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RIAA vs The Economy
thumbtack writes "Boycott-RIAA.com is running an analysis
of the RIAA sales vs a number of other large corporations. It was compiled by
Justin
Moore at Duke University. It is really quite interesting, showing the the
RIAA sales are pretty much consistent with the rest of the economy. From the analysis:
I would assert, however that it does make the case in cold, hard numbers that
the RIAA's claim of digital piracy ravaging their sales must be taken with a rather
large grain of salt. The CEOs of Eastman-Kodak are in a nearly identical economic
situation as the RIAA, yet do not have the luxury of blaming digital piracy."
I would assert, however that it does make the case in cold, hard numbers that the RIAA's claim of digital piracy ravaging their sales must be taken with a rather large grain of salt.
You don't understand, the economy went down so quickly, it was like the equivalent of going out of business 5-6 times.
So you're telling us the RIAA is using the crappy economy to strengthen their monopoly?
Since when is this news?
Go to the Boycott-the-RIAA website? Sounds like a lot of work and reading and such. Can't I just pull a few gigs of mp3's and that'll count as my part to fight them?
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Yeah, Eastman-Kodak blames Digital Photography instead.
The CEOs of Eastman-Kodak are in a nearly identical economic situation as the RIAA, yet do not have the luxury of blaming digital piracy.
Obviously, they need to add a license agreement to their film products. Just forbid the stuff you don't like to happen, and then you can use every crooked law in the book to sue folks who switch to digital.
Compared to some companies (VA LINUX, I'm looking at you!), The RIAA's numbers are stellar.
Does this mean that the RIAA might be exaggerating other things? I mean, I know that every CD-ROM sale is used to pirate music, and that nobody uses them to back up documents/data/desktops/send information that's too big for a floppy or email.
Or that people are downloading 1,000,000 songs a week illegally over their T3 Internet connections and getting the full version of the albums after connecting for 60 hours a week and not going to job/school.
I mean, if you can't trust the RIAA, then who can you trust?
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It looks more like the RIAA is targeting the 1% of people who actually pirate mp3s to account for their slowing sales due to a poor economy. Atleast Kodak has a valid reason why people don't want their film products.
EMI sales down 11 percent,.
The loss is largem but it is driven by ClearCrap, not by piracy...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
This article is just another representative of the facts we've known since the RIAA's crusade against piracy began. Now I have the opportunity to read the same old comments by the same old people saying the same old things. Might as well be a repeat..
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
I don't know if Eastman-Kodak's financial situation is a good marker for economic trends. I think a great portion of their market has faced the invasion of digital photography which is certainly cuts their consumer film sales down significantly. Their economic situation may be due partially because of the economy, but also partially to an emerging technology that they is taking away some of their marketshare.
Nothing from nowhere I'm no one at all
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1999556.stm
of course this has nothing to do with the fact that the public is tired of being ripped off and taken for idiots and now is not interested in their products.
so instead of creating products that people actually want or investing in talent instead of boy bands and the like, they blame their outdated buisness model on piracy, sounds like sense to me.
are you smiling yet ?
You fool!
93% of all statistics are made up!
I wonder what the historical relationship between the economy and low-end entertainment (movies, CDs, similar) is? Is the entertainment industry recession-resistant? I know during the 1929 depression it wasn't, but since then?
I'm no fan of stealing, but hard times is certainly an excuse people use (should I say justification?).
I keep hoping that some well-run online song-for-song "rights buying" project comes up, maybe subscribing to a whole catalog? Verification is a problem, but I personally would pay a moderate amount for downloadable music, especially on a song-by-song basis.
I recognize both the interests of the artists and the argument that the industry rips off both the artist and the customer.
I suppose this is going to be another long, drawn-out social drama, especially with politicians involved.
This particular analysis does not tell us exactly how accurate the rest of the model is, and several other professional statistician shortcomings. Remember, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics; this is just another statistic.
In other words, they are saying their numbers are also probably wrong. At least they admit it.
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
When challenged to explain the fact that they're doing well despite the growing popularity of file sharing, the RIAA will simply claim that it's due to the success of copy restriction on CDs managing to balance the (blatantly inexistant) drop of sales.
:P
And boy bands are of course getting as increasingly popular as never before while consumers could not possibly be hungry for more varied and less commercialized content - which means that the sales in the RIAA's eyes ought to have accelerated upwards and that anything negative is caused by music piracy and lack of world domination.
There, I said it, now give me karma
I am hated.
I am one of "those" dot commers responsible for screwing up the economy.
This is the attitude I get from a lot of people. Since the crash all the non-tech people I know have taken every oppertunity to take a cheap shot at me, "Ya told you it wouldn't last forever" or my personal favorite, "It's never coming back"
"Bullshit" I say to myself as I try to keep my temper from flaring up.
This type of thinking perme-ates (sp?) our society simply because nobody likes being replaced by younger newer models. This is the way it's been since the dawn of time. Someone makes technology (Castles) and someone else makes a technology that makes the former irrelevent (gunpowder) With both the RIAA and Kodak, it's the same problem. Someone came up with technology that quickly made the foundation of these organizations obselete.
In the case of the RIAA, the combination of internet with Mp3 compression made the old models of music distribution obselete. I worked for a local music magazine for a few years, and often I would hear rockers cry about how Mp3's are sending them all to the poorhouse crying because they can't sell CD's anymore. No matter how many times I would try and tell them website+thawte+oscommerce=mp3 online store they just wouldn't listen because they were all brought up to believe that the RIAA method was the only way. Now apple sells songs 99cents apiece and is making a fortune. With all the money and power the RIAA has, it's a shame they didn't adapt the way apple did and just give their customers what they want.
A good sign of how well CD distribution is dying is the ill fated "Wherehouse" music stores. To my knowledge here in san jose, they are all gone. CD sales just slipped into the toilet and all their stores have just vanished.
