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Music Downloads = Expensive Concerts? 698

Posted by Zonk from the shaft-the-listener dept.
melonman writes "According to an article at BBC News, $250 tickets for the latest Madonna tour are the fault of P2P file sharing. 'Before the advent of illegal downloads, artists had an incentive to underprice their concerts, because bigger audiences translated into higher record sales, Professor Krueger argues. But now, he says, the link between the two products has been severed, meaning that artists and their managers need to make more money from concerts and feel less constrained in setting ticket prices.' And it seems David Bowie agrees. Is 'the fans always get fleeced' the rock industry's equivalent to Moore's Law?"
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Music Downloads = Expensive Concerts? More

Music Downloads = Expensive Concerts?

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  • If Madonna prices it, they will buy... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by byteCoder ( 205266 ) * on Friday April 21, 2006 @09:59AM (#15172747) Homepage
    It's simple supply and demand and the desire to maximize revenues and profits.

    If you were Madonna and her management, would you rather sell:

    10,000 tickets at $250 each, totalling $2,500,000

    or sell:

    20,000 tickets at $100 each, totalling $1,000,000 ?

    In Madonna's case, she'll likely sell out at the hire price anyway and pocket $5,000,000.

    • The subsequent decrease in demand for concert tickets will be due to P2P too. Not the high prices. I'm sure they've got another professor that will completely agree. So it must be true.

    • Re:If Madonna prices it, they will buy... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ameoba ( 173803 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:47AM (#15173322)
      It's more like "Why would I want to sell out my concert at $100/seat if I can still fill the venue at $250/seat?".

      Either way, the article misses the point. Most artists see a very small percentage of revenues from record sales and rely on concerts to make their money.
    • I too don't see how concert pricing has anything to do CD purchases. Anyone willing to pay $100+ per person for a few hours of entertainment probably already has all the CDs (and DVDs). The musician doesn't get much of the profit out of a given CD sale anyway, a few dollars at best, so $100 vs. $103 (realistically $100 vs. $101 or less).

      Other merchandising doesn't count for this argument unless you can "share" it by P2P.

      The argument is flawed at best.

    • Re:If Madonna prices it, they will buy... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ken Hall ( 40554 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @11:49AM (#15174020)
      Or, look at it this way:

      Concert seats are a fixed supply, so traditional economics apply. The point where the demand drops off is the proper price point. If that's $100, $200, $300, it doesn't matter. Basic economics.

      But these rules don't apply to music downloads, where the supply is infinite. THERE, the idea is to sell for as little as possible to cover your costs, and profit based on quantity.

      This DOES tie back to the concert sales, but not like they're claiming. The more copies of your song there are floating around, the more people are going to hear it, and maybe want to see you perform live. That translates into HIGHER demand for those scarce concert tickets, which drives the price up.

      Subsidising the concert ticket prices with CD sales just skews the model. Let 'em charge what they can get, and the market will sort it all out.
      • Even in "infinite supply" situations like selling music downloads, the pricing doesn't derive from trying to sell for as little as possible. You still need to work out the demand elasticity, the difference is that you're expressly trying to maximize revenues rather than fill two thousand seats. The reason companies have to move prices lower, towards the cost of production, is that they have competition. The question I have is whether there are any serious substitutes for a Madonna download. Of course we kno

  • thats fine... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tont0r ( 868535 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @09:59AM (#15172751)
    I just wont go to their concerts. Just like the more they jack the prices of CDs up, the less Im going to buy them.
    • You sound like an enemy combatant in the War on Reason. See you it Gitmo!

    • This is exactly what should happen. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lave ( 958216 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @11:03AM (#15173516)
      Music in the digital age can be copied and will be copied. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, In a way it acts like radio. How much stuff do you "aquire" only to never get "into" or appreciate.

      This is how the record industry, wait, music industry should be. The digital music is the advert to get you to go to the live gigs Where they make their money.

      People complain endlessly about the lack of things for teenagers to do, and a gigging culture would benefit that endlessly.

