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Challenging Music Downloading Myths
The BBC is reporting on a study by digital music research firm The Leading Question, which found that people who download music from peer to peer networks paid for four and a half times more music than regular music fans. Also that most of these people "are extremely enthusiastic about paid-for services, as long as they are suitably compelling." What is nice is that the BPI welcomed the findings that not all file sharers are actually evil... they still pledged to carry on the 'carrot and stick' approach though.
This is something everyone knows, yet the RIAA still hasn't gotten wind of. Users would gladly pay for songs if they were sufficiently cheap and instantly available. Look at iTunes.
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recording companies around the globe will likely ignore this piece of common sense and prefer to continue their tagline of "all pirates are evil and they steal millions from us". I wish I was just being cynical, but at this point the stubborness of the *IAA to fight pirates is really disheartening.
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Rather than taking legal action against downloaders, the music industry needs to entice them to use legal alternatives, the report said.
By chasing down people for using P2P they just cement my opinion that we should be downloading free music via legal alternatives like etree, dimeadozen, etc.
I just can't imagine why people would be enticed to further support the RIAA's actions rather than dropping support for them all together.
It's the sad nature of the public. They love to be abused.
I like the way the spokespeople in the article speak entirely as though the recording industry's major problem with filesharing is not that it's illegal, but that it costs them money - probably a more accurate reflection of their sentiments, but certainly not the line the RIAA has been spouting.
No, they paid 4.5 times more for legally downloaded music. This study doesn't take into account the amount spent on music in general including physical CDs, and as such the correlation could only apply to downloads, and that opens the door for all sorts of non-causal relationships.
For example, aren't filesharers likely to more strongly represent the tech savvy demographic? And wouldn't people who often swap MP3s be more likely to be happy to listen to MP3s rather than physical CDs?
It's nice to hear the CD before you pay $20 for one good song and fifteen crap songs. I have never downloaded off of a P2P myself though.. ((smile))
/. spaztech
The whole piracy/peer-to-peer argument has been done and done. And no matter how powerful the argument, the industry believes that every single time you download something, they lose a sale. And that's that.
Statistics and studies do not matter to these people. Your desire to kick the tires before you buy doesn't matter either. You got it - you didn't pay for it - we lost money. Of course the reality of it is something totally different, but these organizations have had a stranglehold on their commodity for so long, they're not comfortable with anything less than a stranglehold.
So they fight. And if that means ignoring studies and taking up ridiculous positoins - so be it. We're convinced - but they are never going to be.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
But our concern is that file-sharers' expenditure on music overall is down, a fact borne out by study after study. So we must always spend more on music not less! How dare we as consumers decide to spend less of our disposable income on something other than music.
I was with you right up until the last one. Music is a luxury. It's not food, or shelter. You're not going to die if you don't get it. Not having the money to buy something is not an excuse to steal it.
Anyone else think the people who are harming the music industry are the RIAA? People who download music off the Internet (hardcore music lovers) probably take up a majority of the people who spread awareness about music artist's songs.
How about record companies sign bands that are fresh and innovative not the same old crap and perhapse overall record sales and legal downloading revenu will go up.
Reality is a big nasty dragon. Fortunately I don't believe in dragons.
I don't think we should be really giving BPI (or RIAA when they do) a lot of credit for acknowledging that downloaders aren't all evil. They're making a buttload of cash off people who are getting music electronically. They have ZERO production costs (other than a few kilowatts of electricity), reduced equipment maintinance (costs of maintaining duplicating equipment vs. Apple's servers), and zero shipping costs.
Giving them credit is like patting a child on the head and telling them "good job!" when they eat a cookie.
When they start making real changes, and start understanding the new culture, then I'll be interested.
And yes, I read the article. According to the fifth word of the fifth paragraph, "of"
More seriously, my wife's and my music purchasing really picked up after we discovered Napster all those years ago. Sampling a couple of songs from an artist often convinces us we want the whole album, and we still really enjoy the permanance of physical media (yes, we rip all our CDs, but I think of the collection of actual media as an aesthetically interesting, if not large, physical backup).
unfortunately, since the labels don't see any of the ticket or merchandise money -- only money from the sales of the albums -- they couldn't care less about anything from your post after "downloading music illegally".
I rarely, if ever, download music - legally or not.
Interestingly, I haven't bought a CD for myself in years...
I wonder if the RIAA assumes I'm a pirate because I'm not feeding their monopoly. I wonder if the RIAA is even aware that people like me have stopped buying music because we got sick and tired of being treated like criminals - copy restricted CD's, lawsuits against music fans, etc...
I wonder if it ever occurs to the **AA's that their revenue shortfalls are due more to the manner in which they treat their customers than piracy. Face it - while the average Asian may have a good reason to commit music piracy, the average American is affluent enough that they'd rather buy music than steal it. Yet, most Americans want to know they like something before they buy it. And this is what P2P provided.
I don't use P2P. I don't buy music, either. Wonder how long it will take the likes of the RIAA to figure out the connection between the two...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I used to use Napster and some of the others for two things: (1) downloading music that can't be bought, i.e. out-of-print albums, b-sides, etc. and (2) trying music. Back then, I bought numerous CDs after trying music I really liked. Some of these CDs were retail CDs, where I wanted a higher quality sound than a low-grade MP3. Others were b-sides I bought on CD singles off of eBay because I wanted the better sound quality. But I also bought a lot of retail CDs I never would have bought if I had to buy them without hearing them first. So the bottom line for the RIAA is that the P2P effect is not simple: file sharing has caused me to buy music I downloaded, but not always at retail. More music may be sold as a result, but it's not all profit for the RIAA.
