Slashdot Mirror
NYT Opinion Piece on DRM And P2P
bsartist writes "The NYT is running an opinion piece written by a working musician who has a pretty healthy dislike of copy protection and DRM. From the article: 'As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software.'"
This musician should do what many others have done and start his or her own website. Make the music available there, free of charge or for a small fee.
If they were stupid enough to sign a restrictive contract with some media label, the just wait until the agreement expires. Then be sure to never deal with them again, due to the points mentioned in this article.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Um, we are listening to your music. We're just not paying. That's the point.
"how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software."
A few more maybe, but my experience is if someone wants the music, DRM won't stop them from buying.
I'm sure there are a few people who get fired up about it, but I suspect most people don't care all that much.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
How I would get paid if my music is available every where for free, The Musician also wonders if 1/10 people who bootleg my music will buy it.
-- I Dont Deserve A Sig I Have Bad Karma
I found that piece to be quite interesting.
What was said at the end, in particular, about the record labels feeling that because it targetted college students with the best access to P2P was the reason to put the DRM on it.
But the labels obviously don't see that that would only drive college students to download. If one person buys the CD in the college setting and it won't get on his iPod, he'll inform his friends and they won't buy it, no matter how great the CD is, and will instead go onto a P2P service and download it from a Linux/Mac/Shift-key user who ripped it in 10 minutes anyway.
I begin to wonder if the labels understand cause and effect. And that quite a number of college students are tech-savvy enough to use Linux/Mac/etc. anyway, more so than in the home setting.
Slashdot will post a million articles and opinions from anybody on the Internets that hates DRM, yet never post any opinions that defend it. Who has ever heard of this alleged musician in the first place?
Hey editors, how about some equal time? You don't need to hit us over that head that you think DRM is bad. How about letting us make that opinions ourselves, instead of steering everybody towards that conclusion.
Stupid registration. When are companies going to realize that for every subscription based news source, there are 100 free ones.
I wish some of the entertainment industry execs would click that link and get a fucking clue.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
"As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle"
Ok, go here: http://www.okgo.net/music_music.asp
Best of luck to the band!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
That is because there is never a defense for the concept of corporate-controlled "rights management". That should hold especially true in a place like the United States, where the people always claim to hold rights and freedoms in high regards.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
He must be a slashdot reader. That's just too much of a coincidence to be believed!
If you always treat people as if they are out to lie to you and steal from you, they WILL lie to you and steal from you.
Eh, ButMeNot.
--
RumorsDaily
Some very basic research, even just a few Google searches, would have made them aware of the risks of dealing with these labels. It's no secret that they royally fuck over a lot of artists.
I don't feel bad for people who sign an agreement with somebody without researching the other party's background and history. A quick Internet search would have revealed 20/20 hindsight as recorded by others who have been screwed over by the major labels.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I can almost hear the speeches about "...when the musicians control the means of production"...
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I can't help but wonder, how many more people would have RTFA had it not been encumbered by an account system.
**Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we're the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.**
This is a stupid argument. EMI's "protective software" overwrote my sound drivers when I tried to rip a purchased Leahy CD to mp3 so I could then listen to the music on my portable mp3 player. The lesson I learnt? Don't purchase EMI and/or Leahy CDs -- I didn't really need the CD or the hassle in the first place.
If I absolutely have to have the music, I now know it's far safer to download EMI mp3s from the flavour of the week p2p program than it is to purchase the CD.
EMI's "protective software" encourages piracy, not discourages it.
And at least Sony's "protective software" gave you some sort of a heads-up that there was 'extras' on their CDs; EMI didn't tell me a damn thing. I had to figure out what in hell happened to the sound card on my own.
I find it interesting that the more I read on music, the more apparent it is to me that there are a very few (dozens, maybe hundreds) out of the millions of bands that actually make rock-star kinda money.
For the rest: it's just a dream the label sold them.
I guess what I'm suggesting is that most bands are not giving up much 'fortune' without a major label. Most bands can probably make just as much money w/o the label as with, and this would leave the band to make their music, their way, and reach their fans which most claim to be the reason they started in the first place.
See the lil' secret that all middlemen don't want people to know is that they have no discernable skill of their own, other than profiting off the backs of others...(see patents & copyrights -- it's the middleman fighting for protections). The creators don't need middlemen, but middlemen sure as hell need the creative...
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
"Luckily, my band's recently released album, "Oh No," escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label's parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it."
Problem: Major record labels (or their parent companies) want to force copy protection onto the albums of their talent.
Solution: Don't sign with one of those labels, or make sure your contract includes stipulations that your albums will not have copy protection.
This opinion article is indicative of increasing artist awareness of how copy protection will hurt them -- the difficulty is that the labels still have more bargaining power for upcoming talent.
This is a great opportunity for a well-funded indie label to step up and fill the void, to attract talent by guaranteeing no copy protection.
If someone demonstrates to the major labels that it's beneficial to not require copy protection, they may follow suit -- though I'd speculate that copy protection is all about making sure the record-buying public still sees free copying & downloading as 'wrong.' What they'd really hate to see is most musinc 'consumers' feeling that it is normal and 100% acceptable to get all their music from filesharing.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
But...
From the article:
Luckily, my band's recently released album, "Oh No," escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label's parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it. Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we're the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.
You know what? It was hearing "A Million Ways" on NPR, then a P-2-P download of the song, that CAUSED me to purchase the entire album! If I had not been able to dig the whole song a couple of times, I would have never have purchased it. "Oh No" was the first CD I've bought in 2 years. (I just haven't found a lot of music lately that appeals to me.)
So the very avenue that the record companies fear, generated a sale. How many others has it generated?
They will never understand, the same why GM won't really understand why laying off 30,000 people still won't help them.
Amazing how these executives get paid millions yet do not remove themselves(HA) or better yet, remove top/middle managers. That's where the bottleneck is.
The Record Companies, like GM, have dinosaurs at the helm. They have not fully understand current market conditions. In the case with GM, they failed to realize the benefit and demand for hybrid vehicles. How they missed this, and many other oportunities, is beyond me, and further shows, they have boobs running the company.
If you fail to change and adapt you will lose. This is th emost fundamental point in a capitalist system.
The real cause of music piracy is because a CD with 12 tracks isn't worth the money the labels are asking. Why anyone buys a CD which costs almost as much as a DVD is beyond me.
The labels needs to get a clue and realize they need to provide a value service to their 'customers' (not consumers). Not alienate them by crippling their machines with DRM'd malware which can be defeated and ripped by someone with a marker pen, sticky tape or shift key.
Download a movie off the net you just get to watch the movie. Buy the same movie from a shop and you get all the extra bonus material. Download an album off the net you get an album buy the album in the shop you get the same album. This is the real reason why the movie industry hasn't been clobbered by piracy to the same extent as the music cartels.
I really believe DRM free FLAC quality music downloads and streaming services are the way to go. They need to build a business model around that. Much like Google, Red Hat and MySql give their products away free and make money on providing services.
WORKIN' FOR MCA
Seven years of hard luck comin' down on me
from a motor boat, yes, up in Nashville, Tennessee.
I worked in every joint you can name, yes, every honky tonk.
They all come to see yankee slicker saying, baby, you're what I want.
Want you to sign the contract,
want you to sign the date.
Gonna give you lots of money
workin' for MCA.
Oh, nine thousand dollars just to sow to the wind.
Come to smile at the yankee slicker with a big old southern grin.
They're gonna take me out to California, gonna make me a super star.
Just pay me all my money, mister, maybe you won't get a star.
Want you to sign the contract,
want you to sign the date.
Gonna give you lots of money
workin' for MCA.
Slickers steal my money since I was seventeen,
if it ain't no pencil pusher then it got to be a honky tonk queen.
But I signed my contract, baby, and I want you people to know
that every penny I make, I gotta see where my money goes.
Want you to sign the contract,
want you to sign the date.
Gonna give you lots of money
workin' for MCA.
- Edward King & Ronnie Van Zant
"As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software."
Actually, my iPod had music I stole off the Internet not just because of rootkits from Sony. It's because:
- Prices for CD's were really high here in Canada (until recently when the labels drop their pricing to make CD's more "affordable").
- I want to buy music online. While iTunes has decent pricing for music. Their DRM restrictions leave me a bit cold (although they are more liberal than the rest).
- Most of the time, I don't have a compelling reason to buy a CD. Not with all the cookie cutter artists out there.
Sure rootkitted CD's have cost the music industry some sales, but there's other facts at work here.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I was pitching the idea of an online karaoke store to a karaoke label. Conversation went something like this;
me: "DRM will always be cracked, folks will find a way around, why bother?"
him: "It makes the labels comfortable"
Me: "Yah but the cats out of the bag, its open season on the net for filesharers"
him: "I like to quote my locksmith friend, locks aren't supposed to keep criminals out, they're supposed to keep honest people in"
I should have come back with "Oh so you think everyones dishonest do you?", but nah, I liked this guy.
Not that it will ever happen in our lifetime for audio files, but there will be some advancement in audio that will only be avaliable on DRM, it's only a matter of time. Maybe it will be some newfangled 42 channel lossless surround sound that we haven't even concieved of yet.
At some point, all these files floating around for free on the net are going to start sounding pretty crappy, and the DRM files will be the only ones that will be the MUST HAVE rage.
I sort of picture christmas with the family. I'm sitting there showing off some non DRM linux based audio juke that I can ssh into, compile my kernel on and browse the newsgroups, and my grease mechanic uncle will pull out the "Microwhore pocket media" device that straps to your chin and transmits 52 channel DRM audio through your jawbone. No matter how cool it is to other geeks I can run seti@home on my linux based juke, it won't matter to the other family members all pressing the micropoop to their chins and salivating from a near orgasmic audio experience.
This has been brought up a lot of times about OSS, GNU, linux stuff in general. We're going to be assed out when it happens, back here on slashdot complaining about the lack of linux driver support for playing back these drm audio.
DVD Jon will fly in wearing a blue leotard, red boots, red cape, and a tux logo in a diamond on his chest. He'll break the DRM again, we'll be happy for a while, but the rest of the consumer market will go on.
Smart people, tech savvy people are in the minority. I hate to say this, but it's true. Most of the world buys what the TV tells them to.
