This is where your money goes...

Posted over 2 years ago

Artist:

Cameron Mizell
Album:

Cameron Mizell
Track:
- PLAY
Eddie's Theme

It's interesting to sit here and read everyone's thoughts on my previous post about downloading music. I feel like most people download illegally more songs than they'll admit, and justify it by saying all kinds of things. I'm alright with that, whatever floats your boat. By illegal, I simply mean the copyright owner is not being reimbursed for the transaction in anyway. Until that law changes, it's illegal. This is a discussion that needs to be constantly happening until all parties involved are content. I do believe that's possible.Personally, I don't download illegally. Generally speaking, I like having the hard copy. I download from iTunes when I only want a specific track or two, or it's music I only care to listen to on my iPod.As an artist, and I do consider myself a true artist and my music IS about the art (your call on whether or not it's any good), I like to get money when somebody downloads my music. Maybe I'm greedy, but the money I make from my music allows me to:1) Pay my band at gigs that don't pay shit. If you think true artists should give their music away, I give mine away for free at several NYC bars on a regular basis. But just because the bars don't pay much if anything at all, I still want to give my guys a little something for working so hard and sounding great every night. Without them, none of this is possible. If you respect nothing else, respect that.2) Get in the studio to record more tracks. I pay for everything myself, and it costs a decent amount of money to get a good recording. I live in a little apartment in Brooklyn, so there's no way I could record at home.3) Pay for every other aspect of the music biz I can't do alone, such as get a lawyer to review contracts, license cover songs I can't easily administer on my own, take pictures and create art for the album, website, and publicity, and anything where my time is more valuable than the cost of having somebody else do it.4) Keep my equipment in working condition, buy strings and other necessary items. I don't have any endorsements yet. Any takers?5) Invest in new technology that either saves me time or brings any of these costs down. Computer hardware, software, and printing/shipping materials that help me compose, notate, design, mail, and track sales are all important tools for a professional musician.If none of those reasons are worth your $.99 or 10 bucks, then I'd be happy to barter for the whatever your time and energy creates. Just shoot me an "email":http://www.cameronmizell.com/contact.html.

Comments (9)

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mutterimieli says Wow, here we go, the ultimate downloading music debate. I guess I'll just comment on your post and also in response to . Yes, downloading copyrighted music without purchasing it is "illegal" but so is cutting across the street instead of at the corner, within the crosswalk. Both are illegal, but people still do both. Personally, I love to own the CD and when I can I do purchase the music. I have a pretty decent collection, and other than the ones I got for presents and the 106 I won in a contest, I bought probably over 1,000 of them. I believe in supporting the artist, that's their life, their bread and butter, but before I buy, I want to hear what I'm buying. When I used to go out to shows, if I liked the band and the price was reasonable, I'd buy a few copies of the CD and ship them out to friends I thought would enjoy them. These days, for a lot of people, the only way they can do this is to download "illegally". Most of the people I know are like me, they download the music if they like it, they'll go out and buy it. For bands that can't get mainstream airplay, this might be the only way that people outside the city they live in can be introduced to them. For me, I can't do crowds of people, and can't get out much, this is the only way I can be introduced to fledgling artists. From what I've noticed on MOG, there are a lot of people like me, we sample and then we buy what we can, when we can. We are all about supporting the artist because music is air to us. If there were ways we could buy directly from the artist and bypass the "major" labels we would just so we could ensure that our favorite artists actually get the majority of our $10-12. Unfortunately it really doesn't work that way, we have to go through the big boys and pay the set amounts where the artist gets a measly percentage for bleeding their souls in order to share their essence with the world. As for the internet, I don't think it's killing music, I think it's enhancing music and helping to spread it all over the world. How else would a small band from a very small town get their sound out. Places like (yes I'm going to mention it) myspace have helped promote bands that would have never been able to get exposure any other way. And as for MOG, through the people I've met in here, I've been able to explore so many new bands of different genres that I would have never of heard of otherwise and I'm quite a bit poorer than I started out because of it. Its not like the people in here are downloading your CD and then burning copies and selling bootlegs, they're downloading your music and trying to find you more fans. Wouldn't you rather someone download your music and decided they like it, try and hit some of your shows, then go out and buy the CD and share a few songs with friend so they can share in your dream, and in turn they go out and buy your CD and so on and so forth? Okay, I've rambled enough, 2 days no sleep makes me a jabberjaw.

Permalink posted 12/15/2006
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mutterimieli says Wow, here we go, the ultimate downloading music debate. I guess I'll just comment on your post and also in response to this post. Yes, downloading copyrighted music without purchasing it is "illegal" but so is cutting across the street instead of at the corner, within the crosswalk. Both are illegal, but people still do both. Personally, I love to own the CD and when I can I do purchase the music. I have a pretty decent collection, and other than the ones I got for presents and the 106 I won in a contest, I bought probably over 1,000 of them. I believe in supporting the artist, that's their life, their bread and butter, but before I buy, I want to hear what I'm buying. When I used to go out to shows, if I liked the band and the price was reasonable, I'd buy a few copies of the CD and ship them out to friends I thought would enjoy them. These days, for a lot of people, the only way they can do this is to download "illegally". Most of the people I know are like me, they download the music if they like it, they'll go out and buy it. For bands that can't get mainstream airplay, this might be the only way that people outside the city they live in can be introduced to them. For me, I can't do crowds of people, and can't get out much, this is the only way I can be introduced to fledgling artists. From what I've noticed on MOG, there are a lot of people like me, we sample and then we buy what we can, when we can. We are all about supporting the artist because music is air to us. If there were ways we could buy directly from the artist and bypass the "major" labels we would just so we could ensure that our favorite artists actually get the majority of our $10-12. Unfortunately it really doesn't work that way, we have to go through the big boys and pay the set amounts where the artist gets a measly percentage for bleeding their souls in order to share their essence with the world. As for the internet, I don't think it's killing music, I think it's enhancing music and helping to spread it all over the world. How else would a small band from a very small town get their sound out. Places like (yes I'm going to mention it) myspace have helped promote bands that would have never been able to get exposure any other way. And as for MOG, through the people I've met in here, I've been able to explore so many new bands of different genres that I would have never of heard of otherwise and I'm quite a bit poorer than I started out because of it. Its not like the people in here are downloading your CD and then burning copies and selling bootlegs, they're downloading your music and trying to find you more fans. Wouldn't you rather someone download your music and decided they like it, try and hit some of your shows, then go out and buy the CD and share a few songs with friend so they can share in your dream, and in turn they go out and buy your CD and so on and so forth? Okay, I've rambled enough, 2 days no sleep makes me a jabberjaw. Oh..BTW, could you delete the first comment..I messed up the code and it will continue to mess up the Mog-O-Sphere. 'k thx!

