You're right - it seems popular even on HN where people make a living that musicians are exempt from earning a living through recording and selling music. Wrapped in daft phrases like "music wants to be free", it seems fashionable to engage in copyright infringement for music, and I think it stinks. Arguments that record labels ("fat cats") get a cut of the earnings are not relevant - the musician signed with the label (correct) but does this mean that the musician said his recorded music is free? (incorrect!)

We have disgust for software piracy here (particularly if it something we have written), yet the same disgust DOES not translate to music or musicians. It is wrong.

I think it is an attitude that needs to change. And the argument that "if I like it, I'll buy it" is wrong too; do we all pirate Microsoft Office and decide if we'll buy it after using it for a while? I don't! I buy Office if I need Office / enjoy using Office (not likely with that daft ribbon interface!).

No, no, no. Emphatically no.

I am speaking a musician here: by the time you are earning an appreciable amount of money from album sales, you are no longer just "making a living". Most musicians that support themselves through music do it by touring and selling merchandise (including physical recordings), and musicians that get famous have usually been doing this for years before they start making money off of recordings. The only exceptions are "manufactured" pop stars, like Miley Cyrus or Ariana Grande, who get big contracts right away through high-powered connections and nepotism.

And yes, the record "fat cats" earnings are perfectly relevant in this situation. They are exploiting musician's work to become wealthy, and by supporting them, you are implicitly supporting their actions. If you want to support a band, go see their shows and buy their merchandise.

Right, because studio time, publishing CDs, booking tour dates, and promoting it all is free.

Before an artist earns money from album sales, they have to pay for all that stuff. When album sales drop, either the artists get less of all those things, or they have to pay for them from other revenue sources. Either way it's not good for them.

The idea that album revenues never did anything for anyone makes no sense.

Most artists tour for years before signing to a major label, during which time they most likely book all their own shows, do their own promotion (with maybe a tiny bit of help from the venue). They have often released albums on a smaller indie label first, usually recorded on studio time for which they themselves paid. There are many artists that have made a living doing things like this for years and even decades, and they are harmed by a music culture which values artists purely based on the number of units of recordings they can move. It is not a simple binary choice between making things bad for the artists or good for the artists by pirating music or not. I personally think that piracy is the catalyst that will effect a tremendous and positive shift in the music industry, where the artistic qualities of the music and, importantly, the performance of music, take primacy over moving enough album units to hit the quarterly sales goal. Maybe the resulting industry will have a lower overall profitability, but maybe that's not entirely a bad thing, since most of the profits the recording industry has made were based on unethical business practices. The idea that this will spell the end of music because musicians won't be able to make a living is absurd and betrays your lack of vision and historical perspective

Bands don't do these things themselves. When they're starting out they don't know how, and when they start to catch on, it's a waste of their time. The small labels do a lot more than you think. And album sales have been an important part of financing all that. As album revenue has declined, something had to give. Labels are doing less these days, which makes it harder for new and small bands to succeed.

Piracy makes for great exposure. You can't eat exposure though. At some point a band has to make money if it's going to make a living, and piracy has made a big dent in that, even for small labels.

"most of the profits the recording industry has made were based on unethical business practices" ---- Citation needed...?

As a musician who happens to work as a software developer in the live audio industry, I would disagree that the music culture harms musicians. I have plenty of recording gear myself and have recorded and mixed the bands I have played in (as a hobby) but I am not blind to the fact that a mixing engineer will likely make a better job of the mix than I will. (Some will disagree - listen to Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full for an excellent example of how mixing and mastering can destroy and utterly flatten a record).

However, if I were to ever be signed to a record label (a choice that I would have had to make, not by coercion) and sold records, I would be happy if people came to see me live. I would also be happy for people to buy my records - NOT pirate them. My time is not free. The mixing engineer's time is not free. The sound engineer's time is not free. The mastering engineer's time is not free. Do you think it is?

I would NOT be happy for people to be pirating my album. Why would you think that I would be?

I listen to bands that seem not to be touring the UK at the moment and haven't for some years. Does this mean that I can pirate their albums?

I listen to bands that are on small labels. Are the labels benefitted by me pirating the music they sell?

Are the bands benefitted by pirating the music they sell?

How do I listen to a band's music after seeing them live and going home?

All of the "fat cat" arguments are irrelevant - if the band/label have stated that you can buy the album (yes BUY the album), why do you feel entitled for the music for 0.00?

If a software house states that you can have their software for a fee (yes BUY the software), why do you feel entitled to the software for 0.00?

If a supermarket states that you can have their produce for a fee (yes BUY the produce), why do you feel entitled to the produce for 0.00? Do you only buy from "indie" food store because you object to some "fat cat" earning from you buying from a supermarket? Does the capitalist nature of food retail offend you? Does it entitle you to food for nothing from the supermarket?

If anything, piracy has had the effect of sky-rocketing ticket prices to see bands live. And this isn't the "BIG" names either in the pop genre. This is rock/prog/jazz artists.

I think it is INCREDIBLY naive to believe that piracy will suddenly make people choose "better" music (with "better" being entirely subjective). I think some jazz is pretty great, but do you see people going out and buying jazz? No? There's no money in jazz apparently. I like some prog rock. What about prog rock? No? According to you, people should be changing music tastes because of piracy... but I haven't seen it - have you? Has pop music plummeted in popularity? Is there something I have missed?

