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EU May Block Music Labels' Download Sites
csmiller writes: "The BBC is reporting that the EU is (according to The Sunday Times) considering blocking music-labels setting up their own download sites, as 'Some politicians fear that the two services, Pressplay and MusicNet, would be anti-competitive and unfairly dominate the market.'" I wonder when the idea of a Neighborhood Cache will catch on -- it looks like large-scale digital trading will always be subject to this kind of interference.
I think the RIAA should be banned from online distribution anyway. This should be handled like long distance and the phone company. Banned from online distrubution as long as thier "CD based monopoly" still exists. They need to be forced to give the littlde guy a break. Besides they have way more market share then whould be allowable in almost any other market. I say good for the EU for having balls!
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If the labels' current effort is blocked by the EU, the labels will simply shift their plan so it becomes acceptable to the EU. This will likely include the creation of two or three other "independent" on-line distribution companies.
Three or four sights will be found to be acceptable to the EU.
Of course, these other companies won't really be all that independent - they'll either be so weak that they'll be out of business in a short period of time, or they will have such strong ties to the major companies that they'll be non-competetive.
Either way, the labels successfully killed Napster, and now they want to take over with a similarly illegal scheme. The EU might not like it, but it'll be hard to stop.
Hardly interference. The point here is that while now there are large numbers of record stores which make a good living selling CDs, Records et al from a large number of labels this would produce a few sites totally tied to a specific label. Most record shops have a few albums from indie or small labels and it is that range of selection that is in danger. The aim here is quite clear... dominate the digital market place, don't allow others to sell your albums digitally and so the equivalent of the high street store that has the breadth of records is never allowed to exist as they can't exist selling _only_ indie records.
Fairplay to the EU for this one I say. It isn't interfering its making sure that the big boys don't create a digital monopoly that squeezes the minor players out.
Hopefully this will be the start of a number of such actions including Hailstorm, Passport et al from the boys in Redmond. This is pro-consumer and anti-big-business.
Fairplay I say.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
> it looks like large-scale digital trading will always be subject to this kind of interference.
Oh yeah - if "large-scale digital trading" is synonymous with "having a bloody cartel"
There is a whole new world on the horizon - music over the net - where we have the possibility of a lot of new players, new ideas, exciting new possibilities - space for real innovation. Or we can have the same old traditional monoliths controlling it. Yippee.
"Interference"? Spare me...
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
Good on the EU for this action. As history attests (Standard Oil, Bell, de Beers et c.) cartels and monopolies screw over their customers in the interest of continued profits. Not always tremendous profits, but a steady, large supply of money. What I can't work out is why any cartel whose monopoly depends on controlling the distribution channel can hope to retain control in the zero-cost-of-entry distribution network that is the Internet. Maybe it's like the de Beers diamond consortium: it's branding over substance (in de Beers' case: the whole 'diamonds are forever' spiel; in the RIAA's case: get your legal MP3s here, or we'll wipe your hard drive :)
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
It's just like having to buy my Sony CDs from Camelot only and my Universal CDs from Sam Goody only. It doesn't make any sense. It's not what the customers want - they want to be able to subscribe to one service, among several choices, and pay to access mp3s from all companies, preferrably paying a flat fee, and certainly not paying CD prices, because after all, an mp3 isn't as good as a CD. They'd also like to be able to choose individual songs to buy, not have to buy 1 song they want and 10 dogs they don't. What gives the music industry the idea they can continue to ignore their market and their customers without hurting the bottom line? Maybe that's why CD sales are dropping.
This kind of phenomenon is not uncommon already - if you want to buy a rare book, then chances are amazon has it. If not, you google it and find that small site that stocks it.
All that will happen is that some enterprising guy will set up a meta-shop where you go and enter whatever criteria you like (name, genre etc), and it'll go off and search all the record stores out there. If it isn't on X label, it's on Y instead.
The net result is that if people WANT the broader range that isn't provided by the label-specific sites, then someone will come along and fill the void.
Don't panic, people, the internet is more powerful than that; it'll take more than a record label trying to be restrictive to halt the information flood.
