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Six Giant Music Retailers Will Try Online Sales Together
PingXao writes "The New York Times is reporting that several music retailers are banding together to test online sales. Sad to see the article's author flat-out claim that '... a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.' The retailers are starting to get a clue but still have a long way to go as evidenced by 'Recording companies make the music...' and 'We are in the customer relationship business.'"
Any bets that this will be crippleware music with heavy DRM locks?
And then it will fail? I surely could do without this crap.
movies that you can d/l? oops they already have that.....
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Let me be thhe first to say it:
"Downloading music on Kazaa causes me to go buy CDs, I just like to preview the songs first"
come on you know you all were thinking it...
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
What's wrong with "recording companies make the music?"
They do - they bankroll their signed bands' albums. And most unsigned bands are crap. Granted, most signed bands are crap. But that's irrelevant - the recording companies did bring us Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Eminem, etc..
Saying the record companies don't make the music is like saying that Boeing doesn't make airplanes, their employees do.
Of course, who else would provide us with all this kewl DRM content ?
Then again, they may just want to "give it a shot" before submitting to DRM technologies... I bet the switch is not going to be cheap for them, either.
So if the question is, if those labels happen to make a good buck selling inline, will they bury DRM ?
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
Sad to see the article's author flat-out claim that '... a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.'
Why is that sad? It's probably true to a degree. The good news is that these companies are trying to embrace a new distribution model. What's sad is that they may not be successful when a 100% free alternative exists with as much consumer perceived add-value to the product.
When the Pressplay 6 month, $30 subscription deal came up I thought I'd test the waters of legal music d/ling. And what it showed me is that anything the RIAA signs off on is going to be a complete fraud, a waste of money, and ultimately a failure. They can stop blaming Kazaa, their own suits have cost them more money than trading ever could.
6 Retailers Plan Venture to Sell Music on the Web
By LAURA M. HOLSON
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 26 -- Six of the largest music retailers plan to announce on Monday that they are joining forces to sell music that can be downloaded from the Web.
The retailing group, called Echo, consists of Best Buy, the nation's No. 1 electronics retailer; Tower Records; the Virgin Entertainment Group; Wherehouse Entertainment; Hastings Entertainment; and Trans World Entertainment, which operates the FYE store chain. The six retail companies will each own an equity stake in Echo that together will make them majority owners.
The new effort is motivated in part by the two-year decline in compact disc sales that has forced recording companies to cut costs and lay off employees and has damaged music retailers, too. Wherehouse Entertainment, for one, announced last week that it was filing for bankruptcy protection from its creditors, in part because of lackluster CD sales. And earlier this month, Best Buy announced that it would close 107 stores.
Like the recording companies, music retailers are searching for new sources of revenue. Vinyl albums and cassette tapes have nearly disappeared in recent years, leaving retailers with the CD as their main option for selling music. But a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales. According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks album sales, 681 million were sold in 2002, down from 785 million in 2000.
"Obviously, there has been a lot of talk in the last three years and there have been a lot of failures," said Dan Hart, the chief executive of Echo, referring to earlier attempts by legitimate Web sites to sell music online. "But we see this as an inflection point. Retailers are saying, `This is the time to do it.' "
Mr. Hart said that Echo hoped to get licenses from the recording companies to distribute their music through the retail chains' own Web sites. In November, the Universal Music Group, which is owned by Vivendi Universal, began to distribute 43,000 of its songs through major retail and music Web sites, like Best Buy and Circuit City, for 99 cents a song or $9.99 an album. That total has since grown to 60,000.
Liquid Audio, a company that has developed technology meant to allow the secure sale of music online, has rights to 350,000 songs for downloading, but also has deep financial problems. The company agreed last week to sell some of its assets to the music distributor Anderson Merchandisers for $3.2 million as part of its liquidation.
Anderson, which is the music distributor for Wal-Mart Stores, also wants to be a distributor of downloadable music in retail outlets. That could eventually put Anderson in competition with Echo, but Mr. Hart said Echo was not opposed to working with Anderson.
In fact, Mr. Hart said he expected the pressures facing all parts of the music businesses -- including distributors, retailers and recording companies -- to motivate them all to work together to find a viable alternative to piracy. "People are saying, `Let's make it work on a real level,' " he said.
Such cooperation in online music ventures would have been unthinkable two years ago as retailers and music companies were at odds about how to best approach online music sales. More than a years ago, music labels embarked on their own online efforts, but so far they have received less than rave reviews.
Now, though, the music companies and the retailers need each other more than ever. Recording companies make the music, but it is retailers who know their customers. "Retail has always been about more than simply selling CD's," said Jerry Comstock, the chief executive of Wherehouse Entertainment. "We are in the customer relationship business."
Under Echo's plan, once the group received the necessary licenses, the partners would market their services together and separately. Efforts might include promotions like "Buy a compact disc, get a free download." The retailers could also enable customers to download music in stores using portable devices, like the Apple iPod. "No one has really marketed these services," Mr. Hart of Echo said.
But some analysts suggest that no matter how much creative and marketing muscle is behind such efforts, they will not catch on unless the music is priced right. The average cost of a compact disc, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group which represents recording companies, is $14.21. Many critics say that is expensive when compared with other media, like DVD's, which offer loads of extra features and programming.
"Any opportunity retailers have to find additional revenue in a time of falling sales is a positive," said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. "Yet we continue to think that pricing has to come down to get pirates off of the free sites and onto legitimate ones."
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
If you took a whole bunch of airplane parts and all the Boeing engineers and put them in a room, the result would not be an airplane, because the Boeing company and the things it does in the way of managing/coordinating/research are indeed necessary for the production of airplanes.
If you took a whole bunch of signed recording artists, and left them in a room with the appropriate tools, the result *would* be music, because the marketing/distribution/hyping done by record companies is *not* necessary for the production of music.
At one point, perhaps the record corps were necessary for distribution, but now that physical media are not necessary, it's harder to make that case. They certainly aren't necessary in the way that Boeing are necessary for airplanes, anyway.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Obviously, I don't agree with the motivations of the music companies. But I DO think it's cool that we have this ongonig *technical* struggle...the DRM arms race.
Again, I hate the music companies, but seeing the clevarness go back and forth is great to watch. I hope I can get in on it personally some day.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
What's wrong with "recording companies make the music?"
Not wanting to state the obvious, but it's a symbiotic relationship between recording company and artist, which is why the recording companies don't actually make the music. They finance it, fair enough, so they have a part in making the music, but I think the point is that they have no creative influence in the music-making process itself. I guess it's what you mean by making the music...
You've got a point though, but if record companies suddenly ceased to exist, would music itself die too? Personally, I think not ^_^
---
"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" - Gandhi
...Because on one hand, the amount of actually release went DOWN. So yes, if you put out less stuff, chances are you will sell less. It's been on /. with the RIAA numbers fuding articles of prior months after the hacking attempts.
If p2p programs are causing less sales, it's probably not from the overt "They are stealing music" reasons.
As somebody noted above, more than likely, people aren't falling into the one song album trap anymore and are becoming better shoppers for their dollar. People go and try out a few songs of an upcoming album, realize it's SHIT and then don't buy it. Caveat Emptor taking to the digital age.
I'm sure many of us download a few albums, find one that really speaks to you and rush out to buy it. I've done it many times and I'm sure many, many people have done the same thing. I'm betting for some artists, the p2p trading has generated them more buzz than if they had to have a record company pay to promote them.
My advice to the RIAA would be to maybe invest in finding better musicians and making cd production and distribution cheaper than it is now so cds can be 9.99 instead of 18.99, while still giving the artist his same meager cut :[.
Raunchy
"Sad to see the article's author flat-out claim that '... a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.'"
Sure it's sad, but as the business sections of the main media rags are little more than Corporate PR publications, is it at all surprising? The company says it, and then the newspaper quit attributing it to the source, thereby trying to pass it off as Fact. As most of the readers don't question what they read, it quickly becomes public opinion.
The retailers are starting to get a clue but still have a long way to go as evidenced by 'Recording companies make the music...' and 'We are in the customer relationship business.'"
