File Sharing. A Gift or A Curse to Hip Hop?

Idiopathic Joker
Idiopathic Joker Members, Moderators Posts: 45,691 Regulator
I'm watching this documentary on Napster and it shows how strongly artists like Dr. Dre and Eminem thought file sharing was stealing from them, and someone like Chuck D was all for it. Some people consider this period the beginning of the death of the record store, but what do yall think? Did file sharing hurt or help hip hop? Does a leaked album hurt that artist or help to gain that artist more fans? How has file sharing changed music for the better and worse?
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Comments

  • Go figure
    Go figure Guests, Members, Confirm Email, Writer Posts: 4,662 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2016
    Gift and a curse. It hurt the industry which in turn hurts the artist (artists get ? over by industry more often than not as well).

    But for the artist it leads to more exposure and more fans.

    Take an artist like Currensy who gives away countless projects for free for example. He gained a respectable following and can make money on his own doing shows off free music and use the internet as free marketing.
  • 5 Grand
    5 Grand Members Posts: 12,869 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I remember when file sharing started. It was a gift because a lot of stuff was out of print. Meaning, you couldn't just walk into a store and buy it.

    Or, in some cases there might be one song on the album you really liked but the rest of the album was wack. So you'd have to spend $11.99 on the CD for one song.

    All things considered, file sharing is a gift. There's soooooo many songs that came out in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s that were impossible to obtain because the record labels had gone out of business. All it took was one person to have the original record/tape/CD and he could upload it for anybody who was a member of that website. I remember when I was a member of Oldschoolhiphop.com. It was a site dedicated to people my age who remember songs from the early 80s. We'd go on the message board and request songs that we could only remember by the chorus, or maybe we only knew one line from the whole song. Inevitably somebody would know the song and post it. It was a beautiful thing.

    I'll never forget the day I got the Ego Trip Book Of Rap Lists MP3 File (1979-1998) It was the top rap songs every year from 1979-1998. That would have been impossible without file sharing.

  • MeekMonizzLLLLLLe14
    MeekMonizzLLLLLLe14 Members Posts: 15,337 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Gift plain and simple. Concerts would not be packed in modern hip hop if it wasn't for the ease of bootleg ? . Plus rappers now be doing deep cuts from an albums and ? know every word. 10 years ago that same fan would have only bought the single. The exposure of free music has led to more fans and more access to listen to more artists.

    A rap fan from brooklyn in 2000 may only buy a Jay album or a Nas album with actual cash. But bootlegging could have got them into bone thugs or outkast or the cash money records crew or no limit because it's free to listen to albums.
  • CeLLaR-DooR
    CeLLaR-DooR Members Posts: 18,880 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Gift. 100% Put the power in the hands of the consumer, makin' the way for Spotify and the like. Artists don't get as much money and never will. It's a shame for them but it just means you've gotta get your outside music deals on if you wanna be a super millionaire.

    The labels at the moment are the ones that should be most afraid. They're still tryna get a cut of everything but in all readiness these already established ? should all be independent or on indie labels.

    Also, it means you need to put out quality or at least have that reputation for ? to buy your CD and go to your concert.

    With legal streamin', I can't see how it's a curse at all; at least to the consumer
  • SheerExcellence
    SheerExcellence Members Posts: 6,140 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Link the documentary you watching t/s
  • Idiopathic Joker
    Idiopathic Joker Members, Moderators Posts: 45,691 Regulator
    Link the documentary you watching t/s

    It was called Downloaded
  • FishNChips
    FishNChips Members Posts: 1,944 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Gift for the fans

    Curse for the artists and labels
  • HerbalVaporCapers
    HerbalVaporCapers Members Posts: 3,202 ✭✭✭✭✭
    5 Grand wrote: »
    I remember when file sharing started. It was a gift because a lot of stuff was out of print. Meaning, you couldn't just walk into a store and buy it.

    Or, in some cases there might be one song on the album you really liked but the rest of the album was wack. So you'd have to spend $11.99 on the CD for one song.

