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Ask a Music Producer/Publicist About Filesharing and the RIAA
Bill Evans is one of those people in the music business who doesn't get a lot of public exposure, but keeps the wheels cranking behind the scenes. He's not just a musician and techie, but a publicist whose clients include Numavox Records artists Kerry Livgren and Michael Gleason as well as progressive rocker Neal Morse; he's produced (among many others) songs for the Burning Annie soundtrack and the Kansas Tribute Project. Naturally, since he makes his living in the music business, Bill is not 100% in favor of unrestricted filesharing. But what might work? And what might not? Let's find out what this music biz insider thinks -- one question per post, of course. Answers to the "Top 10" questions will be published soon after he gets them back to us.
What do you see as the most promising means of maintaining the commercial tie between artist and audience, but in different form than today's "stone tablet", whereby a song or album is burned onto a CD with copy protection? What about enhancing other revenue streams, like fan clubs, for example?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Have you or anyone you know done any studies of the marketing effect of free music sharing? That is, how much has the free marketing that is a result of filesharing offsetting the potential lost sales?
percent does the recording company take from sales profits?
do you think there's a future in online self-publishing?
"Naturally, since he makes his living in the music business, Bill is not 100% in favor of unrestricted filesharing."
Is it really the case that making a living in the music business rules out unrestricted filesharing? Might not there exist alternate business models that are fair to the artist and the consumer? What about producing music makes it necessary that selling the music needs to be the primary money-maker?
smd4985
Have you ever/do you often use a P2P file sharing client, and what do you think of it?
Where do you think we might have been now had the music labels come up with legal online song swapping? Do you think we would have ever heard of Napster?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Can't you do your own research on the guy? He's not expecting the Spanish Inquisition!
The concept of copyright was concieved of way back in "ye olden days" to restrict who could and could not print books; it also conveniently allowed an author to control who profits from their works. We adapted the second cause here in the USA, and have since extended copyright to just about any form of creative expression.
But, copyright is still a control of making a copy, which is getting to be almost farcical in a world where most creative output can be easily and near-freely copied.
Do you think that it would be a good idea to alter copyright so that, instead of selling pubslihers a right to copy works, artists sell consumers the right to have a copy of a work, however that they want to get it and however many redundant copies they want?
(Let's just ignore the privacy and feasability problems for the moment; statistics and security can probably fix them to be "good enough.")
keeps the wheels cranking behind the scenes
Was that supposed to be...
'keeps the whips cracking'
or
'keeps the gears cranking'
or
'keeps the wheels greased'?
Mixed metaphors hurt my head.
Do you think anything productive can emerge from the RIAA suing its user base? Do you think it will actually result in people listening to more music legally?
The RIAA continue to claim that file sharing is impacting CD sales. They do this by showing the decline of CD sales in recent years. I found some interesting quotes from an article recently:
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.
My maths therefore concludes that if you deducted the 14% piracy, then CD sales have actually RISEN by around 7% over the last year! Do the RIAA actually know why their figures are falling (pirate cds/crap music...) - or do they choose to blame it all on peer to peer networks?
I can answer that for him:
"Who are you? And why should I care? I mean, it's one thing to be a nerd who reads Slashdot all day, but are you known outside of your parent's house?"
This space intentionally left blank.
Do you feel threatened by a technology that would allow artists to sell their music directly to consumers and potentially make your job and many other such jobs obsolete, saving said consumers quite a bit of $$$ as well as paying said artists quite a bit of extra $$$ and allowing these artists to retain full rights to their own creations?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
What's your username on Kazaa?
I disagree. The producer is an integral part of the music process. A lot of the time the producer/mixer adds just as much to the sound as the artists themselves.
It seems to me the genie is already out of the bottle, so to speak, and that somehow the music industry is trying to put it back in with lawsuits, DMCA, threats, etc.
How can you even remotely hope to somehow rein in the internet? Aren't you already fucked?
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
If there was a mechanism to subscribe to music for a flat monthly rate, how do you think this would work along the lines of:
1) Who would you subscribe to? Would you have to subscribe to EMI/BMG/Sony one-by-one, or would there be a number (or one?) blanket subscription for varying genres or labels?
2) How would money be disitributed? By the number of times tracks have been listened to/downloaded?
So many people outside the RIAA have a negative opinion of the RIAA, primarily because of its stance against file sharing and certainly as a result of its tactics to discourage filesharing. As someone on the inside of the music industry, what is your opinion of the RIAA? Is it a necessary evil that really does help artists? What do you think of its tactics with regards to filesharing?
He is going to take one of two stances:
1) He likes file sharing but there needs to be a way to protect digital rights so record companies can make money.
2) He is againt file sharing.
At the end of this exercise what is he going to bring to the table?
I guess I was unaware of the ask a question so long as it's a sugar coated fluffy soft pitch of a question policy.
Slashdot (Score: -1, Censorship)
With album sales reaching an all time high (at least here in the UK -- I assume the US is similar), why does the RIAA keep insisting that online music is killing the industry? I personally download music from the net as a taster to see which CDs I should buy. I appreciate that there are some who do it purely to avoid having to spend the money, but the evidence seems to show that it's not a big enough problem to be hurting the industry. Do you think that this situation will continue, or will the balance swing towards more people avoiding buying music that they can download for free?
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
isn't that like asking Sauron about his feelings on freedom in Middle Earth?
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.
No, really, it's a serious business question.
-- Bill Gates
Microsoft
People tend to complain a lot about the profit margins in the music industry, and use this as an argument to not buy CD's but download them. Furthermore, a lot of people complain that copying their collection is just fair use, and they feel restricted in their rights by the recent developments in DRM. Without the music industry however we wouldn't have CDs to rip, or DRM protected tracks to download ;)
We (consumer and industry) obviously need each other.
So my question is:
Can you think of (a) profitable business model(s) that would *not* use DRM?
I'm a big advocate of the prosperity of music artists, especially small-time ones. I go to a lot of concerts. I like to buy indie music direct from the band. I generally try to avoid buying music from big-name production houses because I'm sick of all the gratuitous and pervasive advertisements and endorsements that come along with it.
That being said, my question is (and I hope you can even answer this): when I lay down my $15 for a CD, where does that money go? How much goes directly to the artist? The producers? Publicists and people in your position? Record company CEOs? Charities? Etc etc.
Basically I'm concerned that if I fork over $15 because I really like the music, I think that a big portion of that should go directly to the artists themselves, but in reality $14.95 is ending up making CEOs wallets fatter.
--j
What the fuck dude. He's not a producer. Kansas Tribute Album? Some soundtrack that hasn't come out? I'm not against producers I'm against 'publicists'. This guy is not a real producer.
Does the music industry need some type of reform, especially in the area of contracts and artist rights?
Why don't you just share your music and hope people will pay through donation.
If every file were signed by the author and there was an easy way to pay (rightclick on a file-pay) and authenticate i would buy more music (and maps and c64 demos and shortstorys and software).
Online distribution undermines this model and forces the record companies to spend more marketing dollars as a percentage of revenue. The success of iTunes seems to support this. While it is successful in terms of the # of songs sold, no handful of artists dominates its sales as with traditional channels.
So my question comes in a couple of parts. First, is all of this stuttering towards an online distribution system really more about control? If so, given that the iTunes experiment seems to bear out the thesis that online distribution costs them in control, how will we ever get to online music distribution that is equitable for everyone involved instead of one weighted towards big record companies or towards music pirates?
Is it feasable to pay the artist up front for the work much like most other professions so that the artist is not dependant upon royalties?
This way the artist concentrates on making good music that people want to listen to and so the PR/Production companies/Publisicts are held to the candle for publishing garbage.
This way the loss isnt incurred by the artist but rather by people just trying to make money on Quantity rather than Quality.
Why does the entertainment industry seemingly ignore large scale pirates who are making money off of selling copies and obviously detracting from sales, and instead target hoards of college kids who have no money to pay the court costs/settlement, and are not profiting at your industries expense? Don't such actions largely result in a bitter taste in your consumers mouth, leaving them less inclined to either halt actions which the industry deems inappropriate, or less apt to embrace alternative solutions put forth by the industry?
My maths therefore concludes that if you deducted the 14% piracy, then CD sales have actually RISEN by around 7% over the last year! Do the RIAA actually know why their figures are falling (pirate cds/crap music...) - or do they choose to blame it all on peer to peer networks?
Of course pirate CDs increase the total *volume* of music around - do you really think people could afford the kazillions of dollars of "free" mp3s (or at a fraction of the cost at a pirate shop) at retail price? Their argument is that pirate sales (which earn neither them nor the artist anything) are replacing normal CD sales, thus lowering their profits.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
How does the music industry intend on ultimately dealing with music theft? Are you relying on the prolonged use of litigation against individual thieves to spread fear through the general populace, or do you intend on lobbying for legislation that will aid you in your fight against the thieves?
With the ability of today's Media Players, why hasn't the industry come up with the ability to download the whole album on a trial basis?
If you want to keep the album, you pay the full price of a regular CD. Otherwise it is either locked or deletes itself.
Considering the consolidations in the radio industry, and the hostility against webradio, People such as myself find no place other than P2P to turn to for new music. In your mind, what is the best potential copyright-friendly solution to the problem of a lack of venues for new (and classic) music exploration?
It is munkeyspanker21@Kazaa.
Do services such as the iTunes Music Store, Buy Music really represent the future of music like Steve Jobs and Scott Blum would like us to believe, or are they just another way to deliver music along with CD's, cassetes, and the radio?
If I download an mp3 off a file-sharing network, that's stealing. Because I'm not going to buy the album now, and that's a tangible loss of revenue for the record label. Lost revenue = stealing.
But what if I had no intention of ever buying the album. In other words, the probablity of revenue from me from that album was exactly zero. Then I download the tracks off kazaa. How am I hurting the label? How am I stealing?
The labels imply that the Opportunity Cost of an "illegal" download is buying the album. What if it's not?
In your opinion, what do you feel has caused the greatest financial impact to the music industry? If the answer is not "file sharing," then what is the industry doing to combat the problem?
Goo goo g'joob.
Selling bad music isn't a business model anymore.
Thanks to modern technology people can listen to music that isn't played on MTV anymore and music that isn't sold in the front rows anymore.
Given this people figured out that "popular music" gets worse every year and refuse to buy new shit.
I doubt you agree with those who find Copyright basically amoral, but how do you feel about developing new business models instead of bullheadedly sticking to the old ones(as the music industry seems to be doing). Once the movie industry angrily fought the video recorder (the US supreme court almost outlawed it), then someone woke up and started selling prerecorded tapes and the industry made a bundle. Now we can see, in Europe at least, the the music industry is making a fortune selling ringtones to mobile phones (in Europe you pay to call someone, not to recieve a call so just about everybody from 7 to 90 has one) - Spock believes there are always possiblities - do you agree?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
do you think that the music/movie industry will ever be able to stop the digital piracy of their content?
If so, how? If not then how will they survive as online trading becomes more prolific.
Troy.
1. Who determines the value of each 'pirated' work?
2. Doesn't anyon realized that allowing people to listen to tracks of music they wouldn't otherwise be exposed to *prior to purchase* is a good thing and will actually lead to increased sales?
3. Has anyone discussed the idea of dropping prices of CDs in hopes of curtailing the 'rampant level of piracy'?
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Would it be viable to create a union or a label for musicians that will represent them on sites that sell music online? I'm assuming that such label would pass almost all profits to musicians, minus administrative cost. I think the current system of five (or so?) major labels is unworkable, because they seem very uncooperative about licensing songs to others.
What percentage of artists make more money from CD sales than from concerts?
