Do you think Youtube/downloading illegal music hurts or helps the music industry?

[Badpaladin]

Crappy argument? Okay, let's be honest, not everyone who downloads illegaly ever pays a cent to support their favorite musicians, but let's not pretend like more exposure DOESN'T lead to more people actually buying merchandice, show support and so on.

New listeners mean nothing unless those people support the artist. The argument is usually along the lines of, "If it gets downloaded a lot, so many people will see it and there's bound to be other people who will pay money for the artist later", which then acts as a justification for getting another's intellectual property for free. That's bullshit. If you get their music for free, and you're completely incapable of supporting them with money for a large variety of reasons, then that's fine. That's such a small minority that it doesn't matter. For the rest of everyone else ... no, it's not okay. If most people who supported artists they pirated then artists not under a major label wouldn't be as ridiculously poor as they are.

Sure would struggle more if he didn't take advantage of the internet to make more people know of him or her.

You don't seem to understand what new artists do. The internet is exactly what's being used to get more people to know them. Many new artists post their music for free (or at least some of it) on their multiple social networking accounts, many upload some YouTube videos of their songs (some of the songs, at least) and they try to reach out to popular music review and exposure sites to get heard. It's not the artists who are at fault here.

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 07:57 AM ----------

Pirating doesn't affect the music industry in the slightest. The music industry is a lumbering, ancient beast that simply refuses to change itself and accept new ways of distribution and accessability.

Naw, the music industry is also feeling the crunch. They don't have a monopoly on music anymore.

[MasterHamster]

New listeners mean nothing unless those people support the artist. The argument is usually along the lines of, "If it gets downloaded a lot, so many people will see it and there's bound to be other people who will pay money for the artist later", which then acts as a justification for getting another's intellectual property for free. That's bullshit. If you get their music for free, and you're completely incapable of supporting them with money for a large variety of reasons, then that's fine. That's such a small minority that it doesn't matter. For the rest of everyone else ... no, it's not okay. If most people who supported artists they pirated then artists not under a major label wouldn't be as ridiculously poor as they are.

@bold Even those who don't pay matters because they spread the music to more people. More potential purchasers.
And that's better than nothing.

Every cent of money that I've spent on music is thanks to illegal sharing, also including youtube.
Bands have earned money because others shared this music with me. No matter if the uploader had bought the album or not.
Bands that otherwise wouldn't have earned a cent from me. And I wouldn't get to enjoy their music.

Does piracy hurt the industry? Yes. In some ways it does.
And in the real world, where people share what they enjoy, it also gains from it.

[Sealed Shut]

Does it look like any of the artists are suffering?

[IIamaKing]

When was the last time you PAID for music. IF you can't remember, I think that answers your question.

[Deleted]

I don't think it hurts it, most of the bigger names makes most of their money of selling merchandise and having concerts while sites like Youtube allows smaller musicians to spread their music to the public.

[Pony Soldier]

Well, all I can say is that if it hurts them I could care less. I mean look at all the "artists" that are singing today that don't deserve the money and attention they get (examples: Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj). The only time I would actually BUY music is if it's a band that I really enjoy which is pretty much all metal and rock music. The music industry deserves to get pirated, they suck anymore.

[Zippoflames]

For me personally I have bought albums after downloading a song or two from a torrent/whatever site so I think it helps in that respect.
As for hurting sales.. Hard to say because some albums are proper dog shit and you have no way of getting your money back..

Edited to add, If an option to pay a yearly fee say..£100 per year and I could then download any album I wanted I would pay.

[Kasierith]

I suppose to know, you would have to pretty much speculate the answer based on a few facts. One, that people pirate because they do not intend to pay in the first place, meaning that the presence of free media is related to but not the cause of the cost barrier. If you don't know a band, you usually aren't going to pay 25 dollars for it. So assuming that every song someone downloads is a stolen song is bunk; I wouldn't be surprised if it was a 100 to 1 ratio. This goes doubly so for youtube. In general, if I really like an album, I'll actually buy it so I don't have to bother with opening youtube and running things that way; a playlist is much more efficient. I'm sure plenty of people apart from myself use youtube to browse artists and decide who I would actually be more interested in. Spending 25 dollars on a CD when I have no idea how good it is just, isn't going to happen.

