Slashdot Mirror
Universal, Sony Cutting Prices on Downloaded Music
Don Symes writes "Sony Music and Universal appear to be getting ready to allow downloads of singles for $.99 and albums for $9.99 without crippleware or restrictions on personal copying/burning." Another semi-interesting piece submitted by several people is this propaganda from the recording industry. 2.8 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were seized in the U.S. last year (9 million world-wide); from that the IFPI extrapolates that 950 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were actually sold, world-wide. How do you get from 9 million to 950 million? Mostly hand-waving .
But the cable company set a lower bandwidth cap...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
About time they eased up on prices a bit, but that probably means they are getting over on us even worse than we all thought ;o) .
Regarding that CD-R article, I'm sure the RIAA would just love to ban the things. How about they just ban all dual-deck tape recorders too. Write you representatives folks. Don't let them lobby to take away all that is left of Fair-Use.
Yes, you heard correctly - secret watermarks. Want the music cheap? Sure, here you go. Of course, if you do trade it online, we'll get back to you on the number of times we find it on other computers and charge you full price plus treble damages. It's not as if we couldn't see through this business model by now...
...Althought $5-$8 would be a lot better. Problem is, if I buy an album, I want 44.1khz PCM data, and not a compressed stream with a not-insignificant portion of the data missing.
.94 cents buys .05 of an ounce of cocaine to line the nostrils of a record exec.
If my $.99 bought me the raw stereo PCM data to burn, MP3, ogg, or sample then I would consider this reasonable.
Of course the artists probably get less than $.05 of that sale. The other
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
not 128kbs, but at LEAST than 196kbs, otherwise it isnt worth the cash outflow...
personally if im going to pay for something I want a solid object in my mitts, a physical CD, liner notes, pictures, etc....
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
2.8 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were seized in the U.S. last year (9 million world-wide); from that the IFPI extrapolates that 950 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were actually sold, world-wide. How do you get from 9 million to 950 million? Mostly hand-waving.
I can only assume that Michael doesn't actually understand what the numbers he's quoting mean. Hard to believe, I know. 9 million == number actually seized. 950 million == estimate of how many actually produced and illegally sold.
Obviously it's difficult to have hard numbers about what CDs were NOT seized, but who thinks that it's unreasonable to claim that only 1 out of every 100 illegally produced CDs sold are actually found and confiscated?
In fact, it surprises be that it's as high as 1/100.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The one advantage of having lower $0.99 "per track" charges, is that once the artists' royalty percentage is rounded, it equals zero.
Everyone has their opinions. Who says it won't work? I've been getting my MP3s for free since I started downloading them on my 'BRAND NEW 14.4!' back in the day. BUT, if a company were to promise me good download speeds (40k/s would make me happy), high availability at any time, a HUGE selection covering all the genre's I like, then I'd happily pay $9.99 for a CD or a buck for a single song. In all reality, P2P programs annoy the bloody piss out of me. I can't stand their spyware, and their connectivty scheme tends to chow ALOT of bandwidth. IRC is quite a pain in the ass too. 700 people in one channel, you can't even go in there on dialup because the user list will cause loads of lag. So if a company could legitimately sell me a high quality MP3 for a buck, and I could find it easily in a search engine, and then download it right away with no queues, then I'd be a happy consumer again.
Can all fish swim?
The recording industry just wants someone to blame poor management on. The truth is that with Napster gone, it makes their job more difficult: they can't now pin it on just one company. It was easy to just sue Napster... Now they have to go after end-users, or find some way to tighten their bandwidth access.
Look at the ridiculous deals they signed just before the economy slowed here in the United States... The Mariah Carey deal, which failed. The Michael Jackson "biggest album ever" which sold about ten copies.
It's easy for the CEOs of these companies to place blame somewhere else, besides themselves. And the Boards and shareholders have so far wagged their tails, nodded their heads, and watched their portfolios halve in value.
They'll wake up... Someday... Maybe...
jrbd
Hopefully Amazon, Best Buy, or the other "resellers" make a good website to sell the things, maybe have 30second intro mp3s so you can "try before you buy" and what not. Hopefully they will make it easy to find the songs you want too. Current file sharing services don't do that for me. I'll pay $.99/song to get that.
Sony bets alot of other people will too. I'd wager they'll bet that I'd pay $5 extra to have them burn me a cd or two and ship them to me too or other "added features" (music videos anyone? tour footage anyone? live tracks anyone?)
And ... isn't money laundering something that makes money on its own too? In fact, the only relationship between money laundering and CD IP theft seems to be that, if there were no copyright, there would be no need to launder the money made.
In fact, wouldn't the best way to cut off the legs of organized crime in this area be legalization, or, heaven forfend, reasonable prices from the recording industry?
If these are the best arguments against piracy, I think I'll go steal some music now.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
I'd be happy to pay $0.99 for some songs. I think it is a reasonable price, leagal, and the artist just might get something out of it.
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
And do you know what? This will flop. Terribly. Why? Because the same people who have been shouting that they'll pay for music will, in the end, not pay for music.
Once, a few years ago, I pirated music using Napster. I got quite good at it, amassing more than 5 GB of songs. But eventually, I had to face the facts: I was stealing music. A few of my friends asked me to justify what I was doing, and I couldn't justify it. I was stealing music. I thought about "making up", by buying all the CDs that I wanted music from, but I didn't. And do you know why? Because it would cost money.
I know it's not hip to agree with the RIAA on Slashdot, but in this case I feel that it's correct to. The pirate community has been screaming that they want low-price music, and now they're offering it to them. But it will flop, because in the end, people don't want cheap music.
They want free music.
