Slashdot Mirror
Eminem #2 on Gracenote... Before Release
asavage writes "According to this article on news.com
last week, Eminem's "The Eminem Show," which was yet to be released, cracked the chart at No. 2. This is the first time an unreleased CD has been number 2 on this list of CD's played in computers." I've pre-ordered my copy
and am looking forward to hearing it. But its pretty amazing that Gracenote
registers a pirated CD #2 without the benefit of it being for sale yet.
Thank god they shut down napster and stopped piracy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't this simply a case of people burning copies of existing discs? MP3 being a lossy format & all, even if you grabbed all the tracks from your p2p network of choice, and burned them to disc in the original track order, CDDB wouldn't recognize it as the same disc, right?
'ARRGH! Pirate Designers of the Internet, we be!'
was that sarcasm? have you thought that the disk gracenote was regestering was ripped via the net. this is powerful evidence for piracy. hell, if napster was around it woulda been #1!
four-oh-four
Yahoo! is reporting that Gracenote (previously CDDB, an open source project) is planning to sell aggregate usage data to advertisers and such like. Makes me glad I use a freedb-based CD player (CD Max, for the curious).
Complexity is Easy. Simplicity is Hard.
they put those parental advisory stickers on the CDs so that kids downloading the mp3s will know they are "naughty!"
I recently filled out a form to get a guarantee on my new speakers. One of the marketing questions asked: "How many times have you downloaded music from the internet?(check one): -Never -1 time -2-5 times -More than 5 times" Uuuh..
These must be mass-produced bootlegs, because CD-Rs would all have different IDs and would show up as different discs in on CDDB.com. Or am I wrong?
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
255p ::sniff::
by now... i never get the first one....
As for M&M, he can "suck my dick". P2P rox0rz.
I would continue if this hadn't been fully fleshed out in previous discussions.
The real scary part of this blurb is that Eminem is ranked #2 at something. There are enough people out there that take him seriously. Now THAT is scary...
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Just like Spidey and Star Wars, The Eminem Show can be taken as a good test case for how piracy *really* affects sales.
In Spider-Man's and Star Wars's cases, it appears that the piracy either had no effect on the incredible revenue both movies generated, or actually had a marketing effect. People who downloaded the pirate version were *more* likely to go see the in-threater version.
I suspect that The Eminem Show will do the same thing. Just like a label pays a radio station to play a promo-only single before an album's release, the pirate copies of The Eminem Show will encourage people who hear them to go get the album.
Pay close attention to the figures, and when someone tries to tell you that 'piracy hurt the artist', recite them verbatim!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *DB community when IDC confirmed that *DB market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *DB has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *DB is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict *DB's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *DB faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *DB because *DB is dying. Things are looking very bad for *DB. As many of us are already aware, *DB continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeDB is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeDB developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeDB is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenDB leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenDB. How many users of NetDB are there? Let's see. The number of OpenDB versus NetDB posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetDB users. DB/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetDB posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of DB/OS. A recent article put FreeDB at about 80 percent of the *DB market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeDB users. This is consistent with the number of FreeDB Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeDB went out of business and was taken over by DBI who sell another troubled OS. Now DBI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *DB has steadily declined in market share. *DB is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *DB is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *DB continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *DB is dead.
Fact: *DB is dying
I hope high gas prices are depriving your children, you fucking dumbass.
Oh dear, my idealism is shattered, now that I know that Slashdot readers listen to "pop"ular music as opposed to only Pagannine, Vivaldi, and Mozart.
I just don't know how to handle this.
Is to find a way to pirate music that the artist hasn't even written yet.
Any word on whether there will be anti-piracy measures on this album? Kinda like retro-fitting a better hull design for the Titanic, but still...
I'm sure that every one of those with a pirated CD-R copy of the album will be buying a legal CD now that it is available.
the Eminem CD was on the shelves and for sale at my local record store on May 21. i purchased it on May 24 (and have the receipt to prove it). of course, when i called the record store today to ask about when the initially put it in the shelves and started selling it, their reply was "Today!". when i told them i purchased it from them on May 24, their reply was "that's entirely possible". when i then asked again when they started selling it, they replied "Today!". i think they were afraid that i might be a spy for the RIAA. ;)
-- ken williams
"Thus, "The Eminem Show," originally slated for a June 4 release, hit stores Sunday -- an unusual step, as albums are typically released on Tuesdays. That move came after it was earlier announced that the release date would be pushed up to today -- roughly two weeks after the album's unsanctioned Internet debut."
story Here
I agree and disagree. Watching a crappy divx rip of Spidey or AOTC makes me want to appreciate their full glory on the big screen with decent sound.
.... not bother buying it.
Listening to a near perfect copy of the CD version, makes me want to
I think that piracy definately adds to the buzz of a product, but its much easier to justify the cost of the actual product when the quality for the 'real thing' is substantially better than the pirated version.
- Johnny Cash: "I once shot a man just to watch him die"
- [remainder of list is up to you to complete]
Oh my god what is the world coming to!!! Someone needs to protect the children, etc., etc...Newsflash: artists are mirrors of society--some are like hubble mirrors, some are like funhouse mirrors. Eminem is not the problem. He is merely a messenger, like Johnny Cash. If Eminem's lyrics are scary, you haven't been paying enough attention.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
The online versions and bootlegging could serve as a marketing vehicle, whetting fans' appetite for the real thing, noted P.J. McNealy, research director for GartnerG2, a division of the Gartner research firm.
It's also interesting to note that (despite the "rampant piracy") the limited edition of the CD is the #1 selling CD on Amazon.
Damn those Internet pirates!
I'm looking for a HEPA media filter for my TV. I'm alergic to reality shows.
I was in the mall to pick up some old skool music (Nerf Herder rules!!!), and I saw it on the shelves. I also saw the note that it won't be released until June, but whatever dude.
I went and grabed it Sunday, its really good. It has both the normal cd and a dvd. I have not gotten a chance to view the dvd.
I bought a copy at the Fye Music in Holyoke, MA on the evening of the 24th. When I asked why it was released early, the girl at the counter mumbled something about the Harry Potter DVD and low sales, and that they received a call from the main office to start putting the new Eminem CD's on the shelves.
I also saw them available in a Fye's in Woodbridge, NJ the next day.
For some reason, it is only $11.99, compared to the usual ripoff at that store.
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Eminem's label, Vivendi Universal-owned Interscope, twice moved up the album's release date, citing widespread Internet piracy.
Maybe there wouldn't be as much piracy if they hadn't postponed the release date repeatedly.
They tell us it was #2, but they give no numbers. Was it 100, 10000, 100000. That seems like the more interesting#. After all, if there weren't any other interesting cd's put out in that time frame, then being #2 might not mean squat. I'm usually not nearly as anti-music industry as many here, but this report smacks of "lies, damn lies, and statistics".
When will folx realize that p2p music sharing is GOOD ADVERTISING ???!!!
The industry doesn't have control, and that's what freaks them out.
If the album sales are a disappointment, the shit's gonna hit the fan in one way or another...It will be interesting to see what happens.
Probably a response typical of the Slashdot audience (since CmdrTaco is almost always representative of the people who post comments here).
Why am I not surprised? This forum is full of misogynists and homophobes.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
The two (well, 3) cases are pretty much incomparable. The bootleg versions of AotC and Spidey are much poorer quality than you will see in the theatre. Comparing a compressed DivX version taken from a guy with a camcorder in the theatre (which is the version of AotC that I saw making the rounds on the net) is nothing like seeing it in the theatre for yourself. The Eminem bootleg sounds (for most people) exactly like what they would get from the real thing. For most people, they have already bought their copy of the Cd, and unless there is some "super secret" extra on the official release, there isn't a reason to buy another version. The liner notes are not enough incentive for most people to spend $15 on a cd they already bought without liner notes for $5. But seeing a decent version of AotC is worth $15 even though they already spent $5 on a crappy pirated version that isn't near the quality.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
It's a great album. Haven't listened much to him before, but it really got me going. I think I'm even going to buy the album, which is something I don't do often. If it weren't for mp3s, I'd never hear this, and I would make one cd purchase less.
