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Ballmer Says iPod Users are Thieves
A 'music thief' (apparently) writes "According to Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft: "The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'."
He appears convinced Microsoft will lead the way in Digital Rights Management and also believes Microsoft will steal a march on Apple in making the digital home a reality because Apple "doesn't have the volumes".
"There is no way that you can get there with Apple. The critical mass has to come from the PC, or a next-generation video device," he said."
Billing Microsoft as the good guys and Apple the villains of the piece - at least as far as corporate America, rather than users, is concerned, Ballmer said: "We've had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'."
I don't understand the "corporate America" distinction. Is he talking about people downloading stuff to their iPod from the computers at work and stealing it that way? Because just about every Windows user I know has a computer at least 50% full of stolen shit (usually including the OS itself). MSFT is somehow not supporting theft because they don't have an iPod clone and their OS has DRM? I would go so far as to claim that PocketPCs support piracy but MSFT didn't create the hardware they just created the software. I guess you have to do both to support the thieves.
Sorry, that doesn't make me think any less of the iPod and it certainly doesn't make me think any more highly of Windows.
That's exactly how you win customers -- by alienating them.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
... you can use iPods with the PC. What's this about "critical mass"?
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
M$ systems sell very well. M$ peripherals, not so much. No amount of FUD, or lawyer-posturing, will get an M$ audio system into people's pockets over the iPod. It's too late.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
``Microsoft will steal a march on Apple in making the digital home a reality because Apple "doesn't have the volumes". The critical mass has to come from the PC, or a next-generation video device''
Seems to me that Apple is a lot more successful in pushing large volumes of next generation devices than MS.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Agreed, taking Ballmers arguements, I think it could be almost guarenteed that as much music stored on an iPod could be considered stolen as that found on a PC.
Especially when you consider the fact that most iPod owners are Windows users, and the music they've uploaded was previously on their PC.
Part of the reason people steal music is money, but some of it is that the DRM stuff out there has not been that easy to use.
Found this quote interesting, does it really state that people want to use DRM to copy music at home, but can't quite figure out how to use it?
I took that comment as Steve Ballmer saying more digital music is pirated then not. Does everyone on this board actually disagree with that?
Or did MP3s only become popular *BECAUSE* the music was stolen in the first place anyway?? And so the trend
Mp3s -> Mp3 Players -> ???? -> Profit ?
I may not be speaking for the masses, but the key thing about having my music in my player of choice (Archos AV340) is the fact that I can take the music from *any* source, and because I choose to download the mp3s rather than re-recording from original Vinyl, ripping from CD, remastering from cassette, 8track etc Is purely a matter of my taste and value of my time.
Prevent people from using music easily that they ALREADY LEGAL OWN in one format or another, and see that format/player go the way of the BETAMAX.
I find I buy more music now that own an iPod. And I am not implying that I ever "borrowed" any previously. I have about 700+ tracks on my iPod and when the feeling moves me I go to iTunes and buy another album. The ITMS library is growing, too, and now includes a sizeable collection of the works of Brian Eno (great for coding, writing specs, so on.) I don't know where Monkey Boy Ballmer gets his info, and wouldn't want to go there. Unless all the interns at Microsoft trade music freely ...
My user name was a mistake. Input wasn't restricted, my bad.
From the article:
"We've had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'."
Because everybody knows windows is all about security. If you put a pirated mp3 on a windows box, the drm system won't allow you to access it. All the windows boxes running eMule and Kaaza are merely figments of your imagination. They're iPods. Honest.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
"There is no way that you can get there with Apple."
You can't get to there from here. You have to go somewhere else first.
Seriously, he has a point about Microsoft having the market share and audience already. But they're also the Evil Corporation (even to some of my non-geek friends that don't read Slashdot). Their products are reknowned for their ability to crash and break. Things are hard to use. People can't support them.
Why would you want the computerized house when they can't get a freaking desktop PC to work right? Sorry hon, I think our refrigerator is broken. Let me see if there's a Windows Update for it.
Yet another attempt to disseminate the false notion that MP3 files amount to stolen music. If I purchase a CD and rip it to MP3s for my own use, the resulting files are certainly not stolen--plain and simple. And if I get them from a legal online source, again, they are not stolen.
Just because someone COULD steal something doesn't mean they will, and doesn't automatically make the something stolen.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
...on an iPod is 'stolen'.
Balmer, "iPod" can easily be replaced with "Windows" in your preceding statement. MP3 has been the de facto standard for music files for 7-8 years now, maybe longer. Were iPods around 7-8 years ago? No. What were they played on? Windows, under Winamp. The masses have understood how to rip their own (un-DRM'd) CDs since the turn of the millenium. Napster, Limewire, Kazaa, eDonkey and many more of flourished (til legal proceedings crush each) with trading of these files. I don't recall using my iPod to access any of these services. Oh yes, that's right. I used my Windows-running PC.
I know it's FUD, but this is just plain lousy FUD. Anyone with half a brain can see right through his attempt to link Windows with anti-piracy.
RW
According to Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft: "The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'.
/end rant
Uhh, yeah... And the most common format of music on a Windows PC iiiiiissss...........? Uhh huh, yeah.
So, if ANY company is accountable for music theft -- OBVIOUSLY it's Microsoft - they have the 'volumes,' right?
Bah!
Most microsoft users are thieves too ... if they actually bought the OS chances are they're running at least one piece of software which was copied illegally.
... wtf? Stolen? Copyright infringement is not the same as stealing something, whatever the demagogues like Balmer want you to believe.
