Slashdot Mirror
Would You Pay 5 Cents For a Song?
irikar writes "An academic at McGill University has a simple plan to stop the plague of unauthorized music downloads on the Internet. But it entails changing the entire music industry as we know it, and Apple Computers, which may have the power to make the change, is listening."
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
When first reading the article, my instinct was to not go along with the notion charging for downloaded music, even only $.05 a song. Especially with DRM, etc., always on the sideline poised to come in and wrap you around the axle anytime to you try to play the song (in the proper spirit of fair use)... (I'm STILL upset about one of my recent CD's purchased not playing on my car CD player.... took it in, they would only exchange it... and, sure enough, the exchanged CD failed to play in exactly the same places in exactly the same way... had to demo this to the store personnel before they would agree to a refund.)
But, maybe they have something there... certainly when: "..., The recording industry is against Pearlman's plan. ..., ", I've got to think
it may be something that could work.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I heard many, many different variations. And most of them were sung in the style of Doris Day's version (giddy and happy and making me want to slap the singer). There were some versions that came close, but I couldn't decide whether that was what I wanted or not. Ultimately at the $1 price per song I didn't download any of my "candidates" since I didn't hear enough to convince me before the sale that that was the type I was looking for. Had the price been $0.05 per song I probably would have downloaded most of the candidates and not given the price much thought.
While this wouldn't help sell the big name artists at all, it would get the casual music listener like me. Whether there are enough of my type around is a completely different question and one that I can't begin to answer.
(As an aside, I never found the right version of Que Sera, Sera and in general that isn't the type of music I listen to. Just something that struck a nerve at that particular moment.)
They get like maybe 1$ per cd. They've always made money from touring. The rule has been the record companies get the money from the sales and the artist gets the money from touring.
Now the greedy record companies want a piece of artists touring money as well. The folks killing music right now are the record labels not the downloaders.
This is a great idea, a band could pay thier own studio costs, put the music directly up for download and then who needs the record companies??
I don't mind right now paying $.88 a song, I do have a problem that very little of that actully goes to the musicans.
People need to face the facts record labels are as relevent in the digital age as say manufacturers of long bows, chain maille armour and broadswords.
The people I'm referring to are of course the folks working at the record label. In this age of oursourceing, downsizing and cost cutting there is no room left for record labels that suck up 90% of the cash from music sales and then complain that they don't get enough.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
" 'artists' like Lipsychson making millions. Record company execs making...millions. IT pros making...a lot less than that. Now ask yourself who can 'suck it up' the most of those groups."
Bad analogy. The executives at Apple (or whomever is paying the IT guys) make millions -- the executives in any large industry make quite a bit of money. The vast majorify of people who work in the record industry (including the "executives" at some indie labels I've met), just as the vast majority of people who work in the IT field, work paycheck-to-paycheck.
Likewise, the vast majority of artists do not earn a handsome living from their craft. "Let's help ourselves to music for free" goes down a lot smoother if you believe that everybody who contributed to the music is a millionaire, but it's simply not true.
I hope this wasn't a surprise to you.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
However, in Econ 301 they learned that running a cartel to fix prices is the best system of all, so that's what they did. Supply and demand have nothing to do with the record industry's prices.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Your argument pretty much justifies the things that I have been saying for years. Most bands don't make hardly any money off CD sales in the first place, they make their money through live shows and merch. So, I never understood why all these big bands/performers complained so much about us downloading their songs...
;) I always "try before I buy" with my music these days. If you make good music, you have nothing to lose. If you are a no talent, one hit wonder pop star, then you don't deserve to be in the music industry in the first place. My current favorite band, Celldweller, has no record label and distributes the majority of their music from the web.
But, then you also have to take into consideration musicians who only produce studio work and never play live. There are quite a few people, especially in electronica, who only record music and never set foot on a stage.
I say a mixture is in order. Release all your songs online in a lossy format, with a slightly sub par bitrate, and allow them to be distributed freely (96k mp3 or even better, a Q0(~64k) Ogg). Then charge people for the "full quality" CDs or Lossless (FLAC,etc) files. I wouldn't mind paying $1 for each song if I got to download a "decent", full length version of it for free and try it out for a while first. And of course, no DRM encumbered formats would be used
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
Canada just recinded a 3 or 4 year old blank cd media tax.
Up here, lobbyists pressured the gov't to tax blank CD media which would then be handed over to the music industry. Their reason: people will steal music no matter what, so let's just obfuscate the the music industry's perceived profits by making people pay for it one way or another.
A few years back ontario deregulated the hydro and within the first year, some people were paying 50 cents per kilowatthour (average is about 6 cents) and their hydro bills were astronomical at the peak of the summer. Later, the ontario gov't put a cap of 4.7 cents but the balance was paid for by our taxes. It was a kick in the balls and a pat on the head move and is not going to be the last.
Whatever happened to the days where companies stood or fell on their own terms, and not propped up by the handouts of some third party such as the gov't?
As a democracy, I say we all rise up and quell any further stupid shit that spews forth from our parliament/congress/whatever. I say we bring back the gillotine.
My wife and I have been talking about this quite a bit recently. We've been watching "American Idol". Anwar Robinson is clearly the most musically talented person to ever be on that show, but the stuff he does is not what the record companies want to market. This past Monday he got up and sang Louis Armstrong's "Wonderful World". He started out singing like Louis Armstrong, then series of runs as he moved the style into something more reminicent of Sammy Davis Jr., and finally ended the song in a soul style. His talent should win, but he won't fit into the marketing machine of the record companies.
Please explain to me why that was wrong.
Simple, because you thought for yourself, instead of relying on the state's definition of right and wrong. Next thing you know, you'll decide that you don't need the government telling you what substances you can put into your body or what constitutes obscenity. What happens when everybody starts thinking for himself or herself, substituting their own judgment for that of career politicians?
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
cheap goods are made for cheap people
There is a saying that goes something like this:
I'm not rich enough to buy cheap things.
Even though cheap goods are made for cheap people, it's a false sense of cheap, because the cheap good will inevitably break, forcing you to buy another one and another one, when for the same amout of money as 2 or 3 cheap goods, you could have bought a more expensive high quality good that would last you a lot longer than 3x lifetime of cheap good.
I've seen it time and time again, especially with electronics, umbrellas, and of course, digital watches, which, for some reason, seem like a good idea.
The music industry is being greedy, not logical when they determine their pricing right now. [T]he price for music is obscenely high. No CD is worth $ 16
The hair on the back of my neck stands up whenever I hear someone claim that "CDs cost too much." CDs are the cheapest form of entertainment, on a dollar-per-hour-enjoyed basis of anything I can think of. For the price of $12 or $15, you can buy an hour's worth of high-quality (fidelity, if not artistic merit) music and enjoy it over and over, for thousands of hours, as many times as you want. And when you finally get bored with it, you can sell it and recoup some of your money.
NOTHING else is as cheap. No pro sports, concerts, operas, plays, ballets, movies, dinners, truck shows, car races, or comedy clubs give you anywhere near that many hours of entertainment, for anywhere close that such a low price. Nor can you get any of your money back when you're finished "enjoying" anything I just listed, except for CDs.
Quit complaining. CDs are cheap.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.