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.

Comments

I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[sweeney37]

They used to say "home taping" was killing music, now it's meant to be internet downloaders. But the real pirates these days are crime bosses - and the rewards are plentiful.

It's amazing I read this and immediately thought, "Crime Bosses, is this going to be about Record Industry Corporate Executives?"

But in all seriousness this quote is the most telling of all:


According to the RIAA's own figures, over the last two years the US music industry has produced 25% fewer CDs.

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.

Musician George Ziemann says if only 3,000 copies of each of the "missing" CDs were sold, the fall in sales would be wiped out.

For Mark Mulligan, an analyst with Jupiter Research, the music is weathering a hangover after the 80s and 90s boom, when everyone was buying CD versions of their old vinyl records.

"Now the CD replacement cycle has drawn to a close," he says.

Also the global decline in CD sales is taking place against the background of a general economic recession that is depressing sales of almost everything.

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.

Mike

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[Kanon]

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.

The RIAA doesn't have to address those concerns. As long as it can buy politicians it can continue saying anything it likes.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[The Analog Kid]

A) I wouldn't believe the RIAAs number for a second. When you think about it, they always going to lie about numbers to make it seem like woe is me, so they can press for new laws and taxes that benifit only them.

B) If pirated CDs are to blame, why aren't there FBI raiding Chinatown's over the U.S. everyday?

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[stratjakt]

B) If pirated CDs are to blame, why aren't there FBI raiding Chinatown's over the U.S. everyday?

They are. Commercial pirates are busted all the time.

Just because it each individual case doesnt make a slashdot headline, doesnt mean it doesnt happen.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[kryonD]

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.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[LHN]

For Mark Mulligan, an analyst with Jupiter Research, the music is weathering a hangover after the 80s and 90s boom, when everyone was buying CD versions of their old vinyl records.

Its comments like this that will make the record industry create a new recording medium, and force us all to change again.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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!

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[myopicman]

The Village Voice had an article last week, claiming that one third of all CDs bought worldwide were pirated:

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (the worldwide equivalent of the RIAA) reported earlier this month that a third of all CDs sold worldwide are pirated--1.1 billion last year, for a total value of $4.6 billion. It's not clear what hat they pulled those figures out of, but as anyone who's shopped for 50 Cent rarities on Canal Street can tell you, CDs can be made and distributed for only a couple of dollars, especially if the people selling them don't pay production costs, artists' royalties, or radio promotion fees. Most pirated CDs, though, are sold in countries with bigger issues to worry about than copyright. At Russian street kiosks, for instance, 60 rubles (about $1.80) will get you a professionally manufactured greatest-hits collection by anyone from Annie Lennox to Helloween, often designed to look just like Abba's Forever Gold. Another 10 rubles, and you can get a CD with MP3s of every song by your favorite artist (Marie Osmond, Brian Eno, Nurse With Wound . . . ), with lyrics and pictures thrown in for good measure.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[in7ane]

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.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[warpSpeed]

It is a bit surprising that they haven't switched to DVD or something similar yet. New media, new players, new sales. All in the name of "better technology."

And excellent point, but new technology means more compact storage, and the ability to hold more music. The RIAA and its members would have to come up with innovate ways to make the average joe want to give up their CD player that works with all of their current music just fine, thank you very much.

I do not see new technology supplanting the current tech until there is a compelling reason to do so. And I do not see the RIAA providing ANY compelling reasons to do so that does not involve the legislature.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[Fishstick]

Men in Black

"see this? this is going to replace compact-disc soon. looks like I'll have to buy the white album again."

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[NewWazoo]

Forgive me, but I don't believe that 2003 - 10 = 1960. Perhaps my math's wrong...

FWIW, 10 years ago, most then-popular acts did work their way up through the "standard" channels, starting in clubs as the GP mentioned. It's right about that time, IIRC, that the record companies began to package the "Seattle sound" (eg grunge rock), and not 3-4 years later, music was back in the shitter.

My $0.02

Brandon

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[macdaddy357]

If the $20 legitimate CDs at the mall won't play in a computer, and the $4 pirated CDs at the flea market, or on a street corner will, what do you think the kids will buy? The RIAA is so stupid! They need to stop making copy protected disks, and go after the counterfeiters, not file traders. There is an article about that at dontbuycds.org called what is piracy? Well worth reading.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[turgid]

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.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[mausmalone]

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.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[16K Ram Pack]

I always trace the official start of the 90s to "Kinky Afro" by the Happy Mondays and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana.

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.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[Quixadhal]

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.

This hasn't changed much in the last 40 years. The best example I can think of is The Monkees. They were a manufactured clone of The Beatles, carefully chosen and targeted at the young girls of the time. Much to the chagrin of the music industry, they actually developed some talent, and a desire to move away from the fluff they were playing and produced their own music after a while.

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:

1. Reinvent. Come up with a way to make money off the emerging trends in digital media, home and portable theatre, and live webcasts.
2. Fire-Sale. Drop the prices on everything to the point where people will want to buy the physical media again.
3. 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.
4. 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.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[damien_kane]

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.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[Virtex]

I don't believe the recording industry creates new recording mediums. In fact, history has shown that they tend to fight every new medium that comes out, from cassettes to CDs to digital tapes to MP3s. And they use the same argument every time -- the new medium will allow people to make copies and they'll never buy music again. But once the RIAA finally embraces a technology, they always make a killing with it.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[poot_rootbeer]

10 years ago, Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology wasn't good enough to make boob toting hacks like Britany Spears sound good.

Yeah, pop music was full of REAL TALENTS back in those days, like Tiffany, and Debbie Gibson!

I realize that they were closer to 15 years ago, but since you're still hung up on Britany (sic) and the Backstreet Boys as the Icons of pop music, I figure you're stuck about 5 years ago yourself.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[looseBits]

In conclusion, basically every art form corprate America touches turns to widely available shit.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[b!arg]

One of my favorite quotes:

Heroin may be bad, but it sure as hell hasn't hurt my CD collection

-Bill Maher

Although I generally agree with your statement, I do have one caveat to add. Your statement is about "popular" music. That which is on major labels. I can't remember the last time I bought a record on a major label. I'm sure I've bought one or two but that's about it. But there are a TON of very good, creative bands locally in town (Seattle) and I'm sure your town has them too. A nice side benefit is that the concerts cost $5-$15, not $50-$60. Consider them the open source software of the music industry. *grin*

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[Vip]

"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

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[Cromac]

According to the RIAA's own figures, over the last two years the US music industry has produced 25% fewer CDs.

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.

So they release 30% fewer titles and wonder why they produced 25% fewer CD's?

Duh, hello RIAA if you churn out less new mucic you sell less.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[Rogerborg]

Hey, fuck you, buddy. I used to listen to NSYNC when they were underground.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[mc6809e]

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.

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... ...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.

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

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[dnoyeb]

Another point worth considering is the service the RIAA provides. They are not the profiting entity per se. They are an association of the profiting entities. They must make sure the people they represent see them as relevent, not so much the people they seek to prosecute.

This reminds me of racism. People confuse what it was intended to do. It was a tool to convience your everyday European it was OK to abuse Africans. It was NOT a tool to convience Africans of their own inferiority.

The RIAA is using filesharing in the exact same way. To convience, not the file sharers, of their bad deeds, but to convience the people that the RIAA represents, that the RIAA is valuable.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[argStyopa]

10 years ago, Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology wasn't good enough to make boob toting hacks like Britany Spears sound good

Haven't listened to much Britney, have you?
DSP still ain't there.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[finallyHasANickname]

I think you just outdid probably 95% of the salaried music critics from whom I have read in my entire lifetime. (Seriously.)

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.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[jdiggans]

This post makes a good point albeit not directly. The RIAA's two real 'services' are (1) to spend lots of money to lobby w/ a single voice (thereby making it easier for Congress to receive their message) and (2) to act as a focal point for bad publicity and consumer rage so that we, the consumers, don't notice that it's not the RIAA causing us problems -- it's Sony, AOL/Time-Warner, BMI, etc.

The fact that in this forum we so often toss the RIAA back and forth with indignation while buying up plenty of products (with exceptions -- keep the flames to yourselves) produced by member companies proves that their strategy is working exactly as intended.
-j

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[e4e6]

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

Odd, I recall the real reason people bought CDs is that they were essentially forced down peoples throats. The recording industry decided to no longer support vinyl as a means of distribution, turning to the CD format instead.

How this adds value to the consumer I fail to understand, especially since all consumers had to buy CD players to use this format which at the time were not cheap. In addition, to reap the full benefits of this new technology, a complete stereo upgrade would be neccessary since at the time, the main music format that truly used the CD's full capabilites was classical.

In addition, the cost of production was less for a CD then for vinyl. Traditionally a new technology is priced higher due to the increase in production cost and to recoup R&D expenses, however with the CD the production cost was less then the format it was replacing and has been priced higher with each passing year!

-new technology will only succeed if it adds something new and useful, regardless of whether it is driven by the record companies or not

I would concur that adding something new and/or useful may drive a technology, however I would disagree entirely that both are necessary for success or failure. There have been many instances in which two similar technologies have butted heads, only to have the "slighly inferior" product become the standard. i.e. Beta vs. VHS. Marketability can have the biggest impact upon whether or not a product is succeeds for fail. i.e. New Coke vs. Coca Cola classic.

Let's not forget that we aren't dealing with the technology as much as we are dealing with the consumer that uses them. Unlike the newest Video Card, the consumer never really had a say regarding the CD format, it was thrust upon them whether they wanted it or not.

Considering the price fixing lawsuits that the recording industry is having to answer to, once more we are given a clue that there was no value added to the cusumer to switch formats.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[UncleGizmo]

Hmmm... As examples:

'50s
>Little Richard or Pat Boone?
'60s
>Rolling Stones or Nancy Sinatra?
'70s
>Led Zeppelin or Leif Garrett?
'80s
>U2 or Flock of Seagulls?
'90s
>Counting Crows or Backstreet Boys?

