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The Chumbawamba Factor
putko writes "Chris Dahlen has written about BigChampagne, a company that looks at peer-to-peer downloading to provide marketing data to record companies. By analyzing what folks are downloading, when and where, BigChampagne can tell the record companies what people like, what other records they like and other information critical to deciding how to allocate marketing dollars. As mentioned in the article, record companies started using this information (secretly) even as they were trying to stop filesharing via the courts."
"..and other information critical to deciding how to allocate marketing dollars" i.e. information critical to prosecuting as many people as possible. Who here really believes that they will stop at monitering the tracks downloaded?
Matthew Grint Midnight Artists
A classic case of "Do as I say, not as I do", methinks.
Lots of crap music that sounds mostly the same keeps being marketed by the suits. One of the most heard phrases when it comes to justify downloading copyrighted music off the net: "I just download the crap that's not worth paying for."
Hmmmmm...
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Does this mean that at last we can get charts which really reflect what people are listening to?
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
...I was never a big fan of "Tubthumping". Look at one of my latest posts (Sunday night) in a friend's JE about the worst music evar.
I'll also say, why in the hell is the music business so fired up to make nothing but hit records instead of providing people with access to music with artistic integrity? Yeah, they should make money, there's no doubt about that. They are, after all a businesses and they exist to make money. But, don't they also exist to give artists a voice? Whatever happened to that part of the equation? When did they discard the idea that popular music can also be truly artistic expressions of a musician's mind, body and soul? I don't even have a problem with there being people who make million dollar incomes when they do nothing more than pencil pushing in the whole cycle of musicial distribution. But, the musicians who actually create the stuff should be making at least as much as they do because without the artist, the business is nothing.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
On top of tracking who swaps what from what location, BigChampagne also searches the libraries of everyone who's online.
So it looks like whether you're paying for it or getting it for free somebody is using this data for their profit. This is why I don't, for example, use those supermarket discount cards. The data they collect from me is more valuable to them then the money I save.Bradley Holt
I'm sorry, but either the RIAA should stop actively profitting from p2p or they shouldn't be allowed to put people through courts and pressure their congressmen into creating laws to outlaw it.
The fact that they can profit from p2p while hassle their customers, to me, seems to be a perversion of the law and shouldn't be allowed.
And why would this have any effect on what a judge would say? Judges apply law, they don't review businesses' profit margins and force companies to shift legal strategies to maximize their profits. What planet are you from?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
... when (even today!?) you could not listen or audition before you buy simply because of the RIAA's and record store policies and practices.
I have educated my children specifically *against* that behaviour and hold up the RIAA and "artists" as example of a bad deal, done in poor faith (the chumbawumba factor) And that they should keep their money for more tangible rewards.
Wouldn't this market analysis reveal which music people are willing to pirate rather than purchase?
First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
You happen to have answerd part of your own question. They are, after all a businesses and they exist to make money.
Regarding artist integrity. When was the last time you heard an artist really singing about artistic impression and look at the lyrics of any popular song and hear or feel any of that? The new hip-hop artist of the day for example. All they sing/rap about is how many Hoes they can or have slept with and how much money or "bling" they have. Most of the music out there is about the same things. Why? Because that's the kind of music people are interested in.
musicians who actually create the stuff should be making at least as much as they do because without the artist, the business is nothing.Have you seen how many of the artists out there write their own songs? Not too many. Artists are the expendable part of the business. You've got song writters and producers that are doing all the behind the scenes work. The artist themselves are just the pretty face that has to go on tour and loose their "private life" to people like the you and me that want to know everything about them. I'd like you to find a songwritter (mostly nameless and faceless to the general public) who has done songs with popular artists that donesn't have any money. If Brittney Spears decided never to return to music, they'd just find another pretty face to sing all the same songs.
Ahh, my rant is now over. That's my 2 cents for what it's worth.
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
Believe it or not, we do know what that particular cliche means; the long-winded explanation using some TV program wasn't necessary. In fact, that particular proverb was recorded in 1546 by John Heywood.
You can tell that our culture is dying because historical phrases that everybody used to know are now seen as original and brilliant bits of television writing. Sigh.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
So the RIAA et al are trying to put an end to P2P, while hypocritically using P2P stats to know what's hot; they have crossed the threshold from tyranny into absurdity. What judge, knowing this, will still side with the RIAA in the future? Does this not set a precedent that the RIAA sees value in P2P?
Because they are gaining stats in something that's not acceptable in the United States? Would a judge not side with the police getting stats on drug users to see where they congregate and what kinds of drugs they prefer?
