Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

openculture.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 397 posts

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

#81

Post by fipar »

cubefox wrote: post #17

The reality is that yes, cassettes really were responsible for a substantial downturn in music revenue in the late 70s and early 80s: https://i.insider.com/4d5ea2acccd1d54e7c030000 Then cassettes got replaced with CDs which (initially) were read only, which again saved the market from piracy ... until online piracy with Napster and MP3 players completely crushed the music market, but far worse than cassettes. Even 20…

That graph does not show cassettes were responsible for that, it just shows revenue numbers. There are other possible causes.

As someone who lived through part of that (I’m from ‘78 but for a country that was lagging in media developments; we got CDs in the early 90s) I can say that cassettes were a lousy medium. I love them because I grew up with my Walkman and I loved the tape swapping scene (physically compiled and traded playlists, for those young enough to not have participated), but objectively they sucked. Even the best tapes eventually had hiss if you played them enough times. Yet they were not sold at a significantly lower price to compensate this. I mean vinyl decays too but a good pressing handled with care will outlive you (for real, I’ve got plenty of great-sounding LPs from my grandma, and she’s been dead for 8 years), but after paying a high price for a cassette only to have it sound like crap after not that much time, you wouldn’t fall for that trap too often. You’d make a copy right after buying, and then share more copies with others too.

You say that cassettes were responsible for that drop in revenue and I disagree (though of course respect your opinion), but I say the climb once CDs came in could also be interpreted as people willing to buy music just fine provided it sounded good and kept sounding good. I mean it’s not like cassettes went away as a piracy medium once CDs came in, yet revenue climbed anyway.

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

#82

Post by expertentipp »

zirgs wrote: post #47
expertentipp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the price they tried to extract back then was completely unreasonable and I think those excesses contributed heavily to the current situation. Yes that left incurable trauma. During late 90s to early 00s CD costed the same in Germany and in any post-communist country whose economies were in shambles. Something around 12 EUR which would be 18 EUR inflation adjusted now. I was wandering between shelves like a par…

Everyone pirated in the Eastern Europe back then. You bought a CD only if you were a big fan of the band. The rest was downloaded off the net. I've never bought a single CD in my life. Transitioned straight from pirating to Spotify.

Ha! the dial up internet was ruled by extortionist state monopoly and local ISPs were plagued with equipment thievery... the only way to acquire pirated music was physically exchanging hard drives with acquaintances.

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

#83

Post by rawTruthHurts »

cubefox wrote: post #30
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 record companies did a fantastic job of killing music all by themselves It wasn't the record companies which ruined the music industry. It was us, the consumers. We ruined it with piracy. https://i.insider.com/4d5ea2acccd1d54e7c030000 We always like to imagine big organizations as the "baddies", and us as the "goodies". But the reality doesn't always follow this convenient narrative. Sometimes it turns out we w…

I'd say it was more like a joint effort. I agree with your points, but I was related to the industry for some time, and sometimes money was spent on things like renting a Concorde flight for some exec in France because he was making it late to a meeting in NY.

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

#84

Post by footlose_3815 »

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…

What do you mean, the natural evolution of music wasn't meant to be face-tattooed, cough syrup-drinking suicide-flirting mumble rappers who all talk about the same shit?

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

#85

Post by cubefox »

jacquesm wrote: post #65
cubefox wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of consumers that pirated music increased mostly because the record companies missed the boat in the third round of being able to sell us the same music. They quite literally sat on their hands for years while there was huge demand for online music. iTunes finally served that demand and Apple made a bundle of money on that. That's not true. iTunes or Spotify did not nearly compensate for lost CD revenue.…

There is no 'right to revenue', iTunes or Spotify did not compensate because they are different media with different usage patterns and a different audience. It would be far more surprising if they did compensate it. You are making the same mistake that software companies mad(k)e when talking about revenue and losses due to piracy: not every copy made is a lost sale and depending on the price points and other busines…

> There is no 'right to revenue', iTunes or Spotify did not compensate because they are different media with different usage patterns and a different audience.

No, because they had to compete against music piracy, which is hard, as pirated music is free.

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

#86

Post by realusername »

cubefox wrote: post #66
realusername wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hole in revenue in the early 2000 was because pirating was the only real option to get music online, you had no other choice. The music industry was too stubborn to consider selling online and preferred to keep selling CDs, they were very very late to adapt and lost some revenue because of that.

