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State of Online Music: RIAA's Efforts Paying Off
melquiades writes "The NYT (regreq) has a new article about online music, suggesting that the recording industry's war against P2P is paying off: pay-to-download services are rising in popularity. "Largely because of tough actions by the record companies to combat free music sites through the courts, legislation and even through techno-guerrilla tactics, there is a noticeable change of sentiment in a small segment of the downloading cognoscenti. Though their numbers are low, many are the early adapters who spot a trend first." Though the article falls into the common fallacy of equating P2P with illegal copying -- I'm one of the numerous artists who wants people to download my music for free -- it sums up the state of affairs well, particularly in this quote from online music consultant Michael Haile: "Record labels know what consumers want. We all do. They want a Napster you pay for. We all know that. But why would the labels want that at all? Making CD's is like printing money.""
Because they are downloading a lot more pirated porn, thank God for cable.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Nobody downloads music off of the internet illegally anymore. Please move on.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that pay services have gotten much better in the past 18 months, with far more selection? Just maybe?
No, no, it's because they killed napster. Idiots.
Are there limits to what I can have at one time? How much are they? Are there lots of Audiogalaxy type material (rare songs, live songs, etc)? Is it fast, or would I get better downloads and searches using carrier pigeons? Most important do I get to burn the songs to CD, keeping them forever, or until a "contract" is up?
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
While admitting to downloading some redily avalble music, I mostly looked for some more obscure europian bands from 70s and 80s. They are long out of print, and there is no hope for new CDs. Now, thanks to RIAA, those musicians will be forgoten forever.
Imagine that the record companies are supposedly finding success in what we've wanted all along.
The answer has not been to stomp out the P2P networks. They will always be a fact of life, especially as consumer bandwidth gets faster. The answer is to look at this new technology and figure out how to embrace it as a business model.
P2P networks have flaws. Most kiddes can't label their MP3s correctly. Inevitably, The 1 person who has the song you're really looking for is on dialup. It goes on and on, but with P2P, you get what you pay for. Having a centralized pay for download service overcomes these issues. By paying a hosting company to host your MP3s, you're almost guaranteed good download speeds and properly labeled MP3s.
Now, if they RIAA had listened back in 1998 when people were telling them this, maybe they wouldn't be so hated.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
News.com is running an article on a study that KPMG did... in which they state that the ??AA need to embrace downloadable music and videos and to stop/reduce using copy protections to thwart piracy.
pay-to-download services are rising in popularity
That's kind of like saying this new car model we introduced last year is selling better than it was 2 years ago.
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.
I just don't listen to music that i haven't already previously purchased the CD of anymore, unless i legally downloaded it for free. Fueling the RIAA is not something i care to do, whether it be fuelling their arguement that there is demand for their garbage, or whether it be fuelling them with money. I know this is redundant, but support local music.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
However, I would like a place where I could download very high quality, RAW .wav or Ogg Vorbis or MP3 files for, say, $0.50-$1.00 each. Maybe $5.00 for a whole album. From a fast server. That are not in some sort of DRM vault.
This way, I own the music. I can do whatever I like with it: burn it to a CD, put it in my portable player, whatever I want to do within my fair use rights. And I also don't have to (effectively) pay additional money by trying to hunt someone down with the file I want at the quality I want, with a good connection that won't stop halfway through the download.
Merely having the record industry collect money for "allowing" other people to share music peer-to-peer is not sufficient.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Maybe they're not as dumb as we think - maybe they know that downloading music helps record sales, and maybe they actually DO want users downloading music.
Just as long as the service that does it is theirs.
What if the long term RIAA vision isn't that you can't get your DRM music off your CD, but you can only get it off and send it with software and hardware from the record companies (or their affiliates?) Maybe this is all just a play by the record companies - they only print their music in a format certain devices can read and transfer, and they only allow themselves or their affiliates (Sony records - sony cd players?) manufacture the equipment that can read the CD's.
Now not only do they get to charge you for the CD, but they'll charge you $1 to send a song to your friend, and charge him $30/month for a license to the software that lets him play it....
paintball
Making CD's is like printing money.