      This would have the benefit of solving most of our problems with "pop" today. You can't sing live? You can't make any money. On the plus side you can rapidly cut down on the people and skills you need to smooth you recorded sounds waves into something presentable, in your "adverts."

      Music will not die. You can kill a record industry, but you cant kill a music industry. It's whether people except that maybe being a successful musician shouldn't mean that you earn more money than a brain surgeon.

      The powerhouses try to tell us that if piracy kills them that will be the end of music full stop. And that would be a Bad Thing. But it wouldn't be the end, and a world with free music and constantly gigging artists, could even be better.

  • Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:00AM (#15172760)
    Concerts were always priced at whatever the market would bear. The argument that artists were previously satisfied with their CD sales and therefore generous in their concert pricing, I don't believe for a moment.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GuyverDH ( 232921 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:04AM (#15172822)
      as well you shouldn't, as very little of the actual CD sales price ever makes it to the artists... It seems that the palms and pockets of every member of the recording industry that touches the money on it's way to the artist is covered in double sided tape, and most of the money is gone once the pile is actually handed off to the artist.

      • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Kombat ( 93720 ) <kevin@swanweddingphotography.com> on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:18AM (#15173006)
        very little of the actual CD sales price ever makes it to the artists.

        And the problem with that is .... ?

        Why should the artist get the lion's share of the money? What about the people that wrote the music, wrote the lyrics, recorded and mixed the tracks, corrected the artist's singing flaws during editing, the people who created the cover art, the people who advertise and market the album, etc. etc. etc.? Why should the self-absorbed drug addict who shows up 2 hours late and puts in a couple days' worth of work singing the songs that were written for him/her be awarded a disproportionate amount of the money? Just because its their picture on the cover?

        Haven't you learned anything from INXS? American Idol? Talented singers are a dime a dozen, and totally interchangeable. Why should the people who actually STUDIED a craft (sound engineers, marketing agents, talent scouts, cover artists, songwriters, etc.) get shafted out of a fair salary, so that the egomaniacal "artist" can bling themselves out like some sort of movie star?

        They're not curing cancer. They're just singing some songs. Since when does that entitle them to millions and millions of dollars?

        • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by richlv ( 778496 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:32AM (#15173160)
          What about the people that wrote the music, wrote the lyrics, recorded and mixed the tracks, corrected the artist's singing flaws during editing, the people who created the cover art, the people who advertise and market the album\

          ugh. i just love more and more punk, indie and whatnot scene...
          you know, the one where band members THEMSELVES (gasp !) write music & lyrics (that, suprisingly actually mean something besides "baby, oh yeah, lalala") ?
          the one where recordings are made in small studios and artist flaws are not digitally eliminated for months ?
          the one where band members themselves draw/create album art ?
          the one where most advertising is by word of mouth, concerting and such ?

          yes, such a mechanism does not earn billions for big studios and everybody around them, but isn't that something most people are happy with ?
          yes, artists don't get millions (or an _impression_ that they are getting them...), but it's funny that in that case people go to concerts for a very low fee ($2) and get recordings from artists directly or with very little resellers. even if they already have full doscography in their computers and then some more.
          they don't pay for these albums because they are unable to get to the music other way - they do so because they really like the music, the atmosphere in concerts and attitude by the band/artist.
          now, i need to see one band in latvia again, as previous time i was not clear enough to buy all their cds ;) (yes, paprika korps, that means you ;) ).

          no, really, ignore music stores. if you are interested in local artists, most of them sell their recordings themselves. if they are from another country, usually you can order throufh internet or wait for a gig nearby. and that will result in a good music, happy artists - and happy you. yeah, and world peace, of course.

        • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gr8_phk ( 621180 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:47AM (#15173319)
          "Why should the artist get the lion's share of the money? What about the people that wrote the music, wrote the lyrics, recorded and mixed the tracks, corrected the artist's singing flaws during editing, the people who created the cover art, the people who advertise and market the album, etc. etc. etc.? Why should the self-absorbed drug addict who shows up 2 hours late and puts in a couple days' worth of work singing the songs that were written for him/her be awarded a disproportionate amount of the money? Just because its their picture on the cover?"