The unfortunate part about the new online services is you can't browse the catalogues without first signing up and selling your soul to their DRM. I would love to see if out-of-print music is available on some legal download services, such as out-of-print albums and b-sides, but I doubt there is anything on these services you can't find in Circuit City or the mall, so I don't ever sign up for the DRM.
The one thing no one ever mentions is the CD replacement effect. People who grew up listening to cassettes and LPs in the 70s and 80s got jobs in the 90s and could afford to dump their cassettes and buy CDs. This sort of generational shift in media will never happen again, and the RIAA's sales figures were bloated by people buying albums they already had. The effect is over. Everone now is buying music on CDs from the beginning, and has nothing to replace.
The music indrustry doesn't want you to listen to different music they want you to listen to their popular music that you know from the radio. Because then they can mass produce the CD's, saving a lot in manufacturing costs, and sell them at a much higher price, because they are popular. The recording companies dont want you spending money on show tickets, and merchandise because the artest gets a bigger cut of the action, and not them. If everyone had a different favorate musicain the recording indrustry couldn't make much money because they will have to many products with the overhead involved. That is why Internet download are dangerious because it makes people aware of different music.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
But our concern is that file-sharers' expenditure on music overall is down, a fact borne out by study after study. This is probably due to many CDs on iTunes costing $9.99, where a CD in the store is costing $16.99. Also buyers are able to be more selective about thier purchases, since I may only want 1 or 2 songs from an album instead of the whole album.
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I don't think that this is the primary reason, why the cartelists so much hate the internet. The reason is control or loss thereof. Prior to the internet you had virtually no chance in hell to get your music published, unless you agreed to a contract, which makes slavery actually look like the prefered choice. The Internet can change all that. Everybody with a [insert favorite instrument], a cheap microphone and a recording device can be a publisher now and circumvent the established distribution channels. If anybody listens to such music is a whole other question, of course.
If the music industry doesn't change their business model from a mere media distribution model (media in my book include DRMd files) to a value adder (promotion, marketing, infrastructure, artist scouts, etc) and continues their rather odd "criminalize-thy-customer" business model my prediction is that 10 years from now they are deader then Jimmy Hoffa.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
The fact that these people got something for nothing does not justify you calling it "stealing," because it's not. It's copyright infringement. Those are seperate terms for a reason; they are not the same thing.
But they do need to cry foul, and keep up the appearances that every single download is a crime, and a lost sale. They are using the same strategy of fear mongering that our government is fond of.
The reasons are simple. If they were to let up and say, ok so some music downloads are ok, but we still think we are losing sales, then their entire basis for legislation is thrown out the window.
I hope it doesn't sound like I'm defending them. I think the RIAA, and cooperations like them, are some of the absolute WORST things about this country.
But I can understand why they are keeping up the public relations stint of crying foul. They don't need music fans to believe them. They just need congress to. As soon as they "convince" congress with their "arguements" ($$$,$$$,$$$) they will get more legislation that will introduce more DRM, and possibly even remove the free-use clauses from current law.
They know full well that some bands are discovered soley through the internet. They just don't care. That is a small drop in the bucket compared to the marketing machine that makes acts like Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys sucessfull. They don't need underground marketing when they have pepsi jingles and MTV in the middle of time square.
What I can't figure out is why they pay so much for marketing crap bands when we would be just as happy with zero marketing for good bands. We'll find the music on our own. The RIAA could probably make just as much money if they just gave up. But I hope they don't. I hope they legislate themselves into the grave.
Ultimately radio served as an advertising medium and wasn't hurting sales at all. The music industry eventually made its peace with radio.
We can only hope that eventually the music industry will relearn this old lesson...
No, we really don't want P2P services to turn into the monolithic, streamlined corporate marketing scheme that radio has become. The only reason the RIAA "made peace" with radio is because they effectively took control of it. Only a very tiny fraction of stations are not owned by some corporate monstrosity like ClearChannel, who hand down playlist edicts from on high as if they were carved in stone tablets.
The music industry has truly embraced the Marketing Age, and thus (popular) music has transformed from a pull medium to a push medium. The only records in stores, basically, are the ones you hear on the radio, on TV, and are advertised everywhere; they are the low-risk, high-profit "mass-appeal" products. Once in a while a great musician will become popular, and that will allow him/her/them to overcome their indentured servitude to their recording contract. However, the majority of the "popular" acts are only semi-talented, very attractive people who are being marketed like they're the Second Coming. The internet (P2P), on the other hand, is still a haven for slightly less popular, but vastly more talented, people. I would love to see more record companies on the internet dedicated to artist's rights and proud of the music they underwrite and sell, instead of focusing so much on the business end of things that an artist becomes a "product" instead of a person (I know a few of these exist, but I can't think of any off the top of my head).
Do we really want P2P services, and by extension, the internet, to turn in to radio?
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Recording companies don't care about consumers; they're scared as hell that the artists will decide that they don't need record companies any more. The artists will quit signing with them, or they will insist on better terms.
Recording companies stay in business because they control artists' access to listeners. The Internet is threatening this, and the recording companies are going apeshit over it.
- A. There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing
content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD,
these users simply take it [...]
- B. There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing it [...] The net effect of this sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased.
- C. There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content
that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the
transaction costs off the Net are too high [...]
- D. Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content
that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away.
How do these different types of sharing balance out? [...] From the perspective of the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful. Type B sharing is illegal but plainly beneficial. Type C sharing is illegal, yet good for society [...]The "net harm" to the industry as a whole is the amount by which type A sharing exceeds type B."
No professional musicians sounds good to me. I want that.