So is providing pay-for-use downloads, except you save on the cost of CD manufacturing.
We're going to make information free Mr. Anderson, whether you like it, or not.
The RIAA would love to take all the credit and say that the music subscription sites succeed because the P2P services are getting worse, but that's simply not true. The guerilla tactics hardly put a dent in my p2p experience. It sounds to me like the subscription services are just getting better. They know what we want, they've just been afraid to offer it to us because they coudn't put together a viable business model.
What's it going to be like when internet2 is pervasive? When every home is wired with fiber optics for 100 Mb net access, or 1000 Mb access or whatever? You will be able to download the equivalent of a present day CD in a few seconds. You will have a handheld with 100s of gigabytes of storage and, thanks to BlueTooth Rev. 17, you'll be able to beam an entire movie at DVD quality to a friend's handheld in a matter of seconds.
In this future world, perhaps about five to ten years from now, how on earth will RIAA prevent music and video piracy? It seems doubtful that drm initiatives will succeed; people have an enormous incentive to bypass it, and as bandwidth increases, that incentive will only grow.
I think eventually we'll have to come to some sort of compromise between the content producers, marketers, and consumers, and settle on some sort of "reasonable fair use" doctrine as once existed with cassettes and VCRs.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
> Record labels know what consumers want. We all do. They want a Napster you pay for.
.. its just the RIAA is dragging its feet. People won't turn down advancements in technologies, but they certainly will compensate for it if they have the opportunity.
Read it again. "They" seems to imply the record labels, not people, the way its quoted.
But as an aside, I find it interesting how there are alot of people who want a pay-for Napster (mysql included), but nearly anybody that wants a free napster remains fairly voiceless, outed by a handful of people intent on reducing everybody but themselves as a freeloader.
When you can choose from RIAA Media (CDs), Naspter, Pay-Napster, most people seem to comprehend that the "Pay Napster" is what is going to keep the music being made.
But when you can choose from RIAA Media or just Naspter, people are going to use Naspter because they know that the Pay For Napster could exist
Thats what the RIAA doesn't get. People will take what they want, but will only repay for it if its actually feasible to do so (ie, price is fair and method of payment exists). Its not that everybody wants something for nothing, its simply that they won't deny themselves something if the supplier is too lazy, reluctant, or scared to figure out where to put the tip jar.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Also, from the article:
Maybe it's a nitpick, but they seem to be painting the situation as if we have two monolithic, unified forces here -- the RIAA and Evil Internet Pirates (tm) (or Righteous Anti-RIAA Guerilla Freedom Fighters (tm)). The use of the term "apostasy" implies that there is some kind of central body or authority to the P2P movement, which isn't true. I'm pointing this out because it's indicative of the mindset the "mainstream" is in -- they don't really know what the situation is, even those who are paid to write about it.It certainly could just be poor word choice, and the writer actually does know the difference, but since it's the New York Times, I'm inclined to think it's ignorance rather than poor editing.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Kazaa Lite is a spyware-free Kazaa, but alas it also is a bandwidth hog. WinMX is a pretty great tool, now that it has caught up to Kazaa-style tools in terms of features, and it uses OpenNap servers as well as (I think) a semi-proprietary protocol of its own. It's also completely spyware-free.
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
We want a napster that you DON'T pay for. We want to get lots and lots of music for free. Also, we want to, in the midst of all this, buy lots of CDs. In fact, we want to buy CDs more when we can download music for free. Why? Beats the hell out of me. But Napster in its prime was a win-win situation--record sales were at their highest ever, while people listened to more music than ever--and it might not be a bad idea to go back to it and wait until it breaks until we try to fix it.