Kodak isn't much different. For years they depended on film technology as the cornerstone of their business. By the time they entered digital photography other players had already developed cheaper and more mass producable camera's with higher quality than kodak. I suppose kodak never thought that digital technology would catch up with film, they should have paid closer attention to moores law.
Both companies are old hats, trying to milk every dime out of innovations that are already 100 years old. Let them die already so the new upshots can give us better, faster, cheaper.
I'm a frequent traveller to various countries in Asia for both business and personal trips, and I frequently encounter vendors of pirated movies, music, and software, and partook in buying their wares (warez?). Now, if one wanted to take a moral absolute, all of us should really be branded as hypocrites... But is piracy totally evil, without justification? Just like Communism, for example, a lot of people in the West seem to have a one-sided, black and white viewpoint of something which is a complicated issue.
As an example, look at many countries in East Asia -- piracy, for all its evils, helps build a base of demand for your products and fuels the sales of hardware, without which your stuff is useless anyhow.
What do I mean? There needs to be a established base of music listeners/movie viewers/software users and owners of hardware, like CD players, etc first. Without evil piracy, sales of PCs/CD/DVD players in Asia would have been much less than what it is now, and most people would not have heard of most Western software movies or music, if they had not been ubiquitously available.
So, in developing countries like China, piracy, by fueling a demand that would not have otherwise been there, and ensuring a base of owners with appropriate hardware, lays the foundation for a consumer base. Then, as economic conditions improve, companies move in there, leverage those customers and sell legit products while adding value (better manufacturing quality, etc.) at locally-affordable prices (this is a key point -- no one in any part of the world will pay the equivalent of a week's salary for a CD, for example). Look at places like Japan and Korea that are considered "developed" now. Of course, there's still some piracy in those places -- you can't eradicate it completely, but because you have these people now clamoring for music/movies/software, you now have a thriving music industry and market, both for local artists and for foreign corporations. As a country moves from developing to developed, so will piracy gradually decrease, if companies first build off the existing base of consumers which have been created by pirated material, and market to them (through the selling points of higher quality, etc.) rather than alienating or antagonizing them.
And of course, many times, piracy is the only option, if a company doesn't release their product there. One corollary and positive effect of it has been movie studios, for instance, releasing movies nearly simultaneously worldwide, whereas in the past, in Asia, one would often have to wait for months for a release, if it was to be released at all. In being a stimulus to create buzz and hype -- and ultimately, demand for more -- in countries where the American media juggernaut hasn't reached yet, piracy has been wonderfully successful in this regard.
Essentially, the blunt, hard, truth in much of the developing world is this: without piracy, you would not have had that base of potential consumers to begin with. It's a win/win situation, for the people, for the hardware makers, and ultimately (while it may take time) for the software and content makers as well. Sadly, the myopic vision of most of the corporations fail to grasp this fact.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
So use this thread to post CDs you have bought or heard that only had 1-2 good songs on it. Personally, I think that experience is rare. In most cases, if you like a particular song, there are other songs on the album that are similar in style and should be liked by you as well. The exception would be a situation where the "hit" song is totally unlike the rest of the album. For example, Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The song 1979 was all over the "soft rock" stations and I'm sure many people were surprised when they heard the rest of the album.)
But I'll kick it off by nominating a relatively old album: School of Fish from 1991. I loved the song Three Strange Days and even bought the CD single. The songs on the single were pretty good as well, so I bought the album. Ugh! No other good song on the entire album. Terrible disappointment (though the Amazon reviews are pretty high.)
This can be said the same for the RIAA? Apple/iTunes Music store may be technology too late to save the "P2P profit problem" They had their chance when Napster was at it's peak to at LEAST let Napster pay them something then work out details and payments as things progressed. Instead the RIAA stuck with the old fashioned way of getting money - lawyers!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Maybe the RIAA should sue the people who make shows like American Idol! People are at home watching people sing when they should be out buying records. What if people are using their evil VCR to record American Idol? HOW DARE THEY! That is piracy! They must burn.
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
If I'm reading these numbers correctly, Dupont is getting hammered even worse than the RIAA by these p2p pirates. I didn't realize the sharing isos chocked full of chemical recipes was so rampant. You bastards.
The economy dipped becuase of the the overwhelming piracy. That's how bad it gotten. Next will come pestilence, famine, floods and your chickens will stop laying. We must stop priacy now to save the world.
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
Of course the RIAA numbers are going to be down where Eastman Kodak's are, people are turning to digital cameras and leaving film cameras behind in droves.
This doesn't mean that the RIAA isn't full of crap, they are. I just think they chose a poor example to compare them to.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Of course they do!! The RIAA KNOWS that the reason their sales are down is because the economy sucks....See, they're LYING...when they claim that p2p is hurting sales. p2p threatens their distribution model like nothing before and they'll do anything to kill it. They'll lie, cheat, steal, sue, bribe (mostly Congress) and do whatever else is necessary (whether ethical or not) to keep the mother lode they (now) exclusively mine. the things I've described above aren't new either...they've been doing every one of them for many years (back in the 70's and 80's the record company radio reps used to be known as SNOWMEN and I'm not talking about the weather here!).
So now you're telling us what to like?
...the RIAA boycotts YOU!
Kodak's fianancial situation may not be a good marker for economic trends, but it is a striking analogy to what the RIAA is currently learning/experiencing. Companies who are unable to adapt, refusing to adapt, or refusing to recognize emerging technolgies are slowing wilting away...
-- Kircle
That's because Digital Photographers aren't STEALING THEIR FILM AND CAMERAS.
The situations are not comparable in the slightest.
New Technology for picture taking is supplanting Eastman-Kodak's traditional film-based market, and they are adapting by expanding into the digital photography arena. It's other companies using new technology to sell a different/better product.
P2P is distributing the RIAA's member's works for free to anyone that requests them. You CANNOT compete with someone taking YOUR PRODUCT and giving it away for free.
