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File Sharing and CD Sales, Again
Andrew Leonard writes "Stan Liebowitz, an economist studying the effects of file-trading on the music industry, says in an article in Salon that new numbers have convinced him that the decline in CD sales may be partially attributable to MP3 downloading. But he also argues that the decline does not justify draconian new laws."
You're always going to have the unethical/innocent geek kid who downloads an MP3 and listens only to it since his PC, MP3 player and PDA are the only things he uses for listening to music.
You're always going to have the normal guy who doesn't care about "branded" CDs or the slight (and sometimes perceptible) quality loss of MP3s over CDs...he goes ahead and burns his MP3s to a 5-cent CDR and listens to it anyway.
You're always going to have the fellow who likes to support artists, and buys original CDs. Catch? He now listens to MP3s to sample new albums. He doesn't like the sample...he doesn't buy the CD. Whereas earlier he would be stuck with the CD as a sample (no CD returns!), he is now a "loss" to the music company.
Please, stop beating it.
I have been pwned because my
> You're always going to have the fellow who likes
> to support artists, and buys original CDs. Catch?
> He now listens to MP3s to sample new albums. He
> doesn't like the sample...he doesn't buy the CD.
This would certainly be me, as are many others.. yes, it decreases sales... but none less then the radio has. The difference is that with the internet, the quality is a little better and you can avoid commercials.
There is also a 4rd group, like my sisters.. they buy the CDs, but download the mp3s because they aren't knowledgable enough to rip & encode their own.
The only sad thing is that there are some who abuse the power and never buy the cds.
That I and millions of others like me have decided to boycott the RIAA?
Hmmm?
Might we be sick and tired of their power plays and their intrusions into our personal lives?
Hmmmm?
Might we be sick and tired of being called criminals by them?
Hmmm?
Could we be tired of ther inane music they've been producing the past few years?
Hmmm?
Well, My Leibowitz...what do you think??
When this question was first posted, (in about 1982), I gave a full, comprehensive answer.
However, it's gone on, and on, and on. So, can we just, for once, sum up:
Yes, downloading music from the internet hurts CD sales. Of course it does, but so does listening to the radio, and so do blank cassettes and mini-discs. It also helps to promote CD sales, in the same way that radio, tapes, and minidiscs so.
Nobody will *ever* be able to do a comprehensive study of this, because it depends who you ask. Ask a load of geeks, and they'll probably say that yes, they do download MP3s, but the quality is inferior, so they buy the CDs they can afford. They will proably also mention that CDs are overpriced, and that on a technical note, just about any copy protection could be broken.
Ask the average 'man in the street', who is computer-literate, and he'll probably say, yes, he does listen to MP3s, and that he doesn't even care whether he is infringing copyright or not, because he doesn't really know much about it. He probably thinks of downloading music as being as bad as copying a friends CD.
Personally, I think that people should stop trading music illegally, and put pressure on local shops to allow previewing of CDs. Otherwise, you're just playing in to the hands of the record companies.
Oh, and as for the people who complain about the inferior quality of copy protected CDs, most of you are lying, especially when you listen on cheap speakers, about 5 metres from a pnumatic drill. It is more to do with incompetent recording engineers who know nothing about how to master a CD, (over compressing it, normalising the tracks unnecessarily, letting the level repeatedly hit 0dB on the masters, etc, etc).
The economy is in decline and the baby boom after shock (now 30 somethings) are moving out of their prime music buying years.
Obviously they are going to loose sales.
The largest persentage of their prime audience has stopped buying.
Clueless Bastards (tm)
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Most places can manufacture a one hit wonder. Take those pop stars from those TV show contests. Nice kids, but potentially ruined by the business angles running them ragged.
But it takes a completely different level of artist to sustain originality. this seems to have been beaten to death by the industry
Give me a local garage man these days
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Could it just be possible that I DO NOT EVEN KNOW Any of the album titles from the pirated mp3's I own. Even if I knew the albums from the songs I stole, I wouldn't buy them.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
With the current generation of high school students, a great many of them think 'why spend ANY money on recorded music at all?' They get all of their music off of the internet and divert their recreational dollars to video games or DVDs or whatever. One albun sale is not being shared among a half dozen friends but 'shared' among ten thousand strangers.