They increase the price of new music in order to make up for supposed piracy, which in turn makes people more likely to pirate. Its a catch22 of the WORSE kind.
"The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data.' " -- Mike Quear, US Congressional staffer
Complexity is Easy. Simplicity is Hard.
Bought a copy of this Sunday the 26th in Dallas (visiting relatives), comes with
a DVD of the europe tour (limited edition);
but did have it before that.
(RIAA you listening?)
even without it there's pi-ra-cy...
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Does the CDDB track every time the CD is inserted into the CD driver? Perhaps it's just counting every time someone popped the disk in and out, trying to get it to start playing...
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
You give a good point but it can't be proven with hardcore evidence. So it can't be used against the RIAA. It is even easier to turn around and say that those people that downloaded the cd and/or copied the cd didn't buy the cd. There by hurting the sale of the cd/movie in question.
For the record I personally agree with you.
Celine Dion fans don't know how to use a computer.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Geeze, I'll bet you still have your autographed copy of the "Cool as Ice" video too.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Screw you, you gay-ass bitch. =)
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I read that lucas doesn't consider piracy a deterent to the box office receipts, rather he is more concerned about the effects that it has on home video sales. I suspect that the cam corder versions aren't going to make a big impact but once the DVD-ripped versions appear, then the point starts to become more poignant.
However, I'd also like to point out that the subject is far more complicated than it appears. Wilco, for instance, made their entire CD available on the Internet last year, and now the album's out, it's the best selling album they ever had (previous records sold less than 100 thousand copies total, the current record sold 57 thousand in the first week alone and on the top 15)
I just checked the Gracenote site and the album was listed as #1.
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Rap Lyrics:
I sold bottles of sorrow, then chose poems and novels.
--Wu-tang Clan
People use yo' brain to gain.
--Ice Cube
A poor single mother on welfare...tell me how ya did it.
--Tupac Shakur
i'm trying to change my life, see I don't wanna die a sinner.
--Master P.
Non-rap lyrics: "I shot a man in Reno / just to watch him die"
--Johnnny Cash
"Earl had to die"
--The Dixie Chicks
"...I killed everything in my path / I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done"
--Bruce Springsteen
(Extracted from Stupid White Men by Michael Moore.)
Got friends?
Look, it's even on Amazon.co.uk, for £9.99...
Is this news? No. Please check your local record store before submitting stories like this in future.
As too paying close attention to the figures I would like to see the studies showing that
People who downloaded the pirate version were *more* likely to go see the in-threater version.
Not to deny that but keep in mind that the people who go out of their way to download a pirated copy probably like that stuff already. There is a HUGE portion of the population who are not going to see AOTC of Spider-Man no matter what you do and that includes not downloading the pirate version. The people who download are much more likely to have paid for the ticket too see it anyways. I could come out with a study that says people who run on their own are much more likely to lead a healthy life style in other areas. While running does raise your energy to allow you to do other things people who lead a healthy lifestyle also go run as a part of that lifestyle.
In other words if I'm a person who would download the pirate version am I more likely to see the in-theater version? Yes.
If I download the pirate version am I more likely to see the in-theater version? Maybe, but we can't tell from a fact like the one you presented.
I stole this Sig
Being the broke, selfish, 14-year-old nerd that I am, I downloaded the new KoRn cd, "Untouchables", slated to be released in June, 2 MONTHS ago and gave copies to all of my friends.
Sure, when I muster the cash, I'll buy the real copy. But I'll be pissed as hell at KoRn if I bought the real copy without trying it out, say in the instance that I'd only been allowed to hear the one single on the radio. Then I'd never buy any more KoRn cds.
Before now, only the h4rdc0r3 IRC people could find the new albums ahead of time. But now, everyone can. Heck, the person I least expected to (typical dumb blonde pretty girl) gave me my copy of The Eminem Show. Wow. What a change.
I know that none of you condone piracy. Perhaps you'll even mod me down for this comment. But remember, at least I have the balls to admit that what I'm doing is wrong. -shrug-
PayPal $$ if you sign up for free offers (eBay, cred cards, e
If you ask to receive their Top20 each week, you will read this :
:-)
Get the Digital Top 20 emailed to your mailbox every Tuesday! Be the first to know who's gone up, who's gone down and who's at #1.
Click here if you want TEXT email (recommended for Outlook email users)
Click here if you want HTML email (recommended for NON-Outlook email users)
!!!!!!!!!
Does this mean that Gracenote could be infected with the Klez virus or something else, so oulook users should receive text messages, just in case?
I myself had downloaded the "without me" song from kazaa and thought it was great. I also tried to download several other songs from the new album off of kazaa but all that they contained were the looping chorus. They didn't have any rap solos. I figure that eminem probably released these on purpose to get people interested in his new stuff and then he released the cd early to give them a chance to hear the real stuff. Whatever the reason, it worked. I went out and bought the cd on sunday.
Star Wars freak and Eminem fan.
Good thing he's engaged because after this revelation, I don't think he could pay enough to have a girl be around him....
The bootleg versions of AotC and Spidey are much poorer quality than you will see in the theatre.
Assuming, of course, that the theatre it is seen in is run by competent people. Although I didn't see the divx of either film, the quality of any motion picture in the only remaining theatre in my town is comparable to the divx movies I have seen -- only the sound is a bit louder (most of the time). I suppose that's what happens when a certain large theatre operator drops ticket prices to $2 just long enough to run all the competition out of business, and then jacks the prices back up. We're doing good here if the picture is centered on the screen. If it's on the screen AND in focus on the first try, well, it's time to go buy some lottery tickets.
[/end rant]
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
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...im so fed up of hearing about the bloody World Cup.
This goes to show just how much the RIAA needs to change it's sales models. They're still depending on air play to hype up people to purchasing a album. But no one wants to wait the weeks or months for them to release them. So those pirating are making out like bandits on the people who want it now.
Just having the assumption that they can eliminate piracy and continue using the same sales tactics isn't going to show the improvement of CD sales they're looking for. They should be releasing the albums for sale at the same time tracks are released for airplay. Then impulse buyers can run out and get the CDs immediately. If buyers have to wait for the overly far away release dates they will look to other means of getting what they want.
I think the same really applies to most media nowadays. Movies should be released for purchase sooner, TV shows should be released when their seasons finish, and so on. The public are tired of having to wait for what they want. Once it's been released and aired you should be able to purchase it then. You'll then have the choice of a possibly inferior in someway pirated copy or the real thing.
I wonder if the promotional versions of that radio stations and others recieve were somewhat different, say fewer tracks, for the public releases what will these pre-released bootleg versions be? Promotional releases are controlled so they should monitor that.
However now they'll just focus on the piracy issue and the public will suffer from it.
Just to clarify, this isn't a case of people sampling the record before buying. These are people with pirated physical copies of the entire CD, which are identical in content to what you would buy in the record store. The line between fair use and stealing has clearly been crossed by a whole lot of people. I hate the RIAA like any good /er would. I hate their price fixing. I hate their market manipulations which result in unlistenable radio stations. But I can't support stealing.
It was on the shelf of a big discount retailer. I don't know when it was supposed to be released. I suspect it's a merchandising technique being tried out-- after all, if you think that you're getting something before anyone else is, you're more likely to buy it now.
i never meant to hurt you
i never meant to make you cry
but tonight i'm cleaning out my closet
- eminem lyric troll, finally i can post some lyrics!!!
Thank god they shut down napster and stopped piracy.
The CD-Rs were most likely burned from mp3s downloaded from P2P networks. Besides, 10s of thousands of CDs distributed mostly in urban U.S. cities is hardly comparable to the millions that were downloaded across the globe on napster.
Besides, Taco, you almost sound like you condone music piracy. Aren't you the one who said "I wish people wouldn't steal"?
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Was selling it as of Sunday. At least in southern Maine. It seems some places were selling it for some reason, so that probably explains it.