You multiply by roughly 100. :)
Particularly because Sony is onboard, which owns Sony Classical. One thing that is REALLY weak on P2P networks is a good classical selection, and what's there is often badly converted and missing the ending sections.
I will definitely be using the service.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Ten bucks is roughly what a record store pays the distributor for a CD. The music industry is just cutting out the middleman and keeping their profit the same. Not a bad thing to try.
"Here's an idea: Maybe if we give them something they actually want, they'll pay us for it."
"Wow...you think so? Well, let's give it a shot. Can't be any worse than that MiniDisc fiasco."
this is exactly what i've been waiting for...
99 cents is easily worth the price of a song, as long as the quality is decent.
and hey! i can feel good about having a 'legal' collection of mp3's!
i can't wait until cable television takes this approach. i would love to pay per channel rather than having a whole slew of junk that seems to grab my attention.. let's see, discovery, comedy central, learning channel....
Yes, but a legitimate purchase of good music by a band I like at a reasonable price sure beats steasling, copyright violation, and screwing over an artist whose music I like.
That sure competes well with "free" to me.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
If these were in a high-quality lossless format it would quite likely be worth it. But mp3 -- yeah it sounds okay, but its not worth paying for.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
First, what bitrate will the songs come in? Ostensibly they'll come in mp3 format, if they're not going to be protected in some way. If it's 128kbps, forget it; I don't typically even warez music at 128kbps any more, and I certainly won't pay for that (lack of) quality.
Second; If, as the article asserts, the discounting of downloadable music is a recognization that a downloaded track somehow has less value than a physical CD, I have to ask what the prices are based on. As we all know, the price of audio CDs is based on what the market will bear; it is cheaper to make a CD and put it in a store than it is to make a casette tape and put it in a store, yet they still cost more. Obviously this is based on recognition of the fact that the online market won't bear as much profit and the music industry is only going in this direction because they know that the artificially-inflated prices of CDs won't last forever when more and more people are getting CD-R drives.
So where's the question in all this? It is thus: Whence comes the artificial valuation of music? And what is its future? Sony would seem to be its own enemy, in that it sells relatively inexpensive CD-R(W) drives (and overly expensive CDR media) and also sells music on CD which carries a seemingly arbitrary price tag which the music industry nontheless has been known to defend with financial violence, IE, they don't give new releases to stores which have dropped prices below their mandated floor. What effect do they really think selling albums for $9.99 which you are allowed to burn to a $0.40 CD? (again, more if it's sony; This is a price on memorex 100 spindles at fry's.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
First you assume that the 9 million CDs would and could be sold...
Second, you take the number of people in the US who listen to that genre of music, and assume that every single one of them bought that music illegally.
Third, you assume that everybody is a crook.
Fourth, you realize that you really like your job in the FBI, because that makes you "they" and them "those" and you can make "them" do whatever "we" want.
Simple administrative math. If you have problems understanding it, go talk to your System Admin... they all have the same basic course requirements.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
This is $0.99 more that I am ever willing to pay a record company for a song. I would gladly give the artist the money, but never the record company. Back to good ole lopster and sending donations directly to artists.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
The music industry is still trying to cover their own ass. They know they are going to lose this fight, so if they push everyone else out of the business first they can take it over like they have every other avenue.
Supporting them now is like caving to the first offer to a street vendor in Thailand.
I am bias and not afraid to admit it, we offer MP3s for $.10 - $.20 that are encoded at 128bit to 192bit. That's good enough to burn.
CD Cost: ~$1.50USD
MusicRebellion
Let me save you the time of reading all the hypocritical comments, just read this one.
"This is a great start, but I'm not paying [current price] for a song/album. Maybe I'd consider [current price / 2], but it would have to be available in [some other format] and at [current sampling rate * 2]. And even then, I wouldn't pay without getting [a CD / liner notes / etc]."
99 cents a song is a steal. Let's figure there are 3 good songs on a CD nowadays (generous assumption). That's 3 bucks for a CD's worth of good songs. As opposed to 15+ dollars in the store.
But I'm sure people can justify not using this service anyway. Hell, I will admit that if I want some song, I'll probably get it off of KaZaA (I don't really listen to much music nowadays). But I'm not gonna criticize the system, I think it is perfect, they are biting the bullet and offering us a great alternative to stealing music. If this fails, it's not the record company's fault.
Mark
There is NO reason for a lower quality sound file (MP3, ogg, PCM, whatever). Give me a great quality copy, and I'll gladly give you my $0.99 per song.
Not bloody likely though...
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
The music files will be avaliable in Liquid Audio format.
"Liquid Audio files are scrambled so they can't be freely copied from computer to computer. But Universal has decided to let buyers burn the files onto conventional CDs in unscrambled formats, meaning they could be copied or moved freely from that point."
People wants MP3s. We have MP3 walkmans, players, car stereos, stereo components. We don't want a crippled version of song no matter the price.
Universal- will allow buring to CDs with you can then rip into MP3 format.
Sony- will not be allowing any burning
They need to stop their decreasing sales.
They don't want to invest more money in signing new bands and creating new music. So naturally they'll try to appease the masses and get the semi-legit folks that have downloaded illegally, to pay for their music at the rate most people have been saying they'd pay for music.
If that doesn't catch enough fish in the net, then they'll lower the price further, or have discounts, or anything that will get a majority of people to actually pay something for the music they probably already have gotten for free.
Then they'll switch to the standard tactics of screwing over everybody once they've gotten us back in the mindset that we need to pay for this stuff.
It's regrettable, because this is a step in the right direction, but this won't fly.
The article mentions that the tracks discussed by Universal are to be in Liquid Audio format.
(More about them is available here)
Closed-format music that I can't play in non-Windows operating systems or in a dvd or car cd deck that can decode mp3 CD's doesn't interest me in the slightest. MP3 succeeds because it's portable and small. Liquid audio files may not be very large, but they're not portable at all (except to Rio players).
