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Teens Don't Buy Legit MP3s Because They Can't?
iSeal writes "According to a recent study, 13-17 year olds are both the most likely to pirate music, and also the most likely to own a portable MP3 player. Yet, as this article goes on to say, the lack of credit card ownership prevents teens from buying music online. The author maintains that since regular record shops don't sell MP3s, or gift cards to places that do sell MP3s, its practically impossible for teens to buy legit MP3s on their own. From the article: 'If the only way to obtain music online continues to be through illegitimate means, then we are no better off than in the days of Napster.'" I'm not sure I agree with some of the conclusions here (you can buy iTunes cards at Walgreens), but it's an interesting discussion.
I don't buy MP3s because there's no freaking way to just buy the files - not stream them, not download DRMed crap, but just buy the plain old MP3s.
Rhapsody? iTunes? Can't do that.
Only independent websites (e.g. magnatune.com) have the decency to give you something worth paying money for.
Even if teenagers had credit cards, I think teenagers would still more likely opt to illegally download mp3s just because it's "illegal", therefore it's cool to do so.
Respect the laws of physics, for the laws of physics have no respect for you.
iTunes is effectively a different site in each country though, accepting the local methods of payment. For example in the EU, Maestro/Switch.
And on the iTMS you can buy Pre-Paid cards from Tescos/Sainbury's/Asda, you can set up an allowance funded by your parents' credit card or can recieve a non-physical gift over the internet. There are plenty of ways that an under 18 can access legal music, the reason they don't is because 79p is worth a lot more to a 13 year old than it is to a 24.
Just look at the average teenager, mummy bought them a snazzy new mp3 player and gives them perhaps some allowance each month which is usually spent on fags and alco. Asking for more money to go and buy music usually doesn't work but parents are already paying for broadband anyway. The next logical step? Get music for free.
It's really that simple imho.
I'm not at all surprised that teens don't buy MP3s. Almost no one sells them! iTunes sells AAC tunes, so that doesn't count, and almost all others use WMA. The only exception I can think of allofmp3.ru and indie record companies which only cater to a niche market...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
They can pay with mobile phone credit.
liqbase
There is no fucking point. If the cops ever stop at my house, I'm screwed anyway: I copy CSS protected DVDs (illegal), I listen to copyprotected CDs on my MP3 player (illegal), I have and know how to use Wireshark (formerly known as Ethereal, soon to be illegal where I live), I encrypt my data (my own data, not illegal but encryption means I'll never get my hardware back). I might as well go all the way. That's what legislators need to get through their thick heads: If you make normal behaviour illegal, you produce criminals. Not only do you hang a sword over the head of good citizens, you also cause more illegal behaviour. If people don't have a fighting chance to be law abiding citizens, then they stop caring about the saner parts of the law as well.
Sure, I'd buy a lot of stuff online. If only paying for the stuff wasn't such a great big pain.
Why is it that international banking is such a great big headache? When the money or goods - virtual or not - cross the borders, everyone seems to be grabbing part of it, if not the governments then the people who transfer it?
Why isn't there a simple, universal, reliable, regulated method for transferring money internationally, no matter how big or small sum? A simple service you'd get automatically when you open a bank account, anywhere, in any bank in the world?
Because people go for the "it works for me" kind of approach. To American companies, credit card "works for me". As long as there's a stopgap measure that covers 85% of who they consider their market segment at the time, there's no problem. They just happen to ignore the tons of people who silently mutter "well, I'd love to get this, but I can't".
Sure, I'd love to buy music. I'd love to buy tons of music. I use Linux and have a (non-Visa-logo) Visa Electron. No iTunes for me? Well, looks like I'm still sticking to ocremix.org and remix.kwed.org for my music needs, then, it's not like other people are producing much music worth listening to anyway.
There used to be some sort of non-DRM MP3 store that had grand total of two songs available and required SMS messages as payment. That rocked. Yay. Too bad they never went past the pilot phase. Would have been the perfect model.
Think of Google. They went for the "long tail" thing - index every nook and cranny of the web, make web advertising easy for small sites, both as advertisers and as advertising space sellers, and make life easy for advertisement viewers too. Then think of search engines of 1996. Small indexes, tons of big-name advertisers, ludicruously priced annoying ads, "let's just focus on the big sites because that's where the money is". That didn't go too far, now did it? And where's Google now?
(Not saying Google Money Transfer would be a particularly good idea - PayPal is a private company and has a lot of problems not found in banks. Not saying Google should necessarily go to the music store business either. =)
iTunes is selling MP3s? Since when? Last i heard they where only selling DRM encumbered stuff (which is the reason i personally haven't bought anything from iTunes
Indeed, the prepaid cards for iTunes are everywhere, so its not so much an excuse of not being able too cos of a lack of a credit card.. but more the fact that most teens that age don't have money, and if they do, why would you want to spend what little you have on something everyone else is getting for free? I know I got funny looks when I announced I bought some songs from iTunes (and regret it since cos of all the hassle the DRM has caused me).
