Slashdot Mirror
What The RIAA Gets Out Of File Sharing
ChrisPaget writes "Wired have a fascinating article about a company called BigChampagne which sells regional P2P download statistics to most of the major record labels. When the labels know what people are downloading, they know what to put on the radio, and sales in the area increase. The record industry's lawsuits against file- sharing companies hang on their assertion that the programs have no use other than to help infringe copyrights. If the labels acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs, it would undercut their case as well as their zero-tolerance stance."
files.
to share.
Everyone... go download some Right Said Fred and Spice Girls. Let's see if we can get them back on the radio! I'm Too Sexy for Girl Power!
And using data about which cars are stolen most often to help redesign auto security makes auto theft ok too.
paintball
The RIAA is making the single mother of a 12 year old pay thousands to settle. Does anyone really think that they are just going to allow their plot to be undercut? Clearchannel and the RIAA run a tight squeeze on music and it won't change without some serious consumer action and hopefully federal litigation.
-ad105
If the labels acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs, it would undercut their case as well as their zero-tolerance stance.
I'm sure the RIAA will simply put a new spin on it, in a "we're not monitoring demand, we're monitoring privacy" kind of way. A legit use, but one that doesn't support file-sharing.
having a legitimate use doesn't really have any legal effect. File sharing programs already have many possible legitimate uses. They have already quit trying to outlaw the file sharing software. Guns have legitimate uses, however if I use it to kill somebody that doesn't limit my culpability.
Seriously now, they lose a lot too.
Sure, Joe Shmoe (haha it was funny on spike tv...but the guy looks handicapped so you feel guilty for laughing at him) anyways Joe Blow downloads some obscure song and buys the album...and it increases sales
But 100 other people download albums and burn them instead of buying the CD. It is quicker for me to download and burn an album then to go to the store...and cheaper...so there isnt even much of a reason NOT to (aside from morals...but we all lost those a long time ago).
Lucky I am Canadian...and pay that fee with my blank cds thats lets me more legally do that.
The recording industry is losing a TON, just based on common sense and my personal practices, as well as those I know. "Dont buy that cd! I have it! I will burn you a copy in 30 seconds!"
So, lets still feel a bit guilty, like laughing at the handicapped looking Joe Schmoe...but not guilty enough to stop doing it.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
1- The RIAA can tell what is popular via a digital pulse on the wrist of P2P users.
2- The RIAA pushes stations to play songs that are popular downloads.
3- The RIAA members get listeners in cars and offices.
4- The RIAA members sell more discs.
5- The RIAA sues 12 year olds and tries to slash the wrist mentioned in 1 above.
No wonder there's no:
6- PROFIT!
Trolling is a art,
If the labels acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs, it would undercut their case as well as their zero-tolerance stance
Right, and insurance companies get info on which vehicles are most popular, based on the ones that are stolen more frequently. They can adjust insurance rates accordingly.
Therefore it undercuts their case when an insurance company goes after a thief or vandal to recoup damages they've paid out.
Quit trying to justify widespread copyright infringement. Stations get the same info based on surveys and call-in request hours.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
We kinda already knew this. Many people go out and buy music based about what they download from p2p networks. I myself have done that.
Again though, this isnt in the main stream media so it will make little impact against this constant onslaught of press the RIAA is getting. We need more stories like this to come up on 60mins and the local news to debunk the crap that the RIAA is spewing forth.
I have written to my local news stations around my area about the other sides to many of the RIAA and DMCA related stories and havent even gotten back a form letter reply. I have done this via e-mail and snail mail. Looks like they really don't care to be objective (I know, I know, Thank you Captain Obvious!).
My guess is that they'd be fine with losing this resource if it meant people would stop downloading music that didn't belong to them, but as long as the latter keeps occurring they might as well take advantage of the statistics they can generate from it. Lemons, lemonade.
There are certainly other benefits for the music industry from P2P sharing. For the artists, especially those who aren't part of the small handful of superstars who get massive marketing, it allows their music to be heard. Typically only a few songs by smaller artists are available via P2P, so if there if a downloader who likes the music, they must purchase a CD if they want to hear more. This theory is based only on my own experiences for a dozen or so smaller artists whom I "discovered" through Kazaa and then bought CDs for.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
Lawsuit Filed Against RIAA Amnesty Program
Contributed by Mike on Wednesday, September 10th, 2003 @ 03:00AM
from the coming-from-all-angles dept.