          Gosh, in the good old days, the popular bands all wrote their own music and performed it live. You're either trolling, or one of these young whipper-snappers that doesn't know what real music is. Why should some jackass writer get revenue for life+70 years for spending 20 minutes writing some lyrics? I agree with you too - why should someone who does 20 takes in a studio followed by a lot of editing be given that same benefit for their "talent"? Same goes for studio musicians.

          If someone claims to have talent, let them make a living performing. Oh right, that's what the article says is happening...

        • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Thangodin ( 177516 )
          Artist, in this case, includes the song writers, who make more money than the recording artist (who may not even get a percentage, but only scale.) But even song-writers who perform their own material, and produce it in their own studios, the take is usually well short of a dollar per CD. Only about five years ago Paul MacCartney became the first artist in history to break the dollar barrier--and he handed the record company a finished product. All they had to do was burn it and ship it, and I never heard a

        • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Macdude ( 23507 )
          Why should the artist get the lion's share of the money?

          Because they're working on speculation. They don't get paid unless the music sells.

          What about the people that wrote the music, wrote the lyrics,

          They are just as much "the artists" as the musicians and singers.

          recorded and mixed the tracks,

          They are paid a salary.

          corrected the artist's singing flaws during editing,

          They are paid a salary.

          the people who created the cover art,

          They are paid a salary.

          the people who advertise and market the album, etc. etc. et

      • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Rocketship Underpant ( 804162 )
        Indeed. I read an article in the New York Times a year or so ago about a band that managed to have a record go gold that year -- In other words, of 100,000 or so albums released that year, they achieved what only 130 bands and performers could. They were the best of the best.

        Then the article gave the break-down of where their CD sales went. It went to the label, the distributors, the RIAA, the marketers, the recording studios, and so on. In the end, each band member made about 40 grand. We're talking supers

    • Precisely. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Chas ( 5144 )
      Besides, given the predatory nature of the recording industry towards artists, most only made money by touring as it was.

      Additionally, high-end acts (supergroups, mega pop stars, etc) have always had insane pricing on their appearances anyhow.

      So I don't see how something like this is a humongous surprise to anyone with enough neurons to form a synapse.

    • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mateo_LeFou ( 859634 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:13AM (#15172942) Homepage
      Record industry execs announce that all music will be in C major or A minor from now on.

      "We hate to do it, 'cause the fans really have enjoyed the other key signatures. But we can't afford black keys on our pianos anymore. Sorry. It's 'cause of piracy. So really it's the listeners' fault."

      Please use RIAA radar [magnetbox.com] to avoid giving these tools another cent, ever.

    • The days of artists touring to promote record sales went away long before CDs came on the scene. Most artists see CDs as a way to get people to come to their concerts and to buy their tee shirts, posters, and what ever other crap they can sell them. Most artists make the majority of their money from concerts since the record company tends to keep most of the money from record sales.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Steve525 ( 236741 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:34AM (#15173178)
      Actually no, (and maybe yes). Back when I used to go to concerts (15 years ago) all the big concerts sold out easily, often within the first minutes of going on sale. The tickets prices, if you could buy one at face value, were quite reasonable: maybe $40 tops. Even adjusted for inflation, that's nowhere near the face value of tickets today. However, unless you were one of the lucky few (or a crazy fan who camped out), it was challenging to get a ticket to a hot concert. (And as I said even the moderately hot concerts sold out fairly rapidly).

      The rapid selling out of concerts is evidence that the tickets were actually priced far below what the market would bear. In further evidence of this, scalpers generally could sell tickets for costs 2x or greater the face value. Hence, why I said "maybe yes". The scalpers were actually the ones selling the tickets at whatever the market would bear.

