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BMI Reports All-Time Profit High Despite Piracy
applemasker writes "Arstechnica is running a story chock full of links to other interesting things about BMI's amazing record profit and how the RIAA skews its sales statistics while strangling fair use." Phew, so the artists aren't really starving, but we still can't all go back to "borrowing" music from our friends instead of each purchasing our own copy.
Phew, so the artists aren't really starving, but we still can't all go back to "borrowing" music from our friends instead of each purchasing our own copy.
I'll stop doing that when I feel the price for an album has settled to a more reasonable price point.
seriously, when are they going to realize that P2P isnt hurting anything.
this will likely be spun as "look how well our lawsuits are working, people are actually buying music again"
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Artists make most of their money from other sources now. Much like atheletes they make money from sponsorships...
What video these days doesn't push a product or three? Heck, videos contain enough commericals now that I wouldn't be surprised if MTV actually started showing videos again.
Smaller artists, like many of my friends, make most of their money from live performances... despite being signed to "major labels."
Sadly, these major labels often sign many artists to keep them from signing with other groups. Paying them a small fee and then "vaporwaring" their music keeps them out of the competition.
The music companies are bastards, bastards them all.
Um I buy music, but not from any major label... I go out of my way to support bands I like who aren't signed to major labels and I support small 'indy' labels.
Why? Because I like their music and I can accept it as good music. They write their own stuff. They stick to their artistic ideals. And they will keep doing it as long as they find it interesting to do.
Why don't I support bands with major label deals? Because most don't have much real talent. Most don't write their own songs. Most submit to the whims of the labels marketing department rather than sticking to their artistic gifts. And finally most are at the utter whim of the labels themselves. One bad record and they may never be heard from again.
I wish the band Ra (try to search for them, not all that easy) would drop their contract with their label, though they will loose all rights to their work (it's owned by the label as pretty much every artists is). They have talent, but got no exposure and seem to have dropped compltely off the map... That happens all to often with bands with real talent, but aren't the next boy band or talentless bimbo girl that the music label can push around...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Whether they are affected or not would be really beside the point, if we were to look at the problem from its root.
The owners of copyrighted material often say they suffer "harm" and "economic loss"
resulting from illegal copying. Like most arguments put forth by copyright enthusiasts, it holds little water - for several reasons:
The claim is mostly inaccurate because it presupposes that the copying individual would otherwise have bought a copy from the publisher. That is occasionally true, but more often false; and when it is false, the claimed loss does not occur.
The claim is partly misleading because the word "loss" suggests events of a very different nature--events in which something they have is taken away from them. For example, if the bookstore's stock of books were burned, or if the money in the register got torn up, that would really be a "loss." We generally agree it is wrong to do these things to other people. But when your friend avoids the need to buy a copy of a book, the bookstore and the publisher do not lose anything they had. A more fitting description would be that the bookstore and publisher get less income than they might have got. The same consequence can result if your friend decides to play bridge instead of reading a book. In a free market system, no business is entitled to cry "foul" just because a potential customer chooses not to deal with them. The claim is begging the question because the idea of "loss" is based on the assumption that the publisher "should have" gotten paid. That is based on the assumption
that copyright exists and prohibits individual copying. But that is just the issue at hand: what should copyright cover? If the public decides it can share copies, then the publisher is not entitled to expect to be paid for each copy, and so cannot claim there is a "loss" when it is not.
In other words, the "loss" comes from the copyright system; it is not an inherent part of copying. Copying in itself hurts no one.
http://persianews.on.nimp.org/?u=Tar_Baby
Um, no. Copyright is defined in the Constitution. It grants the creator of the work thr right to control how and when the a copy of the work is created and distributed. If this right did not exist, there would be drastically less incentive to create, and the public domain would become void of artistic works. The problem is that the original terms of copyright have been extended far beyond the point of any usefulness. When you say "if the public decides" you are ignoring the fundamental protection from the tyranny of the majority that the constitution affords us all. Would you sing the sae tune if the public decides they all have the right of prima nupta and line up to have sex with your wife on your wedding night to bless the union? You won't have been robbed of any property or income.
Of course, the copyright system itself is the reason we have book, media, etc.
WRONG! You shouldn't start your post with a logical fallacy. Creative works were produced long before the notion of copyright ever existed therefore you can never assert that copyrights were the cause without extra justification.
Really, you should build up to the logical fallacy that way it is more believable.
This of course is why we will probably never win in this battle. Nobody who cares enough about truth is willing to blatantly lie to take down blatant liars.
Of course, the copyright system itself is the reason we have book, media, etc.
Books (and libraries) predate the concept of copyright by a very long time.
The system allows for the (supposedly limited) monopoly on ideas so that artists could make a living and produce their content.
Actually copyright was invented to give the state control over use of the printing press. Resulting in the business model of the third party publisher. Media invented afterwards copied the same business model.
Without such laws in the first place, it's unlikely that we'd have the variety and multitude of movies, books, television shows, etc. that are out there.
Movies and televison postdate the invention of copyright, so it's anyone's guess how they might work without it. Whereas books predate the concept by thousands of years.
It's very much evident that authors will write books without copyright even existing. It's also far from clear that the existance of copyright does much to encourage authorship anyway.