1) satisfy RIAA ...
2) satisfy MPAA
3) steal oil
4)
5) supply electricity to the "fellow citizens"
I've always viewed my mp3 experiences as getting "getting the word out" on bands. Most of the stuff I download is from smaller bands on smaller labels (which has the added benefit that I would be a very unlikely RIAA target). To me the downloading of an entire album with no intent to re-imburse the band is kinda stealing, and im not really intrested as online music as anythign other than marketing. Do you think that the labels could stand to release some free music (singles, etc) as marketing tools? My thinking has always been give a little music away, if I like it I'm buying the CD, and im probably going to come to your concert (but then again the indie nature of the music leads its self to 10$ cds and 10$ shows).
I joined the Apple Music Store. I presently possess about a hundred or so .MP3 files downloaded from Napster/AudioGalaxy/Kazaa/Limewire.
I decided to see how many of these files were available legally from the Apple store, out of at least two motives: curiosity about the effectiveness of corporate-driven, rather than fan-driven music distribution, and a genuine intention of replacing my unpaid-for files with paid-for versions.
It turns out that almost none of the files I'd downloaded were available through the Music Store.
The reason is simple. I am interested in all sorts of old stuff (20's, 30's, 40's, 50's) and weird stuff (novelty records, things like Bernard Cribbins 'Ole in the Ground, etc.)
When fans share files, it makes available almost the entire history of recorded music.
When music companies sell files, the range of what's available is much, much smaller. For example, when it comes to popular music of the fifties, most of what's available on the Apple site comes from one companies single series of CD's entitled "so-and-so's 16 most requested songs."
How do you set up a fair system that pays artists but still allows for the continued preservation and availability of items that are so old or unpopular that their commercial value is very, very small?
How can you avoid the "dog-in-the-manger" phenomenon of companies that will neither make material available nor give permission to others to make them available?
The iTunes Music Store has what's generally considered the most sensible approach to DRM: share with no more than three computers on the same subnet, burn to no more than 10 CDs without changing your playlist, and make this apply to every downloadable song. In contrast, BuyMusic.com has much more restrictive DRM and they change with every song. In your opinion, do either of these stores have DRM "done right"?
I have a friend who also has his own music studio and has worked with some pretty amazing talent. In talking about the current state of the music industry, he has two interesting observations:
1. The music industry is impacted negatively by file sharing, at least at some level.
2. That his studio is most certainly not harmed by filesharing, but in fact is seeing a rather large increase in business as more bands try to get a decent polish on their work so they can get their MP3s out there.
Do you think this is just annecdotal, or true for most music studios?
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
What do you think about commercial music downloading services, such as Apple's iTunes service? Will they still be successful in five years? Are they fair to the artists and the labels? Is it really fair to restrict use of what has been legally paid for (such as only being able to listen to it on a PC or burn the file three times), as earlier services have done?
Goo goo g'joob.
Here in the UK that CD album sales are at an all time high with a 12% rise in sales this year.
Would you like to comment on that, given that
i) there are no similar RIAA anti-piracy actions being taken here,
ii) average prices have fallen to below the psychologically important 10 barrier?
--
This sig is inoffensive.
Right now, it's commonplace that a person or entity can own the rights to a song, even though they took no part in its creation (Michael Jackson owning the Beatles songs, Columbia owning Robert Johnson's tracks, etc.). Is there a good reason why the music community stands for this, because I can't think of one.
Wouldn't it be better for all music creators if an artist got 100% of the song rights, and split the recording rights with the label, 50/50; and this was mandated by law, and couldn't be signed away? Am I missing something? I would think that artists would be banding together in droves for this cause.
c-hack.com |
do you believe that file sharing actually helps to advertise music? as in letting fans listen to a song or songs downloaded from kazaa to see if they actually like it or not. Do you believe that the record industry's drakonian business plan to copy protect all music cd's will help sales or criple them?
It's fairly easy to gauge that this latest generation of "consumers" are not satisfied with the previous generation's mindset, and, as a result are cynical with regard to "producers" that do not actually "produce", but seem to take advantage of their monopoly position and leverage it against both the artists _and_ the listeners to make the most money. Like a swarm of bees that can drive away a bear, this generation will most likely not slow down, nor stop tearing at the adversary until the value received (i.e. Listening enjoyment) is higher than price paid (Cents/Track). This is the basis of a market economy - get used to it.
When will the model adapt to the market? (e.g. $0.01 per listen, or $0.25 for permanent storage)
A). 2 Years
B). 5 Years
C). 10 Years
D). None of the Above (Everyone will be in jail)
One of the things that major media distribution companies (including music, video, games, etc) argue is that the only reason the prices are so high on media is that piracy of their product makes the prices go up. Many, however, are not convienced of this argument and think the prices would likely stay the same and the profits of the company would be the only thing affected (which is what I think annoys most of the users of the world: that the cost is so high when production costs are so low). Do you have a feel for whether on at least whether the music industry really would lower the prices on all its media if the piracy came to a sudden end, or do you think the prices would just stay the same?
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
...protects itself against file sharing. Anyone old enough to remember a Kansas concert is too busy changing their colostomy bag to work a computer.
Question 1: Is there any awareness in the industry that artists are waking up to a better deal with a new business model?
Question 2: Have you ever looked into the Street Performer Protocol?
Sorry, not a linux geek here. Just get sick of having people posted online as someone great. Wow, you mean you're going for a PhD...let me kiss your feet. Nothing but sheep here online. Just follow your masters, jackass.
m.kelley
life is like a freeway, if you don't look you could miss it.
What of the possibility of music downloads based on quality? I offer as a suggestion that if someone wants to purchase, for instance, a FLAC copy of a song, in lossless compression, at say, 80 cents per song [ making most average albums at around 8-10 dollars, a price point that has worked well to stimulate demand in the past ]... but someone else might only want an OGG or MP3 in a lesser quality [ lossy compression = lower quality! ], at perhaps say, 192 bitrate, for approximately 40 cents a track. If we're only getting a percentage of the bits, why are consumers asked to pay roughly the same as for professionally mastered audio data? A typical MP3 or OGG is roughly 1/4 to 1/10 the size of the original audio file, meaning 75-90% of the data has been discarded, yet the price for downloads on for-pay systems is such that consumers pay for the full price of the full quality file. We're in effect paying for bits we didn't receive and cannot reproduce with accuracy! I would advocate a system in which the price per track was directly related to the quality of the track downloaded. This would encourage more try before you buy, and even give a bone to the RIAA's member firms in terms of SOME compensation for their tracks? Why haven't we heard any type of investigation or interest by the RIAA firms in this type of system? Thanks for your time!
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."-Tennyson
He's publicized what?
He's produced who?
He's worked on what soundtracks?
Am I the only one who's heard of none of these entities besides Ogg and Clark U? (And I'm not even sure I've heard of the latter.)
No offense to the guy, he's probably quite smart. But his credentials don't seem particularly impressive on the subject of RIAA experience.
-- If we were in any other industry they would've shot us a long time ago.
This might generate acceptable revenue, but revenue growth is unlikely.
My question is: Am I full of it?
Followup question: How beholden are the RIAA companies to retail record stores? Are they willing to endorse a large-scale online distribution system that will largely end traditional record stores?
...AND...
I am currently in the process of removing my music from buymusic.com, who acquired it and is selling it illegally. What resources do independent artists have when fighting against the very industry that professes to protect musicians? Is copyright infrigement a one way street leading straight to the bank for large companies?
As a publicist, do you see distribution via p2p as a growing trend for your more/less established artists? I notice that the link to Neil's site only provides small samples of music. Do you encourage making entire songs available at low bitrate samples? Does p2p make this a moot point?
With the RIAA's heavy-handed behavior and random lawsuits, a lot of people who engage in music swapping tend to take on a Robin Hood/Boston Tea Party philosophy about what they're doing. They take from the rich, and give to the poor - and don't feel bad about it either since everyone knows that the artists make about a nickel of that $13 you shell out for a CD, and the RIAA uses the rest to line their pockets, maintain their near-monopoly, hire lawyers and lobby congress.
So as a possible remedy, do you think the RIAA brass would be willing to take pay cuts and fork over a better percentage to the artists/producers in order to beat that image?
If file swappers actually felt like they were bilking the artists they love, it'd be a different matter.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Say, who cut your hair?
Alternatives to file sharing such as the subscription based Rhapsody and non subscription based I-Tunes are offering quality music for an almost reasonable fee and artists receive royalties. Why is it that some of the biggest names in music who, by definition are hit the hardest by file sharing, won't allow their music to be available via these new distribution methods?
Many musicians don't even know how to check their email, much less run Pro Tools. Also, as a producer, his job can't be replaced by a computer. To get a good sound, you still have to use a good studio and hire trained engineers.
Then, after the CD is finished, you can try to use technology to bypass traditional marketing, but right now, it's a joke. Selling your music directly isn't a problem for anyone. Marketing your music, that's the rub. Fancy as the internet is, the most effective way to sell music is to force-feed it to the people directly, through radio and MTV. That's not gonna change for a long time.
c-hack.com |
Who the hell are Numavox Records and Neal Morse? What the hell is the Burning Annie soundtrack and the Kansas Tribute Project? Am I the only person who hasn't heard of these things? I'm going to take a little leap here and say that I doubt that anyone will be downloading songs from any of the aforementioned companies, artists, or cd's. In that case, what does this guy have to lose from file sharing and why should we even be asking him questions about it?
Do you believe that the recent lobbying efforts by the music industry are (1) an honest attempt to stop what they believe is only a criminal action or (2) an anti-capitalistic market intervention, designed to prevent competitors from entering into the online-music market before they exist? If (1), how do you believe the industry would respond to legislation which required (a) open content formats; and (b) guaranteed full-quality fair-use personal copies; if (2), how do you explain this dichotomy, and why should we as consumers tolerate it?
The RIAA claim they are losing sales because of filesharing. My two teenage daughter don't buy as many CD's as they used to. That is 100% because I've stopped giving them the money for them. In this economy I can't afford the luxury of letting them buy music every month. I also won't allow P2P filesharing on our computer. But I've seen filesharing still going on. Through direct file transfers via aol instant messenger and email attachments. Kids are ripping CD's and have found that they don't need P2P file sharing. I've been told they sync their ipods to their friends computers. I have a mac and have purchased a few songs legally, but the price should be about half of what it is. That would definately sell more titles. My question is : There are almost an infinite number of ways to share files that don't involve p2p networks, do the RIAA , artist etc. actually believe they can stop filesharing?
doesn't it hurt having your head up your ass?
to be drawn for Artists rights to profit from an on-going enterprise between the Plumber's supplying tubing for the distribution of his art and Consumer's liberty to peacefully enjoy the Art and not the plumbing?
-Rex Riley
What exactly are our rights when we purchase a CD? Can I make unlimited backup copies of the media for personal use? Are the copies really allowed to be digital, or only analog? Am I allowed to be using the original and the backup at the same time?
This hypothetical situation has always bugged me: Say I purchase a CD, rip it to my hard drive, and then put it on my MP3 player. I take the MP3 player with me and listen to that music in the car, while (unbeknownst to me) my brother listens to the copy of the music on the computer. Are we breaking the law?
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
If not for mp3's given to me by a friend, I would have never heard of Neil Morse's work. From Liquid Tension Experiment, to Dream Theater, to Transatlantic, I've savoured every single moment of his work. I've hunted down bands like Spock's Beard and Flower Kings, because he (Neil) listed them as some of his favourite work (That, and members were in Transatlantic, but I digress).
