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Recording Industry's Unexpected Benefit from P2P
Matthew Schultheis writes: "Yahoo / AP is reporting that the record industry is using the files traded on Kazza et al. to track where music is popular. It turns out that they even pay for this information. 'It's the most vast and scalable sample audience that the world has ever seen'" Now if they could only use this data to somehow put out better music...
Razor-sharp irony kills 3, wounds 25.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
You already know what I'm going to say so I don't really need to post it. (The Irony)
So they are sueing us for downloading but yet useing the stats of our downloads? Sounds hypocritical to me.. This really goes to show you that corperations and selfish organizations will stop at nothing to make a profit.
-Here we are now, Entertain us.
They certainly aren't paying the users that do the filesharing! So how exactly is this fair?
We could abuse this: Everyone, start sharing plenty of Polka, 80's pop, and Barney. Now lets talk about targeted marketing!
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
I think "Hey Ya!" by Outkast is one of the best songs I've ever heard in my life. Your tastes may be different though.
The RIAA is like a roach. You try killing it, but it never dies
MY SECRET DIARIES
So they treat it like it's a child porn network in their PR statements and then turn around and find a way to make money off it.
That's big business for you.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
P2P is just like radio, only the people actually listen to music they _like_ instead of shit that the stations are payed to pimp out as top 40? Fucking amazing. These guys are geniuses.
We're being sued for dling the music - yet, at the same time - they're making profits from the research!?
IRONIC!
Where have we seen this before?
Doh!
Beyond a shadow of a doubt I buy more music now that I am able to download MP3's. Their methods are antiquated. That is the problem. I bought a Depeche Mode CD because I had recently downloaded a bunch of songs recently. Get over it.
I have absolutely no legal background (that statement goes way beyond IANAL), but I'm sort of thinking that benefitting from a crime must be illegal. If the RIAA considers filetrading (of their copyrighted files) to be illegal, and the legal system agrees, then nobody should be using that data to then profit.
(Just as we do not, for ethical reasons, use information that the Nazis gleaned from their experimentation on the Jews in World War II. Clearly the magnitude is nowhere near the same, but the underlying ethical principle is similar.)
I mean...profiting from illegal actions, right?
Blar.
work on creating a community site where bands can pay $5-$10 a business quarter to be listed with samples that can be streamed, that connects the bands to venues for say..... 5% of the proceeds and that lets users post comments about the band and rate their music? Then said label gets out of the old business of being a content producer and a service company for musicians providing them everything from merchandising to recording studios to instruments to music software? Basically become a service/product Walmart for musicians and fans as opposed to the current model of milking bands for records.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Naah. They'll use it to reduce the quality of the music down to the 'most efficient level', whereby the quality of the music is just above the level at which it stops selling.
...why is it the only thing people want to pirate? According to Slashdot logic, if the music is bad, so no one would want it even for free. There's only two assumptions then, according to Slashdot.
1) People like bad music.
2) People are stupid.
Of course, the typical Slashbot could never think that people may just like RIAA music and not care what some geeks think. Their elitist ego could never allow this concept.
..though as I recall, it works the opposite way. The accuser has to be guilty of an *actual* crime in order to have their case thrown out for this reason.
.. :)
For example, if RIAA was cracking peoples' computers, deploying worms and viruses, etc. in order to locate communist filesharers, then they tried to sue those people, they would be guilty of "unclean hands" since they committed a crime in the process of discovering the infringements.
IANAL, but hopefully someone around here is and can clear this up under the guise of "this is not legal advice"
"Now if they could only use this data to somehow put out better music..."
Have you ever *looked* at what's commonly shared on p2p networks? The crap! For every host sharing Rush, there's at least 100 sharing insipid boy bands, Creed, Nickleback, POD, 50 Cent, and all the rest of the stuff you already hear too much of on the radio. If anything, this is going to lead to *worse* music being released.
...to think otherwise would be foolish. They know that most people won't even be aware it's going on, and that aside from the /. crowd, nobody will make any noise about it.
-Joe
Be careful how you spell it, Kazza is a recording industry frontend where you fill a form with your name and e-mail address. You probably mean Kazaa.
In my opinion, this is all the more reason to boycott their products. They're obviously benefiting from what we're doing, and yet showing no signs of gratitude for what basically amounts to a service we're providing them. Yes, I know it's of questionable morality to download music, I know some consider it stealing, but...is it any better for them to go and sue 12-year-olds, then turn around and use the statistics from what people are downloading for their own ends? If for no other reason, I'd boycott them for the hypocrisy that they're displaying. Just this slashbot's $0.02
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
What if they leaked news that they were watching the downloads to see what people were downloading, just so people would stop.. out of spite? It would seem like a really good idea, seeing as how many people have stoped buying cds from the RIAA. What ever they touch, dies it appears.
-Here we are now, Entertain us.
Goto's should be avoided in programming. So far, it has gotten this story posted 4-5 times already within the last few months.
has been around for a little while . . .
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/fileshar
Stop telling us how ironic this is. It's not. It's just fsckin' sad.
This is a dupe of the same information from so many weeks ago I can't even be bothered to search for it.
I want to believe these CEOs and lawyers were once human beings.
Unfortunately, it all started going downhill for them when their temper tantrums brought Mommy and Daddy running to slacken their every discomfort. The rest, as they say, is history...
