Slashdot Mirror
Feedback: Who Owns Ideas
The escalating and increasingly symbolic conflict on the Net between music and movie fans and the entertainment industry seems to drive most people into one of two camps, Ro Sumner writes in response to last week's Slashdot discussion on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and the free music wars.
The problem, Sumner says, is that discussion halts around two central ideas:
"This is theft! Theft is wrong!"
Or: "No, it's not theft, and so it can't be wrong!"
His analysis is accurate. The discussion certainly gets framed this way by media, politicians, lawyers and law enforcement. And the issue is important, because this conflict will surely shape ones to follow between rapidly expanding open-source models of information that allow files to propogate like virii, and historically proprietary institutions -- banking, Wall Street, law, medicine, education and politics, to name just a few.
The battles springing up around the way music, TV, movies and other so-called intellectual property are transmitted digitally -- and in what contexts their creators are entitled to be paid for their use -- are shaping up in the way issues emanating from Washington so often do. They calcify into two eternally warring sides that never seem to persuade one another, and are thus unable to move the discussion forward.
One fantasy is that the Net, especially open source models of communication, offers the promise of a more rational approach. It makes possible an unprecedented range of open and civilized discussion, feedback, ideas and potential solutions. This is said hopefully, but knowing full well that most innocuous Net discussions can be nastier and more brutish than ones that would be called "heated" on MSNBC.
But something about this issue seems to transcend the usual head-banging. The Net's potential for this kind of discussion was reinforced again last week by intelligent and well-informed e-mail from lawyers, programmers, musicians and consumers. Concerns about intellectual property seem to rise above the usual squabbling. Everybody apparently agrees that something is wrong, a new approach needed.
The fact is, culture is already being transmitted freely all over the Net; that isn't likely to stop. But both artists and corporations have rights too, along with consumers. The existing reality isn't making anyone happy.
Sumner suggests focusing on the unworkable nature of the economic model that currently governs marketing culture. "Bits aren't widgets," he says, "and we shouldn't try to sell them as if they are. There are other models. The service model, the shareware model, the freeware/donation model, etc. I think that's the main point -- we need to pay the bitmakers directly, or as directly as we can."
Ian Stoba pointed out in e-mail that the discussions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act centered mostly on the consumers of digital music, not the producers.
"I don't know how well this is known outside the music industry, but no one hates the record companies as much as the artists. Giant record companies routinely write abusive contracts and just flat out steal from musicians," he noted. "The royalty musicians get for the sale of a CD is very small (like $15 per unit). The costs of producing the record, making the video, booking the tour, and marketing come out of the artists share, not the labels?" The artists do not see a dime of royalties until all the label's costs are repaid."
Stoba goes on to suggest that "the Net could be a radically more efficient distribution medium for the musicians as well as the people who buy music. A band could sell a CD over the Net for $1 and actually make more than they do selling it in a record store for $15."
Musician Matt Rose wrote that he was reminded of this quote from Bruce Sterling:
"This is the time to be thoughtful, be expressive, be generous. Be "taken advantage of." The channels exist now to give creativity away, at no cost, to millions. Never mind if you make large sums of money along the way. If you successfully seize attention, nothing is more likely. In a start-up society, huge sums can fall on innocent parties, almost by accident. That cannot be helped, so don't worry about it any more. Henceforth, artistic integrity should be judged, not by ones classic bohemian seclusion from satanic mills and the grasping bourgeoisie, but by what one creates and gives away. That is the only scale of noncommercial integrity that makes any sense now."
Sterling's idea of a "start-up society" -- as good a description of Net and Web culture as anyone has ever come up -- suggests patience, creativity, generousity and innovation. Nice ideas, but they don't seem to appeal either to lawmakers or large entertainment conglomerates.
Rose thinks that most musicians don't want to be millionaires; they'd rather have a lot of people hear their music. "A lot of them think that MP3's and the Internet are the distribution channels they've been waiting for. That's not going to happen if record companies don't let them do it. Every musician I know would be happier if MP3 distribution were an accepted way of getting people to listen to their music."
But some artists are understandably worried about releasing music on the Net; people may not want to pay for a CD at all when they can copy it for free. But Stoba says he's been thinking about a system that collects payment for playback, not for purchase, an echo of Sumner's idea.
"What about if consumers paid a very small fee (say .l cent per song played) every time they played a song?" Then a central distribution site (like MP3.com or iuma.com) could collect the usage stats and pay the appropriate royalties directly to artists. Program your player to skip the song you hate on a disc and you'll never pay for it. Play a cut 20 times in a row and the band will get paid accordingly. Stoba's even come up with a collection method: debit accounts established with sites that allow the MP3 player to automatically deduct money as songs are played. Some colleges and universities -- if the record industry wants to be generous and smart -- could collect revenue from music distribution on their sites, instead of dodging lawsuits.
Mikko Hanninen wrote to suggest that there are alternatives to the current copyright system -- like the "Street Performer Protocol" written by J. Kelsey and B.Schneier -- that could ensure that people who are responsible for creative work get paid, while digital information remains freely shareable online.
The SPP is an "electronic-commerce mechanism" designed to make it easier to privately finance public works. Under this protocol, people would put money aside, to be released to authors/artists/musicians in the event that their work enters the public domain. The protocol initially referred to marginal or alternative works, but it has some promise as a new economic model for dealing with Net copyright, in no small part because the Net changes the very meanings of "marginal" and "alternative."
People could pay a single, modest, single fee to an entertainment Web site, which could keep track of the music or movies consumers use and pay small royalties to the company, thus the artist. Like Sumner's debit account, this approach raises a number of privacy and technical issues.But the notion of setting aside some payment for artists is preferable to the cat-and-mouse-game now being played by the entertainment industry and millions of computer users.
That model also gives artists an initial payment, but recognizes that ideas and culture become free -- like it or not -- once they are distributed virtually. This is precisely the point where existing ownership debates tend to break down: there comes a point where content on the Net for practical purposes simply becomes public domain. Payment has to come before that, or not at all.
The first step in approaching issues like who owns ideas online is recognizing that total control over ideas is no longer possible. And it might not even be a good idea economically. The political aspects of the open source impulse driving at least some of the conflict over "free" music -- simple greed and desire are others -- argue that broad distribution of content makes it and the artists and creators of it more, not less valuable.
Their work is seen or heard by many millions of people, they have the opportunity to try out opinions, works and directions in front of their audiences, and they ultimately might be able to turn that reach into economic gain. Nobody's really certain yet. Commercial applications for open source software are becoming lucrative; perhaps there are implications there for other businesses as well.
Despite corporate warnings, "I don't think the current economic model for selling creative works such as books or music albums will collapse under the piracy and copyright theft on the Net," Hanninen writes, "but the fight about copyright censorship and enforcing will get ugly, and having an alternative would be nice."
The copyright fights have already gotten ugly; an alternative would be nice. It would also be nice if real alternatives emerged to the roadblocks currently in place.
Another post came from Spurius (Rei) via earthlink. "The critical issue that keeps surfacing is artist compensation," he writes. The answer he once advocated was a regular fee charged to gain access to all music. Though the fee would be small, it could add up to a substantial amount.
The problem, as Spurius himself acknowledges, is launching a comprehensive system. "Just neglecting the fact that most musicians currently are signed to long-term record contracts, even new musicians would be unlikely to be swayed to join some new system which can't guarantee anything, seems non-standard, technological, etc., unless they were extreme fans of open media."
Gaming models might offer some ideas for dealing with intellectual content, since that's another industry where the same issues press, Spurius suggests. A company that releases a game, instead of selling it, could offer membership to a service that permits consumers to download any game they choose from the server any time.
Instead of offering only its own games, a company could allow all companies to put their games on its server, including people who have already released non-commercial games.
Spurius's idea is to sell culture, beginning with smaller games and projects, and building towards bigger, more commercial products.
From Timothy Lord, Slashdot's managing editor: "A question that arises when it comes to alternate means of paying for content: 'If prices were lower, would revenues be higher?' If it only cost, say, $3.00 instead of $15 to grab the content of a CD, would enough people buy the CD from music companies or designated agents to justify the move? (From the point of view of the producer, I mean.)
"How about if middlin' quality files were freely available," Lord suggested, "and everyone was allowed to play, trade, store, collect them -- but the companies more jealously guarded high-quality transfers? Like a lot of people, I'd be much happier to pay $8 for 8 songs I like than $10 for eight I like and another four I never want to hear."
Lord's idea is interesting for several reasons. As hinted at before, corporations and copyright law don't distinguish between "popular" and "marginal" intellectual property. (Imagine the brawls among artists over which category they'd get put into). But cost could be tied to sales, either in the way Lord suggests, or inversely: the more people who buy a hit CD, the lower its costs. A number of websites already encourage consumers to mass - purchase products with the understanding that the greater the number sold, the lower the price. Given the size of the Net, that could result in cheaper music than ever before. But it would also require more imagination and daring than any record company has yet shown.
A lot of people wrote suggesting the creation of a commercial entity of some sort that would allow users to choose their own custom CD's, and to pay only for the music that they want. A number of sites have tried to provide this kind of service, including www.cductive.com/ ( now http://www.emusic.com/). But these sites are somewhat limited in that record labels determine the range of available songs as well as their cost.
A theme running through many of these suggestions is the single fee for aggregated downloads. Instead of paying separately for individual titles, for $50 or $100, consumers could download all the music and movies they want up to a certain number -- say 1,000. The potential volume is enormous. But the industry continuously overlooks the potential behind a vast new audience online.
This instinct to move the discussion past name-calling is significant. But the major problem with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is that it is not merely a point of discussion; it's the law that now covers intellectual property online. Only in recent months has it become apparent how noxious and one-sized a law it is. The DMCA is a statutory embodiment of the problem that stems from corporations becoming the primary contributors to the political process. Whose ideas are members of Congress going to support and protect? The people who fund their increasingly expensive campaigns? Or free music lovers on the Net, many of whom are disgusted by Washington politics?
The DMCA suggests that corporate pressure can reverse the way lawmaking ought to work: the law seems to have come before the discussion, as is clear from messages like this one from Brad Zimmerman:
"This week I've 'pirated' 1GB of MP3's via my 512K ADSL line. What I also know is that wholly because of MP3's I've bought three Aphex Twin CD's, a Apoptygma Berzerk CD, a Cleen CD, several Beastie Boys CDs, a Juno Reactor CD, etc. Later this month, I'll be buying a bunch of CDs (six, online) and they will mostly be stuff I've heard of via MP3s. What I do is still illegal, though. I know it. I do it anyway. I highly doubt I will ever be caught because I honestly believe there is no money in prosecuting me -- and the music industry, though blisteringly short-sighted, knows what makes money and what will lose money."
Zimmerman believes that most people involved in the free music discussion agree that "something" has to change and, in fact, a surprising number of people e-mailing me last week wrote that they would happily pay for music and movies -- providing that the amounts were small, the access substantial, and that the result was greater options and choices.
One reality moralists clucking about "piracy" don't quite grasp is that millions of people all over the world have amassed vast music archives in recent years, and are understandably loathe to give them up. This isn't about stealing a few songs -- it's about codifying the evolution of an entirely new kind of cultural system.
"Hey wait a minute," e-mailed Mike from St. Paul, "I've been downloading music for free since I was in middle school. I've acquired a rich love of different forms of music online -- jazz, folk, hip-hop, techno ... Now all of a sudden I'm a pirate? Give me a break. I could never afford to buy this. I love music and support a lot of musicians, believe me."
Many bristle at the idea that they can only buy music in the expensive, often mixed-quality form in which the record companies sell it.
Since this issue gets shrouded in moral chatter -- "theft," "piracy," "immorality" -- it seems only fair to point out that music industry works much the way drug cartels do, monopolizing music and its distribution, and exploiting dependence.
The hypocrisy involved in this industry yowling about "piracy" is almost too much to take(the record industry earned a record $15 billion in l999, despite its claims of huge losses exacted by "pirates"), and it obscures the plight of artists whose work circulates widely without payment.
"It is not OK for you to let teenagers (or anyone else) pretend that the 'piracy' of movies or music is morally OK," Zimmerman writes. "If we don't agree with the law, let's change it."
Well said. Until reasonable systems of compensation and distribution are in place, the music-industry / listener schism will only deepen, to the benefit of neither.
Heheh. Nice try, bobo.
"Given that the Government grants artificial monopolies (copyrights) on music, your appeal to the "law of supply and demand" is meaningless."
Negatory, oh wise one. Government artificially manipulates supply, but it cannot revoke the law of supply and demand (though it often tries). If Bill gates bought a million dollar CD, it does prove that that CD is worth a million dollars, to Gates.
Just because you don't value CDs at a million bucks doesn't mean there aren't those who do. And just because you hate paying $15 for gangsta rap doesn't mean there aren't those who don't. In aggregate, CDs are worth what people pay for them.
Your assertions about equilibrium price don't hold water. If people would only pay $5 for a CD, that would be their price. What is your labor worth? On the one hand, it might be worth more than your pay, in which case you should demand a raise. On the other, it might be worth less, in whic case you should be fired (or docked). On the gripping hand, if you are neither overpaid nor jobless, you are paid exactly what you are worth.
Note that this occurs despite the fact that you have less bargaining power than your boss (you need the money, he don't need you), you had a major barrier to entry (college), he had a major barrier to entry (college, capital, licenses...), etc.
The laws of the marketplace apply without regard to the regime in power. Stalin ignored this, and millions starved as a result. This happens even with patent laws, barriers, etc.
The price may be inflated by gov't meddling, (or deflated, in some cases), but people still pay for things according to their value.
Neither you, nor the record companies you hate can change the fact that the average value of CD in the present market is $15-20. Doubt this? Go to any record store and see for yourself.
Or start your own company, selling for $0, and make a killing.
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wouldn't the cost of the envelope, stamp and check be more than 50 cents
Thats the part that a lot of people in this discussion just dont get. I do not want to pay $17 for a CD (where I may actually like less than 20% of the songs)of which less than a dollar goes to the artist so I can feed no-talent lame-ass loser assholes who capitalize on other people's talent and my desire to own a song or two. Things will change.
Jefus owns all ideas. thank you, Jefus!
I'm wondering how Stroba's proposal differs from the much-maligned (and now defunct) Divx scheme. The pay-per-play model does have its attractive aspects (low cost for music you rarely listen to, so it'd be cheap to develop a huge collection), but it also has its disadvantages (high costs for music that you like and listen to a lot). In addition, it would raise the same invasion-of-privacy issues that people hated about Divx. Maybe payments could be handled with some form of digital cash? Hmm.....
I believe he's talking about the artist's cut, though I'm not really sure.
about the music business. and what's even funnier is how little you know about your selves (or atleast the average person). pick a band, one of your favorites, but a recent one. how did you first hear about them? a friend? the radio? mp3.com? cdbaby.com? mostlikely it is either a friend or radio. and your friend heard it from the radio. so now, grasshoppers, i ask you this- how do songs get on the radio? ans why are all the songs on the radio from bands on major labels? hmmm? i hate to burst everyone bubble, but without record labels, you would never have heard any good music. sure, there is a ton of shit out there (nsync, etc etc). but record labels filter out tons of absolute SHIT out there. trust me, i know. go to a club on a random night and you will hear what i mean. go to mp3.com and randomly pick an artist. it sucks. even MP3.com will admit that 955 of their shit sucks. do you kow how many artists released by labels "make it"? about 1 in 10. have you even looked at the financial statements from any of the record labels or their parent companies? you will see they are not making more than 10-15%. not bazillions, they are literally scaping by, even with huge hits by Dr Dre, Santana, etc. why? because they lose tons of money promoting potentially good bands that NEVER MAKE IT because YOU heard it and didnt like it and didnt buy it. point number 2 - people like things "pushed" to them. they do not have all the time in the world to go hunting for a needle in a haystack. how would you find your "favorite" music if there was no filter on it at all? you wouldnt. there are too many bad bands, they would discourage you from even looking. you would want something or someone to give you a top ten or something. that's what radio does. that's why there are different formats for radio (not everyone likes urban). radio survives on advertising. advertising is determined by listeners (how many they have). they do not want to lose "share" so they play music that is "popular." music that people will potentially know about. people will potentially know about it because record labels spend million$ on marketing them. how do you think you "discovered" that "new" band? there are record people doing their darndest to get it in YOUR FACE! i dont care if its Metallica or Ice Cube. ok i rambled a bit, but none of you seem to understand how the industry works and it was just irking me that you dont even realize how you first heard the bands that are your favorites now. they were PUSHED to you, you did not find them on your own. and yes, TLC did get the shaft. there is a happy medium somewhere, but please do some homework before you start posting about thing which you have no idea.
Yeah, mebbe if you're the label.
But for artists, performances are where the money is. By and large, they make jack from recordings (especially after paying for production costs and the like - yes, the labels make them do this).
that Katz's articles don't generate the amount of traffic that it has in the past? Have we begun to tune him out? Has his manipulative "journalistic" style begun to backfire?
I hope so.
Something to bear in mind is the US Supreme Court ruling of yesterday that essentially states just because someone makes a product that looks exactly like yours, doesn't mean that the copier has infringed on you. Look at http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-150.ZS. html "Design, like color, is not inherently distinctive. "
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Hey, I'm happy if someone likes my music. That's enough for me. I've also got stuff in mp3.com but I won't tell you where :-)
material wants are the only roadblock to Utopia
Ideas *can't* be owned. Only pleromatic (physical) entities can be owned. One apple is one apple--it can be eaten only once. Ideas are creatural (relational) entities. There is no limitation for their replication and use (read GNU/Linux, etc). Only limited-use entities (pleromatic) are subject to ownership. `Intellectual property' is balderdash. gacp
Reading the SPP paper brought back a lot of ideas I had thought of on the subject, but saw some difficulties. Using SPP, what should I expect to evolve? One danger is if a few people donate a lot. The problem comes when they stop donating because they feel like the rest of the world is taking advantage of them. They will then leave the donations up to the next sucker. It would be better if donation sizes could be limited so as to make it some indication of real popular support. The shareware model is nice because everyone has the product in their hands and then pays for it out of general sense of fairness. But if I send money for something sold by the shareware model, I would like to know if the artist/developer has already got a compensation for it that is acceptable and fair. And when does a shareware product become a freeware product? Consider a hybrid of SPP and Shareware. In this model the product is realeased publicly with a notice about what compensation the artist expects for the work. Like SPP, the status of how much money was collected would be published on the Web. People buy the product (in a shareware like manner) until the expected compensation is met. There will be many abusers, but the important thing is that the abuse will be publicly visible to everyone. The internet communities which only abuse will die because nobody will want to produce anything for them. The communities which give strong backing and encouragement will thrive because everyone will quickly see what products appeal to the ones who pay!
bands can set a price.
this price can be changed, and depends on quality.
maybe $100,000 would be a good start.
the public can listen to a lo-fi version free,
and donate money(e.g. $.01) toward the set price.
when that price is reached, the hi-fi version
is released as public domain.
if 10 million people give $.01, or
1 million people give $.1, etc, everybody wins.
this is a very good idea, and, if implemented,
i, Alex Igoe, would like credit for it.
this can also be extended to other artforms.
please email me if you want to talk about it.
MrNexus@hotmail.com
You are the dullest doornob in the sack, aren't you?
And if that thief went out and used any of the "ideas" he took from the show and infringed on any copyright of any of the people in the tradeshow, he'd be sued back to the stone age. And rightly so.
