Slashdot Mirror
Time to Face the Music
Mortimer.CA writes "The Toronto Star has an article up about the ailing recording industry with some possible scenarios for solving the problem(s). Choice quotation: 'We must ask ourselves what Elvis would do to stop the theft of music via the Internet, now so widespread and so brazen that it makes the Baghdad looters look like trick-or-treaters.'"
Give me a service which has nearly all the songs p2p networks has (ie the big 4 labels and all the smaller ones) for betwen £5 and £10 per month for nonDRM's downloads (ie in mp3 or ogg format) either in unlimited ammount of downloads or limited - 50 songs per month??? and i will pay now
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
I read this in the paper today. The first guy's a complete idiot. The other 4 aren't so bad but it's nothing new. As far as I remember, one guy was saying that record companies SHOULD go down, another person wrote that it's all about the radio stations and that's where the fault lies, and what the other two guys said was more or less repeating what the other two said.
Nothing in the article is new that 95% the rest of us already know about.
KaZaA's online file-sharing service leapt by a staggering 1,500 per cent between the summers of '01 and '02
Wasnt that around the time napster was shutdown and everyone was looking for an alternative??
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
What the HELL are they talking about...they are looking just fine to me. They are making money, tons of it even. And they seem to have plenty of money to spend on lawyers to prosecute college students.
-the record companies will stop promoting anything that might be experimental and push the brittanies and N'sync's in their quest for dollars.
/end cristal ball
-by not signing new bands to restrictive and costly (to the bands) contracts, more players in the indie scene will appear, more artists will take control of their own destiny
-CD's and mp3's will become promotional material available on artists' websites (already happening now) for the real money making venture - touring! (which is definately the place to hear your favourite bands)
Clear Channel and Ticket Master will be the corporate pimps in this new business model
One would almost think market economies would tend to lower the price of items as distribution costs fall. Last time I looked, the cost of CDs were rising. (That was a while ago...because I never even bother looking at CDs any more.)
The pirating is just a side show. The real problem is that distribution and production costs have fallen through the floor and the industry has not responded to the market dynamics. Instead they cling to copyright laws and monopolistic tactics to maintain artificially inflated costs of their goods.
If you really asked the musicians...most would love the idea of a dollar CD. A dime a song.
The CRIA's complaint is that someone is robbing the plunder house.
BTW What's this noise about antiquities? Try pumping an antiquity in your Surburban and see where it gets you.
Jeez, get a sense of proportion. The lawlessness in Baghdad is causing human suffering, death, and may yet lead to a real war. The lawlessness in the IP market is leading to lower revenues -- maybe. Only someone who's at the center of their own moral universe would try to compare the two!
'We must ask ourselves what Elvis would do to stop the theft of music via the Internet, now so widespread and so brazen that it makes the Baghdad looters look like trick-or-treaters.'"
Considering Elvis was the "bad-ass" of his time, he would probably be trading music with the rest of us. I don't know about you, but not all the Baghdad looters are bad, mostly the ones stealing from the hospitals and muesums that are bad, but even then you can't say trading music is worse than stealing needed medical equipment that would have been used to save lives. The only thing I'm depriving someone by stealing music is buying that brand new porsche to add to the collection, fucking Hillary Rosen.
One day history books are going to record how the american music industry burried itself by treating its clientel like criminals. Let me ask this though, why bother saving the music industry? The meat of the music industry isn't the companies distributing the recordings, its the artists performing the music. If the Internet enables people to get the music directly from the artist, and low cost recording equipment and instruments allow the artists to mix and record their own music, what the hell is wrong with that?
The RIAA is an obsolete business, thank god we didn't have the United States postal service going after the Internet because Email was causing them to lose postage stamp sales (they almost did). Someone came up with a better way, and you can't fight that. No matter what you do, the RIAA is going to be obsolete in probably 10 years.. The question is how much damage are they going to cause on the way down. Companies like the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, Sony, that think they can control the consumers make me want to change my profession from an engineer to a lawyer so I go after these damn corporations myself..
Ugh, infuriating..
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Why is there so much discussion over this so-called "theft" we're experiencing on a massive scale? Regardless of what you think, sales aren't declining because "music sucks" or because the RIAA is recieving some karmic death-blow.
The music industry is starting to have problems because their method of distribution is outdated. The problem: digital music has become a huge online phenomenon, people want "formless" content that they can transfer to any media they see fit (hard drive, cd, memory stick) and the RIAA has so far been unable to provide consumers with that product.