Do you really see music getting better? Production values might be (hurray for higher sampling rates, headroom and bit depths) but are we entering an era of incredible music changing the face of the world? No?

Apparently a huge shift in the (subjective) quality music is coming because of piracy. I will wait to see it.

But does the fact that the band tours and does merchandise separate to recordings mean that I can engage in copyright infringement? I think not - do you?

Musician weighing in:

Musicians and bands had been making a living for thousands of years before the recording industry was invented, and they will continue to do so for thousands of years after the recording industry has crumbled to the ground (mostly due to their own greed and stupidity). While the recording industry certainly allowed some musicians to become filthy rich, that was mostly through exposure. Musicians have never made very much from the sale of recordings alone, and have always relied on touring and merchandise for the majority of their revenue. Today, even very popular bands, the ones that get the juicy contracts, are making pennies on the dollar on the recordings they produce (and before this gets brought up, so are the engineers and producers, most of the money goes to marketing and distribution, and then a big chunk to the various executives and agents). The situation is much worse for smaller and rising acts.

The truth of the situation is that the recording industry and their distributors have been exploiting the labor of hard-working musicians for the last 100 years. Many of the old blues men from our earliest popular recordings were never even paid, although men that they never even met grew rich from selling their work. The recording industry has been selling the same snake oil to us sense then, just packaged differently according to the musical tastes of the time. There will always be a collectors market for physical recordings, but it is time that we acknowledge that digital content can be delivered for essentially zero marginal cost, and that free knowledge and art have cultural benefits that drastically outweigh any financial gains that may be made by restricting access to them. (And if you are someone that can only be swayed by economics, I would argue that by encouraging innovation and free exchange of ideas, you will reap greater economic benefits overall, even though certain industries may suffer initially.) Moreover, as an artist, by sharing my music for free, I feel that I am being much more honest and forthright with my audience and that am able to reach far more people than I would otherwise.

The only people really exploiting artists are recording industry executives. If you buy an album you like, instead of pirating it, you're taking advantage of those artists. Go see them play live or buy a fucking t-shirt instead.

The idea that piracy hurts big labels is laughable. They long ago read the writing on the wall and started signing new acts to 360 deals that give them a cut of every revenue stream.

"Buy a fucking t-shirt"? There are two possibilities.

1) The artist is signed to an exploitative label deal. If this is the case, the artist is not seeing any more money from that t-shirt than they do from an album sale. Nor are they taking home their gate, so seeing them in person isn't helping either.

2) The artist is signed to a limited or ethical deal. If this is the case, then they have a good relationship with their label, and pirating music will hurt them either directly (lost royalties) or indirectly (hurting the label and forcing succesful bands to sign with a major).

I'm sure you play music, but I think your sense of the industry is incomplete or not up to date.

So, you think that, because the major record labels have stepped up their game and started exploiting musicians further and through different channels, the right thing to do is keep feeding them cash? Give me a break. Your critique is targeted only at the issue as it pertains to artists working for major record labels. My whole point is that the recording industry was controlled an unstable monopoly based on price-fixing and exploitative contracts from the beginning, and supporting them does not, in any way, equal helping artists.

Although I'd prefer not to dredge this into a petty back-and-forth ad hominem contest, it may be your sense of the industry that is incomplete. Many smaller labels are turning to free digital releases, treating these as a form of cheap and highly effective advertising, and still selling enough physical recordings and merchandise to make a profit, all while giving a larger portion of the revenues to artists. By presenting the situation as false dichotomy between "stealing from artists" or not, you ignore the fact that there may be a better model for the industry as a whole, with more equitable sharing of profits, and you also ignore the incalculable social benefits of free and open access to information and artistic works. In the real world, moral choices are complex, and often you are presented with the choice between two bad things, supporting a fundamentally corrupt and exploitative recording industry that is expropriating profits through collusion and unethical business practices or possibly taking some money away from some people.

> So, you think that, because the major record labels have stepped up their game and started exploiting musicians further and through different channels, the right thing to do is keep feeding them cash?

No. You're putting words in my mouth, and are seemingly incapable of understanding that the works of small, struggling, middle class bands--the kind who have always treated each other well--ALSO get pirated, and that those declining revenues have an impact on their lives.

Bands and labels that are small, indie, and love their audiences are not fighting piracy because they don't want to demonize or create conflict with their fans. Their fans reward them for that by taking money out of their pockets by getting their albums for free from a pirate site instead of paying the actual artists.

And worst of all, they think they're doing the artists a favor by doing it!

Of course bands and labels are releasing music for free now. What other choice do they have?? You can't fight a tsunami. They are making do with less because they have to. That doesn't mean it's objectively a good thing for the industry or the artists.

You're not alone. There is this amazingly powerful Stockholm syndrome where young artists have been convinced by people way outside the music industry (primarily technology) to argue vociferously against their own self-interest.

It's one thing to choose to give away your music for free as marketing--that's always been legal and always will be. And it's not a new or innovative idea...the radio has been doing it for 50 years.

It's another thing if you're trying to sell albums, and the albums are really popular, but you're still not making enough to do basic middle-class things like buy a house, take a vacation, have kids, save for college, etc. Meanwhile, everyone else in the ecosystem gets rich: ISPs, electronics manufacturers, software producers, websites that run ads, etc. Music labels are not the only companies who can exploit musicians.