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Music Industry Staggers While Film Industry Blooms
GLX writes "The LA Times is running an article that explores the idea that while piracy has been the (supposed) bane of the music industry, it has yet to be felt in the video industry..." "Yet to be felt" might be too strong, but DVD sales are booming, and don't seem to be much crimped by illegal copying.
I'd take a DVD over a DivX any day. I like the extra features on them and the quality is noticeably better.
MP3s offer the same quality (almost) as CDs and the music industry has no extra offerings on their discs except a bunch of songs that you haven't heard on the radio, usually with good reason.
A music CD ripped to MP3 typically takes somewhere around 60 to 100 megs of space, with individual tracks averaging around 5 megs each--and can be downloaded separately. A movie of good-length typically takes around 600-700 megs in DivX ;-) format, currently the most popular "moviez" format. This cannot be downloaded and subsequently enjoyed in chunks.
Pirating movies takes a substantially higher amount of bandwidth per movie than small-time MP3 warezing, and the bulk of the music industry's loss comes from the high amount of 'small-time" MP3 pirating.
Slashdot does not condone piracy of music, videos, or software. The above information is presented for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as approval of any illegal action.
Slashdot's Attorney
IMHO, there is very little difference between mp3 and CD quality. Yes, there are differences, and audiophiles will point this out every time. But the fact is, most users don't care.
Now DVD's vs DIVX. Not only can the quality suck (artifacts all the time), but the sound can be totally out of sync, which is really really annoying. Plus, unlike mp3 CD's which can be played in just about any new CD player, DIVX does not play in standalone DVD players without hacking the hardware.
But, this could change...
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
"How are people going to justify stealing a movie by saying it isn't any good after the movie's already a $100-million hit?"
There's a difference between earning $100M in the box office, and *spending* $100M to make radio stations and Top 40 charts play music that doesn't have public appeal behind it.
"Urie says his company doesn't heavily research consumer attitude, noting, "We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes."
And therein lies the problem.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Vivendi Universal and Sony Corp. are preparing to sue individual song swappers... I'm curious how this will be done.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
When the CD soundtrack costs as much as the DVD withe the movie and more, that explains a LOT.
DVD movie prices are going down, and consumers feel they have value. They don't feel the same way about overpriced CD's.
Oh, I'm pretty damn sure that piracy is the bane of the music industry.
It's just that they sell truck loads of absolute rubbish to 14 year old Britany Fans/N-Sync/Backstreet Boys/etc who don't go and download their music.
This is what makes up a very good proportion of the vast amount of money they make.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I'm impressed that no one mentioned the fact that I can get the new Collector's Edition of "The Evil Dead", complete with 4 hours of extras and a special "Necronomicon cover" for ~$20, while Britney Spears most recent 65 minutes of suck costs about the same?
El riesgo vive siempre!
... people might buy more of it.
Get off the "pirate" crap, the music is shit (and overpriced, esp in USA, thanks to your protective trade policies), and thats the real reason nobody is buying much of it.
Large corporations (the real pirates) making carbon copies of the latest plastic fad, trying to guide the public tastes, and mostly just getting it plain wrong.
The only guy I know who copies stuff all the time, copies movies just as much as music. And I can't imagine him with a sword cutting your legs off - some pirate.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
Music piracy has been going on en masse for several years. Video piracy is newer. It's just a matter of time and technology . . .
It's that simple..... I got computers right-left and center.. I'm considering making one of them my PVR, but having a simple CD/DVD player that I could just pop in a burned CD-R into would be so much simpler, for good and for bad. But I suppose hardware MPEG4 decoding is coming (the card for PC is already here) so I suppose there's only a matter of time before a standalone player incorporates it, well that is if anyone dares...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Would you rather pay $20+ for a half hour of music (when was the last time you bought a CD that was actually near 74 mins?) or pay that same $20 or so to buy a 2 hour DVD that also has extras? That's what I thought. DVDs are actually worth the money they cost, while CDs are grossly inflated. IMHO of course.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Hollywood made more money the Memorial Day weekend of 2002 than at any other previous time. Piracy is no threat to them. People who watch pirated movies on their computer are just sneak previewing, and will go to a theater. People who buy pirate DVDs at the flea market for fewer than ten dollars won't pay full retail for legit ones. People who do pay full retail for legit ones wouldn't be caught dead in a flea market or with DVDs from one. When you boil it all down, piracy is a non-issue. Shutting it down would not get Hollywood or the recording industry any richer. They are wasting their resources fighting it, and would waste our resources if Congress gives them tax money to combat piracy. This is all true of the recording industry as well. They are not interested in anything but protecting their power over artists.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Try watching the movie in sections at the same time. Can't do that.
Again, it's a matter of convenience and practicality.
Scares me and intrigues me at the same time...
It would - but most movie downloads are via p2p noetworks, usenet or IRC not ftp.
DVD's generally are priced pretty good compared to CD's. I spend an average of $12 for each new DVD. I have found some for $6. Most these DVD's come loaded with extras and multi-disc sets. CD's are priced way too high, with no extra's. I usually get my CD's from a used CD store. $18.00 for a new CD is outrageous.
Of course maybe the DVD industry has not been able to get together and fix prices like the CD industry.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Dvd's have been around for what, about 4 years? Anyone find the back to the future dvd yet? No. But many other movies out of the past and present are coming to dvd. Music has been on cd for at least 10 years.
Now here's the clincher. Music now-a-days just sounds like carbon copies of everything. Remember bands like Bush, Motley Crue, Metallica (before they sold out), Rob Base, Run DMC and the likes? Today's day and age seems more of a rehash of everything that's already been done. Why buy crappy music much less rip it?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Something that people have to realize is that movies come out in movie theaters first and make big $$$. Then they come out on DVD and it is just a bonus for the studios.
Music doesn't have that initial money from a movie theater type situation. I think that is why the record companies are more scared and more affected by piracy.
(Although, I feel that CDs are overpriced and DVDs have much more value per $)
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
That's hurting so much.
Maybe, just maybe , it has something to do with that a DVD costs almost the same as a CD these days...
This appears to be more of a function of consumer dollars shifting to something that IS coming out with new and good material.
The music industry has been so stagnant that new material worth the gas to drive to the store is rare. There are GOOD movies on DVD that people want to watch. They can claim piracy is killing them but until they wake up and realize that they have to market stuff the record sales are going to fall.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Pink Floyd and the Beatles continue to sell well 20-30 years after their release.
Don't blame teenie boppers only for a large number of sales.
There is a very simple line of logic industry leaders seem to forget. People will often spend more money on things they enjoy then something they don't.
The sad fact is, the quality of main stream music has continued to fall, and yet the industry seems to continue to put greater and greater restrictions into what can enter into the market.