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
I suppose it's fair because the filesharers aren't paying them either? I still disagree with their double standard of suing/using the data.
"For every host sharing Rush, there's at least 100..."
Are you implying that Rush is good music? Or even music for that matter?
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
...sex sells, even when it's underage. I wish I were kidding.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
well i guess the issue would be is that they have to prove that the RIAA invested money into things such as KAZAA which they tried to shut down. Then you could have some fun.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
First they scrape up as much marketing information they can get from you, then they sue you.
RIAA: "Hi. We caught you stealing our music. But our market research shows that you will be more than willing to give us a blank check. Thank you for your selection."
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
It's true! I've just found it in their records! We could save millions of lives if it wasn't so evil and wrong to use the research!
trying to prove that P2P had no substantial no infringing use. Case closed.
But then there's also the first part of the above sentence -- the world as it is now features p2p and music sharing. Even if this isn't the world as they want it, they need to figure out how to exploit it as best they can. Hence, makethe most of (from their perspective) a bad situation, and mine p2p for some useful data.
They're trying to maximize their profits. If there's money to be made scouring p2p data then they'll buy the research, but just because they are scavenging some benefit out of it doesn't make it hypocritical for them to want it to go away .. it just makes them pragmatic.
Right. I sudder at thinking what you DO call music...
"When someone plops down 99 cents to buy a single, that shows a higher level of interest than just getting it for free," Welt said.
As any 1st year marketing major could tell you, this data will not be as useful as one might imagine. Knowing who wants a product (in this case, a CD) in no way relates to knowing who is willing to pay for a product. Some consumers want Ferraris; not all of them will buy one (for reasons of Price). Without a clear way of associating user names with demographic or psychographic data, this will not even help to more clearly define the target audience for an artist. All this data represents is the number of computer literate people who are actively sharing a song; this may or may not be related to whether they actually enjoy the song; this may or may not be related to whether they would/could pay for the song; this may or may not be related to the fake files that are being posted on KaZaa (that song's popular? Shove a couple thousand fakes online; discourage lots of people). Move along people, nothing to see here...
Webmaster Wanted - Entropic Reactions
What kind of editor comment is "Now if they could only use this data to somehow put out better music..."??
Yes, that's right, you read it on Slashdot -- EVERY SINGLE CD the RIAA puts out is shit!
Why can't we mod the editors down for trolling in THEIR posts? Sigh.
So far the music industry has found some very popular music files, such as:
b kgrnd_Everclear.mpeg.mp3
Britney_Exposed_2pen_fist_squirt.mpg.mp3
2on1_
Thank you, I'm here everynight.
I thought everyone was *deleting* their music?!?!?
You hear it all the time - and, most of the time, actually no, it isn't. Hypocritical and/or cynical, more likely.
prof. hojo
It would seem like the RIAA using data collected from file sharing systems to do something other than sue filesharer's would have some kind of legal implication.. giving tacit approval for filesharing, etc.
I've downloaded dozens of songs today alone... to whom do I address my bill for services rendered?
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
Reduce the quality of music? My good man/woman, what gave you the idea that they are currently producing a standard of music that is greater than or equal to the 'most efficient level'? I'm shocked by such a notion :O.
"It wouldn't be very smart if we weren't looking at what they're doing."
Took them long enough to figure that one out...
What? Not piracy? Then why in the world would they want to kill a system that is so beneficial to them?
Because of a problem that they consider bigger than piracy: The growing number of independant artists, many of whom are becoming increasingly popular. Yes, that's right folks. The RIAA doesn't want to protect its poor artists from the piracy that is putting them in the poorhouse. On the contrary, the RIAA is the one putting its poor artists in the poorhouse. No, no, no, folks. The RIAA is doing this to take business away from the artists that the RIAA is incapable of putting in the poorhouse, because it is incapable of stealing their money, because they didn't sign their soul over to the RIAA.
That, my friends, is why the RIAA wants to kill filesharing.
I shutter to think that you two fools insult a band that had one of the greatest drummers of all time in it...apparently quality musicians aren't important to music today...
is that even without the Profit! factor, there's a promotional aspect to Free Stuff(TM).
The concept is hardly new, I suppose, but worth remembering. Maybe it's time that a company like Adobe considers asking their acccountants to calculate a Goodwill book value for all the warez copies of their software being distributed that have encouraged users (myself included) to buy what they got hooked on using when it was free cough Red Hat cough.
The legal system does have rules that a person cannot benefit from his crime. That does NOT prevent others from benefitting, thought. Just look at Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of the mansom family. He made his reputation and a LOT of $ off of the murders. But he didn't commit them, so to our legal system, that's ok.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Rush sucks. Find somebody sharing some Fog, Unholy Ghost, 137, The Accursed, Dreamscapes of the Perverse, etc., and you'll be onto something worthwhile...
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
I enjoy music which has taste, thought and doesn't try and be a calculated mess of obnoxious, cluttered, boring drool. If you want to break your bad addiction to music created for people who "miss the point" then check something like ESG, Wire, Talking Heads, The Clean, Young Marble Giants, Chris Clark, Muziq, Seefeel or even Devo and/or Berlin...yes, Berlin. Any of the artists I have listed have more integrity and intellect in an 8000 bit sample of any of their music than Rush could ever even accidentally come up with by some fluke of writing so much bad music that eventually an accidental good song came to together,... maybe. Good luck listing to crap and believing it's any better than the piss you mentioned that is played on the radio.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Shut the fuck up Cliff, we don't need your stupid comments in every freaking story. The quality of music is still there, OF COURSE it might not be what your 13years old daughter listens to, or what's on the radio, and NO they will NOT improve that stuff because it SELLS.