    All things considered, file sharing is a gift. There's soooooo many songs that came out in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s that were impossible to obtain because the record labels had gone out of business. All it took was one person to have the original record/tape/CD and he could upload it for anybody who was a member of that website. I remember when I was a member of Oldschoolhiphop.com. It was a site dedicated to people my age who remember songs from the early 80s. We'd go on the message board and request songs that we could only remember by the chorus, or maybe we only knew one line from the whole song. Inevitably somebody would know the song and post it. It was a beautiful thing.

    I'll never forget the day I got the Ego Trip Book Of Rap Lists MP3 File (1979-1998) It was the top rap songs every year from 1979-1998. That would have been impossible without file sharing.

    I'll never forget the day you admitted getting your manhood stolen.

    Over here posting all normal and ? now...
  • _Goldie_
    _Goldie_ Members, Moderators, Writer Posts: 30,349 Regulator
    edited April 2016
    It used to be a gift and a curse, but now that they've been able to figure out how to generate money through streaming and create a system so that the artist will be credited for "album/single sales" through streaming, it's almost back to normal now. I'd say it's currently a gift.
  • tompetrez3
    tompetrez3 Members Posts: 6,669 ✭✭✭✭✭
    it helped hip hop tremendously. It helped hip hop get computer and tech literate even before napster in 90s with BBS and LANs. It help break coast barriers. It even increased sales in most cases because 1995-2005 not everyone or every city had high speed internet. Search engines were not that precise and popular. Torrents and zip files were not always stable back then. People were downloading maybe 1-2 songs at a time that would take hours if not days. ? Dre and Eminem ? were not hurting sales back then. I actually think that the industry sabatoged hip hop numbers in past 15 years trying to make us the scapegoats for music piracy. Every other genre has consistant sales or sales increase in past 10 years except ours but yet rap concerts and venues outsell the other genres on live events. And also hip hop cds and vinyl have the biggest FBI warning stickers out of all the other genres. Nobody is not going to admit it until some ? white hipster says it but what ruined hip hop sales in 2000s is when they stopped making CASSETTES. NO CASSETTES NO HIP HOP!! I tired of ? fronting on tapes.
  • 5 Grand
    5 Grand Members Posts: 12,869 ✭✭✭✭✭
    tompetrez3 wrote: »
    it helped hip hop tremendously. It helped hip hop get computer and tech literate even before napster in 90s with BBS and LANs. It help break coast barriers. It even increased sales in most cases because 1995-2005 not everyone or every city had high speed internet. Search engines were not that precise and popular. Torrents and zip files were not always stable back then. People were downloading maybe 1-2 songs at a time that would take hours if not days. ? Dre and Eminem ? were not hurting sales back then. I actually think that the industry sabatoged hip hop numbers in past 15 years trying to make us the scapegoats for music piracy. Every other genre has consistant sales or sales increase in past 10 years except ours but yet rap concerts and venues outsell the other genres on live events. And also hip hop cds and vinyl have the biggest FBI warning stickers out of all the other genres. Nobody is not going to admit it until some ? white hipster says it but what ruined hip hop sales in 2000s is when they stopped making CASSETTES. NO CASSETTES NO HIP HOP!! I tired of ? fronting on tapes.

    Cosign the bolded.


    MPEG technology didn't come around until around 1995. But even then it took forever to download a song. In fact, it took a while just to download a JPEG image. I remember living with my folks and we had a 56K computer hooked up through landline (nowadays people don't even have landline) If you wanted to download a song you'd highlight like 20-30 songs and go to bed. When you'd wake up in the morning you'd be lucky if half of them downloaded.

    File sharing completely annihilated cassettes. When you've reached the point where you can download whatever you want, arrange them in order and burn a CD-R, cassette tapes become irrelevant.

    I can remember the deathbed of cassettes being around 2000. Meaning, they stopped making cars with cassette decks.

  • DOPEdweebz
    DOPEdweebz Members, Moderators, Writer Posts: 29,364 Regulator
    The fans are the gift and the curse.

