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The Effect of Pirated CDs
Moderation abuser writes "The real reasons music isn't selling as much as it used to, and not a lot to do with file sharing." I'm not sure that I agree that piracy is the reason for all of the music industry woes - I think creativity also has something to do with it, but those are still some huge numbers for pirated CDs.
I have a lot of family, a lot of friends, and a lot of coworkers (all in all, about 50 people that I converse with weekly, and at least 15 of whom I converse with daily). All but a few of them participate in music piracy. All of them used to buy cassettes and CDs. I can't remember the last time that I saw any of them even set foot in a music store. I don't know anyone that has purchased a CD in the past year. I have one friend that is a manager at a Warehouse music, the other worked at Sam Goody's. The Sam Goody's closed down, after 6 years of doing awesome business, three years ago sales slowed to a crawl. You want to know what their biggest selling products were? Blank CD/RWs and MP3 players. The Warehouse Music is a pitiful shell of it's former self - they now sell more movies and blank CD/RWs than music. And despite this lack of sales in record stores, millions of songs created by today's modern artists are downloaded daily - even though they supposedly suck and lack creativity bla bla bla.
I can't be alone in my observations.
People can blame a lack of creativity, a reduction in available albums, etc. But I find it amazing that people are so quick to dismiss the effects that rampant, undeniable piracy is having on the music industry. I stopped buying music years ago because I realized that the prices were too high. However, my morals prevent me from stealing, hence I do not pirate music.
come down to Canal street in NYC and check out how the cops walk right past 50 guys selling pirated CD, DVD, CD-ROMs, video tapes you name it. File sharing? what's that?!
Consumer Backlash is a poorly understood concept, but I believe the "Music Industry" is now experiencing it. I've been bitter ever since the price of tapes rose dramatically. This was followed by CD's where I not only re-purchased most of my music library, but was forced to purchase so many "Albums" to get individual songs. After thousands of dollars spent, hundreds of CD's which slowly became scratched and degraded, and complete inability to listen to a constant stream of songs I liked (again forced into the Album mentality), I've had it.
Now "The Industry" is suing their own customers!
I haven't purchased a single CD for five years, and I don't plan to ever purchase another. I am content to listen to the radio.
Torsten
I don't think any of those factors have anything to do with it. When I was a kid, it was a common thing to ask a friend to make a tape of their newest cassett for you. In College, it was burn a new CD. Now it's send me the mp3.
What has changed is quality. 10 years ago, Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology wasn't good enough to make boob toting hacks like Britany Spears sound good. Now we are inundated with manufactured bands who don't have the quality or maturity of the groups who cut their teeth playing in local pubs to crowds of 4 people. NSYNC isn't famous because of an increasing demand of local fans. They are famous because the RIAA packaged and marketed them down the throats of the 12 to 18 demographic.
Bottom line is that the crowd with the real money (adults with real jobs) is only going to pay for something they will want to listen for a long time and "BackStreat's Back" is NOT it.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
I was watching VH1's Top 200 Icons program, and they had some top of the food chain exec from Universal that flat out stated [paraphrasing] that "95% of all albums are failures"
Well now, isn't that a nice number. How can piracy or file sharing possibly make a dent into profits when 95% of all albums suck so bad no one wants to buy them?
I've bought maybe 2 CD in the last few years. Even that wasn't new music - I think the Stones and Floyd. Also, I don't use any sort of downloading service. Quite frankly, there isn't anything I want.
I think I'm the poster child for the "lack of content" angle. I have money. I'm sick of my old CDs. I'd like good, new CD's. But they keep throwing a bunch of shit at us, and what decent music they give us is mastered so shitty (see slashdot last friday) that it's unlistenable.
BTW, if anyone knows of any decent, modern bands in the spirit of great 60's and 70's rock, I'd be damn grateful. Major label or indie, I don't care.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Was wondering how many /.'ers listen to vinyl, and how has this affected their music purchases.
I have been the pround owner of a VPI Aires Scout for almost a year now.
Although I listen to alot of classical, I found that my wallet took a beating when I went shopping for classical CD's. Little did I know that the same music is available on vinyl, and it's availalble for as little as a dollar.
I recently picked up 3 mint classical records at the New York City Opera thrift shop for a buck a peice. One of these titles on CD still command close to fifteen dollars (on sale, 16.99 regular price)at the local Tower Records.
I also find my vinyl listening session are less iritating on my ears and last longer.
I won't deny that p2p networks have an effect on record sales... But i sometimes wonder how much of an effect.
There's been a few times where i've gotten hold of a couple of mp3s from an obscure band that that i totally dug. And i went out to buy the CD.
Another case in point- I've got a pile of CDs that are many years old, plus tapes and vinyl that are even older. Most of this older stuff i would buy on CD, but they've been out of print for years and years.
