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.'"
Record companies should start flooding the Internet with bogus MP3 files that look like songs, but that explode on contact inside the hard drives of Internet thieves. Anyone who illegally downloads an MP3 file via KaZaA or any of the myriad peer-to-peer (i.e. thief-to-thief) services would at best get a corrupted file, and at worst a ruined hard drive.
The companies should band together and enlist a dark force of special-ops hackers to make this happen. Once Net users discover that all they're downloading is a World Wide Web of pain, only the most determined and technologically savvy of them will continue to steal music.
Explode on contact? Hey great, while we're at it why don't we get those 1337o hackers make loads of nasty pixies flood out of the downloader's coffee cup holder... er I mean CD ROM drive (you know, that nasty thing used for ripping CD's)
So this is the sort of utter crap that Slashdot is linking to these days? Word to the editors: This is still in Mysterious Future, I'd recommend you dump it posthaste ;) (Yes I'm a subscription whore. $5 or so is fair game for an extended post history. Morbid curiosity)
Were simply making copies of the original items and leaving them intact, I think I'd be fine with it.
Elvis would just order another burger and shoot the TV?!
"We must ask ourselves what [sic] to 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."
File Chapter 7 (liquidation) bankruptcy on Monday, and by Friday, all your troubles will be over; I promise you.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
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
Okay, so according to the write up swapping some songs on the internet is better than breaking into a Baghdad museum and making off with priceless historical artifacts. Hrm...next you'll be telling me that murderers are getting lighter sentences than those violating the DMCA.
What you need to do is make the consumer want to purchase this hunk of plastic. So package the hunk of plastic with some jerk off material like T.A.T.U.'s CD with wet-tshit pics.
It's not the RECORDING industry that's ailing -- it's the MEDIA DISTRIBUTION industry. Artists will always need good studios, producers, technicians, and equipment. The RIAA is misnamed. Their weakening stranglehold on the distibution of the final product (bits) is the only reason they get a piece of the pie, and not a flat fee (like the tour bus driver).
-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.
Perhaps this article (and many similar ones written this week) should be read first before taking the first article with a grain of "downloading is bad" salt.
h tm l
http://www.antimusic.com/news/03/april/item19.s
The way the indie promotion business works is record labels pay the indie promoters to work directly with radio stations to get songs on the air. It is estimated that this system can cost over a $1 million to land a song on Top 40 radio.
A million dollars a song? No, there's no way you can lose money doing THAT with homogenized bland "sounds like" radio, is there?
An open note to record companies: Downloading is not hurting you as much as you're hurting yourself (and your audience indirectly) with the payola and other fat inside the company.
Want to make money again? Stop paying for radio to sound homogenic. Stop paying everyone and their grandmother bribes to tell people that the music you paid too much to record (michael jackson's invincible is a good one) doesn't suck and it's worth getting 40 spins a day on the top 100 stations in the US. Make programming directors at radio stations do their job and discover new music again, and break the stuff that needs to be broken, and let the copycat mainstream music stay on MTV, where they're content to just use what they're paid to play.
Give Radio back to the people, and you'll see that people want your music again, and it won't always be just the stuff you force feed them. If the same 25 songs weren't put on a loop with commercials on most radio stations, you'd see more than the same 25 albums being sold, and you'd likely not need to pay a million bucks a song (and with the typical 5 single album, that's 5 mil in useless waste, multiplied by perhaps 100 albums a year, that's half a billion dollars in useless waste, isn't it?).
Amazing where you can find profits these days, isn't it?
It's that simple. The music industry is pricing itself out of business. Why do I have to pay $15 for a CD with an hour of music when I can spend only a little more to get a DVD... 2 hour movie, often 2 or 3 hours of bonus material, feature commentaries (another 2 hours each). Start selling CDs at reasonable prices and sales will go up, piracy will go down.
LordBodak's journal.
Free Joe
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
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 pay $16 for a CD that costs almost nothing to make. Most artists do not get a cent from CD sales.
The artist have to pay "expenses" first. These include a breakage fee to cover the cost of broken shellack 78 RPM disks!
Music would be better if the big 5 recording companies all went tits up.
We would have a better selection of Music. More artists would actually get paid.
The technology now exists for decentralised music distribution.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
'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'
Make better music? Stop hating your customers? I can't tell you how good it made me feel, for example, to hear a few days after purchasing a Nora Jones CD that her producer attributes her success to an "older audience" that doesn't know enough about computers to download music. They even believe their own propaganda these days!