Every decade has myriad groups / genres clamoring for 'popular' status. Some are discovered, some manufactured. For most people, listening to music is a diversion that helps them enjoy life a little more, and that's as much thought as they put into it. Those of us who become more invested in music are the ones [here and elsewhere] who can argue passionately about it.

My point: You can't define a decade as having more or less "valuable vs. vapid" music. I will grant that technological studio advancements do make it harder to separate the dross from the ore. But in the end, who cares? If a song defines or enhances your state of mind, then isn't it doing what it's supposed to do?

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[janeil]

Nah, just not true, "adults with real jobs" will never really influence or effect the pop music scene. Kids 12 to 25 are always the ones who will spend the most and make the stars. Pop music is pop music, the simple fact that the backstreet boys have sold so many cds means by definition they are a good pop music act, however they were marketed. Geez, Frank Sinatra was marketed. (Also, marketed is a very strange verb to use repeatedly.)

I think the interesting points made were these two: the end of the cd-replacing era, and the fact that 12 to 25's no longer identify as strongly with musical genres or bands. These two resonate with my point of view, anyway, and make the most sense.

As an old boomer (born '55, young for a boomer) of course I'm pretty sure music sales are down because the music is just so bad!

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[wideBlueSkies]

>>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.

Re:I'm from the Show-Me State, prove it.

[tedrlord]

Yeah, I hear you. Flock of Seagulls rocks! And whatever happened to U2 anyway? I guess they just faded back to obscurity with all the other one-hit wonders.

So many reasons...

[TopShelf]

The article contains an interesting point about the end of the replacement cycle, during which people bought CD's to replace their existing vinyl & cassette tapes. Where the music industry says that CD sales fell by 10%, it would be useful to see a split between newly-released material vs. titles released at least 10 years ago, and how these two groups fared.

On top of that issue, there are of course several other factors that are at work - the soft economy during 2001/2002, competitors for the teenage spending dollar, and of course the rise of online file trading. I know personally that I haven't bought a CD in a couple years, mostly due to the fact I haven't heard anything that compelling, but also that if I want a particular song (rather then blow $$$ on the whole CD), I can get it in a couple minutes online. If these knuckleheads could implement a useful, cheap service to pay for songs, I just might do it. But I want to be able to burn CD's to play in my car, and have access to a wide selection of music - not just one company's stable of trick ponies.

Re:So many reasons...

[Anonymous Coward]

Demographics answer:

The echo boomers (i.e., the children of the baby boomers) were in their prime music buying age group (12-20) during the 80s and 90s.

There are much less people in that age group now.

Re:So many reasons...

[non]

i fint it interesting that you haven't bought a cd for a couple of years. as an american living overseas i haven't bought a cd in 6-9 months, mostly because record stores close by 8pm, they have a lousy selection (consisting mostly of top40 bands), and the prices are outrageous (take the highest us price and add 18% tax). however whenever i'm in the us i buy as many as i can comfortably fit in my luggage. sure i have mp3s, almost exclusively from music in my own collection; those that aren't are live recordings. i have very little interest in buying a single here and a single there.

but there's one interesting thing going on. i'll never replace the music i do own again. ever. it will be migrated from one media to another for as long as i live, and likely for as long as my survivors want. that upgrade from vinyl thing only happened once as far as i'm concerned. but the record companies are trying to build in a similar 'periodic cycle' via the licensing agreements for music bought online. its just one more way they're trying to screw over the consumer.

Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[mao che minh]

Millions of people actively participate in piracy. I have been witnessing it (music piracy) going on, heavily, for a little over three years now. Many people that download music either no longer purchase music, or do so very little.

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.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[garcia]

you can have your observations, but they are moot.

SUPPORT THOSE BANDS THAT ALLOW THE FREE TRADING OF THEIR MUSIC!

I just went to a Dead show in Joliet, IL (I am still smacking myself for not going to the show in Somerset, WI as well as it is on my way home from IL). I saw quite a crowd there to see moe. (they didn't play due to a wrecked/rebuilt stage the night before), Robert Hunter, Bob Dylan, and The Dead.

Amazingly enough, these bands allow and promote the free trading of their music. Somehow, they are still able to turn QUITE a profit, make some INCREDIBLE music, and even have a steady following (Bob Dylan and The Dead have been playing for what 40+ years?)

Here's a list of bands that you SHOULD be supporting.

DMB, a band which is more in the mainstream, makes a pretty penny on CD sales AND touring sales. Imagine that, someone who allows his own stuff to be taped yet makes a profit.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[Sheetrock]

And, no doubt, you will see every justification in the book for what effectively boils down to "I want something for nothing." All of them stupid, in my opinion.

Most of today's music is crap. Perhaps; appreciation of any particular genre or artist is subjective, of course, but I'm willing to concede that by objective comparison to the hits of the 1960s and 70s today's charttoppers are lyrically insipid and inferior not only in the design but also in the audio processing. Irregardless, this is no excuse for hosting 40GB of this tripe.

CD prices are too high, and are being illegally maintained at this level by the music cartel. Have a little class. We look up to the perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party because not only were they assuming some risk but they also threw the shit into the harbor.

The artist sees next to nothing on CD sales; the tour's where the money is made. A comforting blanket statement that not only legitimises the theft but also makes it an act of solidarity on behalf of the downtrodden artists. Look, I read the articles by Albini and Love too, but this is a completely ludicrous argument. We're not privy to the majority of industry contracts. There's no guarantee a tour is going to make an artist a fair amount of money, especially if it's being balanced against a lousy CD royalties agreement or what have you. At the end of the day, any money that ends up in the artist's pocket is going to be appreciated by most of them.

They'll never catch me. Not only is this a 'whistling past the graveyard' sort of argument, but they shouldn't have to even be out there trying to catch you in the first place -- if you really care about the plight of the artists or how much you're spending on CDs, there are so many activities you can do that will actually have a positive effect.

Indies are doing everything the pirates supposedly want the RIAA to do, but they're still struggling. Call it theft, call it copyright infringement, but at the end of the day it's just people wanting to get something for nothing.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[kmak]

One thing you got to remember is that the blank CD's we pay for, some of that money goes back to the companies that make music anyhow.. same goes for DVD's..

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[Ratphace]

Let me point out MY own point of view to the main problem to music sales.

I think that the main problem is almost solely the advent of used CD stores. I know it sounds silly, but when Joe Musiclover buys a CD at Sam Goody, the record label (i.e. Warner Bros) sees revenue. However, when I buy the same CD at a used CD store the record label recognizes $0 of revenue.

I have a large network of friends and I don't know a single one of my friends that will pay the money asked for a new CD when they know they can wait a month and get it for a small fraction of the cost of a retail CD store.

Last "new" CD I purchased was in 1992, and ever since then I have made all of my purchases at used stores which has saved me a bundle of money.

This is another primary loss of revenue that people like the RIAA just seem to overlook and do not want to acknowledge. I have sent them quite a few letters with some facts and figures based upon the people that I alone know. If you were to multiply this across the nation you'd see a LOT larger figures.

Just something to think about and yet it is something overlooked anytime this subject is considered.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[kmak]

Playing Devil's Advocate though, 3 years ago, broadband isn't as popular as it is now.. it used to take 20 minutes for me to download a song (err.. if I were to download a song..), and many longer for an album (obviously), but nowadays, with speed blazing, it takes maybe 20-30 minutes to download the entire album!

So that has definite contributions..

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[jeffkjo1]

There is a Wherehouse music in my area that is going out of business. I was driving by when I noticed it and did a quick 180, excited about the prospect of paying reasonable prices for CD's (The sign outside advertised EVERYTHING AT LEAST 25% OFF ALREADY LOW PRICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.) However, I was sorely dissapointed when I went inside...

It appeared as though prices had been jacked up and then discounted back down to the same price I would pay anywhere else (CD's for 18 and 19.99? The hell?!?!)

The music industry doesn't get it, even when they fail.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[Sheetrock]

If people want to actually check out most of these bands using P2P (legitimately this time!) I recommend the FurthurNet application. They've got a list of all of the artists/concerts you can download maintained in such a way that you're only able to download legal content, and a lot of the concerts are equivalent in quality to the concert CDs some bands put out.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[garcia]

you are quite correct. They do not allow you to trade copies of their albums (understandibly). It is a known fact that most artists are incapable of performing at any decent level live (for example, the VERY popular Hootie and the Blowfish album from several years ago 95? It sold quite a number of copies but they couldn't sing worth a crap live).

How about we continue... Norah Jones? Read one person's feelings on a recent concert of her's. She won how many awards? Her studio stuff is great, her live presence is crap.

Perhaps people don't care for studio music from so-so artists and want a REAL taste of GOOD music?

Where are the legendary bands of the 60s and 70s? The ones with MAJOR staying power? They don't exist anymore. Record labels WANT major profits fast.

I say fuck supporting studio recorded music and only support those bands with the balls to show themselves in public and REALLY play their music.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[peter_gzowski]

Thank you for injecting a much-needed reality check into a /. discussion on music swapping. If there's anything about your comment where I would nitpick is the use of the word "stealing". I think that copyright infringement is not "stealing", it's copyright infringement. This doesn't make it any less illegal, I just wanted to be clear.

As for conscience-clear cheap music aquisition, try out EMusic. It's not for everyone, but if you're into indie rock and/or jazz, it's well worth it. $10-$15/month for all-you-can-eat, no-DRM, 192Kb/s average VBR mp3s (encoded with LAME, no less). Support for Mac/Windows/Linux.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[brain159]

Is that an assertion that stores get a refund from their suppliers on all shoplifted merchandise?

Theft from a store is stealing from the store - the label has been paid for that CD.

