Bit Torrent Shutdown

But Stereolab had a new album out only last year I think, and Saint Etienne have been putting out a shitloads of compilations of rarities and stuff like that in recent years (I too like these groups). I'm sure that whatever diminishing returns they have to meet with because of piracy, it won't actually drive them to give up music altogether. Besides, several of Stereolab and SE's members are involved in side-projects, producing, guest appearances and so on.
This is not to say that piracy has no effect on artists, esp. those who are not Radiohead and the like, but I seriously doubt that piracy is responsible for anyone's artistic career being run completely into the ground. As far as I'm aware, ff artists, esp. bands, have to call it quits it's usually because of their record label's incompetence and greed.

Of course, this is why I said piracy when there is generalized commodity production. The incompetence and greed of the music biz is of course the main problem, but piracy exacerbates this and gives the music biz a good reason to screw the artists even more.

And also, I said that some of these bands have said that they might stop making music if this continues, not that they already have. As I already tried to clarify, I am not referring to the current situation, but one that is developing. This will become a big problem when people are no longer attached to the actual physical medium music is stored on (digital sales + piracy is still a tiny tiny part of music sales/consumption). CDs are still the main source of income for the music biz (and was actually growing until recently) and unless iTunes, Spotify etc. becomes the main way in which music is exchanged then it's dire straits for the music biz. But the music biz can also go the way that they did with blank cassettes (and CDs I think): they simply get rent on the surplus value of every single blank cassette, CD, DVD and VHS (well the movie industry in this case) that is sold. The entertainment industry in general are arguing that they should get rent from ISPs, which would be a similar move.

I tried to find what bands had said that they might stop releasing music and found that it wasn't those that I mentioned. Maybe it's one of the bands that just sound a lot like Saint Etienne or Stereolab. I'll just have to keep on looking for it.

For me it's not an argument against piracy, it's an argument against commodity production. This is only a "problem" in a context of generalized commodity production. It's also an argument against the notion that piracy is somehow political - it's not, it's just another form of consumption, just as political as buying fair trade coffee.

Personally I pirate all kind of media (apart from books, but come a good ebook reader and I see no need for buying them) and I simply can't understand why people keep buying CDs, DVDs and computer games when you can get them for free.

I certainly won't loose sleep over the music biz getting fucked over, though I would be bothered if bands that I like did stop making music because they can't make a living out of it.

Khawaga, you don't find piracy political? The fact it circumvents purchasing and operates on mutual aid?

Vlad, don't give me the "they're workers" nonsense. Premiership footballers are basically contractually employed by football clubs but like top tier musicians raking it in, they use their ridiculous wealth to go beyond being workers, owning companies and the like.

You didn't hear that argument from me. What I actually said was, if folk don't want to make music without monetary incentive, they can't love what they do too much. That's pretty self explanatory, you don't need to try reading between the lines or owt. There will always be art, be it video games, films or music, even if all the respective industries can't survive. Not sure what less glamourous workers working to survive rather than to have a good time has to do with this though.

Well there's open source for that, but I find piracy complimentary. I'm more interested in how it's done though. Obviously very few produce in comparison to how many download but if there was no mutual aid, P2P wouldn't work. Once the file is uploaded, it requires people to give where there's no personal incentive. It's that combination of self interest and looking out for others since if I don't seed, others won't on the files I actually want. What do you call that, if not mutual aid?

I did edit my post, and it's probably worth saying my ire is only with the ones at the top. I do feel sympathy for the likes of the studio musician and admin at the record company, but ultimately they're in an industry which has been caught by new technology that sooner or later is going to be made redundant.

Yeah, there's nothing political about piracy. It's every bit as political as shoplifting.