"I can't afford to buy it, but I want
it anyway."
Unless you're diabetic and you're talking about Insulin, this is no kind of
excuse for ANYTHING. This is the definition of stealing. Most of us are not
wealthy enough to afford everything we'd like to have, but we don't run wild
in the streets looting everything in sight because of it.
"I just do it because I hate the RIAA so much."
The RIAA has become a bit of a bogeyman these days among file-sharers. Most,
however, have no idea what it is. The RIAA is basically a trade organization
made up of the largest record companies in the world. The LARGE ones. Not the
little independent industrial labels. Thus, unless you are talking about the
exceptions like NIN, there are NO bands in this scene that are on RIAA-affiliated
labels. So downloading music from this scene has no effect on the RIAA whatsoever.
It does, however, hurt the small labels and independent artists who bring you
the music you enjoy.
"Record labels are just screwing their artists, and I don't want
to support this."
There is no doubt that the record industry is a shady one. There is a lot of
corruption, a lot of lying, and a lot of bands do get screwed over. But by bootlegging
the band's releases, how are you being any better than the record company? The
truth is, most labels in this scene are run pretty honestly. Sure, there's a
chance that a band whose release you buy may be signed to a horrible label and
will never see your money. But if you simply download without buying, you're
GUARANTEEING that they won't see that money. Isn't it better to take the chance
that they WILL?
"Those record labels are huge... they make
SO much money as it is. They're not going to miss my purchase."
Dead wrong. Most labels in this scene are run by one or two people out of their
homes. Even the larger labels, like Metropolis, have maybe a half dozen employees
in total. This should give you a pretty good picture of how small-time this
scene is compared to others. The other unpleasant truth is, most of these labels
make very little money if they aren't actually losing money. It's expensive
to run a label. It costs money to print an album, to promote it in ads, to pay
distributors, to send out promotional copies to the press and DJs and pay your
employees. The profit margin on these CDs is incredibly slim. When you consider
the small numbers most artists in this scene sell, it becomes clear that literally
every purchase counts. If you're a mainstream band selling 100,000 copies of
an album, you might not notice if 100 people bootleg your album, but if you
are only selling 1,000 copies, as many artists in this scene do, that's a full
ten percent of your sales you're losing!
"Most albums are so crappy, I shouldn't have to pay
for them anyway"
In this day and age, it's kind of difficult to feel sorry for people
who continually buy bad albums. It's very easy to research these things, and
MP3s can be very helpful in that respect. But you also have at your fingertips
countless e-zines, print zines, internet radio stations, etc. If you find an
album where there's really only one song you like, consider looking for a compilation
that has that song on it. Tons of these compilations come out in Europe, so
check out some of the online and mail order places. This way, you get the song
you want in a nice, legal manner, and you also get a compilation to check out
some new bands at the same time!
"You can take a car for a test drive, so why not
music?"
This is great if you truly test-drive your music like you test drive
a car. When you test drive a car, you spend some time getting to know it and
decide if you like it, and when you go home that night to make your decision,
you leave the car at the dealership. You don't get to keep it without paying
until you come to a decision. I think a fair method of evaluation is what I
call the 'Rule of Five'. If you have downloaded an MP3, allow yourself to play
it five times (they can be very different times, obviously), and then delete
it. If you like the CD, go out and buy it, and if you don't like it enough to
buy it, then you shouldn't object to deleting it from your hard drive.
"$20
is WAY too much for a CD to cost. Screw those record labels!"
Most labels sell their CDs to retailers as a certain set 'wholesale'
price, say, $7-10. The additional amount tacked onto that price is all going
to the retailer, not the label. $20 absolutely IS too much to pay for a CD of
a domestic release. But there is also no reason you NEED to pay that much if
you are picky about the retailers you buy from. Huge chain stores tend to have
a huge mark-up on CDs because they're usually conveniently located and easy
for most people to shop at. These are essentially the convenience stores of
the music world. And just like you wouldn't do your grocery shopping at a convenience
store because of the expense, you shouldn't buy your music that way. We live
in the age of the Internet, so go online and do some research. There are tons
of resources available for buying music online and comparing prices is really
easy. Here are some to get you started:
Metropolis Mail order
A Different Drum Store
Music Non-Stop Online
Store
Infrarot
Musicwerks
Amazon
"I can't find the CD's in my hometown, so I had no
choice."
See the list of online retailers above. In this day and age, you can
have just about anything delivered right to your doorstep. Don't forget eBay,
too!
"If it wasn't for downloading, I never would
have even heard of your band."
This one is rapidly becoming a favorite mantra among the pro-file-sharing crowd.
The thing is, there is no way anyone can definitively make this statement and
have it be true. The truth is, you don't know if you would've discovered a band
via some other method or not. You might have ended up hearing the music in a
movie or movie trailer... You might end up hearing it in a video game... You
might end up hearing it on a television commercial... You might end up hearing
it from a compilation you buy... You might end up hearing it when one band remixes
another... You might discover a band when they're an opening act for another
band... You might hear the band in a club and discover them that way... You
might meet someone with different or wider musical tastes than you who turns
you on to a band... You might end up discovering a band via MySpace or some
other site... You might find out about a band from zines like Sideline, or any
of the other online and print zines... The list goes on and on. Remember, there
WAS a time before P2P. How do you suppose people found out about bands back
then? (Industrial bands sold a LOT more records back then, too!) Sure, file sharing
offers a great opportunity to find new bands, but lets not kid ourselves that
without it, no one would ever be able to find out about new bands.
"People used to make mix tapes all the time, and
that didn't hurt anything. This is the same thing."
Not really. A cassette's frequency response is about half of what a CD or MP3
is, so in most cases the sound quality is nowhere near the same. Secondly, if
you wanted to distribute multiple copies of a tape, you had to duplicate them
in real time, which obviously limits the amount of copies one could potentially
make. With an MP3, all you have to do is rip it, upload it, and suddenly thousands
of people have access to it simultaneously. Thus, the implications of file-sharing
are far great-reaching than they were for mix tapes.
"Those guys are rock stars. They make so much
money as it is, why should I give them my money I worked hard for at my crappy
job?"
This is the king of all misconceptions. Here are the facts:
• The average release in the industrial/EBM scene sells between 1,000-3,000 copies. This shocks a lot of people.
Most people outside of the industry assume that if a band is on a label, they
are selling tons of records and living off their huge royalty checks. The harsh
reality is, our scene is VERY small, and even the largest bands would be considered
colossal failures by mainstream label terms. A very small handful of bands sell
in the 50,000-60,000 range, but this is extremely rare. As a result of these
low sales...
• Most
of the bands in this scene have day jobs just as crappy as yours. Very few
bands in this scene are living off their music only. This means that in addition
to working some soul-crushing office job just like you every day, they also
put in most of their free time to making albums for you to enjoy. Isn't that
worth something?
• And even in the case of the musicians lucky enough to be making a
living off their music, why should they be deprived of a paycheck just because
they happen to have a cool job? The bottom line is this. If you enjoy an
artist's work, the right thing to do is buy their music.
"Those guys are jerks. The drummer touched
my girlfriend's butt."
Sorry, but technically bands are allowed to touch your girlfriend's butt. It's
in the rule book.