Unlawful duplication+distribution is taking unfair advantage of the record label.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[mark_lybarger]

well, the record company still sees the revenue on the cd you buy at the 2nd hand store. their issue is that they only see the revenue once and not three times and more.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[afidel]

Don't forget that in some cases it's the very act of making it that kills a singers voice. I saw Jewel before her album came out and she had a simply amazing voice, then I saw her again after it came out and she had been touring for a while, her voice was still better than most, but not nearly as dynamic or amazing as before. Then I heard her on a live recording slightly before she took her long hiatus, her voice was all ripped up. The simple act of touring and singing so much to promote herself was killing her wonderfull voice. It takes a LOT to be able to sing well every other night, most voices don't hold out, especially more delicate female ones.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[dougmc]

some of that money goes back to the companies that make music anyhow..

Only for Audio CD-Rs, not Data CD-Rs.

It's called The DAT Tax.

One interesting thing about the DAT tax is this --

The law does have one benefit to the consumer. It explicitly makes it legal (or more precisely, non-actionable) for you to copy audio works for your own use ( section 1008). That's right, it is now perfectly legitimate for you to borrow the latest Madonna album from a friend and make yourself a copy, despite the copyright. Pretty neat, huh?

In any event, the DAT tax only applies to audio media, not data media (Audio CD-Rs, which are needed for stereo component writers, have a bit set that say they're audio CD-Rs and cost much more. Of course, most people just use data CD-Rs in their computer anyways.)

Often when I see people buying Audio CD-Rs in the store, I ask them if they're going to burn it on a computer or a stereo component. In every case, they've said `computer'.

Now, I've heard that companies that make analog media, like cassette and VHS tapes, pay a certain amount to the recording and movie industries -- sort of a `hush' money -- but it's not something that has been codified into law like the DAT tax.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[garcia]

There's no guarantee a tour is going to make an artist a fair amount of money, especially if it's being balanced against a lousy CD royalties agreement or what have you.

A tour is going to make you a fair amount of money if you play decent music live. Problem with the crybaby artists is that they tend to suck ass when it comes to live performances.

Check out this poster's comment. We have the amazing ability these days to make shitty people sound great on the CD but they still suck terribly live.

I posted this comment about recent chart toppers (Hootie and Norah Jones) begin bought in drove on the CD rack but completely sucking ass live.

I have no respect for those people that can't really sing and are being marketed as these wonderful artists.

Show me that you are worth the money and then I might support you when you come out w/a CD. I refuse to do it the other way around.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[dbc001]

I've bought about 15 CDs over the past 3 or 4 months - here in San Diego there are "going out of business sales" going on at Music Shops all over the place. And they are mostly big chain stores, not mom & pop shops (the mom & pop shops still sell vinyl, which will _always_ be profitable). Anyway the reason I've been buying all these CDs is that they're only $3-$5 each. Only an idiot would pay $15 for a CD nowadays.

-dbc

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[schalliol]

As for Sam Goody, if it's like the other few Sam Goody locations I have visited throughout the country, they're not going to get anywhere selling $17.99 and $18.99 CDs. I'm shocked when $15.99 is their good deal! Chains like Best Buy do lots of the selling, like the new "Sense Field" release, "Living Outside," which sells for $6.99 there and much more anywhere else. There is a lot of music out there now over the past decade or two and it is tough for them to convince you to expand your collection. The expanded music generes seem to have some impact here: Many people have a favorite set of music and buy that, but just hear the rest of the stuff on the radio. It seems that most people I know (ok, I'm a tech guy I realize) buy CDs from a store like Best Buy, which is a pain to get into and out of, so they don't buy often, or they buy from Amazon.com. Of course now some people are going the iTunes Music Store way as well.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[Fweeky]

192Kb/s average VBR mp3s

That's pretty meaningless; 192kbps average will vary from Xing/WMA quality to practically transparent depending on the settings and version of Lame used.

Now, from their website: To encode the files on Emusic, we used LAME version 3.92. The import option that was used is -alt-preset standard.

I would have prefered version 3.90.3, but never mind; at least they're not using -r3mix :)

(Actually I would have prefered FLAC, but that's just me..)

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[2short]

Why should we not value the ability to make a great sounding album? I rarely go to live shows; almost all the music I hear is recorded. If they sound great on the CD, then for my purposes, they are not shitty.

Are you really arguing that if someone doesn't put on a good live show, they don't deserve to make money for producing a great CD? Seems like they don't deserve to make money performing live.

I've seen live bands that totaly rocked, and been awfully disapointed by their albums. I've owned albums that were great but not expected the live band to live up, assuming I ever had the chance to go see them (unlikely).

It seems to me that live performance and CD production are two different (but related) art forms. I don't see why one should be declared the "real" one, or why an artists failure in one should justify ripping off their work in the other. If a band produced a lame album, would it justify sneaking in to their concert?

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has been behind the board for more shows than he cares to remember...Bull!

A real performer who performs vocal exercices regularly, who rehearses continously her instrument (voice) learns how to take care of her vocal chords.
You cant just sit on your ass, go to awards and give in-depth interviews to ET and then jump up and decide to tour.

The problem is that with most pop musicians they do not know how to perform or how to keep their voice healthy since they tour like you say to 'promote' an album. Touring is notthing more than a way to sell their album.

I remember someone asking BB King why he still performed regularly even though he was financially set (one of the rare bluesmen who wont die broke, screwed by the industry).
You know his answer? Im a musician: I perform in front of people for a living..that's what I do.

Pop stars are NOT performers.
Go to any good club in your town and you will see scores of professional musicians and singers who sing in dinky little clubs day in, day out under less than ideal conditions and they know what they have to do to make sure that their voice holds.

Im always stunned when I hear 'artists' with 3-4 albums like Janet Jackson a few years back, claim that they are nervous about their first tour or first concert. How the hell can you be halfway through your career and not have sung live before?
Hell, I think that live performing should be an obligation before making a cd (cuz we know that technology can even make Eddie Murphy sound good...funny as hell but technically good).

I understand what youre saying but its a cop out.
We've been so programmed to buy into the whole 'star' discovery or creation system that we forget that these youngsters have no real performance experience apart from their cute T&A.

I saw at the Montreal Jazz Fest Diana Krall recently and her touring schedule is exhausting yet she still manages to sound as good live as on her cds. Read a bit on her rehearsal regimen and how she takes care of her voice.

Ill bet you the only exercice Jewel gets for her voice when she's on a 11 month a year break is ordering the Krispy Kremes.

Re:Dismissal of piracy is astounding

[NormalVisual]

Then she needs to see a voice coach and learn to take better care of her voice. There are plenty of other performers in the stage and operatic arenas that sing just as often, if not more, and sing more demanding material, and manage to keep their voices in top form without much difficulty. Don't take this as a slam on Jewel - I've done musical theatre for more than 20 years and I've known plenty of folks that simply run their voices too hard when they don't have to because they simply didn't know better - when you have a delicate coloratura like Jewel's, it requires a little more diligence.

The 'Real' reason...

[jkrise]

God did not implement a business model while building the human ear. He should have spoken to Bill Gates or Hillary Rosen or Hatch and implemented DRM in the cochlea or tympannum or whatever.

Too bad, evolution takes millions of (y)ears.

-

Re:The 'Real' reason...

[guybarr]

God did not implement a business model while building the human ear. He should have spoken to Bill Gates or Hillary Rosen or Hatch and implemented DRM in the cochlea or tympannum or whatever.

But there are quite efficient filtering hard/software already installed:


: are you at the computer again ? I told you to wash the dishes yesterday ...

: hmm. Did you say something, dear ?

Wrong people!

[momerath2003]

It is very obvious that the main source of piracy are these people overseas who even sell the music for money. Why doesn't the RIAA take some kind of action against them instead of suing random people in the US who only share (for free) a few songs!?! Also, they should admit that people downloading are not the main source of piracy.

Re:Wrong people!

[flakac]

It's easier and more cost-effective to sue in the US, where they're almost certain to win, and recoup court costs as well. At the moment I happen to be living in the Czech Republic, and there's a huge problem with pirated CDs at most of the vietnamese open-air markets, esp. near the German and Austrian borders (this is not a racist remark, it is a comment on the state of affairs...) The Czech police are almost helpless to stop it -- most of the time, as soon as the police show up to raid the markets, the owners simply walk away from their stands, and the police confiscate what's on display, but arrest noone. Worse, court cases in the CR are notoriously prone to dragging out for years, so it's no wonder that RIAA wants to go after US-based downloaders.

huh

[geeber]

"The real reasons music isn't selling as much as it used to, and not a lot to do with file sharing."

Wouldn't the world be a wonderful place if we could all visualize complete sentences?

Sigh

Re:huh

[IFF123]

Are you crazy? A world without ubfuscated code comments? It's a dark, dark place indeed...

perhaps its also a quality thing

[HealYourChurchWebSit]

I realize the article cites organized crime as the real culprit ... but couldn't one of the other causes be the low quality of music?

Meaning, as more and more merchandising of the performer comes into play, we get more and more "teenie-bopper" mediocrity such as Britney Spears and O-Town ... neither of whom could hold a candle to some of the rich-n-thick textures and beats of groups past such as George Plimpton's Parliment, the Tower of Power, or even going back further to the Beatles, who made some serious musical and technical innovation with renderings such as Yellow Submarine?

I mean, now ... it all sounds so contrived.

Bah, perhaps its because I'm an old poop now.

Re:perhaps its also a quality thing

[some_schmuck]

George Plimpton's Parliament? That man doesn't have a funky bone in his body. I think you mean George Clinton ...

Re:perhaps its also a quality thing

[mike_mgo]

Maybe, but remember there was lousy pre-packaged music made back in the sixties too. Bubble-gum pop in the 60's, bad disco in the 70's and hair bands in the 80's.

People shouldn't get so nostalgic about the past, we remember the good stuff from then because it was good and forget the bad. I don't think the quality of music has a whole lot of affect on these numbers. In any case the peak sales numbers that the RIAA uses when talking about the recent decline are from the late 90's, not exactly a golden era of music (unless everyone here thinks the Spice Girls are going to be making a big come-back soon).

