Slashdot Mirror
Legal Music Downloads At 35%, Soon To Pass Piracy
bonch writes "Entertainment Media Research released a study stating that 35% of music listeners are using legal download services, and that the percentage will soon surpass illegal downloads, currently at 40%. Slashdot has also previously reported on services like iTunes gaining in popularity over P2P services. "The findings indicate that the music industry is approaching a strategic milestone with the population of legal downloaders close to exceeding that of pirates," said Entertainment Media Research chief executive Russell Hart.'"
I am curious how this is measured. If an illegal downloader is being "measured" in this statistic, does that mean he/she is being "caught"? What about the silent masses illegally downloading music that is not measured?
Actually "legal downloaders", not "legal downloads".
I just hate when people quote statistical data and have no clue about what they're doing. They usually re-interpret the data and reproduce the information that's either incomplete or false. False this time... 35% of people download music and it's kinda stupid to write that it relates somehow strictly to the number of downloads.
On average I probably buy around one bar of candy a week. If it was free (that's what pirated music is about, right?), I bet I'd eat more.
Sorry if it seems unimportant, I just kinda get pissed when negligence leads to misinformation.
Exactly what I'm trying to tell to ppl who aren't aware when buying music online.
Albums that provide you the freedom to do backups, to re-encode in whatever format/bitrate you want.
Buy a song that has DRM (most online music stores anyway) and which takes away the freedom that you had when buying an album. All that at a price more expensive than buying an album.
I know music stores will never consider selling music using a lossless codec without DRM but if I have to buy a whole album for a few songs that I want and be able to "tinker with", then so be it.
I call BS on the survey and say it's a "we've already won" normalization propaganda campain. Telling "consumers" to shut up and be happy without the right to sample, share or even keep their music is what this is all about. The FUD and active warefare against file sharers will continue, but all of it is doomed to fail.
The whole DRM thing is going to backfire soon. People are not really going to be happy with these services when their devices start to fail. It's then they realize they have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of music they thought they owned but were in fact renting. They will envious of people who took the time to translate the music they had to free formats on free systems. None of the FUD is true for music and media on these systems which lack both complicated, error proned DRM schemes and easy targets for the actively waged anti file scorched earth warfare. I've got my music, it's backed up, I can easily move it and I can play it on as many devices as I want. Apple may take care of people with ITunes but "Works for Sure" music boxes are sure to crap out and leave their users flat.
More importantly, there's still competition out there for the big three music publishers. Musicians don't like being screwed and know that's what they get from the cartels. The music industry killed mp3.com, but there are many other to take their place that will offer musicians and fans a much better deal. With Lessing creating an unambiguous legal framework, we can expect these services to be unassailable.
The concentration of power enjoyed by music publishers was a freak of history and will soon go away. People have been singing and dancing for each other throughout human history. I suspect someone will notice a chimp singing to it's young one day and that it sounds better than pop 40. Music copyrights and radio have only been around for 150 years or so. Government regulation of airwaves and music publication created the cartels in those 150 years. Many people have made money off the scheme, but the technology has been obsolete and the regulations overbearing for decades. Laws which keep Girl Scouts from singing around the fireplace are clearly out of line. Laws have gone from reasonable promotion of artistic work and sharing of public resources to blatant anti-competition tools, which thwart basic human desires. In ten years, we will look back on this madness and wonder how anyone dared keep people from singing to each other or sharing digital files.
Until then, visit places like Magnitune and sample the future.
$4.00 for a canned performance? You must be shitting me.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I've been doing more "legal" music "buying" than normal, recently. I will never ever pay $17+ for CD. That's ridiculous. But I did have an account with Rhapsody for quite awhile before I switched to Mac (they don't have a Mac client). They're a great deal. High quality streaming library of over a million songs for as low as $8.33/mo. And for $15/mo, you can dumb as much of it and play it on your portable devices as you want (as opposed to having to play it with their Rhapsody player on your PC).
It takes a little effort to get over the mental hurdle of not actually owning the music you're paying for, but for the price of five or six CDs, I can access an entire world of music. And while they have some licensing issues preventing them from getting some albums/bands (no AC/DC for example), it's generally a pretty effective collection.
Aside from that, I've also been using mp3search. Yes, I know it might not technically be legit, but for 10 cents per song and about a dollar an album, I'll take it over iTunes any day. Plus, it's real MP3s rather than AAC or other DRM crap.
Some people say that people will never pay for music if they can get it for free. That's just not true. They're just not willing to pay $17 an album. Or perhaps even $10. After all, if I'm not getting physical media, liner notes, inserts, artwork, jewel cases and have to deal with DRM crap that makes using it on multiple machines and devices a potential headache, why do I want to spend almost as much as I pay for the real thing at a record shop? Give me a ton of selection, easy downloads, non-crippled content and very cheap downloads/fees and I'm with you. And so are a lot of people.
Once the big boys are out of the way (RIAA members), there will be no reason for such high prices. An artist gets a buck out of a CD sale today - if they're extremely lucky. That's probably before they pay their agents or anyone else, too. So if you take the traditional distributor out of the picture, the artist can sell their MP3s online through iTunes or some other service for $2 per album and still be making more than double what they made under the foot of the RIAA distributors. And there's no cost involved. And they won't have anyone to share that $2 with.
The only thing musicians will still need is a way to become popular. Today, it's possible to become big at just about anything through internet promotion alone. But even if you needed some sort of professional promotion, you could still engage someone for that and do traditional stumping for your band. At least you'll still have far fewer middle men to deal with in the end.
Hey! Music industry! TAKE MY MONEY! PLEASE?
I would _happily_ pay $0.01 PER PLAY for songs I don't own yet, just to be able to listen to them. If you counted that money towards later purchase of that same song, all the better. (I.e. listen to a song 99 times, you own it.)
There are plenty of songs I'd like to just hear in their entirety once or twice, out of curiosity. I don't want to BUY them... but I'd be willing to pay a small amount for the privilege.
If only the oh-so-scared-of-piracy folks would learn that there are lots of people WILLING to part with their money for the right kinds of services...
- Peter
INsigNIFICANT