jerfrey

Music piracy is an illegal act that will, if it isn’t stopped, result in the total collapse of the music industry. More 50% of music acquired in the U.S alone is illegally downloaded from file sharing sites such as Napster. In fact, NPD (National Purchase Diary) has reported that only 37% of music acquired in the U.S is purchased legally. The pirating of music causes around $12.5 billion of economic loses every year. This, clearly, is very bad as it means that musicians have less money to record new material with, and less money to publish their CD’s. Obviously, it is very unlikely that music piracy will ever be fully gone, because there is street piracy, or manufacturing and selling illegal copies of CD’s, and then there is online piracy, downloading illegally uploaded music. 24% of internet bandwidth world wide is used to pirate music. People argue that they pirate music because they may only want one song from an album of say 12 songs, but there is a simple way to do that. On iTunes, most songs are downloadable separately from the rest of the album, for a much smaller cost than buying the whole album. Also, why would you pirate music when you should want to support the bands you like by buying their music to give them money to make more music?

fanapathy

There's not much they can do about the piracy itself anymore, as easy as it is to share music files/mp3s online today through file hosting sites, torrents, youtube, etc.

CDs/LPs and so on is becoming more and more obsolete. Why would you want to carry a CD player around with one album when you can have 100+ albums on an mp3 player/phone - and save the time and effort and go to the music store when you can instantly get the music at home with a couple clicks. Many people prefer not even having the CD as it's inconvenient to them

What professionals and semi-professional musicians need to do is accept that this is going on, that it won't stop, and set up donating options online through the help of their recording company that is easily available on their website. So people can pay their support even they have gotten the music illegally - such as PayPal accounts etc, and probably have a voluntary amount/no minimum. Of course not everyone would contribute, but I really think it might help a lot and I find it very strange that this doesn't exist yet.
They typically have a merchandise shop and that's it, not everyone wants a T shirt or a coffee mug and then there's the shipping costs etc - plus - if you buy T-shirts etc you wouldn't be supporting just the band/record company but clothing manufacturers as well, which might not be relevant.

Piracy has indeed hurt the industry a ton, some used to think it might be beneficial in the long run back when it started however it's most definitely not. Bands be touring a ton more as a way to adapt and including bonus DVDs and artwork etc but I think they could do more. Most pirates feel indifferent and don't realize they're contributing to ruining the industry

Banjocal

See them live, or buy merch. Bands get little from CD sales unless they're on smaller labels. And if you are to buy a CD, email the band directly and pay through paypal or something.

You're awfully naive.

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eddiehimself

+1. The Rolling Stones are going to be making an estimated £16 million from their shows at the O2 in London. Gigs and merch are where the money is at these days.

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HeartString

Each group could have a place on their website for licensing their songs under varying circumstances >read: usage. A parent put together a CD of stills and clips last year for the graduating class and used unlicensed music for backing. I commented about the use and got a dirty look. Photographers have the same issues and have accepted lot payments for work and don't followup unless it's used commercially where the awards can justify the legal costs.

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