The Rebel Faction

All I'm saying is that music industry is not going to fail to make huge profits. Artists like Eminem, Brittney Spears, and Justin Timberlake will continue to be multi-millionaires as long as they're still popular. Record companies will continue to make money, mass amounts of money. Regardless of the status of downloading music off of the internet.

The industry will not die.

Which is a shame, because their rigid inflexibility combined with their strong-arm egotistical campaign against their future market should, and would in most other industries, kill off the ruling caste. However, said future market is incredibly stupid and does not realize this, and will continue to support anything created by Universal, including but not limited to, shitty music, shitty music, shitty tv shows, and shitty books.

After you go and re-read my points, starting from the beginning when this discussion started, then we can talk. Because right now you're addressing 'points' I have not made.

I suppose I have to put it simple for you.

This discussion started with 'If downloading music via P2P became completely legal, would the music industry die?'. Your post said 'downloading music won't kill the industry.'

My whole argument is that if music downloading became legal, as you thought it had in Canada, it would kill the industry, because other industries would jump on the bandwagon to make a quick buck.

I'm not saying that downloading in general will kill the industry, just that if downloading was completely legalized, it would.

Hmm, the 'file-sharing debate' is an interesting one...

I gotta agree with most of what Theren's just said , I download MP3's yes, but I still buy albums, why?, because its nice to have the actual complete 'package' so to speak. However I just want to raise a few interesting points. (IMO, heh).

Personally, I think here it would help if you defined just what exactly is the 'Music Industry'.
Is it the Bands / musicians themselves? or the big Corporations that make money off them?

All this crap about the 'Music Industry' being dead is exactly that, complete poo.
These people who nine times out of ten have no musical ability themselves, see things entirely from a business point of view.
What I mean by that is, they see how many people download Billy-Bob-Joe's new single on MP3 via Kazza etc and immediately think that would correspond to CD / {insert appropriate format here} single sales. Which , is not entirely true.

They seem to be under the mistaken impression that if they clamped down on these P2P file sharers that these people would suddenly rush out and buy the singles from the shops. Yes, many may well do, but most, I suspect would hardly bother.

From what I see, (and you could be right in claiming I'm being a little cynical here, heh), its more to do with a lot of sour-faced executives worried about their commissions, or rather greedily seeing multiple downloads as potential multiple sales , rather than anything else.

I mean, who are the ones crowing the loudest about this? is it the Musicians? or the Industry Execs?

While I see , and concede the point that 'file-sharing' is really just a nice term for 'blatantly stealing' , (come on! that is what it is at the end of the day), there are ways that this new technology could be put to better use, take a leaf out of Apple's book for example; The MP3 Store , is a good convenient way of downloading music whilst getting the balance right I think.
You pay something like 00.99p for each file you download, which isn't bad? Considering you get exactly what you ask for, straight away , at a good quality. not a bad compromise I think, and those who have a conscience can download guilt-free, heh.

*looks towards Kas*

File-sharing is not a new thing, I find it irritatingly hypocritical that the same Music-industry is getting on its high horse about this sort of thing, when the whole industry has been exploiting artists for decades. Not to mention providing people with the actual means to create and rip-off music at home!
CD Burners, and blank CD's, tape cassettes, Minidisc, etc, they've all been around for ages, and all have been used to actively encourage people to replicate their music collection. Did / does the music industry really think that people wouldn't share these 'products' with their friends? COME ON!? In some case they've actively marketed these products for this purpose.

Most of these companies are all linked together in some way anyway, the same people shouting about copyright theft are the same people providing people with the means to do so. Now to suddenly turn around and tell everyone its wrong is just stupid. Besides, a great deal of money they 'lose' via these P2P programs, they make back on these blank media products.

Aside from all of this , I think there is a deeper fear in this 'Music Industry' and that is control or the lack of it to be more precise. These execs have realised (too late perhaps?) that ,suddenly , musicians don't necessarily need them anymore. Suddenly musicians have a platform with which to get their talents recognised, and they can do it themselves, without having to compromise , or 'sell-out'.
They can also do this , themselves without some exec getting a huge chunk of money , that they themselves earned, , the internet has the power to reach people worldwide, and if a band is smart they can exploit this to their advantage. Rather than strengthening the Music industry's monopoly on distribution.

Remember , musicians have been around for as long as we've been around, the music industry hasn't.

So what is this arguement really about?

Something to ponder about I think.