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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.
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.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
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!
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.
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?"
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.
Isn't that sorta what Milli Vanilli did?
"Derp de derp."
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.
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"
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.
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
...a way to pirate music that the artist hasn't even written yet
Too late...
The Beatles already did that to Oasis.
- StaticLimit
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.
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?
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.
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.
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"?
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 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
The concept of anticipatory plagiarism was invented by Robert Merton (http://www.nobel.se/economics/laureates/1997/), though the French Oulipo movement (http://www.nous.org.uk/oulipo.html) stole the idea and passed it off as their own decades earlier.
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;
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
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.
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
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
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....
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
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
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
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