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Music Industry P2P Claims Dismantled
Canarock writes "First Monday runs a great
article this month from Canadian
law professor Michael Geist that dismantles the recording
industry's claims about the peer-to-peer. Using actual data from
Canada, Piercing
the P2P Myths, demonstrates that the loss claims are greatly exaggerated
and that P2P has had little, if any impact on the income of the artists themselves." From the article: "The Canadian government has been the target of intense lobbying for stronger copyright legislation in recent months. Led by the music industry, which claims that it has experienced significant financial losses due to music downloading, the campaign culminated in November 2004 with a lobby day on Parliament Hill."
Its nice to see this posted on ./ but I think that most people here know that point to point doesn't harm the industry.
The way I see it,we all have so much spare cash per week that we spend on something.
If its not music, its ringtones, video games, or something.
But point to point apps don't actually destroy money, its still there. People want to spend, and if they hear music they like, they are more likely to spend money in this way.
So when the industry says that there is x million dollars of "stolen" music, its actually a fairly spurious argument that people would have actually spent that money, or that they actually spent any less that month.
Just my 2c.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
In the red corner, Old, with its established monopolies, its heavy labour-intensive structures, its lobbyists, and its wealth.
... adapt, or die.
In the blue corner, New, with its sharp technological tools and paper-thin cost structures. No lobbyists, not much wealth.
It happened with Big Auto, Big Steel, Big Telecoms, and it will happen with Big Music, Big Media, and Big Software...
Technology has changed the way things work. The old structures solve problems (communication, mainly) that are no longer there.
Of course, Big Whatever never adapts until it's practically on its knees.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Music companies, music stores and the related supply chain existed, and made money because it did the job of the network -- sourcing music from the artist and providing it to the end-user. Inherently, a flawed business model in today's world. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out this old-world supply chain will be dead in another few years, no matter how hard the RIAA try.
No wonder its the supply chain that has lost the most, and not the artists. Artists will, eventually find the internet to provide their creations, and make money on it, online. May be through personal p2p networks.
--
All your music are belong to us.
I'm glad the artists are getting their money. So now you're only screwing the marketing, engineering and management. Is that acceptable?
Yes. Now that the middlemen are no longer necessary for the efficient production and distribution of music, the musicians should sell their music directly to us and the middlemen should find other jobs. That's how the market economy works, you know?
The _______ industry is full of it for claiming that every ______ represents a lost sale.
First blank: software companies, music companies, or whatever.
Second blank: home taping, both audio & video, software coping, P2P, or whatever.
There's a simple truth here. One may be willing to get a "copy for free" of some works, but is not willing to pay for it period.
In other words: If "I" can't get it for free, then "I'll" do without.
One may be willing to DL an old bubble-gum tune from the late sixties, or early seventies, but one may not be interested enough to cough up cash for it.
A college student may not have enough money to purchase M$ Word, but uses a "pirate" copy for class work. If "pirate" copies are not available then the student would use something that is.
1 "pirate" copy = 1 lost sale? FALSE!
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
This is somewhat of a misbelief. Wealth is not a raw material that we can spend in different ways. Wealth is rather the indirect result of our economic activity. In other words, how we spend our money affects how much money we have.
To be precise: all our wealth as a society comes from the productivity gains made when we specialise. This is why "free trade" (like many freedoms) is a key part of creating wealth.
An example. Say I can earn $50 in a day cooking in a restaurant, and it costs me $10 a day to get someone to clean my house. I can certainly clean my own home but clearly it's better for me to pay someone the $10 and gain the chance to earn $50.
All wealth is created through this kind of trade.
Now, back to the music business. If we spend $100 on an inefficient structure, we may create a certain amount of wealth. But if we spend the same $100 on a more efficient structure, we can create more wealth.
This is why new technologies that make trading more efficient, that open larger markets, and that increase competition, also create wealth.
Point-to-point apps are potentially very lucrative. The problem is that when wealth is created, it usually ends up in new hands.
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They don't want to adapt because they can buy laws. This is Big Adaptation. If you had a monopoly on entertainment distribution, are you willing to adapt and allow others to cut in?
This article is the first I've read that shows P2P doesn't really affect music sales in Canada. The article's author makes a great point about the "hurting artists." The real hurt is the cartels' doing, giving artists pennies in royalty per sale.
