Why buy music?

To support the artist? Or the Record Label?

Why would I support the artist? They all make lots of money, or, at least more than I do. The record labels ask unreasonable high prices just to make more money. Does the band manager need that much money? Will one CD less influence their income? Will they not be able support their family if they make 200.000 dollars a year instead of 300.000? If this is what you think, please also consider this:

Facts:

The Gross Domestic Product (= an indicator of the economy) of the United States has increased with approx. 7%(¹)) from 2000 till 2002.
The sales in the music industry have decreased with 15% from 2000 till 2003(²).

- What about the guy who sells the music in his cd-store? The store that he build up in the last 10 years? Every year he had to loan money to keep it up and running. Will he have a problem when his income drops from 1700 a month to 1445 (-15%) a month? Imagine which bills you would not be able to pay with this decrease of income.
- What about the people who press the CD's or drive them through the country? Will the management be able to keep all of the production-staff when the sales have decreased with 15% in 3 years? Imagine there are 20.000 people working in the music industry. Logically, 15% of them (3000 people with families to support) have lost their jobs in these 3 years.

It is not said that the decrease of the sales in the music industry is all caused by people burning instead of buying. But if you compare the decrease of the music industry to the growth of the economy, than you can conclude that this decrease is certainly not normal.

But downloading music & burning it onto a CD is much cheaper?

Yes it is. And taking your bread from the store instead of buying it is cheaper too. It simply makes you a thief if you do not pay for what you use. OK, prices of CD's are high, and the record industry should really come up with a better solution than sueing people. But that does not make you less a thief.

Our humble opinion is that you should buy what you use, and so you should buy the music you listen to. Preferably in these stores ;)

(¹) figures taken from http://www.census.gov/statab/www/part3.html
(²) figures taken from http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/pdf/2003yearEnd.pdf