Call me guitly, but i just spent the weekend ripping songs and copying CDs for my dad. 6 albums in total. If i could go to a store and buy him the retail version i would, but they're simply not available.
Another case in point-
Some years ago i licensed a few of *my* tunes to be used as commercial spots. I've never seen a dime. I've never heard these tunes on t.v. or radio either, but that's not the point- you pay to use them whether you do or not. I can't afford a lawyer right now to chase them. So i'm out $10K.
You'd think that the RIAA would be all over this, as it is thier job to protect the rights and property of musicians.
Nope. Sorry. "Your claim is insignificant compared to most. Go away."
Ahh...Slashdot syndrome. You really think it works that way, don't you? You probably think radio is still about the music. You have some reading ahead of you, young padewan.
In particular, an article called
Radio - pay for play?. But more than that, just search google for "radio payola", and see what you can read. Most of the money made by ads that isn't profit goes into operating costs.
PS - it scales downward like that, independent radio stations with enough of an established listener base get sent almost all (if not all) of their music by labels for free, while lesser ones still may have to pay for their music.
--- What
In the article it mentions that 1) some of the piracy is coming from major labels copying their rivals CDs (with 2 major RIAA companies having been fined twice), 2) the RIAA is producing 25% fewer CDs than it did even 10 years ago ,and 3) most of the money lost by the music industry is being drained by organized crime syndicates, not P-2-P swappers.
Of course the RIAA is afraid and targeting domestic file-swapping. Congressional lobbying/bribing allows them to use their muscle most effectively on their home turf (US Soil). Domestic file-swapping is also a source of revenue drain, just not the primary one. Yet they are afraid because their revenues are down despite having produced fewer units to sell. Their prices are inflated to the point that file-swappers often feel that they are pseudo-Robin Hoods that steal from the rich RIAA and give to themselves and others. The few bad apples who flagrantly do this in violation of copyrights on a large scale "justify" the RIAA "anti-piracy" efforts in the mass media, which the RIAA subunits often hold stock in as well. They have the money and moxie to make the rest of us pay their over-inflated prices while morally justifying it to those people who do not know better.
Meanwhile the international criminals are difficult to track and catch. Thailand may be bulldozing the copies it finds, but I find that the more extreme the public demonstration of enforcing law, the less often it is actually enforced. Thailand, China, and other areas of Southeast and East Asia are the HQ of large-scale piracy. Anyone with friends who visit Hong Kong, Beijing, or Taiwan regularly is likely to have been offered pirate DVDs or CDs of recent movies or music. Even the soundtrack for recent movies are available...often before they leave the theater. Enforcement of copyright in those countries is more difficult, especially since the WTO is reluctant to enforce rules so stringently against the truly huge economies.
Copyright may be an outdated notion according to some, but the RIAA has the money and Congressmen that it deserves watching if only on a civil liberties basis. The DMCA is only one example of how creatvity is stifled for the benefit of copyright holders. Any future moves by the RIAA could be as stringent or worse. I'm not suggesting we appease the dragon that is the RIAA, but instead we keep vigilant watch on where they are actually losing money as this article does. Thus when the RIAA proposes legislation like the DMCA hard evidence can be used to discourage legislators from enacting such laws.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
There has been an ill fated attempt by sony at SACD (Super Audio CD) which never caught on. Then there is DVDA - which has/will not catch on either.
The reason people bought CD's to replace vinyl and tapes is because CD's were a breakthrough in technology (i.e. convenience) - there was the value added for the consumers to buy into it. About the same as MP3's/AAC is now - new technology will only succeed if it adds something new and useful, regardless of whether it is driven by the record companies or not.
Last I checked, totally legal RETAIL sites for downloading music have been springing up all over the place.
Also more downloading of indie work (ie MP3.com) has probably affected the sales of the big boys. I know a lot of the music I like is harder to find retail than on MP3.com. Further, a lot of people with CD burners are now also making copies for themselves so they don't scratch up the original and have to repurchase--something that didn't happen in 1999 since most people didn't have burners, especially fast ones.
All these are just small chunks but they add up.
Much like I stated with the laptop/desktop report... statisticians can report whatever you want people to see.
Someone needs to do a report on the revenue making it to the artist themselves (from recordings) excluding all concert revenue and memorabelia items and I bet you'll still find an increase.
-- Enigma
If I'm not mistaken, the major labels charge the artists (yes, they charge the artists) to pay for:
* recording or mastering that was done for the music
* artwork on the cd
And, as far as paying the artist whose music they're stealing, they get some 14 cents per album. Does that really bring it up to $12.00 to $18.00?
P.S. What is this suposed promotion and advertising? Would I know if I've ever been exposed to it or is it just buying a place on the top 10?
P.P.S. Do lawyers really do research on the songs?
Oh I wish I'd been American. It sounds like you missed out on Kylie, Jason, Rick Astley, Sonia and all the other Stock, Aitken and Waterman drivel in the late '80s and early '90s.
