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Pirates Steal Negative $1,400,000,000 from Music Industry
In exciting news this week, the RIAA announced that due to the massive piracy of digital music "ripped" from CD's and made available over the Internet, the music industry lost negative $1,400,000,000 in CD sales in 1999. In fact, the damage was so extreme that the industry shipped negative 90 million fewer CD's than the year before.
Oh, I can't keep up the fake news any more... In fact, the RIAA reports that the music industry - especially non-copy-protected CD's - is booming. Not only did the record industry sell 10.8% more CD's than last year, they raised their income on those disks by 12.3% - so not only are you buying more music, but you're paying more for each disk you buy. Income from CD's alone increased by 1.4 billion dollars last year. So where's the crippling damage from evil music pirates? If they're suffering so badly, why does their profit chart look like Microsoft's?
Let's pick up the pace - despite all of our efforts, the RIAA is still firmly in the black.
We need music over the web, micropayable - I'm all for commercial solutions as long as they're not closed standards. If I could buy music for a reasonable amount of money I would - instead of downloading crap quality mp3s (yes, crap quality - people who don't know how to grab without getting click sounds, or mp3-compress with the wrong programs etc)
In fact, I've _stopped_ listening to mp3s - I'm just waiting for the commercial music-over-the-net solutions .. please? Anyone?
it's in my head
Piracy is just pr. You want to demonize people,accuse them of being pirates or whatever. It's all about perception. As in everything else.
Yeah it disgusts me, but...
If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
I think that to be a record company executive you have to never grow out of that "No it's mine and you can't have it stage" of childhood developement. My parents taught me to share so I guess I'll never make the cut. I refuse to support the record industry, I'll never pay for their music and I hope that everyone else wakes up and gets tired of being spoon fed the mediocre overpriced crap that they are trying to push on us.
Me a troll, me no gnome, me smash ye head and break ye bones.
I'm glad to see that they are doing so well. I actually thought that there may be some impact from audio piracy, but I guess not.
"DVD music video dollar value grew 442 percent from $12.2 million in 1998 to $66.3 million in 1999."
Wow. Now that is great to see. I'm sure that this will mean that we will see more and more titles released for DVD. Looks like VHS sales dropped, I guess that market is moving to DVD.
Gee, I guess that DeCSS didn't have the major impact on the market that it was supposed to have, and that Napster isn't the end of CD audio.
I think that the music industry is booming in part because of "pirated" music. Honestly, I've purchased a couple hundred dollars worth of CD's because I really like the MP3s that I've downloaded and I can say that a number of my friends have too.
kwsNI
Yep, that's the only way to stop copying.
Why should I pay Fl 44,95 (that's around $ 22 ) for a CD when I can buy it over the net for $ 11,95..
The problem is, that nobody in the EC follows the law and do something against price fixing.
The prices in all the shops are almost the same because the record industry don't allow competition (price fixing is against the law).
1. How much more could this have been if there were no piracy?
2. How much less could this have been if people hadn't bought CD's based on hearing pirated music that they liked?
Just think what kind of income they would have made if the music industry produced more stuff worth listening to, instead of the usual crap they're cranking out.
I'm convinced that the music industry watches the music pirates for valuable info on what kind of music people want. I've noticed several times that old out-of-print vinyl albums I've ripped to mp3 and posted to usenet are suddenly rereleased on CDs. The music pirates are providing free market research on what the studios should resurrect out of the old vaults.
And the sheer number of people completely missing the point of the double negative only proves it.
Why don't they start doing cool things like putting mpeg copies of the music videos on a separate cd or mail you a cd with the music videos for only the cost of shipping and handling when you buy the album? They need to make the album more than just music, it needs extra content like music videos on it. Eventually the 1.4 billion they announced they lost will look like chicken scratch because no one will buy the albums since they are so bloody expensive. Most of my ska, punk, swing, emo and metal records cost me only around $10-$14.... usually in the $12-$13 range for the more popular ones. However I shudder when I see the prices that people pay for popular rap and rock albums, around $16-$20. I am of the opinion that if they started USING the internet for distribution they could lower the price without lowering their profits. On a side note who does the RIAA think it is kidding by saying that it protects the rights of artists? It only protects the interests of the big labels it represents and their artists. I would be so surprised if they cracked down on a site giving away records from an independent label like epitaph, lookout or moon ska.
All the whining about MP3's is primarily an attempt to prepare the legal grounds for supression of the format later, when they can force hardware manufacturers to suspend MP3 playback capability in favor of SDMI and/or its latest flavor.
The industry needs to make sure that when digital music is deployed (i.e. when _they_ deploy it), it goes out with the ability to be rented (which they prefer), instead of just bought. They also want the full suite of digital copy protections, such as tying it to the device its stored on so you can't share it. To do this they have to supress MP3.
Since Goebbels was right about telling a big enough lie often enough will eventually make it believable, that is what is happening. The media in this country is pretty much controlled by the same corporations that own the music, so you'll hear numbers like this alot, no matter how absurd they are when you apply basic arithmetic to them.
Essentially, the end of "fair use" as it's been known in copyright law for the last century or so is approaching - UCITA and DMCO are other aspects of this erosion of rights.
I believe the RIAA should stop whining and fix the problem itself. I for one would pay a small fee for each MP3 that I have a copy of, if that were possible. I hate CD's (a hassle to play compared to MP3's), so I rarely buy them except to support groups I really like. I immediately rip CD's I own so I can play them on my Rio. If the RIAA would institute a fair and reasonably priced system of music vending, I would respect it. Is anyone else with me on this?
reduce the price of CD's.. why would anyone want to pay $18.99 for a new CD at Sam Goody's, when they know they can get the same quality for free or even if I pay $3.99 or whatever some of those new mp3 selling sites charge you. Most of the CD's I've bought over the past 5 years, I only like 4 out of 12 songs.. paying $18.99 or even $15.99 is a rip-off. These people need to realize that MP3 is their competition, and their enemy...fight it on it's merits or lack there of, not because it's costing you money.. thats like AT&T saying everyone who uses Sprint or MCI is a pirate because when the customers switched from AT&T to MCI AT&T lost money, so obviously they're bad.
The RIAA could use all the money they spent on calculating how much they lost to MP3s on finding a format better than MP3 or in making the price of CD's a lot cheaper.. CD's still have their advantages right now.. but if I can find a song for free and download it and burn it on to my own CD, why should I even bother to go to a overpriced store ? This old mentality by the MPAA and the RIAA sickens me.. they are like little chidlren refusing to put on a sweater or wear warm clothes when it's -25 celsius outside, just because they liked the summer and hope they winter will go away because they don't like Winter, and because they want it that way.
PS: Sorry for the run-ons..
I know my rate of cd purchase has almost gone to 0.00. CD's are just to expensive these days, and most of the stuff pushed on us by the record industry is crap.
