Getting rid of CD's?

[agladstone]

Actually, I've read many detailed articles and papers regarding what an Artist ACTUALLY ends up getting paid per each CD / Record sold, and believe it or not most often that number is ZERO!! 

Record/CD sales in the 1 Million to 5 Million albums sold at full retail price will almost always end up being paid a grand total of ZERO!

They get paid royalties of about 15% on avaerage per album sold at full retail, but that 15% only starts being paid to them after they have paid back the record label for all costs associated to the making, promoting, and marketing of that album, any videos made for the album and any advances paid to the artists prior to making the Album. 

Typically all of the above will cost the record label between 2 Million and 4 Million in total and the artists need to pay that amount back to the record labels out of that 15% cut first, before the record label starts paying them any royalty checks (even though the record labels still continue to keep their full revenue of the other 85% prior to starting to actually pay any royalties to the artists. 

Then,, once the artists actually do start getting paid royalty checks, they need to give 20% to their manager, 5% to business manager, 5% to Lawyer, 5% to their own promoter and then split up the remaining 65 % of the 15% divided by the number of band members (and all of this only starts after they pay back all costs and advances to the record company first (that 2 Million to 5 Million coat on average). 

Thus, most bands selling up to 5 Million copies of an album at full retail costs, end up getting paid less than $45,000 over about a 2 year period of time (and only if they sell 5 million albums at full retail)!! 

Thus, it's really the record companies that should be checking their own morality and ethics in this industry!!

The average joe ripping his CD's and then eventually deciding he's sick of hearing his wife complain about all the boxes of CD's laying around the house that he no longer actually uses anymore (since he ripped them all years ago) and eventually decides to sell them at a garage sale or to a used CD store for $1 each yet keeps all of his rips (he did pay $16 + for all of them initially don't forget), isn't actually taking any money at all out of those beloved artists pockets! 

Better yet, just think about all the people who buy them Second hand for $3-$5 at a used CD store or on ebay that then becime fans of the band and buy for full retail that bands new album but he would not have before since he did not known their music prior to buying that used CD. One could argue that buy ripping those CD's you paid full price for, then eventually selling them used and keeping the rips actually ends up creating more future revenue for the artists than if that person who initially bought and ripped them had kept them locked up in a storage bin forever!! 

[barrows]

Selling your CDs and keeping and listening to the rips is illegal, it is also wrong, and it is also stealing, plain and simple.

That anyone considers this practice acceptable is sad indeed.  Our intentions and actions have repercussions far beyond what we see personally, when one holds views such as this stealing being OK, one degrades themselves and the rest of the society.

One is stealing compensation from the music business by this practice, from everyone in the music business, musicians, recording engineers, studio janitors, and on.  One cannot rightfully justify such actions by suggesting that the music business people are evil buggers.

 

I bank at Wells Fargo, I know they are crooks, and abusive of their customers; but that knowledge does not make it OK for me to go and rob one of their banks.

[kumakuma]

3 minutes ago, barrows said:

Selling your CDs and keeping and listening to the rips is illegal, it is also wrong, and it is also stealing, plain and simple.

That anyone considers this practice acceptable is sad indeed.  Our intentions and actions have repercussions far beyond what we see personally, when one holds views such as this stealing being OK, one degrades themselves and the rest of the society.

One is stealing compensation from the music business by this practice, from everyone in the music business, musicians, recording engineers, studio janitors, and on.  One cannot rightfully justify such actions by suggesting that the music business people are evil buggers.

 

I bank at Wells Fargo, I know they are crooks, and abusive of their customers; but that knowledge does not make it OK for me to go and rob one of their banks.

 

Well said!

[foodfiend]

@agladstone While I do agree that the music industry's financial model needs changing, you have to also agree that no one is forcing the recording artiste to sign with the label. There are no guns on the temples. Yes, the music label holds most of the power in the contract negotiations, but the recording artiste can always refuse to sign the contract and walk out of discussions. Unless there is a subsequent breech of that contract, I do not think that the artiste should then turn around and complain that the contract is not fair.

 

Anyway, whether the contract is fair, or not, is between said artiste and label. It does not justify any act of copyright infringement, by any member of the public.

 

Nowadays, there are many different ways and platforms to promote and distribute your music. Some web-based platforms are remarkably transparent on costs of distribution on their platform.

