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File Sharing Increases CD Sales
Andrew writes "ARIA have released figures that show for 2003, album sales have reached an all time high. In fact, according to Peter Martin, who recently went on Australian radio, before file sharing and CD burning they were selling 10 million less. Total unit sales were also at an all time high at 65.6 million. CD single sales declined 1.9 million over the year, but as Peter said file downloading is doing a better job. Should help Kazaa's legal problems."
Is there any reason to think that this trend might be specific to the Australian music industry (for example because P2P music sharing could help with making making Australian music more well-known internationally), or is it reasonable to take this as an indication that P2P music sharing does not really undermine the commercial viability of the recording industry, worldwide?
-RIAA
Like many others, it really doesn't matter to me anymore.
I've recently made the decision to only buy CDs second-hand if at all.
Don't really care how new CD sales do, since I won't be giving my money directly to the record companies...
(Yes I know I am still supporting the industry, and have indirectly paid for the CD by increasing 2nd hand sales, but you get the point...)
But correlation is not equivelent to causation.. Maybe people are buying more albums for a different reason.. Economies around the world upturned in 2003.. Maybe that's important factor too..
Simon.
that each download is a loss of a "potential sale". That's why they always talk to congress about "loss of potential sales dollars".
The fact they won't admit that there are millions of casual listeners who may like a piece of music, but not like it enough to buy it.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Yes i Download songs, usually individual songs, if i really like what i hear i go out an buy the album... but and this is the thing, i only buy vinyl. I stopped bying cd's about 2 years ago when they all started coming with crap on (wtf is multimedia enhanced) half of them stopped working in at least one of the players that i own. If i cant get get it on Vinyl (if you are under 25 or a not DJ try it sometime, to my ears it gives a richer more comfortable sound) then i will either rip a CD or dl it.
;P
The point is that until they make cd's a reasonable price compared to their production and distribution costs (please start your rant engines now ladies and gentlemen) and stop trying to make them more attractive with all sorts of cr@p on them that stops them working in most players then the invitation is not there to buy CD's in the numbers that i used to (maybe 30 vinyl ablums and maybe 20 cd's a month)
I know that this sounds like a rant but its what i feel
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
Its about time ARIA and others ebraced new technology, all they are doing by suing is foring the file sharers tome come up with better technology. With the next generation of file sharing apps it be be almost impossible to trace users and files online...
maybe the explanation is as simple as that: artists creating better music
Consumers are not just mindless fools who dumbly follow economic up and downturns: they are downloading more AND buying more CDs
This is not my opinion. Actually, it's not even an opinion. And I'm nowhere to be seen near it
I have purchased more CD's because of file sharing. I get to preview artists I have not heard, and dont get much airplay. With the high prices of disks in the UK its the only way to go!
The other reason for more sales would be online music shops that keep prices low. However as soon as you go into a high street shop the prices are rediculous for none chart stuff! You looking at 16GBP - 18GBP for a single studio album - this is the record industrys problem else where in the world OTT prices!
... but I believe a big reason this report says album sales are up... is simply because it happens to be in their interest to have it say that, this year.
Had it been better for them to have it say CD album sales declined, then it would have said that instead.
I've long had a theory that the RIAA/MPAA aren't really against piracy, but they are really against a peer-to-peer economy that is coming up. I believe that they are threatened, not by illegal piracy activities, but by the market becoming splintered, and people listenening to a larger variety of music. People on the Internet might stop listening to a few Pop stars, and start listening to a larger variety of music, possibly each other's music.
If my theory holds good, this news item will not prevent them from using legal strong-arm tactics - they will fight to retain their market share.
The Slashdot spin on this through the years has been quite outrageous.
First we have situation (a), where the total CD sales increase, as in this article. Slashdot routinely cliams this as very strong evidence that copying of music actually helps sales. (References: [1], [2], [3]).
But in situation (b), when CD sales fall, the Slashdot editors suddenly forget the strong casual link that they'd earlier claimed, and declare that this must be due to a poor economy or other non-file-sharing factors.
My question is: how can you rely on a poor economy to explain case (b), while blatantly ignoring the positive effects of a booming economy on case (a)?
Don't get me wrong... I download mp3s all the time, and quite a few of them are not legit. I think copyright is royally screwed up.
But I'm not going to play with the facts to try to claim that my downloading activities actually help the recording industry. That's just bullshit.
About Austin, TX's South by Southwest musician's convention, where the attendees were saying about the same thing - that the Internet is the least of the industry's problems. That big-box retailers and cowardly radio conglomerate execs are much bigger problems. IMHO, suck-ass music by canned pop thuglings and diva princesses are the reason people aren't buying overpriced major-label CD's - but the local and underground music scenes are doing fine. My brother works in a record store, and he said that their sales are doing okay - in the old catalog stuff, but not in the mew releases.
Maybe the quality of music got better!
All I can say is I would love to have you give a guided tour of your collection. At 20 to 30 titles a month, you're practically an historian. And then there are probably the things that aren't bought but traded for.
Wow.
After getting a credit card, I regularly buy their records over the net. Their music has also made me interested in other Irish music, which I buy (Dubliners, Clancy brothers, Christy Moore, etc. etc), most of which is unavailable in my country.
The bottom line is that i have spent a whole lot more money *because* of p2p, than had I bought all the songs I've downloaded, which I wouldn't have anyhow, because most of it isn't good enough to be worth my money.
Lemon curry???
The argument that p2p influences music sales either way misses the point. Consumers spend their money, one way or another. When times are hard, they spend less. When times are good, they spend more. If albums represent a good deal they will buy them. When music all feels shit, they won't.