As a consumer, I DON'T want to pay for mp3s. Maybe I'm being a luddite, but I have a problem paying money for something I can't hold in my hand, even software. Maybe it might be different if I was able to download CD-quality audio, but I think I'd still rather buy a CD. I like flipping through the booklet while I listen to the music. I like getting stickers and posters and stuff with it, and I'll buy a CD with well-designed packaging over a thousand downloads any day. It's too bad labels just get cheaper and cheaper. Oh well--the CDs I sell will always be fun to look at (not to mention listen to); I guess that's the most I can do, outside of becoming a media mogul and dictating good design, thereby sacrificing the bottom line and getting fired.
c-hack.com |
You know, I'd rather do without music than pay money to people who pay congressmen to propose legislation that limit our freedom.
:)
That is what they are doing.
I am going to spend less movies on Hollywood movies in the future as well. I can smell it coming.
I think I'll buy more books
But not from patent-crazed ama-zone.
"Piter, too, is dead."
One Buck Forty or Die
I thought this was one of the best things I've read on this well worn subject in awhile.
"And who exactly are these "early adapters (sic) (double sic)" who want to pay to share files? Isn't this the way the Mafia does business? "Sure, you can bring in as many caes (regular sic) of liquor (vomit sic)/kilos of coke (hyper sic)/hookers (itchy sic) that you want, Vinnie. Just make sure Uncle Don gets his share, you know what I'm sayin' (dead sic)?""
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
Hopefully, some company out there will come up with a good system that will support a pay per download system.
I want to be able to have a solid client, where I can set up my payment method, and manipulate account details.
I want to have a searchable database of available titles.
I want to be able to download the songs at different bit rates. I don't mind if the higher bit rates are a touch (and that means under 10% more!) more expensive - that's reasonable. Most people are satisfied at 128. Give the audiophiles what they want as well.
I want to be able to download in different formats. MP3? Support it. Ogg? Support it. MP3 Pro? Support it. Get the idea - be flexible!
I want to be able to get the difficult to find songs. I like electronic music. One of my favorite program from college was EM Soundscape on KBIA. I hearrd stuff that you cannot find. I'd like a way to get that.
I want to see the consumers and the artists benefit. Take care of them, record companies, and your bottom line will take care of itself.
I'm not asking for too much, am I?
-- Ravensfire
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
Tough actions may be a contributing factor but more than likely it's the guarantee of good quality at a reasonable price. You know... what we've been asking for all along!
Paying a reasonable fee for good quality music is a lot more attractive to me than hunting for mp3s on Kazaa that are poor quality, incomplete crap. You need to download a few different versions of the same song to find the best one because someone out there doesn't know how to use MusicMatch very well.
The true pirates aren't going to pay anyway but they are a minority. The majority of us who could give a crap either way are just looking for the best bang for our buck. $20 for a CD with one or two good songs on it is an incentive for us to use Kazaa. A decent price and a guarantee of good quality music we want... of course we'll switch!
Duh.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
They're actively trying to twist the statistics to support their whiny anti-download position. I'm part of several polling groups and in the last few weeks I've done at least THREE polls (all from different polling groups) that tried to force you to answer "I don't buy cd's because I download everything I want for free".
Fact of the matter is I, like many people I know, download music off services like kazaa because who wants to pay $20 for a cd to get one song just to find out the entire rest of the CD sucks... And most of us will never sign up for pay download services because if you actually use the service much it easily approaches the cost of buying cd's.
...Or go straight for the weird stuff.
Or buy CDs from artists you've never heard of.
I just wanted to point out what should be a little bit obvious. The record companies own the music. As frustrating as that is sometimes, they make the terms because they own it. I am a software developer and am a bit concerned about the "freedoms" people expect from things that are software. Because something is a bunch of bits does not mean that it is free. Because you didn't have to buy something of substance like a microchip or a slurpee doesn't mean that it did not cost money to produce to pay people like you and I.
It seems at times that some people have some "high moral ground" as they demonize companies - granted some companies are pretty easy to demonize - but are only really after something for nothing, a free lunch.
Is it really illegal or is it "sticking it to the inherently evil big guy" or is it a moral stand or is it that "I just want free music because, well, then I don't have to pay for it, duh."
If it is legal and okay and whatever, fine. If it isn't, how much is your integrity worth to you?