The silly demonizing of the record companies is really getting counter productive. In a strict sense, of course, the recording companies don't "make" the music (of course the artists do, but under contract), just like software companies don't "make" the software (their programmers do, under contract), and just like home-building companies don't "make" the homes (the construction workers do also under employment contract).
But it is a useful shorthand to say all of the above. Without the record companies the vast majority of songs that get traded so happily on P2P networks would never have made it to rippable CDs in the first place (as an aside, I always found the usage of the term "rip" in this context to be somewhat revealing).
And the poster's implied distinction between the record companies and the people who "made" the music suggests that the artists are uniformly against the record companies and their efforts in this area. P2P advocates are being flat-out chauvinistic if they think that all artists - or maybe even a majority - disagree with the RIAA's stands. It irks me when I see a few artists' views trotted out with the implicit assumption that their views are representative...what's the real big picture ?
To be sure, there is a vocal group, but I wonder whether they're getting disproportionate press precisely because they're arguing something more controversial - you never hear about Metallica complaining about P2P anymore, because it's just boring and it seems obvious.
Has anyone conducted polls of major artists to see where they stand and how they feel about the RIAA ? I'm not talking about disenfranchised had-their-day-in-the-sun-more-than-a-decade-ago artists (*cough*Janis Ian*cough*) and I'm not talking about little independent artists who probably secretly would *love* to get a big record deal if they could - what about a survey of artists in the Billboard 100, or artists with the best selling CDs in the last 10 years, or the top 100 artists traded on Kazaa/Gnutella...or some other reasonably objective criteria that defines a sample of artists under contract to record companies represented by theRIAA ?
What is needed here is hard, representative statistics, not agenda-laden anecdotes that fit whatever story happens to be convenient with the story-teller's philosophy.
"According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks album sales, 681 million were sold in 2002, down from 785 million in 2000."
Well gee, it's not exactly like everyone else had a record year in 2002. I own a deli, and sales were down almost 30% last year over 2001. I'm likely going to have to sell the place or close it down within the next few months, but you don't see me whining to everyone in sight that things aren't going my way.
People can't "pirate" subs, gyros, or muffulettas. There is one thing and one thing only to blame for the fact that I'm almost out of business: the economy. People aren't spending the money to eat out every day, and companies are cutting back on their catered staff meetings/conferences/parties.
When nobody has any money, sales are going to decline! Get over it, Record Industry! The "piracy" argument is overplayed at best - just like everything else the RIAA pumps out - and at worst it's a red herring.
I also think the comparison of 2002 sales vs 2000 sales is a bit misleading. Things have changed a lot in this country since 2000.
it's really amazing to read this kinda stuff-- it just makes me think that the folks in charge of the industry just DO. NOT. GETIT.
- the people downloading music to try-before-you-buy are buying CDs anyway.
- the people downloading music and NOT buying CDs are faced with the choice: pay for music, or continue to get it for free?
- the people looking for better music will still be looking at scores of cookie-cutter bands (until their tastes mature and discover tasty indie rock).
- the people looking for Added Content and Bonus Stuff still won't be getting stuff like the Michelle Branch Crotch Scratch-n-Sniff sticker, or centerfold foldouts, in their CD cases.
and finally, just read the article to see what a bad idea the whole thing is. on the one hand, you have the phrase "Liquid Audio" mentioned. on the other, you have Best Buy shutting down 107 stores. and then you have "Liquid Audio." OMGWTFBBQ LIQUID AUDIO?! ABANDON SHIT!
one last thing: thank the lord jebus to the story author or whoever it was that added the "&partner=GOOGLE" to the url. no registration for NYTimes articles! WAHOOO!
Any bets, this won't get past the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?
At the very least, I'm sure there will be consumers proteection issues for price-fixing out the wazoo for DRM challenge music files!
That will make me run out and buy! Unforunately, the media companies just don't get it. I will NOT spend 18 dollars on a CD, and neither will most (all!) of my mid-20 to mid 30s friends. So there aren't not "losing" music sales to music file sharing. They just aren't getting any sales anymore because I am fed up of them feeding me schlock and expecting me to pay for it. As far as I'm concerned the ball is in their court to offer non-DRM challenge MP3 (Ogg, whatever!) files to me at a reasonable per song rate (reasonable to me seems to be a buck fifty to 2 bucks a song (average 12 songs over an 18 dollar CD)). Then frankly, I will pay for music.
Until then, I'm buying up as much cheap casettes as I can so I can "time-shift" my music to MP3 format -- That is Fair Use!
I gave this service a shot as well and it was a complete let down. Until they realize that the value of the free alternative, despite its many short-comings, is far superior to their own product, they are going to continue to lose this battle.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Naturally you'd still have lamers on p2p, but then these people would never use a pay site anyway, even if meant wasting ten hours to find and download the same songs that the pay site sold for seven dollars.
There is a convincing piece by Damien Cave on Salon.com titled "File Sharing: Innocent Until Proven Guilty" which argues that there is no proven correlation between downloaded music and the decline in CD sales. He continues to argue in "File Sharing: Guilty As Charged?" that a good deal of the 'sky is falling' rhetoric created by the record companies and the RIAA is based on supposition and self-interest. In addition, the article "RIAA's Statistics Don't Add Up To Piracy" analyzes the RIAA's own statistics and argues that they do not support the RIAA's conclusion that downloaded music is the cause for the decline in CD sales. In this detailed analysis, George Ziemann argues that the record industry released 11,900 fewer titles in 2000 than it released in 1999, a 25% decrease, yet the total number of units shipped decreased only 10.3% and the dollar value of these units fell by only 4.1%. It seems that the RIAA is misinterpreting its own statistics.
Also, the record companies just settled a price fixing suit in which they admitted they were overcharging consumers. This point seems to be overlooked by the RIAA in its attempt to place all blame for the woes of the music business at the feet of mp3's. Is it possible that the decrease in CD sales is related to the conspiracy by the major record labels to inflate prices?
together and starting thier pay for music services.
screw brittney pop, i want stuff i havent heard before!
So, six major retailers are forming a joint venture. That could be read as six major retailers have decided to collude, not compete. That is called a trust, and it is illegal if they are doing it to fix prices. I am very suspicious of this. Online or in a store, I will not buy CDs. The recording industry doesn't deserve my business.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
We are in the customer relationship business
u lt.htm
What buisness is not?
If you bought a CD in the last few years, get your $20.00 from the Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation Settlement. Click the red text on the lefthttp://www.musiccdsettlement.com/english/defa
They have two functions: up-front money for musicians to make recordings, and their distribution apparatus. The former is being undercut by the growing availability of cheaper digital technology, and the latter has been undercut by the (clearly practical) distribution of music over the internet.
They are searching desperately for some means to survive in the connected society, as their business model disintegrates. Is anyone surprised that they are taking desperate (and not well-thought-out) measures?
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
Any proof? I have not seen any closing stores yet, but I have seen an OPENING one (due in a month). If they close 107 stores and open 108, that's not quite the same as just closing 107 stores...
The average cost of a compact disc, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group which represents recording companies, is $14.21.
What is the average cost of a DVD? An audio tape? judging by the prices, the audio tape costs much less on average, yet it's the same music...?
I want the CD... I want to go into a store and purchase the music of a good artist, and I want to hear other music of their's - I just don't want to pay $15-$22 for every one of them! It just might be the idea of "make me 15 tracks, 2 of which are good," that turns people off from buying CDs. I'm a customer, I'm speaking - LEARN!
SIG: HUP
So that's the biz plan of the RIAA (MPAA may be different):
There is only a couple of problems with this plan: (a) selling... er... forcing sh!t down the throat of the average consumer, like Britney Spears, does not bring a lot of $$$ and (b) file-based protection will never work, unless (c) you also force people to use stuff like Palladium -- but that opens up another can of worms for both the RIAA and its allies.
Prognosis? Will work for 6 months top. Past these point, somebody will figure out a way to crack the system. He/She'll get his ass burned badly by the RIAA lawyers, but that will be the end of it.
Either that, or some enterprising company from Korea or Taiwan will figure out that there is a lot of $$$$ to be made selling non-Palladium compliant hardware to people who want it. Game Over.