The solution: consumers take matters into their own hands, downloading mp3's and then burning, ripping, copying, etc. The reason this has become such a huge deal is that the RIAA as a sort of oligopoly is having trouble coming to grips with the notion that the public will dictate the distribution methods and prices on its own terms. Like the "black market" writeup on K5 a month or two ago, we're seeing a system completely devoid of that which the public wants - on-line distribution at a signifigantly cheaper price than that of a CD (keep in mind blank media already benefits the RIAA).
Until the RIAA stops thrashing about in this all-out effort to dictate to the public exactly how, when, and for how much (no matter how inflated the price) they can get content, they're going to continue to have problems.
No morality, no ethics, just the facts. 'Nuff said.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
50 cent had "highest-selling first album on a major label since Nielsen SoundScan began tabulating record sales in 1991, selling nearly 900,000 copies in the week following its February release" and basically he did 3 things.
1. Get famous first (create buzz with mixtapes or giving it out free on net)
2. Put a performance DVD in the package(just some handicam stuff, fan's dont care its "free")
3. Put out the CD before the bootleg (he actually released it early for this reason
What the hell does Mp3 networks like kazaa have to do with the downfall of Sony's classical division? There's hardly any classic music to be found, and the little that is to be found are mostly incomplete pieces (like the first part of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or a handful of ouvertures by Wagner). Also, it is impossible to find the recordings you are after (conductors, recordings, orchestras etc are very seldomly hinted by the filenames). Do most people that doesn't listen to classical music even know these things matter?
If anything, only being able to download what is essentially small snippets of classical music. When it's easy to find and download a complete recording of Bach's Mattheus Passion with the conductor of the downloaders choice and also in good quality, then MAYBE mp3 will start hurting the classic recording industry. Most probably, it will only spurn people to buy more music.
The truth is that Sony saw that their profits were down and just axed one of the least profitable departments. Kazaa had nothing to do with this.
I would like to mod that Toronto Star article -1, flamebait.
-Lars
The bad news is that sales of CDs are in a freefall, representing a $250 million loss over the last two years.
OK, so we agree sales are falling. Is it any wonder? Having heard the fifth cover version of "Spirit in the Sky" earlier and myriads of other "artists" releasing other people's work, I begin to wonder if the media have woken up to exactly who is the thief here.
Wake up call: There is a global recession, or something that very much looks like one. The music industry is being hit by a downturn in spending in general, just like everyone else. Not only that but they are exacerbating the problem by the broadside by turning out crap, stuff we've heard time and time again, manufactured groups and cover versions that shame the originals. Why are they making less money? Doesn't take a rocket scientist, does it?
Why wasn't there all this hue and cry when twin tape decks appeared on the market? Because they weren't as visible as the publicly accessible Internet. Album and song sharing is not a new, 'net age problem. It happened all the time pre-Internet. Anyone who says they haven't copied a tape or recorded from the chart show on the radio is either very young or a liar. The only reason this is gaining public airtime is simply because the 'net, being free speech epitomised, is an easy target for any group of totalitarians, the RIAA included.
Yes, BTW, I buy my music, when there's anything worth buying. I always have done. The problem is, the interval between my purchases has increased. This is not influenced by finances or that I can download from the 'net. Simply put, the amount of quality music available has declined. Not only that but the implication that I am a criminal simply because I am tech savvy and trying to blame me and worse, imposing a tax on me due to their own faliures and shortcomings doesn't exactly endear the music industry to me, making me think a little more carefully about what I purchase since my purchases may support this idiocy.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
I don't know why the retarded record companies can't look out the window and see as plain as day what they have to do.
If the major record labels and a few minor ones would just get together and offer a reasonably priced (I'm talking $5 - $10 per month) subscription-based Napster-like service, they would make more money.
I prefer downloading music. I don't have to drive to the store, I don't have to buy 12 lame songs to get the one that I like, and I can mix my own CDs for my driving pleasure.
This would be good for artists as well. They wouldn't have to work so hard to release an "album". They could just release one or two songs and everybody would be happy. Or, instead of waiting until they have cobbled together a list of 12 - 15 songs (most of which will be lame anyway), they could release 3 - 4 good songs and forget all the crap songs (of course they'd have to come up with a bunch of crap songs if they wanted to go on tour I guess).
Anyway, online subscription-based services are the answer, not paying extra money for stupid encryption schemes that will be broken within minutes of being released.
So if, online file traders are like the looters in Baghdad, then I'd liken the RIAA, and the recording industry at large, to Saddam Hussein. They oppress their artists and their consumers, and their latest legal tactics to "kill" companies like Napster are their own private version of WMD.