And then again
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
I mean who would buy a 40gig iPod and spend $10,000 to fill it up with MP3's on iTunes? But the real point is, music is still over priced, $.99 for a song, again still is over priced. And then again, so is windows XP Professional @ $199.99... Then again, MS does allow for a certain 'level' of priacy to go on so they do remain the dominant OS.
yet another obvious attempt by Microsoft to discredit a company or product that they see as a threat to their ever shrinking market space; good ol screaming balmer would have you use Windows media with *new and improved* drm. Too bad it doesn't sound good and too bad that the 'theives' format on my iPod is aac and protected aac.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
If someone has a budget for buying CDs/music each year, say $300, then even if they download extra music illegally, no-one is losing out as long as the consumer is still spending what they have budgeted to spend.
Music is a commodity these days. It isn't special like it was in the 50's. People expect music at all hours, but it isn't priced right to meet the current usage of music, so people download the extra music they need to fill in the gap.
I don't see how Microsoft can claim any kind of moral superiority over Apple. Apple at least had the decency to offer reasonably priced legal music quite some time ago. Per-song pricing allows you to take a small risk to discover new music, or just get the 2 good songs on a modern pop album that are any good. MSN Music is a lot more recent.
I can only assume that Microsoft will be designing Media Software that will not play non-MS-approved content. Otherwise how can it tell whether a song you are playing is something you ripped yourself, or downloaded? Surely you could burn a CD and re-rip if Microsoft enforced that type of requirement?
These big companies are only pissed off because online music sharing allows people to discover new music that isn't on the big labels, and then spend money on that music instead of HypedTrash. Most studies show that music purchasing hasn't dropped since file sharing started, at the worst it fluctuated in line with the economy, at best it has actually soared over what it should have been.
Only a monopoly has the clout to force something that the consumer does not want (DRM) down their throats. Apple's can only try to entice the consumer with high quality products, variety, good service. They don't have a chance.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
The real tragedy is some ppl will associate his words with the ipod.
--cros13
I think Jobs would be more likely to say Microsoft executives are dorks.
And unlike Ballmer in everything he's said in those two articles, Jobs would be damned right.
-- james
I think the higher-ups at Microsoft have completely lost the sense of how to do business in a healthy market.
That's why everything Microsoft does fails or produces massive losses when not being pushed by the PC domination.
Just look at Hailstorm. Or XBox. Or Windows/Alpha.
The thought that Microsoft can compete with "better" DRM is laughable. Show me a user that will switch to another DRM system, because, you know - it's better at limitting your freedom better, so you should switch to it, you filthy thief, right?
My thoughts for Ballmer: good luck in alienating your potential customers!
Ballmer's appointment marked a switch from customer focus and innovation (all the GNU type people should go off and hate me quietly in a corner at this point) to concept focus and buzzwords. It's amazing to think that there was a time (early-mid 90's) when if I wanted a vendor who'd actually listen and do stuff, I wanted MS. Now, they literally can't make a single statement without chanting a mantra -- 'developers! xml! digital nervous system! drm!' and getting actual action from them is like blood from a stone. Actual development units remain largely unchanged -- but they simply aren't running the show now.
It's a tragedy of classic proportions, with Microsoft as the protagonist and Ballmer as the hubris that drives him to his fatal excesses -- and maybe IBM/Linux as the nemesis waiting around the corner.
I am _so_ not looking forward to everything being run by IBM again
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
He makes a good point -- many people do use their iPods to play music libraries that may contain one or more illegally copied files. Hell, I know I do.
So put your money where your mouth is, Steve. How hard would it be to put a mandatory install on Windows Update that would prevent all P2P programs from running correctly under Windows? Sure, someone would poke a hole in that immediately, but it would at least show that you...what's the phrase du jour? "Care about the artists"? Yeah, I think that was it. Until you're ready to do that, STFU.
Not after the standard Microsoft DRM-enabled photocopier hits the office floor. But this tongue-in-cheekiness reminds me that copiers apparently DO reject copying of certain items like currency. How long, honestly, do you think it will take before America concedes the point and puts a "document authorization mark" (like the 2D barcodes used by UPS) on each document made, which copiers will check before copying? Sure, we have billions and billions of pages of "legacy" documents with no such mark, but they could be stamped ... and we can see where this is going.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
I guess its a good thing that Windows users are responsible and would never do something like steal music and put it on an iPod... even though Windows makes up around 90% of the installed user base.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Cant we all stop using the propaganda word "theft" in this context; downloading music is NOT theft.
Piracy is another propaganda word.
What is this sweaty ogre talking about? I have 1605 songs, not one is illegal, they are either ripped from my own collection, or purchased from the iTMS. If iPod owners, were thieves, why would they be spending upwards of $500 on a music player? I am sure they will lobby congress for a legal monopoly on music now.
I hate sigs.
His distinction doesn't even make sense. He says Windows Media has had DRM for years, and then somehow ties that to the majority of the iPod's music being stolen, presumably a veiled reference to the fact that iPod uses a different format.
;-) (Yes, yes, I know they've announced they'll support MP3.)
But that logic doesn't follow, because iPod's "paid" format ("Protected AAC") contains DRM (though in Apple's implementation is probably more forgiving and transparent than some alternatives). The "stolen" format he must be referring to is, therefore, MP3, a format that is also supported by all portable music players that support Windows Media!