I have still to hear them, but they gotta rock hard! I friend of mine went to the Q101 show in Chicago and said they were the shit.
"In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats."
If piracy were good for sales, companies would quickly figure it out and actively encourage it. Darwinian marketing, survival of the fittest, every little edge--that whole bit. Look--you can accuse the music makers of a lot of things, but inattention to market and lack desire to squeeze every last penny out of the consumer are not in that list! The problem is that except in isolated, questionable instances intended generally as somebody's defense of stealing, piracy doesn't help sales. Stop deluding yourself.
Totally off topic, but god damn if "white america" aint em's best song of all time. I've listened to it probably like 100 times in the last 2 weeks, I cant get it out of my head. the message and the "anger" just make me wanna fuck shit up! :D
Joseph?
If you remember the terms of your plea bargain, you have another year. Beat the shit out of me or anyone one else for that matter you go to jail for the original 5 year possible sentence. That's part of pleas bargain.
these shoulders hold up so much, they wont budge
ill never fall or fold up
even if my collar bones crush or crumble i will never submit or stumble
- the eminem lyric troll, FINALLY a purpose for me to live, thank you taco for liking eminem!
Eminim is a little stupid kid who's a bit late with finishin puberty.
Nerf Herder sucks. Weezer sucks. Nerd Rock pretty much sucks. Why would you want to hear about some nerd's boring life? They don't even sing about nerd stuff like Linux that I would want to hear about. They sing about girls that dump them!!! That's so BORING! :)
Read both CDs out in digital and do a bit-compare of them. You'll find that they are, indeed, extremely differet, because of the MP3 conversion process.
From a technical standpoint, the record legally available for purchase and the downloaded thing are nothing alike.
dude, i think they have medications for people like you; consult your physician
I just checked on gracenote's site.
"The Eminem show" is now on top, number 1, the most-played this week.
And the issue is the futility of piracy protection. It only takes one person to rip an MP3 and list it on (say) Audiogalaxy, and the success of the protection is null and void.
The Eminem album is a classic example: it isn't available (ie, people can't rip it) and yet the MP3s are doing the rounds. It just takes one person with a loopback cable and... poof... your copy protection is gone.
The irony is - of course - that copy protection might *harm* sales. If I know I cannot rip a CD and put it on my iPod, I might not bother buying it.
Those people that would never buy and would always find a pirate copy will anyway.
So, that's media industry logic for you...
--- My dad's political betting
just another example for the RIAA to bring up in their arguments for better copyright protection devices. But wait this CD was on the net before it was released. It couldn't have been evil teen h4x0rs. It must have been someone within the recording industry illegally releasing the CD. No amount of copyright protection device will stop internal deffects. They need to examine the skeletons in their own closets before they start cracking down on the general public.
The CD doesn't need to be pre-order....it's already been released!
that these are burned CD's of the original. I mean, think about how many people listen to Eminem... like everyone. And think about how many of those people have access to CD burners...probably 99%.
TIME MACHINE DATE : 05/20/2002 9:34 am
Just got the pre-release of The Eminem Show off thew web.
TIME MACHINE DATE : 05/20/2002 9:37 am
Just deleted the pre-release of The Eminem Show off drive C.
See, normally I am a complete opponent of piracy. But I strongly dislike Eminem. So I really am not bothered by people stealing from him, as he fosters an attitude of disrespect for the law I can't help but enjoy the irony of him suffering because of it.
Only the UK version is copy protected. Pay attention next time, ok?
after all, the dude's name way Hymen, someone was getting "fscked" (Eminem, I suppose) only thing missing was comment from Virgin records.
Talk about flawed logic;
The don't release for fear of piracy (but it gets on the shelves and pulled) it gets pirated because it does get out, and the don't release it again for fear of piracy...after it has been pirated?
Eh? Isn't that like burning down the locked barn down out of spite for the horse escaping?
.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Ever heard this guy play Paganini?
Of course, still not what I would call "pop"...
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
I downloaded the album in MP3 and immediately made a music CD of it. When I put it into a Windows box and Winamp queried CDDB, it came back as Eminem/The Eminem Show. And obviously, I'm not the only one who's done this. I just wonder what percentage of the early discs are MP3 downloads and what percentage are physical copies someone bought...
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
You liked it? You must be a white boy with a Dodge Neon that replaced the entire audio system with one giant subwoofer. Those are the only people I see listening to Eminem's "music".
When you've got Faaassssttttt newsgroups????
Eh?
That boy is white, white, baby.
If you aren't too familar with his work, you might not relise this. He's put out some of the funniest lyrics I've ever heard. Long before he became popular people were passing around recordings from freestyle contests etc.. saying you HAVE to hear this.
Of course his comedy isn't for everyone.. if you don't get the references its meaningless.
Mozart, Vivaldi and particularly Paganini *are* popular music. Just by dead guys. There isn't really a karass of "slashdot readers", but if there were I don't think it would consist of people that *only* listen to any one thing. People that think all the greatest music was written by europeans between 1700-1900 are just as stupid as those (more common) that think all the worlds best music was written in the last 18 months.
That said, Eminem is a talentless corporate hack. The sooner the vortex of history sucks him into the black hole that contains Vanilla Ice and Millie Vanilly the better.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
you have the same name as my girlfriend
The original release date was June 4th, but due to 'rampant piracy' the release was pushed up a week. It was officially released today.
MTV News Article
Andrew
Give me a break... Take about not seeing the forest for the trees. The content is the audio tracks. Whether or not their digital approximation exactly matches is a pointless comparison.
If on the other hand you have a case that the sound produced is different enough that it can be reasonably distinguished from the original that would be different. From my personal mixes, I don't find that's the case.
I saw the CD is several stores for sale on the weekend in Australia.
goddamn you are homosexual, i mean fucking christ, were you born with a cock up your ass? jesus
Assuming that none of the bootleg cd's are identical to the released cd, it would be nice if gracenote gave every request a unique identifier. Then we could see that A used a bootleg before the cd came out, but when the real cd came out, A bought that and had to re-download the songlist.
I don't like unique identifiers either, but in this case it certainly would be nice if they were able to give us the data that says either "Yes, people who pirated the cd before it came out did purchase the cd within 6 months of release" or "No, people who pirate don't buy the cd within the first 6 months."
A oneway hash of the computer's mac address + ip address as encapsulated in the packet would be easy enough to do so that Gracenote could track instances of contacts without tracking who is at the other end or giving any agency a method to quickly and easily determine who was at the other end.
I'm sorry, i couldn't hear you over your blatant disregard for other peoples tastes and opinions. I'm sure there are plenty of people that dislike whatever music you listen to.
I call troll, this guy's obviously trying to get people to flame him....
If they were smart they'd roll out bootlegs as early as possible, and also as shitty as possible. This way, the P2P networks would pass them around and any decent quality bootlegs would be lost in the noise. On top of this, people who saw/listened to crummy bootlegs would want to go see the real thing if the pirated version was so poor.
:-)
Read both CDs out in digital and do a bit-compare of them. You'll find that they are, indeed, extremely differet, because of the MP3 conversion process.
Unless you dl'ed the CD image. These are not MP3s, these are identical cd copies.
t'nera semordnilap
You can argue the pros and cons of file sharing and information wanting to be free and such, but paying someone else to copy the music is dumb _and_ immoral.
Either it should be free, or the artist should get paid. Somebody _other_ than the person who holds the rights making a profit off the thing is just wrong.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
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Comparing it to various sources (CDNow, etc, my own copy), it's not even the right track listing. One lists one song "Without Me" twice, another is a remix album, and another (the closest), has the right tracks, in the right order, but with the skits ripped out.
The release was put forward a month by what Em called `internet bootleg djs' and Interscope called pirates.