The problem is not copying, the problem is paying the creators for their work.
Historically, some companies have tried to solve this problem using various techniques (publishing, advances, royalty payments, advertising-supported broadcasting, pledge drives). All of these are predicated on economies of scale for large runs, and high costs of entry for competitors.
When a new technology comes along that changes these economics, it is time to look for a new model to solve the underlying problem, not construct a technical and legislative framework to restore the old barriers.
Stan Liebowitz, author of an upcoming book (set for publication Sept. 7) titled "Rethinking the Network Economy," is digging hard for quantitative answers.
So, not looking for free publicity to boost book sales then.
In May, Liebowitz published a paper suggesting that the record industry would soon be seriously harmed by MP3s. But in June, by the time Salon caught up with him, he was questioning his own conclusions after having examined the numbers and finding little solid proof that file sharing was hurting CD sales. Two months later, he's changed his mind again
So, this respected researcher has changed his mind three times in 4 months . Perhaps he should think and formulate a well conceived, intelligent opinion before opening his mouth next time - is this guy the salon version of the first post trolls ?
You don't publish a paper, then change your mind about your own conclusions less than a month later, then change your mind yet again, and expect to be taken seriously.
If it were the case that there was a 9.8 percent drop on albums, when you look at the historical record of the ups and downs of the CD industry, [that's] a bigger decline than we've seen in 30 years. It starts to look unusual.
Except, that a) we're in a recession, b) teenage disposable income is now spilt between DVDs, Games and CDs c) bland mass appeal music always sees a drop in sales - see the RIAA's "Home taping is killing music" campaign in the late disco, pre punk era.
If he thinks the drop is unusual then he isn't checking his historical data correctly. In addition, how can he explain the INCREASE in CD sales in the UK last year ? We have Napster too yer know.
It's really amazing how (CD) prices have tracked so closely with inflation. It's almost as if the industry just bumps up prices with the inflation rate
No shit Sherlock...
[What is clear is that] there's no evidence in the data that the tapes caused a decline.
MP3s wouldn't do the same thing. The reason cassettes led to growth was that before cassettes existed, you didn't have portable music. You couldn't play recorded music in your car, and you couldn't play it walking around, in a Walkman. It was the little cassette that basically allowed you to do that. To be technically correct, there were 8- track players prior to cassettes. But they didn't have quite the same penetration. My theory as to what went on is that [the rise in cassettes] coincides almost perfectly with the penetration rate of the portable, Walkman-type of thing. So it opened up this whole new market, which overwhelmed any copying that went on.
Oh dear.
Well 1) Most people didn't have recordable 8 tracks, so no, the 8 track WASN'T the same as musiccassettes. 2)We have new mediums now, such as the MP3 player, so according to your "theory" that should overwhelm any copying.
If people bought albums in the 80's specifically for the purpose of taping them for their new toy the walkman, then isn't the same going to happen now ? We should see an increase in up tempo running/jogging music, with the advent of solid state MP3 players which are finally immune to jumping, skipping and damage from violent movement.
So, either I'm going to see lots of hard cord techno stars from Germany and the UK become millionares as their record sales boom, or I'm going to see you change your mind about your pet theories yet again, probably just in time for the official release of your book.
Did Stan escape from Dallas University's, locked room, infinite monkeys on typewriters experiment ?
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
There's also the guy who uses MP3s to sample new albums but wasn't falling for the "CD as a sample" trap before - he just wouldn't buy a new album if he didn't know it - he'd wait until perhaps he got a chance to hear it as a friend's place, or just do without. This guy actually buy more CDs since MP3s have come along.
Are there enough of these guys to balance the others? I don't know, but there are definitely enough that they shouldn't be ignored as a part of the market.
Russ
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
If Linus said it, it would be accepted as gospel.
(Slow down cowboy...)
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Also bear in mind that said person samples by downloading an mp3, and purchases something that he would not choose to purchase otherwise.
Since mp3s hit the scenes, my CD purchases have gone *up*. This is not a unique situation: most of my friends are in the same boat, as well as several studies I have seen on this effect.