A great musician can make a living doing live performances. People who need 6 takes of each line in a studio followed by some DSP cleanup and effects are the ones who want DRM to maximize profits through heavily advertised music sales. Several pop stars come to mind. When the music IS the product, you want DRM. When you sell yourself as a musician, you don't.
You know, I picked up a "CD" the other day and specifically looked for the CD logo. I think it was there, but it was so small, I couldn't be sure either way. Seriously, it was in 1 point type!
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Yes he's conflicted, and a hypocrite and a liar. He made his choice, in this day and age, people in the music scene know what labels are like. He wants the best of both worlds and that's wrong.
So I guess:
Band gets signed to label.
Band goes in debt to label.
Band needs people to hear them, encourages trading.
Band makes it big.
Label puts protection on CD.
Band discourages trading.
Fans who trade get sued.
This is ok with you.
Pick one way or the other, you can't have both.
This to me is just another reminder of the fact that musicians, if they wish to exist and succeed, independent of labels, MUST encourage downloading and distribution of their music so as to avoid the hegemonic devices of the music industry to protect their mechanical copyrights, such as DRM and indeed, the exclusive recording contracts themselves. If a recording artist is not able to record or release material under any other label, including his own, the recording label alone controls the works of that artist. It becomes more than just patronage at that point--it's owernship. However, by exploiting the channels of communication and promotion that the labels wish to avoid at all costs, whether because they are young technologies, or because they seem to have little profitability, such as P2P, .torrent, Internet radio, and increasingly, XM and satellite radio, the independent artists gain a monopoly of those mediums and can exist--without being on a label, and without the power of the label looming over them.
I wrote a short paper on this, entitled 'On Music and Paradigms', available in PDF format, here.
WTF? Accountants are judges of rock stars? What happened to the music?
bands make music because they love music, they want hot chicks..., AND some money would be nice
but you don't need 50 cent's money to live large (heh), heck, a couple hundred thou a year from touring gigs is fine
so successful bands will ALWAYS make money from concert gigs: someone controls access to the theatre, selling tickets: no amount of cyberspace bandwidth gets you anywhere in that meatspace
plus there are product endorsements, advertising: that's a lot of money
tiger woods lives larger than 50 cent, and he doesn't need no stinkin' drm to cash in on his popularity
so the future will be the same even with 100% music piracy: bands will just make cash from touring gigs and advertising
and the fans get free iPod fodder
it's a win-win
who loses? the traditional music conglomerates
so you'll excuse me if i don't find any argument about how music piracy hurts the musicians very persuasive
it's not morality, repeat IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF MORALITY TO PIRATE MUSIC
it's crocodile tears, crocodile tears by men in suits on a sinking ship
but who gives a fuck if bmg, emi, etc. disappear from the face of the earth?
it can only get better as far as i can see
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's OK labels. Don't cry now. There there. Yes, stop sniffling. It's OK. I know your customers and your vendors hate you, but it's OK. The politicians, lobbyists, and, well, you still love you.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
... and now I'm off to download that album!
In the case with GM, they failed to realize the benefit and demand for hybrid vehicles. How they missed this, and many other oportunities, is beyond me
Uh, no. GM was actually among the very first to jump on the alternative energy bandwagon with the EV-1, which came years before any Prius or Insight rolled off an assembly line.
GM is in trouble because of a crippling pension liability. In the past, GM offered very generous pension and benefit programs to attract top talent. It worked, but now those folks have retired and are reaping the (expensive) benefits of that generous pension plan, and it's putting a very real and serious strain on GM's bottom line. GM's competitors don't have such large pension liabilities handicapping their budgets, and thus are able to invest more in developing new products. GM needs to do something about their pensioners, and that's going to be extremely difficult to do.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
If you don't think middlemen serve a purpose, then why, do you suppose, do producers not simply sell directly the consumers?
There's a service in delivery and there's a service in filtration... both of which the music industry provides. Just because someone is a middle-man doesn't mean they're not providing a service. If they weren't providing a service, nobody would ever hand them any money.
--
RumorsDaily
and the shocking answer to who makes all the money? the middleman of course, the one selling this pipe-dream to the artist. The one putting locks on the music that keeps the fans from listening. See the lil' secret that all middlemen don't want people to know is that they have no discernable skill of their own
I disagree with this. First of all, it's not a single "middle man," but rather a very, very large team of experienced professionals that make an album come together. Someone had to write and score the music and lyrics (possibly with some input from the artist, though less and less so nowadays), design the cover art, advertise and promote the band, secure and arrange touring and performance contracts, record, master, and edit the music, manage and arrange CD printing, delivery, and distribution, take care of legal issues for the band, and on and on and on.
The band shows up for a few hours on Tuesday and Wednesday to actually sing the songs that were written for them, then they go have unprotected sex with random groupies for the next 6 months while everybody else puts in 8 hour days making the entire album come together. So why in the hell should the artists get the lion's share of the profits? What makes them so special? The dozens, or even hundreds of other, "behind-the-scenes" people who worked on the album all worked much harder on the product, why should they get thrown the scraps that are leftover once the band gets the rich reward you seem to think they're entitled to?
Sincerely curious.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
I love music. I love all kinds of music (ok, not so much country). I like listening to music on the way to school. In my car. In the House. My life pretty much has a soundtrack.
Unfortunately, I can't afford music. I make about $10k a year and most of that has to go to more important things - rent, food, and insurance - the necessities of life. Anything left over goes straight to school supplies and books. So, at $16 a pop, I can afford either a single CD, most of which I won't listen to more than once, I can also get a case of Ramen noodles, which will feed me for at least a week. Sure, I could buy songs from iTunes or the like, but then I won't be able to use them anywhere else, and I don't have an iPod, so I'm pretty much left out in the cold.
You leave me with three choices, two of which aren't viable. I can listen to the radio - unfortunately most of our radio stations spend more time advertising and playing dance remixes than anything new (or old). I can go without music - of course music being a joy of my life that would certainly make things duller, if not eerily quieter. I can copy music - I probably won't get caught no matter how strong your penalties are and I can get what I want, when I want it.
Since most people tend to base choice as the result of a rational decision making process that weighs out the pros and cons, why don't you look at the above pros and cons I've mentioned and determine for yourself, what is the rational response to music pricing and availability? To a poor person that loves music the pros of not copying are minimal at best while the cons of copying also minimal. If there is anything the war on drugs has taught us it's that you can't legislate or enforce your way out of a "crime problem". No matter how harsh the penalty, all seeing the enforcers, individuals will always escape the law. So here I leave you with an option, make things easier for all of us poor music lovers out there, or accept the "copied" future...
Sincerely,
A Poor Graduate Student
I couldn't even get to the site; I got a "max number of redirects (302) exceeded", probably because I have cookies diabled by default.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
DRM is "workable" so far only because it really impacts a minority. A growing minority, but a minority anyway. For most people, iTunes is seen as a "reasonable compromise" and they assume some unknown group they call "hackers" probably still "pirates" music.
Joe six pack couldn't care less.
Soon, however, you'll need a special monitor or a special TV to watch high quality video. That crosses the line. The industry as a whole is going to find out that you DO NOT MESS WITH THE TV. That, in the US, is sacred. Mess with the TV and you're a "damn govm't commie".
I predict that the requirement for special viewing hardware to "Close the analog hole" will go over about the same way Microsoft's attempt to tell I.T. directors they had to upgrade within 6 months or pay full retail. Anyone else remember that mistake?
All its going to do is wake up people who presently don't care to how over-reaching the policy is. The backlash will be fun to watch.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
What service? filtration? What are you blathering about? We live in a world in which teenagers can do a better job of distributing music than the records company. P2P takes advantage of network proficiencies that the old industrial distribution systems could only dream about. I'm sure that the medieval scriber had nasty things to say about Guttenberg as well...
Question to Slashdotians as to where DO the artists make their greatest revenue? Its it through cd sales or is it through touring?
Do they need the mass media (Video, Radio and record sales) to generate the recognition to have a sucessful tour or do they also reap massive revenue from all media and touring?
No lock available on any consumer-grade car, truck, minivan, house, garage, shed, or toilet (don't ask) is capable of keeping criminals out. This is *well known* among locksmiths and security professionals. Unless you live in a bank vault, you can't keep even your average garden-variety criminal out of your stuff.
Ever watch the show "It Takes A Theif?" Locks are there to make you *feel* safe, not to actually protect you or your valuables. They also provide a legal basis for prosecuting someone for B&E or trespassing. If the door is locked from them, they weren't supposed to be there.
And actually, I say that the "It Takes A Theif" guys don't go far enough (although I know why). They almost always go easy the second time they hit a house (after the security upgrade), simply because they'd get in MAJOR trouble if they went around destroying all the fancy gadgets that the producers just got done installing. Not only that, they'd seriously compromise their entire show premise if they went through, set off the alarms, and still made off with what they could...it would show that *NOTHING* is safe, EVER, regardless of security.
Here's a fun fact: If the locks on your home were made by Kwikset, I have a key to your house. There are a limited number of OEM keys cut for Kwikset locks, which are some of the most popular locks around. How safe are your locks now?
Not being a working musician or even a musician at all, here's what I'd do if I were. Even if I was just starting out...
It's very simple. I'd find a non-label corporate sponsor. I'd take my tracks around to Ad agencies and PR firms... talk to the people there about providing some low-cost background tracks or something... find out who their big clients are and approach someone at those companies using my Agency contact as a name drop to get in the door, then try to negotiate a direct deal with them to provide music for whatever they need.
I'd become their 'musical consultant' and 'musician of record' much like an attorney or specialist in IT or any other field would do.
I'd negotiate a 2 year contract to provide my services at a living wage with a little bonus for my special skills. For this, they would get all the loops, soundbytes, jingles, elevator music, whatever they want. In return, I'd get to practice my skills, receive a decent paycheck, spend all my free time in a studio and release my personal creations with any license i want and any distributor who I think will do a good job.
Few corporations would have any incentive to want to keep me for much more than that but if they did, so much the better when I shopped around for a new sponsor with a better contract. The better I got at providing them with a musical brand, the more valued I'd become. After a few corporate gigs, I'd hopefully have enough saved to release something that would do well on the charts and could decide to go independent.
In the meanwhile, I could supplement my income with agency work directly... seeing as how I'm good at providing corporate musical brandind now... agencies know I can perform and get the job done.