 

As to the statement on the discovery of new artistes by a purchase of used CDs at a garage sale, I do wonder if I am so different in anyway. While I have bought CDs from garage sale events, I have never bought recordings that were from an artiste unknown to me. I might be enticed to buy a recording that I know but was unwilling to pay the standard price for (let's say I only like 2 tracks out of 10 on the CD and cannot justify to myself to pay full-price for it). So, I do wonder if there is any real weight in your argument of added exposure for the artiste through garage sales that include said artiste's recordings.

[agladstone]

2 hours ago, barrows said:

Selling your CDs and keeping and listening to the rips is illegal, it is also wrong, and it is also stealing, plain and simple.

That anyone considers this practice acceptable is sad indeed.  Our intentions and actions have repercussions far beyond what we see personally, when one holds views such as this stealing being OK, one degrades themselves and the rest of the society.

One is stealing compensation from the music business by this practice, from everyone in the music business, musicians, recording engineers, studio janitors, and on.  One cannot rightfully justify such actions by suggesting that the music business people are evil buggers.

 

I bank at Wells Fargo, I know they are crooks, and abusive of their customers; but that knowledge does not make it OK for me to go and rob one of their banks.

If you bought the CD for full retail brand new - and either:

A. Rip it and keep the original CD in a box in the basement forever OR

B. Rip it and Throw out the Original CD or Sell it at a Garage Sale

You have paid towards the Artists share of profits equally - exactly the same ! There is no difference to what the Artist and Record Company get paid by the sale of the Album to you at all !!!!  

[mjb]

2 hours ago, barrows said:

Selling your CDs and keeping and listening to the rips is illegal, it is also wrong, and it is also stealing, plain and simple.

So if I continue to listen to a rip, long after selling the CD, but have a Tidal (or other) subscription, is it still wrong? Just a hypothetical question....

[agladstone]

Me personally, I really pride myself on the physical CD collection! Even though nowadays I only Rip them and then store them away in my CD cabinets (with the exception of 5.1 SACD's, or multi channel DVD-A's and Blu-Ray Audio Discs (they still get played on my Oppo 105)),

I still plan to keep the physical CD's "forever", I am a collector! Although, I must admit that I am a "seeker" of CD's manufactured from the  Mid '80's to Early '90's (I find that they mostly have high DR numbers and don't suffer from Dynamic Range Compression of current day releases and remasters), so I do buy a ton of my CD's used on eBay and used CD Stores, So even though I am keeping the physical CD that I have ripped, as a second (or third or fourth) owner of these CD's, is this any better or different

than if I bought them brand new, ripped them and threw out the physical CD??? 

[Jud]

25 minutes ago, agladstone said:

If you bought the CD for full retail brand new - and either:

A. Rip it and keep the original CD in a box in the basement forever OR

B. Rip it and Throw out the Original CD or Sell it at a Garage Sale

You have paid towards the Artists share of profits equally - exactly the same ! There is no difference to what the Artist and Record Company get paid by the sale of the Album to you at all !!!!  

 

That wouldn’t necessarily be correct.  You are potentially depriving the artist of either (1) royalty on a lower priced retail CD your customer might have bought on Amazon instead of your used one, or (2) the royalty from your download if you’d gotten rid of your rip after selling the CD.  Thousands of people all making these same individual decisions cuts off markets for the artist.

[barrows]

I see a lot of attempts at justification here...  Reminds me of this scenario, after an adult has sex with 15 year old girl, and her parents call the cops, and the adult says that "she looked at least 19!

[agladstone]

Just now, Jud said:

 

That wouldn’t necessarily be correct.  You are potentially depriving the artist of either (1) royalty on a lower priced retail CD your customer might have bought on Amazon instead of your used one, or (2) the royalty from your download if you’d gotten rid of your rip after selling the CD.  Thousands of people all making these same individual decisions cuts off markets for the artist.

Unfortunately, its all beyond "us" at this point!! Artists can no longer rely on (nor will they going forward) royalties or revenue from Album Sales! They will receive fractions of a penny per stream or downlaod and need to make their money the way the Grateful Dead figured out many moons ago (through performing live and attempting to create direct ticket sales, etc.)

