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RIAA Sales Compared to Download Statistics
OneInEveryCrowd writes "According to an article at SFGate, although the recent crackdown and lawsuits have caused a 22% drop in downloading, the drop in CD sales actually accelerated during the same period. My own response to the RIAA crackdown was to get a Netflix account, get into fansubs, and swear off CD purchases for life. If this was mainstream behavior CD sales would have dropped to zero. I was still pleased to see that many people responded in a similar fashion though." An EMI executive has a piece giving the standard industry view, but this piece about Universal slashing CD prices may be more telling.
Netflix is a DVD rental site and thus has more to due with the MPAA than the RIAA. OneInEveryCrowd seems to have their *AA's confused.
At the globe and mail : http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20 030904.ucd0904/BNStory/Front/
they have the Canadian angle on the story, but:
Cassettes are going to be priced at about $9US, compared to $13US for a CD, yet tapes cost a lot more to manufacture;
In Canada, there is the infamous CD copyright levy which allows all Canadians to copy CDs for their own use without breaking the law. Because we pay the levy wether, like myself, you backup the software and programs I write for a living, or copy your friends' CDs, it would make it your duty as a Canadian to copy CDs because you're paying for that right. Contrast this with the quote that:
"Mr. Lennox said that all of his company's CDs featuring Canadian artists will soon have copy-protection technology built in."
On one hand, it's perfectly legal to copy a CD for our own use, wether it be our own, or a friends, and in return the music industry collects a copyright levy, and on the other, they're still charging us the levy, but stopping us copying a CD by technological measures. This is obviously wrong. Due to the CD levy, it's also a very grey area as to wether file sharing is also illegal in Canada, especially if you burn your downloads onto CD!
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
... are the reasons they aren't selling much. If they keep suing people, more and more people will realize the RIAA is evil, and boycott like a lot of us have been doing for years. I have purchased one CD this year, and the only reason I did it is because I love the group 311, and I wanted to support their latest offering, not to mention I enjoy their music and wanted to have it. But, there have been about 20 other discs I normally would have purchased this year, but didn't for 2 reasons:
1) money is extremely tight, and I certainly don't need to be spending it on crap music that I may or may not like.
2) I hate the RIAA.
I didn't think I'd get into fansubs, but they're quite addicting. I find myself checking AnimeSuki daily to see what new programs fans have subtitled, and then running BitTorrent to grab them.
Fansubbers have an interesting ethical code: the stop distributing and delete their works when the program is licensed for distribution in the U.S. The benefit to English-speaking fans is that they get to see works that would never get licensed outside of Japan. The benefit to Japanese producers is that their works get an English-viewing audience for free, and can then move forward on licensing those vehicles that have a more International (or at least generally American) appeal. Win-win, for the most part.
Step 1: Find a band you do like. Try sample before you buy, friend's recommendations, I-net radio etc etc
Step 2: Look at the label. If it is a small or Indie label its likely they will have similar music by different artists.
Step 3: Repeat Step 1.
Using this method I've become a fairly regular purchaser of music from Asphodel, Beat Junkie Sound System, Global Underground and Ninja Tune. None are RIAA members so I get great music I like and stick it to the RIAA at the same time.
Note tastes are subjective and not all small labels specialized in one music genre.
I love alternative music, but lately everything has sounded like Creed, or some crappy form of pop-punk.
Here are some starter sites. I highly recommend checking them out.
New Music Canada
Epitonic
GarageBand
I came to that conclusion a while ago as well. The prices are too high, the general quality isn't there, they obviously don't sell to me since I'm not a teenager, I won't buy crippled music (even if you rename it 'enhanced'), and I won't buy from folks who take kids to court for having an illegal copy of the latest Eminem ditty. I have thousands of CD's myself that I've collected over time, I'm part of that decline in music sales. Oh-I hate you RIAA. Watch me wave my spending dollars in your face. :-)
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
"Music blanks" are not quite the same as "data blanks".
Superficially, they look the same, use the same dye technologies, etc.
To assist tracking, CD-R[W] media has a spiral pressed into it which the write laser follows. The return from the pressed spiral is not strong enough to pose a problem for CD players. The spiral also wobbles at a fixed rate to provide a timing reference. This feature is called "Absolute Time In Pre-groove", or ATIP.
At the beginning of the ATIP, a further sub-wobble encodes data such as the media dye type, recording speed, laser power,... and whether the media is an "audio CD" or a "data CD".
Early Philips audio CD recorders will accept only "Audio CDs" as indicated in the ATIP. They also implement the serial copy management system (SCMS) and refuse to make a second-generation copy.
Your typical burner, OTOH, doesn't give a damn about audio vs. data or SCMS, so you can burn to your heart's content.
CD players, not equipped to read the ATIP, can't tell the difference either.
The idea behind "music" vs. "data" was to charge a higher price for the music blanks, and to use the uplift to compensate the industry for piracy, while letting users of "data" blanks get away from the levy.
Of course, in reality it doesn't work that way at all. Almost no one buys music blanks any more (unless they happen to own a Philips recorder), anyone can copy a music CD using a computer data CD-R burner onto a data blank, and certain countries levy data CDs as well as audio. Oh, well...
A better place to look might be hrrc.org where they have more interest in the consumer's rights.
Also, it's Audio home recording act, not American... sorry. And thanks to the poster that clarified the differences between audio and data CD's, I didn't know that.