Even more backlash against the RIAA. I'm really surprised that this hasn't gotten more attention. The story is being squeezed in on some copies of the AP report about the RIAA's settlement with the 12-year-old "threat to the future of the music industry", but a California lawyer has apparently filed a lawsuit against the RIAA (warning: PDF file) for their "amnesty program", claiming that it is "unlawful, unfair and deceptive". The lawyer points out that the RIAA does not provide any actual amnesty in their offer. If the offer really is deceptive, then it seems like the sort of thing the government should step in and point out - but it is nice to at least see a lawsuit bringing more attention to the ridiculousness of the amnesty offer. Found via JD Lasica.
I read that as telling ben affleck not to talk like a pirate.
Maybe because Talk Like a Pirate Day is coming up!!!
Arrrr d'er is a mighty fire 'n my belly for downloading dat goobly goop!
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Just let people download all the music they want.
Then, market CDs as gifts...nothing says "I love you" like a new original CD, instead of a home-burned one with a Sharpie-scrawl label. They could even go for the Hallmark market share, or perhaps go into Valentine's candy boxes with a CD inside, surrounded by chocolate. Employees can be rewarded not with a simple "You're #1!" keyring, but a "You're #1!" keyring which is also a mini-CD single with their favorite song!
"Say it with a CD," that's the ticket. Just watch out for proper etiquette: an "I'm sorry honey" CD-bouquet should not include the song "Oops! I Did It Again."
...
A) I am getting this document and all the comments here and putting it aside as my defense if I'm ever accused of P2P downloading of copyright material.
B) Let's just face it, it's the new radio.
C) I'll countersue for obstruction of justice.
The RIAA is getting it both ways. They can use P2P as their own little advertizing mechanism and for demographic research aswell. Plus they can use it as a way to rake in money from the lawsuits that follow.
Have they sued any Time-Warner Customers yet?
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
i can see how they can get indexes of what is being shared by who, but how (do you think) they are able to monitor the queries. i was thinking one of two:
a) sniffing traffic
b) they have deals with kazaa (etc) master servers and get their logs
any other ideas - or facts?
I don't know about you, but to me, YRO posts are the most important out of all tech stories. Privacy and speech are going to be the next huge battles fought in government, and it's going to be a big war, one that we'll all have to fight. I would hardly call any of the YRO posts "minor."
The whole "comparing a study on P2P usage to a study on which cars are stolen" kinda makes any further comemnts on this article moot, but on the subject of filesharing, Napster came out when, 1999?
:D).
I just dug out this PDF showing CD shipments and dollar value "in millions, after net returns"
Singles are sucking and dying (boo-hoo) but album sales (at lest through 2002) were still pretty strong, in fact, in terms of most profitable years, the frontrunners are
1. 2000
2. 2001
3. 1999
4. 2003
All post-filesharing years. P2P doesn't seem to be hurting album sales any, maybe it's time to just give up on singles (they suck anyway and ensure the charts are full of the only faddy pop crap little kids can afford, and apparently 12y/os just download all that these days anyway
What I find interesting is the list of top file swaps. Seems more hip-hop than pop are being swapped (although there is now some overlap). Does this mean that Radio stations should look to change their formats (words in a lot of the songs might prevent that). How many pop stations are in your area vs. true hip hop unless you live in New York or L.A. The top ten list was:
50 Cent P.I.M.P.
Chingy Right Thurr
Black Eyed Peas Where Is The Love
The Ataris Boys Of Summer
Lil' Bow Wow Let's Get Down
Lumidee Never Leave You
Beyonce Knowles Crazy In Love
Christina Aguilera Can't Hold Us Down
Smile Empty Soul Bottom Of A Bottle
Lil' Kim Magic Stick
I always thought that if a band didn't want to have their crap "shared", they should have a level of obscurity in their name and in the titles of their songs.
My band would be called "Jenna", my first album would be called "Jameson", and the songs would go like...
01 - Jenna - Jameson - Blowjob
02 - Jenna - Jameson - Cumshot
03 - Jenna - Jameson - Threesome
04 - Jenna - Jameson - Orgy
05 - Jenna - Jameson - Lesbian
Try to find these on kazaa !
it seems irrelevant if the labels cull trending data from P2P use. I think you would have a very hard time using against them in any way.