      As the article points out, the goal of touring used to be as much (or perhaps more) about promotion as money making. You needed to tour to support an album. I can remember many concert t-shirts with a "sold-out" logo accross them. I think it used to be important to the promoters that a concert sold-out, even if it meant a loss of ticket revenue.

      I think that the concert promoters have since realized that they are better served by raising ticket prices to whatever the market will bear. Essentially they are grabbing for themselves that extra money that used to go to scalpers.

  • or... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by carambola5 ( 456983 )
    Or maybe Madonna et al are money-grubbing who...

    Seriously. $250 per ticket? Whatever happened to "making music for the purpose of making music?"

    • Re:or... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rootofevil ( 188401 )
      People stopped wanting to feel, and started wanting to be entertained.

    • Re:or... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Mayhem178 ( 920970 )
      "making music for the purpose of making music?"

      Had to have existed in the first place for something to have happened to it.

      $250 for ANY concert ticket (I don't give a damn if it's front row) is ridiculous. I seriously hope no one pays for this. I just don't understand how artists and record labels and agents are getting the idea that raising the prices of their respective products will combat piracy or ease the "negative effects" piracy is having on their sales (for now, let's just ignore all the p

    • Re:or... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Whiney Mac Fanboy ( 963289 ) * <whineymacfanboy@gmail.com> on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:11AM (#15172920) Homepage Journal
      In Madonna's words:
      Hey Mr. DJ put a record on I wanna dance with my baby
      And when the music starts
      I never wanna stop, it's gonna drive me crazy

      Music, music
      Music makes the people come together
      Music mix the bourgeoisie and the rebel
      As long as the rebel has $250...

    • Or maybe Madonna et al are money-grubbing who...

      With an album called "Meterial Girl", I don't think that has ever been in question. ;-)

      Seriously. $250 per ticket? Whatever happened to "making music for the purpose of making music?"

      People still do it. They're called indie musicians, and they're not neatly as rich. Some people actually turn a profit while making music for the same of it, because it resonates with people.

      Madonna has been part of the super, mega hyped level of acts with huge levels of product

  • Right.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Fapestniegd ( 34586 )
    And the latest gas prices are due completely to the rise in price of a barrel of oil.

    Oh, and by price of a barrel of oil, I mean CEO salaries and bonuses.

    mmmmm executive greed mmmmmmmm

    • Re:Right.... (Score:3, Funny)

      by bhsurfer ( 539137 )
      Actually I'd venture a guess that the price of fuel has over time contributed to the rise in ticket costs. For example, the Rolling Stones had over 90 semi trucks full of gear they were crossing the country with - that shit adds up. Even a "smaller" act like Rob Zombie will have 15 to 20 trucks full of gear.

      And then there is, of course, good old fashioned greed.

    • No no no - Every time you engage in illegal music downloading, God causes a barrel of oil to get lost in shipping; that's the reason for higher gas prices according to RIAA internal memo of Ms. Mia Bonus...

      (What? It's no more absurd than some of the other insanity we hear from this group.)

    • Re:Right.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zippthorne ( 748122 )
      Ahhh, so you'd rather the prices be lower, but have shortages?
  • Madonna can charge $250 because that is what she wants to charge and people WILL pay it to go see her. On the other hand, look at Pearl Jam. a very popular band is selling tickets for their latest show for a whole $54 ticketmaster.com [ticketmaster.com]. This article is a bunch of shit.

  • Brain dead BBS writer? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Godeke ( 32895 ) * on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:01AM (#15172788)
    I usually find the BBS writer less brain dead than this article's.

    Let's see: these are artists who have made millions upon millions, so the need to tour is just about zero. So they jack the price up.

    Conclusion: illegal file downloaders cost live performance goers piles of cash. Um, yeah. Perhaps a better read is money hungry artists will fleece anyone they can for their new multimillion dollar home. Perhaps royalties *are* down on has been artists because of a combination of lower recording sales and their own stale presence on the market. So all they have is to repackage themselves doing classics live.

