Yet this is about far more than the size of a particular slice of the pie. This is about a generation of music fans. College students used to be the music industry’s best customers. Now, finding a record store still in business anywhere near a campus is a difficult assignment at best. It’s not just the loss of current sales that concerns us, but the habits formed in college that will stay with these students for a lifetime. This is a teachable moment — an opportunity to educate these particular students about the importance of music in their lives and the importance of respecting and valuing music as intellectual property.

http://insidehighered.com/views/2007/03/15/sherman

Not to mention the fact that a large chunk of the bittorrent and file-sharing world resides on these campus servers.

Hey, you read Fark too? Cool.

I'm pretty sure these kids won't still be downloading music when they are in their 30s.

I count three. One isn't doing so well (but honestly, never has), the other expanded into books and other nonsense (and may have scaled back) and the other, an indie record store where the clerks know their stuff, still throws in a free promo album into your order every now and again.

All three are in a college campus. Like, not nearby. In. (There's university property on at least two sides).

I thought it had more to do with teaching students about how giant corporations have no problem crushing people.

There are about a half-dozen 'record' stores close to the OSU campus. I just bought three CDs from one less than half an hour ago.

Why doesn't the RIAA work with ISPs to block sites that offer stolen music? Probably easier than going after the individual people.

I wonder how easy it is to find people individually in this age of wireless connections. My roommate and I had no less than four wireless signals from different places in our old apt. We live by a Panera bread and can get that signal pretty decently.

The number of people downloading music illegally is irrelevant. The number of people illegally downloading music they would have otherwise purchased is the only significant number. I've downloaded plenty of stuff that I would have never, ever purchased. In some cases, I've discovered music I like and gone on to legally purchase merchandise from these bands (meaning income for them and the RIAA that would have never happened without my "illegal" activities). Of course, they don't want to acknowledge that, they just want to pretend that every single thing you download is lost revenue for them. Which, of course, is total bullshit.

Oh, come on, Numanoid. Let's be real. You mean to tell me that if you could get a new album online by a band you like for free, you'd say no and go out and legally buy the CD? Really?

And I'll bet if Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan showed up at your home, you'd shut the door and go make love to your wife.

Have they considered that college record stores are closing up because college music has turned to shit? While it was always quirky, college radio gave exposure to a lot of great bands over the years. R.E.M., the cure, punk. The list goes on and on. Sadly, those days are over, and they're not coming back.

And PopcornTreeCt is right, these kids won't be buying music when they're thirty because they won't be music fans.

I know I do. I tend to always download everything with most of it being music I never would have bought. The bands I like I do go out and buy. The music I download I never burn to CD and only use on my Ipod which I listen to at work and even then I listen to more podcasts. If I like an artist enough I buy the CD to use in my car.

I do.

If I like an artist I try and buy their CDs and attend their concerts. I download music here and there, but I collect concert bootlegs from bands who encourage fans to exchange music...so I see mp3's as an extension of 'taping'.

-p

Trying to claim some of these distinctions... "well, I never burn it to a CD" or "I see mp3s as an extension of taping"... just illustrates the point. If you download a track without a license, you are stealing that work. You can pretty it up however you'd like, use whatever justifications that work for you -- but it's still copyright infringement, and it's still illegal.

(And let me stress that I am not free from sin. I download music and share files with friends all the time. But I don't try and pretend that what I do is morally justified.)

Not this again. Throw the moral questions out. They're irrelevant. The issue is that the music industry is struggling and they consistently try to blame file sharing instead of examining the reality. The industry is ridiculously bloated and inefficient and the over-corporatization of the radio has strangled nearly all the quality out of the airwaves. Meanwhile, competing industries like film and television have harnessed emerging technologies and are succeeding much better at evolving and capturing limited disposable income. When someone can get an uber-edition DVD with hours of special features for not much more than a CD that may have one single on it that doesn't suck, the music industry loses. There is great music out there worth buying, but the public doesn't know about it, and as long as the RIAA refuses to change and continues to blame their problems on the Internet instead of leveraging its amazing promotional potential to their benefit, they're going to keep struggling. People love to get on their high horse and argue the morality and legality of file sharing, but you could shut down the Internet entirely, and it wouldn't make a dent in the music industry's real problems. In fact, it would probably just hurt them even more, as the only good music I've found in pretty much the last decade has come from exposure generated by file sharing, and that's hundreds of CDs and concert tickets that never would have come from the stale, generic, uninspired Clear Channel clones on the FM dial.