Stick Men
The FBI (or rather, the Secret Service, who's really in charge of enforcing copyrights and often works wirth RIAA on raids & stings) isn't raiding Chinatown because that's a complicated issue, and the last thing RIAA wants is for things to get complicated.
See, bootleg CD's aren't all that big here, so it's not as much of a market-threat. In China, Singapore, Taiwan, S. Korea, and other Asian marketplaces, it's dominant. It's hard to justify a chinatown raid when the actual crime is happening in china.
And regarding why RIAA won't "show me" these statistics about decreases in production, it's because that's too much for simple middle-america folk to think about. Mom & Pop Smallville can't handle statistics, but they sure do understand a villain and breaking the law.
What I don't get is, if CD sales are down 16% (I think the article said) and CD production is down 25%, doesn't that mean that per CD, sales are up? With your releases down 25%, shouldn't your total expendatures be down as well, and with the incresed sales/release, profits should be increasing. If the RIAA's members are hemoraging money, it can only be due to internal incompetence and waste.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Seems to me that there are two states of the music industry, the "creative" and the "marketed", like a yin and yang. Mostly it is run as 'marketed' but every so often (late 60s, late 70s, early 90s), the 'marketed' just gets too vapid, too crappy and the 'creative' gets a chance. After a while, the 'creative' self-destructs and the 'marketed' creeps back in.
The Cheeky Girls are a sign that we have reached so low that the 'creative' is probably around the corner.
No, what's changed is that the RIAA has spent the last 30 years buying as much influence in politics as they can. Why else would a middling-sized outfit like them be able to push around the tech industry, whose gross sales figures outstrip them nearly 10 to 1?
The RIAA is scared, plain and simple. They now see that the power to create, publish, and promote music is available to ANYONE, and when you combine that with the degeneration of television advertising as a viable income (broadcast television is almost a thing of the past), they are about to become redundant, and they have no ideas for reinventing themselves. Their choices are:
- Reinvent. Come up with a way to make money off the emerging trends in digital media, home and portable theatre, and live webcasts.
- Fire-Sale. Drop the prices on everything to the point where people will want to buy the physical media again.
- Sue. Use the political clout they've been cultivating over the years and make money by taking it from others, and stifling innovation in the process. This has worked for the oil companies for decades.
- Fade away. All the top execs have money, they could liquidate the franchises, and leave a power vacuum after they take the cash. Let artists fend for themselves (as they do anyways).
Option 3 looks like it has the best potential for short term profit and a lingering continued existance.It sounds like you missed out on Kylie
Haven't been to clubs laterly, have you?
She's been back for a while now...
As well, probably close to 50% of the club hits this year have been covers and remakes of the shite produced in the 80s... Corey Hart, Madonna, etc...
It's really sad... the 80's are a time that should be forgotten, not rejoiced... The only good drug-induced eras were those that were induced naturally, not chemically.
If anything, music piracy will only be the death of the big-5 studios and their machine. Music will go on, and likely get more popular and creative along the way.
The mass-produced pablum the industry puts out now is not produced for "quality", "talent" or "creativity". Most artists that are meal tickets to the big labels (Britney, Christina A., In-Sync, JLo, and so many others) don't write their own songs. They don't play an insturment, and they barely can sing. Most of the music backing them up are from samples of real music from the last 50 years. Their only real "talent" is to look good and shake their ass.
Look at it this way. Why hire studio musicians and real artists to sit in a studio with a real creative artist (who could be difficult) when you can hire a person whom you own, give them an image and songs, and then lay down tracks with a bunch of pre-stored samples?
The world won't end if the big-5 go down. There was a demand for music before them, and there will be one afterward. The only difference is that artists will be chosen by the listeners for their talent, not by music executives to maximize profits and shove their junk down your throats. Will artists make less? Probably for a time. Will they make more in the long run? Absolutely. Once the big-5 stop deducting stuff from their royalties, real artists will be rewarded, and the Brittney artists will (hopefully) scoured from our collective consciousness.
The way shared music was SUPPOSED to work was to provide unsigned artists with a platform for a wide-listening audience. Their tracks get shared, and if they are good enough, people will go to their site and buy their CD directly from them. The other thing shared networks were good at that the industry hacks STILL have not addressed is out of print tunes. You can't get George Harrison and Paul Simon's duet (performed once on SNL) of The Boxer on a disk. You can't even find half of Robert Johnson's blues collection unless you dig around for vinyl 78's. They don't want you to find this stuff because (heaven forbid) you might aquire a taste for something they can't make a profit from.
It's all relative man, but music has become less diverse instead of more. It's all homogenized now, and the industry isn't going to let you listen to stuff unless they can make a buck. I won't shed a tear if they go down. The only thing that will be lost are music executives with $5 mill a year jobs and executive jets they make off the backs of other people.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Sometimes when I read this crap I think people are stupid.