The anti-piracy argument assumes that consumers have elastic wallets but this is simply wrong, and trying to say that p2p increases appetite for music is just entering into a falacious discussion.
The music industry should take an example from the movie industry, which is making record profits from DVD sales. Product, product, product. Make it amazing. Make it collectible. Make it rich. People _will_ buy it, when they can't.
Australia is a boom market for music most probably because the boom in house prices makes everyone feel afluent. Wait until the house market collapses, and wow! the music market will follow.
No news for Kazaa! at all, I'd say.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I mainly listen to game soundtracks (I particularly like Half Life's track 11), which probably counts as me buying the music. I downloaded the UT2004 demo, and I've got the music from that in my playlist. So yeah, I guess that makes filesharing a good thing - it makes me buy more game music!
is this not the way to go? i mean responsible downloading would be downloading unavailable tracks (like some live stuff or remixes)or downloading a couple of tracks off the album, and then buying it if you liked it, and wanted more.
in fact, i have 'discovered' several bands by simply typing their name into KaZaA and subsequently bought their cds.
if the BPI/RIAA/whoever get upset at people downloading whole albums, i an understand it, particularly if they would have bought the album. and that is the problem, they need to work out who is stealing by downloading an album they would otherwise be prepared to buy, and those exploring music by downloading something random they have never heard of before.
last year, i downloaded some Fountains of Wayne tracks, because one of my mates was wearing an FoW t-shirt, and i liked their name. i liked the music. so did my girlfriend, and some of my housemates. i bought a couple of their albums, as did a house mate, and we saw them on tour.
we would never have done any of this if i hadn't downloaded the original tracks.
can someone please explain how (at least in the long-run) i/we damaged the music industry by this horrific infringement of copyright?
The problem is not however piracy is in the end good or bad for the legimate buisiness of IP sales.. The problem is the almost complete disregard for IP in the first place.. How many really respect the IP-holders enough not to copy their stuff? I can fire my anecdotes on how my path of piracy could possible be linked to the fact that my dvd-purchases has skyrocked during roughly the same period of time. But its not out of a growing respect for IP, but rather because I happend to enjoy the added value of having a Futurama boxset instead of a dvd-r with all the episodes.. So the only way to combat piracy, is to gain (back?) that respect of IP, (or call it even by fear of retribution) or by enhancing the value of the bought product. I think this is the reason why dvd's are less threatened than cd's; a cd is just an archaic version of a >100mb folder with mp3's, where dvds offer higher quality, extras, audio commentary etc etc DVDs will face the same faith once the treshold of piracy reaches the same ease as with CDs. By that time, I guess they'd like worldwide respect(fear) or at least increased value enough to save their sales.
...that makes people instantly fear it?
It seems that the instant reaction by so many, including the music industry, is to make an enemy of something which could so easily be a potential friend.
The music industry instantly took a dislike to the filesharing apps and p2p networks - why? Because they were causing lost sales...certainly. But so often in this day and age, music (and other) companies fail to see the bigger picture. Loss of sales isn't the only thing that p2p networks cause.
Why don't they also look at p2p networks as massive, global advertising? And not only that, massive, global free advertising. Why does the thing that could help you so much instantly have to be rejected?
One could hark back to the days of the first submarine - another invention widely regarded as counter-productive as an example. You can almost hear them saying "A boat that's designed to sink? You're insane!" The fact that these "sinking boats" would become massively useful, widely used, and fulfil their great potential (albeit a potential to blow people up) was largely ignored.
And we have the same today. In the form of global, user-viewable, massively-multi-user (to coin a phrase) free advertising. I never understand why knee-jerk reactions such as "it's losing us sales, it's bad, kill kill kill, sue sue sue", having been shown to be so often counter-productive in the past, can't be avoided, and the full potential realised.
All this article does is try to legitimise unauthorised copyright infringement. Stop it now, it isnt good for the public front. The only way you can legitimise it is by getting the copyright owners permission, not the fact that it just happens to increase sales (which isnt even proven, its simply a cross corrolation of data).
Anyway, seriously, I find it disgusting that *they* can project sales and then complain when 50 Cents new CD doesn't sell 500,000 copies in half a year without *any* agency either government run or consumer run etc being able to find out if it was remotely possible that 500k copies of said example album would sell. On another topic, it really is ridiculous to pretend that if they project 500,000 people would be *interested* in *owning* a copy, to claim that if only 383,666 people buy the other 116,334 guys have pirate copies *and* all the 116,334 would buy original copies if no pirate copies were available.
...culling humankind of the genetically weak and infirm will probably strengthen the species as a whole.
But that doesn't make murder any more right or palatable, does it?
The ends do not justify copyright violation - although it may make the recording industry think twice about cracking down too hard on it.
Nah, that would mean they'd be thinking intelligently.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I don't know about other countries, but sales in the UK are up as well. Album sales in the UK rose by 7.6% in 2003 to a record high.
But HTF can anyone claim that p2p is the cause?
I think the entire point is that to claim that P2P is causing increased sales is at least as defensible a position as the record industry's continual complaints over the last few years that P2P was the cause of decreasing sales.
It's actually pretty obvious from reading the article that the reason for increased sales was a decrease in prices, and a less pessimistic economy. People felt they were getting more value for money, and thus bought 8% more units (resuitling in a 2% higher gross after the price reduction was taken into account). But given that the record industry has been ignoring the fact that they were selling an overpriced product in a depressed economy, and have been blaming their downturn on file-sharing instead, it is perfectly justifiable to turn that argument around and assume that any increase in sales is attributable to the same force.
The world makes a great deal more sense if you don't go around taking everything you read literally.