Maybe I'd never be a media superstar, but I'd probably make a lot more money in the end and have creative control of both my music and my reputation.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My recent strategy has been to purchase CDs directly from the artists at their shows. Not only are they making some cash from me at the shows, but frequently they have their older albums on sale as well as cases of their current work. Does this mean the label is totally out of the picture? Maybe not, but sometimes. I have purchased "pirated" CDs from the artists themselves because the f'ing label didn't think it worth their time to make more. Sure this won't work for the FOTM pop bands, but I don't listen to that junk anyway. Big bands like the Rolling Stones? Local used CD stores and discount racks, baby. I plan on doing all I can to give as little as possible to big labels.
The poor guy is just conflicted, and wants the best of both worlds: he wants it free for people to listen to, but they gotta pay for it to make him rich. I find it interesting that the more I read on music, the more apparent it is to me that there are a very few (dozens, maybe hundreds) out of the millions of bands that actually make rock-star kinda money. For the rest: it's just a dream the label sold them.
Aw, come on now, give us musicians a little more credit than that. Some of us, like Damien, are educated, motivated, quick-thinking folks who are trying to make a *living*, not necessarily millions, from playing music. Does that make us stupid? It shouldn't, not if music fans still want music to listen to.
This is clearly a two-way street: musicians should be figuring out the best way to produce good music and get it to fans and potential fans, and fans should be concerned about whether the system encourages the good musicians at the bottom to rise to the top.
One facile answer is to say, "Give the music away for free and make your money from playing live. If you can't play a live show, you shouldn't be trying to make a living this way."
The problem with this argument is you'll lose out on all the great musicians who (a) construct amazing music using the studio itself as an instrument (vide Radiohead, who still put on a great live show, Praxis, you name it -- even Mingus overdubbed a bass solo from time to time), and who (b) have something to offer you but for one reason or another can't tour. Ever tried touring? Ever tried it with kids? With a job that doesn't let you take more than a few days off at a time? With a bad back?
The easy answer is not the right one, not in a situation where we want good music from both the well-known and the obscure. And don't think that indie labels are somehow the be-all, end-all; any musician on an indie label can tell you plenty of stories to put an end to that fantasy. Some indies have their hearts in the right place, but no money to realize their intentions; some are little people trying to be industry players; and others, a very few, do it right.
The labels owe it to the musicians and to the fans to put out music in a format and at a price that makes sense. The fans owe it to the musicians to support them financially if they like the music. One positive model for P2P is this: download some tracks by a band you've never heard, or from an album you don't know; if you like the music, go buy the album. If you don't like the music, you won't those tracks on your hard drive anyway, so erase them.
The question for my model, and for many other similar suggestions, is this: can we all trust each other?
See the lil' secret that all middlemen don't want people to know is that they have no discernable skill of their own, other than profiting off the backs of others...(see patents & copyrights -- it's the middleman fighting for protections). The creators don't need middlemen, but middlemen sure as hell need the creative...
So an engineer designing a drug to combat a new disease doens't need a layer of management to provide him money for the equipment, testing, technicians, other engineers to help? An engineer designing a new processor doesn't need somebody to help him fabricate the chip, invest in capital, hire technicians to help him test his designs, etc?
Put yourself on the other side of the equation, you provide $20M in capital funding to startup to help design a new drug. Somebody comes along and copies it which is a right you have, subject to another's property rights. Are you saying you don't the right to exclude others from copying the work you helped fund?
IP rights, just like any property or even marital rights, has benefits and detriments.
So has GM though. Chrysler killed off Plymouth, GM killed off Oldsmobile, and as far as I know, Ford hasn't killed off anything yet, have they? The pundits are saying Mercury is on life-support, but to the best of my knowledge, Ford hasn't officially announced the final nail yet.
Simply put, GM is having so much trouble meeting its pension obligations because no one will buy their cars without a deep discount.
The Chevy Cavalier was the #1 best selling car in Canada for several years running, yet GM was unable to parlay that marketshare dominance into huge profits. Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to defend GM's products. I think their vehicles are all cheap, flaky crap (with the notable exception of this one, which is just freakin' amazing). But it's been selling just as well or better than their competitors. So they should be in a comparable financial situation. Yet they're not. Why? Because of the pensions.
I'm not alone in this opinion; the pros all back me up:
They're losing money because they're paying out benefits to employees that don't even work there anymore at a rate proportionally higher than their competitors.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Using a flash player and obfuscated links is a hassle. I'm sorry I can't discover your music for this reason. Please provide direct clean links (OGG, MP3) if you want to enlarge your audience.
Million Dollar Screenshot
I downloaded a (previously) rare DVD of the Grateful Dead at Tivoli Gardens, Denmark (4/17/72), and it was as great as its legend said it would be. After watching it 5 or 6 times with friends, I changed my mind about owning a music DVD, and bought several GD videos (from PBS, of all places). Official releases, they each turned out to be just as boring as I thought they would be - 1990s shows featuring fat old men in low gear. The music was good (to my tastes), but why would I spend $20 on discs that can play only in DVD players, not my car CD player or discman, let alone stream from my Icecast server to my desks around town? I already had the same soundboard, traded among friends in true Deadhead fashion.
So this week's content misers, the Grateful Dead, are not only hypocritical. They're showing how even the original P2P sharers can screw up the marketing/distribution coup handed them by Internet sharing, by forcing us to buy crapola products once they've (re)gained the monopoly. Ingrates. I miss Jerry.
--
make install -not war
The labels see CD duplication as a bigger threat than P2P.
Did you read the article? The point the ARTIST was making is that DRM, no matter how "well" it is implemented, prevents people from sharing the music with other people, which in turn limits the wide distribution of the music, especially to people who haven't heard your work before. OK, so if you're Madonna or KISS or some other huge name, then pretty much everyone had heard of you, but for every big name band that could really use DRM to protect them from massive piracy, how many thousands of other small time bands are there struggling to get their songs out? I don't even mean "garage bands". There are plenty of established bands who just aren't in the top 0.1% that get a lot of air time on the big corporate owned radio stations. They would love to have 10,000 more people downloading their music and actually listening to them. Downloads still drive real sales, both of CD's and concert tickets. You may only see receipts on 1 out of 10 copies of your songs out of there, but that's still better than ZERO sales.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
I returned the latest Santana CD to Borders Bookstore, where I bought it, after discovering it installed crap without my permission on my company-issued laptop. I was direct with the manager about the problem and they accepted the return with very little hassle.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Are you pulling that out of your ass or did you just misunderstand the article? It specifically said the label wanted to use this band with DRM because their target market was college students. It sounded like the band convinced the label to go fuck themselves and release their album DRM-free, because they want as many people to hear them as possible, as opposed to making as much money as possible.
Joseph?
... depending on the writing guidelines one follows, one does use an apostrophe to denote plurals in the case of acronyms.
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/acronyms.html
Now, where was the common sense of someone during the production process saying that it makes no sense to make an actual paying customer suffer through this insanity? I mean, if the copy actually was pirated then it would no longer have any restricted operations and the whole damn portion about piracy would have been removed. So the only people that are forced to endure such garbage are the very people who the commercial is not intended to address.
And that is why media companies are losing it. Copy protection and usage restrictions are nothing more than hassles for actual paying customers. And every time the content providers, whether it is music, movies, or videogames try to introduce another technological solution to their market problem, they only alienate paying customers. The actual people who are unwilling, uninterested, or unable to pay for the content just go out and get versions without the protection.
Great model.
What are you, a respected member of the Pigdog journalist team doing wasting your time on Slashdot?
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The record companies (and movie studios) are middle-men that no longer have a usefulness in the Internet age. The artists no longer need them for anything! Digital recording equipment is inexpensive. Websites for distribution are inexpensive. What are the studios there for?!?! Oh yeah, to rip off the artists AND the consumers by fleecing both for their own self interests. The RIAA (and MPAA) can get bent! And you can quote me on that!
New York Times
December 6, 2005
Op-Ed Contributor
Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat
By DAMIAN KULASH Jr.
Los Angeles
THE record company Sony BMG recently got in trouble after attempting to stem piracy by encoding its CD's with software meant to limit how many copies can be made of the discs. It turned out that the copy-protection software exposed consumers' computers to Internet viruses, forcing Sony BMG to recall the CD's.
This technological disaster aside, though, Sony BMG and the other major labels need to face reality: copy-protection software is bad for everyone, consumers, musicians and labels alike. It's much better to have copies of albums on lots of iPods, even if only half of them have been paid for, than to have a few CD's sitting on a shelf and not being played.
The Sony BMG debacle revealed the privacy issues and security risks tied to the spyware that many copy-protection programs install on users' computers. But even if these problems are solved, copy protection is guaranteed to fail because it's a house of cards. No matter how sophisticated the software, it takes only one person to break it, once, and the music is free to roam and multiply on the peer-to-peer file-trading networks.
Meanwhile, music lovers get pushed away. Tech-savvy fans won't go to the trouble of buying a strings-attached record when they can get a better version free. Less Net-knowledgeable fans (those who don't know the simple tricks to get around the copy-protection software or don't use peer-to-peer networks) are punished by discs that often won't load onto their MP3 players (the copy-protection programs are incompatible with Apple's iPods, for example) and sometimes won't even play in their computers.
Conscientious fans, who buy music legally because it's the right thing to do, just get insulted. They've made the choice not to steal their music, and the labels thank them by giving them an inferior product hampered by software that's at best a nuisance, and at worst a security threat.
As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software.
The truth is that the more a record gets listened to, the more successful it is. This is not just our megalomania, it's Marketing 101: the more times a song gets played, the more of a chance it has to catch the ear of someone new. It doesn't do us much good if people buy our records and promptly shelve them; we need them to fall in love with our songs and listen to them over and over. A record that you can't transfer to your iPod is a record you're less likely to listen to, less likely to get obsessed with and less likely to tell your friends about.
Luckily, my band's recently released album, "Oh No," escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label's parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it. Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we're the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.
That may be true, but we are also the sort of band that hasn't yet gotten the full attention of MTV and major commercial radio stations, so those college students are our only window onto the world. They are our best chance for success, and we desperately need them to be listening to us, talking about us, coming to our shows and yes, trading us.