Without shared mp3's, I would have never found out about these great bands who I've scoured half the good record stores for their CD's. "ClearChannel" and other ConglomCo Music won't ever play these guys...
I don't share any of these on Kazaa, (or any other p2p,) I give them to friends who are looking for something new to listen to.
What is your opinion on fans sharing select mp3's from bands that would never get airtime in an American Commercial Market? I've -tried- calling radio stations to get a song or two on the air, I'm lucky if I don't get "Never heard of them"...
With all the attention DVD's have been getting lately (for instance)and the main cause of their sales boom being pricing (20$ and under) - don't you think that the CD industry could save itself simply by lowering the cost of CD's to say - 5-7$ like vinyl used to be?
Go read some bible: nubible.com
Do you think the RIAA would object to a file sharing network containing only singles that could be played on the radio? This way people could listen to a particular song as many times as they want. It would also end the riaa trying to favour a certain artist's song by playing it every 10 minutes to get it stuck in the listeners head and get them to buy the artist's cd.
I'm a music graduate student, and many of my collegues are aspiring musicians in both traditional (classical), jazz, and popular music. Many of them are torn between unrestricted filesharing and protecting their music and future incomes, on the verge of signing to a major label. How do you propose that musicians are mass-marketed (e.g. the only real reason any sane musician signs to a major) if the revenue stream of the labels is purportedly dwindling due to unrestricted filesharing?
I'm past giving a damn what anybody in the industry thinks about anything. While artists / labels etc.. continue to work with the RIAA members I will not be buying their product.
I'm not really into downloading music, but the stand the RIAA has taken along with their "We don't really care what our customers think" attitude really p**sed me off. If they don't care what I think then I don't care to buy their product.
I'll listen to the radio until they find a way to shut that down too (or make people pay to listen).
1- Why is the music industry focusing prosecution efforts on poor individual college students who are (a) difficult to track down and (b) not making any money on their endeavors when there are large organizations which are (a) centralized, so stopping them might do some good, and (b) profiting from their activities?
2- If free file swapping is so damaging to music CD sales, then why aren't mafia types trying to stop this phenomenon as well, given they have so much to lose?
The CB App. What's your 20?
As technology progresses, means of distribution and advertising also progress. As radio becomes obsolete (as much due to it's own decisions as technological progression), many would argue that File Sharing is not only an easier method of advertising, but potentially a much broader method as well. Coming from a person with 1200 MP3s (of which all are legal and a good half are owned because I originally downloaded a song that I liked) I personally prefer an open plethora of files to a closed Clearchannel fest of the same 40 songs over and over again. What would you say has to change if P2P and file sharing are to become a possible market for advertising and marketing music?
They seem to be doing more taking away from the sound than adding to these days...
(Some|Most|All) of the music coming out these days has been destroyed in the mixing process to produce a louder radio sound... there was an article that about it recently: link
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Don't you remember that license agreement we purchased from SCO to license your evil???
why is it that, though a CD costs far less to produce than a cassette tape as is evident by the cost of the blank media, CDs retail for far higher than cassette tapes?
same question for DVDs.
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
What the f*** do you think you are doing?
WTF do we need this for? The band is hardly obscure, whether one enjoys the music or not, and they aren't dead or broke either AFAIK. Wouldn't the musicians involved be better off creating their own new, original music instead of trying to drag some cred off the cape of an MIA '70s band?
Do you expect growth in indie labels due to the monopolistic major labels taking so much money away from the artist and all that capitalist stuff? Or will they maintain their monopoly?
It seems like there would be an overwheling struggle by major labels to keep down the indie people so as not to lose money on their Britneys and Christinas.
This question is less about piracy/DRM:
There are so many audio compressors out there now- mp3, Ogg, AAC, WMA and a ton of others I've seen here and there.
Do you know of any steps in the works to finally pick a format that can be picked up by the industry?
Do you think filesharing of singles might actually be keeping album sales going, given that the singles market - basically there to promote albums - was moribund even before MP3? UK CD sales are currently at their highest EVER.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
There are so many individuals on filesharing systems who are not intending on buying a CD in the first place, whose revenue is not being lost, who are convinced by listening to a non-radio friendly music clip, intentionally set out to buy the CD which contains that song. Case in point, I would never have bought a Slipknot CD had I not heard them on Napster, because they were not played on the radio at all. Is there a chance the RIAA will cave to allow people to at least listen to 5 minutes of every album? No one is dumb enough to buy something they've never heard before, these days.
stuff |
I think that this disproves the allegation that swapping is killing music and that the real culprit is a CD price that has stayed high while production costs have gone through the floor. Do you agree? If not, why not?
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
With the ability for an artist to freely and globally distibute their music sans label involvement, do you see the current RIAA becomming obsolete in the future?
Sound waves should be free!
So is this Bill Evans the saxophonist, Bill Evans the banjo player, Bill Evans the dancer, Bill Evans the camera operator for the sports illustrated swimsuit edition, Bill Evans the deceased pianist... so many Bill Evans in entertainment I don't know who we're talking about so I don't know what I want to ask. I could care less about downloading crap though I'm so bored of hearing about it.
It seems like the major role of a record company is to find artists, promote their music, and produce and distribute albums. Advances in home studio technology and the increasing popularity and bandwidth of the Internet mean that it is possible for an artist to self produce and promote their music.
Do you think that it is likely that we will see a major artist go this route in the near future? And if this became a viable model what could record companies do to continue to add value to music?
... "I am a homosexual!"
Sorry for the all caps, but this boils my blood. Only allowing you to burn 10 cds with the same playlist is reprehensible. There are PLENTY of valid reasons for burning more than 10 of the same CD. For instance, I just recently burned about 15 cds of a recording I made of a guitar workshop, to share with the other participants. I'm sure glad I used toast on my OS9 machine instead of trying the use iTunes.
Granted, like I said, I haven't used iTunes to burn. So if this applies ONLY to CDs with iTMS songs on them, call me dumb and mod me down, because that's sorta sensible (but only a little).
But if I can only burn any playlist 10 times in iTunes, well shiver me timbers, because it makes me feel like sailing the high seas just to spite them.
c-hack.com |
The trick is who ever controls distribution gets a big chunk of the chain.
Take your poplicious boy bad who sells truckloads of CDs at $15. The band gets some paultry amount ($0.10 for each CD?) which if they go platnium still makes them millionares. But where did the rest of the money go? Into the hands of the producers and companies.
This is why you see the (smart) big stars go off and start their own recording companies. They can record their own music and get the big chunk of the money instead of having it disappear.
Online and music sharing changes the distribution model. You no longer need most of what the producers and music companies provide. No wonder why they aren't interested in it. No wonder why they fight it at every turn.
I personally see CD music as a commodity at the moment. Bands and producers should be using CDs to get people to go to stage shows and concerts to make more money for themselves instead of suing the living day lights out of some student. They should be working to produce a product that is less than desirable copied: a stellar stage performance. But doing tours and shows is a lot more work than just paying the government to pass laws in your favor.
This guy is the publicist for ... Numavox Records, Neal Morse and the Burning Annie soundtrack, and he qualifies as an insider? Has anyone here ever heard of any of these people/projects? I'm not saying this guy sucks or anything, but what distinguishes him from the average slashdot reader, he's just some guy with a not very important job who goes to university and likes Ogg Vorbis, what's the deal here?
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
I see a lot of band websites out there (both big label and small label), but I almost never see a site that tells surfers/listeners how to tip the band. Why don't more band websites include links to musiclink or paypal? Case in point: I bought a used Patti Rothberg CD (EMI) on half.com for $1 (plus $3 shipping), and I would have preferred to download the mp3's off her site and donated $5 directly . Why do artists not perceive the value of online tipping? Is it ignorance or some clause in the contract? rj
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
MP3's have been around for several years now, and yet, for the most part, you still can't purchase them anywhere. MP3 is the current defacto standard. To me, it doesn't make sense that we can easily buy a CD and rip it (unless it's a copy-proof CD) and make MP3's, and yet the music industry seems afraid to produce MP3's.
Again, MP3 technology is not that new. I can recall using it at least as far back as 1997. 6 years have gone by. The consumers and the CD/DVD-players all want to have MP3's, and yet there is (for all intent and purpose) no way to buy them.
As John Dvorak said in his PC Magazine column, around 1997, no one would want to buy 10 rock-a-billy CD's for $100, but there might be a market for one MP3 CD with 12 hours of rock-a-billy hits for $10-$20. Why hasn't this happened?
Seems to me that one way or another, the RIAA and content companies in their present form will die. Fans already know about P2P and file sharing, and that is not going to go away until the day they can implant restrictor chips in our heads, cripple every computer, and monitor every communication/sound wave on earth (READ: never).
But your skills such as yours are valuable, and I don't see the need for them going away. However, instead of working for a record company in the future, I wonder if you won't work for musicians themselves in much the same way that a band probably currently hires an accountant, lawyer, or agent.
Have you and your colleagues thought about this sort of scenario, and have any of you talked about forming an agency/consultancy in this way that would work for artists instead of the other way around?
It seems to me that you folk have a golden opportunity to help artists avoid the tyranny of the record labels and capture the money that currently goes to Mottola and Rosen. It would also do the world a great service by putting the final nail in the coffin of the content companies, but that's only if you care about the rest of us.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
During its last two concert tours, Pearl Jam has recorded their shows live, straight from the mixer board, and done a one-up on the bootleggers. You were able to pre-order the CD before the individual show, and the day after the show, you could download the MP3's (albeit, low quality ones) to tide you over until your CD arrived. With their contract with Sony Music expiring, Pearl Jam will probably self-produce/distribute their future albums and pay for their own concert tours (which I believe they already do). Clearly, they'll have a leg up on other bands, as they won't have to give up their tithe to the RIAA/Sony Music.
I guess the question is: what does a contract with a major label offer an established band that handling your own business doesn't and how can the music labels add value to the proposition that makes it worth the band earning pennies on the dollar for all their hard work?
Furthermore, how can the big labels expect to hold onto the big names when there are established artists proving that they can stand on their own two feet?
Given that there's no way to expect that, perhaps the RIAA/labels should take on a role that helps to incubate new talent that will eventually grow into a standalone, self-sufficient band like Pearl Jam. Engage in short-term contracts where your percentages aren't as high, resulting in less income per band, but more streams of income. If you do thorough research beforehand, you should be able to target bands that have a legitimate shot at moving good numbers of albums from their debut release onward. Then, after the artist has recorded a few albums for you and has the money in their pocket to move forward on their own, you let them go and ride the goodwill generated when they leave. Treat them right, help them grow, and shove them out the door -- it's like parenting, but more financially profitable.
blog |
What is the best digital music pricing model you have seen so far?
If none, what would you propose?
-- yawn. --
Why is Slashdot not reporting about the emule hole?
I see it on lots of german speaking newsites sofar.
The RIAA has pushed for legislation to grant them tariffs/taxes on sales of certain digital and recordable media sold to consumers, to defer some of the costs of piracy. They also have raised prices of materials such as CDs to help pay for losses they claim occur in the industry because of file sharing.
My question is that why does the RIAA need more legislation to go after filesharers or pirates to stop losses that no independent auditing company has been able to find, and with all the income they're getting from DAT and CD-R Music blanks, and lawsuits against filesharers, pirates and bootleggers, how much of this goes back to the artists, producers, engineers, etc? instead of simply in the RIAA and its labels' pockets?
And on a side note, why should the US or any other country continue listening to the RIAA talk about its losses, when no independent label or artist or distribution channel are getting any of these taxes or tariffs? Shouldn't we also be giving money to these labels, or should we start repealing these one-sided decisions?