My school put these strange TV's everywhere that play nothing but the crappy music videos the industry thinks appeals to college students. As a result I've gotten so tired of hearing the same old crap that you couldn't *pay* me to buy a cd. I guess they had the reverse effect intended.
This sig is false.
Good grief! How are they supposed to be making money on CDs when people are playing this music for free on the radio!?
I mean, this technology could ruin the recording industry, even if it does help the music industry!
--
I noticed
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I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
Couldn't you guys just report things that happen rather than your opinions on them? Honestly, Michael, if you're going to comment on the article, do it in the thread rather than turning the headlines into a confusing sarcastic rant.
I think the music industry is ethically right in the assumption that the music is there and we shouldn't be trading mp3s. What ethically gets me is that the music industry doesnt seem to get is that it is charging exhorbiant prices for the good they offer, and they have a pseudo monopoly. for instance, if im out to buy a dave matthews cd I can only buy that cd from RCA/BMG. thats right, i could go buy another cd from another company but I want that dave matthews cd, and they are free to charge what they wish on the fans; that is what isnt fair and drives me to trade mp3s.
Of _course_ they are experiencing an increase of CD sales despite MP3. But consider what is fashionable in music nowadays: Boy Bands and teeny boppers. It has been said before, but fanatical teenaged girls spend more than any other group when it comes to music and movies. Because of the current music trends, there are more sales and higher prices. Fortunately for the music industry, the same group (teenaged girls) that is making all of these purchases know little or nothing about MP3.
However, when these teeny boppers go out of style (as we all know they will), expect the music industry to get hit hard.
The RIAA is screaming bloody hell over CD pirating. Then the MPAA comes in and says "hey, look at all the problems we've had over people ripping CD's. This is why we need to protect DVD's: So that we don't get the same problem". This is especially true since many of the companies have a vested intrest in both the RIAA and the MPAA (Like Sony).
kwsNI
It's the same reason that people pirate MS applications. They say "they can afford to lose me as a customer, look how big there are".
It's justification, a silly excuse that helps people sleep at night. But the end is the same, whether its software piracy or music piracy, content producers lose out. I know I'm biased because I'm a software producer... but why shouldn't I expect that people pay for my products if they want to use them? It's my right to expect that in a free-market system such as ours. Oh damn, I'm ranting again aren't I? =)
Last point -- if you can't afford something that you want, that doesn't mean you should steal it no matter how big or evil the company may be.
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
For quite some time the RIAA has been telling us that mp3 is destroying its revenue base due to illegal pirating... this data could possibly throw a kink into that argument, but I'm not going to be so compulsive as to say that for sure (though I would like to).
.mp3's and piracy. I mean, if in an age where piracy is rampant and no user who has access to use an mp3 would ever go out and buy a CD (at least according to the worst rhetoric of the RIAA), then this data is apparently an anomoly and we should just ignore it.
;-)
Now we must admit that this really does bring up some of the philosophical debates of
Personally, I think this is a great way to point out that mp3's do not actually stop the purchasing of CD's, but rather promote them in the sample-before-you-buy theory. Technically we could sit around in music shops, listening to each and every CD we can get our hands on (if you happen to have one of those nice CD shops around) to see what we like, or perhaps we can just go online in the comfort of our own home and check out some stuff that other people have recommended to us, or that we have found by happenstance (the same thing that we would do in the record shop, except we can do this at 2:00am, when insomnia rears its ugly head). While the record company will obviously lose some money from people having nothing but pirated music, the overall purchasing of the music could be stimulated by the existance of mp3s.
There is, however, the other point to bring up. Music sales have increased because the economy is booming and people are just out there spending more money, most of whom have no idea what an mp3 actually is and wouldn't know how to operate a computer in order to use them in the first place.
Then again, there is the thought that they are using Britany Spears to spread subliminal messages hidden in her artificial bustline to get more adolescent kids to buy stuff...
But, back to the subject, I don't know what the numbers were from last year, at least I don't remember them being mentioned in the article), so I can't completely compare these ideas (and then again, how can someone truly proove an idea such as this.... but I digress). However, the data leads me to beleive that mp3 isn't the evil that the RIAA makes it out to be (NB - I didn't beleive them in the first place), or so the numbers would have us beleive...
so i'm sitting here, at work, relolading slashdot, when i see one of the best headlines in a long while. yeah, i laughed out loud in my office. then i read the article, then i read the comments.
i might have guessed that maybe one id10t would post...... "um... i dont get the obvious joke embedded in this headline", but come on people, there are too many comments destroying my illusion that slashdot readers are a bit smater than the average person.
how about we think before we get that first post. slashdot is about sharing knowledge and fun... not about having the most karma, or complaining over bad posts, or repeat posts, or pretending that were more important than posters, linus, or god.
lets try to respect slashdot... and congrats michael for a great post.
//end rant
lexicon
I just thought I'd throw in some discussion not related to music distributors and publicists. What about the artists who we all so enjoy listening to? What happens if they cease to be payed for their efforts and no longer produce the music? While I realize and agree with the opposition to forking over hard-earned to big conglomerate corporations, it is those companies who provide artists with a label and a means by which to earn profit through notoriety.
I don't think music should have to be stolen to prevent our money from getting to the conglomerates. However, the artists must still be payed to continue their great work. Devotion to the art is fine, but it doesn't pay the bills.
With the inexpense of advertising on the internet, as well as the tremendous and diverse audience out there, doesn't it make sense that artists should begin to promote themselves and sell their own music? If artists could somehow distribute their own music via the internet at rates considerably lower than those of major labels, I would not be adverse to purchasing music. Just a thought.
"The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is allev
That was the whole point of the article.
The MPAA had a net Profit of $1,400,000,000.
I thought that that was a clever but simple and straight forward joke on Micheal's part. It is interesting that so many people appeared to be misled by it.
Jordan Bettis
``Wherever you go, there's another stupid sigfile quote.''Double negatives were neither necessary for impact, nor added to the readability of the story.
:-)
/prove/ I'm right.
The story should have read: "Pirates cause $1.4 billion gain in CD Sales. Also, 90 million more CDs are shipped.".
Or, better yet, (but without the intended effect, yet more accurate):
"Despite pirates, the RIAA sees a $1.4 billion gain in CD Sales with 90 million more CDs shipped".
I wouldn't have posted this, but there are _way_ too many people bitching on slashdot, supporting the use of double negatives in english language for "impact" in this story. Readability adds impact, double negatives detract from it. That is why "Yo English teecha neva told ya's to use da sentence 'I ain't never gonna come back'".
Flame me on the fact that double negatives are wrong, and I'll
Flame me for bad grammar, and you will be ignored.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
You know, I always ignored those "I'm leaving Slashdot, I'm sick of all the stupid people / the trolls / etc." posts... but damn, it looks like almost all the intelligent, insightful people really have ditched Slashdot.