Some interesting ideas

[Sir Haxalot]

If you look on the Eff website, it has some interesting ways in compensating the artists if you don't want to buy their CDs.

Pulling numbers out of backside..

[PopeAlien]

..Here are some other huge numbers:

1 million
237 Billion
A Hundred Kajillion!

Wow! those sure are some big numbers I just made up. And I bet I know where those losses come from - Radio. Think about it, where else can you get *TONS* of music for free? And after hearing how damn crappy most of it is, who's going to buy the cd?

Re:Pulling numbers out of backside..

[Marc2k]

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.

Shocking, some people, really.

[iainl]

I really just don't get the people who buy these pirate CDs. There's no getting away from the fact that they know they are buying illegal copies - the photocopied covers and blue backs are just too blatent on every dodgy market stall I've seen.

What I find shocking, though, is that people would rather fork over 5 to a pirate for a burnt CD than on the one hand download the album for free or on the other order a perfectly legit copy from Amazon (or Play, or CDWow etc) for 9.

Apparently, people trust random pirates at car boot sales and markets not to rip them off more than they do Amazon, simply because "you can't trust strangers on the Internet".

So yes, I think that they are right to go after these guys - they hurt the industry far more than the odd fileshare does.

Its simply the price

[Anonymous Coward]

Change the price of a CD containing 18 tracks to $9.99 and sales will recover nicely. It's really that simple.

Yeah no shit sherlock!

[Anonymous Coward]

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?!

To clarify...

[momerath2003]

I did in fact RTFA. But I did not make my point clear. My point was that the RIAA should admit openly that downloaders aren't a problem and that these "counterfeiters" are. They need to stop using Kazaa-users as scapegoats for their drop in sales (which, of course, is not entirely due to piracy).

Queue the predictable responses!

[goldspider]

Instead of filling this thread with all of the various excuses people use to justify their theft, let me just list all of them here for your reading convenience:

1. Because no loss of physical property = no theft.
2. Because copyright infringement isn't a big deal.
3. Because artists are getting screwed by the RIAA.
4. Because overall quality of music is down.
5. Because I wouldn't have bought the CD anyway.
6. Because information wants to be free!

Re:Queue the predictable responses!

[tanguyr]

or 7) Because of the definition of the word "theft"

theft
\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.(Emphasis mine) See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.
2. The thing stolen. [R.]
If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, . . . he shall restore double. --Ex. xxii. 4.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, (C) 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

/t

Re:Queue the predictable responses!

[Anonymous Coward]

> So because it doesn't meet the technical definition of "theft", that means it's OK to do it?

If it doesn't meet the definition of theft, it shouldn't be called theft.

>Personally, I don't think "infringement" correctly identifies the act either, and perhaps a new legal term needs to be written into law to concretely define it.

And what exactly is lacking about "infringement"? Maybe it doesn't sound criminal enough?

Re:Queue the predictable responses!

[PyromanFO]

Personally, I don't think "infringement" correctly identifies the act either, and perhaps a new legal term needs to be written into law to concretely define it.

"infringement" does accurately define it legally, simply because it doesn't convey the message you want it to doesn't make it wrong or mean that it needs to be rewritten. As far as the law is concerned "copyright infringement" is entirely accurate to describe what is going on.

Clearly the industry is losing music sales to file-sharing (among several other factors), and yes, they could benefit from updating their business model, but no amount of rationalizing will change the fact that downloading music you haven't paid for is wrong.

Illegal, yes, but morally it's a gray area, some people think its reprehensible and some think it's fine as long as the artist makes a living, others thing it's the way to do things (information wants to be free). So no, you can change the fact that it's wrong, because morally it's ambiguous to alot of people, you aren't the only one who gets to decide what's right and wrong.

Personally, I can't understand how strong copyright by default behavior has only been in our society for about 30 years, yet it is considered up there with murder and rape as acts that are always going to be wrong and can never be considered right under any circumstance. Before 1971, most of the copyrightable work out there wasn't copyrighted at all. Before that, copyright lasted 14 years plus a 14 year extension. Before that, copyright didn't even exist, the Ancient Greeks got along without it just fine while contributing alot to art and science. Yet today it's considered an inalienable right that cannot be altered. Go figure

Re:Queue the predictable responses!

[tanguyr]

Why thank you Mr. Coward ;)

Indeed - just because it's not *theft* doesn not mean it's OK to do it. The RIAA likes to call it theft because it simplifies the whole concept in the mind of Joe Sixpack: it is a bad thing to take other people's stuff. By the time you've explained "infringement" Mr. Sixpack has switched to stanley cup replays. If you're explaining, you're losing.

Interestingly enough, the big broadcasters dragged the original cable tv stations into court because they were "stealing" their content. The MPAA dragged sony into court over video recorders, because they could be used to "steal" their movies. In he first case, the courts settled on a mandatory licensing scheme (so cable had to pay the networks but they were allowed to keep rebroadcasting their content - how come Napster wasn't offered a deal like this?) and in the second case the court found that there was a potential for significant noninfringing use for the technology (and you have to be deep in the **AA's pockets to claim that the same can't be said for P2P tech) and the case was dismissed. Today, pay per view / cable / video rental / etc makes BILLIONS for copyright holders, money that they would not be making if it had been left up to them (which it is being today)

/t

Re:Queue the predictable responses!

[lambadomy]

Ok, I'll bite. You say:

downloading music you haven't paid for is wrong

Really? I know this gets hashed out here a lot on slashdot, but there was a specific period of time set down for copyrights when this country was founded - 14 years. Now, that time has been changed to "basically forever". This is just as "wrong". Or maybe there should be no copyrights at all...while I don't love that idea, copyrights are in no way any kind of natural right, or commandment or anything like that.

Say it with me everybody - Just because the government makes it illegal doesn't make it "wrong". It just makes it illegal. I shouldn't have to give examples to demonstrate this point. Just because the RIAA or disney or whoever want to lock everything up forever and bleed everyone dry doesn't mean they can get away with it. Heck, every time you download something, consider it civil disobedience. Maybe try only downloading things 14 years old or older, make a statement. Unless you feel the founding fathers were wrong and the current government is right, or at least scary. Copyright is not nearly as important as the many other ways governments have abused their powers or made perfectly ok things "wrong". There are plenty of examples of civil disobedience with no moral leg to stand on. But anyone who thinks this is one of those cases, or that all music downloading is automatically wrong, worries me.

P2P is the scapegoat

[gilesjuk]

Lets face it, the RIAA doesn't have an effective policy for sale and promotion on the Internet.

Firstly they screw over small webcasters, eliminating the hobbyist and enthusiast DJs (these are people doing it for love not profit and so should be encouraged).

Then they proceed to annoy everyone else online that has downloaded music (illegally yes, but it's infringement not theft under current laws).

Keep it up RIAA, keep us in the dark ages, the Internet had the possibility of being a new method for distributing and selling music but you blew it. You've sealed your demise.

Consumer Backlash

[Anonymous Coward]

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

The problem is twofold

[geek]

First problem is creativity. I haven't purchased a CD in 6 years. I haven't pirated I've just listened to the radio and borrowed CD's from friends. I'm an artist and object to pirating on principal.

The second problem is piracy. I say piracy second because the really good work that's done isn't pirated like the pop trendy teenie bopper music is. Peopl may download a really great song but will typically then go out and buy the album.

It's been a long long while since a new artist came out that was actually talented. I played better than most of these tards when I was in 8th grade. Where did all the Bob Dylans go, the Janis Joplins, the Stevie Ray Vaughns and B.B. Kings? Clapton is a memory and the Bettles are history. Good bands like Jimmy Eats World and Weezer barely get played, drowned out by Brittany Spears and J.Lo.

Turn on MTV and watch for about an hour. Keep track with a pencil and paper, count how many of these pop artists actually play an instrument. Then count how many of those actually write their own music. It's disgraceful to call these people "professional". They in no way act professional. They neither write music, play music nor perform it. They have dance instructors for the performances and lipsync the albums.

With all of this how can I as a consumer respect the music? If I don't respect it why in the world would I buy it?

Re:The problem is twofold

[stevedc2000]

Turn on MTV and watch for about an hour. Keep track with a pencil and paper, count how many of these pop artists actually play an instrument. Then count how many of those actually write their own music. It's disgraceful to call these people "professional". They in no way act professional. They neither write music, play music nor perform it. They have dance instructors for the performances and lipsync the albums.

Hah! since when did you last see anything about MUSIC on MTV? Between "Surf Girls" and "Real World" and all that other shit they broadcast, they ought to change their name...

MTV is a mechanism to rot the brains of those who watch it... thus turning them into morons who buy CD's...

:)

Re:The problem is twofold

[rm -rf /etc/*]

Eh, there are plenty of artists out there who are talented. Just because you don't hear them on the radio or MTV doesn't mean they don't exist. Do you need to be spoonfed music? Search a little, it's out there. When I started looking for things, talking to true music lovers, following similar artist links on allmusic.com, reading cringe.com, I suddenly found myself unable to buy all the cd's I wanted due to lack of time and money. There is a lot out there.

Competition for the traget demographic dollar

[Hayzeus]

is probably what is doing some of the most damage. It's pretty informative to watch how my 13 yo spends his entertainment money: he can buy a cd, buy a dvd, rent a dvd, rent a video game for one of his TWO console systems, buy software for his PC or one of his consoles ... the list of possible sink-holes for his money is nearly infinite. The bottom line is that the music industry faces tremendous competition for the money of what used to be their biggest cash-cow demographics: teenagers and young adults.

Moreover, the real damage Napster did to the music industry wasn't lost sales. Instead, it created an "ala carte" mindset in that same once-loyal cd-buying demographic. Put another way, my kid won't buy an entire cd when he likes maybe only a couple of songs. CDs are a package deal, and the package deal is dead. Ultimately, the recording industry could do themselves a real favor by reviving singles.

but everyone was buying this shlock before...