EOM
Yeah, and while we're at it, we can go after people that compile crime statistics for a living, since technically they're profiting from illegal actions too, right?
Duh...
evil adrian
REPEAT STORY
..ah, fuck it. Lick yo daddy's sack yah douche.
Blar.
will we be seeing subpoenas for people who stop searching for content? Will this be "stealing a valuable source of information" from the RIAA? (much like you steal everytime you timeshift ads or block popups)?
And in unrelated news, the RIAA announces new product lines featuring Barney, based upon p2p information showing everyone is searching for Barney products. They are baffled when two weeks later not a single item has sold...
Yup, I was just going to say the same thing.
Since this story is a dupe, it's time to go a bit OT... Has anyone else heard similar RIAA propaganda being used as a promo for free CD giveaway contests? One of the rock stations here in Orlando, FL (USA) has been doing a "Win it before you can burn it" contest. It starts out something like:
"This is Billy. Little Billy is doing five to ten for downloading music from the Internet."
And proceeds to pretty much play off prison rape humor (which usually doesn't get taken well on Slashdot when someone posts a "federal pound me in the ass prison" joke) about a young guy getting busted for piracy and being thrown in a pound-me-in-the-ass prison, complete with "I dropped the soap" jokes. One of these days I need to connect my computer to the radio and record it to post it online. (Ah, the irony)
At any rate, it seems like they're poking fun at people who download music, but it's a bit toung-in-cheek, almost as if they do kinda feel the RIAA is overreacting. I'd be interested in hearing if other people have heard similar propaganda on their local radio stations, and what your thoughts are...
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
If telephones had never been broken up, would we have ever had cellphones today except maybe in Europe? A powerful media outlet company has even more and broader powers than other sorts of monopolies, because of better access and because they're business is controlling what people want and think. I truly don't think that the music industry is evil, but they're as inertia-bound as any other large incestuously linked series of codependent corporations. If suing customers and softcore porn Britney clones make shareholders happy then thats what we get.
Now there's an idea, we could create a company that indy groups pay to have their songs spike higher in the download charts. Nothing illegal about it (well Kazaa's owners might not like it), since you wouldn't actually download the files. Ahhh, to toy with the minds of the RIAA, it'd be such fun. :)
Also, with these lawsuits going on, isn't that also going to affect the sample pool (by selecting out those computer savvy enough to change their shared folders, and increasing the proportion of people outside the USA)?
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Technical brilliance, although with some merit such as how a dancing elephant is a fun trick to watch, is probably the last attribute of artistry and musicianship I would ever keep. At the end of the day it's about how you use your instrument to push the envelope of art. It's about ideas. Not to mention drummers should have good rhythms and Rush is pretty much a few guys playing ridicules progressions with sterile rhythms. This is good? I can think of 100 drummers, both acoustic and drum machine based, that will come up with better rhythms than Mr. Pert. And they wouldn't be subjectively better. Your ass would be dancing like you never thought your white legs could be before, baby.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Amazing how music 'gurus' always say their band is what is so different and amazing about music.
I'm gonna give you an example of a band that gets radio attention yet is musically talented enough to shun the 3:30 long song, boring repetativeness, and lackluster vocals: Tool. The band itself isn't exactly a revolution to the music industry but what they play is certainly better than Talking Heads. I don't care if some band has tried to play what no one else will play...that's not saying anything. Are Stevie Ray Vaughn and Eric Clapton known because they did stuff no one else did? No, they are known for the same reason Jimi Hendrix is...they are GREAT AT PLAYING THEIR INSTRUMENT.
Gimme a bunch of guys/gals who can play their music well (caveat: they must explore their talent, not play the same song every damn track) anyday over some lame band that thinks it defines what music should be just cause it can pick up something, jam out what you don't hear on radio, and act like it is the holy grail.
I have absolutely no problem with the labels making money by other means off of products we're recieving- and don't forget it -for free. In fact, I'd wager that the more money they make through these secondary revenue sources, the less likely they're apt to turn around and bite the hand that feeds em. We're breaking down the Berlin wall here, folks. Of course, I'm sure what they do make isn't anywhere close to $15 a CD, but it's a step in the right direction towards weening them off an archaic sales model.
Sure they're hypocritical. So is communism until it eventially fails because of all the capitalism playing behind the scenes. It might take time, but they'll wisen up. Eventially. Hopefully.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
they jail us for crimes yet they still analyze crime data! hypocrisy!!! [/chickLittle:JerkKnee]
The truth doesn't care what I think.
Is rhythm all that matters? I can go into a dance club and find horrible europop-like music that has more rhythm, but that doesn't make it better music. That only makes it better for dancing.
Your "big star" not getting enough air time? Better shove back those album releases and see about hyping something with the networks. Is there a great band you've got a promo of that doesn't look "hip" or fit into tight leather pants? Better see if you can find something similar, but prettier. Oh, and see if you can't get someone to gloss over the "rough edges" or maybe even work in something a little more controversial. Maybe a sixteen year old girl in a porn video would work, as long as she can bring in the green.