I need my geek fix too frequently to give up on slashdot, but you miss so much reading at Score=2, and you see so much garbage reading any lower. And now that the trolls have figured out that they can get accounts just like anyone else for the +1 bonus, and they can post often enough to waste moderator points on marking them down rather than marking insightful stuff, so the Score=3 posts get scarcer and scarcer.
Fuck, I probably need to post this anonymously, too, since the decay of Slashdot (and Western-fucking-Civilization) is "off topic", and will be marked down just like the dozens of legitimate "put software release 2.3.48ac4 in it's own section" complaints in other threads.
Of course, we're stuck with clueless moderators, since the 33% of people who visit slashdot most often make themselves ineligible to become moderators; that way we get "the average reader". Yay, average people.
>Mp3's are illegal and wrong and bad
:-)
No way man. Pirating music is "bad". MP3s aren't.
Sorry to point that out, but nowadays, EVERYBODY thinks MP3 == pirated music. 'Fraid it ain't so...
1/2 my library of 60 Audio CDs are in MP3 format now, and counting. Much more convenient, to have 5 albums (compressed at something decent, like 192 kbps VBR) on a CD, rather than just one.
I agree with the rest of your points though. The ability to pirate music off of the internet has allowed people to sample music from groups that would have never been considered in the Music Store. The internet and MP3 compression has really opened up the amout of quality music availiable to people, simply by making the "try before you by" scenario reasonably possible.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I can't mention a sign of the "industry" losing any money at all in the link that was posted. In fact, as far as I can tell, they're reporting growth in cd/dvd product sales from the previous year. To quote:
"According to the RIAA, manufacturers saw a 3.2 percent net unit increase in audio and video product shipped to domestic markets (from 1.12 billion units in 1998 to 1.16 billion units in 1999). The corresponding dollar value of those shipments at suggested list price increased 6.3 percent from $13.7 billion in 1998 to $14.6 billion last year. "
Here's another paragraph
"Despite the maturity of the format, in 1999 full-length CD shipments grew nearly 11 percent over the previous year. On the other hand, while shipments of CD singles remained flat at 56 million units, this was a significant improvement over 1998. Growth within the CD singles format is being driven by CD maxi singles, which increased from $35.7 million in 1998 to $65.3 million in 1999. Full-length CD unit shipments grew 10.8 percent from 847 million in 1998 to 939 million in 1999; full-length CD dollar value grew 12.3 percent from $11.4 billion in 1998 to $12.8 billion in 1999."
In fact, the subtitle of this article itself clearly states
"RIAA Reports Recorded Music Market Enjoyed Solid Growth In 1999 DVD Growth Explosive, CDs Solid, Cassettes And Music Videos In Decline"
So I ask you again, does anyone actually read these articles, or do people merely read what other people CLAIM the article says and their OPINIONS on it, and then start a discussion based on that? I mean, if slashdot has degraded that far, thats fine and I'll shut up, but I wasn't aware we had descended that far at this point in time.
Really like the sarcasm, Michael, but doesn't it sound like the bullshit the RIAA is using in its own propaganda? "MP3s hurt music sales... we're selling more music! People place 'intrinsic value' in music!"
What they've been spoon-feeding the media (it's kinda incestual in a way... they've been media-fucking their keepers; e.g., Time-Warner, etc. who have interests in music and news media) is exactly that: a huge contradiction. I'm going to assume that their sales statistics are based on fact. This means that their entire crusade against MP3s is based on non-existant evidence. The RIAA wants us to believe that MP3s are hurting music distribution, when in fact their monetary sales and unit sales are both substantially up? Doesn't make sense.
Of course the few odd pirates will impact the bottom line, but I'm guessing there are a lot of people who get an MP3 from a friend, off the net, etc. and then go buy the album. A friend just turned me on to Neutral Milk Hotel via 200MBs of MP3s that she had up on restricted FTP server. Guess what CDs are going to be in my mail box on Monday? Two Neutral Milk Hotel albums.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
So how many lawyers will $US1.4 billion buy for stomping on open source authors?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Why is this moderated "funny"? I think he should be taken literally. If we pirate 100% of their sales out from under them, they won't be able to pay their lawyers.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
We need to filter out certian users like the account trolls - so why not make it so that you can filter posts by the user's krama rating?
/. crew to report abuse on the board to the ISPs. You can have the kids kicked off the net - that would be funny. =)
Then after 5 mark downs, they can't be seen.
Also we could get
When CDs first came out, they were a little more pricy then most people had hoped. The recording industry stated that the price jump was because the media format was so new, and they needed to up production before they could drop the price without losing money.
Rather then drop the price like they had promised, they saw that people were willing to pay the inflated prices (due to the monopoly by the RIAA.) Hence, they never dropped the prices like they had said they would.
If you look at the prices on mp3.com, thats the price a CD truly should be, $8.99 or so. I dont know about you, but if Music CDs only cost 8 bucks a peice, I would be buying them all the freaking time.
As it is, I am a poor college student, and I pirate most all of my music. That combined with my bitterness towards the Media industry as a whole, I can justify myself.
On a similar note, does anyone know how much the artist gets from a CD sale through the RIAA? I bet its under 1$ per CD. I truly belive that a real artist would prefer my appreciation of their music over my money. And with my complete lack of funds, mp3s have allowed me to appreciate a wide variety of different music.
If i could send squarepusher a cheque for 15$, I would. That would probably be more money then he would get if i bought all of his CDs...
I still dont understand why the RIAA is fighting mp3. They are going to lose.. thats all there is to it. Their best bet is to embrace the mp3 format and figure out a way to make money off of it.. I dont know about you guys, but I would gladly pay a monthly fee for access to an RIAA mp3 ftp with every peice of music ever released on it.
no
Arrrr
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
but more to the point. My friend and I had a discussion about this yesterday, it's easy to find all the new singles from different bands since thats what people hear on the radio and go download. What you don't find a good deal of is B-sides, smaller bands (even "big" punk bands), and the tracks from the middle of the CD. Look for a full album of Pink Floyd or The Addicts, they are HARD to find as mp3s. Maybe the piracy crap was just reverse psychology...
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
something that Rob and crew have tried very hard to preserve is that you can see EVERY post -- even those modded down all the way. so losing their +1 bonus, yes. even having them start out at -1 (like the +2 bonus for high karma the other way around), yes. however, just erasing their posts seems to go against the intentions so far.
/. crew (and Andover) open themselves up for all sorts of legal action. common carrier status is a precious thing.
:)
and having them kicked off is inappropriate -- not to mention that no ISP would probably do it, except perhaps for NetZero, Frewwweb, etc... however, how would you report them? if you (for example) track IPs, then the whole
perhaps we could just slap em around a bit...
Lea
Which is more amazing.. that you people bitch and whine about the "corporate" music and the "spoon-fed" attitude, or the fact that you steal said music. Whether or not they're ethical is a personal decision. If they're really the bad bad people you say they are, why don't you 1) not BUY the music, and 2) not DOWNLOAD the music. Its pretty amazing you blasphemize these companies then justify stealing their goods because they're evil.. indeed...