Since Apple's music store - which only works with iPod - has by far the largest market share of all online music stores, there is actually more legitimately purchased downloaded music (to say nothing of legally purchased CDs that have then been ripped) in use on iPods than on players that support Windows Media. If there are "stolen" MP3s in use on iPod, then there are stolen MP3s in use on ANY player that supports MP3 in the same proportions. And even if we concede that there might be physically more stolen music on iPods, in numbers of songs, it's only because iPods so ridiculously vastly outnumber any competitive player...not because iPods somehow magically enable more easy theft, when it's MP3 - not the iPod's "scary different non-Windows Media format", which IS DRM'ed - that constitutes the "theft", which is possible on ANY other player! [1]
So, to sum up: nuthin' but FUD.
[1] Except perhaps Sony's.
And what does this prove? I could level the exact same claim at Windows users - most home copies of Windows are pirated (unless OEM) - and anyway, how does the music get onto the iPod?
Hmm, maybe via a computer. And Windows users are using the iPods too!
What MS embraces is less important than what consumers embrace, and they have a habit of not embracing restrictive formats. Like DIV-X (the old version, where you had to connect to get permission to play your movie); and DVD-A / SACD.
Jobs has said that he will open up AAC playback if the iPod market share drops below #1. Similarly, he will consider putting WMA playback on the iPod if the iTMS falls below #1.
But right now, despite the absolute lack of competition, the cheaper songs/players elsewhere - the iPod is #1, and so is the iTMS. Every time a consumer chooses either, they create a barrier for themselves to using another service. Who wants to change all their music formats, etc over?
Yeah, or Microsoft procrastinating in the OS market. Your analogy is flawed. Apple have created this market with one product - the product has defined the market. People don't want a music player, they want an iPod. And which music store is the only one to work with an iPod when they want to try legal downloaded music?
You guessed it.
Your point being? I think Ballmer's way off, and it is reflected by Microsoft's market share in this market. Consumers don't want MS DRM, and Apple has a better product all round.
-- james
Almost every MS product since its inception three decades ago was originally invented somewhere else- MS-DOS, Windows, BASIC, Multiplan, Words, Windows, MS-Tunes, etc. Some purchased, some was blatantly copied. MS has no business making this complaint.
Says the man who's company STOLE their OS!
Right on Steve! Better rub that shining fucking head of yours harder for your next big idea!
These MS tards are getting to be beyond belief. Honestly... now because MS didn't "capture" the market first everything else is the product of thieves, terrorists, whatever.
Listen, MS will NOT capture the livingroom because their technology is still either too fucking complicated (VCRs flashing 12:00 anmd black tape) or too fucking useless. And if consumers really want that functionality they'll buy it in a box that simply plugs into their TV (TIVO) not into their home network.
Digital Rights Management is all about preventing people from using the tools they have paid for in the ways they want to use them. Often, DRM prohibits perfectly legal activities.
Digital Rights Management is one of the most serious threats to the general purpose computer, and to the freedom it affords us. The general public must be educated to the fact that the purpose of DRM isn't to protect them, but to protect large corporations from them.
People who steal music are responsible for the thefts. Kind of like blaming the gun for the murder of a person when even if he or she didn't have the gun, he had a knife anyways. In other words, taking away the medium/gun/method isn't going to stop a crime from happening.
The 20 gig iPod holds 10,000 songs. At a buck a song, that's $10,000 to fill it up. I don't know anyone with that kind of money. Sure there are some old people, like myself, who own decades worth of CDs to rip, but a lot of young people are buying iPods.
It sounds to me that Microsoft's Portable Media Player will NOT play MP3s. However, if it ONLY plays DRM invested WMA files it will NOT sell.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I think you're missing the point here. Basically, this can never be anything like a representative suvey. This is because:
For you maybe. But that just indicates what sort of company you prefer.
It means that when Microsoft tries to smush this market, like they have everything else, they will introduce a player that obviously will not play MP3, Vorbis, or any other non-DRM format. The question is, will anyone buy it?
The RIAA and MPAA hve done an incredible amount to UNDO what was purposely done - allow the consumer to copy their own stuff. But thanks to Billy G & co, there's this new notion of licensing vs. purchasing. So how long until you don't "buy" your CDs, you "license use of them?"
The whole thing stinks. This is bad news for the rights of the consumer.
Come on now, Steve. There are three ways to get music onto a portable digital music player: paid downloads, rip from CDs (or other source) one already owns, or to "steal" it from another source. In the paid downloads category the iTunes Music Store dominates. It's far and away the market leader and those tracks can only be played on the iPod. All the other players that are capable of playing Microsoft's Windows Media format with DRM can get music from a variety of paid download services. But if more people by far are downloading legitimately from iTunes, and necessarily are playing such legal, paid-for music on their iPods, doesn't it stand to reason that iPod owners are more likely to have legally downloaded music than users of other portable players? Furthermore, Mac users have demonstrated over the years that they will pay more for hardware/OS/software that they perceive to be better. The iTunes Music Store was launched first for Mac users because it was reasoned that they would be willing to pay for the quality and ease of using the legal channel over the free file sharing networks. To the extent that Mac users represent a higher percentage of iPod owners than of other brands, doesn't it also stand to reason that the iPod user base is more likely to pay for their content? This is not to say that there is not music from dubious sources, or "stolen" to use Balmer's term, on iPods just like on other players, but I think it very likely that iPods contain a lower percentage of such content than the Windows Media players.
Hence PC users are Thieves.....
WOW look at that you can spin the FUD two ways here... Why hasnt this guy died of a exploding heart as he was jumping up and down like a overweight gorrila yet????
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Just because you and your friends steal software doesn't mean that everyone does. I've had my computer for 4 years. Every single piece of software on it was either free or purchased legally. And there has to be a reason that Best Buy has rows and rows of boxed software. Someone is purchasing software.