When we think about how this may or may not affect the music industry negatively, don't forget the positive effects as well as the negative.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I've got a jukebox of my CDs ripped, so I can just pick and choose from the whole library (27 GB or so at this point). Friends are always picking songs and asking "do you have..", which leads to downloading mp3s & adding them on.
Downloaded mp3s are handy and quick, but they aren't generally very good quality, and loose mp3s are "unwieldy". So I tend to actually *buy* the CD, both for the additional tracks and for the ability to rip them the way I want them ripped. This is especially true of singles/mixes.
Where I think the whole file sharing really helps is I *constantly* find older/newer/different music that I've forgotten about or didn't know existed.. different mixes, original recordings, other artists.. all types of things.
Since I've started downloading mp3s my cd collection has consistantly increased.. because I'd rather know it was ripped right and I like having an archived copy. Before filesharing I was basically done buying CDs. I've probably bought 2-4 every week since I started downloading.
I'm sure there are people out there that aren't buying any of their music, but it certainly isn't everyone.
I buy a lot more cds because of file sharing. And I've completely lost the feeling of "buyers remorse" over buying CDs. Even when I buy one that only had 1 good track on it. Because I wanted that track.
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
Um, certainly I hope I am not the first slashdotter to realize this, but, good economy = increasing CD sales (ironically during the first p2p frenzy), bad economy = decreasing CD sales (also during the p2p frenzy). C'mon people, p2p doesnt change sales THAT much, the economy does!
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
From the article:
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
I think the /. editors must have been sleeping at the switch when they let this one though. Whatever happened to editorial bias?
I liked this quote:
The net effect of tapes was positive. But it doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been more positive if people weren't making more copies. [What is clear is that] there's no evidence in the data that the tapes caused a decline.
That's one think I noticed from previous stories on this issue. Readers are always quick to point out that sales increased during the Napster years, but they overlook the fact that the sales were also decelerating at that point. You can't just look at a simplistic side-by-side comparison and expect to jump to a fair conclusion.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
Read the article, and he's changed his opinion three times in roughly as many months.
I mean, duh. Of COURSE the trading of mp3's is going to effect the sale of CD's. The only question that remains is to gauge what percentage the decline in sales mp3's are responsible for.. which appears to be precisely the problem he's grappling with.
Is it 0.0000001%, or 10%, or 50%?
He said it best himself:
"It is certainly not conclusive, by any means, that there's real damage going on from MP3s. [...] We're seeing a medium impact, which still could be explained by other things -- but we can't discount the MP3 possibility."
Which makes sense to me.
I have never bought a CD until recently. Actually, I didn't listen to much recorded music. The question you might ask is why I chose to buy a CD at all.
The answer is that you get what you pay for. The quality of an MP3 is much lower than the quality of a CD. Sure, it is digital. But there are errors made in copying a CD to a computer, and even more errors made when converting from spacial domain to discrete cosine domain (and back during decoding). The truncation of certian frequencies doesn't help much; they cut off a little of the audible range for those of us with more acute senses of hearing.
I bought a CD so that I'd be able to enjoy the song more; it was worth it because I like the song enough to care. Maybe I won't be able to tell the difference between CDs and wavelet transformed copies, but we don't have a lot of those yet. So to me, MP3s are a little like high quality tapes- still not quite as good as having the CD.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
You need 1) a time machine, 2) ability to access to the many-worlds multiverse, and 3) access to the album sale data.
Just set your time machine back to sometime before Fanning writes the first Napster code. Then, choose a universe where he falls madly in love with a lovely blonde, and gets rid of "that stupid computer" at her request. Monitor CD sales for the next couple of years.
Next, choose the current universe (or maybe one exactly like this one, except where nobody thought of this experiment, just in case there's some weird time looping feedback thing going on). Monitor CD sales for the same period.
Then, you'll be able to say if Napster and file sharing affected the music industry, all other things being equal.
I swear, I bet these so-called "economists" can't even change the gravitational constant of the universe!