Finally, in Canada, someone actually questions the music cartels' claims of losses and counters with proof. Nevertheless, the recordable media taxing levy only pays "their" artists. Other unpopular artists won't see a cent, and they may end up paying the taxing levy to record their music to sell.
With the new proposals to change Canada's copyright laws, we won't be able to legally circument DRMs even to make personal copies; thus, once again, the taxing levy doesn't benefit anyone except those collecting it.
- grab older tracks that had been deleted and hence weren't making the record companies any money
- download tracks they owned on vinyl because they didn't have the time to rip them
- downloaded song simply becasue they were free and never in a month of Sundays would they ever consider buying them.
Just because they logged a downloaded doesn't guarantee that it was lost income."RIAA use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination."
Absolutely not. We should remove the laws that make this a crime and rethink the entire system under which these laws came about.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I'm not sure, but I think there is one little weak point in the calculations - depending on how the copying levy in Canada is intended.
Such a levy has been used to compensate for losses due to any kind of private copying in Germany years ago .
If the Canadian levy too is meant to compensate for all kinds of private copying (not only file sharing) then one could argue against the last part of the calculations.
If I remember it right, the author calculates the estimated loss for artists due to file sharing and argues later that this sum is more than covered by the collected levy;
but if the levy is intended to cover all copying - not only file sharing, but also for example copying CDs for friends - the loss might very well be higher than the compensation.
Never thought I would somehow "defend" the music industry but I liked the study and had a "to nice to be true"-fear while reading it.
But even if the above mentioned criticism is true, it doesn't negate the rest of the author's finding about the overestimated loss claims.
Oh, that's priceless.
I was talking to a co-worker the other day. She's a musician, and she was saying that downloading of music has really hurt musicians. I told her that I didn't believe that, but only because of my personal situation. You see, I don't buy CDs. I used to. I used to buy at least 3-4 per month. But, then prices kept going up, and eventually it just stopped being worth it. I actually stopped buying CDs LONG before I was able to download music, and to this day, the music I listen too is almost entirely rips of MY old CDs, not downloaded music.
She said, "but $15 or $20 isn't that much for soemthing you enjoy." I agreed, but the problem is that that logic worked back when you bought a several oz. chunk of vinyl, took it home and played it start-to-finish. When I stopped buying music, I was buying CDs to put into shuffle-players (and of course, today, I put a thousand songs on shuffle-play). It's a differnt economy of scale, and sadly it favors music "product" over music "substance".
The only solution that I can see is for people to stop buying media as their primary source of music, and instead patronize live evnets, the smaller the better. I'd love to go back to the 50s where you never went ANYWHEERE that didn't have live musicians playing. Department stores had musicians. Bars had musicians. They were everywhere. A friend of mine who was in his 40s when I was a teen-ager once advised me to learn and instrument because I could always fall back on that if my career wasn't doing well. Today, that's horrible advice, but it SHOULDN'T be!
Many people also forget that file sharing also increase CD sales as well. Usually because of things like wider exposure of non-hit music, revitalized oldies, compilations, etc.
For example, a long time I ago I stopped buying music instead of the very rare CD because I already had a sizable collection. Then, due to MP3's and music sharing I was exposed to more music and old music I had enjoyed, but never got. Because of that my CD purchasing has more then doubled!
With the new music, so often it's not worth the money to buy the entire album for 1 or two good songs, and you never hear the other songs. There are several CD's I've purchased after having a chance to hear what else was on them. Plus, compilations are out there that you don't often hear about, but getting interested in finding an older song or artist has gotten me to look for where to get that song or songs, and often I find others by the same artist I want to get as well, causing me to fiund and purchase a compilation (often multi CD) that I hadn't even known existed and wouldn't have looked for in stores without the exposure.
The entire music industry (not just the RIAA) needs to look at their distribution & profit model because of things like this. But, the RIAA seems so bent on trying to keep themselves going under there old model. In this day and age, they appear to be an archaic left over of times when they need to be in control.
Back in the day when laws corresponded with morality, this might be something I'd listen to.
These days, laws are more and more becoming a tool for people in power to swing around like a weapon. They're forged by people in power, for people in power.
What is a crime? Something in a book somewhere that says you shouldn't do it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's moral or respectable. Do you care about laws you don't respect? Do you feel that because something is law, it is correct?
If everyone was taught right and wrong, and used their own moral codes instilled over their life, there would be no problems of legal/lawful nature. The problem is that people aren't often tought that anymore, and so the lawbooks are there as a guide.