Nobody ever mentions that while CD sales are staggering, DVD sales have been increasing. The money for entertainment did not dry up... it went other places. The CD is an outdated medium just like the cassette and the 8-track.
The kind of people who pirate music and software are the kind of people who would never buy it in the first place. Why? Duh.
Because they are too poor and the products are too expensive for them. Not because they hate record execs or software execs (although they should because they are dumb).
I found this interesting experiment concerning shareware registration/payment and I think it has some bearing on discussions about music copying, file trading and sharing.
The same experiment is also related here.
What it shows is that people were 5 times more likely to pay for the shareware when they were made to pay versus relying on the honor system. So when the shareware was "free", only 1/5th of the time was the author paid for his work.
The extension of this result into the discussion of music sharing I think is obvious.
Here's a really strange tangent maybe.
The vinyl to CD conversion was fueled by lovers of music that was originally on vinyl, correct. These people are usually over 30. And therefore have already built important and long lasting connections to the music they grew up with. So if you really love the music of the 60's I can completely understand that you find today's bands devoid of anything interesting. Because the cultural and social makeup as well as the musical landscape itself is a vastly different thing then it was back 40 years ago, when the bands you love were creating their music.
Furthermore, 'baby boomers' are the largest age demographic, and also have the largest disposable income, outside of teens (who are easily distracted with cellphone ringtones, videogames and other cash pits) So if this large body of people stops buying music due to a lack of interest in many bands as a whole. Then of course there will be a sales drop.
This combined with the large amount of garbage music being created inside the pop and hip-hop scenes, it's easy to understand why there could be a decline in sales. The older markets can't identify with the current music, and a portion of the younger generation can't tolerate the landslide of shit coming from the labels.
But then again I could be crazy
>Yeah --- look back to the '60s. With quality acts like Little Donny Osmond and Cliff Richard regularly topping the charts, who can deny it was a far better era than our own!
what about the
Beatles
Animals
Jimi Hendrix
Led Zeppelin
Elvis
Little Richard
Monkees (even)
Joan Baez
Crosby Stills Nash and Young
Canned Heat
Alvin Lee
James Brown
Rolling Stones
Santana
etc. etc. etc.
Any single member of any one of these bands has (or had in some cases) more talent in a funky toenail clipping than every single band that "came out" and started getting radio play this year, all put together, with one notable exception, the White Stripes... they are fantastic.
Please don't compare bands from the greatest era of rock with the bulk of todays music, they aren't even in the same universe and definitely don't belong in the same post.
I am inclined to believe that people aren't buying music because:
1. Most of todays acts can't carry a tune unless they are lip synching.
2. The material, by and large, sucks. It mostly appeals to pre-teen girls or pubescent boys who have a chip on their shoulder. It is over produced, under mature, and obviously was done on a budget. For music to work and have any kind of soul, the singer needs to have lived through the pain or whatever they are singing about. The record industry has no interest in finding and developing talent, they prefer to send the kids to McDonalds, for cheaply produced greasy soy protein, like most parents.
and finally
3. Cd's only cost $4 to make and still have a hefty profit. Why are they trying to sell them for 16.99? Why not go digital and let stores print up their own cds? Save everyone a bunch of money. Why? Because the record companies are greedy [insert explitive here]'s. They want to make a profit on stuff they shouldn't be making a profit on. Upselling packaging, distribution and all the other bs.
Give me a break. A song should cost $.50 Even if the artist got their 8% cut(after studio costs), that still leaves the record companies with $.46 *per sale, per song* after release expenses (no more distribution to buy back if it doesn't sell) for doing NOTHING. I hope they all rot in hell.
>What has changed is quality. 10 years ago, Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology wasn't good enough to make boob toting hacks like Britany Spears sound good.
Technology only makes the mechanics of mixing easier. It can't create talent, and it shows. Photoshop did the same for photos, I haven't seen any Ansel Adams' being created because of that tool. You still need to have a knack for making music.
Britney Spears sells because she has a nice ass and appeals to young girls, who happen to buy the most cds. Talent doesn't have much to do with it. Her vocals sound so good because they used a good quality microphone, and despite popular opinion, she does happen to have some singing and performing talent. She just doesn't write her own stuff, so in all actuality, is only a singer/performer.
If you could sing, and had a songwriter, I could make you sound that good with a $1300 microphone and pre-amp package, a little compression, and little else. It doesn't take much, if the vocal talent is there. All of this technology was available in the 60's. Some engineers would say the equipment, back then, even sounded better.
Even with pitch correction, you need a decent sounding voice to start with, and pitch correction can only go so far.