Charles Miller
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
Are the total sales of CDs, DVDs and games by value over time. My guess is that people are still going to record shops and spending just as much money on 5" plastoc discs. It's just that DVDs are marketed more intellignetly than CDs (extra features, sell new releases for a lot then start dropping prices etc.)
I suppose video sales need to be included in the numbers to make them fair.
In soviet russia stale jokes recycle you!
It actually refers to albums that have left the warehouses, not actually cash money sales.
An album could technically go platinum in its first week if they do a run at the factory of 50,000 (or whatever) and put them straight on a truck.
In discussions about RIAA, etc., the assertion arises that what we see with P2P reflects that the "traditional" model of the music industry is dead.
:).
It seems to me that not only does this statistic refute that "Napster killed the music industry", but it even supports a claim that the music industry's business model works as well as ever (even if they are evil in their souls
The RIAA will say that the increase in slaes is due to their lawsuits and the publicity that they have generated. RIAA will tell you that these suits have led to a decrease in use of P2P and they have some studies that show this. They are partially correct.
But one other thing has changed - $1 song downloads. The rise of iTunes and other $1 per song services demonstrate what everyone knew and the RIAA kept denying. If users have choice and can buy songs they want at a reasonable price and conveniently, they will buy and not steal. The record industry finally listened to the customers and adopted new business models and surprise, customrs responded by buying more music.
We also have to consider that the record industry is a cyclical business. There are years with little new and interesting music. In years where the new product is crap, people don't buy. Record companies, like TV channels, see some trend and then try to find 1000 ways to clone it, because cloning is easier than creating. Nora Jones is selling a lot of albums. She is original. Yet another gangster rap guy wearing baggy pants and spewing profanity and hate is just boring! We buy new and interesting not boring.
I use P2P do download and evaluate various tracks. If I don't like them I delete them. If I like them and can find them in a store, I buy them. If I can't find them through any retail (internet or brick and mortar) outlet, I keep the P2P file until I can.
Who am I hurting?
As much as I would love to believe otherwise, this is nothing but a classical example of non causa pro causa informal fallacy, namely: post hoc ergo propter hoc. I am sure everyone who is even remotely familiar with logic (id est a great majority of Slashdotters) will agree that we cannot disprove one post hoc ergo propter hoc argument (RIAA: CD sales dropped after Napster, so they must have dropped because of Napster; Slashdot: No, they dropped indeed, but because of the overall economy trends [economical data here]) while at the same time using the same fallacious arguments when they "prove" our agenda. That would be completely unacceptable for anyone who dares to call oneself a philosopher, or a Slashdotter for that matter. We must have higher standards than the RIAA motherfuckers or otherwise we have already lost. Let us not level the playing field that way. We shall win because our morals are better then theirs, not because we know better refutation tricks! We do not need any low and cheap rhetorical tricks whatsoever! Please let us remember that fact during this and future battles with RIAA. Otherwise we will have never succeeded in destroying them. I, for one, don't want my great grandchildren to ask me a question: "Where have you been when they took the freedom to sing away?" and be forced to answer: "I was a coward using cheap non causa pro causa arguments to get a warm and fuzzy feeling instead of acting, my dear."
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Precisely.. the sale of CDs(or records or cassettes for the matter) has everything to do with the talent of the artistes (and the marketing muscle).
The artistes must be good for the sales will soar.
A peripheral tool like file sharing is basically, just a peripheral tool.
Hey, that's my password you are typing
Originally, radio broadcasters were not supposed to play records, because record companies thought that if people could hear the songs over the air for free, they wouldn't buy records. It's a stupid argument, and it's the same thing with file sharing. RIAA is upset because they can't drive up sales just by marketing, etc... the music actually has to be good now.
stuff |
Hey, how come the Aussies get the cool names for the gov't agencies? ARIA, music (as in opera), get it? Both the American and Australian versions are the Recording Industry Associaciation of , but noooOOOoo, we (Americans) had to go for the non-humorous name...
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
Warner Music Benelux has just annulled their contracts with some well known Dutch pop artists, because their (Warner Music that is) sales are dropping, due to file sharing on the Internet. By the way, "Benelux" is an abbreviation for BElgium, the NEtherlands and LUxemburg.
I believe the argument was that quality of music was dropping, and that was why sales had gone down.
You can't argue over taste.
I think a better way to express this is that the normal ways of marketing music don't promote enough product diversity. This is especially so here in the good ole USA, where unless you are lucky enough to live in a town with a plethora of college stations, the radio stations are own by a tiny handful of companies and have virtually the same format.
If most people aren't particularly interested in what is played on those stations, then most people aren't going to go out and buy music.
So, how are we, the silent majority, going to find music we like, and more importantly from the industry's point of view, are willing to shell out money for?
The problem for the recording industry is that they don't know how to market to the vast majority of people. Probably if you segmented their business, they make a tiny bit of money out of a fair number of songs, and a huge amount of money out of a small number of hits. They're focused on the hits, but the long term growth potential is in expanding the customer base for music. That's a lot harder.
P2p is a double edged sword. It really increases the market for music, but it undermines the revenues. Most importantly it kills the hit revenue model that's the industry cash cow. If I were to put together a solution for the industry to survive and grow, I'd get it out of the business of attacking its customers and do something like this: promote convenient online retail models like iTunes, and promote a healthy webcasting environment with a low cost of entry for webcasters. In other words, you want some college student in his dorm to be able create a hit webcasting service that will promote tons of your music, then you want his listeners to be able to buy that music easily.
This would be an overall win-win. Prices would drop, but volumes would increas so there was a lot more money entering the system.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I don't care if this helps Kazaa in court, common sense should be enough.