Another thing to consider is that they are essentially free advertisement. Selling CDs is not the only way to make money; merchandise and tours are very prosperous if handled properly. Seeing as you can't pirate a ticket to a live event... youtube/pirating dampen one economic income while greatly enhancing others. I would say just how they balance out depends on the individual band; Nightwish and Muse are pretty likely to get massive cash flow from events and products, while other bands depend on CD income to get going. Even with that, though, there's a good possibility that if someone enjoys a band enough, they will pay for future CDs in order to help the band.

Then there's the counterargument, which is purely financial. Artists should get compensation for their works as well as acknowledgement of their effort. It has some validity, especially with smaller bands that are getting started; except that with those bands, youtube is an extremely powerful tool for reaching out. And as for larger bands, well, I find it distinctly hard to conceive that someone sitting in their third multi million dollar house genuinely grieves over 5 dollars

[BrokenHearthstone]

1) I always pirate.
2) IF I reaaally like the artist, I will buy their albums.

[oblivionx]

It hurts the music companies, but helps the artists.

The artists have traditionally made a lot more money out of the concert end is why.

[ptwonline]

There are good and bad aspects, but overall I am going to say that it has been negative. Definitely for the music industry (meaning record labels, distributors, retailers, etc) but in many cases for artists as well.

Youtube has essentially widely replaced music radio and MTV. This is not a bad thing--it means massive promotion for artists in a way that users can control and so they like it. However, with even the tiniest bit of savvy it also means that the end consumer can essentially get your product for free if they want to and mostly/completely unfettered use of it. This is a serious idssue since the core market is younger people with limited disposable income and a high propensity to spend, so they'll get their music free and buy other things. This makes it a lot less certain to be able to make money from artists, and forces the reliance much more on selling not music, but other things like merchandise and tours or promoting commercial products.

Big name acts can live through this because they can be promoted and make enough from touring and advertising. Smaller acts become uneconomical to promote and have to rely on their own self-promotion. The Internet and Youtube makes this a lot easier, but it also makes it a lot more hit-and-miss because they can no longer rely on channel control to give them a decent shot with audiences.

The result is that I think we're seeing something similar with music that we are seeing with movies and their giant budgets: less choice, less risk.

[bekilrwale]

I only pirate if the content is something I wouldn't ever pay for. I don't know nearly enough about the whole of pirating to decide whether or not it is dramatically harming the music industry. However, it is my personal opinion that sights like Youtube are good for the music industry because there are tons of bands out there I wouldn't know about without Youtube.

[haxartus]

It's possible for a song on youtube to get a few hundred million views in less than a year. Try doing that through the ordinary channels...
There are entire bands that owe their popularity solely on youtube.

[Lazy Gecko]

The music industry is more than a handful of bloated record labels struggling to remain relevant. Today it's easier and cheaper than ever for musicians to create, distribute, and promote music on their own.

During the "golden age" for record labels which peaked in the 80's, it was possible for many smaller acts to make a living on record deals because the labels would reap a massive amount of profit from a few mega artists and use that to finance others who in fact operated at a loss. This was a situation that wasn't going to last forever, internet or no internet.

[Powerogue]

When I want to see if a game is worth my money, the first place I go is youtube to check out a good let's play of the beginning.

Doesn't hurt to listen to someone's songs on youtube first too. It's just cool like that. Same for full TV episodes some times more than others, they crack down too hard on that.

Generally if I just go and get everything free, I wouldn't have bought the product either way.

[nyc81991]

I feel like the music industry makes way too much money to begin with, So I honestly couldn't care less if they lose some of that. I'm not saying I don't enjoy music but when they are making the amount of money they do and then still complain about people downloading / listening to that music for free it just annoys me.

[Arganis]

It obviously hurts them or they wouldn't be waging such a crusade. That being said they probably don't realize it does have some positive attributes, such a free publicity and exponentially increasing the fame of certain artists.

[Deleted]

Piracy is mainly a symptom of an antiquated business model that the industry in general needs to revise. It's an artificially inflated business model, that's been allowed to go on for way too long.

Even if I want a movie, there's no way in hell I'm first going to pay for a trip to the movies, and then spend the high cost of a newly released blue ray. I could be quickly looking at 50-60+ euro for experiencing one single movie, that I'll watch maybe 2-3 times over the next few years after purchasing it. I'd simply rather not watch it then.

Luckily, some companies are starting to figure this out with services that allow for access to nearly unlimited amounts of entertainment for a fixed, relatively small, recurring fee. That's the future of it. The conventional entertainment industry will die, no question.