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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."
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.
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All your music are belong to us.
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
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.
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.