Kazaa, mp3, copyrights, etc.

You guys are missing a whole slew of people that the money goes to besides the record companies. You've got publishers, agents, tour managers, equipment rentals, lighting, gas, hotels, airlines, distributors, merchandising, advertising, clothing, makeup, food, wages to truck drivers, onstage mixers, mixers, lighting man, guitar techs, drum techs...
then there's studio costs, microphone rentals...tape costs, mastering...
Basically I can go on for a whole page naming where all the money goes to...
So what happens when you download music is that the next band to come along can't get as much support from their record company because they know they aren't goint to make their money back... they start signing bands that are easier to record with basic simple chords and song structures...in and out of the studio in a week...and easy to send on tour, so the music suffers and the concerts get crappier. Eventually it gets to the point where big 'stadium' bands never happen anymore because no record company would ever front a band money to go into the studio for 5 months and play large venues around the world. So instead ya get rap and dance music which is easy and cheap to produce and pretty people to sing badly and write crappy songs. 10 years from now you'll have a whole collection of amazing free music from the 70's to the 90's that was paid for by the record companies and the fans..and the rest of your collection will consist of garage bands and internet musicians making inferior music because they can't compete with what the record industry used to produce.
The dream of being signed to a record label just on the strength of a demo tape is gone already...you have to have a fan base and demonstratable sales. Record companies don't offer development deals anymore.
Instead of signing 15 bands to their roster, they only sign 4 and can really only afford to fully promote 2 of them.
Then the A&R guy goes into a local bar and hears something like this and decides to pass on the band because the record company can't afford anymore bands this year.

Who is that? It sounds like somebody doing a bad imitation of van halen.

I didn't miss them schmange. I figured them in there somewhere. also I think the A&R guy for a major label would have overlooked that band anyways, not because the playing and stage show wasn't up to par, but the current trend in music just doesn't support our type of music anymore, unless you go indie like Metal Mayhem Records.

yup, it's van halen in 1976 doin a stevie wonder cover.

Ya kinda get what I mean though.
It's like the movie business. There's a whole list of credits at the end that lists the people who've contributed to the making of it. When you buy a CD, you're not just buying a piece of plastic, you're supporting the band and everything that makes them what they are.
If everybody had snuck into the theatres to see the original Matrix... there would never have been a 2nd or 3rd movie coming out this year.
If you don't pay for music, the bands you're going to be listening to in the future are going to be more like movies of the week rather than big blockbusters.

Hairbndrockr (sp?) *L*

1.50 is about twice the price that the manufacturing of the cd with full cover booklet and jewelcase did cost 5 years ago. i have a sony price list at home. for 1.50 you get a digicover! and you do not need to produce 100,000 cds to get that price - 5000 are enough - and i´m sure is is much cheaper now.

I was always for those file sharing programs. You are able to find rare songs that you would probally have to search everywhere to find on a disc and of course its free. The artists and the record companies make enough money, let us have our music.

I dont think that mp3 is responsible for the fall of good music. That started to happen back when the first discos opened and when TV became a big deal. Peeps stopped to go to concerts and instead listened to instant-music - the big 70´s hits are musically not much better than the crap that you hear in the charts nowadays.

I think the internet and mp3 has done not only bad to the pooooor recordingindustry (who has ruined our music to make big profits), but it also does something good - every lil chump has the possibility to chose from the WHOLE musical universe that is out there - not only from the narrowminded media-music that you hear every day - i know heaps of dudes who downloaded like thousands of mp3´srandomly without even knowing the band or the style, just to discover styles and bands that where unknown to them. you realy cannot make file sharing responsible for the downfall of good music - thats just fingerpointing to find a scapegoat!