Filesharing vs. Purchase

Whilst surfing the Internet, I decided to look on my livejournal friends page – to see if anything interesting has been said – as usual, nothing really has been. The usual stuff about how one person is better than the other and all that nonsense. One entry that did catch my eye was one about a girl’s brother who downloads more music than she owns on CD (which apparently is quite extensive and what everyone should aspire to own) … and she was saying who he doesn’t love music as much as her. It got me wondering, if people download music – do they love music as much as the next person.

It’s a debate that could never end really, but I am going to try and put my views across about it. Firstly, I download music and buy it too. I download it more because CD prices in the UK are shocking, especially for the music I listen to – less demand = more price = £16 per CD. Sixteen Pounds?!?! That’s a lot of money for what could be less music on one compact disk than some of the music being pushed out by Pop Bands. But lets not get too wrapped up in that just yet.

I found my love for music in 2000, when I was browsing MP3.com on a whim. I found bands I liked and started to get more of their material, which then lead me to listening to bands that are similar in genre, toured with or on the same record label as the original band. A sort of chain if you will. Which lead to me starting what is now my “MP3 collection” – years later, I found a quick, easy and free way to downloading music; which I will add was after the demise of Napster and when I decided downloading from Kazaa was just annoying and did more harm than good. I started to get albums daily, in the double figures on some days and the Music Folder grew and grew. With this way I started to download music – which is just a case of downloading full albums, not just singular songs – made me find out more bands that I started to like and in turn got me going to their concerts to buy their CDs, tee-shirts, posters and anything else. Which in my mind voided the fact that I had downloaded their music in the first place.

To me, downloading music the way that I do – and indeed hundreds and thousands of others do too – is a means of sorting the good from the bad. As I said, CD prices are at a stupidly high scale at the moment. Buy CDs online from a buyer who is pretty much running a “non-profit cd shop” sells them for as little as possible whilst still making enough profit to buy more, keep the website up and running and take a tad away from himself. Even still these prices are £10-£12. Which is still a lot, when you think that it probably spent the label £5 to make it and £2 to ship it (approx.) – even still, larger labels such as: EMI, Warner and Universal make enough money that their CD prices could potentially drop, but we all know the directors want to take home more money to line their pockets. With smaller labels, I can understand prices at around the £13 mark and I will happily buy the CD, especially when it’s a band that I like and want to have their album.

But, it doesn’t answer the question: If you download music, do you love music as much as someone who buys CDs? An easy answer is no. What about people who cannot get the CDs where they live, whether it’s at a high-street retailer or on the Internet. Even I cannot find certain albums I want in shops on and offline, even certain record labels don’t take UK debit cards or paypal and in the worst case scenario doesn’t ship to the UK (which is unlikely nowadays), although I do make it the first port-of-call to going to the record label if I want to get a CD, why? Buying from a record label means that all the money is going to the label – simple! Which means the label will give it’s share of the profit made to the band which will allow them to earn their living and make more music. The label will use it’s share of the profit to re-invest it into the business and understandably have some for themselves. With re-investing in the business, the label can produce more CDs for the consumer, and the circle starts all over again.
Buying from the record label gives you benefits too – pre-ordering CDs (at the same price as normal retail) sometimes gets you some extra merchandise too. Such as posters, tee-shirts, stickers and other things. At either a small price (half price tee-shirt?) or sometimes at no extra cost. Which then makes the consumer want to buy the CD and the circle goes round again – with the consumer feeling happy that s/he got more for their money and may even buy more!

With downloading, you just get the music – but none of the “love” is lost. Although I do urge my friends and other people to buy as much as the music they download, if they can afford it – bearing in mind, we’re all students! Purely for the label and bands interest at heart – when I download music. I am doing it to discover and re-discover love for new and old bands alike. There is nothing different about the music stored on a compact disk, compared to an MP3 on an iPod. The only difference with a CD is that you get the sleeve-art (another reason why I buy CDs) and the ability to let your friends borrow it, put it in your car and in time forgetting about it for ages and finding it again and loving it like the day you bought it.

Therefore – the amount that girl buys in music converted into love. Is no more or no less than the next music fan out there who downloads 50 times as much as he buys. The only difference is, he will have more money to potential buy CDs with and go to concerts and have a wider range of choice of both, and she will not.

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Filed under Life, Random Thoughts | Tags: filesharing, geek, purchase, rants, thoughts |