Too little, too late. Sorry, RIAA.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Most of the cost is in the channel, the retailers
and distributors markup. Is is hard to see how they
can add anything but cost as they have to continue
to protect retail prices...
The 25% decline in industry output, the economy, the specifics of the offerings, the collusively illegal prices, the wide variety of other available choices for purchase, the ubiquity of music available free on MTV, these are all bothersome and distracting. And "reporting" can tire one out.
the fact that they have jacked the prices way up on cd's either? I used a giftcard at a popular gift/music store this weekend and got 2 cd's for my $40. Now that is just WRONG. This is the first time I've bought cd's in over a year and its left a bad taste in my mouth. I own several hundred CD's and it was not too long ago when cd's could be had for HALF of what they are trying to sell them for now. I honestly can't believe these bands, that have become successful, can sleep at night. If the record companies really believe they need this much for a CD then they are doing something wrong or have way too much overhead. It all just makes me really sad.
I used to feel at least a small pang of guilt when listening to downloaded music - if I like it, I feel like I should give the musician something back somehow.
... and if I buy they will conclude that their strategies worked...
Nowadays, with the recording companies trying to force me into buying worse products at higher prices (now there's a way of competing you won't learn in school!) I'm getting so annoyed that I *really* don't want to buy anything. If I do, some of my money will go into things like crappy CD's and lawsuits, which I don't want to support.
It's becoming a political statement for me not to buy CD's or copy protected music. At least not at full price.
And that will of course make the record companies think there's even more DL'ing going on, with more efforts on their part to stop me
Strangely, it seems like we'll both loose. They won't get my money and I won't get the music that I want. Oh bummer. What's needed is a new business idea, where the middleman is either gone or doing something else.
It doesn't matter what the middlemen offer. They are still irrelevant. Long live live music.
They quote two numbers for record sales, showing a decline in sales by 13% from 2000 to 2002, and claim that it is all because of illegal file sharing. Why do people believe this? There is a simpler explanation: it's the economy, stupid. People have less money to spend. I do not participate in file sharing, but I have also not bought a new CD in over a year because I don't have the damn cash! Perhaps some people buy fewer CDs because of file swapping, perhaps some people buy more, but nobody knows the general trend. There have been no unbiased studies.
The sad fact is that the New York Times parroted the alleged reason for sales loss without some kind of disclaimer, such as "Music companies claim that a proliferation of file-swapping...". They are a reputable news organization, they should know better than to parrot facts given by a trade organization. I heard this same thing on CBS news yesterday, but I wasn't surprised. It was typical of CBS quality journalism. However, this was most certainly sub-par for the Times.
At last....I can firewall our keyboard player :)
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
I'd like to know if they are going to make a "REAL" concerted effort to make this a success by adopting a new business model rather than trying half-hearted tactics and blaming Kazaa et al for its failure rather than their own lack of understanding or attempts to build up more legal collateral for legislation.
I replied in the wrong window. This was supposed to be in the Ethernet guitar thread. I feel sheepish. Mod me down -50 Dumb Ass
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
Usually I buy CDs at a concert, after listening to the artist(s), but last weekend I found a large rack of CDs in a retail store for $4.99 each, or 5 for $20. I haven't listened to any of them yet, but they had jewel cases and artwork. They are marked as classical music, and at least one was from Hong Kong.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
From the editorial: The NET Act works in two ways: In general, violations are punishable by one year in prison, if the total value of the files exceeds $1,000; or, if the value tops $2,500, not more than five years in prison. Also, if someone logs on to a file-trading network and shares even one MP3 file without permission in "expectation" that others will do the same, full criminal penalties kick in automatically.
"At one point, perhaps the record corps were necessary for distribution, but now that physical media are not necessary, it's harder to make that case. They certainly aren't necessary in the way that Boeing are necessary for airplanes, anyway."
Ah yes. The geek's POV. Free clue:not everyone has internet access. Not everyone has a computer. Not everyone has a fast connection.Not everyone even has a phone. Not everyone wants to go through all the above. Not everyone wants to spend hours weeding through all the crap (remember the "are publishers necessary?" story awile back?. Not everyone wants to spend hours ripping to hard drive, so they can brag to all their friends how techno-cool they are. To presume that what's true for a relatively small (compared to either the US or world) group, applies to all is a geek weakness. In summary the "middle"man is still necessary, and physical media (what the hell are you sticking in that drive again?) is very necessary. Maybe some of you geeks need to start companies (communes?) to make your utopian vision come true, and find out how hard reality really can be.
Hey, how about this to sell CDs? START OFFERING BACK CATALOGS.
Most of the stuff I download I can't even get on CD in the first damn place. Had they re-released older Devo albums(not greatest hit compilations), I would buy it in an instant. If they released CDs of (insert obscure 80s synthpop band here), I'd buy it. Is it availble? No. Forget it then.
Probably it woudln't be commercially feasiable to release CD versions of old vinyl from bands that never got popular, but it would be cheaper than new music from new bands.
The article says "a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.'"...
I haven't bought many cds lately, and it's not because of the Internet (since I don't use p2p). My decline in purchases is for two reasons:
1) CDs are too bloody expensive
2) Current music selections SUCK.
Get a better variety of music out there, and don't charge so fcsking much for a CD (weren't the prices supposed to come DOWN over the years?), and you'll get more customers. It really is that simple.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Frankly most of the music being produced today sucks. Maybe it's because they cant build on prior art?
Either way it sucks. Thats why sales have dropped.
You dont see Ford or Intel blame pirates when their sales drop. They look at the quality of their product and market conditions.
I remember purchasing music from cdnow thinking i was getting an mp3 file i could later burn to a cd, only to find out (after the fact) the music was in this liquid audio format where the "recommended" player was liquid audio player (which i believe was the only player). It also claimed the song was only playable from 1 computer and was crippled in such a way that I had to do an analog rip of the song from one of my computers to the other. My point is that if they are going to be successful they have to be MORE convenient that file sharing programs. And not just by having easily downloadable mp3s, but an easier interface, more reliability, and faster downloads, etc...
...but we let the RIAA do our dirty work.
Shitty music is the reason I do not purchase CD's. Major label garbage is all it is, one good song out of 16? Fuck that noise. I will sing in the shower before these bastards get ANY of my money. I stopped listening to the FM radio back in 1976! Commercial crap rhymes with Rap.
hmmm, "banding together" sounds familiar...
Wouldn't all this "banding together" get them into more (small) trouble?
Let's sidestep the "there are only 2 good songs on the CD argument for a moment" ...
My experience (albeit limited) indicates to me that less people are buying CD's. I've talked with adults who have NO IDEA that downloading music and burning it to a CD is wrong -- they think they're getting free music. Numerous high school kids I've talked to seem to think that music is free, only an idiot would actualy BUY a CD.
Now the question is; would these people actually buy CD's if free downloadable music wasn't available? Again, my experience has shown that they would. In the past, before the online piracy of music became a way of life, these same people I knew were in fact buying CD's. And now? They aren't.
The problem is (IMO), is that most people don't know they're stealing. They don't see someone getting hurt, therefore it's OK.
I don't blame the music industry for trying to prevent this wholesale ripoff of their product.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
The major American motion picture studios are doing better financially than the major American record labels partly because a movie often pays for its production at the box office alone, whereas a record has no box office at all, except for motion picture soundtracks.
Solution: Make music videos for all songs on an album. Interweave them with a cheap plot, and turn them into a movie. (I'm thinking like Moonwalker but hopefully better written.) Release the movie theatrically on the Friday before the album comes out. Then, after a few weeks in the box office, put the videos into MTV's heavy rotation.
This should be easy enough for Sony, Warner, and Universal, who own both a record label and a movie studio. It may not work for Bertelsmann and EMI, who don't have major U.S. movie holdings.
If I am talking out of my rear end, please explain to me in polite language why this wouldn't work.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Your eloquently stated opinions intrigue me. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
And I havent downloaded any mp3s either.
And I probably never will. All the artists I listen to are dead or in drug-induced comas or something.