It's not like Indie bands are giving their music away and thriving off of increased goodwill and concert attendance. That would be somewhat analagous to Eastman-Kodak's traditional film business vs. Digital Photography.
People are taking the RIAA's property and giving it away for free without permission, there is no way around this fact, no matter HOW you try and justify it.
>those gigs of MP3s are all STOLEN PROPERTY.
Most of my MP3 collection is music I wrote and recorded myself.
In a move totally unrelated to the story above, the RIAA has filed a lawsuit against Duke University student Justin Moore, demanding $427 Billion USD, or 50 cents for every song he has shared on the underground hacker network known as 'Kazaa'.
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
First, CD sales and concert attendance are both down. That's an indication of a problem other than CDs.
Second, rather than looking at music alone, look at overall retail sales of prerecorded entertainment media. This includes videos, music, and games, but not downloaded content. The same outlets that used to carry mostly music now sell DVDs and games, all of which now come on very similar disks. The same players often play all three types of content. There's no longer a big distinction between "videos", "music", and "games".
Third, it's worth looking at discretionary income of people in the RIAA's demographic. If that's down, one would expect their sales to decline.
Fourth, the consolidation of radio station ownership has resulted in major changes in the way music is promoted. That effect has been inadequately analyzed. Clear Channel is quite open about the fact their business is selling ads, not music.
Given that, the suprising thing is that CD sales are only down 8%. Car sales for 2002, for example, were about 13% below car sales in 2001.
It looks like to me that this report does not prove that the decline is due to the economy, it simply suggests that the decline is statistically consistant with it. It is possible however that both arguments are correct. The decline may be due to the econonmy and therefore (because of the economy) consumers are turning to piracy as a reasonable alternative. I really think the underlying problem is that the big media companies need to take a course in basic economics and lower their prices! Used CD's, gnutella (etc), and the economy all play a role in declining sales. They should lower their prices with the decline in the economy and revenues will increase!
-Sean
Fuji seems to be doing everything right, that Kodak is doing wrong.
Sorry, but you aren't stealing. You are infringing on someone's copyright. There is a big difference. People like you merely obfuscate the issue by trying to conflate the two terms.
you know, people here in Italy are really rave on DVDs. These are even sold at newspaper shops ( It. 'giornalaio') while the audio CDs are only available in less ubiquitous stores. Paradoxically, in my opinion, these video products are even more massmarket crap than the CDs are. Infact they are seasonal products as two months after a film goes off the siver screen, it pops up @ rentals and in a couple of months more it's everywhere, ready for replacement in just another bunch of weeks.
So, back on topic, once consumers clear their pockets of their diposable income for DVDs there's no more left for CDs. Mind you, good music still sells (for me at least) but just as in the past people hoarded music to show off (perhaps just to their onanistic self) a new HiFi, today is game for DVDs to expound the virtues of the new Home Cinema.
RIAA should ask damages to the MPAA as the latter's business model il drying up the former's revenue stream...
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
> Since when has stealing become acceptable?
.... you anti-capitalist thief!
Hundreds of millions of Napster/Kazaa/etc users seem to find it acceptable. Take into consideration how many people on this 6 billion person planet a) have a computer b) have internet, and then realize that MANY people find it accceptable.
Yes, its illegal. Hey, so is J-walking, but I'll bet you dont do that, right? And that, despite the fact that it'd be too easy to create a study showing how J-walking slows down traffic, which slows transportation, which slows commerce
I'm sure you're perfect. You *never* do anything against the law!
"Old man yells at systemd"
I have few close friends that buy CDs. They are mostly over 30 with well-paying jobs and extensive CD collections from the pre-Napster era, yet they do not buy CDs anymore. Instead they download (bootleg) all their tunes, including entire albums. Tell me you're surprised.
I recognise that the existing entertainment sales model is a dinosaur, but to suggest that music downloading hasn't affected the industry's bottom line is absurd. Granted, they may have made MORE by switching to a different model, but that says nothing about the source of their current state in this transition period. I don't believe the hype.
"The CEOs of Eastman-Kodak are in a nearly identical economic situation as the RIAA, yet do not have the luxury of blaming digital piracy."
Just Announced: Online Photo Sharing Prevalent, Photo Lab Revenue Down, Kodak Blames Kazaa!
...some interestings observations there. Ihave an add-on to that, something I have wondered about for a long time now. You think WHAT is so common in the music industry that it's just taken for granted, something that no one would question, and might be related to chronic bad business decisions-or any decisions for that matter? Two things come readily to mind, booze and drugs. It's funny, but I never see them mentioned as a possibility to the "decline" of the music industry and it's "profits". This follows the observation that yes- ecommerce and downloadable cheap songs should have been a natural for them to spot, and even after it was pointed out to them, they resisted, fought against it, failed to take advantage of it. My theory is chemical imbalance taken to an extreme across the board in that industry cerrtainly contributed to those decisions. Not everyone of course, but certainly enough to make it at least a discussable point.
One thing I don't see mentioned very often is the very fact that music hasn't been illegal to copy for very long. Hell, in the grand scheme of things, recorded music hasn't been around for very long. The RIAA only exist because of what, historically, amounts to a "technological glitch." That is, the technology was available to make recordings of music available for sale, but copying of that music difficult. It wasn't until about the 1970s that music became illegal to copy, and recordings have only been around since the late 1880s. Music existed long before records, and it will exist long after records are gone.
So really, music existed for thousands of years. For a breif moment in time a technological inequality meant that recordings could be made, but not easily copied. Now, in a sense, technology is working itself out (removing the glitch) and music is back to the way it's been for thousands of years. Just because it's been this way since you were a kid doesn't mean it's been this way forever. The time for being able to charge for recordings is over.
I don't feel sorry for the RIAA--their time is up. The technological glitch is gone and music can get back to being music for music's sake. In the end people will look back at the time when people used to be able to charge for music and laugh. Paying money for nothing but a *recording* of music? What a silly concept.
Jason
other major factor affecting sales data of RIAA is that CDs are digital and it is the only digital product with no upgrade in 21 years! My 1985 CD is as good as new. So while in the past, people used to buy a new copy of the album to replace used one, it is no more necessary.
Also, many people who had vinyl, tape etc, replaced such things with CD. The replacement is largely complete. During the replacement period, people not only bought albums they didn't have, but also bought albums they had. Now, people only buy what they don't have.
To analyze the above points, the RIAA should publish data of sales of new CD albums only and see if there is any decline. My guess is that it is actually increasing. By means of new, I mean never published before.
The third major factor is legal copying. IANAL, but I think it is allowed by law to make duplicate copies of album for personal use. It was hard to make such copies for tape and impossible for vinyl, but this is trivial for CDs.
So, it is doubtful that piracy is the cause of declining RIAA sales.
UVa Computer Science
-jdm
Copywrite infringement is not stealing. Both are wrong, but let's at least get the terms correct before we start equating it theft on the high seas.
Finkployd
how very true. I used to work gor geico, and I laughed at some of the things they used to do to customers. It was funny in a way, but not funny to the person being screwed.
http://music.x757x.org/ - techno dj mixes for your pleasure
Wouldn't really be surprised if RIAA eventually sports this argument. :)
I agree that Pronograffiti was crap except those two songs. But their follow-up album, 3 Sides to Every Story, was a great metal album. They advanced far beyond just hair metal, almost into progressive territory. But it is a very diverse album and one of my favorite albums of all time.
also
don't need people to have a thriving economy.
perhaps people really are the problem.
build more productive machines!
We need to let the congresscritters know about this. They have been sold a bill of goods. Rather than the sky is falling it should be more of a "the sky is partly cloudy." Write your favorite republicrat or demican today..
And then, of course, there's this guy, the modern scion :&}
"I would assert, however that it does make the case in cold, hard numbers that the RIAA's claim of digital piracy ravaging their sales must be taken with a rather large grain of salt."
Like a grain of salt so big that it causes you to choke and die because the RIAA is a bunch of liars?
SIGFAULT
Kodak LS633 - first camera with an OLED display
Kodak DCS-14n - highest resolution D-SLR camera
But still I wonder if they'll ever catch up with Canon, Nikon, etc.
I really like Smash Mouth but it is hard to believe the band that did Walking On The Son is the same band that did The Fonz and Flo! Man if I didn't feel like the Bugs Bunny cartoons where the guy's head turns into a jackass after I got home and stuck that in the CD player!
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
Imho, the RIAA should try to steal the Deadbase idea from Jerry, Bob, Phil, Bill, Micky, Dick, et al.
Stream and record every concert. Start a mega-high bandwidth web based subscription service allowing fans to follow their favorite bands as they tour as well as accessing complete archives of past shows.
Stop relying on what are essentially over-produced practice-rehearsal / demo recordings as their main profit stream.
For christ's sake can anyone get this analogy right? To take something with a grain of salt means to take something as significant as a grain of salt -- which is very tiny (read: insignificant).
Bull.
There are two theories about the etymology of the phrase "taken with a grain of salt." One theory traces it back to the Latin phrase "cum grano salis", which was found -- among other places -- in the works of Pliny in the first century as a description of an additive to make an antidote effective. A second, more believed theory traces the phrase to the kitchen table, where salt can make any dubious dish a little better.
In either case, the meaning of the phrase is not to treat something as insignificant, but rather to subject it to a healthy dose of skepticism.
The
1. Many buyers and sellers
2. Low barriers to entry and exit
3. All buyers and sellers are price takers(unable to affect price)
4. Homogenous product/service
And most relevant here:
5. Perfect information
Before people were unable to properly sample a music product before purchasing it, and therefore made their purchasing decision based on incomplete and often misleading information - often by factors that had nothing to do with the quality of the music (hype, etc). File sharing has created near perfect information for consumers, and the results suggest that with this information consumers have decided that they were not getting their money's worth in value. Also, and this has been proven in court, the small number of large recording companys have effectively created a cartel - and have and continue to collude to inflate prices. This behavior is expected in a market with such conditions. How else can one explain the inflated price of music despite obvious and significant efficiencies and cost reductions in the production, distribution, and manufacture of recordings?
MP3's actually INCREASE music sales, you just can't tell because the economy started to tank right when file sharing took off. I'll bet if you look at Apple iTunes customers, their purchase of CD's actually INCREASED when the iTunes store opened (mine did). Problem is, there aren't enough of us to make a blip on the CD sales charts. When iTunes for Windows comes out, I'll bet that you will be able to see a music CD sales increase. As an analogy, interest in photography will (has?) increase as digital cameras become common. Unfortunately, Eastman Kodak is still screwed until they do a better job selling digicams and printers. RIAA will make MORE money when they let the iTunes Music Store blossem (it still needs more songs).
This article is merely stating the obvious. It's a sad state where you have to explicitly state the obvious in order to debunk the utterly twisted view of any organization.
/. fashion. :-)
That said, I'll state the obvious from my perspecitve, the consumer. I only have so much money I can spend on CD's. I love music, and I'm pretty sure I buy more music than the average person, roughly 5 albums a month. If I could, I would buy more, but after losing my job and taking up a new job that didn't quite pay as much as my old one, having car payments, rent, insurance, utility bills, and a spouse to feed, there's only so much left to spend on what is essentially a luxury item. I don't think this is much different than most average people.
That said, I normally don't pirate software, I don't steal from people, and I consider myself to be a good citizen and neighbor. HOWEVER, I do download mp3's. Is it legal? Hell no. But so are a lot of other things that otherwise good citizens do which really doesn't harm anyone.
My CD buying patterns are strongly influenced by my economic status, and have never been influenced by p2p file sharing. (I can't buy 10 $15 CD's when there's only $75 in my posession.) I don't feel like it's morally wrong to copy something "virtual" (digital data) that I otherwise wouldn't have purchased anyways. The only thing that has changed with the arrival of p2p file sharing is that I listen to a wider variety of music, and make better purchases. (I buy more of what I like, and have fewer CD's I regret purchasing.) In short, I'm what would otherwise be known as an "informed customer" which is usually viewed as a "better customer" in most other industries.
So the bottom line is, yes, people download mp3's. Yes, people still buy CD's, whether or not they think $15 is a rip-off or not. And finally, yes, there are a (probably small) handfull of people who have likely stopped purchasing music completely since they've been able to compulsively download all their favorite music. On the other hand, there are also people that walk into record shops and shoplift CD's, which probably does much more damage. Either way, the number of shoplifters and p2p thieves are likely little more than static noise in the overall sales figures. Think about it, even if record shops all of a sudden stopped "tagging" the CD's and removed all surveilance cameras and tag sensors at the door, most people would STILL pay for the CD rather than pocket it. (Admittedly, the same shoplifters would probably steal even more hard cold physical products such as CD's are, if these surveilance systems weren't in place, but that's a bit different than stealing the data.)
So, the RIAA's claim has little basis, I'm preaching to the choir, stating the obvious, posting AC, and otherwise enjoying another day of bashing the favorite enemy in genuine
I dunno...I like my digital camera. It's a Kodak DC3200 and it's been going strong for two years. It uses CF cards which are dirt cheap and have no DRM features. Sure, it's a megapixel camera in a time when multi-megapixel is the norm. And it eats batteries like the Cookie Monster eats cookies. But it works for me.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
yeah, even the founding fathers of America couldn't decide how strict to make copyright laws, so they left it up to congress.
too bad they didn't have YOU there to CLEAR THINGS UP.
yeah, it's "very simple".
I download the album. I don't want to spend 15$ only to find out that there is one solid track on it and the other 12 tracks are garbage and not worth a dime.
If I like the band, I'll go see them when they go on tour. If I like the album I downloaded, I'll buy it at the show.
I don't feel bad keeping money away from the stupid record store owners.
Has the music industry ever thought about lowering their cd prices? Sounds like a good idea to me.
very rare? There are grains of salt so massive the've got miles of tunnels within to mine the salt out. in any case your comment wasn't worth it's salt (a phrase going back to when salt was valued as highly as gold..)
Take it with a grain of salt refers to measuring the value of what has been said against the value of gold (since salt and gold used to share a single value.) If what has been said isn't worth it's salt then it doesn't compare when taken to a grain of salt, and thus there is no truth behind what is being said.
That being said the 'rather large' is quite inappropriate, as the riaa's claims of rampant losses due to digital piracy are simply untrue.
They've claimed losses to digital piracy when they were raking in record sales, and claim even worse when they suffer declining sales in a floundering economy.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I've always thought it would be appropriate for insurance to be part of gasoline taxes. But what about all the bad drivers, sqawked the whiners? Answer: make drivers licenses easier to revoke for bad drivers.
What I'd like to see discussed is how the recording industry actually stands to make more from net-based services than they ever could have from the old way.
Think of a central server, similar to what Apple has set up, but with the following features:
extensive back catalogs of all of the major labels, going back as far as recorded history can go. (MP3 downloads arent killing the Top 40 artists nearly as much as they're affecting catalog and "Best Of" compilation sales.)
$10 annual "membership fee". That fee gets you access to the system, and software that allows you to set up playlists, etc. that the RIAA can use the data from to aggrgeate stats on most popular tunes played and burned (with respect for individual privacy, of course). You also get powerful search software that can search by artist, song name, lyrics (so you can list every song that goes "...all of my love..."), year, and whatever other search types you can think of.
$0.75 per song, 128 kb MP3 downloads. All files have the proper artist & track name in the ID3 tag. Correcting misspelled, and incorrectly labelled p2p download file & track names is just such a pain in the $$hole. It sounds cheap - but your average 12 track LP would be $9.00 USD.
special "premium fan content" - if you're a fan of a particular artist, you might be more than happy to pay $2.00 or even more for a rare, out of circulation B-side tune, or an MPEG concert video, even tracks played on tour or even whole concerts can be recorded (as cheaply as possible) and sold track by track to the hardcore fans that want more. If the Grateful Dead could do it, why not every other band out there? We could follow our favourite artists across the country like the Deadheads from the comfort of our living rooms! If I want to have 15 different versions of "Satisfaction", why not just sell them to me and make some money! Get this stuff out in the public.
no restrictions on copying, burning to CD or DVD, or encoding in a different format. I'm sure many would scoff and say "if someone shares the stuff on P2P we'll be pirated". If you make the economics (time + low cost + low user base) work, P2P will die naturally. Yes, a few people will still pirate stuff, but at least it will be out of the mainstream.
powerful servers that allow fast downloading, and reconnect at no charge if the server went down in the middle of a transfer. This kind of raw power would leave Gnutella, Kazaa, etc. with few users who are willing to waste time searching through scads of crap files and downloading at 2KB/sec. Fewer users for P2P services = fewer available files, and more customers willing to pay.
since the product is somewhat inferior, you still want to recommend to your customers purchasing the actual CD's. Provide links to allow purchase, make it visible but not annoying to the individual who is content to download.
add to the premium content by selling liner notes, CD cover art (for those who are willing to print the CD cover) so that the total price of a 12 song CD is about $10.00. Add to that the cost of making, distributing and retailing the CD, and subtract the cost of the server infrastructure & staffing - the profit margin is roughly equal.
Now, granted, the record retailers and the people at K-Tel would suffer if this kind of a service were available, but the music industry as a whole would survive and grow under such a plan.
"I think the problem is that the RIAA only know one business model."
I think the RIAA understands the problem and the solution better than you or I, but my guess is the transition is difficult.
What I mean is, if you sell CD's and Make $100M a year, how do you switch the revenue stream to something else without losing the revenue that you've got?
These are family businesses that will tolerate down years, they're public companies that have stockholders that insist on rising revenues year in, year out.
So to paraphrase a famous computer company, "How do you get there today?"
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Here's a doozy.
I got these numbers from the Blockbuster website:
DVDANALYZE THAT / (SUB)
$21.99
VHS ANALYZE THAT / (P&S DOL)
$16.99
CD
ANALYZE THAT / Original Sound Track
$17.98
That's right. The SOUNDTRACK costs more than the VHS version (and only slightly cheaper than the DVD)
Now, let's not go into the fact that the DVD costs nealy as much and gives you more value... let's also go into the fact that people aren't *Nearly* as resentful about movie prices as they are about CDs.
Why?
You can RENT DVDs. If you just want to see the movie, you can fork over $4 and see it... no problem.
The RIAA could have had the benifits of File Sharing before File Sharing... Like only the one song on the radio? Not sure about the other 9? Rent the album for $2. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Unfortunately, the RIAA isn't even keeping up with the business models of the late 1980s, let alone the business models of the 21st century.
I think the RIAA hacked into my computer not too many days after 9/11 and disabled many of my MP3's. A lot of you will notice this. You may have just thought it was bad encryption or corrupted files. Many of you deleted those files. Those are evidence, any MP3 that you have that can't be opened in any program and/or you've been wondering about for a while, that is. It is dated after 9/11/2002. You need to keep them if you have any left. These may be evidence against the RIAA. I accidentally formatted my hard disks incorrectly (installing Linux, imagine...) not more than 3 or 4 months ago and lost all of the files I had.j ured figures.b le/angry/pissed off/mad/sulking/immature employee working for the RIAA. A lot of people working for them could tell you there are. And that's a lot of confessions to be making. I hope there are some Christians there too. Cause' they're usually pretty honest. :)
The RIAA could have possibly reverse engineered the MP3 codec and the Kazaa program, created the virus, experimented with it, tweaked it to perfection, waited until a vast number of people joined Kazaa, and then unleashed it. This is possible because humans work for the RIAA and humans are creative beings.
It's called Fizzle or Sparky.
It uses e-mail to transmit. Apparently through some of the similar means as the SQL Slammer Virus. But I don't know much about programming. I really need to learn. My e-mail address is at the bottom of this.
It's very easy to get a lot of e-mail addresses of the people that are using Kazaa right now. There are (or were) around 4 million at any given time. You don't have to know them if you're just trying to get rid of them. And all the copyright infringement going on so that you can start making money again. I'm sorry for being creative and possibly violating the law, because apparently free speech is gone where I live. I have watched it disappear for a very long time. Of COURSE the RIAA posts bad/wrong/stupid/incorrect/blatant/purposeful/con
Explain this one to me, because maybe I just don't understand:
How do I know this? Well, if they calculated all the transactions correctly for all of their taxes, income, expenses, gifts, buyouts, rollovers, hires, fires, kills (not that I know that they did it, or any of these things, but I'll bet they're involved in at least just one...) and anything else related to money, then they really are god.
Because the RIAA employs SO many people. A LOT of evil people. All humans lie. If you can find me a human that you know has never lied, you need to bring him to me so that I may proclaim him god, because I am an angel. You can't tell me there's not 1 single evil/bad/corrupt/fearful/loathed/despicable/terri
1 spoiled apple rottens the bunch.
Somewhere inside the RIAA, a transaction messed up. They failed. One of the employees got either/or/and tired, drunk, high, stupid, angry, depressed, or happy (or something); and screwed up one transaction, one day. I promise.
Hum(jmcfarland at quapaw2.qti.tec.ar.us)ans are humans. We fail sometimes. We are imperfect machines. The principles of our American government (if you live in America that is, apparently THE most exciting place to be) conflict with this idea.
The government has too much power. It is supposed to be perfect because we are supposed to be able to trust our government. We are forced to trust our government sometimes; many people, everyday. It is subject to fail.
However, if you are high enough in the system, you can do anything you want.
Even cheat on your wife and get away with it.
Eh... I gotta get more sleep.
But make no mistake: it wasn't their inability to compete based on the profits the record industry allowed them to make... it was the Internet that did it. It couldn't be that there's anything wrong with the company itself, could it? Could that explain why this is actually the second time they filed for bankruptcy? The first time was in 1995.
Breakfast served all day!
The idea is that the RIAA is screaming about how much they are loosing..... I mean the artists are losing. And the numbers simply don't pan out.
They are inflating their numbers beyond all reasons. And I don't give them a drop of sympathy. At one time artists had no choice now they do. If anyone ever tells you that indie artists dont make it, Tell it to BASSIC who used to be with MP3.com before the RIAA bought it out.
he made over 100,000.00 in two years giving away his music and saying if you like it consider buying a CD. Yes that is right I never bought a CD from him until I had downloaded the music.
And I have every one of his CD's now.
Something was missed in the Analysis
MacDonalds downturn in revenue. Surely there must have been a massive increase in P2P sharing of lunches in school yards. I'm sorry but the whole RIAA issue seems like a drop in the ocean. These pirates are swapping their sustenance at an alarmingly increasing rate. I actually have no facts to substantiate this other than the downturn in Mac Donalds revenue but surely the P2P sharing must be at fault. perhaps the recent increase is partly due to the increased planning that is taking place using sofisticated technology such as mobile phones, email and IM clients.
Please will someone think of the children...
In Russia, the major local game publishing companies like 1C, Buka, and Russobit sell their own games and foreign games licensed for localised release in jewel boxes at about 1.5 as much as what the pirates ask for the pirated CDs of the same titles. Just like the pirate releases, it's el cheapo jewel boxes with no manuals or whatever, only a cute label. They also release an expensive box version, which, unlike this cheap version (about $2.5 per disk usually) costs three or four times as much, and comes with manuals and the whole shebang, but it doesn't see just as much light.
This policy has effectively killed off the piracy of locally published titles. Nobody does it anymore. People only duplicate games which are out of print. I can just go to the exact same CD retailer and buy the game I want from among the pile of the pirate releases of games they couldn't license.
tell me much. Stats are stats are stats. I did enjoy reading it, but feel the answer is elsewhere.
CD sales have dropped for me recently and this is why.
DVD movies now occupy that under $20 knee jerk purchase price point. Everyone knows a DVD is better than a CD in general, so how come the CD is still so expensive? I don't think twice about $16.99 for a DVD, that's a nice deal really. So what does that do for the same pricing on the CD? All I know is that $16.99 number on a CD is pretty unattractive in general these days. To pay as much for a CD as I do a movie, it had better be a damn good CD.
The current buttload of music being pimped via the usual Clear Channel right now is garbage plain and simple. Sure, there is plenty of good music, but it sure is hard to find, unless...
One can sample! Maybe that $16.99 is worth it. (It sometimes is.) I am willing to look and consider the purchase, but nobody is showing. Wonder why they don't sell product? Duh!
Currently I don't download anything. Thought I would make the change and see what happens with me and my family.
I must say that without P2P, I am missing out. All the radio stations here play the same (crap) music. There is little to get excited about. I know there is a lot of music that I would be interested in buying, but I can't find it easily!
P2P is costing the RIAA something in the young market though. If they (kids)have the money they will buy the CD, even if they have downloaded it. But if they have a (better) choice they won't. These days there are more good choices, so kids buy fewer CD's because they know they can get the music somehow later, but can't easily repeat a spur of the moment movie trip. So, the RIAA is losing sales here in my view. In a twisted sort of way, they might be right with the younger crowd. They can squeeze more out of their latest boy band if there is less P2P, but at what cost?
On second hand they might already be hosed. When I shut down the P2P, my kids ended up doing the same thing I did. They go to school, talk about the music, find out who has it and why, and copy it if it fits.
There are more CDRs laying around the house now than when P2P was running.
Now, I do get excited about movies and guess what? That is what I buy. The movie market appeals to everyone at some level. There are several layers to the whole thing that make it easy to sell to those looking to buy that music just does not have today.
The RIAA is currently trying like hell to milk everything they can from the kids. (Remember the point earlier about cost?) Problem is that those same kids also have DVD, subscription TV, cell phone plans and other new things to worry about. With all those new choices offering different values, is it any wonder CD sales are not as attractive given their low value proposition in comparison?
Your average teenage girl can get a cell plan for the cost of many CD's that will provide way more bang for the buck than that CD will...
I think the RIAA is getting squeezed right out of their prime market because of these things and their own ignorance.
Now here I am sitting with my disposable income looking for something to buy. Does it take much of a stretch to see that I am going to buy something from those people willing to entertain my business?
Whatever problems the the movie companies have with digital are not getting in the way of moving product. They are showing me lots of pricing options, good content and good value across the board. I can easily find blockbusters along with interesting smaller films.
What do I get on the music side of things?
Shit.
The majority of the content is aimed at people half my age. I cannot realistically sample using the radio because they are all but owned by the big boys, so they mostly play the same things. Going into the music store to sample is a joke really. All they do is put the same tracks on the in-store boxes that I just got d
Blogging because I can...
I thought it was forfty percent?
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
I'm sayin,"Music industry has too much money."
"Music industry has so much money they blame someone else so no one's pointing at them."
Blame Canada
Blame Wallmart
Blame Insurance
If the people out to change this system can't read 2 levels deep, they aren't gonna dig us out.
God spoke to me
Yes, we can get the analogy right, but can you?
I work for Kodak and I can say with some authority that Kodak is not very interested in the digital camera market. Kodak had always been, and would always like to be a consumerables company. Sales of cameras for Kodak always has meant moolah on the film and development-chemicals fronts, this is where the vast majority of Kodak's profits come from.
Since digital cameras have started eating into sales Kodak has spent a fortune on research and is anxiously trying to enter new imaging markets, for instance OLED technology is starting to look very promising.
Random links about the amount of pesticides and herbicides used, and don't forget that 85% of california's water is used for irrigating crops. Cotton is *not* an easy plant to grow. Compare with hemp (called weed for a reason) which grows 4x as fast as your typical pulp-producing trees with no pesticides and herbicides, and you have a pretty convincing product.
There are quite a few places growing hemp commercially in the UK, even with all the regulatory hoops they have to jump through (fencing requirements to keep "pot-heads" from getting ahold of something with no THC content).
Do a little research before trolling next time?
To say that someting "must be taken with a grain of salt" is a metaphor in reference to the use of the taste of salt being used to cover up the fact that something is rotten.
Downloading MP3's isn't comparable to stealing cars. And you have the balls to flame other people's logic?
Look, the genie's out of the bottle. Music can be shared.
So the RIAA members have to lower prices. If CD's sold for $8-10, they wouldn't be in this pickle.
But then, there goes the profits.
Now be a good little moron and pass your mother over so I can bang her again.
...who cares what Maynard said or does.
We're talking reality here.
Adjust or die.
Or be like you and hold your breath. In the end it doesn't matter, because the market is the market. It has spoken, and not even nuclear bombs can stop it.
Get over it and say "gee, I wish people wouldn't violate copyrights (because I know that you can't steal mp3's), but since its impossible to stop, what else can we do to change the RIAA's mind about pricing. Oh, I don't give a fuck about the artist either, because neither does the RIAA".
You are very welcome, my friend.
Hilary, is that you?
No... they have digital photography to blame. If people are happily making their own photos with Sony digital cameras, working on them in "digital darkrooms" with Photoshop, PSP or the GIMP and printing them out on Epson printers using photo paper made by Epson, that means fewer people using Kodak products. Sure the current lineup of digital cameras isn't ready to compete with real film for someone who knows the difference, but for "Joe America" they are "just as good" is not better because of how much cheaper it is to take a digital photo.
Un-news
It seems like people realized that spending money on worthless bullshit is just plain out stupid.
They needed to the internet to realize just how worthless things like music really are.
Digital Camera's are killing Kodak film sales, it would be like a razor that does need blades to Gillette or the Internet to the record companies, I guess there really was a revolution in the 90's. Times changes and some bizs will fade just like it always does, it is called creative destruction and it is part of capitalism. Ebay destroyes classified adds and no newspaper even national ones can figure out how to fight back, typerwriters are gone, etc. Very common situation, most of the time entertainment does well in a bad economy, look at video game and movie sales for a more accurate picture. DVDs and video games are a much better entertainment value than a basic CD, however a two disc set like the Matrix Reloaded sountrack is on the right track, it was the first CD I bought in a few years (I bought some internet CD from mp3.com) the thing that pushed me over the edge was the two disc set a better value...
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
[fyi, please treat any numbers mentioned in this post as approximation to illustrate an idea, tnx]
/. level technical, sorry) They've got the big5 signed on to provide parts and eventually the bulk of their catalogs.
I've heard that 5 major labels (BMG, EMI, er.. Sony.. um.. 2 others) control ~90% of the market. If you're an aspiring band (aspiring to global world music domination), then you pretty much have to sign with one of them to have any chance to make it big, right? The (short) reason is because they own the distribution channels, and the promotional machinery behind them.
Well shit.. Apple releases windows version of iTunes, PC iTunes player, whatever. (I'm not
How long before Apple, with its deep roots in the artist/songwriter community, and with it's brand spanking new distribution/promotional system, decides to start it's own record label division?
Sign with Sony: Sony gets $.30 per song, Apple gets $.30, artist gets $.30 (yes, i know, read 1st line of post again)
Sign with Apple Records: Sony gets buptkis, Apple gets $.45, artist gets $.45. (step 3: profit!!)
You see the idea, by creating a real valid online distribution method that doesn't suck, apple has pulled the rug out from under the labels, who's power lies within their physical distribution system.
The beautiful part of all of this? Every time the RIAA makes it harder to find 'free' music on the P2Ps, they will drive a small percentage of people to try actually buying music again. Drive them to go back to buying in a real world store? Nope. Every pirate they crush will make Apple stronger, and make the end that much more painful.
Perhaps people already have all the music they need. I have a relativley small mp3 collection (~1000 mark). I bought cd's before and during the P2P Era. However now I don't download any mp3's and don't buy any new cd's. Why? Because I feel I have a large enough collection to satisfy my desire for music. Perhaps this is what's happening. People already have extensive music collections (both in CDDA and MP3) that they no longer want or need more/new music.
It's a good time to work for Fujifilm. :D
Everything we make is better than everything they make. It gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling inside, but gives me that not-so-warm, not-so-fuzzy feeling of impending doom when I visit Rochester.
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The problem with you boys and girls at Kodak is that you can't seem to figure out a way to turn digital into a consumables business.
:D
We at Fuji seem to be doing all right with our Printpix 1000 thermal autochrome printers... in fact we've got literally thousands of them on order from theme parks and other folks in the very near future (Sesame Place is already testing lots of them as we speak).
So what do we sell? PAPER. LOTS and LOTS of paper. Thousands and thousands of prints all from the convenience of your wee lil' digital camera card, from a tiny little kiosk you can fit in a corner.
Did I mention it makes CDs and prints up to 6x8 size prints?
It is a goooood time to be working for Fujifilm.
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"I suppose Kodak never thought that digital technology would catch up with film"
You forgot to mention their film sucks. It's grainy as hell, because it is wildly oversaturated with silver.
Not to mention their extremely dirty film processing chemistry and grainy paper.
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I haven't bought a single CD sinde napster got hosed. considering the status of my CD collection (mostly classical) and my MP3 collection (which is all the CD's in the house, plus recordings of concerts which I've played in) have been static since even before this...
I buy CD's to put them into the computer as MP3's But I HATE bad recordings of good pieces of music. Listening to it first is the only way you can tell.
-=fshalor
Mullets!!!
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
Oh come on now! You know we sell papers, plenty of different sorts at different gloss levels and drytimes. We also sell plenty of digital processing machines to produce silver halide or inkjet prints from digital camera images (I take it this is what the autochrome machines are). We also know that people produce far less hard copies when they can pick and choose images to print. Even when you take into account that people tend to get larger (and thus more expense) hard-copies it still is no-where near as profitable as the current situation is for Kodak in films and silver halide papers.
Maybe Fuji has a better handle on how to make digital profitable than Kodak does, and I wish Fuji great luck in this new industry. Kodak on the other hand is spreading it's eggs into a few new baskets.
Silver halide? o_O Are you sure? I was under the impression that Kodak stopped making minilabs over twelve years ago. Unless you're referring to Pictrography-type donor-receiver type stuff, and I wasn't aware that you guys made that kind of thing.
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but you can't keep making copies of copies of a cassette without some serious quality degredation. You can copy an mp3 a billion times and it'll still be exactly the same as the origional. Or you could really go gung ho and use lossless compression. :)
Still make 'em, well as far as I know, I just work in research. Just the other day my mate got some jpegs developed with silver halide tech using a mini lab upstairs. I'm not sure if we're selling these things yet but at the very least the development is at the finishing stages. Big machines they are too. Pictrography donar-reciever?
Ohhh, I forgot - you're in the UK. Kodak definitely doesn't make minilab systems for the US market anymore - they've basically farmed out the task to Noritsu here.
:D). Nice little machine.
Yeah, Pictrography... Google for PG4500 (I'm writing this on Lynx since we get crucified for "being on the Internet" here, and no one has any idea this is a web browser
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