I'm sure I'm exaggerating and being overly cynical. Of course I'm not saying that I'm better than the rest of Slashdot and then calling everyone elitist either, so at least I'm not being hypocritical.
ironic that this post gets modded down as a troll instead of funny. jews are so sensitive to any critisism and expect everyones absolute support and for WW2 sympathy to continue forever. GET OVER IT!
Sex? Avril Lavigne?
I thought they were mutually exclusive? Or have you had a few beers?
So basically since they have been threatening to sue the ISPs for profiting from illegal business, they could basically now sue themselves for profiting from [what they consider to be] illegal business.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Unfortunately, this is a repeat to a degree. You can see the original here
MacJedi is completely right and needs to get that point across. Many of the experements that the Nazi's did are still sealed away.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Don't joke about that, man, bunnies still scare the shit out of me ever since that killer rabbit incident.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I don't think there's a lack of good music being recorded - I think there's a lack of good music being marketed.
For every John Coltrane or Cibo Matto or Ani DiFranco song being downloaded over P2P, Britney Spears is being downloaded at rates 100 times more. Do you know how difficult it is to find the Seatbelts' (Yoko Kanno's soundtracks for Cowboy Bebop) music over P2P? And Bebop's a relatively popular anime over here. What about music that doesn't have that sort of avenue to market itself? I suspect the "better" music isn't being downloaded.
And the stats the recording companies get show that, which reinforces the audience's "obvious need" to see Britney chasing Madonna around a bedroom in a video. Thus, they continue to market said brand of music, and we continue hearing it and thinking we want it.
If you want to see the market shift to "better" music, then this is a case where you have to get people to not only download things over P2P, but to make sure that they buy the albums they like (yes, I said "buy" because even the little labels and the self-published artists are spending money to record - it's not free (yet)). That will help bring better music to the marketplace, but I doubt we will ever see a truly diverse popular music scene...
Granted, there are many bands that think because they make noise it must be better than what is on the radio. I see past these bands. Bands such as Paris Texas and a host of other Emo/Hard-Core sets come to mind. Not to mention the thousands I luckily have never heard.
As for Tool, yeah, they're pretty good and an instance of when radio, Mtv and the RIAA actually get it right by fluke I imagine, sometimes. I would disagree they are better than Talking Heads, but why fight every battle?
As for other notable good groups off the radio, Weezer comes to mind off the top of my head.
As for people being GREAT AT PLAYING THEIR INSTRUMENT, there are many people who go unheard of that are GREAT AT PLAYING THEIR INSTRUMENT. It's how you define GREAT AT PLAYING THEIR INSTRUMENT though. Art is defined by ideas, not on algorithmic, technical expertise. Although it is neat when someone is that good at it, such as Randy Rhodes, it's not always something to really use as ammunition for why a certain sonic blend is good or not.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
" Now if they could only use this data to somehow put out better music..."
... when they see that half the world's downloading Eminem and Britney what do you think they're gonna do, put out something revolutionary and genre-bending?
Better music? No no
Hah...
Who doesn't like free music?
Good rhythms don't have to be danceable. It's hard to describe, in words, what a good rhythm is however. I can listen to subtle drums or even no drums with good base holding it down and it's beautiful. Obviously, it's the whole blend that's important, and really a large topic that can be debated many ways with probably no one winning, or losing for that matter. It's right when it's right and what Mr. Purt does, although neat and fast, is ultimately boring, over-bearing and simply tasteless.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
making the best of a bad situation.
Yes it's terrible some of these things happened but it would be even more tragic if we refused to gleam some good out of it. They would have been tortured and murdered purly for evil. Many people died in horrific ways but because of the information many more are saved. If I'm going to be tortured I'd certainly hope something good and useful was learned in the process.
I'd roll in my grave if the cure to cancer was found by committing some horrific experiments on me and society refused to take advantage of it. I'd also roll in my grave if those who committed the horrific acts (and those who encouraged them) weren't seriously punished and denied any and all financial reward from their discoveries.
There's nothing hypocritical about it.
I'd be more surprised if the RIAA wasn't trying to get something good out of this situation.
It has exactly zero to do with condoning the rampant piracy.
There's nothing wrong with making the best of a bad situation. There's something seriously wrong with you if something bad happens and you just whine about it and play helpless victim.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
the RIAA's actions are only designed to give them the monopol clear channel has on FM, to P2P. Its all bullshit really, the harder they fight the more their profits go down.
Huh? What are all those names?
What ever happened to the Backstreet Boys?
I hope everyone understands why I'm posting this anonymously..
Associated Press / Yahoo! News today announced a licensing deal with Slashdot.org(r), where AP/Yahoo! would get Slashdot(r) Dupe Generator (tm) software license to be used for AP/Yahoo news generation.
"This will effectively double up our content", CEO of Associated Press confirmed. "Readers won't miss the news anymore, and public will be more informed as a result of this licensing deal".
Slashdot(r) Dupe Generator(tm) has been tested on Web's popular destination, Slashdot.org(r) News for Ners. Stuff that Matters, its founder, Rob Malda said. "We feel great about licensing Dupe Generator to Associated Press, as it literally allows the site to effectively double up its content without hiring additional staff".
Stock of AP/Yahoo! news went up 0.24% that day, while Slashdot went up 1.94% on announced deal.
