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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!"
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
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.
We already have CD burners, and we already have DVD burners.
Why would we need a dualdisc burner? All we should need is the media -- developed properly, succh media should work in existing CD/DVD burners as a "flippy" -- burn one side, flip it over, and then burn the other.
I can see why Philips might be wary about calling them CDs however. In order to achieve such a double-sided disc, the CD layer would have to be somewhere in the middle of the substrate, instead of on one side of it (under the label). As you can't really make the disc any thicker (else it might not fit into standard slot drives), you have to put it closer to the surface of the substrate, whicch violates the CD standard.
Yaz.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
"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.
uhm, what purpose does the RIAA serve again?
To make the very thing you plan on doing illegal for anyone but them.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
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.
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.