The record labels' "case" is that copying their products is against the law. The possiblity that they might extract some incidental compensation from it doesn't undercut their case in the least.
Similarly, if everyone who downloaded a song voluntarily sent 2 cents to the record company, that wouldn't make any difference either.
The record companies are a nasty lot. They illegally fix prices. They corrupt lawmakers. They try to ban useful technologies just because those technologies can be used in ways that are illegal and harmful to their business. They have gained legal powers of search which are an invasion of privacy and ought to be repealed.
But they've called their opponents' bluff and gone after illegal file-sharers, and I've noticed that on slashdot at least, I'm seeing a really poor hand. People don't care about defending freedom or privacy, they just want to copy albums.
It's not the selfishness I object to, it's the stupidity. Even if you do only care about copying albums, can't you see that you'd look better if you pretended to be like me and care about freedom?
How'd they tie the usage to a 12-year-old anyway?
It was my understanding they the RIAA essentially sued whoever's name was on the internet bill. I know when I was 12, I wasn't paying the internet bill, (hell, if I remember correctly, I was just setting up back-to-back free net accounts with the local ISP).
Anyway, did they ACTUALLY sue the 12 year old, or did they sue the mother? I know it ends up being one-and-the-same, but I'm curious.
Anyone who disagrees is clearly a criminal/pirate/terrorist! Mend your ways and submit to RIAA amnesty!=)
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
The RIAA will not take a step back with th rhetoric because they have gained too much power to turn back. With the power they now possess they will soon be a new goverment bureaucracy entitled "Ministry of Sound Sueing".
/.'s only. I'm talking about Joe Average. Everyone will start to boycott and our representatives will also get involved because they will see it as an opportunity to get new votes. The RIAA will have to back off and come up with a "fair and balanced" (don't sue me Fox) approach for copyright infringement.
We all know that everything they have been saying is in direct opposition of what's actually occuring with cd sales. Yes p2p plays a role but it isn't anything near what they claim it to be. The point is the RIAA will take this as far as they can or until the backlash is so severe that they have no choice other than alienating consumers and pissing off the goverment even more.
I will make the following prediction...
Due to the RIAA calous and careless approach on p2p and their so-called loss of sales they will continue to piss off consumers who will then come together in a massive boycott. I'm not talking about
We will beat the bad rap and the RIAA will continue to do business but in a goverment imposed andfair/legal manner.
The goverment has spent billions on the war on drugs and it hasn't done a thing so does the RIAA really think a few lawsuits will stop p2p? As the RIAA's tactics on finding, pursuing, and prodding p2p users come out in the open it will only help coders take it more underground and guarantee our privacy. The RIAA had their chance to make p2p work with Napster in a centralized server setup but they blew their chance and with it the centralization of p2p. Decentralized servers, new anonimity, and a general interest in going more underground are the way now.
The RIAA better enjoy these days because they are the best they're going to have. Reality is going to bite their ass pretty soon...
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
See this page for a peek at the amnesty form the RIAA wants you to fill out.
Wired:
"If the labels acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs, it would undercut their case as well as their zero-tolerance stance."
I'm not so sure. They aren't acknowledging the legitimacy of the programs or their use, they're observing a market that they believe to be illegitimate. Spying on the activity doesn't mean that they endorse it.
The point of that sentence in the article (and it's buried pretty deep, so I wonder why it got bumped up to the summary here) seems to be "why are they fighting KaZaA if they love it so much?" While the information they glean from KaZaA may be valuable to them in many ways, the two markets can only coexist uncomfortably. Nobody will go before a judge and claim that they were doing the labels a favor by not paying for music in exchange for consenting to being watched while stealing it.
I guess my argument hindges on whether Big Champagne is sharing copyrighted files and tracking their download (which would at least dirty the labels' hands) or simply tracking searches (observing the activity, and not participating in it).
Or maybe Big Champagne is responsible for all those mislabeled or dummy tracks.
They've got an interesting position in the debate, though.
No, sharing files is not illegal. What's illegal is sharing somebody else's files without permission. The RIAA wants people to believe that the act of filesharing itself is illegal in order to protect its outdated business model, just like how they want people to equate copyright violations with theft.