Taking into account that songs on iTunes music service are:
1. 100% Legal
2. DRM, but with restrictions that people can actually tolerate.
3. Sold over 130,000,000 songs to date (in less than 2 years since it's launch)
and that:
4. iPods are legal, and support a DRM format, unlike most MP3 players out there.(There is no problem with not supporting a DRM format either, are we all suddenly theives for not encoding DRM in our fair-use music rips?)
and also that:
Apple have supported more DRM in Quicktime before MS even bothered to see it as a market.
Then I really don't see any justifcation for any of the comments made about Apple computer. Sounds more like a technique to add some attention to his announcement.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
creating music is an artform, you're not supposed to create art because you want to make money off of it.. you're supposed to do it cause you love doing it. I know many musicians who never expect to make it big and will keep working for shit pay, or no pay at all. Greedy musicians will scream at any fan who doesn't pony up, that makes me sick.
MABASPLOOM!
"Because just about every Windows user I know has a computer at least 50% full of stolen shit (usually including the OS itself)."
And sadly, on the Mac its just the opposite.
Mac users are more often than PCs users to be in the 'creative' designation. That doesn't mean all, most, or a lot, but it means far more than PC users. But more importantly, its given the ideal that this *IS* the creative machine. I use my Mac for all my music and visual arts. I have most of hte same software on my PC, but that doesn't put me in the same mood -- why? Because of the expectation that was set. I use my PC for programming.
Getting to the point, creative folks generally feel ownership in their works. Most of us do believe copyright laws are just -- as a creative, you feel the shit you create is your life blood and soul. This doesn't happen in programming very often...most programmers are NOT creating, but doing the digital equivalent of manual labour. This is one of the reasons I refuse to code any more...I'll develop software and manage a working team, but my task is shaping the software, not pushing out dozens of lines of a code an hour (and even that is nothing compared to real code junkies). Coders I know think I'm a snob too -- but my software is generally used by folks that don't know computers (or know them and refuse to have to use that knowledge -- I know how to fix a car, but I know my mechanic can get it done much quicker and a lot of the times, cheaper -- err after I buy the wrong parts and break something else) and simplify complex tasks so you don't have to be a computer genius -- just someone that understands the field of work you are already in (generally, academic medical / psychological based apps).
But again, code junkies that think programming is the action of your fingers hitting the keyboard and throwing our lines of code will *NEVER* understand ownership.
Mac users have it instilled in them that they own the works -- its theres. iPhoto -- you took those photos. iMovie -- its your movie and as shitty as it may be, you created it.
Move that over to software purchases. As folks that understand our ideal of ownership, we generally want other owners to get paid. Not all Mac users, the majority, or whatever else -- but a bigger crowd than are on the PC. We pay for our shit because we understand. PC users -- on the other hand -- are consumers through and through. Nothing really creative. Just video games or some other bullshit. Consumers want shit at the lowest cost price -- and free is as low as you can go.
Again, I'm not saying all Mac users pay for their shit -- the whole P2P filesharing thing started on the Mac. Sure, there was FTP before that, but Hotline really made the market for finding warez easily. Still, it was always amazing to talk with friends that had a new boxed photoshop sitting on their desk and they tell me that they picked it up because they found it on Hotline (years ago) and wanted a legit copy...where as the same folks on the PC tell me Yeah, It doesn't work very well, but its free, so I'll just keep an eye out for a better crack. Fuck that.
Mac users pirate less. Linux users that have PCs (almost all) probably pirate more than PC users. We all need to learn to respect folks properties, even if it is just artificial bullshit making it true ownership. In a true communist society, they would say that our western idea of car ownership was bullshit as well -- its only due to artificial means that someone can 'own' something that the others don't. If you want folks to respect items like the GPL, then you also need to respect copyright laws as they stand today.
As far as volumes are concerned, Apple sells pretty much every iPod they can produce. It was the thing on kids back to school want lists, it will be the thing on many people's Christmas lists, and it will continue to be the de facto standard for portable music players. Sony's new Walkman, what a joke! I'm not converting everything to their proprietary format. Everyone else? What do you see marketing campaigns on MTV, CNBC, CN, etc. for? Rio, nope. iRiver, nada. Dell, not really. Apple's iPod in clever, catchy ads. Apple's iTMS servers handle the demand smoothly and are never /.'d. And to increase volume, the main piece to worry about is the bandwidth, easy enough.
The article is merely propaganda for those who are too damn ignorant to understand. "DRM...years" "DRM...not been that easy to use" "My 12-year-old at home doesn't want to hear..." Sounds to me like he's shooting himself in the foot and doesn't understand what his customers want. Oh well, that's Microsoft for you.
Amigori
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
Way to go Steve! Nothing makes me want to buy more Microsoft products than being called a thief. What a wonderful new way to get customers. You know what, I feel like going out and buying a Mac right now...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I agree,
I just cant believe Ballmer took his mouth off Bills apparatus long enough to say something.
Did anyone ask what Bills toadie thought?
Does it really matter what Bills toadie thinks?
What does Ballmer really do behind closed doors with latex toys,small animals and mp3s?
What does anyone really care at microsoft about non-business use of unauthorized installs?
or at most software companies?
Lets examine this:
People work in businesses.
Businesses use licenced software(ok bear with me on this one)
People generally do not buy this software for use at home but will use WaReZ because demo versions are a waste of time.
Businesses need people who KNOW how to use the software.
People know how to use this software well because theyve been using it at home.
Business is where software is sold.That is the business model for the PC and has been since the PC boom in the 80s.
Complaining about home use piracy is smoke and farts in the wind.They really dont care.
