Interesting piece from Canada.com on musicians' perspectives on file sharing with comments from many on both sides of the issue.
Musicians on File Sharing
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Quote from the article:
Rzeznik is firmly against swapping music. “It’s wrong. I did this work and I deserve to get paid for it. What people have got to remember is it’s really fun to take down The Man but The Man will always be there. It’s the artists that are the last ones to get paid and we get paid the least of anybody in the chain.
“Our last record sold maybe 800,000 copies – we didn’t make any money. None. Not one penny from record sales. Imagine if we weren’t able to go out and tour and make money on tour. What would we have done? We would have had a gold record and go out and get jobs.”
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That is so annoying. 800,000 SOLD, not stolen, yet they made not a dime. So, of course its the fans fault, since they “stole” his profits. If he was stupid enough to sign up with a label who lets him generate 10 million in sales for them and is ok with not getting a dime, that is HIS issue and not the fans.
The fans were not part of that contract, and the fans paid him $10 million or so (assuming about $12 per CD). He squandered what “little” his fans did for him. Ungrateful, and dimwitted to boot.
Rzeznick saying, “Our last record sold maybe 800,000 copies – we didn’t make any money. None. Not one penny from record sales.” tells me that this is not atypical of the entertainment industry. This alone destroys the industry’s argument that the artists are suffering because of file-sharing. It’s common knowledge that the entertainment industry always sucks profits from either movies or music before the artist ever sees a penny. If the industry cleans up its act and starts paying artists their worth, i.e., proceeds from gross sales, then maybe I’ll consider buying some content. Until then, and until the price comes down considerably for all content, I’ll use the public library to watch my movies and listen to my music.
I feel the same, ikrhumba. Its odd to be agreeing with the RIAA/CRIA … I think there is deffinitely piracy going on, but it seems that the piracy happened somewhere between when the fans paid for the music and the artist was given their “fair share”. Seems “fair share” and “fair use” have something in common within the CRIA realm.
This site turned my wife and I onto eMusic.com, we have been having a wonderful time there. Decent music, excellent price, fair rules, and we feel good that a (much) larger share than 0% gets to the artists.