Permalink posted 12/15/2006
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mutterimieli says Oh..Hi too..and I hate that iTunes things too..big time annoying! :)

Permalink posted 12/16/2006
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david hyman says -p2p is a pain in the ass. the metadata sucks. most songs are fake. the whole thing is not worth it.

Permalink posted 12/16/2006
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Violet Grey says It wouldn't be that way if the record companies hadn't stepped in and destroyed the process. When I first started using Napster, long before Metallica and the RIAA cut off it's balls, the only problems I used to have was downloading over the dial up we had. Now I have no use for P2P downloads because they are a big pain in the ass. I did switch over to legal downloads though, and I have no complaints.

Permalink posted 12/16/2006
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mutterimieli says err.. the iTunes thing I was talking about is his pet peeve... which is having to wait for iTunes to load my library everytime I open it. It's just been last two release that this has been happening. And I actually do prefer to obtain music "legally", it just doesn't always happen that way due to circumstances. I am one of those freaks that likes the packaging, the liner notes and knowing that it's legal. Like David, I do enjoy browsing through the liner notes when I'm listening and knowing that if anything happens to my computer I still have my music.

Permalink posted 12/16/2006
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lemontwist says By illegal, I simply mean the copyright owner is not being reimbursed for the transaction in anyway. Until that law changes, it’s illegal. So... buying used records at record stores is illegal? As far as I'm aware that's not something that artists get reimbursed for. I buy the majority of my physical CDs used. Vinyl is the only thing I'll buy new. I pay for iTunes purchases, I pay for CDs and vinyl here and there, go to concerts and buy merch, but I am extremely broke these days. No job, and my money has to go to things like food and rent. I still want to listen to new music, discover new stuff, and support the artists that I know and love. I have made less money this year than any other year that I've been bringing in a paycheck, and I've gone to more concerts, bought more merch, etc... So it's not like I don't want to support musicians. (Though I wish I could support musicians without supporting the RIAA.) And I totally agree with Jill and all of her comments. Anyway, if you want my thoughts about this I had written them in a post a few weeks back...

Permalink posted 12/16/2006
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Soulfunksticat says FIrst off, thanks for commenting all on that last post. I'm not pissed at anybody, and I hope your not pissed at me. I'm just a squirrel trying to get my nut, you know? Just like the next guy. This is good, a discussion is going on. I don't care who rolls their eyes, because we do need to all think about this. I guess I'll respond to a couple comments: What is illegal? Look, I just defined it in my original post so we could move past it. Does it suck? Yeah! Buying and selling used records is not illegal. I respect your logic, but it ain't the case. Also, I don't have a problem with people sharing my music. It's available on some P2P sites, and that's cool. But I prefer to email my mp3s to people or give away a CD at a show if somebody is curious enough about my music but not ready to pay (and I do this all the time, you just have to ask). It partially ensures that they get a quality representation of my work and not a corrupted file. And they'll usually buy a CD or download later on, if anything because they thought I was nice. Here's my real beef and the real focus of this post: I get offended when I hear the old "True artists should only care about the art, not the money." Yo, reality check. The only "artists" I know that have that luxury are trust fund babies that don't have to support themselves. The rest of us get hungry and have to sell out in one way or another. I have a day job to handle that, a job I love doing. But I also love making music and the money I generate through music is reinvested to cover more of those expenses. Maybe someday I'll make enough money from music to support myself, but I'm not counting on it. Of course, I'm also not counting on my day job lasting forever, so it'd be nice to have multiple streams of income. What this really comes down to is being smart consumers and standing up for what we believe in. I respect people that take a stance on something and stick up for it. Of course we have to pick our battles. We can't all afford to buy sweatshop free clothing, organic cage free food, feed the hungry, save the children, be entirely independent of fossil fuels, etc. But if we're knowledgeable about all these things, we can do a little here and there that collectively makes a difference. Moggers care about music, and we should all be making our choices for a reason. That's what I'm trying to figure out. If you believe strongly in free downloads, fuck it, fight the system and start the revolution. But don't lie to yourself by imagining everyone involved in making music is taken care of. Your hard earned buck can support hard working people (and not always the RIAA), so think and spend it wisely. (steps off soap box) Later peeps, time to practice!

Permalink posted 12/16/2006
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Soulfunksticat says By the way, A.J. (aka lemontwist), if you read this, I just checked out your post and it's great. People need to think through things like you do. All artists and bands make money differently, I happen to make more from selling my music on CDs and iTunes than gigs right now. It's just up to the artist to communicate that and the fans to be aware of the facts. If you don't support your favorite bands somehow, how are they going to keep rockin your socks off? Thanks for your thoughts!

Permalink posted 12/16/2006