Slashdot Mirror

"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,. So it's time to get paid for it," is not from the Reuters press release. I think it originally appeared in the Billboard article announcing the Zune launch, unless it comes from an earlier interview with Doug Morris.

The quote is not from the article but something Doug Morris has been quoted as saying.

It seems to have come from a Nov 10 Billboard piece:
http://billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.js p?vnu_content_id=1003380831

"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. "So it's time to get paid for it." is from this interview http://billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.js p?vnu_content_id=1003380831 not the article referenced by the parent.

The CEO of the RIAA claims: "We celebrate advances in technology and recognize the importance of finding new ways to deliver content." At the same time, the Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group claims MP3 players are: "just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it."

It seems fairly clear that neither the RIAA nor their member companies really understand technology well at all. They try to stagnate music distribution in the mid-80's, and they disregard how easy it is to compare and contrast their messages to make the lies obvious.

Both stories showing up on the same day is just a nice bonus. It's a bit like the old Dilbert where the PHB is holding a meeting:
Item 1: record profits -- executives will be getting bonuses.
Item 2: financial difficulties -- layoffs of technical staff.

Radio is king. Without the label's promoters to physically go to every radio station and say "Here's a new song from our label, listen to it and play it." the radio stations wouldn't know what to play. They have to play the music that will get the highest number of listeners so that they can maximize their profit. The label tells them what they think will get the most listeners based on the fact that labels suppossedly sort out the good profit generating music from the rest of the crap and only sign the good music with potential.

You might say something along the lines of "but radio is dying" but the fact is that most people still discover new music by listening to the radio, be it in the car or at the mall or in their favorite trendy clothing store (think pac-sun or hollister or american eagle). Most people don't have time to go looking around the internet for new music that they might like then sort out the crap themselves. You might not think this is true and that most people have decent taste in music, but it only takes a 5 minutes of listening to the radio to hear the crap that people buy. Just looking at the billboard hot 100 list proves my point: http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/chart_displa y.jsp?g=Singles&f=The+Billboard+Hot+100

Because a song that charts at #29 is "crap?" I mean, it ain't like he's releasing some no-name b-side that nobody's heard of.

Yeah, because no crappy song EVER gets near the top of the charts, right. It's not like there's completely awful song by a completely talentless hack at the number one spot right now, or anything....

Oh, wait:
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/chart_displa y.jsp?g=Singles&f=Pop+100

"Based on figures reported to Billboard Boxscore from Nov. 1, 2005, through mid-May, the Stones' Bigger Bang tour, produced by Michael Cohl, reported $147.3 million in grosses from 45 shows in U.S. arenas and international stadiums." (see here for more)

Artists as enormously successful as the ones you cited have ways to make boatloads of money even without selling any CDs. And, as others have pointed out, they get no piece of the results of record company lawsuits.

You mean Apple's digital downloads aren't also locked down, too expensive (and jeezus, $2 for a single music video or SNL skit?!), and a pain in the ass for everyone involved? That's news to me!

Thanks for saving me the trouble and disappointment of signing up. I compared The Billboard 200 with eMusic and found very little, if any correlation. The iTunes Music Store(ITMS), on the other hand, seems to have a much much higher amount of mainstream music. I'm not too keen on freakish garage bands so, I'll pass on eMusic.

A sure sign of the endtimes: Barry Manilow is back on top!

WTF? He's not had a song in 20+ YEARS....and he's outselling rappers?

Billboard has the story:
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_displa y.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001993401

Now mark THIS an "off-topic"....

..it doesn't suprise me that they're not selling as much as last year, especially when you consider how high fuel prices are, and how talentless the groups on the top 10 are... Think about this: CDs are discretionary purchases... Gasoline is still 40 cents per gallon higher than last year--about 12% higher than the previous year.

Last I heard shock artists and cop killers were selling pretty well.

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/chart_displa y.jsp?g=Singles&f=Pop+100

Your post was funny and all, but...

"The RIAA can't pay iTMS DJs and Producers to force users to download the hot song of the week."

Have you listened to the iTMS "new music Tuesdays" podcast? While not as nauseating as the Top 20 on 20, it's got a lot of the popular stuff you see elsewhere.

"The RIAA can't pay iTMS to list the proper version of the Top 40 Charts."

They don't need to. The list of top tracks (scroll down a bit for the list) and albums sold on the iTMS matches up very closely with the airplay and sales charts published by Billboard.

"The RIAA can't control which markets get their music, heaven forbid a black consumer getting a listen to Kenny G by accident."

