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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.
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!
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
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
It doesn't require freeDB, it just uses it by default. It will use CDDB (Gracenote) if that's your poison.
My point wasn't that this program is responsible for these Gracenote stats, just that it's possible to use a CDDB-like system without having a physical compact disc.
I don't blame them, information like billboard charts and soundscan sales are worth a lot of money to record companies, gracenotes information would be even more valuable, as it shows what people are actually listening to, as opposed to just buying. I miss gracenotes top 100, the chart would largely similar to the billboard charts, but with older albums mixed in. It's amazing how many classic albums, such as Pink Floyd, Nirvana, old Metallica, sit there next to Eminem and Linkin Park. And why is Celine Dion in the top ten?
I'm a fairly major player in the MP3 "scene" if you will. The proper releases (this stuff rarely hits the P2P networks in all it's glory) are done by people who know what they're doing and rip things with good software. If all the tracks are from a proper release, and burned using DAO, they will almost always be recognized by CDDB services as the original CD. People ripping for P2P nets though generally use low bitrates and bad encoders (Realjuke, AudioCatalyst and the like). Not to mention that most people using P2P networks don't bother to ensure that all tracks are complete, from the same source rip, and of reasonable quality. Thus small differences in encoders/rippers (are track delays recorded in the preceding track, or the subsequent one?) result in different final CDs. Rest assured, however, that the people who know what they're doing (and there are thousands of us) get proper copies, distribute them to our friends, and burn copies for anyone who asks. Hence the numbers on Gracenote. Don't think the mp3 scene is as disorganized as it appears from the P2P crap, the real underground scene is very organized, well structured, and produces good releases.
Sorry for the AC, I dunno how much crap I could get in if some copyright nazi read this and investigated what I do.
I don't blame them (except for propretorizing the data their users submitted in good faith, but I won't go into that now...) But since they are less usable to me then they used to be, I don't use them any more.
To my knowledge there isn't one single selling point (to consumers) for Gracenote that doesn't go for freedb too.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
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;
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.
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.
:-)
I won't agree that he writes his own songs. Were you with him when he wrote them? I think most people would be amazed at how little most pop musicians contribute to the actual music on an album. Madonna doesn't write any of her music, and never has. As for performing his songs, I wasn't aware he played any instruments. I thought he just held a microphone on stage, and occasionally performed goofy antics like dressing up as Jason Vorhees. Just look at the credits for his last album [barnesandnoble.com] Doesn't appear he played any instruments. "primary artist" is a very vague term, one I would be willing to bet was invented by a studio exec.
His command of the English language is a very subjective thing, and at that point we're getting more into the content of his songs, not the actual music talent involved.
It is very easy to see if he writes his own songs. Look at the liner notes, and see if M. Mathers appears under the written by credit. I believe it does. If you don't wish to believe that credit, then you are too cynical to be swayed by any argument of mine, so stop reading now.
As to your second point, many musicians have, as you so callously put it, "just held a microphone on stage". Are opera singers musicians? Are gospel singers musicans? I believe that your argument just insulted hundreds of artists, perhaps even some that you hold in a high regard (though I admit you don't stipulate what makes one a musucian, thus your entire musical worldview could consist of Celtic drum beats, and I would have to admit defeat based on your subjective point of view).
One more thing, I can't see a reason why what Eminem wears has anything to do with his value as a musician. Christ, John Lennon was running around naked on camera, with a naked woman no less. [Flamers please note my sarcasm].
Finally, if you would like to dismiss Eminem out-of-hand for the content of his songs, then pass Go and collect $200. It's very easy to dismiss artists that put society's collective taboos and psychoses on display. Personally, I believe that one can experience a sort of catharsis from albums such as this one, if only when you realize that your life is so much better than the nightmarish hell that Slim Shady/Eminem/Marshall Mathers seems to inhabit.
"What we elect to call imagination is mere combination of things not heretofore combined." - Frank Norris
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
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.
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.
This is bullshit folks. My brother works with one of the biggest rock bands in the country, and hangs out with the guys in the band. He is good friends with the guy that manages the band, and gets to see the exact sales numbers each week. The billboard charts are absolutely legit.
The burden of proof is on you, if you want to dispute the validity of a standard chart like that.
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?
Sounds like you'd rather he allow you to post your infomercial, so why are you bitching? I'd much rather read about a possibly large case of internet piracy than YATS (yet another theme site).
BTW, I checked out your site, and it sucks.
Now that's a flame.
"And like that
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.
it shows what people are actually listening to
Well, kinda. Assuming the player program caches the information locally, Gracenote's records show what disks people are putting into their computers the first time they put them in. Granted, that gives older records a better representaiton than current sales, but still not that accurate. Of course, if most people re-install windoze as often as i need to, the accuracy could increase signifigantly...
[blah blah blah blah pathetic fanboy whining]...even though they have nothing in common besides skin color.
They also share a production team, a penchant for faked-up bios, and a general M.O.
See, unlike you, I actually remember the early 90s, and Suge Knight's protege, Dr. Dre, is doing with Mr. Mathers exactly what his mentor did with poor old Robert Van Winkle -- right down to the crappy movie deal that's going to flush his career. I'd feel sorry for him, except that he's probably too cracked out to care. I wonder if Dre had to hold his punk ass upside down from a window to get him to sign?
Oh, and if you think Mathers writes his own material, I have a bridge to sell you.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.