Except they're littered with immoral and un-respectable laws, thanks to corruption and the heavy sway of money in the hands of the rich and greedy.
So should you really be attaching a negative stigma to all acts of "Crime" in this day and age? Do you really think that the person is doing something immoral in each and every instance?
Think about it.
Exactly.
The problem is that most people will only spend money when it is convenient to do so. The music industry hasn't twigged to the fact that it's just as easy to download music as warez as it was five-ten years ago, if not easier. They haven't twigged to the fact that it is a lot harder to buy music from stores and use it the way you want . They haven't twigged to the fact that you're getting a better product from warez than what you get from buying it from a shop or buying it from iTunes. Unfortunately for them, we have.
I agree, completely.
:D
The last time I walked into a store and bought a CD was in 1998.
There just isn't anything on FM radio or in music stores that interests me. I'm a little too old (nearing 30) for new stuff that all sounds bland and alike to me - like Maroon, 3 Doors Down, Simple Plan - UGH! And there aren't a lot of widely distributed and advertised albums from genres I do like such as industrial.
Additionally, I'm not interested in owning a case, liner notes and a CD. I listen to music almost exclusively on my desktop computer, on my laptop and on my portable MP3 player. And in the rare instance that I need to listen to a CD in a car - I could just burn a copy of my own music to disc. But I can't recall the last time I did that, either.
This doesn't mean I don't buy music, though. I admit, I do download a lot of less popular things. Mostly classic rock, classical music and a lot of music from the 60s, 70s and 80s. But I also buy a lot of music. For example, I discovered "Sub Dub Micromachine" by listening to their song "Bullshit". I googled for their website, found a link to purchasing a downloadable copy of their album for $7.99 (in euros - about $10 in USD, I believe) and then added it to my collection.
While I was at the site that handled the online distribution of this band's album, I stumbled upon a band called "Hammerfall". They sounded great from the samples. So I bought two of their albums, too.
That's three full album sales that never would have occurred without the existance of P2P. And while I could probably have found their content for free online, I was happy enough to have discovered something new that my ears appreciated, that I gladly handed over about $34 USD.
The thing is, because these are smaller bands, with smaller followings (and both bands are from Norway, Sweden or Germany) and they aren't part of the big labels, I suspect that their sales are not tabulated by the industry. I could be wrong, but I would suggest that a lot of the lost sales the major RIAA members are claiming (which of course doesn't seem to be legitimate in the first place) are actually legitimate sales being lost to other, rival, smaller labels and direct band sales.
Another thing to consider is that CDs have been the major medium for some time now. So a lot of their former sales surges were probably by people looking to replenish their collection of 8-tracks and cassettes with CDs. Now that they've done so in the last two decades, they don't need to buy any more CDs. If you're a classic rock fan, there's no more classic rock being produced today - so you're not going to be buying any music. Seems logical enough.
But when they introduce yet another medium and CDs start to fail (or CD players become hard to find), they'll see another uptake in purchases by people who haven't bought music in a decade, replenishing their collection yet again.
Unless, of course, they decide that they're tired of paying for the same song five times over their lifespan and just download it.
Or the RIAA companies should be releasing similar music of at least as good quality as the imports, so that they get the revenue.
You know the reason for your losses ...
I doubt if there's a person in the music industry (even inside the CRIA & RIAA themselves) who isn't aware that the vast bulk of their losses are entirely self-inflicted, and that the P2P thing is a red herring. P2P *is* a threat to them because it results in loss of control, but it's not a financial threat to any large extent. It brings huge marketting advantages by creating additional buzz and promoting music, by allowing real CD buyers to preview, and on top of that it's merely the successor to home taping off friends and off the radio anyway. Those who like to buy CDs will still buy CDs, whether they use P2P or not.
What it really comes down to is that, to fight against their loss of control, they are basically talking total bollocks about huge marketting losses. It's little different to the tobacco industry talking total bollocks for 2-3 decades to minimize the perceived health issues of smoking. There is no logic to it, it's just noise to cover their entirely obvious business goals.
The article did a pretty good job of dissecting their claims, it seemed to me.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I'm constantly open to new material. I just like to be able to tell that material apart. All pop sounds like all other pop these days. And all *cough* "punk" sounds liek all other new punk these days. And there's not really any metal, rock or industrial that is being put out by big labels or big bands these days.