In an economic value chain, the owner of the scarcest part of the value chain will get most of the profit generated by the value of the entire chain. Pre-internet, the distribution of music was the hardest, most expensive part of the chain. You needed a recording "industry" to physically produce the media. They captured most of the profit, followed by the retail stores, which provided expensive physical floor space. The artists got squat because you can look at any city and find hoards of bands willing to play for beer, or a pittance more, just to enjoy playing and living a dream. With the advent of the internet and napster/MP3.com, etc, there is no longer much need for a recording *industry*. Napster is here. High speed internet is here. You can't go back. The value that a consumer places on the service the recording "industry" provides, that of pressing the physical media, is dropping, right now it's around $3, about the cost of buying a CDR, spending time burning it, etc. So that sets the upper limit of the price that can be charged for CD's in the future. The record "industry" is going to need to figure out how to create more value for the consumer, or just live with lower profit margins. Now, as to paying the artist for each time I play their song, that's bogus, and here's why. I work for a company writing very specialized database applications for internal use. When I quit coding, they quit paying. They don't continue to pay me for code I wrote a year ago. Same goes for the guy who collects my garbage, and the guy who sells me car parts at Autozone, and the teller at the bank. You get paid for the value that you add that day. You want more pay next week? Create some more value next week then. Only in the oddball IP worlds of software and music/tv have artists and programmers ever found a way to work once and collect a paycheck forever. Well that is going away. Record companies are going to have to produce something that I'm willing to pay for, above and beyond the service of putting bits on a CD. And artists are going to have to continue to provide more value to fans in order to continue to take the fans money. The artists can tour, and that will be their main source of income, as for the recording "industry", well, as long as they think of themselves as an "industry", there isn't much hope for them.
I am happy to pay to download - but not if I have to pay again, because say, my disk crashed - or if there are major upgrade hassles, or it wont work on my chosen platform (mot ms). If this hassle can be fixed - like a web based central clearinghouse /PGP keyring - then we can advance. Marketing men who say, well if the user looses his key, stiff cheddar. When I pay, u get IP address and more.
This post is the best and most awesome in the entire thread. Yet it gets moderated down while Mr. "I agree with Katz, patents/corporations/capatilism sucks" gets +3? Taco, if you are not blind, you will see the grave consequences of your failing moderation scheme and end it right now! That is, unless you want to rename slashdot.org to zdnet2.org or even socialist.org or how about dontmakefunofjonkatz.org.
super x
moderation slayuh
Yeah, But I don't want takeoffs banned either, nor the Barbie song
open source || closed source
0 -> we are here
open source is not free speech at all, free speech is closed or open source, which is what we have right now.
forcing open source with the GPL is just as bad as having closed source.
if everyone was required to have open source, it would be against what I believe in,(read: communist)
not a troll or flaimbait, just my $0.02
(rimshot)
Well, the cost of recording is not that outrageously high. And all of the other costs are now within the reach of most musicians via the web and MP3s. There is one remaining service that they provide. They help musicians retain control of the intellectual property. That is a valuable service for musicians who can sell a million copies. It isn't worth much to the newcomers for whom sales in the 10-100 thousand range would be fantastic, or the ones in niche markets selling 10,000 copies of each album.
It makes more sense for a new kind of company to start up that will handle promoting music on another model that is more profitable to the musicians, or if not more profitable, at least leaves them with a larger share of a smaller pie. That is what scares the record companies. Their view of the world won't last. Somebody is going to find that new business model and eat their lunch. They want to make it illegal.
You hit my point exactly. I love your comment :-)
Bottom line, there's a lot of money to be made in the music industry...if you're not a musician. Hell..if this LinuxOne POS goes through the roof, maybe artists should release "Music IPOs". Buying and holding shares will entitle you to all the albums they ever release. It can't jack up the stock market any worse than it is now.
You mean like a subscription?
"Send us X dollars, and we'll send you the next X songs/comics/stories we create!"
Sounds good to me.
Katz is a bigger leech than JP.
But the current corporate copyright model is also equally flawed, because it isn't profitable either (to the artists).
There are essentially two significant entities here: the artists and the listeners. Everything in between is just excess baggage that exists only to serve a specific purpose. So what we're trying to do here is come up with a better way to serve those two entities. The in-between (record companies) have no particular right to exist; they're an institution that was established to aid in music distribution back in the days of physical media. Now that those days are over, it's time for them to be removed from the system, and we're trying to figure out the best way to do that, is all.
Yes, we want it to be cheaper, because we believe that, without the record companies, it _can_ be cheaper. We don't like paying $15 for a CD; that is a ridiculous price even in today's market. We don't want to be forced to pay $15 for an Internet-CD by a record company that shouldn't even exist anymore. But that's not the core of the issue... it's really about freedom. We don't want to have to pay every time we want to listen to a song. We don't want to have to pay for it twice to be able to play it in both our car and our house. Heck, we don't want to have to pay more to play it at a higher volume, and we don't trust the record companies to leave us even that.
That's what this is really about.
One issue with this post (I agree for the most part). Record stores pay = 65% of what they sell the CD for. That means they paid less than $9.00 for a $13.99 CD. And big stores like Best Buy get better prices. They don't really have to advertise the music itself, just their presence. Sure they have rent/bills/staffing. But they get a huge chunk of the money.
We now live in an age where those who control the distribution of information get rich from it. Book, movie, and, of course, record companies get rich because they can now restrict the supply of goods that meet a great demand. The result is artificially high prices. Fast on-line access is rapidly changing that. The means of supply have greatly increased. This has the effect of driving down the price of those goods. Since prices were held so high for so long, people have gotten used to the idea that the prices we now pay are "normal." This couldn't be further from the truth. When, in history, have musicians (ie Madonna, Michael Jackson) held unimaginable wealth? The current record industry enabled this to happen. With internet distribution, I predict that this will become a thing of the past. Sure there will still be formal distribution channels, but network technology will bring down the entrance barriers to those industries. Competition will ensure that they will be low cost, low profit operations. Artists will run them and profit the most, but because they will not have the type of market stranglehold their record company predecessors had, their profits will be much less.
When you download an MP3, send a check directly to the artist. $.50 each or something. The record company had little to do with the MP3 (produced album, maybe), and they made enough last year to not worry about this year.
Wow. Thanks for missing the point entirely.
Many of these artists work on their music full time, and so need to make a living from it.
And the first post in this thread said that musicians should only be compensated for live performances, and that the current compensation model doesn't work.
So, if the current model doesn't work, and neither does the live performance one, are there any alternatives?
That's what I was saying.
"The DMCA is a statutory embodiment of the problem that stems from corporations becoming the primary contributors to the political process. Whose ideas are members of Congress going to support and protect? The people who fund their increasingly expensive campaigns? Or free music lovers on the Net, many of whom are disgusted by Washington politics?"
How many of us are so disgusted that we haven't registered to vote? Yes, corporations contribute. But we have a say if we aren't too lazy to go to the polls.
Register and Vote! There are other candidates besides Gush and Bore. Vote for someone who represents your values.
And you may get lucky. If you DO get busted for violating the DMCA, maybe there will be someone on your jury who has some experience of the 'net. Someone who knows the difference between Open Source and OpenGL and GPL. (Jurors are selected from voter rolls.)
Instead of someone who's only familiarity with the 'net is AOL and Time/Warner's products, (you know... the folks who brought you the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.)
Talk is NOT cheap if it leads to action. Vote!
No, moron, but you can copyright series of sounds in a particular order. I'd point out that intellectual copyright doesn't let you own ideas but their implementationsa, but you're obviously too stupid to realise this basic a point.
If I copyright flipping you off and you give me the bird, can I sue you?
You can't copyright an action. If you wrote a song about flipping the bird, you could copyright it. Even an imbecile such as yourself must eventually be able to grasp so basic a concept.
Haven't you heard of civil disobedience? I'm willing to break the law because I don't believe in it.
No, you're willing to break the law because you're a cheap teenage jackass who has never created anything worth buying and never will but are willing to take money from artists that have because Mommy and Daddy haven't raised your allowance so you can buy more CDs. God forbid you get a job. And no one who has your immature opinions actually works for a living.
Did you actually write this, or is it output from the Dada Engine?
Sort of... There is read and write permission (depending on if it wants to tell you something or if it wants to listen to what you have to say :)). Except its intelegent and can use that data to produce other data (depending on if its a genius or sponge/cram student :)). So an idea as data. The internet age is to share the data, and eventually if you wish to use that data to get money you are going to have to share that data anyway.
35k a year, stock options, paid vacation, health and medical.. whelp, so much for that
~Sig 11
Copyrights, *just* *like* *patents*, were intended to grant the author exclusivity over his creation for a LIMITED time and to profit. After that, the work passes into the public domain where it becomes available for anyone to use, modify, integrate into something else, and generally benefit society.
Does anyone feel guilty buying Classical music knowing that not one cent is going to the author's descendants? Why should I feel guilty copying Gone With the Wind, or Cinderella? Walt died a long time ago. Why is this any different?
IP is the only reason free software is needed. If there was no copyright system then I could take closed source and make it GPL as much as I wanted to. That's what I want.
What's the problem? New bands should (gasp!) not sign with the RIAA. Hell, you can master your own stamped (non-CDR) CD for less that $1 per disc in quantities as low as 1000. Then sell your music on the web. Free 11 KHz mono mp3s of every song, or buy the disc. Get distribution through non-RIAA controlled web stores like Amazon, or sell through ebay at a fixed (non-auction) price.
Your name isn't even original (Raunchola).
BTW Kurt Kobain is dead, and he put hiself there because he was a fucking idiot.
woohoo first 10 comments (i think)
Piracy is, and probably should be, a crime, certainly. The problem, I think, is not the copyright laws themselves, but the fact that the internet makes them completely unenforceable, and therefore ridiculous. We can hardly count on the goodness of people's hearts to enforce fair payment of artists or limitation of distribution when we have a medium that makes it easy to copy media for free.
Unfortunately, this is the only way that IP has any inherent value. The system which is being hailed as draconian is designed specifically to address this problem. If we could count on the goodness of people's hearts to enforce fair payment, the system we have now would crumble. The ethos that "They screwed us, so we're justified in screwing them." is the problem. Legislation is unlikely to ever address that problem, regardless of which way the gavel falls.
It's actually closer to 1700ccs' :)
100 years?! Still think IP law isn't in need of serious machine gunning?
Well, I personally don't like the RIAA too much, but I was bored the other day and visited their website. Their students site http://www.soundbyting.com is fairly interesting. I had never read their take on anything before... Now, the riaa never had anything against mp3.com showcasing young unsighned artists. Their problem came with their services involving beaming muisc to personal lockers, and music that music that mp3.com was broadcasting was music they didn't own the copyrights for... I think that the current prices for cd's are too outragous, and that anything that putss more money into "starving artists" ain't too bad a thing... Copyright law is the real issue here. At the RIAA I learned about a little piece of legislation called the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA). Now, with this legislation, it is "technicly illegal" to even store mp3's on your own computer, even when you own the CD...ain't that interesting. Copyright reform is neccisary in this new "information age."
Im going to register truth.net and make it a parody of that stupid truth commercial, which is actually quite cool. Its going to be "the only man who bores you to death with stupid shit and incoherent words."
Just think, when you quit your job at Microsoft, all "proprietary information" is deleted from your brain. Don't scoff, It'll someday be possible!
Sure, that takes out the record companies, but what have they ever done but screwed over artists and promoted (force fed) the public crap. Trust me, record companies will not be missed.
Since-beer-leekz,
Mikey
Other models may indeed be viable, but as long as they're less profitable for the people in charge there is no incentive to use them today.
If the copyright system were weakened then record companies might be forced to other business plans. The artists might get less money and the executives would get a lot less, but that's fine with me!
I tried, but I guess this network i'm on is just too damned slow
The things that make markets produce desirable results (according to free market theory) are lots of buyers and sellers, buyers and sellers who have equivalent bargaining power, perfect information, commodity products, and no barriers to entry or exit from the market.
The claim of free-market theory is that, when these things are true, the buyers' desires for lower prices will play out against the sellers' desires for higher ones, and the result will be some price that reflects the true value of the product.
Note that many of these key attributes are missing in the music market, both on the artist side (signing a record label deal), and on the consumer side (purchasing music). The size of the major record companies and the copyright monopolies they take from artists give them an enormous advantage over individual artists and individual consumers.
No, zero price = infinite demand, or at least a demand large enough to saturate the market.I'm not just a geek. I'm also an author and a musician.
:-)
I'm not just a geek. I'm also an artist and a musician. So here's my reply.
I can't see why I should be paid when someone listens to a recording of my music. I just can't see it. I get paid when I perform.
I think this an opensource ethos. The GPL equivalent in music would be to make money from live performances and media costs, but allow people to freely listen to your music. That idea has a certain ring to it and I've found myself wondering how well that kind of arrangement would work. I find it interesting that others are thinking the same thing.
If I'm selling a recording, I expect to make good the cost of the media. Distribution on the 'net kinda makes that point moot
It's nice to hear the sentiments of fellow musicians, and most of my arguments on why people should pay for music didn't have to do with me, it had to do with other musicians.
My only real concern is not the media distribution costs but also recording costs and equipment costs. I just say this because a friend of mine recently signed with an indie label to produce some of his work, which was the only way he could ever produce his stuff. He has a guitar and a four track recorder, and maybe a drum machine too. That's it. Now he gets good equipment, other musicians and a recording studio. This is a positive story, but the point is that if the record company didn't like his music, he would never have been able to produce it in a format suitable for net distribution, and on top of that wouldn't have had access to all the cool equipment he always wanted to put in his songs (which will be going into them now).
Basically, the moral is that money gives an artist freedom to use better equipment (and if there's enough, time off a regular job to dedicate to their art). Many non-geek musicians literally have to sacrifice their music quality becuase of lack of funds.
My only concern are OTHER artists who play my material in live performance.
I don't mind people playing my songs. The only true right I think any artist has is the right not to be plagurized. I don't have the right to tell someone they can't copy a drawing I did, but I do have the right to tell them they're not allowed to remove my name and put theirs there instead. Copyright is an incentive, but it's not a true right. The only true right you [should] have is the right to your name forever being associated to your work.
There are plenty of us electronic musicians out there (first troll to claim that music ceases to be art the second it's so much as digitally recorded doesn't get fed!). If we record dance music, the only performance it's likely to get is when a DJ plays it. If we produce more "intellectual" electronic music, then, well, it's (a) impossible or nearly so to replicate live, and (b) no DJ's going to play it, because nobody would dance to it.
It takes hours and hours and days and days in the studio to produce this, and there's often no good way to perform it live. What about us? How do we get compensated?
So in a sense, the record lables actually own the pattern of waves that make up the song that was recorded in their studio, but not really the "idea" of the song itself.
-Too Lazy to Register
This follows from simple economics. The price payed by consumers is equal to the value of the object purchased. If you are not willing to pay $20 for a cd, don't. Obviously, enough people value music to such a degree that this price isn't too high.
Katz has openly rejected the law of supply and demand. Face it, you can't re-write the principles taught in econ 101 to suit your desire for free porn, free music, and free software. Don't want to pay for the *music*? Impose a Red Hat model, give the music away but make people pay for the players, or download time, etc.
The point is, at some point money must be made. Zero price = zero demand. This would leave a lot more starving artists (not that I'm opposed to letting most "artists" starve...).
If Red Hat et al. can do it, so can jonkatz. If the market for this is half of what the anti-patent mongers claim, they'll make a fortune. So, hop to it, nerdlings! I am waiting for my "free" music. I'll even offer $1000 in investment to the ones who start off with such a model.
I know its tacky to reply to my own comment, but I wanted to expand on this:
I can't see why I should be paid when someone listens to a recording of my music.
I think pay-per-use is a dangerous system for content delivery and it interferes with the whole goal of copyright and intellectual property laws. Not that existing laws do such a bang-up job, but this would be one more step in the wrong direction so I am inclined to agree with you on this point. Media costs are it - pay per use is bad and should probably be illegal if fair use is impeded. For example, if you pay to listen to a song, you should then be allowed to listen to it as many times as you want. In fact, I think copyright laws did not actually place any restrictions on content other than actual unauthorized reproduction/distribution - it was never intended as a system to charge for content delivery, only media costs (plus a bit of profit for a few years).
Any way, I agree that pay-per-use is not the way to go.
See what these guys are doing with ideas and knowledge:
www.knexa.com
This really could change things.
You are correct that people will always come up with cracks on protection/sales schemes, but this does not mean everyone will use the crack. If the pricing schemes are reasonable enough, people are generally willing to pay for a product. Of course what qualifies as reasonable varies widely and is heavily dependent on age, personality, etc. Even so, I don't think the threat of cracking is as great a threat as you make it out to be.
I know this is not common to everyone, but for me, sound quality is one of the number one reasons for me to purchase a CD rather than to simply hork a copy of the MP3. You take a song encoded at 128/44 and route it into a good stereo and then compare it to the same song played direct from the CD and there are worlds of difference. Granted, this does not stop your avg student who's best stereo might in fact be there comp, but it can make a difference a few years down the road when they have some money and actually want a decent recording.
Divx was a slightly different monster. With Divx, you paid for a copy of the media, but then had to pay everytime you wanted to watch it. In essence, it was a rental which you did not have to return. It offered no significant technical benefits over VHS and was overpriced to top it off.
The ideas being proposed here are different. Most of the ideas proposed here suggest paying a relatively innocuous fee everytime you wish to listen to a song. This has the nice benefit that you only pay for the songs that you want to listen to and it really doesn't cost much unless you listen to them a lot (in which case, you could simply buy the CD). Depending on how it is implemented, you would not even have a copy on your comp, but would instead simply be paying for the stream. There are a lot of problems with this; the biggest being how do you listen to the music if you are not online, but this is nowhere nearly as bad as Divx, which was simply a blatant attempt to screw the consumer.
Up until the Columbine shootings, I had never heard of JonKatz. I may have by chance read an article or two, but I never bothered to look at the by-line. If /. was the source, then that was good enough for me.
/., because it was ALL good... Another excersize for the reader: what happened?)
/. articles. For the record, I considered this a good thing. I figured if someone's writing articles about geek culture history and what-not, it'd be a cool counterpoint to the regular postings of tech news, star wars, and linux.
(That opening paragraph probably has some kind of cultural significance re: trust / media accuracy / blind consumerism, but I'll leave it to the philosophers. And, BTW, some of you may remember when you didn't have to filter your
It was only after the posting of the Downtrodden Goths/Geeks/Techies/Nerds articles that I began to notice "Katz" as a seprate breed of
Then I noticed the anti-Katz backlash. Like many, I just shook my head, thinking it was just normal flamage, to be ignored like any common troll. If they don't like Katz, they could just shut up and not read him, couldn't they?
I've just changed sides. I don't know for sure what caused it, but if I never see another Katz article again it'll be too damn soon.
So here's my parting shot:
Katz, after squeezing the life out of the Columbine tragedy (which America seems to have forgotten due to being deluged with nothing BUT Columbine for a few months), completely misrepresenting the connection between the DMCA and the RIAA, harping on the old atoms vs. bits theories that were WIRED's bailiwick for the longest time, and trying to make yourself the Hero of the Geeks, you have lost ALL credibility. I am now turning on the Slashdot Katz Filter. RIP.
Back to reading some News for Nerds, and some Stuff that Matters.
--Threed
Browsing at +2, or else on my Cell Phone. I see no trolls.
The profits from a concert performance probably are greater than what is made off of record sales.
Of course, I refuse to deal with the record industry after they signed Richard Marx, so what do I know.
