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Recording Industry Hoist By Their Own Petard
An anonymous reader writes "As reported by MSNBC, the recording industry has been unable to offer combination DVD / CD discs to consumers because of the IP ownership questions as well as licensing issues between CD and DVD content. All I can say is it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch!"
Well, as soon as dualdisc burners are available, I have a feeling that I will be manufacturing my own DVD/CD combinations, with no help from the DRM^H^H^HRecording Industry.
PS: the article concentrates more on the licensing of CD/DVD technology, rather than licensing from artists. I.e., Philips is wary of allowing them to be called "CDs"".
Bear in mind that most artists have little or no say in what their label produces on their behalf. If Warner wants to release a DualDisc release of a Linkin Park album, there's not a whole lot that Linkin Park can do about it.
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
I imagine they will be quite annoying to handle as well. They used do (do they still do this?) make DVDs that had two sides, one side for full screen, the other for letterbox.
The most annoying part of this was the fact that they had to sqeeze the title and side infomation in tiny letters arcing around the spindle hole. It was a pain in the ass trying to read what movie it was.
These creations (abominations) will suffer from the same problem. CDs and DVDs really need a full side devoted to a label. Imagine trying to read that small type while driving.
Ya know, they could put anywhere from 400 high bitrate MP3's on a single layer DVD to 1600 good bitrate MP3's on a dual layer DVD.
Nahhhhh, what a silly idea. Who the hell would ever want to replace an entire shelf worth of CD's and cassettes and what-not with one disk you could toss in a (large) jacket pocket?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Opportunity to buy?
Sounds like a bad TV-spot: "This is your opportunity, buy now!"
I prefer the less brainwashed approach, download what I like and only buy what can't be downloaded (mostly vinyl).
History tells that music was free until suits came and decided it should be $39,99 a pop. [Technological] evolution has brought us to a point where music can be free again.
My point is, there is no godgiven right to make money with music. IF you can attract audiences large enough and willing to pay you deserve the wealth. If you don't, quit the whining britney.
And keep in mind that the very least part of what you pay for a record actually ends up in the pocket of an artist...
"They have sold for about $18.99 in retail stores."
Does this price sound familiar? It is roughly the price CDs were before they were caught price fixing.
It seems to me that the recording industry only has one business model
- Take one good item
- Bundle a lot of crap with it you don't want (now this includes video content)
- Sell it at a high price that it totally unreasonable.
DVD of movies are still cheeper than this.OS X, Linux, Tivo, Amiga, my fascination with cult-like technologies would intrigue any psychiatrist.
Imagine having to deal with the asshole who's doing the reading, while crossing the double yellow line coming your way.
Is it fascism yet?
How do your "friends" making poor business decisions and signing a contract that made them unable to work turn into the record company being a "bastard".
It clearly is not a nice thing to do by the record company, therefore they are bastards. It might be legal and something the company "had to do" given its sole goal of profiting, it's still not nice. And that goes no matter if the people who lose are "idiots" or not.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Companies don't do "nice" things-- companies return revenue for shareholders.
Yes, that's what I said. Thanks for rephrasing it. It still doesn't make it any nicer, or the company any more morally justified. The fact that they don't care about moral justificationis insignificant. If I don't give a shit about who I hurt because I'm only interested in making a profit, I'm pretty much an asshole. The same goes for companies.
And as for the question whether that's a good thing or not, I don't know. I agree that it ought to make them predictable, and it does, but only to a certain degree. And it doesn't translate to a very good world view. But I'm rambling.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
and then:
These things are not unrelated!! Why are DVDs doing so much better than CDs? Gee, could it be because I can get a feature length movie for much LESS than a 74 minute CD? Forget the whole problem of timebomb-popularity industry manufactured arists for just a moment, and think about price. Why is it that I can get Ghost Dog or Pulp Fiction at many movie stores for 10 bucks, but if I want to get the soundtrack it'll set me back 17 or 18? They're older albums, there is NO REASON for them to cost so much.
The problem with the music industry is that they don't remember the laws of supply and demand. If they lowered the prices of their music, more people would buy it. I have long ago ceased feeling sorry for them. They are digging their own graves by refusing to listen to the market. Here are some quick and dirty solutions...
People aren't buying CDs? Try lowering the price!! People still aren't buying your manufactured artists? Try signing artists with actual talent and promoting THEM over the plastic hype! People are downloading too many songs for free? (Hey let's sue elementary school kids! Great plan!) Try offering the songs EASILY and INEXPENSIVELY. If you had paid attention to this when we were all screaming at you 4 or 5 years ago this wouldn't be a problem now. Instead you opted for the head-in-the-sand technique and needed to be strongarmed by a computer hardware and software manufacturer.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Well, it depends on how much of an idiot the artists were.
The last time I was signed, I made sure my lawyer looked at everything and he struck out several clauses -- and put an escape clause in for me and my guys.
Point was, I got paid when the label decided that they wanted us to go another direction and I kept control of the content. They had a year to accept or reject it and that was that. It paid well enough that I went back to school for a few more years sans student loans (I still have $30k in student loans that my current occupation -- researcher at a university -- isn't very helpful in paying).