> The hole in revenue in the early 2000 was because pirating was the only real option to get music online, you had no other choice. You had absolutely the choice to buy CDs and not pirate anything from the Web. And the "hole" never nearly got filled with legal online services anyway even when they existed. 1999 CD sales are still the peak of music revenue.

Napster launched in 1999, The Pirate Bay launched in 2003, Spotify only launched internationally in 2010 / 2011. There's been a decade without proper legal options to get music.

Buying CDs wasn't a reasonable choice anymore in the digital age, CDs were outdated and not fit in the age where people could buy portable mp3 players.

The music industry was beyond late, they were a full decade late to the party and paid the price for it.

It was the same for movies for even a longer time until Netflix caught up, personally I couldn't buy the movies or series I wanted at the time, it wasn't available anywhere.

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

#87

Post by cubefox »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #75
cubefox wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of consumers that pirated music increased mostly because the record companies missed the boat in the third round of being able to sell us the same music. They quite literally sat on their hands for years while there was huge demand for online music. iTunes finally served that demand and Apple made a bundle of money on that. That's not true. iTunes or Spotify did not nearly compensate for lost CD revenue.…

> compensate for lost CD revenue Oh poor, poor Sony/BMG/EMI CEOs who absolutely couldn't buy another yacht while lowering their expenses by literally making money out of thin air by literally copying digital music. /me wets a handkerchief with the tears of compassion. You are spamming that graph, but only because you think it supports your opinion. Except it does not. Go to RIAA, select Adjusted for inflation and sel…

> Oh poor, poor Sony/BMG/EMI CEOs who absolutely couldn't buy another yacht while lowering their expenses by literally making money out of thin air by literally copying digital music. /me wets a handkerchief with the tears of compassion.

You are conveniently ignoring the musicians which are hardest hit by our piracy. They make hardly any money from Spotify.

> You would see what by 2017 the revenue is on par with 1981.

Apart from 1981 pretty much coinciding with the cassette piracy decline, you are also ignoring the fact that the world economy has grown massively since 1981. Saying there was no decline in revenue is like comparing car revenue from 1981 with car revenue today and claim the natural state of things for them is to be the same. The comparison is absurd.

> What happened in 2001-2008 what returned the revenue to almost 1981 levels?

Piracy. CDs initially prevented piracy. Then CD sales collapsed because of piracy. Napster & Co.

> People tasted how it can be to have multiple albums (and with HDD players - your whole library) on a small, compact device

That was possible with the iPod and other MP3 players together with legally acquired downloadable music. But the revenue never returned to CD levels because most people kept pirating. Then Spotify came with extremely low pricing and forced musicians to accept ruinous streaming revenues, because Spotify had to compete against piracy. That's why music revenue has collapsed.

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

#88

Post by ojhughes »

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…

Rock/Metal/Punk is still doing really well with no shortage of great artists. Just check out the Radio 1 Rock Show with Daniel P. Carter - nearly every week there is something new that I like

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

#89

Post by jacquesm »

cubefox wrote: post #85
jacquesm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no 'right to revenue', iTunes or Spotify did not compensate because they are different media with different usage patterns and a different audience. It would be far more surprising if they did compensate it. You are making the same mistake that software companies mad(k)e when talking about revenue and losses due to piracy: not every copy made is a lost sale and depending on the price points and other busines…

> There is no 'right to revenue', iTunes or Spotify did not compensate because they are different media with different usage patterns and a different audience. No, because they had to compete against music piracy, which is hard, as pirated music is free.

[flagged]

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

#90

Post by cubefox »

hbossy wrote: post #76
cubefox wrote: post #17

The reality is that yes, cassettes really were responsible for a substantial downturn in music revenue in the late 70s and early 80s: https://i.insider.com/4d5ea2acccd1d54e7c030000 Then cassettes got replaced with CDs which (initially) were read only, which again saved the market from piracy ... until online piracy with Napster and MP3 players completely crushed the music market, but far worse than cassettes. Even 20…

The sulfur mining industry never recovered from the drop in revenue after someone discovered a way to extract it on scale from low-quality coal. Poland had a massive drop in revenue despite being the one selling both products. Does it mean they should attach a coal burning license agreement prohibiting the extraction process to each container, or try to prosecute people selling filters?

Piracy was illegal long before cassettes or Napster were invented. Sulfur extraction was always legal, and for good reason.
Post reply on HN