Well, it seems that the RIAA and MPAA are not only trying to buy laws that would make it a crime to hurt their business model, but they are also trying to buy laws that would allow them to impose vigilante justice on anyone they even suspected doing so.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
We can deduce from the rediculously inflated price of CDs, the assumption that we are all thieves, and the total lack of diversity in the music that they premote that they don't serve the consumer.
It is therefore clear that the only people whose interests the record industry serves are their own, and they do nothing for us (short of lobby congress to restrict our digital freedoms) - so why should we buy from them?
- Examine a controversial issue the perspective of your expertise (it helps if one side of the issue is backed by a very wealthy cast of characters who will do anything to promote their side)
- Announce that you will be writing the book
- Announce that you have found "evidence" in favor of one side
- Announce you were wrong and that you now have evidence to support the other side
- Change your mind again, announcing that further information has revealed that your first conclusions were correct, just two weeks before the book is published.
- Now everyone wants to read your book to find out if they've been vindicated.
He studied 30 years of record sales data, and in the three months prior to the publishing of his book, he has found "new evidence" that caused him to fundamentally reverse himself twice? If this guy publishes a book on how to sell books, I might read it, but I won't be reading this one. Who's to say he won't change his mind again in October when he needs the cas^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H finds new evidence?No, in fact, music from yesterday *isn't* available for purchase these days, even from Amazon.
As one example, I still can't buy Isao Tomita's "Bolero" album on CD. You can get "Bolero" itself as a single track of a collection (who would want 10 different versions of the same song, just to get the one you wanted?!?), but you don't get "The Mother Goose Suite", "Daphnis and Chloe: Suite No. 2", or "Pavan for a Dead Princess".
As another, I can't get a "Baltimora" album, except as used vinyl (if then); the only thing available on CD is one song, "Tarzan Boy" (good tune, but ruined by the "Listerine" commercial), and it's only available on "Beverly Hills Ninja" or in some *LAME* 80's dance collection (two exceptions: a cover band, and an "Italo" Italian dance CD sold in the U.S.: a *LAME* non-80's dance collection).
Frankly, I'm amaze that "Buffalo Springfield" or Harry Nilsson is available (incredibly hard to find, though).
-- Terry
That depends on the individuals involved. But the fact of the matter is that if they're too rigid, they'll get replaced by some start-up that's not. That much is certain. You can't be terribly inefficient, terribly rigid and hang on.
Maybe not, but if you have congress in your pocket you can drag the whole country to hell trying.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I don't think their decreased sales are a result of file-sharing, but they don't believe that at this point. So what have they done? First move was to attack the company, Napster. Futile. Other companies popped up. Eventually Napster lost and mostly everything went Gnutella-like so there was no company to sue. Now they want to attack the network and individual users. I believe that will fail because ISPs won't want the RIAA poking around on their network. Some are already taking precautions.
A faint hint at their next move might be this, which would be to change their distribution media. That will certainly fail to the classic "if I can hear it I can copy it."
So what's next? Will they finally understand their business model needs changed? I don't know what other option is left for them. Once that ends up as the only choice, they'll either fade into oblivion or do it. I don't think we need to wait much longer because they're really flailing about trying lots of things at once right now and nothing is working.
When it does happen, I predict it's gonna hit hard and fast. They'll try a radically new model and some artists will use the transition time to jump ship and sell their own music directly. It really wouldn't surprise me if the RIAA forked and became multiple entities, each competing with the other using a slightly different business model. Some of you are thinking "yeah, sure, like that'll happen." All the signs are there though. They act like they're in control but they know they're not. Just wait.
I wouldn't expect too much from statistics and economics. The problem with these studies is the poor quality of the numbers that are available.
In the case of music sales, the industry has a long history of manipulation of sales figures to support various ends. With the recent focus on bogus corporate accounts, I think its gong to be very difficult to get a clear picture.
If the music industry wants to claim that file sharing is hurting sales, I would expect them to bend the numbers to prove this.
BEFORE Napster hit the scene, I got a Memorex 1622 CD-RW drive (Amazingly, they're also the subject of a major class action law suit at the moment...) and used it to burn copies of EVERYTHING for all my friends.