And I'm not just throwing "new fangeled music from them noisey youngsters" into this. I consider, say, REM and U2 in this category of bland sound-alike drek.
The difference seems to be that bigger risks were taken a decade or two ago. Yes, everything was still calculated, but the chance of something that didn't sound just like everything else getting out was possible. Today, Britney does well, so they want someone who is just like her. So they get that Christina chick. She does well, so they want someone who sounds and looks just like her and because she looks and sounds much like Britney, they all start sounding very similar. Same goes for other venues.
Really, can you tell the difference between a 3 Doors Down / Maroon 5 / Simple Plan / Puddle of Mud / POD and so forth? I can't.
And I assert that it's more than an age thing, because the same has happened in movies. I remember that even in the 1990s, there were big blockbusters that most people couldn't wait for every summer. Now, it's all the same thing. Over and over and over. How many summers can you have a spiderman and batman movie before that gets old?
Maybe that will change when hollywood gets some fresh, talented, new blood. A lot of those huge blockbuster movies that we waited for every summer came with the likes of Nicholson, Schwarzenegger, Stalone, DiNero, Pacino. But now one is doing dull old-people movies with naked Kathy Bates (shudder), another is governor of California and the other three are doing comedies!
The p2p "problem" has never been about the money to the RIAA; they're well aware that if anything p2p is a great way to further promotions at no additional cost. It has been, and always will be, about *control*. The RIAA has had nearly complete control over the music industry for decades and absolutely refuses to acknowledge the fact that adaption to new technologies requires a loss of control over production and distribution. They could easily adapt to changing conditions but to do so they have to give up their current authoritarian position.
You might find it perplexing that a supposedly capitalist organization primarily motivated by the acquisition of money would take this tack. Perplexing, that is, until you realize that the RIAA left behind capitalist motives for its business practices a long, long time ago. The folks in charge are far more enamored of power than profit and will do anything - anything at all - to retain that power, even at the expense of profit. They'd rather have both, of course, but given the choice power will always win the day. The very idea that an musician or band might be able to make it big without their assistance and approval is blasphemy of the worst sort to the execs in the industry. It cannot be tolerated. It must be stopped.
This isn't exactly a revelation, especially to those who've had the misfortune to work with, or in, the music industry. And the disease itself is common to any business or conglomerate that reaches monopoly/oligopoly status. Once a typical egomanianical executive gets a taste of that kind of power they'll do whatever they can to keep the crack coming, even if it hurts their organization financially. Hollywood is an even better example of this kind of thinking, although as yet the MPAA - stuck in its old-world rut - seems to have trouble grasping just how real the threat is.
The RIAA execs are crack-whores for power. Like any other addict they'll do whatever it takes to get their fix, regardless of who it hurts - including themselves. You can't ascribe rational motives, especially rational economic motives, to folks whose overwhelming motivation is the acquisition and retention of power. They continue on their course no matter how destructive, or self-destructive, they become.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
No, I'm in the "well over 30" camp. What riles me is that so many of my "peers", if you can call them that, have done an about-face with regard to technological development. Primarily because they 'got theirs' and don't want an up-and-coming generation to threaten their position on the ladder with new technologies that they themselves don't want to take the time to master or adapt to.
Same ol' same ol'. And I stand by what I said: if you're too stupid or too lazy to get with the times, then get the fuck out of the way. Trying to freeze the world at some particular point just because you happen to like it that way makes you an egotistical shit of the worst sort.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
It's about the simple fact that if the producer of a good chooses to place certain terms and conditions on the consumer's use of that good, the consumer is morally obligated to abide by all those terms (whatever they may be) or refrain from using the product altogether.
I don't recall seeing that one in the Constitution, the Bible, the Federalist Papers or Dask Kapital, or any of the other moral and ethical frameworks that people have come up with...
You mean I gotta quit overclocking, and take the extra unsupported RAM out of my daughter's iMac, and leave my copy of "Steal This Book" out so someone can steal it...? Damn.
There is a moral issue there, but it's got nothing to do with obeying the terms of a contract you probably haven't read and certainly never signed, and everything to do with supporting the artists... and corrupt and inefficient as the label system is it's the only channel between most people and their favorite artists. Oh, you can talk about downloading the works and sending a few bucks to the singers and songwriters, but people who can't be bothered to turn in rebate forms can't be expected to do that...