Well, y'all mostly missing the point.
Go back to the beginning. The music industry IS evil - musicians basically sell thier souls (and all rights to thier works) for distribution. The industry is the largest legal pimping operation ever created. The whole thing is an upside down pyramid scheme with the creators of what drives it on the bottom rung.
It could ONLY exist for as long as it has because distribution was expensive. All that vinyl to stamp, all that cardboard for jackets (age giveaway!), all those CD's to burn, all that plastic for cases, advertising, shipping, etc etc etc.
Why do people keep claiming that the internet will change the world? Because the internet changes the fundamental paradigms underlying countless industries. Anybody can distribute anything digitally. Musicians (and all other creators of art) will find a way to self-distribute, or cooperatively distribute, thier works at a reasonable profit. Like water flowing downhill, the free market will see to it. Count on it.
Remember, it's still early times. Once the internet is as ubiquitous as television, it is inevitable. It cannot be controlled.
It is also inevitable that as this occurs, the entrenched and very rich interests in the current paradigm will literally flood the world with fear, propoganda, lobbying money, and outright lies. We've only just begun to see the types of inane laws and regulations that this will bring about. But in the end, it's just noise.
The old paradigms are already dead. They aren't going to die quietly, but dead they are. Digital distribution isn't going away.
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"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
And they control upgrade paths: every ten or so years, you will get a new, "enhanced" format that requires you to repurchase your entire collection of media.
Contrast that with MP3. Because MP3 is open and media independent, it's archival: if you have paid for some piece of music once, you and your heirs can access it in perpetuity.
Furthermore, with an open format like MP3, you'd get more and more free content, from people who perform music and theater for fun. Much of that isn't going to be very good, but some can be excellent. With the kind of format the RIAA is pushing for, they'd get their cut even from such productions, through license fees and inflated production costs.
Technology promises to bring us, finally, the ability to share artistic content freely, and the established media companies are trying to thwart this. I think, ultimately, the RIAA and MPAA efforts are doomed to failure. But if we don't watch out, we may be in for a very unpleasant few decades where content remains unnecessarily expensive and limited.
the music still belongs to them. No matter how justified you are in doing whatever the hell you want in your mind, it still belongs to them.
No matter how self-righteously indignant you can make yourself, its still belongs to them.
How you justify the idea that pirating music really isn't pirating music, and that you somehow have a "right" to download it without ever making any pretense of purchasing it, is really amusing.
Andrew Gardner
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, its too dark to read.
How many of you have made for, or recieved from, your friends tapes containing songs of bands you have not heard before, and as a result gone out and bought albums?
This is surely of benefit to the music industry when radio stations will only play safe, conformist, boring, commercial music.
Call me old-fashioned if you like...
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
That's what the recording studios consider radio for, plus there they have much more control over the music.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
What's really important from the business mind of RIAA is, how does that growth compare to last year's growth? How did we compare to Wall Street's estimates? In fact, their rate of growth could be slowing, due to the expanding use of mp3's.
So, this isolated fact really tells me nothing, and in the larger scheme of things, this fact could be used to boost the RIAA's case in court.
The cost of a producing a CD is cheap. This includes CD, jewel case, ink, paper, etc. Probably $1.50 US max. Unless the artist is a multi-million album seller, the artist makes very little in royalties from CD's (more on this later). My figures were about $1.00 US a sale. Maybe $1.50. We'll be generous - $2.00. If the artist is big, this can vary wildly, because the artist has real negotiating power when making up a recording contract.
As for the rest (~$15.00 US), that's due to the record company and middlemen. Maybe you should ask record stores how much they pay for CD's from the manufacturer. From my music course days, the record company makes at least $5.00 a sale (more on this in a sec).
Sounds pretty crappy huh? Well, get this...
Say I'm a "starving artist" and a major record company wishes to sign me to their label. Cool. I'm in the big time. Let's even say you have your own studio. Now, what will the record company offer in a standard contract?
You know what the best part is? They own your copyright. Thus, if you become successful, to have control of your songs, you have to buy them back from the record company. That basically sucks and is the same as the software industry. The difference is you are writing the music for yourself and others, whereas you write software for other people. It's similar, but much more personal with music...
Anyway, sparing some gory contract details that I don't recall exactly, it breaks down to this: you pay back the record company out of your royalties. This is the part that really blows.
Let's say I got a loan from the record company for $200,000 US to create and distribute my album that I recorded. I hand over the master recordings to them so they can make the CDs. I now no longer own copyright on them but I get $2 from each sale. After 100,000 CD sales I still have nothing in royalties because that $200,000 in royalty money goes back to pay the record company. I only get money after the 100,000th sale. I don't think it's hard to image that 100,000 sales is tough for a nobody artist and $200,000 is a low estimate on the creation/distribution of records. Note that the record company makes $7 a CD for the first 100,000 sales.
It gets worse: standard contracts have you signed for a few albums - not one. So you can get really in debt if you aren't successful. Add in the cost of a producer, engineer, studio, incremental royalties and it just goes to shit.
There are ways around this, but it's not real easy (hint: proven self-distribution). This is probably not all that far from reality now-a-days. Btw, the artists can make good money via live performances, I believe.
Just a little FYI. (if this is way different now, please fill me/us in)
Woz
gzw@home.com
99% of the population tend to view computers as scary grey boxes. Probably around 50% of the population listens to music. That means a large part of the music-buying audience is afraid of computers. These people probably do not stuff their harddisks with illegal MP3's. I don't know why the majors even bother to complain about MP3's at all. Probably just to open their mouth.
Another reason why this isn't surprising is that CD's and records (food for the enlightened) tend to be seen more as collectible items than as carriers of music. Most people buy CD's/Records because they want something tangible, something they can cuddle and sniff, and something that has liner notes they can read. This also explains why Audio-CD pirating never took off that much (except in Russia and the Far East, where people simply can't afford to buy a CD at the official price). If you like a CD, you want to have an original. Cheap copies are not collectibles. If you just want to hear a certain song, you'll tape it from someone. Nowadays, you'll have someone copy the CD for you or you'll get an MP3 (if you're a member of the digerati). There is no indication, however, that there are more people now ripping and copying cd's than there were people taping records before. It's just that the MP3 "revolution" has made hometaping a little more visible. And just like hometaping never "killed music", MP3 will not either.
Which is a shame, though, because the only "music" MP3 would kill would be major label music (try to find illegal Pan Sonic MP3's. You can't. It's all Britney Spears). And, as we all know, the majors are evil.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
Maybe the record companies should consider two things. Instead of trying to watermark or secure a CD, why not make a compelling reason to buy one? How about good cover art, neat inserts and reasonable priced CD's?
$12.99 - $16.99 is an unreasonable price to pay considering a DVD is not much more. As well tapes and other media have plunged in price but stamped CD's seem to be the only thing that goes up in price as quantity increases.