-buf
As many people have pointed out, it's the big labels who are in pain: smaller labels aren't dying. When I lived in France, my favourite record shop was a boutique of a label called Harmonia Mundi. It wasn't cheap, but every CD I got there was impeccable. It didn't stock any of the major big labels.
Here's an article by Bernard Coutaz, founder of Harmonia Mundi, where he essentially calls for the death of the big companies who in his eyes are killing classical music:
Does the recording industry actually have concrete proof of a direct correlation between apparent loses and music piracy? It seems to me like there is also the possibility that the quality and effort put into new music is going down as well. I do agree that music piracy is undoubtedly reducing the overall revenue. However, another possibility is that the lost revenue is simply the CD's that people stopped buying because people were actually able to try out CD's before they bought them.
Promote artsists that are actually talented and interesting, and maybe I will buy something again. As it is now, I am not ripping your garbage from Kazaa because it is not even worth the search and the download. How is that for you? Your crap is not even worth stealing. I go to shows, I buy from artists web sites or at their shows, and I listen to interesting radio. You can keep your platinum sellers, I am bored with them.
Explode on contact?
Indeed!
And this article talks about how Canadian radio is lame. Why is it lame?
Canadian radio is lame because the Canadian government has protectionist policies which force Canadian radio and TV stations to air 40% Canadian content. This is, of course, because we don't want to lose Canadian music because of all those evil American musicians brainwashing our kids...
Unless I'm blind and missed it, the article didn't even mention Canadian content laws.
The problem is that there simply aren't enough musicians in Canada who are capable of going head to head with the products of a very similar culture, 10x the size, next door.
The net effect is that, to achieve their Canadian content requirements, Canadian broadcasters have to play the same songs over and over and over. And then there are the marginal acts which really aren't good enough for the prime time but are being played anyway... The Tragically Hip are a good example.
If any American wonders what radio sounds like when you start letting pseudo-socialists control your airwaves, hit Kazaa and grab the Tragically Hip's Bobcaygeon. I'm a classic rock fan. The classic rock station in Toronto, Q107, wants to play Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. And that's what I want to listen to. But they're forced to play Bobcaygeon because of draconian laws which try to make me like bad music.
Canadian artists can sink or swim on their own. Alanis Morrissette, Burton Cummings and the Guess Who, Celine Dion, Shania Twain have all made it big in the US. Why? Because of Canadian government protectionism? No... because they're talented.
Beyond that and without protectionism (not to mention record company pressure, but we'll leave that for another time), radio stations should be playing what the broadest cross-sections of their audiences like. Of course that will result in more listeners and therefore more ad revenues. It's in the stations' interests.
The Tragically Hip should be working at the Wendys on Division Street in Kingston. The fact that my government has cost broadcasters their audiences weakens the music industry on a whole, disgusted consumers, and wasted billions of tax dollars rescuing struggling "artists" from the hell of working day-jobs in fast food while honing their skills playing bars at night.
"Paying your dues" is apparently too inhumane for the Canadian government to allow. Paying my taxes makes me want to see my government overthrown.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Except that Radio in the US sucks as much as it does in Canada. Clear Channel, for instance has all the same problems as Canadian stations. Canadian stations have the same formula radio as the US does, except for the requirement for 35% of Canadian content on the radio means a slightly higher emphasis on Canadian music. The fact of the matter is, the music and radio industry have dug their own graves, and it's up to them to demonstrate they shouldn't be laid to rest in them.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
To compare looters who have lived in terror for their lives, their families' lives, torture, rape, etc., with spoiled college kids who are alternately downloading mp3's and porn while the roommate is gone home for the weekend. I am going to be sick.
Have some class and respect the tremendous difference between war-time civil unrest and fairyland music theft (if you even want to call it theft).
I suggest you read Slashdot
There is one main problem to subscription based models. The record companies complain the loudest about losing money on the pop-scene. As the article suggests, jazz, classical and non-mainstream genres are doing okay and the imply (rightly so?) because they are aimed at a more affluent, older crowd.
So they want kids, to buy the mainstream pop stuff right? However, all the subscription services require, you guessed it, a credit card. How about this for an idea. You sell the equivalent of prepaid phone cards at b&m locations (7-11, grocery stores etc) and that buys you X amount of songs.
If you price that at about 50 cents a song or so, you probably can get kids to buy the cards. This is especially true, if I could get high quality, fast access, etc.
I must add to the conditions, no copy protection.
People will pay! You could even encourage people to buy cds online (or offline) using these cards. You could include the cards in CDs for promotional value.