But you can still try steal the album - you'll probably eventually get a full copy of it. But currently it might take a few days, at as a lot of the file sharing services are currently filled with bad mp3s, probably by Interscope, another organization they have hired, or a recording industry body. Most of the tracks you'll see from the Eminem show on file sharing networks are simply a ten second loop played over and over again. Others have a near complete track but stop and switch to country music in the middle, and others have quick noises thrown in there. The file sizes are often identical to the real tracks. There's probably a few different techniques, so its harder to look out for - a looped waveform is pretty easy to detect (with an app, or by listening to the music as it downloads), but the country music one is a lot harder to deal with (you'd already have downloaded 1/2 of the track before you realize its bad). There might be other techniques whoever is doing this has used.
Not piracy... the label allowed huge air time for the CD.
The radio station Hot 93.7FM out of Hartford, CT played the whole CD from begining to end last week during prime time (10 PM).
http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Dub/_dub1_
The Last Days Of Rap,By David Samuels,The New Republic,November 16, 1991
"
Neither side of the debate has been prepared, however, to confront what the
entertainment industry's receipts from this summer proved beyond doubt:
Although rap is still proportionally more popular among blacks, its primary
audience is white and lives in the suburbs. And the history of rap's
degeneration from insurgent black-street music to mainstream pop points to
another dispiriting conclusion: that the more rappers were packaged as violent
black criminals, the bigger their white audiences became.
"
middle class white males in the burbs,
like CmdrTaco, and most of the rest of slashdot's
readership, and especially most of slashdots authors,
eminem is about as far from their reality
as Ice-T's was from Lee Iacocca's
"The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data.' " -- Mike Quear, US Congressional staffer
Wow, that guy must've gotten teased a lot about his name.
Of course, you are taking the line completely out of context. And the fact that you can compare Eminem to one of the greatest modern musical performers is just a joke. What next, Eminem and John Lennon?
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
What the hell? I thought we all ditched Assnote in favor of FREEDB after they STOLE the data people contributed to them in good faith. Why are we supporting them with this story?
For a while there were rumors that this CD would be released as a copy protected CD. Was it? Can you play it in your computer? Please respond, because i'd like to buy it, but if i can't play it on the computer there's no real need to.
But I wouldn't expect Michael Moore to be familiar with that...
it was released in wisconsin on friday. a best buy released it upon shipment arrival, and therefor the producer said all of WI could put it out. so its all old new for cheese heads here
I wonder why the goverment has yet to really step into this whole RIAA MPAA crap. Sure they passed the DMCA, but has it really effected anything that truely matters.
The goverment has yet to step in an force ISP's to shut down these programs. Basically they are letting these organizations sue them death. I think because because people would be pissed if the goverment took Napster away. People generally feel they have no power over corporations, but in general we do still have some control over our goverment.
E - Wants to kill NSYNC
JL - Gives peace a chance
WINNER: Eminem
JL - Marries crazy woman
E - Sings about killing crazy women
WINNER: Undecided
JL - Target of bullets
E - Putative dispenser of bullets
WINNER: Undecided (boooooo)
JL - Best friends are musicians
E - Best friends think they are musicians
WINNER: John Lennon
JL - Best friends are musicians
E - Hangs out with a Doctor
WINNER: Eminem
JL - Smokes pot
E - Does god knows what
WINNER: John Lennon (Say no to drugs kids)
JL - Has Yoko in videos
E - Has Jenna Jameson in Videos
WINNER: Eminem
JL - Music lives on
E - Has to keep reminding people he is back
WINNER: John Lennon
...the fact that not only are 'net users heavily invested in P2P networks, but that they also have no taste; 'Eminem'...? Oh God...!
Could this just be a Demo CD... Gracenote shows that the cd only has one song on it
But according to the Gracenote newsletter I just recieved, Eminem's CD is now #1 on the chart as opposed to #2. And Celine Dion's CD is #7. Great Copy Protection going on here, I wonder if the RIAA hired the same kids they had scouring the internet to find MP3's write this protection mechanism.
======
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
What a coincidence; it's also unplayable in CD players due the horrible sounds that come out of the speakers when you hit the play button.
</end recycled joke>
share and enjoy
RIAA to a T. RIAA is same as bootleggers at the swap meet, except with more power.
bastards
The bootleg versions of AotC and Spidey are much poorer quality than you will see in the theatre.
I beg to differ...
A friend recently showed off a Spider-Man DVD complete with menus. Full quality. I was shocked...
You can buy them in the Detroit area for $10.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
When I was a kid, one of the older boys... 13-ish, 14-ish, actually made a ring of fire with gasoline around some people and set it ablaze. They had been spending the day firing illegal fireworks and stuff, and that was one of the straws the broke the camels back. The cops were called. I didn't witness the alleged ring-of-fire incident; it may have been just a tale told by the older kids, but the cops *were* called (as confirmed by adults talking about it) and I did see something I had never seen before--a model rocket (no doubt they were planning to fire it at an angle less than that recommended by the Estes junior rocketeer's guidelines). At any rate, maybe Johnny Cash had something to do with it... Ring of Fire was Cash, right? or was that Elvis?
A while later, this kid was playing army with b-b guns, and he got shot in the neck. He was lucky it didn't hit anything important. Maybe he thought he would "be all that he could be" if he decided to engage in live fire exercises instead of just playing football or something...
Then again, I can't think of what might have inspired this guy I knew to blow a log 6 feet into the air with home-made explosives, or for me to start a fire with methanol on a concrete driveway and extinguish it mere seconds before my friend's mother turned the corner, or to play with bottle-rockets, matches and stuff. It seemed like there was that age... like... 13 to 14, where fire and explosions were the thing to do. Most of us grew out of it. The ones who had all of their fingers left and didn't grow out of it must have joined the army or something.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
was released early and is available in stores in my area. Chances are these aren't all piracy.
What signature defines me as a person?
As a result of the leak, the album will now be released on Monday (May 27).
If the problem is defined as "pre-release cheap copies will stop people buying later, full price copies", haven't the advocates for change won a battle here?
I mean, hasn't the record company just realised that artificial marketing delays inherent in the offline distribution process are likely to hurt their sales?
By releasing the album electronically with (1) fast servers, (2) lossless compression and (3) a reasonable price, and simultaneously sending "gimme airplay!" copies to radio stations (etc.) as is done now, they could cut this sort of "I don't want to wait" piracy down. Sure people will still re-rip the album at 128KB/s and make it available through P2P, but they were going to do that anyway. What do the record companies have to lose, by adopting the practice I have described?
Ditto for software. Clearly you're not going to get packaging, cover-art, glossy manuals or whatever, through TCP/IP, but doesn't the prevalence of warez and pirated music blatantly show that a sh1tload of people simply don't care? How hard is it to put a "download PDF manual | snailmail me a hardcopy for $5" option together? Or just make the manuals available in normal bookstores?
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
Getting off topic, but... Isn't this the function of all those groups--THX and so forth--that you see at the end of the credits, to ensure high quality of the theaters? I know it's optimistic to expect much, but wouldn't a certain point come where their THX certification (and equivalents) might be challenged? I recall a phone number or two at the end of Star Wars, "If anything detracted from your appreciation of this film, call.."
:)
(I saw SW in digital at the Grauman Chinese in Hollywood... the projection was excellent. Sharp, beautiful colors, sound kicked ass. Was it just me, though, or was the black point of the digital projector maybe a bit high? I need to see it again now.
The date was moved up, then I went to my local chain CD store and found they were on sale because Sam Goody broke street date sometime before Friday the 24th.
Would you mind saying what theater chain did that? I'd like to avoid patronizing them if possible.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
OT so I nested this under your post.
Retail sales are odd.
For the past two weeks the PS2 has been advertised as costing $299 but the xBox for $199.
Didn't Sony say it first?
Get your Unix fortune now!
How can the Vivendi/Universal complain of piracy, when it was someone *INSIDE* the company that initially *Pirated* the copy that is now on the internet.
Heh, but not going to see the movie is *stealing*. You benefit from the economic boom that these movies provide in times of war, and there is an implied contract in that benefit that you will go to see the film, possibly many times....
Yeah, and thank god they arrested Jeffrey Dalmer and stopped murder!
