Music Streaming - good or bad?

[WalshFan88]

I'm of the firm belief that if you don't stand up and speak out for what's right, regardless of how it makes you look, you've lost an important piece of yourself. I realize not everyone thinks it's wrong, but if you have something that someone else owns and you didn't pay for it...

I'm all for standing up for yourself and what you believe in, but there is an element to the older artists that are so opposed to phones, social media, etc being all "you meddling kids get off my lawn you darn smartalec whippersnappers" that is humorous to me. Almost if they do it just to be different or be "old school" OR because they refuse to live in 2015 or whatever year it is when people are reading this and are hanging on to their glory days. Which is fine. I can be just as nostalgic. It's the outspoken drivel about how things suck nowadays that make me laugh. And I'm one who thinks I was born in the wrong generation when it comes to music. But I also know that we have to move forward.

Just like the people who hate new country artists because it doesn't sound like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, or Waylon Jennings and sounds more like rock n' roll or pop, or both. As Don himself said in HOTE, "Time passes, things change". They have a right to voice their opinion, but that doesn't mean I can't voice my comments on said opinion. If all you do is look at what happened in the past and hold on to the coattails and resist modern life, you are going to miss a lot IMO. There is a particular blog on modern country music that drives me up the wall... All they do is bash new country artists. Rather than shining light on new artists they like (which they rarely yet occasionally do), or celebrate classic country they call them names, make fun of their style, and say it's trash.... I love some classic country, but I also love modern country. You don't have to listen to new country, but by being so outspoken about it, it makes you look dated IMO. Again I'm not saying they can't be, but that's just the way I feel they come across.

I've never once downloaded illegally. It's not about stealing (which I don't agree with), it's about not accepting change and being stuck in the past and not moving with the times.

I do stream, and a lot of my guitar friends in the music business stream (because I see it in their facebook feed ). The moment streaming or watching concerts on YouTube becomes illegal I will stop and fully comply. The whole publishers getting money is a deep issue and while it needs looking over and seeing if it is right or not, I'm not the man to do it. That's up to the RIAA, lawyers, and judges to figure out.

[UndertheWire]

Henry Diltz did an interview with a New Zealand radio station this week and talked about switching to digitial photography some years ago. He said he'd resisted at first and then we went on to extoll the virtues - no expensive processing, pictures available immediately to send out and share etc. Because it's so much easier to work with the digital format, we listen to more of it and in more places. I like the Amazon autorip feature where you can buy a physical CD but you also get an immediate mp3 download (which is also available on the cloud). I've noticed a similar offering for films (from Sky) where you can download to watch immediately and the DVD arrives through the post.

There will always be people who want to download or stream at no cost, but there are many more who don't want to visit those kind of sites and are prepared to pay for the convenience so long as it's not too expensive.

I have little sympathy with the older acts who complain about streaming. They were paid for vinyl sales and then again for CDs and now they're getting paid again for streaming and downloads. It's income they could not have forseen when they made the original recording and they have no additional costs. Where it gets trickier is with the new releases. If old material is available so cheaply, how much of premium can be charged for new recordings before the customer opts for something older and established?

[WalshFan88]

Good points UTW.

I have to laugh looking back at how Metallica handled the Napster situation.

First off, I do not condone illegal downloading and they had every right to be upset. But how they handled it was humourus. They brought in boxes of names on a paper of everyone who downloaded their music. Rather than send it electronically, they made themselves look really dated as a result. Lars Ulrich in particular made me laugh a lot when he was interviewed about it. Again, all for them standing up against it, but the way in which they went about it showed them to be really not with the times. I mean, delivering 13 boxes full of paperwork was pretty antique.

[VAisForEagleLovers]

I have little sympathy with the older acts who complain about streaming. They were paid for vinyl sales and then again for CDs and now they're getting paid again for streaming and downloads. It's income they could not have forseen when they made the original recording and they have no additional costs. Where it gets trickier is with the new releases. If old material is available so cheaply, how much of premium can be charged for new recordings before the customer opts for something older and established?

Umm, hey, I bought the Eagles' older stuff on vinyl, most of it on 8-track, all of it on cassette, then most of it on CD before buying the CD box set (and getting all of it again). Then of course, there's the Greatest Hits I and II in most of those formats, then the Selected Works. I did a lot of the same thing with other artists. My entire CD collection has been converted to MP3s that exist on several hard drives.

I will say, though, there are people downloading, for free, songs from older artists for the very first time. It's not like they already paid five times for the song. So, I'm still against it for that reason.

[sodascouts]

I think we need to distinguish between illegal downloading and streaming. The artists DO get royalties off of streaming. You're not hurting them by streaming. You're putting money in their pockets. Now, maybe they want MORE money in their pockets than they're getting, but they ARE getting money.