Couldn't they just look at the download logs on their servers serving fake songs?
Until he expresses support for a Palestinian state, you can't call him an anti-semite.
people who share their entire hard disk on Kazaa, this could result in the production of the Biggest Hit Song of All Times...
The name would be somewhat like explorer.exe...
"Hell hath no fury like a hippo with a machine gun."
This is a repost from a while ago.
And besides, is anyone really suprised by this? It makes perfect sense, when you stop to think about it.
Jeremy Baumgartner
For once, I am going to have to side with the RIAA. Don't you DARE think this is goign to become a habit! Anyhow, just because there is an unexpected benefit form illegal filesharing doesn't make it right to share files. Don't get me wrong - i share files 24/7, and I am proud to do so. That doesn't mean i think it is ethical.
Learn about Photography Basics.
I dunno, but I might just be willing to give them all the marketing data/interviews they need if I didn't have to worry about lawsuits or anything like that and got to continue to download all the free music I want.
Oh wait, they can get the marketing data AND sue us, so I guess its more profitable that way.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
So does this mean their going to start giving people money to use kazaa rather then suing them? Haven't they been telling the RIAA that file sharing is actually boosting revenue rather then taking away from it?
Unfortunatly, that will leave many people out of music entirely. If music beomes a mono-culture, then by that standard, diversity dies. The religeous folks are not interested in Eminem even though he is on the top of the file trading list. Not everyone is interested in derogatory foul language rap. Fine, the Reality TV / shock TV crowd may buy it for a while, but as they mature, there will be interest in other music. Let's face it, just how much George Carlin type humor do you buy? Eminem is just this year's pet rock/cabbage patch/furby/etc. The novelty of the trash talk does wear off. Just because he is the top traded item doesn't mean the market will bear 150 copy cat artists any more than pet rocks expanded into other pet items like pet golf balls, pet lolly pops, pet turtles, etc. Trash rap is a novelty. Don't expect following acts to have the same popularity.
The truth shall set you free!
why not make it so the industry gets it for free if ppl can continue to get "free" content for it? After all, it isn't pirating, it's sampling now.
ok, see if I get this right:
they are suing us for downloaded their music,
and paying us for giving them statistics which music we download......so if we just manage to make sure that we charge enough money for the statistics so we can cover the costs for the law suits we will break even.
hey, maybe we can sell stats what p0rn people downloads to the porn industry, and make money on that.....brilliant, where is the Patent application form, this is once-in-a-lifetime invention......................
Check out musicmobs. It only works for people with iTunes and it's brand new (live as of about half a week ago) but it's goal is to help promote music that people actually listen to.
So there you have it. Now you can cut the RIAA out of the loop entirely.
please just fuck off.
...of a story over 2 months ago, about the same company. That one was on Wired and had more information.
Their latest albums are crap (the latest one maybe shit too), but they made great music between the mid 70s and the mid 80s. Get everything until "Hold Your Fire" (included) and ignore everything else.
The only thing I dislike about them other than the ugly music they make (now) is the angry attitude of Geddy Lee about filesharing: they're mainly a fan band; fans usually buy their albums (I've bought all of them except the latest one, Vapor Trails, downloaded (and soon to be deleted) because it's too ugly to spend even a buck for the recordable CD.
Good fan bands can only get benefits out of filesharing; I've discovered lots of great bands that FM stations will never air, and I buy their CDs when I can find them.
Maybe Rush are considering making crappy music in the future; p2p, like open source, is an extremely efficient filter that doesn't help selling bad ideas.
gotta marvel at the RIAA's ability to come up with new and innovative ways to shit all over us. just when I though I couldn't possibly be more disgusted with the recording industry, they come up with something new. the funny thing is, though, that the joke is still on them... I haven't bought a single CD in at least four years, and I really don't think that there's anything they can do to stop P2P, much less illegal music sharing in general. Any digital media which you are able to play back using a PC is inherently not copy-proof, and short of storming my home and confiscating my machine and my cable modem, I just don't see how they can actually stop me or anyone else from swapping music with someone else.
- unitzero Who needs sleep, or food, or daylight, or human interaction, when you have a handful of ritalin.
I wonder if they've learnt to mask out the garbage files that they've flooded the network with, or if they're like "People love hearing Madonna curse at them... we should release a single". Or maybe they'll think people like getting random crap that is nothing like how it's labled and start shipping CD's in mis-labeled packaging. Or better yet they're probably just trying to get into the record books for most duplicates on slashdot.
If they want to benefit from it they should make it legitamate
It will never cease to amaze me how slow and plain stupid these companies are. They had the best shot at this ever when Napster existed. They sued the pants off them. Then they had an even better chance with Audiogalaxy (IMO the best of all the music sharing communities ever, nicest solution and best "supply") and then got rid of them.
They're lucky that they got another chance with Kazaa, but what they should have done in the past was to acquire Napster or Audiogalaxy, not do anything to shut it down, but instead keep it running until they found out a nice way of making money off of it. In the meantime, they would have unlimited access to all statistics and information on which music is popular on a scale never previously imagined.
Instead, they just keep shutting them down until all networks are underground and with no central source of track listings what so ever.
:wq!
Featured by Wired back in September:
a re .html
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/filesh
"BigChampagne is Watching You
In fact, they're tracking every download and selling the data to the
music industry. How one company is turning file-sharing networks into
the world's biggest focus group."