It became clear to me long before the whole P2P-vs-DRM issues that the music industry has nothing left to offer me. I already own all the music I'll ever want to listen to.
Likewise, I've never purchased a movie, and probably never will. I'm just not the type to watch a movie again after I've seen it, so I dont see the point in owning one.
That said, I don't give a rats ass what happens to the entertainment industry or P2P.
They can lock it all up with DRM so noone can hear it, they can make it all public domain and print the sheet music on toilet paper. They can charge $300 per minute of audio, or give it away for free. They can mandate that Yoko Ono is to do backup vocals for every song until the end of time just so people wont want to hear it.
They can go bankrupt, go to jail, go to hell.
I just dont give a shit.
And I'd wager that every day another handful of people like me come to the exact same realization. RIAA members sell images. Few people truly love music enough to pay to listen to it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
send a letter here NYTimes Corrections
/. does not help, my mom doesn't read slashdot. To really start to make change you have to participate in public discussion. One way is to let the authors of articles that spread mis-information that they are doing a disservice to their readers. Given enough complaints over time we might see some change in the way these issues get reported. I think the nytimes is one of the last credible news sources and has not been proven to be a shill for the pigopolists, maybe they will listen. But we will never know till enough people let them know what news they are publishing is incorrect.
Bitching about it on
btw... journalists require facts. so don't email them that **pa blows chuncks. if you have an opinion about something try the op-ed
1. When I *BUY* music I want to *GET* something and I don't think I'm alone in this. Many studies have shown that people like physical artifacts, something you can poke with a stick and say: "that's mine"!
2. The duplication and shipping costs of sending me a CD are as nothing to the overheads (and profits) of the music industry itself, so I assume that I'm not going to save a great deal of money buying the music data rather than a disc.
3. Even if they did deep and sell it cheap they'll only undermine their own dwindling CD sales.
It just seems like they want to hasten their own demise.
Now, I use a portable minidisc recorder/player to cut my own mixes of CDs I own, as well as MP3s I download. My PREFERENCE is to make mixes with CD because of the quality of the end result. Now, if I buy a CD that has copy protection on it that makes it so I can't cut a copy to a MD, I'm going to return it, asafp. It's a defective, broken product that I won't shell my money out for.
The same goes for any online music retailer that purports to sell downloadable versions of music with heaps upon heaps of restrictions on how I use it. If I pay money for a CD, a song, or an MP3 I want to be able to record a mix MD with that product. IF they can provide a cost effective service for me to get music and use it how I want to, then this is an excellent idea and maybe we should take a look at it for what it is without as much bias. However I'll wait until the service is active and has decent music to grab before passing final judgement.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
is "making" the music the creative process of arranging notes and lyrics, or the physical process of manufacturing the CD?
Copyright law recognizes three steps in the process of making a record:
So they have created a product. But somebody still needs to create a demand for the product, and promotion is traditionally the job of a label.
Will I retire or break 10K?
That's all nice. However your as guilty of what I mentioned to one of the other posters. There's a bigger world out there, and the "division of labour" that created it. Not everyone wants to deal with financials, hence an accountant. not everone wants to deal with legals, and administration, hence a producer and lawyer. Not everyone wants to do the grudge work, hence roadies. Kind of cuts into the " I just want to play music" thing, doesn't it? There's also a matter of scaling. If all you ever want is to make just barely above "break even" then? Yeah!. Go for it. There's also the (so far) unanswered question of all these "street performers" level ideas, and sustainability? How many can be sustained in a given area, or as a group "industry"? How about long term? Will fans make the effort to support their musicians, if they know that it involves traveling somewere? Convience is more than just a marketing word.
Muze is a company that provides data content about almost every CD/record made since records and CDs could be documented. The Muze guys are okay, and I don't think they'd really want to limit the music, but their customers tend to be the tightest screws I've ever met. They'll try to rip us off online - that's all that is. Go to your independent stores. I get my CDs for $3-4 cheaper on every CD, and used CDs are offered for $4-11 cheaper than any CD at the CD store. And box sets... Nearly half price.
I don't know where they're going with this, but I assure you that they all know each other pretty well, from years of dealing with Muze. I suspect some price fixing and oligopoly strategies, squeezing the remainder of my faith in the music industry down the tubes.
The best thing bands can do today is to put up a website with free downloads of all their songs. Beside each song have a recommended donation price ($1 to $3 per track) - with a paypal link so folks who appreciate your work can pay.
Then, get out there and tour - pay your dues every weekend to promote your music and your website. You're not here to get rich quick - you are here because you love the music.
~~~
The best thing music lovers can do is start donating to these pioneering indy bands - and stop buying CDs - unless it is absolutely worth it (and I don't consider much new music produced in the past 5 years worth it - with a few exceptions).
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
I just spoke with the Editor in chief of the Ney York Times Digital.
I politely informed him of the erroneous statement in the article and indicated to him that there was no substantiation for this claim.
I also proceeded to inform him, at his request that I personally found new music on sites like VH1.com and mtv.com and sampled them to find out if I wanted to buy them at which point I would go purchase the song, or the CD depending on availability.
He has informed me that they will be making a correction to the article.
The offending remark is in paragraph 3, sentence 3. I have requested to have this sentence eliminated, given the stature of the NYTimes and it's desire to remain a factual newspaper.
If you notice, none of the rest of the article has to do with free downloading networks.
There is substantial research to indicate the primary causes for the decline in CD sales to be the over-proliferation of recording companies all wanting a piece of the pie and a sharp economic donwturn forcing consumers to cut back in spending in an already saturated marketplace.
If you all could keep watch on this article and see if the retraction/correction takes place, I would appreciate it.
I will be calling the NYTimes back this afternoon as a followup.
Thanks.
"I like my music as music and my movies as movies."
Explain concerts. If a band can turn an album into a concert, a theatrical performance, effectively a play, then why not turn the play into a movie?
Of course, it wouldn't work for every band's album, but it could work in enough cases to bring a few extra bucks for Sony, Warner, and Universal and create demand for a product (music videos) that is slightly harder to pirate than straight recorded music.
Will I retire or break 10K?
These guys sell most of their music directly but have signed up with smaller labels in various countries, so they have a minimal Brick and Mortar presence. You can download a fair amount of shortend mp3's of their music, and most importantly they have decided to use DVD as the medium of choice / distribution, so you get the whole experience in addition to the music.
Help fight continental drift.
Have A Cigar -- Pink Floyd . I'm not exactly sure, but always if I hear this song it makes me think of some record-label manager lying to a band and tring to rip them off. It probably is even about that.
So it's hardly a new phenomenon.
To be more blunt. A CD comes with 74 minutes of audio only content, with possibly a little extra photographic or artwork on the case. For the same amount, you can buy a DVD with 90-120 minutes of AV content, plus typically anywhere from 5-20 minutes of extra, behind the scenes, get to know the creative artist footage, interviews, promos, etc.
Bottom LINE. The labels are not providing the same amount of Bang For the Buck value in their products as the studios.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
Interesting article.
:-/
This is what I read:
Bla bla bla bla... we are, again, going to attempt to sell music online that you can only play in our players for a limited amount of time or for as long as you keep paying us. You mp3 player will be useless, and don't even think about burning CD's
Sell non-encrypted mp3's online, or any other format I can convert to MP3. I want to play MY music in MY mp3 player and MY CD player!
I know the article didn't say what format they were going to use, but I am open for anyone that wants to bet against me when I say that the music will be encrypted in one way on another.
I wonder if they will ever understand...
Sorry the link to Nightwish disappeared. Look here Nightwish
Help fight continental drift.
These idiots shouldn't be allowed to "band together". It's their stupid group-mentality and deranged attack on their customers that is causing their problems. When all the big players like this join forces, that's illegal collusion under the Sherman Act (again, IMHO).
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
Uhhh. Is that a typo? There's like...1..2..3..FOUR keys between 'T' and 'P'.
Ohhhhhh. TP.
I get it.
