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Digital Music Enjoys Golden Week
An anonymous reader writes to tell us Yahoo News is reporting that the last week of December turned out to be a golden week for music downloads. From the article: 'In the seven-day stretch between Christmas and the new year, millions of consumers armed with new MP3 players (primarily iPods) and stacks of gift cards gobbled up almost 20 million tracks from iTunes and other download retailers, Nielsen SoundScan reports. In the process, consumers shattered the tracking firm's one-week record for download sales.'"
Looks like the music/movie industry is really hurting now. You would think they would let up on crushing the little guy Nah!
With all this, how can the RIAA still say they're losing money? I don't see how their argument works anymore.
But how many downloads were there on Kazaa?
Let's see... We forecast forty million dollars of sales, so we've lost twenty million because of illegal pirating!
The RIAA's "evidence" has always been that sales haven't hit expectations, even if the actual sales are larger than they ever were.
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
I found this even more interesting:
And for the first time, sales of MP3 players are surpassing sales of personal CD players and CD shelf systems
Something for the music industry to think about.
PimpMyMazda.com - Crazy mods to a 2002 Mazda Protege DX.
If the RIAA had not angered so many customers, they would have sold alot more songs. Unfortunately, I know alot of people who won't buy any music at all until the middleman is removed.
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/
Those damm P2P users. They are stealing from the mouth of children musicians. The only reason for having MP3 players, computers, P2P software is to steal from the poor musician that ends up on the street begging for change in the train station.
Why else would anyone want to record music except to make illegal copies. Why would anyone sing except to
perform copyrighted music instead of buying the CD, except to take illegal advantage of it. I think the RIAA should sue anyone who sings music.
Fight Spammers!
At this point in time RIAA would complain about how much more music was being pirated. And I for one would be getting out my little violin to play them a sad song -- though I am unable to because reading the sheet music and playing would be converting between two formats (like analogue to digital).
So I am stuck here asking how many of those 20 Million downloads are from the poor suckers who's DRM'd music turned against them? I would really like to know, I have had enough bad experiences with DRM'd music to stop me from ever buying it again.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
It really is all about visions. To many of us, the intnernet envisions a future with the uninhibited unrestricted free flow of information - where all knowledge and creative works will be birthed into the world thru creative collaberation, or thru services, or thru just plain giving for free as a side effect of private interests. To the music industry, and the RIAA in particular, the internet envisions a future where every piece of content is tagged and charged for with the promise of unlimited profit and royality and the prospect of endlessly being able to nickel and dime the consumer to the highest order - but to inpose this vision requires that they coerce upon people and technology companies, an infrastructure of controll - where no piece of information can leak out and risk becomming free.
Moral: This is like an ALL or NOTHING game
People who want to play half hearted, and allow some room for copyrights in this age are only going to continue to feed the beast that is trying to enslave them. Copyrights are like a vine that will never stop growing to choke off peoples freedom until we cut it off at the root. One of these days people are going to realise that copyrights are not about artists, writers, developers, incentive, or "property", or even profit, they are only about control. Controll, even if that means the loss of privacy, free speech, and controll over our PC's.
Well, apparently a lot of people are also getting their music from KaZaa et al. MSNBC says, "Some analysts expect Apple to have shipped 37 million iPods worldwide by the year-end, with about 10 million sold in the key Christmas quarter."
That would mean everyone who just got their new iPods have loaded a whopping 2 songs onto it. Who said 30GB wouldn't come in handy?
Assuming people are listening to 128Kbps mp3s on their digital audio players and assuming each song is approximately 4 minutes long it would require 8416 music tracks to fill up a 30GB iPod. This means that KaZaa also enjoyed brisk success with 42,000,000,000 downloads (assuming everyone filled up half their iPod with videos (no, I won't go into the videos right now))
their industry lost $7.8 billion the last week of 2005
Pretty shortly Apple has to re-negotiate the contracts with the studios - at which point they will push for higher song prices.
These record sales will help Apple maintain the current pricing, as the more money flowing into the studios through ITMS the harder it will be for all or most of them to pull away.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So I'm sure that that revenue will be seen as cutting money from CD sales, and a great representation of piracy by the RIAA, won't it.
Most people still buy, as well as own large collection of, these things called "compact discs." These discs hold music, typically a single album by a particular artist, and can be placed into a computer and "ripped" - the process of reading the digital data on the disc and storing it as a file on the computer.
Kidding aside, I don't buy music online, because I consider a rip-off. CDs have better quality, do not have DRM*, comes with liner notes, and is itself a physical backup. I know many people who feel the same way. IMO, online music needs to be much cheaper to make up for these shortcomings; the only benefit it has is immediate delivery.