"I'm goin' ta Wichita..."
l8,
AC
Last CD's I bought were when the Wherehouse Music near me closed. Because I could afford to be adventerous and investigate the limits of my eclectic tastes at 6 bucks a shot. But truly my money mostly goes into DVD's and movies. While CD prices have been rising for the most part, DVD's have been crashing. Suicide Kings for 6 bucks at Target, that is just F'd up. It's too good to be that cheap. I don't recall ever having said something similar about any CD. Hell even the triple DVD of Blackhawk down costs less than most double CD sets, and already has seen a considerable amount of replay. Other people being equally clever have no doubt noticed this entertainment value disparity. Because seriously, when it's 20 dollars for some crappy new top forty album which has one song which is worth listening to, with a shelf life of a year or 19 dollars for some new T2 special edition in a fancy metal case, seriously what kind of choice is that? Obvious. At least to me.
Maybe it's time for the monopoly to start looking at cost control. While they might own music distribution, they don't own all entertainment on disc, so their price fixing would tend to make the a little short term money, but drive people to other media over the longer term.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
"No, what's changed is that the RIAA has spent the last 30 years buying as much influence in politics as they can. Why else would a middling-sized outfit like them be able to push around the tech industry, whose gross sales figures outstrip them nearly 10 to 1?"
Let's try looking at it from a different angle. What if the tech industry giants and the RIAA have the same goal in mind? That would be DRM.
DRM could/would/will allow complete control over a PC, from the hardware level all the way up to the software, including documents you make and write, or music you make and write.
Intel, MS, Sun, IBM, they all would love to be able to "control" what is done with their stuff, and where, by whom, etc. NVidia and ATI would love it so the barrier for entry into the video chip marketplace would be getting "certified", and make that as tough as possible.
RIAA wants the same thing, except for content instead of hardware. They specify where to listen, when, what kind, and so on, and the barrier to entry for other music becomes that much higher.
Vip
Pirating + economic downturn + vinyl replacement finished = far less CD sales. Also mentioned were that teenagers are more interested in cell phones than music these days.
The RIAA and CD Industry has been fined twice for price fixing, and pirating is heavily undercutting the pricing schemes established by the CD industry. So overchaging to the point that pirated copies become massively popular is the implication.
No singles available on CD translates to file sharing with the current high pricing scheme as well.
What would be a good solution?
I remember when Dave Matthews stirred up people, by sending in anti-bootleg teams to bust record stores across the country. They were selling bootleg copies of his concerts, that were unavailable on commerical releases. Apparently demand for his product was higher than delivery. His response was to put people out of business for trying to meet the demand. His record sales dropped as the hard core fanatics got pissed and quit buying his stuff.
Bob Dylan's response. He went out and bought all the bootlegs. Then picked the best tracks and released a 3-cd set of "Bob Dylan: Best of the Bootlegs", thus meeting the demand for more music. He undercut the bootleggers, because his collection was of known quality and cheaper than buying a bunch of $30 bootlegs to find the good tracks.
The RIAA needs to get real and realize that it's current business model is failing. One, it needs to offer more reasonable pricing and cut out the excessive "advertising/promotion" budgets that are used to rip off the artists. Secondly it needs to offer downloads of mp3's at even more reasonable prices since no manufactoring is requited. This would handle the singles market. Then it can attack the bootleg market head on, because it offers a competitive affordable product in line with demand.
Attacking filesharers, is not the best approach. Here's the reasons I see: 1) It would take 2000 years to supoena every file sharer at current rate. 2) Filesharers tend to be youth who are fans of music. Attacking them is attacking your future market. Creating animosity with the primary consumer is not good business strategy. 3) A lot of filesharers probably wouldn't buy a copy if left with no other choice than buying it. In my youth, I was a pirate of computer games, I had no money to buy them--therefore I couldn't and I stole them. Had my only option been purchase at $35/title, I wouldn't have. If I could have bought them for $5/$10 a piece I probably would have. I'm not justifying my behavior, just explaining the business case that the RIAA seems to have missed.
A bunch of entrenched lazy bureacrats who can't keep up with change is half of the problem. The other half, is people without enough self control (encouraged by continuous marketing and consumer culture), who feel compelled to create large markets based on theft.
Supply/Demand economics slapping the RIAA upside the head is what's going really going on.
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
The peak of production was in 1999 when 38,900 individual titles were released. But by 2001 this was down to 27,000. Releases grew again in 2002 but were still below the previous high.
...like I did, enter the Sharerware industry with the belief that nobody is going to pay them for their software unless they take some positive steps to ensure that happens. The real question of course is what the most effective steps are.
Isn't it possible that the lack of new releases is a consequence of music piracy? Isn't it possible that some people are consciously not releasing because they are afraid their work will be stolen?
When is the RIAA going to address these concerns? How can keep saying it's all file sharing when it's obvious these factors come into play.
Well, file sharing very likely plays a role. This experiment with shareware showed that only about 20% of the people pay for the shareware they use if they are not forced to pay. I'm sure the same thing happens with other media.