The quality of movies seems to fluctuate, but at the very least, one can say that every year we get quite a few movies that are highly entertaining. This is despite the fact that the market already has quite a few restrictions as to what can enter.
Simple solution? Stop making music that is'nt entertaining, start charging prices that are out of sync with the quality of the product.
The Internet is generally stupid
When you buy a DVD, you usually get higher quality output, less volatile / damage-prone media, and the quality won't crap out with extended use. In addition, you usually get a bunch of extras / goodies tossed in, such as interviews, Easter eggs and deleted scenes. Plus, you're able to rent a DVD first if you don't wanna buy it outright, sample the goods, and then decide if it's worth it to buy it.
With music CDs, you can't conveniently sample the music before you buy it. Or maybe you can, if you go to a Virgin MegaStore and stand at one of those kiosks for 90mins, but that's not for me. Music CDs don't have any *bonus* features beyond what you hear on the radio, and it's rare when you ever hear more than a single song or two on the radio, to give you an idea of whether the price of the CD is worth the quality of the entire album.
So am I surprised that the music industry is faltering at a time when video is booming? No. Piracy does and will continue to happen -- you can bitch about it, or you can improve your legit product and/or change your business model to make it more attractive.
Do I have a good solution for how the music industry can solve its woes? Nope. But I don't feel sorry for them -- they've been dragging their feet for decades, exploiting the lack of choice of musical options by jacking prices way up for shoddy, over-produced sound. And they continue to do it......... and so, I continue to pirate most of my music and only buy those items I deem worthy of my hard-earned greenery.
I'd suspect (though I have no proof) that a significant factor here is that a good number of people do most of their music listening on their computer (at work or otherwise). This is certainly true for me. Thus the mp3 format is so popular. Small files that sound good. And they're easily accessible right at your desk.
A movie is a totally different experience. I will always choose to watch a movie on my 27" tv rather than a smaller (even 19" is too small) computer monitor. Screen size is important. And in addition to that my couch is more comfortable and my stereo speakers are better than my computer speakers. Why on earth would I watch movies on my computer? (OK, maybe while travelling but that's a different environment anyway.)
Not to mention what others have already brought up: Divx quality is noticeably lower than DVD quality, while mp3s can and do approach CD quality.
There. Those are my pre-coffee thoughts on the matter.
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
Copying a DVD with a DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW burner is ok if you want to lose (or completely redo) the menus, extra features, etc. If all you want to copy is the film track itself, ok, but because all the DVD (re)writeable formats are single layer, many DVDs require a 2:1 burned DVD to original DVD ratio. So, your menus will not work unless you redo them.
And if all you want is the film itself, get yourself a decent DVD player and rip the DVD to SVCD on a CD-R. Much cheaper than burning DVDs and (imho) just as good quality.
On another note, I d/l-ed a DVD to SVCD rip of LoTR/FoTR that took 4 CD-Rs to burn, but is excellent quality. I will buy this DVD. Call me what you will for supporting the companies that try to thwart fair use, etc. but it's good and I expect additional features on the DVD would hook me if the movie itself hadn't already.
I would think one of the major differences in the movie versus music debate would be that you can rent movies.
Sure, this doesn't mean any difference at all to the high tech computer user who would be willing to download anything. However, for the average layman who isn't sure about a movie, it can be picked up for rent at the local video store for relatively cheap. Especially if you go in with a few friends for a cheap night of entertainment.
Compare this with music CD's. If you aren't sure about an album, you have very limited choices. You can buy it and hope it isn't horrible, you can not buy it, and finally, you can download it. In all cases, the price is either non existant, or at least 14 dollars (US).
Take for example, a CD. $20. Now, all DVD's (whether you buy them in store or on a place like Amazon) are, at the most, $20. Old classics, such as Airplane! and the like, can be had at some places used for as little as $6. The quality of the product is higher, and the price is right. As long as Hollywood can keep putting out some decent movies, the same fate that befell the music industry should not happen.
Some points:
- The Divx format is getting better all the time - it is currently far better than VHS, for a 1 disk per movie rip. 2 Disk per movie films are generally of very high quality. Not DVD quality, but not far off.
- Broadband is slowly getting cheaper and more prevalent. Within a few years I can't really imagine more than 10% of the net using dial-up.
- Some p2p apps are VERY good. Edonkey, for example, pretty much maxes out my 1024 downstream when a new release comes out. It's relatively simple to get working - about as painless as Napster was.
- People are slowly getting DivX capability in their living room, be it through a PC connected to the TV, a DreamCast or no doubt fairly soon a ps2/xbox.
- The releases are coming thick and fast. Especially if you dont live in the US. dvd rips are often out before the film is in theatres here in the UK.
- CD burners and Blank CDs are ridiculously cheap.
Put that lot together and I'd say the movie industry should be pretty worried.
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
It might also have something to do with the fact that a movie can make a profit through the theatrical release. The DVD/VHS/TV rights revenues are just a bonus.
Is there an equivalent for music? There's not enough money in radio airplay revenues to outset the 'promotional' costs involved in getting the airplay in the first place.
Touring? Big bands make big bucks on tour. Lucky and talented smaller bands break even. Most are losing money but doing it for love of music or hopes of future success. So unless you're already famous through radio and CD sales - don't expect to make a mint on the road.
That only leaves the CD sales themselves. Hence the reason why they are more anti- 'sharing/piracy' (delete according to your pov)
"How are people going to justify stealing a movie by saying it isn't any good after the movie's already a $100-million hit?"
Lots_of_money_made != good_movie
Heck, by Urie's logic Phantom Menace was good. *shudder* ugh. Jar-Jar. */shudder*
With so many ISP's now capping usage and a half decent quality movie going at around 650 megs it's quite obvious why the movie industry isn't getting hit as hard. I am capped at 5GB allowing for less than 8 movies total leaving no room for MP3's and pr0n.
tinfoilmedia
On the other hand, there are very few cds that I like completely. I listen to less than half the songs on 90% of the cds I own. I'd be willing to pay $1 per song in .wav format, but I can't do that for every song I want. And I really don't give a darn for paying $20 for a cd half full of songs I don't like, songs which I think the artist may have recorded only to fill the rest of the cd.
I know not everybody does the same thing that I do, but when CD's first arrived I was eager to replace many of my favorite cassette tapes because of the CD's higher quality and convenience. I wonder if DVD sales aren't for similar reasons. Now that you can get many older movies for less than 10 dollars... I bet many people are just upgrading their collections. Like CD's, that'll probably drop off as people for the most part have what they want and the only thing left to get is new releases.
