Still, none of that is justification for piracy. "Low quality media like CDs?" At the time they were selling them, what was better? Did consumers complain? "Poor sample rate?" 44.1k is fine. Maybe you mean low bit depth... still CDs were plenty good for listening in one's vehicle or the average consumer's home listening environment.shaman wrote:Record Labels have to take part of the responsibility of this subjet... They earned a lot of money selling a low quality media like CDs (dithering, poor sample rate...), and they earned a lot of money with contracts that didn't benefitted to musicians in most case. For example, I was in a band 12 years ago, and I recorded 2 or 3 discs for the band under an important internacional Record Label. Do you know how much the band earned for each sold CD? Nothing... yes, nothing. The band earned its money from live shows. That is steal too... or not?
As for the band you were in, it sounds like you were probably one of the many bands that had a crappy contract. I'm assuming nobody put a gun to your head and made you sign it? You did and you took your chances-- that's how it works.
On a somewhat unrelated note it reminds me of a time my band was approached by some guy who owned a club in Arizona or something. He wanted us to play five nights at his club. I quoted him the going rate back then. He wanted to pay us substantially lower than that, but he told us it was a small town and out of town bands were a big deal there and we'd have a limo we could use to go around town and essentially pretend to be important. We turned him down. Money talks... the rest walks.