This also crossed my mind, but the poster was talking specifically about the experiments using Jews in the death camps. Von Braun, although a card-carrying party member, never took a direct role on it.
Nevertheless, most of the early space race (and the early Cold War arms race as a whole) was actually a game played between "American" German scientists and "Soviet" German scientists. Nazi or not, none of those were ever prosecuted for anything that happened during the war, by either side of the Allies.
Wired magazine ran this same story 2 months ago. All the stuff about how P2P is the worlds largest focus group, and on and on. Glad it finaly made it to /.
That just prooves how useless the recording industry has become, their only purpose in life is to drive arogent rich people to studios and back to their hotels and then to hype what ever they sing, The internet is a million times better at that job, even one big website could handle most major musicians. There would be no middle-man to take profits and anyone that the public actually liked would be spread by word of mouth and would have packed concerts. You could even order the limo online - total job redundancy to the RIAA.
There are afew such websites around i think but no major (as in RIAA mainstream) musicians are involved so its shadowed by the big guns, and because most RIAA musicians are in it #1 for the money (people dont dream of being famous on some website they dream of being on every tv and having shit loads of cash, i know i do). Interesting things have a habit of spreading around the internet quickly (memepool), ie. people are always sending eachother links to the latest flash game that lets you slap bush etc, and interesting things could easily include music so if you did start a band and produced music that everyone liked whats to say you couldnt make it big in afew weeks just through word of mouth and email?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I believe that solidarity is often used to justify selfishness, where no solidarity is needed. We all have limited resources. It's not as if non-selfish people are characterized by helping everybody to get everything that everybody wants.
testing out my trending skills
Does anyone know what sort of mehtods they are using to do this? Is it some kind of scripted kazaa or some built in house app?
A few weeks back I pointed a friend to the creative commons website, so that he could look up information on copyright and see how it was moving forward. He was quite surprised and glad to see that things aren't the way he knew them to be in that area.
The same happens with musicians. They don't tend to know about this. Especially young, talented people who don't necessarily get much chance to get on the internet. I remember as a teenager I would read in all the music magazines about the dream of one day being signed to a major. Nowadays to me that means mostly negative things - problems. Like a big bank loan and surviving on gigs, giving away your rights etc. But to others the dream goes on.
Is there a good URL to point people to so that they can get clear concise guidance on why *not* to sign for one of the RIAA companies? Or even that showed what the options are, and examples of people like Ani DiFranco or companies like magnatunes and how to achieve their musical dreams and still avoid bad business decisions.
The URLs I find are always centred on how bad the RIAA is, or on the consumer side but there isn't to my knowledge a good musician centred site...
Ale
So now the recording associations are going to think that the following is their most popular artist. teen anal cum xxx hot God help the record stores when a kid asks for that!
-- Do not bite the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
I agree mod this up!
The Nazi experiments were mostly producers of trash data- a scientific cover for the worst kind of torture. The only worthwhile scientific trials done in the camps were a few pharmaceutical studies for Bayer. The rest were utter garbage, such as attempting to change a Jew's eyes into an Aryan blue with chemical injections.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
"Stop fucking direct marketing!"
Have you seen my stapler?
You have the biggest mullet in all the south, don't you?
This story is pretty old. It even looks like the same summary almost word for word.
It is unethical to rail against those who trade music and at the same time gain an advantage from that same trading.
Blar.
It is. How does Slashdot justify its own mistakes?
This article is a dupe...that comment was posted there
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/10/154122 2&mode=nested&tid=141&tid=187&tid=188&tid=98&tid=9 9
Unfortunately, Eminem has been extremely popular since his major-label debut in 1999. He's not going anywhere any time soon.
I'm on top of my game like I'm standin' on Xbox.
I think you missing a huge point in most of your posts in this topic...being great at playing an instrument is NOT exclusive to just having technical expertise. It's about feeding your emotions through an inanimate object. When someone says guys like Clapton or Flea or Neil Peart or Ben Folds or Edge or Grohl (et cetera, et cetera) are great at playing their instruments, it's not just because they can hit all the right chords or drum with percision...it's because they poor their soul into their instruments.
You may not like Rush (I'm not a fan, but I like them) but you're really in no position to criticize them or their fans.
You can list all the prententious bands you want...it doesn't make you some kind of music expert. The simple fact that you "see past" those bands proves it. I don't automatically dismiss a band because because some wise-ass like yourself neatly packages it into some ridiculous genre (let's face it...genres ARE ridiculous). It may sound like noise to you, but some of these guys are writing some very interesting lyrics and many of them have actually made their own unique sound.
But you probably wouldn't understand unless you've been out there on stage in front of a bunch of strangers pouring out your soul in the hopes you can touch just a few people. All the while prentitious assholes sit on the sidelines, critiquing your every note like it's a fucking doctoral thesis.
without advocating piracy, I'd like to point out a few facts about downloading music: (these points do NOT apply to assholes that sell pirated music in bulk)
-not unlike the whole "if a tree falls in the middle of the forest, does it make a sound?" argument, it is impossible to *harm* an artist or label by downloading and listening to a song you would never consider buying in the first place. however, you are most definitely harming the artist/label by downloading the new album put out by your favorite band that you would buy if it were not for your ability to download said album.