Blender And Linux Fan
Try watching the movie in sections at the same time. Can't do that.
while some movies might break up into convenient pieces for viewing, most dont. i personally wouldnt want to watch the first 15 minutes of a movie then the minutes
every movie would be like pulp fiction.
really though, for most people who get the bulk of their music from the net, downloading movies is really not that big of a deal. alot of them are students taking advantage of their fast connections at school or friends of people with fast connections.
-- john
That during times of social stress, such as war and/or poor economic times, the film industry does better.
The reasoning is quite simple. People want to excape the harshness of reality, even if only for the break of 2 hours.
I suspect the record industry wouldn't had noticed any decline, but perhaps even a boost, had they not pissed, moaned,
and called consumers pirates in general (which doesn't help the consumer excape anything).
Doesn't say much about VHS sales.
I'd say a fair percentage will be people re-buying what they already have on VHS.
The fact that the re-released movie will often have a load of extras and 'collectable' packaging and it's the consumers choice to rebuy makes it a valuable retail adition.
Meanwhile the Music Industry trying to lock-down usage with copy-protected CDs that are incompatible with the Compact Disc standard hoping to cash in like DVD and you can't get more out of touch than that...
I'm sorry, I've forgotten what my point was...
From my Autobiography - "Lifestyles of the Sad and Desperate"...
It's not like the Hollywood studios "get it", either. The reason the DVD format is booming is because it actually delivers reasonably good value at a reasonable price. Most CD's do not. It's also a lot more trivial to rip tunes than it is to rip a movie - and as a playback device the computer today is well-suited to MP3 playback but today is only really a movie playback device for the truly hardcore geek.
Remember, in many cases the record companies _are_ the movie companies (Sony, AOLTW, etc.). It's not like they've seen the light or anything. These are the people who fund the MPAA (MPAA vs. 2600, anyone?). They just got lucky with DVD and hit a consumer sweet spot. For now.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
And this is where I find it funny that in Switzerland I can buy cheaper DVD's than in the rest of Europe.
I typically pay per movie about 20 Euros maybe 25. I have no idea why DVD's are cheap here, but they are and I am very happy about it.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I am an avid punk rock collector. Now with more than 400 compact discs in my collection, I have never bought into the idea that the Internet causes music piracy. I have more than enough bandwidth and burners to download what I want, but purchase the CD to get the liner notes and silk screened art on the compact disc itsself. Did I go buy a CD with the two "Major Tom" songs when I just wanted to hear them once? No, I downloaded them and have since deleted them, but I think the majority of rabid downloaders wouldn't buy compact discs regardless. They are the type that bug people that have purchased the CD in order for them to make a copy.
Now, I also like movies. My DVD collection is not impressive by any means, but I think piracy will be COMPLETELY different in the movie market, so long as the industry keeps in mind value-add. DVD movies can come with so many extras that you wouldn't get if you ripped just the movie. Even with an exact duplicate of the DVD, some movies contain information booklets in the DVD jacket. If you marry the purchase of the content with the need for the packaging, you will end up with less piracy (IMHO).
Click here or here.
The cost of "developing" the content is far smaller.
A lot of artists can barely get a middle-class income for their efforts - Whereas Hollywood spends millions just to produce the movie.
If CDs sold for $5 and artists got only 25% of that, they'd STILL be making far more money than they do now.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
You can rent a DVD for a couple of bucks. You watch it a couple of times and that's it.
Music is different. You listen to it over and over. Most people don't watch movies dozens (or hundreds) of times.
The problem with usenet is storage. Your ISP does not like to store huge amounts of binaries. They clean out the big groups too often, causing parts to go missing. Often finding the missing part can take days or weeks.
thats where the pars come in. they can reconstruct missing rar files. also, if your isp doesnt have a good news server you can get a commercial one. i believe they cost around 10 or 15 dollars a month-if it's worth it to you.
Also, breaking big files up and reassembling them is a bit of a pain. It is *WAY* easier to just stick the file in your shared directory. Most users just go that path.
i could be wrong but i'm pretty sure there is an easy way to automate the breaking up portion. reassembling them isnt that hard:
#this recovers any missing rar files
#as long as there are less than 'n'
#rar files missing
$par r base_file_name.part01.PAR
#this restors the rar's
$rar x base_file_name.part01.rar
#cleaning up directory
$rm -rf *.P* *.rar
really it's not that hard. hell with a little scripting it could be automated. i would imagine that windows has a point and click version.
-- john
Well, the most obvious reason I can see, ignoring everything else, is the fact that to get acceptable quality video, a movie is going to take up several gigabytes of disk space. This may not seem like much to the average slashdotter, since we no doubt have our cable modems and 100 gig hard drives, but a lot of consumers are still working with their 4-20 gig hard drives and 56K modems. To these people, the size of these movies are inconceivable and the time it would take to download them is just too long. And DVD burners are still too expensive (and they probably don't let you copy DVDs anyway) to justify purchasing one instead of a legitimate copy of the movie.
Then there are the P2P apps which just aren't reliable enough for consumers to download the entire movie that they want. You can usually get a song with minimal trouble, but try downloading a 1200 megabyte file - they're rare enough that you can't usually download from multiple sources, and there's a really good chance you'll lose the connection anyway.
We've got the technology, but we don't have the critical mass of users with broadband and huge hard drives who also share movies on the same P2P network and leave their computers running all the time. There isn't much point in considering the other reasons people are listing here because the difficulty of digitally pirating movies is enough to eclipse other motivating factors. Although, incidentally, I agree that DVDs are much more worth their price for the quality of the product.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
I was surprised to read in the article that one of the most important reasons that DVDs do so well compared to CDs is that so many extra features are included with DVDs. It makes sense, you can't see this extra stuff any other way -- it's not in the theaters. On the movies that I work on, the compilation of extras for the DVD has gone from being an afterthought to an integral part of the production. As DVD sales become a larger part of the 'box-office' for films, it wouldn't surprise me if the extras became as big a job as the original effects (we're an FX company, and so far the extras have focused on FX).
For some albums, there could be wonderful extras. The VH1 Behind the Music show on the making of the Graceland album, for instance, was absolutely wonderful. It had Paul Simon going through the various elements of each song on the original 24-track tape, describing what each element was, where it came from, and what it was meant to convey. He also talked about the lyrics, in a wonderfully honest and reflective way. I'd be happy (ecstatic, even) to pay $20 for a CD if it came with that kind of stuff.
Unfortunately, much of the pop music today probably doesn't stand up to that kind of in-depth analysis. But these 'extras' might really help distinguish high-quality well-thought-out music from the pap. Well, one can hope.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I agree with what you said.
Think about it: here in the states, the price of album length Compact Discs have reach US$18 per disc--an outrageous price in my opinion! CD's should be priced more like US$10-US$11, which would cut down the incentive to pirate CD's.