I personally own more than 4,000 physical CD's and am one of the very few rare dinosaurs left that continues to buy physical CD's weekly. However almost the entire population besides me and the rare few like myself (mostly all of which are members on CA) are only streaming music now or downloading music for free via youtube and torrents.

Sooner than later I fear we will all see "streaming only" become the wave of the future, thus, none of this thread matters nor will make any difference, the "system" (Physical CD sales) has been broken, re-invented, forever changed!!

[mjb]

2 minutes ago, agladstone said:

Sooner than later I fear we will all see "streaming only" become the wave of the future, thus, none of this thread matters nor will make any difference, the "system" (Physical CD sales) has been broken, re-invented, forever changed!!

Exactly. The model is changing, and we are all currently in the twilight zone.

[agladstone]

3 minutes ago, barrows said:

I see a lot of attempts at justification here...  Reminds me of this scenario, after an adult has sex with 15 year old girl, and her parents call the cops, and the adult says that "she looked at least 19!

I see literally NO correlation in that analogy of yours!!

Please keep all your physical CD's forever that you have ripped, I sure do plan to do just that myself, none-the-less, I don't personally see anything wrong with the folks who bought the CD's at full retail, rip them, and decide to throw the physical CD's out and keep the rips, they paid for the CD, they can do whatever they want with it afterwards as far as I'm concerned!

 

[barrows]

2 minutes ago, agladstone said:

I see literally NO correlation in that analogy of yours!!

Please keep all your physical CD's forever that you have ripped, I sure do plan to do just that myself, none-the-less, I don't personally see anything wrong with the folks who bought the CD's at full retail, rip them, and decide to throw the physical CD's out and keep the rips, they paid for the CD, they can do whatever they want with it afterwards as far as I'm concerned!

 

People are making excuses for their bad behavior, same thing...

I never suggested one is required to keep their CDs, just that one cannot sell them after ripping.  If one wants to get rid of them, break them in half and discard, nothing wrong with that.  I am not aware whether there is CD recycling, anyone?

[stuck limo]

8 hours ago, Teresa said:

 

I agree!

 

They do shut music torrent sites down, however they reopen with a slightly different address. The problem is most of these sites are in Russia.

 

What if an item is completely out of print, and the rights holders aren't making any money off it, and the family/performer isn't either? And you can get the albums on torrent because you can't legally purchase a new copy? Should the torrent still be shut down? 

[esldude]

Currently the RIAA equivalent of one album sale is 1500 track streams.

[esldude]

3 minutes ago, stuck_limo said:

 

What if an item is completely out of print, and the rights holders aren't making any money off it, and the family/performer isn't either? And you can get the albums on torrent because you can't legally purchase a new copy? Should the torrent still be shut down? 

Legally yes. Just because rights holders aren't making it available doesn't mean you get rights by abandonment.

[stuck limo]

3 minutes ago, esldude said:

Legally yes. Just because rights holders aren't making it available doesn't mean you get rights by abandonment.

 

What about morally? 

[esldude]

Just now, stuck_limo said:

 

What about morally? 

I would say it's okay morally.  You are keeping  the artist's work alive.  One day it might be made available to make him or others money. On that sense you could help make that possible.  Or it could be so widely pirated it prevents future income.

[Ralf11]

1 hour ago, agladstone said:

If you bought the CD for full retail brand new - and either:

A. Rip it and keep the original CD in a box in the basement forever OR

B. Rip it and Throw out the Original CD or Sell it at a Garage Sale

You have paid towards the Artists share of profits equally - exactly the same ! There is no difference to what the Artist and Record Company get paid by the sale of the Album to you at all !!!!  

 

for B, your actions have to some degree inhibited the $$ that would flow to the record co. - or maybe even the artist from a second sale

 

OTOH, your sale, loan, or gift can also act like advertising (which a legal and economic genius has declared does not distort free markets)

 

the legal situation in Europe differs from the US - so different govts. see the moral issues differently (or are less influenced by record co. lobbyists)

[agladstone]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

 

for B, your actions have to some degree inhibited the $$ that would flow to the record co. - or maybe even the artist from a second sale

 

OTOH, your sale, loan, or gift can also act like advertising (which a legal and economic genius has declared does not distort free markets)

 

the legal situation in Europe differs from the US - so different govts. see the moral issues differently (or are less influenced by record co. lobbyists)

When I (or anyone else) buys a used CD at a garage sale or a used CD store - ZERO dollars goes to either the record label or the artist whatsoever, so I strongly disagree with your statement that when you sell the physical disk or put it in the garbage, etc (after you had initially purchased it brand new at full retail) and ripped it and kept the rip, that by selling it or discarding of it, but keeping the rip would in any away be taking additional money away from the artist! 