    That doesn't really support the conclusion very well. Then they go interviewing people who bought scalper tickets to a sporting event to somehow prop up the story? Please.

  • Article is incomplete: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:02AM (#15172790)

    When Robert Plummer states that artists need to charge more for their concerts to make up for sagging records sales due to file sharing, he conveniently leaves out the important fact that it is only the most popular artists that actually see a decline. As David Blackburn of Harvard illustrated in his paper, On-Line Piracy and Recorded Music Sales [harvard.edu] (PDF warning), the record sales of relatively unknown artists benefit from the exposure P2P file sharing gives them.

    So, if the big names want to charge outrageous sums for their concerts, let them. As of now, the tatic seems to be working, but as the situation develops, I think they'll wind up pricing themselves right out of the market.

  • BULLSHIT!!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:02AM (#15172792)
    $250 tickets for the latest Madonna tour are the fault of P2P file sharing.

    The prices are due to the public's willingness to pay $250 to see Madonna. The public is either stupid are has more money than sense. None of it has anything to do with P2P. If the public refused to pay $250 by simply not going to any of her shows, you'd see her tickets going for $50 in no time.
  • when we talked about napster everyone said they should make their money off concerts. now people are complaining?
  • Ticket prices were already taking a turn for the obscene before p2p ever gained popularity. Now they have a convenient excuse: "It's not our fault, we're just poor musicians trying to make a living, it's your fault you shameless downloading fans! p.s. please buy a couple $50 T-shirts on your way out".
  • Wouldn't that require leaving the house?

  • Without us, these stars would be working in a drive through at Taco Bell. The best to handle this is by not buying their overpriced music and not attending their shows. Their arrogant selfish people who feel that making millions isn't enough?!?! Gimme a break! I haven't bought a CD in over 10 years and have no plans to do so in the future.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
  • The economic (supply and demand) reasoning would actually be this: Concert tickets generally sell at a price where supply ROUGHLY equals demand. Therefore to sell at a higher price, demand must be higher now than it used to be. The reason: peeople have a music "budget". They can now get music for free so allocate their budget to concert tickets instead. Demand goes up and so do ticket prices. Their reasoning is wrong: entertainers can't just charge more to make up for lost sales: they can only charg
  • historically "bands"(except for the super established acts like Madonna/etc that have more favorable recording contracts) have made their money on the road (the performance, t-shirt sales, cut of the concession/etc).

    With CD sales the artists (with some exceptions) generally get such a small portion of the take. There's countless stories of musicians/bands with number 1 singles/albums and are broke (and not necessarily from living in excess) at the time their album is number 1.

    You obviously go on the road
  • Artists have always made their money on the concert tours. Always.

    Artists have always complained how little money is left over from record sales after the blood-sucking record companies extract all of the various contractual fees.

  • Finally, the Music Industry Gets it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by etully ( 158824 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:05AM (#15172835)
    This is the way it's *supposed* to work.

    Bits can be copied. DRM will never work. So instead of praying for better DRM, let the music be free and serve as an *advertisement* for your concerts!

    I've seen ticket prices as high as $400, $500 and up for seats to shows and that's fine. It's called supply and demand. Fans can't copy a concert seat, so they pay the going price.

    Of course, all that being said, I think that the RIAA is wrong when they say that CD sales are down as a result of P2P. CD sales are down because the music sucks.
  • Okay, the high price is because some artist are just downright greedy. Big stadium shows have had the best tickets in $150+ ranges for years. The concert is still one of the biggest money makers for artists, who in reality get little from their actual record sales. This is no some evil trend that always occurs either. A few years ago we were hearing about the change to small venue shows with cheaper tickets and smaller crowds. This is still not uncommon in some larger cities where these venues thrive o

  • I call BS! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Dukkhas ( 775352 )
    I mean it couldn't have anything to do withh the fact that her latest album isn't selling so good (by her standards) could it?

    The artists they name in the article have made a good record in decade.

    Bowie has advised his fellow performers: "You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring, because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left."