To be clear, I certainly don't encourage people to pirate our music. I have poured my life into my band, and after two major label records, our accountants can tell you that we're not real rock stars yet. But before a million people can buy our record, a million people have to hear our music and like it enough to go looking for it. That won'
Rate? What about it? Are there any studies - really, any at all - that show an inverse correlation between digital restrictions management and copyright infringement?
You speak as though lowering the percentage of people capable of making a copy means fewer total copies will be made, but I see no reason whatever to believe that. At most, suppose each person shares a song with 10 other people, and the labels are able to prevent 90% of would-be listeners from copying. All of labels' effort and earned ill will would buy them one extra generation of copying before saturation is reached. If they're really successful and make 99.9% of their customers hate them because they can't listen to a CD on their iPod, then it adds a total of three generations before saturation. Is that really worthwhile? Will they ever understand that this is a lost cause, and altered business models are the only solution they have left?
Remember, you can't defeat exponential phenomena with linear tools. Sooner or later, that pesky exponent catches up to you.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Good read. Nice to see a musician who "gets it" and is more interested in people hearing his music than making money (although of course he still wants to make money).
:)
Good ad also. I checked out the band on YaTunes (my term for Yahoo Music), so far I like what I hear.
Joseph?
Dude, you've been working for the record company too long. Time to move on, you're seriously burned out. And more than a little bitter.
You might have a point, when it comes to the sort of pre-fab, image-managed, marketing-contrived acts like the boy-bands and pop-tarts; but TFA is by a guy in a band that writes its own material, and obviously is very involved with their albums. The vast majority of acts out there, the 90%+ who just make enough to keep a roof over their heads, are in the business to make music. Considering what they get out of their record deals, it sure ain't to get rich.
Don't dump on all the artists out there who actually have talent, just because you got paid industry scale to help Britney buy another vacation home. Deal with your own issues, and move on.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
How many musicians have succeeded in making a living this way?
I seem to recall that The Grateful Dead now release all their music for free on their website. Of course, they're an established band with a devoted fanbase. That doesn't mean, however, that the theory won't work for an unknown band trying to make their start.
To use a slightly off topic example, my first exposure to Battlestar Galactica (reimagined) was an AVI a friend told me I had to watch. I now own the first season on DVD, and still watch when replays are on TV. Season two doesn't start airing on TV here until January, but episodes 1-10 were available on bittorrent. I grabbed them, and watched them, and liked them. I still fully intend to watch it on TV, too, and to get the DVDs when they're available.
What exactly has the production company lost from me because of my actions? As I see it, they've not only gained a fan, but they've also profitted from my willingness both watch the (commercial filled) replays on TV, and from my willingness to pay for a higher-quality version of what I downloaded for free.
The RIAA has done a stupendous job of hoarding for itself all of the arguments in support of ...ahem... obliging people to pay, not for music but for the product the companies they represent are trying to sell.
...and, oh yeah, some music too.
Sony BMG, et al., would love for guys like you and me to forget that the product they're selling is NOT music. It's a "product", which entails some things like a jewel case, a slip cover, liner notes, a plastic CD, some shrink-wrap, maybe a DVD,
Now, to me, that looks like a hell of a lot more than just the music, some of it I might want, so I perceive it to be something more than just the music. But in the typical airheaded mentality of media companies, this doesn't mean they're offering MORE than just the music, it means they're offering DIFFERENT than just the music, because the idea of putting it all together and selling it is a unit is what they really do.
And if you think the ancillary things included in the CD are any less important to "the product" as they think they conceive it, then you're wrong and possibly deluded.
I dont't buy a CD to prop it on edge and fucking stare at it, or read the liner notes before playing hoping to find user instructions, and **gasp** if the music sucks, then **OMG GASP** I'll throw that fucker out like hot garbage.
The moment the record companies come to understand that, this problem will vanish. Until then, and for as long as they attend to the wanked-off 2nd grade insipid marketing mind games, the only arguments not adverse to the RIAA are all ready so common and well-known that it really becomes just a tired joke to repeat them.
So if you want "equal time" (whatever that means), what would you expect to be fair ?
For anyone out there who's not heard of it it's a UK law, and as the parent says, it can produce a quite dramatic change of attitude.
Damian had a harsher version of this article on music industry blog coolfer.com. Read it here. Looks like he was forced to tone it down for the ny times...
OK, I'll bite, troll.
By that logic, no-one has a god-given right to transfer their music onto an MP3 player. Nor do they have a god-given right to play it on a high-end CD player (yes, some high-end ones digitally rip the music), nor even on a DVD player (same story there), nor an in-car CD player.
If I interpret your POV to mean "the record industry is allowed to use whatever means it deems necessary to protect their property", it therefore follows that CDs with intentionally-broken error correction, which by definition are more susceptible to damage are perfectly acceptable. No-one has the right to play a CD which has acquired a minor scratch.
Now, in theory, the free market could work this one out. But there isn't a free market in music. There are a small number of players which control 98% of what's out there, and these players collude to maintain the status quo. My instinctive guess is that we'll continue to see such asinine copy protection schemes until computers and music players either use such radically different means of storage that a means of getting the music to the computer simply doesn't exist (cf. dreamcast discs); or the need to sell music in chunks of 10-15 tracks on a physical medium goes away, perhaps to be replaced with a subscription model or something micropayment based.
lernt? Give me a break. You're advertising your ignorance. If you want anyone to take anything you say/write seriously, you better learn how to write well. I _learned_ in grammar school that lernt is not English. You didn't?!
The Greatful Dead is a bad example because, as you said, "they're an established band with a devoted fanbase". (On the other hand, they are a good example, since their popularity stems from their live shows, not from radio play of their recordings. Still, I don't think they'd be nearly the phenomenom they were if they never had a recording contract).
You bring up a good point with your example of Battlestar Galactica: nobody benefits if free exposure is not available. It's really a balancing act between giving away things to get you interested and making you buy it to make money. If songs were never available for free (no radio, no trading music) you'd never buy anything since you wouldn't know what you're missing. Of course, if everything was free, then nobody would make any money.
The business types recognize this balancing act, and they want to maximize their profit. This means they will want free distribution mechanisms they can control. (If they can't control it, they might not hit the sweetest spot on their profit curve). Random trading isn't something they can control so they don't like it, regardless of whether it's actually helping or hurting them.
you were talking about record producers, now you are talking about soundboard techs making 25K. different people
which, obviously, they will still make in a world of 100% piracy. duh. failed common sense lately?
tiger woods wants to make a video game. the guy who makes the computer game gets paid- whether or not said video game is given away or costs $1,000 a copy. do you understand the concept? the producing of the song comes first. people will still want to produce songs in a world of 100% piracy- they will still be paid, because there still is a revenue stream: advertising, support the fan base to fill arenas and buy products that are endorsed. they give tv away for free. right over the air. all those tv cameramen and tv sound board guys and video guys: they do just fine. how? ADVERTISING SUPPORTS TV. quite handsomely, i might ad. why should it be any different in music? why should i have to pay for music? are you against radio? they give away the music for free! right out over the air! who is going to pay the deejay??? those communist radio guys! (snicker)
plus, technology is changing to the point- the mash up scene, remixes, etc., you don't NEED sound technicians. you just need a good computer. but we even have people who are against mash ups because of intellectual property laws that again, aren't moral or even make sense. but that's another topic
even if, just to follow your retarded line of reasoning, every single sound engineer in the world suddenly lost his job- so fucking what? is that of point of music? to keep sound engineers employed? do you understand what CHANGE is?
do you want us to go ride trains again? well that fancy new thing called an automobile has put all those train engineers out of work! shame on you! sell your car! ride the train... what was that you say again?
stop bitching about people who actually support their convictions
ok, go support your convictions, and i'll stop bitching: sell your car, and ride a train to work. never ride a car again. because that new fancy distruptive technology called a car put all those good hardworking train engineers out of work. same thing as your argument about sound technicians, right? new technology can't change anything, right? uh oh, but before trains there were horse and buggies... those poor guys who put horseshoes on horses- those trains put them out of business... what does a luddite like you do? how do you get to work- car, train, or horse? new technology hurts somebody! oh no! i can't use anything except a stick! (snicker)
according to you, if new technology comes along that makes things better, we can't use it, because it changes how things work. because how things work right now is the only moral way to do things... wtf?!
is that your morality? defending the status quo?
you're not moral dude, you're a reactionary fool, and reactionary fools who resist change like you don't help yourselves, you don't even delay the inevitable. you have trouble coping with change. other people don't have that problem. and those of us who can incorporate change in our lives more successfully than you are more moral than you, because we create less pain for others. you're an obstructionist, and you are immoral. your "convictions" amount to nothing more than brittleness
as you said, "stop bitching about people who actually support their convictions"
i agree. you should stop bitching about my convictions. i have some, you don't. you just have fear of the future and you call it morality. you're deluded
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You say
At some point, all these files floating around for free on the net are going to start sounding pretty crappy, and the DRM files will be the only ones that will be the MUST HAVE rage.
And that's the basic flaw. As of about 7-8 years ago, it all got "good enough". Most people don't care about having higher resolution, higher quality- because it's "good enough". Only video and audiophiles notice or care about any improvements at this point.
DVD is "good enough" so why should i pay for the same movies again?
MP3's and FLAC are "good enough" so why buy it for something new.
Plus I can't see how you are going to have a new technology improve "Duke of Earl". You might improve a new song but 99% of new studio songs are very repetative and boring these days.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Los Angeles
THE record company Sony BMG recently got in trouble after attempting to stem piracy by encoding its CD's with software meant to limit how many copies can be made of the discs. It turned out that the copy-protection software exposed consumers' computers to Internet viruses, forcing Sony BMG to recall the CD's.
This technological disaster aside, though, Sony BMG and the other major labels need to face reality: copy-protection software is bad for everyone, consumers, musicians and labels alike. It's much better to have copies of albums on lots of iPods, even if only half of them have been paid for, than to have a few CD's sitting on a shelf and not being played.
The Sony BMG debacle revealed the privacy issues and security risks tied to the spyware that many copy-protection programs install on users' computers. But even if these problems are solved, copy protection is guaranteed to fail because it's a house of cards. No matter how sophisticated the software, it takes only one person to break it, once, and the music is free to roam and multiply on the peer-to-peer file-trading networks.