...is also running an article on the stats: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60282,00 .html
Sec. 1008. - Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. (Title 17, Chapter 10, Subchapter D, US Code)
Who'd have thought it: a depressed economy leads to changes in price elasticity. I demand the Nobel Prize for Economics
You forgot to mention "by a monopoly".
Economincally speaking, the Music industry is not pricing the music as there was any competition, based on how much margin they must have to survive and possibly grow,
but rather as a monopoly, based on how much the consumer can/is willing to pay.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Seriously, though, his main point is he's giving up on CDs for other forms of entertainment and that's a shame.
There is another way. Go out there and start checking out the stealth galaxy of independent music. And when you find something that you really like, send 'em an email and let them know that you want them to stay independent and free from DRM and RIAA rotten tactics.
Start with CD Baby
http://www.cdbaby.com/
Or just start browsing. A random selection of links from searching independent musicians and independent music.
http://www.indiemusic.com/
http://www.musicbizacademy.com/directory/indiemusi c.htm
http://www.secondfret.com/
http://www.hotbands.com/
http://www.sonicawareness.com/ http://www.narcopop.com/musicians/
http://www.rainmusic.com/
http://www.musicianmp3.com/
http://www.indie-music.com/
http://www.galaris.com/
http://www.internetdj.com/
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I personally have stopped buy any CDs, but I feel a hunger deep inside for new music. I recently found a VERY useful website where you can search for artists, labels or albums to see if they were distributed by the RIAA members. This site has surely become my best friend.
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/
Also take note, I read that any radio stations that fall between 87.5 FM and 92.0 FM are non-profit stations and often you can find at least one college/high school station that plays a lot of independent music. Be informed.
The exact law is the copyright law, specifically how the AHRA changes it, and there are other quotes on this thread giving the Title and Section. It claims you cannot be prosecuted under copyright law for copying music in a specific manner. Part of that manner is using appropriate media with copyprotect bits.
I have substituted, perhaps incorrectly, "right to copy" for "cannnot be prosecuted under copyright law". It may not actually be a right as in "bill of rights" but it is NOT against the copyright law as you claim (when done properly). It falls under the quite legal fair use. It is a very explicit exception to the law, so you cannot claim it's against the law except when that exception doesn't apply. My comment was that you might be able to argue that the exception DOES apply when copying digital music over the Internet.
This has not been tested in court, as far as I know, but I do know that computers have been considered facsimile machines for the purpose of prosecuting spammers. If appropriately enabled, it might be possible to turn ON copy-protect bits when downloading from the internet, burn onto a music CD with those bits set (preventing successive copies by compatable hardware), and argue that you have satisfied the conditions of the AHRA exceptions.
So, ianal, but I doubt you are either.
A lot of people are over-interpreting this law. It simply states -- rightfully so -- that you can't be prosecuted for using one of these digital audio recording devices (DARDs) for its intended purpose: recording digital audio for non-commercial use. Some folks have taken this to mean that downloading songs off a P2P service is legal as long as they then burn them to a music CD using on digital audio recording device. This is absolutely not true. Simply using a DARD at one step along the way is not a "Get out of Jail Free" card.
The exact definition of "non-commercial" can be contextual, and these sorts of ambiguities are why we have a court system, to examine them on a case-by-case basis. Making a backup of music you bought? No problem. Make five copies and give them to five of your friends with no expectation of anything in return? Practically speaking, no problem; nobody would care anyway. These are all in the realm of the theoretical because traditionally, the limits imposed on making perfect digital copies made it impractical to distribute copyrighted material widely for non-commercial purposes.
By the way, newbies might wonder why running a warez FTP site or putting a lot of material up for grabs on a P2P system doesn't qualify as "non-commercial" if you're not asking for money. The NET act closed this loophole; at the risk of over-simplifying, if you're expecting anything of value in return -- and this includes other warez or other MP3 files -- it's no longer in the realm of non-commerical. The NET Act was passed about a decade ago, before MP3s were a big thing; I believe its impetus and target was the warez traders.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
I know a person who runs an indie music label. Six employees. Used to be ten, but when sales dropped, he had to lay four of them off. These four people were all hard-working people. They were not coke addicts, nor did they fit any of the other stereotypes that some people like to perpetuate to make music piracy go down smooth and easy. They were young people being paid an hourly wage and struggling to get by in, as you put it, their chosen profession. They chose this profession because of their love of music.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Well, that's not strictly true. There is a class of cdr, which used to be called CDR-DA but I guess they've rebranded them as "Music CDR" that are specially engineered to be compatible with stereo component home CD recorders, like this one from Phillips. I don't know the details of how, whether it's some kind of lead-in or TOC bit that's set, but the Phillips recorder won't record on standard CDR disks.
that's right, if you buy this recorder, and you try to use it to record on a standard blank CDR disk, it won't work.
Don't know why anyone would buy one of these home CDRs, but i used to live with somone who had one, and I bought her a bunch of these CDR-DA disks from Memorex. She made me a couple of copies of some albums she had. Later, after I got all set up with my 120GB RAID and wanted to rip ALL of my CD's so I never need to buy another copy ever again, i learned something else about these disks. Turns out that the DA disks will PLAY in all players, but GRIP/CDParanoia won't let me rip them to MP3 format. The disk is recognized, and it gives me the right track list, and freeCDDB gives me the right artist/track names, but GRIP just... locks up. No dice.
My point is, caveat emptor. Even if they are tagged at the same price, "Music" cd's or anything labeled CDR-DA are intentionally crippled for use with home audio component CD recorders, and while you can use a regular cd burner to record the CD, you might not be able to rip anything from the CD later on.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.