Microcrud only toots the DRM horn now because they stand to profit by doing so.
Microcrud will always be able to play mp3 because someone will always circumvent DRM.
No One Really Cares especially Steve "hoover" Ballmer.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Flight sims are used to practice hijacking
Trench coats are used to conceal bombs
Sex creates babies which grow into lawbreaking adults
Human brains are used to plan crimes...
It's people like you who cause the RIAA and MPAA to sue ordinary citizens.
It's the flawed system that promotes the greed of the corporation which causes the RIAA and MPAA to sue ordinary citizens. So-called 'piracy' is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
Freeloaders who show no appreciation or respect for musicians hard work
Sounds likes you are describing the labels & RIAA to me.
Most - as in 99.999% of musicians are overworked and underpaid.
This was true long before Napster was born. In fact, it was true long before Shawn Fanning was born.
Ballmer's rhetoric and the parent of this post are looking at the impressions that they have of what the music world is like. There is the corporate view where the customers are seen as more like thieves and rodents... much like the view taken by that of the monarchy of the people. There is the end user view which seeks as much usability/freedom as possible. Then, there is the Apple view, which is make it usable, but also do your best to keep it legit.
You do your best because you can't control your users' intentions. Using DRM to the point of making your music sound like sh*t(aka CD copy protection which has only a Windows usable crappy WMA file on it is SH*T. Thank god Sony is backing out of this mess. Maybe Final Fantasy and JPOP music will be usable on Macs again.)
What you are missing is the population of computer users who actually want to be law-abiding citizens and would purchase music if it permitted them the same freedoms that purchasing CDs(as defined by Philips) gives them. Ie, the ability to play the disc and/or its contents wherever and whenever they want.
You shouldn't have to pay extra to play it in your car AND your computer AND your portable, which is what folks like Ballmer, MS, RIAA, etc would ultimately like.
Winged Power Photography
Well, alright, in my country DVD movies are quite a bit more expensive though. More like $40.
My gripe is not so much how much CDs cost, but how much of it, or rather, how little of the money gets paid to the artist in the end. Let me give you a little inside info (I'm a musician, this is from first hand experience).
A record company will sign an artist, pay them a smallish amount to live off while they record a CD. Usually the deal will be for a couple of CDs, with a time limit. Then they will, ideally, promote the band, pay for the studio time, basicall cover all their expenses. This money is not for free or even in exchange for the band's work. It is a loan to the band, charged at interest rates that would make any loanshark worth his salt's eys water.
Now, lets say the band gets 50c for each CD sold. (For a yet unknown band, this is daydreaming. Some of the top guys, I'm thinking Sting, Celine Dion, Enrique, ect. - artists who often sell millions of CDs per album, might be able to negotiate a slightly better deal, but not much)
The band has to sell CDs until the money they owe the record label is paid in full out of their cut from the CDs. Many artists never manage this, so they remain in debt to the record company, who can (and do) use this to make each consecutive contract worse for the artist. Many artists never manage to repay everything. Sometimes, at the end of the artist's sell-by date, the record company might scrap the debt. Which would mean the artist never made much more than he/she needed to survive and cover their gear, while the record company made a small fortune out of them - remember the other $9.50 did not go towards paying off the artist debt, the record company made that clean.
So, yeah, the Record labels "lose" loads more out of music piracy than the artists, but the artist lose too, and compared to what most of them get paid, they lose a lot more. Most muso are certainly not overpaid, and it's a little unfair to penalise the musicians for the recording industry's greed.
sigaar
-- I have 3 words for the **AA, the fools who think their DRM will override our fair use: BRING IT ON
They have 4 letters for you: DMCA.
This comment was coming from the CEO of the biggest corporate criminal in history! Most of Microsoft's money has been stolen through their leverage of an illegal monopoly. It'll be a cold day in hell before I listen to a lecture from this criminal.
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Let's not forget that Linux didn't have the volume, either. Google didn't have it either. Rarely does anything have volume when it's young. Quantity (volume) is not the only factor. There is something to be said about quality, too! :)
Simpy
What bothers me most is here, in a third world country most people still 'steal' windows. How can they protect others when their own products are not steal proof? BTW some cd stores here sell roughly 50% pirated music and 100% pirated software (well, maybe 99% if you don't count linux as pirated-be warned though, the linux sold here is the complete comercial redhat, mandrake, suse, etc distros, so I said 100% pirated.
Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like you do when nobody's watching
By Ballmer's logic everyone who owns an MP3 player that supports an unprotect formats like MP3 is a theif. Also wouldn't Windows users be classified as theives as well because most P2P application run on Windows, and I bet the majority of the people sharing and downloading are running Windows.
Microsoft should work on making their products more secure (god knows they need to) and save the mud linging for the politicians.
Movies can be this cheap because, for the most part, they recoup much of their expenses in the theatre. When the DVD hits the shelves any money that the studio is getting is more or less pure profit (after considering the expenses of mastering and producing the DVD, etc).
There are of course films that don't cover their costs with theatrical runs, but do very well on home video (kids movies are big in this), and of course movies that do poorly at the box office and poorly on home video. However, for the most part, DVD sales can be cheap because the investment has been covered by the time the product hits the shelves.
All of the very hard-core Linux users I know (myself included) are strictly anti-piracy. It also helps that we have decent jobs; it's harder to justify "stealing" a $10 album when you can easily afford to buy it. That's not to say that Linux-using pirates don't exist. I simply have never met any. Windows users often seem to have stolen copies of games, movies, software, etc. They have a culture of piracy that we thankfully don't seem to have in Linux circles.