This is the reason why it's so hard for people who would be against the RIAA to be totally on the side of the average pro-napster guy. This argument FOR napster is every bit as ignorant as the RIAAs argument AGAINST it. There are many similar examples on Slashdot regarding the DMCA. Yes the RIAA is evil, yes the DMCA is evil, but we need to stop pretending that they are trying to sneak into our houses at night and murder us in our sleep if anybody with influence is going to take us seriously.
You're damn right this is a fucking flame. I'm tired of it.
A) If you believe this album was "leaked" or somehow released accidentally, I have a bridge in Brooklyn i'd like to sell you. Record companies do this intentionally to boost record sales on artists they suspect will tank. For that matter, if you even believe the "Billboard" charts are anything other than a marketing tool for record labels, again, I've got a great bridge i'd like to sell you. Entries in the Billboard charts are bought and sold like superbowl commercials. Record Label A pays $X,XXX,XXX to rent the #2 position for a week, to promote their artist, while Record Label B pays $X,XXX,XXX for #4, #11, #24 and so on, and so on.. Its carved up like a pie with the best slice given to the highest bidder. Wake up.
B) If you have so much time in your hands that you can sit around and listen to sonic diarrhea like Eminem, you even more of a goddamn moron than I thought, Rob. Theres so much good music out there, both today and yesterday, and all you can think to do is listen to a big steaming crock of crap. Niiiice.
C) This is neither news for nerds, nor stuff that matters. I just opened a site for the Linux community, to give them a place to share desktop themes without all the foo-foo bullshit of Freshmeat/Themes.org. I tried submitting the opening announcement here no less than 3 times, and had it rejected every time. Meanwhile, you want to tell your Oprah book club about controversy that isn't really a controversy. You running a infomercial site now, Rob?
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
$15 for 80 mins of music is insane. I remember buying cassette tapes for $5 BRAND SPANKING NEW at the Turtles down the road.
1. Longer albums. Back in the day, when vinyl was king, 35 minutes was considered an album; nowadays, CD albums average 70 minutes.
2. Inflation. CDs cost USD 17 now, but $17 in AD2002 dollars is worth about $9 in AD1983 dollars (when CDs were first released).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Now, I have no doubt that inflation has accounted for only a smallish percentage of the total rise in cost, but it's something that should be kept in mind. On the other hand though, I suppose it's likely that manufacturing costs have gone down, which should have balanced the system out.
So yeah, you're right, the music industry is bloated, money-hungry and mostly produces music not worth the CDs its printed on.
What was my point again..?
Or it could be all those iMac users who can't get the darn thing out of their CD drives.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
"I've pre-ordered my copy and am looking forward to hearing it."
Whoever put my shit on the Internet, I want to meet that motherfucker and beat the shit out of him... - Eminem
So has Eminem's attitude changed since he recorded "The Real Slim Shady"? "I say download the audio on MP3 and show the whole world..." -- Eminem
Will I retire or break 10K?
>But I can't support stealing.
Then stop people shoplifting his album.
Ohhh, wait a minute, you're talking about copyright violation. You do realise that stealing requires someone to lose either their rights to something (ala: Stealing an essay by changing someones name on it and resubmitting it) or they must lose physical posession of it (ala: I just took your car for a joyride).
If people would stop using improper definitions their view on "piracy" (a true term for the act, if not far too overloaded) would be much mellowed. I mean, why should murder get you a shorter jail sentence than indirectly supporting the economy by increasing the sale of CD-Rs?
Okay, same deal as when the editors were hyping Spiderman and StarWars: it's not cool to bash the RIAA and MPAA, and then go and slurp down their output (especially this high-visibility, fake-controversey, ultra-marketed crap). I know how damn BORING hypocrisy is, but this is really just disgusting. The entertainment industry is never going to take their self-proclaimed opposition seriously if they can count on them as CUSTOMERS!!!
Assuming that none of the bootleg cd's are identical to the released cd
They are identical. The highest-quality pirates, the ones who trade .shn and .flac instead of .mp3 or .ogg, include "cue files" with their audio sets that describe exactly how long each track lasts. Because Gracenote's CDDB system works solely on track lengths, Gracenote has no way to distinguish some pirate discs from genuine discs.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Is it possible, just possible, that the people backing Eminem realize the potential of a pre-release MP3 on sales and are using it to their advantage? HA! I almost had myself believing that one... Well, sooner or later somebody is bound to get smart about this sort of thing.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Kinda reminds me of Eminem.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
What with all the allegations of Pay for Play going on right now with the Radio industry, I wouldn't be surprised if a similar set of events isn't occuring in the online world too.
After all, the streaming audio sites are under tremendous pressure to make a profit, and when the indie promotor shows up with a briefcase full of money, it must be very tempting to go along with his playlist "suggestions".
Chip H.
Here's an interesting article I found at www.nme.com...
Link (http://www.nme.com/news/101808.htm)
EMINEM'S PIRATE WAR!
EMINEM is threatening to "beat the shit" out of fans who have illegally uploaded his music onto the Internet.
Despite his new album, 'The Eminem Show', being one of the most closely guarded pre-release projects in history, it is now widely available to buy and download illegally weeks ahead of release.
Despite strict security measures, all 20 tracks from 'The Eminem Show' are available on the Internet, almost a month ahead of the album's June 3 release - meaning his label Interscope could lose millions.
The rapper said bluntly: "I think that shit is fucking bullshit. Whoever put my shit on the Internet, I want to meet that motherf***er and beat the shit out of him, because I picture this scrawny little dickhead going 'I got Eminem's new CD! I got Eminem's new CD! I'm going to put it on the Internet.' I think that anybody who tries to make excuses for that shit is a fucking bitch."
Internet downloading of music has concerned labels and artists, but there is an even greater fear about bootlegging - selling copies of the downloaded music to fans who can't wait for the real thing or can't afford it. Copies of 'The Eminem Show'' were being sold openly in New York last week for $5.
As a result of the leak, the album will now be released on Monday (May 27). For more on this story, see this week's NME, which is out in London now and nationwide tomorrow (May 22).
---
Ouch. Eminen should really take some Prozac or Ritalin before press conferences...he might get better PR...
I mean, why should murder get you a shorter jail sentence than indirectly supporting the economy by increasing the sale of CD-Rs?
I guess the only question this leaves is: are you a troll or an idiot? I agree that simply copying the work shouldn't be considered stealing, but mass public distribution on the other hand...
Everybody wants to be a bad-ass.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
You're not gonna get a -1 Flamebait modded as +1 insightful unless you mention how your poor post is gonna ruin your karma!
[o]_O
If they're ID'd by exact length of the songs, I suspect that this is done by those who would be pirating regaurdless of digital format [assuming demand was just as high] /I/ rip CDs [since I hate these stupid physical things], I tend to wind up with a half second to five seconds cut off on the song, because the silence is removed, or the compresser throws it out, or the ripper decides to be shitfaced and stops early or something. Then when I burn the CD, I burn it in the order I want to burn it, and usually dont use all the same songs from one album.
My reasoning goes like this:
when some shithead trying to make money off a pirated CD makes copies, he copies the data directly from CD to CD, all the data is the same.
However, when Bob Fuckface, ordinary internet shmuck like one of millions who uses sharing programs does it, he takes a CD, rips it to MP3, then burns it again later when some asshole friend wont shut up; or, he downloads the MP3s, and burns it to CD from those.
When
Just a thought, I dont understand how they can expect accurate readings from a copied CD. maybe someone who's stupid enough to think that pointing out how I'm wrong does somebody some good will respond
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
There is a major flaw in your reasoning. Though inflation is likely to cause the price to rise, the cost of production for anything always decreases over time, until such a point when demand begins to drastically decline. It's fundamental. Since demand has done nothing but increase, and since the technologies employed in the production of CDs have not decreased in efficiency, the actual cost of the albums should have decreased over time. In fact, it is very likely that it did. However, price has not followed trend, and has actually gone up at a rate greater than inflation.