Here is the text of the article:
Why Do People Register, Does Crippling Work, Does Anybody Really Know?
Colin Messitt
Most authors...
There are many, many things that must happen for a shareware program to become sucessful (and I define sucessful as producing a good income for the author, not just being a widely used and acclaimed program), but there are five that seem to me to form the fundamentals for success.
Five Fundamentals For Success
First, the program must be something that users actually need, which, sadly, a lot of shareware releases aren't.
Second, it must actually be good, and again the vast majority of shareware releases are second-rate and buggy (and consider that this becomes more important for shareware because it is much simpler for the user to reject it than for him/her to reject commercial shrink-wrapped software if he/she doesn't like it).
Third, potential users must be alerted to the availability and desirability of the program - good old fashioned marketing that, again, a lot of shareware authors either don't enjoy or aren't very good at.
Fourth, the product must get into the hands of the potential evaluator, either by his getting the evaluation version himself (from a BBS or Vendor or the Internet etc.), or by it being presented to him in some way (on a magazine cover disk, bundled with other software or hardware etc.).
And finally, assuming the user actually needs the program after all the preceeding steps, there must be a reason for him to pay for it.
Industry Myths
As anybody reading this will know, there are a vast number of "experts" in the shareware industry who purport to know what works and what doesn't, and they put forward any number of reasons why a user would pay for a piece of shareware, including additional features, removal of nag screens, printed manuals and just plain honesty. These so called "experts" also often put forward the myth that crippled software doesn't get distributed, doesn't sell and harms the shareware industry in general.
However, if you ask for statistical evidence of any of these claims you won't get any. And perhaps most sadly these mythical beliefs have been enshrined in what is known as the ASP's Policy on No Crippling (PONC) and taken to be gospel without a shred of evidence. Indeed people who put forward alternative views were decried in almost the same way as people who suggested the Earth was round back in the Middle Ages.
When I started attempting to market my programs as shareware I effectively time-limited them, and achieved a reasonable if not spectacular measure of success. Then I listened to the "experts" and thought that maybe I was doing things wrong, and would have more success by removing the time-limiting.
My registration rates went down dramatically, even though there were the suggested incentives of a manual an
I've put off buying new CDs for the last six years, waiting for the high resolution formats to become available and cheap. There is no point in buying new discs if you're going to replace them right away. I will likely replace some existing CDs with high resolution versions of the same material if it isn't too expensive.
Still waiting...
I think the real reason for declining tape and CD sales is cell phones. It used to be that driving in the car, or walking from here to there, there wasn't much you could do but listen to music. Now you can talk to people on the cell phone instead. So, out with radios, CD players, and walkmans, and the tapes and CDs that go with them.
(I know that someone's going to mod this down as a flame or a troll but I don't care. People have to see that taking something without ever intending to pay for it isn't the way to reward the few artists that they enjoy.)
Not that other people haven't said it by now, and many more won't...but anyway.
There have been numerous people who've taken things without ever intending to pay for them over the years who've done me a great favor by doing so, and other people small favors. First there was the guy who gave my roomate a pirated copy of Apollo 18. My first exposure to _The_Greatest_Band_of_All_Time_, a pair of johns that have provided me with many hours of entertainment. Now, I own nearly ever album they've ever made, some are just hard to find retail, and Long Tall Weekend of course came out when I didn't have a broadband connection. But the same guy loaned the same roomate a bootleg of Bare Naked Ladie's, If I Had A Million Dollars. It was too funny so I bought Gordon based on the strength of that one bootleg song. And naturally all the other albums followed. Then there is the dorm neighbor who made me a copy of that Alpha Team song Go Speed Go. And I looked for that song on CD for two years before I found it retail. (I really should have just bought it on line. But I didn't know it was Alpha Team or the name of the song was Go Speed Go) I ended up buying the Saturday Morning Cartoon CD because it had "a" Speed Racer song on it, and now I also have a total of four versions of the Alpha Team Go Speed Go on two different compilation CD's.
All those copies were from people and to people none of whom had any initial intention of buying any more of the music. No one ever intended that someone eventually pay the artists for that music. And look what happened. It's pretty lucky for everyone but my wallet that there are so many people out there so willing to share the artists they enjoy with other interested parties.
Not every good done in the world is intended to be so, nor should it be.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
The thing to do is to enjoy whining about it. I mean it. Back in the 80's, the Dead Kennedys told us our faults in the U.S.A. I'll excerpt from my warped memories:
When they dig this up in a thousand years
They'll either laugh or cry.
Jock-O-Rama
Save my soul.
Come lick the bu___ of the beef patrol...
Jock-O-Rama on the brain.
Redneck-athon drivin' me insane.
The future of America--leave it to them.
Watch it roll over Niagra Falls
MTV get off the air!