It still all revolves around CD burners. Take the current MP3 situation and subtract being able to burn CDs. Sure, there's portable MP3 players, but the REAL album-purchase-killer is being able to actually have that shiny disc with the music on it in your hot little hands. Most of my friends who aren't interested in computers know that us computer geeks can burn CDs and won't hesitate to ask for a copy of the latest albums or songs they can't get out of their head.
Do you actually tell your friends that they have to go out and spend money on something you can burn for them on an inexpensive blank CD? "Come on, you're supposed to be my friend... Help me out here." Unlike home taping of the past, CD-RW drives have become VERY fast as of late... A C90 tape actually took 45 minutes per side (yes, it had to be flipped) to record, a 40X CD-RW can burn an entire CD in less than 8. CPUs have become much faster as well. It's become a whole lot easier to fire up your CD-R mastering software in the background and burn CDs while you're say, reading Slashdot.
When a friend asked for a copy of a tape, it meant rewinding, analog distortion, getting the levels right, and FLIPPING THE DAMN TAPE. Burning is just a blank CD and a few clicks away.
---
Siggy, siggy, siggy, can't you see? Sometimes your puns just irritate me.
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
RIAA certainly lost my business indirectly due to file sharing, you see when an industry treats me like a criminal I very quickly stop being a customer.
The only thing I regret is buying all the CDs I did before I saw the RIAA's true colours.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a brutal anal raping at airport security
It seems to be that the Slashdot-Correct way of thinking is to say that the music distributers brought these problems on themselves. But I don't think they're entirely to blame. Cheap bastards like me have something to do with it as well.
I don't mind admitting that these days I only go out to buy a CD if, after arsing around with gnutella for a day or two, I still haven't found it. If there was a "perfect" file sharing network, I'd never buy a CD again.
You might say, "you do this because CDs are overprized" (even more true here in the Netherlands than in most other parts of the world). To which my honest reply would have to be, "if CD prizes were cut by 50%, I would only cut the time I spend trying to find one on the net by 50% before giving up and buying it".
My bottom line is, if p2p networks worked perfectly, I'd never pay for music, regardless of how reasonable the price might be.
The guy read a statistic in the newspaper, and admits that he hasn't checked it himself for accuracy. If it is reliable, then it reflects a larger decline in music sales then he had anticipated, and so failing any other explanation, he speculates that it might be attributable to file copying. But he has done no analysis at all on this result, and when the Andrew Leonard presses him on it (good for you, Andrew, but this also shows why your interview is hardly newsworthy), he admits that there may be any number of alternative causes.
Michael, why do you bother to post something like this to Slashdot? We can draw no conclusions from this at all, because there is no evidence here to speak of. I'm not saying that it's impossible that file sharing may be damaging music sales, but this article gives us no reason to conclude that it's really happening.
I really thought that geeks had a better understandng of statistics, and when they do or do not give real evidence of possible underlying causes, than most people have. Of course, numbers are terribly tempting, they create such a powerful feeling of objectivity and proof; but they can also create myths that are nearly impossible to debunk because "everybody says so" and "I heard it on the news" and it all sounds so believable.
The media, and that includes Slashdot, have a strong role in creating such myths by simply regurgitating statistical claims without any regard to the quality of the analysis. Michael, you have some editorial discretion, and you ought to use it. I'm not saying that Slashdot shouldn't post articles on the subject, but I think they certainly shouldn't bother if it just means that untrustworthy claims of fact get propagated further.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
"Stan Liebowitz, an economist studying the effects of file-trading on the music industry, says in an article in Salon that new numbers have convinced him that the decline in CD sales may be partially attributable to MP3 downloading"
Well, *of course* it's due to mp3 downloading. The question they should ask themselves is: WHY are the mp3 downloaded so much? Because we don't care about the artists and like to get free music? Or because we don't think there is any other options because of high prices where a big percentage does NOT go to the artist?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
(12) Federal Trade Commission finding the Recording industry cartel anti-competitve and engaged in illegal price-fixing.