Nice attempt at painting with a broad brush there. Pity you're not accurate.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Glad MS has the high ground on theivery issues. Otherwise they may be considered hypocritical on this subject.
And try finding rare 80's industrial music on P2P services. You will never get the whole album, only radio singles. It is easier and faster to buy it on vinyl sometimes. One of the problems with P2P downloading is that unpopular or rare material can become "unfindable" and possibly disappear entirely from the system.
Ballmer's company stole just about every idea they've ever had from other companies, so if I were him, I'd tone down this "stealing" rhetoric.
Uhh, dude, not everyone here is proud of being celibate.
You know what? I'll even call a spade a spade - I don't have any intention of using iTunes at 99 cents. The record companies dropped the ball, and I am now used to getting for free what I had previously paid 18 bucks a pop for. Do I feel bad? Not in the least.
/. won't like this, but they'll have to accept the fact that we're quietly moving into an era where the consumer - the person that both the creator and the corps rely on - is being returned to his rightful place of power.
They dropped the ball when they made huge scenes at press conferences with Lars and Hilary standing side by side to fight the evil p2p'ers. They dropped the ball when they refused to work towards some mutually beneficial pricing scheme that would *gasp* give both artists and consumers a fair shake! Instead, they charge 1.00 a song, which can run you into paying MORE than you would had you just bought the CD.
Meanwhile, I can get the same thing for free. I provide the bandwidth, they have no packaging costs, why should I pay MORE than I would for the physical media? Because they say so? Fuck them. I know the IP apologists on
What's that? You want to "license" me your content and sign my rights away with a clickthrough EULA? That's so cute... fuck you. In case you haven't noticed yet, you are on the losing end of a battle that has been going on for almost 5 years now. The only way you'll win is to make it easier to buy your shit than it is to steal it. That means *gasp* reduced profit margins for the corps, and *2x gasp!* no more bullshit rockstar lifestyles for the golden idols!
This means that the creation of music, movies, etc. would become...*shudders*...ANOTHER NORMAL JOB that you would actually have to be GOOD at and keep IMPROVING on to keep your position! Holy shit, we can't have that now, can we?!
The problem with this whole thread is that first it has to be understood that Ballmer is a corporate asshole. Everything he says has to be filtered through that concept. Worse, he's a corporate asshole that repeatedly and loudly Doesn't Get It when it comes to customers. They aren't consumer units or little thieving roaches. They have the RIGHT to store and protect the concepts they've have a license to on *any* medium. As much as it pains me, Donald Trump Gets It (at least he says he gets it in the OfficeDepot spots). If your primary mission is "maximizing value to shareholders after I line my pockets" ... its all screwed. If your primary mission is "taking care of my customers, keep them happy, and the money will flow", then you have a sustainable clue.
1. 2% "unauthorized" (but Legal in Canada) files. These fall under the "What do you think of this song?" category, and if I like it I do buy it. If I don't like it, it disappears from my hard drive immediately.
2. 0% from iTunes and other online services.
3. 3% from shareable sources, including my own compositions and downloads from artists' own websites.
4. 10% are compilation-type rips of my own CDs, vinyl and cassettes (Approximately 500 albums). I also have a few MP3s of items I once owned but lost to scratches, tape-eating cassette players and stuff-disappearing ex-spouses.
85% of my collection is on legit CD's. But I actively avoid buying *new* CDs on principle: I despise DRM and I don't want to put money in the pockets of RIAA and CRIA.
"The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'."
The current iPod has audio support for these formats:
AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, WAV and Apple Lossless.
I'm certain Apple pays it's licensing fees for the formats it does not own. Ballmer's comments are nothing but spin to attarct attention to MS.
Less than 1% of all working musicians are wealthy. The remainder barely earn a living wage.
But they still got all the chicks, so I don't think anyone here will feel sorry for them.
Microsoft is going to make the "digital home" a reality? Oh, God forbid! There is no way that their technologies can reliably drive the complex workings of a smarthouse, without a resident IT department.
Here's a news flash for you, Microsoft... Apple is a LOT closer to the Digital Home than you are. While you're building smarthome showrooms (supported by an IT department) to impress HGTV, Apple has shipped Airport Express, making simple wireless audio distribution a reality. That's just step one.
Apple's only two market-/mindshare problems are simple ones: 1-) Lack of advertising for anything but iPod, and 2-) lack of a sub-$800 model that appeals to the masses. I mean, put yourself in the computer-buyer's shoes. Most of them don't know what they want... I know, I worked at CompUSA. If they see the Dell next to a comparably priced (but more capable) Mac, they'll take the cooler product.
Yeah, surprise... innovation DOES win, but only if the price is close enough. I understand Apple's desire to be BMW, but I think they'd be better off modeling themselves after GM. They've got the Cadillacs down pat, but they need a Chevrolet model.
That's nice...
The question here is "who cares"? Microsoft has not produced a successful home electronics product, with possibly the exception of the X-Box. The numbers you ramble off are collective consumer, business and enterprise market sales for both products and services. Apple on the other hand is focused almost entirely on consumer sales.
As such they have a better consumer product line and in my experience happier customers overall. Have you been to an Apple store? They tend to have a brisk amount of business for a "niche" market. I just think it is a bit presumptuous of Ballmer to call a fight even before his company gets into the ring.
