Download Evom then use it to download (and convert to MP3) songs for free off YouTube. From their you can bluetooth them to your phone and/or keep them on your Mac.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Is this ethical and legal?
- Thread starter sidmehta
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
1. Apple doesn't set the prices, the record companies set the prices.
2. You can get an awful lot of music from the iTunes Music Store for a lot less than 99 cents a song. The cheapest that I bought on the UK store was 100 songs for £2.99.
3. I will fully agree with your opinion that a collection of 5,000 songs should cost only $500 when you agree to wash my car and cut the grass in my garden for $1. I believe paying $1 per hour of your work is more than fair.
4. It is still fully legal to record music off the air. Don't know what you're complaining about.
5. To your first point: Apple doesn't do anything that would keep anyone with more than a room temperature IQ from copying music illegally.
Have you ever in your life looked at all the menu items in iTunes?
Last edited:
First of all when musicians dont get paid this can happen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYX_zhlTDr8
Second of all this is why you might not want some people staying in your home for room and board.
First of all when musicians dont get paid this can happen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYX_zhlTDr8
Second of all this is why you might not want some people staying in your home for room and board.
Yep, that would be bad..... very bad.....
eljanitor is mostly right. Artists see almost nothing from an Itunes download. A good contract will usually net them ~$0.01 per download, and most see even less.
CDs are mostly the same way, with the vast majority of the money going to the record label. And while I don't support robbing them, the system is going to break at some point, and the argument that you are robbing from artists is invalid. Musicians make money from playing live, where they actually get a decent cut of the proceeds. Recorded music profits go directly to the record company coffers.
CDs are mostly the same way, with the vast majority of the money going to the record label. And while I don't support robbing them, the system is going to break at some point, and the argument that you are robbing from artists is invalid. Musicians make money from playing live, where they actually get a decent cut of the proceeds. Recorded music profits go directly to the record company coffers.
Do you have a source for this? I have read of a lot of lesser known bands getting their break through iTunes because it's easier for smaller labels to get exposure there.
Check out this link that details some of the details of Apple's deals with the labels. A lot of this info came out during a lawsuit filed by Eminem. Here's another link that lists similar numbers.
Of course, none of that is nearly as bad as this chart. It lists how much an artists needs to sell per month to even make the equivalent of minimum wage in the US. It seems streaming music REALLY doesn't pay.
Attachments
imo i think its the record company problem not apple
probably legal issues with the record companies and artists
probably legal issues with the record companies and artists
It does seem artists get royally screwed over by streaming providers
I was getting pretty fed up of Spotify because of the lack of an iPad specific app, and seeing those figures has finally persuaded me to cancel my Spotify premium subscription and go back to buying my music the traditional way (either via iTunes or physical CDs): I believe artists should receive a fair reward for their work and that's definitely not what Spotify give them...
To the OP:
Why don't you try to compose and produce one song? Let me know after the countless hours of arranging, writing, mixing, mastering, etc how much you want to sell your music for.. ok?
Obviously, if you can't write any music - you'll hire a musician, song writer, recording engineer - rent studio space, etc.. whatever method you use.. there are expenses involved in creating a song, whether you want to listen to it or not.
It took me 3 months to finish a song, recently. I upload it to itunes and sold about 800 copies - with my 70% cut, I received about $554. Would it have been awesome if I had sold, say a 100,000 copies? Yes, but I don't have a major record label's backing for that. A label would spend money on adveritsing, radio play, etc. to get my music 'out there'
But you know what people tell me? "Why don't you give your music away for free?" So my question to all of you, is, do you not think it's worth $0.99 to pay for something that someone has spent days/weeks/months creating?
I could gladly dump my music career and spend my hours at a regular job plus concentrate on my forex/stock market investing and make way more money.. but that's not what I like to do. So, again, why does everyone think music should be given away for free? How about movies? Let's spend thousands on cameras, lighting, equipment, actors, etc - and then have everyone download it for free?
Please stop this BS about 'labels are bad' - it's a convenient excuse downloaders make to justify stealing music. Labels spend tons of money to promote artists - they have to make their money back somehow, right?
iTunes pays 70% to the artist/label. The payout percentage for the label/artist depends on their contract. I've dealt with many labels, and I can tell you that most labels take a big risk by signing artists. If you look at the financials.. you wouldn't want to be a label owner.
Thank you.
Why don't you try to compose and produce one song? Let me know after the countless hours of arranging, writing, mixing, mastering, etc how much you want to sell your music for.. ok?
Obviously, if you can't write any music - you'll hire a musician, song writer, recording engineer - rent studio space, etc.. whatever method you use.. there are expenses involved in creating a song, whether you want to listen to it or not.
It took me 3 months to finish a song, recently. I upload it to itunes and sold about 800 copies - with my 70% cut, I received about $554. Would it have been awesome if I had sold, say a 100,000 copies? Yes, but I don't have a major record label's backing for that. A label would spend money on adveritsing, radio play, etc. to get my music 'out there'
But you know what people tell me? "Why don't you give your music away for free?" So my question to all of you, is, do you not think it's worth $0.99 to pay for something that someone has spent days/weeks/months creating?
I could gladly dump my music career and spend my hours at a regular job plus concentrate on my forex/stock market investing and make way more money.. but that's not what I like to do. So, again, why does everyone think music should be given away for free? How about movies? Let's spend thousands on cameras, lighting, equipment, actors, etc - and then have everyone download it for free?
Please stop this BS about 'labels are bad' - it's a convenient excuse downloaders make to justify stealing music. Labels spend tons of money to promote artists - they have to make their money back somehow, right?
iTunes pays 70% to the artist/label. The payout percentage for the label/artist depends on their contract. I've dealt with many labels, and I can tell you that most labels take a big risk by signing artists. If you look at the financials.. you wouldn't want to be a label owner.