... or what are YOU planning to do with all those no-longer-so-high-tech VHS-cassettes? Floppy disks? Most are going to the landfill, probably, the same will happen with those $20 CDs and DVDs...
Why would rising sales of obsolete technology and non-biodegradable plastic discs be good news for anyone?
In other news:
Bio-energy research increases fossil fuel consumption! Everybody wins!!
The sooner CD:s, DVD:s and all other tangible intangibles fall into the Eternal Pit Of Ridicule and Oblivion, the better.
The Ascap (American society of Composers and Authors) has page about what they do, basicaly they collect royalties and distribute them to there members. Its only composers though and not performers, although often times those are one and the same. One of the reasons a lot of liner notes used to contain the names of the songs writers.
is that people will listen to more than the "hits" that are pushed and finding out all but 1-3 songs on the CD are crap... I dont know about you, but if I find out 75%+ of something is crap I dont waste my money...
unless Im buying fertilizer...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
The radio plays high-cost artists like Madonna and Britney Spears and keeps their record sales high. But they also pay 'play-fees' to the industry. They tried to get away with paying these fees based on the same causation principle the author mentions, but the judges didn't buy it and set up a fee to play songs.
This doesn't necessarily help Kazaa because the legal precedent is there with radio play that the artists and their agents MUST be reimbursed. Using the argument of 'piracy helps sales' offers no legal assistance whatsoever. Instead, it will hurt a legal defence because the attorneys for RIAA will have precedence on their side.
When the economy is good, fileswapping increases the sale of CDs.
When the economy is bad, fileswapping decreases the sale of CDs.
Of course, you could substitute "herding unicorns" for "fileswapping" in the two sentences above and still arrive at the same conclusion.
The thing is that you can't prove a causal relationship between file sharing and record sales. Your local franchise of the RIAA will be inclined to state that actually a 12% increase was expected and the hence file sharing harms business.
I vaguely recollect:
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't.
Ernest (1st Baron) Rutherford (1871-1937)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Glas someone pointed this out, most people have a horrible understanding of anything related to statistics.
As much as I'd like to announce the triumph of p2p over the likes of the RIAA, all this shows is that p2p causes less negative influence on sales than the sum of all other positive influences.
But that doesn't make nearly as nice a story.
Suing your customers increases CD sales.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I've found a lot more great bands this way too: Silverstein, Mewithoutyou, and Zao, just to name a few. I can remember, in the days before P2P, lamenting that no one was making good music. The reality was simply that the major labels were doing a piss-poor job of delivering to me music that I was interested in. Once I took it upon myself, my musical experience has become infinately richer.
Some (most?) offer sample downloads from their websites. All we need is a directory that can collate these sample sites, organised by genre, taste etc, and your justification for stealing music goes away.
I'm playing devil's advocate a little here, since I found about Echolyn (and other bands) exactly the same way as you found out about the Wolfe Tones, but I'm never comfortable with this as an argument for p2p music sharing.
When iTunes first came out there was no iTMS (iTunes Music Store), I said to myself "Well this is a great program to manage music, now I need to get me some" It was begging me to fill it up.
Since I never used P2P services, I naturally started subscribing to cd clubs, buying them in large shipments at a time. Ripping became a nightly chore.
Then the iTMS came out and that Really got me going.
So I believe there are millions of Mac and PC folks like myself that got started buying music, just because of iTunes.
Apple hit the nail on the head with this new market. And they did it right the first time.
From 1999, until approximately summer 2003, the sole way I searched for new music was by using LimeWire (a java client for Kazaa and others).
The only way I could information (quickly) about a song was to do such a search.
For example: Music from Mitsubishi Commercials. You type "mitsubishi commercial" into LimeWire - comes right up - you type "mitsubishi commercial" into iTunes - you get "The iTunes Music Store contains 0 records for your search, please try again."
Now, this relates to CD sales in that, if I found the song, and liked it, I went out and bought it, sometimes getting them from iTunes (at least within the past year).
So file sharing DOES translate into physical sales - I'm SURE I'm not the only one or even in the minority of users who do this.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
But in every single one of those cases, the copyright holder made the CHOICE to release their products in that manner.
The problem with the most common, widespread P2P use is that people are distributing products without the consent of the rights holders, removing that choice from whoever holds the copyright on that work.
By all means, support those who make this choice as much as you can, but do not then turn around and TAKE other peoples work, who have not made this choice, and demand that they do, or you'll just keep taking it.
... file sharing increasing CD sales.
I found out about Yoshinori Sunahara because of file-sharing. Really dug one his tracks I'd found by accident.
A few clicks later to Google to look up the artist's Web site, [http://www.y-sunahara.com/] and then to Amazon, and I'm going to be having one of his CD's sent to me in a few days. If I really like the whole album, I'll prolly buy others he's put out.
Now this will strengthen their argument to slap more "theft taxes" on blank media.
Some of us don't steal software and music and why should those few of us that don't engage in theft have to pay for the sins of the many.
Collective punishment is WRONG..
Some people have made this same point already in approx 2 lines "It is wrong because I say so!" without actually proving their argument, like parent did with the use of latin. I didn't understand all of the latin phrases in parent post at first (and there's nothing to be ashamed of, since unlike parent I am not Philosophiae Doctor) but after some googling for that phrases I found www.fallacyfiles.org and everything in the parent post turned out to be true and extremely insightful. Please mod parent up as +5, Insightful. But first verify it with Fallacy Files yourself. I wish everyone could use such a briliant reasoning in future discussions on Slashdot. I, for one, am saving the parent post and am going to quote it in the future. Thanks!
I used to buy 2 or so a month.