MP3 has caught on like crazy. There is nothing record companies can do about this. All they can try to do is offer the music legally on MP3 if a legal buyer desires it.
If record companies want to curb piracy, make music affordable, the liner notes worth getting and offer the music in multiple formats.
This is my first post in ages, but this is an issue most people fell pretty strongly about.
...and to do that you need $
Pirating CD's is not the answer.
The villans of the music world are, as stated, the record giants. They have more money than any artist, and have the marketing budgets similar to the GDP of a small nation. They have the power to buy their way up the chart for a "number one" single.
And where do they advertise their wares? On free to air radio. Let's face it, without FTA radio, no artist would ever get anywhere. You have to want the music to go and buy it. To promote the MP3, or net only, scene, we need - MP3 radio.
Australia's youth network, Triple J has an MP3 of the week section where artists can send their tracks and hopefully score some free airplay.
If we had a radio station that operated soley on this, there would be a number of pros and cons.
+ There would be no licensing issues
+ There would be no CD library, just a data vault
+ Songs are able to be called from the library without leaving the chair
+ The songs (or samples of) could me made available to the listeners
- You would haave to pay for some real bandwidth
- Someone would have to go through the deluge of crap to find the gems.
- You have to get people to listen...
-
So when someone starts a MP3 broadcast radio station, that'll be the day the RIAA will actually take out more than a piracy legal suit, and the masses will rejoice.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
(I hate giving plugs to websites, but if you must have the music, this is the cheapest solution I've been able to find for new cd's.)
:)
Back when I was buying more cd's, the best place to check was http://www.finditnow.8m.com/ for discounts.
They have links to all kinds of "coupons" at CDNOW. Go for the ones that are $10 off purchases of $14.99 or more (for any cd).
Be careful, some of them are marked for first time customers only, and a lot of them are $10 off purchases of $19.99 or more.
But you can just keep using the $10 off $14.99 until they expire. Use them over and over (last I checked anyway, which was quite a while ago). That drops the price of a cd down to $4.99. So with about $4 for shipping, that is $8.99, and it is delivered to your door.
Hope that helps some.
Or you can do like I do. Don't buy any.
This sig is false.
I am not an employee of Nettwerk, but I run a family law firm (I don't do entertainment law or intellectual property, in other words), hence I am indeed a lawyer.
For nearly seven years, Nettwerk in Vancouver kept Sarah McLachlin afloat, taking her from a teenager who'd never written an album to profitability and an international market. She had the benefit of their money, Canadian Content regulations and a corporation that believed in her. A few years after she turned the corner and started making more money than if she'd taught music in an elementary school, she was able to use her marketing credibility to start up Lilith Fair. Regardless of whether you like her music or not ( I do, but I believe people should develop their own tastes ), Sarah McLachlin would never have been able to go on to such success without Nettwerk backing her, and she's said so again and again. As far as I'm concerned, they both took the risk and so she's entitled to the money, and so is Nettwerk. Don't pirate what someone else has developed privately: you have no right to steal.
Piracy is theft, pure and simple.
If you object to some scumbag trying to circumvent the GPL, you should definately object to piracy.
On the other hand, this DeCSS fiasco is morally repugnant: if I've paid for the damned DVD, fair use allows me to play it on Linux, BeOS and any other damned box I can get it to run on. Someone needs to sue the Norwegian government for malicious prosecution and hit Jack Valenti with a clue stick.
Just a survey, if you are given the option to buy a song for lets say $0.30 to $0.50 range in digital format, would you rather 1) Pirate it Digitally 2) Buy it Digitally 3) Buy the CD Slashdot, why not make this a survey?
I personally use LAME (well, not LAME technically, but rather the sample MP3 implimentation with LAME's patch applied); It's slower than most others, but the quality's good (and it supports VBR). And until this whole legal fuss got started, I did indeed buy the CDs corresponding to my MP3s. Probably still would, but I don't like feeding lawyers.
It may be obvious, but companies like the RIAA are in effect huge megalithic middle men. They know this. They have a monopoly to blackmail the artist into accepting their manufacturing / pressing / advertising contracts. They realise that artists can now record their music at CD quality, make their own CDs at budget prices. They can advertise for free on the internet. They can give away samples of their albums to a fan base. They can give chatroom interviews, all of this sickens the RIAA, it's cutting out the middle man, ie, them. Even though they are gaining sales, they are trying to stamp this fledgling threat to their entire existance before it really catches on. Just imagine it, they'd be out of a job if everyone did it that way.
:o)
And, no, I rarely pirate mp3s, I have a lot, but they're almost all mine. I buy the CD of the ones I listen to the most. That's the way it should be.
IMHO, anyway.
Mike.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
Lets put some math in use. If 1.4 billion is divided by 90 million, the average profit/loss for each CD is $15.44
Are they admitting that they are making about 90% to 110% (???) of the CDs at counter price? As in the real CD's production actually cost is actually 10% to -10% (???)
This is assuming they never produced the CD the did not ship. On the other hand if they claim the loss is due to CDs produced which is not sold, then they are admitting each CD cost them $15.44 to produce. Think, if you are really making all the money from factory to storefront, anyone is gonna distribute their products for $15.00 - $18.00 ? What I am suggesting is RIAA really is loosing only about 20-30% if the stated $1.4 billion (if the amount of CDs not shipped is true in any sense which I really doubt).
Either way, the figures seem too extreme and I believe it is a lousy lie exgerated.
Gary
No matter how evil the slaveowners are, the slaves still belong to them. No matter how justified you are in trying to free them, they still belong to the slaveowners.
No matter how self-righteously indignant you can make yourself, the slaves still belong to them.
How you justify the idea that freeing slaves isn't really stealing, and that they somehow have "rights" without purchasing their freedom from their owners, is really amusing.
The laws on the books aren't the definitave guide as to what is right and wrong. There are many people who believe that the music industry is using laws to corrupt, rather than noble, ends, and that by encouraging things like MP3 is a fight to break their monopoly on distributed music.
I am getting more than just a little pissed off at the music racket. And it's not much better than that, I wouldn't dignify it with the term "industry."
First they make 15 billion in revenue by overcharging 3 or 4 times for a CD. But thats not good enough. They also have to screw the musicians out of royalties. You would think that would be evil enough for one institution, but no, these guys also want to enact and enforce repressive copyright law internationally, and are big forces behind UCITA and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Now on top of this they want to whine that someone *else* is stealing from their patch? Hoo boy, the higher they are the harder they fall, and the music industry is really asking for one...
This is the problem with Holland schools -- nobody teaches critical thinking.
It is logically fallacious to assume that because record sales increased that therefore the record industry is not harmed by pirating.
Suppose I swiped SlashDot pages and put them up on my site attracing 20 or 30 page views a month. At the end of the month Slashdot lawyers contact me and ask me to cease and desist. I point out that Slashdot page views actually increased over the month, so therefore Slashdot suffered no losses.
