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Australian Record Industry Has Best Year Ever
Hecatonchires writes "ARIA (Australian Record Industry Assoc.) had their best year ever, but are fudging the figures because they run counter to their anti-filesharing arguments."
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Just because sales are going up doesn't mean that file sharing is helping sales. Remember the "correlation and causation are different things" idea slashdotters are always bitching about? I know many people who download instead of buying, but very few who buy more because of their downloads.
I can feel it. An assortment victories like this, summed up over time will cause even contented 'joe six packs' to take notice.
Granted, the ARIA is fudging the figures to jibe with their party line...but I expected that anyone.
...their distribution-enforced monopoly is slowly slipping away.
Mirror here: http://www.silenceisdefeat.org/mirrors/www.smh.com .au/articles/2004/03/28/1080412234274.html
Seriously. No one calls "patent infringment" "patent, stealing", no one calls "trademark infringement" "trademark stealing".
Copyright infringement isn't stealing either, though they can both be independently illegal. The difference here is that the copyright holder doesn't lose his rights. His exclusivity is infringed upon, but nothing is taken.
If people are going to insist on analogizing it to something else, I would suggest TRESPASSING. If I put my foot in your yard, I've trespassed. But you still have your yard; you just aren't enjoying it exclusively.
Anyone who calls copyright infringement "stealing" has an agenda, and shouldn't be trusted.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
aria for the record industry.
It's nice to see this. What the fuck is wrong with the large record labels that they can't see past their own fat asses and USE the new technology? With the popularity of iTunes and other online music services you'd think these labels would be clamoring over each other to offer up something similar. Buy the album at the store for $14, or buy it online for $9 and burn the damn thing yourself?
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
File Sharing Increases CD Sales
Is it in any way related to the recent broadband deployments and the legislative changes in Australia? Could any Australian posts some statistics of P2P networks traffic in Australian backbones? It could be interesting if that could be used as an argument that file sharing (or "piracy" if you will) might be actually good to artists all over the world. Very interesting indeed.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
This is kinda obvisous... the total music industry growth p.y. is like 10% (extrapolating numbers from 1988-1998 to now), but CD sales is up only 5% world wide. Of course file sharing is hurting them. Not that I care...
Listen now, ye yellow-livered one-eyed pirate scum ! Ye thought ye had em down, didn't ye ? Bu they're still rising, ain't them ? Ye can't keep them Music Empire down, can ye ?!?
Look at these numbers and despair, ye pirate scum !
Seems like the record industry has hedged it's bets here.
It figures that it can make the most money by selling CDs, riding the P2P wave of free marketing, and then making money out of suing file traders.
It would make no sense from the perspective of their bottom line to endorse piracy... to them it's a free marketing & settlement cash cow!
Maybe they figure that there's more money to be had in doing things that way, as opposed to embracing the new technology? Worth a thought....... especially if they're making more money than ever.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Given the crap nature of 99% of current music, either Aussies have *really* bad taste, or the quantity of crap being rained from above must have gone through the roof...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
What the RIAA and the MPAA and their foreign counterparts don't understand is that people are less willing to spend their money on crap. Look at Gigli, where the movie industry blamed movie go-ers who text messaged their friends that the movie was bad. Or the latest Tomb Raider movie, where they tried to blame the latest Tomb Raider video game. Consumers are simply not willing to waste their money on things that suck.
The same is true with music. I for one prefer to download the entire CD to listen to all the tracks. Most online music sites have the first 30 seconds of each song. I really don't feel like I know enough from those 30 seconds to decide if I like the CD. I can usually decide that I don't like the CD. Think of how many people get upset because there's the won good single on the radio and the other tracks are all crap? I will happily go out and buy a CD if I feel it is worth the cost. I have bought more CDs because I listen to the whole CD and decide if I like it enough to buy it.
Record labels lie! Details at 11!
In my regular newspaper column I recently wrote about the phenomenon that is the bargain-bin music browser.
These are the people who spend hours pawing through the big bins of massively discounted CDs you see in the corner of many music stores.
These discs are often compilations or recordings that, for one reason or another, simply never sold at the full retail price.
Although the bargain-bin browsers will happily pay $1, or even $10 for these discounted albums, they'd never ever consider paying full price.
The only way the stores can clear them is to virtually give them away.
Well the arrival of P2P filesharing networks has produced the ultimate extrapolation of the bargain-bin browser.
These are the people who will download a track or an entire album -- but only because it's free.
They would likely never buy the album or tracks in question -- even if they did turn up at $5 in the local bargain-bin.
So do these people really represent lost sales to the recording industry?
No they don't.
A huge percentage of those who download a large proportion of the music found on P2P networks simply would never buy the music they copy to their PC's hard drive or CD writer.
For the recording industry to claim otherwise is, to use the politest term that springs to mind, disingenuous.