By the time I've converted to CD and then ripped to mp3 again, I've spent way more than $1 worth of time, and I'm inclined to just go get an mp3 rip of the song and have done with it.
Sorry guys, try again. They're halfway there, but it's got to be MP3, or bust. The really depressing part of all this is that when this fails, it will fail because the dirty thieves on the internet want something for nothing, not because they tied themselves to a wrongheaded proprietary format that nobody asked for and nobody needs.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
one person would pay to download, and everybody else would get it off him for free.
Weren't we just discussing this yesterday?
How about this: the article said that Liquid Audio usually produces encrypted, watermarked files, but that their format won't be used in the end. If their server alters each download by just one bit somewhere in the body of the file, something that no audiophile would notice, that would completely change the MD5 sum. If they let us download WAVs or 320k MP3s, a split second of dead audio at the end of the track would provide for millions of unique MD5 sums usable as serial #'s.
Store the MD5 sum with the paying customer, and look for it to appear in the wild. Voila, a non-copy protected MP3 that can be uniquely traced to the person or persons who purchase and redistribute music. Would you use some kind of editor to tweak bits in an MP3 file before you redistributed it just to make sure that the MD5 sum has changed?
Intelligent Life on Earth
... was a Gone Jackals CD.
Why?
I couldn't find it online. Not on Napster, not on IRC, not on the web. Anywhere. Only place I could get it was some obscure online CD store. So I did.
What use is cheap music downloads if it's just the latest crap out of boy-band-du-jour? You can download that from anywhere free. Sell the bands that weren't quite as heavily advertised. Bandwidth is (well, marginally these days) cheaper for bands who won't sell high volume of CDs.
Honestly, I cannot FATHOM that the number of CDR's they claim were seized actually were. Honestly, if 2.8Mega CD's were confiscated, where was the news coverage of the busts? I have never once heard of any of these busts on the news. There would HAVE to be at least a few big hauls of confiscation that would warrant news coverage. Hell, every time someone gets caught smuggling a couple of pounds of pot in, it gets news coverage.
The source of the data is missing from the Yahoo story, does anyone know who's ass this data was pulled from?
Supporting them now is like caving to the first offer to a street vendor in Thailand.
Wish I had a mod point to throw at that statement...
This is, at the end of the day, a negotiation. A very unfair, one sided, bullshit negotiation that any worthwhile negotiator would walk away from- but it's what we have. So, the answer is not to cave at all. Continue to do what we do until the other side matches us. Very simple...
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
When it inevitably fails, it will provide just the documentation they need to lobby their congressmen for whatever infringement of rights legislation is in the hopper. I can't wait for the Draconian restrictions to come flowing out of Washington like spring rain.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
It should be noted that the files are NOT released in a open format, but in Liquid Audio.. For which, to my knownledge, there is no Linux player. So its still a Windows-only format..
You should have stopped right there. The record companies are stating these numbers as fact instead of admitting that they are pulling numbers out of thin air. Their strategy is similar to the ONDCP's: design the numbers to fit the agenda. In the case of the ONDCP, they estimate higher drug usage when they want a higher budget, then they estimate lower drug usage to prove their efforts were successful. The record companies are giving an outrageous estimate to shock people into believing that there is a serious problem with piracy. Wait a few years, until the DMCA and other dragnets have imprisoned and fined a large number of people. Then the record companies will revise their estimate to prove that the legislation was effective in reducing piracy.
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
From dictionary.com (emphasis mine):
theft
\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same ; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
But, it has to be a robust service. That means high bit rate, no restrictions, and I better have access to their entire catalog including brand new releases. It could be a bit cheaper though, since they don't have any distribution and packaging costs.....
Ouch, didn't see that they won't be in MP3 format. Haha. I realize that this is an ironic comment considering my parent post, but no online music service will live unless they distribute MP3 files. Oh well, my bad...
Mark
My biggest concern with 700 people in an IRC channel would be trying to follow a conversation - this can be hard with only 40 people. Look for smaller channels!
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
That said, 99 cents is too much. Back around 1987 that is what I used to pay for a 45rpm single. Now all they're giving me is access to bytes and want to charge the same amount? I don't think so.
Plus even if it's not too expensive, I'm not going to hassle with paying 99 cents for a track which requires that I register, give up a credit card, personal information, etc. when I can just pick it up in minutes free, no hassle, no personal information, done.
As I've also said before, the natural price of music is now zero. The free market has decided that. This is is showing that the free market is forcing the RIAA to move towards that price. They're not going to give away music because that'll be the end of their business--but going from a $20 CD to a $9.99 downloadable album or a $0.99 track is the RIAA realizing that the natural price is lower than what they've been charging.
Of course, they still haven't realized that the natural price is zero. But it's a matter of time.
The article mentioned that the files were watermarked and that that watermark is used to keep track of who bought the song.
So you could download, convert to MP3, and give to your friends. Then one of your friends posts it to Kazaa. Well the company is monitoring the file sharing networks and comes across your song. They trace it back to you using the watermark, send in the lawyers, and cut off your service.
I'd tell my friends to get their own damn account. I don't need the hassle and it's only a buck for crying out loud.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
I have seen pirate copies of my album sold in the street and it hurts to see the fruits of your hard work stolen on every corner. Since Ukrainian artists cannot make money selling their albums, they are forced to give endless concerts to survive.
Maybe he should come here to the USA, where the vast majority of artists can't make any money from their albums either, once all of the expenses are deducted from their meager royalties.
