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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."
You know the reason for your losses as well as we do. And in case you want me to spell it out ...
Seriously, the only reason I haven't bought a CD in ages is because I can't find anything worth it. All I'm willing to invest in now is online radio.
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.
A MP3! OH WOW! I hope the bastards at the RIAA don't mind it!
I found it a while back.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
you might have an mp3, but by posting a link to it on slashdot, you no longer have a server
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
kinda obvious to me why their profits were down...it's actually a simple formula:
i )=profit
Talent-(Teensensations-Boybands-Onehitwonders-Yan
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.
Celine Dion and Bryan Adams have a lot to answer for.
Oh no... it's the future.
There's good music out there. They just seriously neutered the end user's ability to find the kinds of music they liked after the Napster death. (Which really felt like what I imagine the Woodstock 69' era would've felt like.)
This industry's falling is going to be like what Microsoft's death will end up being in 20 years (if not sooner.)
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
One of the key ironies of the debate is that the CRTC (Canadian Radio and TeleCommunications standards body) demands that radio stations and TV contain a certain amount of Canadian content. Instead of spending several billion propping up the music cartel, if they spent it on the artists and uses P2P to spread the content, there would be a Canadian content boom in Canada and the US (since it would be legal to download local bands, as well as Bare Naked Ladies, Rush, Steppenwolf, The Tragically Hip, Bryan Adams, April Wine, Colin James, Neil Young, Alanis Morissette, The Guess Who, Odds, Our Lady Peace, Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne,...)
If the government locks up music and other media, all it will end up doing is giving the market to the biggest "legitimate" distributors (i.e. Americans), and turning our artists into American look-alikes. Celine Dion's music actually wasn't that bad in the beginning before she became americanized to break into the bigger market. She should surve as a warning as what can happen to you if you let the american media machine get to you.
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.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
From the article:
"...Canadian rock star Tom Cochrane..."
All the pros and cons of the article aside, does having one minor hit ("Life is a Highway") make you a rock star?
No wonder the Canadians venerate Ann Murray!
"So now you're only screwing the marketing, engineering and management"
Apparently you didn't read the article, or are just trolling.
What the article is saying is that piracy accounts for only token losses to the industry. In fact, sales are down primarily due to two factors: Wal-Mart's refusal to pay more than $9.72 to the RIAA for CD's, and declining shelf space in stores due to increased demand for DVD's.
The right answer is for the RIAA to lower CD's so that they cost about $8 retail. I belong to the BMG record club that's typically what I pay for CD's (shipped). I buy about 4-8 CD's per month. Do you know how many CD's I've paid > $12 for? None. And I have a collection of about 400 CD's.
For the $18-20 for CD's in a place like Virgin, I suspect you'd have to be either desperate or stupid to pay that much.
No matter how much the RIAA wants to spin this, its pricing (as in "too much money") that is killing the industry. And they're looking for lawmakers to ensure profits. Sorry Charlie.
uhh.. isn't the whole point in canada that IT IS NOT A CRIME currently and the music industry would like to make it one?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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!
Ok, I admit it. I'm the person the RIAA should be blaming. You can all mark it down as my fault if you want. I'm the one who stopped buying CDs when P2P came along.
No, really.
I haven't bought a CD in 6 or 7 years. They're very expensive and file-sharing is free. Yes, I feel a little bit guilty about it, but there you have it.
I don't think that everyone is like me, but I really have to admit that I believe that file sharing is indeed costing the music industry money, just in the same way that CD bootlegging cost them money in the past. It's probably not a tremendous amount, I never really bought that many CDs to begin with, but it's certainly something.
So, for all of who argue that file sharing doesn't cost them money, keep in mind there are people like me. File sharins has cost them money from me, probably several hundred dollars.
Now let's hope they don't bash down my door.
--
RumorsDaily
To top it off, the engineers, producers, record execs, recording studios, mangers, session players, etc. All get paid either as soon a their work is done, or after the project is completed, and paid in full. The artist (s) and songwriter (s) will get a little up front, but this is a loan, and anything they get is a percentage of sales after costs are deducted. I was a session player and in the biz as artist and producer for over 12 years, so I know first hand what goes on. I saw many bands finish their CD, have a release party and they all had to get up early to go to their day jobs or back to thier squalid apts., while the execs, and producers all were driving new cars. A group called Traffic (Stevie Winwood) had a song that laid it out "the Low Spark of High Hells Boys" : "and the man in the suit just bought a new car from the profit he made from your dreams."
So the RIAA is full of crap. They are only defending their income, not the artists'. Once again, just like always, they use artists to further their cause. BTW, you should read what happens when an artist tries to get them to help him or to cough up money.
