Comment by speed_spread
11 hours ago
Piracy encouraged buying music. You'd learn of this cool band through a friend and would buy their next album when it came out. People still had the same budget for music but weren't so much at the whim of what music executives wanted to push at the moment. The network effects more than made up for the "lost" revenue.
That's total bullshit. Global music revenue fell by 50% because of piracy[1]. What music piracy did was make it impossible for artists to sell albums without engaging in parasocial celebrity-building and shameless merch.
And everyone knows this is true!!! Music pirates also like to point out that historically musicians only played live, so it's totally a-okay that jazz musicians can no longer make a living from the studio, that even John Scofield, the greatest guitarist alive, is only middle-class because he is constantly on tour in his 70s.
People talk out of both sides of their mouth on piracy because their only real motivation is "I like getting stuff for free and don't like moral responsibility." There is nothing more contemptible than tech folks telling easily falsifiable lies about how digital music affects working musicians. The cynical dishonesty is so depressing. Ever since I was a kid I knew it was just people rationalizing theft.
[1] https://tech.yahoo.com/general/articles/napster-made-monster...
At least for me, I pirate music, but I make an effort to contribute directly to the bottom line for artists. This is best done by buying overpriced merch at shows or donating directly if possible.
that seems more like a musician with poor skills and mismanagement VS piracy had anything to do with their lacking career. Piracy is awesome!
> That's total bullshit. Global music revenue fell by 50% because of piracy[1].
The article you linked does not provide any source and / or a methodology for how this was calculated and attributed specifically to piracy
The article is mostly an interview with a journalist who wrote a book about Napster. The claim comes from his book. That's the source. I have not read the book. If you have concerns about the methodology you should read it yourself.
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