Meanwhile, the price of Region 1 DVD's are amazingly cheap: you can get most discs for anywhere between US$15-US$25, and even large sets are reasonably priced for what you get.
With the price of console DVD players dropping under US$100 and with DVD-ROM drives so cheap nowadays, no wonder why DVD's are exploding in popularity.
It is easy to blame somebody else when you have a problem. When you monopolize an industry and then crank out near clones of the same basic beat and rhythm over and over and over, why should you wonder? Could it be that over-saturation of the market is taking place? Could it be that people think your product sucks? Could be.
of a MAINSTREAM band that is ORIGINAL? I have yet to find many. No originality, no passion, nothing that I want.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
A good movie will still make $100,000,000 if it's re-released 5 years down the road.
(without any tarting up), no matter how many people own pirate coppies.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Aside from the fact that there's not good way to have an enjoyable experience with a downloaded unauthorized copy of a movie right now, there one difference that throws off this whole comparison.
The quality of video available to the public is increasing, and the prices are decreasing.
The quality of music (both the audio quality and the quality of the product) is decreasing, while the price is increasing.
As an aside, has anyone noticed how the variety of music available in music stores has decreased tremendously lately? It's almost impossible to find something specific if it wasn't a top 40 hit in the last 30 years.
regarding processor speed... i'll guess that within 3-4 years, she won't still have that machine. i'm just guessing here, but lots of computers are used in the business world. they're on a 2-3 year plan. using a 3 year old machine at work myself right now (p2 366), i realize why those cycles are in place. you can get more work done when you're not spending time waiting for the system to respond to your input. when you're at home typing a document, sure a P-166 will handle that fine, but business just don't work that way.
back to bandwidth speed, of course you're not complaining with your SDLSL, most people don't really dent the throughput on those systems on average. there's a reason you're not on 56k dial up. it takes time to connect each time, and though it's usable for browsing, it's not lightning, and any use other than simple browsing is SLOW.
That's not the point. I don't buy DVDs, I tape TV programs, using a crappy VHS.
Sure you can get your stuff a lot cheaper. I'd merely like to point out that many stores put a high tag on DVDs and most customers buy their discs in these stores, merely because customer satisfaction is in seeing - buying - using withing a short timespan; not having to turn on your computer, find a descent price and having to wait for a day or so. Many people have access tot good shopping centres within walking distance.
And in the end, what it comes down to in a free market, is that based on supply and demand, DVD vendors - like CD vendors - ask an unreasonably high price. We probably all agree that most people would not bother about p2p sharing if music discs would cost $4 and video discs $6. And that doesn't mean you have to rip off any artist.
The way I see it, I can buy a DVD that gives me a 2 hour movie, hours of behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, alternate versions, multiple commentary, languages, subtitles, easter eggs, DVD-ROM features, background information on the cast, crew, etc, etc, etc.. All of this in unique cases, layouts, booklets, etc.. And how much does it cost me? As little as $15 (CDN), and rarely more than $35. What does a CD cost me, which has MAYBE 50 minutes of music on it, if I'm lucky a creative set of liner notes, and a "secret" track tacked on at the end? Anywhere from $10-$30.
I was never a BIG CD buyer to begin with, but over the past 5 years I've bought maybe 4 or 5 CDs total, because NOTHING out there interests me, not because I'm a rampantly pirating. I've been shoring up my jazz collection mostly, which involves a lot of Coltrane, Getz, Peterson, Powell, and the like, nothing new. Just about everything out there is made to be enjoyable for a couple months of casual listening and then you're sick of it. When someone like Alicia Keyes is touted as a "piano prodigy" I want to be sick. The fact is that the recording industry is offering us nothing worthwhile.
To compare music to movies is an apples and oranges situation. One utilizes one of our senses and is often limited in what it's capable of offering as a bonus (the odd enhanced CD notwhithstanding), the other is being thought of while main production is occuring. Filmmakers look towards the DVD market now so that NO scenes get thrown out, interviews and commentaries are lined up in contracts, and the consumer gets something worthwhile. I don't feel bad about being short $30 for a double-disc DVD of a movie I can watch time and again and still say "Hey, I haven't checked out the commentary of the visual effects supervisor."
In short, DVDs cater to their market far, FAR better than CDs do. That's why one market is exploding and the other is dying. Piracy plays such a small role. I know just as many people who download DiVX movies as mp3s.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
There are now quite a few DVD players with a built in VHS VCR for playback and recording.
If we're strictly talking about value/dollar and leaving out any politics, mainstream DVD releases are a much better deal than mainstream CD releases. Many people have pointed out why already. This is not to say that I feel comfortable buying either at the moment.
Independant music will continue to have CDs which are full of varied songs of good quality. It will continue to cost less than mainstream music, and will continue to be composed of artists and labels who are mainly concerned with getting their music heard.
Are there bad bands on indpendant labels? Oh, yes. But try this: visit http://www.cmj.com. Try to find a local college radio station (a real college station, not one that just rebroadcasts NPR and isn't even run by students [coughJHUcough]) and tune in. Whether you like world music, electronic, hip hop, jazz, rock, punk, folk, or whatever, I'm sure that you can find several independant artists to your liking.
There are still major label releases worth buying; the recent albums by Gorillaz ("G-sides") and Badly Drawn Boy ("About a Boy") really stand out (and these get played on college radio, too). Radiohead and Tool have never let me down. But, _in_general_, if you want more for your money, try to find some independant artists that you like. It costs less to see them live, too.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
There are only two words that need to be said to explain why the music industry is tanking (if it is indeed, which I doubt):
American Idol
"Urie says his company doesn't heavily research consumer attitude, noting, "We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes."
Ok, being out of touch is one thing. But openly saying that he doesn't care about his customers, just how much money he makes? It makes me sick that a person like this can be taken seriously. I know American business is all screwed up, but when people can actively ignore the desires of the customers and expect to prosper, ugh, something needs to be fixed.
And for that matter, how can anybody not realize that satisfying customers IS a way of making more money?
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
I never understood why people make DivX rips of their DVDs for backup purposes. The loss of features and quality (as you're are technically transcoding) in the conversion process seems to far out weigh the convenience of not getting out of your chair to find that DVD disc.
What "features" are you talking about? The FBI warnings and other crap you are not allowed to fast forward through? The menu systems that freeze if you click the wrong sequence of buttons? The Foreign language soundracks I don't understand? "Special" features that are not compatable with my machine?
I specifically remember the moment I knew I would have problems with DVDs. I wanted to watch the DVD of "office space", but when I put it in my machine, I saw a screen that looked exactly like a computer desktop with a download progress-bar.