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
How do you feel about the theory that its the consolodated radio stations that are to blame for the decline in CD purchases?
The theory is that a few companies own several stations and the music played is much more limited that it used to be, thus losing the variety that used to exist. From this point, it has become difficult for the general public to know what a CD was like, so instead of buying a CD, they use filesharing.
When a radio station plays a song, it pays one of the agencies like ASCAP (forgive me if I've got it wrong; it's been a while since I was a musician), and at least in theory the writer of the song (usually the musician) gets a small royalty assuming they've set up a publishing company to collect those royalties. From what I've heard, this can end up being a significant part of a musician's income. As I understand it, there are problems with tracking radio play -- you can't listen to everything at once, so you depend on random sampling and reports from radio stations -- but the idea is good.
So how about treating filesharing the same way? Track which files go where; every time a Metallica song, say, is copied, Metallica gets a nickel. It might not be as practical now that there's not One Big Place (Napster) where everyone goes, but there are still lots of centralized file-trading services (I think Kazaa and the like apply...I haven't been into this for a long time) where copying could be tracked. The services get charged based on volume, presumably like radio stations are, and they can pass those charges on to subscribers or advertisers. Musicians get paid, people get music, and a new millenium of peace and happiness dawns upon the earth. :-)
Is this a good idea, or have I taken some massive, secret dose of crack somewhere along the way?
Carousel is a lie!
Why don't we have some type of Radio-On-Demand service yet, where music could be "performed" rather than downloaded, preferrably without the same legal and monetary overhead that comes with permanant downloads? This type of thing seems to work fine on much more technically-intense "On Demand" cable movies. It seems like something that BMI and ASCAP would embrace.... Instead, all we get are classic-radio-stlye streams (which the licensing agencies easily cover). Wouldn't micropayments (as currently defined) easily cover the cost of transimssion and performance, as well as provide an industry alternative for all the R&D money that's getting wasted allowing permanant copies of DRM-protected media?
"Copyright law in this country is totally broken. It needs to be totally scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. Want a clear picture read Digital Copyright by Jessica Litman .
Meanwhile continue to fight the borg.."
Bill Evans
founder boycott-riaa.com
( It should be rebuilt from the ground up.)
Is this the Bill Evans you ask about RIAA etc?
just by roaming the clubs of NYC or LA and talking to talented musicians who would like to stop bartending for a living. None of them have better days, but their voice isn't filtered by the sound of money from incorporated record companies.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Given that MS, Intel and most of the hardware guys are on board with measures that are going to completely sink file sharing of unathorised content, could there start to be greater value in musicians going it alone? Is the record industry really in that much of a slump? There is now a better secure and inexpensive method for indies to really develope market share. I think the advent of secured content computing could really hurt the big labels, and really help indies!
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
He's a publicist whose clients include Numavox Records and Neal Morse; he's produced (among many others) songs for the Burning Annie soundtrack and the Kansas Tribute Project; and says he's also pursuing a PhD in music technology at Clark University and is a major Ogg Vorbis booster.
You forgot jazz luminary.
Who am I to blow against the wind? -- Paul Simon
No less a mainstream paper than the USA Today brought this up in an editorial. They suggested in the July 21st editorial that tip jars be provided to allow people to donate what they thought appropriate to a freely available song. Has this been tried with a mainstream act?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Any number of users can borrow a CD any number of times from a library that has only purchased a single copy of the CD. If I rip the CD to an MP3 / AAC file, the author receives no more or less income than if I borrowed it repeatedly from the library. Comments?
Assuming the worst, that RIAA sucessfully shuts down free filesharing networks and everything is pay to play, how would they provide hard to find or out of print selections? I am curious how they envision their library to work.
Many of the items I have downloaded are old or obscure and do not fit in their libraries. There are many like me. Will they try to force us to only select the items they control, or have they addressed the issue of out of print/free stuff another way. A beer band in Cleveland may be the best thing going, but if they silence this band's offerings because they are not "signed with the label" they really are only forcing their control over what the listener can hear. They are offering a less robust product but charging more for it.
Will there be any free venues available if RIAA wins?
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Do you think that the RIAA is more worried about the filesharing of music that is already on their labels or (as I believe) that they are using it as a means of blocking independant artists from bypassing them as the main distributor of the artists work?
Do you see a reason why the record industry has not created such a system for older recordings from which they are no longer making money? Are there legal hurdles you are aware of, or is it simply that the record industry has not realized this potential is there?
test
We've got lots of rockin' tunes, such as Stomach Ulcers, She's Butch, Chinese Water Torcher and Roadkill on the Don Valley Parkway.
Actually, we broke up in 1987 after our buddy Colin smashed a garage window during our Hallowe'en concert and the garage door opener jammed up, but I'm sure I can rally the troops and we can dust off our awesome $200 guitars and vintage 80's keyboards (don't forget those cool Simmons drumpads) and learn a couple of chords again.
Oh, our singer is somewhere in Africa, shouldn't be too hard to find - hey John, if you're reading this, give me a buzz - we're gonna be famous!
Have you heard much about the use (or possible use) of micropayments by artists or labels for users to download directly off an artist site? It seems to me that this would allow the artist to gain more financial and creative control as well as allow the consumer to make a much more reasonably priced purchase.
Bill, why does Kansas suck so much?
What is going to happen to all this money that the RIAA is trying to get from the file sharers? Are the artists going to see any of it or will it all get lost in the corporate nightmare that the music industry is?
good point but I still say this guy isn't a producer. He's another leech making a buck off other's creativity.
Do you know who makes the decisions regarding what songs to offer on pay services? I've joined a pay service only to find that the artists I want don't offer their music, or only offer their less popular songs. If the RIAA member companies really wanted us to buy their music, wouldn't they offer all of it?
What are your artists/musicians/clients are saying about online file-trading? Love it? Hate it? 50-50?
Do you find that indie artists are more likely to embrace file trading for marketing/name-recognition purposes than well-known artists?
Good reply. I have changed my views. You are correct and I am not. I will now go home and cry. Thank you for clearing up this issue for me.
Retard!
How do you feel about the RIAA biting itself in the ass by suing the very people who purchase their music? What about options to pay the artist directly? For example, as a result of the RIAA's ridiculous and assinine reactions to filesharing, I will never personally buy another CD ever again. I know quite a few others who feel the exact same way. However, if there was an option to pay the artist directly, I would not be opposed to taking that route provided the RIAA gets nothing.
...what the hell happened to your site? Want us to track 'em down and give 'em a good slashdotting?
You'll feel better about it. You know you will...
Warning: May contain nuts
...when I realised I've just asked a question of a dead guy.
/., please mod the parent into oblivion...
Apologies
Warning: May contain nuts
I have been reading Slashdot for years. This article finally made me create a login.
This guy might have some interesting stuff to say.
That he is a publicist for Neal Morse shows me he is not pushing the same drivel that most in the industry are.
Morse has been a favorite of mine for some time. He will release a solo album in September, but is currently best known for his work in Spock's Beard. To learn more, listen to progressive rock classics The Doorway from the Beware of Darkness album or Thoughts (part 2) from the album V.
what is your take on the clear channel monopoly & the current wasteland of FM radio?
MP3 is the current defacto standard. To me, it doesn't make sense that we can easily buy a CD and rip it (unless it's a copy-proof CD) and make MP3's, and yet the music industry seems afraid to produce MP3's.
Imagine you work in an industry and have been working in it for a long time and control the market. One day something changes and suddenly a large portion of the industry in which you've been working is no longer necessary. Add to that that the thing that has replace it is TOTALLY out of your control.
This is the picture industry representatives are working with and until they find a way to control the market they will not stop. I mean they had a good thing, why would they?
Quack, quack.
I do not know of a single person who is so cheap that they flat out refuse to buy the music they like because they can download it all for free. My friends and I have been downloading music for years, and we have always bought the music we like (which nowadays isn't all that much in this world of Justin Timberlake albums, but that's another topic). I'm sure it is safe to say that all of us have bought an album because of music we first heard from downloading through napster/kazaa/etc.
However, due to the actions of the recording industry's trade group, many people including myself have decided to never buy another album again, because by doing so we are contributing to the RIAA's legal fund and helping to sustain a 100 year old oppressive monopoly that is way past its time. Morally, giving a penny to the RIAA is worse than not buying an album I like (again, a very rare thing nowadays). Many people feel this way, especially since the RIAA has started to sue the end-consumer directly (I guarantee you that anyone sued by the RIAA, along with their friends and family, will never be buying another RIAA product again, as well). So, directly because of the RIAA's actions, your clients will get less money, which means less money in your pocket, which means less money to feed your family and pay for your childrens' education with. I see the RIAA's actions as being analogous to walking into your bank and "stealing" your childrens' college fund. Do you see the RIAA's theft the same way? How does it make you feel? Have you thought about suing the RIAA to recover any money you lose this year?
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Using bribery and extortion to control markets is very expensive.
Quack, quack.
One of the lessons that seems to be "learned" time and again by the content industry is that the best way to combat piracy is to lower the price. For example: when I was a kid movies on VHS were fairly expensive ($60-80 IIRC), and everyone had at least a shelf full of movies they'd rented and copied, or taped off TV. Now that prices are reasonable ($10-15) nobody bothers to go to that trouble, and yet everyone I know still has at least a shelf full of movies, but now they're "origionals".
So, how does the record industry justify the current price of CDs? Doesn't it seem obvious, given the lessons of history, that the inflated price is the root cause of piracy?
I should note, perhaps, that I neither pirate nor buy CDs at this point. Why should I buy a CD when I can get a DVD of a major film, with all kinds of extras, for the same price? It seems to me that this has far more to do with the decline of CD sales than online filesharing.
Finally, I understand that CD prices were supposed to have dropped as a result of the recent lawsuit, but I haven't seen a difference in either record stores or mail-order record clubs, such as Columbia House. In fact, the prices seem to have gone up slightly.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
About 15 to 20 years ago, long before Napster, Kazaa, and the horde of P2P clients came about, most new artists encouraged their fans to come to their shows, tape them, and copy these tapes and mail them out. While this was technically a pyramid scheme, it was never really bothered with because no money ever changed hands, and was simply fans getting the word out to people they new about new talent that was local to whereever they were. A few of the bands that endorsed this, ie Metallica, have now started to request that individuals trading files be prosecuted as it takes away from sales. Now while I do agree that CD sales have dropped considerably, I have also noticed that the number of back catalog CDs being released have dropped, and according to the figures I have seen, these back catlog releases were accounting for a large percentage of CD sales. Is it possible that the sales of CDs is not due to file trading, or even pirated CDs, but that the market sector with the most money to spend, the 25 and over group that was buying up all the CD copies of the LPs and tapes they used to own drying up? Also why is it that filetrading is seen so negatively, when even today a great deal of musicians still allow fans to tape their shows?
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
The RIAA's campaign seems to have the movement of a runaway freight train, why are they so popular?
If AOL can afford to send me and a half-billion of my closest neighbors CDs every month for free, how come the record labels can't afford to sell me music by my favorite bands for $5 or even $10? Are the artists too accustomed to driving outrageous cars and living in outrageous houses? Or are the company executives too accustomed to driving outrageous cars and living in outrageous houses? Either way, I'm not paying for either of them to live that kind of lifestyle (especially while I do not live in a mansion or drive a bentley), nor am I going to spend another penny on music sales until prices drop and some originality is injected back into the music industry.
I can think of two industries that have made the consumer pay more as the technology has matured and decreased in cost: Cable Television and Music CD's. P2P isn't realistic yet for cable Movies and television, but it sure as hell beats paying what you know is a fixed price on a known inexpensive media.