Jon quotes Spurius:
most musicians currently are signed to long-term record contracts
Most?!? No, most musicians are completely without record contracts. The miniscule percentage of musicians with contracts is only the tiniest bit of cream that rises... or crap that floats...
Jon interprets Lord:
But cost could be tied to sales, either in the way Lord suggests, or inversely: the more people who
buy a hit CD, the lower its costs.
Wouldn't it be more sensible economically that the more people who buy, the *higher* the cost? After all, more people would be willing to pay more for it.
If the real world worked like Jon thinks Lord suggests, books in remainder bins, for example, would go for hundreds of bucks apiece. Other than the occasional loss leader, things that few people want tend to be inexpensive. See: "market".
But most programmers today don't get paid for each copy of their program. Rather we are commisioned to develop software. I wrote a lot of banking software and I was a salaried worker when I did. The bank did not sell the software, nor do I get paid each time they use it.
Composers, painters and skulptors often are paid to do a specific work, without getting any money for each "viewing" of the work.
The point is that you get paid for working, not for sitting around and collecting royalties.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I am sure than any band that's starting up would LOVE to have a free MP3 of their songs shared by 1 million listeners.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I don't know. There were famous artists in past centuries, who managed to be famous and make a good living without the record companies. You may have heard of Bach or Mozart.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
To all of the free software advocates calling for the downfall of the IP system:
IP is the only way that free software is supported. If there was no copyright system then I could take GPL'd code and make it closed source as much as I wanted to. Is this what you want?
I don't care for much of the new stuff, either, but your first sentence could have been (and probably was)written anytime in the past 40+ years. The same thing for the second if you change "cds" to "records".
You are correct about teenagers being the target demographic, but that's because they have disposable income, whereas older folk have "real world" expenses--especially if they are the parents of teenagers--and are less likely to spend highly on "records", partly because the money has to go elsewhere (food, clothing, shelter, medical, dental, etc) and partly because the new stuff is aimed at the current crop of teenagers and not at them.
Yes, there are exceptions to all of that, but not that many percentage-wise, and if you aren't careful how you talk and think about the music preferred by those younger than you, one day soon you'll find that you have turned into your parents. : )
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Many years ago, before most people even heard of
the web, Jon Luini and company started the
Internet Underground Music Archives. A place where
"alternative" and unsigned bands could distribute
their music, bypassing the record companies.
It was, unfortunately, yet another victim of
politics and being just slightly ahead of its time.
No to both inquery.
pronoblem
For brevity, I won't comment further on that, but rather on the way that Jon can't see beyond his own power-drunk perverted concerns. The fact that it is far too easy for him to use fear, intimidation, sedating substances, and other tools to convince stupid domineering election-year also-rans to pit race against race, religion against religion, and country against country is distressing, to say the least. In purely political terms, to ignore this issue is to discredit and intimidate the opposition. To cap that off, I am highly critical of those who tolerate or apologize for people who work with Jon. I hope it will not disappoint you to learn that anyone the least bit knowledgeable about his smarmy background would know that that's why I laugh when I hear his lackeys go on and on about hedonism. Oh, and one more thing. Jon's insults are based on hate. Hate, pessimism, and an intolerance of another viewpoint, another way of life.
Forgive me if I ramble; I'm really upset, as I think you can tell. No matter how close he's come to making me get torn apart by wild dogs, Jon won't be satisfied until he finds a way to publish blatantly unconscionable rhetoric as "education" for children to learn in school. When I first heard about his demands, I didn't know whether to laugh, because his witticisms are so misguided, or cry, because contemptuous intransigent poseurs must be treated with political justice, not with civil justice, as they are decidedly not real citizens. By this, I mean that he has a blatant disregard for society's basic laws. One can examine this from another angle, and plainly see that most people want to be nice; they want to be polite; they don't want to give offense. And because of this inherent politeness, they step aside and let Jon take us all on an utterly reckless ride into the unknown. To put it crudely, he should practice what he preaches.
Does Jon have trouble living with himself, knowing that his claim of fairness is demonstrably false? I am being totally serious when I say that he has come very, very close to making me fall into the trap of thinking there's no difference between normal people like you and me and gruesome misogynists. Jon, you are welcome to get off my back this time and stay off. Trumpeted so many times, his bromides have begun to feed on themselves, to generate their own publicity, to cow their opponents not by argument but by sheer repetition, and to leave a generation of people planted in the mud of a materialistic imprudent world, to begin a new life in the shadows of autism. So he thinks that we should abandon the institutionalized and revered concept of democracy? Interesting viewpoint. Here's another: He is capable of a large array of negative feelings.
Again, nowhere in the Bible does it say, "The Universe belongs to Jon by right". As I mentioned before, the surest way for his henchmen to succeed is for them to put duplicitous thoughts in our children's minds. I mean, really. Does Jon have a point? I doubt it. The funny thing is, you probably know exactly what I mean. If our goal is to evaluate the tactics he has used against me, then we must consider various means to that end.
Jon has more understanding of beer and milk regulations than of farsighted plans for the future. Consider the issue of judgemental surly incendiarism. Everyone agrees that unravelling the Gordian Knot that is Jon is not difficult when you realize the multifaceted nature of Jon and his assistants, but there are still some deranged riffraff out there who doubt that I don't know how to deal with stingy dodgy-types. To them I say: It makes perfect sense that Jon doesn't want me to call a spade a spade. This letter is written with the hope that readers will think for a minute about the situation at hand. Jon's detractors are correct in their observation that Jon's theories will stand in the way of progress as soon as our backs are turned. I consider Jon's announcements antithetical to my principles as a person concerned for the good of all.
What I'm saying is this: Jon winds up on the wrong side of every important issue. More often than not, the pen is a powerful tool. Why don't we use that tool to step back and consider the problem of his personal attacks in the larger picture of popular culture imagery? We should weaken the critical links in Jon's nexus of irritable filthy separatism. Because few people realize that respect for the law is not enhanced by setting the bad example of breaking the law, because his smear tactics have earned him opprobrium, suspicion, resentment, and hatred, and because it is incumbent upon all of us to confront his ideas head-on, we can conclude that we live in a deeply troubled society.
It is a grave injustice for Jon to make excessive use of foul language. I'm not going to say why; we all know the reason. In a broad-brush sense, there is no place in this country where we are safe from his helpers, no place where we are not targeted for hatred and attack. His undertakings are based on two fundamental errors. They assume that courtesy and manners don't count for anything. And they promote the mistaken idea that he could do a gentler and fairer job of running the world than anyone else. Calling Jon's toadies clueless snobs may be accurate, but I, hardheaded cynic that I am, recommend that we challenge Jon's self-satisfied assumptions about merit.
Jon is obviously hiding something, by which I mean that when it comes time to take a stand, Jon invariably dives for cover. Although he babbles on and on about antipluralism, Jon has no more conception of it than most other wicked undesirables. Contrary to popular belief, if there's an untold story here, it's that I must protest his use of what I call subhuman stubborn spouters to make widespread accusations and insinuations without having the facts to back them up.
Jon's feckless self-righteous memoirs leave the current power structure untouched while simultaneously killing countless children through starvation and disease. Are these children his enemies? What Jon does in private is none of my business. But when he tries to guarantee the destruction of anything that looks like a vital community, I object. His expostulations epitomize alcoholism in its truest form. The reason is simple: He shows a curious unwillingness to set the record straight. There will be public outrage if he tries to create problems that our grandchildren will have to live with. But it doesn't stop there. Jon Katz should just exercise some common sense and some common decency. Never forget that and never let him demand that Earth submit to the dominion of manipulative saturnine windbags.
pronoblem
It was a JOKE! I was only mimicking his style and long winded content, I really don't think that about him.
What I really think:
I really don't like Jon Katz as a contributor to this site. I prefer the succinct and fast paced "this, that and the other... link here, link there..." followed by discussion to the long winded diatribe that Katz presents followed by flame. I really wish that they would consider taking him off the staff. He has ruined the forum.
Free Speech?
I was expressing mine with comedy...
Walk a mile for a camel?
I have read Katz... I like some of his opinions, don't like others... and before you slam me for berating Jon, please take note: Katz called William Bennett a 'Blockhead'. *I agree with Jon on this* Now I in turn am calling Katz a 'Blockhead' for posting his lame content on Slashdot. If he wants to do something useful, write for Wired or The New Yorker... He does not belong on Slashdot!. IMHOWEMFS- Thanks.
pronoblem
Read Why Software Should Not Have Owners and Why Software Should Be Free. RMS makes the argument that creators should not have any special rights to the works they create, which completely goes against the idea that creators have the right to be compensated for their work on their terms. So for him, it's actually a bit stronger than what I said. He doesn't just want to force creators to give away their work -- he denies that they even owned it to begin with.
...is possible. Lots of musicians e-mailed that they would be thrilled to bypass record companies if music fans would pay something for their music. The question is would they. And truthfully, my ideas aren't mine anymore. They aren't stolen, bu they are distributed for free all over the place, which is okay by me.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I thinkt is importnat..but how would competitors prove this prior art and disprove the validity of patents?
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Until someone else can perform the same services at a better price than the record companies, they have every right to exist. Of course removing middlemen will make it cheaper, but you don't need to get rid of the copyright system to take the middlemen out of the picture ( once the middlemen are gone, how do you make sure the artists can be compensated ? Ans: copyrights. )
If there truly is a way to distribute music more efficiently at a lower cost to consumers, then the record companies will be forced to adopt that method to save themselves whether or not the copyright system is weakened.
Yeah, I know you don't care if the music industry and the artists starve, as long as you can get something for nothing. This is what I call the "freeloader" mentality.
The fact is that the copyright model, despite charges that it is "outdated" is here to stay. Other models that make it easy to freeload do not seem to be economically viable ( if it was true that they were, why aren't we seeing anyone succesfully making money with such a model ? ) It's all well and good to say "you shouldn't use copyrights -- you can use the street-panhandler or service model" , but it doesn't really help much if these models are not shown to be profitable. If they are profitable, they will be profitable with or without the copyright system in effect, and if they are really superior to the copyright system, then everyone will move to those models whether or not the copyright system is dismantled. However, the freeloaders want the copyright system dismantled to force artists to use their ( unprofitable ) model rather than letting their model succeed or fail on its merits ( or lack thereof ) IMO, it's fine and good if artists want to share their work, but no one has the right to force anyone else to share. I can understand why all the warez kiddies might want something for nothing, but that doesn't mean we should pander to their need to freeload.
As I've said before, I'm bothered that the free software community is starting to look like a freeloader community. I sincerely hope this mentality is confined to slashdot.
This sounds like what is happening with Redhat and Alan Cox, Linuxcare with Andrew Tridgell.
As programers become well known for their work, companies that benifit from it can and sometimes do support them for the benifit of all of society.
http://www.opencontent.org/
_________________________________ he who laughs last is at 300 baud
I dropped this comment on this type of discussion before, and it still seems relevant, so here it is again:
Artists need the royalty's from their CD's to survive... Only the mega popular acts actually make money on tours. Most artists go on tours to promote their CD's. It's more of an advertising expense than a revenue generator.
If you really at all care for the artists, i strongly encourage you to give this a read. You'll see that there's already plenty of people out there screwing artists over, that fans really shouldn't start as well.
We all know that the recording industry aren't angels and are in fact devils in most cases... But without formulating a plan where artists will definetly get paid for their efforts, all the speculation about what MP3's can and can not do are moot, in my eyes.
While your experiences with they might be giants sound okay, I'd hardly assume that's how the rest of the music scene goes. Remember, they're a HUGE band, in a position where they have some influence. They also know they've got a LOT of loyal fans. Bands starting out don't have either of those luxuries.
So what about the multimillionaire executive, the hundred-thousandaire programmers who've never had to break a sweat at work? Maybe they should all do what they do for free as well, then then repave roads for a living? Sound fair?
The only people trying to give away all artists works for free around here are the people who aren't artists.
Why is everyone here content on lobbying to change what the creators of new things do with them? It was your choice to develop under the GPL... it wasn't mandated. You may even like the idea of it. But some people have ego's. They WANT to take credit for their creations. In terms of inventions or music or whatever else, they're also entitiled to make money from their creations. I'd hate the idea of seeing that right taken away.
/.er's code for free because they're able to, thanks to many having jobs where they code for a living and bring in a lot of money. Artists don't have that luxury.
Yes, IP laws are screwy. Patents need an overhaul. Fair use is both being abused and needing to grant more rights. But when people mention that artists should do what they do for free, it's just absurd.
If you want original solutions, you have to re-examine your precepts. E.g. "What is music?" [if you're impatient for solutions, click 'read more' to see the end of this article]
Music has been around longer than man himself. I don't mean birdsong. Primate-style music-for-entertainment probably antedates homo sapiens, since modern primates, even in the wild, respond to it much as we do. It fills a host of psychological desires and has many physiological effects. If we dismiss the "true root" of music as merely primitive, or a bygone 'style' we risk a music culture that grows less satisfying and more faddish as it fails to fulfill needs it has long forgotten.
Recording is NOT intrinsic to music. Until (roughly) this past century, recording music was impossible. I've been studying how 'recorded music' has been changing music itself (as have other technologies:the first widespread [vs. local] notation systems; printed and published sheet music; broadcast radio; etc.) It's almost horrifying to consider the options and modes that all but died out in the last 1500 years for purely techno-social reasons in Europe alone.
In my study, I've seen history repeat itself through each successive technology and if I may be flip, the first step is always to brainwash the musicians into thinking "this is the only way". After all... without control of the musicians, you have nothing.
Before recording, musicians made ALL their money (if any) by performing -- meeting the true needs of the audience. "Performance art" wasn't conceived in the 70's by the likes of Kristos and Laurie Anderson (to pick two famous, but not necessarily significant, names). In fact, what we call 'avant garde' performance art actually echoes many lost traditions of music. It only seems otherwise because we're using a narrow, commercially promulgated view.
The fact that I even have to say this shows how good a job the 'music industry' has done, at making 'music' synonymous with 'recorded music'. But if it isn't a 'piece' or 'song', you've probably never heard it, so I can't even cite meaningful examples of what humans were doing all those thousands of years
The 'music industry' read: 'recording/distribution industry') is a 20th century artifact of a developing technology. It basically didn't exist in the 19th century, and once hopes that (with the help of the current easier to use, musician empowering technologies) it will basically not exist in the 21st, unless we fossilize it in our thinking, laws, and commercial structures. I don't know when another 'fossil smasher' as big as the internet will come along
Royalties were never the primary income for musicians (except for a tiny handful). Even headliners made most of their money on performances. It was originally as much a publicity mechanism as an income stream (early performers were wild for Demo Tapes of their best work and/or sold their records at a table after a gig for fans to take home) It was a potent tool in accessing and broadening the appreciative audience most musicians crave.
This is the first role that was filled by each of the emerging technologies, from sheet music to record to radio to internet, because it is the one that most readily enlists the cooperation of musicians.
Later, each technology grew to dinosaur proportions, and dictated to the musician by becoming a tastemaker. The radio station and music label chose what songs you heard or had much chance of hearing. This is an incredible power -- but it's the same 'access to the audience' that the musician originally wanted, now grown into a monster. Why? because he wanted it for himself but it had always been in the hands of others.
If we are not careful, our new technologies will result in the same fate. We must take our understanding of how technology changes cultures create tools that empower the musician to reach the audience directly [he can have his own webmaster -- but if he's forced to become a client at "MusicianAccess.com", such sites will become a new corrupted industry interlinked with the rest.]
Isn't it interesting that the standard 'fair use' doctrine is reversed in music? The individual
private user is actively pursued and charge full price, while the commercial user (e.g. radio
station) pays only a nominal fee? That's because of interlocking commercial interests
We need artists (musicians, composers, lyricists) and artists need an audience. If we return to 'performance', instead of 'property' of as the basis for our model of payment, then we can eliminate the middleman. Instead of paying for audio track as "property" we'd pay for the 'perfomance' of making the CD,concert, whatever. The recording could een be free for private use, because the musician would already have been paid. (and unlike today, the commercial radio stations might have to truly pay for using the music their business is based on!]
This does not cheat the artist. It just changes what he's paid for. Right now, the industry cheats him with the illusion that he can watch the royalties roll in if he hits the jackpot. In real life, he sweats out concerts and gigs for his real income (though a hit significantly raises his fee) while the label 'hits the jackpot' on the records.
In the schemes below, the fees would be much less than the corresponding CD now costs. they would be on the order of the less than $2 of a current CD's price goes to royalties and studio production costs.
of people subscribe to it, assuring production costs and reasonable income are met. Subscriptions are not charged to the subscriber credit card until the threshold is met.
city, when sufficient subscriptions are made. In this case there are several options:
very popular headliners, I'd say we could readily fund FREE public concerts by major groups,
using a very attainable number of subscribers. (Music wants to be free?)
the 'live in concert' MP3 will be circulating, free and legal, in the morning. The musician's
commodity cannot be 'stolen'. He's already been paid. You can't pirate 'LIVE'!
Clearly, these are just a very few of the possibilities. Imagine what a mob of talented Web entrepreneurs and Open-sourcers could do with this.
It's terrifyingly simple. No one pays a painter or sculptor 'by the eyeball' (They just sell the piece, no strings attached), but the record labels claim a right to charge 'per ear' -- while simultaneously giving away the right to broadcast to millions for almost free.
My new
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
**Maybe the times of multimillionaire artists just
are over. In the future artists work open-
source-styled, just for the enjoyment for
themselves and everyone else, the only reward
being publicity and respect. **
Ain't gonna happen. Even if Bruce Springsteen gave away all of his albums tomorrow, there still would be many people willing to pay $70 a pop to see him perform live. There might be movement towards more openess involving taping of concerts to be freely distributable, but I see little way that bands that many people want to see will fail to become rich.
What planet are you from?
Live performances are done to boost sales of recorded material, not the other way around.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Who pissed in your Wheaties this morning? Free speech is a wonderful thing, even at times when its abused. Before ye cast judgement on others, WALK A MILE IN THAT PERSONS SHOES, and take a long look in the mirror too. This vitriolic diatribe you call a "response" offered nothing constructive to the conversation. Sure, you stated your opinion, odd how your response is guilty of most of the things you accuse Jon of. Seeing anything in that mirror yet? I can only hope, and pray to God, that you put as much time, and energy, into positive things as you do negative.
Its all about respect.
I have to register a hearty amen to the conflict of interest thing. Also, there seems to be a large number of patents out there that are slight variations of the same concept. The situation is out of hand and that is why I think advocates are pushing hard in the past year for reform. Too bad it has come to this.
Lowmag.net
as to the matter of not knowing if someone is pulling a patent on something, check that something out. It's usually marked "patent pending". Whether this is REQUIRED I do not know.
Lowmag.net
Make it all voluntary so those who want to pay a little to support their favorites can do so... simply make the music cheap and have it easier to click "Pay All" or "Pay All Who Got Multiple Plays" (that's the "Pay those I liked" button).
All that would only work for artists/recording services who are willing to make their stuff available...unless it's crossconnected to the existing royalties system and commercially-produced stuff is logged/reported.
How is this possible if stadiums hold 100,000 and record sales can reach millions (you figure if they fill a 100,000 person stadium they will be distributing lots of cds)???????????????????
Perhaps on the small scale with indie bands and the like, concert revenue is larger since dedicated fans goto multiple concerts but only buy one copy of an album. However, once you scale up it doesn't add up.
I'd be interested to see an example if what you say is realy true.
Predestination was doomed from the start.
