.
 
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