Meanwhile, music lovers get pushed away. Tech-savvy fans won't go to the trouble of buying a strings-attached record when they can get a better version free. Less Net-knowledgeable fans (those who don't know the simple tricks to get around the copy-protection software or don't use peer-to-peer networks) are punished by discs that often won't load onto their MP3 players (the copy-protection programs are incompatible with Apple's iPods, for example) and sometimes won't even play in their computers.
Conscientious fans, who buy music legally because it's the right thing to do, just get insulted. They've made the choice not to steal their music, and the labels thank them by giving them an inferior product hampered by software that's at best a nuisance, and at worst a security threat.
As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software.
The truth is that the more a record gets listened to, the more successful it is. This is not just our megalomania, it's Marketing 101: the more times a song gets played, the more of a chance it has to catch the ear of someone new. It doesn't do us much good if people buy our records and promptly shelve them; we need them to fall in love with our songs and listen to them over and over. A record that you can't transfer to your iPod is a record you're less likely to listen to, less likely to get obsessed with and less likely to tell your friends about.
Luckily, my band's recently released album, "Oh No," escaped copy control, but only narrowly. When our album came out, our label's parent company, EMI, was testing protective software and thought we were a good candidate for it. Record company executives reasoned that because we appeal to college students who have the high-bandwidth connections necessary for getting access to peer-to-peer networks, we're the kind of band that gets traded instead of bought.
That may be true, but we are also the sort of band that hasn't yet gotten the full attention of MTV and major commercial radio stations, so those college students are our only window onto the world. They are our best chance for success, and we desperately need them to be listening to us, talking about us, coming to our shows and yes, trading us.
To be clear, I certainly don't encourage people to pirate our music. I have poured my life into my band, and after two major label records, our accountants can tell you that we're not real rock stars yet. But before a million people can buy our record, a million people have to hear our music and like it enough to go looking for it. That won't happen without a lot of people playing us for their friends, which, in turn, won't happen without a fair amount of file sharing.
As it happened, for a variety of reasons, our label didn't put copy-protection software on our album. What a shame, though, that so many bands aren't as fortunate.
Damian Kulash Jr. is the lead singer for OK Go.
From talking to my brother (a musician who sells his own CDs via his website using CDBaby), most musicians hate the DRM crap. They also want to get paid for their hard work. It becomes a Catch-22.
.99 than to get zip. CDs cost too damn much for how much filler music is on most of them.
New artists that have just signed their first record deal are not making a ton of money. If you think the record labels take draconian measures to try and stop piracy, you should see what they do to a new artist on a contract. The band usually has little leverage to negotiate with. Even if other labels are sniffing around, they are still not proven over a big market.
So, the new artist desperately wants to get their music heard. And the author of TFA makes a good case for that. A new artist isn't making a ton of money until they really become a name, and often get a new record deal. So if music is getting pirated some, they could care less.
It's when a band has become really successful that the members can say they are making some serious money. That 2nd and future contracts are much more band friendly than before, because the label can't afford to lose that band. And when that happens, the band is a little more interested in getting some of that money.
As the author of TFA mentions, artists often put everything into their music. Once they hit the road, their lives often suck, outside of maybe some groupie action, and until they are big names, they are all skanky looking pieces of shit. Also, many bands write all of their own music (unless they are Country, in which case they write little, and just perform.) So, they want to reap some benefits from that.
If they are a typical musician, they have put most if not all of their eggs into that music career. If it fails or they don't make good money doing it, all they have to look forward to is a life in the fast food industry, or going back to college after leading a life that isn't condusive to studying hard. Not a very attractive outlook.
So, yeah, they want to be heard, and they want to be paid. And it is usually between the 2nd and 3rd album that they finally realize that they aren't being paid that much. Then, they change sides in the file swapping wars.
The author is right about one thing, though. It's better to get a portion of
Everyone on Slashdot, regardless of whether you like this band, should buy their album to signal to musicians and record labels that we agree with this editorial. (You can find the album on Amazon, but where possible, support your local independent music stores!)
Even if you don't like the band, it's the holiday season, so buy it for someone who might like it and if you do like the band, buy two copies, one for yourself and one for a friend.
If this album suddenly sold 50,000 copies this week, it would send quite a message.
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
"No one has a God-givenb right to play music on a computer."
Maybe not a God-given right, but it is a Philips-given right. If you're compliant with the Red Book standard for audio cds, it should work on a computer, a car cd player, a stereo, whatever. If you're making something that looks-like-a-cd-but-isn't, you better put a darn big label on it saying "THIS IS NOT A CD. IT WILL BREAK YOUR COMPUTER, AND YOU'LL HAVE TO REFORMAT AND REINSTALL WINDOWS TO MAKE IT WORK AGAIN."
"Here's another fun fact - About half of unlawful entry through doorways occurs when the doors were left unlocked. And most criminals will spend less than a minute trying to break in."
So you're saying that locks are good because they are no more effective than leaving the door unlocked in the first place? 50% either way is equality - might as well not use 'em, and never have to worry about locking yourself out. You've proven my point with your "almost half" statement - locks only keep out the honest people. Crooks who want to break into your house will do it whether your house is locked or not. Remember, "almost half" means that "MORE than half" of break-ins are performed when the doors *are* locked.
I used Kwikset as an example, even though nearly all other commercial "buy it in a local hardware store" locks follow the same pattern - they have a set number of keys, and no more.
It takes maybe 5-10 seconds to pick most house locks, even without a "professional" set of tools (I did it in 30 with a nail file when I locked myself out of my apartment). Heck, you can make professional-grade tools in less than an hour using steak knives and a grinder, or in a couple hours if you've gotta file 'em by hand. Unless you've invested some *serious* money into double-wafer or even barrel locks on your doors, your house is as wide-open as if it weren't locked to anybody who is determined to enter. Never mind the fact that they can just as easily bust a window (if there is one).
Locks only keep out the lazy and/or honest people of the world. Determined people break past standard door locks as if they weren't there. Don't trust door locks, and don't underestimate people who want to rob you.
There are many independent bands who do just fine for themselves financially. They're not pulling in millions, but they're living decently ... And then there's this very issue of freedom. Would you trade your freedom and integrity as an artists for money? A true artists, one who puts his or her work above all, most likely would not.
With all due respect, you just don't get it. IT nerds and performers think very differently about their careers, and it is probably useful to understand this difference if you want to understand the choices that each make.
It is a generally accepted principle in our capitalist world that there is a correlation between risks and rewards. The riskier a venture you undertake, the higher the rewards need to be, or else no one would undertake these risks. So far, so good.
Sysadmins, programmers and other nerd types typically follow a medium-risk, medium-return path. You won't make as much as the CEO, but in most cases you won't starve, either. You do a job that is fairly well respected in society and there is (generally, again) a reasonable expectation that you will be able to get a decent job.
Performers - actors, musicians, etc. - follow a high-risk, high-return path. Only a small percentage of people that want to make a living as performers are ever able to do so (imagine if 80% of CompSci graduates could never find a job programming but had to do it on the side while they worked at Starbuck's). They spend years waiting tables or playing in crappy local bars hoping to get their big break. So, when that chance does come, they grab onto it and they feel (rightly, I believe) that they deserve their success. Actors don't work crap jobs for years so they can turn down a $1 million paycheck in a big movie and say, "I don't want to work for a MPAA-affiliated studio!"
The same - by and large - goes for musicians as well. They are performers that (probably) busted their asses to get where they are, and they aren't going to give up a shot at the big time because of what DRM technology is put on their CDs (which generally isn't up to them anyway). It's like this for pro athletes as well, and many other professions where only a tiny percentage of those pursuing it will ever achieve success. (Interestingly, the only place where IT nerds typically do intersect with this world is those who start up their own companies - another high-risk, high-reward path. But these types are arguably a breed apart from most IT folk.)
So you, Mr. Programmer Guy, can talk all you want about how these people are sellouts and should be perfectly happy to just get by with a living wage, etc. However, if you are actually interested in understanding this phenomenon, then you need to understand that performers generally come from a mindset that is 180 degrees away from yours. Even if you don't empathize with this, you should make an effort to understand it.
"95% of all Slashdot
" you were talking about record producers, now you are talking about soundboard techs making 25K. different people"
Umm, no. You brought up record producers, go back and read my OP.
"the guy who makes the computer game gets paid"
With what money? Do you understand the concept that if an industry is not profitable, it will disappear, as will a great majority of the content you enjoy? You think that cash for producing an album just automagically appears in the wallet of struggling artists? Or do you think that sound techs work for free just in case maybe a minor band can pull in some advertising dough?
"ok, go support your convictions, and i'll stop bitching: sell your car, and ride a train to work."
It's pretty funny that you mention that specific example, because that's exactly what I did.
"according to you, if new technology comes along that makes things better, we can't use it, because it changes how things work. because how things work right now is the only moral way to do things... wtf?!"
More of this making-shit-up from you? wtf? More guessing about my opinions and idealogy? You want stuff for free, so you take it for free. You say you don't want to support a specific industry, but then go ahead and take their products. I got one for you -- if you think your electric company overcharges, do you not pay them for the electricity you you get off the grid? I mean, it's an outdated power creation and distribution system, since they still get the energy from fossil fuels. You should get the eletricity for free, since they could use renewable sources that don't consume raw goods. They could pay for it by advertising revenues on mass-mailings.
You impugn my morality, but won't stand up for your convictions? If you really had morality, instead of just pretending you did to justify getting free music, you wouldn't support the industry you hate... So don't preach to me about your superior morality when it doesn't even exist. When you only listen to music that is offered to you for free by the rightful sellers of the IP, then you can have a leg to stand on.
"is that your morality? defending the status quo? "
You know, there's a term for when you make shit up about someone else and then attack the shit you made up. They should rename it for you.
I have no problem with change, and I'm not an obstructionist. But I don't think that "Waaah, I want it for free because the industry is corrupt and the artists are ripped off and I should be able to do whatever I want if I can" is a valid justification for pirating music. How about not listening to the music at all if you don't like the terms of sale offered? You want your cake and to eat it too. That's my problem with your so-called morality -- you want to take a stand, but can't deal with the inconvenience of taking a real stand. You enable the recording industry by pirating their music, and supporting artists who sign with them.