I honestly am very puzzled by the notion that it's somehow bad to legally purchase music just because it's in a digital format.

CD prices were such a rip off that the federal government had to step in to stop the illegal price-gauging by the record companies. These same companies sobbing about their revenue losses now had no problem screwing the customers illegally to line their pockets then, and they'd still be doing it today if they could.

It's not as if they generously shared that revenue with the musicians, either. Don Henley formed the Recording Artists Coalition long before streaming was ever an issue because they were screwing the artists, too, and not giving them what they felt to be a fair percentage of CD format sales (sound familiar)? The record companies were raking it in, but they were reluctant to share the wealth.

The record companies stopped selling singles in order to force people to pay $20 for a CD even if they'd only heard one song off of it on the radio. You didn't have a choice: it was all or nothing. The only singles offered were these lame "maxi" CD singles which were seven remixes of the same song and cost $8-$10! Don't even get me started on those crappy "dance" or "techno" remixes that were absolutely awful, yet they used as excuses to charge $10 for a single! Was this done for the artists? No. It was done to maximize record company profits.

The 90s were the worst decade in history in terms of the costs of music. Music was affordable when it was vinyl and cassette with singles available as it was for most of the 20th century, but in the 90s, prices went through the roof. I can only imagine what CDs would cost now if the government hadn't stopped them and digital formats hadn't arisen.

I was in high school and college in the 90s. People who are older than I am could affordably purchase music on vinyl and cassette when they were teenagers; they think upon the good old days and smile. Those of us who came of age in the 90s remember the pre-digital days with far less fondness because we had to pay through the nose for CDs.

The remnants of those days still sit, covered in dust, in my CD collections: albums I bought because I'd heard one good song off them on the radio only to discover the rest wasn't very good, and that I'd wasted my money (Semisonic, Chumbawamba, and Toad the Wet Sprocket are just a few that come to mind). It was a crap shoot back then - maybe the album would be worth it, maybe it wouldn't - by the time you found out, they already had your money. Sweet for them, but a costly gamble for the consumer... one that often didn't pay out, and one that discouraged purchases from artists that weren't already established. I knew I would probably like just about everything on a U2 album, so buying it was an easy choice, but what about the new guys?

The record companies hate streaming and digital formats because it broke their stranglehold and made them unable to rip people off like they did in the 90s, and thank God for that. Now I know beforehand whether or not an album is worth my money. When it is, I buy the CD happily. For the rest, I purchase individual songs or pay for streaming, and as a result I am able to listen to far more artists than I did back in 90s. That is a good thing, and many younger musicians welcome it.

[VAisForEagleLovers]

I think we need to distinguish between illegal downloading and streaming. The artists DO get royalties off of streaming. You're not hurting them by streaming. You're putting money in their pockets. Now, maybe they want MORE money in their pockets than they're getting, but they ARE getting money.

I honestly am very puzzled by the notion that it's somehow bad to legally purchase music just because it's in a digital format.

I was thinking the same thing about streaming vs. illegal download, then Austin reminded me that streaming includes streaming from sites where the artists don't get paid, or don't always get paid (watching You Tube videos). Otherwise I agree, streaming is legal and while I appreciate the artists' gripe about it not being enough money, they need to work that from their end.

I won't say it's bad to legally purchase music in a digital format. If someone can't hear the difference in quality, then buying MP3s, etc., is a good thing, especially as you can usually buy the songs you're interested in and leave the rest. With the speakers in my truck and the head phones I have, I can definitely hear the difference, and to me, the price of a CD is worth the difference. It might cost more, but quality usually does. Vinyl is even better, but that's hard to do in my truck

I will disagree about vinyl being more affordable than CDs 'back in the day'. After saving up for weeks to finally be able to afford my very first full length LP, The Long Run, I was working a job that was minimum wage, somewhere around $5500 a year. While in high school and not working, I couldn't even afford a single. I can't remember how much I paid for TLR, but I know Workin' For the Weekend in 1982 cost nearly $10. I agree about the 90's being a bit out of control, and since I bought The Money Pit (the house I purchased in 1992), I stopped buying music of any type, and Home Depot became my store of choice I started buying music again around 2003.

[AlreadyGone95]

I will disagree about vinyl being more affordable than CDs 'back in the day'. After saving up for weeks to finally be able to afford my very first full length LP, The Long Run, I was working a job that was minimum wage, somewhere around $5500 a year. While in high school and not working, I couldn't even afford a single. I can't remember how much I paid for TLR, but I know Workin' For the Weekend in 1982 cost nearly $10. I agree about the 90's being a bit out of control, and since I bought The Money Pit (the house I purchased in 1992), I stopped buying music of any type, and Home Depot became my store of choice I started buying music again around 2003.

