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

[Go figure]

Gift and a curse. It hurt the industry which in turn hurts the artist (artists get fucked 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]

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]

Gift plain and simple. Concerts would not be packed in modern hip hop if it wasn't for the ease of bootleg shit. Plus rappers now be doing deep cuts from an albums and niggas 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]

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 niggas should all be independent or on indie labels.

Also, it means you need to put out quality or at least have that reputation for niggas 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

 

[Melanin_Enriched]

Gift for me cause theres no way in hell id pay for even half the music i listen to a year. Give zero fucks if artists feel like its stealing from them.

 

[SheerExcellence]

Link the documentary you watching t/s

 

[Idiopathic Joker]

Link the documentary you watching t/s

It was called Downloaded

 

[FishNChips]

Gift for the fans

Curse for the artists and labels

 

[HerbalVaporCapers]

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 shit now...

 

[_Goldie_]

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]

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. Fuck Dre and Eminem niggas 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 bullshit 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 niggas fronting on tapes.

 

[5 Grand]

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. Fuck Dre and Eminem niggas 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 bullshit 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 niggas 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]

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]

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 fag pimp ass raping u break down...

 

[NothingButTheTruth]

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]

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 fucks given.

 

[Stew]

Thieves. Mfs dont support music at all talkin bout "this nigga need to step his game up" foh

 

[Stew]

Thieves. Mfs dont support music at all talkin bout "this nigga 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]

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 bitch about leaked music?cause he has a secured contract.The tours really pay him

 

[Stew]

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 bitch about leaked music?cause he has a secured contract.The tours really pay him

Ever seen Jayz or Beyonce bitch about leaked music?