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
"Decepticons FOREVER!!!" - Ravage
It's more important to eliminate unnatural laws.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
The RIAA is USING p2p networks to determine which files are popular. USING.
A more appropriate anology would be for General Motors to hire some criminals to hang out with other criminals to figure out which cars are the best and use that aquired data as a marketing tool. ("We spent 3 days with Jimmy Fingers, and man do those dudes love stealing our cars!")
Doing that would be, in part, sanctioning theft by associating with those that commit it.
Thats effectively what the RIAA is doing, if we are to believe their argument that file sharing is theft and not copyright infringment. They're HIRING somebody to use and observe a community and activity they deem is highly criminal.
Then again, the RIAA has acted as if they have been above the law for awhile tho, so this shouldn't really be a surprising development in the whole file sharing issue.
"Old man yells at systemd"
IIRC, the original argument for pricing CDs at triple the going rate for LPs back in the early '80s was that the manufacturers had to recoup R&D costs. And shouldn't 20+ years be sufficient to recoup those costs? Seems to me that the "industry" has been charging grossly inflated prices for years as a group effort...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
By matching partial IP addresses to zip codes
This sucks. When is a P2P app with good speed going to come out with good anonymity?
With all the lawsuits and shit, good ideas and code should be flowing.
Is there a law that we can use to smack the RIAA around for pretending to be a law enforcement agency? The RIAA has absolutely no right under the law to offer amnesty for a crime, and they ought to be smacked to hell and back for trying. Why in all hell isn't the FBI/government all over their ass for this? I mean, if Microsoft said they would offer amnesty to all software pirates, it would pretty much be the same thing. WTF?
06 - Jenna - Jameson - Up the wazoo
When the labels know what people are downloading, they know what to put on the radio, and sales in the area increase.
I wasn't aware that the labels [legally] "put anything on the radio". It probably wouldn't be the best idea for them to build the idea that they do into their business model, since that would be an admission of payola.
Well I was always for P2P since I grab a lot of things other than music, however I would occassionally snag a Supercharger or Hellbillies mp3. But it seems that the majority of people dlowding are grabbing the SHITTY music they keep complaining about. Looking at the site it seems to prove this with the top 10 listed songs/albums including 50 Cent, beyonce, Lil Kim, and every other bullshit artist on MTV. If people stopped lsitening to crap and started only dloading songs from GOOD non-commercialized bands or at least bands that were not the latest-and-greatest-company-endorsed-sings-through -a-voicebox-shows-their-ass-whore "musician" the RIAA wouldn't be sueing 12 years olds or college kids.
STOP MTV MUSIC NOW
Ave Molech Setting
If the Major Lables start reacting to what the public is actualy listening to, instead of trying to convince people to buy a product thaey have produced.
The major problem with most music lables is that they have become manufacturers of music instead of distributers of music.
The RIAA at al. knows that P2P could become the next radio, and they know that p2p is not the real reason for bad music sales. But the RIAA is not really sueing people beceause of loss of sales, it's sueing beceause of loss of control over what people listen to. The RIAA loves radio for the very reason that they can control it (and actualy own it in some cases).
The RIAA/Lables can't "own" p2p or force it play what they want, so they choose to shut it down. I have always thought that the RIAA/lables have been more worried about loss of promotional/playlist control then profits.
Prior to P2P a label could promote the shit out of an artist/group with out them having to be any good, and still be SURE it was going to make a profit. Now the Major labels have to wait and see if the public actualy LIKES the music before it can make a profit.
Natural--Laws against theft of property and murder. Unnatural--Slavery laws. "Intellectual property".
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
What I find to be so horrifically obnoxious about this is not that the RIAA is suing end users (i.e., their customer pool.) They certainly have the right to do so if the defendant was downloading copyrighted materials. It is the apparent lack of due process allowed by the DMCA that causes me worry. What if I am a P2P user, who shares and gets only non-infringing materials, and the RIAA selects me for a subpeona? As far as I know, there are no checks on this system; the only thing the RIAA has to do is attest that I am a P2P filesharer. They don't have to prove anything, much less demonstrate a reasonable suspicion that I am trading in material that they actually own. After I have been subpeona'd (spelling Nazis bugroff, I know it's wrong) and the RIAA has gone through every file I own, they will certainly not elect to sue, but my privacy has been irrevocably and severly compromised without any redress. This I find unreasonable. If I had to pick one word to describe the DMCA, it would be "unfair". Copyrighted material has strong legal protections to guard against and provide redress to infringement, which I consider to be a good thing. I think that the notion of a strong personal copyright is necessarily the foundation of any healthy model of intellectual property. However, the DMCA takes the additional step of providing nearly airtight legal protection to technological methods used to control access to copyrighted materials. This means two things. First, I have to pay $25 for a decryption algorithm that can be printed on a T-Shirt to watch a copy of a movie I own. Second, content distributors are able to region-lock media and hence control pricing. I don't consider these to be beneficial effects, and I don't understand why this level of additional legal protection is necessary. I consider the DMCA to be bad, harmful law, and unless it is repealed, I see a future in which we are free to do less and less with media content that we have purchased.
