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Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

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Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#361

Post by rkok »

benreesman wrote: post #324
bazoom42 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.

I’m knocking on 40 and the absolute best shit is on SoundCloud done by some teenager or 20-something on like a pirated copy of Ableton in a basement. There are like 2 things you can do as the technology goes to infinity: make way more diverse awesome stuff, or just make the music one tiny part of the well-oiled Taylor Swift Corporation. There’s more amazing music being made than ever, and the stuff with big money beh…

Care to share a few links? Always nice to discover a bit of new music. Don't worry, I won't judge.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#362

Post by realusername »

cubefox wrote: post #232
realusername wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Steam games do work straight away on your computer, iTunes DRM music did not work on your average mp3 player everybody had. It's not like you could do something about it, it just refused to play it, I know, I had one. And if you're asking customers to pay money to get the legal music and then download a DRM removal software from some Russian website to be able to listen to it (that might existed at the time, I do…

Even iPod owners filled their hard drives with pirated MP3s. And every smartphone can support any DRM music software just as much as every PC can support something like Steam. The admissable reasons for piracy have long ceased to exist, yet people still don't like to pay for music. The revenue is still not on 1999 levels. It should be much higher by now if piracy wasn't a possibility.

As much iPods were a commercial success, they were absolutely dwarfed more than 10 to 1 by the number of standard mp3 players and those could not read DRM music at all. Out of my whole high school, you only had maybe one or two guys with a real iPod and thousands of mp3 players. They were much cheaper to buy and even easier to use.

And not sure why you bring smartphones, by the time modern smartphones were popular in the 2010s, people were using Spotify already.

> The revenue is still not on 1999 levels. It should be much higher by now if piracy wasn't a possibility.

Music piracy is at its lowest now it has ever been since the 80s.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#363

Post by realusername »

cubefox wrote: post #252
realusername wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had more piracy during the CD era than anything you can imagine right now. Basically every town had a pirated CD shop, everybody knew somebody to call to get some pirated CDs, it was a full business.

Not in my country. Our police apparently prevented such shops.

Maybe you were in a police heavy country then. I remember pretty much everybody having a mix of pirated and real CDs at home.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#364

Post by realusername »

throwawaymobule wrote: post #315
ftrobro wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several countries have that tax. Here in Sweden we pay about $10 for every new computer, mobile phone, SSD etc just because we might store music on them. Quite absurd. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

Whenever I hear about these levies, I always wonder what's stopping someone from spinning up a 'record label' and attempting to claim the funds.

Don't know about other countries but in France it's a private monopoly granted by the law, you can't create one.

Not sure how that's legal either with antitrust laws but that's low it works.

(And it's as opaque as it sounds)

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#365

Post by pallas_athena »

bazoom42 wrote: post #131
jacquesm wrote: post #7

"Home taping is killing music" The record companies did a fantastic job of killing music all by themselves, the quality has absolutely cratered and the occasional great artist that has made it through the long slog to recognition has done so despite the music industry, not because of. I spent a fortune on various formats and when streaming came along I simply refused to participate. I'm simply not going to pay a thir…

> the quality has absolutely cratered You just got old. It happens to everyone, and every generation says the same thing: The music I enjoyed when I was young and impressionable was great, but all the stuff they make nowadays is crap. People were whining about how Beatles destroyed music, how rock’n’roll was just monkey noise, how crooners like Sinatra wasn’t real singing.

> and every generation says the same thing

Juvenoia: "The fear or hostility directed by an older generation toward a younger one, or toward youth culture in general."

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#366

Post by rz2k »

DropInIn wrote: post #337
rz2k wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree at all. I've found the YouTube algorithms as good for discovering new singer-songwriters as when I used to see live music a few times a week in New York decades ago. Many, or even most, of the women that come up in my feed are no more conventionally beautiful than the people you cite. How mainstream was someone like Janis Joplin? She was on the radio, but she was also somewhat counter culture. The women…

Take a look at which artists get traction on YouTube.... It's extremely biased by beauty, as the algorithm rewards engagement and if nothing else all the creeps wanking while watching on repeat drive the ladies up the figurative charts.... Really.... how have you not noticed?

I'm sure that has something to do with the music industry. People who work in things like professional modelling or professional sports makes many times more than they made decades ago. Even well-known musicians who made their mark decades ago remain not that rich.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#367

Post by zirgs »

cubefox wrote: post #228
zirgs wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTunes only launched in 2011/2012 in Eastern Europe and many other countries. Before that the only way to get music digitally was to download it from P2P networks.

And of course in 2012, Eastern Europeans started to pay for their music, right? No? Maybe they were pirating it because piracy is free.

A lot of them - me included -started to use Spotify, because it is cheap and convenient. It really converted lots of pirates to paying customers.

There simply was no legal option to buy music digitally before that. CDs were overpriced and inconvenient.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#368

Post by zirgs »

cubefox wrote: post #240
zirgs wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam was available in the Eastern Europe way before iTunes and Spotify. Music and movie industries really dropped the ball there.

In the US iTunes was available earlier, but people still liked piracy better.

iTunes was a DRM infested crap. Meanwhile pirates offered drm free files that you could play anywhere.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#369

Post by bazoom42 »

stale2002 wrote: post #223
colpabar wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, but you know that "good" and "worse" and subjective, relative terms? Just because you have your own reasons for something doesn't make them "objective", you just don't like modern pop music.

Ok, so since it is all "subjective" then you have to concede that a song which is just 1 hour of a single note being played is equally good. Or maybe, instead of devolving into absurdity we can just say that there are come qualities of being better or worse that most people can agree on. Of course, you can simply bite the bullet and say "yep. The song with 1 note in it is subjectively just as good".

> there are come qualities of being better or worse that most people can agree on

Maybe, but enough people like modern day pop music, so by that criteria it is good.

Re: Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the music industry waged war on the cassette

#370

Post by ftrobro »

realusername wrote: post #364
throwawaymobule wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I hear about these levies, I always wonder what's stopping someone from spinning up a 'record label' and attempting to claim the funds.

Don't know about other countries but in France it's a private monopoly granted by the law, you can't create one. Not sure how that's legal either with antitrust laws but that's low it works. (And it's as opaque as it sounds)

Private monopoly in Sweden too. But at least they're not hiding the fact that 22.5 % of the money they collect go to their own administration costs rather than to artists...

https://issuu.com/ymrkommunikation/docs/23-1643_copyswede_fb...

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