The question on my mind about the MP3 download is if the labels still deduct 10% from the artists royalty to cover "breakage" of the albums in transit, stores, etc?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
According to the report, money from pirate CD's is going to support the drug trade, as well as organized crime.
Naturally, this means that the people who produce the content for those pirate CD's are to blame.
It's time to stamp out the source of this evil money pit. The artists!
As someone who has downloaded music for about 7 years now, this finally seems like a good idea. I have strongly opposed paying 16 bucks for a CD, but with singles at 99 cents and albums for 9.99, I'll most likely take a look at what they offer. If they offer crappy unknown groups then forget it, but if they actually sell the music that is popular and well-known then they have my money!
There has to be a catch - every bit of news about the recording industry that has come out over the last several years has gone to prove that they just Don't Get It. And now they're doing someting that seems clueful?
I don't like it. The other shoe must be ready to drop and it'll be mind-bogglingly stupid of them - it has to be, or I just might have to start changing my mind about the labels and giving them my business again!
Seriously - if the major labels will release music in a high-quality digital format, sell it to me for a reasonable price, and then let me burn it to my heart's content, I will be more than willing to buy it. Most of the music I've grabbed off Gnutella is the occasional single of something that's catchy, but just not worth buying a whole album for, or stuff I have already on LP. If you charge me a reasonable price, I'm actually happy to pay for it instead. No problem.
Right now the ridiculous economic and distribution model the RIAA member companies rely on encourages piracy. Make it cheap and easy to buy music and do what you want with it, and most consumers will be honest. The only danger I see is that these companies fought unrestricted music so long and so hard that consumers have started to see P2P networks of music as a resonable response. It'll be interesting to see if folks change their habits.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Yeah, but that was years ago. RIAA should have reduced their prices long ago. At the very least when Napster hit the scene. Instead they sued Napster into oblivion, increased their prices, and watched more P2Ps pop up. Now they want to drop prices and hope people will come back? No, it doesn't work that way.
If you could have sold 486 technology to IBM in 1980 you could have made billions of dollars. Now, you can't sell 486 technology to anyone, period. In 1980 you were in a good bargaining position, today that bargaining position is gone.
Likewise, the RIAA was in a monopoly position for decades. They were in a good bargaining position, still, in 1990 and could have reduced prices to fend off the "need" for users to go to P2P to get their music. Now, P2P is everywhere and they can't control it--and now they want to make a counter-offer? It doesn't work that way... They are no longer in a position to negotiate.
I will no longer pay for music, period. Only if I happen to be at the mall and happen to remember a CD I want and happen to know that there are at LEAST 3 tracks that I want. That last criteria (minimum 3 good tracks) is usually the deal-breaker.
Fact is, many people (including me) have been exposed to free music. Not only is it free, it can be obtained in a heartbeat and without having to identify yourself or give up personal information or a credit card number.
Even if the price is 1 penny per song I am not going to leave P2P to go to some corporate website to give them my name, address, phone number, credit card number, and email address to get my music. P2P is safer, more convenient, and faster.
Sorry, game over.
MD5 is a hash function, yes, but it's designed as a fingerprint, not a watermark; it's fragile on purpose.
There are hash functions that are much harder (though probably not impossible) to alter without mangling the sound.
From page 7 of the IFPI document:
Since Ukranian artists cannot make money selling their albums, they are forced to give endless concerts to survive.
I guess I should feel bad... except that this is the situation for all musicians everywhere, regardless of piracy. Musicians don't make money selling albums. Period. Especially musicians who have signed a recording contract.
Having been a musician myself, I have only one response to Katya Cilly: If you hate playing music so much, go get a real job.
I don't support piracy, but honestly, I never cared about it with regard to my own stuff. The point of recording music is so that other people can hear it and enjoy it when I can't be there to play it live. If somebody bought my CD and made copies for all their friends, great! Maybe all their friends would come to my next show. Nothing compares to playing a live show. That's what being a musician (or any kind of performance artist) is all about. If you don't like doing it, then being an artist is not the profession for you, and you should look for something else.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
You're completely, 100% wrong. Yeah, it will flop, but not because people won't pay. It's silly to assume people don't pay for music. People pay for music all the time. How else do you think the recording industry stays in business? No, piracy is most certainly not why this will fail. It will fail because the suits misunderstand their thetarget audience for this service.
I have ~18GB of MP3 files. They are all, to the last file, arranged in complete albums, with proper ID3 tags for each file. Why? Because I bought the CDs and then ripped and encoded them myself. Napster was useless. You got iffy quality, screwy naming conventions, weird ID3 tags (if you got them at all), and the files sometimes (mostly) had defects. Even if I didn't want to pay, I'd still pay rather than listen to the crap you get off Napster (or Kaazaa -- same problems there).
I require two things for digital music: The complete album in high bit-rate MP3 format. I do not want single songs. I do not want proprietary (read: non-MP3 or non-OGG) formats with built-in "digital rights management". I do not want to "burn" anything. Why the heck would I burn a Liquid Audio (whatever the hell that is) on to a CD-R? I want the music on my fileserver where it belongs. Where my AudioTron downstairs and my workstation upstairs can get to them. Where I can stream them from work. I might even put them on a portable MP3 player, but last time I checked the portables didn't support "burning" or formats besides MP3.
I'd love the chance to pay $10 for a complete album. As long as it's in MP3 format at a decent bit-rate. But this "service" can't give me that and therefore is completely useless. It will fail because they are going about it all wrong -- not because people don't want cheap music.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
This is an old problem in research that has already been solved by the "Rhino problem". I'm not saying this is the method they used, but it might be of interest to some of you.
The problem is how to count the number of Rhinos in the wilderness when you know you can't find them all and count them.
The solution is to capture 100 Rhinos. Tag all of the Rhinos and then release them. After a period, you go back out and capture another 100 Rhinos.