Errm, don't know why I admit knowing this but... there is a song called 'Girl Power' by 'Shampoo'.
I think you can add that to your list, although I wouldn't want to listen too much of their stuff (can't really call them songs) unless you're into using the music to torture other people (i.e. 'Sesame Street' and a certain detention centre in Cuba)...
..."Uh Oh, we're in trouble. Somethings come along and its burst our..." Arghhhhhhhhh!
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
"I'm using this program to steal your stuff, which gives you valuable marketing information as to what stuff of yours I like!"
If the labels acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs, it would undercut their case as well as their zero-tolerance stance
Why would they acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs ?
They want a complete control over prices and P2P has been causing them woes. Not only that, they have some strong backing from some Senators.
Senators Back RIAA; First Suit Is Settled
They set up a few servers with a bunch of the top songs. They can "share" them to the system because they own the rights.
However, you, the downloader does not have permission to download them.
Any number of scenarios can then be used:
They take the logs of who downloaded from them and hits their shares to see what they have.
monitor the downloads until they have enough from the same addreses to go after that address
They have been aware of sharing for a few years.
Think that is enough time to get some solid data?
I tend to think so.
comment directly in my journal
Something with a very similar effect could be implemented with low tech. A radio station could have a telephone line to accept requests manually, and then such forward looking free thinking radio stations could actually play what people are asking for.
Over here, the morning show on the radio is always logged into Yahoo IM, MSN IM, and AOL IM. They actually accept requests this way as well. Though I'm never in front of a computer when listening to the morning show, but they always talk about it...
On the radio this morning (KROQ, Los Angeles), there was a lawyer for the RIAA talking about the recent lawsuits being brought...
She specifically stated that "while there are valid and legal uses of p2p file sharing..."
It seems like when it suits them, they are willing to accept the existence of P2P programs...
If I am looking at a new car and I take into consideration the amount I am going to be paying in insurance when making my decision, I may choose a car based on insurance rates.
;-)
Since part of the rate determination is based on where said car ranks on the most stolen list, I could buy a $30k BMW (not in the top 100) instead of a $22k Toyota Camry (ranked #1 for 2002) and end up spending the same amount monthly.
In which case I am going to opt for the BMW.
YMMV. No I haven't done an extensive study on this
Old school, 1980s software pirates will remember the golden rule: the Feds don't give a fuck about software, they will run your ass through the ground over porn.
Does that still hold true? I think to a large degree it does. Nobody steals software forever and it had a social benefit of educating a large segment of society. Beyond that, nobody cared because it was done largely among small private groups.
Remember download ratios? It's "keeping it expensive" as Nixon referred to his decision for banning biological and chemical weapons. You need nuclear to be in an elite club. 99% of the idiots downloading today would not have a chance if sysop didn't break the unwritten law of download ratios. Industry wouldn't care about piracy. Neither would the Feds.
*Unchecked* and easily accessible piracy is the problem that industry has, not piracy itself.
Hatch's comments are indicative that the government *still* doesn't care about piracy. They don't want people looking at porn. Porn leads to jackasses acting out and committing crimes. This ain't a troll. Anyone with friends in law enforcement has heard stories of punks that clearly got their cues from porn on the net.
Laws are for people with no friends.
I'm a television student.
Broadcast copy is written in a rather unusual format to make it easy for the on-air talent to read, because believe me, the LAST thing you want is to screw up on air. On-air talent frequently has to concentrate on several things at once (why don't YOU try reading from a teleprompter while listening to the producer in your ear while the floor manager is signaling at you), so the read becomes an automatic process that directly connects their eyeballs to their mouth.