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.
You can find out what is being proposed as amendments to the Copyright Act.
I have probably violated some section by copying the text below.
The Bill would amend the Copyright Act to implement the copyright protections required by two World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties: the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). Proposed amendments in this regard are as follows:
* the existing exclusive communication right of authors would be clarified to include control over the making available of their material on the Internet;
* sound recording makers and performers would be provided the right to control the making available of their sound recordings and performances on the Internet;
* the circumvention for infringing purposes of technological protection measures (TPMs) applied to copyright material would constitute an infringement of copyright;
* the alteration or removal of rights management information (RMI) embedded in copyright material, when done to further or conceal infringement, would constitute an infringement of copyright;
* rights holders would be provided with the ability to control the first distribution of their material in tangible form;
* the term of protection in photographs would always be the life of the photographer plus 50 years;
* a full reproduction right for performers in sound recordings would be introduced;
* the term of protection provided to sound recording makers in respect of their sound recordings would be modified so as to extend to 50 years from the publication of the sound recording (the term of protection provided to performers in respect of their recorded performances would be modified in consequence); and
* performers would be provided with moral rights in their fixed and live performances.
Internet Service Provider (ISP) Liability
* ISPs would be exempt from copyright liability in relation to their activities as intermediaries.
* A "notice and notice" regime in relation to the hosting and file-sharing activities of an ISP's subscribers would be provided for. When an ISP receives notice from a rights holder that one of its subscribers is allegedly hosting or sharing infringing material, the ISP would be required to forward the notice to the subscriber, and to keep a record of relevant information for a specified time.
Educational and Research Access Issues
* The current exception that permits the performance or display of copyright material for educational purposes within the classroom would be modified to enable students in remote locations to view a lecture using network technology, either live or at a more convenient time.
* Material that may be photocopied and provided to students pursuant to an educational institution's blanket licence with a collective society would be permitted to be delivered to the students electronically without additional copyright liability. Provisions in this regard would apply until such time as the collective societies' blanket licenses authorize such electronic delivery.
* In the above instances, educational institutions would be required to adopt safeguards to prevent misuse of the copyright material.
* The electronic interlibrary desktop delivery of certain copyright material, notably academic articles, directly to library patrons would be permitted, provided effective safeguards were in place to prevent misuse of the material.
Photography Issues
* Treatment of photographers would be harmonized with other creators with respect to authorship and copyright ownership. At the same time, the interests of consumers in the use of photographs commissioned for domestic purposes would be protected.
Educational Use of Internet Material
* The government will initiate a public consultation process on the issue of
I can tell you that it is not P2P that kills my sales it's Fucking Wal-mart. I pay whole sale what wal-mart has on the retail price. I make all my money off Parental advisory Cd's if Wal-Mart would start selling unedited Cd's I'd have to go out of business. When is the U.S. Government gonna start to place the blame on the shoulders of major corporations instead of on the kids that want to here the music before they buy it?
Peace, Love, And Oreo cookies
I'm sure most of you have noticed the little notice that says that these discs (the CD side of a DualDisc), wont work on all cd players because they don't conform to CD standards. I see more and more CD's with that notice coming out, and I see at work (I work in a record shop, but it's not as cool as Empire Records, but, what could be?) many people trying to bring these discs back because they don't work in their players (discmans, home stereos, car players, computers, whatever), but they can't get a refund because what CD store gives refunds for open CD's? Not any I've been to. Hell, you can't even try it in the store, because even though may work in the store (which, none did in any of my store's players), it still might not work in yours.
So, we have discs that won't work in every player, no way of finding out what players they do work in without buying one and trying it in your players (their website doesn't say more than what I've told you, http://www.sonybmg.com/dualdisc/), and then, no way of getting your money back if they don't work. What I see resulting is a growing number of pissed off customers, who will likely download the next album (and the one they did buy) before spending money on a disc that won't likely work.
I know I don't buy any CD has that warning.
When I was younger, I used to purchase a ton of cd's. It was what I spelt my allowance on -- my choice.
But as I got older, I started to realize what a waste it was to spend $18-$20 on an album from which I would only listen to one or two songs.
So When Napster came out, I found out about it early (one of the first thousand users) and was able to ride the bandwagon on it, collecting songs that I would listen to and none of the ones that I wouldn't. I still bought CD's that were worth the price tag (the ones where every song on the album were decent and not just a crappy filler song).
Then I mostly stopped listening to new music. I've gotten a lot more comfortable listening to new, independent bands and buying their albums. Because it means more to me to give an independent band $15 for which I know $15 is going directly to the band. The quality of the music is also higher.