Yes, filesharing probably does have some negative effect on disc sales, but the recording industry have brought that on themselves by overstating their case to the extent that nobody actually believes them any more.
If it seems that way to you it's simply because crap music tends to be forgotten with time so you don't remember the older crap.
Stumble accross someones old record collection in a loft sometime and it will no doubt be quite craptacular.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Even the FBI has become involved. It says music piracy has become its third priority behind terrorism and counter-intelligence. A number of US Congress members who rely on the entertainment industry for campaign funds lobbied the FBI to spend more money hunting file-sharers and CD burners. So now CDs in the US carry FBI stickers warning of fines of $250,000 or five years in prison.
I sincerely hope they aren't expending much effort on chasing down teenagers with cablemodems. Given the fuckups at the FBI in the past several years, I would think that they have their hands full just trying to keep the citizens of this country from being killed. Unfortunately, I am never surprised at what money can buy these days.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Well, home taping obviously didn't kill music, Simon Cowell and Pete Waterman did. But that aside, the difference between then and now is simply that the record companies are taking a tougher line and are being allowed to do so by their tame politicians. The problem isn't a new one, but the "solution" is.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
....I haven't found any music really worth buying in the last couple of years. I have even stopped downloading music now. What's the point? It's all the same - stamped out of the same studio - with the same sound.
I am still listening to U2's The Joshua Tree (which I bought years ago) and Crowded House. The only thing lately I have heard that was interesting was Ben Harper - even then, only a couple of songs were good.
I mean, sure....Post Modernism is ok - but the same Hip Hop crap about some American cultural "issue" is getting really boring.
It's all the same, but I am supposed to keep forking out AU$30 per album. I don't think so.
The cynical answer is that P2P is never about artist royalties or piracy it's about the fact that one P can be the artist and the other P can be the customer with no sign of ARIA or RIAA anywhere between the two. These big music industries are not fighting for the survival of music and musicians, they're fighting for their own survival at the cost of artists and consumers.
Pure and simple.
This is about spin and control. The record industry's profit/distribution/business model has been turned on its ear. They don't know how to respond, so they sue everyone in sight, bribe (oops! - "LOBBY") lawmakers. etc. All to keep the status quo while they figure it out. So far they haven't been able to. After all, digital distribution (MP3's etc.) have only been around for OVER FIVE YEARS ALREADY!! Besides, we wouldn't want the MARKETPLACE to decide, would we? God forbid another company be allowed to take business from them!See, the RIAA is sleazy and corrupt. They are a cartel. Five companies (soon to be four if they have their way) control something like 90% of the recorded music available for sale in the world. They like their monopoly. They want to keep their monopoly. Wouldn't you?
So, they lie cheat, bribe and do whatever they have to in order to keep the cash cow giving milk. If that means telling Congress that CD sales are down 10% due to downloading when the real reason is that they MANUFACTURED LESS CD's in order to keep the prices up, so be it. After all, the way they see it, you're not really lying, you're just SUPPRESSING THE TRUTH by witholding information.Besides, don't you think that Congress KNOWS what they're doing??!! After all, the politicians INVENTED SPIN!. Don't you think they know whan they're being spun? It's just that the spin comes with a nice bribe attached.
We have the best Government that $$ can buy and until they're voted out, nothing will change!... And don't hold your breath for THAT to happen! :(
There isn't much bio information on the website but he is in his second year of presenting Triple J's current affairs program and was previously a reporter for same. You can listen to the show online.
He has written some interesting articles for the Sydney Morning Herald in the past, including this one on the decline of Sydney and another on censorship of CDs.
cheers
marty
"I can't buy want I want because it's free. Can't be what they want because I'm me." -Corduroy, Pearl Jam
This is pretty impressive considering that Australians pay more for CDs than most people. A$30 which is about $22 US. File sharing just stops people being sucked in by hype, you don't have to rely on the word of journalist, who can't write a bad review, for fear of losing freebies, and the one radio friendly unit pusher that's on an album full of crap.
How are you *ever* going to determine the effect of P2P on record industry revenues, using an unassailable and repeatable methodology? No one has even tried to demonstate the marketing difference between on demand download of 128k mp3 content and analog recording of radio broadcasts. How would you construct such a study? In the end it is all hand waving and opinion, and the only thing that matters is record industry profits.
Chances are industry profits will follow the economy. The more disposible income there is, the more people will "vote" for their favorite bands. All I have to work with is anecdotal evidence: my sister bought 15 copies of the Elvis Costello CD for her friends for Christmans because she "wanted to support him." But my sister has money.
My own anecdotal experience is that the only time I bought any CDs at all was during the heyday of Napster. I bought all kinds of stuff because I was reminded of and found what was good. (Also I had money during the heyday.) I also had money before Napster, but I did not buy CDs because I got burned too often.
