Jump to content

Itunes..right or wrong..?


andy thompson

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Just wondering what you people thought..

 

I know there are quite a few performers here, just interested to know your thoughts..

 

Does it stop artists getting royalties..?

 

Is it easier for an artist to get his music out there..?

 

and finally..am I doing anyone a diservice by downloading music...?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I feel .like having a few tunes available can only been a benefit...same way w/ YouTube.

Any idea of what it'd cost to have to buy worldwide publicity, the same exposure that Itunes/YouTube gets independent musicians for free?

It's kinda like getting a free or discounted sample from the grocery store...if you like the product, don't you ALWAYS buy more? ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
:confused: I'm a little confused by this thread. Music on iTunes is perfectly legal, and artists most certainly do get paid--though payments to artists are negotiated with Apple and may be different than payments that come from CD sales. So enjoy iTunes (and Amazon downloads, and many others) guiltfree. You plunk down your cash and you get music; artists get paid and the music is yours to listen to as you choose.

Am I missing something?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

Just wondering what you people thought..


I know there are quite a few performers here, just interested to know your thoughts..


Does it stop artists getting royalties..?


Is it easier for an artist to get his music out there..?


and finally..am I doing anyone a diservice by downloading music...?

Indie artists get a good cut from iTunes. Not the best, maybe. An artist can get a better deal putting his music on Amazon's CreateSpace or better still (depending) by going with Bandcamp (my current fave), but an indie artist gets a reasonable enough cut through iTunes.

 

Unfortunately, many labels don't give the artist much of a cut from either download or physical product sales. But that's how it's always been.

 

Here's a (not really complete) breakdown of some typical options: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

 

And here's a thread started about the topic: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/578592-ugh.html

 

 

Now... one thing that must be remembered: labels do typically take a huge cut -- but if -- and that is one huge if -- they do a good job of promoting the artist and his/her work, the potential sales can be greatly increased. Few indie artists have the connections -- or the money -- to do the kind of promo that big labels do.

 

It's a sad -- even depressing -- fact of music biz life that much airplay and ink is driven by various forms of legalized (or not-so legalized) payola. Labels and "indie promoters" (aka bag men who form a layer to protect the label from the legal consequences of illegal payola [which is largely ignored by the FCC, anyway and is often cleverly packaged in ways that end-run the FCC payola regulations]) typically lay out very large sums of cash and -- ahem -- other inducements to get writers to write and radio and video outlets to play and promote their clients.

 

That said, there is no question that sales are down, across the industry.

 

 

The best cut? Make your own CDs, do well-attended, well-liked gigs covering a wide geographic area (not just one metro area) in order to avoid fan saturation, and sell those CD's directly to new fans who have a couple drinks in them and a just-cashed paycheck in their wallet.

 

 

_____________

 

 

Back to YouTube...

 

I've seen an interesting phenom, lately. Some artists -- even those that eschew sales through iTunes or licensing to paid streaming services like Rhapsody (which, BTW, appears to pay much better than I would have thought for each stream) -- appear to be putting some or all of their studio work on YouTube and deriving revenue through YT's advertising options. (You don't get invited to play, I don't think, unless you already have some serious traffic on your YT vid pages. But I'm no expert on YT.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Apologies for the confusion, Ill write at length later.

 

!)I wanted to listen to music while reading this forum.

 

2) My free spirited mentor has no music to listen too, save radio 3 and celtic heartbeat, the latter 1 hour a week.I could help here by synching an ipod to my,rather meagre, downloads.

 

I just wondered if, by downloading itunes, (For

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members
There used to be such a gizmo at the Annex. Yet another thing that was taken for granted and now is gone.
:(



That actually was a cool little gizmo - the best we have right now is the archive of the Annex music, which I can mail cd's to anyone who wants one. Can you download a VOM song and save it to your PC? Either way (Annex cd or another mp3) can be loaded to your iPod - I have a whole folder of HCAG members music on mine (also discovered that my new car stereo will play a cd with mp3's on it).

Sorry, that is a drift from the original thread - just wanted to remind people that cd's are available.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I don't like iTunes because of how proprietary everything is. They don't make a Linux version of the iTunes software and while I haven't really looked into it, I'm pretty sure you can't download stuff from iTunes unless you have Apple's software. I have a hard enough time getting my iPod to cooperate with my computer and I'm not interested in complicating things.

That said, buying music from iTunes is completely legal and the artist does indeed get paid every time someone downloads one of their songs. Like FretFiend. mentioned, Apple is big on intellectual property rights and they go to great lengths to protect an artist's music. I'm pretty sure anything you download from iTunes is coded such that you can't copy it more than four or five times. Anything more than that, and you're probably doing something dishonest with the music (like burning bootleg CDs or something of that nature). Not even CDs are that secure :).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...