Maybe I don't get the joke here, but why would the RIAA want this?

I guess getting sued for infringement is in style too: no free samples

"They can still lobby the US government to put embargo on US music export to UK. In this case most probably UK would respond with 100% legalizing piracy of the US music."

Please do! It'd be no great loss looking at the current US billboard top 100. With very few exceptions it's shite, the lot of it!

I'm sure I'll get modded down, but it's true. Look at it.. dominated by a twit that was shot 9 times, sellouts making out they're punk, manufactured dross from American Idol, and a whole host of other talentless acts who just like to rub their bling, escalades, gold teeth and crunk in your face.

By the way, Cage's piece is "4'33" of silence" (and it does last 4 minutes and 33 seconds).

Not only does it bring up the question of what is Art, but what is copyrightable. There was a suit about this (The suit was settled with John Cage's estate getting a 6 figure settlement). See http://www.billboard.com/bb/article_display.jsp?vn u_content_id=1710115

This is an endless circular argument. The "Death of the Album" has been talked about for the past fifteen years at least, and it doesn't happen.

Even if you look at Billboard's Top 200 chart you're going to see a lot of, well, albums.

If anything, I would imagine the re-birth of the album. As single tracks are easier to get and download (and not pay $7 for a CDS with four tracks), artists will focus on the album.

But we'll have the same mix we've always had. About twenty percent of good and great stuff, twenty percent of really awful stuff, and sixty percent of material that might have a good song or two but is ultimately forgettable.

Who still buys RIAA artist CDs?

Oh, just a couple of people... here and there.

"Hoobastank"?
Has anyone even heard of them?
I thought they were just something you made up until I googled it. Though they are not on the Billboard top 10, I have never even heard of most of the bands that actually are.
This just proves what TMBG said in this interview: "Ask the average person what songs are in the top 10--nobody knows what's in the top 10."

While we are at it lets look at what sold in 2000 and 2003.

I don't listen to the radio or pop music in general, but let me guess which of the 7 top 10 albums from 2000 broke 5mil units. 1) Nsync "No strings attached" 2) Santana "Supernatural" (also one of the best selling albums of all time) 3) m&m "The Marshall Mathers LP" 4) BS "Oops I did it again" 5) Creed "Human Clay" 6) Celine Dion "All The Way...A Decade Of Song" 7) Christina Aguilera "Christina Aguilera"

Summary: 2 boy bands (they sell, what other music will 11 year old girls buy?) 1 famous musician that has been around over 30 years and had one of the best selling albums of all time (santana) 2 bimbo chicks (that sell to 11 year old girls and boys up to 14) and Celine Dion just sells, noone knows who buys it, but somebody does.

OK, 2003 which 2 sold 5mil units? I guess 50 Cent's "Get rich or die tryin'" and I dunno its a tossup for the otherone, it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, I can see why the sales have dropped by almost 1/2. No boy bands, no blond bimbos, and the rest is pretty much marginal popy stuff.

Its worth noting that concert sales are way down this year. Lollipoluza (sp?) had to cancel because of a lack of interest. I guess all the kids think that sitting in front of their computer listening to MP3s on small computer speakers is comparable to a concert.... Or maybe there isn't stuff to see?

You seem to believe that 2 follows from 1. You are mistaken. I don't know the details of whether Mr. Moore actually holds the copyright, but writing, directing, and producing a thing does not imply ownership of the thing. Usually, either through contract or employment terms, the copyright holder is the source of funding. For example, just look at what David Bowie had to do to buy back the rights to his works. A very expensive deal for something you might assume was his to begin with.

Well, it debuted at Number One on the Billboard Album Chart, so somebody must care.

What is most distressing is that the Beasties are the second DRM CD to hit the top of the chart. Boroughs displaced Velvet Revolver's Contraband at #1. Contraband is also DRM "protected."

This should open the floodgates. If record companies were ever shy of DRM, now they'll know people will buy their defective wares, anyway.

I'd like a copy of Velvet Revolver. But I won't buy it until I can find a copy on the used market. If the entire Slashdot world quit buying CDs, it would hardly make a dent (not that Slashdotters *always* pay for their music). But it's the principle of the whole thing.

My main bitch with DRM CDs is that it might make it more difficult to rip legally purchased music to my hard drive. I don't even own a standalone CD player these days, and I want to be able to load my library on an iPod. All perfectly legal activities, but Big Music wants to dictate how I listen and store my music. In the owrds of our Vice President, f*ck them.

And f*ck artists who go along with it. Maybe I don't need that Velvet Revolver CD, after all.