I've bought more CD's in the past year than I've bought since I was 12. And I feel good knowing that the money I spend is going to the artists, and not some shitty company.
Some of their conclusions:
1) The industry experienced a huge boom during the early to mid 90s as CD players became inexpensive to buy.
2) A good portion of those buying CDs were not buying new albums but CD versions of existing music in their collections.
So the music industry was experiencing golden years due to a new emerging technology and the fact that people were replacing vinyl and cassettes with CDs to augment this new emerging technology. But that behavior only lasts so long. Eventually people would have replaced their collections. They would be buying new music but not at the rates as before.
Also, although the manufacturing costs of a CD have dropped dramatically, their prices were still higher than cassettes which cost more to make. This was done for years due to collusion by the music industry and retailers to keep the prices artificially high. This collusion has been documented as part of settlements of lawsuits.
What's more important is that the industry has expected the profits to be the same as that during the boom times even though times were changing. In most industies, the newest products and prototypes are always the most expensive. When economies of scale kick in and manufacturing becomes more efficient, prices start to drop. Take for example, CD and DVD players.
At the same time, the focus of the industry was changing. By now, most music companies had been bought by large conglomerates like Sony and Vivendi. They expected quick profits and the profits to remain high. The industry began to shift its focus from acts to albums. Before it was about the artists and maintaining them. Now it was about getting the CD out. Getting the music video out. It didn't matter if the music suffered as long as the sales were made. It became about the single, the first minute.
At the same time, the radio industry was experiencing the same kind of consolidation as the music industry. Fewer and fewer independents existed. Most were controlled by a few corporations like Clear Channel.
With the music industries controlled by a select few companies, and the predominant means of distribution tightly controlled (radio and retail), the industry had now a near monopoly on music distribution.
Enter P2P. P2P threatens the industry in two ways. Although there have been music sales lost due to piracy, P2P is more threatening in that artists now have an alternative method of distribution that bypasses their control. Unfortunately, P2P gives them a scapegoat for their sales. It doesn't matter that sales should have suffered years ago due lowering prices (manufacturing cost decreases) and lowering sales (people stop replacing older formats). I suggest you watch the Frontline episode online.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Artists don't make their money from CD sales. Most artists earn only a few cents off each CD sale. Labels and music stores earn by far the largest profits off CD sales.
Where artists make their money at is concerts and, to a lesser extent, merchandising.
So.. of course artists aren't being harmed by P2P. Anyone that knows diddly-squat about the music industry would know that. If anything, artists benefit from piracy... with them making so much off concerts, and so little off album sales.. the additional interest that P2P might draw to them could very well boost concert sales.
/dev/random
> Remember, if more than one person likes it, it's probably on a P2P network somewhere..
Yes, but if more than one person likes it then that implies that it's accessible and that the band might have fans. If a band has fans then there will be people out there who are willing to pay for the music and as we all know, bands that are financially successful are not worth listening to.
Me? I only listen to bands that have been forcibly removed from open mic nights and solo artists who are so brilliantly underground that they've never released any material whatsoever. The best band in the world is "The Terri Schiavo Experience" and is a solo project by my friend Eric. He's so indie he doesn't even know he's in the band.
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.
...distributed file sharing, cryptography, proxies, and parity will collide and instead of any one person hosting a complete file, the file will be containerized, split, parity containers built, and the pieces uploaded to peers at random based only on their availible space and relative activity and pipe size and so on and the original copy deleted.
Enough copies of pieces and parity files would propagate out based on statistics to ensure reasonable chance to get at anything, not any less easy than eMule of today. If you download all pieces and construct successfully, the solid file isn't seen and listed by IP because only the parts are shared at large. Your whole copy is totally outside the system once gotten.
Once no one person has a complete copy of anything, and each piece is named in gibberish that only the system understands and knows, what are they going to do then? Sue a teen girl because one twentieth of a Metallica song might be on their hard drive and she's got no way of knowing for sure because her storage is managed by the collective peer network?
The technical capabilities exist right now to do it and eventually it will be reasonably perfected. They will be brought to their knees by it, sputtering and whining all the way. It will illustrate very clearly that as long as information is in the hands of individuals, as long as they can read, write, and think for themselves, effective subjugation of the unwilling by any private organization or government will be difficult short of violence or threat thereof.
I don't see a RIAA-SWAT team becoming reality in the future nor do I see work-a-day policemen putting up with the notion of being their tools. So unless it could possibly go that direction, they've lost this fight the instant they picked it. They need to cut to the chase, admit defeat, and bargain for a new understanding between producer and consumer that's acceptable to both parties.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)