See emily steal

[Ombre Vivante]

"I never owned any music to begin with" = "I steal music because I feel I am entitled to it"

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/06/16/154863819/i-never-owned-any-music-to-begin-with

The rebuttal to emily white:

https://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

I liked this bit:

Many in your generation are willing to pay a little extra to buy “fair trade†coffee that insures the workers that harvested the coffee were paid fairly. Many in your generation will pay a little more to buy clothing and shoes from manufacturers that certify they don’t use sweatshops. Many in your generation pressured Apple to examine working conditions at Foxconn in China. Your generation is largely responsible for the recent cultural changes that has given more equality to same sex couples. On nearly every count your generation is much more ethical and fair than my generation. Except for one thing. Artist rights.

But, hey, I am willing to bet 100 albums of chud she has horrible taste in music and probably a lack a deep knowledge in the subject, as is the case with most freeloaders

[Carl]

I guess it's required that any NPR contributor must adore Yo La Tengo - even the kids.

But I digress.

My take on this is that the industry needs to work out the economics. Relying on listeners like Emily to voluntarily pay for something they are accustomed to getting for free is a bad business model. The record companies and publishers are figuring out how to get paid - all those YouTube views are now funding them to some extent, and services like Spotify and internet radio stations have to pay up. It's "free" in the same way your local news is free if you put up an antenna and watch the over-the-air broadcast.

Where this breaks down is filtering the money to the artists (and to some extent the songwriters, but they are well represented in this fight). The folks making the music don't have much leverage, so this will take some time and many of them will be starving or getting creative.

I don't steal music, but I don't buy it anymore either - I pay for a subscription service, listen on YouTube, and fire up an internet radio with Pandora and other stations. It's up to the artists and those representing them to make sure my subscription dollars and ad revenues gets to them after the record company takes their cut. This is not hopeless: Clear Channel recently cut a deal to pay performance royalties for the first time. Of course, this particular deal will help the radio ogre much more than the struggling artist, but it proves what's possible.

[Ombre Vivante]

I like this little jab at this kid from the rebuttal:

Let’s look at other things you (or your parents) might pay for each month and compare...

This type of entitlement attitude is kind of ironic coming from a kid who "interns" at a radio station. I wonder how long this douche could keep her lifestyle up once her parents [and the government] cut her off their teat.

In a time when there is high unemployment and a lack of jobs for able people, this isn't the kind of attitude that would help. I really, really hope this won't be a prevalent principle and value in the future, as this generation is doomed to mediocrity and a full-blown blase attitude towards an honest work/ethic and due compensation

[Rayzor]

Have you spoken to any teenagers lately, B-A? They all want something for nothing. It's not a principle of the future, but of the present. They want to be rich and famous without doing anything. Why work when the gov't gives away free money? No need to pay rent if you live with mom.

Works the same with music: why buy it if they give it away? Not saying it's right, but I do know many young people and they all enjoy free stuff. Morals don't seem to bother them.

[Carl]

Ray, you sound like you're about to chase some of these kids off your lawn.

Don't worry, not every kid is lazy and entitled - I've gotten a few notes in my mailbox from teenagers hustling summer work.

The free music thing portended a shift to a digital age, where a lot of "work" became less about producing something and more about moving information around.

[Rayzor]

Yeah, I was in a cranky mood, Carl.

Sorry, shouldn't have said "all" teens in my previous post, but there are a large number.

Entitlement aside for a moment, I was an '80's kid, so I listened to the radio with a blank tape at the ready. As soon as the music started playing I was recording it on tape. How is that different than downloading on the internet? I didn't pay the record company in the '80's and I don't pay them now. Radio had advertising to pay the companies and I notice alot of ads on nearly every website... is the music industry too stupid to realize that they could set up their own sites with ads, album sales, concert dates, streaming radio, special previews of soon to be released albums and finally: legal downloading of many of your favorite songs! (not ALL songs, for that you need to buy the album).

I'm guessing they have this but it costs money to d/l songs.

Please explain why this is a stupid idea. I had 138 tapes of free music when I was young. What's the difference?

[Farin]

Nowadays there are *so* many ways to listen to music for free* - from hundreds of radio stations, over Pandora and Last.fm to on-demand services like spotify, grooveshark, deezer, we7, simfy, etc. etc.

There's less and less *need* to pirate / steal music really

* okay that depends a bit on where in the world you are, but we, living in the US, UK or Germany, definitely among the most privileged in that regard

[Skuff]

I'm 16 and I pay for quite a majority of my music, as in purchasing physical copies of the albums, preferably on vinyl. I use Spotify and Pandora, but only to sample music that I will eventually buy and discover new music that I will later buy. To be honest, reading this article made me sick. But, I guess that's just me preferring to physically hold something I purchased. I will download occasionally, but I normally plan to later buy it on vinyl if I truly love it. I'm actually hoping to get a job soon to buy more music and further support the artists I love!