Thank you.
Last edited by a moderator:
1. Go to a flea market.
2. Buy CD for $1.
3. Rip CD.
4. Copy music from your iPhone to your PC.
5. Repeat process until you've spent $500.
Last edited:
It does seem artists get royally screwed over by streaming providers
I was getting pretty fed up of Spotify because of the lack of an iPad specific app, and seeing those figures has finally persuaded me to cancel my Spotify premium subscription and go back to buying my music the traditional way (either via iTunes or physical CDs): I believe artists should receive a fair reward for their work and that's definitely not what Spotify give them...
Yeah, I always thought they couldn't be making any money off streaming, but I had no idea it was that bad. I heard that chart mentioned on a podcast, and I had to check it out. But wow, is streaming convenient.
Then again, I have a 160GB iPod, so I can stuff a ton of music on it.
Please stop this BS about 'labels are bad' - it's a convenient excuse downloaders make to justify stealing music. Labels spend tons of money to promote artists - they have to make their money back somehow, right?
iTunes pays 70% to the artist/label. The payout percentage for the label/artist depends on their contract. I've dealt with many labels, and I can tell you that most labels take a big risk by signing artists. If you look at the financials.. you wouldn't want to be a label owner.
Right, while I have downloaded public domain music (really old songs, historical songs etc.) I have no problem with itunes or Amazon-in fact they really deserve to be lauded for helping save the industry. Completely agree with the fair compensation aspect as well. Though if I were super rich like say the Hapsburg emperor (thinking of the film Amadeus here) having your own court musicians might be kind of cool.
Of that 70%, on average only about 15 goes to the artist/band.
The artist/band should make at least 50. I understand an artist/band would be nothing without the label and distributor, but what would the label and distributor be without artists and bands?
from that chart it looks like selling via itunes (and similar) is the best deal for artists, considering the amount of traffic/exposure they get compared to, for example, selling directly at concerts
but that's an issue with the contract with record companies rather than itunes.
Last edited by a moderator:
This is the silliest post I've read in quite a while. Thanks for that. This has nothing to do with the rest of the discussion nor does the OP state or suggest he hates any artist.
Besides the only people making money from most CD and MP3 sales are Apple and the record labels.
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
To those who disagree with the OP, how many MP3 collections out there do you think were paid for (through iTunes and CD purchases) in an amount equal to or greater than what iTunes would charge for that music collection?
My guess is that the percentage is low. Digital music in the form of the original Napster changed people's appetites to want more. They got more. But I don't believe buying music in the long run will ever be able to be reconciled with the appetite for a large library. People will either continue to augment iTunes purchases with "illegal" downloads or will move to rental services. I don't believe iTunes could ever be a solution in which all or even most of its customers only access music legally. Whereas, I think with something like Spotify you could approach a higher rate of legal activity among your customers. I'm not sure how easy it is for companies like Pandora and Spotify to make good business, though.
All in all, Apple and the record companies probably charge what they have to. Could they convert more illegal downloads into legal ones with lower prices? Possibly. They probably study it to find the sweet spot. Some people are willing to pay, some might not at any price, others both buy and steal. Maybe $1.29 is the perfect price at which enough honest people will pay, and lowering the price wouldn't attract enough "stealers" to offset the difference.
The bottom line is that I don't think it's a question of whether Apple is ethical or not. They make calculated decisions on how ethical they think their customers are. They don't expect perfection. They know it's a matter of economics and that people do steal and that is built into their entire ecosystem. They're counting on some of you to buy your 5,000 song library through iTunes. But they're not counting on everyone. Just on enough people, enough of the time, and whatever that number of people is and that percentage of the time is probably has a lot to do with the number $1.29.
I think Apple is most proud to have so many credit card numbers on file. They brag about that at each keynote--it seems to be the most valuable part of iTunes for them because it allows for so much opportunity with the app stores and whatever else comes next. And in the meantime, I think it's gravy any time you buy a song or album the legal way.
JMO.
My guess is that the percentage is low. Digital music in the form of the original Napster changed people's appetites to want more. They got more. But I don't believe buying music in the long run will ever be able to be reconciled with the appetite for a large library. People will either continue to augment iTunes purchases with "illegal" downloads or will move to rental services. I don't believe iTunes could ever be a solution in which all or even most of its customers only access music legally. Whereas, I think with something like Spotify you could approach a higher rate of legal activity among your customers. I'm not sure how easy it is for companies like Pandora and Spotify to make good business, though.
All in all, Apple and the record companies probably charge what they have to. Could they convert more illegal downloads into legal ones with lower prices? Possibly. They probably study it to find the sweet spot. Some people are willing to pay, some might not at any price, others both buy and steal. Maybe $1.29 is the perfect price at which enough honest people will pay, and lowering the price wouldn't attract enough "stealers" to offset the difference.
The bottom line is that I don't think it's a question of whether Apple is ethical or not. They make calculated decisions on how ethical they think their customers are. They don't expect perfection. They know it's a matter of economics and that people do steal and that is built into their entire ecosystem. They're counting on some of you to buy your 5,000 song library through iTunes. But they're not counting on everyone. Just on enough people, enough of the time, and whatever that number of people is and that percentage of the time is probably has a lot to do with the number $1.29.
I think Apple is most proud to have so many credit card numbers on file. They brag about that at each keynote--it seems to be the most valuable part of iTunes for them because it allows for so much opportunity with the app stores and whatever else comes next. And in the meantime, I think it's gravy any time you buy a song or album the legal way.
JMO.
Nope depends on the record label and the contract they set up. Look at the chart that was posted earlier.