I believe it has something to do with value.
I have bought music from iTunes. Once. After buring one CD (I don't have an iPod) and then reformatting and not being allowed to redownload the files (which is bullshit. I paid for them.), I haven't done it since. In that time, I've discovered that I only really like maybe one or two of the songs I purchased, and my total ran me over $25. $25 to listen to TWO songs occasionally? There's something wrong with that.
Most of the stuff that comes out tends to be crap. It is enjoyable to listen to and then a month later you never want to hear the song again. That's not a worthwhile investment. In fact, it's a waste of money. Top it off with DRM and you run into the realization that you can't even give away something you consider to be worthless, and piracy starts to looks pretty attractive.
Since my iTunes blunder, the CD I burned is scratched to all hell now, I've downloaded a few albums and after finding some I enjoy, I've actually bought the CD. Granted, if I was a teenager, I probably wouldn't... seeing as how I wouldn't have a job and all... I'd probably rather go buy overpriced clothes or something.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
For your case that is a bad (Really Bad, So bad it makes me angry) excuse to illegally download music. Saying I do not have enough money form of entertainment because I spend to much money in an other form of entertainment, so I have to steal the first form. There is a thing in life called "budgeting" it is a concept that most Americans fail to grasp.
The first step to this "budgeting" is to realize what You need to live Food, Shelter, Heat, Water, these things you always need to make sure you have enough money for, as you are probably a bratty teenybopper, who thinks they are a supper smart hacker type, I will assume that Mommy and Daddy give that to you. The next thing to budget for are for things that will allow you work with society, Taxes, Cloths, culturally relevant Communication tools, transportation, and education. still Mommy and Daddy are still flipping the bill for most of these. Finally the rest of the junk you can buy with your spare money because you really don't need it. Now if you want some junk more then other junk. Then you have a choice how much of Junk A you need vs. Junk B. So fyou example you can buy a book for $30.00 that tells you all about different attributes of Dragons xor (xor is a computer science term meaning "exclusive or" meaning one or the other but not both) 30 songs off of iTunes, or you can balance the approach and get the old version of the book for $15.00 and get 15 songs off of iTunes. But saying I need to steal music because I spent all my money on D&D is no excuse and I hope the RIAA sues your ass.
There are other reasons for illegally downloading music some I agree with and others I respectfully disagree with, but yours is wrong and stupid.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
How does that help someone who owns a portable MP3 player? (As distinct from an iPod)
I would bet that the vast majority of pirates have a very high debt to income ratio, and couldn't buy more than a small fraction of their collections even if they wanted to.
I think there's an awareness problem as well. Many teens don't think of legally downloading music as pirating music is what they've always done. It's not even necessarily thought of as wrong; after all, you can listen to the tunes on the radio. About the only "well-known" services is iTunes' music shop, which has a fairly low reputation, and is fairly useless to anyone not using an iPod.
I just checked on the Australian iTunes Store* and the options listed are Visa, Mastercard or American Express. No debit card option that I can see. I would also point out that whilst teens don't have credit cards because they can't, I would estimate a reasonable percentage in their late teens and early-20s also don't either because they have no great need or don't trust themselves not to get themselves in to debt (like me!).
Just as in the UK and US, iTunes Store cards are easily available in Australia (in Coles supermarkets no less). There are two problems I see with the cards though:
1) You can't just pay for the songs you want as you basically are buying store credit. Cards are available in A$20, $50 and $100 which makes perfect sense as a gift, but if one only have a small amount of disposable income (as most teenagers do) the idea of having to expend what s/he might consider a reasonably large amount in one go to buy the couple of songs s/he wants is probably less appealing than the individual song purchase system available to credit card holders.
2) Having to buy a "music card" takes away from the immediacy of a purchase. One has to get off one's backside and go and get a card. Why wouldn't I just go to the record store and buy a CD single (or album) instead (particularly given point 1) since the effort is about the same?
Basically I think it makes the barriers just high enough that even those within the teen demographic that would go to the effort of purchasing the music if they had a credit card, are more likely to opt for the illegal download because they can have it Right Now and not have to worry about expending a large (in their eyes) amount of capital.
Two quick provisos: I'm not endorsing this behaviour and excusing copyright infringement, and I certainly don't believe that every teenager -- even if they did have access to a credit card or the above two issues were not evident -- would purchase music rather than illegally download it (but that holds for all ages, to varying degrees).
Watch your vocabulary friend. He said nothing about his reason being an excuse, so get off your holier-than-thou rant and read the post for what it said.
Summary: I believe teens just don't have enough money to entertain themselves in all the ways they'd prefer. Music is easy to get for free, so they pirate.
Was there a request for validation or suggestion that his reasoning was just? No. Ok, so back off.