Since Napster, cable modems...I haven't bought one in YEARS.
CD burners don't help either. When someone at work gets a new CD, suddenly we're low on CDR's in the supply closet and everyone has a copy of the Rascal Flatts new album.
...because we sure as hell know it's not from the quality of music these days!
The premise that unregulated P2P helps CD sales is so silly I'm surprised that it's still discussed seriously. In fact on the generally pro-p2p Pho email list a recent thread had "P2P helps CD sales" as a meme that should be dropped.
Any technologist who understands that a CD is just data, and that broadband bandwidth is increasingly common, as are CD-RWs and nice printers and so on, knows perfectly well that the CD itself stands no chance.
And the "proof" based on Janis Ian is a bit tiresome too -- it's always that same one example. Sure, she might do ok -- largly due to all the press she gets for her position -- but that's not going to help the vast majority of other young and upcoming authors.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Fact:
-you cannot download a track of someone you don't know because you have to search using specific words which will be found in the file name not concept.
-No P2P will turn any revelant result with searches like:
"unknow in the US but popular in Australia"
-Anyone saying P2P help him discover new bands is saying bullshit, you have to search for words not concept on a P2P network and searching for unknown or punk or techno will turn result with those words in their names not results about those concepts.
-Using P2P for "file-sharing" is an hypocritical way of saying stealing.
-Wheter CD sales have augmented is not challengeable, it seems it is a fact, how do you know "file-sharing" is at the source of those extra copies sold though?
You are a thief get over it and assume yourself, I am a thief, being very poor (not school teacher poor, real poor, less than 20 000$ a year, canadian) I believe I do not have the choice but steal entertainement to entertain myself, which is a need not a luxury, spending your whole days with no TV or anything but a computer with no software (because you cannot pay for it) will eventually lead to something bad. I am a thief, I assume my life and choices, being richer I would honestly pay, when I was richer I did, every software, every record, everything, now I'm poor.
Stop the hypocrisy, if you are stealing don't call it sharing, if you are smoking weed don't call it relaxing, be honest, at least with yourself, you are a thief assume it.
The guys they have to worry about are not the guys they will catch (people who download software but yet dont even have a firewall installed). Most people who know a thing or two about security who download from P2P probably use a firewall of some sort and would probably notice a "phone home" when trying to run an installer (and be able to block it from doing its job). This means they wouldnt catch the "hard core" guys (who is the ones they should worry about) but they would catch the "average joe" who is clueless. As well; what about the legal implications? Trojans are illegal, even in this case!
I don't believe record companies are afraid of decreased sales. I think they're afraid of us listening to what we really want to. I can think of many bands that i would've never heard of if i hadn't downloaded some of their music. I can definately not find any of it in the record stores i know. If record companies cannot make us listen to what they want us to listen to, their market planning won't work and they won't earn as much money.
I couldn't come up with any better sign....
CD returns have tripled ;)
The record companies have a monopoly. They illegally collude to fix prices and control the market. Whenever that happens, people work extra hard to find a way around it. There is no sense calling these people criminals for wanting the music industry to be reasonable. That's the kettle calling the sugar black.
I'm sure p2p does cut down on the sales of some artists.
Those artists you hear on the radio or a club in passing, and think "hey, that seems cool." In earlier days you would have to buy the album to discover it is total crap and the artist is a talentless hack. But now p2p gets the word out before you get robbed. The record companies are all upset, because their whole business is putting blind people in fields of shit and asking them to find a rose. That is to say, they intentionally pump up one hit wonders to sell as many records as possible, but don't put as much effort into the whole album, and do even worse by most second albums.
It is in their interest to make money on talentless hacks, because while a talentless hack may be capable of producing a one hit wonder (usually with a longtime producer working with them on the track), they won't be able to achieve long-term success or the power that comes with it to demand reasonable percentages from the record company and creative control. Hence by having ten artists sell 10 million records a piece, they make more money than on a talented band with staying power who sells 100 million records.
It is a pump and dump but for music instead of the stock market. And just when they get the scheme nearly perfected, p2p comes along and lets people preview what they'll be getting in advance. At which point reasonable people pinch their noses and walk away from what the record companies would prefer that they buy.
Furthermore, those in the record industry that bitch and moan about the artists being robbed are a bunch of liars and hypocrites. They steal from their artists in numbers that p2p can never touch. They make it almost impossible for an artist to audit independently how many records they've sold, but inevitably when artists do audit (usually in a very limited area), they discover they are being paid even less than the lousy terms in their contracts. No part of this argument is about the artists: that is just a smokescreen for what's really going on.
It is the record companies' feces trade that they are worried about: they want to continue getting you to trade the money earned with the sweat of your back for fertilizer, meanwhile all their cows are starving in the field and they claim it is your fault for not buying enough sewage.
That business model, like all pump and dump schemes, eventually has to fail. Right now they are just trying to legislate a delay for the day of reckoning, while they can try to come up with a new scheme to sell us formulaic shit we don't want.
Notice that creative, independent, offbeat, artists invariably seem to make up the examples people use when they need to point to somebody who successfully leverages the Internet and p2p. Artists, in the grandest sense of the word, often can do very well in that environment.
When people can sample music freely, and be picky about the artists they will support, the music industry can no longer control the market. And that is what they are afraid of. So stop calling it stealing or copyright infringement. The only thing being stolen is the RI's ability to sell stuff people don't really want to hear (not after they've heard the good music out there).
If you took away this monopoly, instead of 5 gigantic record companies that fix prices and control the market together illegally, you would see 500 small record companies become medium sized. Smaller record companies benefit the consumer, because now there is competition. The cost of producing, promoting, and distributing has fallen way down thanks to technology, but the big record companies keep taking more and more for this service, both from their artists and the consumers.