Annoyed, I tried to fast-forward, but I couldn't. The bar inched across the screen, making disk-drive noises, but just before it was finished the computer "crashed" and displayed a message that said "press enter to continue". After freaking out for a minute, I realized there was actually an enter button on my remote, so I pushed it. That took me to the main menu.
A harmless joke, right? Well, in this case, yes. But it made me realize that when I put a DVD in my machine, I am giving up control to the author of the DVD. He can tell me when I can fast forward or not, and he can put any other arbitrary barriers to watching the movie he wants. Once I became sensitive to the issue, I have noticed hundreds of little examples of this phenomenon. The possibilities are endless, and I shudder to think what will happen when the big corporations really start taking advantage of them.
When I rip a DVD, I am taking back control. I choose the track, I rip it, and then I can do anything the hell I want with it, just like I could with VHS. If the makers of DVDs were not so fixated on taking control of my "viewing experience", maybe I would just go with the flow... but they have already gone too far, and they are only planning on going farther.
That's why you nimnertz!!!! For like 1 whole dollar more I can get the whole fucking concert in home theater sound vs. the audio CD.
The whole music industry is run by retarded drunken monkeys and they deserve nothing short of flaming death.
The last time there was a major war happening that the states were involved with, I am willing to bet people went out to see more movies than bought music! (That includes sheet music sales since that was the more popular form of "distributing" music back then)
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
The movie is 2 hours of audio + video, with production costs running into the millions. The CD is maybe 1 hour of audio (15 minutes of good stuff diluted with 45 minutes of filler), with a production budget that is a tiny fraction of what the movie costs to produce. The blank media & burning cost of the DVD is probably 5x the cost of the CD. I'm ignoring the promotional costs of both because the hype machine runs at full blast for both anyway.
There is at least 10x the amount of data on a DVD compared the CD. At $22, it's just not worth finding a way to download & store all those gigabytes. If you can rent the movie for $5 at Blockbuster, it's not even worth considering the piracy alternatives. On the other hand, saving $14 by waiting 10 minutes to download & store 30 megabytes (for 15 minutes of audio)is a much more attractive proposition.
In my unscientific little survey, the CD price is roughly 65% of the DVD price. For 15 usable minutes of audio??? Which can be easily ripped, burned, and shared??? This would be like the bicycle industry pricing the average bike at $5000 and then wondering why (a) nobody is buying bikes, (b) motorcycles are selling just fine at $8000, and (c) there are these patent-infringing criminals who copy our designs and make bikes for themselves with parts from Home Depot. We must stop the criminals because they are killing our business!
Emulate the orignal (uncrippled) Napster. Collect $5/month from every customer for unlimited MP3 transfers. Watch the piracy problem disappear. It's that simple. My current budget for CDs is $0, which would increase to $60/year under this arrangement. RIAA, it's your choice: do you want me to pay you $60 or $0 per year? Hint: If you choose $0 you will have a revenue problem.
The audio piracy problem exists only beause the recording industry's business model encourages it. The DVD industry survives because the prices are not so high as to encourage the pirates, and there are low-cost rentals to make sure they get some money from all potential customers. On the other hand, the audio industry sells only complete albums at inflated prices, without meaningful low-cost options for those who pass up the chance to buy the whole enchilada at full list price. These idiots will soon be getting 100% of nothing, which is precisely what they deserve. If there was an economic category for the Darwin awards, the RIAA would get my nomination.
DVD Movie: usually over 3 hours of audio and video
The movie itself (widescreen and fullscreen)
The movie with a directors commentary
Isolated score
Trailers
Deleted scenes
Outtakes
Music videos
"The Making Of" Featurettes and Documentaries
Actor bios
Production photos and notes
DVD-Rom material for your computer
Music CD: usually 30-50 minutes of audio only
8-15 Songs
Sometimes some multimedia to view in your computer
Sometimes will not play in your computer at all
The American consumer isn't that dumb.
It's much easier to download music than it is to download movies. The average movie file is 600 Mb. The average MP3 is 4 Mb. Add to that the fact that it's much easier to rip audio CD's into MP3's than it is to copy DVD's into AVI's or MPEG's, and the supply of downloadable movies will be far lower than the supply of MP3's. Thus, there's a huge supply-demand imbalance on file-swapping programs (like KaZaa) for movie files. As a result, downloading a movie file can take forever, due to the fact that 20 million people are trying to download the same movie file at the same time.
Perhaps that's why the movie industry hasn't suffered as much as the recording industry.
This space left intentionally blank.
Supply is directly tied into production cost, so production cost has everything to do with supply.
I don't know about all of you but my mp3 collection is pretty diverse. I have a song or 2 from hundreds of different 'artists'. But rarely do I have more than 3 songs from the same 'artist'. And more than likely those 3 songs aren't even on the same cd(and yes I have downloaded other songs from their cd's...I just don't keep them because they suck). What do you suppose the chances of me going to buy a $16 cd with 1 or 2 songs that I like on it? Indeed, not very good. Now when I buy a DVD I watch(and like) the whole thing. To me $16 isn't bad for 2 solid hours of entertainment. But in the case of most cds the entertainment lasts around 15 minutes. Not such a good deal. DVD: $8/hr CD: ~$60/hr Just a thought. --------------- Sometimes I feel bad about 'stealing' the music, but that feeling usually passes when I actually do buy a cd and find that 3/4 of the songs are terrible. You can't tell me that the 'artists' don't know that most of the music that they are putting out will never want to be heard. They have to know. And if they do know, why don't they release a cd 1/2 as often and have twice as much good music on a cd. Then I would consider it a better deal. Otherwise aren't they sorta stealing from us? Also, I'm just curious: Has anyone else ever tried to return a cd because the music on the cd was so terrible? We would do it with any other product, wouldn't we?
To a movie company, "Good" is a movie that makes lots of money. By their definition, a 100M$ movie is good no matter who liked it or not. The finest acting and story that only make 20M$ is not a "Good" movie to them.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
What's more interesting to me is the MPAA didn't WANT to diversify, they courts essentially forced them into that position.
Maybe the RIAA could learn something there.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
While the movie companies try to entice us to buy by adding extras like deleted scenes onto their discs (thus improving the overall quality of the disc), the RIAA is more concerned with starting lawsuits and draining every last dollar out of consumers than improving their product.
See these quotes from the article made by Jim Urie, president of Universal Music and Video Distribution:
Urie says his company doesn't heavily research consumer attitude, noting, "We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes."
(Actually, if they dealt with consumer gripes you'd probably sell more product and make more money.)
Urie argues that lowered prices won't make a dent in downloading, saying, "The fact that consumers can steal music sort of trumps anything else we can do."