    At the end of the day you only as big or as small as your fans AND haters imo.
  • TayGettem
    TayGettem Members Posts: 6,859 ✭✭✭✭✭
    5 Grand wrote: »
    I remember when file sharing started. It was a gift because a lot of stuff was out of print. Meaning, you couldn't just walk into a store and buy it.

    Or, in some cases there might be one song on the album you really liked but the rest of the album was wack. So you'd have to spend $11.99 on the CD for one song.

    All things considered, file sharing is a gift. There's soooooo many songs that came out in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s that were impossible to obtain because the record labels had gone out of business. All it took was one person to have the original record/tape/CD and he could upload it for anybody who was a member of that website. I remember when I was a member of Oldschoolhiphop.com. It was a site dedicated to people my age who remember songs from the early 80s. We'd go on the message board and request songs that we could only remember by the chorus, or maybe we only knew one line from the whole song. Inevitably somebody would know the song and post it. It was a beautiful thing.

    I'll never forget the day I got the Ego Trip Book Of Rap Lists MP3 File (1979-1998) It was the top rap songs every year from 1979-1998. That would have been impossible without file sharing.

    I see u bounced back and came back to reality after ur whole ? ? ass ? u break down...
  • NothingButTheTruth
    NothingButTheTruth Members Posts: 10,850 ✭✭✭✭✭
    For Hip-Hop? A gift. It helps spread the message the artist is trying to convey. It's only a curse to the culture vultures.
  • lethal5
    lethal5 Members Posts: 1,889 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Definitely a Gift for the fans....what I look like paying for an artist who constantly bragging bout how rich he is when I still live in an apartment. ..thats ass backwards.

    I havent paid for music since like 2005....no ? given.
  • Stew
    Stew Members, Moderators, Writer Posts: 52,234 Regulator
    edited April 2016
    Thieves. Mfs dont support music at all talkin bout "this ? need to step his game up" foh
  • Stew
    Stew Members, Moderators, Writer Posts: 52,234 Regulator
    Stew wrote: »
    Thieves. Mfs dont support music at all talkin bout "this ? need to step his game up" foh

    I have been a thief too but I do more than enough support to make up for it.
  • MasterJayN100
    MasterJayN100 Members Posts: 11,845 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Eminem and Adele albums are illegally leaked but people go out and support them tho.black music isnt as supported as white artist music.alot of black artists arent educated about the game,have you ever seen eminem ? about leaked music?cause he has a secured contract.The tours really pay him
  • Stew
    Stew Members, Moderators, Writer Posts: 52,234 Regulator
    Eminem and Adele albums are illegally leaked but people go out and support them tho.black music isnt as supported as white artist music.alot of black artists arent educated about the game,have you ever seen eminem ? about leaked music?cause he has a secured contract.The tours really pay him

    Ever seen Jayz or Beyonce ? about leaked music?
  • Idiopathic Joker
    Idiopathic Joker Members, Moderators Posts: 45,691 Regulator
    Eminem and Adele albums are illegally leaked but people go out and support them tho.black music isnt as supported as white artist music.alot of black artists arent educated about the game,have you ever seen eminem ? about leaked music?cause he has a secured contract.The tours really pay him

    Lol Eminem calls them thieves in the doc I was referring to
  • Idiopathic Joker
    Idiopathic Joker Members, Moderators Posts: 45,691 Regulator
    I'll download a album from torrents and if I like it, I'll buy it from Google Play or something. I don't keep torrent albums long. There's so much music I want to own, I lose a lot of storage space.
  • JamieShea88
    JamieShea88 Members Posts: 68 ✭✭
    Eminem and Adele albums are illegally leaked but people go out and support them tho.black music isnt as supported as white artist music.alot of black artists arent educated about the game,have you ever seen eminem ? about leaked music?cause he has a secured contract.The tours really pay him

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_-p99Vpo0p0
  • _God_
    _God_ Members Posts: 6,396 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Gift for hip hop
  • x the unknown
    x the unknown Members Posts: 2,255 ✭✭✭✭✭
    FishNChips wrote: »
    Gift for the fans

    Curse for the artists and labels

    was gonna type that