For me, coming from a 21st century standpoint, cds are cheaper than vinyl, especially when a decent record player costs at least $100. My boombox ( Sony, cd,cassette, and am/fm radio) cost 1/2 of that. My mom bought me my first cd(either Def Leppard - Hysteria or AC-DC - Back in Black) when I was 12, in 2007. They were $10 each. For my vinyl copies of both of those I paid $15 for each, this year. Upkeep of cds and cd players is alot cheaper than the same thing with vinyl!

ETA: just realized that this is my 100th post!

[VAisForEagleLovers]

Interesting article that says streaming is where it's at, digital downloads are going the same direction as CDs.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/techn...ete/ar-AAbHA8G

My question is, given all this streaming of music on phones, I guess this means you need to be constrained by a wifi connection? I have 3g of data in my plan, and no way could I stream all this stuff without going over my plan. So what do people listen to while driving if streaming is all they do?

I will admit, I do stream baseball and hockey games on SXM while driving, since my radio is Sirius and the games are on XM. I see the usage go up for one three-hour game, so that's why I'm wondering how this works.

[AlreadyGone95]

Interesting article that says streaming is where it's at, digital downloads are going the same direction as CDs.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/techn...ete/ar-AAbHA8G

My question is, given all this streaming of music on phones, I guess this means you need to be constrained by a wifi connection? I have 3g of data in my plan, and no way could I stream all this stuff without going over my plan. So what do people listen to while driving if streaming is all they do?

I will admit, I do stream baseball and hockey games on SXM while driving, since my radio is Sirius and the games are on XM. I see the usage go up for one three-hour game, so that's why I'm wondering how this works.

You do like I do and pay an absurd amount of money for 4g data, 30 gigs of data for 2 people. I'm not proud of it, but it's what I have to do to get my music. I could go to a cheaper carrier than Verizon, but they've got the best coverage around here. Those 30 gigs are also my home internet connection because my phone can be used as a wifi device.
While in the car (I don't drive), I either listen to whatever is on the radio or if I remember to bring my earphones, I stream on my phone. (the car's cd player doesn't work and my mom doesn't like using that format to listen to music. Radio is all she wants)

ETA: Of course, I normally only stream music while on the go, on the computer, or if it's an album I don't have yet on a physical format. I also use Spotify to check out new music. (I don't want to pay for an album until I know that I like it usually) I buy music on physical formats (cds/vinyl / cassettes) any chance I get.

[WalshFan88]

A take on the new paid streaming service by Apple from Taylor Swift.

http://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/1...le-love-taylor

Now let me just say, I think Taylor Swift is one of the more talented of her ilk (popstars) as she writes her own songs and isn't machined. But I'm NOT a fan, and I don't like the way she comes across or the fact she writes songs about everyone who wrongs her (in her mind, at least.)

Now onto the issue at hand (I just have to rant about her sometimes )

Ultimately I DO agree with Taylor. For those three months, Apple will be giving 0 royalties for the three month trial. At least Spotify pays something to them, and Spotify is free to use. FYI, Taylor pulled ALL of her music from Spotify last year I believe, and a couple of people followed suit (Jason Aldean, to name one).

I think paid streaming is a good move (as does Taylor, apparently). But I have to say, three months without even a penny is an awfully long time. Apple shouldn't get rid of a free trial, but at least pay the artists SOMETHING. If they can't afford it for three months, then maybe a 1 month trial. But give the artists something. Otherwise, you're worse than Spotify and absolutely a step in the wrong direction.

On an unrelated-but-related note, I was not pleased with what I saw from Apple Music (formerly Beats with Dr. Dre and his pal, Jimmy Iovine). To me it's poorly executed and I'm not a fan. I'll be sticking to Spotify.

If in the future a paid streaming (meaning more features for ME AND more money to ARTISTS) comes along that I like, I will definitely sign up. Right now if you buy Spotify Premium, that ISN'T paying artists more. It's just getting rid of ads on Spotify, so Spotify themselves have more money.

So really Apple Music is a one step forward, two steps back kind of launch and I don't think it'll go over big. Independent artists that are relatively unknown are being told Apple will remove their music from the iTunes store if they don't allow the free 3 months for their streaming service. Pretty crappy if you ask me. As of right now, Apple is denying such move, but it's all over Twitter.

I have to say, this is all coming from a normally otherwise Apple-biased individual. It's all I use (other than a HP Stream 11 for some networking tools). Macs, iPads, and an iPhone. That's what I use day in and out. But even I can admit what a poor choice Apple has made on how to handle their royalties.

A lot of my musician friends both known and unknown on social media have posted to support this open letter and Taylor's move. And I do as well.