    Seems to me Bowie is saying play more shows not raise the prices so high nobody will show up.

  • Using this logic:
    - All home prices go up because some people do home improvements
    - The minimum wage keeps increasing because the baby boomers are getting older
    - The average lifespan of a human keeps increasing because we're evolving into a superhuman race of mutant beings, of which the Q continuum fears greatly.
  • Before the advent of illegal downloads, artists had an incentive to underprice their concerts, because bigger audiences translated into higher record sales
    Now "illegal downloads" are translated into more popularity (for free btw) and thus, higher concert tickets prices. Did I miss something?

  • Bowie agrees? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:06AM (#15172863)
    The last time I went and saw David Bowie in concert, it was for his Earthling tour. He was playing a relatively small venue in Atlanta and only charging $30 per ticket. It didn't come close to selling out. While the article does explicity state that Bowie sees the need to make more money off of concerts, his solution is "doing a lot of touring," not charging $200+ per ticket. Madonna has reached the status where she can charge $200+ per ticket. Most musicians will just see less attendance if they raise ticket prices. Looks to me like if this article is implying anything, it's saying that the days of good studio performers who can't play live are numbered.

    • Re:Bowie agrees? How about Prince? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BigBuckHunter ( 722855 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @01:26PM (#15174961)
      Prince sells tickets at about $50 a pop. Each concert go'er receives a CD as part of the "experience". The result is that Prince has one of the best selling albums of the year (without selling a ton of albums), gets billboard placement, and puts on a hell-of-a good show.

      Bowie's a god and all, but his live performances have always been less than stellar.

      BBH
  • I mean, it's *just* music. Why have we, as consumers, allowed ourselves to take it so seriously that it's turned into such a huge industry?

    Sigh.
  • I have no evidence to say whether this is actually correct or not (but, I suspect, neither do the authors of the article).

    But if it is true, is it really so bad? Some will pay $250 a person to see Madonna play. OK, fine, it's their money and they can do what they like with it.

    Meanwhile, we have access to P2P software that lets us sample all sorts of new music. Then I can spend my own money (and probably significantly less than $250) on seeing A Given Independent Band.

    Over time, maybe fewer people will go an
  • It seems the less sophisticated music becomes, and it seems to increase its desophistication exponentially, the more expensive exponentially ticket prices become.

    The upside is more people will go to bars and see new bands for cheap instead of going to see big label riaa pushed artists.
  • The way I come to a decision on if I go to a given concert is simple.

    If the cost of the ticket will buy more than half of a given artist's major releases, than I won't think of going.

    Specific example from recently.

    Depesh Mode is coming to Kansas City next month. Tickets are around $100 per person for the cheapest seats.

    At $15 per disk I can buy 6 1/2 of their major releases since their start = no sale.

    When you have to spend $200 for a night out with your SO, unless it's "extra special" .. than no dice.
  • Before the advent of illegal downloads, artists had an incentive to underprice their concerts, because bigger audiences translated into higher record sales, Professor Krueger argues

    Professor Krueger of Rhode Island Aeronautical Academy. Their athletic teams jerseys read "RIAA" for short.

    I believe their mascot is the Shark.
  • Personally, I blame high ticket prices on people illegally sneaking into concerts and stealing sound from legal concert-goers. I propose a system of Digital Concert Management, where all sound output is encrypted using a closed-source algorythm (and compressed to save bandwidth costs - 128kbs should be fine). Legal concert goers are then given headsets containing a Trusted Concert-Going Chip which decodes the compressed signal and plays back the audio through a complementary set of approved headphones. Of

  • Logic Error (Score:5, Funny)

    by richdun ( 672214 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:10AM (#15172914)
    Music Downloads = Expensive Concerts?

    Well if you put it that way, of course it'll be true. This is a common mistake with the assignment operator. What you meant to say was "Music Downloads == Expensive Concerts?" This will test to see if the statement is true, then return.