That is EXACTLY the problem we're still facing in the record industry. I believe it's high time the Antitrust Division of the DoJ go after the RIAA and force them to lower album-length audio CD prices to around US$11 per disc; the current US$18 per disc price is at a point where there is just too much economic incentive to pirate music. A good comparison is OPEC; in the late 1970's they raised prices so high that people were either reducing oil consumption and/or looking for alternate sources of oil. By 1986, OPEC was in dire straits due to economic realities catching up with them.
Compare this against the movie industry. The fact that new-release DVD movies are between US$20 to US$30 per release set is extremely reasonable, especially when you consider new releases often contain a plethora of extra features in regards to the movie. And you can often get older movie releases for under US$15. At these prices, there is no real incentive in making a pirate copy DVD, to say the least.
I think the biggest problem is the fact in terms of bang for the buck, the audio CD is losing big time.
/. think about their anti-piracy policies) realized that the sell-through model for video distribution pioneered by Disney works extremely well, hence the reason why DVD's are still reasonably priced for what you get. Small wonder why many movies that didn't quite make their money back in theatrical release are making it back in video release.
Think about it for these reasons:
1) Today's videogame consoles cost between US$150 and US$200, but many games give you 30 to 60 hours of fun to play all the way through; in the case of sports games (like the excellent Madden NFL 2003), it's even longer than that. It's that time you spend on the game that makes the relative high cost of a game (around US$40 to US$50) still a pretty good bargain.
2) The DVD has also become a major bargain; you can get pretty good console players for under US$100, and the price of DVD discs (US$20 to US$30 for the latest releases, frequently under US$15 for the older releases) are a bargain considering the content of what you get. The MPAA (despite what people here on
Being able to listen to hundreds of bands has changed my musical tastes to rarely include any major label bands. Since many of artists are obscure and not even available I end up purchasing them at shops that are not part of the SoundScan program.
I mean, c'mon. There is some middle ground (called "reality") between the RIAA's inflated numbers and claiming that there's pretty much no one that's not buying CDs anymore because they can get the music for free. It's spooky to me that people would feel the need to go out of their way to claim something as absurd as "it's not having a negative effect on CD sales at all". Yeah, right.
Being dishonest like this just gives more ammunition to the RIAA and friends.
In my case, out of a collection of about 1,500 MP3s (nothing by most /.ers standards), no more than 20 or 30 are stuff I don't own. And of the music I have bought in the last two years, at least a small part of it is stuff I probably wouldn't have bought had I not heard it from an MP3. But I'm the only person I know with a significantly large MP3 collection that is made up of almost exclusively stuff that's legal. So I'm skeptical.
Not true. I've been around long enough to see several cycles of good music and shitty music. The late 70's just before punk arrived was a memorable shitty spell. There were a couple more in the 80's and 90's. The (before my time) interval between Elvis and the Beatles was also pretty dismal.
I remember things being bad, and I remember them getting better. Take my word for it, the last few years have been the worst ever. I attribute it to the focus-group filtered, computer database driven playlists that Clear Channel and its ilk uses to control their radio stations. At least in the bad old days, real human greedy executives decided what got played, and they had to use their taste (good or bad) to pick the music. Now, the music on the radio is a bland predictable mush selected by computer algorithms.
As usual, this bad spell will probably be broken out of when some new music genre to hit the scene. I suspect that unlike previous cycles, this new movement will have to use a completely alternate distribution method (not CDs or radio) to avoid the current deadlock in the music industry.
And people who download more than the radio's selection of an artist's work, and decide the majority are Crud, so don't buy the album.
And people who don't have any radio access to hear new music with (believe it or not, there are large chunks of non-metro California with virtually zero radio reception -- I know, I live in one of 'em) and otherwise would never hear ANY new music, so would otherwise never buy any either.
But I suspect the majority actually do what I do: I get exposed to some "new" (at least to me) artist via MP3, I like the first song, so I download a few more and like them too, then I run out and buy the album as a hardcopy backup (of better quality) for the ephemeral MP3s that might go *poof* if my hard disk goes tits-up between backups.
I can tell you positively, that there have been TWO periods when I've *bought* lots of music: when I was DJing and had access to one of the largest music libraries in the world (complete with a tape unit so I could copy whatever I wished), and when I had faster online access and it was reasonable to download lots of MP3s. Since I moved, my connect speed went to hell due to shit phone lines (right now I'm connected at 16.8k!!) and it's no longer practical to download anything; after a while I noticed that I was no longer buying music either (probably because there's nothing new in my MP3 collexion to entice me to lust after my own real copy of).