The article makes the very good point that most people have a certain amount they'll spend on entertainment. If CD's and DVD's cost about the same, then the consumer is going to look at how much "bang for the buck" they're getting with each. A DVD is typically packed with extras. A CD, if you're lucky, might have some tiny pictures and lyrics on the insert. No wonder consumers would rather buy the DVD than the CD.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I know this is likely redundant, but:
Maybe the RIAA is not making as much money as they'd like (they are still making tons of money, though - I don't see any record execs power-lunching at McDonald's yet) because people are fed up with buying a CD for one or two decent songs while the rest of the album is crap.
At least when I buy a movie I know I like I get 2 hours or so of entertainment out of it, for just about the same price as the 3-6 minutes of entertainment I get out of a CD's one or two good songs.
Additionally, I personally bought more music when Napster was still around, because through Napster I previewed songs from the CD other than what was being played on the radio. Eventually I either deleted the song or bought the CD. I also discovered a lot of stuff I would have _never_ heard of otherwise.
Also, we're in the middle of an economic downturn. Maybe, just maybe, people aren't buying as much music because it isn't enough value per dollar.
If I'm budgeting my entertainment spending, I'm going to opt to pay $20 for a DVD rather than $20 for a CD, because the DVD has more value.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Each takes 7gb of space, which is about $7 at current IDE drive price levels
Assume a fellow has 224 GB of space in all. Now, if he has more than 32 movies, then in order to watch the movies that are on another hard drive, he will have to swap drives. Because ATA drives are in general not hot-swappable, he will have to shut down his computer, open the case, put on a grounding wrist strap, pull his drive out, insert another drive in his computer, close the case, and start it back up again.
Will I retire or break 10K?
As an LA resident, I can tell you that their so-called reporters tend to take the xxAA's word for granted. They almost never question the "billions in piracy" claims.
Though at least this article did mention at the very end that Universal tried to kill the VCR, and that it wound up saving the movie industry.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
You have to be wanting to blame the music industry and wanting to exonerate filesharing to not think that mp3s are negatively affecting music sales.
Have you talked to people recently? Do you know anyone except for audiophiles who still buys a significant number of CDs? Of the people I know, I and one of my friends are the only ones who still buy more than a few CDs per year -- everyone else downloads mp3s and burns them to audio CDs. Most people I know haven't bought a single CD in the past two years. And it's not because they don't like the music that's coming out -- it's because they already burnt their own CDs. "Why should I pay $12 for something I can get for free?"
Certainly the music industry is pretty crappy, and most of its solutions to the problem are unworkable and hurt legitimate customers, but I don't think you can blame everything on them. People's tendancy to not pay for anything unless they absolutely have to (or are forced to) is the cause of a lot of the problems.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
-
"When I walked through Best Buy the other day, I was amazed to discover that the DVDs for "Austin Powers" and "Rush Hour" cost exactly the same as the movies' CD soundtracks."
- Everybody who likes "oldies" already has a copy of everything they like.
- The conversion from vinyl to CD is complete. And CDs last a long, long time.
- Rock peaked a long time ago, all house music sounds the same, and the bad-boy rap star thing is over.
- In each genre, the best work has already been done.
Nobody has produced a great new symphony in a century. The best rock was made decades ago. The best rap is a decade old. Any new performer must compete with the all-time greats of the past.
Recorded music is becoming a mature, low-margin business. Nothing wrong with that, except that the industry doesn't accept it yet.I think this is the best article yet on pointing out what the issues are.
CD's are losing popularity because the consumers are growing smarter about "spending their dollars smarter". CD's are WAAAAY to expensive and in most cases 90% filler with 1 or 2 catchy songs that they are hoping get picked up by radio and video to make them superstars (if this was not the case you would see 10 songs from each CD released as videos/singles because the quality would be such -- instead the artists themselves are saying that most of the CD's are subpar when they release another new full length CD with another good song or two, rather than trying to expeose tracks 3-10 on their previous work). The music industry is trying to play smoke and mirrors saying that it is the internet's fault. But on the flip side -- these same "pirates" are buying DVD's and going to movies in droves. The money is being spent where the consumers feel they are getting the squarest deal.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
No, the people they're going to sue aren't customers. The customers are the ones who pay money to them in exchange for CDs. The people they're considering suing are mp3z d00dz who don't pay. See the difference?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I recently joined a gym that constantly plays what I am guessing is currently popular music (or perhaps what the RIAA would like to ram down our throats). If this is the case, then I would say they're suffering because the music plainly sucks. It all sounds the same, the videos look the same and there is hardly a distinction to be made between songs. It is what I call McMusic. It generally consists of a constant thumping synthesized base drum and not much else in the way of instrumentation and the lyrics are never about anything more imaginitive than about who she wants to fuck or who has fucked her and dumped her or some other relationship psychodrama. On some "songs" they sample other songs that weren't even good when they were popular. I would be happy to NEVER hear "Jack and Diane" again but some idiot thought it would be a great idea to sample the fist few chords and make a sappy, crappy, syrupy love song out of it. Then there's another idiot that ripped off the theme for "The Young and the Restless" that is pure torture to listen to. Perhaps the worst of all though is the one where they've taken the main theme from Pachelbel's Cannon in D minor and put another set of sappy lyrics to it. I mean, am I the only one who thinks Brittany Spears' voice sounds a lot like an infant crying? It's awful. What happened to real music that is interesting to listen to? Where thought and inventiveness of the music can take the listener to places they've not been yet? I can only name a few recent bands that are entertaining to listen to. I am hard pressed to name any that I think are truly musical pioneers. Probably anyone who is doing great things musically either doesn't look like a model and can't dance like N'Sync so the music industry doesn't want them.
If there was a format similar to DVD but more analagous to the way CD albums are packaged, you'd have a format like DVD only each DVD would include 10-12 movies (only 1 or 2 that you actually wanted to see) and cost 10-12 times as much as a current DVD (so more like $200 instead of $20) - No one would buy these, either.
On the flip side, if there were an audio format packaged in a way that was analagous to DVD's, you'd have CD's with just the one or two good tracks on them, the video for the song and maybe even an interview with the artist, and they'd cost maybe $3, I suspect consumers would nab them up in droves. The funny thing is that we almost have this, they're called CD singles, only they don't cost $3, they cost often $7-8, and the available selection primarily corresponds to the mindless dribble that gets programmed on most FM radio stations by the corporate drones at Clearchannel and their ilk.
Any industry that doesn't listen to the "gripes" (as Mr. Urie stated) of its customers ought to consider a) how long it will be before it simply has no customers, griping or otherwise and b) Why it would, in turn, expect its customers to give darn about its own gripes - after all, who needs whom more?
Now, granted, no one can blame Urie for being upset - while he and his cohorts were busy ignoring customer "gripes", others who have paid attention (read: Shawn Fanning etc.) have empowered Urie's customers to do something about it since he himself was unwilling to do so.
