Why Music should be free

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 8:53 pm

I'm doing a speech for school and its "Why Music should be free" I only have a few reasons, and i'm in need of some more. If you guys could help that'd be great

Post by **Black Six** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 9:23 pm

Personally, I see no reason why music should be free. Artists deserve to be compensated for their work. Do I think the studios should get the large percentage of what they pay? No. Should it be entirely free? No.

Post by **gannon** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 9:27 pm

Music should be free because it takes time and money to make/publish

dman762000 · Post by **dman762000** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 9:35 pm

Well you could start that music is inherent in society and pretty much everything that is copyrighted has been thought of by other people before someone slapped a copyright on it, or you could go the route that the RIAA is a pointless system because all these stupid frikin lawsuits they are slapping on people dont really deter people from sharing music, I mean people have been sharing music and making copies of it since the first wax tubes came out (check it out I know that you can find antique devices for copying phonographic tubes on the internet) also MP3 downloading does not reduce record sales, the year before P2P became a big deal (meaning everyone was doing it) the record industry made about 65 bilion dollars the year after it became a big deal the record industry made almost 66 billion dollars and the RIAA claims that P2P caused the record industry to loose 65million dollars (just dosen't add up does it)
hope this stuff helps

Krepticor · Post by **Krepticor** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 9:42 pm

you could say music should be free in that it helps diserif a culture

or that Record companies are money grubbing demons

or that it helps generate true musicians that are not greedy

or that since the recording process is getting cheaper in the digital age that people could pay LESS

people need their own theme song (one Zune+one slicker+speaker+small amps+Trigun Themesong=KREPTICOR!)

I don't know I know it takes time/effort/money to make music and that people need music

~Krepticor

Post by **Gamelver** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 9:47 pm

Music shouldn't be free

....

that's like saying "going to movies should be free!" or "food should be free!"...and videogames, too!

It's ridiculous

....

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 9:50 pm

I agree that the record labels are evil and the RIAA needs to adapt to new technology, rather than shoving $16 discs with 1-2 good songs down people's throats. Especially when the artist probably only sees a small fraction of that.

Even iTunes and most of these pay-per-download sites are a joke, IMO. It costs them nothing to distribute individual songs via download. No shipping, manufacturing, etc. NOTHING. But if you were to buy an entire album, a song at a time, through one of these sites, you'd end up paying more than you would to pick up the CD in the store (with a case, insert, etc.) and on top of that you could do whatever you wanted to with that CD (no DRM). Shouldn't it be significantly cheaper to download? Absolutely. But the RIAA won't allow it.

But music should NOT be free. If it was, what incentive would the artists have? Would you spend money and time building portables, just to give them away?

Krepticor · Post by **Krepticor** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 9:55 pm

I agree with that but I also agree that there should be a time period that music should be paid for, after that it becomes public domain and then third party publishers can take over, like with books, all the classic have at least four million different publishers and no one claims a book's version of the RIAA, but copyrights would ensue for a third party verison of Harry Potter,

Anyone agree with that?
$15 for like a few years and then after that they become public domain?

USABulls09 · Post by **USABulls09** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 10:09 pm

I think music should be free. The artist and the companys get paid enough as it is to make an album and you pay $10-15 for cds which only cost like $.25 cents to make so you should put that in you project.

Krepticor · Post by **Krepticor** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 10:21 pm

Hey I thnk that there should be a machine that makes your album on demand at a kiosk in the mall, This way all you pay for is about $5 and there is no such thing as a rare album/DVD/Videogame...

Hows them apples!

ayou really pay for is the processessing and the ROM, which has a standard price, and old ROMS can have an EMU built in fo the more modern system (except copyrights and blah blah blah)

~Krepticor

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 10:33 pm

If memory serves, copyrights expire after either 150 years or the life of the author plus fifty years, depending on who you ask.

You can either wait 150 years, or you can compensate the composer for the resources expended creating the music. Sorry, but the very premise of your speech is flawed, even impossible.

gamer2 · Post by **gamer2** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:50 pm

Gamelver wrote:Music shouldn't be free ....

that's like saying "going to movies should be free!" or "food should be free!"...and videogames, too!

It's ridiculous ....

Going to the movies and games shouldn't be free, but I think its BS that you have to pay to survive. As long as you have $5 in your wallet, your going to live.

If I was a musician, I wouldn't care if people downloaded my music. I would be glad that people are listening. It might be because I am not greedy like the mainstream artists are but damn.

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:22 am

Should music be free? Let's see: Any artist that's under one of the major labels (RIAA) is there to make money, right? If they weren't looking to get rich, they'd save themselves all the trouble and distribute their music through independent channels, word of mouth, and the internet. Yes, believe it or not, many indy artists actually ALLOW their music to be distributed on the internet. Maybe they know that most people who enjoy their music will buy the CD anyway to support that artist?

Now...If music was free, then your local Strawberries/FYE/Tower Records wouldn't be sending money to the labels, who then wouldn't be sending money to the artists, who would then stop putting out music. All we would have left is the independent stuff, from the folks that truly enjoy making music and aren't just in it for the $$$. Not that this is a bad thing, since there's some EXCELLENT indy stuff out there. But the RIAA, Sony/BMG, etc. are used to lining their deep pockets with the hard work of the artists they sign, and they won't allow that to change anytime soon.

Should music be free? Nope, wouldn't work. Should the RIAA be willing to adapt to the major changes in technology over the last decade, offer an alternative to shelling out $16 for a crappy album with a few good songs on it, and stop making enemies with their price-gouging and suing people into oblivion? Definitely. Will they? Probably not.

Now if you said "music should be free after X number of years" (as someone else said already) then yes, I can agree with you on that.

Just my fiftieth of a dollar. Sorry for raining on the parade, this was way shorter in my head!

Mageslayer · Post by **Mageslayer** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:15 am

You should change your topic to "Is music free?" and go into illegal downloads and how there's no way to stop them. The topic of "music should be free" is quite hard to defend when looking at it from any point but the consumer's, and in the consumer's eyes everything should be free. Personally, I try to buy my CDs because I like to have the case with the actual CD sitting on my shelf, but when I have no money or can't find an album then I do download it. I see myself as one person taking a few dollars away from an industry that makes billions, and that mentality is shared by many others. If you ask me the only way to stop music from costing money is for a mass boycott, but if that happens then no one will want to record music onto CDs and such for mass distribution because it will actually hurt them financially.

mattyfu · Post by **mattyfu** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:17 am

The only argument (I can see anyways) you could really make for a reason why music should be free is that being a musician isn't about spending a year or more in a studio tweaking every second of every song to make it radio friendly. It would return music back to the touring is where the money is days where you have to be a talented artist/performer to bring in the dough as opposed to having a team of sound engineers pumping out album after album and touring being pretty much only to get free advertising for the latest album.