Yeah, I bet that would get far (if unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted works is so great, how about removing all of the "© 1997-2000 Andover.Net." message at the bottom of each screen.)
just make sure all your friends do the same and we'll have nothing to worry about. Every time I wear my anti-dvd shirt I talk to another person. Markets follow a certain pattern (and the adoption of new technology follows this curve) with the first people to use something being the "early adopters", that's us for MP3, and a bunch of other stuff. This crowd then helps refine the product which eventually moves on to the mass market. I'm sure many of you have taken some marketing classes (unless you avoided them for religious reasons) and know most of this so I'll skip the details.
/., but when talking about it "at large" try and keep the sarcasm and cynicism to a low level and the facts (your version of them will do fine) as the main points.
My point is that as early adopters, we get to define, or at least help guide, what products come out for the mass market (and get mass marketing budgets). Knowing this, make your opinion known, especially to those that make these decisions. Vote with your wallet, express your fears to your peers, write poems about it, whatever. Bitching' about it is fun on
--
+&x
If the MPAA's (so far massively successful) campaign against DeCSS is anything to go by, unprotected systems such as MP3 could be in for a major battle. As soon as anything like SDMI is in place, the RIAA will probably sue makers of unprotected players/encoders for violations of the DMCA and the like. Given recent interpretations of copyright as an absolute zero-sum property right, they could well win and MP3 could be outlawed.
As for the menace of unprotected CDs, DVD-Audio will remedy that, and introduce geographic zoning and other nasties. All they'd need to do once it's on the horizon is start manufacturing their ordinary CDs to deteriorate in a few years, all the while shipping them with a voucher redeemable for a new "enhanced" DVD Audio version. It would make them look generous and aggressively forward-looking and help phase out the fundamentally insecure CD format.
That's just what my twisted little mind could cook up in five minutes. Imagine what the music industry can cook up in a decade.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
But I agree, a different solution is needed. More mod points, for example. There aren't enough to go around right now.
And I don't see how this would be any different than USENET abuse, in terms of ISPs' AUPs. Most ISPs prohibit spamming, and trolling == spamming. That way, at least the logged in users will be held accountable for their actions. And the AC's can stay at 0, where they don't bother anyone. Good AC posts will be modded up, as always, and bad AC posts can be safely ignored or modded down. I really don't see why the /. crew shouldn't report abuse of /....
--
That works for CDs, but won't work for DVD Audio. And as soon as they can, they will phase out CDs as a medium in favour of DVDs, much as they did with vinyl. And DVD Audio will be unrippable. (And playing it in through your soundcard doesn't count; for one, the quality on consumer gear is crap.)
Now look. If I board a ship, kill and mame people, deprive them of their stuff then you may call it piracy. Otherwise call it what it is. Copying!!!! OK Get it. PS. what makes you so sure that copyrights are a basic right anyhow??
The CD. The MP3. Crappy computer speakers. "Good" component computer speakers for $50. It's sad that an entire generation is missing out on the rich sound that a good set of speakers can give you. Yes, I believe in the magic of vinyl - laugh if you must. I would pay good money for brand new vinyl records. Perhaps there are enough people like me for the music industry to tap to counter their loss (if indeed it exists) due to mp3 piracy. Until then, I'll continue to download mp3s, but I'll feel bad about it, and I'll covet Magneplanar speakers, and hope that the college students of today, be they fans of Korn, or Mozart, or the Meaty Cheesy Boys, do likewise.
....
--Hey Doctor Jones! No time for love!
Five years ago, U2 was the artist with the best record deal: they received $2.50 per CD while most signed artists received $1 or less per CD. Today, Ani DiFranco makes the most money per album: about $7. She is in this position because she runs her own record label. Any artist who's ever tried to run a label knows it's a lot of work and takes a lot of time away from actually producing art.
I am surprised that CD sales are continuing to grow despite the fact that artists receive progressively smaller percentages of the price tag consumers pay (which is typically about $14 these days--an amount I consider outrageous given how little of that money goes to the artists).
Labels, for the service of distribution and promotion, typically get about half of the price tag you pay in the store. The retail stores mark up music about 100%. On-line music retail companies like CD Now, Music Boulevard, Amazon, etc. are no better in this regard, charging prices similar to or at best pennies less than "traditional" retail music outlets.
The MP3 phenomenon makes a loud statement: something is fundamentally wrong with the manner in which the music industry conducts business. Hopefully some reform to the system will eventually come forth.
Traditional economic analysis is not entirely applicable here because CD's are not indistinguishable and art is not a commodity. But when the music industry gets the message that sales of CD's keep increasing, they will interpret that to mean the industry can and should continue to charge more for CD's.
Is there any doubt that if this system is allowed to continue further the average artist will continue to receive progressively less than 7% of the gross price of the retail price of a CD for doing the great majority of the work?
if i worked for riaa/mpaa/whatever. their palace is crumbling around them.
they might be kicking ass this year, and for a few more, but unless something drastic happens sales will start to drop radically as average bandwidth-to-consumer increases.
when it gets as easy (and fast) to send entire songs or videos as it does to attach a jpeg, they're completely screwed.
i maintained a small sheet music archive for a choir for a short time, and one of my responsibilities was maintaining 75 legal copies of sheet music for the chorale.
It was just a little paperwork -- find the publisher, call them, get the cost, get the check cut/signed and send it in.
While waiting for the order to come in, we did rehearsals with photocopies. Of course, this was a legit org that did things the "right way". I bet a lot of sheet music gets copied all over the place, with no fees paid whatsoever.
Realistally, in the future, i don't see a lot of people paying $1.25 or whatever per song, regardless of format or distribution vehicle. There's a fat ghost in the machine that's getting ready to drop on the music industry.
maybe artists will make their money off touring, or merchandise? dunno. but i think mutimedia (audio/video/whatever) will eventually be free. i don't see a way to stop it.
Maybe they can sell the things through industry websites. $1.00 a song or whatever, and be harsh with unauthorized servers. That seems realistic. They can use the same search tools, and nab the piraters/illegal napsters. Friends sharing mp3's quietly will be something they have to live with.
after all, when the last time you saw a site allowing public downloads of win95, that is easily found by the average surfer?
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
As long as the music has to be transformed from its encrypted format to something audible for us to hear it, it will be possible to copy it. It will also be able to filter out audible watermarks. Further, as was shown to be the case with cable television people are willing to pay what they think is a fair price for an item or a service. When they are presented with no choice or all choices that are rip-offs they then feel no compunction about pirating that service or stealing that item. Nobody likes to get ripped off. When a sufficiently large portion of the population are doing something that is technically illegal, what are they going to do arrest everyone?