One last thing, before P2P, I used to buy around 6 cds a year (this was at my cd buying height) so far this year I have purchased 4. I am pretty sure I will be adding one more on July 8th with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's latest effort.
I pretty much have maintained the same purchase rate CDs.
Online downloading is more about convenience than anything else.
--Joey
And try to be nice for once instead of just flaming. Face it, this guy is just a journalist reguritating stuff he heard, and even then, he said a lot of stuff that most of us can agree with:
Radio is boring and homogenized, and it is hurting CD sales.
Labels should be more artist friendly
Michael Green's 2002 Grammy speech was annoying and pointless. (Even Janis Ian ripped on it.)
Decent recording can be done with reasonable studio costs (He even mentioned the new White Stripes album only costing $10,000 :-) )
Indie labels treat artists better than majors
Labels are a) greedy and b) want control of listeners
This guy is already halfway in our camp. Don't flame him, just educate him a little. In response to his claim that "sales of CDs are in a freefall", point to the recent Christian Science Monitor article we all read that said many indie labels have profits increasing 50-100% a year. Show him that the CDBaby sales figures keep getting better while the RIAA whiles that sales are disappearing.
He talked about musicians
Give him the names of acts you know about that get no radio play but who still can make money selling music and touring without a contract.In short, instead of yelling at him, give Peter Goddard a few more data points to use in his next article. This guy's views are not that different from most of the people here.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Look. Most 17-year-olds are still in high school and don't have jobs, and therefore don't have any money with which to buy CDs. Your losses due to their downloads are minimal, because they have no money to spend on CDs (or anything else, for that matter) anyway. Had downloading not been an option, they would have simply had to go without music.
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
OK, so I'm an old fuddy-duddy who remembers the days of vinyl. When I was a kid I got an old tube-type pre-amp that had an unusual dial on it. It selected the record de-emphasis to use for each particular label, and it had 19 positions. That's right, each record cutting company had its own ideas as to what the "best" pre-emphasis curve to use to reduce SNR without overcutting the record. (Yes, this was in the days of 78-rpm records, although even the early 33-1/3-rpm records were cut using proprietary filters.)
One of the reasons the Recording Industry Association of America, a.k.a the hated RIAA, was formed was to reign in the madness and develop some sensible standards for recordings. The work of the RIAA was to reduce the cost of both recording and playing back recordings in a number of formats: vinyl, magnetic tape, and at one point magnetic wire. By reducing the Babel, makers of cartridge pre-ampliers would need to put in less circuitry, makers of record-cutting lathes could provide the "standard" circuits for each speed/format, and the listening public didn't have to mess with that 19-position knob anymore when changing records.
The RIAA did such a good job that it put itself out of its original business, setting standards. Much of the standards work is now done by the developers of media: Phillips for cassettes, and I don't recall who brought us the digital compact disc. The DVD is pretty much out of RIAA's hands, too.
Interesting that the RIAA and many computer engineers have something in common -- a lack of need for what they do...
US Radio sucks ass as well. Clear Channel controls a huge percentage of the radio market and they play the same so called music ad-nauseum. I say let the recording industries die! Put the power back into the hands of the musicians. People will continue to make music whether or not they get paid millions to do so. If the recording industry gets out of the way, we may be able to sling all this over hyped corporate shit into the can. Avril, Shania, and Celine are exactly who I'm talking about here. If I have to hear any more of their stuff I'm going to jam pencils into my ears until I'm deaf.
When I see some of the album cost production figures today, I shake my head. I was reading (don't ask why) an interview with Queen Latifah in a magazine called "Sister to Sister" and she was talking about $2 million to record and produce one album.
I doubt that Berry Gordy (Motown founder/producer) spent that much on studio time and production for all the Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, Smokey Robinson, and Marvin Gaye albums he produced added together.
Has all the expensive "modern" digital studio retracking and remixing made the music we get any better? I don't think so. Maybe record companies should start cutting costs on the production end at the same time they try to figure what to do with the distribution side of the business.
- Robin
Musicians distribute their tunes freely on the Internet. In return they get exposure, which gets them paying gigs, and they live off the income from the gigs like they do now. The record business dries up and blows away, leaving musicians and everybody else to get along Just Fine.
To repeat what has been said over and over by musicians who are speaking out: musicians do not make money from recording contracts. Standard recording contracts are written so that all production, distribution and advertising costs come out of the musician's share, draining it down to zero. Musicians make money from the gigs that they get through the exposure they get by having their songs widely distributed. Give musicians an alternate distribution method which works just as well will rob them of nothing.