In order to make money the record labels have to push a single option to consumers. Non-free Speech and Non-free Beer. So if you only like two songs on an album you have two options. Pirate or by the entire album.
The concept of digital music frees the consumer from these constraints. The problem is finding a business model that provides Free Speech and Non-free Beer.
I wonder...how many companies sell you their product (not service) and give you the source code. If you look at Homesteading the Nosphere. ESR spends no time on this model. The reason being it makes the product way to easy to pirate especially if the open source licenses allow the software to be redistributed. The person who creates a business model that circumvents this problem will be very wealthy indeed!!
Predestination was doomed from the start.
Good idea using an album as shareware to sell the full product of a concert. The only problem is you are using the larger market (people who buy the album) to try and make money in the smaller market. (fewer people can fit in a concert arena.) The economics doesn't make any sense/cents.
Predestination was doomed from the start.
you would be surprised at how open "the masses" are to many of the ideas expressed in Katz's article (and others who think the IP system we have now is in need for a low level format). Take a few minutes to explain and they "get it". I do it all the time, peer pressure works on big companies too, just like they use it against us.
--
+&x
There are some musicians who get it right. Phish for example allows all of their shows to be taped and traded as long as there is no sale of any kind. I have listened to a *lot* of burned cd's, which gave me the interest in the band in the first place.
They get paid for their live performances, not for their music. This is exactly the problem with the record industry - bands getting paid a bit for their records and the distribution channels racking up most of the cost. Phish does what is most economical for them and their fans by allowing such music distribution. It is beyond me why other bands do not follow.
Sorry, record companies -- you can't hold back the tide. Get over it.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
As I already posted there, I think it would be more efficient to consider diffusing songs on file on the internet be more like broacasting threw the air, like in radio and TV.
As their is "State" radio in some states wich have an annual fee, in this model it will be on a voluntary basis, an monthly fee(about the cost of a CD). Each artist would be given a percentage of the fee of the consummer based on the logs of his player wich would be sent (in a protocol yet to be defined) to the server for processing.
I'm sure some jurist may find a breach so that we could consider the internet as a media like radio or television that would allow to diffuse music, and so make this scheme of diffusion possible.
As I already posted there, I think it would be more efficient to consider diffusing songs on file on the internet be more like broacasting threw the air, like in radio and TV.
As their is "State" radio in some states wich have an annual fee, in this model it will be on a voluntary basis, an monthly fee(about the cost of a CD). Each artist would be given a percentage of the fee of the consummer based on the logs of his player wich would be sent (in a protocol yet to be defined) to the server for processing.
I'm sure some jurist may find a breach so that we could consider the internet as a media like radio or television that would allow to diffuse music, and so make this scheme of diffusion possible.
Yeah sure, that's why their where so many of them aplauding businessmen and technocrats at Seatle for WTC last round ?
16 awake hrs / day * 60 mins / hr / 5 mins / song * 365 days / year * 1 cent ~= $650 / year for music... That's about 40 CDs I *know* I don't buy 40 CDs per year.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
While this article, like most by Jon, is too long, it's quite readable, suggesting that Jon's starting to grok the Net and the fact that a lead story must be segmented differently. Congrats!
The DMCA suggests that corporate pressure can reverse the way lawmaking ought to work: the law seems to have come before the discussion, as is clear from messages like this one from Brad Zimmerman:
"This week I've 'pirated' 1GB of MP3's via my 512K ADSL line. What I also know is that wholly because of MP3's I've bought three Aphex Twin CD's, a Apoptygma Berzerk CD, a Cleen CD, several Beastie Boys CDs, a Juno Reactor CD, etc. Later this month, I'll be buying a bunch of CDs (six, online) and they will mostly be stuff I've heard of via MP3s. What I do is still illegal, though. I know it. I do it anyway. I highly doubt I will ever be caught because I honestly believe there is no money in prosecuting me -- and the music industry, though blisteringly short-sighted, knows what makes money and what will lose money."
I too am in this category. I have ripped CDs that I bought at WOMAD, so I could push them to my MP3 player and listen to them at the Seattle International Film Festival while waiting in line. I have downloaded techno and rave and ethereal space music, listened to it, and then if I really like more than three songs by the artist, I buy the CD. As a result I now have CDs from England, from Argentina, from France, from Brazil. The record companies don't want me to buy this stuff. By buying these CDs I support artists that I want to hear. Plus, I can check out some of the local bands, before getting trapped in a smoky bar listening to garbage. If I like them, I catch the live show, then I buy the CD.
This is the future. Soon, music nomads will roam the globe, visiting the spots where they have the most downloads, booking a gig over the Net with the clubs in the area, pointing out how popular they are in that area. Musicians make more money, clubs play what people like, we are no longer straight-jacketed into some record executive's idea of what the kids want to hear.
Will in Seattle
You are wrong on this point!!
The Chemical brothers, Josh Wink, Astral Projection, Moby, Sven Vath, DJ's, like LTJ Bukem, Keioki, Amon Tobin, etc.. are all techno electronica groups or DJ's that made albums and have toured all over the world.
There is nothing more impressive then seeing them play live. Ive seen the chemical brothers many times and all the others Ive mentionned also.
Point is, THEY CAN play live, they have beat boxes, synthesisers, samplers, etc... they just set it up in advance, and play it out after.
There is money in live performance for EVERYone.
rock, classic, new age, jazz, jungle, Trance, Dance, flamenco, polka, etc...
" Microsoft Integration = Inbread software! " SpIcEz
All right, you whiners. I'm getting tired of the hand-wringing. The answer is Really Simple:
If you don't like what record companies are doing, BOYCOTT THEM.
So long as you whimps keep behaving like your demand for recordings has similar imperative to your demand for oxygen, the record companies will happily dick you around.
Speaka de language. Stop paying them to sue you and your buddies, and be sure to write them and their artists to be sure they know. (A timely fan letter of the variety "I love you, I need you, I want to bear your lovechild, but I can't actually pay for your CDs until..." would probably have a highly salutory effect.)
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
I too have a decent collection of MP3s on my drive, but theft is STILL theft, no matter how much utterly boring verbiage Katz uses to justify it ... As you put it Katz, "culture is already being transmitted freely all over the Net." That doesn't mean that downloading MP3s from the latest Filter album is justified.
I don't think very many people honestly believe that artists shouldn't be compensated for their work. Piracy is, and probably should be, a crime, certainly. The problem, I think, is not the copyright laws themselves, but the fact that the internet makes them completely unenforceable, and therefore ridiculous. We can hardly count on the goodness of people's hearts to enforce fair payment of artists or limitation of distribution when we have a medium that makes it easy to copy media for free. In the future, practically all information will be freely exchangeable unless we force invasive, inconvenient, privacy-compromising, and probably ineffective copy-protection.
IMHO, the only solution is a service model, whereby one purchases not the content, but the artists' time directly. SPP is actually very much like this; when you place donations in escrow for a future product, all you're doing is personally hiring the content author to spend a few minutes working on that product. Because information is worthless, in the sense that it costs nothing to copy and distribute, you pay for what produces the information, renting the brain that has the ideas, not the ideas themselves. ASP providers have the right idea.
"If you look 'round the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." -- Quiz Show
Excuse me! Where can I find the summary of this article?
katz -!verbose
Damn... didn't work.
-Kazir dc:
And by this I mean the CDs AND pirating their music. By pirating their music you're helping propagate the idea that their music is the only music worth listening to. There's tonnes of stuff on mp3.com and other sites like it. Sure, there's crap on it too, but isn't that also the case with the Record Industry? (though the record industry's crap is probably more professional sounding).
It's becoming easier and easier to record and distribute your own music. So who needs labels anymore?
Let them have their Backstreet Boys and start supporting artists who are brave enough to strike out on their own (GAMH anyone?)
I'm not sure if I agree with you completely. As a musician, you must already understand that the cost of one recording is always going to be higher than the actual media. By the time you've factored in the cost of studio time, recording media (tapes), traycard and insert design, production, mastering, and misc. things like replacing guitar string/amp tubes, you're charging multiples of the actual media cost to break even.
But, I completely agree with your mentality. There's a sound bite at the start of Dave Matthews's performance of Long Black Veil on the Johnny Cash tribute album that goes something like this: "In an era of manufactured stars, this artist earned his fan the old fashioned way. He earned their devotion night after night on the road, putting on great shows, and letting word of mouth take care of the rest." This is that way real music SHOULD be. I've never seen DMB live, but I'm travelling 13 hours to see them this summer. The same thing happens with other bands. Look at Phish. I don't remember ever seeing a Phish music video. As far as I know, I've never seen a television commercial or magazine ad for Phish. Yet, almost eveyone I know, knows OF Phish, and many people love them.
Even though that's the way music SHOULD work, that's not the way it DOES work. It's very unfornute that the 'new' music we see -- yes, see more than hear -- is not true music. Music is an art. True music is made up of the author's heart and soul.
This 'new' music sickens me. Bands that are created for the sole purpose of making money. This isn't music. It's just disgusting.
The Backstreet Boys are very talented individuals, but as far as I'm concerned, they're not doing anyone a favor.
"The only people trying to give away all artists works for free around here are the people who aren't artists."
... like I'm supposed to be doing right now.
Actually, you're wrong on that one. I remember back around 1985-86 when I first heard about DAT tape (the first commercially available digital recording process that provided for pretty much perfect hiss-free duplication). As a dedicated hometaper (and recording artist), my first thought was, "That's it. It's over for the Recording Industry as we know it." Now, 15 years later, I'm glad to see the inevitable finally happening.
Music should be free. Even my own. This kind of open communication really is for the greater good of humanity. For what it's worth, there's still lots of money to be made via live performance, merchandising of non-digital stuff and, oh yeah, working the occasional day-job
"Energy fools the Magician."
I have a patent on the idea of ideas, which in effect gives me patent rights to all subsquent patents.
Please see my patent on IBM's patent database listed as US Patent #1.
(talk about your first posts)
Work for Change & GET PAID!
My position on the entire issue is this:
Ideas are free.
The data that is produced from those ideas is even more free.
They are only bits in the computer-driven world we live in.
If you don't like it, you're wrong.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
That is what I think mp3 is best at, allowing you to find obscure artists and branch out from your daily dose of Top 40. Absolutely. (Check out my band on mp3.com for an earful of swank digitalia.)
Problem is, once you are discovered and signed, your record company doesn't want you on mp3 anymore because they can't make a dime off it, and they claim it hurts sales. The argument we 'pirates' are making is that making music available for the masses to check out will ensure that your fan base continues to grow. How many times have you been at the store, and a CD caught your eye, but you'd never heard of the band, none of your friends had either, and you could think of a couple other things to spend your money on than a band that could very well suck? You go to mp3.com or someplace like that and check it out, find out, hey, they rock, then you go back and buy the cd. Our buy a ticket to the show when they come to town. Or turn your friends onto the band, and they buy the cd. I just think the number of folks who WILL spend money tends to outweigh the 'cost' of people who just download it and never buy anything.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Concern? Or desire? One MAJOR way to affect culture is to be emulated...in other words, stolen from. Show me some good art, and I'll show you some ripped off art.
Attribution is another question. An organization that keeps track of who wrote/programmed/painted what will fill a strong upcoming need. A website, for example, that acts as a trusted source for attribution, with fair and convincing ways of arbitrating disputes, has the potential to be BIG, I think. A bright VC company would invest heavily here.
These artsists, though, can still make money using their special skills in other ways: teaching, being hired by live artists, creating custom studio pieces for others' art projects (film soundtracks, theater, tv, websites, etc.).
The fact that current copyright helps deserving people is no reason to not abolish it, or to not live as if it were abolished. Good artists will always figure out ways to do their art, and with hope, ways that their art will make them money. They don't need no stinking copyrights.
I always liked the term "release" when describing art, like "Jamie released his lated film" or "The new release from JD & RPM."
That's what you have to do if you're an artist--RELEASE the shit. Take the risk.
I'm the person quoted here in Katz's article. One thing that he didn't say (probably because I didn't make it clear enough (or because babelfish still lacks a geek to reporter translater)), is that this was a thought experiment, not a business plan.
What I was trying to do was imagine a system where musicians who chose to do so could distribute music online without using a record company and without fear of losing royalties. I know that these are not the terms everyone works under, but these were the givens in the thought experiment.
I came up with the idea of using micropaymets every time the recording is played. This way, musicians would encourage the use of napster and trading files since playing the file itself would generate the revenue. Both the musician and the listener would benefit.
The more I thought about it, I liked some aspects and strongly disliked others. The idea of cumulative payments appeals to me. A song I really like is worth a lot to me and I am happy to see the performer get paid in direct proportion to my appreciation (this is another variation of the street performer idea, you throw more in the hat for a song you like).
I did not like the fact that it would require breaking the MP3 format and would open up a bunch of security issues. The security problems might not be that bad, as I imagined that the debit accounts would be very small; a $5 deposit would get you 5000 plays. At worst, if someone cracked the player we would only be back where I am.
Sorry about the repetition, but I wanted to make this part perfectly clear: I have no plans to wrap myself in an open source, copyleft, or any other kind of flag and I have absolutely no intention of taking this idea any further than an intellectual exercise.
I do consider the open source and copyleft ideals very important to me, so thank you 348 for being so quick to defend them!
Just my $0.02.
Dave Blau
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Now would be a good time to arrange a Slashdot interview with producer/songwriter/musician/allround-weirdo Todd Rundgren.
Rundgren, having been in the music business forever, is now experimenting with an artist-subscription model. Check out his web-site: http://www.tr-i.com/
*blinks*
Where, exactly, is there a right for you do get what you want? Namely, that if no legal mechanism exists to do it (such as buying a single, online), why does using an illegal mechanism become *right* in your eyes?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
*blinks*
Where, exactly, is there a right for you to get what you want? Namely, that if no legal mechanism exists to do it (such as buying a single, online), why does using an illegal mechanism become *right* in your eyes?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Now that mp3s and public domain music at mp3.com is out, I have walked away. I urge more people to do so. And if you need the newest label releases, listen to the radio, watch mtv or much music or just pirate (but remember, you're taking a few cents away from the artist, and dollars from the companies [does the end justify the means?]).
everybody knows most of todays pop musicians dont have much talent. younger people (teenagers) buy cds because the music is crammed down their throats so much, they think they like it. if people could listen to mp3s, you would only buy cds of good music, that you like. older people (ones with money) would buy cds they like to support the artist. the industry is scared because it will be mostly teenagers who pirate stuff. this is there biggest market, and the one they brainwash into buying backstreet boys.
If someone could get such a scheme set up, it would probably languish in obscurity unless and until one band which used it suddenly got popular and started reaping the rewards. All of a sudden, bands whose contracts with labels were expiring would start ditching the labels, or the labels would have to emulate the digital distribution services (with similar contract terms). Either way, game over.
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Hey, I too am a musician, and I post MP3s regularly on Iuma.com. My issue is that I make my music with what I am sitting in front of right now- the computer. What good is it going to do me if everyone is listening to me, and is dying to see me in concert, if I can't ever play a concert? I've made a coupel bucks off of this, but it's a far cry from the capital I will need to invest before I can play in real time what I do with a mouse. That's fine and good for you to look at your recordings as you do, but my recordings are my music. No chance to make $$ any other way.
And other artists playing my songs? Pshaw! It's 1/2 bleeps, and 1/2 bloops! They can play it.
I'm done, thanks for reading.
No one remembers the first person that put a gargoyle on a building. Likewise, furniture design is ripped-off all the time. Although lots of musicians make deals for TV ads, I've seen plenty of ads which change a song just enough to screw the artist out of royalties but still get the benefit of conjuring the image that the artist intended. However, an artist can always produce more art. The copier must wait. No one will ever want to know what the copier thinks about a political issue and no one will ever ask for his autograph. The copier may be able to make a living but the artist still has the power. Perhaps the artists don't know how to wield it.
Ian Stoba pointed out in e-mail that the discussions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act centered mostly on the consumers of digital music, not the producers
if a participant "consumes" something, they also "produce" value, ie a preference, which another participant might use to serve a participating "consumer" better. The word "consumer" is misleading, and should be used carefully in any dialogue to find the ideal transaction model imaginable.
Shared ownership of client/server transactions is where it's at..
also, forget the idea of extracting value from recordings.. in ten short years, we'll all have more individual recording capacity than time to live our pesky lives.. the copyright issue will have more to do with copying someones brain and everything that happened in it.. (ok maybe 20 years)
and, of course, it's beautiful that music is the first to breach the damned cartels which seek to control ideas via "containers".. music is soul power, not to be sould canned, but traded live =)
and, in reference to OTHER artists who play "your" music, check out the compulsory mechanical license, which tends a.) NOT to thwart creativity, reinterpretaion, and sharing and b.)NOT to require lawyers haggling which interrupts the free flow of creativity..
isn't that what we're about?
(Sorry if this repeats - /. timed out on me, and I don't think the last one posted).
What right does some suit at EMI have to decide what music I like? What right does a suit at OAV have to decide that I should watch dubbed anime instead of subtitled anime? What right does anybody have to decide any of my personal preferences but me?
If I could play in the rules I would. Tower Records in Toronto used to carry JPop, but when I went to buy some, they didn't have any. The next time I'm in Toronto I will try again. But until then, I am quite happy breaking the law. Better that then deleting my Japanese MP3s and losing part of the definition of *who* *I* *am*.
This is about FREE as in FREEDOM, not FREE as in BEER.
Besides, taking your (implied) logic to the extreme, if learning about the Holocaust was made a capital crime, and I taught about the attempted genocide of the Jews, should I be killed, or am I within my rights? This is a slippery slope we're on here, and neither of us can claim the moral high ground.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Maybe downloading the new Filter album is unjustified. But what if I only want one of the songs? I'd pay US$1 for it, like the article proposes, but I don't have that option, and I'm not paying CAN$20 for the CD, so I'm just going to download the song for free.
Better yet, what if I want an import CD? Like Hikaru Utada's debut album (it is *really* good by the way). I have the MP3s, and I love the songs, but I can't buy the album. I can't find it anywhere around here. I can't buy it online either, as I have no credit card, and until I get my Quatrix TShirt I'm not not gonna trust a money order. Does that mean I should delete the songs? Hell no.
JPop is not popular culture up here in the Canada. But I dig it anyway, and that's because of MP3s. That is the kind of freely distributed culture Jon is talking about. It's the right to make your own choices in music (or anything else, for that matter) without big companies dictating what I want to hear.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Katz, after squeezing the life out of the Columbine tragedy (which America seems to have forgotten due to being deluged with nothing BUT Columbine for a few months),
/., because it was ALL good... Another excersize for the reader: what happened?
You're bored aren't you?
completely misrepresenting the connection between the DMCA and the RIAA,
Care to elaborate, or are you too bored? I don't see any counter argument or discussion here. Got any details to back up your views?
harping on the old atoms vs. bits theories that were WIRED's bailiwick for the longest time,
and trying to make yourself the Hero of the Geeks, you have lost ALL credibility. I am now turning on the Slashdot Katz Filter. RIP.
Credibility? what the fuck does anything you just said have to do with credibility? So far you
And, BTW, some of you may remember when you didn't have to filter your
Hello? Fast loading, less distraction, quick access to the stuff I'm interested in. Or do you expect people to be clones of yourself?
Two reasons I'm posting this:
I figured I'd post instead of moderating.
I've been on the dvd-discuss@eon.law.havrad.edu mailing list for the last month and a half and I can tell you in a few simple words: The DMCA Chapter 17:Section 1201 is evil.