--locust
The fundamental problem here is that now that Slashdot is owned by a major corporation, its purpose is to generate advertising impressions. To do that, you must dumb down the content. Slashdot used to (like 2 years ago or so) be aimed at somewhere near the 95th percentile. Now, however it's around 75 or 80. People who like to see more thought provoking material, and more informative material are a smaller audience than those who want to see a Linux version of News.com, which is what Slashdot has essentally become. Slashdot (and Linux) has degenerated into mindless dogma and herd mentality, each person desparately wanting to belong to this movement that all logic and temperance disappears in favor of spouting idiotic platitudes.
Listen to people like John Katz talk about how geek culture is defined by pop culture, and Eric Raymond say that all geeks are libertarians, and you see the kernel of truth. Although many geeks think that they're rebels and free-thinkers, most of them are really just subscribers to a set of dogma that is already laid out before them ready for them to hitch a ride onto.
You are no better than anyone else for subscribing to this ideology. You still can't think for yourself any more than "mainstream" people do. You are just parroting what a different segment of society thinks. Just because you read Slashdot or use Linux doesn't mean that you are smarter than anyone else.
This will be my last transmission.
I highly resent... the fact that I'm forced to buy a CD that has songs I don't even like on it.
Why do people keep saying that, as if this argument holds water? Just get the damn single and screw the whole album then. I like getting all the songs that aren't singles, there are many hidden gems to be found. And how do you know you don't like all the songs unless you buy the whole album?
Oh, right, you get the whole thing on MP3 then go buy a CD full of songs you don't like, which you then throw away because you can't take care of them. You are an idiot then.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
in order to make producing records profitable in the long run, the labels have to charge quite a lot just to break even. 9 out of 10 bands don't make it big so the label needs to cover their costs with the one hit. once you add in the market and distribution costs, you see why it costs so much. only people with deep pockets can afford to be in this business. it used to be like this in the movie industry as well, but things changed. and the music industry will change as well for the same reasons: the distribution is easier and the production costs are lower.
the distribution changed because specialty theaters opened up to take independent films. also the multiplexs are so huge now that mainstream theaters often devote one or two screens to small films.
the production costs have changed because they have simply gotten cheaper. a movie company used to spend 10s of thousands of dollars just on the film when they made a movie. today cheap filmstock, cheap video equipment, and cheap computer systems have drastically reduced the cost of making a small film. now anyone can do it.
eventually technology will help out the music makers too. the internet promises to cut out the middle man for small musicians and cheap recording and editing equipment (usually in the form of computers) are reducing the cost of producing the actual album. two guys in a bedroom can record something that sounds better than a $100k studio from 30 years ago. (remember, The Beatles started out on cheap 4 track tape because they didn't have any money).
the music industry is changing, but of course the incumbent players don't like it. they never do. but eventually, just like the dinosaurs, they will adapt or die. if i were a record studio, i would rather slim down and become a bird than die and turn to oil for someone else to burn.
joshy
Prop me up beside the jukebox if I die.
Went to school with Jean (he was student President at York one year), and his sister was my Linguistics TA. I hate the band though.
Does this count?
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
You can withstand public discontent if you have the power to scare people.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Seriously, I just got back from long checkout lines at the grocery store, staring at the Star and the Enquirer, and Weekly World News. And here's this headline, right on the front page of /. How tragically similar...
Personally, I think the satire's better at segfault.
--
There is no K5 cabal.
I am not the real rusty.
From the brief description of the contracts, it seems that an artist would have to be a moron to actually sign with a major record company.
:)
Yes and no. (love those kinda answers, huh?
It is pretty crazy to agree to such terms as we outlined (they are really awful if you read the whole contract). However, the Catch-22 here is that it is almost impossible to effectively distribute an album without a major label. The only semi-effective way to do it is to sell CDs at your live shows yourself (after printing them yourself). If you can sell something like 10,000 CDs from playing relatively small venues, you might be able to bring some bargining power to the table with a record company.
Again, I could go on forever here. I think you can see where this is headed (hint: monopoly...).
This is why I think mp3's kick ass. All out distribution without a record company (or even a record company website). Why do you think record companies are mad when their artists release mp3's? It's no wonder they want to stop/control mp3's - loss of distribution stranglehold.
Woz
gzw@home.com
Think about what you just said before you pass so much judgement. In your example the record company spent $200,000. What did you spend? As far as they are concerned you spent $0. That is why you sign over the rights and it is also why you have to pay them back. You had to risk nothing. If your CD doesn't sell you haven't lost a penny. They on the otherhand they are out $200,000.
The truth is that MOST CD's LOSE MONEY! From the publisher's point of view, until you have a hit (most CD's don't) you are a huge risk. They are risking $200,000 on you. Turn it around, if you had $200,000 in the bank would you be willing to risk it all on the next band that asked you for it?
Sure, the industry as a whole posted record profits and I'm NOT arguing that CD's aren't too expensive. They are. The point is those profits were generated by a few big hit CDs. Garth Brooks, Backstreet Boys, etc.
The same is true in the PC game industry. Everybody sees companies like Id with John Carmack in his Ferrari from which people belive there's lots of money to be made and they assume that all publishers are evil and stealing from the developers since developers tell the same stories as above (repaying advances against royalies, signing over rights etc.) The truth is that most developers are stealing from the publishers. The publisher risks $500,000 to $2 million on development and the developer either fails to actually make a product or the product doesn't sell. In this case it's even worse for the publisher. Devleoper loses nothing. In fact they got a $500,000 to $2 million advances. The publisher lost all the money.
The problem is, is that every music artist assumes their CD is going to be a huge hit just as every game developer assumes they are going to write the next Quake or next Half Life or next C&C. From that point of view, it appears that you are getting ripped off. The problem is more likely than not your product/CD is not going to be a hit in which case only the publisher lost money. Only about 10 development groups manage to make huge hits a year. Another 20 make games that just barely make their money back and the other 4000 lose the publisher's money.
Note: 4000 is not an exaggeration. Entertainment titles shipped in 97 were around 5000. I'm going to guess that they are the same or more this year.
-gregg
Heh, i work at best buy, and our CD's are very competatively priced. I know for a fact that we only make $1 on average on a CD. And that's nothing... That means for every CD that gets stolen from our store, we have to sell 12 before we even _break even_! The money is there, it all goes to the reccord companys, the stores see jack.
sig?
For one thing, I suspect CD sales may be down due to other diversions. I bought a lot less music last year, probably because I spent more time on the Internet and on computer related stuff. As 1999 marked a huge explosion in terms of computer/ internet growth, I wonder whether this is at least partially responsible.
OTOH, maybe I'm a bit more picky nowadays about how I spend $25 on something that costs 50c to make. [UK prices]!!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Here at the university I work for napster has
:)
been blocked at the boarder routers for a while.