I mean these clowns think they can get away with this?
Quack, quack.
When I was in college, I washed dishes to help fund my education. I received some money in exchange for this, but when I stopped washing dishes, I also stopped receiving money for the washing. It disturbs me that my descendents will not be able to benefit from my work. It seems that the music industry has solved this problem with its royalty system. Do you have any insight regarding how I might do something similar?
There are plenty of people who are in the music business that fully support unrestricted filesharing. For example DJ Z-Trip has put out a few CDs and actively encourages copying and sharing his music with friends during his live performances and on the radio.
So, I suppose my question is: If people like DJ Z-Trip can make a good living while still fully supporting free distribution of music, why can't everyone else?
As a software developer I have always wondered if the individuals and companies that are comlaining about music file swapping would submit to a software audit of their respective computers. If this were done, do you think the majority of anti-file swapping contingent would or would not have unpaid for copyrighted software installed on their computers?
Right now, with the price of CDs, many people question the role of middlemen on the album, and with the low price of recording technology, it is not impossible to self-produce one's own album. Many people illegally download as a means of "sticking it to the man" who takes too much of a chunk out of the album sales for his own company. Some entrepreneurs may consider cutting out more of the middlemen to save a buck in these times of low economy. However, anyone with real experience in the music biz, knows that the producer has a serious role to play in promoting, encouraging, and bookkeeping a band.
How has your role as producer changed over the past few years, what with the advent of file-sharing and the decline of the industry?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This seems to be exactly what some folks fear (not just RIAA types, musicians who might benefit from it, too!).
JMR
Speaking ONLY for myself!!!
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
What is your take on this situation? Should people be forced to buy a full album just to get one song (or ocasionally two) they like, or should they be buying the album with the theory that they liked the single, they'll like the rest?
Has "the album" been ruined by the filler that so many of the top40 one-hit-wonder bands put on their albums? What needs to be done to make people willing to try entire albums (ratings, reccomendations, better music..)?
Speak before you think
Suppose the government declared that it would no longer protect copyrights on music. People begin using the internet to share music on a massive scale, all done legally.
What you think are the negative consequences of this scenario? What would happen and what are all the ways in which it would be harmful?
share and enjoy
I have not purchased one single CD in over two years. Why? Because I am tired of spending $18 on a CD with only one good song and the rest disposable rubbish. I am tired of reading that the cost of CDs has fallen below $0.50 in the last twenty years while the retail price has not. I am not happy that the industry has been convicted of price-fixing by the federal government. I see no reason to support RIAA labels until the retail price of a CD is more realistic.
I also do not participate in filesharing. Why? Because I am a working musician who believes that artists should be reimbursed for their hard work. My ethics don't agree with filesharing and they don't agree with the heavy handed tactics that the RIAA is raining down on filesharers.
Do I have your attention? That means I do not fit the argument that the RIAA has attributed fallen CD sales to piracy. I am the exception and I am not alone.
As a working musician, here is the root of the problem as I see it: musicians are being exploited and are being cheated out of their earnings through endentured slavery and corrupt accounting methods.
As a business man, the other root of the problem is that the RIAA wants to perpetuate a business model that doomed to oblivion and refuses to embrace the internet as a distribution channel.
Why? Bill, the major labels OWN the brick-and-mortar distribution channels, but they CAN'T own the internet distribution channel. It's not possible. They want a mafia-style death grip on their distribution and they would rather litigate and legislate away the "illegal" distribution channels on the internet.
My question is: when are the members of the RIAA going to drop their self-defeating barratry and focus on offering quality product?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Have you or anyone you know done any studies of the negative impact on the economy which DRM imposes or potentially imposes? (These negative effects would appear to be self-evident and surely could be studied and discerned. For example, there are many people who will not buy a DVD player or use DVDs because they don't support the same type of ready record-ability of their existing VCRs).
if record companies would stop flooding the market with concept bands and TV made bands they would not have that big a issue with file sharing. its my experience that people who download real music buys the record. as opposed to the top100 customer. generally record companies are not interested in selling music. I work for a small record store in Denmark and you would not believe the shit i have to put up with just to get a new record (that is a non top100 album) no question....just a statement
One reason I prefer Kazaa, Grokster etc. is that I can download with relative anonymity from those services.
When will mechanisms be put in place to allow anonymous downloading on pay-download services?
QUOTE: People tend to complain a lot about the profit margins in the music industry, and use this as an argument to not buy CD's but download them.
;)
REBUTTAL: To be honest, alot of people don't buy CDs cause they're fed up with the RIAA. That's why I don't.
QUOTE: Furthermore, a lot of people complain that copying their collection is just fair use, and they feel restricted in their rights by the recent developments in DRM. Without the music industry however we wouldn't have CDs to rip, or DRM protected tracks to download
REBUTTAL: There are plenty of CDs out there, and plenty of non-DRM MP3s out there by artists not affiliated with the RIAA.
QUOTE: We (consumer and industry) obviously need each other.
REBUTTAL: I don't need the RIAA. The RIAA is not the entirety of the music industry - there's still plenty of music out there from non-RIAA artists.
QUOTE: So my question is:
Can you think of (a) profitable business model(s) that would *not* use DRM?
REBUTTAL: Indie labels already have this profitable business model. They release a few tracks as MP3 or MP3 streams, and sell albums. Some even release the entirety of the album - because they don't make alot of profit on the album itself, and make their money from increased exposure - which leads to bigger gates at live venues.
The questions you pose are VERY loaded.
-- Funksaw
AMEN.
Why doesn't the RIAA go after the person selling $5 bootleg CDs on the street? In my opinion, prosecuting the real criminals would make more sense than chasing college students/homemakers/etc who aren't making a profit. Why does the RIAA alienate their target audience?
what gives record companies the right to limit filesharing? music on big record companies aren't the only ones being shared. what happens to the independents?
"I am going to ask you a leading question. Will you do me the favor of responding with the answer I wish to hear?"
What about the independent movie that lucks into a KILLER soundtrack, like Burning Annie seems to have? Couldn't the movie promote itself-- and itself soundtrack by putting tracks online for download? I mean, little films don't have a whole lot to promote themselves with, and music is a big part of any movie. Would making music from the soundtrack available constitute an exception to the free-download rules? Why or why not? (PS. That Burning Annie movie looks great, by the way, just my kind of film! When is it coming to the NYC area?)
What are the major differences between radio and file sharing?
If musical artists dream of getting played on the radio (because of the wonderful effects exposure has on an artist), why would an artist not also dream of having his/her songs being shared by millions of people around the world? Isn't the Internet just a vastly improved distribution and exposure mechanism?
Would the same concerns arise if radio was able to achieve the same quality as MP3?
To many of us, file sharing is more ethical than many traditional aspects of the music industry.
...concerts?
Weren't concerts (i.e., in-person performances by the artists, whether stadiums or drawing rooms) the primary moneymaker for musicians in the past? Why not consider recordings to be a form of advertising for the concerts? Won't more people be willing to pay more money to see a concert if they have found they like the music they've listened to from that artist? And if that advertising comes at no cost to the artist/record company/whoever, as it is with P2P, isn't that all the better?
(Leaving aside for the moment all the ancillary revenue from things like T-shirts and such.)
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I was thinking of something that goes like this:
1. Establish a huge server with free (not rms-free, but beer-free) online songs. Have them in lossless formats, so audiophiles will be pleased. Let anyone download it and spread it around, but incorporate drm (i.e. something palladian) which reports votes from the users' computers when the title is being played for the first time. Make it possible to record the songs as files, not as audio cds. This helps preserve the quality for the generations, and keeps the voter drm in.
2. Establish another huge server where all the votes go. Make the results public. This makes everyone happy.
3. See the results from 2. Make assumptions in which area of the country which group is most popular. Then, make a concert there. Do that each month in each region of the country.
4. Profit. Not from selling super-expensive cd-s at 100x their normal price, but from taking the artists to their public, in flesh. Everyone is happy.
But of course, it is much better to have the artists sign a rights waiver for a few pennies, then stick them into a studio for a few hours, then profit for years on end by selling quickly deteriorating cds at inflated prices.
But then again, please, consider my words? I am serious. This has been done before the era of the recordable performances, I think it is possible to do it again.
There was a time when artists did not make as much money as they do today (but that is also true for several other activities). but they didn't use expensive studios, and their work wasn't shipped all over the place.
It seems to me that after the industry (and musicians) found its way to making a lot of money, it would be very difficult to revert that. And there doesn't seem to be another way to make a lot of money except for changing for a lot of copies.
How do you see that? Do you think it is naive to think that in the future people will be able to share music (or any other piece of art) legally?
What's that like?
That's Bigboo TAY! TAY!
I am a layman in economics. Please clarify my question on record industry. In a pre 1990 scenario, I can see following cost associated with a record company or music producer. Artist/Composer/Musician fee + Recording fee + Promotional cost + Copyware (my term for vinyl/cassette/CD) + Distribution of Copyware + Risk associated with making extra Copyware and it getting wasted.
If music is distributed legally over internet, there is virtually no Copyware and Distribution cost ( Bandwidth + Storage cost should not be much ). Same for the Risk of making copies that can go wasted due to a flop album. Then Promotional cost; this has to be taken care by the producer itself. As we consumers are not responsible, if producers are going to air 30 seconds in super bowl. We want good music, if have it and want to make us hear about it, try yourself, dont charge us!. Recording fee is a one time cost, it should cost only few ten grands I guess. Moreover this is not a movie which takes lot of money due to sets and other production costs. Only thing left it Artist fees; If the artist is very popular and he/she charges lot of fee, let us consumer see the split up. In the site that is selling a song, you can let us know how many cents that goes to artist and how much does the producer take. Let us consumer decide if the artist is worth.
In short, Why do we have to pay $12.95, for a music Album that takes only few hundred grands to produce?. Let me know whats wrong in my argument.
Fellow Slashdotters you can enlighten me too! Please.
Can you find someone to start your car in the morning?
It is a bad idea to pay $1 for a song I can only download once, have limited ability to use and burn to CD, and can never download again without paying $1 again. I will pay for convenience, service and quality products, I won't pay to be restricted or have top 40 crap shoved down my throat. Why doesn't the recording industry give me a licsence to use that song for my personal use forever, give me the ability to 'sell' it, store it on a conveniently formatted and indexed server, so I can carry my 'virtual' CD collection anywhere I can access the internet?
For filesharing to work for the recording industry, the entire system needs to be redone.
A characteristic of any media industry is that corporate profits mainly come from the big hits. The vast majority of acts lose money. Media companies promote tons of acts in the hopes of one being the next block buster.
So its obvious why the RIAA's companies are angry about filesharing - their only way to recoup the investment is being destroyed.
But an artist has many ways of making $$$ - concerts, movies, fan stuff, ect. Imagine if a recording company got a % of each of these. A new business model could work - give music away for free to sow the seeds, then reap the rewards afterwards.
Funny Pics
I'm over 40, have purchase during my lifetime a pile of music. My wife and daughter have extensive collections. I've got disposable income that you want.
But I can't seem to buy what I want. I want to spend 15-20 bucks on something I'll enjoy for a while. Last time I did, there was two songs that were worth listening to a couple of times, the rest was junk. I tried to purchase an older album I knew I would enjoy, but couldn't find it at the retailer.
I listen to music at my computer and in my truck. I now have to check whether the cd will work in those places. If I have to return a cd, I'll never buy again. I don't have time to screw around.
I download music rarely. I'm not in P2P networks. But it's easier for me to find what I want, sample it, and burn to cd if I like it than try to purchase through the sales channel.