More ominously for Mr. Urie, I think, is that at the same time an unintended side effect has been that all his competition has been empowered - by this I mean the small unsigned bands (who, until now, have been forced to adopt a "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude towards the record labels and their dubious policies) are now achieving previously unheard of levels of promotion and public awareness.
In fact, I would not be at all suprised if the next Napster or AudioGalaxy is created by a group of artists who are willingly providing their own works for free or for a small fee - the only thing they'll need to achieve critical mass is enough artists, who, by all rights, should eventually figure out who they're better off with, each other or the record labels.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
I have broadband, and I've bought more CDs than I ever did before Napster and its ilk. I've found some phenomenal music (Apocalyptica, for example) that I would never have found in a mass-market music store, and bought every CD they've made because I downloaded their stuff and loved it.
The headline for this article should be "MP3s fiddle while DVD Burns."
Something that people have to realize is that movies come out in movie theaters first and make big $$$. Then they come out on DVD and it is just a bonus for the studios. Music doesn't have that initial money from a movie theater type situation. I think that is why the record companies are more scared and more affected by piracy.
You can compare the money a movie makes in it's theatrical release with the money artists make going on tour. Thus putting the comparison of buying DVD's and CD's back on the same level.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
For a long time, MP3's were computationally intensive enough that they were annoying to use on anything less than a pentium II.
Ah you kids! It did suck, but I was making MP3s *and* burning them on CDs on a Cyrix sub-Pentium machine back in the early 90s. Still have some of the MP3 albums I recorded from then ("I can get *HOW* many hours onto one CD?) and they are great. I made them because it beat carrying dozens of albums to and from work and there were no reliable and/or acceptable streaming radio sites.
My only regret? That I converted so many tracks using only 128Kbps. CD blanks were not cheap then (try $10+) and every MB counted!
Da Blog
The music industry has not followed the example of the film industry. If you download a movie and find it a good film you are more likely to purchase the dvd for the better quality and the extra content. Download some music and they is no incentive for the getting the album. Maybe if another cd with a few extra's like making of the music video or interviews would persuade custoemrs to buy the album.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
The situation is pretty simple. The current batches of movies are good and are reaching all audiences. The current batches of music and pop stars aren't even worth the download for the most part.
no because the record companies don't see that much money from concert tours
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
"Urie says his company doesn't heavily research consumer attitude, noting, "We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes."
Perhaps he needs to re-introduce the word "customer" into his vocabulary. How many items that you've purchased recently (besides food/drink) have you actually consumed?
The Memento Limited Edition DVD has the most monstrous menu system I ever hope to see in my life. The play disc is bad enough... a grid of maybe 50 words, and you have to hunt for the 5 that actually do something.
:)
But the special features disc really takes the cake. To get to a SINGLE feature, you have to: a) pick a particular picture from a large group. b) answer a bunch of irrelevant quiz slides, c) when you get to a specific one, you have to pick a certain choice to start making the slides move SIDEWAYS. d) keep picking this same choice to slide sideways until you get to another specific slide e) pick a certain choice from the final fake quiz slide.
Once you have done this, you get to a menu for a SINGLE FEATURE. Want to watch a different one? Repeat the above steps with a different picture for step a). Takes like 3 minutes to get to each feature. Absolutely ridiculous.
On a positive note, the packaging is quite cool... I especially like the genuine post-it note stuck to the inside of the case which reads "Watch". Hehehe
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
This guy Urie should be shot. Not only does he openly admit to not caring about consumer concerns, check out this gem:
'Urie argues that lowered prices won't make a dent in downloading, saying, "The fact that consumers can steal music sort of trumps anything else we can do."'
But people have always been able to steal music, since the invention of the tape recorder. So now they're using piracy as an excuse to not improve their product offering. They simply refuse to even acknowledge the possibility that piracy is encouraged by low quality and overblown pricing. What a load of bullshit.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Such musicians are already out there.
:-(
Yes, but there are too few of them at the moment. Musicians number too few percentage of the overall population right now. Even the stores that sell musical instruments have been hurting the past several years. Back in the early 1980's I used to work in a guitar & keyboard store... There were a lot more musicians in the population back them. Instrument sales was thriving. Now it's dead. We need to achive musician-saturation of the general population again, only then there will come good music commercially available on store shelves again.
And you're right, with rubbish being all there is sold and promoted these days, who even wants to become a musician anymore?
There's a fundamental flaw in what you're asking. They don't have to prove any of what you say. Even if everything that they've said is just FUD raising banter (as well it may be.)
The law is on their side and no matter how much we scream about "fair use" or "...but I wanna!" the facts remain that the U.S. is run by industrialists who have a sympathetic administration in power.
Feel free to take the high moral ground, but in this country you have no rights to ask the things you ask. Period. Sure I want to know the answers too, but you should really spend your time fighting the fight on the same field of play where the battle is actually occuring as opposed to in some theoretical sandbox where everybody plays by the rules of a gentleman.
In the power struggles of corporations perception=reality. No contest. Look, all hackers are Kevin Mitnick and he is evil. CNN said it so it must be true.
If Hillary says the music industry will collapse unless the U.S. Congress enacts a bill that denys Common Carrier status to ISPs then it will happen. You can hold your breath waiting for that to happen because you won't be going blue in the face waiting.
As soon as the trial runs of "we're doing what the consumer asked and selling our music on the Internet" fail that will be all the proof your elected official needs to roll over. Now he'll have some tangible evidence that people want to steal and won't buy at any price. Then it's all over.
So fight the fight on the terms on the table or be prepared to be a casualty.
You're going to be reamed out and cross-threaded by Big Brother and don't even know why.
As always YMMV.
piracy has been the (supposed) bane of the music industry,
The music industry is *dead* ???
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
I am a consumer with significant disposable income. I want more music and I am trying to BUY more music. Interestingly, the music industry does whatever it can to prevent the sale.
The industry is doing everything possible to prevent people from previewing music before buying. The industry has shut down all file swapping services, and has not provided any alternatives. The radio stations play the SAME 10 SONGS over and over, endlessly. You can't rent music. Internet radio stations are actively being shut down.
I guess I am supposed to buy music "sight unseen!" That's much like wandering into a car dealership and saying "I'm buying a car, I want a test drive," only to be told: "NO! That's driving-piracy. You either buy up front or you GET OUT!" Naturally, I would go to another dealer.
Most industries do whatever is possible to shove their products in your face. It's annoying, but it's reasonable: they're trying to increase their sales. The music industry is doing everything possible to prevent me from buying their products. Bizarre.
The music industry does not even conduct market research, because:
We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes
Umm...How do you intend to make more money and sell more product if you don't deal with consumer gripes? You are SELLING A PRODUCT. What a bunch of fucking idiots.
I agree, there is lots of good stuff at libraries, and most people don't know it. In fact, libraries do a great job of providing the stuff you can't get at the local book/music/video store. However, that's the point. Although libraries do a great job with books, but they don't compete all that much with the conventional audio/video stores.
Can I visit the library and pick up a very enjoyable CD or DVD? Sure, but if I want something specific (ficticious example: the latest Eminem CD), I would not show up at the library and EXPECT to find it. In that case, it's really the local store (travel to Walmart + $14) vs. P2P (15 minute download). The recording industry's chances of extracting a small fee for the download are a whole lot better than trying to bully me into choosing the "travel to Walmart + $14" option, or perhaps the "travel to library + $0" option.
The music industry isn't worried about illegal copying for the current market conditions - they're concerned about the future.
This is 100% true.. but it's WHY they're worried that's the problem.
Up until the recent past (say, 5 years ago), the music labels were the only way to reach a national (or even international) audience... if you wanted to become famous, you needed them.
With the advent of the Internet, that's no longer the case - any musician in the world can get international exposure without needing a record label... it's slowly starting now, but in the future, there will be NO need for a record label at all..
RIAA members are worried about the future, because they realize that they've become obsolete. It's about control, not copyright infringement.
The price of a DVD is not that different from the price of a CD. The difference:
DVDs have hours of video and high quality surround sound.
CDs have an hour of run-of-the-mill digital stereo.
Other factors:
- People are boycotting the RIAA Trust, because of the way it treats artists, fans, and other companies. For example: MP3.com, whose pants got sued off for letting people listen to their own music.
- Britney Spears
- "N" Sync
- What's playing on the radio? Same thing as an hour ago. And they want us to buy that garbage?
- Now the RIAA is trying to crash your computer when you put a CD in.
- Services like Napster, which help people find music they will like, are being shut down.
- "N" Sync
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
The consumer will pay for an entertainment product when he is convinced he is getting value for money.
As for why the consumer doesn't feel that he's getting value for money when buying CDs, this quote from a record industry exec says it all:
Urie says his company doesn't heavily research consumer attitude, noting, "We tend to ask how can we make more money and sell more product, not deal with consumer gripes."
I'm not sure if the journalist is as clueless as "Or are they just products of an Internet culture that has them believing that whatever's on the Web is free for the taking?" suggests or it's that given that this is the local paper for the entertainment industry, he can't say what he really thinks. Or if he simply didn't read through the entire article before hitting the send button.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The music studios are not taking advantage of technology. They could set up a system for selling songs, where their cost would be very close to zero, and then charge a small amount per song and still make money.
Instead of doing that they continue to sell CDs, and they try to sabotage any new way to sell music that comes along. They are doing what they can to prop up the price of CDs, even though they are now much cheaper to produce than they were when they first came out.
It used to be that all the most popular songs were released on "singles" (small records) for a couple of bucks; these days if you want the popular song you must buy a CD with many other songs. The best way to make money is to give people what they want; this isn't giving people what they want. It is not surprising that people would rather download the one song they want than pay $18 for a CD.
If the music studios aren't careful, they will become irrelevant. It used to be that the only way to make any money in the music business was to sign up with a big studio; but now, with the Internet, it is possible to make music, advertise the music, and sell the music, all on your own and without signing your life away. Go to mp3.com and look around. There is a ton of music there you can listen to, and a ton of CDs you can buy, and all without the music studios being involved. CDs there go for around $8 or so!
The amount of action in the music world is not getting smaller; just the amount of dollars the big music studios are seeing. The Net economy is starting to route around them. They claim piracy is killing them, but it's the world changing around them and they have their heads in the sand.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
So your point then, is that the RIAA's efforts to stop casual music piracy have been at least somewhat successful, and thus they should continue along the path they've been following?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Nobody I know pays $17 for anything other than import or limited edition CDs. The only places that you can find such ridiculous prices are the Tower Records and their online equivalents (like cdnow.com). For popular music, Best Buy generally sells everything for around $12-$14. For more obscure stuff, cheap-cds.com has a fairly good collection, with the majority of CDs being $15, shipping included. If you like punk music, you can almost always order cds for $10-$12, shipping included, directly from the label. And as you mentioned, used CDs are quite cheap. Ebay is a good place to get used CDs -- if you want anything that's been popular in the last 10 years, you can get it really cheaply (Green Day's 1994 hit Dookie typically sells for around $1, for example).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
They're not necessarily suing the guys who never pay. They're suing the guys who take their large CD libraries, rip them, and put them all up for download.
Do you know that people outside of the US buy stuff! And sometimes they don't even speak American! Freaky huh?
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
From reading your post, I personally think the biggest problem with the RIAA is simple: they are engaged in cartel pricing to fix prices for audio CD's.
It is that cartel power that causes album length audio CD's to cost for the most part US$18 in the large record stores (Tower, Virgin Superstore, Sam Goody, etc.) and US$14 at discount stores like Wal-Mart and online retailers.
Somehow, the RIAA is very clueless about why cartels fail: cartels encourage consumers to find ways to circumvent the producer. The reason why places like Napster became extremely popular is the fact consumers got tired of paying the steep prices for audio CD's and the fact audio CD's contain way too much filler material not of interest to consumers.
The only way the RIAA can put an end of music piracy is simple: price audio CD's more realistically. They should be priced more like US$10-US$11 per disc retail, at price that would drastically cut down the incentive to pirate music.
dcavanaugh, you wrote: There is at least 10x the amount of data on a DVD compared the CD. At $22, it's just not worth finding a way to download & store all those gigabytes. If you can rent the movie for $5 at Blockbuster, it's not even worth considering the piracy alternatives.
The reasons why most consumers won't want pirated movies over the Internet are as follows: 1) the picture quality is mostly vastly inferior to the original DVD; 2) a movie in DiVX format is 500 to 800 megabytes in size, a daunting task to download even with broadband connections; 3) people like the extra features on DVD discs, and 4) DVD prices are very reasonable (US$15 to US$25 per set for the vast majority of DVD releases).
'Likewise, its illegal to share mp3's. But that doesn't make it WRONG. Congress no longer cares about your or my rights. They care about protectingt the RIAA members. That means we have a moral right to ignore laws that enable the RIAA and the people they represent.'
I hope you can see the flaw in your logic. We have no 'moral right' to ignore the law. What you purpose is anarchy. You certainly have no right to ignore the law just because you don't agree with it.
Your way of thinking will get you some quality time in jail with Bubba the Butt Fucker.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
There you can learn about unjust laws and when it becomes justifiable to break them.
Only sheep follow the laws without questioning the motives behind them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.