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
The stuff ('artists') they're trying to sell you is cr@p. People that want Britney will still buy the CD at the mall. People that like rare, hard to find, original music will continue p2p/private ftp servers/ rip|mix|burn / cuz' they won't find what they're looking for on this new site. Besides, I'm ready to bet that the value/cost will suck: you can't sell junk food at caviar prices.
there's no place like ~
If I hear a song on the radio that I enjoy, I can just search for it on Kazaa Lite and download it. It doesn't matter if it's an unreleased promo-only track or a promo-only mix that isn't for sale on the album, chances are it's already been leaked online and I can get it.
I'm sick of the games the music industry plays by not releasing certain mixes of tracks they play on the air, only releasing some songs as singles and bullshit release dates for tracks the radio already has. If you're going to play it on the air - sell it or I'll just get it elsewhere.
Once I noticed I'd been downloading more than a few MP3s by the same artist, I'd actually buy the albums. Not only was this to show support for the artist, but it allowed me to make a high-bitrate rip to MP3 of the entire CD for my own personal use. With the introduction of copy protection, however, I doubt I'll ever buy another CD again unless the music industry sees the error of its ways.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Since when did producers become a symbol of the record industry? In fact, all the services you have listed I still view as being underneath the label part.
Especially for producers. If you ask me, producers are part of the whole experience. If you are into rap, you can hardly discount the effect that people have had like Dr. Dre and The Neptunes. Likewise for rock, one can hardly discount the role people like Danial Lanois and Brian Eno (who also produced one of my other favorite bands, James) have had on U2, or personal favorites like Butch Vig or Flood.
Good producers are necessary, however in most cases they are picked by the artist, not the label. (With the exception of pre-fab music).
I'm not stealing a whole album of your TV's so I don't need to pay for just one.
'... a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.'
well, of course. now people can listen to an album and find out that it sucks BEFORE they buy it.
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
If just one major label took the risk of opening up their catalog the
way that consumers want, the rest could follow. Even if they took the
chance on one artist's catalog to see how it went. As an example,
if the Beatles catalog was offered online as highest quality mp3s,
consistent clean meta data, no drm. $15 bucks per album, 1 buck per
single. The complete catalog, at a clean, consistent quality level.
(Something that's not available from p2p these days).
No catches, no proprietary player. You could also order the same
content on physical media with bonus fetish material at a price premium,
say another 10 bucks. Not everyone has broadband. If it's encoded at
a high bit rate, it's not worth the time and hassle for everyone to download
and mirror.
Would this venture be out of business in 6 months? Discuss.
Nobody talks about this, so I just thought that I'd point out the rats nest that is publishing rights. For an online service to be legal, one needs both copyrights and publishing rights. Copyright for most works is held by the members of the RIAA. The similar organization for publishing rights is called Harry Fox Agency. However, Harry Fox has thousands of members and they are all very small. If you want to make a legal online service, you have to get written authorization from these Harry Fox members. However, the lack of coordination and technology at Harry Fox makes this almost impossible. It is extremely diffucult to get this permission because they don't know who owns the publishing rights, or are unable to contact the owners for many songs.
This is why even services like pressplay and musicnet do not have a very good selection. For background, see this article where Universal lost a lawsuit when it was sued by the publishers when they attempted to put music that they owned the copyright for online.
What fools do these RIAA fascists take me for?
I downloaded from Napster, and continue to download music from Kaaza and other online sources. I've also purchased about 50 CD's since New Years.
Why would one not buy CD's? I like to sample popular songs with MP3s, but you really can't beat getting the full album, with the album, deep tracks, and sound quality.
Why would anyone want to keep thousands of songs on a computer anyway? Personally, I like using an entire wall of shelves to hold jewel cases and CDs.
Paying $25 for the newest Britney Spears album gives me a feeling of pride that my money is helping Britney develop her musical career. Downloading every piece of music every recorded for free doesn't give me that satisfaction.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Anyway, I'm glad to see these guys have managed to stay alive and if their new service is like the old one I'll definitely check it out.
If individual songs were priced around a nickel (5 cents US) and album prices were a dollar or less online music sales would be a success and the companies involved might actually make more and not less money.
There is a precedent for this type of scenario. Remember Compuserve in the late 80s and early 90s ? It had several hundred thousand members and charged $6 and $12 per hour for access. Remember what happened when Netcom introduced the $20 per month flat rate plan ?
I realize that given the greed of the current music "industry" leaders this won't happen soon, but besides that does anybody think it *wouldn't* work and solve most of the "piracy" problems if it was given a chance ? Compuserve always said their prices were a bargain and no one could do it for less also.
Echo, as in "we've heard it before".
It's nice that retailers are joining the mutiny against record companies, even if only the way rats jump ship. The whole record business is heading for a niche -- old music -- music recorded in the days when record companies were able to force musicians to hand over their rights, when the companies could become the owners of the music, could make it "their" music. You see that phrase in the article... get permission from record companies' to download "their" music. Record companies still think of musicians as contract labor making a product for them. It's happening slowly, but as more musicians find ways to get their music heard without locking into record deals, the ownership of music by record companies will dwindle to an oldies collection.
In this detailed analysis, George Ziemann argues that the record industry released 11,900 fewer titles in 2000 than it released in 1999, a 25% decrease, yet the total number of units shipped decreased only 10.3% and the dollar value of these units fell by only 4.1%. It seems that the RIAA is misinterpreting its own statistics.
... doesn't apply here. The music industry knows exactly how many new albums it released, what number of sales that should add up to, and how to calculate a representative statistic based on that data. They choose not to do so because of their malice toward the customer.
Misinterpreting? No... they're interpreting the statistics exactly the way they mean to.
"Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence"
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
So, the main issue is whether or not people will download songs from the Internet? By this, I mean that the downloaded song will be the only copy of the song that the person will own. Will this work? For me, no. I want the actual CD so that I can make another copy should my hard drive die, I get a virus, h4xor3d, whatever. Okay, simple solution, buy the CD. Not quite. Too expensive. I cannot justify spending $15-$19 on a CD. Is there a solution? Offer me more for my $15-$20. Where? On the frickin' internet. By buying the CD, give me access to other resources online. Databases of artist information, artists similar to that artist, a list of concert dates, videos and other various multimedia, pictures, desktops and throw in a few select "live" mp3 or oggs every once in a while. Rather than view the buying of the CD as a final goal, consider it the beginning of a relationship that lasts as long as I like that artist and what he/she is doing creatively.
Ultimately, I want a physical device for the music (most important), but with these added features, I could rationalize the price of the CD's and might actually buy a few from you scoundrels. This "multimedia" content would have low overhead (make once, millions of downloads) and would add value to a CD and might actually make for more return business for the music industry. It would at least make me visit your website more often than now. Another note is that this "multimedia" content must be of very high quality, digitally. No 64kb/s mp3's, or super small videos that you can't even make out the artist's face. This was once called an "Enhanced" CD, I think, but being on the CD limits it use. Good idea, bad implementation.
Is it just me, or did someone else find it surprising that the NYTimes' site did not display the registration page this time?
Does this mean that NYTimes has realized that keeping tabs on customers makes customers angry?
Or does this mean that they are using a more insidious method of data collection?
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Music Retailers Team Up
To Form Internet Venture
By NICK WINGFIELD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
A half-dozen major music retailers, reeling from a slowdown in CD sales, have formed a new company that plans to offer songs for downloading from the Internet.
Best Buy Co., Hastings Entertainment Inc., MTS Inc.'s Tower Records, Trans World Entertainment Corp., Virgin Entertainment Group Inc. and Wherehouse Music Inc. said they have founded Echo Inc., a consortium developing a service that will let each of the retailers distribute music on the Internet under their respective brand names. Echo will immediately seek to negotiate music licenses from major and independent record labels, according to the company's chief executive, Dan Hart.
The consortium represents an effort to answer the explosion of music piracy through Internet file-sharing services and compact-disc copying that retailers and music companies blame for an estimated 9% drop in CD sales last year. Retailers also are seeing competition from the major recording companies that release most popular music, which have formed separate ventures, MusicNet and pressplay, for downloading music.