It doesn't go to the extreme of "Em-Pee-Three," but typical broadcast copy might look like:
The R-I-A-A is claiming five (b) billion dollars in damages from file sharing on Kazaa (kuh-ZAH). Slashdot T-V brings you this story and more at 11 o'clock.
Only it's typically all uppercase, but I'm not going to tempt the lameness filter.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
There is a very basic flaw in this car theft = file trading. I don't see MILLIONS of car theives sitting around trading cars with out each other. I don't see these, generally lower income, car theives being potential cusotmers. I also don't see these car theives showing what the actual public demand for any particular automobile.
I'm betting that filer-sharers are mirroring the ACTUAL demand, since the ratio between honest and dishonest is smaller, or nonexistant. Maybe if cars were easier to steal there would be a simular ratio. Cars happen to be physical though, so I doubt thats going to happen.
If your going to make an analogy and stick with it, please find one that FITS. Or better yet, discuss the actual issue, since all analogies are flawed.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
BigChampagne?
"Because the current active audience numbers in the tens of millions, and is made up of highly motivated "early adopters," we have been able to observe close correlations between online interest and offline sales. "
or the RIAA?
"Says an RIAA spokesman: "In our view, piracy is the primary reason for the decline in sales."
I know who I'd tend to believe on that. How about you?
And not to mention the fact that after your car is stolen, you no longer have your car.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
hi,
isn't intercepting and monitoring communictions which were not intended to be sent to you illegal under current wiretap / monitoring statutes? i.e. is what big champagne doing illegal (unless, of course, the P2P networks are allowing them access to this information)?
sTc
Most things worth doing are worth doing twice. -- me I think or was that my boss' methodology?
Not that I think the RIAA's stance is a good one, but I'll take a questionable RIAA over a bad metaphor any day.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Its a group (the RIAA) calling file trading immoral and criminal, and then paying somebody to use file trading in order to beef up their marketing data.
.. the point is, they are associating with the very people they identify as criminals and aquiring self-professed marketing data. Its hypocricy. That's all. Analogies are flawed but useful. They become less useful the more literally people insist on taking them. If somebody can't pick out what parts of analogies a person is relying on to prove their point, and which parts of analogies a person expects you to ignore, they they probably shouldn't be arguing in the first place.
Whether its cars/tv shows/etc
In my example above, it should be obvious that its not important *what* commodity or copywritten work we're talking about, only that a group is associating with the very community it says is illegal to associate with. Whether or not the people in that illegal community are providing you with useful data/service is completely besides the point; at the extreme end of the point, the RIAA is moronic and is wasting their money anyways.
Its not up to somebody pointing out their hypocricy to credit or discredit the likelihood of the RIAA achieving their intended goal of aquiring solid, representative market research, nor is it a particularly relevant or interesting point to think about. Who cares if the the money the RIAA gives these guys is worth the market research they get back. The point is that its hilarious that the RIAA is paying people to interact in the filesharing community they claim is 100% cancerous to their business.
"Old man yells at systemd"
If you listen to a Clear Channel station (how can you NOT listen to one) you notice they play the same 20 songs all day and all night.
I don't know about you, but if I hear the same songs every time I turn on the radio, I have NO need to by the CD. I get burned out on it for free.
If they start using this info and get more artists on the air it can only help. This could increase their ratio of "listeners due to lack of choice" to "willing listeners" and help their advertisement revenue.
It will also help RIAA and non-RIAA affiliated labels sell more records by getting more airplay for lesser known artists. Less total air time for the current top artists would help them not to give away the need to buy while also not making people think of them as annoying.
IMHO, quite a bit of the RIAA's low sales can be traced back to the Clear Channel monopoly.
How can using these P2P statisics be a bad thing?
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
There is no real limit to the number of songs that can be written
Most emphatically false.
Music theory sets a combinatoric limit on the number of possible sequences of discrete notes. Copyright case law sets a limit on how much can be copied before the copying warrants a finding of infringement. Therefore, it's possible to infringe by chance. Please read my white paper about this issue.
