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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.
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?
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?
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?
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.
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.
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 |
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!
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?
That is all about DRM and related technologies and they are already working on it. Problem is, well, I'll be writing for atleast 10 minutes explaining the problems. So I suggest you do a search for "DRM problem" or something like that.
Question everything.
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?
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
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
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$)
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?
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. --
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
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?
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?
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.
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?
...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
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"
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.
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
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
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.
What's that like?
That's Bigboo TAY! TAY!
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
Very true. Simply allowing file trading would be a much cheaper form of promotion then giving payola to an independent promoter, so he can give that payola(minus what he keeps) to radio stations. If people like the music, they will go buy a CD, or in some cases, a LP or cassette. People like to collect tangible things, but only the ones they like, and only when the price isn't a rip off.
"Personally, I would like to see a user rather than hardware based DRM system. Huh? Well, Fred buys a CD. Fred then rips Fred's CD to MP3 on Fred's computer so he can transfer it to Fred's iPod. I've no problem with that, nor does the law. Then Fred copies Fred's MP3 to Jack's computer. Since Jack's computer is owned by Jack, and not Fred, the Fred's MP3 doesn't play."
Home tape, and now CD-R trading is also a great form of promotion, word-of-mouth. Kill it, and you kill the goose that lays golden eggs. All DRM really does is create inconvenience, which will make the fans mad. You don't want that. If the $20 CDs at the mall have all kinds of DRM restrictions, but the knock-offs at flea markets and on street corners for five bucks don't, where do you think teens are going to buy?
You will never convince the majority that they can't listen to music without coughing up some dough. We just don't accept that, after all, no one has to pay to listen to the radio, and you can overhear someone playing their CDs without paying, too.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
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.
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.
Now to DRM. It will always be cracked. It is an exercise in futility that will never stop counterfeiters, but will always be a pain in the ass to legitimate customers, just as it was for computer software in the 1980s. 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? Did you then go get a cracked copy from a hacker friend, and throw away the damn code wheel, and never buy software from that publisher again? Customers should be wooed, not presumed to be thieves. Any business that treats customers like thieves deserves to go bust, as many software companies did in the 1980s.
As for a pay for play system, that is exactly what the labels want, and some artists seem to agree. It will never happen. As far as buying music, I used to do it all the time. In the eighties, I bought hundreds of LPs, cassettes and CDs, and attended many concerts, but in that era the industry still understood that I was a customer to be wooed, not a debtor who owed them something. Bullying, threatening, and suing potential customers is not how you win friends and influence people.
The industry, and some artists need to understand that no one owes them a debt simply because they exist. I can pick up a guitar, and play it, but that doesn't mean anyone who hears it now owes me a debt. It doesn't work that way, and never will.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
The jackass comment wasn't toward Bill, sorry.
m.kelley
life is like a freeway, if you don't look you could miss it.
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%).
To me, DRM is a direct violation of my personal property rights. I will never accept it, not in an infinity of eternities. If I buy a CD, it is my personal property. I will listen to it on the device I choose. I will let freinds listen to it as well if they want to. I will use it as a drink coaster if that amuses me. I will resell it at disc-go-round if I want to. These things are my right because a disc I bought is my personal property!
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Advocates of the free flow of ideas detest these things, especially since the term of copyright has been extended 11 times in 40 years, and only a few huge corporations like Disney have benefited. People who dislike copyright fall into two camps: those who view it as a necessary evil, and those who see it as an abomination that defeats the purpose of communication.
I am in the former camp, not the latter, but DRM makes me so angry, that I often seem to be in the second camp. For a long time, hearing about these issues made me angry, but I did nothing substantive about it. Personal experience motivated me to act. The final straw that made me start dontbuycds.org was a karaoke disc published by Sound Choice. Headbangers Hits Volume X. The disc cost over thirty dollars. It had the Compact disc digital audio logo, but was encoded with Suncomm's Mediacloq brand of DRM. My computer was my player, and I used it to rehearse before going out to shows. I personally purchase hard rock and metal, because the DJs usually only have country. I could not use the disc without going and buying a dedicated player that was not computer based! Some are, so the cheapest one at Wal-mart might not work.
To top it all off, Karaoke discs were never being ripped, and offered on Napster. File trading was no threat to them. The joke of it all is that the disc would copy in a dedicated copier, and real piracy, i.e. counterfeiting, was the only kind they had to worry about.
Sound Choice took a lot of lumps over using Mediacloq, or as critics call it, Mediaclog. Some tolerated it because their discs, although expensive, contain the best background music, and most easily readable on-screen lyrics in the industry. Others abandoned Sound Choice, and have not gone back. The backlash eventually convinced them to stop using Mediacloq, and after a while, they did re-release my disc in a non-DRM format, and replace it, but forgiving and forgetting is hard. I have still not purchased any more of their discs. Ironically, many other publishers are selling downloads for computer based karaoke machines like the CAVS JB 99 digital jukebox. With it, a DJ doesn't have to lug around large, heavy quantities of CD media, or worry about getting them scratched up, or beer spilled on them. His whole songbook is on a hard drive in the player.
Back to DRM. If publishers are going to use it, it had better be completely undetectable, or people like me will go off. This has never been technologically feasible, and I suspect it never will be. I could go on forever, but most of what I would say is on the site somewhere. By the way, the external links page lists many legitimate non-riaa music sources. Have you tried offering your music there?
The Uncoveror: It's the real 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?
-----------------------
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/