Moreover, if you compare cost/length for albums, cassettes, and compact discs, you will discover that the proper ranking, when adjusted for inflation, is cassettes, then compact discs, and finally vinyl, from least to greatest.
Pax Digitalia
avoid patronizing them? i will patronize any chain that will give me tickets to new releases for $2. i am sick of paying the outrageous $8.75 i pay in cincinnati. the only place that sells tickets for $2 around here is about 2 years later in getting the movie than everybody else. not only that, but the quality sucks and the springs in the seats poke me in the butt.
Actually, I picked it up today, and there's a bonus DVD included with it with interviews and videos of him live, so it was really worth it. Also, this is the first rap CD i've bought where the full lyrics to all the songs were in the liner notes, so that also was a bonus.
Once upon a time...
The CD has been released, it was released sunday at midnight for sale to the general public. I know a number of stores in my podunk town that were open at midnight to sell it.
It's completely possible that the numbers you're referring to were generated over the holiday weekend.
I suppose that's what happens when a certain large theatre operator drops ticket prices to $2 just long enough to run all the competition out of business, and then jacks the prices back up.
The other thing that happens is that large theatre operator gets sued for anti-trust violations.
the cost of production for anything always decreases over time, until such a point when demand begins to drastically decline.
Music production is a labor-intensive industry, and the cost of employing songwriters, vocalists, musicians, and recording engineers has not gone down.
Since demand has done nothing but increase
An "increase in demand" means an increase in quantity demanded at all price levels. It pushes the demand curve (the one shaped like a \ sign) up and to the right. This causes an increase in both price and quantity supplied.
and since the technologies employed in the production of CDs have not decreased in efficiency
How are you sure of this? The primary thing that has become more efficient since the dawn of the CD has been the studio process, and in general, studio costs are completely recouped out of the artist's royalties.
In fact, the promotional expenses (also recouped out of the artist's royalties) have actually increased. The promotion agencies are able to bleed the labels more for "adds" to Clear Channel's playlist. Music videos become more extravagant each year. Courtney Love would be glad to do the math for you.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Skip James (Robert Johnson did this too):
"If I send for my baby, and she don't come
All the doctors in Wisconson sure can't help her none"
"I would rather be dead and in some cypress grove
than to have a woman I can't control"
Robert Johnson:
"Me and the Devil was walking side by side
I'm gonna beat my woman until I'm satisfied"
Mississippi John Hurt:
"Some these morning's gonna wake up crazy
gonna grab a gun, kill my baby, nobody's business but mine"
"Frankie shot Albert, shot him two of three times
said 'stand back, I's smoking my gun, let me see my Albert dyin'
He's my man, but he done me wrong"
The list goes on. Granted, these are taken out of context, but so are Eminem's lyrics.
The blues was america's first exclusive music form. Along with it came country, and after it jazz. Today, we have rap. In a way, liking Eminem is being patriotic.
While the blues are simply great tunes with appropriate words, Eminem has the preternatural ability to rhyme almost every goddam word in every line and still make it flow as if he's just talking straight. To really appreciate it, just try it yourself. It's really unbelievable. Just thought I'd add to your point.
c-hack.com |
So as long as millions of people all "copy" the CD from the same person it's ok?
And besided, Fulsom Prison Blues is nothing compared to Cocaine Blues.
Early one morning while making my rounds,
I took a shot of cocaine
And I shot my woman down!
(Sung with gusto like a work song)
As far as I'm concerned when you use the word "shoot" with cocaine in the same clause, you're talking about shooting up coke with an IV needle which is way hardcore krazy kowboy stuff compared to smokin' crack. You don't have to hit a vein to smoke some crack and nothing hits the blood stream with quite the same tidal wave rush as a full syringe of coke. (At least that's what William Burroughs said, I certainly wouldn't know.)
While shooting up coke is a wild time, shooting your girl after you slam down a hit is definitely the razor's edge and must have been a helluva rush. Of course Slim Shady might have tortured her first, but Johnny was clearly selling the hardcore image if you get into some of the more obscure stuff.
Part of it is the packaging (album art, liner notes, etc), part of it is a desire to support the artist, part is owning an "original" copy from which "near-perfect" copies can be made endlessly and at will, and part of it is really that a rack full of CDs is just cool.
I buy the disc, rip it to mp3, burn a duplicate, and shelve the "original". The duplicate gets played when I don't have a computer handy-- when I 'm in the car or out walking around-- and otherwise I listen to the mp3s. The mp3s I'd downloaded get tossed, mostly because it's easier to just rip a disc with iTunes than it is to re-tag and organize a bunch of junk I skimmed off the net.
Incidentally, my record budget has grown dangerously since the advent of good music-swapping systems and the proliferation of internet radio; I just find more stuff I didn't know about and that I like. I think I'm averaging a disc a week now, compared to a disc every 4-6 weeks just a couple of years ago. Almost every CD I buy now is something I've already heard in mp3s someone gave me or caught on a stream; the remainder are other albums by those artists. MTV and commercial radio never did a damn thing for me or my music purchasing habits, except perhaps cause me to cringe and lament the state of music in general.
You bold-faced liar.
You've heard it, you liked it, you even managed to get the mp3s in high-quality, cd quality even. You've probably already burnt it to cd audio for listen in your only stereo that won't play mp3s.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Oh, come on... It can't be all bad... After all, how many sites have phrases like:
.tar format. Uuuugh... I'm feeling queezy....
"Did I mention HOW MUCH ASS ELO KICKS? Fucking metric tons of it! So big it has to be measured in parsecs!"
After that, it kind of rambles into stupidity, but it was good while it lasted. And the
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I've noticed that most mp3 rips have pretty crappy bass, when we're talking about bass-heave music like rap. Also most kinds of digital distortion become re-distorted by mp3. So for something like a rap album, I want the CD. Or a medium-high quality VBRE rip, which is not generally forthcoming.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
..who sees this as a possible plant by RIAA execs themselves? They knew how highly anticipated this release was, they knew, in this day and age, if copies hit the net they'd be traded far and wide, they knew this would be the perfect way to say, "see! Piracy! this must stop!". Sort of seems like we may be playing into their hands doesn't it?
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
I don't know if it is the case here (I don't like Rap), but do not forget that albums are released at different times in different countries. So while it may not have been released in the uSA it might have been released somewhere else. The news media must not forget that CBBD, freedb etc are international.
On MTV he was quoted as saying, in regards to file sharing, "fucking geeks! Get a fucking life." Now i know hes all "contreversal" (note the sarcasim) and supposed to be a dick but now hes attacking us. But, actually, fear not fellow geeks. For you see - he doesnt mean "geek" like that. he means "geek" like being stripped of your manhood, like having your OSX taken away and being forced to run Win 3.1 for the rest of your life. bottom line Marshall, Slim, EM - whatever bites it makes me sad to think that hes number 2. i d rather have Boy bands again.
The Friday before the Eminem album's long-awaited release, a busy street corner in New York was dotted with bootleggers' card tables and blankets, each strewn with pirated copies of CDs and movies for sale.
Reminds me of the streets of Estonias(near Russia) streets. And the markets they used to have for selling all that warez. But they've cleaned up a bit, but NY hasn't? Strikes me a bit odd..
I have 3 svcd version from centropy group. I saw it in theaters before i downloaded it. thought it was great.
When I compare prices of software (e.g. our own products) over time, prices have gone down, way down. Sometimes to the point of $0.
Also I think that neither the change in hardware prices exceeds the rate of inflation. Until proven otherwise, I just think the music industry are greedy. Period.
Alex
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
And, even though everyone in the industry seems to be complaining about how bootleg copies of his CD are hurting sales, early predictions will still put him on top of this week's Billboard 200 with over 300,000 albums sold. And since SoundScan tallies sales from Monday thru Sunday, this CD has only one legitimate day of sales to reach that level (minus the usual street date violations -- the album has been in the hands of the record stores since at least last Friday). This article focuses on some early sales reports.
listen to his new album in its entirety; listen to what he's actually saying, and then reconsider yr position.