The point it, if someone signs a restrictive contract that can hold them hostage for several years (likely 7 at most if they signed in California or the label's headquarters are there), they should be held to the contract. If you promise to do something, you should keep your word. The promise is the contract -- not what others say about the contract. They signed it, they suffer.
Past popular point of view, no one forces a band to sign whats in front of them. And more than likely, quite a few clauses are in there solely for give an take purposes. When my lawyer struck that clause and several others, the label didn't seem to care and faxed back revised copies within the day. No questions asked. And then I meet others that actually might have made it (unlike me, who sabotaged everything as it came to me and my friends), and they didn't even consult a lawyer other than the manager provided to them by the label.
Acting in bad faith would be not laying out all possibilities at the onset. These are laid out for anyone willing to read the contract. I have no pity for people that sign their name to anything without knowing the consequences.
hmm, i was confused by the statement 'they have been unable to offer' these discs, because i have seen them in stores. but i guess boston (and the surrounding areas) must have been a test market, according to the article.
besides that, this is stupid. i hate double sided discs, (the only ones i've seen so far are movies with a fullscreen and widescreen verison on a single DVD). i like the idea of bundling a separate cd and dvd in one package, what's wrong with sticking with that model?
They assume ownership of music that is not theirs, yet blast you with lawyers if you desire to sample music of theirs. They encourage the flavor of the month, but will not invest in the long term career of an artist. They pay radio stations to play what they want you to buy, leaving less or no room for music not controlled by them.
(Hours later)
If you're a customer, you hate them because they treat you like a thief, they only admit the right of Fair Use when backed into a corner, they lobby incessantly for backwards technologies that make the act of listening, using, and enjoying music difficult if not impossible. They push format after format yet say the new format hurts sales. They preach that you can't own a CD - only license it from them, yet won't replace a scratched CD because you own it.
(yet more hours later)
If you're a /.er, you hate them for their fake statistics, their inflation of CD burner speeds to number of burners to make piracy sound like a larger problem than it is. You hate them because they fail to address the issues at hand, and attack 'straw men' of their choosing. You hate them because your favorite band broke up after being dicked around by some A&R guy. You hate them because they make backing up your CD collection annoying, difficult, illegal and tainted with 'cracker' spin. You hate them because they lie, they cheat, they steal, they are a monopoly and they use their power to keep others from competing on a equal footing. They have the ear of congress, and use it to make you a criminal - whether you are 'stealing' or not.
(hey is the sun coming up)
There you have it Bill. Consider yourself enlightened. There are more stories out there, and not that hard to find. Enlighten yourself, and see what happens when people sell other people art.
I would like to see a really inexpensive portable stereo that could read MP3s on DVDs the way we can now get $20 portable CD players that read CD-R MP3 disks.
When in the mood say for 1970's pop music, I'd put in a DVD disk that had 700 songs from that period in MP3 format. Then set the play function on randon selection.
It would be like listening to a radio station with the DJs or the commercials. I tuned into a Clear Channel station recently while on a car road trip and I was just amazed at how much stupid stuff there is inbetween the musical selections. After about 30 minutes, I stuck an MP3 CDR with 100 songs on it into the car stereo just because the Clear Channel radio station was so irritating.
Since many of the oldies stations have playlists that are about 2000 songs maximum total that they ever play, having a $0.49 DVD-R disk with say 800 songs on it is like having the entire radio station's library with ever having to deal with moronic DJs and stupid commercials.
Since all this is as illegal as hell anyway, maybe we can get our local neighborhood pot sellers to give away a $0.49 DVD-R of the 800 greatest stoner tunes with every $100 quarter ounce of Humboldt Thunderbolt that they sell. Just to get their little subculture out of the habit of just turning on the radio to hear music and rebuild the cohesion between the music community and the hemp community that existed before the MP3 revolution split the corporate music structure from their audience. Musicians would be as successful distributing their music through this illegal channel than they would through the old global music corporation/record store distribution channel.
Unfortunately I can tell you that my new Sony 400 disc changer only does MP3s on CD media. I tried a DVD, it popped up a message on the order of 'cannot play this disc'. This has been my only disappointment with the unit but was not unexpected.
It seems pretty assine to me. Giving more priority to the media type than the content is like a human reader claiming they can't read a language on a computer screen, they can only read paper while reading other things off a screen just fine. (Perhaps this analogy will provoke some interesting examples of difficulty with screens.)
Also, I know what you mean about the radio. Currently commercial pop music broadcasting sucks - especially when compared to its past. And not necessarily its recent past, either. This means that there are kids of the age to be buying quite a bit of material that have never known much of vibrant broadcast music scene.
I encourage you to seek out public/university stations and look for locally produced music shows. From your mention of Clear Channel, I assume you are in the US. While it is somewhat difficult going cross country, the lower FM frequencies are the best place to start.
I don't think enough emphasis is given to the poor quality of radio when considering the record industry's alledged market woes. It used to be that there was a much more active radio environment showing off their wares. The problem with 'One CD fits all' is that it doesn't and if you don't produce a large variety, you saturate the buying public.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.