[barrows]

4 minutes ago, agladstone said:

When I (or anyone else) buys a used CD at a garage sale or a used CD store - ZERO dollars goes to either the record label or the artist whatsoever, so I strongly disagree with your statement that when you sell the physical disk or put it in the garbage, etc (after you had initially purchased it brand new at full retail) and ripped it and kept the rip, that by selling it or discarding of it, but keeping the rip would in any away be taking additional money away from the artist! 

You are missing something, think a little bit harder on this...

[agladstone]

The artists can only make money nowadays from performing live and selling t-shirts, etc at the events, it's that simple. 

And when someone downloads their music illegally via a torrent or YouTube or buys a used CD at a garage sale even though the original owner ripped it and did not discard the rip, all the aforementioned still leads to new and deeper connected fans, and these fans,,,, PAY to go see them perform live (the only way they can earn a living now), so yet another reason why keeping Rips and selling your physical CD's or people illegally downloading their albums from Torrents actually ends up benefiting the artists and allowing the artist to still earn a living! 

Its just not 1982 anymore - we all now live in a different world with different "rules" regardless of the actual draconian written laws that can't be inforced! 

Buying a CD at full retail, ripping it, keeping the rip, and selling the physical CD still contributes 20% of that initial sale to the artists and that's 20% more than they would make vs. someone illegally downloading it off of a Torrent and in my book much more ethical and moral too. 

FYI, As I have stated previously, I keep and will continue to keep every CD that I own and have ripped, so I'm just discussing the issue, not saying that I'm also a participant personally of this behavior/ offense, I am a collector of CD's and Music and I'm proudly keeping my own personal collection! 

[agladstone]

9 minutes ago, barrows said:

You are missing something, think a little bit harder on this...

No, I'm not I "get it", if no one sold used CD's and if no one illegally downloaded the CD's from Torrent sites and YouTube, then everyone would have to actually buy the CD's at full retail. 

Unfortunately, literally no one (except myself and a very select few others left) actually buy physical CD's at full retail anymore and that number of the last of the dinasours (myself included) will continue to diminish to the point of zero sooner than later). 

Amazon and eBay have literally hundreds of thousands of used CD's listed for sale, there are used CD stores in every town in the Country, Craigslist is full of "selling all my CD's for $200" posts everyday recently and Murphy is a thriving online business that allows you to send them all of your CD's (they even pay for the shipping) and then they rip your CD's for you, either send you a hard drive with the rips or allow you to stream your own rips they made for you via their service, and then they sell your physical discs used and give you a percentage of the sale! 

So, there is no way to go backwards and at least 95% of the population is streaming only now anyhow, so no, I did not "miss" something, it's just that it no longer matters in the world we live in today and it will matter even less than that in the near future when streaming only is the only way to get new music anyhow.  

[stuck limo]

If this issue is as distressing in the real world as it seems to be in some of the forum's members' worlds, how come whenever I hear of a band break up or stop performing, it's never because they don't make enough money from CD sales, it's always because of other factors? (drugs, personality differences, other interests, etc.) Are the members of the bands just simply misinformed about where their finances need to be coming from and the types of stresses that lead to their break ups?

 

Basically, what I'm saying, is that in 2017, this whole discussion and topic is completely meaningless because that's not how the industry or the world operates now, and it never will again. Any problems people have with ripping/disposing/reselling of CDs simply exist in their own minds and don't exist in the real world.

[foodfiend]

5 hours ago, mjb said:

So if I continue to listen to a rip, long after selling the CD, but have a Tidal (or other) subscription, is it still wrong? Just a hypothetical question....

Tidal only pays a recording artiste (or music label) money when you actively stream their music. It does not pay any money if you are listening to the rips that you no longer officially have a right to have after selling your CD.