What if it turns out that P2P actually stokes interest in music and ultimately increases record sales more than radio broadcast does? It is ENTIRELY possible that this is the case. All of a sudden the industries are going to do this huge spin....
1. Stealing: Deprevation of property, usually limited to tangible objects. The intent is to deprive the owner of an object, such that you may use/sell it.
2. Copyright infringement: Obtaining or making a copy of copyrighted material without paying appropriate royalties. Eg downloading copyrighted materials.
3. Copyright stealing: Changing the ownership of the copyright without the permission of the current owner. See #1, Stealing, deprivation of property (in this case, royalties).
Please use your terms correctly. Thankyou for your cooperation
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, however, there is.
If indeed it is illegal. Here in Canada, we can copy CDs all you want - we pay a tax on every blank CD that's distributed to record labels, and in exchange we have the legal right to copy CDs. Not that anyone seems to make a distinction around here, the "it's theft" people still call it theft...
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
I don't know about them, but with our Clear Channel run generic radio stations, I never get to hear decent music. MusicTV (remember MTV?) doesn't play music, VH1 is stuck in the 80's and my radio is useless.
Humans are naturally drawn to music, especially new interesting music, and will seek it out from some source. P2P is really the only alternative in US cities (i.e. Houston) that are Clear Channel owned and have no music scene.
People will not buy on a blind risk. Why don't the record labels go after the radio monopolies instead?
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
That means, you can't give away the copies - they're for your personal use only. But, you can always give away the original, since you bought it, and you don't have to destroy the copies, or even stop using them. You can even borrow or rent an original CD (or DVD or video, etc.), copy it, return it, and keep the copy.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
It's not because it's their best year ever that they're not losing money. They have good mathematical models to predict how much they expect to sell on a given year. If they're under their expectations, they're "losing" money. Being the best year ever doesn't mean much, really. Consider a company that had losses in its 5 first years. Then the 6th year they get 10$. Who cares if it's their best year, it's worth nothing!
If file-sharing really didn't affect them, they wouldn't bother going through all the trouble they are right now.
It makes sense to me that singles would be where file sharing would hurt the most.
The target audience for singles is different, (too cheap/poor to buy the whole CD), and it much easier to get a single from p2p than a whole album....
An decent article, albeit with a lot of the same yakkety-yak -- but then suddenly, you hit the money quote:
Maybe it's the record industry that's getting a free ride from file-sharing - a massive marketing system that allows music lovers to get exposed to all kinds of music without the record industry having to pay a cent.
That describes my experience EXACTLY. If you're like me, you remember not too long ago when anytime you met someone in a band, you couldn't wait to ask them what they'd been listening to lately. When everytime you were at the book store, you rifled through the back of music mags looking at the What's Hot list. When you watched MTV late at night (when the format went off tight rotation) hoping to pick up some first-hand "insider" knowledge of whose star was poised for imminent ascendence. You'd go to the record store, buy a few CDs from the list you'd put together, buy a few more that you hoped would pan out, and go home. I considered myself lucky if, after all the advance work, I ended up with one out of three that actually made it into regular play.
Then, everything changed. In my case it started with Hotline. I noticed that in addition to warez, there were sporadic postings of music...and suddenly, a veritable flood. Mostly, it was bands I'd never heard of before. After a brief period of being annoyed at having to look harder for Bryce plugins or KPT add-ons or whatever the hell I was cruising for, I decided to check out some of these MP3s. It was like taking a starving Ethiopian to Royal Fork Buffet. I tried entire genres of music I'd never heard before. Electronic music suddenly made sense. Soon, I was arranging lists of sites that specialized in types of music I couldn't have even named a year before. As James Burke might say, it was The Day The Universe Changed.
Within six months, I ran across the early version of Napster. It was buggy as hell, but the idea of looking on someone else's hard disk to see what they were listening to was like the gift of Promethian fire. It empowered me. Instead of being a remora fish picking among musical scraps left over by people who "knew" what was happening in music, I started becoming someone who knew what was happening. My listening habits started diverging from, and then absolutely veering away from, the Top 100. For the first time, it became transparently obvious that mass music is a processed, focus-group-derived product like mass food or mass clothing or mass anything else. It's not that I felt snooty, just awakened...and for the first time ever, in command of what I listened to. I entered a golden age of enjoying music like never before. Now, I could go to the record store and buy CDs with a 90% or even 100% success rate, compared to maybe 30% in the old days. I no longer felt ripped off. The more I downloaded, the more CDs I felt like buying.
Bottom line: P2P is the greatest marketing tool ever devised for music. I have hit my forehead and said 'Doh!' about a thousand times over the last few years as I've watched the ham-fisted tactics of the RIAA, and their utter inability to change with, and exploit, the revolution in music. They should be getting fatter and happier than ever by seizing new technologies, and surging forward with the explosive push of free, ubiquitous marketing and feedback provided by P2P.