At least in some countries in Europe there is a special tax on CDs. That money goes directly to the music industry etc.
So by buying CD-Rs and now DVD-Rs you actually pay the industry money for music and movies you are going to put on them.
The DVD tax in sweden is about 0.4 Euros. Quite alot considering that most people by 10 or 100 times more CD/DVD-Rs than normal original CD/DVDs.
My point being that we already pay for the music/movies that we download.
But read the last paragraph. Clearly this file sharing thing is killing cassette sales!
than its time to move to sacd or dvd-a
De sig boss de sig
No it bloody well shouldn't! If it did, that would be admitting that commercial concerns should override legal issues. Oh, wait...
...or is this storying suffering from a classic logical fallacy?
I mean, I don't believe the RIAA either when they say that file sharing is the reason sales are down. But then again, I thought most slashdotters felt the same way. Why is the RIAA (rightfully) chastised for false cause in that argument, yet slashdot publishes a story with the same logical error and people lap it up?
Simply because filesharing is out there now, and record sales are up in Australia, doesn't mean filesharing caused the increase. What will they say a year from now, if sales suddenly slump? Certainly not "filesharing killed Australian music sales".
B
"I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?" -- James Brown
Kool Keith, a great hiphop artist, released two albums simultaneously on the Internet. Roots Manuva (a great semi-obscure UK rapper) released an internet only EP to promote his latest album. My father is a prominent jazz musician and is going to be putting selections from his discography (out of print vinyl recordings, live tracks, album tracks etc..).
Those who are embracing progress are the ones who will continue to prosper within the music industry, those who resist it are going to find themselves with an angry fanbase (I hear fans resent being sued) and will have ignored a great promotional/distribution avenue.
own sites? A LOT Of bands these days have music samples, and videos on their websites, they let you sample the music on the CD's all you want, without violating their copyright and downloading the entire CD.
If you can't find samples provided by people who own the rights to distribute them, don't buy the music, and let them know that you didn't buy the music because they had no samples available.
Maybe that'll lead to more positive change than using a P2P app to commit wholesale piracy, which only fuels their perception that people just want their music for free.
There are constructive ways to seek change, and destructive ways to seek change. Wholesale P2P fuelled piracy is a destructive avenue to the change you, and all of us are seeking.
Hm. This is a really good idea, IMO. I think that the allure of P2P is entirely too strong for this to become viable. It's so much easier to hop on Kazaa, download a tune and then download the next, than it is to sift through the contents of a band's website in order to find a sound clip.
there's more:1 9464.stm
Kazaa's own copyright in dispute
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/35
The EU anti-piracy law 'stifles innovation'y /3517474.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technolog
"So, while it's true that a teenager doesn't have to fear his bank account being seized, it's not true to say that he can't have his CD collection seized."
All the more reason to make copies for his friends for safekeeping..!
There isn't any proof that file sharing caused the increase in sales. As a matter of fact the article says that it can be most strongly attributed to the lowering of prices.
Well, an RIAA affiliated artist, anyway. And yes, I do download mp3s.
First off, these corporations or entities like the RIAA don't give a shit about people. Their only concern is the "almighty" buck. They continually spew crap to the media about how downloading is bad, how it hurts sales, etc, but they have no data to back it up. They use backwards ass logic to describe what's happening and blame lack of CD sales on music downloading rather than realizing that the majority of mainstream music that's being released today really isn't all THAT good.
God forbid the majority of their artists are canned acts that will disappear in a few years and will no longer generate revenue for them!
I have absolutely no reason to purchase a CD/give them money if they want to be like that. Consumers can play/fight just as dirty as the big wigs. If I want a song/album, I'll download it and that's that. I know it's not what most people want to hear, but then again most people find nothing wrong with these entities lying and cheating the system.
They can't say that's a loss of a potential sale because I'm telling you right here and right now that I will never pay for a CD until they clean up their act. My mind is already made up and *I* am me. How are they going to even begin tell me what I plan/planned on buying? Whether I download that song/album is irrelevant because I wouldn't have purchased it either way.
I'd rather support artists I like by going to their concerts and purchasing merchandise there. They don't really get much from CD sales anyway.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Economics is like that. Always yin and yang. What's bad news for EMI is good news for Memorex.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
There's no guarantee that the band is posting a representative sample of their work. They may just have samples of their only two songs that sound decent. The benefit of grabbing a rip off P2P is that no one is cherry-picking the songs you sample.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
A LOT Of bands these days have music samples, and videos on their websites, they let you sample the music on the CD's all you want, without violating their copyright and downloading the entire CD.
A lot of bands don't exist anymore, though their music still does.
These bands are a really interesting case, BTW. If the band broke up years ago, then touring revenues, merchandise sales and so on are right out (with a few exceptions for very very big bands, e.g. KISS). All of their income comes from whatever albums they still manage to sell. So one could argue that P2P eliminates older acts' only remaining source of compensation for their work, work which those P2P users are still taking advantage of.
However... the flip side of that is that older music gets less radio airplay than newer music. You may have to wait forever to hear an 80's alternative song on a "modern rock" station, or a particular oldie on an oldies station. So in another sense, P2P could be a good source of advertisement for these artists. One could also argue that when someone hears about some great older band, with P2P they can actually go hear some of that band's music. Then perhaps they'll actually buy some albums (if they liked what they heard).
Kazaa usage drops 40%
RIAA sues pants off people. People stop file sharing, start buying. File sharing does increase CD sales.
>All we need is a directory that can collate these sample sites, organised by genre, taste etc, and your justification for stealing music goes away.