Aren't you in the music distribution industry? Why aren't you distributing music so I can buy it and enjoy it?
I don't care what some lawyer says. If I don't get what I want, you won't get my money. It's very simple. Come on. Sell me.
Derek
I should point out that the CD in question wasn't part of Sony Music's cast of entertainers.
I went to battle MC Escher, but drew a blank
Such music can be easily purchased - from Amazon or insound.com, directly from the artists after concerts, or from most record stores (not a Wal-Mart, but certainly a Tower Records or a Rasputin's). More and more, the RIAA *isn't* about distribution channels, as even the most obscure records can be purchased in minutes. Instead, it's about promoting its artists. However, there's a large number of websites (epitonic.com, allmusic.com, even amazon.com has pretty good user reviews) supplying info on musicians who haven't signed with the RIAA - so even that argument should be bunk.
True, these musicians probably aren't on MTV, and it requires a little looking around to find out what's good, what you might like. However, I feel that listening to better music (without compromising any anti-RIAA principles you may have) makes it worth the effort. Certainly it fits the slashdot ethos.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Watching the music industry respond to the internet and file sharing has been like watching a car crash. The seemingly utter incompetence of the industry in not coming up with effective distribution systems is mindboggling. The industry is watching it's own destruction happen, and sit wringing their hands, or sending lawyers to talk to their customers. It is bizarre, so bizarre that it prompts conspiracy theories in an attempt to explain the whole mess.
My question is simple. Is it the case that the contracts and legal agreements between distributors and musicians inhibit the introduction of music distribution on the internet? Is this the reason why the industry hasn't been able to respond effectively?
And if so, why are you going to the same people who caused the problem (lawyers) to fix it?
Derek
What about the innocent people? Do you feel it is acceptable for the RIAA to spam the internet with tonnes of DMCA complaints, knowing full well a significant amount of these are false and may lead to the loss of internet access and business of innocent people?
Their bots cast a wide net. Any file which has a word containing the same word as a RIAA member's song or artist name has a significant risk of getting a DMCA complaint. How is this fair? How can this be considered acceptable? You don't see retail store owners walking around to apartment complexes and telling the landlord "I think the people in apartment X shoplifted in my store, kick them out" and by law the landlord would have comply. That would be nonsense, yet the RIAA is doing the exact same sort of thing on the internet.
What about free speech? What about costs and profit loss of these innocent victims of the DMCA? What about those people who are now stalked by whackos because the DMCA force their ISP to give out their home address? Sending a false legal complaint is just as bad, if not worse, than infringing copyright.
What is your opinion on the file-sharing and copying of recordings that are out of print?
As a jazz/legit musician and "consumer" I am often frustrated that some recording I would like is unavailable.
Concerts were once the primary source of revenue for musicians and going further back in the past, public performances (or patrons) were the ONLY source of revenue for musicians. The thing which changed that was the existence of an infrastructure which allowed for music from any given place to be marketed simultaneously worldwide.
That being the case, here is my question:
"Do you think that there is any creedence to the argument that today's multi-billion dollar entertainment industry is an un-natural and perhaps un-maintainable state for the world of art? It seems that the "theft" and "piracy" everyone keeps talking about is only diverting potential revenue away from entertainers who get paid orders of magnitude more than what their skills could reasonably be said to be worth to society and away from those who make their living packaging and selling these over-paid individuals. Is it not possible that what filesharing and internet media is bringing about is not "theft", but rather the natural and expected deflation and re-distribution of an unnaturally inflated and concentrated industry?"
lysergically yours
I had the interesting experience a few months ago of trying to license performing rights for a song, and made the discovery that in general, artists aren't expected to do this -- just the venues where they will perform. It's my understanding that most publishers pay out performance royalties based on statistical sampling; if this is the case, isn't this just another part of the system where the lesser known artists are getting shafted? For example, Chris Ledoux apparently used to play a song by Corri Connors, an acquaintance of mine, which for the most part she received no performance royalties for, because it fell underneath the radar of a statistical sample. Is there a better way?
This is relevant to recorded music as well; we know, for example, that we're already paying blank media taxes, whose proceeds are distributed in this way, and I think it's likely that schemes will be proposed for online distribution and peer-to-peer apps that mirror it.
Tweet, tweet.
Or maybe not....
I purchase music I like, but I get most if it by recording the digital music channels late at night with my ReplayTV, and copying them to my PC.
I'd rather buy a CD directly from the artist then from the Music company.
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
Do you feel that music is a significant part of American culture?
If so, do you consider it moral to refuse to allow America to hold an important cultural component in the public domain until the music is no longer culturally relevant?
How do you feel about the length of copyright protection? As I understand it, copyright was invented as a way to encourage creators to share their work with the general public. Do you think that without copyright terms of nearly a century artists would generally be less likely to share their work with the public?
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
Some musicians have to buy their own equipment, and no matter what kind of music you play, that's not cheap. Most musicians aren't overpaid. Recently we've seen quite a few who are, especially those that buy other writer's material and hire a studio to create the music for them, then call it their own. That is the kind of thing that shouldnt be rewarded: cookie-cutter hit songs.
Not a flame, just food for thought.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Once upon a time in America, there were hundreds of people who made buggy whips. After most people switched to driving cars, there was no need for buggy whips (except in western movies). How is the RIAA diferent from a buggy whip company trying to hold on to a vanishing market?
Few industries survive by filing lawsuits against their customers but the RIAA has taken that tact. Are they aware that they are sending the message to their largest customer base (teenagers and young adults) that they don't want them as customers? What will the RIAA and the industry do once they run off everyone who listens to music by suing them?
Will the music industry made any serious attempt to make it more appealing to young consumers to purchase the products?
Good questions, though. I might be able to provide some insight.
/. are no comfort for me: "Information wants to be free" (so do my rent and groceries, but that ain't gonna happen; besides which, music is enterainment, not information. It is a luxury, not an essential); "I refuse to pay to support a broken business model" (I would be delighted to see a model that pays musicians more than one tenth of a pittance; contravening copyright isn't a substitute model, I'm afraid, and it seems ineffectual as civil disobedience); "It doesn't hurt anyone" (err...there is a loss of income for the artists concerned, and it makes the record co's less likely to invest in marginal or experimental acts, so there is actual damage, both fiscal and artistic. I don't expect anyone to shed tears for main stream artists, though. This mostly affects the little guys for whom 1000 sales can make the difference); "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" (then why take the time to download it?); "I don't wan't to pay for an album of filler and get two songs I like" (then find someone who writes music that is consistently good - negative wallet feedback works wonders, folks). And although all slashdotters are upright citizens, there are plenty of people who have no problem with getting something for nothing, legal or not. To be blunt, if there was respect for the ideals of copyright (on both sides of the argument), enforcing it in stupid ways wouldn't be an issue.
"Is it really the case that making a living in the music business rules out unrestricted filesharing?"
Being a musician myself (yes RIAA affiliations, etc, not that I like it), I can say that I, for one, am concerned by unrestricted file sharing.
Internet sales offer a potential avenue for breaking the RIAA hold on the music business (a fact they realise all too well), but can't go ahead without DRM of some kind for the simple reason that an unprotected MP3 would probably end up on the file sharing networks in no time. The artist makes nothing, the recording bills aren't paid, so no more songs by that artist are recorded. It really is that simple.
The comments I see regularly on
"What about producing music makes it necessary that selling the music needs to be the primary money-maker?"
One reason that selling music is so important is because it allows the music to be recorded in the first place. Despite changes in technology, recording something that actually sounds decent is still expensive and time consuming (at least $350 per day for as long as it takes to get it right - then there's the engineer, producer and musicians fees). If you are diverting money from live performances to pay for your recordings, and you are never going to see that money again then you may as well just let people make bootlegs and flush your money down the toilet for all the business sense that makes. Sure, I'm in the music business because I love music, but that doesn't mean I want to spend my life living in squats eating instant noodles and lentils and playing on crappy 2nd rate, 2nd hand instruments because nobody is prepared to pay for my services. Supporting yourself through music is pretty difficult, and any source of income is appreciated. Most musicians (ones who get anywhere, at least) are VERY concerned about money, since they have difficulty touring and holding down steady jobs. Even when successful, that mindset tends to linger.
With the exception of some recent deals (eg Robbie Williams), most CDs can only make money back through sales, not through live performances. In the current system, record companies cannot claim any money back from the artist personally. Imagine a bank that offered business loans that ask for no guarantor, no collateral, and only took repayments from the working capital of the business, with no personal liability on the part of the business owner. That's the model record companies use; try arranging a deal like that with a bank and your ears will ring for a week from the laughter. With this kind of system, you
Can a product-delivery model where the actual recording costs and artist royalties represent less than 15% of the retail price continue to survive in the future? When (if ever) and how do you think more efficient middleman-reducing business models will begin to dominate the industry? Will the RIAA try to put a stop to more direct distribution models that bypass their inefficiency? How near is the death of brick-and-mortar music/software/etc distribution? 20 years? 50 years? 100 years? Never?
Here's my little speil on the subject of wasteful middlemen that defraud consumers of a bang for their buck:
As it is, at most $2 from every $10-$15 CD actually goes to the artists and recording/editing expenses. These obsolete middlemen are inflating the price of the good by a factor of 5-10 without adding any value to it, as 256kbps MP3 files distributed for relatively neglegible cost via the internet are just as valuable to the consumer as a CD with the same music. Advertizing is an inefficient necessary evil that does nothing to increase the actual value of the product to a consumer but certainly jacks up the retail price. The benefit of capitalism depends on the logical consumer, who seeks out the best product for the best price, and advertizing advertizing serves no purpose but to override the logic of the consumer and convince him to buy one product over another on the basis of anything but objective and independantly verified facts. In fact, advertizing claims have no correlation whatsoever to the actual quality of the product in comparison to its peers. So, you see, advertizing-intensive middlemen are an economic leech of sorts. They feed off of an arms race that does nothing to encourage rational buying decisions and adds nothing to the real value of any product, while doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling the retail prices of said products. It is about as wasteful as the continuation of the nuclear weapons race between the US and USSR beyond the point that both powers had enough to destroy the world many times over. And yet is an indispensible method of competition that few products can survive without. The only losers are the consumers, who have no other purchasing options than to buy goods that are inflated in price many times over by advertizing costs, or else illegally acquire those goods online (at no marginal cost to the producer, mind you) and face the posibility of prison time for "piracy" (which would be more properly termed "unauthorized use" of copyrighted materials because it bears no resemblance to the violent theft of physical goods). How, if ever, will the consumer's enigma be solved? As long as the advertizing arms race continues, and people put up with inefficient middlemen, consumers will never be able to purchase a product for anything close to its actual value.
Repeal the DMCA!
Oh yeah, like Pink Floyd doesn't get pirated ...
Wait, don't feed the trolls.
Ok, here's my question:
Take a situation a few years down the road. Filesharing is now ubiquitous, so any song I want to hear, I do. I collect the songs from filesharing that I want to hear, burn them to my (IPod, Nomad, whatever) to listen to in the car, on the road, etc. I subscribe to mailing lists relevant to the music genres I like, so new artists who want to get heard post information about their music, including costs, to which I drop a PayPal donation if I like the song. No music industry, just artist to listener directly.
So, my question is, where does Britney Spears(tm) fit in all this? See, the way I see it, it's not so much the music that being shared that's the problem, it's the fact that using filesharing tools takes the audience away from the normal marketing channels (the record house, the radio, MTV, etc.), and then they stop doing things like buying mass-marketed material generated by music conglomerates for a specific demographic, as defined my market research and focus groups....