Evidently someone in the Deer Valley school district must be running a file sharing supernode with lots of recent stuff

Check out Eff's site for guidelines on how to keep the RIAA sniffers at bay. And use common sense! If you are sharing the Usher, "Confessions" album, the current Billboard #1 selling album, you are directly competing with record stores and radio stations. You should get shut down IMO. However, sharing ISOs to FreeBSD is a Good Thing. (You could probably, illegally, share the Perry Como Christmas album and not get noticed....IANAL)

A look at the Billboard Top 200 is an easy way to figure out, at least on an anecdotal level, that popular music sucks right now. For the most part, it's the same old artists, singing the same old things within their same old already-established genres. It's the same problem with the video game industry that everyone always complains about -- it's a lot easier to go with established acts (or artists or licenses) than to risk capital on something new that has the potential to either suck or be incredible.

This general trend of homogeneity has really been brought to bear over the last decade, from what I can tell. Companies really like sustained sources of revenue...ok, yeah, that's a given and has been since the beginning. Companies need it to survive and to grow. But isn't it good to create some nice challenges so that the companies can grow?

Challenges, like, say, the removal of perpetual copyright? If, for example, Disney couldn't keep making money off of old cartoons, wouldn't they have to seriously start making up some new stories or at least go back to the children's section at public library and read some Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson?

In the end, it's all about how we the people want corporations to act in the context of our republic (both the United States and in the larger sense of the collective of industrialized nations). Do we want to give them carte blanche to not innovate? Or do we want to help them along by pushing them a little? Folks, from what I can tell, will almost always take the road that's easiest and offers the most return for the least amount of risk or investment. Sometimes you have to guide them down that road, or at least show 'em where it starts.

My 2 cents, anyhow...

I wonder what musical tastes in the UK are like -- whether they mirror the US or what.

The UK top 40 singles looks very similar to the US top 50

Both look pretty dismal IMHO, but at least there is at least one good music channel available to UK digital satelite viewers.

For what it is worth, Lil' Jon is a platinum selling rap artist. He currently is involved with 2 songs in the top 20 of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart and 3 songs in the top 50 of the Hot 100.

For what it is worth, Lil' Jon is a platinum selling rap artist. He currently is involved with 2 songs in the top 20 of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart and 3 songs in the top 50 of the Hot 100.

Oh, I'm not ragging on music, but one thing that you will have to admit is that a lot of music (and further, a lot of the most popular music is produced to death and written by somebody else (towards the bottom of the link is a note that Britney writes some of her own songs, but the "successful" one was written for her). It is the same with movies when the top movie this year so far is Somethi^H^H^H^H^H^H^HAlong Came Polly (which we've seen before -- the ferret scene is similar enough to the dog scene to be considered "knock-off").

How does this relate to business? Well, IANAM/MP (music/movie producer), but my feeling is that they have a pretty good idea of how long it takes to go from conception to packed theaters (and if not they have a clever tactic called "Coming Soon"). Same with music.

Don't get me wrong, I love good music (I lean to folk, indie rock), movies (Magnolia is up there), and games (good old WC3), but for a lot of the music and movies out there it's as scientific as anything else.

The recording studio may change over time though as technology becomes cheaper. While high end recording studios will always exist, technology improvements are bringing the capabilities to the home users desktop. I can see where the artist of the future will have a lot more control over their media (from concepts to final release).

See: Peter Gabriel and Brian Enu launch MUDDA

Which, BTW, outnumber CNN or MSNBC viewers. FNC must be doing something right by not putting a liberal spin on selective topics.

For our next trick, we'll add together Red Hat's and Apple's userbases, compare with Microsoft, and conclude that Windows XP is the best operating system in the world. And don't forget to stick around for our unarguable proof that the three best musical acts in the world are Rod Stewart, the Eagles, and that guy from American Idol.

NAPSTER'S LAUNCH PARTY TO FEATURE HOTTEST NEW MUSIC ARTISTS

Celebration at House of Blues on October 29th Marks
Availability of Napster 2.0 in the United States

LOS ANGELES, CA --Oct. 23, 2003--Napster, a division of Roxio (Nasdaq: ROXI) today announced the musical lineup for its October 29 celebration of the launch of the Napster 2.0 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. Additionally, in the spirit of Napster, hundreds of music fans will receive free tickets to the exclusive event through local radio stations and fan site giveaways this week.