Let's say that out of the one's you've captured, 10 have your tags on them and 90 don't. From this you can extrapolate that you have 10 times the number of Rhinos in the wild than you originally tagged, or 1,000 Rhinos.
Don't know if they used the method or not, but its normally accepted as good research methodology.
In the pirate report (the last link to a pdf file) IFPI says that amount of pirate CDR recording increased in Denmark during the year of 2001.
However, it was recently made legal to make digital copies of CDs and it has been so for the entire year 2001. You can even borrow CDs at the library and copy them at home legally.
It is still illegal to sell such copies, so it is possible IFPI is right and danes are too stupid to just borrow from the library and friends, and instead buy copies of real pirates. But it doesn't seem likely.
Piracy is copying, but it's also a kind of theft.
In the same way that skipping commercials with you Tivo is also a kind of theft.
Of course, the labels don't really want this to work. They want it to fail so that they can go back to Congress and say "See! We lowered prices and they're still stealing! They wont pay 99 cents! We're bleeding from our arteries here! You guys have to do something to protect our profits, er, the artists!"
If they want to make this work they have to devote themselves to it. But for a label there's not much reason to do it. There's no way that selling over the internet isn't going to cut into their gross for a while. People wont pay $16 for an album's worth of MP3s.
But it's not a zero-sum game, because RIAA can't control their end-users. Their music is digitalized and distributed for them, at no cost to anyone. Actually, for RIAA they may just be stuck.
Music distribution is no longer tricky. Just stick mp3s on your website. Finding new talent can be done just as well by a bunch of independents as it can by a giant music conglomeration.
In the next decade, music may just go back to being an art instead of an industry.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I've been a happy EMusic subscriber for months now and I can't see getting rid of it.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
If Sony and the other labels had offered this low-cost downloadable music option a year or two ago I think it would have revolutionized their business model and been a roaring success.
Unfortunately, they've left it so late that I fear (like others who have posted here) that it will fail.
Why?
Simply because music theft has become an "acceptable" activity in the eyes of too many Net users.
Pirates have learned to justify their activities by citing figures that indicate the recording artist sees only a tiny percentage of the sticker price for CDs.
If the recording companies had moved in while there were still pangs of guilt associated with the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted music then they could have pulled it off.
I predict that some people will opt to buy legal downloads (just like some have signed up to the subscription-based online services offered by record labels) - but the vast majority will continue to get their music for free.
This is unfortunate for all concerned because it means that we'll all end up paying more for our music.
Just watch the demise of the audio CD within the next two years.
The recording companies will force everyone to move to a new format with built-in DRM. Okay, so it won't affect hardened pirate (nothing ever will) but the recording industry will go ahead and do it anyway -- and we'll all end up having to buy new players just to gain (legal) access to the latest releases and paying the premium required to offset those development costs.
The solution?
The recording companies should give the damned music away for free!
No, I'm not kidding.
Let's face it -- they're effectively doing that every time a music vid screens on TV or when an FM station plays a track. Sure, there's a fee paid for each public performance -- but there's nothing to stop people from recording those broadcasts and burning them to disk or CD. Hell, I've got a great (and growing) collection of MPEGs containing all my favourite music videos. When it comes to "pop" music, I just capture what I want from free-to-air broadcasts and burn it to VCD or SVCD. I don't have to download MP3s -- I just record the audio and video track.
Artists and recording companies should put all the music on the Net for free and switch to other revenue streams.
What other streams?
1. Product endorsement (how much does Britney Spears make from her Pepsi commercials??)
2. Live concerts. Let's face it -- how does any recording artist justify earning millions of dollars for a few weeks in the studio cutting a new album?? Perhaps they could do some *real* work for their money -- just like the rest of us have to.
And there are an armful of other revenue streams that could be generated by giving away free music.
Perhaps it's time that the recording industry realized (just as the manufacturers of carbon-paper, horse-shoes and vacuum tubes had to) that the market has changed and old products and business models may no longer be valid.
The MPAA will have to take the same long look at itself -- and perhaps actors will have to realize that a couple of months work simply isn't worth tens of millions of dollars.
They're getting clueful, finally. US$0.99 for an mp3 is a tad high, though. Lower quality rip, etc. Don't forget the VAT for European markets. US$9.99 per CD is about right, though I'd prefer to buy per song (song that I want) anyway.
....damned near all of my collection is one of the following:
1. Out of print.
2. Artist-approved.
3. Ripped from CDs I own.
4. Ripped from CDs I own(ed).
5. The one good song on an album.
6. Never, EVER going to be released in the US (which, with my connections, sucks)
I'm not averse to buying music- I blew a good 300$+ on CDs simply by having heard several track of an album off of FTP, etc. I *am* violently averse to not getting my $$ worth. In short, if I don't like 90% of the album, it is NOT worth the money. Period. I use FTP/P2P as a "try before you buy" foil- and most of the stuff I've found that I like enough to research out turns out to be be one or two good songs on an otherwise crappy album.
I'll pay 15$-20$ for something I *know* is good. I *HAVE* in the past, and will in the future (namely Juno Reactor albums). I am NOT going to pay 15$-20$ for a single and forty minutes of filler.
Considering the amount of $ the artists I like get from CDs versus the amount they get for merch (coupled with album availablity).... I've chosen to support the artist over the label. Which means I end up spending more money- tickets, drinks, t-shirt, etc.- but with the added benefit of usually meeting the band members and having a quality experience. A show is worth the money- and I wouldn't be going to shows without the audio experience of having found the band by accident on someone's server to begin with.
Support the artists directly.
of these CD's and CD-burners were sold by Sony?
...about the cheaper downloads.
*looks up from Kazaa* "Huh?"