Is my c_ck big enough,
Is my brain small enough
For you to make me a star?
Give me a toot,
And I'll show you my soul.
Pull my (marionette) strings,
And I'll go far.
Well, chick, you're outta luck.
'Cuz I'm rollin' down the stairs,
Too drunk to...
The thing is, some of us have bragging rights. While the cute girls were happily bobbing their heads to "You spin me round round, baby, round round--like a record, baby..." (retch, retch) some of us knew that it sucked while it sucked, and some of us said so and how and why. You Brits would call us wankers as a consequence of our principled aesthetic stance. Oh well. It all comes out in the wash, huh? (snicker)
Nirvana invented pretty much nothing. When I stumbled into "...Teen Spirit" while flipping channels on TV, then I realized that not only had punk gotten self-pitiful--it had become immensely profitable. Oops. Didn't the Brits show us the debacle of that stuff with "...Bollocks"? Oh well. Everyone claimed to understand precisely this "misunderstood generation" X. Yeah. Billy Idol's old band.
Last night a little dancer, came dancing to my door. Last night a little nouveau riche, self-absorbed fella fell OD'd to the floor.
So what else is, ahem, "new"?
Next.
To curb piracy in South East Asia the RIAA must consider reducing the cost of the CDs drastically.
;)) they will at least lay down a good user base in developing countries so they can get a hold of the market when the economy of the country goes up later on. Its just good business sense.
This is something pretty similar to what all the technical publishing houses are doing. They have something called as a Eastern Economy edition which is maybe about 1/5th the price of the cost of the books in the US. (Mainstream novels etc. are still very widely pirated in countries in South East Asia since they dont have this concept of an economy edition.) While the recording industry will not be making any profit on the sales of these CDs (maybe they will!!
Important thing that the recording companies should realize is that in countries like India where the average monthly salary is about $100 - $200 per month, who in their sane mind is going to spend a fifth or a tenth of their salary to buy one CD.
I'm curious about some of the assumptions made about the music business. First is the assumption that CD sales can provide a living income. We can say this about some percentage of the total performers, but would anyone consider this reasonable if they applied it to their own job? Suppose only the top 1% of programmers or managers were able to make a living at it- who would view those jobs as viable careers?
Second, there is the assumption that performers are artists. I think almost everyone would agree that this term is applied a little freely. For every original in the world of music there are thousands of imitations, and most originality is creative theft. Performers can be artists, but the art is in convincing you that that's what they are!
And that brings up a third assumption- that only the true originals, the "artists", are worth rewarding. Think about that the next time you are shaking your ass or pumping your fist or grinning wildly to the music made by some local, relatively imitative performers. Just what is it about what they do that should be rewarded- do they get points for turning you on?
What lies behind these assumptions? I think the industry has created this mythology in their drive for ever bigger sales numbers. Mass communications created the hit song and the big numbers. Everyone loves a good rags-to-riches story- hey, it could happen!
Which brings me to why I think copyright infringment (so-called piracy) is no big deal. It punctures these myths by devaluing music as a product. In my opinion, music is communication between the performer and the listener, and the quality of that communication is what should be rewarded. Careers deserve to be rewarded, not "hits". The sooner we lose these marketing induced notions of what music is about, the better.
Steam Powered Studio
"Counterfeiters have forced the price of a fake CD down to about $4"
This says all you need to know about the benefits of "unauthorized reproduction" (fuck the term "piracy" - that's just cute) and why it should be legal.
This is TRUE COMPETITION. If you make a product and unauthorized reproduction can drive you out of business, then you shouldn't be in the business. You make your money on added value - JUST LIKE THE "PIRATES" DO. Trying to make money off an easily reproduced commodity product is just not smart in business. Look at Gateway versus Dell.
And don't give me any moral baloney about how artists will stop making music if their record labels stop making money.
First, the record labels will NOT "stop making money" - they will stop pissing it away and become more streamlined and effective at production and promotion until they are little more than "pirates" themselves. (Some would say they already are but they "pirate" their artists instead of other labels.)
Second, both the business model and the industry itself will change. Artists will be the blue-collar workers they always were under the labels, but they will do it for themselves. They will make a living wage, but not the millions they dream of. Some WILL make millions because they are better marketing people than they are musicians (and probably should go into marketing INSTEAD OF music). A few will make millions because they have big tits. The WAY in which the money is made will change from CDs to direct Internet broadcast or downloads or some other model not even thought up yet.
Music is great but it's not the most important thing in life. Conversely, no matter what happens to the industry, it's not going away either.
So who cares?