In forming their own consortium from scratch, the retailers are effectively betting that they can get better terms by collectively licensing music from recording companies, rather than cutting deals individually with the labels. Executives involved with Echo, which is majority-owned by the retailers, said they hoped to have more control over their relationship with consumers than they would by obtaining music through MusicNet or pressplay.
"It's clear that retail stores are threatened by digital distribution," says P.J. McNealy, a digital-media analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. The thinking behind the consortium "may be there's strength in numbers."
It isn't clear whether Echo can begin to remedy the retailers' troubles, though. Wherehouse, for instance, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, while Best Buy has said it will close more than 100 of its Musicland stores.
Echo will need to license music from the recording companies, a process likely to take months. Once they begin offering music to consumers for a fee, Echo must still compete against free Internet services like KaZaA and Morpheus. Commercial music services on the Internet have been hobbled by spotty song selection and early limits on CD recording, though the services have improved gradually in both regards.
The industry is littered with startup music services that failed: In fact, Echo's predecessor, Echo Networks Inc., folded early last year, when it decided it couldn't obtain music licenses on favorable enough terms to support a business. Mr. Hart says he believes the new Echo can be more successful by piggybacking on the existing marketing muscle of retailers.
"The marginal cost of putting digital advertisements in circulars is so much lower than for an independent company that wanted to go out and purchase those partnerships," says Mr. Hart, who declined to say how much the retailers invested in the company.
In a similar effort, Anderson Merchandisers LP, one of the leading distributors of music and other media, said Friday that it would pay $3.2 million to acquire the assets of software company Liquid Audio Inc., in a bid to help retailers establish downloading services.
Pushing their own Internet services may not help retailers build more foot-traffic in stores. But Kevin Ertell, senior vice president of Tower Records' online operations, says the store hopes to offer its version of the Echo service through kiosks in retail locations. "I think the in-store experience is going to be really important," Mr. Ertell says.
Write to Nick Wingfield at <address removed>
Updated January 27, 2003 12:19 a.m. EST
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
"But a proliferation of free music-swapping services, among other factors, has led to a decline in CD sales." Ah, the underwater portion of the iceberg those "other factors" represent. Yeah, like them terrorists, wow they just ruined the music industry!
Absent the "pirates and terrorists" explanation, record company and retail executives might have to step up to the decades-brewing economic realities of the twenty-first century: an unsustainable percentage of economic growth, in the USA at least (I don't know about other countries) was fueled by insane consumer credit spending (people spending money they didn't have, at an interest rate exceeding the rate of increase of their income, do the math) market value growths that had no basis in legitimate profitability (such as the internet bubble and investment into companies like Worldcom and Enron that were just flat-out lying about their actual profits), and flat-out mismanagement by the insanely overpaid snake oil prophets of the high-flying executive class. Of course what we're going to hear over and over again is how it's all about pirates and terrorists. What's the alternative? Accept responsibility?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
If I had the choice between downloading an album or buying the Cd, I'd buy the CD. I could always make my digital music from the CD plus I'd still have a better sounding option being the CD.
The record labels still don't get it. Here's what they need to do to be successful:
1. Open their catalogs. Why should I be limited? They call me a pirate for downloading music, but if its the only way I can listen to something that's no longer in print, how does that make me the pirate?
2. LOWER YOUR PRICES.
3. LOWER YOUR PRICES. $18 is way too much to pay for a CD. $10 should be the maximum.
4. Make singles available again. Most of the crap being promoted today doesn't warrant buying the whole album. I buy albums of those artists I really like. Let me just purchase the singles for songs I like.
5. LOWER YOUR PRICES. Sell all your CD's for $10. I notice the new releases go for $11.99. Why can't I buy music from the 60's, 70's , 80's, and 90's for the same price?
6. LOWER YOUR PRICES. You must not realize that you have competition in DVD's. If I've got $20 to burn, I'll probably go for the DVD instead of the CD when they cost about the same.
In today's NY Times article "6 Retailers Plan Venture to Sell Music on the Web" Laura M. Holson writes, "a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales."
Ms. Holmes has either succumbed to the incessant propaganda of the big music labels or has an insight into global economic causal relations that would make even Chairman Greenspan envious.
During the same time period that peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have been active, several other factors have existed that seem as likely or more likely to explain the recent decline in CD sales.
1. The music industry has consolidated to such an extent that many radio stations sound exactly alike, reducing consumer choice and interest.
2. The music industry focuses almost all its promotional efforts on a few super-artists who have a chance to sell millions of records (Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Boy Bands, etc.) and so non-mainstream or non-teen-pop artists that would interest people over age 25 (with purchasing power) do not get the exposure necessary to attract new fans.
3. Consumers have more products competing for their limited dollars than ever before. DVDs, wireless phones, digital cable, broadband internet, PDAs and a host of other things soak up time and money that used to be spent listening to music and buying CDs.
4. The music labels over-charge for their products (and were even recently convicted of illegal price-fixing and they have not offered a reasonably priced alternative to file-sharing networks that does not cripple the downloads in some way (limited playbacks, unable to burn to CD, expires after a set time, etc.) It's not surprising then that when consumers don't get what they want, they don't shell out their hard-earned cash.
5. There is an overall slowdown in the economy, if no one has noticed.
In response, consider instead that:
1. Jupiter Communications did a study in 2000 at the height of Napster usage that showed Napster users bought MORE not FEWER CDs.
2. Actual artists claim that file-sharing increases their sales.
I would have hoped that a reporter for The New York Times would be more careful about so casually asigning a single cause to such a complex effect.
[snip personal info]
If published, please print name and city/state only.
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
Echo
Press release
They even have some patents that sound like a p2p app.
Interesting that it is the retailers of music, not the makers of music that are doing this... I guess they are tired of the industry's failure to adapt.
"we are in the customer relationship business.' If that's so much the case, then how come the only "customers" you mainly market to are under 25 years of age? In case you haven't noticed, the largers demographic group in the world is now the 25-54 group. You know, the one you barely give lip service to, and when you do call us crooks and thieves! Your industry is dying because you're still trying to market the equilavent of the buggy whip in the age of the Spece Shuttle. Plus, you have the arrogance to actually believe that YOU make the music??!! Let me clue you in: artists and musicians make music, and all the blow you do every day doesn't give any of you one shread of musical talent! Q: How many A&R (artist and repertoire, the ones who find and sign bands) persons does it take to change a light bulb? A: I don't know, what do you think?
Kazaa is out there, and sure, a lot of people aren't buying some CD's because they use Kazaa to either:
a) discover that the CD's suck
b) get the one song that's actually good and save the money they would have spent
Kazaa isn't what's cutting into CD sales though. If you look at the stats, the amount of new music being produced by the big record labels is down. Thus, less people are feeling compelled to buy new CD's. Furthermore, any market that existed for people upgrading from tapes, etc, has been thoroughly exploited by now.
Also, the record industry is undergoing a significant fragmentation because the mass marketing of radio is driving people to find more obscure alternatives amongst local bands and on the Internet. Since the record labels offer no significant alternative on the Internet, they lose a lot of their power to control the market. Instead of having to listen to the 40 most popular songs get played to death I can go find whatever I want and play it as much or little as I want.
Basically when you get down to it, these record companies are aging dinosaurs who have a business models engineered for an environment that has ceased to exist. Evolve or die.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
This sounds an awful lot like Orbitz.com. When Orbitz was announced, there was a lot of FUD about how it was going to be unfair competition and drive all other online travel services out of business.
Now it's 2 years later, none of that has happened, and Orbitz is just another online travel service.
I don't think this will be any different.
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
Why is it so hard for them to figure this out:
1. Record company still produces and promotes artist, and hosts www.bandname.com for the artist.
2. Record company sells mp3/ogg version of the album on www.bandname.com for $5, cutting out costs of the physical media production, and distribution.
US Airways doesn't make airplanes.
Evil is the money of root.
*thinking* What's a muffuletta?
(googles it)
Some sort of sandwichy thing
mmmm....muffuletta
Um, what were we talking about again?
There's one crucial difference that makes this comparison totally invalid: the studios make a great deal of their money--most of it, no doubt--at the box office. The recording industry doesn't have any comparable money-making mechanism; so you see all of their costs reflected in the price of the CD.