I agree with most of what you say here except for two points.
1) If a band knows they only have 2-3 good songs on their album, they will only put those on their web site, then you buy the album and waste money. With a P2P you can download the whole album(sometimes) and give it a listen first, which is nice IMHO, then if you like it you go and buy it, for that high quality CD sound.
2) The organizational effort of doing this would be amazing. I say this because if each band has their own site, in their own format, some with pure HTML, some using cgi, some ASP(gag), etc. So the service can't just direct the user to "http://www.myawsomeband.com/samples.html" or something easy like that. And it would be a pain as the user to go to the music portal, find a band you might like, go to that band's site, and navigate to their samples, then download it. The advantage would still be with Kazaa, etc. for ease of use, IMHO. And if they tried to make a giant "MP3" samples repository site, where bands could submit their sample music for download, the RIAA would probably fight this company tooth and nail, by making artists sign some sort of "exclusive rights" clause in contracts, etc.
Just my $.02. I think the solution you give would be great, but there are a few problems that would have to be ironed out first. And for the record, since many people on this thread are giving their buying habits, I am a P2P user where I sample albums which look interesting then go and buy them if I like it. I usually buy 2-4 CDs per month.
-Comedian
First off, this article is a dupe from many months ago. We already had an article about the music industry in Australia. We already had the misleading title incorrectly (and hilariously) drawing between file-sharing and CD sales for no reason whatsoever. We already had people in the comments saying "But does this only apply to the Australian market?"
Sorry, guys--any way you slice it, because CD sales were up in Australia still does not mean file-sharing contributed to it, does not mean it's suddenly not immoral, illegal, and wrong, and does not mean that it's doing anybody any favors...particularly the artists who WILLFULLY signed the record label contract, went into the studio to spend months recording an album, only to have pirates rip it and stick it on eMule for everyone to grab without paying for it. There is absolutely no valid justification any Slashdotter has ever given.
But I'm not going to play with the facts to try to claim that my downloading activities actually help the recording industry. That's just bullshit.
And this is why I don't respect Slashdot--if people just ADMITTED that what they're doing is probably wrong, it wouldn't seem so ridiculous. But instead we get this ludicrous "correlation = causality" articles that make people look stupid.
As you pointed out, this magic link disappears when CD sales go down. Suddenly it's the "RIAA's fault for signing bad artists."
I've long had a theory that the RIAA/MPAA aren't really against piracy, but they are really against a peer-to-peer economy that is coming up. I believe that they are threatened, not by illegal piracy activities, but by the market becoming splintered, and people listenening to a larger variety of music.
Tell me, what "peer-to-peer economy" is there in going on eMule and downloading a leaked advance rip? Or grabbing an APE file of your favorite artists' music? Are you saying pirates are sending the artists money when they illegally download music?
I know you and other Slashdotters desperately want to paint the RIAA as the bad guy in this--hence your "strong-arm tactics" comment, which apparently means suing people illegally distributing your product is somehow strong-arm--but it doesn't hold water and never will. Slashdot's niche opinions don't represent the majority and don't represent the law.
Slashdot routinely claims that file-sharing increases CD sales. I'm curious where the logic comes from in this. Why would getting a CD for free online magically make you want to purchase it when you already have it?
w mentality.
Apparently Slashdot thinks p2p networks are composed of moral pioneers who only use the networks to "preview samples" of albums before they head to the store. Give me a fucking break! Why would some high school kid go out and spend money on something he already grabbed online for free from a p2p network? Why would a college student go out and buy an entire discography for Radiohead that he downloaded as a big RAR file overnight on his dorm laptop? IT'S CALLED THE REAL WORLD, SLASHDOT. Not this head-in-the-clouds, "file-sharing is just for previewing albums that I eventually go and buy later," RIAA-is-evil-for-suing-the-people-breaking-the-la
I think one of the really pathetic parts is that Slashdotters don't realize how immoral and self-serving it makes their community look to have articles posted like that. "CD sales went up in Australia--so we're magically going to have the headline 'File Sharing Increases CD Sales!' We'll sure look like we have journalistic integrity then!"
Talk about SPIN. Yes, I feel strongly about this because it amazes me that so many people can adopt groupthink and lose their common sense.
Well said. I don't have much to add...
;-)
It's the modern-day equivalent of me and my stupid preteen girlfriends trading mix tapes of the latest New Kids on the Block or Tiffany (*shudder*). It didn't stop us from buying the album, the stickers, the posters, the t-shirts or the concert tickets. We didn't put a dent in anybody's profits by making those tapes for each other. If anything, we INCREASED sales for blank tapes.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Interesting..
I think my point still stands, regardless of the difficulty/impracticality of that particular approach.
Another approach: distribute links to a band's sample page on Kazaa. Searching for music by "The Cosmic Spacehoppers" finds not just mp3s but links too. Dump the samples in there too, why not.
Personally, I don't need to hear the whole album.
File sharing helps CD sales of good music.
Prove it.
File sharing can help or hurt CD sales of mediocre music.
Common sense.
File sharing hurts CD sales of bad music.
Common sense.
Apparently the only difference you have drawn between the helping and hurting of file-sharing is whether or not it's good music. Never mind the fact that if it's good music, that simply means more people will pirate it.
Somehow, you magically think people are going to download and then get it again by purchasing it when they already have gotten it from p2p. Simply because it's "good" music. Good music only means it'll be even more pirated.
Everyone is ignoring the SIMPLE TRUTH--people don't want to pay for something they can get for free. You guys are trying so hard to justify piracy that you skip that fact every time. You don't want to admit it's wrong. You just want to blame the RIAA for everything (apparently suing people for illegally distributing your product is wrong here at Slashdot...).