It's the same thing to them.
To us, yes, it's shady and yet another reason you shouldn't support them or the music they promote.
P2P as an immoral behaviour that corrupts society, because the fruit from the tree has poisoned their self-professed purity.
They can claim whatever the fuck they want to claim as long as no one stops them. Unfortuantely no one will stop them because they have started to win the publics' (and the courts') opinion that this is "wrong".
Sad but true. Listen to free music by bands that don't need the RIAA.
Think about it. Do P2P downloads indicate what's hot (and what is to be spoofed next)? Or does it just indicate music people won't pay for otherwise?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Would a judge not side with the police getting stats on drug users to see where they congregate and what kinds of drugs they prefer?
The RIAA is the one selling, so I guess they're the drug dealers with the bought police in your analogy?
First off, for those of you who have no idea, or only a vague memory; "Chumbawamba are a band from the UK who use their music to promote anarchist ideas."
And, for those of you who are interested in why Chumbawamba might actually be mentioned when it comes to P2P music downloading: Chumbawamba were a one hit wonder. Their one song came out, people ran out and bought the album, and then got pissed off that they spent so much money on one song they liked and a bunch of crap they didn't. When people have the choice to buy/download just the songs they like, they'll do so. They won't get 15 Chumbawamba songs if all but one of them are crap.
-- dR.fuZZo
If BigChampagne's is so rock-solid, why aren't the labels rushing to get b-sides, unreleased covers, bootlegs, and out-of-print back catalog material up on iTunes and other commercial services? For me, that was the greatest thing about the Napster of old...material that wasn't commercially available for one reason or another. There's a goldmine to be had on that stuff and even Steve Jobs has mentioned how much material the labels are sitting on and haven't done anything with yet complain about declining sales and blaming piracy for their woes.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Because they are gaining stats in something that's not acceptable in the United States? Would a judge not side with the police getting stats on drug users to see where they congregate and what kinds of drugs they prefer?
Your analogy is flawed.
The police and RIAA both have different profit incentives.
The RIAA is charged by record labels to not only enforce copyrights but also get info about music, as well as help distribute said music.
Police are essentially a protective force that is charted by citizens through social contract theory.
One is interested in your safety, the other your wallet.
1 tequila 2 tequila 3 tequila floor
"Can you imagine 10 people a day, 10 people a day, walkin' in, downloadin' a bar of Wesley Willis, and walkin' out? People might think it was a movement. And that's what it is, the Wesley Willis Download Anti-R-I-A-A movement, and all you have to do to join is download a few bars when it comes around agin on the P2P.
With Feelin'.
Indeed, Pandora's Box has been opened and there's no changing it.
But they'll keep trying to defend a dying distribution mechanism until they ultimately succumb because they were distributing crap.
Here's what I don't get. The overhead costs associated with net distribution are much less than CD media distribution. This is why I don't understand the pricing scheme for things like iTunes and Yahoo Music. True track cost should be ten to twenty cents, not seventy-nine cents or ninety-nine cents.
Then there is the elephant in the room. Apple crows about it's iPod but to be honest - who is going to pay thousands of dollars to fill their iPod. Nobody, that's who. Much of the music on iPods is more than likely illegaly downloaded tracks. Recent rulings would come down and say that Apple enables copyright violation. But curiously nobody touches them.
Lets not mention iTunes and the MyTunes Redux application. Nothing like snatching music while it's being streamed to you.
My point is that copyright violations have been occuring on a regular basis for the past 30 or so years. I can't count how many albums I recorded to tape when I was a kid, each time violating the sanctity of the RIAA. I'm pretty sure those of us that came in at the beginning of the digital revolution did much the same. But now the RIAA sees fit to persecute. Note the choice of the word.
Instead of cultivating a potential market that makes their lives easier, they'd prefer to litigate. It is high time to put the lawyers against the wall.
The record publishers still get to ding artists for things like "breakage". In the early days, you could reliably count on about 9% of the stock being broken in shipping. Recording company contracts charged the artists that fee. As shipping methods grew more reliable, the artists continued to be charged for "breakage". When vinyl was replaced by CDs which are hardly ever damaged in shipment, yep you guessed it! The artists still get dinged.
Physical distribution systems offer the labels a million ways to skim off the top. I think they fear that they won't be able to bring their scams into the 21st century if they discontinue physical media.
I didn't. I filled it up with MP3s/AACs ripped from my legally-purchased CDs, with a smattering that I've purchased from iTMS.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines