Slashdot Mirror
Harry Potter and the Entertainment Industry
VoidEngineer writes "In a surprisingly insightful article entitled Harry Crushes the Hulk, Frank Rich discusses how "Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix" beat out "The Hulk" and goes on to offer some insightfull and interesting comments on demographics, digital media piracy, file sharing and p2p networks, the iTunes store, and more... His conclusion? "[Consumers] may well be willing to pay for their entertainment -- if the quality is guaranteed and the price is fair."
[Consumers] may well be willing to pay for their entertainment -- if the quality is guaranteed and the price is fair.
Sheesh, what dunce claimed that? Clearly consumers are more willing to pay if you threaten and sue them. Duh.
... I would certainly pay for accessible, reasonably priced, good quality music and video.
I don't have an Australian Drivers licence, and my local video store requires *australian* photo ID. So, that counts me out as a video consumer. The last time I bought a CD was for *one* song I liked. I'd use ITunes if it were available out here.
Sadly, I doubt that the companies will wake up and smell the coffee...
until they stop suing everyone and bribing my congressman
(the fact that their stuff is overpriced crap makes this easier)
"[Consumers] may well be willing to pay for their entertainment -- if the quality is guaranteed and the price is fair."
That sounds familiar.. where have I heard that.. oh yeah, now I remember, that's how all the other industries work.
prices on entertainment goods aren't nearly as bad as I thought. I'd been complaining about how expensive it was being an anime fan boy, and saying I'd happily pay $5 bucks an episode for my anime. Then along comes the Nadesico Box set for $60. That's $2.30 an episode. At prices like that it's not worth the trouble of pirating it.
:).
And yeah, I paid $30 for Morrowind, but it'll be months, if not years, untill I'm finished with it.
On the other hand, music goers into the lastest American stuff are still getting gorged. Then again I got John Arch's A Twist in Fate for $10 bucks, and lots of the stuff I liked when I was a kid (Judus Priest, King Diamond, Early Fates Warning, The Ramones, the list goes on) is getting released on the cheap.
It's funny, but we fan boys aren't getting screwed nearly as bad as we used to. Anyone who paid $35 for 2 dubbed eps of Ranma 1/2 knows what I'm talking about. If the trend carries on like this, I'm gonna have to shut my mouth and start buying more stuff
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Good news: The **AA's of the world now realize their respective business models are obsolete.
Bad news: Their new business model consists of the following:
1. Scan Customers' ports.
2. Lawsuit
3. Profit!
In all seriousness, I really do think that these guys are deluded enough to believe that this could work - we can't make up our lost revenue because our product is not as culturally relevant as, say, video games; so let's make up said revenue with repeated lawsuits! Even if only a fraction stick, we'll still make our money back!
Old plan: throw shit at consumers, hoping they would buy it.
New Plan: throw shit (lawsuits) against a wall, hoping they will stick.
It's official - The RIAA/MPAA seem to have a scat fetish
The entertainment industry loves 15+ kids for their spending power, but loathe them for the grand scale theft of music and videos. However, they will pay for quality, ie. the fifth Harry Potter book, but won't spend the same kind of dough on an album with one hit and a lot of fillers. It's nice to finally see journalists getting the point so many in the Slashdot crowd have been trying to make for some time.
I read CS Lewis stories when I was a kid. They were fascinating. But why is this new thing sooo cool? I dont get it. My wife says its aimed at a lower grade audience, so why does she read it? I have read a few chapters of the HP and find it near tripe. I am not a fan of fiction anymore, I am an adult, and find the story to be a waste of time.
Quality at a fair price will work. I have two eBooks of the latest Harry Potter and I read the first paragraph only.
Frankly, I'd prefere to read the book than the ebook and I am even willing to by the hardcover as opposed to waiting for the softcover to come out in several months time.
As for iTunes, I've spent about $15 so far. 15 songs I would not own otherwise from 15 albums I would never buy.
Pheonix?
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
Devils advocate time:
Bookws are more tangible then dvds or cds. You can flip the pages, feel the texture of the paper. CD/DVDs you put in a player. Its harder to pirate books, sure you could scan it, but who wants to read it on a computer. Also theres photocopies also a unlikely way of pirating.
Though alternatively, people are buying this book when its avaible to the largest fair use system of them all, the pub library.
I would love to be able to pay for my favourite songs but last week I found one of my latest CD purchases was copy protected.
:-(
It was the Amélié Soundtrack CD I bought in Australia. Sadly the CD did not even mount in the Linux or Mac boxes I tried it on.
Both the original and replace CDs I tried worked on standard players but could not be mounted on a CD drive. Typical nasty BMG copy protection.
I got my money back but even the store techie was surprised they had not mentioned the protection scheme on the packaging. He mentioned it was required in Oz. Is this true?
Annoying because I want to show my support for a funky French film and was willing to put my money where my mouth was.
If iTunes was available in Australia or the UK, then I would be buying that album online just to avoid the CD protection.
From a consumer who actually pays for music...
"...insightfull...insightfull..." Do you think he thought it was "insightfull"?
Pay for just "good quality" and "fair price"? I wouldn't. I want good quality and fair price, yes, but fair use is just as important (if not more). If I pay anything for it, I want to be able to use it to it's fullest, whether that means ripping it to listen to on my MP3 player, burning a copy for my car, or putting it in the microwave. Then I'll buy it if I decide I want/"need" it.
Overall, a good article, and it draws some interesting parallels. However, I found one piece of the article to be very disappointing...
"The question is: How do all those lovely entertainment-seeking kids weaned on 'Harry Potter' grow up to become thieves? Surely, they know that stealing copyrighted songs and movies is akin to shoplifting sweaters at the Gap."
How can an author who is obviously intelligent enough to write an otherwise-interesting article sneak that in? Making a copy of music is NOT the same as stealing the original. Now, if I went to the Gap, bought one sweater, and then used my home cloning machine to make 50 more and ship them off to people on the Internet for free... that would be a fair comparison. However, "pirating" music (ugh, I despise that term) is not equivalent to stealing a physical good. If I steal one Gap sweater, that's one less sweater that the Gap has to sell... but if I make a perfect bit-by-bit copy of a CD and hand it to a friend, the original is still completely intact and able to be sold, used, or traded.
It's disappointing that the author fell into the RIAA's trap on that point. However, the rest of the article is quite good. Good weekend reading...
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
People are willing to pay for quailiy (I could of borrowed Harry Potter from my 'ittle sis, and had download the PDF), I then went and bought it.
Next on Slashdot, people who own Linux are more likly to buy Linux based software then Microsoft.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
however long they've hyped the Hulk. And the hype for Book5 was fan generated, not industry generated. The way Goblet of Fire ended, it's no surprise Harry fans bought up Order of the Phoenix. I'm sorry, with voldemort coming back from a near-death like state, cedric diggory dying and harry beginning to go nuts, you'd have your fucking underwear in knots too...
And it's been damn near 3 years since Goblet too. So this basically adds up to a giant cash cow as long as Rowling doesn't screw the proverbial pooch and writes a terrible book.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
This whole article asumes that Harry Potter is high art, and that it is a product that can earn 100 million while not being part of the hype machine.
I've never read any of the Harry Potter series. I think I'd probably enjoy them, though. But I'm _very_ aware of them. The Harry Potter phenom is well covered in the media, and I doubt they would be so popular without the involment of the media.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Its odd, but sometimes the most obvious solutions are the ones that are almost blatantly ignored in marketing (and in many other fields, I would imagine).
For instance, my International Political Economy professor at one point was on a plane heading for Brazil (he was studying something or other while there) and sat next to a guy who worked in the marketing department for the lab that produces and develops Mallox (or was it Alka-Seltzer?).
They got to talking and it turned out the guy was going down there to help figure out this problem they were having in sales. In some areas their product was selling very well, but in other areas it wasn't selling at all. Marketing had spent billions of dollars (litterally) and said "people in those areas like products that are from the US, so we should put a little American Flag on the packages" and he was going down to do something of a feasability check on this.
My professor turned to him and said, evidently without missing a beat "your product isn't selling well in those areas because your product provides relief for over-eating and the people in those areas are starving!"
The guy's face dropped and shortly thereafter was taking down contact information and writing notes.
You would think this would be obvious, but sometimes that is exactly the solution is hiding.
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Very nice article, but Mr. Rich has stated something down near the bottom that is not quite true.
How long is it going to take people to realize that there is a very big difference? I steal a sweater off the Gap, the store doesn't have it, I do. I download a song from the day's equivalent of Napster, has the person I got it off lost it, or has the artist (or more precisely the record label) actually lost something in the same way? Of course not. The misguided promoters of this idea assume that every time I or someone like me obtains unauthorized copies of something that is supposed to be "theirs" means that I would have otherwise bought an original for the prices at which they are sold. This is, of course, not true in general. It is false and misleading to consider copyright violation the moral or even legal equivalent of theft.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Now this is one Slashdot article where it may pay to make the distinction between a 'spellchecker' and 'spelling checker'...
;)
'Abutor recte'... as you might see in Rowling's books
"Here's what's wrong with kids in the digital age. They live in front of their TV and PC screens. They steal music online. Their attention span is zilch. They multitask on everything and concentrate on nothing except video games. They will buy any trashy product that the media goliaths can sell them, then drop it as soon as the next big hype comes along."
Isn't that the problem with adults in the digital age as well?
That's the whole problem. The media companies want to invest their money in the sure sell, so we keep getting sequels and boy bands.
For media-based entertainment products, "quality" involves a bit of variety, a bit of risk.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Agreed, i think this is the real point. Piracy of current release feature films has skyrocketed, thanks in most part to much higher quality being available. If you could read harry potter in a pleasing book form without much effort, there would be a ton more piracy no matter what the price of the book was. In a way, perhaps its very smart to keep publishing books as is and not getting consumers used to ebook format... if they really got used to it then they'd be in the same position films & music are now.
Said another way, is it really the high cost of products driving piracy, or is it the quality of pirated goods and the ease of attaining them that causes us to believe they are worth less?
It might only take a minute to download a song with DSL but it takes even less to pick up a CD in the store and walk to the checkout.
Sometimes people will pay because they have the money and want something that minute, because they're bored. That's why people will keep buying CDs and DVDs.
Then there are books and CDs bought as presents. How many people would really want a text file of Harry Potter on a second hand floppy disk as a Christmas present?
Where is the money going that isn't being spent on entertainment media because of piracy? It's going into new technology in general, if you spent all your money on music CDs, would there be any reason for them to improve the format?
I dont think ebooks took off becouse atleast with digital media ie mp3 and such you could still play it in your car. Holding a e-book reader just inst the same as flipping thru the pages of the real paper printed book.
Doh.
I watched the development of the 5th book being scanned for distribution over an irc book trading channel.
.rar archive and available for download.
On Friday Night/Saturday Morning: First Chapter scanned and proofed. The whole book has reportedly been scanned, and is being proofed. Scans are available of both versions of the cover.
Saturday Afternoon (I wake up) Told the proofed version will be ready by 8 pm. Rough versions of all the chapters are available. people looking for the book are being send to a seperate channel. A website has been established where one individual has taken the rough chapters and has been proofing them himself, and posting them online.
Sunday Afternoon book has been proofed and is combined into a html file with the cover images. This is turned into a
This comment doesn't really have a point. I will say I purchased a copy of the book, and I was personally involved with the scanning. I just want people to be aware of the existence of scanned books, in the hope that it will enhance this discussion.
Gryftir
http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
They may make use of the same medium, but they are NOT CDs as defined by the original standards.
Customers should take care not to buy CDs without the official CD label, and make use of their right to return defective disks that illegally carry this label.
I have returned the last disc I bought, (and got a cash refund I may add) since it was one of those annoying 'protected CDs', was NOT labelled as such, and refused to play on my Pioneer system. I'll have to get the tracks through Kazaa now, and burn them on a disc myself, since the official distribution is incompatible with my sound system.
I really should stop responding to trolls like this, but have YOU read any of the books?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I would bet not, so you are just calling them kids' books because that is what you heard.
I initially saw them as children's books as well, but when I did read them I enjoyed them. Sure it's not great literature, but it is amusing, well-written lecture.
It seems *you* are the sheep, for not even judging these books on their own merits.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I actually hunted down a copy the new HP book online the day it came out; after failing to find it in bookstores. Then, I found it again online, the no-shipping variety, and finished the book before it even arrived last wednesday.
Though I'm sure the author would love to sue me for saying so, you don't lose too much in reading the electronic format. Unlike music or a movie, however, a book is something we don't always finish. A bad book we put down. When we finish a book, we know that it was at least readable.
I guess what I'm saying is that I've never finished an ebook without suffereing the immediate compulsion to grab myself a copy of the real deal. Movies, music, anime, tv... these things are more impulse buys. I would never buy them in the first place normally, but after being exposed to them in a way I wouldn't have been in the first place, I at least have a reason to purchase them.
A book is something I cannot avoid purchasing if I enjoy it. Don't ask my why, I don't know. But I suspect that I am not alone in this; I also suspect that as much as a mediocre amount of piracy can help music sales, it can probably be a great boon for the sales of a less popular book.
I'm not saying "Go forth and pirate books!"; I'm just saying that maybe having people get exposed to your book, no matter how it happens, results in drastically increased sales?
Thoughts?
Don't read it unless you already know the book. :/
to live with.
People read fiction for the same reason they watch movies.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Did anyone else think of that subject as the title of a new Harry Potter book instead?
Hate me!
If I had more than a few minutes or really cared I'd pick the article apart point by point, but the main point is that the Harry Potter series was no doubt very popular in book-only form, but would NEVER have sold $100M worth of books in a weekend without the HP movies and the media hype.
.5 readers per copy. Really.
Normally I'd agree in the conservative estimate of 2 readers per book, but I think that a large portion of sales are driven by a 'me too' mentality. I'd put readership at more like
Would anyone care to bet against me that sales of Tolkien's LOTR and The Hobbit books skyrocketed because of the movies and not just because everyone suddenly, simultaneously and miraculously figured out that they're just really good books (which they are)?
Face it. These people (a lot of them) buying the new HP book are buying it because everyone says they have to and to get a preview of the next movie.
The Hulk just happens to have had fewer big-budget movie prequels than HP (not counting the low-budget Bill Bixby junk) and LOTS less media hype. The Hulk CG also sucks from what I've seen in the trailers. Hopefully I'll change my mind when I watch the DVD in 6 months.
Gawd I hate faulty (I think the word is 'specious') reasoning almost as much as I hate the knuckleheads who believe the faulty reasoning simply because it was written in the NY Times. Probably mostly the same knuckleheads who stood in line to but the latest HP book so that it could sit on the coffee table to show everyone how smart their knucklehead kids are because they can read.
.. aren't The Simpsons also for children? How about Burger King, Jack in the box, or Futurama? All relatively enjoyable things (no matter how bad they may be fore us) that are aimed primarily at children.
I'm definately not a fan of the HP series (saw both movies, just wish I could get those few hours of my life back) but my girlfriend has read them all, and seems to enjoy them. It hurts nobody, so how is it so wrong?
and, assuming a very conservative average of two readers per book, a larger audience as well.
People are sharing books! Quick, send in the licensing police. That's $100 million in lost sales. This new trend in book piracy must be stamped out before our book industry is ruined.
Either the grandparent post was joking around, or was quoting from the profuse number of full length HP:OoP fanfics out there. Either way, there is no spoiler, that stuff does not happen in the book.
I'm so confuse, technology gonna so far. But what they do. They still want a Magic.
Huh !!!
So I wondering much month we wait to translations of new Harry Potter.
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
Futurama is aimed for adults. How could a child get the jokes about 1980/90 computing (10 SIN 20 GOTO HELL).
Opinions on "culture" from a Henry Rollins fan.
How can anybody take anyone like you seriously?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Anyone else getting tired of this? I mean, can't reporters make the connection? When was the economy at it's peek? In 2000. What has it been doing since 2000? Going into deeper and deeper recession. What does that mean? People are spending less money on goods and services.
What?! The entertainment industry saw a drop in sales during a worldwide economic recession? It must be the pirates fault!
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
It's easier just to churn out the proven formulas and franchises, dumb and dumberer with each installment. Hence "The Matrix," that rare, unexpected burst of big-studio originality, begets "The Matrix Reloaded," its faded carbon.
Doesn't the author know that Matrix was planned from day one as a trilogy? This attack against popular, and IMHO, quality movie is in bad style. Matrix is just like Potter. It's the fifth Potter book, and yet he calls it "artistic growth", but only a second Matrix is "faded carbon". Lamer.
Also, the author IMHO compares unfairly the Hulk with the newest Harry Potter book. My suspicion is that the amount of money spent on marketing is probably the same order of magnitude for both. Ie, Harry Potter now is as much an instrument of Big Media as the Hulk movie.
For every person I know that was reading or has read a copy of the book last weekend, I know someone who downloaded the entire thing off fucking Kazaa and read it off the screen.
Wonder if the media will ever notice?
I think he's a funny guy as far as his spoken word performances go, I've never actually heard him play his music. Personally, anyone who can say the following phrase or something to it's effect with a straight face deserves my praise.
"Maybe the greatest point in rock and roll was when Fred Schneider, the lead singer from the B52's, sang 'Boys in bikinis! GIRLS ON SURFBOARDS!'"
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Not A Spoiler because thats not what happened in the book. Yes someone dies, but its not hermione. Harry and Cho are far from being at third base. And Harry is not lord voldemort, well sort of (Hint: Occulmency).
Sorry pal, but in order to swallow this tale, I'd need a whole truck load of Mallox (or should that be Alka-Seltzer?).
I really started to choke after you tell us, with a straight face, that the company spent billions ("litterally"), on this marketing problem.
FYI Nike's global advertising budget in 2000 was $978 million.
In addition, are we expected to believe that a company that would invest megabucks would be completely ignorant of the demographics of their target market? With bells on, I expect.
This has all the hallmarks of an urban legend - the inclusion of a US flag as a fix being an especially nice touch. I'll pass this along to Snopes or the AFU archives when I've got a minute.
T&K.
Political language
Is that the price has to be right. A slightly (only just) more advanced principle is that if a good is a superior product (better quality but costs more), then people will be more likely to buy it if they have the money.
To sum up the article: well duh.
To sum up to situation: we live in a world of cartels and monopolies that bribe politicians. They want more power and money, at the expense of the consumer.
Barto
Now things are different for me. Now I live in the small town of Robbinsville, NC. There are 2 video rental stores both with poor selections and no movie theaters at all. I love movies, so yes, I admit, I download movies that I used to go to theaters to see, cause otherwise I have to wait for the rental. For movies that have been out a few months however... I now use netflix as my rental source, I still don't prefer to P2P, as the quality isn't good and I personally believe that if I like something, I should pay for it so that the people who make it get the incentive to make more things like that.
Money makes the world work, but the article does make a point, everyone targets the younger crowd who have no money to spend, yet they continue to raise their prices higher and higher till their target audience can't afford it anymore, of course they would turn to P2P. I mean movie ticket prices are somewhat rediculous, there are places that it costs $10 for a matinee ticket! Why would a kid want to shell out $10 for 2 hours of mindless entertainment, when they could pay $17 for a book that will entertain them for days. Even the audiobook version is 24 hours of entertainment. And what Rowling can do for young minds is far more magical then anything Harry learns at Hogwarts. For a long time children have fallen away from reading, the instant gratification world in which we live has bred children to not want to read, and in many cases, not be able to read. Yet J.K. Rowling has the most amazing ability to grab minds child and adult alike and make them crave more and more. Each book she releases longer then the previous, this one nearly 900 pages in length, yet children as young as 6 make it through it not once but multiple times. And when Rowling can't write fast enough for these eager readers, the children actually look to OTHER books. Rowling has done more for literacy then anyone in the late 20th century.
Sadly it won't be enough, we live in far too much of a video world, Children come home from school and immediately turn on the TV to watch increasingly disgusting cartoons or play mindless video games, they do this until they go to bed, then get up and continue the next morning before school, when the weekends come instead of sitting outside under a tree reading a good book, they spend the whole day inside burning images into their eyes, and when they cannot get enough through TV and what movies they can afford to see in theaters, they hop online and download the rest of the available movies. Would the best thing be a reasonable price on entertainment? Or less entertainment with more quality to it?
1) The professors name is Eul-Soo Pang.
2) "Billions" may be an exageration to the point done either by him to make a point or through my faulty memory--it has been three years since I took the class. It may also represent many years worth of expenditures.
"In addition, are we expected to believe that a company that would invest megabucks would be completely ignorant of the demographics of their target market?"
Have you ever studied Brazil?
Brazil is a neomercantalist economy which has an unbelievable disparity between its rich and its poor. There are areas of Brazil which are extremely wealthy and in which this product was doing very well,
It is not particularly unbelievable that a company would research the economy, find that it has a strong (trillion dollar) economy overall, and fail to notice that there are regions which are semi-periphery and others which are truly and completely periphery.
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Sure, I'll pay, but not for DRM enabled "CD quality" (i.e. 64kbps) WMA, or even unprotected 128kbps MP3.
Let me download a high quality FLAC (maybe even optionally at higher bitrates; 24bit 96khz would make audiophiles cream) so I can transcode to whatever format I like. Let me download a smaller MP3 or Ogg at a range of qualities. Let me have my full fair use out of it, and maybe charge on a sliding scale based on the different sizes. Hell, let me get it elsewhere and just pay for a cheap license so I can support my favourite artist.
Let me not have to worry about whether some dumbass transcoded all his Ogg's from his MP3's encoded with Xing and ripped from a scratched CD in burst mode. Let me not have to spend 3 weeks downloading an album from a billion different encodes. Let me not have to wait for someone to post something to news and spend hours every day hunting through 100's of MB's of headers.
If the music industry can't compete with slow annoying overloaded networks full of substandard rips of music that doesn't even come properly indexed, it doesn't deserve to make money.
And no, pouring more money into lawsuits does not count as competing.
Um, I believe the article was here because of the P2P element, as Slashdot has covered P2P related stories for some time.
An inflated price in a market may get some customers, and even some repeat customers. But delivering a sense that the customer is getting what they pay for, that they're not being fleeced, nurtures that most important quality in a customer - loyalty. As any (good) book on selling will tell you - it's not the first sale you have to worry about so much as the second sale.
A good product at a fair price - what a concept.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
Thanks for 'Goblet of Fire' for us, you insensitve clod! :)
My journal has hot
beyond hardware, nearly everything else we do touches on intellectual property. discussing the legal and social state of such a thing is fairly important to anyone that develops software for a living.
I think your Prof was using the academic equivalent of a bar-room bullshit tale to make a point.
I still do not believe that a multinational was stumped as to why a their product was doing well in millionaire's row, but was bombing in the barrio next door. It's just too slick. It's got the whiff of the email chain letter and 'net urban legend about it...
T&K.
Political language
It seems to me that there are two commercial camps that have very different methods of treating the consumer. One camp, consisting of the RIAA, MPAA, major media etc. has somehow established the mentality that we are OBLIGED to consume their products. They figure we can not live withou what they provide( at unreasonable cost and restriction ) and that we know it. Not only do we KNOW that we must have what they provide, but we WANT it. In short, they are not serving us, they do not respect us as discerning consumers.
The other camp, such as independent bands, movie studios, book publishers etc. treat consumers with the respect they deserve. They recognize that people will use good (or at least some) judgment in their decisions and buy quality and originality. They are not requiered to purchase any one provider's product and thus the providers recognize the need to truly differentiate themselves from the rest.
Sadly, though I'm not sure how, the method which does not serve the customers seems to be winning
The bit about piracy, seen from this perspective, is less surprising. It's just more self serving junk from the failing broadcast and mass publication industries.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Sounds a lot like the time that marketing types were wondering why the Chevy Nova was not selling well in Spanish countries, not realizing that in Spanish, "No va" means "It does not go."
NOTE: This may be an urban legend, so take it with a grain of salt. But it makes for a neat example to further illustrate the point.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
Granted _we_ all know the conclusion is obvious, but how many media exec's read Slashdot? We should thank the Frank Rich for the article and hope that it lights some idea bulbs in the massholes (marketing assholes) in the various "industry associatios". If to steal "content" (and I don't care for the word steal, as the cartels put it; they are really stealing from us) or to pay marks a consumer as "discriminating," then so be it. It's about time _someone_ gives _credit_ to "consumers" being "discriminating."
Wow, where to even begin?
First, online music is not theft it's industry evolution. The mass publication and broadcast industry are massively inefficient vehicles for artist promotion. No one is going to buy music they never hear and they will never hear much music on the radio. On line music gives people the ability to, gasp, try out new music. Mass publishers can't even keep up with the demand for the music people are exposed to this way yet they call it theft because they imagine they might have sold the music and think it might be taking a toll on the current boy band. No, online music is not theft because there's no possible way for people to get the music otherwise. I would buy CDs of stuff available online if I could because I like ogg format better than mp3. No sale, the music is not there.
Next, what makes you think the 5th Harry Potter book is anything but the latest "art" being pushed by mass publishers of pulp?
Finally, why do you care what some industry executive thinks of you? It's obvious from the crap they would have you buy that they have no respect for you.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Was going to post a similar thing. Couldn't have put it better.
More than mere navel gazing.
A few days before the official release I downloaded a fila named "Harry_Potter_5_-_The_Order_of_the_Phoenix_v1.doc" from a P2P-network. It looked like the real thing (~381 pages), so I read it during a week. And everything made sence, it was a very good book and it surely was the Harry I had read about in the last four books!
But a few days ago I found a file named "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (UK version) v1.rtf" on the same P2P-network, and the book was now 451 pages, and it had 6 more chapters! I've read the two first chapters, and things are totaly different!
I dont understand this, both books are about the same order of the phoenix. But they are build up totaly different, so I beleve the first one i downloaded is a very early edition. Am I right? Can someone confirm it?
- sorry about my bad english.
--
Solem
I have never purchased a hardcover book for full price. I've always waited for soft-cover, or found a hard-cover book on sale. This is because books are not usually the hype machines that movies are- I don't NEED to read them right now, because there are other things to read to fill the time before the book comes out. Hard-cover buyers are just suckers, who subsidize the industry for the rest of us.
This was true until I found myself paying full price $29.99 for the latest Harry Potter.
The last book (#4) was the best in the series so far, and I hope this just comes close. I haven't been able to read it yet though- there are two women in the house, so that makes me last in line....
I do buy music- and I hate it. I would love to see something like iTunes on the Windows platform. The only thing that scares me about it though, is that people will only buy the 'hits'. Everyone I know has the same experience with music- you buy the album 'just for this one song', but USUALLY the depth of the album surprises you, and the song you initially liked ends up being the one you hate the most.
So if we only buy the ones we like, a lot of music will never get noticed...
Kid Rock's album (don't remember the name, but the one with 'Cowboy' on it) was actually a fairly solid album. Songs like 'Got One For Ya' and 'Black Chick White Guy' weren't played on the radio, that I heard, but they ended up being some of my favorites. Also, Uncle Kracker (hey, if you didn't like Kid Rock, you probably didn't buy this either) had a hit with 'Follow Me', but in my mind the rest of the album was much better.
There are a lot of cases though were I know I don't want the whole album- usually older songs from one-hit-wonders that I want to put on some party CD or something like that. I mean, do I really want to purchase the entire Rose Royce collection, just to get 'Car Wash'? Although Rose Royce does have at least 5 different 'best of' albums, but I really don't want to pay for the rest of their music. (Interesting note, I saw Rose Royce at the Asparagus Festival in Stockton, CA. They played at 12:00 Noon...it was pretty sad..maybe I should buy their albums just so they don't have to do that again)
Another example is the band Orgy. These guys are horrible- but they did a real good cover of New Order's 'Blue Monday'. I bought the CD...it was one of those rare occurances when I threw the CD away....even with one good song, it wasn't worth the piece of plastic it came on.
So- when do I know the album has depth, and when do I know that I really do only want one song? I guess I will need to rely more on reviewers, and try to make better decisions. So I don't waste money.
My problem with books is actually more complicated. If I don't like a book, I have usually spent quite a few hours to find out. I hate that waste of time- and of course reviews are only for hard-cover, so I never really catch on to those. I end up buying a lot of books I don't really like.
Some good books though:
Hole in the Head
Slab Rat
Carter Beats the Devil
The Straw Men
Blah blah blah
No reason to lie.
I'm not surprised that the Harry Potter books are selling better to a modern audience. And the Harry Potter books have a lot to offer. The Narnia series gets heavy very quickly, and are deadly serious. The Harry Potter books sugar coat everything in whimsy, and use it to slip in serious themes. This sucks the kids in, and I think that the contrast is a big part of the adult appeal.
In a literary sense, HP certainly not as well-written as the Lewis books in a literary sense (Tolkien aside, not much is), but they are nevertheless brilliantly crafted. Rowling has a very acute sense of how children think and feel, and has created some very strong characters. Harry, in particular, is very successful as a character who is heroic, but far from perfect, with much to learn.
They get 75 - 90% of the theater take during the opening weekend.
This figure drops down to 50% the next weekend and keeps going down week after week... IF the film lasts that long.
They are desperate for you to go see a film immediately so they can get the largest possible cut of your $10, get you out the door and get that new "blockbuster" in the theater two weeks later.
Think about it! Not only do they get less and less the longer a film is in the theaters... but something that builds slowly and sticks around for a long time keeps NEW product from coming out in as many locations.
As a result, quality, complexity, and artistry suffers... and the marketing of the film becomes the most important part of the process. A film has to be flashy enough to get them in but not good enough to make them stick around.
Why do YOU think theater chains are going broke even though they charge $5 for a small soda that contains 10 cents worth of product?
"Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me."
If we aren't meant to eat animals, then why are they made of meat?
"[Consumers] may well be willing to pay for their entertainment -- if the quality is guaranteed and the price is fair."
Still no cure for cancer.
...and watch less Star Trek. Then you would probably at least be able to spell "illiterate"!
Anyway, books like the Harry Potter series are an escape from the mundane world. If you don't like kids reading about magic to get their escapism in, maybe you should write some good engaging hard-sci-fi stories that appeal to kids the same age as H.P. fans.
0 1 - just my two bits
Movies, music, video games. For the most part once you work out the system, you can copy digital and desimate far and wide.
:P
Books, on the other hand, require you to tediously scan or retype each page by hand, making them one of the most difficult to pirate forms of media
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The HP phenomenon has yet to last a significant span of time. Dickens was a hack in his day and is still consider a hack by many, but at least his works have stood the test of time.
Quality is also very difficult to gauge in our culture. Everything is prepackaged -- including the reviews! Opinions are like assholes etc...
The analysis is premature.
Your argument ignores that to complete a sale requires both buyer and seller. Sure, the seller of the CD you ripped still has plenty of CD's for sale but the copies you distribute reduce the number of buyers for the CD. One might argue that the copied CDs advertise the original CD and thereby increase the market. But there's an old aphorism that applies here; "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?" There are plenty of reasons for downloading music but failing to acknowledge the free loading that's involved is disingenous.
NOTE: This may be an urban legend, so take it with a grain of salt.
It is.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Not to say the NYT article wasn't interesting.
mt
Professional wrestlers are incredible stunt men. I personally don't much care for the scenery-chewing soap opera or scenery chewing, although some of them do seem to have some real acting talent. But the stunt work is amazing. I'm impressed to see these huge men carrying out these acrobatic maneuvers and big falls week after week, often well into their 40's. And many of the wrestling moves are real, albeit highly choreographed and modified for safety.
This is a lesson that seems to be lost on a cynical entertainment industry that places Pavlovian marketing above creativity, on the assumption that young consumers don't know the difference. Many of them do know the difference. There is a lot for grownups to learn -- and those in Hollywood most of all -- by reading the books, not merely the grosses, spawned by Harry Potter.
I haven't even read the Harry Potter books yet. Nevertheless, this has to be one of the most concise and brilliant conclusions in this entire discussion.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Did anyone else redo the math of this article? The author is saying that HP outsold the Hulk. Moneywise this is true, but individual purchases it is not. It seems he didn't take into account the difference in cost between movie and the book. If you average the cost of the movie to $10( which I think might be high) you come out with 6.2 million viewers of the movie over the weekend. This is compared to the 5 million readers of the book. Unfortunately it seems this guy is taking an optimistic view of this newfound passion for books. . .
Noone seems to have answered the subject question ... so I will. Yes, the fifth book is good. I am a fan of Harry Potter since before the media hype, having received the first book second hand by chance. I don't really like the HP movies, because they don't really capture the feel of the book. The books get more complex and interesting from one to the next.
To be honest, I got a little jaded by the excessive media hype for HP5 and didn't even bother to prepurchase the book. I still ended up buying it a couple days after launch. Reading into the first few pages already gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling that this was a good purchase. While I wouldn't consider HP high art, Rowling is a good writer.
Uh, many "science fiction" writers are illiterate to the basic principles of science, and that doesn't make the science fiction stories (at least the good ones) any less worthwhile.
"It's sad when young people are entertained..."
Huh? The books are about strong characters, working together to help other people.
If you think that Star Trek's "science" elements are any less fantastic than Harry Potter's "magic" elements, then you're deluded.
Want to learn about science? Study it. Don't pretend that literature is going to scratch the same itch. However, it's stupid to think that kids are somehow going to be less good at science for having read the HP books.
My science skills, for instance, are superb, and I have loved all five.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I've seen feeder trays for consumer scanners. If you're willing to destroy the binding of the book you're scanning then it becomes easy. Convert the book into individual sheets, scan the evens and then the odds, interleave and run through Clara. Its not as easy as making mp3s but the pieces of the process can be fire and forget.
Myself, I would rather have the dead tree version of anything I'm reading for pleasure. But don't kid yourself that books have to be hard to scan.
You know what's sad? Trolls will probably still be posting this exact same thing when the sixth Harry Potter book comes out.
A few winters ago I finally caved in and read the first Harry Potter book. I have a little step-brother that was just in love with the things(and there was hype back then before the movies). And my personal conclusion on the first Harry Potter book? Total rip-off. Unoriginal. Been done. Which is to say, her work contains nothing new(actually, lots of old) as far as fantasy books go, and nothing superior in the field of children's literature. I'm all for increasing literacy, but it bothers me when I see adults praising Rowling as a literary giant.
Valete!
One's a book ... one's a movie. ... Nike sneakers toppled Master pad locks, and the New York Yankees outplayed a box of Kleenex.
In other news
Apples to apples folks...
I don't think Rowlings is going to turn Harry Potter into Rambo, or that the audience would go for a happy ending full of burning buildings and either corpses or people screaming in death agony.
Come to think of it, I'd find that entertaining.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The great thing about Apple's store is that you can preview every song, not just the hits (much better than Amazon where you can only preview half a CD)... and take a hint from the most popular downloads what are likely to be the best (not necessarily the ones with the most radio play) songs. That aspect alone really helps musicians sell quality songs, not just blockbusters... and also helps weed out the utter crap.
I don't know if you saw the leaked results from the independent musicians meeting with Apple, but around 50% of the purchases were whole albums. That's another great indication that the movement to single song sales will not necessarily mean the elimination of the album as art form.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Finally the Great White Hype Machine is promoting something that is actually beneficial. I don't care if these kids never read another book again; 700 pages is more than a lot of these kids have read over the course of their whole lives. The book is actually written primarily for a teenaged audience, but millions of smaller kids are wanting to read it too. Can you think of a better way to motivate kids to improve their own literacy?
I just want to be able to play the music on the device of my choice. In this case it is via my laptop or iPod.
The copy protection embedded in the iTunes Store files allows me to do everything I want. I can record the music to audio CD and even RIP it back in, if I so wanted.
The protection BMG has used on the Amelie CD actually stops me playing the CD. I have yet to heard the contents of the CD!
The long lines of kids at the two large bookstores near us didn't seem to be motivated by the media.
As someone else has pointed out, I'd like to see the commercial that causes kids to drop everything and tear into a 900 page tome over a weekend!
Actually, I think Apple's music store has a built-in (if un-intended) protection against people only buying the "hit" songs and missing out on possible great tunes on the rest of an album.
They usually sell complete albums of songs for much less than it would cost you to buy each song individually for 99 cents.
When you find even 2 songs you like on a given album, you often think "Hmm.... spend about $2.00 for just 2 songs - or get all 12-13 tracks for between $6 and $10?" If you end up only listening to half of the stuff, it was still a fair deal that way.
Did I just pull a /.? =)
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
It's very hard to sympathise with an industry which robbed performers and music writers for decades (going back to the 1800's) since Edison taught the business world something about poor ethics.
As for Potter vs The Hulk, I have wondered whether the slow draw for the movie had much to do with 5 million kids choosing to buy a 870 page book had much to do with it. I noted sometime last week under a different topic how Potter Smash Hulk, on a conservative estimate of 75 Million $ to Hulk's ~65 million $. Clearly the Hulk doesn't have much appeal to 10 year olds, like Potter does.
Some posters criticized the book as children's fare, yet I noticed the top 1 and 2 books on Amazon.co.uk were the (1) Childrens version (pretty cover, illustrations, maybe bigger print?) and (2) the Adult version (drab cover art, no illustrations, smaller print (766 pages)) Far be it from me (who has read the book) to berate a fine tale. Then I'm also not one to go around belittling people who enjoy comics (e.g. Spider-Man, The Hulk, X-men) and thump my chest and trumpeting what a mature reader I am. Whatever I like, I read. More power to free choice to listen, to read, to buy, or not to.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
[Consumers] may well be willing to pay for their entertainment -- if the quality is guaranteed and the price is fair.
Right, that will work. Some things are worth my money and I'd be glad to pay to get them. THAT's why I bought the Harry Potter book instead of looking it up as an ebook. (Reading on the screen is a pain anyway...) and that's what I do with every other book or CD that I think is worth the price. Give me something that I need...
I partially agree that if entertainment was quality, such as Harry Potter, than consumers would be more willing to pay for it but...I don't think that would stop a lot of people from downloading etc. If you can download quality for free instead of paying for it then why wouldn't you?
It's news for nerds.
Not just computer geeks.
-Derick
I don't have an Australian Drivers licence, and my local video store requires *australian* photo ID.
:) :P
Since when did the absence of a drivers licence stop australians from driving?
Alternatively, like the rest of the country, your need for an australian drivers licence is for identification and not for any actual representation of driving ability, just get an 18+ card...
But I guess that sucks if you're not 18+.... which (im sure you can guess) I'd have to say that a significant minoritory of 18+ card holders in this country, are not actually 18+
Never.
Okay... I'm a believer. Not in The Hype, that mystical creature born of American Commerce which pilfers unrecoverable minutes of my one and only mortal existence every time I do anything more interactive than sleeping, but in the power of writing and imagination upon a developing mind. ;) are reading... and are looking for more. The world needs more such authors, and if you're wondering how to get them... with money, of course. Great gobs of it, and this article from The New York Times proves it is possible at the same time as it provides one of the best examples I've ever seen of that all too rare triumph of substance over style.
As much as I despise The Hype, particularly that sleazy, used car salesman in a plaid jacket kind of hype with which Harry Potter is marketed in this country... which screams from every window and the corner of every aisle (even the cold remedy aisle in the pharmacy... no lie, there is a Harry Potter endorsed cough syrup) of every store that your child's life is incomplete without THIS particular Potter product... that s/he will grow up somehow deficient, that you are neglecting that child if you don't BUY IT NOW... as much as I hate the ads all over my TV, inescapable, and the ads forced upon my eyes every time I get online, and the noise all over my radio on the drive to work, that no matter how many times I change the station IS STILL THERE... as much as I hate all these things... I believe that Harry Potter is a good thing.
Not because of the message it imparts, I feel it does reinforce the inability to differentiate reality from fantasy which all children have... not because of the characters, which are often two dimensional and boring as frell... and certainly not because of the immersion in escapism, that "Sleeping Beauty" syndrome which offers salvation from the horrible tedium and diappointment of real life by some supernatural power if one is just patient enough and does as one is told... no, not because of any of these things.
I believe because however she does it, JK Rowling has found a means of captivating the hearts of children, and engrossing them in her stories, and GETTING THEM TO READ. For me it was Lester Del Rey's The Runaway Robot... followed by Roger Zalazny's Amber series... but it doesn't matter WHO... it matters that the children (And the grownups, for that matter... you know who you are
Mnem
*Steps off his soapbox*
Actually, you can probably get the whole Harry Potter series in MP3 format. Each book (even book 5) is available as an audio book on both cassette and CDs. So it is vulnerable to mass P2P sharing, but people are buying it.
I really enjoy the audio books. Jim Dale is a wonderful reader and IMHO his reading really adds to the story. Sometimes when I read, I read too quickly to take in or think about what's going on. This is especially true with suspenseful books. I get in a kind of "Gotta find out what happens next!" mode and zip through it. Jim takes his time and the events and such sink in a bit deeper making the story more enjoyable. I also like to play the CDs while I'm working every now and again. I usually listen to music, but sometimes a good story is nice too. Though switching CDs every hour can be a pain. I wish they'd offer a MP3 CD. Great audio quality and stereo sound isn't essential... one could probably fit the series on two CDs per book.
Actually I just purchased Harry 5 on CD after reading the book. It's my favorite of the series so far... though I really liked the 3rd too. The fourth isn't as exciting until the very end when everything goes to hell. And, well books 1 and 2 were great when I was reading them, but the third really made the first two seem mediocre.
Oh, and this whole "I don't like it because it's for kids" crap... get your head out of your ass and don't worry about it. No, it's not the greatest literary work ever. In fact, I don't think it's the greatest literary work of the past five years... however, it is a very enjoyable story, it is a lot of fun, and most importantly (for me at least) it isn't very predictable.
-Derick
Authors in general are a bit mixed up about libraries. True, it represents a hole in their income but at the same time it is a very real example of how they are contributing to the public 'good'.
Incidentally, the difference between a lending library and a downloaded copy is that a library can not lend out more copies than it has. The process is lim iting and readers are forced to wait. Of course, they may then be impatient and go out and buy the book.
As for libraries with sound or video collections, the media has already got quite upset about members of the public being able to take them home and perhaps copy them.
See my journal, I write things there
HP5 and LOTR are physically big books (although I have the special edition of LOTR that is printed on ultra-thin paper). As printed docs they are only about a meg or two in size. Easy to carry around.
Give me better definition, smaller text and a paperback sized screen, this may change - but only if I don't have to worry about dropping it in the bath!!!!
See my journal, I write things there
An interesting fact is that the DVD of the first film was released without Macrovision copy protection. I don't know about the second film, but piracy didn't appear to hurt sales of the first DVD very much.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
With the skewed release schedules for the translated versions, she is also forcing many impatient kids around the world to read the book in a foreign language (thus improving their English).
See my journal, I write things there
Some posters criticized the book as children's fare, yet I noticed the top 1 and 2 books on Amazon.co.uk were the (1) Childrens version (pretty cover, illustrations, maybe bigger print?) and (2) the Adult version (drab cover art, no illustrations, smaller print (766 pages))
Unless they are cunningly subliminal, there are no illustrations in the "children's" version which is the one we purchased. (At the time, it was the only one at the local supermarket). I later quickly compared the sizes of the two and it looked to me that they were about the same. I'd imagine the costs of doing two completely different print runs would be a bit high - this way they only need to change the binding.
I mean... do you really expect me to read your entire comment?
Well....
.pdf
It used to be linked here: potter.pdf
nice
ow...wait...we got a signal!
I paid $17.99 for the latest HP book. Even if I had paid the full retail price of $29.99, we're talking about 870 (or thereabouts) pages. If I were to photocopy that book, shopping around for photocopies at $0.03 per page, I would have saved $3.89, assuming my time is free and that I really wanted to sit down and read a stack of photocopies. Yeah, I suppose that somebody could put an electronic copy online somewhere for me to leech, but why would I want to spend 9 hours in front of my computer or squinting into a PDA? Pick it up at the library, instead.
I have no problem shelling out $20 for something that I own, and that my family can enjoy for years to come, be it a book, DVD, CD, etc.
In the case of CDs, however, I seem to be at a disconnect with what the music industry is promoting as 'worth buying'.
I agree with you mostly, however professional wrestling is about all round entertainment, after all, why would i watch it week after week without the soap storylines to give me a reason to support one wrestler over another. Without this it would soon become stale. Ie. hulk hogan 20 on still using the same moves but with a different goal so we still care.(Maybe)
Your my only chance
I'm betting that you had some allowance money left to buy HP after getting your transmission fixed. ;)
Alot of kids don't have the money, or especially time, left for the Hulk after buying an 800+ page book for $20-30.
Your thinking has the same error that the RIAA is making. They refuse to admit that the rise of DVD sales is contributing to their fall in CD sales (among about 20 other reasons). People tend to budget a certain amount of money for 'Entertainment', rather than individual categories like movie tickets, books, DVDs, concerts, CDs, cable TV, games.
Harry Potter 5 sucked $160+ MILLION dollars out of the hands of The Hulk's target audience. Is it really hard to believe that The Hulk ticket sales would suffer?
They're both forms of entertainment aimed at the 12-30 age group (and beyond). Most people don't have a book budget, so the money has to come from somewhere.
One interesting thing about the entire series is that virtually no character is assigned any kind of religious faith.
They sure seem to get alot of faith once Christmas rolls around. It's a rather amusing jab, considering that Christmas was created in the image of the pagan holidays of the time in order to help persuade people to convert.
Yes, gift exchanging, putting up decorations, and the winter break are all from the very old pagan traditions. The only thing Christianity really added is the Nativity. Even Santa Claus kind of turns Christmas back into a pagan holiday again.
Most people don't willingly exercise their religion until adulthood (if even) anyway. Why be surprised that a bunch of kids away from home aren't practicing a particular faith?
I read the new book within 3 days of it's release, as I tend to do with just about any fantasy series I am interested and invested in. It was written well by my standards. In contrast with other fantasy fiction authors (see Robert Jordan), the Harry Potter books have improved with each release.
I read the first book again immediately after I finished Order of the Pheonix. It wasn't very good compared to the recent writing. What was good was the originality of the ideas. It's not Terry Goodkind ripping off Robert Jordan, who is really ripping off 14,000 myths and histories by boiling them into one story. Maybe she heard the word "muggle" somwhere and stole it. Maybe not, but the word isn't particularly significant. The whole wizardy subculture bit is really well done, her characters are interesting, and each of the plots (besides the whole hero beats villian bit) have been unique. People even die. Sure, the bad guys mostly make themselves out to be putzes in true Stormtrooper fashion, but occasionally they get in the lucky character killing shot.
Anyways, if she keeps improving with each book, it will be interesting to see what she does when Harry retires.
As a matter of fact I have, quite a bit.
Here's a hint. When you're pinned, kicking your feet up doesn't actually pop the guy up and off you so you're free.
What, you mean it isn't a real sport? I am shocked, shocked.
I take it that you didn't understand what I meant when I said that professional wrestling was "highly choreographed" and referred to pro wrestlers as "stunt men".
Unfortunately, real wrestling looks pretty boring to anybody who isn't a wrestler. So instead of bridge-and-roll (which works), we see a theatrical version (the "kick the feet up" stunt that you deride), which looks a lot flashier, even though it wouldn't work in real life.