Join the list argue against us see openlaw.org.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I'd be interested to see an example if what you say is realy true.
On planet Example (TM)
A = 1,000,000 fans
B = 10 Stadiums
Cost of album $15
Cost of performance $30 (on average)
You cannot entertain more people than your fan base. They either don't go or don't buy. And NO ONE buys more than one copy of an album. They put it on my.mp3.com.
It's called touring.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
What digital music needs is a completely new revenue model that preserves free distribution of music files. Music servers that charge pay-per-listen or flat access fees aren't going to cut it, the lion's share of the income will still go to the music distributor and not the artist. Like search engines, the barrier to entry in will be quite high and the field will be dominated by a few mega-distributors like the record conglomerates.
Why not just cut out the record companies all together? Artists can distribute their music free of charge on the internet, and make money from their fan base in other ways. Concert tickets, merchandise, and endorsements are huge income streams that are tied to the size of one's fan base. Distributing music for free can only increase one's exposure. I have a feeling that, given the pithy royalties artists see from record sales, artists would make much more money overall from this model.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
He was doing something about it, writing an article to a website with the following of slashdot saying "this needs to be done" is in effect greatly helping to get "this" done.
;)) essays he has written, but it also strikes a chord with me. He's right. Thousands are downloading and stockpiling mp3's to add to their collections. Many of them are legal (hey I LOVE mp3.com) but many are not. Either way, it is having the same effect that the "evils" of software piracy have...if the music/software is good then people who downloaded it for free often go out to buy it both to get the "real thing" and to help the artist/programmer who made the thing. There are atleast 8 artists from mp3.com that I would have normally NEVER heard of, yet, now that I have about half the songs on each of their cd's I have begun to buy several of these artists cds. Wow, by downloading their music...I....gave...them....money...they would not have gotten if their music was not online! Anyway, enough ranting for me.
I'm really REALLY sick of seeing everyone bashing Jon Katz. If you do not like him do not read his columns. There are a lot of other articles that I could not give a flip about, however, I merely skip them rather than making myself mad. That said...
Credits to Jon...not only is this one of the most well thought out (and grammatically organized
It is obvious who owns _all_ ideas.... Amazon.com does :-)
Despite the fact that I share the "common /. viewpoint" when it comes to fair use, I don't think that I should be able to keep copies of, or distribute copies of, things that I don't have to rights to. That means music, movies, or whatever. If people want to give their work away for free, that's great. But forcing them to do so isn't right. This is my big gripe about RMS, incidently.
Where has RMS said that anyone should be forced to give away their work?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
If you write the code, you can choose the terms. If I don't like your terms, I'll go elsewhere.
The problem with this approach is that it's not mirrored anywhere else on the net. Why is eBay such a success? Dynamic pricing. It's happening everywhere.
The net allows consumers to be more involved with the pricing and bundling of products. The old-world model you're talking about doesn't allow consumers to be involved in determining what they think is a fair price for your product. No wonder then that they'll go elsewhere.
As other posters have indicated, the major labels make their money from selling low-involvement products to youth markets. It's no different to packaged goods like Oreos. How many online packaged goods successes have you seen? Uh-huh. Online, low-involvement products basically have to compete on price. And the best price is free. No amount of moralising about artist rights is going to change that. And yes, I have spent some of my life making my living off my music.
Look, the horse has bolted on online music. It's highly commoditized, and just like every other content form there's a global oversupply, and the price is tending toward zero. I don't have a lot of time for the "artists rights" whingers. The fsking New York Times can't charge for its product online, and you think your musical masterwork should rake in $$ every time someone plays it? Puh-leeze.
There's nothing special about music. It's just content. Because the web is primarily a text medium, the business models are a lot more worked out for writing than anything else. Why not look there for innovative ways of pricing your work?
Danny
The only instance I can recall where a big artist tried to give away music was Public Enemy; Chuck D is a big proponent of mp3s and put an entire record on the net before it was available in stores. Of course, the record company forced him to pull it immediately. See, THEY own the music, not the artist. It is their property.
I dunno. Artists aren't forced to sign contracts, so if the terms of those contracts are unfavorable and they sign anyways, who can complain? But still, any appeal the RIAA makes to "supporting artistry" is laughable. I know a couple of people with recording contracts, one of whom was forced back into the studio by the company to record "more accessible" songs. Those songs, of course, were ones the band threw away because they despised them.
I have little sympathy for the RIAA; if they go out of business, music and artists will still exist, so I'm not sure, really, what use they are these days. One thing seems certain, though: the debate about mp3s has nothing to do with art and artists, and everything to do with money.
-brennan
IIRC, (High School TV/Radio Production Class) Radio stations pay ~2.5 cents to the artist every time they play a song. Stupid, Ain't it? I don't support the practice so I try and listen to Internet stations, which usually don't pay. Unfortunately, when RIAA realizes that there are tons of Internet radio stations that play songs and don't pay it, you can guess what will be there next target.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Now along comes the internet, for which marginal cost is also zero. But do the music and motion picture industries want to use the obvious business model for internet content distribution? No, they want to use an ancient business model based on a time when the marginal cost of production and distribution counted for 99.9% of the cost of each unit sold!
Now, before someone screams "artistic integrity", let me point out that the movies are already taking in millions for "product placement", and most concert tours are already sponsored.
Also, while I might object to a verse about "I love coca-cola" on a CD I paid $17.99 for, I probably wouldn't mind casual product mentions on tracks I was getting for free.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Going along with the idea of having patrons to sponser music groups and the like, I think some sort of public tip system would generate more than enough revenue for any decent group. As the name implies, fans are fanatical. They'll pay tips if they can get the music for free and realize that they are supporting the group.
Breaking the law is the wrong way. Changing the law is the right way
I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time I got anything more than a form letter back from my senator/house rep. It's all well and good to say things like "why don't we change the law." However, until a group of people who are willing to spend a great deal of money to express an opinion different from the RIAA, there is little chance that any legislation will reflect the position of the media consumer.
The reality is that it is incredibly easy to pirate music, and incredibly rare that there are any consequences of that piracy. Those with the money to fight the current trend in legislation, also have the money to go out and buy cds, and therefore do not care.
Meanwhile, I maintain that by pirating music, I am fighting to change to laws. If I write to my congressperson, I get a form letter. But because I've pirated music, and because I've helped to make to make the RIAA address this issue, these issues are being discussed. If there weren't people like me pirating music, would the RIAA be at all concerned about piracy? I don't think so.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Marketing is so expensive and risky right now because the major labels do so much of it. If it weren't for the fact that the backstreet boys had so much push behind them, due to the fact that the same conglomerates own both the major labels and the distribution channels local bands would find it much less difficult to get exposure.
The labels realize that it's a lot less risky to push the hell out of two or three acts that they know the public will buy, just on the basis of mass exposure, than to spread their resources across lots of smaller acts.
The demise of the major labels would be a great thing for everyone except Brittany Spears. Desktop audio software is now getting easy-to-use and cheap enough that a band with the dedication and the knowledge can produce recordings that rival those from a big 8-bazzilion-track studio. The only barrier to really-good local bands succeeding on their own terms is the overwhelming influence of the major labels.
I remember being thoroughly excited when David Bowie released a single exclusively online through N2K Inc., aka owners of Music Boulevard that merged with CDnow in 1999. I thought, this is it, the prices of CD burners are going to come down and soon I'm going to be able to buy music off of the internet directly from the artists and say bye-bye to record company price monopolies that maintain exorbitant CD prices when CDs are actually cheaper to produce than cassette tapes. Yet, that day is still not here because the record companies are making sure it doesn't happen.
I stopped working as a contract Audio Producer for a big company once I discovered the horrifying draconian contracts they were having the artists whose work we recorded and used online sign - the artists had to completely give up all rights to their own work. I mean, all of them as in the company holds all exclusive rights.
Part of the justification for this was because the company didn't want to have to deal with figuring out the royalties of music being accessed online. What if the user doesn't have a sound card or doesn't have their speakers turned up? How do you determine how many people really listened to the music on that page? So the company just followed the lead of the record industry - when in doubt, leave the artist out. Foolishly, I even did some composition work for the company before fully realizing what I had given up. Random note: my manager at the company was incredibly conscientious about seeing that contract artists received proper payment and credit for their work and was constantly struggling to have the contracts changed.
My point, (do I have one?), is that the record companies are not going to give up their monopoly. Furthermore, artists know that record companies have the marketing muscle and radio station influence to get them known and their music heard. And the record companies require that they pay for that influence, dearly. The only real solution is for artists to not go through the major record companies at all and either use smaller labels, like Sub Pop and Peerless Music, or do it themselves.
- tokengeekgrrl
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
I would start a label strictly based on internet demand and distribution. This is obviously the wave of the future and i dont see any way around it.
In order to sign talent, I could negotiate a contract whereby the musician would recieve in the realm of 80% of the profits of the sales of the music.
a small internet based company could easily make do with a couple million dollars a month. 20% of just a few big name acts could bring in at least this much.
Distribution would be simple. customers would navigate the site with the ability to listen to lower quality version of these new songs in say (mp3 format) for example.
customers would them choose specific songs and purchase these songs individually or as part of a group and purchase these for a small fee.. I realize this sounds similar to pre-existing markets, but its model does not deal with the current breed of money grubbing middlemen.
after selections are made and songs are purchase, the user is shipped a CD/DVD of the selected music in either red book audio format or mp3.
the musician is happy because he/she will make far more profit from the sale of singles/albums and can also contribute to the distribution process.
And I can be happy with my paltry sum of a few million dollars a year.
then the music industry can be a kinder/friendlier place where the real creators are compensated more fairly.
The drawbacks here are that with a lower budget as part of the label, wining and dining acts to convince them to sign would not be possible.
The musicians be more responsible for thier finances and thier future.
Ill be watching and waiting as someone of means pilfers this idea makes bucks. just email me and Ill send you my address for you to start sending me the money.
LW
My problem with the custom CD approach is that you lose the continuity and theme of having an entire album by one artist. If this model were to become the way most music was distributed, I think we would all be missing out on a lot of good music.
Often times I am first interested in hearing an artist because of one song, but after I buy the album I find that it isn't even close to my favorite song by that artist. Many other songs on the album may be a lot better, but with a custom CD I would have only picked the 1 song from that artist and would have missed out on a lot of good music.
--
Ok, you agree, so let's go deeper. I also think that no artist in the whole world ever is so productive, so beneficial to the mankind and has so much good use for the money that he/she deserves more money than an average doctor, teacher, lawyer or leader. The idea of some pieces of music (the IDEA of a song) being more worthy to mankind than a satellite communications network, probe to Mars or vaccination for all the children in Africa sounds unbelievable!
That is, I find it totally absurd that anyone would earn more than $50k per year just by making music, no matter how talented he might ever be. Really. I think artist's earning millions are themselves thieves, and I'm not even talking about the label execs yet :)
Lets see. What is to stop a company from pretending to secure their product but in all actuality having lousy security. Then they could try to use this as a cover to have laws passed that would restrict our digital freedom. Lets take for instance that I do not provide adequate warnings on something and someone gets hurt. I could be sued and lose. It would also be very easy to determine if there were warnings because these are tangible things. How can we be this sure that the companies put a reasonable prevention method - in this case copy protection. If laws are going to be made that restrict our freedom with copying media or files then there should in turn be obligations by the companies to devote a specified amount of funds to security/prevention as well as be reviewed by a third party so that the level of protections are not faked to try and generate cases which could be used to unneccesarily restrict our freedom. Also in a way like this that would make us spend more money and also pay more sales tax would certainly be in the benefit of both our government and the businesses. I don't feel this is a conspiracy theory. I am simply saying that I feel as though we are lacking an adequate/trusted checks and balances system and this is not just limited to the digital realm. Am I wrong about the whole thing or do others share this feeling?
I have also done much electronic music. I know what it's like to spend 26 hours in the studio to produce a minute of music... that I could never produce "live". I just could not see how to make money that way without resorting to using a state-issued monopoly where I was responsible for the enforcement of that monopoly.
"I'm an artist, Jim, not a lawyer."
-Eldurbarn
This argument applies less to computers (except for American patents) and less again to music, but I think it still has some validity. Anyway my point is that ideas are not the same as physical property, and the law should recognise this.
As for paying creators, up to now the method seems to be along the lines of artficially high costs for production and distribution of material, to replace the missing payment for the actual work of creation. The affect of this is people do the production and distribution at a more realistic proce (piracy) and the loser is the artist. The solution is to actually for creators to create, not paying for a CD, or paying to play a song. Creators will get paid somehow, because people do want music, computer programs, science whatever, and they will pay for it if thats the only way to get it.
Yeah...that's why I recommend that they sell their MP3s. I never recommended jacking them. Your link says pretty much the same thing I said...with more numbers. MP3 albums are pretty good for the artist. I read figures where they get near $6 an album. That's a ton compared to what they normally get. I'm all for that...it's not a perfect situation...but it does a lot more for them than sticking around with the conventional method.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
But you should definitely have some way out if you think the songs suck. Like if the band totally sells-out and adds Britney Spears to their group, then you can ask for your (available) money back.
I don't want this to be like the band not having any creative say, either, so they're so worried about people wanting their money back that they don't stray from their "formula".
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
I STILL don't want to pay $4.99 to the retail outlet, $8.44 to the producers and a paltry $.56 to the artist.
Maybe the producers are 35% less bastardly now...that's still 65% bastardly.
Bottom line, there's a lot of money to be made in the music industry...if you're not a musician. Hell..if this LinuxOne POS goes through the roof, maybe artists should release "Music IPOs". Buying and holding shares will entitle you to all the albums they ever release. It can't jack up the stock market any worse than it is now.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
No chance! Simply patch a digital recorder across the speaker cables and you defeat whatever protection methods you could come up with for this.
Sadly, Mr Katz (seemingly in a hurry to retro-invent mp3.com) omitted to mention digital radio (just about taking off here in the UK despite the high initial hardware costs, thanks to a push from the BBC), which renders most the 'what if' stuff in the article obsolete. It's a digital system where per-play royalites are already in force, but at the radio station's end, with no real barriers to copying the output. It's here, now.
- Andy R.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
And the thing is, this applies not just to music, but other forms of art as well. Take visual art. How can someone who makes digital imagery (stills, or animations, movies...) make a living by doing "live performances"? What about software developers? These are all really special cases of the same thing: digital media.
In the case of those performing visual art, the "live performances" would be exhibitions, demonstrations, social gatherings, etc. The revenues would be derived from entrance fees.
Of course, I don't see that as being a serious and steady form of income, but I do see another revenue stream that could be milked - merchandising. All the tshirts, the calendars, the posters, the coffee mugs, etc. There is a steady stream of potential revenue there.
I think we're moving away from the "charge for content" society that is so popular with Corporate America, and I'm seeing the beginnings of a more open "give the content away" attitude.
A very simple revenue scheme using advertising could be arranged - the MP3 is available for free on a download page, which contains some form of advertising. The more popular the song, the more hits the download page receives, and the more money the advertisers will pay out to the artists. If the files are available from a central point of contact, the number of people willing to hunt and search will narrow down to those who are searching for an older tune. Combine the aforementioned merchandising idea on the same page, and I believe this revenue stream will be enough to support the band, as well as letting the public (and not the corporate hype machine) determine who are the most popular (and most well-paid) bands.
I'm beginning to think that the fundamental problem lies in the fact that you can do perfect copies of digital material. It looks like no matter how you turn things around, you cannot launch digital media without this hapening.
Quite frankly, I do not see a solution for this problem. If you plan to make money out of a piece of merchandise that anyone can duplicate at basically no cost, you are not having a sound biz model.
This does not seem to aply to open-source code, because what makes most money flow is tech support and distribution. For music it might not be such a big deal 'cos a lot of money can be made through live performances. But for movies I wonder.
There is a passage in the book ''The End Of Eternity'', by Asimov, where they mention a device that was capable of duplicating objects and thus destroyed a complete economy.
Cheers,
rmstar
The only reason that higher demand means higher prices is because there's a scarce supply of most goods. If you want to produce more Backstreet Boys albums, that means you need to divert more CD factory time away from the Spice Girls. To justify this switch, you'll want a larger profit, so you'll charge a higher price. As for bargain bin items, this is an example of people thinking at the margin: the costs for producing crappy, unwanted books has already been paid, but the income for selling those books has obviously not been recieved. Therefore, the bookstore would rather have a little money than none at all, to get back some of the price that they paid. In the case of digital music, however, neither of these considerations apply. There is effectively no scarcity and no per unit cost (sure, bandwidth costs, but on a per unit basis that can be safely ignored, or paid by advertisers, at any rate), so it would not be unreasonable to charge less for more popular songs. It would also not be unreasonable to charge more for more popular songs. Good ol' fashioned market research will have to determine what the best way to maximize profits is.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
What I understand while reading the comments, The biggest problem is seen in the big and ugly Recording industry.
Then why don't we render it obsolete?
While thinking about the whole situation, I kind of noticed a similarity between the Music business and the "internet Business".
Both live from Ideas. (One in form of Music, one in form of Business plans)
Both rely heavily on Marketing. (Look at the Marketing spending of Startups and at the ammounts spend by labels to push some music)
Both rely completely from customer satisfaction.
(I can think of more similarities but I hope you get the Point)
So, I think, why shouldn't we model the music business more after the internet scene: create "insert Band name here" incorporated!
We could have Venture capitalists which after listening to the music (instead of reading the business plan) invest money into the Band company.
The Bands should have a "CEO" (manager) which invests the money from the VC into marketing, recording and all the other stuff related.
If they are an success the VC company should get a (previously defined) share of the income.
Labels could change and instead make "consulting" business to the Band inc.
There would be no need for the Big Record company's anymore.
I hope you see what I mean. It's basicly about creating new (would this be new?) structures for doing the old stuff. What do you think?
$.02
/.ers to say but . .
/$.02
It's kinda of confusing to me how Hip-hop / Techno DJ's have been making mix tapes for so long, with little trouble, but record execs freak out with mp3's. A DJ takes a bunch of tracks (most or all of which are not his/hers) does some neat turntable tricks, records the mix, and sells the tape. This is all done, of course, without the expressed consent of the artist/label. The only money being made goes to the store / DJ. And its not like the artist/label dont know that mix tapes are being made, quite the contrary its seen as promotion. Its a great way to get your name out by having your music grouped with similar bands, so the hip-hop heads hear new, fresh music first.
I know its easy and unproductive for all of us
*ahem*
Record labels: just chill out!
What is really unique and, more importantly, controllable, is the artist's individual creative efforts. In other words, everything that goes on before the music is released. This is nothing new. Traditionally, most art and music has been "paid for" by commissions -- the pope wants his ceiling painted, so he commisions Michaelangelo to paint it.
What we need is a system where artists can agree to release an album when they receive a certain amount of money from fans. For example, the Backstreet Boys could ask for $50,000,000 from fans before they release a song/album. Individuals would pay whatever they felt was appropriate. Lesser known artists would, of course, have much lower funding targets. Artists could release sample tracks or clips in order to boost interest.
I never felt compelled to reply to Sig11 because everyone else flames him so well I never see the pointin being critical.
/. because now any time he is seen it is a troll LOL
:-).
However that was rather lop sided and silly.
I have noticed many masters running aroundhere.
Katz is the master of Diction.