Will I retire or break 10K?
but networks like waste are coming with possibilities of saturating your inbound and outbound lines
And getting users kicked off their ISPs for violating the "excessive use" provisions of the typical residential acceptable use policy. Remember that in many areas of the United States, there is one ISP with a monopoly guaranteed by a municipal utility franchise; thus, switching ISPs costs $200,000 to move the whole family to an area served by a different ISP.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"Basically, it means listeners can't get that tune out of their heads - they probably downloaded it after hearing it only once - and radio stations ought to put the track in heavy rotation."
and
' "I threw it into my call-outs, and it was reactive, so we made it a subpower," a song that plays 40 to 50 times a week. '
And the labels just can't figure out why fewer and fewer people listen to radio? For every "Hit" there are 5-10 independents out there with mucic that is just as good. Where is this music? Well the inde's can't cough up $10K-1M to pay the radio stations to play thier songs. (Yea, songs really are not commercials for the album!)
"Allison built a program that sent anyone sharing a Toad song an invitation to join Phillips' mailing list, and they decided that if it looked promising they would start a business. "The opt-in rate was 20 percent!" says Zack's father, Tom. "A good opt-in rate is usually 2 or 3 percent." "
Humm, artists connecting directly with their fans? That means they could get rid of us! How am I going to pay for my new SL500? We must crush P2P! It's about control people, not piracy. The real pirates are stamping cd's and selling them around the world.
"File-sharing is notoriously difficult to monitor, especially since the IP addresses used to track it don't always map to individuals. Jay Samit, former digital media chief of EMI (he recently announced he was leaving to take a position at Sony), says he's skeptical of any reresearch based on IP addresses."
Well, is that an major label executive saying tracking a user by IP doesn't always work? Malfunction - Please report to the RIAA HQ for reprogramming.
"Because AOL works with dynamic IP addresses, Samit notes, the location of its users can't be determined. (The company says that AOL subscribers account for only 15 percent of its information and that it includes them in its national, but not local, data.)"
Humm, so the labels know that AOL customers are sharing lots of music, yet I'm not aware of a single AOL user hit with a subpena. Also, ISP's should switch to some kind of nationwide DHCP service. That combined witht the Boston rulings could keep the RIAA from filling its subpena in the right court. The ISP doesn't have to tell them where the subscriber is under current law. They could just keep saying, nope, wrong district court, try again. nope, not there, try again. Considering they are targeting users in the NE, that could be why AOL was left out. Somebody get this idea to Verizon!
BigChampagne - You don't track me.
Copyprotected CDs - One more reason for me to find a perfectly functional copy on the Internet.
"If the labels acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs..."
A typical search on Gnutella "teen" "mpg" "fucking" "britney" "kournakova" "pussy". Now if we can convince the law makers that we're looking for a teenage tennis playing pop idol who fucking hates cats then we're onto something...
I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born - Ronald Reagan
The "Most Stolen" statistics you see in the paper are almost always in terms of total number stolen rather than percentage stolen. Which means, of course, that the most common cars will almost always top the list of most stolen cars. Unless they REALLY suck, or are REALLY secure.
I looked and looked and looked, and couldn't find anything on the web using numbers that weren't from the same yearly NICB study that deals with total numbers.
If you're bored, you could take the NICB study and dig up the sales statistics from somewhere else, and do the math yourself, but I'm far to lazy today. It would be interesting, though, to know if there are any "popular but never stolen" cars, or any "rare but frequently stolen" ones.
Heavy rotation on the radio stations is apparently directed by recording industry marketing people, armed with statistics. BigChampagne gives these marketing people credibility, so the marketing people can apply more pressure on the radio stations to play what the marketing people want. This isn't about surveying P2P to find out what the radio stations should play, this is about harvesting P2P statistics to get more leverage over radio station play lists.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
I remember reading the book All the Rave on the rise and fall of Napster. Shawn Fanning's whole point of coding Napster, according to the book, is to get people sharing and promoting music freely, and the RIAA coming in to use the Napster network to promote their music and to use this new medium like they do the radio. It was basically Napster deep-sea fishing and capsizing because the RIAA didn't agree with their point of view. Now this company is starting to do something similar to Napster's original idea and hopefully the RIAA will ease up on their subpoena campaign, which is rather similar to someone punching random people in a dark room.
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
I'm pretty sure that legally they could download Kazaa and pay a few people to run it on their computers with correctly sized files & ID3 tags that just feature loops of "do not steal" in the tracks? Then they're not doing a DoS or anything, but if people want to download files, they probably will get a bunch of the RIAAs versions.