Let's see
VAX32
Netscape code
Java (use, replace, then disable)
Stolen security and networking from UNIX
Apple's interface
Then there's the subtle criminal stuff like;
Forcing OEMs to be exclusive or charging more (blackmail)
Integrating players and browsers after agreeing with the Feds not to (contempt)
Swearing you could not de-integrate said featured in your court case in the US, then suddenly producing a RUssian and European stripped version within 6 months of losing your case there. (Perjury)
Having your CEO SWEAR that M$ never intended to block out Netscape from the browser market then discovering emails that said you actually did (more perjury)
Claiming you have a "more secure" OS than Linux when a 6 year old has found security holes (poor development, lying, stupidity)
Yep, when I think of ethics and upstanding citizens, Microsoft is the company I want preaching ethics to me! Could there be a larger group of assholes on the planet?
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
The most common format of music on an Windows PC is stolen!
Throughout history, there has been a notion that music is the collective property of a culture. Musicians and music enthusiasts have created this culture. The big studios that are members of RIAA have plundered this culture for their own profit, at the expense of everyone else involved. They were able to do this becuase certain developments in technology allowed them to control the means of production. Now newer advances in technology are allowing us to take back our culture and gain control over the means of production and distribution. The only real purpose they serve anymore is that of a marketing machine: i.e. foisting their corporate, mass-produced pseudo-culture on the rest of the world.
All media should be free. Why stop the natural course of technology just because the beneficiaries of previous technological advances feel it will hurt their profits?
Even if media becomes free, movie studios can still make money off of theatre sales. Record companies can make money off of concerts. And DVDs and CDs will still be bought, as long as they add extra value.
Artists didn't disappear before there were CDs and movie studios still existed before VHS.
I guess this will be me blowing off steam; having posted i think once before, i don't think this will get moderated very high. . .
.
.
.
1) 0% - Ethics Major at university. Sorry
2) 0% - Don't like Macs.
3) 0% - Creative Commons? Haven't heard of that one. .
4) 100% - Everything i like, i buy. Everything i buy, i rip. If i can't afford the CD i want, i simply wait until i can afford it.
5) 0% - They don't have anything i like that i haven't already bought myself.
6) ~1% - i've written about 10 cd's of stuff, but it pales in comparrison to my Cure collection. (see rant below)
7) ~.% - 1 cd by an unknown band from university. they broke up in the studio.
All right. That's me. You want to know my three room mates?
1) ~90% - too cheap to pay for what they can get for free
2) 0% - they don't know what Macs are
3) 0% - this is a guess. If i don't know about it, i doubt they do
4) 10% - the couple of cd's they bought before they found out about Napster, et al
5) 50% - lot of friends, lots of cd's
and this is where i start spewing hate :
6) 0%
7) 0%
i absolutely refuse to sell/give my cd's to people i know that swap mp3's online. I've worked too hard and spent too much time and money to have some pimply faced teen downloading my music for free, while i've sunk about $4000 into my recording studio, which still sounds amateur.
I made my mistake at university, gave one of my first cds to a kid across the hall. within a day, it was smeared across the whole campus, and couple of the houses off site. they didn't see the cover art i photographed and put together, they didn't read any of the liner notes i spent weeks rearranging to get the most impact, and best of all, no one bought the album. maybe because, being a demo of my first album, it sucked? possibly. but you think out of 3000 students, one would have said "hey, neat. here's five bucks" or something. .
and i know most people, who have probably never written music, much less played an instrument, think that this is good, because now more people are hearing my material. i play for my love of music right? yeah, see, the only problem is, is all the freakin' ears in the world aren't going to help me buy more gear, or rent real studio time, or pay for my food so i don't have to get that second job which takes all my free time so i can no longer write new music.
Look, i don't even know what my point is anymore. I'm just screaming down an empty tunnel. I just hate those posts "we're trading MP3's for the good of the artists. they love making music", where in reality, they're the ones preventing the artists from doing what they like to do. .
- rovent
Roughly what percentage of your audio collection comes from time shifted streaming audio? For me over 90% (in minutes).
...
I record and download several internet streaming audio broadcasts. I keep about a month's worth of them on my iPod. Sure, they may not 'outnumber' the iPod songs which I BOUGHT and the three or four songs I was given, but the songs' average length is measured in ones of minutes and the radio programs' average length is measured in ones of hours.
Air America Radio - 4 programs per weekday - about 12 hours a day
Neal Boortz - 1 program per weekday - about 2 hours a day
Local programming - 2 programs per weekday - about 3 hours a day
Mac Radio News - 1 program per week - about 1 hour a week
Doctor Demento - 1 program per week - about two hours a week
HHGGMMIV - 1 episode per week - about 0.5 hours per week
And you'll also find the speeches from the RNC and DNC 2004 conventions (Thanks, audible.com!) and the presidential and vice presidential debates
*
Let's accuse the accuser!
Perhaps a few questions for Mr. Ballmerde would be:
What percent of Microsoft Windows comes from ripping off now-dead software companies?
What percent of Microsoft Windows comes from ripping off existing software companies?
What percent of the unworking portions of Microsoft Windows could/would/should work if Microsoft hadn't blocked third party software companies' products?
*
I tried to give away bootleg copies of "My Life" but no one wanted them.
Here is a quick statistic. I download music, but if I like what I hear I buy the CD.
If it where not for downloading I would not have started hearing or buying the music I now listen to.
Please chose all that apply:
A) Stolen
B) Communism
C) Cancer
D) Terrorism
E) Un-American
F) Destructive to US jobs
G) Destructive to US competitive advantage
H) Non-standard
I) Inferior technology
J) Has a higher cost of Ownership
H) Anything other negative msft can imagine
Whatever your answer, please send money to msft.
BTW: I think msft has accused F/OSS of being all of the above.
I disagree. Rare songs are a whole ot harder to find legally. People don't want to stock their sheleves with stuff that doesn't sell, so only the most popluar music makes it there. So far I'm finding this to be ture with legal download services like itunes as well.