That's not at all the reason why. The reason (at least for me) for getting MP3s 'illegally' is because I have such a varying taste of music and munch through it so quickly, it's not economically viable for me to buy the amount of albums I actually download just to try out an artist. I'll download an artists discography and randomly insert their tracks into my regular playlist, usually as I go to sleep. If a track wins my attention, I'll remember it and it'll become part of my regular listening. However, most bands cannot capture me with more than a couple of songs. For the bands who do, I don't want to buy low-quality DRM ridden MP3s via some crappy software. 3 bands have managed to "Woo" me enough for me to spend money on them, so I go to CDUniverse and use my Paypal account (doesn't require credit card) to get their albums (or DVDs) posted to me. One local band (The Living End) has managed to get me as a fan, and I've bought all their releases bar one since I started liking them. I downloaded the one I didnt buy (illegally), and didnt like that much of it. But, I've gone 2 of their concerts based around that release, so theyve more than made their money back off what I "deprived" them of by downloading it. I bought their live version of the same album because I like the songs live. So, no, we don't download illegally just because it's cool.
You probably disagree that it's a good excuse because it isn't an excuse at all - it's a reason. It doesn't have to justify pirating, but it is one cause of it, so we can understand it.
im in ur
I know a kid who went bankrupt in high school so I see the problem. But this is a good point. In today's economy, _shouldn't_ a teenager have access to credit in order to participate?
The question is how to do it. Being old, I remember when credit card companies had "learner's" college accounts with limits like $200-$400. Maybe the companies have become so insanely greedy sending out applications for $10K-$20K limits for people's dogs that they just don't want to be bothered with miniscule accounts that train young people to be responsible? But they should.
Where the hell does everyone get the "$20 for 1 good song and a bunch of fillers" thing from. When I buy a cd I pay $10 or $15 for 40 to 60 minutes of music that I actually like. If an artist is able to release a whole album with just one good song... then that probably means they suck.
Maybe teens aren't the mindless droids that the RIAA members think they are and don't want the sort of junk that RIAA members are producing? Maybe they're buying used CDs and ripping them? Maybe they're discovering classical, jazz, and progressive rock? Who knows, but I have trouble believing that any segment of the population would be inhibited by friction in collecting money in this day and age! Hard to imagine a teen couldn't use a family paypal account. Or that some venture capitalist wouldn't throw a few million at TeenzMp3Rockz.com to create a way for parents to pre-pay for music at MyDRMLockin.com or iLoveDRM.com...
Arr! Avast, matey! Shiver me timbers!
Many teens don't think of legally downloading music as pirating music
Are you part of the pigopoly, or have you just been brainwashed by them? Stop calling a spade a "pointy shovel". It's copyright infringement, not "piracy".
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
It's like arguing that borrowing from a friend first results in lost sales.
It's like arguing that listening to the radio first results in lost
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
So I can legally buy music on more than one of my machines, and listen to all of it on the same iPod!?!? Wow, DRM is super!
The sad part is, they've actually convinced you that's a special feature.
What a wonderful self-justification. The artists that you've paid money to have been paid more than enough even when you've ripped off an album, and those to whom you've paid nothing weren't up to your arbitrary standards and don't deserve any money at all. If you like an artist, and they put in the effort and expense to record an album, but you only like some of it - fuck 'em, let's rip than one for free. Hey, I went to a gig, didn't I?
Presumably you're tight for cash if you've only paid out for three bands, otherwise you really don't like music much. Because 3 bands suggests a limited taste in music, not "such a varying" one. Or maybe you simply lack any respect for the effort it can take even to produce something people don't like e.g. you don't get a refund in a restaurant just because you didn't like the chef's style. Of course, if you want to encourage mainstream middle of the road shit, rather than have artists who feel free to take risks while still wanting to make a living out of music - go right ahead.
That's not downloading illegally because it's cool - it's downloading because it's free.
Too many of these posts seem to be missing the point. Sure, you can buy iTunes cards at Walmart (or the British equivalent), but what teenager hangs out in Walmart? Maybe if they sold iTunes cards at McDonalds or the local pizza joint, they might see a small bump in sales.
Addressing the larger question, teens don't buy legit MP3's because it doesn't make sense to fix what ain't broken: Napster was popular before online music stores were, and was a convenient, easy way to get the music you wanted. I used Napster when I was 13, and when it was taken down I moved to Kazaa. Why? Probably because online music stores weren't popular yet (if memory serves me right; if not, please feel free to correct me). My point is a teenager would rather find another program to download music (music that is of acceptable quality) than convince their parents to let them spend money (money of their own, or their parents' money) to download music. (On a personal note, I'd rather download an album than buy it, but if I Really Like(tm) the album, I'll buy a physical copy)
I also question how often and how much an average teenager downloads. I'll probably download about an album a week, but I almost never get around to listening to it (they're usually archived), and more often than not I'll delete it after I do listen to it. Hardly any of the albums I download make it into my regular-listen MP3 collection (which is ~1000 songs, and very few complete albums).