Eminem's an actor, of sorts. There's a huge difference between the character who's singing (whom I guess would be "Slim Shady") and whatever his real name is. A huge bulk of the content is actually in reference to that.
Now, I agree. The image, I don't like myself. The first time I listened to the album, there were a number of points where that really started to bother me. But then I started listening more, and the more thoughtful, less just-out-to-shock parts came through, and the switching back and forth between the two is what's really interesting in his work.
If you ask me, the music executives have noone to blame but themselves for the current situation. They conned the majority of american consumers into believing that cds were far superior to vinyl media (lies). I hindsight, this was a very short-sighted attempt at turning a fast buck by creating obsolescence in an otherwise permanent product. Then, through price fixing they have steadily increased prices while production costs have declined.
I do believe that piracy hurts the poor record companies. When the public has an opportunity to sample a product in whole, they can make an informed purchase if they chose. If most of the albums produced today weren't crammed with filler material, I imagine sales would not be declining at the current rate. Don't forget, these same companies have stated on many occasions that they would like to abandon the singles market and force consumers to purchase the full priced product.
Go figure.
This was officially released in the UK, and probably sizable chunks of the world, on Monday 27th May.
:-)
This ain't piracy, it's the world
Back in the seventies I'm told record companies dropped the price of records and added all sorts of goodies like concert vouchers and posters to discourage taping.
What do you get today to discourage "piracy"? Crappy postage-stamp sized sleeve notes, a disc that probably costs twice as much ....
It's all stick and no carrot.
I saw it for sale in HMV in Brisol, UK on Sunday.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
several other songs from the new album off of kazaa but all that they contained were the looping chorus.
So that explains it. I wasn't going to buy it after hearing nothing but looping chorus tracks. I figured he flipped out or something and was trying to do some weird artistic shit on us. "Will these guys still buy 5 minutes of looping chorus on every track?" Hmm, if he put that out there to screw with people then I definitely won't buy it now. I don't buy any music until I can playtest it off of a P2P network first. If I like it I'll go out and buy the whole CD. So far I haven't heard any of Eminem's new songs except for the looping chorus and it only proved to piss me off.
Yeah right.
So these users are ripping the album off by *BURNING NEW COPIES OF IT ONTO CD*.
Doesn't that sound fishy to anyone?
The reason Gracenote (former CDDB) gets bad press around here.. internet history lesson:
..whatever you want to call it, the communities good will. Everybody typed in their CD titles, building up the free and open database, for the benefit of everybody, into CDDB. The database reached critical mass. MP3 rippers, CD players, winamp, everyone else incorporates it into their music programs to auto-recognize an inserted CD.
Gracenote effectively used, abused, lied to, stole, infringed,
All is good. The people are happy.
Then CDDB becomes self aware. Of the value of what they have. First they get cocky. 'If you want to use CDDB, you must display our graphics and logo in your program.' Maybe justified, they're paying for all the bandwidth after all. Wankery though.
Developers start to grumble.
CDDB sells out. The database is closed. Automated(bot)-retrieval is blocked. All your CD info are belong to us. Thanks for sending us all the data!
"The Intellectual Property IS OURS NOW, developers, PAY"
Start dicking people around. Gracenote is born.
Business model: extort developers already hooked into using the service, and sell the query stats. (welcome to phase 2.1: kiss up to tomorrow's customers [ie RIAA])
back to the history lesson though..
Developers pissed off. Volunteers are MAD.
So what do they do about it, aside from moan on slashdot? They take the last known Free mirror of the database, and freedb.org is born! And they take the opportunity to do things a bit better the second time. Works as a drop in replacement to CDDB. The more flexible (read: open source) players dump CDDB like an annoying date, some of the more 'market aware' stick with CDDB for 'interface stability' reasons, but all(?) add the capability for the user to use FreeDB.org instead.
FreeDB.org takes a little time to catch up, but with the mass defection of those in-the-know, it does just fine, thank you, in no time.
It stands today as a testament to those brave coders, and one of the cooler projects on the net.
=> Just search for 'CDDB' or 'Gracenote' in the slashdot search box for the whole ugly history.
I'll let the results of that search speak for itself...
It started out as a wonderful thing, turned to shit. Greed'll kill us all if we let it..
RMS was right. Again. (that's a hint)
long live freedb.org.
[or something very close to this actually transpired..]
Good point. I can buy an old movie on DVD for ten bucks, because it was released a long time ago, the number of people willing to buy it have decreased, so the price goes down to try to get more people to buy it. Meanwhile, the price of a new CD is often less than that of an old CD. I should be able to get Nirvana's Nevermind for less than a newly released CD, but it works the other way around. The new CDs go on sale, and everything else is more expensive.
Maybe they have a good reason for this, but what could it be?
I guess it drives people to buy new music and forget old music, but why would they want to do this? Support new artists? Why, when they can make money off of existing artists?
The distribution costs of sending someone an MP3 are near zero. I should be able to buy an old CD in MP3 format off the web for three bucks. The artist already made most of the money they were going to make, and I'd be likely to buy more at $3/CD than at $15/CD. I understand that new artists need to make money, and that they wouldn't be making as much at $3/CD, so why not release old music in MP3 format and only sell CDs for the newer music. People would still buy them, even if their only use would be to rip the CD to MP3 and store the CD in a cool, dry place.
It would be exactly like hardcover books, gaming consoles, and other new tech. Get the early adopters to pay more at first, then lower the price later to get more people to buy it.
Synergy is your friend
Piracy??? I bought my copy at Best Buy last weekend. Best Buy had them sitting out in a cart getting ready to put them out with a display and everyone was grabbing them up and they were selling them.
It's annoying how things have to supported by respectable names to be considered good by the ignorant. If you've never read or heard his more decent lyrics, have a look at something like this (http://www.eminemworld.com/lyrics/sslp4.shtml), or pretty much anything on his first album. Considering Oxford did a few lectures on him, and the right wing journal The Spectator praised him, and the fact that he did grow up in poverty, I'd hardly call the man 'a hack', although I would agree however, that he's gotten pretty close to it in his later years. I'm anxious to hear this album, because we'll see if he still writes about things that matter to some people (young children being poor, being raised by terrible parents and bad society around them), or whether he's found a niche as a stereotypical modern rapper singing about cars and money and vulgarity.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
I downloaded an *almost* perfect copy (I say almost, because I don't want the Audiophile Nazis hijacking my post), and have been listening to it for a week or so. Today, I will buy the retail version. Thus ends my boycott of the RIAA and the MPAA. If it weren't for piracy, I would have never heard any of these songs (I don't listen to Hip Hop radio).
I will keep the MP3 version in my 200+ GB collection, and keep the CD on the shelf.
-AC
Think about the Gracenote server logs. Wouldn't they be logging the transactions and information requests.
I recall, way back when, when I was looking at CDDB that you had up to 1000 free checks with your application before they would want to charge you for the use of the service.
Add in the fact that they KNOW that the CD is one of the top requests... So if you put 2 + 2 together they HAVE logs with IP's of those PEOPLE that have a pirated copy
>They increase the price of new music in order to make up for supposed piracy, which in turn makes
>people more likely to pirate. Its a catch22 of the WORSE kind.
No, this is a vicious circle. A 'catch 22' is different, that's a no win situation.
Whereas this problem is very easy to solve -- as soon as the music industry (including retailers) stops taking the piss, and charges fair prices, everybody will win. An audio CD, including case and printed material, costs about 50 cents. Duhh, hello, where's the rest going? Greedy, fat pigs, with an oligopoly on the market, that's where.
Cut the prices and the problem goes away. Who on earth would go through all the hassle of tracking down and downloading an inferior electronic version if you could buy a CD for 5 dollars/pounds a time? Yeah, there would be a few skinflints, sure, but the vast majority of people would go back to buying CDs, and will buy more than ever.
Unfortunately aforementioned greedy, fat pigs running the show can't see the answer, because wherever they look, their vision is obscured by enormous piles of money. We call this market failure. This is when governments are supposed to intervene. Except the politicians are all too busy taking brib^W donations from the RIAA...