The supply side: over time a lot of music has entered the market. Music never dies; unlike software it doesn't need to evolve, nor is it custom made. So more supply should mean lower prices, were it not for the *AA cartels.
The demand side: did you see the Hitachi flash for their perpendicular recording promoting an MP3 player with room for 30000 tracks ? At current iTune prices this would mean 30000$ of music on that device. Nobody is going to pay that to fill his player; current prices simply don't make any sense.
Clearly something has to give. So the price of a CD (or equivalent) is destined to fall; it's simply unavoidable. Any market manipulation to keep the price up artificially will ultimately fail, and those counting on keeping prices up are in for a nasty surprise. I wouldn't be amazed to see 1 hour of undrmmed music selling for $0.10 in the next decennium.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Well, you can't say that you didn't see this coming. I think that's what's going to happen when you sell CDs at $15 a pop. Looks like the artists are really suffering now.
INACTIVE ACCOUNT
among many others.
The art world obviosuly has it's political beliefs and the corporate another,
Clear Channel and it unabashed alignment with what will go unnamed, is keeping artists from making money the way they've always have, live performances. Record company greed, censorship at the political level, and to a small degree piracy are doing the recording industry in, and in that order.
The record industry is stuck in a bad rut, and though there are a few rockers coming out now who can get some chart play, for the most part it's hip hop, rap and the digitally-altered sounds of those few largely female survivors of the late 90s. Now it's just simply low-talent mediocrity, aided by technical gadgetry to make bad singers sound good.
It's like Joni Mitchell said a few years ago, that record executives were always greedy bastards, but at least at one time they were greedy bastards who liked music.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Please explain to me why "intellectual property" laws should trump personal property rights (i.e., the right to use one's own personal property the way one sees fit as long as it doesn not directly hurt someone else)? Why should "intellectual property owners" be able to get the government to enforce a business model which wouldn't be possible in a real free market?
And my response is Why? People already pay their local service providers for access to the Internet. What they do with that connection isn't hurting anybody, so isn't anybody's business but their own.
> loss claims are greatly exaggerated and that P2P has had little, if any impact on the income of the artists themselves
This is quite a conundrum:
Supposedly, the recording industry cares about one thing only -- making money.
But to make money, you must correctly analyze which factors lead to greater/smaller profits, and adjust those factors accordingly.
So why are the music business people getting this analysis so completely wrong? This is more than a series of mistakes. This is pervasive, systemic incompetency that's plaguing the entire industry like a terminal cancer.
Here are some of the possibilities that I can think of that might explain their loss of rational thinking:
1: Fear and anger due to loss of control over music distribution.
2: Misjudgment due to a severe lack of understanding of technology.
3: A rigid business culture that simply does not allow for any model change whatsoever -- even life-saving change.
4: "SCO machismo": The realization that your company has no long-term future; so you might as well end it all in a glorious blaze of legal warfare, because that's more macho than quietly crawling into a corner to die.
5: Decision-makers who have created a culture of "feeling" rather than "thinking" -- resulting in poor problem-solving skills.
6: A power organization composed of multiple "fiefdoms" that lacks the central authority to implement significant change.
Furthermore -- I have always believed that people who work in the "leech" industries secretly know in their heart that they are not creating anything of real value to society, and have a secret fear of being eliminated if people start to "wise up" to them. (For example, the entire tax-preparation industry could be eliminated by a single act of Congress. But farmers and teachers and engineers are immune from such a fate.) As a result, I believe that this causes the "leech" industries to attract management that's more paranoid, venal, and unethical than the management of value-producing industries.
"p2p sharing of copyrighted material _is_ theft."
A %22drew%20Roberts%22
It is not, go here:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3
for some copyrighted material and feel free to share it via p2p. Not only no theft involved, no crime whatsoever. Just abide by the license.
Let's reword it a little better for you shall we?
"Illegal copying of copyrighted material _is_ theft."
Even with this better wording, no it is not, it is copyright violation, however, for the sake of arguement, I will grant that it is theft if you will grant that what the big record companies do/have done is rape, both of the artists with their over the top contracts, and of the fans with the price fixing that is alledged to have gone on in the past. If so, would you really have that big an issue in the real world if a person that was raped chose to then steal something from the person that raped them? I don't mean to condone theft (or copyright violations for that matter) but it would be interesting to hear your answer.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free