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
It is a conniving, devious mind that tries to use a word outside of its true meaning so as to take advantage of the negative connotation of the ill-fitting word.
The enemies of Democracy are
I've only gotten a couple of paragraphs into that IFPI report and already I have to respond.
The victims include the artists whose creativity gets no reward; governments who lose hundreds of millions of tax revenues; economies that are deprived of new investment; consumers who get less diversity and less choice; and record producers who are forced to reduce their artist rosters because it is impossible to compete against theft.
Let's be clear about this piece of propaganda. First off, I don't believe the recording industry is losing any significant amount of sales due to piracy. Having said that, the consumer *and* the artist are being victimized by *the recording industry*.
Consumers are fighting back by refusing to pay these pimps for someone else's work. That is the free market at work. (Refuse to be a victim! Boycott the recording industry.) I'm really hoping more artists will get fed up too (like Courtney Love apparently has) and find alternatives to promote their music and reach their fans. Death to the major record labels!
Proper government (if there is such a thing) by definition can never be a victim. But pandering like this, to the only people in society permitted to enforce their will with guns, sure can't hurt their cause, can it? Besides, if there are hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue being lost because of $4.3 billion in (hypothetical) lost record sales, the problem is excessive taxation, not piracy.
The price is perfect. For $10 you can mix a CD that only has the music that you want, instead of having to buy one that only has one or two songs that you like and the rest is filler.
This puts the ball in the consumers court now...and it will be up to them to show they are willing to pay a reasonable fee to burn legally.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I suspect that the 20th century will be viewed as an aberation as we move to a "Star Trek" economy of art, where no one watches TV anymore (or listens to the radio, etc). Instead, people will prefer to attend live performances, usually by firends or family, occasionally by a recognized star. Like the Grateful Dead always did, recordings will be used primarily to introduce someone to a performer; the "true experience" will be the live concert.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
This is the whole point of failure for the subscription P2P concept. Why on Earth would I pay some company to allow me to try to download a song off of your PC, only to have you disconnect or shutdown at 73% complete?
If I'm paying anything remotely close to current in-store CD prices, I better 1) be guaranteed successful download; and 2) have equivalent quality to the actual CD.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
Why do they not do a direct mp3.com sale where if you buy from their site they give the band half and they take half? Most people would love that! Buy from the major label directly, the major label gives half to the artist since it doesn't have to have a middleman for that sale. Of course Sam Goody, et al. would go ape shit over that!
going from a $20 CD to a $9.99 downloadable album or a $0.99 track is the RIAA realizing that the natural price is lower than what they've been charging.
That would be nice, yeah. But you're wrong.
I used to work at Tower Records, and my employee discount was "cost plus 10%", so I checked out the costs of a lot of discs. The average cost of a CD to the store was about $7-11; the store markup was usually anywhere from $2 to $10.
If you figure that the cost of manufacturing and shipping these CDs is probably somewhat higher than buying bandwidth and paying web designers, then the RIAA is actually charging more for music than they used to. They've just cut trucks and CDs out of the equation.
I don't think that the natural price of music is zero. People are willing to pay for convenience and to legitimize their activities, and they often want to support the artists who make the music. But, you're right, I think the natural price of music is far, far, far lower than $9.99 an album.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
And I'm more than impressed with MusicRebellion's site. I think you guys may be on to something there...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
But Universal has decided to let buyers burn the files onto conventional CDs in unscrambled formats, meaning they could be copied or moved freely from that point.
Do you have something against the ability to trace the original source in the case of wide spread distribution? No, really. I'm curious.
I want a program I can download from the record companies that will scan my MP3 directory and tell me how much I need to pay to legitimize my collection. They don't have to encode music for me, pay for the servers and pipe for me to get music, I can get my MP3s through my own means. I just want the license to legitimately listen to what I want on my computer, MP3 player, etc. I will even deal with the shitty quality.
There's no reason that they couldn't charge me $0.05 per song or less. Hell, it's resonable to expect that it's $0.99 for the first ten MP3s, $0.50 ea for up to 100, $0.05 for up to 1000, and a penny thereafter. No cost to them, no loss, it's basically free money. Now, if/when I ever get audited for my music I come up green and not red on their Good Boy/Bad Boy list. Everybody wins, except probably the artist, but then again, they're the ones who sold their rights to the music. It's a fucked up system, but this would at least appease two of the three parties in the tight spot.
Regardless, until then, CDs are too overpriced and inconvenient for me. Call me a bastard, I'll deal.
--
That's not entirely true. The bands might not get alot of money from the sales of a cd, but if they don't sell any CD they lose their record contract. If they sell alot of CDs they get an extended contract. What people like you are doing isn't making a statement in the name of the artists it's forcing Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys on us because little girls actually BUY their albums and justify the investment on the part of the record companies.
Once, a few years ago, I pirated music using Napster. I got quite good at it, amassing more than 5 GB of songs. But eventually, I had to face the facts: I was stealing music. A few of my friends asked me to justify what I was doing, and I couldn't justify it. I was stealing music.
Stealing from who, and how? Not stealing from the artists, they don't get paid anything signifigant as it is, and your additonal $0.000128 contribution isn't going to be doing them a lot of good.
Not stealing from the record labels, as they are not "out" any money by you having a copy of "thier" song. They are not even out any *potential* money, becuase, as you mentioned, you would not have bouch the music anyway.
You could call me a thief for freeing a slave, but that doesn't mean I'm morally wrong. While, *legally* I may be wrong, laws do not define morality. It is no more "wrong" to copy and listen to music than it was "wrong" to, say, be a Jew in WWII Germany.