-The labels, while carrying on about harm to artists, demostrate very little care towards the artists. if the label cared more, they would certainly be paying artists a more appropriate royalty per cd. from everything I know, *normal* artists make anywhere from $0.01 to $0.10 per cd. this obviously doesnt apply to self-published artists and superstar artists who have long since passed their first contract.
-The artists have historically been unable to fill an entire album with decent material. There isnt a single person out there that hasnt bought a cd after hearing a song or two and found the rest to be crap. this really lends itself to people wanting to hear more than the current radio single before forking out $20 for a cd.
-there are people who dont feel obligated to pay for another copy of a cd that was stolen from them, or for that cassette they purchased 10 years ago. if you paid the price for an album once, why in the world should you pay it again? we know it's not media costs!!
just things to think about...
In short, while the people downloading may not be the ones purchasing; they may still be spending money on other merchandise or concerts. Or perhaps the music hasn't reached their particular price point yet. (This last point is big for me... I can't justify spending $50 for a videogame, but when it gets down to $30 I really start to consider it.)
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Next on slashdot, there was a WAR in IRAQ!
That's great that they're paying attention to what IS getting shared and considering it a target market but...
P2P file sharing isn't necessarily a matter of people listening to what they would buy, but often stuff they WOULDN'T buy because they don't want to spend $18 on a CD and be disappointed by it's content. The fact that they downloaded it doesn't mean they inherently like it.
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Domain name- KAZZA.COM
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Created- 1997-08-08 00:00:00
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Registrant Contact-
CBS Kazza
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these stats do seem pretty bogus. a buggy servent could cause a spike in stats while successful shares create less of a stir. the stats they're getting are very gross grain. fucking them up (as long as you fuck up fasttrack, not gnutella, thanks) could be interesting/amusing.
don't exonerate yourself; given the situation, we're all guilty
Um, no. Given the situation, most of us will go along to get along, because we have been thoroughly conditioned from childhood on, particularly in our schools, then later to an even greater degree in much of our "corporate training" (ever attend business "bonding" camps or "motivational speaker" conferences? They are almost all exclusively designed to undermine one's individuality and replace one's ego with a virtually mindless loyalty to "the group"...all the while telling you the opposite, and making you out to be a coward if you have the courage to stand up and say "No, I won't conform to this idiocy!"), to do precisely that.
But not all of us succumb completely to that conditioning.
There were a sizeable number of people in Nazi Germany who stood up and resisted the Nazis. In every group, from students, artists, intellectuals to low-wage workers there were those who resisted the Nazis, who helped Jews and other persecuted minorities flee the authorities, and who actively tried to get the word out about the atrocities to the apathetic German public of the day.
Many were caught, and most of them murdered, but that in no way negates the fact that they stood up and were NOT guilty, despite the untenable situation in which they found themselves. If you check the last study you cite, you'll find that while the vast majority did indeed press the button to inflict pain per the Doctor's orders, there were those (an admittedly small number) who did not.
Indeed, if more of us could find such courage, be it in the workplace or in our political lives, our society wouldn't be in nearly as appalling a position as we find ourselves in today.
Winners may write the history books, but that doesn't mean what they say isn't true, or is fundamentally deceitful (or designed to be), and tendencies in that regard tend to be mitigated by both diverse sources, diverse points of view, and an application of scientific methodology and rigor by historians. This doesn't mean we have a precisely accurate view of history (we don't), nor does it mean we do not have bias (we do), but it does mean that the simplistic notion of "the winners wrote the history, therefor it isn't true" is a fallacious assumption to make at best. Skepticism of history is important (just as skepticism in any scientific endeavor is important), but an assumption of the negative without solid evidence is just as erroneous as an assumption of the positive, particularly when the positive is supported by available evidence.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Ethical issues may be one thing, but remember - unethical does not mean illegal
We DO use it. The foundation of modern neruoscience came from German vivisectionists. We may not perform those specific procedures anymore (I'm pretty sure nobody gets a frontol lobotomy at the first sign of schizophrenea anymore), but they laid the groundwork for what we've learned and developed since.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Execs are looking over the data.
PHB1: This Mandrake group is big
PHB2: Fedora too. Must be folk
PHB1: I never even hear of these guys? I mean, they account for more bytes than all our CBHs (Current Blond Ho's) combined! We gotta sign them.
Intern: Actually, Mandrake and Fedora aren't music groups.
PHB1: So they're individual musicians? How attached are they to their backup musicians?
Intern: No, no, they're Linux Distributions.
(Blank Stares from PHBs)
Intern: IT's software that's legal to download for free.
PHB2: Bull. File sharing is only for music. Don't be an idiot.
PHB1: Get the Hell out. You're fired!
(Intern Leaves)
PHB1: Have a smarter intern Internet us more info on these groups.
PHB2: While he's at it, make sire to find out who this "Microsoft" band is. Looks like they have a bunch of albums out. "Viso" "Office 97" "Office 2000 Professional"
PHB1: Forget them. Look at this list. Microsoft must be one of those pathetic "art" bands that just releases the same songs over and over with remixes. Look at thie r "Office" album. They've got Professional, Enterprice, Standard a whole bunch of other s**t comming out every few years. More trouble than we want. I'll bet they eve care about the "Quality" of their work.
PHB2: They could just be good at marketing their music.
PHB1: A musician who can merket?