I can't remeber ever seeing a CD that was 70
minutes long, except for mix CDs.
The last CD I saw that was over 60 minutes long was a Greatfull Dead Jam CD (official, not bootlegged, unfortunately). Even 50minutes isn't really all that common. Most CDs seem to be 40-50 minuts with about as many being only 30 minutes as there are 50+ minute discs.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
Come on... Do you really believe those statistics? You mean, they are for real? Not rigged in any way to favor a recordcompany paying money?
To me it's just another scam. Another rigged poll. Anyone knows that most charts are rigged to boost sales, improve airtime and such. Gheesh.
the pun is mightier than the sword
yerricde wrote:
1. Longer albums. Back in the day, when vinyl was king, 35 minutes was considered an album; nowadays, CD albums average 70 minutes.
Double albums were quite common (at least among the artists I listen to, and many artists would put extra tracks on their cassette releases because they wanted to get the music out and it wouldn't fit on the vinyl.
Yes, CD albums are probably longer on average than Vinyl albums were (Vinyl you could get about 18 minutes per side / 36 total before having to make sound quality compromises), but I question your "70 minutes" figure for the average CD albums. The longest many CD players can handle is 74 minutes, and most albums are far from full. My guess is the average new music CD is about 45 minutes (not counting compilation or "Best of" CD's, where it's trivial to just add tracks until it's full).
2. Inflation. CDs cost USD 17 now, but $17 in AD2002 dollars is worth about $9 in AD1983 dollars (when CDs were first released).
According to the CPI, $17 in 2001 money (USD) is $9.65 in 1983 dollars. I don't think there are formal figures for 2002 yet, but your figure sounds plausible.
The thing is, how many people were buying CD's in 1983? CD sales didn't pass Vinyl sales until 1988 ($11.36). CD's didn't become the dominant form of music sales until they passed the cassette in 1992, and $17 in 2001 was $13.61 then (in terms of sales, cassettes were king from 1983 to 1992). As I recall, CDs themselves often sold for $9.95 in 1992 (because they were still competing with cassettes). We're talking about much more than just inflation here.
I don't have figures onhand, but my understanding is that CD production costs have dropped to the point where they are considerably cheaper to produce than cassettes (and have been for a while), yet the cassette version is sold for less than the CD of the same album. We're definately talking about much more than inflation here, and more than "longer albums".
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Only if you don't consider millions of people mass public distribution. Did you even read the post you were replying to?
It seems to me that, while I am embarrassed to say that I only own 2 cd's(dont really have a reason why, im 21 its not like i didt have time), that people who actually buy cd's now, either are *real* fans of the artists and like to have *real* copies of their(the artists') work as proof.
The same would go for the purchase of DVD's (Lately it seems that the tv news world is finally catching on to movie piracy. ireallywouldlikeALLtheIndianaJonesMoviesonDVD!!) And also books for that matter. Every William Gibson novel ever concieved(iassume) is available in some electronic form on the net for free courtesy of some cyborgloving netfanatic, so unless you are anti-ebook or have a paper fetish you could have all the books for free( i would have bought them in e-format if i could).
So to actually *own* a copy of any artistic work, it seems to me, is more of a statement of preference by the owner than merely a means of obtaining a copy of the work.
Does anyone see this trend continuing?(ithinkso)
Yeah, I actually did bother to read it. I'm just wondering who determines when it goes from copying to mass public distribution. 10 copies? 20 copies? 1000 copies?
track the IP address of people requesting album information before the album was released?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Thanks for missing the point entirely. The point is that it was unfair competition to force competitors out of business by lowering prices so ridiculously. There's this little thing called "ethics", and the aforementioned theater manager seems to lack them. In our society, it's generally considered a bad thing to support unethical behavior.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
This would make a lot more sense than some story about how if you get all the mp3s and assemble them in the right order and burn to CD it still is recognised as the original.
But that does work. Works very well, in fact.
One of the ways the freedb/cddb protocol recognizes a CD is a hash of the track timings. Like track 1= 1:30.57, track 2= 1:45.13, etc..
You take these, run them thru an algorithim, and get a number out. Then fuzzy search for the number. It works. Very well. The algorithim works in a way that compensates for minor differences. And really, all it takes is for someone else to have the same MP3s that you do. The *vast* majority of albums in these databases is not CD's inserted into a drive, it's a folder full of MP3's.
There's even MP3 tagging programs that will let you do a freedb/cddb search on a folder full of MP3's. "Tag and Rename" is one of them that comes to mind. So if you have a folder with all the songs from an album in it, then all you have to do is put them in the right order and hit the freedb query button to get the tracknames and so on.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusic/may29_chartstory-can. html
It seems stores started selling early so there may not be as much piracy as this stat would seem to indicate.
Ditto man.
I was going through my CDs the other day and realized that I had purchased a full third of them (~200) because I had been exposed to the music on the internet first.
The only thing that is a pain in the ass is ripping my old discs. I'm only up to the "Gs" as of right now.
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
Thousands of record stores across the country shut down!
Unexpectedly, millions of geeks rioted outside thousands of record stores across the country. Relentlessly, these "nerds" threw themselves at the doors and windows, even after the power was out and doors were locked.
When asked to comment, most of the so-called geeks claimed seeing a story on a website called "Slashdot". Others still said they heard about it on the "Gracenote" website. "I just couldn't resist. I had to come down and buy the new Eminem album."
Hours later, after the stores were still closed, people were walking away talking about how the store was "Slashdotted". What this means, we may never know.
Most of the "voodoo" in MP3 is in the encoder. The encoder is where differences in programming will result in major differences in the sound of the MP3 file.
I think decoders have little leeway, if any, to play with. So the same MP3 will lead to the same WAV file, probably independent of the decoder.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
in 1977 the sex pistols did a similar thing, with their single 'god save the queen' being the number one record in the land without it being listed on the charts:e /0,4273,4 416451,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Articl
"The direction controls are the same in Nethack as they are in vi." "Yeah, I hardly ever die in vi anymore."
Not in a small town where corporate america/the wealthy own the place. Example: Our poor schools are falling apart and have yet to be placed in low speed 'school zones' while our private school have long been augmented with bright flashing lights to warn everyone of the impending school zone...despite the fact that no one walks to those schools.
The people who try to change things get slapped around by the local newspaper^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H tabloid.
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
Okay HAL, it looks like we forgot to program you for humor.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Wishful enough? Yes.
As you can see, I wasn't expressing any kind of surprise at the fact Eminem is revered. I was merely asking (rhetorically) what kind of fuc^H^H^Hscrewed up society we live in that this is the case. You caught me at a bad time now; I just got home from Tech, where it has become blindingly obvious that not only are the best and brightest future journalists nearly all illiterate, but they also lack any kind of critical thinking capability or even the desire to think about anything that seems vaguely "intellectual". When you see people who are going to be working in the media and possibly in positions of influence struggling with concepts like Marxism, ideology and semiotics, and wondering what is the point of studying them...
I'm deeply depressed at how totally wasted the incredible potential of humanity is. We are capable of such great things, yet probably less than 1% of our entire population is even interested in anything beyond how to be "better" than anyone else through meaningless material wealth and social status. Everyone searches for some way to be happy, following the media in a desperate consumerist belief of more is better; never appearing to realise that happiness will always be deferred and never noticing that their entire lives have been spent searching for something they already have.
People tell me I think too much. I tell them they think too little.
"The Eminem Show" got ripped a new one on the NPR program "Fresh Air" today.
And a lot of what the reviewer said was right, say I.
!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "RANT"//EN"
Eminem uses too much self-pity. He thinks everyone hates him. He's alos stupid-he called his duet of "Stan" with Elton John 'russian roulette for his career'. Not so, but he continues to rap shit like that any way. Too bad for him-his little ramblin's are somewhat entertaining, on a sophomoric level, but overall just stupid.
Never pet a burning dog.