[*weasel]

it isn't like musical quality has notably sunk in the last few years.

yes, they're putting out less albums - but because they're marketing individual 'pop sensations' more. the trend to produce less began before the sales fell.

and it's not because 'pop music is crap' that sales are falling. this bubble-gum shlock is the predominant bulk of what people are trading online. not to mention that britney is not qualitatively divergent from marky mark and the funky bunch. or wham! or winger before that.

people need to stop pretending that file sharing isn't going to kill cd-sales. it will. just as CDs killed cassette, just as cassette killed vinyl (audophiles and their tastes notwithstanding)

the artists -do- get most of their revenue from touring and tshirts and stuff, but the RIAA exists solely to distribute music. they -do- get rich off the rights to sell CDs so naturally their business revolves around protecting their rights. particularly because they dont have the infrastructure or the expertise to control, in any small way, electronic distribution. (since mainly you just have to post mp3s and advertise, or license apple to soak up the bandwidth costs for a share of your per track cash.)

but stop pretending: sales are down because trading is easy, and no-one except people who had money before and will have money after is being effected. not because pop music is 'crap'. not because there's 'less'.

yes, p2p is killing it. and for good reason.

i do wonder though, if file sharing has had a hand in the increase in concert attendance these last few years. (note number of summer concert 'festivals' and their earnings increases)

Re:Let the market dictate prices

[binaryDigit]

This means that they can sell the CDs for $4 and still make a profit. Why can't RIAA sell CDs at $10, get more sales, and make a profit?

Because the artists don't see a dime from these "pirated" cd's. Because the pirates don't have to go through legitmate means to manufacture and distribute (payrolls are smaller, no taxes, etc). Because the pirates can fend of competition with a Glock or an AK. Because the pirates don't have to advertise or have marketing campains (the industry does it for them). etc, etc, etc. Not to say that all these factors add up to the $15 that the legit versions sell for, but you obviously can't take the price that the piraters are selling for and in any way extrapolate what a reasonable "legit" price would be (other than to say that it is probably more than $4.00).

Re:Let the market dictate prices

[erasmus_]

I can't believe this is marked Insightful. They can make a profit on $4 because they:

• Don't pay for the recording or mastering that was done for the music
  
• Don't pay the artist whose music they're stealing
  
• Don't pay for the artwork on the cd
  
• Don't pay for promotion or advertising, since that's all done by the label
  
• Don't pay the lawyers to research the songs to ensure you're not stealing some stupid snippet of lyrics or a partial tune, as just happened with Flaming Lips and Cat Stevens
  

So, all they pay is for duplicating the cd and leaching off of someone else's work, and you're using that as an example of why prices should be lower?

The real reason

[afidel]

Clearchannel. Most people have historically been introduced to new acts through radio. For the 80's MTV also fell under this. Now we have Clearchannel having the same rotation of bought timeslots coast to coast 24*7, it becomes so predictable that I actually knew how many minutes after the hour it was one night because of the back to back songs that came on, they were the same ones that had been played at those same minutes 6 hours previously when I had entered the clients site! Also MTV is the same way (not that they ever had a super broad list of artist) anymore, the manager of MTV even talked recently about super heavy rotation where some of the few videos would be played even MORE times a day, it's not like MTV even plays that many videos anymore.

Re:The real reason

[afidel]

6 of the 12 channels that were on my FM presets were bought by Clearchannel and turned into mindless corporate drivel. Don't tell me I have alternatives, there are 3 companies that own all but 2 commercial stations I can tune clearly where I live, the other 2 are just jealous that they aren't as big as Clearchannel. The two independants are the local classic station that sold their high power liscense to CC and which I can now only sometimes recieve (it was a nice move by the owner actually, he switched frequencies and liscenses with CC and gave the profits to the Cleveland Orchestra which needed some money to renovate their winter home) and a country station, and I don't like country music all that much. The only college radio station in the area plays mostly inner city music which I enjoy on occassion but it is not my primary choice in music, besides they censor more content then the megacorps for some reason.

Re:The real reason

[cens0r]

They may make up less than 4% or radio total. But subtract AM stations (who finds good music there), religious stations, talk radio, sports radio, and small genre station (reggae, classical, polka, country, easy listening, etc.); and then you'd be left with clear channel having a much larger market share. Quick, how many top 40 stations do you have in your city? 1, 2, maybe even 3? I bet one of them is KISS FM. That means in most markets clear channel has 33%-100% of the top 40 market. It's generally the same thing with the "alternative" stations as well.

Re:The real reason

[rhadamanthus]

AMEN.

Here is an analysis of Houston radio, which is mostly clearchannel owned crap:

93.7 The Arrow - Classic Rock Station (clearchannel owned) plays the same songs every day. I mean every day. Thankfully, there are no other classic rock stations, so the songs are at least not played anywhere else.

94.5 The Buzz - "Alternative" (clearchannel owned) plays the same songs every day. I mean every day. The songs rotate slowly with the incoming new music, but you hear the same stuff most every day with little change.

96.5 The mix - Mix of "Alternative", "classic" and 80s rock (clearchannel owned) plays the same songs every day. I mean every day. Since it does not have the virture of an older "fuddier" listener group like the arrow, it does slowly rotate in new songs every now and then from the "alternative" scene.

101.1 -Hard rock/Alternative- (clearchannel owned) This one is the worst. It was a very cool station before clearchannel bought it. Now it is horribly repetitive and plays the same shit as 94.5, only with some AC/DC every now and then to pick up some older 80s rock fans.

I'm leaving out country and rap, but they tend to not be owned by clearchannel. They have their own issues though, rap plays the current songs over and over and then never again. Country is the same.

anyhow, let's analyze the stations i listed. take a popular band for instance, say evanesence (sp?). This band is played on 94.5, 101.1, and 96.5. Which does it belong on? I would say only 94.5 and 101.1 based on the "cataloging". Likewise, Eminem is playe don the rap stations, but also sometimes on 94.5, the "alternative" station. Classic Rock gets played on 93.7 and 101.1, whereas the "mix" plays a little of all three genres (classic rock, heavy rock, and alternaitve). Ths point is that you hear the same songs one every station, more or less without fail and regardless of station "identity".

it sucks.

----rhad

Strange math

[antin]

I think the distinction needs to be made between a lost sale (and therefore lost revenue) and someone getting a copy for free.

Too often the music industry (and the software industry, and many other industries) simply state that they have lost X amount because those people didn't purchase their copy.

You need to instead consider whether they would have actually aquired it if they had to pay for it. For instance a student with 200 gigs of music would not possibly have bought that music if it wasn't downloadable, so the loss is actually nothing.

The same may apply here, I really don't know. They cite markets like China where these pirates operate, but China does not strike me as the main audiance for American music. Further, they have a long history of piracy, I am not sure if you can honestly say they have stopped purchasing recently.

This isn't to say that I think piracy should be legal - there is no reason that people should enjoy the benefit for free merely because they would not have purchased it - however you cannot merely count the number of pirated copies as lost sales, most likely a legitimate copy would never have been bought.

creativity my ass

[porkface]

There were creativity slumps before there was piracy, and consumers just started buying the more creative artists eventually, forcing the record labels to adapt.

See Rock N Roll, New Wave, Grunge, etc.

Organized Crime...

[ejaw5]

Hemos: (holds gun to RIAA exec)
CmdrTaco: (shoves release-contract for CowboyNeal in front of RIAA exec)
Either your brains or your signature, will be on this contract...

Pirate CDs sell more than original in Argentina

[stm2]

Pirate CDs sell more than original in Argentina. On every train station, on every main door of a college, there are informal booth offering prirated CDs. Sometimes is a table, and sometimes is just a fabric on the street with the CDs on. They have color photocopied cover. Official CDs costs around 10 USD, and illegal ones, between 1 and 2 USD. When most people earn 200 USD for month, there is no choice.
People who can't affort Internet access, buys this cheaper CDs. Almost nobody buys original CDs.
Another popular way of getting CDs, is asking them to your favorite software dealer. They send it on MP3 or wav, as you wish.
At least here, downloading music is not something RIAA should take care for. There are other issues more important for them (like the booth at every train station full of illegal CDs).

Re:Pirate CDs sell more than original in Argentina

[evilviper]

You should have actually read the article...

In the article, they don't single out Argentina, but say that more illegial copies are sold than legitimate copies, in every country of the world except USA and Japan. That's surprising because this story is from the BBC, which is in the UK... That doesn't bode well for their efforts to stop illegial copying.

A personal offshoot of file trading

[groove10]

I download music that I don't own. If that makes me a music pirate, so be it. I've been doing it for a long time. That's not the point of this post.

I've found that my exposure to a diverse range of music has increased significantly due to the availablity of cheap (read: free) music. My friends have told me about bands that I'm sure that they wouldn't have heard about if not for file trading. I have been to concerts that I wouldn't have seen if not for file trading. I have bought band merchandice that I wouldn't have thought about buying before. I have heard music that has changed my life. I would not have had these experiences without file trading.

I give money back to bands or music acts that I really like. I still buy CDs, although very few of them and usually only to get high quality recordings instead of MP3s/oggs.

File trading has changed music in the way it is made and listened to, whether the RIAA likes it or not.

The labels rip off the artists.

[Chess_the_cat]

Here is a great article about how the labels rip off their artists. Scroll down to see a breakdown of where the money goes. It doesn't go to the bands. On the other hand, it also shows how much a CD costs to produce. Everyone thinks that a CD costs only a few cents to dupe forgetting that the real price of a CD includes all the production, promotion, lawyers, etc. The Problem With Music

It's an economics thing, not a piracy thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

(For any other audiophiles out there who subscribe to Goldmine, you've probably already read their article on the state of the industry. For those who haven't, allow me to summarize.)