Ahmet Zappa will be the emcee for the evening and Def Jam recording artist Ludacris will headline the event. Ludacris is the hottest musician in the country, with the number one selling album "Chicken N Beer". Other popular new artists performing that night will include Dashboard Confessional (Vagrant), Interpol (Matador), and Metric (Enjoy) and DJ Melo-D.

More info at Billboard

If the labels acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs, it would undercut their case as well as their zero-tolerance stance

Why would they acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs ?
They want a complete control over prices and P2P has been causing them woes. Not only that, they have some strong backing from some Senators.
Senators Back RIAA; First Suit Is Settled

They are happy they got that kind of publicity...

You think your filesharing is helping the majors' profits? I disagree. I think the record companies have ample access to their own books, and the reason they are claiming to be losing money to filesharing is because...they are. Sure, maybe you are occasionally buying obscure reissues that nobody else has heard about. And maybe a lot of your friends are doing the same thing. But the majors don't make the bulk of their profits from those small runs. Due to the economies of scale and distribution, they make their profits from the multiplatinum blockbusters. So yeah, maybe they're selling 2,000 more Metric Resistance, 5,000 more Goldfrapp here and there. But downside is that they're selling "only" 3 million of the latest Justin Timberlake instead of 9 million. Or 2 million of the latest Beyonce instead of 6 million. Or 2 million of Evanescence instead of 5 million. These are huge studio backed acts that you hear about incessantly and you figure must be moving massive amounts like the Eagles or Foreigner or Supertramp or Cheap Trick used to do back in the day. Except they're not. They're just selling "okay" because every teenager knows how to download the tracks for free off Kazaa or burn a copy of their friend's CD. Check the charts yourself. You'll be surprised at how little these ubiquitous, overexposed acts are actually selling in contrast to the mountain of hype they're generating.

Also with HDD's packed with thousands of songs, today's music is forced to compete with pristine, digitally remastered stuff from 20 or 30 years ago. And to be frank, 21st century music is by and large getting its ass kicked. Kids today are much more cognizant of '80s and '70s music than kids from the 1970s were appreciative of scratchy old 45's from the 1950s and older stuff from the '40s. There was a sea change in production values that took place starting in the late sixties and continuing into the '70s. As a result of that, any one of those dinosaur rock groups from the late '70s had just as much ear candy as the today's pop. So there's no reason anymore to automatically prefer, new, fresh stuff to the classics. The machine of innovation is running out of gas, and the fact that the older stuff is so easily available for free is just making it worse for up and coming acts.

Don't kid yourself. The majors are hurting. Not they don't deserve to, with the recycled, warmed over dreck they're feeding us. But they are in serious pain, and it's only going to get worse for them. And like any wounded animal, they're fighting tooth and nail, hoping to keep the vultures at bay.

Instead of divvying the spoils of a $12-$18 CD sale, labels, artists and songwriters are vying for nickels and dimes from 99 cent downloads.

The article states that 12% is average. Only high-successful acts can do better and they are completely free not to opt-in to Apple's music store like Radiohead and Linkin Park have decided to do.

Secondly, these are growing pains. 12% is excellent for a non-MTV/Clearchannel down your throat 24/7 mega-pop band. As diversity in the catalog continues and less money is funneled into four or five pop sensations, but instead funneled into exposing more artists then smaller advertising and word of mouth will produce more varied sales. Bands that start as nobodies and end as nobodies will be getting 12%. That's pretty good.

Personally, I think moving to singles and a diverse selection is a step in the proper direction to satisfy both fans and artists. We're going to look back to the days of big radio and MTV and not believe our rampant fandom and misplaced loyalties, not to mention taste.

Despite the major labels' success in clearing hundreds of thousands of tracks for purchase online through services like Apple's iTunes Music Store, some top artists continue to resist authorizing the dismantling of their albums for Internet consumption as a la carte singles. Some acts are requiring that their music be sold exclusively in album bundles. For example, Linkin Park recently pulled its music as a singles offering from digital services. Sources say the band has expressed concerns about undercutting album sales. Other acts with similar stipulations about their work include Radiohead, Madonna, Jewel and Green Day, sources say.

Now, from an artistic standpoint I can see where they are coming from, there are certainly albums that must be experienced as a whole, or at least in the order that they were laid down. Still, I have to wonder whether they're not just shooting themselves in the foot; if the concern is over money lost to piracy, wouldn't 12 cents in the hand be worth it to an artist rather than 0? Eventually, they'll make the money back on volume; it seems they're too obsessed with immediate returns.