Copying and listening to music is in no way morally wrong.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Check out http://www.eslmusic.com. A friend got me into Theivery Co. and more after I started listening to the streams on SomaFM. You can buy any of the CDs on their label for $12US + shipping. Not bad, and you don't feel so bad paying for it =P. Especially when you can listen to it commercial free on SomaFM.
Well first of all, its convenient that you left out definition a from www.m-w.com which is exactly the same as the first one from dictionary.com. Secondly, from a legal standpoint, copyrighted materials aren't even property. They are works for which the government has granted someone an exclusive liscense to control the distribution of the work for a limited period of time. Insisting that copyright infringment is "theft" is just a convenient way to distract people from the real nature of the crime.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Keep the faith !
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
There is no such thing as "copyright theft"(and he IS a lawyer):
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_9/scott/
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Like the title says. Forever is a long time. Got any pre-System7 Mac software laying around? Tried to run it recently? I have more than a little old software from my DOS days that I would have a hard time running without jumping through hoops. However, I have old data from back then which is easy to look at (if I cared to).
I get your point, and it's a good one, but why should I have to tote a binary around with my data? Wouldn't you rather have all those Webshots images in TIFF (or whatever) so that when you want to print five years from now you can? Who knows if their software will work on Windows2008, with the printer driver you have, etc. It's orders of magnitude more convenient/elegant/etc to have data which requires no special software. I'd almost say it's a requirement.
Here's a real-world example: I had to deal with an old DOS 6.22 era Clarion-based database software installation last year. They were upgrading (because of 2K bugs, oddly enough) to Windows 2000. They got Windows installed, but the old DB software wouldn't run under Win2K. Fine, they said, just get our data out of the old database and into the new one. Guess what? No tool to do that. No way to know what their file format was, either, so forget abotu writing a filter. What are they doing? They are running the old software on a Windows 3.11 machine and the new stuff on their Win2K box. They figure it'll be a couple years before all their customers have been serviced and are integrated into their new system. Then they'll no longer need their old data files -- and the proprietary viewer needed to get at their old data.
No, I think I'll take data -- especially if I purchase it -- as independant from any specific binaries (and their operating systems) as possible, thank you very much. I'll decide what vewier I need.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Yeah...these numbers are kind of useless, but they do let the RIAA point to a big number associated with "real criminals" out to make a profit and make their point in demanding tougher enforcement.
The real number that matters is how many net million CDs aren't being sold because the person obtained a free copy of the music. At least in the US, commercial piracy is dwarfed by not-for-profit piracy.
May we never see th
not 128kbps, but at LEAST than 196kbps
I'd like to see people say "between 100kbps and 175kbps" for once. The technology and software has reached the point where using CBR is just stupid and (significantly) hurts sound quality. No one should be using anything but VBR mp3s (unless they're using ogg). If you're one of the people that knows what a bitrate is *and* notices a difference in quality between mp3 and original raw, then you should be using VBR-encoded MP3s, not CBR.
IMNSHO, of course.
May we never see th
There is a legal difference if you are using the legal terminology "copyright infringement" and "theft". What many people are pointing out is that many (perhaps most) do not feel that there is an ethical difference -- that the common usage of the word "piracy" really is a type of the thing referred to as the common usage of the word "theft".
May we never see th
here it is again...
oh, I see, you're just an ass wipe
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Most people using Napster are going to be fifteen or so, not a thirty-year-old highly paid professional. For one, investing thirty minutes to save twelve bucks on a CD makes sense. For the other, it doesn't.
As the RIAA and friends move towards eliminating the middleman, prices will drop. This is their best defense against piracy -- if their costs drop enough to make it cheap enough to sell CDs for less than it's worth to pirate them, they've got it made.
May we never see th
I see you managed to use a piece of software for what it was designed to do
Well...I see your point, but gcc and emacs are also designed to produce software together, yet actually doing so isn't necessarily trivial.
May we never see th
I don't know if it's an American or Canadian commercial, but there is a commercial that shows how buying drugs supports terrorists.
Paying for music means that a certain percentange (remember, zero's a percent!) goes to the artist, and a certian percentage of that (100 is a percent) is spent on that artist's crippling drug addiction. Therefore, Paying for music supports terrorists!
I always make sense (or cents... depending)!
Toora Loora Toora Loo Rye Aye
Calling that little PDF hand waving is being too generous, it's fraud. Notice the little bar graph about "disc piracy" and how CD-Rs are fuelling the growth of piracy?
Well, take another look, this time at the cute pie graphs. You'll notice that while CD-R piracy increased from 165 million copies in 2000 to 450 million copies in 2001, cassette piracy dropped from 1.2 billion to 900 billion.
Out with the trusty HP calculator: 450 - 165 = 285, and then 1200 - 900 = 300. Oooh, look at that: 285 < 300. Cassette piracy dropped more than CD-R piracy increased.
Lets add in the pressed CDs: 500 million in 2001, 475 million in 2000. That would mean an increase of 25 million. So, takin all formats into account, we have an increase of 10 million. A whopping 0.5% increase from 2000!
Gee, wonder why they didn't include cassette piracy in that bar graph, huh? Would have spoiled their party.
Now, if my sources are correct, the annual growth of the population of the world is somewhere around 1.3% annually, which is more than 0.5%. I guess this means that piracy per person, at least where physical copies are involved, dropped.
But of course, the goal is to levy tax on CD-Rs as "compensation" to the music publishers, so why look at the facts?
Including lyrics would be a GREAT way for the music industry to differentiate their mp3s from the home-ripped ones currently in circulation..
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
To break it down succinctly: EMusic has, in the past, attempted to track their MP3s traded via P2P clients.