Let me guess -- file sharing is the reason people don't go to the theater anymore too?

das

I have to agree with das. The music being downloaded isn't new stuff, it's the stuff from the 70s + 80s and some 90s which is a bitch to find in record stores.

das, your whole argument boils down to, well, music sucks, and the music industry sucks more. That's not a rational defense -- that's a justification. And lordwow, I am a bit perplexed by your statement -- the music being downloaded isn't new stuff? People aren't downloading Justin Timberlake and Shakira on bittorrent? That's a bizarre statement.

Look, as I said, I illegally download music, primarily from friends and MP3 blogs. I also buy music online via iTunes and eMusic. I haven't bought a CD in ages. Am I proud of what I do? No, but I don't try and pretend that I feel some kind of moral outrage that somehow excuses my behavior. What I am doing is wrong -- I know that -- but at least I recognize the illegality of my actions.

And there is just no question that file sharing hurts music sales. That's pretty well documented. das, if you could download a feature-length movie in 5 minutes, then yeah, it would hurt ticket sales as well. Right now, the movie-going experience is superior to the downloaded experience, but if that were to change, the movie industry would suffer as well.

Bah, fuck the record industry. Give people a way to buy direct from the artist at a reasonable price. I'd much rather give 5 bucks to the artist directly than give 20 to the record label and have the band see 50 cents.

The industry is just grasping at straws here, a last ditch effort because they haven't been able to keep up with the changing technologies. They still want to sell CDs when no one is buying... and people aren't just not buying because they are illegally downloading... they aren't buying because hard media is no longer what people want.

WAKE UP!

Yes.

I do it all the time. And I usually go the artist's shows at least once.

I'd buy more if they were cheaper. I truly don't understand it. Every week stores like Best Buy and Circuit City offer many hit DVDs for less than $9.99 Why can't they do that with music? Why can't they simply sell CDs for $5.00 instead of continually bitching at kids for downloading them? I guarantee more people would buy CDs if they made them cheaper. Also, I don't understand when these sites sell MP3s there's always a catch to it. Napster can only play on Napster players, Itunes can only plan on Itunes, etc.

Sell new CDs for $4.99 and the music industry might actually save themselves. They need to face reality. They made a shitload of money because they controlled the medium over the last several decades. Well, they no longer have that control anymore. They need to grow up and start selling their media to be competitive with their competition. The more they pressure, the more they will get resistance.

My wife and I are on different sides of the spectrum. If I couldn't illegally download I just wouldn't hear it, I'd never buy and it wouldn't effect me in the least. My wife would go out and buy but she's manly into older stuff but she would have to hear a few singles from the CD before she would buy it. How many CD's get around to having second or third singles anymore?

I also don't understand how CD's were $13-$15 back in the 80's and are now $18 and more? What has changed with the technology that has made it a more expensive medium? Surely disc cost and pressing costs have gone down.

Having just graduated recently, I can tell you that the reason downloading is so high is for one reason: people like free shit.

You can dress it up all you want, but you're not Robin Hood fighting the man when you download the latest Pussycat Dolls album.

Albums are already cheap on iTunes. You can bitch about DRM and quality but I can guarantee that people who are downloading MP3s, don't care about that.

As for the argument that 70s and 80s music is hard-to-find and that's what's been downloaded is extremely laughable. Led Zeppelin is real hard to find...

There's no great political statements being made by most people. They just like free shit.