Heres the same billboard top 50 singles for this week, note the differences (for example miss independant comes in at 3 on apples chart, 22 on the bilboard chart)

At first, I was rather skeptical about what that Billboard link you provided would include - I thought anything for $1200 is insanely expensive. Little did I know the amazing package Mister DiNizio had put together would include so much.

Really, that is cool, and I don't see how he's making money on such a deal. For those that are too lazy to read and distill the link, $1.2k gets you:
a limited-edition (100 copies made) album
Other (semi-)unique albums, about 3 per year.
a "a private 'living room concert' for each patron"
CD/DVD copies of above performances for the audience
charity show for patron's charity of choice
Backstage pass(es)
t-shirt(s)

Just the "living room convert" idea has me reeling. It's cheap to do such things - but the dedication to do 100 in a year, in addition to all the other responsibilities an artist has...wow.

I can think of a few bands I'd like to see try this; I could group together with a few friends to get the $1200 necessary. ;)

the idea behind bringing music out on Tuesday comes from the charts. when Billboard mag comes out on saturday, they set the type for the charts on tuesday morning. this means that what gets "charted" is only what is at the top on Monday.. so new music is (usually) released on tuesday, so they have the maximum amount of time to crawl up the charts until next monday..
in a (slightly) related note.. all those chart shows that you hear on radio (Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40, and Casey Kasem) are usually in the radio stations by thursday in CD format.. even if they seem to have call-ins and stuff.. its ALL done on CD.. i used to work for a radio station in sri lanka and some of my most boring memories are of babysitting a CD player on saturday morning as it played the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40
in fact thanks to time zones etc, sri lankans heard the top 40 WELL before the rest of the world.. (until those damned aussies started playing RDWT40).. 8-)

Suchetha

on the other more on-topic side, kudos to steve jobs for actually coming up with a realistic model for selling music online, this is probably not the end of the RIAA, it may be a dying dinosaur, but do you REALLY want to be under a dying dinosaur?... at worst youa re going to get ground into the topsoil during its death throes, at best you are going to get buried under a couple hudred tons of rotting dinosaur.. but lets face it.. this system is a realistic hope for the Industry to bow out gracefully.. whether they take it, or continue to fight a losing battle is entirely up to them..

OTOH i intend to keep downloading music off Kazaa Lite simply because i live in a country where almost the only way to get software/music is via bootleg CD's (you can get official game Cd's for some games but everything else is bootleg.. usually available within 1 week of release at about $0.75 per CD).. so no matter what my money goes to pirates

Old news.

That is, as long as the product isn't crap and they don't feel like they're being ripped off due to overly-inflated prices.

Oh, really ? Maybe they don't think too hard about the prices.

They're just going after stores where RIAA reps have found and purchased unlicensed compilations (BEST OF LATIN HITS!, etc.) or counterfeit copies of commercial releases. It's really not significantly different from the bootleg raids they do now and then. Billboard has a more detailed article.

According to this article

This latest settlement calls for $70 up front, and another $$$$$ down the road.

Of curse, just typeing in "cd price fixing" in google will get you lots more.

Enjoy!

Eminem is a bad example, his album is riding high at #2 on billboard after 13 weeks, so the public is not staying away from his album in droves. There is overhyped crap like Andrew WK and The Strokes that might serve as a better example of trash.

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Check out the different lists on Billboard.com Sometime. I agree with you that most of the top 40 stuff sucks (i.e. Britney Spears, Boybands, Etc.)
I happen to prefer the Modern Rock list myself.

Perhaps what we all need is a "don't play their own instruments" Filter :-)
Seriously though, an ignore list, or a feature like Amazon's "other customers who bought this also liked...." feature might have potential.

One this is for sure, Hard Drive companies would love this because we'd all fill our harddrives fast.

Check out the different lists on Billboard.com Sometime. I agree with you that most of the top 40 stuff sucks (i.e. Britney Spears, Boybands, Etc.)
I happen to prefer the Modern Rock list myself.

Perhaps what we all need is a "don't play their own instruments" Filter :-)
Seriously though, an ignore list, or a feature like Amazon's "other customers who bought this also liked...." feature might have potential.

One this is for sure, Hard Drive companies would love this because we'd all fill our harddrives fast.

I still want to see an option on GNUtella to automatically download Songs from a top10 list

Wouldn't be too hard:

cron - schedule the script execution while I'm asleep
wget - to download the html
perl - to strip out the file names and write out a "wanted list"

maybe a script would even burn CD-RWs of the top weekly songs.

I'm sure that these songs are the ones creating the most traffic, so it is almost the same concept. I like my idea better because you don't need to manually type a bunch of stuff.