Quite frankly, I see no problem with it, because, doggone it, as a GPL supporter, I see GPL's greatest strength coming from respecting copyright law (I know RMS hates it but he relies so heavily on it) and b.) respecting licensing agreements. If you trade free MP3s without the artist's (or, more likely, the record label's) explicit or implied permission, you're breaking the law. Sorry.
And quite frankly, yes, I've grabbed MP3s via Gnutella clients. Most people have such shitty encoders that I'd either rather buy the MP3, or buy the CD, rip the CD, and use the MP3s. :-D
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
>an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property
:-) I think the defence would rather be under the mallet for petty theft rather than $250k + 5 years imprisonment for copying even one song.
Music is not property. IP is a farce and is not defined in the dictionary.
Property requires ownership. Stealing requires taking of owned property.
A person with a purchased CD does not own the music. They own the shiny disc, which is incidentally encoded with the sound (ask any lawyer).
You cannot steal what is not property; property requires ownership; ergo you can only steal music if you remove ownership of it from its owner by putting your name in as the author.
>According to this, all that's neccesary is an unlawful taking.
Unlawful taking is not stealing. They are very separate issues that are shown to be black and white when one says "taking a life" rather than "stealing a life".
>If you commit piracy, you are a thief, and I am correct to call you one.
Care to back it up in court?
BTW: Do you also call one who runs a pirate radio station (a true use of the word piracy) a theif even if he only plays his own music on airwaves not designated for his use?
Everything is stealing if you use the word incorrectly.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
>You don't have to deprive someone of something to be guilty of stealing.
So, if I, as a parent, stopped my child's allowace because they misbehave, I've stolen it?
Does a murderer steal lives?
Does someone who is greedy and buys all the CDRs in the city (this happened where I live) steal them?
Does someone who makes a profit steal it? I mean, there is no law saying you are entitled to make a profit on anything whatsoever.
Does someone who decides not to give a dollar to the bum on the street in fact steal the dollar from the bum?
No. You are confused on the issue and I reccomend you consult the dictionary on this matter. Perhaps a synonym might help.
This is the definition of piracy. Notice no mention of theft, or its synonyms, unless your name is BlackBeard or Bin Laden.
Dictionaries were very careful to clear this up in the past because people were beginning the confuse the issues. I am happy they've done so. Notice how dictionary.com went out of their way to use the verbose sentence "The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material" rather than "Stealing Intellectual Property". That's because they saw the difference.
If you read the Berne Convention, the international foundation of modern copyright law, you'll never see the words steal or theft. The world's lawyers were careful to separate the meanings even though they have the most to gain. If english teachers, lawyers, judges, and many other respected people around the world firmly agree on this issue, why don't you?
I think you'll be very interested to know that in my country we are allowed to buy CDRs from America (bypassing a special media tax) and burn a copy of any album we like at a friends house and take it home. This is a law agreed to by the people, the lawyers, the artists, and the media companies, even when this loophole was explicitly pointed out once (we've all agreed to the law a second time, even after the rush on the border for CDRs). If any of these people considered that stealing (which, by your definition, it is) they would have most certainly not have agreed to allow this to happen.
Put simply, piracy is (for example) copying a song when you shouldn't, plain and simple. Stealing is when you take a car for a joyride. The difference is remarkable.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I've stated as much in my post.
If an artist is quality, the work is worth the price. Flat out. If an artist does not live up to expectations, then the work is NOT worth the price. This does NOT mean that the gig is not worth going to- the artist still gets the dollar, and I get a better experience for it.
Morality is relative- the fact you choose to post anonymously proves as much. Try some namecalling with a fucking username so you can lose some karma.
Ah, but one who copies music *is* depriving someone of something (the rightful owners are being deprived of money associated with cost of the CD). So, it's stealing in every sense of the word.
My bet is that within days after they start implementing thsi crap, someone is going to write some script that will alter the unique number, or scramble it, or remove it or whatever rendering the whole scheme useless. The huge encryption of DVDs is decoded, compressed, and encoded again into divx format within 4 hours on a fast machine, ready for distribution. So waht was the point of the whole encryption? Gentlemen, look at the bright side of this. A couple of dozen programers were employed writing this software. Who cares that the end result is useless. They are already paid and gone. In the end it was the record lables that get ripped off paying for labor. --contributing to piracy of all media
The downloads are in a proprietary format named LiquidAudio. It requires special LiquidAudio software to play it (i.e., probably won't work with your software/MP3 player). The software is not available for Linux, and will never be (as an open-source kernel cannot guarantee a secure audio path to the D-A converter). As such, while the format is freer than the rent-a-song service offered earlier, it is still too restricted. Sorry, not interested.
Player manufacturers can put in MP3 playback because the format is "grandfathered"; i.e., it was already in wide use before the RIAA took note of it. If they were to add support for OGG, they would be giving support to a new format which specifically precludes DRM, and would open themselves up to lawsuits. And believe me, the lawsuits would come thick and fast; the RIAA has a virtually bottomless budget to "put out fires" such as this, and would sue aggressively.
If you actually download the thirteen MB Liquid Audio player and read the clickthrough licence, you'll find the following juicy clause among the usual "w3 0wnZ j00" legaleze:
Oh, and your passport contains your credit card number, and you agree that it's not their fault if you get scammed. And the player can disable itself any time it likes. By the way, if you want to convert to a sane format, you have to actually physically burn a CD as raw and then rip it, you can't just "save as".
This is just another "music locker" rental scheme, with a (grudgingly provided) tortuous method to get yourself out of it. Maybe. Perhaps.
Excuse me if I hold out for mp3 or ogg downloads that don't assume that I'm a thief who may have to be cut off at any time.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Breakin the law breakin the law dunt duh. Breakin the law breakin the law dunt duh. huh huh, huhuhuh! That was cool!
How ya like dat?