Ice Cube Quotes

I think downloading is both saving and killing the music industry at the same time.

Sheet music, recording, radio, television, cassettes, CD burners, and file sharing have all invalidated, to some extent, the old model of making a living making music.

For music, unlike a $500 software program, people are paying a buck or two a song, and it's those dollars and pennies that have to add up to pay for not just the cost of that song, but the investment in the next song.

Recorded music is more a marketing tool than a revenue source.

I don't think piracy is going to kill the music industry. But digital technology and the ability to download will change the packaging from CDs to a single-based business.

When radio stations started playing music the record companies started suing radio stations. They thought now that people could listen to music for free, who would want to buy a record in a record shop? But I think we all agree that radio stations are good stuff.

There are millions of people who consume music illegally every month. Just getting them into a legal service will make the music industry way bigger than it's ever been before.

Digital downloading of music has affected us all in adverse ways.

Between the record companies being the way they are and the fact that people can just download one song instead of buying a whole album, it's hard to make a good living nowadays.

The history of the music industry is inevitably also the story of the development of technology. From the player piano to the vinyl disc, from reel-to-reel tape to the cassette, from the CD to the digital download, these formats and devices changed not only the way music was consumed, but the very way artists created it.

Music files and downloading have indeed changed the currency of music to a great degree.

If you are a musician who has released albums, it would perhaps be morbidly interesting to know how much you would be owed if everyone who now has your music had actually bought your record.

Music is now becoming 'free,' and it's very difficult for new artists to start.

Digital sound is damaging music; it's damaging the artists. It's so degrading.

People don't buy CDs so much anymore because it's easy to download everything. So, while the record industry is declining, the music is heard a lot more than before.

Spotify appeared nine years after Napster, the pioneering file-sharing service, which unleashed piracy on the record business and began the cataclysm that caused worldwide revenues to decline from a peak of twenty-seven billion dollars in 1999 to fifteen billion in 2013.

We have to make the physical music a little more valuable instead of just having a download link and a bunch of songs you downloaded from some torrent site. People try to make the music value-less, and I don't think we're going to stop that train, but the one thing that they can't devalue are things that are in the outside world.

Now, we are selling over 5 million songs a day now. Isn't that unbelievable? That's 58 songs every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

I feel like, as musicians, we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what's happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry. Once that does finally die, which it will, something else will happen.

I can still make a living with touring. And maybe you buy a t-shirt. And I would rather 10 million people get my record and listen to it for free than 500,000 that I coerced to pay $15 for it, you know?

Napster is great so long as they put out tracks on there that have been officially released. I don't really mind people downloading my music; I also see it as a compliment. And if you are a real music lover, you want to have the original CD anyway 'cause then you feel more connected to the artist.

I'm all for sharing music, but when people can download a whole record and pay nothing for it and then they share it with 100,000 other people, it's breaking down the whole business.

A protracted legislative fight will not move us closer to where the music industry wants to be - delivering music to fans through a variety of different, innovative Web sites.

I think that if people realize that with an mp3, you're only getting five percent of the sound that's there. But when you hear the entire thing... I think it would save the music business. It's such a drastic change.

Look at music for what it's worth around the world and not just America. In other countries, people are still buying CDs and going to record stores. But in America, it's all about digital. The game is breaking down. But, look at me, you need to know how to play the game the right way.