    • In what language? (Score:3, Informative)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      In Pascal and Maple, = is a comparison operator and := is an assignment operator. In the BASIC languages, = is a comparison operator in all contexts except LET contexts.

    • Music Downloads = Expensive Concerts?
      Well if you put it that way, of course it'll be true. This is a common mistake with the assignment operator. What you meant to say was "Music Downloads == Expensive Concerts?" This will test to see if the statement is true, then return.

      I'm not sure if that '?' is syntactically correct. Unless you remapped it to mean ';' using a global replace or something....

  • Is that all? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:11AM (#15172916)
    She'd have to do way more than sing for $250...

  • Concerts have historically been the artist's main (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GuyverDH ( 232921 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:12AM (#15172936)
    source of revenue... So it's no wonder that if the artist wishes to make more money, they would raise concert ticket prices.

    There's really no change here.

    It's been reported time and time again, that file-sharing has had very little or NO impact on music sales. Do a search withing /. to find stories regarding this topic.

    I stand by my own opinion that the majority of music file sharers are the same type of folks who used to sit by the radio with cassette-recorder and recorded music off the air. They were NEVER going to buy the premium product, unless they absolutely loved the music.

    There seems to be fewer high quality albums - ie, albums with more than one or two tracks actually worth listening to. Is it any wonder that sales have been declining?
    Now, let's add in those people who are still holding a grudge with the music industry over their CD price fixing and their attempts at forcing price changes on the legitimate online music sales.

    Does the term "Shooting one's self in the foot" come to mind? Or would "blowing one's own head off" be more appropriate?

  • Bullshit, this has been going on before napster (Score:3, Insightful)

    by shotgunefx ( 239460 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:13AM (#15172943) Journal
    Aging rockers have had the gall to charge ridiculous ticket prices long before P2P.

    They're just old and don't want to tour as much.

    What boggles me is that anyone would pay that much to see fading performers.

    One girl I date long ago was a huge Paul Simon fan. So I got her tickets for her birthday. They were at least $100 a piece. She want a shirt? 30 bucks for some sweat shop labored fucking shirt.
  • Is 'the fans always get fleeced' the rock industry's equivalent to Moore's Law?

    No, it's a side effect of conspicuous consumption. Quite frankly, people who spend $250 on a concert ticket are going to have no problem shelling out $15 for a CD - they might not be able to make rent, but music's important.
  • I can't be bothered to google the related articles at the moment, but I do remember reading about this exact thing in China several months ago.

    The gist was that CDs in China are so pirated, recorded music is considered nothing more than advertising and a cost of doing business for both the artists and studios. With the street price on a CD somewhere around $1, the money is made on live performances -- what can NOT be truely duplicated -- and endorsements.

    The article was exploring the directions that the U.
  • I don't believe for a second that it's about p2p piracy, but if we assume it's true for a few moments, who's really getting hurt? It's not the artist, because they're alreadying getting screwed over by the record companies, so what measly amount they lose from lower CD sales is a drop in the bucket. So after the 20% the artist gets (Out of which, they have to pay back a large share in advertising costs, production costs, salaries of their manager and producer, etc), that's 80% that the record company gets.

  • $250? (Score:2)

    by rlp ( 11898 )
    $250 to see a Madonna concert - much too low. They'd have to pay me a LOT more than that.
  • Recording artists are seeing less and less of their revenue from CD sales, but we have the record labels to thank for that. Labels get a huge portion of CD sales (and there's surprizingly little money to go around for a best-seller to begin with once they're done selling wholesale to Walmart). Labels get no portion of ticket sales. Coincidence? Of course it is, blame piracy! I don't know what these people would offer their shareholders as an excuse if they one day suceeded in stomping out file sharing
  • Look at this picture of Esther. She is an 82-year-old grandmother on a fixed income. Every month she has to choose between getting the medicines she needs and going to see a Madonna concert. This is unconscionable in a Western society. We should not be forcing our poor and our elderly to make these kinds of comprimises in their lives.