*ahem*, sorry, off on a slight rant there. What I meant to ask was, with the popularity of filesharing removing the audience from main stream market exposure, how do you, as a publicist, see the music industry integrating itself into the filesharing arena to market their materials? If at all?
Someone was paid a pretty large penny in order for Micheal Jackson to get a hold of the Beatles songs. Don't delude yourself into thinking the original owners got nothing.
As for "100% of the song rights," do you mean the copyright? The performance rights? The recording rights? I don't think you're quite aware of what you're talking about here. While I don't know off the top of my head, I'm guessing Micheal Jackson owns the performance rights to the Beatles songs. What "rights" are you talking about?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
I have not purchased one single CD in over two years.
That's too bad. I usually purchase non-mainstream artists' CDs at about $14 at non-national record stores. Boycott the RIAA's music, boycott expensive chain stores like Tower and Sam Goody. Don't boycott music itself.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
I'd mod your post up if I hadn't already contributed 5 posts to this discussion.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Why does the entertainment industry seemingly ignore large scale pirates who are making money off of selling copies and obviously detracting from sales...
Part of the problem is that many of the figures quoted as that piracy is from international piracy. It's a far different cry for the RIAA to go stomping about in different countries that they have little control over, nor would it be extensively cost effective for them to send out an international expedition, much like many anime companies can't go bitching out all the DVD pirates in Hong Kong.
In case you haven't noticed, there aren't many American-born pirates. There aren't a great deal of people standing on a corner in Brooklyn selling $3 CD-Rs. But filesharing is a mostly American phenomenom. It's more economically feasible to scare people straight by prosecuting a few than to go after everyone, obviously. Ever seen a policeman chase down EVERY car going over the speed limit on a stretch of highway?
The bottom line is: it's their product, they're allowed to protect it and otherwise do with it as they please.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Wow! Nice to see 'the man" get a mention & link here on slashdot! New CD next month and what I've heard so far SMOKES!
it isn't me...Bill Evans is also the name of the founder of boycott-riaa.com, who is not the same person as this is about.
Bill Evans
founder boycott-riaa.com
I write music. Most of my friends write music and consider themselves amateur musicians. We trade music amongst ourselves, and give it to our friends for free. The tools required to make professional quality music are becoming more and more affordable everyday, and it's possible that in the near future, making music will be as affordable as learning to paint(some would argue that we have already reached that point).
How will the music industry survive when everyone has a friend who is a musician? I've found that most people are very fond of their friends' music, even when it's technically inferior to commercial products. Will "pop songs" reach a point where they have the same value as a nice painting, or can the music industry provide something more valuable than music itself?
-dbc
What do you think of some sort of ransom model solution to the problem?
If you assume once information gets into the wild, it will proliferately freely, there seems no other solution to me. And I think the above is a safe assumption, as technology moves faster than the law. I don't see how the RIAA can shutdown freenet when it explodes because other P2P systems have been squashed.
Imagine if you will, a website. You go there one morning and discover that your favorite band "Purulent Sputum" has a new album held hostage. They want $1 million for it. You download a couple of teaser tracks and oh sh17, its good. Maybe you're cheap and drop a dime in escrow. Maybe you're a big fan and you pony up 10 hoon. Maybe you drop an even buck in escrow and wait. Maybe two months go by and the 1M mark is passed, the album gets released, your buck is taken, the music starts showing up on a website and then very quickly all over p2p. Maybe a year goes by and the coffer stalls at 850K, PS decides they can forget the 150K and they release the album. Maybe a years goes by and coffer stalls at 850K, PS wants to hang on forever, but you lost your job and really need that buck. You can take it back.
Now, the band never relinquishes copyright, their music is not in the public domain. They are still entitled to royalties for public viewing/display and promotional use and all that, but the de facto problem of file sharing is just tolerated as the fact of life that it will continue to be as long as really smart people think of ways to do it faster than suits and judges can stop them.
It worked for Stephen King.
I'm not a fan of DRM, but I also understand that it's an effective way to protect artists' rights to their creation.
My summary of the current state of the music industry's problems:
1. Unavailability of legit, paid services that's superior to the free, "pirate" p2p networks (Apple's music store is pretty close though)
2. Angry users that used to buy CD's, but no longer in disgust of the RIAA's inability to adapt
So the question: In light of these 2 highlight problems, how should DRM be used to protect the "future" music industry, while giving enough freedom to the users so the current style of pirate p2p networks would lose their appeal? ie. What is your idea of a profitable music service, that is superior to the p2p networks as to be viable?
** My $.02 below **
My idea of an ideal legit service would be to let users download whole, sample songs that are DRMed, and when users pay for individual songs they want, they get 100% DRM-free songs over ultra-fast connections (faster than what you can over pirate p2p anyway). There would also be forums and chatrooms where users can talk about music between themselves, and also with the artists. (think IRC), while other, currently unofficial channels (like fanclubs / sites) can be used as official advertising avenues.
My rationale is that when you provide easy to access, DRM-free songs, people will get them even if they have to pay for them (at a very low price perhaps in order to compete with the free p2p networks) And when you embrace your fans and extend the "services" they create (and not extinguish them lol), you can profit.
PS. I made a search engine for IRC and Torrents, everyone's favorite p2p networks. So plz be aware of the many grains of salt
VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.
I guess this has been burning here for a long time, and Id really like your views on the music scene as it has developed. I am 64 years old which means that I was a teen-ager at the introduction of the 45rpm single, and those little RCA portable players that you could save up to buy, and take to your friends house; or if they had a player you could just take the records. At the same time Columbia Records & CBS began promoting the LP.
The RCA discs cost 47 cents here in Canada at the beginning, and I can remember paying 98 cents for Heartbreak Hotel just after Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Well, the war between Columbia/CBS and RCA continued with the record industry in the midst, and after a while, the only thing being marketed was albums. Still, on radio, the industry was promoting single tunes, while trying to sell an album based on the one song. Well I can remember how bad it was to get a complete non listenable dud on the B side of a 45, so it doesnt surprise me that the pressure was there to strip the individual tunes from a CD, and compile them into something you might like to hear.
Radio today no longer has a Top 40, and stations are automated & play formula stuff. Web stations have been shut down by the very industry that used to inundate us with records and coerce our little station to play them.
So the music industry has shot itself in the foot, while having in hand the means of salvation. Kids want single tunes, something they like to play over & over again, just like we did on that little RCA player back in the 50s. mp3 audio provided a way to do that, but the music industry refused to embrace the new technology, and now they remind me so much of the Luddites that tried to stop the Industrial Revolution that it makes me sick.
So after this tirade Id love the opinion of someone in the industry on the thoughts of one who has enjoyed bits of it, and been saddened by others. Above all I appreciate the artists who have given us so much pleasure, and I would like to see a means where their works could be suitably rewarded.
Bill Edwards
dont listen to the riaa bs about piracy raising cd prices. back in the 80's cd prices were exactly the same as now.
just compare it to another famous government backed scam, long distance rates. as soon as the govt stopped legislative support of the monopoly ld rates dropped to pennies on the dollar. did big phone companies die? no. they were so bruatlly gouging the public that even 1 tenth of what they were charging was still a healthy profit.
cd prices wont go down, unless the big record companies are exposed to some healthy competition, and their product starts sitting in a warehouse collecting dust.
never.
why should they.
and that's indentured (might as well learn to spell your official title).
slavery? in america you say?
the first reason is convenience. goto wrecka stow, wait in line, spend money (big issue for many) go home press play. scratch disk, repeat process.
or
lift finger...
second reason. morality. copying is not stealing (nothing in the bible about mp3's). sharing is not stealing. record industry has their copy, filesharers have theirs; everybody is happy... no, wait, not everybody. resisting price fixing is not stealing. many ppl are naturally sore from being gouged. cant talk about moral high ground through a sewer grate; nobody will take you seriously.
third reason. if so many people are sharing files, then why isnt it perfectly legal? dont people make the law?
fourth reason. if this is true why not hold a vote... wait i know why. but who cares if that will never happen and legislation follows lobby money instead of the will of the people. having said that, it looks like there is already a de facto statement. this begs the question what is the raisin d'etre of the music industry now?
fifth reason. format is obsolete. compact discs are not so compact anymore. things like a 200 gig hard drive, or apple's ipod prove that. an ipod weighs less than 2 cd's, yet holds hundreds. why should people be locked into a primitve technology to support the profits of an industry that is essentially hostile to them?
here is a quote from a poster below:
"Without the music industry however we wouldn't have CDs to rip, or DRM protected tracks to download "
newsflash: music has been around for thousands of years before industry. high caliber artists just happen, no need for industry, executives, promotions etc. low caliber artists: get a job.
talent will always find a way to thrive (concerts, t shirts, authorized biographpy a week after they die, etc.), the rest does not need to be at a store near you.
having said all of this it makes me wonder: why would anyone buy a cd anymore? what can the record industry possibly offer?
1) Bill who??? 2) Kerry who??? 3) Michael who???
Normal and online CD Stores (shameless plug) are making razor thin margins on declining industry sales and are faced with industry pressures from:
:-)
- the movement of the market to the gaming industry and DVD's,
- supplier power from RIAA members keeping wholesale prices high
- changes in the distribution method from CD to digital delivery.
Looking to the future, what would you do if you owned an online CD store?
(selling out is not an option
Lance
Given that in my short (to me) lifetime the current arguements against MP3's etc are nothing new (First it was reel to reel then 8 track then Dual Drive Cassettes and Dolby) all of which were predicted by the RIAA to be the pending doom of the recording industry. Somehow the Recording industry in the past was able to pull it's act together and embrace and extend. Just like with all the prior attempts they did this by releasing a product that was higher quality and at a price that made it just too easy to do it the legal way. Like with the others MP3's that are home ripped are problematic (and in fact more difficult) than deck to deck with dolby. And like those are never as good (close) as the original. What is it that makes this any different? (and don't say file sharing... you should have seen the network for cassettes in college.)
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Many of us know that the primary service provided by big labels is promotion of new music through radio. What are some ways musicians can get their music promoted on a level playing field without selling their rights to big record labels? It seems that it's either sign away all your rights or forget being promoted.
Why do recording industries and the RIAA insist on calling music intellectual property? Excuse me, but I don't consider Britney Spears intellectual property! Without being certain, aren't most people being prosecuted for sharing 'pop' music? If this is true then, as most pop music is mass marketed mindless music designed for the sole of making a profit, why call it intellectual property.
BTW, why does the RIAA believe that if P2P file sharing were stopped that every pirated song/album would translate into a record sale. Most people who download music also buy music legitimately. Those who abuse and download excessive amounts of music and don't buy any music won't buy music if the authorities managed to stop pirating.
Perhaps, what is more important to the RIAA and to who they are a puppet for, is the loss of control that filesharing has created. Previous to this 'MP3 revolution', all people heard of an artist was what was played on the radio. The internet allows people to 'taste' more of an artist and make a informed decision on whether they will part with their money; instead of blindingly parting with it after only hearing a single song. The recording industries can't allow this to happen, because if they lose the power to make millions and millions of $$ by saturating the public with enough of their mass marketed pop, they might just have to come up with something decent for a change.
It is interesting to note that file-sharing has created a positive externality. Many people who engage in the 'immoral' act of file-sharing must have found many new artists which they love and have bought many their albums, which would have never known about. Just an interesting point to consider...
Finally, how can you convince us that we should feel sorry about pirating of people who are so much richer than we are? It's not like Eminem is about to steal food from the fridge because some kick with about a 100 bucks in the bank pirated his latest album. I am very sure if you looked at the most pirated albums and songs, only popular (and thus RICH) artists would have been pirated.