Yes, CDs are overpriced. But you can make that statement without involving DVDs--which, despite the physical similarity, operate on a different economic model altogether.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
words will do it no justice.
find one. eat it. love it.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
At least if you are going to piss and moan get your quote right.
Here is your quote from the article:
'... a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.'
Here is the REAL quote from the article:
'... a proliferation of free music-swapping services, among other factors, has led to a decline in CD sales.'
That makes a difference doesn't it.
second, dvds do cost more money these days. not much anymore, but more none the less. also, they have alot more content, which means more money to make overall.
third, the recording industry has live performances and tours, and they make their artists pay extra for their own goods. is true.
fact is, album production costs in the 150k range, involving like 50-60 people approximate the cost of a day or two of movie production.
cds are a ripoff today. a mass production (distribution) model would work far better, if the assholes at the labels could figure it out.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
IMHO, CD sales are slumping due to many factors:
1) the economy
2) record prices increased from $10 to nearly $20 in the past 10 years. most people's salaries sure as hell didn't double. however the last report I read said that CEO salaries went up 4300% in the past decade. that's criminal.
3) less venues to hear live music. Lounge Axe is gone, and the alderman is trying to close down the Fireside Bowl. DAMN.
4) less songs on the air -- radio stations are too controlled by playlists that market to certain buying groups. the result is that less artists and less songs get played. also the fact that MTV has more garbage on the air and hardly any music. who the hell cares about a bunch of priviledged kids who drive around in a mobile home or live in some fabulous loft for 6 months.
5) the death of napster. at napster's height, record sales actually INCREASED. that's because more people were exposed to more music than they would have heard otherwise
6) college stations are underfunded more than ever (see #1) and are more likely to play music via internet streaming than via the airwaves in the future -- if they're even still funded. too bad internet streaming sounds like underwater music. I'd rather not listen.
7) record companies stopped selling singles, accounting for an 11% loss in sales. hmmm, isn't that number awfully close to their projected loss?
8) record labels continue to market britney/christina/shakira/shania/nsync to a population that doesn't give a rat's ass for advertising soundtrack music
so basically the record companies are making up whatever bullshit stories they can in order to put pressure on congress and the courts. the end result is that the groups who hold power are shooting themselves in the foot -- and preventing younger artists from getting the shot they deserve.
(just read rolling stone. springsteen the top artist of the year? maybe in the eyes of the cast of the sopranos. cool article on my friend Ted Leo though)
I never buy new recordings...and the used ones I
buy are pretty obscure, only the stuff they never
play on the radio.
Of course, with mith mp3.com and all the
non-commercial radio stations that are on line,
there's not much that doesn't get played.
So, armed with a list of streaming sources,
a simple randomizer, buffer, dead air detector,
skip button, one has the ultimate radio.
Someone build this, PLEASE!
Essentially there is no difference, in user
experience, between the above 'application'
and running a well tuned P2P client with
play at random from the stored content!
Well, maybe the 'buffer' is larger, but that's
about it.
Sure, with the downloaded stuff, you can hear what
you want, when you want to, but why? With a decent
database of sources and broadcast/stream schedules
the end result is BETTER. You get to hear the
kind of music you want, but it's got a nice
built in surprise/random factor. And you've got
the opportunity to discover something new.
'Hey, those guys are really good, I'll go see them
next time they are in the theater'
With this in mind, I can see that the best
interest of the record companires would be to
follow in the footsteps of the movie industry.
1)Live concerts with lots of promotion attended
by industry stars and attendent media attention.
2)Live band tour accompanied by release in 'audio
theatre' format. Audio theaters would be great!
Better sound than 99% of the fans have at home,
and some visual presentation where it adds to the
experience.
3)Simultaneous broadcast and media release.
Broadcast being streaming, over the air, and P2P.
The quality of which is inferior to purchased
media. Purchased media price adjusted by hassle
factor of finding a decent full bit/sample
rate copy and burning ones own on a fragile
home recordable medium vs rugged media,
accompanying literature, nice packaging.
Isn't this the way the movie companies distribute?
It works for them.
-bob
was just in virgin the other day, and every CD is $20. I'm not buying CDs as long as they are $20 or higher.
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
The TV show 'Dawsons Creek' has recently launched an innnovative build-you-ouwn-cd site based on the soundtrack of the show. (http://www.dawsonscreekcds.com) You can customize the look, and even pick tracks based on your favorite character. I wonder if this'll take off for other shows or brands. I can just see Pepsi becoming the major distributor of Britney Spears. Discalimer: I am NOT a fan of Dawson or Britney, but the idea of music being sold as a periphreal product of a bigger brand, rather than a brand itself is pretty interesting.
According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks album sales, 681 million were sold in 2002, down from 785 million in 2000.
But if you look here for instance, you'll see that the article starts with "Christmas 2002 may wind up being a season to forget for some of the country's biggest retailers". Times are tough all over. I went shopping at 3 differnt malls on Christmas Eve, and I had no trouble finding parking, and I know that the malls were completely dead before Christmas too.
Best Buy announced that it would close 107 stores...
I've got a sneaking suspicion that Best Buy's decision to close 107 stores isn't completely linked to Kazaa et al. Also, I want to know where on Kazaa I can download a new TV, DVD player, and accessories for my new cell phone.
Also, with regard to Best Buy, how many of the stores that they closed were because they'd bought Future Shop and were duplicating in the same market? IIRC, they're closing a couple of stores in and around Bellingham, WA, since the Future Shop is about 2 blocks from Best Buy.
-- Ray
> And earlier this month, Best Buy announced that > it would close 107 stores.
Well don't blame CD sales for that one. Blame the service or lack thereof.
Best Buy != Best Service.
Let's see.
1. Lines can be so backed up at the registers (the few that are open) customers just put the items back and leave.
2. Finding someone who is willing to help is easy as long as your not at a counter trying to get some precious item that has to be locked up. Never mind the security tags already on most bigger ticket items throughout the store.
3. Try handing one of the cash register operators a $100 bill. You might get the pleasant suprise that they call the manager over to ask if it is real. Not that they look for counterfeits but they had never seen a $100 bill before.
Every time someone submits an article with a link to NYTimes, add them to your Enemy list. That way, people will stop submitting NYTimes links! I'm getting sick of dealing with all this 'registration required' crap, even if it is free. What I especially dislike is that the /. editors are going back on their word wrt not linking to sites that require registration.
p2p actually sells music (but you knew that)
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Why can't music industry mojos see that jumping on the 'downloadables' bandwagon won't help anything? The problem remains: no unethical person will pay for something that is also available free.
Maybe one day someone will realize that the only thing the music industry has going for it (unless they begin propagating morality, *hack*) is whatever the internet/burning scene doesn't.
Namely: appealing tactile products (ie-cd jackets) or whatever else you can come up with
Has anyone noticed that this 'decline' mostly follows pop music? Most mp3's bounced back and forth through file sharing progs have woefully incomplete id3 tags. Many people (actual music people, not 'pop' music people) who want, say, a specific (conductor / orchestra / soloist / line-up), isn't going to use a file sharing program, they're going to buy a cd. There's a reason there are half a dozen different recordings of the Vivaldi Recorder Concertos in my local cd store, and a reason I got the one I did.
File sharing programs don't allow for specifics. Often songs on kazaa won't even be by the band it says they'll be - it will be a cover, or (worse) a 'techno remix'. Not to mention tracking down specific live tracks is relatively impossible. So maybe the concept of marketing music as a 'product' instead of as 'music' has finally come back to haunt 'them'.
Let me tell you the story of a law named SHERMAN,
it busted up the oil trusts and kept big business squirmin',
until one day Bork decided big was good,
and they stuffed all the courts with lots of right wing hoods.
Judges, that is.
Then they decided SHERMAN didn't mean just what it said,
Instead it only barred big mergers when they didn't cut overhead,
Suddenly the world was in for such a big consolidation,
Everything was run by a aolnewssonymicrosoftviacomgetimewarnerturner creation.
Oligopolies, that is.