Better spend your time worrying about what happens when Georgie Porgie starts a war with North Korea next year and we get a nuke popped off on our soil for the first time in history. Kinda makes CD sales a non-issue, doesn't it?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
A national advertising campaign with a 1-800 number for people to turn in CD counterfeiters and the signs of a counterfeit CD ,a $100 reward for anybody who turns in a counterfeit CD seller and a $5,000 reward for anyone who turns in a bulk manufacturer... and the FBI cleans up the mess. This is a felony rap, no new laws are needed, and I have absolutely no problem with people turning in ripoff artists. Spammers trying to sell MS Office for $30 to me find their spam forwarded to piracy@microsoft.com ... and I'm no friend of MS.
There are ways the US government can put far more pressure on foriegn countries that tolerate counterfeiting than they have been. Why haven't the 0wn3d politicians of the *AA pushed for enforcement against these countries instead of attacking its own best customers?
Counterfeiting reduces profits.
Independent artist access to P2P and Internet Radio channels and CD pressing means that anyone with the talent who puts in the energy has a chance to make a pretty decent living off music without the help of the *AA companies, and the same will be true of moviemaking in a few years. Soon, the people capable of making entertainment content the major content vendors will want to promote will be either turning down label and movie deals or extracting fair contracts from them.
P2P and Internet Radio threatens their business model.
I'm not going to address the continuing whines from the people who are still parroting RIAA propaganda even after a reputable news service has exploded the RIAA cover stories. Anyone who still repeats them is:
- a RIAA shill
- an idiot
- both
and who cares what scumbuckets think?I'm sure all of you have figured out that 128K MP3s are promotional giveaways, whether played with reduced quality on Internet Radio or distributed via FM radio or P2P network. Those of you who say otherwise are invited to show us where there is a market for them... perhaps somewhere on the planet Sardozz, because there is no commercial market for them on Earth. Nobody buys broadcast quality because this is given away free-as-in-beer over the radio... in the hope that people will buy the real products. Why do people buy CDs if they can download? 128K is good enough for casual listening, but if you like something to want to listen over and over, people know there's something missing in the sound and the fix is go buy the CD.
Distribution of music an end user can legally tape via FM radio is no threat to the music industry because FM radio content is effectively controlled by it via payola.
Distribution of promotional music tracks via Internet Radio and P2P does threaten the *AA monopoly of access because just anybody can get a track onto both, and if it's good enough, people will buy the actual CD or better-than-broadcast quality tracks. If they buy from an independent artist, this is money they could have spent with a major label, and good sales for independents gives the kind of artists the RIAA labels want means that they have to compete in the free market for people capable of making marketable content.
If artists who make music now and movies soon believe they can make more money without Hollywood than with it, we'll be buying content outside the Hollywood system, the content distributors will find they don't need Hollywood, either, and a lot of Hollywood CEOs will be on the sidewalk banging drums for pennies.
Tech Public Policy stuff
In liberated Europe, we have mandatory CD-R tax. The only way to get "data" CDRs is to buy them for a registered company and sign a statement you're going to use them for backups or whatever.
>>Debbie Gibson
Deborah had real talent. Sure, she was singing bubblegum at the time, but I remember reading back then that she was really good in the studio, with the engineering and stuff. Also, when she was discovered, she was mixing her own demos on household equipment (tape recorders) and coming out with sound quality that rivaled cheap recording studios.
No links, sorry. This is old newspaper stuff from memory.
And these days, she's an actress. She gave up singing crap years ago and moved on to real work. She has a fantastic voice, and is currently singing Off-Broadway.
Not that I'm a fan or anything, but back in the 80's and 90's I tried to stay on top of the NYC music scene. This is why I remember her story.
wbs.
Huh?
My epiphany came after many years of buying vinyl and then CD's. Hundreds of records and many hundreds of CD's. We had been told that CD's were very expensive to produce (at the beginning of the CD era) and that the price would come down when the cost of the machines were amortised.
I didn't think that the price was too high because I accepted the 'cost to produce story'. After I received 10 different CD's from AOL, I started to realize that those AOL cd's had to cost only 5-10 cents each. And if AOL could produce millions of CD's that cheaply, that meant the record industry was doing the same thing and laughing all the way to the bank.
It took me awhile, but I figured out the breakdown of CD costs:
Cost of production of CD, Box, and cover art-30 cents
Payment to artist (if any)-50 cents
Sell price to Distributor- 9.99
Profit per CD - $$9.19
And it's even worse for dead artists, the record companies pay even less royalties, sometimes none at all. Why is a John Coltrane CD (dead quite awhile) the same price as a brand new artist? Also, I think the price to distributors may now be 10.50 or more, so these figures are conservative.
Now, I buy CD's at used CD stores or directly from the artist themselves. I'm fed up with being gouged and abused, and will no longer buy new CD's from a record store. The only exception so far is Virgin, which imports DCs from Europe that have come off copyright after 50 years so they are _almost_ reasonable. Go ahead RIAA, sue me for not buying new CD's. Whine about 'lost sales' while you peddle lip syncing droids with no talent.
The RIAA can whine all they want to, but I will be abused no more.