You can continue your name-calling, and you can continue putting words in my mouth, and ascribing beliefs to me just because you need some concept to argue against, but the basic premise is:
If you don't agree with the terms of sale offered by a company, don't purchase the good. If you have a fundamental problem with the way an industry operates (for moral reasons), then don't support that industry. By pirating music, you continue to support the industry and the company that offers the good for sale -- since 'lost sales' are a huge arguing point for all the draconian anti-piracy laws that the **AA are pushing through. If you really had any morality, you'd accept the fact that your actions are supporting someone you don't agree with, and change those actions. Really, you're just a whiny baby who likes to grandstand.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You can make a product with only a worker. You cannot make a product with only a manger.
One is essential, the other is merely worthwhile.
This is exactly why we still transcribe the written word by hand.
This is why we still have the pony-express delivering mail.
This is why we still use the telegraph to send messages.
The "middleman" is anyone who performs no direct service other than to interface between two others. Over all of history, changes in technology have altered, diminished or even eliminated the middleman, as the two interested parties were able to more easily negotiate their own communication.
Today, my good friend, that change is called The Internet. And the label is the middleman. And the internet makes the label obsolete.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
I find the current distribution channels are adequate for my media needs. Why should be forced to subsidize an internet distribution channel that I may well find inferior to current channels.
If a distribution channel or a business model is superior, it ought to succeed in the free market without any subsidies.
Also, what's to prevent the authority that distributes the funds from becoming a censor (e.g. we don't like your music/writing/video so we won't give you your cut of the internet tax)
Its got possibilities, but I'd like to see if this idea can be somehow made more decentralized. I'm uncomfortable with such a central agency acting as essentially an escrow service accountable to no one.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
...OK Go can use all the help they can get
The problem is that with today's technology, recorded music has far less value than live music, because the real cost of making a copy of a recording is nearly zero.
Copyright is ultimately a priviledge, not an inherent right like freedom of speech or physical property rights. It is a contract between society in general and the artists, one which few now alive ever formally agreed to and which fewer and fewer people feel was ever truly justified. If it weren't for these artificial legal restrictions on duplication, the price-point for recorded music would be so low that it wouldn't be practical to charge for a single song, or even a single album. This would not be then end of music, however. The demand for music -- new music in particular -- is not going anywhere soon.
One way for artists to raise capital is similar to the model used by movie producers even now: sell advance tickets.
Movies make most of their money in the first few weeks; they often pay for themselves in the opening weekend. Purchasing advance tickets is very similar to pre-ordering a book or CD, and offering pre-orders is a great way to ensure sufficient initial sales to cover the costs of production (including opportunity costs) while splitting the cost over a large enough group to make the prices reasonable. True, some people might choose to wait until the music becomes available on a P2P network, or get it from their friends. Some might simply choose not to listen to the music at all. It is never possible to guarantee the size of a market until the sales are confirmed. It isn't even possible to estimate the potential size of the market without taking prices into account, because people who would buy something at one price (free, for example) will often decide it's not worth the cost at a higher price. That doesn't stop other industries from turning a profit.
The keys to any business are building a loyal customer base, maintaining high standards of quality and reliability, and recognizing that profit can only occur when both parties agree on the exchange. DRM accomplishes none of these. It's rarely profitable for either side to try to dictate terms.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Sounds like the artist would like to have the best of both worlds, where they get un-restricted sharing in the early stages of their career, but after a certain point, they want to some how turn off the very mechanism that helped make them big (file sharing).
I don't see how you can have it both ways.
Embrace file sharing, and find ways to make money other than charging for people to listen to recordings of your music.
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
anything that is a scarce resource- electricity, for example, has to be paid for, there is no getting around it
culture, meanwhile, like books, music, movies: these do not have to be paid for, at all, zip, nothing, not a single cent
i can take a song on my computer, and effortlessly make 100 copies of it
ok, now do that with a car: it's impossible
if it can be produced as bits, it is free. if it is made of atoms (or energy) it costs something. it's simple economics: the scarcity of a resource drives its price. at one time europeans sent expensive fleets across vast oceans to get things like pepper and nutmeg. these were very rare and highly prized. now you buy these things at the grocery store for a few bucks and think nothing of it. diamonds are now rare. so they are expensive. but they are just carbon. so if someone can mass produce them someday with some new tech, the prices of diamonds drop. oil isn't that expensive. but as it gets harder and harder to dig up, it gets more expensive. get it? do you understand supply and demand? what scarcity and price have to do with each other?
now let me ask you something: if something is infinitely reproducible, with no effort, just copying bits, what should the price be? i have a copy here of a song on desktop. i am going to make 1,000 copies of it. boom, it's done. it cost me nothing, hardly a thought, no time. what is the price of each copy now? what is the relationship between the scarcity of that resource and it's value?
in an ancient age, they sold music on vinyl/ tape/ aluminum discs quaintly called "cds". in this barbaric time, mean-spirited thugs got very rich, because they could control the scarcity of the resource. they simply set a price they liked, a price they could gouge the consumer with as much as possible, because to them, the price of the aluminum disc was nothing, and the artists they just shafted. this is your "moral" world
do you understand the economic rule of supply and demand now? my way isn't only the more moral way than yours, my way is simply a law of economic science: scarce=high price, plentiful=low price, infinitely plentiful=0 price. get it? welcome to the internet, bub
so how do movie makers, musicians, writers, etc., get paid?
two ways: #1- meatspace venues. a theatre is a theatre. you don't point click and copy it. people still crave popcorn and crowds going ooh and aah with them. it's like going to church for some people. so watching a movie in a theatre is something people pay for.
#2- advertising, endorsements. how does tv work? i'm not a communist, i'm proposing the model of television for all electronic media: tv is given away, for free. it is supported by ads. now let me ask you something: how much $$$ did jerry seinfeld make an episode in the late 1990s? WHERE DID THAT MONEY COME FROM GENIUS??? you turn on your tv, boom, it's free. the cost? you have to look at ads. musicians can endorse products, movies can have product placements
With what money? Do you understand the concept that if an industry is not profitable, it will disappear, as will a great majority of the content you enjoy? You think that cash for producing an album just automagically appears in the wallet of struggling artists? Or do you think that sound techs work for free just in case maybe a minor band can pull in some advertising dough?
you're so confused. you're so full of fear of change, you can't see how nothing is going to change for that sound guy, except the financials driving exactly who is paying the sound guy. same salary, different guy handing him the money. capisce? the only people who lose in a world of 100% music piracy are the current fat cats. all of your "morality" has to do with defending an outmoded distribution model
jesus christ you're so brittle and fearful: jerry seinfeld, the artist: very well paid. the fans: free product, very happy. there are even television fat cats in my model which is superior to yours! because the current crop of music industry fat
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sorry, didn't see this before responding to your previous one. Didn't address copyright at all in that response, though, so here goes:
If anything, the ease of copying material today actually makes copyright protection more important. [Hold on, I'm gonna justify and qualify that! I'm not an industry shill!].
I believe that there should be a profit incentive to produce art, and that government has a role in supporting artistic endeavors. So how does government support artistic creation without selectively supporting specific artists through direct financing?
By establishing a mechanism by which the market can decide which artists to reward. This keeps the government hands away from censoring content, while still allowing artists to make a living.
This is how copyright came about, though written art was originally the focus. Music, however, is now as duplicable as text, and faces the same issues that text did centuries ago. How do we protect those who create new content, to ensure that they can continue producing?
One way would be to allow private concerns to fund artists, to return to a patronage system. This has it's own problems, censorship being a big one.
Another way would be to apply copyright as it was intended -- for a limited period of time, and only issuable to an individual. That individual could choose to license it to a company, but the copyright could never be held by a company. After x years, or upon death of the copyright holder, the content enters the public domain.
The benefits? The recording companies are beholden to the individual who created the content, ensuring a (more) equitable distribution of profits. The content enters the public domain, ensuring everyone has access to it (though after a period of time). The creator of the content has incentive to create new art, which I believe is a benefit to society.
"[copyright,] which fewer and fewer people feel was ever truly justified"
A big reason for that is the beast that copyright has evolved into. A more traditional copyright would not have people up in arms.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
There are other ways to get exposed to new music besides file-sharing though. For example, I subscribe to Real Rhapsody (and there are others, Yahoo Music, etc), where I can stream most albums any time I want, as much as I want, for a flat monthly rate. This accomplishes the same thing as file sharing, with the downside being I can't put these songs on my Ipod. But because I can listen to the songs as many times as I want, and in addition, am provided with similar artists as well as random suggestions, I can hear a snippet of a song and look it up and listen to it (and the whole CD, usually) legally, then decide if the CD is worth buying. Additionally, I believe the artists will receive some money based on how many times their song or album is streamed. Since I discovered this, I've yet to buy a CD that I've been unhappy with. If Rhapsody or any other service convinces all the labels that this is worth the time (some don't make their artists available), then any argument for file sharing should be put to rest.
Then don't buy it.
I don't recall doing that. I criticize anyone who downloads illegally.
Then I presume you don't download illegally. Nothing to criticize here.
Most artists are adults. They can decide for themselves wether a deal offered by a label is right for them. I'd feel sorry for the artists if their options for exploiting their talent is limited by unfair practices by the labels. But illegally downloading their label-sponsored music does not seem to help expand their options much.
I'd rather work to expand their options.
With all due respect, you are apparently not one of their customers (or at least not a very profitable one, it would seem), so why should they listen to you? More to the point: how can they listen to you?
Oh the music industry gets it, alright. Not for a second do they miss the relationship between CD and $0, between DRM'd DVD and $80. Your point here makes it clear. It's easy to rip a track off a CD, and share it across the internet, and you spend nothing on CD's over 5 years. Their profit=$0. Not so with DVD's. Their profit=some portion of $80. It doesn't matter to the music industry (because it's not visible to them) whether your actions and their profit are related. They don't know what it takes to get your money, because you're not one of their customers. But they do know if you wanted their product you wouldn't have to buy it, because you could download it off the Internet. And they do know they're not getting your dollars. You can't blame them for making this connection: it's the only data they have.
If you couldn't (for whatever reason) get their stuff except through them, and you still didn't buy, they'd start looking at price, or quality, or whatever. But you can, so thinking along these lines is pointless.