Now these few big companies control all the news we see,
And the song this post parodies won't be free 'till 2053,
And AOL's so big it files law briefs against itself,
And their all so reliant on government that any criticism sits on the shelf.
Self-censorhip that is.
So good old Michael Powell is having hearings on these facts,
And the music companies are working together online to sell some tracks,
But they won't release their catalogs they say due to piracy,
Even though all the songs are on Kazaa already now for free.
Loss of vertical price controls, that is. RIAA losing power. Big trouble.
So they passed a few NET act laws that put 25 million americans elgible for federal slammer,
With three year manditory minimums for swapping those songs by MC hammer,
And with as many consumers labelled criminals as voted for Al Gore,
Now we know how Bush will lock up the vote in 2004.
Blackmail that is. Ashcroft to a T. And ya thought florida was bad?
So remember folks next time you fire up Gnutella,
The RIAA, the FEDS, and AOL CNN will treat ya like a goodfella,
And when the public balks at monopolies and infinte copyright,
They'll just lock up anyone who dares to put up a fight.
Its the INTERNET RIAABILLIES!
One question this story has me asking is how do *they* (the powers that be) plan on distinguishing legal and illegal downloads?
If the music industry plans on selling music online, and at the same time on prosecuting those who don't download through authorized dealers, how do plan on distinguishing an mp3 file that was illegally downloaded from one that was legally downloaded?
Wasn't there an article recently where a RIAA exec was proclaiming that ISP should be 'taxed' since 'they all know that they are transporting pirated music' across their networks?
Well than is not the opposite true. That is if they have a business plan that includes the net as a distribution channel than they should have to pay a tax to allow their customers to download their product.
The entertainment industry's attempt to lock everything under DRM may be trumped by legislation that has yet to be passed. The bill tries to restore fair use rights to those who legally acquired a work of non-analog art by allowing the circumvention of DRM by the owner of the work. Quite a pleasant shock, I hope this bill (or something very similar) gets passed.
hrm. then again. maybe not.
Well, they added a "among other factors" to the statement. Guess it's a small concession.
Imagine what would have happened if we all had called???
...going to come to the same conclusion that consumers have. Mainstream music mostly sucks and paying $18.99 for a CD that sucks is way too expensive. If the major labels would lower CD prices, AND stop spending too much money on a few crappy mainstream hopefuls so they can spread more money amongst fresh and new acts, then CD sales will rise again. Adding in bonuses to the CD packaging is cool, too, but doesn't address the main problem.
When I first bought a CD player, the entire available collection consisted of 12 CDs. At that time the price of a CD was $15.99 and a vinyl record was around $5.99. The CD premium was supposedly due to expensive CD pressing equipment. I was willing to pay this. Now about 20 years later, we actually see CD's increasing in price, some as high as 18.99 or more. This in spite of the fact that an individual can buy a blank CD for about 10 cents.
Somehow a 16000% markup no longer seems acceptable when alternative means exist to circumvent this. What the recording industry needs to do is keep prices in-line with costs and when costs go down, pass those on. If a CD retails for $6.00, somehow I believe there would be far fewer people cloning. Probably a few will still do so, but the numbers would be similar to to people making cassettes. Of course lowering price, would cut out a lot of the RIAA types that see themselves as adding in value. There is nothing wrong with stealing from those who try to steal from you -- the playing field has been leveled with 10 cent blank CDs.
CD's suck... 15-20 bucks for 1 or 2 highly promoted tracks you hear ad-neauseum on the radio. The other tracks are generally dreck and its hard to find the un-promoted gems becasue you cannot easily preview tracks not widely played. IE my idea of sampling music is not sitting at a store wearing indestructo crappy unadjustable sound headphones with a line behind me... or worse yet standing in line waiting. I much preffer kicked back at home or driving in my car with my sound system on my time.
The RIAA quite simply has got to find another buisness paradigm, one not predicated on a measure of physcial control over distributed media. Digital material simply does not work by the same rules as more physical based mediums and that is a good thing. Digital is the reality just the same as 8 track beat the Record, Cassette beat 8 track and CD beat cassete. Fluid digital will beat restricted CD digital. Remember capatilisim is a consumer driven marketplace thus one way or another the consumer will eventually win.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
That's the real issue -- the RIAA fears you discovering music that they aren't pushing. They want to control what you are listening too. Honestly, the RIAA doesn't care about you're illegal copy of the White Album...they want to make sure that you don't discover a great unsigned band who has songs out on some p2p. The RIAA fears you finding these bands, telling your friends, and all of you actually buying an mp3 or two from the band's site for a few bucks. Let's face it...we all know that someday great bands will entirely control the distribution of their music digitally, and there will be no true "labels" any more. The RIAA is just postponing that as long as they can...They don't care (so much) about the illegal music swapping. They want to completely stop the legal music swapping.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Maybe I'm a bit off-topic, but why do people DDOS RIAA.org? Hacking it is all good, but who actually needs to go to RIAA.org? What's the point in having it down?
I think people would be better off DOSing warner.com, columbia.com, sonymusic.com, emi.com, etc. By attacking the RIAA, it's showing the record labels they really can hide behind a nameless entity. Show them that what they spend money on to limit freedom really does come back to haunt them personally, and news stories will start focusing more on RIAA members and not a meaningless acronym.
my blog
Lawyer for the prosecution: We realize, your honour, that the defendent's illegal file sharing totalled only $1,206.59, but we intend to prove that this is, in fact, equivalent to $2,892.61 in price-fixed-- ahem, value-added RIAA products, and therefore request the greater sentence....
Just "starting to create bands" like that? Label-developed and hyped groups have been with us since the 50's (Phil Spector made a buch famous), were HUGE in the '60s and 70's (remember The Monkeys? How about Boston?), and even inflicted the 80's Punk movement (Suicidal Tendancies, anyone?). As far as I can tell, every label made a trip to Seattle in the 90's and rounded up a bunch of guys hanging out in coffeeshops and handed them guitars. No generation or music genre has been free from label-developed/hyped bands - it's only human nature to believe that the music we have now is in someway special (worse, more corporate, etc.)
... and I know they will be reading this ....
.... $0.75 per song tops, fast server, and I'LL BUY ... and I bet most people would. I wont steal it, but I expect to be able to transfer it to my laptop or new computer and I wanna be able to use it in my car CD player and IPOD too.
... so please save everyone the trouble.
... and the number of songs I buy increases exponentially as the price per song decreases linearly .... you know ... all those supply demand curve the marketing types love.
No DRM, plain old mp3 or ogg encoded at a good bitrate 128kbps is OK, but 256kbps would be better with ID tags filled in and all that jazz at a good price
If you put crap DRM in it, I guess I'll have to get a rip from kaza as a backup copy to protect my fair use right anyway
Oh
Its that easy. Welcome to the 90's.
Troll. The actual quote included the phrase "among other factors", which you went out of your way to remove from the middle of the sentence.
Vote for Pedro
"Sad to see the article's author flat-out claim that '... a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.'"
What color is the sky on your planet? Do you honestly think the average Joe gives a monkey's chuff about copyright? Hell, I've paid for Abbey Road 5 times. The RIAA owes me and I'll continue to go P2P lootin. It's payback time motherfuckers.
This could be more than just music...it could be an on-line experience! Games, contests, chats with your favorite artists as well as downloads. Images and sounds never before experienced here.
Great opportunites for musicians and web artists can benefit everyone. yeah! Go Echo!
As it is now, I simply buy most of my music used for ~$7/CD. Likewise I sell stuff I am no longer interested in. Everything is then encoded as I please.
On average I spend $14.99 a month on online music (emusic.com--great if you're not into pop). I also probably spend about $30 on CDs (2 cds or so) and maybe buy a DVD.
now, on emusic I can download whatever I want (so long as it's available...lots is and lots isn't)--as much as I can fit through my (modest) pipe each month. I can sit down, Queue up a few hundred songs for download and have them by morning.
this is what we need...just with better selection. I'd pay $25 a month for that easily--if it meant I didn't have to buy CDs cause I could just get the stuff and burn it myself. I'd probably still buy a CD from time to time anyways.
They are too concentrated on gouging the user to think of something that simple.
Brian