The truth is that despite knowing full well what a computer is and how to use it, I've purchased more CDs in the last year than I ever have. They're almost all from independents, though. There's very little worth buying that comes from the major labels these days. Getting RIAA propaganda as part of the package makes what they're pushing even less attractive.
You can argue that its morally and legally wrong, but that doesn't make it theft, anymore than arson is theft because it is morally and legally wrong. The quote about Bagdad looters is rich, and incredibly stupid as it makes my point perfectly. These people are theives; all these thousands of year old artifacts might be gone forever. But if the looters were copying all the anchient scrolls as opposed to running off with them, they'd still be in the museum.
Any reasonably intelligent person should be able differentiate between infringment and theft, but even here on Slashdot there are numerous people who just can't seem to wrap their minds around it. Try imagining someone who insists that apples are oranges because they both come from trees and start out as flowers, thats what these guys are like.
To those people, before you respond, read these two things over and over until they sink in, and try not to let your minds be thrown into an infinite loop:
If those two eat pussy, I'll eat my cat.
Oh man, I really hope they're lesbians. I'd love to see you eat your cat. (well, and if they were lesbians, that'd just be fucking cool).
;)
neurostarWhy 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
Elvis agrees with Janis Ian. I ran into him the other night at the 7/11 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, while he was refilling the propane tanks outside.
elvis is DEAD . .. so who gives a shit what some ass supposes he would think?
-fester
-'fester
Elvis probably would have sided with the RIAA once Hilary and Jack convinced him (in a barbituate-induced mental stupor) that by fighting mp3s he was fighting communism. But for him to be invoked as a fighter against "piracy" is ludicrous, since he built his career on the open theft of black music. His work is a perfect case study in how copyright law benefits the real pirates over the real artists. I won't say Elvis wasn't great - he was an incredible performer and artistically he made many of the songs his own - but his greatness was built on the kind of theft and piracy that copyright law should be designed to prevent, yet instead was used to encourage.
I really like the comment on the radio part. My local radio station claims to be playing hit after hit. Which is true, to bad they play the same hit over and over again. If you don't like the music which has been defined as hits this week, well to bad, you're going to hate what their playing on the radio then. I would agree with what they claim in the article, the radios doesn't play enough different music.
Another problem which they don't cover is the fact that the music industry doesn't give its customers what they want. If they don't know what we want, it's because they don't listen. We keep telling them what we want and they keep ignoring us. We want cheap downloadable music. The music should be available in the formats we like, not some weirdo proprietary file format. It must be available in high quality, 128kbps is not nearly enough. Most importantly, the selection needs to be huge, just like we see on the p2p networks. Also the website where we buy the music should remember what we bought, just in case we lose the file and needs to re-download it. No other industry can survive ingoring the wishes of their customer, I don't see what make the music indutry so unique.
Why don't they try to make music something you buy on impulse, just like chewing gum in the supermarket. If I hear a song in the radio or on tv, my only shoot at getting this song, while I remember it, is via some p2p network. Why the music indutry doesn't see profit in this is beyond me.
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.
(pretend the following is in italics)
Some 17-year-olds I know have vast music collections but have yet to purchase their first CD.
(okay, you can stop pretending now)
Fair enough, but I know of a 42-year-old who has bought hundreds of pieces of music over his lifetime, but only has about 20 in his possession right now.
Lets see... there were 120+ albums that became nostalgia pieces when CD's hit the mainstream. Various CD's that got scratched or broken. Cassettes that met a sad demise in a hot car in the Texas sun. 8-Tracks... hell, we won't even talk about them.
Point being, the music industry keeps insisting that I'm not buying the actual music, just a limited license to listen to said music. Fine, but in that case I'm going to insist that I own that license forever, regardless of whether or not I still own the physical medium the music was recorded on. As long as I didn't give it away or resell it, it's still mine.
Until the music industry offers to replace all this stuff for free when it breaks or wears out, I'm going to keep hitting the P2P networks to get copies of the stuff I've already paid for.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
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.
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
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.
That doesn't solve the record companies' problem of controlling their intellectual property.
Their problem isn't controlling their intellectual property, it's that they're trying too hard to control consumers, and consumers don't want to be controlled. We want to pick and choose how we listen, what we listen to, and so forth, and the record companies don't want us to chose. They want us to bend over and take it the only way they're willing to give it.
Like what I said? You might like my music