If a person leaves there car unlocked, they are not breaking a law if someone steals the stuff inside. Just because you provided access for someone to commit a crime does not make you a criminal yourself.
The fact that you have mp3s or divx movies or anything of the sort on your computer in a folder that is accessible does not make you a criminal.
The NY Times just sued (Read Article) Adrian Lamo for entering a basically insecure network. He did nothing but look to see what was there. Hmm, sound like RIAA?
I don't know about anybody else, but what the RIAA is doing seems very similar. I own many cds, many of which I convert to various formats on my computer to create playlists. Apparently, I can be sued if that file is accessible to people who might want to take them from me.
The question is, if I have a broadband connection without a firewall, am I liable to the RIAA because some hacker might want a couple of songs? They are in fact accessible to some people.
Music should be free, or at least a heck of a lot cheaper than $17 for a cd.
"The RIAA wants people to believe that the act of filesharing itself is illegal in order to protect its outdated business model, just like how they want people to equate copyright violations with theft."
Interesting, I can't believe they'd try something like that. Do you have a citation for that? A link to an article where a representative of the RIAA states something that implies that file sharing is intrinsically illegal?
I think this is largely theoretical, as the P2P networks and copyright violation are fundamentally linked. If, magically, all unauthorized copyrighted files disappeared from the world's P2P networks, the content offered would probably drop to a microscopic percentage of its current size, and so would its usage. Unsigned musicians would still use it to actively get their tunes heard, and /.ers would use it to share GPL and shareware stuff, but Joe and Jane Average Teenager would quickly flee. Companies like Kazaa which have built businesses around P2P would their business model radically changed. Does anybody disagree?
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Well let me then suggest that you have the same problem as a lot of /. readers, which is Boolean thinking.
From the content of your post, I believe you have trouble with the concept of thinking, Boolean or otherwise.
So what if they could survive if they make heavy changes to their business model. Do you think bare survival is all they care about?
To make a business run, you market where the customers are and sell products the customer wants, including packaging in whatever form the customers want. An increasing number of people are getting their new music off the Internet the record companies can't control instead of FM radio that the record companies do control. The RIAA response is to try to make it impossible to use the Internet to distribute content by attacking the companies that promote new technology and individual users using their 0wn3d politicians. If the RIAA labels insist on losing money by not adapting to the present, why should taxpayer money go into shoring up their old business model? If the buggy whip manufacturers had organized RIAA-style lobbying in the 1900s, would there be an auto industry today?
You don't have to go to the Stanford School of Business to know that if you have a business and you want it to do better than survive, you change with the times and adapt to what your markets are doing. An industry that refuses to do this doesn't deserve to survive
You say that file sharing can be made to work for the record industry. Fine. That's your opinion (and a pretty common opinion around here).
The most prominent example I know of with respect to file sharing working for the record industry is the prerelease via P2P of Eminem's latest record a month before the official release date. It went straight to #1 as soon as it hit the stores. While other artists are doing quite well with P2P promotion, they generally are not part of the record industry.
However, I can't think of any good reason to care about the record industry. I care about good music. I care about the people who make it. I don't care about a bunch of suits whose contribution to music is parasitic and who subsidize an organization that attacks new technology and its users. If you support the enemies of new technology, what the hell are you doing here?.
But keep in mind that 5 years ago there were a lot of business cases that were pretty commonly espoused on /. that all turned to shit.
Perhaps you can get IBM to listen to your case as to why Open Source is a failure. Other than that, the worst business models of the 90s by and large were NOT promoted here. Is there anyone on slashdot who did anything but laugh about the $300M put into boo.com , a high-end cosmetics retail sales site? How about the $50M put into Dr. Koop's medical portal? Slashdot =! the vulture capital community. By and large, the dot.com failures can be traced to VCs buying into their own hype. I'm a bit surprised that anyone can confuse the two, but I guess an RIAA apologist is going to have funny ideas about how high tech works.
Why should the RIAA listen to you.
What makes you think I want them to? I believe that the artists and the public are best served if every major label goes from deep shit where they are now into bankruptcy and their assets are sold at fire sale prices to investors who have new business models in mind that don't depend on platinum records to support them and can profit from artists selling 10K albums a year.
In the last couple of years, there is a quote that I see in a lot of people's sigs:
Tech Public Policy stuff