Sig11 master of... high moderation trolling
Yes thats right this was at best a troll so I have a suggestion
Signal 11 must be removed from
Seriously that was a bit of a troll Sig. You were looking for a response and you got it. And the guy who replied? He got modded up to for replying with that response you were searching for
Jeremy
MS is releasing (released? anyone know?) a script encoding engine to go along with their scripting model so that any ActiveX Script (ECMAScript, VBScript, PerlScript, etc) can be encoded and the source cannot be stolen. It's not the same as compiling since the source will still be downloaded to the browser the same way (script src="zerg.js" /script) but people won't be able to steal scripts. Yet, the scripts will still be available from websites for free. Does that count?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
[o]_O
unfortunately, slashdotters are the only ones not happy with big companies... the rest of the masses aren't aware of what's going on
i think that's the point katz is trying to make
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
[o]_O
aren't the vast majority of artists starving?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
[o]_O
And there will still be kids who don't have credit cards, that want to buy things online, but can't.
Even with places like MP3.com, where I can buy a DAM CD (mp3's included) for $6 us (plus shipping, and converted into Cdn$ that's around $15cdn - average music cd here is $20cdn plus)
So i go to MP3.com and download the MP3's. I don't pay. I use napster daily and get hundreds of megs of music per week over my DSL connection. I don't pay, and even if there was some easy system that somehow enabled people under 18 to pay 1 cent and listen to a song, I and many other people would probably avoid it.
I'm not going to rationalize my crime... whether it should be a crime or not. It is illegal in Canada (and the US and the rest of the civilized world) to pirate media (be it software, music, movies, whatever).
But nobody is ever going to stop me. The only way to stop me is to offer some value in buying the CD or paying the $0.01/listen that I can't gt by downloading the song through Napster.
Right now, the only thing that CDs have that comes close is the booklet, which in a lot of newer CDs doesn't even contain the lyrics.
If there was a nice booklet like what's in the Beastie Boys anthology CD, which I bought, then there's value. I paid $35 cdn for those Beastie Boys cd's. There is a 50 page plus booklet in there, and 2 cd's packed with music. That's an accpetable value.
But paying $22 or so and getting a CD with 30 minutes (out of 74 max) of music, 2 songs that are good and the rest suck, and a booklet that says "Thanks to my friends at (insert label) Records and my Family." and nothing else?
That's ridiculous.
--
Now this is a comment with some sense. How does the radio work? Do radio stations pay for every time they play the song, or, as it usually works around my neck of the woods, do new CDs get sent free of charge to the station with notes asking the DJ to play the song to generate some interest in the artist, perhaps as a prelude to the artist coming into town and giving a performance. Anyway, the author of 'ghost performances' obviously has a good idea of what is going on. I wish the 'industry' had half an inkling of what is GOOD for them. Perhaps have CDs of very high quality MP3s on the 'big company's web site which cost some small fee for price of bandwidth to send out the file and storage space on server to store the file. most people distribute somewhat lesser quality (128 sampling) MP3, this generates desire for the high quality stuff, like CDs, performances in the area, etc. maybe another idea is to extend the MP3 to include advertising info which updates from a server: 'Remember fans, we are coming to the Los Angeles Convention Center on March 29th, be there!'. anyway.... frknfrk. WebVan (get groceries and other stuff delivered to you door: in San Francisco now and opening in Atlanta soon).
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
Interesting idea. Most of the music I listen to are "Jam Bands" (Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic . . ). They all have for years actively supported the free distribution of tapes of thier shows. These days thier are tons of sites posting thier shows like this one Sugarmegs.org.
The interesting this is, that they all make tons of $$$$ touring! I have gigs of thier shows and plenty of CDs to boot. I attend thier shows.
So in the end I give lots of money to the bands (tickets are expensive) lots of money to the Big companies (I buy all the new CDs) and I get MUCH MORE variety via MP3.
The only think uncommon about this scenario is that there is a huge infrastructure behind trading of these particular bands and it has a long (~20 year) history.
What record company wouldnt'd want to sign the next Phish? No promotion costs and HUGH profits!
IIRC, the $.56 figure given by TLC on the show took into account the fact that they had to fund their own music videos, some of which (Waterfalls) were extremely expensive. Had they not made the videos, or at least not invested as much money in them, they would probably have made closer to the $1/CD that independent artists make.
I'm trying a shareware model now for music. I have a small independent record company; we basically break even on what we do. We've been making music available on the Web for a while, but we're now just beginning to do it explicitly on a shareware basis, asking people who like our stuff to mail us money. I don't know if it will work, but there's no real downside to trying that I can see. (Click on the link above to see an example for the band "Mobius Dick"). Another thought: in my day job I'm a law professor. The RIAA shouldn't be on such a high horse. Their contracts are all written primarily to ensure that artists get as little money as possible (read Donald Passman's excellent book "All You Need to Know About the Music Business" to see how). They also talk about "theft." But theft of tangible property was always considered malum in se -- evil in itself, and wrong under both natural law and the common law. Theft of ideas is malum prohibitum -- evil only because it is prohibited -- and was *not* considered illegal in the absence of statute. This doesn't make copying illegally suddenly legal, but understanding this drains the issue of any significant moral high-horsery.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
The supply/demand model predicts 2 important things:
1- If the demand is there, it will be met (through illegal means if necessary) and
2- If the legal supple is as cheap/convienent as the illegal source, then people will buy it.
But what is the real market demand?
People want to hear particular songs at their leisure.
No one brags about "I've got no room for programs because I filled up my HD with MP3's!" They only download them ahead of time because it's not convient to d/l them when they want to listen.
So what's the answer? Easy- sell convenient distribution rather than the media/songs. For instance, sell a cell-phone sized MP3 player for nothing but charge a $20 monthly fee for service. Users could d/l songs from anywhere via wireless service. Artists would be payed based on the % of consumers that d/l their songs.
Most importantly, "piracy" would be eliminated because copying a saved song from another friend's computer would be no quicker/cheaper than just getting it yourself!
-Dave
P.S. And if they still want to sell hard copies - DVDaudio would be too big to send wirelessly, so you'd have to buy the 5 channel version :-)
Great point and I agree fully. There is still one flaw... Don't forget that TicketMaster takes a huge bite out of artists, since they hold the monopoly on ticket sales. Perhaps after the MP3 Wars are won, ticketmaster may be next up in the sights of the revolution.
"Never teach a cat to say 'Tuna,' its all he'll ever want to talk about!" - BEAR
I believe that most musicians would like to escape the record companies and move to online distribution. I believe this has not happened because making money distributing music online, and making money doing it, is not a trivial thing to do, even assuming you have computer knowledge.
I believe that a partial solution to this quandary is to make a new file format with two parts:
Each time the song is played, a transaction is made. Actually, the transactions would probably be queued so you could check how much you were paying, then click the pay button. (to make sure that the band isn't charging 100$ a play.)
Of course, you'd have to have a music player that was capable of handling a couple of widespread payment methods. E-gold has been around for a while, and you could actually charge less than a cent - much less than a cent - per play. But just like most players support many audio formats, they could support many payment mechanisms along the same lines. Good thing us open source people are pretty good at quick-deployment modular code, huh?
You could have a zip file inside the format, and just pay one lump sum when you unzip the file.
Could people bypass the format and play the music without paying? Of course. Theft has and always will be a factor. But that's not the point. The point is, there will be people who want to pay (I do!), and these people will have a very easy way to give a musician money.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
There are three points to music. The first is for the music to be made, and all the joy that goes into that (that point is never going to be a problem). The second is to have people hear the music. The third is to make money with the music.
The music industry sprang up around the Second point. They helped people hear the music. The byproduct of the industry satisfied the Third point. Now we have the internet, the internet helps people hear music. But the internet lets music be heard for free, which brings us to the first problem: The Artist Isn't Making Money.
Several workable solutions to this have been proposed. Here's mine: Make a sort of Open Music liscense. Have it say that the music can be freely given away and distributed by anyone to anyone using any means as long as there is no proffit involved (compensation for cost of reproduction is not proffit). But have it also say that should any proffit be made, 10% (or so) must be sent to the artist. Just my personal pet solution.
The problem with this solution, as with all the others, brings us to the second problem: The Music Industry Isn't Making Money.
For this problem there are some solutions. The music industry has propposed some themselves, such as making "pirating" of music illegal.
The point to all of this: The music industry and the music fans can not open a civil dialogue because there are no desireable solutions that involve the music industry getting billions . This is not a problem, the music industry as we know it has almost outlived its usefulness. The problem arises because the music industry isn't willing to give up power, give up money, and die.
In conclusion, there can be no compromises. The only way to end this is to battle the music industry in courts and win until they run out of money. If we just sit by and mind our own business (even stop buying music that the music industry sells) then the music industry will lobby until it can't be gotten rid of.
I want my Cowboyneal
FOR FREE
Grtz, Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Fight Spammers!
Maybe the times of multimillionaire artists just
are over. In the future artists work open-
source-styled, just for the enjoyment for
themselves and everyone else, the only reward
being publicity and respect. And they have to work
for their food just like everyone else, doing
the famous 'real work'. (No offense, I think doing
serious art is indeed hard work). Maybe?
Problem with moving away from record companies is, if we like it or not, that they still are necessary evil. They are still handling the distribution and MARKETING.
It's pretty hard to sell something if no-one knows anything about it. People have to be told that there's new good album out. Right now the big companies handle this, for a price. This is good for artists and consumers as well as companies. Maybe this will change in the future as the internet grows. But I fail to see how it would happen. Majority of people would still check only few places for records and pay for those sites to download them.
Did that make any sense? Point was that marketing is still necessary, expensive and risky. There are only few who can do it globally.
When you smile, the world laughs at you.
I was seriously looking for a way to trash your comment simply becuase I loathe the music of most of the bands you mention, but after thinking about it, you're probably right. Lemme explain:
I was, for many years, a Dead & Phish-head. I have since recovered my senses (not to mention my taste in music), largely due, I think, to having stopped taking so many drugs. ;) But anyway...
I watched Phish grow from a Burlington bar band to what they are today. After thinking about your comment I realized that Phish got popular not primarily through their considerable (and frequently unused) musical talent, but through marketing. I use that term here to refer to their years of hard work at being a "jamband"
I'm not being sarcastic. They worked their asses off to become who they are, and it obviously has been enormously profitable for them. If a person/group were to put similar effort (as I'm sure many are) into developing their name through MP3's, then I do not doubt for a second that they will also find financial success as long as they possess at least some talent.
In closing, though, I do have to repeat how much I dislike their music (same for the Dead, Spin Doctors, etc). You may conclude that my vehemence is simply based on embarassment of who I once was, and I'd reply, "Damn Right It Is!". Have you ever tried listening or hanging out with the fans without the benefit of a well-filled bong? Nails on a chalkboard doesn't even come close to describing it, and I cringe whenever somebody reminds me of my past stupidity.
Three years wasted in a haze of dope and the stench of patchoulli...
Record companies would be hard pressed to prove that they have been financially damaged. I believe it would be easier to prove that MP3 files and players, and programs like Napster are responsible for increased profits, through free publicity for their artists.
Instead of sueing individuals and software producers, the record industry and RIAA should be grateful for the increased exposure their artists. They couldn't buy an equivalent amount of air time!
Every piece of recording media has a has a fee attached to it that is to be returned to the artists for allowing 'Fair Use.' That's right! We already pay for 'Fair Use,' there is no reason to attach a per play fee (or piracy fee if you prefer.) I'd like to see the RIAA and Record Companies give an accounting of how much was collected, and how much was returned to the artists. Record Companies and the RIAA aren't concerned about profits for their artists, they are concerned about profits for themselves! Sites like MP3.com help to promote artists and sell CDs in a non-traditional manner. Record Companies are afraid they may be disintermediated by allowing artists to sell more directly. The record industry doesn't understand that the internet interprets censorship (or the perception thereof) as damage and routes around it!
Instead of fighting technology the industry should
Imagine being able to select 640MB of music for a custom CD (even more on a DVD, or perhaps Music Videos?), just the music you want, at a reasonable price; perhaps the minidisc could be the prefered format.
Oh Well! Enough of my rant!
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
Although the idea of discounting bestsellers is an interesting one, there is a limitation as to how far this discount will go. We all can already see retailers discounting the bestselling items (or predicted best sellers). How deep the discount goes at the retail level is determined by two things - how far the label lets it go down, IOW what the cost per unit is to the retailer, and how far the retailer lets it go down. Therein lies a conflict. Above and beyond the money made by the artist (little) and the label/publisher/whathaveyou (more than little) you still have a retailer who is trying to get their cut. Yes, you will still see price matching as various retailers compete for sales, but these prices will bottom out at the point where retailers make little or no money. Unless the site selling these MP3s is guaranteed income from other sources we won't see prices ever drop down to nothing on a site dependent in any way on purchases for income. I imagine that the retailers - something that has not been mentioned much in this discussion - are playing more of a role in the future of copyright law than we are paying attention to.
Build the mountain. Then climb it if you're bored.
There is a higher cost in producing music/software/films than you think.
For music there is the cost of promoting the band through music video's, flooding radio stations with CDs, etc. And then there is the cost of physically mass-producing CDs (cheap per-CD, but a high startup cost).
Films today are costing more and more money. Even crappy films like "Mission to Mars" cost 100 million dollars due to expense special effects which almost seem to be a prerequisite to a successful movie these days.
And computer games take movie-sized crews to churn out a succesful game (long gone are text-adventures). Free software may be the single exception to this. But the internet doesn't make software cheaper, it just makes it easier to distribute
Now, I'm not saying you can't produce a good low budget film/game/CD but it will always be the alternative method -- I'm afraid big media is here to stay
I don't think that the idea of having an mp3 player that would charge per listen would work
First of all, the mp3 format as it stands now would not work.
You'd have to create a new format and convince people to use that. So there still would be the problem of pirated mp3s.
Secondly, the new format and player would very likely be hacked so you wouldn't have to pay and we'd be back to square one.
Look what happened with the players that can save RealAudio streams to a disk.
It is sad and unfortunate that artists are often forced into unfair contracts by record companies. But without those companies is unlikely that these artists would ever become successful on their own. It is possible though - through lots of touring, constant self-promotion, and help from indy record labels. But its difficult and many up-and-coming would much rather sign with a large label first.
There are many large record companies out there so thus it is not correct to say there is a monopoly. Artists have the freedom to choose which company the wish to sign with. It is a fact of the industry though, that the artist ends up with so little of the profits - it is quite a risk and investment to produce and promote a new, unknown musician. This is called "capitalism" and I, for one as many Americans stand by it.
Finally, there are alternative that are open to mucisian - such as selling CDs online pr releasing their music through mp3.com. But honestly, how many people out actually download and listen to unknown bands through services such as mp3.com?
Don't get me wrong, I love it too when people use my codes. But that's different than when you spent hours working on a script for a particular client, and some other web designer steals it, calls it his own, and charges people for it.
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JavaScript tutorials scripts
As a JavaScript programmer, I find myself confronted with this issue virtually everyday. As you know, programs written in JavaScript are called scripts, and most aren't all that hard to write- or all that original. I try to create mine as much as possible from scratch, and only try to borrow ideas from good scripts I see. There are "JavaScript programmers" out there, however, that would simply copy an entire code from others, modify a couple of variable names, and call them their own. I often don't know whether it is appropriate for me to confront these people, since scripts are so easy to write and simplistic, and it is possible a code looks just like yours due to coincidence. In those cases where you are sure they copied your code, you still can't proof it, or even that you came up with the code in the first place.
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JavaScript tutorials scripts
I know a band that used MP3's to get a minor hit in South East Asia. They are University Students in Windsor Ont. Havn't even Been Signed to a record label yet. I think this is what worries the Big record labels. That ANYBODY can have a hit, ANYWHERE ANYTIME. With No marketing, No Promotion - Do you really Need a record label. Maybe my radio Station will stop playing Regurgitated Crap... WOHA....Imagine that S.
Yes I can not spell...Wait....for a second there I almost cared.
This is no longer really true when we consider the power of the net. Distribution, manufacturing, and promotion, probably accounting for the largest costs, are now much easier, therefore the added value is much less. This means that the costs of music should more or less be reflected in the quality of the music, and any associated costs in serving it to the public.
In a truly free market economy, this means that a new structure should arise where online record labels still provide quality assurance, promotion, and crap-filtering, providing music at a reduced cost.
So wouldn't it be great if someone could organize such a label? I would pay $100 per year to people with good taste to find good artists, collect music, ensure quality of recording, and compensate artists for their work. With an online membership as small as 100,000 people, this would give them an annual budget of $10million for providing a good product. They could make a deals where, when they pay the artist, the artist agrees to allow the free trade of their music on-line. From their popularity, they would be able to make money from other enterprises, including merchandising and concerts. By downloading from them, we could additionally ensure a source where we don't get mp3 music with pops, clips, or other problems. And it would all be legal.
How can one steal if they have taken something but have not denied the "owner" of anything. I know I know, that is an over simplification of what is going on because in America we have copyrights. Where a corporation owns the work of another person and often the artist is treated much like a tenent farmer. It is true that we do not need the corporation for the distribution of music over the internet. Napster could be modified just as many others have speculated to charge for each song, and an artist could make a great deal more money off that than slavery to a corporate master. Music and corporation, two things that just do not go together. One is "supposedly" a form of expresion, an ART. A corporation is Greed, GREED and a side order of slavery. We do not need them, especially in music. Think of Metallica, did they start out with a huge corporate sponser writing their lyrics?
What Jon addresses here is a deeper problem. If the establishment keeps control it will be even harder for artist of any kind to develop their craft and become known for their efforts. They will be selected by a closed group of individuals who have no rights to cast their will upon free society.
Easy, just pirate the music, and mail a money order for $5.00 directly too the artist. He's paid for his ideas, you've paid for your conscience, the record company gets screwed over, and Uncle sam can be screwed over too (if the artist is so inclined). What could be sweeter then that?
HELL YES, I'd like to be listened to! I'm a damn musician! I've been playing for almost TWENTY years, and write good songs and think of interesting musical experiments for instrumentals, and 'musician Matt Rose' speaks for me bigtime.
In fact, you know what? Currently I do not have ANY way in place for listeners to pay me. There's no CD yet. No T-Shirts ;) wups, sorry! I guess you'll just have to listen to my art FOR FREE. I guess you'll have to shake off the assumptions pounded into your head by a culture industry, that nothing's good unless it costs money and has the little alligator logo on it or says Ralph Lauren or Pokemon or Spice Girls on it, and you'll have to go download years of artistic work for FREE with my BLESSING because, slashdot geek-type open source people, that is what I want to do with it. Is that so hard to understand to opensource types? Isn't it kind of similar to the free software spirit? And, in fact, I also write some computer software- and GPL it. I'm not some random musician hitting Slashdot to hype- I post here all the time, my user page says Chris Johnson (580)! And I also compose music- a lot of it- and dearly wish for it to be heard. When I come out with political geek-oriented music (two songs in the works already, "Blue Collar Computer Technician Man" and "Options Vesting Party", the first is a heavy blues and the second insists on being country for some reason :) ) I want people to be listening.