(Both PHBs laugh)
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
i saw this reported on broadbandreports.com in july or august
Now if they could only use this data to somehow put out better music...
there's no way this will happen now that they have an accurate statistic of what people are listening too. It used to be you put out the best music you can and hope people will like it. Now you just serve up what people like, there's no quality incentive.
It would seem to me that this is yet another demonstration of poor management structure on the part of the recording industry; it seems that the same individual labels are using this data to direct thier marketing efforts...
...and screwing it up by providing thousands and thousands of copies of convincing fakes to the major file-sharing networks. Do they have a means of automatically filtering these out? If so, does Big Champagne have a business arrangement with the fake-file hosts?
If this last is the case, glad to see that someone's come up with a truly devious P2P business model. If not, their data is borderline worthless, but for all their love of "empricial" data, marketeers tend to have a very vague grasp of statistical validity in any case...
My guess is, they aren't so much using the data to see who is popular, as to see what marketing is working.
They spend mad money on marketing, it would be nice for them to be able to see "Okay, ad campaign A created a bump right here, but ad campaign B didn't do anything. Fire Ad Agency B."
Sales data gives them all the information on popularity that matters.
Lastly, I hope that when the P2P networks sell that data, they are properly aggregating it so as to remove individual identification (and give a better statistical sample).
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Tangentially related, but important in the "big companies are ripping off the little guys" way:
eMusic.com has many CDs that are from smaller labels on their site, and they are not paying royalties to the smaller labels. Their philosophy is "We're owned by HP, these small labels can't afford to sue us." I know this for a fact as a friend of mine is a major artist on Metropolis Records, and neither he nor his label get nothing from any sale of his music through eMusic.com.
BuyMusic.com stole their DRM code from their DRM provider, in that they refused to pay out their contract after receiving 99% of the code, again with the philosophy that "we're too big for you small fries to afford to sue." Another friend lost a job because of this (he worked for the DRM provider, who subsequently ran out of money).
Anyway, please don't throw your dollars at either of these companies. They're screwing over musicians and software developers alike.
That statement about hoping that the companies' make better music as a result of checking over download stats is very naive and overly optimistic. Just look at the top 10 downloads at sites like emp3finder.com and what do you see. The same top 10 shit you'll find anywhere else (radio, store sales, etc).
I remember thinking this same thing when napster was originally shut down. Everyone got their online music from one place. Everyone. The record industry could have taken napster and modified it little by little to match up with a new distribution method that allowed everyone to win, but instead they killed it dead and now the online trading is pretty fragmented.... you have usenet, p2p (many), torrents....
Course, saying the record industry is stupid is redundant in itself....
"Now if they could only use this data to somehow put out better music..."
Everyone seems to likes to suggest that record companies and marketers are force-feeding sub-par music down our throats with no regard for what we enjoy.
This stance has some merit, but this is a two-way street. Pop music is pop music because it is popular. If it was total crap, no one can listen to it. On Kazaa, and other filesharing services, where people have the choice to search for any kind of music they want, the most popular searches are still Britney, commercial hip hop and the like.
Disagreeing with the mainstream doesn't make your tastes more admirable.
I am really tired of working so if you dont mind working for me, I will be the lazzy
How do you discover new music on P2P? Geeks may know about things like iRate Radio, but your average P2P user is going to download the trash that the radio tells them to like.
I have never heard of iRate radio, however, I like KMFDM and Front 242. What does this have to do with P2P? Well, I started looking for KMFDM and Front 242 songs that I could not find in a store, and lo and behold I started to find remixes on P2P by groups called "Gravity Kills". So I looked up Gravity Kills, and I like their music. While looking for Gravity Kills, I came upon Juno Reactor. I found I like both groups, and my horizon for industrial techno has been expanding. I had never heard of Gravity Kills or Juno Reactor before P2P, and there is a large number of other groups that I have been discovering by this method.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
You have the biggest mullet in all the south, don't you?
It's pretty sad when you're too fucking stupid to even post a good troll. There's no connection between any of those bands, and wearing a mullet.
Futhermore, the largest remaining bastion of Heavy Metal fans in the U.S., is the New England area.
Dumbass.
Initially as a musician I was against file sharing, as an independent artist I make very little so the idea of passing music around seemed to go against me. Then I thought maybe I should offer up a few tunes as a way of promotion. I put some tunes in a Grokster share file on one machine and then did a search for myself(Celestial Image) on my other. To my shock I came up in my search but it wasnt any of the tunes I was sharing on my other machine. In fact a tune of mine came up on several sources and I was shocked and delighted. It is a weird sensation when you find your music being "pirated". It meant that my music was valuable enough for people to risk prosecution for. I also found that I was in the same share folders as many major recording artists. I would never get space in the same rack in a record store with these people but there I was in someones private collection. I also noticed that the most shared song was a song that I felt was pretty weak. It was my Ska rendition of a Christmas carol I called "O Come Ska Ye Faithful" it caught on with the punk ska crowd and provided a steady stream of viewers to my website. No way in hell would a record company think that the punk/ska crowd would enjoy a song made by a 50 year old guy. I decided to promote it more and now at christmas it is a favorite on college ska radio shows and is played in stores over the sound system. So for me peer to peer sharing has given me promotion as well as showed me what songs people think are hot. Dennis Jennings http://celestial-image.com