Trent Reznor morns OiNK, while Ozzy condemns downloads for ruining music

Maybe Ozzy would have sold more if he had actually made a decent album.

Ozzie’s really slumming it up in that palace of his. It’s ridiculous if he thinks the outdated business model of the record industry is going to persevere through modern times. The only people concerned with the record industry’s decline aren’t worried about the decline of music, but rather that they might not be able to keep their private jets. The whole prospect of Ozzie complaining like that is preposterous. Members of my family in the music business do very well with commissions, teaching, and playing shows.

A *record* 90 shows. This year. That’s a 2-hour show every 4 days. My God, someone get this man a chair and a cup of tea, he must be exhausted. Though to be fair, it would only have been 45 shows if he had sold 1/2 the tickets available, instead of 1/4. Fewer people want your music, so you have to work harder to reach them. Get over it.

I’m so tired of hearing about the “poor artists” who are “being robbed” by internet downloads of their tracks.

First of all, Ozzy isn’t anywhere near broke. He needs to suck it up and stop crying about having a few less extra stacks of cash lying around.

Second, internet radio has done a lot to curb illegal downloads, and with services like Pandora.com internet radio you get introduced to a ton of new artists and are even given the option of purchasing the tracks you like the most. I don’t see how that could hurt anyone.

Third, has it occurred to anyone that this isn’t the first time that illegal copies of music were made? I’m sure there were people out there copying each other’s 8-tracks. Hell, me and my friends used to copy tapes for each other all the time. The only difference between copying tapes and illegal downloads is that the digital pirating is more observable. When no one could see it, it wasn’t such a big deal. Now that we can see it, pirating suddenly has a huge impact.

And finally, times have changed since Ozzy started out in the music biz. It is time that artists find new ways of keeping up with the changes. Everyone else in every facet of society has had to deal with the changes that technology has brought (blogs/texting/camera phones have drastically changed what is considered acceptable public etiquette and have blurred the lines between public and private life) and artists are not exempt from these changes.

“…if you want to make music the money shouldn’t matter…”

Are you fucking STUPID? How are they supposed to live? Don’t use that “music as a pure art form” bullshit to justify your LimeWire addiction, dude. The performers are entitled to every penny. But, if they rework their business model, they can make a good living AND we can have inexpensive music. In the old (current) business model, you and I as album-buying fans give the music distribution companies over $5 of PURE PROFIT on every CD we buy. That doesn’t go to the musician(s). If the musicians sell to me directly, maybe I would only have to pay 25 cents a song or less, and they (the musicians) would still make their millions, as they are entitled to do. All this does is remove those thieving bastards in between you and your favourite band.

Let me make this clear: this article wasn’t written with the intent of condemning downloads or praising Ozzy, as some of you have written above. I wrote it simply to make a fun antithesis between the internet savvy Trent and the locked-inside-his-own-world Ozzy; and to make a point: that we live in a ever expanding technological world and that artists should re-evaluate the way they sale their work. It’s not the ’70s anymore.

Because I’m sure Ozzy needs more money.

“Because of illegal downloading, Lars won’t be able to install his gold plated shark tank bar for
at least another month!”

-South Park on Illegal Downloading

“All this does is remove those thieving bastards in between you and your favourite band.”

And this is what Trent Reznor is in support of…a world without record companies (i read that in another article somewhere, i think?), and I agree with him. It’s the companies who take everything and give nothing in return. See it used to be that the only place you could get music was in a music store, and that’s where the record companies had the advantage because they basically had the “distribution” locked down…what was the artist supposed to do, start their own chain of stores that only sold their cds?

but now, with the internet, we actually have the freedom to get music from a web (or p2p\other) server! but, instead of embracing that technology and using it as a whole different business model (it does have its advantages over actual stores), the record companies refuse to admit defeat and change their evil ways.

WE CAN WIPE THESE THEIVING SCUM SUCKING PARASITES THAT ARE CALLED RECORD COMPANIES OUT OF BUSINESS FOR GOOD! I dream of a world without record companies, let’s make that dream come true!