  • Grateful Dead (Score:5, Insightful)

    by waxcrash ( 604628 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @10:17AM (#15172992)
    The Grateful Dead did it right - let your fans record your shows, but charge money for the concerts. I wish all artists would release their music as free downloads, but of course pay to see them perform live.

  • I don't like Madonna, but I'm thrilled (Score:3, Informative)

    by soft_guy ( 534437 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @11:21AM (#15173712)
    I have never had the good luck to be able to see my very favorite rock band in concert. I have been a huge fan on them for about 20 years. However, I moved to New York a few months ago and next Thursday night I get to go see them play a concert in NYC.

    The ticket cost me $13 online. The parking will probably cost more than that :-)

    I am very excited.

  • They ask what they can get (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Flyboy Connor ( 741764 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @11:29AM (#15173806)
    Does this guy really think that Madonna will rape her public LESS if she has more CD profits? That she will consider NOT making maximum profits for giving a concert? Really, she will ask a thousand bucks for a ticket if she can get away with it. There is not really an alternative for a Madonna concert (at least not one that features Madonna), so she can ask what she can get away with. With CD's, of course, this is different: the higher the CD is priced, the more people will download its contents.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @11:53AM (#15174060)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • At $250 I better get laid by Madonna @ the concert (Score:3, Funny)

    by doodlebumm ( 915920 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @11:57AM (#15174109)
    Really, what concert is worth $250?!?!?!?! Especially with all the crap you have to put up with to go to it - parking, crowds, rude people. The last concert I went to made me realize how much I hate a concert. The guy next to me (and sort of in line with my view of the stage) was standing up dancing around with his butt in my face and flinging his arms in the air almost hitting me a couple of times. I asked him if he was going to stand up the whole concert. He turned to me and said, "Probably!" Well, I have a whistle that is about 135dB (with my fingers in my mouth, not an actual "device") At the end of the next two songs (with gayguy still dancing around) when everyone was screaming at the top of their lungs, I whistled the very loudest I could. They guy then got up and moved, and I stopped whistling. the rest of the concert was much better. Still, having to resort to that made me regret going to concerts.

  • Save Your Money: go to bars! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @12:52PM (#15174612) Homepage Journal
    Anyone who pays $250 for a ticket, either isn't doing it for the enjoyment of music, or they're just plain ignorant about what they're missing. Why would anyone pay more to see a band from a hundred yards away, instead of at a bar where you can walk right up to the stage? Even if Madonna didn't suck, she would still have to pay me to go see her under those kind of conditions.

    I go to about one or two live music shows per week (mostly local bands) and a $5 cover is about right. Last night I splurged and saw a famous touring band, and even that was only $20. And guess who had more fun: me drunkenly banging my head within arm's reach of Exodus shouting "Last Act! Of Defiance!", or someone peering at Madonna through binoculars.

  • Whose fault? (Score:3, Funny)

    by jridley ( 9305 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @01:18PM (#15174881)
    Gee, I thought the $250 ticket price was the fault of the artists thinking their presence was worth $20,000 a night, combined with the music being so lame they need 200 support people and 4 million dollars worth of equipment to make the concert be a memorable experience.

    They could replace all that money with some talent and still put on shows.

  • Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)

    by daem0n1x ( 748565 ) on Friday April 21, 2006 @02:18PM (#15175542)

    This is just plain FUD from the record industry and their puppets, like Madonna.

    Most musicians make money with concerts, because the share they have in record sales is awfully low. Everytime you buy a CD, you're not paying for the valuable work of the musician, most of the money goes directly inside the gaping throat of the record industry. We feed them loads of money and they create plastic, lab-made stars to fill the airwaves with.

    In my dream world, real artists will start to sell or give away their music direcly in the Internet, and make money from shows. They're not making big money selling records, anyway, so what's the problem? This would be a great incentive to make shows more interesting and worthwhile going to. I personally think nothing beats a live show.

    Plastic-made pop stars and record companies can just go fuck themselves and maybe we could start giving good artists more opportunities.

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