Why is this discussion full of comments which sound like RIAA sponsored shills? The RIAA will be creaming in their pants when they read comments like yours.
People should feel entitled to do whatever they can get away with. Why, you ask? Well read on..
The record labels are extremely greedy, and Spotify et. al. are merely a thin proxy wrapper in front of them. Oh yeah, and Spotify barely pays the artists anything at all. So if you "pay" for Spotify, the degree to which you're providing support to the musicians you love so much is questionable. At least with Deezer, they allocate more of the revenue to actually go back to the artists.
Back to the point, Spotify and Deezer aren't looking out for me or you. Downloading is an appealing alternative to hoping songs don't disappear when licenses change for no discernable reason.
Life is short, I advocate for individuals to do what they want when it doesn't measurably harm anyone else. Going into the grave knowing I committed few or no music license violations is such a low value goal, how do people not realize this?
Nowadays there isn't a shortage of music, at all. Especially not due to folks downloading songs, in fact this makes the artists even more popular. They should be grateful for getting popular enough to warrant any form of piracy. Lots of music creators would love to have this "problem".
A lot of people think there's a shortage of good music and the pipeline for musicians (people who actually learn to play instruments and master composition) is dwindling.
Honest question: How does this relate to "illegally" downloading songs vs perpetually streaming them?
I have enormous respect for professional Craftsman musicians, but I don't know if they make a real dent in the numbers when compared to the trendy Biebs and Gagas.
One of the biggest problems facing new artists is local live music is dying. I'm talking about music at bars and clubs. It's not completely dead, but it's not what it once was. Now people are happy, or maybe even happier, to have a DJ. Unfortunately the best way to improve your musical skills is to play with other musicians in a live setting - and there's less opportunity for that. There's simply fewer musicians able to even get started.
You've gotten started, you're playing with a group of people, been playing some gigs - now what? You want to record! Get your music out there! I'm not going to go into all the details of recording but let me just say it's neither easy, nor cheap. It's gotten even more expensive these days because while the quality of the music itself may be suffering, the quality of the production is skyrocketing. This is similar to the gripe in movies where people complain the special effects are awesome but the actual story kinda sucks. But people don't want movies having crumby special effects - they want both: great special effects and a great story line. So it is with music. People want great production and great music. Well, you're going to pay to get that great production!
Maybe that's a bit of the modern music biz you don't know much about. The producers get paid up front. So do the distributors. Who pays for it? The musicians. The musicians now have their recording in hand, they've distributed their music to Amazon Music, Apple Music, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, and a host of other lesser-known platforms. What happens? They get pirated. Most of the time they don't even break even. For most musicians, recording and distributing your music is a net financial loss. If you're lucky it may increase traffic to your live gigs.
Honestly, when you throw in the cost of gear and the years spent practicing and playing to get good enough to be presentable to the public - it's no wonder fewer and fewer people are going into music. That's our loss.
Does illegally downloading songs in and of itself cause this collapse? Probably not. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's the last straw breaking the camel's back.
I wasn't intending to suggest that Spotify is looking out for me…or for the artists. I know the pay artists get from Spotify is generally terrible. If you're not happy with Spotify, switch to Deezer or another service. But I'm generally a proponent of abiding by the terms of service of whatever service you choose to use.
People should feel entitled to do whatever they can get away with. Why, you ask? Well read on..
The record labels are extremely greedy, and Spotify et. al. are merely a thin proxy wrapper in front of them. Oh yeah, and Spotify barely pays the artists anything at all. So if you "pay" for Spotify, the degree to which you're providing support to the musicians you love so much is questionable. At least with Deezer, they allocate more of the revenue to actually go back to the artists.
Back to the point, Spotify and Deezer aren't looking out for me or you. Downloading is an appealing alternative to hoping songs don't disappear when licenses change for no discernable reason.
Life is short, I advocate for individuals to do what they want when it doesn't measurably harm anyone else. Going into the grave knowing I committed few or no music license violations is such a low value goal, how do people not realize this?
Nowadays there isn't a shortage of music, at all. Especially not due to folks downloading songs, in fact this makes the artists even more popular. They should be grateful for getting popular enough to warrant any form of piracy. Lots of music creators would love to have this "problem".