For as long as music has been for sale an interesting economic trend has emerged. As a new format is produced (sheet music, player pianos, records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, etc.) it's sales are small at first. As the format catches on, sales boom. People are buying music in the new format left and right (both new music and old music which they may or may not already own). As time goes on (typically takes 20 years) sales decline. The format is not "new and cool." People have purchased the majority of the back catalouge that they are interested in. Sales are limited mainly to newer releases (although back-catalouge sales still exist, just not in massive quantities).

Just about the time this happens, a new format for music distribution is released. This new format has classically featured improved quality and/or convience. After sheet music, the big thing was pre-recorded music. "That's right kids, you don't have to play it anymore! Just listen!" Later, records were replaced by cassettes "No more scratch and it's portable!!" Yay Walkman and Boombox!

Then CD's "No more switching sides and much better quality!" Horray for the Disc man, CD players, and computers.

But the CD format has been around for over 20 years now. People own the back catalouges that they want and will buy any new music that they want.

The music industry lacks a new format that can easily replace CDs. Although DVD-Audio offers much better quality and capacity, consumers have just finished replacing all of their records with CDs. They have installed CD players in their car. They have purchased home stereos, disc men, boom-boxs, and CD-Roms. The economy is down. Consumers won't shell out money to convert to another format now, espcially since the only thing that DVD audio has to offer is better quality and capacity. Many CDs right now don't fill to their capacity (how many of us have CDs that are only 30 or 40 mintues long?!) and many cd players have crappy speakers. In order to really get the quality of a DVD audio disc you need a *good* player, something which costs lots of $$$ and therefore won't sell like hot cakes.

Consumers are happy with CDs.

Although I believe that MP3s and priated CDs are stealing some sales from the record industry (lets face it, they have lost money from the college aged group), they are very few adults which are actually downloading music at a rate that would cause such a drastic deline in sales.

In fact, the Goldmine article pointed out that percentage wise, the decline in CD sales is no worse than the drop in sales that ALL formats before CD suffered on their decline.

The only way for the record industry to get the sales it wants is to get consumers to convert to a new format.

Or to release a bunch of *great* music. I'm talking a contemporary Beatles, the Who, Rolling Stones, Doors, Marvin Gaye, Miles Davis, Eretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, and hell, even another N'Sync or Brittney. (although these last two aren't music greats, they are niche markets which will produce a large number of sales)

It's an economics thing, not a piracy thing.

Clue to RIAA

[linuxislandsucks]

Album format is dead get over it!

Customers have spoken! They want single songs.. provide and your sales go up..don't and you die by customer hands..very simple Business 101..

Re:Clue to RIAA

[Blue Stone]

"Customers have spoken! They want single songs.."

But sales of singles have declined much more rapidly than album sales.

I think you need to elaborate somewhat, to be worthy of your (currently +4) Insightful moderation.

Re:Clue to RIAA

[mtrupe]

True enough, but who will care about any of those singles in 10 or even 5 years? My kids will still be "discovering" the Beatles and Led Zeppelin when J-Lo is a side-note on VH-1's "Where Are They Now?"

Re:Let the market dictate prices

[garcia]

because it is a known fact (they have been found guilty) that they price fix?

Hmm, so, we aren't allowed to distribute music in any other mass medium (because artists can't stand the fact that their individual songs are being sold instead of purchased as a CD thus hurting their chances at worthless Gold/Plat. records?)

We aren't allowed to find music for free (because god forbid we support REAL artists who perform live and allow you to freely trade their music).

Yet they can't make money on selling CDs that cost them pennies to make and pennies to sell but cost millions to pay an artist to allow them to do?

Awww, no more Cribs on MTV because the poor, suffering artists can't hack it actually doing real work for a living.

I have $0 sympathy.

Article Summary

[hankaholic]

People are selling the same music that the RIAA sells, often for as low as $4 per CD, and are making a killing.

Doesn't this align quite well with what we've said all along? If the RIAA was willing to drop the price of legitimate media to $4 or $5 a copy, record stores might suddenly find themselves with a market again.

If I could go to a record store with $60 and take home ten titles, I'd find it worth my while. As it is, I'd be lucky to take home four albums for that price, and it's just not worth the effort.

Hmm..

[jav1231]

I can see where downloading new titles could account for some not buying cd's. But how much of that goes on? I must admit I download very little music. If I did, it'd likely be older titles. Frankly, older songs should be made available at a discount in my opinion, but the music stores and RIAA doesn't do this. While I don't condone piracy or stealing or the like, it is interesting to sit back and watch the music industry get screwed the way they've hurt so many bands. I think the reality is that downloading is going to occur. What the RIAA is doing is trying to plug each hole as it occurs not realizing that there are just too many and that it's time for a new ship. People are tired of the current pricing structure. Now, what is RIAA going to do about it? If they keep this strategy of going after the millions of downloaders, they're just going to hurt their business in the long run. >

9% of all albums are complete failures

[ThatDamnMurphyGuy]

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?

The Lyrics Made Me Do It

[tjstork]

I was listening to a song that told me to blow stuff up and fight the powers, and so, I quit buying music.

Sorry.

Nothing worth buying is my reason!

[siskbc]

know personally that I haven't bought a CD in a couple years, mostly due to the fact I haven't heard anything that compelling, but also that if I want a particular song (rather then blow $$$ on the whole CD), I can get it in a couple minutes online. If these knuckleheads could implement a useful, cheap service to pay for songs, I just might do it. But I want to be able to burn CD's to play in my car, and have access to a wide selection of music - not just one company's stable of trick ponies.

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.

Re:Nothing worth buying is my reason!

[luzrek]

This post also shows why advertisers are so nuts about getting teenagers to start buying their brands. I'm not aware of too many people who buy music from bands that wern't popular when they were in their teens and early twenties.

Personally, I have purchased several CDs recently, but they are nearlly all soundtrack/game music from Japan (Imports are expensive). I have "ripped" all of my CD's so that I can use them in portable electronic devices such a my notebook computer etc. I have not stollen any music, and if I could not have my music in digital formats I would stop buying it all together.

On a side note, as long as a computer can play the music at all, it is possible to rip it. It is just a matter of re-directing the sound output from the speakers to a virtual sound device. Even without that, the best the anti-digital music forces can hope for is one analog copy followed by an infinite number of digital copies.

people are missing the point

[BobTheLawyer]

this article is nothing to do with the reasons for decreased sales in America: it's about piracy on an industrial scale, which is primarily a problem in developing nations.

Any thoughts on Vinyl?

[niko9]

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.

Re:Any thoughts on Vinyl?

[514x0r]

i buy vinyl about every week. mostly used, but also a lot of new.
also there is a TON of good music out there. it's not forced down your throat, you have to look for it, but if you support your LOCAL record store instead of best buy and tower, there's too much good music. i could spend $1000 tomorrow and still not have all the titles i want; and, really, i'd be ok paying it because i typically like every song on the album and keep it for a long time. the same is true with all media, the crap will always filter to the top. you have to dig trhough it to get something worthwhile.

How About...

[phaeton]

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."

Re:Stop blaming creativity!

[Hieronymus Howard]

There are so many good CDs out there that you could buy one a week for the rest of your life and still not hear them all, and that's assuming no more CDs were ever released between now and then.

But how do you find out what they are? I've found several really good artists through filesharing and, as a result, have started buying CDs again.

HH
--

Piracy, Pap, Replacement and Rant

[unfortunateson]

Being in the US, and shopping in legitimate stores, I don't think I've ever come across a pirate CD. I think that blaming piracy for US record sales is a little silly.

I do know that when I was in college (a long time ago in a galaxy far far away), I could buy three vinyl LP's for under $20 when they were on sale, and I'd do that on a pretty regular basis, probably every two weeks or so. These days, 20 CD's in a year is probably an overestimate.

CD's cost too much. They probably cost a bit more than the old vinyl, but should be cheaper to produce than cassettes. And why does the latest pop pap cost $19, or maybe $13 on sale, yet the record labels will push a disc out to BestBuy for $7 or $9 for a hot new artist? They must be able to make money on that, so why not all the time?

I buy a fair amount from BMG music club. Their shipping prices suck, but it's a good way to catch up on back catalog, when they've got "Buy one, get three free" or "Buy one, everything else for $1.99" sales.

I don't download music. I hate headphones, and my current car CD player won't play CDRs, nor will my DVD player attached to the home theater. Yeah, I could replace those, but I'm not in a hurry.

So where's the problem here? I'd buy more if I knew I was getting a decent disc. WXRT in Chicago used to be a bastion of new music, digging deep into the tracks on a disc. Now, they're barely above the level of a top-40 station, but to a different demographic. And they answer to Viacom. And they're advertising more.

At this rate, I'll be like my parents: listening to the same dozen artists for the rest of my life, because I can't stand to turn on the radio to find out if anything's better.

But there's cool new stuff out there, and I've been lucky to find it:

• Nickel Creek -- hot jam band / bluegrass mix
  
• Katie Todd -- Chicago-based up-and-comer
  
• Mary Lee's Corvette -- could be the next Lucinda Williams
  

How do you find it? Stay away from the mega-stadiums, and visit a club, coffeehouse, small theater. Actually listen to the opening
act! They're often at higher energy than the headliners, because they've got more to gain.

Piracy happening on the high seas

[nhavar]

Let's talk fact. What we're talking about is not piracy, is not theft, it's copyright infringement which has it's own set of laws and regulations. The RIAA/MPAA hope that by associating more negative words with the act of copyright infringement they'll disuade the general public from infringement - just like all those FBI warnings at the beginning of VHS tapes is supposed to disuade home users from copying the tapes.

The fact is that IP laws are difficult to enforce especially during a time when so many other things seem more important. Additionally the bigger problem for MPAA/RIAA is not home user swapping but the rampant copyright infringement of counterfitting happening in Asia and the third world nations. Those areas are the only areas these companies have to grow into and they can't because the black market is so much cheaper and more convenient for the consumer.

These corporations know exactly what the cause of their current financial problems are. Should they admit that the problem is just a cycle or due to their own inability to react consumers requests for services and the consumers changing taste in music? Yes. Will they? No.

They need to keep shareholders investing money. The way to do that is to show that sales are artificially slowed due to "piracy". If "piracy" were stopped their sales would be up - so just wait to sell that stock because they're on top of it.

The fact is that many consumers who are internet enabled are finding that there's a wider range of music available online than there is at Sam Goody. They're finding that Sam Goody has stopped selling the music they like to listen to and has turned into little more than a top 40 store. They've also found that some of the artists that they liked that Sam Goody et al still sell, have jumped to the pop ship and no longer have any edge.

Since being online my music tastes have shifted because I've been able to find music from Germany, France, Japan, Russia, etc. Plus I've been able to find more independent bands that fit my tastes instead of "Joe Radio Listener" (which is who Sam Goody typically stocks for).

The fact is that Sam Goody and all the little mall music stores chains are getting hit hard and it has less to do with copyright infringement than it does to do with changing times. Wal-mart can sell a CD for $13 and Sam Goody sells the same CD for $18.99. While Sam Goody et al are going out of business a lot of local independent record shops that don't cater to the top/pop 40 crowd are thriving. They're thriving because they have or can get what people really want and that generates loyalty and cash flow.

I know plenty of file swappers. I know those that buy no music, but then they didn't before file swapping. I know those, like my friend Laurie, who downloads gigs of music a week, but also spends about $60 a month on new CD's (not CDR's). I don't think it's accurate to say that EVERY file swapper is infringing, nor is it accurate to say (and studies have proven this) that file swappers purchasing decreases.

Mostly people are buying at Wal-mart or wherever happens to be convenient to shop and not making special trips to the mall for what they can get at any store close to home. It used to be that you could get something different at a music specialty store like Sam Goody - that's no longer true.

The problem with RIAA anti-piracy enforcement

[Dukeofshadows]

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.

DMCA & Patriot Act save America from (c) Terro

[tenzig_112]

According to record industry officials, sharing isn't just bad, it's terrorism.

Up until the August break, the RIAA and MPAA were lobbying Congress to bridge the DMCA and Patriot Act, giving the government to send song-swappers to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite periods of time without the aid of legal representation.

Attorney General John Ashcroft was reportedly shocked to learn of "illicit book-sharing parlors" located in nearly every city and town in the United States, many of them government sponsored. He has vowed to use the DMCA to shut them down.

Cost??

[theNetImp]

Well maybe if the CD didn't cost $18+ I might be willing to actually buy it, but when music that was release 15 years ago is selling for 17.99 on a disc I could have bought back then for $14.99. Most music to me isn't worth $18+ I have no problem at $12 to pick up a disc. Even if it's for 2 songs, but that additional $6 makes a huge difference in my decision making.

Bullshit!

[AzrealAO]

If it's a lack of availability of different types of music, why they fuck are all the top forty artists the ones being downloaded on P2P apps?

People say this all the time, "I hate the music the RIAA is making now, artists these days suck, the songs suck, I hate buying CD's with 1 or 2 good songs and 12 tracks of filler crap", while happily downloading every Top40 hit from a P2P App. Which is it? Does the music suck, or do they just want it for free? Because if it REALLY sucked, I imagine they wouldn't be downloading the same artists they keep saying suck.

Replacement's end +

[crovira]

I think that the RIAA got used to the (illegally) obscene margins on CDs and tought that people would buy the same old crap at the same rate FOREVER.

Now they're hurting because:

1)They've been dragged into anti-trust courts and lost, (the prices for CDs aren't going to rise for a while,)

2)Everybody's tossed out their old turntable and albums a long time ago and have replaced what LPs they though were worth replacing and that source of funds has dried up FOREVER (CDs last a lot longer than LPs.)

3)Recycling may be good for the environment and for lounge/live acts but its lethal for record sales. Most people don't want to shell out more money for yet another cover of the same old song (most people can't tell one version from another after a couple of beers,) and they don't.

4)The RIAA is not capable of creating content, they can only try to make money from it. The more they meddle in the processs, the more it sound like music created by and for accountants. Its really hard to make a move on somebody accompanied by the sound of ringing cash registers.

5)They got used to the marging and never planned for when they would end and the river would run slowly and sluggishly.

Now they're attacking their only reason for living, their only source of funds, the people who 'd buy CDs if they didn't feel so ripped off and insulted at some of the shlock that's pushed at them.

I predict accelerating death for the xxAAs.

CD's ARE THE ONLY MEDIA?!!

[enigmals1]

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

Share of wallet

[klubar]

Perhaps the decline in music purchases has something to do with other competition for discretionary spending. Although there have always been other entertainment options, many of the music purchasers may now be spending their leisure dollars on video games, software, movies, downloadable tunes for their cell phones or even hardware to play them on. The record industry has to realize that consumers have a fixed amount to spend on entertainment and needs to compete for those dollars. In the past, music buyers didn't have as many other options for their entertainment spending. I suspect if you looked at the total spending on entertainment it has gone up, but music is just taking a smaller share of the that spending.

Re:Let the market dictate prices

[de Selby]

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?

Buying CDs

[DavidLeblond]

After reading a bunch of these comments, am I the only Slashdotter that still buys CDs? I download an MP3 of a song I like, and a few more from that artist. If I like the songs, I buy the CD.

I would never pay for MP3s because the quality isn't as good as a CD, plus I feel like I should get something tangible if I pay for it.

Also the "I don't buy CDs because nothing original has been released in the past 5 years" response is a cop-out. Newsflash: Britney Spears isn't the ONLY person who has released a CD in the past 5 years... look around there are a few gems out there, you just have to look places other than MTV.

And if you REALLY don't want to support the RIAA, just buy all your CDs from CD Baby. They may not have the artist you're looking for, but they probably have an artist who sounds a lot like em. :)

"File Sharing is good for you"

[mydigitalself]

According to the RIAA, CD sales dropped by 10% in 2001 and a further 6.8% last year, largely because of file sharing.

The IFPI's Commercial Music Piracy 2003 report, produced in early July, reveals pirate CD sales rose 14% in 2002 and exceeded one billion units for the first time.


so that means (using RIAA's simplistic logic) that file sharing has, in fact, increased legitimate CD sales by 3.2%.

Hey everyone keep in mind....

[flyneye]

keep in mind this is the same industry that brought us the boom chick boom chick of disco in the 70s and all the albums sounded the same and sales steadily declined .who did they blame? cassette tape!
the industry need look no farther than firing their consultants and A&R depts.scrapping formulas and getting real lives.

oh my goodness

[WinDoze]

Did they really call some proposed format "DVDA"?

For those non-pr0n fans out there (any on /.?), "DVDA" is an acronym for, well, let's say a woman who just can't get enough.

Re:oh my goodness

[72beetle]

Specifically, Double Vag, Double Anal. Thank god for the education I get from Trey and Matt.

-72

The death of music?

[Teahouse]

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.

Re:Let the market dictate prices

[horace]

# Don't pay for the recording or mastering that was done for the music

Neither do record companies - the artist does

# Don't pay the artist whose music they're stealing

True but it is typically less than ten per cent of the retail price

# Don't pay for the artwork on the cd

Couple of hundred bucks mostly

# Don't pay for promotion or advertising, since that's all done by the label

Not all promotion is paid for by the label. It does on the other hand promote the artist -- see Microsoft's attitude to piracy in China (would you rather they used linux?)

# Don't pay the lawyers to research the songs to ensure you're not stealing some stupid snippet of lyrics or a partial tune, as just happened with Flaming Lips and Cat Stevens

True but music is not supposed to be welfare for lawyers.

It is unclear why CDs should be have been more expensive than vinyl or why their prices should rise in real terms. Normal economics would suggest that faling production and distribution costs should make the optimal price lower, possibly substantially, but that hasn't happened.

Why CD Sales Are Low -- Execs are Stupid

[ooh456]

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'm tired.

[El Camino SS]

Anyone else tired of talking about this subject?

I really, really tire of complaining about the music industry, and the music industry complaining right back. Personally, for all of the lies, insane justifications, and pure virtriolic hate coming from both sides, I could personally care less anymore if I turn on a radio, or listen to a CD and all I get is static. Never before has so many billions and so many lawsuits come out of such a useless part of our society. People, it is just organized sounds.

Headphones with user end licenses. Internet computers not being allowed to communicate with each other. Capitol hill attorneys. Rock stars that are now internet experts. Music snobs. Federal laws. Soundtracks that cost more than the DVD. Nine thousand lawsuits a day.

The music is crap. The said justifications for overpricing said music is crap. The stealing of music is crap. Consequently, justifying stealing music is crap. It's all crap that is not worth our time.

I think I'm going to go outside to hear the birds chirping with a little highway noise arpeggio in the background. Unless I am not allowed to anymore. I am not listening to any more CDs than what I have. I am not downloading a thing ever again. I am not listening to the radio anymore.

I choose to not participate anymore in any of this. If it bankrupts a company or two, if some kids go to jail over some tunes, so be it. But no one is getting my money, support, or time on this crap ever again.

illegal != wrong

[Sylver Dragon]

The govenment is only able to mandate what is punishable by itself, and what is not. It does not, and should never try, to dictate morals. While I realize that a lot of people base their sense of wrong and right on what is illegal and legal, there is no reason to expect that anyone else will. Remeber, morals are like religion, everyone has, and is entitled to their own views. The place of law is to step in when those views create an unresolvable conflict. Basically, you're more than welcome to view things, as right and wrong, from the perspective of the current law, but please don't try and force such beliefs on the rest of us.

Does relying on the honesty work?

[mc6809e]

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.

Lack of content a due to a generation gap?

[phelddagrif]

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

Not inconsistent with piracy as cause.

[David Hume]

But in all seriousness this quote is the most telling of all:

According to the RIAA's own figures, over the last two years the US music industry has produced 25% fewer CDs.

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.

Musician George Ziemann says if only 3,000 copies of each of the "missing" CDs were sold, the fall in sales would be wiped out.

The fact that fewer commercial CDs were produced and marketed is not necessarily inconsistent with the idea that piracy was the cause, or at least one of the causes, of decreased CD sales. It may be the case that for a marginal band the record company projection that "X" number of CD sales will be lost to piracy is enough to tip the decision from "Yes, we'll produce and promote the CD" to "No, we won't produce and promote the CD because we don't think we'll recoup our money." But for the projected amount of piracy and lost sales, the CD would have been produced and marketed.

For My Part...

[Kibo]

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.

Why I like the BBC News site...

[Chicane-UK]

This is yet another example of the BBC news site telling stories like they are.. they don't demonise computer users and file sharers as 'filthy robbing pirates putting the hardworking people of the music industry out of work' but actually write informative and well researched stories.

Admittedly a few shaky ones slip through (like their blatant nVidia advert a few weeks ago) but overall I find them to be the Google equivilant of news.. fast, free, and very interesting.

Political priority: avoiding a "music tax"

[Animats]

The key political priority is heading off the RIAA's schemes for a "music tax", where the music industry gets a royalty on blank CDs or something similar. They already get $CN 0.21 per blank CD in Canada; $CN 0.77 for each blankCD-R Audio.

In fact, it's time to repeal the royalty payment on DAT tapes. Nobody puts music on them, but they're still widely used as backup media. It's worth pushing a bit on that just to make it clear to the RIAA that the "music tax" era is over.

When talking about this, always use the phrase "music tax". Especially when talking to Republican officeholders.

Enough already - we all know the RIAA is wrong!

[erioshi]

A simple, real world example is me. I don't download MP3s to fill my music collection, but I did used to download a few to check our new bands recomended by friends. Those usually led to me buying new CDs. I used to buy quite a few more CDs than I do now. To be honest, over the last 3 years: broadcast radio has gone into the toilet (no new music & lousy selection), CD prices have gone up (they were already expensive), money is much tighter than it used to be, and my life has changed; I'm now more likely to spend money on my house/cars/kids/etc. than the overpriced CDs I would have bought a few years ago. Another big FYI; my parents are also buying fewer vinyl albums and tapes than they did 20 years ago! My kids are buying fewer CDs than I did tapes at their age; but they're not downloading either. My oldest daughter actually listens to much of the stuff I do - stuff released 10 years ago. Her thoughts are the same; there is very little good new music hitting the stores.

Funnily enough

[Rogerborg]

What with the threat of being sued by the RIAA for sharing music, I was considering just switching to buying pirated CDs at my local market. I'm sure buying pirated CDs probably helps support evil mobsters, but... wait, sorry, "pirated" was redundant in that last sentence.

Sit in any bar in New York

[wytcld]

In most any bar in NYC during happy hour (and probably later - but I mostly get happy then go home) a recent Asian immigrant will come in with a bag or briefcase full of pirate CDs - mostly classic rock and current best sellers. Typically they'll easily sell about a half-dozen per bar at $10 each. Since bars in NYC tend to be in concentrations where a someone on foot can easily visit a dozen bars per hour, if the salesperson is making $5 per CD, that's real money.

From the ethnicity I assume the stuff is coming out of China. It's easy enough to stash some CDs in the containers coming into Chinatown, and hardly the thing Customs is most anxious about in Newark and NYC these days. Then again, if Customs is paying attention, it would be easy enough to set up a CD replication plant in the same digs as the garment sweatshops the Chinese are also running around the city.

Attributing this to "gangsters" seems a bit much though. I doubt the tongs are especially involved. This is more just the way Chinese culture does business - ducking the government as much as possible is considered common sense, not criminal. If we had their experience with government, we would too. (Or, if we were enterprising friends of Geo. Bush like Ken Lay, we would anyhow.)

Basic Economics Slaps the RIAA Upside the Head.

[CyberGarp]

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.

SACD/DVDA

[bremstrong]

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...

cell phones

[bob_jenkins]

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.

How about I just crush one?

[Kibo]

(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.

The vinyl replacement boom is over

[Wansu]

"Now the CD replacement cycle has drawn to a close,"

Yep. That pretty well describes my CD buying pattern. I replaced the LPs that were broken, lost, flood damaged or scratched. I also wanted them on CD for convenience. Except that some were never released on CD. I got those via file-swapping. Later, I aquired the means to rip them myself. So, the RIAA thinks I'm a pirate. They are the ones with the eyepatch and the parrot on their shoulder. So, now I've replaced these albums. There ain't much new stuff I want. I know there are people who can play today but you'll probably never hear 'em. They don't fit the mold. That's why I think the music business died a little over 20 years ago. It's been kept alive largely by the replacement market but now that's played out.

Interpol links terrorism to piracy.

[KjetilK]

Here's the best lobbying effort done in recent years. Basically, Interpol is linking terrorism with piracy of Intellectual Property. They note that it is needed much closer cooperation between police and IPR holders. And who are the IPR holders? here is their list. Yup, those guys have also bought off Interpol. Can only be impressed... :-(

Honest testing would help answer that...

[Moryath]

Look at the experiments.

In the test case, they broke their own rules for success:

(A)the quality of their SmartDoc software is suspect (it "only took a couple of days to put together"),

(B)and it's not something people really want/need except a slight niche that very possibly will use it once or twice, and never again, for what it's used for.

Further, there are any number of things that skew the results:

#1 -- shareware that is crippled inevitably gets really bad reviews on shareware sites, while PoNC gets nice reviews, especially when the software is something people tend to want. As far as utilities go, the community has decided that they don't like crippleware. While this attracts more freeloaders, there are many one-shot users, and the reviews will steer those who intend to buy towards non-crippled software unless the crippleware is just completely brilliant.

#2 -- Prevalence of one-shot or "once in a blue moon" users abound. Crippling the features isn't a great way to get them to buy; offering EXTRA above and beyond the functionality, such as shareware games in episodes, was the best way to go about it. Offer a free download, and a pay-for-full download, and see what happens.

Problem with RIAAs policy in South East Asia...

[g0_p]

To curb piracy in South East Asia the RIAA must consider reducing the cost of the CDs drastically.

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!! ;)) 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.

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.

Piracy of Dreams

[CompKid]

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.

The legality of this is not black and white

[bobgap]

This is not a black and white issue. Shades of grey run rampant.

It is a real problem, since there is the precedent of libraries
having made copyrighted material available to anyone who wanted to read, listen, view, copy, etc, for scores and scores of years.

Is it illegal to lend a cd to someone? And if not, in what manner can something be lent to someone? Can you read a book, then discuss and provide the detailed information in that book. As a fiddler, I often learn tunes from books, then I share that tune with another? Using the RIAA's
viewpoint, you would be in violation of copyright, since it is transmission of musical information outside of their money earning.

If a law makes *everyone* a criminal, that law is bogus.

If one were to take the RIAA's stance on everything, I would be in violation of the copyright, merely PLAYING a fiddle tune I learned from a copyrighted book, unless royalties were paid.

So you cannot say that you can only provide that information to another if you provide the original form (CD, tape, record, DVD, photograph), since we have, for decades, circumvented that procedure in our schools, living rooms, political discussions, etc. Once you have information in your head, does it cease to become copyrighted?

Likewise, when you put a melody on a network, allowing another to listen to it, are you violating copyright?

When you broadcast a tune on the radio, and someone tapes it, are you violating copyright by broadcasting it? Are you violating copyright by taping it?

With that answer, then consider that if someone wears a Jerry Garcia tie, and then you take their picture, are you violating copyright? What is the difference between recording a broadcast and photographing your buddy with their tie?

If you are listening to a cd and someone calls you on the phone, overhearing it, are you violating copyright, since you are engaging in a digital transfer of information that is copyrighted? Note that phone conversations are digitally encoded and transferred.

All these sorts of things involve "fair use", which the RIAA is trying to totally eliminate, such as their attempts at making it impossible to do some fair use activities, by intentionally making damaged cds that won't play on certain equipment (violating their implicit contract with Phillips, the CD patent holder, IIRC).

The scale by which this "fair use" can be done has grown immensely, however, through the digital sharing possible on the internet, so this has to be worked out. The RIAA wants as much money as it can get (notice that this doesn't mean that the artists get any money from the material, it is the recording industry that receives the money, sometimes sharing some of it with the artist).

Studies were also done which showed that the file sharing of music actually increased music sales, rather than depressed them. Studies have also been done that showed the reverse. So what is the "truth?"

And then think about the money that you contribute to the RIAA everytime you buy a cd or tape (I imagine minidiscs are included in this boondoggle as well) that goes to their "royalty" income because they assume you are violating copyrights with that media. So that sounds like I have permission to record copyrighted material, since I am paying for the privilege to do so, when I buy the blank media.

Don't get me wrong, I am in favor of musicians making money off their music. But this current setup is amiss.

I suspect, that in the long run, all music will be digitally
transferred and the RIAA will go away. People will store the
information as they wish, and the artists will benefit, because the huge "middleman" is gone. But also, the chance for a great lessening in quality is there.

Also note that if individual songs were purchasable, then the sales of "filler" music (the 11 other songs that suck on the album) go away, and the result is that they make about 10% of what they did. Maybe that would mean be

This Quote From The Article Says It All

[Master of Transhuman]

"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?

Re:This Quote From The Article Says It All

[Zelig321]

Music is great but it's not the most important thing in life.

I hope you mean that music consumption is not the most important thing in life. Because music in itself is very important. It is one of the few things that define humanity (i.e. sets us apart from all other animals)

Why don't the *AAs care about piracy?

[alizard]

How hard would it be to make real war on domestic counterfeit CD makers and sellers?

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.

CD Tax

[olman]

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.

Huge Question

[SpikeSpiff]

One of the all-time important issues: Britney's Breasts

Buy Used CD's

[boogahboogah]

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.