Then it occured to me that if I buy it, the label gets the cash. I just mailed The Vines a buck instead.
That's what we should do when we download music we really like.
Can I bum a sig?
I find a lot of the rest of the article wrong as well. "Just six months ago, this sort of talk [about actually paying for music] would have been unthinkable, downright apostasy." No... actually, a lot of reasonable people were complaining that music was simply too expensive. You know, we've all been buying music for YEARS. We didn't all just forget about paying for things, we just realized that the music cartel has an unhealthy amount of control.
I have no sympathy for you if you get a virus from an MP3. You should have noticed the extension wasReally, they're advocating some kind of huge website where you can find lots of varied bands in some kind of unrestricted format that you can download to your computer. Boy, this is starting to sound a whole lot like the service we've all been asking for! And it's sounding more and more like what Napster used to be, and what Kazaa is now. Strange how that works.
sheephead
7d9e63e9501751ff4bf9307989d5623d *SheepHead
I was in the studio a couple years ago when Noam Chomsky was recording his latest album. He and Cornell West had a little "talking" rap going on.
Me, I sat off to one side just digging the shit out of it -- these two aged hippies just bopping and rapping like there was no tomorrow.
I stayed late -- long after the session had ended. Noam and West were talking about what it means to be a "radical Christian." West (you'll remember) always refers to himself as a radical Christian. He derives his basic spiritual vibe from Chekhov, Hegel, and Miles Davis.
But Chomsky was tired. He didn't feel much like sparring. He sorta stayed in the corner of the room, his feet up on a ratty sofa, and wondered whether or not there was any Chivas in the little bottle the soundman kept underneath the console.
"No Chivas, Noam," said the soundman.
West laughed at that. "Chivas? You're shitting me."
"Not me, Cornell," said Noam.
"Damn. If you want some badass Hegelian synthesis, I advise Jack, man. Jack D. all the way."
Noam said he hadn't had a shot of Jack Daniels since the march on the Pentagon. Then he laughed and remembered how he and Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsburg sat out on the Washington Mall, burning incense, and screaming "Howl" at the top of their lungs.
Man oh man. I'll never forget that recording session with Noam and Cornell.
Damn.
You want people to download your music for free, I can only assume, because you have either what is called a "TRUST FUND" or a "DAY JOB." Once you have had some success, and rely (even in small part) on record sales to pay for supplies, like say, food, then you become not against free music, but a little more conservative on the subject.
I and most of the musicians I know really do want people to be able to download tracks, spread the gospel, etc., but start getting nervous when a paid cd can actually seem *more* inconvenient than Kazaa Lite.
What do I want in a label? I want them to get their heads out of their asses and be creative about finding new and better ways to market my music -- finding a good blend between locking up people who would rip us off, letting people share music they love, but most of all making the *purchase* of music the most convenient and satisfying way of obtaining it.
The general perception among the working stiff musicians I know is that the one area that free P2P services has killed us is in "buy the hit" sales. It used to be that if someone heard your tune on the radio and liked it enough to want it, a certain proportion would tape it off the radio, netting you nothing. Another proportion would buy the single, and then another proportion would buy the entire cd for that tune and to hear what else was on it. My current possesion of an entire Kittie CD proves that I can fall into that category. The concern now is that Kazaa is the new radio-taping, but the ranks of people who fall into the net-you-nothing category have swollen exponentially. Keep in mind that for smaller-time musicians (lets take a lot of jazz musician as an example) solid airplay doesn't really net you much until it *translates* into something - better gigs, tours, or record sales.
You can quote statistics all you want about the growth of the industry, but there's a very large contingent of musicians who are not super famous, but are known and making a living, for whom the sale of 100 cd's is meaningful in making the rent. If even a few download a single radio song off Kazaa and are satisfied enough to not bother with the cd, then that performer may have just lost someone who could have become a lifelong cd-buying fan if they'd committed to the whole thing.