The record industry is really worried about artists being able to "make" their own albums with a minimal amount of investment in equipment. Imagine, studio quality CD from your living room for a couple of grand, and you don't need to wait around to "get signed".
Setup your own website, distribute your mp3s, advertise your gigs, sell t-shirts, posters etc.,
You could conceiveably give away music, and sell all the other stuff at a profit.
In the 80s, I remember reading that Iron Maiden made more money off of the sale of their T-Shirts than they did on record sales. Must've been the kewl "Eddie the Ed" emblazoned on every tee.
You could even make your own Music Videos and make them available for download, software nowadays is teriffic, overdub a song over your video and make it streaming or downloadable...no emptyvee to worry about.
The Internet could be wonderful for music if more "unsigned" artists used it more and worried less about "getting signed" and "getting ripped off" from the music industry. More money is to be made if they did it themselves and don't worry about "making a million" on their first song.
I could go on and on about ideas for promoting a music career yourself, more artists should do it, it would free them up from bad contracts and give them complete control over their music.
Because now free access to music has created a marketing channel that allows the consumer to discover music that fits their tast instead of simply being inundated by whatever current pop song has the largest marketing budget.
The good music was always out there, now it's easier to find.
That closer alignment between supply and demand (beyond taping and bootlegs) creates an economy that allows more of these second and third tier artists to produce high quality recordings. I'd also factor in the drastic drop in costs for high end mixing equipment.
You seem to be an idealist. You may think this is the way things work, but it doesn't. There is no central location where we can all go and tell artists/record companies that we didn't buy their album because there were no samples? There is no easy way to contact artists/companies to let them know. Even if we did know how do contact them, most people don't have the time or the motivation to do so.
And when would you do this? If you haven't heard the artist through samples, how do you know to check them out or contact them about not having samples? If there are dozens of artists you might be interested in, do you track each one separately and contact them? This approach is just unfeasible.
The realistic way to demonstrate the point that they should have samples is to show that artists with samples, available in a common easy to access location, sell better. Unfortunately, there isn't an easy way to do that right now. P2P is the closest, and the connection isn't direct because it isn't easy to track all music and correlate it with sales.
>I think my point still stands, regardless of the difficulty/impracticality of that particular approach.
:-)
Agreed. I will definately use it as soon as someone makes it. I would make it myself if I had the time.
-Comedian
Part of my comments about Canada's problem with the Canadian version of RIAA going after home users, here's direct proof that:
a - there is stronger proof that music sharing increases public interest.
b - there is very weak correlation that music swapping is robbing sales from RIAA.
I am wondering if RIAA really has done their homework on the impact of music sharing?
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
This is completely off-topic, but have you checked out Blackthorn?
Christy Moore is great isn't he!
A central website linking to all the bands is possible, but if this site ever became popular it would inevitably gain power over the artists. All the corruption we associate today with the radio industry would repeat itself in cyberspace: payola for listing a band, more payola for promoting certain bands, et cetera, et cetera. It would be the RIAA all over again. No thanks.
A decentralized solution would be best. An evolved version of P2P that properly compensated the good artists would probably be ideal.
You know, it doesn't really matter if it increases sales or not--it's still illegal. This has always been the weakest argument morally of the music pirates. Even if it's 100% proven fact that it increases their revenues--even if every time someone traded music, they gave $100 per song to the owner--this would NOT make it legal if the copyright holder did not authorize it. The only thing this does is possibly do away with suing for damages.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
The record industry may be many things, but it's not a monopoly
The fact that tiny competitors exist doesn't mean the 5 major labels acting jointly as the RIAA isn't a monopoly. They claim to their sales account for 90% of all music sales in the US.
monopoly
n. a business or inter-related group of businesses which controls so much of the production or sale of a product or kind of product as to control the market, including prices and distribution.
Seriously, I purchased some CDs simply because I heard the album from others' shared files on campus.
TITLE :Worlds Largest (38TB) Copyright bust in Germany
BODY : The German Copyright Cops GVU "Die Gesellschaft zur Verfolgung von Urheberrechtsverletzungen e.V." aka "The society for the pursuit of copyright infringements e.V." has busted the worlds largest ring of copyright violators in history.
This "Release Group" was highly organised and was releasing movies and games before they were available online anywhere else.
The GUV with the law enforcement agencies confiscated a total of 38 Terabytes of data, and 19 internet servers. A total of 800 Offices and Appartments were searched.
Here is the Original German Press Release
and for you non Deutsch speaking people
BabelFisched .
Introspection is the key to understanding
I live in England, and want the soundtrack for Haibane Renmei (a kinda new
japanese cartoon, for those who don't follow anime). It's not going to come
anywhere near the shops here, and I'm sure as hell it isn't going to be on iTunes
(which I can't get to work here anyway). In effect, my (here comes the phrase
again) potential sales value is zero. Now I can't get Kazaa and so can't
download the music and it's really pissing me off.
Here is a legal use for Kazaa, like downloading fansubs, since it isn't
licenced where I live, and due to the copyright industry or whatever over
there in America being scared shitless, I am being denied it.
Free distributions helps sales, as publishers in Japan have realised; that's
why they allow people to view mangas that they publish online. America isn't
the only society or system in the world. There are other ways and methods out
there; there are other people in the world, most of them use Kazaa, and legally.
Must be that piracy leads to increased pirated (stolen/shoplifted CD's)...
:-/
Certainly people couldn't be using downloaded CD's to see if they
want to *buy* CD's....we know those downloaders are criminals...we just
have re readjust the facts to fit our story....it must be CD' thefts that
have increased!
-l