The music industry realizes they missed the ball by not finding a way to keep their stuff off the Internet. The movie industry is thankful movie sharing is not as big (they don't think) as music sharing. They attribute this partially to file size/bandwidth, and partially to the DRM'd nature of DVD's. Both the music industry and the movie industry want to be sure they have some other fallback to protect themselves besides a horrible bandwidth infrastructure.
If broadband rollout goes as most people would like it to, in 5 years it will be no more difficult to send a DVD across the Internet than an MP3. Both the music industry and the movie industry want to be sure they have as good a DRM solution in place as they can get. Or, they want to make sure broadband rollout does not go as most people would like it to. Which is why the actions of illegal downloaders hurt both you and I (as well as the rest of the legal download and non-download communities).
Still stuck at 384Kbps up? Welcome to America: Most populous 3rd World Nation on the Internet.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
in this corner: millions of music hungry, technologically sophisticated, highly motivated, and most importantly POOR teenagers (see, in your "morality" you have to have $$$ to be moral)
;-)
;-/
;-)
;-P
in this corner: music executives
who wins genius?
i don't have to argue with you, because you're not arguing with me. you're arguing with reality. i would love to see you articulate how music piracy is going to do anything except increase. please, inform little old self-centered me, oh great selfless moral one: how is music piracy going to decrease? i'm listening, i'm all ears. please, tell me, i'd love to be enlighted by you about the path to a higher "morality" (snicker)
i'd love for you to explain this magical world where poor music hungry teenagers are suddenly going to stop pirating music and spend $$$ they don't have. maybe you should open your bank account and hand them cash so they can be "moral" (snicker)
calling people who pirate music immoral is not based on intelligence, it is based on fear of the unknown. try THINKING for once, THINK... HOW is this going to play out? how is the internet going to fully effect music distribution? THINK, independently... and arrive at a more moral outlook
look: someone invented something cool. they started with a metal tube, added some fulminate of mercury and a slug. it works like a miniature cannon. they call it a "gun". you point it at people and kill them effortlessly. no need to swing a sword
but it's unfair! it challenges the knightly order! it challenges the status quo! outlaw the gun! it is immoral! how can you protect the king when any loser can just point at him and kill him! distruptive technology is unfair! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH nothing should ever change in my world WAAAAAAAAAH
go ahead dude, put the genie back into the bottle, fight the rising and the setting of the sun. whatever makes you happy. maybe someday though, you'll wake up
i don't have to argue with you, because what i am saying is not what SHOULD happen, what i am saying is what IS happening, get it? you're describing what SHOULD happen. well i think what SHOULD happen is a different hot chick sucks my dick every morning. it's not happening. i'd like it to happen, but it's not. maybe someday i'll be hugh hefner, but right now i gotta go to work and make some $$$
see that? i know the difference between what SHOULD happen and what IS happening
do you?
i don't have to argue with you, you're arguing with yourself, you're trying to grapple with and understand the changes that are happening to your safe coccooned world where nothing changes and everything is right, and so you lash out in frustration and panic because of your brittle inability to incorporate change in how you see the world work, it doesn't seem "right" so you think you have to persecute it. but nothing changes when you persecute it. it just keeps getting worse and worse no matter what you do. maybe you should accept it? hmmm
i'm not your enemy, you're just shooting the messenger
here it comes: change. do you see it? WAKE UP FUCKER!!!!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i agree with you 100%
;-P
;-P
everything you say about my depiction of what is happening, 100%, even the selfish part
so.. tell me where i am wrong
i think your problem is that your definition of morality subscribes to some idealistic notion of how the world works. it's funny, since i am supporting music piracy, and you are just a shill for industry fat cats (you are, no matter how much you admit it or not... i admit i'm selfish in my argument, let's see how intellectually honest you are now), but you're very much the idealist, like a communist, while i am the realistic capitalist with my pro-music piracy stand
communism was done in by basic human greed. they had a system which worked perfectly... except for the greedy humans in the system
likewise, in this argument, you seem to think consumers of music are some sort of virtuous self-sacrificing (and rich) actors
so, just like communism, your virtuous "moral" anti-piracy system works perfectly... except for the selfish humans in the system
so, just like communism, you win this argument on morality... if human nature wasn't what it was
but since human nature- the good, bad, and ugly, is something unchanging across time and space... greed, vanity, selfishness... and since my argument is the only one that takes the ugly elements of humanity into account (that is, one based on the reality of the situation, rather than an idealistic depiction of human nature like yours), then mine is the more moral stand
bear with me, i'm going a little off topic so you see where i am coming from: i view abortion rights, or gay marriage, the same way. people call these things immoral. but they are immoral only if you are unwilling to embrace change and human nature. women have been aborting forever, since before we were humans, regardless of its legality or not. in fact, the rate of abortions go down in societies like the usa where abortions are legal, and go up in societies like brazil where they are not. likewise, homosexuality has been with us forever. making it unacceptable, "immoral", does not make it go away, it just continues, unabated, completely unaffected. just underground
therefore, people who invoke morality like you do, on questions of change and fundamental human nature, are not really moral at all. in my eyes (more realistic eyes) what is moral is what is fair. is the catholic church's teachings on contraception moral? they say so. but their policies result in more pregnancies and more std transmission. because people still have sex. taking away condoms because they "enable" "immoral" behavior does not make people have less sex. therefore, in my eyes, the catholic church's teachings on contraception is immoral
morality, as defined by some, is just protecting the status quo, resisting change, not accepting reality of human nature, clinging to idealist modes of behavior which don't ever happen. but this isn't morality to me. it's just foolish idealism, resisitance to growing up and seeing the world for as it is. and people who fight reality, they actually INCREASE suffering in this world. like the catholic church and condoms. and that, in my eyes, makes such brittle people immoral
it's rather circuitous and off the central subject, but perhaps you can appreciate where i am coming from now: you labelling music piracy as immoral is the same thing to me. and so, to me, you are immoral. people in the music industry who think like you cause more suffering than music piracy does. you would rather 10 people buy a cd at $20, then 1,000 people get the music for free, increasing ad revenue and concert attendance by getting out the good word. but no, in your world, we have to protect the status quo. we have to deny people are selfish. to what end? a better world? no, just unhappy music fans, poor artists, and some fat rich music industry bastards
it woul dbe easy of you to dismiss me as just a playa hata, someone who just hates the rich. but i am proposing a MORE lu
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm much more interested in people listening to our music than in making a buck off of it. If someone likes it and wants to pay for it, great! If not, at least they listened to it.
Right now none of our music is even complete so there isn't a way to pay for it but the music is on the site for free.
To me it's a hobby that I enjoy. If others like it then I'm grateful. The only restrictions we put on the distribution of our music is to make sure that nobody else uses it to garner a profit, because if they do we want our share. We're all about letting our music be copied and distributed pretty freely as long as nobody tries to make themselves a buck on our backs. If they do they better cough up some of it.
not that this has anything to do with the subject at hand but if you scroll a little down the myspace page you will find this:
Band Website lykachamp.com
click that and you go to their website where what you asked for is available.
Just so everyone knows, because some people aren't paying attention: The AC isn't trolling. They're being satirical. This is the story that they are alluding to.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
why does someone create music? to make money?
before recorded media, did no one make music because they wouldn't get a royalty check?
dude, people were banging on drums LONG before the invention of currency! they did it because some chick smiled at them. when a kid picks up a guitar or a turntable in their teens, they aren't trying to get Jay Z's bank account, they are trying to score chicks!
in fact, there are plenty who would assert that removing money from music would make it BETTER. that pop crap like hilary duff and ashley simpson is what you get in your world, and more assertive local music scenes is what you would get in a pirate's world
but i don't even subscribe to that communist argument. i subscribe to the argument that in a world of music piracy THERE WOULD BE MORE MONEY TO GO AROUND. advertising! the television broadcast model. you asserted in a previous post that this economic model would horribly cheapen music, pervert it. DUDE WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK PEOPLE THINK THE CURRENT MUSIC ESTABLISHMENT DOES TO MUSIC!!!???
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; and
When in doubt, try to do what benefits the most people, or harms the least people.
With regard to music piracy, the issue, to me, is this:
Pirating the music benefits no one but the pirate. It does not reward the artist for creating the music; it does not reward the people who worked on the album/song; it does not reward the people who recognized the talent and decided to fund their album or career.
I AGREE 100%. in a world of music piracy IT IS PURE DEMOCRACY: who is rewarded for recognizing talent? the music listeners! who recognizes the talent. THE SAME FUCKERS. they vote with mouse clicks. this is SUPERIOR to some self-appointed musical snob who decides everyone is going to listen to the white stripes this month. fuck that! and as you say "try to do what benefits the most people". do you believe a special panel of snobby twits should pick our president? or that democracy should pick our president? what should the masses listen to? what some smug prick who thinks sunshine comes out of their ass says they should listen to? or what they actually fucking download and pick themselves?
so here's your pirates paradise- artists: more exposure, better ad deals. record exec: more cash. sound tech: job security. fans: freedom, more cash in their pocket. self-appointed music snob: still lots to talk about in their self-important blog. EVERYBODY WINS
your morality? protecting the status quo of music snobs who in their self-importance think they should decide what we should listen to! FUCK THAT
dude, you are so far away from morality it's not even funny. you're totally deluded on the subject. my position is more moral than yours. utterly. completely
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
is true, all the negatives you list, i admit every single one
;-P
and yet, when summed together, it's less negative than the negatives of the economics of the current music distribution model. in fact, plenty of your negatives above are no different than the same negatives we have with the current distro model, so those points of yours don't even mean anything
winston churchill said: "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
people can list all sorts of bad things about democracy, and they do bitch and moan all the time. just like you complain about the coming, inevitable ad supported music piracy world. except that monarchy, theocracy, autocracy, etc: these have bad elements that are worse when summed together than democracy's bad elements. except that the current status quo music distro model has bad elements that are worse when summed together than music piracy's bad elements
so i say: "music piracy is the worst form of music distribution, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"
you look at music piracy, and you see ugliness. and i agree with every single wart and pimple you point out. but you won't admit that the current distribution model is UGLIER
and i'll spare you a long winded diatribe about all the POSITIVES of a music piracy world, positives that don't exist in your current antiquated world. i'll leave that to your boundless imagination
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
welcome to the real world. it is complex and difficult and open ended, there are no easy solutions that hurt no one. there is no such thing as a perfect solution that has no negatives
;-)
when presented with two bad choices, i choose the less bad choice. apparently, when you are presented with two bad choices, you choose not to choose at all? how do you win the game of life by not playing it?
you're a hopeless idealist
your story is as old as time. well meaning idealism doesn't work in the real world
pragmatism does, and you don't have to sacrifice any of your ideals to be pragmatic about how to work them. in other words, you don't sacrifice your principles by playing them correctly, it's an unfounded fear that by playing it any other way except straight you are somehow sacrificing your ideals. this is not a cynical observation, it's a tactical one
the ivory tower approach to life may well make you feel smug and superior in life, but it doesn't help with a messy struggle in the mud. you don't lose when you go the idealistic route, you just wind up not playing the game, and becoming irrelevant to the causes you care about
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Who said i did?