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The big reason why the politicians are trying to block the major record labels from setting up their music download services is that the major players may be anti-competitive (that would never happen in the software industry!) and unfairly dominate the market. Before we decide to post reactionary "EU sucks" posts en masse, we have to consider that they may actually have a point.
One of the fundamental aspects of the major players' (ie. AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Bertelsmann, Sony etc) control over the music industry is that of control of distribution. The big labels have managed to buy up/price out everyone else in the market over time until they become the majority providers in the market. They have so much money behind them that it's hard for the indie players to compete if they don't have multi million-dollar advertising budgets and large amounts of capital to professionally record and produce hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of CDs, although prices for both are dropping. You want your CD to reach a large enough audience for it to go gold or platinum? Do it through us. Sure you can refuse to, but it's not like you can compete with us. One of the reasons the RIAA decided to shut Napster down was not for mass copyright infringement (the Audio Home Recording Act allowed people to copy CDs to tape for years), it was for the loss of control over the distribution of their product.
The Internet may, if we're not careful, merely provide the big labels with another avenue of control over their product. We may see a repeat of past history where a couple of key players (both of which seem to be merely extensions of the major recording labels) grow and grow until they become so big they can have the kind of control over the digital market that they have over the physical market right now. This means high prices, low quality of service and even less money going towards the artist. They can control access that small players have to the product (ie. the music) by charging high prices for access to their copyrighted product. This is similar to Telstra being able to price out competitors by charging high prices for access to its telecommunications network (although the Australian Competition and Consumers Commission (ACCC) is trying to put a stop to that, just like they did with DVDs). Although an American congressman is trying to introduce a law that gives all download services the same access to music regardless of whether they are affiliated with the record company that sells the songs, which (for once) actually makes a lot of sense since it removes at least one measure through which the major players can unfairly control the market. This complaint by the politicians of the EU may actually be a good thing for all of us who download digital music.
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When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
>When will Slashdot's contributors stop viewing copyright theft as OK
When will you realize it isn't theft unless you deprive someone of the use of the goods?
Its copyright violation, and, to everyone I know (including many people who don't know how to click a mouse) copyright violation ranks right up there with jaywalking and not signalling your turns. Society at large really doesn't regard it as a big deal. Only the government does.
>Just because it's not software does not mean that it's OK to champion every attempt to rip off those musicians who don't want their works pirated on the web.
Seen any people with hordes of MP3s rape and pillage any villages/ships lately? No? Then why call them pirates?
If you don't mean pirate and infact mean copyright violation then it IS ok to use your muscle as a consumer to lower prices, since it has been proven time and time again it works, and again, ask your next door neighbour how he would feel about getting all his favourite games for free. Feel free not to join in our struggle to ensure the rights of the consumer stay as such. You will note how much attitudes about being anti-consumer thru hardware wrenching copyright protection -- many people who owned 1541s can tell you about this and anti-competetive software prices were lowered in the 80's and 90's due to widespread piracy, however.
Being as the artists make close to no profit from CDs I hardly see it as an attempt to rip them off. As far as Audio CDs go put it in perspective: 95% of the "rip-off" is directed at the RIAA, the other 5% is split between many splinter groups, which unfortunately include the musician. The brunt of the attack is still felt by the RIAA, however, no matter how anti-choice you are.
>But stop harping on about losing the ability to download hours of pirate music off the web.
This I agree with. If you mean copyright violating music. I'll just learn to cope with it. Newsgroups are currently 100% primo for anyone still doing this, BTW. Not that I'd be stupid enough to admit to doing anything past downloading headers.
The whole point is that copyright law no longer is working. The law was built with the idea of physical copies in mind. Currently there is a whole industry around distributing physical copies of music to clients. With fat internet pipes readily available, zero cost duplication of content is possible (exluding the price of using the connection of course).
/mp3 directory which is huge and it will be a long time before I rm -rf it.
The music industry is still charging as if there were a physical copy but that is no longer true.
Instead of argueing about what is theft and what is not I suggest a more pragmatic course of action. Pragmatism starts with realizing that:
- if it can be played it can be recorded and vice versa so recording enables other people recording again.
- if it is available digitally it can be distributed at no cost. With a peer to peer setup this basically means you don't even need an expensive server setup.