Coincidence? You decide.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The last cassette deck I had was a dual unit that could autoreverse while recording and copy tapes at double speed. Of course, there's little gotchas that come up like music is still playing when the leader tape comes up and 2x speed quality issues. On the whole, though, it worked and was easy and convienient.
You're always going to have the unethical/innocent geek kid who downloads an MP3 and listens only to it since his PC, MP3 player and PDA are the only things he uses for listening to music.
You're always going to have the normal guy who doesn't care about "branded" CDs or the slight (and sometimes perceptible) quality loss of MP3s over CDs...he goes ahead and burns his MP3s to a 5-cent CDR and listens to it anyway.
Then again, isn't it questionable whether or not the people in these two examples would've bought the CDs anyway? Before MP3s, I just didn't listen to music (outside of the radio and such), and therefore didn't buy CDs. Now, I listen to a lot of songs that are released openly by the artists as MP3s and occasionally save RIAA songs... and therefore don't buy CDs. So in the case of people like me and the cheap or morally opposed people in the examples you listed, MP3s have changed how much music we listen to, but has kept the amount of music that we buy firmly at $0 per year.
In the end, I think it mostly balances out. Some of the people that used to buy CDs no longer buy CDs because of MP3s, some of the people that didn't used to buy CDs now buy CDs because they were introduced to the artists through MP3s, and some people never bought any CDs and still don't, regardless of MP3s.
The real problem with this debate, though, is that you can't really tell what's going on. There's no REAL way to tell how many people started buying CDs because of MP3s, how many people stopped buying CDs because of MP3s, how many people stopped buying CDs because of the slow ecnomy, how many people stopped buying CDs because of the prices, etc. It's all just biased statistics based on small samples, coupled with opposite views of the situation that are equally valid and logical.
Firstly, most people download particular songs they like. They might like one or two songs from a group. For example, I like "Hey Baby" and "Keep on Dancin" by No Doubt. I don't like any of their other songs. There's no way in hell I'd go out there and actually buy a full CD by them. So I download the two songs I like. This doesn't hurt the industry because I'm downloading things I wouldn't have bought in the first place.
Similarly for most people the vast majority of the time.
Also, lets not forget, that there was NO EFFECT -- NONE WHAT-SO-EVER -- observed in CD sales until the recession begin. NONE. So, gee, I wonder what's really causing this downturn in sales.
The economies in a recession, does the RIAA really expect people to buy as many CD's? DVD's are becoming more and more popular and commonplace, as are computer games, and game-consoles...does the RIAA really think that teens will still buy as many CD's, even with all the competition offering vastly superior value? Descent 3 and Descent 2 each go for 10 bucks from Amazon.com. That means you could buy both of them for the same price as ONE CD. Now, you decide. What's better, Descent 3 and Descent 2, games from which you can get months of enjoyment from in single-player mode, years in multi-player, or a single CD, which you can get maybe an hours worth of enjoyment out of? Tomb Raider 5, 4, and 3 sell for 20 bucks a piece from Amazon.com, while Tomb Raider 1 and 2 go for around 10. Any of these would be be better than having a music CD. The latest greatest game that I like -- Eternal Darkness sells for 50 bucks from Amazon.com, 32 bucks used. Again, a better deal than a music CD.
Jurassic Park and The Lost World sell for 24 bucks a piece off of Amazon.com. Much better value than any music CD I've seen. Jaws is also available for 24 bucks, along with many other great movies.
So, competition from outside the music world BLOWS music CD's away in terms of value.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
The funniest thing about this is that the music industry, which is basically frivolous, has more political clout than the computer industry, which is both more useful and much bigger.
Sure, but what sort of effect it has is still hard to measure. Does it provide free advertizing making people want to support the artists? Yes. Does it allow people to avoid supporting the artists? Yes. So, it probably helps and hurts the industry to some degree.