Soooo. . .I am not pretending to write a treatise on industry economics here, just trying to sum up some of the concerns (biases, myths, whatever) that I've heard from real people trying to make a living in music. People not beholden to record companies, but even more nervous about seeing 30 tracks and entire albums of their music show up on a service where they are free for the taking.
Let the anti-cabalist orange-pelting resume. . .
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
>actually, I think their prefferred title is "the
>idle rich"
>
>If I had lots o cash to waste, SURE, I'd buy from
>e-music.
>
>Instead I took my 100 free songs and bolted.
Ummm... since when did $9.99/mo become something only "the idle rich" could afford? That's one bargain bin CD or DVD. Or about the cost of a dial-up account. Or lunch for two at a fast food joint.
I don't pretend that e-music is to everyone's taste, since they don't carry a lot of "mainstream" music. For those of us with more eclectic tastes, though, it's a godsend.
I download at least 20 or 30 albums a month. I don't have to worry about whether the person on the other end is going to disconnect. I don't have to worry about crappy encoding. I don't have to worry that the song I'm downloading isn't a 5 minute loop of someone taking a shit.
And I regularly pull down *entire albums* in less than three minutes. Yeah, I really feel like a sucker.
Matt
Dude, that was the point :-)
"OMFG!" implies that it's a complete shock to me. "OMFG!" is my way of using sarcasm(n). It was meant to imply that the the 16 yr old girls who apparently run the RIAA these days have just, like, totally figured out the obvious.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Yeah, I feel like a complete sucker for getting nearly all of George Carlin's CDs at less than the cost of one of his CDs I bought before emusic.com started out.
Really, the $10/mo. for unlimited downloads *IS* simply that. You download all you want for $10/mo. Period. End of story. If that's too much for you, perhaps you should listen to the Clear Channel controlled radio systems?
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Frankly, those who insist that this is a fuss about copyright, rather than money, by simply asserting their right to copy and distribute commercial recordings when and where they choose, copyright be damned, are playing into the hands of the recording industry. The recording industry wants this to be seen as a a life-or-death battle for the survival of copyright itself. It isn't. It's a fuss about getting the U.S. legal system to adjust the language and interpretation of copyright law in order to come to terms with new technological capabilities. Eventually, this will happen. But, if the recording industry is able to portray the other side as opponents of copyright and proponents of "stealing" digital media, then the adjustment will likely be expensive and draconian, affecting everyone's ability to use the net freely and openly.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The other thing I think should really be payed attention to is, who's the clear winner (among the pay-for services) here:
"EMusic, possibly the most popular music-subscription service (60,000 registered users), offers unlimited and unrestricted access. The downloads are fast, the audio is of good quality, there is no waiting, and most important, the odds of ending up with a virus that will destroy a teenager's homework folder are next to none. But because EMusic places no restrictions on the songs, major labels -- even Universal, whose corporate parent owns it -- have been reluctant to license their music. Working around this, EMusic is trying to attract fans of specific independent labels and niche genres, like electronic dance music and punk."
This is a GOOD thing, this is what pay to download services on the internet should be about. Better access for people who might not drive enough product to justify distributing CDs all over the world, a chance to check out new music that's more cost-effective than the CD single. Now if these bands REALLY get smart they'll also start allowing royalty-free internet radio streaming* and non-mainstream music can REALLY start the long, slow, inevitable process of kicking the Biz's ass by way of simply being more damn efficient. My lips to God's ears, man...
*(y'all who are gonna come on and tell me you can't do that are wrong, okay, you're stupid and you don't know the law. Copyright law and the first amendment say that anybody can stream whatever information they want FREE OF CHARGE AND FREE FROM ROYALTY CHARGES provided the person who controls the copyright gives them permission. The minimum royalty charges in the new internet radio laws ONLY apply when you start playing music that is registered through one of the royalty processing services, as long as everything you play is by private arrangement with the copyright holder you NEVER need to register as an internet radio station and therefor you never need to pay anyone a dime. There would have to be some seriously draconian and first-amendment shredding legislation to pave the way for anything else... nothing even close to that has been on the table yet.)
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries