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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.
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
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.
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)
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).
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
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).
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."
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.
Why don't you do some research and find out? The reasons wht this movie have not been released yet (and the officially annouced DVD Region 1 release date) have been available for some time now. The non-appearance of this film on DVD so far is not an evil conspiracy.
FYI: There is currently a DVD BTTF available but it is a bootleg of the chinese laserdisc. The real product is coming.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.