:)
That being said, I think that the *single biggest factor* is that the record industry, by targeting Napster has left a serious sense of betrayal with their would-be customers. I personally knew many people that simply stopped buying CD's after Napster. And I personally only buy foreign artists anyway, so the RIAA companies don't get a whole lot from me
So is it artistic doldrums? Probably to some extent. Is it MP3s being downloaded? Maybe a little. But is it the industry treating their customers like crooks? You bet.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I have been a fan for a while now of designing a business which would use internet downloads as a service for promoting artists-- applying open source principles to the music business model, and helping everyone to be successful WITHOUT the RIAA. I don't have time to do this (since I am starting a different business), but I would be willing to contribute my thoughts to any serious effort.
So, if this resonates, feel free to write me.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This is the very point. The record industry association of america has to be unseated. For every britney speers there are a thousand voices out there that I don't get a chance to hear because they have to get through the a&r reps first. And, the labels say there's just too much crap to syphon through to get to the good stuff. That may be true, but I'd like to be the judge for myself.
Right now, you can find at least 10 times, or more original, creative content on the Internet, and that will just continue to grow if the industry doesn't shut it down. That's what they want to do, and we need to shut them down before they do it. I want all the record shelves to be empty until the consuming public gets it established in the sweat of the artists who wrote that content that most, if not all proceeds with the exception of production and marketing costs go to the person who wrote the damn song.
In the meantime, Britney can pay her rent from playing gigs, which is what she has to do anyway. Well, except for selling Pepsi, but I don't drink that, either. Stop buying CD's and go to a show!!! The artist isn't getting your money from the CD. I know, because I am one.
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
Did you read mediagora.com? The model described there is careful to provide an economic incentive for someone who creates a sale, however they do it. Anyone who pays for a song can gain a promotion fee by getting someone else to buy it - the more sales they generate, (directly or indirectly), the higher the fee they get per sale.
The sharers can choose between giving it away illegally, or getting paid for making sales.
Yeah, except the current "market dynamics" are pushing the great unwashed (wrongly) toward what they perceive to be an alternative: MP3 downloads.
No, this is a choice being made by the same people whining about the RIAA. No one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to download MP3 files.
As for the FTC not regulating because it's a diversion, I read a piece in BusinessWeek today about the possibility of Nestlé chocolate company buying Hershey's.
Well, there are certainly some potential anti-trust issues at stake here. But, since the RIAA is an association which represents several competing entities, they're quite obviously not subject to the same rules.
IMO, a lot of these studies are started with the premise already fixed, and then looking for data to back up the prejudice. In this case, the researcher thinks MP3's must have a negative impact, and looks for evidence to support his theory.
It could (and will) get worse. Just like the tobacco industry, the IP empires are fighting to maintain a position of power, and will use any tool possible. Even more studies will be appearing, showing just how much was lost in revenues that should have gone to the "rightful" owners.
To be quite honest, these numbers are all "coulda, woulda" fantasy. Lots of people copy software, photocopy books and articles and trade software that they had no real intention of buying. And there are real-life for-profit "pirates", though I prefer to call them "counterfeiters", but I've never met them nor seen their goods.
One other thing that *really* irritates and scares the IP empires is the way intellectual property leaks out *before* it is supposed to be released. That's what kicked off the Metallica v. Napster thingie, and why Apple attacks rumor sites that post "sneak previews" of their new machines.
The IP empires hate it when IP escapes before it can be buried. Studios have been known to sit on albums after recording, just to punish the artist. P2P networks offer a way to "smuggle" such works out into the open where they can be freely traded. It robs them of one of their favorite weapons.
And that's what it's all about, and why studies like this are the new battleground. It's less about the money, but about controlling who gets to see/hear what, and for what price.
(sigh...)
I don't know why I had to rant for so long like this. I guess it's because the next have/have-not battle is going to be over IP. Stallman is this generation's Karl Marx, and Disney is the "evil capitalist" bent on maintaining power. It will be interesting to follow...
which already have a tax on them which, in theory gets back to the musicians, or tell them to write a check to the musicians (which they're probably never do). If they're that clueless they'll believe the Music CD's sound better anyhow, even without the green marker.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)