Instead, they are suing 12-year-olds and college students, and selling "secure" DRM CDs that won't play on your computer. They are flunking Business 101 not only by alienating an entire generation of customers, but BY TRYING TO DISMANTLE ONE OF THE MOST ASTONISHING FREE MARKETING GIFTS EVER BESTOWED ON AN INDUSTRY.
Nuff said.
Hmmm... I was just struck with a thought; what if the record industries are being rabid about piracy because they want to shift to a more advanced sales strategy?
I mean, if piracy increases sales of physical CDs, then it might be reasonable to assume that the first step in getting away from the physical-media-based distribution system would be to stop that which drives those sales. If the record industries are trying to impliment a download-based distribution system, it'd make sense for them to [persecute|prosecute] online piracy. After all, which is more appealing to the average consumer, downloading a song for free or downloading a song for a dollar/pound/yen/whatever?
If this is the case (and I make no claims that it is), then I can't say that I like the methods that have been taken (suing ISPs, suing impoverished little girls, etc.), but it would at least make the whole thing a bit more sensical/sane/intelligent, in my opinion.
(FYI, I have not read the article... yet, and it should under no circumstances be construed that I'm making excuses for the recording industries of the world and their lawyers. Quite frankly, I think I hate the bastards.)
~UP
Eat the Path.
I don't know if you're in the UK or not but over hear we have something called the Consumer Protection Act. If it was me I'd demand money back from the store because the product is "Not of Merchantable Quality" i.e It doesn't work on my player! If enough people complain, who knows it may eventually be enough for a "class action" suit.
Just my 2 cents worth (or should that be '2p')
Hal
'nuff said
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
So by this rationale, getting on the bus without paying is stealing. Parking your car in the city without paying is stealing. Reading a paper in the store is stealing.
What about if your neighbor calls you and asks you to play your new CD so loud that he can hear it through the wall? If you do, are you an accomplice to his stealing the music?
Clearly, your claim is flawed.
Just a question here, okay? When a (not all, not many, but one) recordcompany-executive automaticly can argu that any decline in sales is due to piracy, isn't he really saying "The only way people can get music, is trough us. We are a fscking monopoly"?
Not to overestimate the intelligence, will or job-commitment of any government official or politician, but I had the distinct impression that monopolies were accounted for as "bad for the people", and was the whole reason we had anti-trust-laws.
So **AAs are saying "We are a monopoly" to the government-officials. Government says "We can't have no freaking monopolies" and then legislate that the entertainment industry shall have a de-facto legally protected monopoly.
Am I missing something here? Or is it that the amount of information in a (relativly) short slashdot post simply is too much information for a politician to handle at any given moment?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Look, anybody can spin of any bs to prove or diprove a correlation between piracy and music sales. Some might even try to use economic theories and models to prove something. But, think about it for a second. If you didn't buy music before the proliferation of mp3s, and if you pirate mp3s, you not impacting on sales. If you did buy music before the proliferation of mp3s, and if you pirate mp3s, you will probably still buy music. The factors that really impact on sales are the percieved quality of mnew usic and the income the groups of people who buy music earn.
... there's a lot of great music out there. If you give up now you'll end up like my uncle, who virtually refuses to believe any good music has been made since CCR.
Freedom: "I won't!"
My listening habits started diverging from, and then absolutely veering away from, the Top 100. For the first time, it became transparently obvious that mass music is a processed, focus-group-derived product like mass food or mass clothing or mass anything else.
So tell me again why the record industry crushing P2P is stupid? It's wrong and evil, but not stupid per se.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Humans initially prefer simple stimuli. But get bored fairly quickly enough. Humans tend to dislike complex stimuli. But tend to like those better as time passes. What pays more for a music distributor? Make a lot of crappy simple music? That will sell and that people will get bored of and so buy more of the shit. Cuz... of the principle of familiarity? Humans tend to like things simply because they are being exposed to it. So I wonder if you should blame them for being tyrannical or w/e. Maybe they just think things to be more profitable this way.
maybe a dingo ate their "file sharing reduces sales argument"
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
It is worth noting that Copyright is not an intrinsic right, but rather, a government granted privilege. Arguments which focus on how "piracy" is a violation of an author's rights are typically trying to push their point via pathos persuasion (i.e. invoking pity or sympathy). These are colloquially referred to as "crap arguments."
Of course, the definition of "intrinsic rights" is debatable; I believe they include the right to private property and freedom from coercion, and nothing else.
I can't rip the CD to my MP3 player. These are the two devices I use to listen to music.
So take it back to the store, demand your money back, and go download it.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Old music looks good because time has filtered away the crap, not because it was better at the time.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park