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Comment by dylangs1030 | Hacker News Reader

Right, this is the music industry adjusting to the freedom of information, one massive merger at a time. If they keep focusing on distribution, they'll keep losing money with piracy. I doubt music will ever be totally free, but they should at least focus more on shifting the market to branding and merchandise rather than fight an idealist war where no one commits piracy despite the ease.

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Piracy is actually lower now on the list of how people get music for free. Number 1 is YouTube. Ad supported streaming and radio are also up there.

Piracy has been falling as a primary mover of free music for quite a while now.

The shifting of the market to branding and merch has been going on as long as I've been in the industry. I was a big part of it at Warner for a while, in our direct-to-fan initiatives.

The problem is where money in these companies is invested. They need to be technology oriented entities, but don't want to be. Apple cleaned the clock on that, and they let them.

AFAIK Youtube has deals with the labels so that they get a cut of advertising revenue for any music video. Also for anyone that uploads cover versions etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if that income is quite substantial.

It isn't.

Source, please?

Any artist royalty statement. (I manage a number of indie musicians). Same goes for Spotify. You are talking pence for hundred's of thousands of "views".

Probably costs more to account it to the artist than the actual royalty.

http://bizcovering.com/major-companies/how-much-do-youtube-p...

"Youtube partners will make in the range of $2.5 to $5 per 1000 video views The most popular stars will earn $5 per 1000 views. This can really add up if you have 1 million views per video. Nigahiga for example, will earn $5000 per video they put up. This range can vary depending on number of advertising clicks."

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...

"Shane Dawson's estimated earnings from YouTube advertising on his video clips in past 12 months: $315,000"

I'm sure it varies wildly based on content, how the users got there, etc

Youtube Partners != labels.

That doesn't in anyway match with the actual income labels and artists I deal with are seeing.

Do you mean the total revenue isn't that substantial, or the cut of the income that flows downhill to respective people (like the artists, managers, etc) isn't?

Both

90% of music videos on youtube are unauthorized, i.e. piracy.

I don't want music to ever be free. I want my artists to be able to continue their craft and keep their concert costs relatively low. I want to pay them for their goods :) The people I listen to tend to be good enough for at least a dollar a song.

you don't need to pay a dollar a song.

You could also go to their concerts, buy their gear, go to their appearances, etc.

This is how music industry works in Korea, where most all music is given away for free

The problem with this is it assumes you can reasonably get to their concerts. One of my favorite artists is playing a gig on his home ground next Wednesday. It's 1,500 miles away from me. To the best of my knowledge, it's been years since he last played within a thousand miles of my house. I haven't seen him perform since 2006.

Also, I don't know about you, but the idea that you should support musicians by buying "gear" (I assume you mean stuff like t-shirts) just seems very, very mixed-up...

It also assumes the musicians perform live. My music, for instance, doesn't lend itself well to live performance, so I don't.

This is why I love bandcamp - pay as little or as much as you like is a great system. I, and others I know, have downloaded something for free, liked it, and gone back an given the artist money (along with a bunch of new sales through recommendations).

I'm fairly sure will be almost always free (except for live shows, and physical records as merchandise).

Music was free before copyright came along in the last couple of centuries, and is natural for it to be free again now that distribution and sharing is even easier. Already there are plenty of people releasing their music for free, and there is no reason why everyone shouldn't do the same.

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