So, please do? Some of you broadband folks, general music enjoyers, anyone, everyone? I have songs up at http://www.mp3.com/RFW which stands for The Room Full Of Windows, the 'song project' which will get the geek songs when I record them. I'll make recommendations too as there are a lot of songs there: If you like mean blues in the BOFH spirit, listen to "Staring Down The Phone". If you like sad pretty harmonies, "Just Another Someone Turned Away". If you want maximum angst done well, "December" is for you (or maybe it _is_ you ;) it was me at the time!) If you like a more upbeat rock check out "Stupid Faith In You". I got up to some Who-esque walls of guitar chords in "Color Me Gone" which is also upbeat and grooves really nicely. Finally, my personal favorite would be "The Rules"- it's sweet but intelligent and has a lot of humor in it, and sums up my geek outlook on life :)
Then I also have instrumental music up at http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ. This is a bit sparser- contains a reggae lead guitar workout, "Variations On A Sicilian Poodle", a very long-play rock jam segmented into three parts to fit on mp3.com, "Extended Play" (think of it as like the rock version of techno background hacking music, also it is very high audio quality especially bass) and the first 'anima' track, "Whale" which is also the first track from my new studio which I'll record geeks in for free if they can journey here at their own expense (I can't be paying airfare :) ) These instrumentals, especially "Extended Play" and "Variations On A Sicilian Poodle" also work as killer audio test records, even in mp3 form- especially into the bass, I have a heavily custom board and the bass on these extends waaaaaay down into subwoofer territory, use it to show off your audio gear. iMac transparent subwoofers need not apply ;)
Gah- now there's no time to lay down the drum track, I have to go return a CD-Rom burner! I'm not sorry *g* slashdot's a net-home for me and I gladly blow off audio work until later to communicate with my people :) I'll get to it later. But for god's sake, man- go listen to the free music! Get a fellow geek on the mp3.com charts. It's the only way you can give me anything for the years of work I put in, 'cos I have NOTHING to sell you. Everybody always says 'Oh, I will give the artist $5 to encourage them!' but I got no CD to sell at the moment so even if you love the music you can't give me money for it. So go download it again or tell somebody about the geek opensource-writing hardware-hacking crazy musician who wants to be heard. Maybe CmdrTaco would like me to record some free musical bits for Geeks In Space! I've listened to every GIS, it would be fun to give it some music that wasn't 303-music :)
Gotta run! go take free music from me! these super army tanks are free and get 200 mpg and I'll come over and remix them while you sleep! (get away from me you freak! Don't you know everybody listens to station wagons?) ;)
http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ is the place you can find mp3s produced in my new studio- if you download only one track make it "Horse", though "Whale" is also recorded in the new studio. I flat out defy anyone to match that recording quality with anything short of a insanely expensive and sophisticated full recording studio. I am a sound engineer geek, this is my thing- and an open source geek, so I am _ready_ to provide that proper recording studio to other people like me. I just finished talking to an independent LA producer on a MUCK for whom I'm going to make guitar and bass samples- in return he'll get some more people listening to my art, which is all I'm asking of a person in his position. It's barter, and it's networking, and it works. And here I am- to most comers (where I'm doing it out of commerce not love) I'm billing $75 an hour for studio time which includes me in there doing everything up to production, studio musician, cheerleader and psychologist ;) I have had good results enticing and conning great performances out of musicians, such as getting a keyboard player to play more solid bass-keyboard parts by showing him what just bass+drums sound like (he cut the part way back- his tape ended up grooving like mad!) or getting a classical guitarist to transition mentally from a baroque piece to a flamenco piece ("No, the slightly muted note was _okay_... relax, let's put some _garlic_ on this performance! Get right into it, you're not playing Baroque this time").
And again, I may be out of my depth for promotion and advertising, I may not be equipped to manufacture CDs, I may not be interested in judging music crap (I have found that you can bring music out of just about anybody if you're a good producer, so nobody is 'crap', they are mostly just badly handled), but I'm raising my hand to be counted as part of the 'new structure arising' to provide what people think you need major labels for.
Because you don't need major labels for that. Period. >:)
Well, i consider musicians to be artists, and as such, consider their albums to be works of art (in the musical sense, I'm not talking about the cover art). Perhaps with some of the MTV-type crap albums are just collections of singles put on a single CD for convenience, but, in my opinion, the majority of what I'd term "quality artists" (some of whom I like, and some of whom I don't, but at least I respect them) create their album as more than just a collection of singles. If you're going to just download the 8 songs you like, you've pretty much destroyed the album. Sure, the individual songs may be good, but often the overall effect of the album enhances them. An example would be Nine Inch Nails albums - any one song from most of the albums would be much less effective out of the context of the album. The same can be said of many other bands/artists...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Jon, your ideas are your own, and believe me, no one is going to steal them from you. :)
.au files I used to listen to were just as enjoyable as the radio. When I first thought up that bubblesort algorithm, I didn't know someone else had done it first.
Yeah, all of us hackers are evil pirates. My web browser "steals" copyrighted images every day and makes copies of them. Those
...but the difference is, now that there is money involved, corporations are entering the picture and getting lawsuit-happy, and generally trashing the world that we built in the first place, and exploiting its features.
I'd much rather live in a world where record companies did not exist, banner ads were illegal, phone and computer companies could not own media or patent simple ideas, musicians were supported by the goodwill of their fans, without anyone to take their excess money, and slashdot discussions were intelligent.
But I think that's enough fantasy for one day...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
s to the matter of not knowing if someone is pulling a patent on something, check that something out. It's usually marked "patent pending". Whether this is REQUIRED I do not know.
What I meant by this is that if I come up with an idea for something that seems obvious to me, and I turn it into a product, I have no way of knowing if someone has filed for a patent on the same idea. I guess this means we all have to file for patents on every single idea we come up with, no matter how obvious, lest someone else receive a patent on the idea and prohibit us from using it.
Sounds real nice if you work for the patent office. They're raking in the cash now that companies are patenting everything they can think of, just to avoid being sued. Sounds to me like the PTO has a major conflict of interest here. They're supposed to only award patents for non-trivial, non-obvious (to an expert in the appropriate field) inventions or ideas. Yet they also have to support themselves financially, which creates an incentive to either charge a lot or process a lot of patents. Since people would complain bitterly if they charged any more than they already do, they've gone with the second option. The whole patent system is now out of whack.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I suppose Rosa Parks should have just given her seat up because "breaking the law is the wrong way".
Completely incorrect. The entire Rosa Parks didn't get up from her seat is that she wasn't breaking the law. She was sitting in the black-section of the bus and refused to give up the seat that was rightfully hers to a white person. She never broke a law.
And comparing the MP3 thieves to the civil rights movement is like comparing those being prosecuted for the DeCSS program to the Jews during the Holocaust. It's a completely different order of magnitude and it does an injustice to those who actually weren't criminals.
As a consumer, i figure i pay $50-75/mo for music, mostly on CD. If digital music distribution reduced the cost for music, i wouldn't spend less - i'd just own more music! My music budget is limited by finances, not taste. If music cost 1/10 what it does now, i'd have ten times as much.
/||\
And since any online distribution mechanism would cut out middlemen between the artists and the consumers, it would benefit both the artists (more money) and the consumers (more music). The only parties who would lose out are the layers of middlemen between us and our favorite musicians.
I'm all for making sure artists get paid for their work. But the record industry execs who claim they are trying to protect the artists are liars and hypocrites. They screw over artists in more fiscally and artistically destructive ways than all the consumer "thieves" ever could.
__
(oO)
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
XFree86, FreeBSD, Wine, Perl, Python, etc ... etc ... are all Free Software, they are not GPLed, you can make a closed, proprietary package out of them ... and last time I checked they were doing well.
My last broadcast gig was in '94 (we all got replaced by a computer), but I suspect it still works the same as it did the 20+ years up 'til then.
Record companies send promotional copies to radio stations in the hopes of getting airplay. The program director and/or the music director get weekly phone calls and occasional in person visits from "reps", sometimes employees of the record companies, sometimes independant contractors, to find out what the station is playing, what the station is thinking about playing, whether the station and the record promoters can work together on some sort of promo (free T-shirts, etc.), and to generally try to get the station to play whatever the promoters are pushing that week. So far the station's not out any money.
The station does, however, pay blanket licensing fees (larger in larger markets, as I recall) to outfits like ASCAP, BMI, SEASAC. Once a year, the station has to make a list of everything it played over the course of a "week" (sometimes that "week" isn't seven consecutive days but rather Monday of some week, Tuesday of some other, etc.) That data (which used to have to be compiled by hand, what a chore)is added and averaged with the data from all the other stations and those blanket fees are divided up among the "owners" of the various songs proportionately to the airplay those songs got, at least theoretically.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Somebody please moderate up the above. I suggest both "insightful" and "informative".
I look forward to vindicating whoever does in metamoderation.
Changing topic slightly, doesn't it seem that those on the "it's not theft" side of the arguement are mostly the ones wanting something created by someone else's labor and not their own?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If it was summarized, it wouldn't be Katz : )
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
So music doesn't carry any emotional value.. no ideas.. it doesn't communicate with you or make you feel different? You're probably a tree stump then. Everyone I know listens to music because there's a message in it - whether it's constructed with words or with musical notes.. but it's there. It's communicating an idea.
They are actually a product. When someone steals this, they are stealing property, like taking someone author's novel or some company's car design. It's theft of an actual product, not an idea.
I disagree. Music was made thousands of years ago to record our history... the trials of our day to day existance. It was a means of communication which survives even today. It is art. I will further state that intellectual property doesn't exist. You have physical, tangible property.. and that's it. You can't own an idea any more than you can own a sound or an image. If I copyright flipping you off and you give me the bird, can I sue you? You see, once you start saying that images, music, thoughts, ideas, are 'property' then you start fencing off which areas of MY mind I can be in. That's flat out wrong.
People have no respect for musician's and their distributors rights. I want the system changed as much as anyone, but the fact is, there's a right way and a wrong way. Breaking the law is the wrong way. Changing the law is the right way.
Haven't you heard of civil disobedience? I'm willing to break the law because I don't believe in it. "any fool can make a law, and any fool will mind it". Laws are SUPPOSED to be reflective of the ideals and values a society holds. I can tell you right now that our society on the whole does not agree with 'intellectual property'. It's a misnomer.. it doesn't exist.
Now, that being said, you may not respond to, cricicize, modify, quote, or reverse-engineer in whole or in part, any of this post under the terms of the DMCA and international copyright law.
I also need to have a source of revenue to pay for the bandwidth, etc. required to provide the songs, and so I have thought about this long and hard. To date the best solution I have come up with is just what Tim Lord suggested, that is, I will make the same song available in the same place on the web page, but the encoding rate will be based on whether or not the person is a "site subscriber". Granted, subscribers can re-post the higher quality MP3 back to the web and essentially screw the artist (I'm out of the loop because I'm not paying for the bandwidth for the downloads of the reposted copy), but if I'm providing good music at a good cost, why would they bother?
By the way, the big difference between this model and MP3.com is essentially the difference between an indie label and the big boys. I become an "indie producer", and the web becomes my marketing tool. So if I have the integrity to limit myself to musicians, etc. I want to push, I can make a decent amount of money, and most importantly -- push the majority of the financial benefit to the artists.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
If any of you out there either have, or know someone who has, a contract from a "major" record label, with filled-in information on payment, royalties, etc (or heck, blank, even, I'll take what I can get), I'd be most grateful if you could send me a copy of it. You are quite welcome to black out any identifying information, just leave the bits about payment, terms, etc, intact (unless they specifically are secret). Your contract information will be kept absolutely confidential, and I will not reveal to anyone that I got my information specifically from you.
If you can help me, please either scan in and e-mail it to me at wesmills@wyvern.org, or e-mail me for my mailing address. If you mail it to me, you will be compensated for the postage and so forth.
Thanks in advance!
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I think that many ideas are the consolidation of external influences. The ones that can put two and two together and sell or patent that idea deserve the spoils of said idea. One problem: some meta-ideas aren't -- that is, some ideas (like 1-click selling) are somewhat of a duh concept. Still, the system protects them (for ever-increasing amounts of time) and they make money. If a patent is too common, it holds no water as a money making device. Lots of patents, I'm certain, were taken out on the "little obvious things" in life. But that is where prior art comes in. It is up to the competitors to prove this prior art and disprove the patent's validity.
Lowmag.net
The aggravating thing is the local radio stations won't play local bands
And even when they do on a regular basis it's 2 in the morning on Sunday.
People forget that while the Internet is a global medium, it's great as a local one too. But, the penetration hasn't been there for local media outlets to flourish. Yet the highest percentage of users even now (based on age), are those most likely to be able to participate in a local music scene. So now "it just might work(tm)".
Bands are very willing to listen, especially the small nobodies with dreams in their eyes. I've seen eyes light up when I tell a half-drunk bassist that I'm setting up a local music site. A station (stream) DEDICATED to playing local music. "Wanna go out tonight?" "Sure, who's playing where and what do they sound like?" "Visist LocalSiteX and find out..."
Hmm, time to get to work.
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+&x
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Recordings of my music may create demand for my live performances. Why should I do anything to reduce the distribution of recordings?
You shouldn't, but those who make money off the recordings have a good reason too. Elflord, if you're listening, this is the point I've tried to make over and over for you. Open distribution of music can only help an artist (unless they suck, but we all start out sucking). Support artists by paying them directly, the best way to do this IS GO WHERE THEY ARE! (very easy when they come visit you).
Don't let billionaires tell you what is right and wrong. Lobby your congressmen. And especially support LIVE music, it really can't be beat.
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+&x
For intellectual property to work, people, i.e. folks on the street, must recognize it to be property in the first place, in an ethical sense (paraphrasing Summers' observation). Unfortunately, people consider this to be a matter of degree: "I am getting gouged by the record labels, hence it is not intellectual property, and I am justified in violating copyright."
I think the critical logical element which is missing from both the copyright and patent discussions (both are IP issues, but are vastly different in the practice) is the idea of independent discovery/generation. This is has been the driving force behind the success of FSF/GPL in the "industrial" and "scientific" software arenas, and increasingly in the "consumer" arena. Let Bezos have his "1-click shopping" patent; however, if Barnes and Noble developed "1-click" on their own, let Amazon have no legal basis for "infringement."
This kills several birds with one stone:
I will concede that this crackpot idea is much more sticky to implement (in an ethical sense) for publishable works like music and art, but I think the idea has legs nonetheless. The reform idea I have proferred has been popular among certain Objectivist circles, but please don't let that keep y'all from considering it thouroughly on its face.
One legally sound explication of these concepts is in the Oceania Constitution.
*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring epicurean ***
"I want the system changed as much as anyone, but the fact is, there's a right way and a wrong way. Breaking the law is the wrong way."
/only/ way. Remember, we aren't slaves to the law. The law is a tool we use for our own good. When laws start becoming outdated and impinge on that it is the /laws/ that must change not us. I suppose Rosa Parks should have just given her seat up because "breaking the law is the wrong way".
No, breaking, or at least changing, the law is the
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Like many corporations offer you "free samples" or "free services", I do believe many record/movie corporations could offer either plenty of low-quality files or limited-quantity high-quality files to fans, while keeping the rights and ownership to the original CD.
For instance: The Throbbing Appendages releases two singles "Not with you" and "Fsck my hard disk" as high-quality MP3 files on the Internet, and also sells a normal-length CD with 12 other songs on their web site. Or it could even release the entire CD as MP3, but also sell their "Live In Osaka" album, with tons of new songs and rare versions of the previous ones. Once the "Live In Osaka" CD is released, they may even offer for free what they used to sell.
We have there a "win-win" situation: if The Throbbins Appendages do a good job, they'll get tons of downloads from their site, as well as fan contributions, while still selling lots of CDs from their web site. The fans get free MP3 files, are able to enjoy the nice music, and will certainly buy the CD once they get a credit card with their names on it.
And if the band use Win2K for their web servers, their fans will get so frustrated by the slow download that they'll buy the CD anyway... =)
Of course, that's only my US$ 0.02...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Support artists by paying them directly, the best way to do this IS GO WHERE THEY ARE!
Amen brother! That's what my friends and I are trying to accomplish in Jacksonville--get the fans out to see the local bands. It's a hell of a lot more fun than seeing a band in a stadium or arena. The aggravating thing is the local radio stations won't play local bands (ok, one station in a city of ~1 million people puts out one CD a year with local bands on it, but still that's not enough.)
Fortunately Jax is a pretty wired town $40/month for cable, and I've heard ADSL also dropped from $60 to $40. So a lot of fans can listen to near-CD quality music online. So we're putting together the web site now. The musicians are spreading the word because I've been going out to record them to put them online. I've had people express interest in sponsoring equipment, ADSL for live broadcasting of events, and even a billboard.
The long term goal is to convince people that spending their money on local music has a much better return on investment than sending your money off to the big corporations.
BTW, I just got the software for 'gigs' part of the site up on Sourceforge. Only in available via CVS at this point if anyone wants to check it out. It needs work but it's fairly functional already.
numb
Pay per play? Didn't we already thoroughly trash this idea?
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
> I hate to have the unpopular opinion in this
> matter, because I too have a decent
> collection of MP3s on my drive, but theft is
> STILL theft, no matter how much utterly boring
> verbiage Katz uses to justify it.
As Katz said in the article...the whole argument
breaks down into 2 groups. You obviously see
copying as theft. Yes, theft is theft, however in
MY viewpoint, and the veiwpoint of several others
copying data is NOT theft.
In fact, even according to the law its not "theft"
Its not called "stealing" or "theft" its is called
"copyright infingement" or "unauthorized copying".
Whether that reduces to theft is not a cut
and dry issue, and not everyone agrees with the
assemsnent that it is theft.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Hey, Sig, take a minute to read Hruntings post. There is really a point there: A recording and the ideas behind it *are* separate things.
If I have an idea about how to make a car and fulfil that by adding material and work, I have something beyond my idea: A car.
If I have an idea for a recipie and then add the ingredients and the time to cook it, I have something beyond my idea: a dish
If I have an idea for a book and then add the material and the work to actually write it, I have a product: a book
AND if I have an idea for a song and add the work to get a studio, musicians, material (instruments, DAT-tape, etc) and my own work, again I have a product:a recording.
Some people are succesfull in getting paid (or at least recognized), simply for having ideas. Wether this is this is a godgiven right or not is an intresting subject, but beside the point. However, everybody deserves the right to get paid or credited for their *work*
It should be up to the artist (or writer, or coder ) to decide the terms on which they release their *work* to the public. That should not be decided by record companies OR the slashdot readers.
If an artist sells the right to their *work* to a record company, its *their choice*.
If you really believe in the superiority of "free music", download mp3's that really are free, don't get the "pirated" mp3's claiming that you know better that the artist how they shoud release their songs.
(Note: I don't claim to live as I learn...)
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Why do musicians release CD's? Because that has been the most convenient way to distribute the music to the consumers. Royalties are a welcome side effect. Most bands simply hope that they will get noticed enough to be paid to play the next time (wether live or studio). If another medium gives the same opportunity there is no need for the disc.
So in the "old world" there is a nice for the record company. Artists are willing to sign bad contracts just to get an album out (hoping to have a better position next time) Consumers are willing to pay extra since the disc gives them instant access to the music. No more waiting for a good song on the radio.
Enter the web. Suddenly the distribution is much easier. The studios used to be paid with a cut for services rendered. Now 90% of those services are obsolete. BUT THEY STILL WANT THE SAME CUT (in absolute figures)
Dear RIAA. You still deserve a cut for studio time and advances to the artist. However, do not expect to be able to get that by charging for distribution.
It is like a gas station. Today I pay for the gas by the litre, no extra charge. If the gas was free, the station would still have costs for the pumps, tanks and transport etc. Then they would have to charge for the service of being there, and not include that cost in the price of their gas.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Interesting marketing problem however, could be fun to solve. Good luck if you take if forward, if you need a hand mail me.P. Regards, Ernie
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Interesting concept, however I don't think it will ever take off. For one there is not motivation to not use the latest warez that are out there to bypass whatever chargeback scheme is in place and also, Last I heard AC could use Napster and the like, just like everyone else. Unfortunately Stoba won't get much support for this flavor of solution because of the above two points, also if he pumps his ideas while waving the open source or copyleft sort of flag he will get bitten on the fact, he'll be making a cut off of every play as well. Too bad, a solution like this is interesting.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Actually, some antagonism (not war) is good. If everything agreed, then it would not force out bad ideas or force people to think and rethink their arguments and positions.