When you can't win on facts, win on personal attacks. It's nice to see that Ballmer is starting to resort to this, that means he is losing.
Most CEO's, VP's and Directors have iPODS with the JBL creature speakers. Apple is getting a lot of visibility as an innovator at high levels and more opportunities and partnerships are flowing their way. This is scaring the hell out of Ballmer who desperately needs this piece of the action to grow or at least sustain earnings.
I own an iPOD and it's the best game in town for MP3's and portable file storage. Ballmer knows it and his only chance is to discredit Apple as a promoter of piracy. Apparently Ballmer hasn't learned the same lessons that IBM learned with microchannel architecture and that Sony learned with it's memory stick and proprietary audio format. I hope Ballmer keeps going full steam ahead and obliviously sails on, right into the iceberg. Go Steve GO! You're right, everyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong. Show the world that you are right!
Just so you know, sharing MP3s may be illegal, but considering it doesn't fall into an easy category like, oh, "theft," it's anything but self-evident that it's immoral. And FWIW, this is from a philosophy/ethics and music graduate.
"I made my mistake at university, gave one of my first cds to a kid across the hall. within a day, it was smeared across the whole campus, and couple of the houses off site."
Not to sound trite, but you do realize that there are people reading that line and wishing they could be in your position. If you do not have a record contract you don't have publicity. If you're on the internet, there's too much noise for you to have publicity. Fine, you didn't authorize it and obviously it annoyed you, but have you really understood--everybody on that campus apparently listened to what you had. From the rest of your message, you seem to think that people are just falling over to listen to amateur unsigned music.
Well, guess what--music has been a buyer's market for a long time, and no matter whether you use traditional means or not, you got an opportunity for free that better musicians than you worked harder to fail at getting. No matter what you say about it not earning you money to buy new instruments, it still got you a lot closer to it than keeping the music locked up tight in your closet. If you were Britney Spears you'd have an argument about some potential sales lost, but you have to practically (or literally, I guess, with a typical record contract) pay people to listen to your music if you're unknown.
Again, I majored in music, I've published works and so on. Even if it was an unfinished demo, you had publicity that most people only dream about. Really, you seem to have known my argument before I said it, in an abstract way, but you don't seem to really get that it's just going to get harder and harder to get anyone to listen after you graduate, and most people in college can't get "the whole college and a few houses off campus" interested enough to listen even if they're popular while in college.
My argument is not that "people are trading MP3s for the good of the artist," but it's not "people are trading MP3s because they're immoral thieves," either. In actuality, people trade MP3s because people want to listen to music. There is nothing moral or immoral about that fact, no matter what your post-ethical legal standpoint is. So cheer up and try to stop being angry at people for the damnable sin of being curious about your music.
100% agreed.
;]). I still do, however, browse the newsgroups for electronic and other more niche music genres.
Off the top of my head, acts that I listen to nowadays that I would never have heard of otherwise:
Cursive
Jazzanova
Dredg
Denali
From these bands I've heard of other bands:
Eastern Youth
Murder By Death
Minus The Bear
The Statistics
Darkest Hour
Decahedron
The Good Life, Desparedecidos (Basically the saddle creek label)
Stereolab
I attend these band's shows (seeing Dredg next week), I buy their merchandise (on Sunday I bought the Cursive/Eastern Youth split, and a Cursive t-shirt for my girlfriend).
As it happens, as I've grown older, and as they've grown more dangerous, I've used filesharing applications less. I have to be much more active in my pursuit of more music (it's very easy to browse someone's collection who likes stuff you like online... not always so much in person [and then they only usually stump for a couple of their favorite artists
In my non-researched, lazy consumer opinion, I think that the solution is very very very low cost music options, and if possible, a one-fee sort of thing. E.g. Ultra-Napazaa, where you pay 5$ a month to download whatever the hell you want at 128kbps. If you really like it, you can buy CD-quality download or shipment for some nominal fee (another 5 dollars, say). Very few if any of the bands I list above sell huge amounts of records. I don't imagine that they would make less if such a distribution channel existed in parallel to classic retail.
-Greg
He wasn't painting anything. From the grandparent:
That's not to say that Linux-using pirates don't exist. I simply have never met any.
He acknowledges that some linux users are pirates.
Personally, I have a theory that supports his assumptions. In my experience as a part-time consultant, most people that use Windows at home are unaware of the fact that the so-called "casual copying" that they do is illegal. I've stopped trying to educate them about it because of all of the arguments I get into (arguing with customers is bad for business). I have a feeling that if they understood the moral and legal implications of "borrowing" their neighbor's MS Office installation disc or Norah Jones music CD, many of them would not do it.
By contrast, most linux users are experienced techies who know more about copyright laws and EULAs. Therefore, assuming the same moral thread can be applied, they would not be likely to pirate software or music.
This is, as I said, based on my own experiences with people, as well as my own moral and intellectual progress over the past several years. In the "quickie slashdot poll", I truthfully answered 0% downloaded (illegally or otherwise), 2% my own recordings, and 98% ripped from my own CDs, which is fair use. Accordingly, 100% of the software on my computer is either open source or otherwise legally obtained from the author, including a few little programs written by me in my quest to learn C++.
I can't claim, as the grandparent does, that every Linux user I know is not a pirate. My brother still downloads music from questionable sources, and one of my good friends thinks nothing of using pirated OEM copies of Microsoft software. However, I am the person who introduced both of them to Linux, and hopefully I will be able to convince them of the illegality and immorality of what they do.