- if it can be done, it will be done whether you stamp your feet on the ground loudly or not.
This applies to movies and music. These are not things that are open to debate, these are facts of life. Once you realize that, you also realize that the cd producing industry as we know it today is doomed to die eventually. The factories that create the machines to create the cds are no longer necessary, the factories that create the cases for the cds are no longer necessary, the shops that sell the cds are no longer necessary, etc.
The things that are necessary are artists to create content and supporting staff and equipment to help them record the content and optionally marketing people to market the content. Most artists consider albums to be marketing material for their live shows. Generally they don't make a lot of money from these cds since most of the profits go to the record industry. Of the 20$ you pay for a cd, only a fraction of that actually ends up in the artist's wallet Really only the very big artists can make a living out of cd sales.
So how can you make money of content creation? We have already established that the distribution has no meaningful cost associated with it so realistically it is the content creation that should generate the revenue and not the distribution.
Suggestions:
- Live performances. People love live performances and are generally willing to pay for it.
- Commercial activities. If you're famous, you can help promote stuff for money. You could for instance get a sponsor. Many sports people for instance wear clothes from their sponsor and get paid for it.
- Video clips are broadcasted on tv channels who make money by receiving revenue from advertisements.
These are only a few examples. All of these activities actually benefit from free distribution of content. And more importantly, for many artists these are already the primary source of income.
Reality is that I have a
Jilles
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when will you realize that promoting one or two so-called good songs on a CD while the rest is crap is false advertising?
I think your problem is that you're listening to shitty artists. Miles Davis, for example, was prolific for decades without putting out a single crappy album*. Do your research, expand your horizons (listen to college radio!), find a higher caliber of artist, and don't be so shocked when you only like the 3.5 minute single commercial radio shoves down your throat.
~jeff
* 60's and 70's. The 80's and 90's were not kind to Miles, or music in general.
Then again, I define copyright theft as the current state of laws that unconstitutionaly rob the public domain. The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act is a prime example of copyright theft. The DMCA is a theft of my rights to fair use and scientist's rights to do encryption research and reverse engineering. So I'm all for an end to all this thievery and swindling that's been going on lately.
You have to watch out with the "individual freedoms" claim.
First of all, the "uncopyable" CDs are a laugh. Unless they're going to start banning the sale of short gold-plated analogue audio cables and digital audio cables. They've tried to stop people playing the CDs on computers, but have ignored the fact that the computer doesn't need to play the CD - it just needs to get at the audio stream somehow.
But second, the simple reason you have to be careful is that if you DO triumph over all these rights protection businesses, then the owners of the content can just Take Their Ball And Go Home. If the DeCSS case had crushed the DMCA early in DVD's life, they just wouldn't have made any more DVDs. Of course, what their big fear is that sooner or later somebody will say We've Got Our Own Ball Now.
Unfortunately in the case of music this is pretty unlikely, as long as they can tie up all methods for making money by distributing music that way. Piracy is a (relatively) minor issue because it'll always happen anyway (and it can help - see below); distribution of free music is a relatively minor issue because you can't do free work forever.
But, try writing a piece of music and finding out how much it'll cost (or even if it'll be possible) for you to distribute it with DRM. Try making a film and find out what it'll involve to get it CSSed. Most of these don't bother with money - they just won't sell to you unless you can prove you can be trusted - by already being a music/film firm. And if you aren't one now, you can never meet that, because you can't become a firm if you can't make money because you have no protection.
And that's another side: as long as people are not pirating because it's technologically impossible for them to do so, rather than because it's wrong, no attitudes will change. The moment something gets released without protection, many will say "What a goof!" and copy it to the skies. This neatly prevents people who can't get the protection from making money, as discussed above, and thus is actually beneficial to the existing companies who can afford protection. Using piracy to wipe competitors off the map is well-established by now, although it's unusual in music (although pretty frequent in IT)
And yet another: people are used to judging the quality of a musician by the fact they got commercially released. Many famous musicians are famous *before* their first song gets released. Moving to a non-publisher model, in which all qualities of music are distributed and you just choose the ones you like, would probably be rejected, because it would require people to actually think about what they were buying.