Jons chronies don't look like him, they are him! Why do you think there has been some many pieces here about cloning?
Fight Spammers!
The problem is that nobody gets to see the patent until it's granted. Then it costs big bucks to dispute it in court. Corporations are concerned with the bottom line. If it's cheaper to just pay the royalties, that's what they'll do. Then the bad patent stays on the books and the little guys are the ones that get hurt. They can't afford to pay and they can't afford to dispute it either.
The other problem is that they keep giving patents on blatantly obvious stuff. Things that are so commonly known that nobody bothered to document them. So someone goes to the PTO and says, "Check out this great idea i've got." The examiner (during his ~8 hour search, which presumably includes the time to do the paperwork) can't find any documented use of the technique, so he awards a patent on some trivial idea.
The Amazon 1-click patent is a pretty good example of something that is obvious to someone skilled in the programming field. It was a pretty obvious use of cookies. Big deal. It doesn't deserve a patent just because nobody else had decided to implement it, or at least they didn't document it if they did. It's just too similar to too many other things out there. Are we going to hand out patents for every minor modification of an existing idea? I'm sure we will if the PTO is the only one deciding these things. That's how they make their money after all. The more patents they can crank out, the more money they make. Sounds like a pretty screwed up system, doesn't it?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
A simple idea, a really simple one, without risk of any kind, that would'nt change their revenue model at all, and that would enable them to sell MORE ...
Here's the starting point: you've heard about a product, you want to get a grip of it. In the proprietary software business, 99% of the time, they allow you to download a crippled (functionality or time-bomb) version of the software. You want to try it, you download it, or request a demo CD. It's a good idea, it's respectful of the customer, and it fits extremely well in the proprietary software business model.
Now, s/software/music/, s/product/song/. You've heard about that band, or you've heard it briefly ... and you want to hear more of it. Why don't they just offer a crippled, low bandwidth, freely redistributable version of the tunes they sell? Say, they encode it at 32kbps. It gives you an idea of it, you can somewhat enjoy it, but if you like it at least a little, you'll feel compelled to buy the high quality version without a doubt!
And it's so simple to implement. And they would get benefits from people passing their files along to friends.
BUT THEY DON'T DO IT! Because they don't get it. Instead, when they offer files on their websites, it's 10sec long excerpts, low quality, unsaveable real audio files. And they expressely repress you from distributing/copying it! (As if there was any kind of worth in them).
Instead of trying to get the best out of the MP3+Internet medium, they fight it. They will lose. Good riddance.
A man goes to a trade show and tells the security guard "I am the greatest thief of all time, and I will plunder this trade show". This worried the guard, so he kept an eye on the thief, and on his way out, searched the thief.
The thief returned the second day and said "I stole many things yesterday, but today will be better!" The guard was now very worried, and at the end of that day searched the thief. After he found nothing he asked the thief "What are you stealing?" And the thief smiled and said, "I am stealing ideas!"
The moral of the story is that ideas cannot be kept locked up in boxes, buried in vaults, or kept behind the magic of technology. They cannot be imprisoned.
You, friend, are an accoustic musician, as am I. For us, performing makes much sense.
However, there are such creatures as "recording artists" in truth: artists who use electronic means to produce a recording as their work of art. For such as they, the concept of live performance is an absurdity.
Sorry, just had to play devil's advocate. I am highly sympathetic to your point of view (More Gigs Good!), but it doesn't work for all of what we today consider music.
----------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
The march of progress, however, makes it easier and easier to create, market and distribute such content, enabling individuals and small companies to produce their own, and even make money in the process (no matter how ideological you are, there always lurks that bottom line).
Whether indy labels, free music archives, independent filmmakers, or global enclaves of thousands of hackers making free software, these independent types are starting to provide content with more creativity and variety than was ever possible under the media behemoths. Soon they'll give the Big Guys a real run for their money.
Of course, the Internet accellerates this trend a thousandfold. For Big Media, the Internet is Pandora's box, but for the rest of us, it's our Prometheus.
Sooner or later, this independent effort will force all content providers, big and small to provide their wares at reasonable prices, and the Big Guys will feel the pinch... especially when the rest of the world realizes that they don't even need to pirate anything anymore, due to the proliferation of free and low-cost content.
Although Big Media knows they need us, their dirty little secret is, We don't need them.
And they're scared.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Notice how every example you stated was of the Catholic Church as patron? The patronage system did allow artists to work, but the artist's work was dictated by the agenda of the patron. Is this a bad thing? I don't know. But it does tell me that there are many forms of expression that are unlikely to attract a patron with the resources to give the artist the means and freedom to work.
In a way, all commercial sale of art ( including performance licensing) is distributed patronage. A million individuals might pay $10 each to support an artist, acting as patrons or consumers - same thing. Or one person may pay $1 million. Which is more likely to result in a greater variety of expression?
OK, didn't Jon Katz post a story similar to this a few weeks ago, albeit a few hundred lines less?
That comment not withstanding, the whole point of the story is the same as the last one...we should all be able to download MP3s as we please, because it's some kind of "evolution of an entirely new kind of cultural system." I hate to have the unpopular opinion in this matter, because I too have a decent collection of MP3s on my drive, but theft is STILL theft, no matter how much utterly boring verbiage Katz uses to justify it. At least this time Katz acknowledges that some people knowingly download MP3s, rather than his last argument of "Well, they didn't know!"
As you put it Katz, "culture is already being transmitted freely all over the Net." That doesn't mean that downloading MP3s from the latest Filter album is justified. I too would like to see a change in the current law on copyrights, but rather than babble on Slashdot about your absurd utopian views which drag three flames for every regular post, how about DOING something about it?
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
The music industry would love to distribute music over the net as long as they get their cut. When casettes came out, they had the same concern as they do with MP3s. The MPAA had the same concern with BetaMax as they now have with DeCSS (imagined, not real).
Especially now, where you can make unlimited copies that do now show generations, they are even more concerned.
Some of it is valid. But, their actions are overactions and inappropriate.
There are companies selling copyprotection for software at SD 2000 in San Jose. There will always be people making illegal copies, no matter how impossible (yeah right). But how much of this is really lost revenue?
If I have a photographic memory, do I have to pay royalties everytime I repeat lines in a movie?
Fight Spammers!
If artists arn't happy with big compaines.... And consumers arn't happy with big companies...
If we could figure out some way of making sure that artists get paid, but can still distribute on the web, (and the above artical has several promising ones), and if we could convince enough artists that it was safe, then the other artists would probably eventually follow, and we could all just quietly move away from big companies, thus making everyone happy. (Except the big companies)
of course, they're the ones with the cash, and so they probably wouldn't go down quietly, (I think they already sense that the end is near, hence DMCA and it's friends) but if enough artists and consumers simply walked away.... then the big companies would just quietly curl up and vanish.
Wouldn't that be nice.
Everyone has to learn about a band before they can be fans of that band. Tape trading allows new fans to check out bands. It is It is very similar to swapping mp3s (or other formats) on the web, only it has been around a few decades longer. in fact, the web has allowed for quicker and more trades (see links at end of post for more info on this). This has resulted in a boom to the jamband scene.
So others know, the scene is not made of just the big names you know of (and that many people think of as "hippie dippie bands"). There are in fact hundreds of bands in the scene that range from a more classical jam style to jazz to funk to Latino, etc. There is no one style of jamband (Check out Jambase.com for dates of a jamband playing in your area).
What I am trying to say is what the jamband community has known for a long time, allowing your music to be traded free of charge to the public, can pay off in many other ways in the long run (more ticket sales, album sales, merchandise sales, etc.). We are in a new age, where record labels need to learn that a 35 minute CD for $16+ is no longer acceptable, and the fans have the power now to prove this. As it has been said many times before, labels are going to have to figure out new ways of doing business because the old model just doesn't cut it anymore. These labels have to come to a realization, stop fighting the inevitable, and change their models of business. We are in an age where the consumer has the upper hand, and many more companies are learning this the hard way.
If you are interested in seeing more of the jamband community and how it operates check out these sites (these are only a few of the thousands of sites on the web about/for tape trading, if you are seriously interested in more sites or information just follow the links from these pages):
etree.org - This is a community dedicated to freely trading tapes (only of bands that allow it) via shorten format (a non-lossy form of compression).
Sugar Megs - a community that trades full shows in the mp3 format
Let's be realistic.
u ct placement|websites> there is compared to that aimed at the 30+ crowd.
I don't have the facts on this one - maybe someone else can find them - but personal experience and common sense says that an overwhelming majority of record company revenue comes from people under the age of 20. There's a decent amount to be made on 21-25 year olds, but once you get older than 25, the desire to follow the music scene & buy records drops precipitously. Just looking at the marketing for music tells you this - think of how much teen- and college-oriented music <magazines|promotions|television|commercials|prod
Music marketing is based on this. Record companies produce the albums/artists they do, because they know the revenue can be SCALED, through both exposure to the right consumers and through lifestyle "propaganda", establishing which acts are hot or not. They're not so interested in acts that they can't leverage though these techniques. You can't build a huge business on "quality" acts that sell on their merits, simply because there's no way to predict (especially before the album is made) what the general public is going to go crazy over.
But you can predict returns on investment when you apply marketing over a broad range of music, aimed at a demographic that is easily manipulated through ideas of "popularity" and image ("I am what I listen to" is an almost universal identification badge for 18-15 year olds, at least the ones I know). Record companies are about leveraging the somewhat unpredictable, but nearly universal human behavior of listening to music into a predictable stream of revenue based on marketing.
Now, combine with this the fact that MOST members of the age group in question are a point in their lives where they haven't really developed a strong ethic towards voluntarily giving away their money "just because it's right". Before you all start howling, yeah I know YOU aren't this way and that YOU support the artists and that YOU are happy to pay money for the stuff you think is good, but look around you - teenagers & college students are the prime customers for the record industry, and they're the prime "sharers" of intellectual property. Arguably college students are more motivated to do the right thing, but they also have much less disposable cash. The basic capitalist assumptions of limited resources and unlimited demand probably has no better example.
The music industry knows who pays their bills - a segment of society who, given the chance, would gladly not pay a dime. Sure, people talk about going out & buying CD's after listening to downloaded MP3's, but how long is that behavior going to last? At some point we're going to reach the price/MB level where portable MP3 players like Rio are cheap enough that you will be able to carry days of music inside them, with a virtual Tower Records of material stored on your hard drive. Music will be, in all likelihood, sold through some medium whose end product will resemble a Rio-type device anyway, so what's the incentive to go out & buy the exact same thing you already have. Altruism? Maybe for the loyal 1% of the music listeners out there, but I don't think record companies will settle for a compromise of 1% of their current revenue.
The same thing goes for computer games - I spend a lot of time reading gaming-related message boards, and the only people out there talking about pirating software are teenagers & college students. It's no wonder these industries are worried. But to put it in perspective, when Katz talks about the record _industry_ raking in "15 billion" last year, realize that's pretty puny in the world of consumer markets. Philip Morris alone rakes in about 10 billion a year on domestic revenue of tobacco - 20 billion on international revenue; now add all the revenue for RJ Reynolds, plus all the other tobacco companies around the world (a huge number of them are state-owned enterprises), then add cigar revenue & smokeless tobacco, and it pretty much makes music revenue look like a joke. I'm not making any value judgement on tobacco here - just citing an example of other industry revenue.
I have absolutely no sympathy for the media copiers out there. I'm actually a programmer - I make money for my output, and people who copy my work are not doing me any favors, even if I'm only getting 1/15 of the sale of my work as "profit" (which is a pretty damn high return on investment, when consider how much capital the artist is risking). Let's not forget the artists are receiving a lot more than just money from their record company deals - they're getting fame & exposure (most artists know they could be making better money at day jobs) & the chicks. You hit it big, you get to pick out a runway cutie of your choice).
So what's the real issue?
Ironically, should the existing system go down the tubes, and the whole thing becomes a cottage industry of artists selling directly to their audience, I don't think much will change for people who enjoy listening to music. Unlike the other entertainment industries such as movies & computer games, producing the product in music doesn't require a lot of capital - it can still be done by an individual or small group, and boutique recording studios are everywhere now. Movie studios & software publishers still fulfill the role of financiers for their industries, and an "open source" model would probably wreck them - unless you're all happy consuming "Blair Witch" budgeted films for the rest of your life & playing shareware games (both of which have produced good products, but let's face it, we all like to consume big budget entertainment that can only be made if there's some guarantee of a huge audience seeing it, and if the risk of failed ventures can be distributed over the winners).
But great music can be made & recorded on the cheap. While I was working at Philip Morris, they would periodically jetison product lines that they couldn't leverage anymore - two classic examples were Kraft caramels & Kraft marshmellows. Despite the fact that when people think of caramel cubes, they see the little white Kraft words wrapped around the outside, PM realized that it had become a commodity item, and that their branding could no longer allow them to carry enough premium to make it worthwhile. They sold off that portion of the business (maybe even the brand image) to the generic caramel manufacturers of the world. The media companies are probably going to have to realize that the days of making a billion dollar business out of music marketing will go the way of the buggy whip.
I can't see why I should be paid when someone listens to a recording of my music. I just can't see it. I get paid when I perform. People come to hear me play (or I'm paid by the owner of the venue). WHYINHELL should I expect to be paid when I'm not doing anything?
Recordings of my music may create demand for my live performances. Why should I do anything to reduce the distribution of recordings?
If I'm selling a recording, I expect to make good the cost of the media. Distribution on the 'net kinda makes that point moot :-)
My only concern are OTHER artists who play my material in live performance.
-Eldurbarn
What I really like about this RIAA vs. everyone on the planet battle is that they keep crying about how the artists are hurt by MP3 transfer. Well, they posted huge profits...so they aren't being hurt. For a second, let's take a look at the RIAA argument.
According to TLC in their VH1 "Behind the Music" interview, they got a whopping...56 cents per CD they released. (BTW, the 8% sales tax on the CD ends up being $1.12 on a $13.99 CD...twice what TLC got per album.) So, if their album sold 1 million copies (extremely successful.) they all got, total...$560,000. Or basically $186,667 for T, L and C, respectively. Meanwhile, there's $13,430,000 floating around from sales of THEIR album that they aren't getting. Granted, it does cost 3 cents/CD to press, master, and mass produce a CD.
The RIAA wants to talk about *US* hurting the artist? Why don't they just GIVE the ARTIST MORE MONEY? The part in Katz' article about artists being able to sell their own music on the web at $1 a CD and make more than they get out of their record contracts is TRUE. (Although Jon really didn't have to rewrite Dune to make 2 or 3 points.)
I'm a huge They Might Be Giants fan. Recently, they released an album on the web, in MP3 only format. It cost $8. While browsing around on Napster, every once in a while I look for TMBG songs, just to see what's floating out there. Although the producer said the album was "the most successful internet only album ever" I have NEVER found any of the TMBG songs from that album on Napster. (although there are upwards of 3 terabytes of MP3s shared on Napster on a given day now.)
So why is this? Artist loyalty? Amongst pirates? Yes...it exists. Maybe people are tired of giving upwards of $13 million to bastards like Suge Knight and that music thief Puff Daddy. Hell...Jennifer Lopez couldn't even afford to wear a real dress to the Grammys...she had to wear a curtain. (nobody ever said all side-effects were bad.) I'd much rather pay $8 for an e-album where upwards of half went to support the band than pay $13 to a producer and a half dollar to the group that does the actual work.
Producers do actually do some hard work, but it's not 24 times as much work as the artists do. I'm all for supporting the artists. But I ain't about supporting some guy sitting on his ass, and milking my groups, bastardizing their work, and then discarding them. It's time for a paradigm shift. It starts with MP3s and e-albums. Support them.
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In order to get their music onto a CD and into a "record" store, musicians sign a contract. THAT's why they can't put their music out on MP3, and all of this distribution stuff is illegal. Let's say I come up with a company called "Net Music Distributers" and sign some musicians to a contract, then the terms of payment and distribution can be named in that contract - including (obviously) Net distribution.
Music is being considered an idea, and placed on a similar plane to software, which is also an idea. But there's a rub, and you have to go to ESR's "The Magic Cauldron" to get it. 95% of software work is in-house, not for sale. Those 95% of the programmers are being payed for solving problems, not putting software on the shelf. (or other distribution medium.) Inasmuch as they may use, and thereby contribute to free software, it becomes a win-win situation. Their job is done, and there's more free software.
But music is a bit different. While there is some 'captive music', like weddings and parties, most of the money in the music industry appears to be in the sales of recordings. From what I've heard, even/especially concert tours don't really pay, because they're so expensive to run. They essentially act as non-profit (for the musician, any way) advertisements for the recordings.
We need a way to pay artists. We just can't lump them in with programmers. The same applies to games, along the ID software model. The engines have been released under GPL, but the artwork is still owned.
Once we come up with a way to pay artists, and once some artists buy into it, the existing system is just legacy. It's in the contract.
It's also interesting to note that the RIAA and MPAA are both downright paranoid about electronic distribution. Could it be because they know that they're ripping us off? How about that cassette tape that costs $10, and the CD that's CHEAPER to produce, but costs $16? The movie industry had a clue, once, when they reduced the price of movies from the $80 range down to the $20 range. But they appear to have lost it. The DVDs appear to be taking the lead from the audio CD. When the infrastructure is fully in place, I expect DVDs to cost less than VHS, but the price to always be a premium. How about taking the old computer price/performance curve and applying it the music/movie recording industries? They're bootstrapping off of our technology, and walking a different price/performance line.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
There has been one overriding and ingnored point throughout all of these debates. One that has not been discussed because then we might have to forget about our all important internet and focus on what the real world is doing.
And that is simply that this is not a new problem.
Everything that has been talked about here, from the inadequacies of the notion of IP to the woefully anti-consumer laws that have sprung up to protect it, but it is nothing new. We have seen people, and even Katz himself, quote Jefferson from over two centuries ago. And yet nobody picks up that this is not new.
The Internet has not caused this problem, and quite frankly, the Internet is not going to solve this problem.
So far every solution proposed has been that some sort of change is going to have to happen. From the one extreme of simply giving up the various ideas of property through the spectrum of changing the ways we pay artists and thinkers to the opposite extreme of creating technological ways to make sure everybody pays no matter the thought used. Yet, none of these will be satisfactory to everybody invovled.
So here is what I propose.
Let's go back to the tired and true method that was used centuries ago. Patronship.
Why does this work? Well, people (the public at large) got to view/hear/touch/whatever the works the artists and thinkers produced. The artists/thinkers invovled got paid, a roof over their heads and a creative outlet. Everybody was more or less happy with the arragnement. If, as an artist/thinker didn't like your patron. You put yourself up as work for hire and ran out the time with your patron. Then you got the patron you wanted, and if you were important enough, your new patron would give you whatever you wanted. The patrons got the prestige of saying that you worked for them, and mostly fell overthemselves keeping you happy.
And in the end, the public could take your ideas, apprecate them, and build off of them if they could afford (in terms of material, not licencing) if they so desired.
Think about it: How many current artists have been inspired by works like the Cistine (sp?) chapple? How many by Beethoven and Handel? That's the system they used. It worked for them.