Showing posts with label free music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free music. Show all posts

Friday, June 22, 2012

She Doesn't Want to Pay for Music

Everybody, it seems, is commenting on Emily White's blog post on NPR.com, titled, "I Never Owned Any Music To Begin With".

I'm not entirely sure what the big fuss is about, frankly.  In fact, her post really doesn't make much sense (I blame the public school system). 

It appears she's saying that she likes streaming music, she might buy a single song here and there, but no way is she actually going to pay for an album.  Not when she can "swap" music with her friends.  She admits that she stole a bunch of music in her younger days, but kids will be kids.  Of course, she doesn't call it "stealing"; just "ripping".  She also is keen to "support" her favorite bands, but she's not sure how to do that, other than to buy their T-shirts.

She's only purchased 15 CD's in her lifetime; yet her iTunes library exceeds 11,000 songs.

Emily is all about the "convenience".

Convenience is important in our all-too-harried world.  I, for instance, love my cup of coffee in the morning.  So, I stroll into my local Starbucks on the way to work and "rip" me a free cup.  It's just so much more convenient that way.  I don't have to dig into my purse, find some loose change, or a dollar bill or two.  I wish there was a way to "stream" a cup of coffee into my hand every day.  I would just love that.

Someday I might buy one of those Starbucks logo stickers and paste it up in the back windshield of my car.  That way, I can say that I truly support Starbucks, while I pilfer free cups of coffee.  If only there was a way to swap cups of coffee with my friends.  Maybe someday, some smart entrepreneur will invent something like that.  My friends and I would totally use that method.

Some days, after work, when I'm tired, I stop at the local McDonald's drive-through on my way home.  I shout my order into the speaker on the wall, and then I just whiz right on by that guy holding out his hand for money; right on to Window #2 to grab my food.  It's so much more convenient that way.  Oh, I do get some quizzical looks from the "help", but I feel that they just need to get with the times.  I'm busy! 

I found a cute top at Target the other day.  I was lucky to find it in my size!  I only stopped in to pick up some dental floss and a tub of hummus, when I happened to take a shortcut through the Isaac Mizrahi collection, and there it was!  I didn't even bother to try it on!  I just grabbed it, stuffed the container of hummus under my arm, and marched right on out of the store!  Time was short!  Some guy tried to follow me, but I just strode confidently and purposely to my car, slid into the driver's seat and pealed away.  I had stuff to do!  I want to say here and now that I absolutely support Target.  If there's ever something in a Target store that I feel justifies me paying money for it, you can bet I will do it!  If not, I will just swap clothes with my friends.  None of them paid for their clothes, either, because they are busy, just like me.

As you can imagine, I like my reality TV!  In fact, that's why I'm in such a hurry most days.  I need to get home to queue up my shows on the DVR.  Oh, I don't actually pay for cable.  My neighbor next door pays for it (he's from the old school), so one of my friends showed me how to tap into my neighbor's connection (I call it "ripping").  It sure saves me from having to pay a cable bill every month!  Talk about convenience!  I have tons of TV shows saved on my DVR, and I never paid a penny for any of them!

I don't know about you, but I get really irritated when I've just finished up a nice restaurant meal with a bunch of my friends, and some "wait person" walks over and slaps a tab down on my table!  People can be so rude!  My friends and I are having a really engrossing conversation, and we're interrupted like that!  Well, we just get up when we're ready to go, keep on talking and laughing, and stroll our way out of that fascist establishment.  Nobody dares stop us, because they can see that we have more important things to do than dawdle idly at a cash register and pay.

In essence, what I'm trying to say is, what's the big deal about stealing music?  I honestly don't get it. Times have changed.  Our generation is not one to fawn over Bob Dillan or whoever, and save up our pennies to buy his or her latest mp3.  Although we would totally support him or her by buying a sticker or a T-shirt, if we liked him or her, or knew who he/she was.

No, what we really want is free music everywhere, all the time.  And I've heard all the arguments about, oh, he spent a hundred hours making up a song, and then recording it and doing a whole bunch of takes, just to get it right.  Oh, boo hoo.  And I spend at least an hour at the nail salon every week, getting my pedicure!  Does anyone feel sorry for me? 

If it's fast and if it's convenient, and mostly, if it's free, I might give an artist a second glance.  Otherwise, he is just totally wasting my precious time.

And if it's good, and I really like the song, I will play it, oh, about a thousand times, and sing along in the car.  And I will feel really jubilant. 

But is that worth paying for?  Give me a break!










Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Music Should Be Free


Yes, and so should gasoline, in my opinion. The trouble with gasoline is, unfortunately, it's not downloadable.

Ask any music "fan", and they would agree that music should be free. And by "fan", I mean "consumer". Because no one is really a fan of music anymore. Everybody is just a consumer of music. It's like collecting baseball cards. You collect cards; I collect music. I want to see how much I can acquire.

This practice only became prevalent in the computer age. Face it, have you ever looked for software to perform a specific task? Have you searched the paid options; then surfed over to cnet to see what's available for free? I have. Who wants to shell out money for something, when you can get it free of charge?

The difference between the two is, cnet is offering free downloadable software with the permission of the developer. "Free" music is found on those nefarious file-sharing websites, the ones that will make your computer explode, and sic the FBI on you, if you visit them. But apparently, a whole lot of people are willing to take that risk.

Oh sure, some artists will dangle a free music track in front of you. It's called a loss leader in the sales biz (I guess). They're hoping you like the free one enough to dust off that credit card and buy a bunch more.

Amazon offers free music every week. I get the email, and frankly, there's rarely anything I want....yes, even for free.

Music consumers are jaded. And, yes, count me among their ranks. I can't remember the last time I heard a song that I fell in love with. I've heard a couple that I thought, "that's not too bad", and I've purchased them. I'm not about to steal from the artist, and more importantly, from the songwriter. Songwriters don't make very much money, you know. How much have I made from my music? $0.00.

The argument has been made, ad nauseum, that a songwriter or an artist works just as hard as anybody in any other line of work. But the fact is, songwriting is not valued. Nobody says, hey, I could be a brain surgeon! But a lot of people say, hey, I could write a song! How hard could it be? (I'm not equating songwriting with brain surgery, by the by).

The creative arts are strange and inexplicable. Nobody goes into a museum and steals a painting off the wall. But that's a creative work, just like a song.

I guess if the market was glutted with paintings, they'd be held in as low esteem as songs are. Maybe that's the problem ~ too much product.

But I think the problem is, too much bad product. If art houses were trying to sell a bunch of finger-painted works, nobody would want those, either.

I don't know for a fact who the most downloaded artists are on iTunes, but I can guess: Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. That's it. Everybody else, pack up and go home. People are willing to pay for Lady and Taylor. The rest, well, if they can get them for free, okay. If not, no big deal.

Songs are like feathers in the wind. If you catch one, fine. If you don't, well, it's just a feather, after all. What the heck would you do with it, if you caught one anyway?

There is no answer to the whole dilemma of free versus non-free. All I know is, I'm not giving my songs away. Call me stubborn. A song costs as much (or less) than a cup of coffee. If one values their cup of coffee more than a song, more power to you. I love coffee, too. I'm not making a value judgment. And if you want to steal any of my songs, sorry. Nobody likes them enough to file-share them. But if you really like one of my songs, I'll give it to you. Just you.

I just don't want to be collected.