There has been talk about reactivating it...and
putting a bandwidth cap on the studtent segment
:)
I said they should just put 2 28.8 modems back to
back and route the dorms through them...but I
think they will be more generous than that
I find it amusing that people are out there
calling schools evil tyrants when I hear the
network admins talking about what they need to
do so they can turn napster back on without
negativly impacting the network.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Either way, majors do not lose significant dough to failed CDs. The $200,000 figure being thrown around here is way, way, way high for a band that hasn't already proven it has an bigtime audience except in weird, rare cases. Studio costs/tour support(if any)/etc aren't going to add up anywhere near that amount for a fledgling major band.
Of all the bands I've known anything about (or knew people in) who signed with majors (That'd be 311, Stick, Paw, Frogpond, Molly McGuire, and a couple I'm forgetting by now) ALL got jack didly on their first albums/ contracts. Enough for a pro-sounding album, some minimal help for touring, even some really crappy videos. The record companies weren't sweating too hard about breaking even. After all, most of these bands had some sort of decent following before being signed in the first place. This equals guaranteed CD sales. I'd be willing to bet most of those bands broke even or thereabouts given their local/regional support.
Anyway, there are bands that hang around on labels forever selling OK amounts of records per year and continuing on. Sonic Youth is a prime example. They don't make tons of money, but they do make money. Of course the focus is on creating the next one or two hit sensation to make gazillions off in a hurry, but there are some lurkers.
Your figures in the game industry are also a little off. There are way more than 20 games a year that make money! This is not to say there aren't a ton of losers, but sheesh. No one would be in the games industry if it was that tough. I've got an old friend who works at Legend Entertainment, who most recently put out Wheel of Time. However, Legend has been around for awhile longer than that putting out all kinds of stuff you've never heard of. They haven't made megabucks, and probably won't off WoT either, but they've expanded significantly and manage to pay everyones salaries and the bills. There are many companies out there like this (Interactive Magic, UbiSoft, etc), you just don't hear about them like you do with places like id.
Regards
If you want to give a lucid, reasoned argument why this or any law deserves to be obeyed, I'll be happy to listen to you. But saying that I should obey a law just because it's the law is a slap in the face to the brave people (e.g. Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks) who are admired today for breaking laws that they thought were wrong.
No one is saying that current copyright law is a fundamental human rights violation on the same order of magnitude as slavery. Indeed, I think we should all be thankful that the laws of this nation have improved to the point where people are quibbling over money instead of over fundamental human rights.
Although it sounds like I'm advocating piracy, I actually haven't pirated anything for years. In fact, for the past few years I have been protesting the RIAA's tactics by boycotting their products. I've spent well over a thousand dollars on CDs in the last 3 years, and every single one of them was foreign-made. None of them was produced by any record label in North America. The issue for me is not money, it's freedom and attitude. I want to be able to enjoy fair use of my CDs. I want to be able to play them on my Rio and to mix and match favorite tracks on CD-R, and I cannot bring myself to support an organization (RIAA) that wants to deny us those freedoms.
Clearly, you do not understand the options in the process of making, promoting, and profiting music. I will attempt to spell out a few of the problems with todays music and a few of the millions of options for a musician on the internet.
Music is not a product it is a service. Music lissening today is being degraded by the mass repitions that this product mentality implies. This creats those nasty one-hit-wonders and forces artists to force their fans to lissen to them sing the same song over and ver and over and over on CD. This is a really dumb way to sell music.
The truth is we would be better off lissening to less pollished, but more varied music. Artists *almost* produce a LOT of this less polished music in the form of practicing, jaming, goofing arround with the mixes, and live preformances. I'm talking about a whole wave of "disposable music" that could be produced allongside the more serious studio mixes.
Now, why would an artistgo to the extra work to prouce al lthis disposable music? One reason is that there will be too much of it to pirate. If people want this stuff they will need to pay for it because the pirates can not keep up (and a pirate who can keep up is big enough to sue). An even better reason is: it keeps people comming back for more!
A good way to sell all this stuff is to put some of it up for free download for a limited period of time, but allow fan club members to download any past song at anytime.. and charge like $20 for a yerly fan club membership. This is money directly into the artists pocket just for giving their true fans access to all this stuff.
The musicians don't just need to sell mp3s. Just look at the internet commics like sluggy.com. They appear to do fine by (a) making people come back to their site every day and (b) pushing merchandise on their viewers. An internet musician could do the same thing on a weakly basis. They could sell things like CDs, hats, shirts, etc. Actually, they could make a killing by selling lots of shorter production run CDs (say let people vote on the best of the disposable music) or mp3 CDs of a large amount of the disposable music.
We have all seen how crazy people get about some bands. I don't think there is any question the bands would make a killing off this shit. Especially, if they get things printed themselves.
The catch to all of this is you need to give away enough music to get people interested. There are all kinds of oppertunities for people to charge bands to upload the bands music to large numbers of pirate mp3s site as promotion.
There is one last opertunity for a band to make money by giving away music. Advertising! I would not be surprised to find equipment manufacturs giving good bands equipment just to say "mixed on a Sony BlaBla" at the end of the promotional songs.
If you really think abot the buisness oppertunities you will se that there is plenty of room for an internet savey artist to do MUCH better then an industry artist. The only real problem with the internet is that the small artists will need to know how to build a web site since web work could be very expencive. Especially, for someone who has no idea if they will make it or not. Conversly, an artist who is web savey could make themselves a big name with essentially no outlay of capitol.. just a lot of time.
note: I distinguish between promotional songs which are intended to float arround the internet and get people to visit the artists site and regular songs which are intended to be downloaded from the artists site.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Fruvous would be the next Beatles if people would just listen to their stuff!
The problem is that an unknown band doesn't get any radio play, and without radio play they remain an unknown band.
Reality has a liberal bias
There is no, and has been no, common carrier status for ISP's or anything like 'em.
Insofar as a couple of the backbone companies are also phone companies, *THAT PART OF THEIR BUSINESS* is a common carrier.
That's it. The rest of us are just normal private businesses, large and small, and own our own networks.
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At present, four companies (BMG, Seagram, AOL/TW and Sony) control about 90% of the music market. They constitute the RIAA and are committed to absolute intellectual property control, by all means necessary. They have monopolies on most of the artists whose CDs people want to buy (the only exceptions are those on small labels, and as soon as they get big they cross over to labels which offer them better marketing, as Nirvana and Sarah McLachlan did, for example).
If the Big Four talk amongst themselves (and they have plenty of opportunities to do so under the auspices of the RIAA), they could collude to phase out Red Book CDs over a period of time (say, 5-10 years to be cautious). They could hype DVD Audio, all the while cutting back CD manufacturing until it's easier to buy a DVD Audio player than to find a record shop that sells CDs. (Other than dance music, not much is sold on vinyl these days, and even that you have to go to specialist shops to find.) Ultimately, CD would be reduced to a legacy format and they'd be able to pull the plug without much protest.
What about the smaller labels? What about them. The "minnows" don't have much weight in the market, and will follow eventually. Once DVD Audio players are common, releasing CDs wouldn't offer them much advantage (other than saving on licensing fees or what have you). The discs would still play in the new players, but would lack DVD features.