I don't. I can understand why people would want to download a clean FLAC or high bitrate MP3 rip instead of paying for a CD loaded with crapware. Either way as the artist does not receive fair payment, from my point of view both are receiving stolen goods. Why give money to theives?
Things I've noticed about the artists that speak out against P2P. They're either stupid or they've already made it. A friend I used to work with was a talented musician as well as a good business man with a working knowledge of contract law. He refused to enter into any contract he considered unfair. Needless to say he didn't make it in the music biz. Would he have made it if he signed? Who knows. Who knows also how many clever ,talented musicians also don't make it
because they wanted a fair deal.
In that case don't buy from the majors. Downloading music doesn't generate revenue but it helps the smaller guy get noticed. Publicity they would normally have to pay for out of their own pocket. Also www.magnatunes.com seem to give a fair deal.
Because they should want my business? They can listen buy coming down from their corporate ivory towers.
Early on it became apparent that the DRM and Region locking on DVDs are worthless. Full length DVD images are available on the net as well as album rips. The difference is that the bonus material has been stripped from the DVD images. If you love the film and want the extras then you have to buy the Disc.
Yes that's what's happening. Take a look at who's buying up the ISP. SKY, Time Warner. That's right the media conglomerates. And you can bet it's because they want to control distribution. Lets take a look at upload bandwidth. A few years a go it was 2:1 thats twice as fast down as it was up. Now its 4:1. Upload bandwidth has not increased at all. Download bandwidth on the other hand has quadrupled. Next year the ratio is going to be more like 9:1. You can see where this is going. You can consume but there's no way you can distribute unless you want to tie your net connection up for days. It isn't Joe six pack that's putting his DVD's on the net. P2P is just the end of the supply chain. Choked upload, DRM or even Legal threats is no deterrent for the more determined pirates out there.
My point with the GPL is that all the code is public but companies make their money on the support and services. Sure I could get some d00d out in Iscrapistan
Don't know about you, but almost everything I download is copyrighted. Slashdot is copyrighted, The Linux kernel is copyrighted. The amusing email a friend sent me is copyrighted.
But they're not Commercial Works, which I'll define here as copyrighted works with all rights reserved and with access restricted only to paying customers. Commercial Works are an example of what are called club goods in economic jargon, meaning that they are excludable but not rivalrous. On the other hand, access to freely available works such as the text of Slashdot comments and the Linux source code is a public good, or a good that is neither excludable nor rivalrous. If some kinds of works tend to be distributed as public goods but others need the additional incentive that a club good business model has historically brought, how will the revenue distribution under a compulsory license scheme address this?
Ah, but now [when we consider the apportionment of revenues from this tax,] we're getting into a completely different argument.
No, it's almost the same argument. Under current models, whether access is restricted depends on what kind of incentive an author needs in order to create and publish a work. Different works need different amounts of incentive, and a proposal for a copyright replacement should address this fact.
However, I think it would be a possible to create a decent form of metering software. It just requires a market.
It also requires a design. How is metering accomplished other than through eavesdropping, especially given IPsec, SSL/SSH, and other methods of hiding data from eavesdroppers? Or are we talking about introducing what Mr. Stallman has called Treacherous Computing?
I find the current distribution channels are adequate for my media needs.
What do you define as "media"? The contention is that if you download Fedora Core ISOs under such a scheme, the authors of the GPL software might get money from your use. What, specifically, do you use your Internet connection for, so that I can help explain how such a tax would apply to your use?
Another way would be to apply copyright as it was intended -- for a limited period of time, and only issuable to an individual.
Which individual? The songwriter? The sheet music publisher? The executive producer? The producer? The recording engineer? The featured performers? Studio musicians? In fact, under a system where corporations cannot hold copyrights or life-of-copyright exclusive licenses, the closest way to the prevailing record industry business model would be to assign copyright to the record's executive producer. But then wouldn't the executive producer have her hands tied by the contract with the record label that pays her?
most people don't want to watch [feature length films] on computer
A lot of people who live in university residence halls or in Japan don't even have a TV for lack of real estate. If they do have a TV, it's no bigger than a 19" monitor.
most people don't have the hardware or the know-how to output the computer to the TV.
Nowadays, hooking up a TV monitor is no more difficult than hooking up a DVD player. Many to most newer video cards have a composite video output (RCA), and all consumer sound cards have stereo line level audio outputs (3.5mm miniplug + cheap adapter from Best Buy = RCA). Or are TV outputs rarer on video cards than I think?
What would really kill movies is making an affordable DVD/CD player that can play all those formats downloaded off the internet.
People in select countries can already buy a DivX certified video player that also plays DVDs for under 60 USD or less.
is anyone willing to say that DRM can be made 100% ineffective?
At least with respect to music, yes. Keyword: Analog Hole.
I can watch the DVD maybe once or twice before getting sick of it and shelving it for good
Tell that to the parent of a 2 to 6 year old who is nearly sick of being asked to put this on again.
From talking to my brother (a musician who sells his own CDs via his website using CDBaby)
Is he a cover artist, or does he write his own songs? If the latter, then how does he manage to make sure that he doesn't subconsciously copy someone else's copyrighted songs? I'm curious as to how real independent musicians avoid making the same mistake that George Harrison made when he wrote "My Sweet Lord".
I seldom listen to any major label artists since discovering internet radio.
Internet streaming music is great for people who have desk jobs because they're tethered to a machine that has Internet access. But what about people who have jobs other than a desk job, or who have a long commute? The advantage of FM or XM radio over Internet streaming music is that FM or XM radio is much cheaper to receive in a mobile device. (Compare $10/mo for XM radio to $100/mo for wireless broadband access from Verizon.)
Excellent. Now I will listen it. And probably add it at DJRate.
Million Dollar Screenshot
What kind of BS are you going on about now? Idealism has nothing to do with a morality issue. Just because I believe that people like you are hypocritical for not acting on their supposed morals, doesn't mean that I don't understand that people are too selfish to do so.
"apparently, when you are presented with two bad choices, you choose not to choose at all? how do you win the game of life by not playing it?"
There you go, making stuff up again. Stop it. Where do you get that idea, except off the top of your head? You keep constructing straw men so you can debate yourself, without even bothering to address what I say.
Your morals appear to be: 'do whatever is best for me. Let the rest sort itself out; if the industry doesn't adapt, it's not my problem.' Hell, you even claimed in your OP that it's not even a morality question, which is what I disputed.
So now, apparently, you think I'm some kind of ivory tower academic idealist? With no basis for that, other than the fact I disagree with your notion that it's ok to pirate music, just because everyone else is and because the industry has to change to support you, and people like you? That's BS -- just because I disagree with your lack of morals, or failure to apply your morals to the piracy issue, doesn't mean that I'm an idealist.
I know that people like you will always take what they can get for free, regardless of moral issues. But then to say there are no moral issues with what they do -- well, your just a selfish twit who chooses to ignore the consequences of their actions, and a coward who doesn't choose to act by their so-called morals.
I am fully aware of how the real world works (you know, I live and work in it, and deal with people every day), but that doesn't mean that morality doesn't exist.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
We may have to disagree here on several points.
Suppose a publisher chose to offer a low-bitrate copy for $1.00 and a higher-bit rate copy for $2.00. Should purchasers of the low-bit rate copy consider themselves entitled to download a higher bit-rate copy? Does their entitlement change if the publisher is the artist herself? What if the publisher is the artist's husband? A close friend?
We can characterize all music publishers as evil, and such a characterization might be true for all I know. But we must acknowledge that the artists themselves selected that mechanism for the publishing of their work. Maybe they made a stupid chioce; if so, it is their responsibility to fix the problem. For us to arbitrarily decide for them what constitutes a "fair payment", or charge their publisher as a thief, or decide what they intended when they signed on with a publisher is disrespectful to to the artist, to say the least.
It's also in direct conflict with your original argument: that if a publisher increased the quality (I assume the offering of "...a clean FLAC or high bitrate MP3 rip..." constitutes an improvement over "...a CD loaded with crapware..." in your opinion) you might be willing to pay more. You comment here seems to indicate that you don't consider there to be anything wrong with people receiving the higher quality product wether they have or have not purchased the lower quality one. It almost sounds as if the mere offering of a lower-quality product stands as justification to steal the higher quality one. Was this what you were intending to say?
Or are you saying the act of selling a CD is a crime comparable to that of theft, and as punishemnt, the perpretrator should be subject to having anything he owns, wether offered for sale or not, stolen by the online community with impunity?
If I am the artist, and I'm offering a free download from my website simply to drive web-ad revenue then downloading does generate revenue for me. How much? Maybe enough; that's for me to decide, isn't it? If anyone thinks they have a way for me to get significantly more value out of my works without losing anything important to me, they should give me a call. If it's really a good deal, I'll cut them in on a share of the profits. But for them to decide they know better than I do how my stuff should be distributed, without respecting my wishes, is inconcievable.
There's a side to this you're missing:
I know someone who's hearing was injured in an accident. He has no hearing in one ear and his hearing in the other is moderately damaged. He still likes to listen to music, but it has to be in mono (as opposed to stereo, otherwise listening on headphones is like listening to a stereo with one speaker wire clipped) and he can't tell the difference between a high bit rate encoding and a low bit rate one. For him, the highest value recording is a mono, low bit rate, highly compressed MP3 so he can fit the widest selection on the MP3 player. Now we can argue about the morality of an artist charging more for a low
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.