Given that the major labels' sales have tanked, why are the Indy record labels having such a banner year?
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
Judging from the RIAA statistics, which are questionable at best and seem intentionally deceptive, it would appear that the industry ships out an average of $4 billion annually in physical goods that is never sold nor returned.
My primary question is to ask why the mp3 file is not acknowledged as the inferior product which it is and used to replace this pricey "free goods" handout.
If allowed a follow-up, it is simply to ask why the industry refuses to acknowledge the wealth of freely available material on the web, placed there by the independents for the purpose of promotion. Even all the majors I have spoken with will tell you that if there were some way to discern the authorized downloads they would have little problem with the filesharing. No objection to sharing the same songs they want to push on the radio anyway.
What's the real motive behind wanting to totally control the Internet? Wait a minute. That's not a question. It's the answer. The RIAA wants it all and they're trying to shut the independents out so that they are the only door to the marketplace.
This isn't about the money -- it's about the power to control the entire market for recorded music. THAT is why the authorized files for sharing are not acknowledged.
The jackass comment wasn't toward Bill, sorry.
m.kelley
life is like a freeway, if you don't look you could miss it.
There is an online music service which provides unlimited mp3 downloads for a flat monthly fee. It's emusic.com, and is owned by Universal/Vivendi. Yet I never see it mentioned in articles about online music downloading. It's obvious that emusic has the exact business model that CONSUMERS want; the only problem is the relatively small selection of tunes.
So my question is, what do people in the industry think about emusic? Obviously some people have been willing to license their content. Have they been happy with the return? If so, how has that impacted the thinking of other labels?
"Not only do I vote, but I was an active volunteer...and I will do it again in 2008."
Excellent! Good to see someone who takes action over what they believe in, rather than just bitch. Keep up the fine work, encourage others and you might succeed next time (no, really, I mean it!).
"Now to DRM. It will always be cracked"
True, but that doesn't mean DRM can't prevent casual distribution, since the majority are not crackers. And preventing easy distribution, not copying for personal use (even though "fair use" is NOT an element of copyright law where I live), is what I am concerned with. Large scale physical piracy can be, and is, dealt with easily through other means. As I said, rip it to your computer or your Rio, lend your friends your CD if you want, just don't let the world download it unless I say its okay. Is DRM enforcing this really unfair? You didn't answer that, you merely cited 20 year old examples of DRM, which do not meet the criteria I set out. Perhaps your candidate didn't win because his supporters can't muster a convincing argument based on the issues raised...
"Did you ever have to fart around with one of those code wheels before you could play a game you had paid good money for?"
Yes, I was there, and I still have a functioning Commodore 64/1541. As I recall, and my old copies of Byte magazine confirm, the major reason cited by so many software companies that went out of business (or stopped supporting the C64; OziSoft, a local company, for example) was the unauthorized distribution of their works such as you describe (though poor management probably contributed), not consumer backlash against DRM. In fact, I don't recall a single instance of a widespread customer boycott of software in the '80s (or are you proclaiming yourself the majority again?), but I'd be intrigued if you could provide an example. Otherwise, please don't rewrite history. There were plenty of people using cracked versions who never purchased software in the first place, which supports my argument that people don't pay for something if they can get it free elsewhere. Remember Isepik? That pretty much heralded the end of the C64 software market; insert cartridge, load the program, flick a switch, done. Besides, code wheels were far from transparent DRM. Like I said, no DRM scheme so far meets the transparent criterion, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
"Customers should be wooed, not presumed to be thieves."
Now, do you lock your doors at night because you presume everyone else in the world is a thief, or because you want to stop the few who actually are? The fact is, the few will still break into your house if they really want to. Does that mean houses should be sold without locks, since having to unlock a door is an inconvenience? Locking my doors isn't an accusation that you are a thief, merely a sign that I don't want just anyone walking away with my stuff. Should I not be allowed to do the same with my work, if it causes no inconvenience to paying customers? And that was one of my points: transparent DRM. You seem to be completely ignoring what I write in order to push your agenda, hence the "rabid dogmatism" line.
"As for a pay for play system, that is exactly what the labels want, and some artists seem to agree."
I thought I made it clear that I certainly don't agree, even though it would go some way to clearing my (major label) recording debts. Pay-for-play really would be killing the golden-egg-laying goose, and I can't believe the stupidity of the labels for pushing this. If you re-read my posts you will see that I am interested in breaking the RIAA hold on music, but doing so will take a serious alternative business model that can deliver some kind of revenue. If you must rant at me, kindly make the rant relevant to what I wrote, and don't ascribe to me sentiments that aren't mine; that isn't how you win friends and influence people.
"...but in that era [1980s] the [music] industry still understood that I was a customer to be wooed, not a
I read in wired a few months back an interview with an industry insider. He said he was sure all of the major lables would be bankrupt in the next five years, and that indie lables would replace them in the future. So, to answer your question, the RIAA will stop when they have no gigantic music industry left to support. Then and only then will reason and creativity return to the industry (i.e., CD's that don't cost twenty bucks, and artists that make more then 9%).
It is an emotionally charged issue, so fair enough; I, too, apologize for any offence. I was trying to keep as calm and to the point as I could, but I did get somewhat personal. Insults and intransigence are poor substitutes for rational debate, and nowhere near as productive.
To be fair to you, I understand your concerns about DRM, and believe it or not I share them. I am fully aware there is no DRM system that addresses the issues you raised, which is why I, too, object to them (and in fact, I own a model of Macintosh which is affected by copy-protected CDs, so it strikes closer to home for me than you might imagine). As far as I am concerned, you should be free to do what you want with any disc you purchase, including making MP3s for personal use, and at no stage have I disputed your right to do so.
But, I am pragmatic enough to realize that the hard part of finding a new business model for music is convincing the majority of musicians, myself included, that CD and internet sales can effectively compete with parallel free downloads from P2P networks. Historically (the Browser Wars, for example), nothing can compete with free; hence my doubt. You are just as aware as I that the mainstream CD market is tied up by the collusion of the RIAA members, payola, etc, which really only leaves the internet as an alternative distribution channel. Hell, I can't even sell CDs in regular retail outlets without the price being bumped up to match the RIAA's prices (see Amazon); I have no control over the retail price of my own product, unless I want to go into the mail order business. So I am genuinely willing to find a system that gives you music at a fair price and pays me enough to keep doing it. Thats all I ask. I don't want blood!
Perhaps I explained it poorly, but to me acceptable DRM would have to:
1-Let the user play an original disc on any equipment they choose (I probably wasn't clear enough on this point)
2-Let the user make copies (MP3/ogg/AAC/FLAC) for backup (not a legal necessity in my country, but I'm cool with it)
3-Let the user use ripped files on any piece of equipment they own (iPod/Rio/Palm Pilot/hacked Aibo). This is the tricky bit.
4-Allow re-sale of the original disc (but this goes hand-in-hand with point 1).
5-Prevent user copies being used on equipment not verified as the user's (again, the tricky bit).
6-Be completely invisible to the legitimate user (beyond, say, the initial setup of the equipment, which should be no more onerous than logging into your desktop if done right).
7-Not be used to monitor purchasing habits (unless enough users requested such a feature; some may want to be informed about new releases in genres they like). Privacy is important to me, too.
Such a system wouldn't even prevent your friends copying your CD, but I am prepared to assume you wouldn't let them do so because you paid good money for it (of course, you may be quite the altruist; even so, I doubt you would pass it around at random). It wouldn't stop you buying, ripping, and immediately re-selling. It could make backups available to anyone with an identity and proof of purchase (docket). It would, however, prevent casual downloading of your copies via P2P, except by you, of course, because you can verify your identity on whatever equipment you happen to be using (as long as you log in with your identity). If a system like this, which could provide greater consumer protection than the existing one, can be devised, would you still object to DRM as a matter of principle? Can you feel justified allowing others to infringe my rights because of your principles? To enjoy our own rights, we must each respect the rights of others; otherwise nobody can claim a right to anything.
Again, I know that no such DRM system exists. That doesn't mean it can't be done. And I'm sure it can be done in software (computer) and firmware (MP3 players) without physical modification of hardware, without Palladium, without copy protected CDs. Of course there wi
"People tend to complain a lot about the profit margins in the music industry"
No, stupid, people don't give a rat's ass about their profit, its the *PRICE* of the CD that people are complaining about.
Cripes.
">95% of them are ripped from CDs. you are referring to a niche market (indie labels) compared to a lot of music *you* don't like, but zillions of others do like."
You ask a business model that can survive with DRM.
Go to your music cabinet and pull out a CD!
Or if you're a bit older, pull out an LP!
No DRM!
Money!
Coke for rock stars!
All without DRM.
Don't bother this very busy man with this nonsense that you haven't thought through.
Go read how lossy compression works.
JPG is lossy compression
MP3 is lossy compression
MPEG is lossy compression
What does this mean? It means that the compressor throws away the part of the file that you can't perceive.
This won't work for an executable or data file. But for music or art, this is often fine.
Its a trade-off of space versus quality. Lossy compression tends towards saving space, not higher quality.
Now go read before you spout off nonsense like this again.
" usually purchase non-mainstream artists' CDs at about $14 at non-national record stores"
List should be $12 with discounts down to $8.
$14 is way too much for a pop CD. I mean, way too much.
Don't give me crap about the distribution channels and marketing; these are classic tricks used by RIAA members and MPAA members to essentially steal money from artists and justify crap to the public and government.
Read some news.
How do you think any group will ever be able to enforce or completely limit filesharing anyway? The historical facts show that people will ALWAYS find a way to do what they want to do, regardless of what measures the PTB put in place to restrict or inhibit said actions. Remnember, many of the people who enjoy such forums as this are just sorts of people who will always take is as a personal challenge to discover a way around limitations, rules, laws, etc..., for no other reason that to prove it can be done. The more you fight it, the more creative they get, until eventually the original issue being debated is obscured by the battle that evolved between 2 groups with diametrically opposing viewpoints on life in general(think Democrats / Republicans not just fileswappers / RIAA)
"Sheep just follow the easiest path and run from scary noises and intimidating creatures." - Me
I've never heard of you before today. Why have I paid your salary, along with so many other Americans? What service do you provide, and if that service is better done by a computer for free (i.e. distribution by P2P and advertising through word of mouth) then why should I continue to pay you?
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You are what you think.
I also play. Not that I got the two hundreds bums in the seats... for nightclubbig... (200$ a day for street-musicians... ) two hundred a day for service calls, hookers, wWEB-SITES) I don't MP3. Some relitives do, but don't burn cds. (No money in it.) I don't web-site... it's p*ssing your life away... to mickysoft pirates, or file-shares, same thing to me. The reality is MICKY-soft is trying for the corperate model of royalites... while the public wants absolute ownership (cds/mp3s). mickysoft can buy more clout than voters. The ownership /property thing has moved from rights to interest again... ala the commons. (land held in the public interest to government ownership of public lands.
huh. You wanna play that game? You're screwed before you start, kid. Get used to 4/5 of the copies out there being illegal... The Official channels being a nasty 80 percent loss.. ( an artist makes maybe a buck off a 20$ cd)
Mickysoft tends to steal whatever tech they want. Pirates onna golbal scale. Luckers, fella.
AND the market being fairly low to begin with. (Most studios are in the ad indusrty... thou radio might be first)
like your momma said, you can't make a living from it, so don't even try.
pat
packrat ; writer-informer. http://packrat.comicgenesis.com http://www.youtube.com/area163 https://www.smashwords.com/