*I have yet to run across any CD with DRM, and I would definitely return any CD I got that had DRM on it (or not buy it in the first place).
The space unintentionally left unblank.
No, it doesn't... you're forgetting that one of the appeals of iTunes and the iPod is that iTunes makes it very easy to rip and import music from your CDs. I don't know about you, but the people in my family have pretty extensive music collections on CDs that they have accumulated over the last ten years. When my sister got her iPod for Christmas, the first thing she did was dig out her binder, rip, and import.
http://www.tenjou.net/
And this is why Apple announces new products/services a couple of months before Christmas.
Microsoft, on the other hand, does it after the holiday season at CES.
Go figure.
-ch
I'm surprised so many gift cards are sold*. You are essentially paying for a product and receiving nothing in return. The files don't even fully belong to you (DRM) and the quality on the ITMS sucks compared to other sources. If you're going to buy music, or give it as a gift wouldn't a gift card to a store, or hell, even cash be a better idea? At least then they actually own something.
*I hate all kinds of gift cards, not just for digital music downloads. You are essentially exchanging actual currency for restricted "credit" locked to one store that cannot be refunded. Most stores won't even give you back the change from a gift card purchase. It's an unnecessary layer of complexity to the entire transaction that only benefits the business.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
It's high time for the music industry to wake up. Digital music delivery systems are the new media of choice. They need to stop fighting it and embrace it... before it passes them by. The music industry needs to stop thinking "We're in the CD business."
They are a lot like the Railroad Industry of old, whose narrow vision is what led to their rapid demise... They were thinking "We are in the RAILROAD business". If they had thought "We're in the TRANSPORTATION business", instead, things would have been different for them.
New dance, same old song.
Willie...
How come, when we're talking about Apple, no one brings up the idea that in the next round of negotiations, Apple might try to get a bigger cut?
It would kinda be like Disney and Pixar. Sure Disney can make their own money, but Pixar has been generating crazy amounts of money for them.
I have a tough time seeing how the RIAA's music companies can walk away from iTunes without having to deal with some kind of shareholder lawsuit.
I can understand that they have to make a good faith effort to get more cash out of Apple, but what are they going to say if Apple refuses? "Apple wouldn't give us more money, so we decided to cut off this money maker entirely."
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Of course, with how much Podcasting is taking off, your entertainment doesn't necessarily have to be music, and certainly doesn't have to cost anything.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Actually, many people feel prices won't be raised for some time due to recent antitrust investigations into digital music. Story here
I have to say that it doesn't seem out of character for the RIAA to just go ahead and demand higher prices despite the investigation. Personally I think it's rather obvious the RIAA is rolling in the dough, and even if antitrust practices are found the slap on the wrist they get will probably not even begin to make a dent in the money they made from inflated prices.
I can understand that they have to make a good faith effort to get more cash out of Apple, but what are they going to say if Apple refuses? "Apple wouldn't give us more money, so we decided to cut off this money maker entirely."
Actually I can see Sony doing exactly that, just like in Japan... remember these are not rational folk we are dealing with. The very phrase "cut off his own nose to spite his face" may as well have been invented for these people.
So while it's an intersting idea to have Apple seek a higher cut, I don't think they are quite there yet. The next contract rounds I could see that happening; just not now.
Disney would have acted just as irrationally is Eisner were still at the helm - they were prepared to before he left.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"To the music industry, and the RIAA in particular, the internet envisions a future [...] with the promise of unlimited profit"
Jinkies. The internet makes publishing music (or almost anything) cheaper than the traditional method of putting a CD in a store. As bandwidth and computing costs continue to fall, this will become even cheaper, putting online publishing into the grasp of more and more people. Given time, this Radiant Future will inevitably lead to competition with the oligopoly that is the RIAA. If they push copy protection to the extremes you suggest, someone will realize the millions that a non-DRM alternative would provide - and that alternative is getting cheaper to create with every passing day.
[C]opyrights are not about artists, writers, developers, incentive, or "property", or even profit, they are only about control
I would've believed any of those, minus "control." I sincerely doubt the idea that an entire industry is out for enslaving people to iTunes instead of $money. The industry's interest in "control" is limited to how it can increase their profits - the one and only legitimate goal of any business.
The truth is that copyrights, patents, and other forms of intellectual property protection, when properly implemented, can be great incentives for innovation. The debate should be on whether or not these artificial burdens on the consumer are worth the extra innovation of the producer.
DATABASE WOW WOW
CDs have better quality, do not have DRM*, comes with liner notes, and is itself a physical backup
I'll give you that CDs have prettier packaging, but the rest isn't really true. Whether or not CDs have "better" quality depends on what service you use. The CD format in and of itself is pretty low quality compared to some other digital formats available.
online music needs to be much cheaper to make up for these shortcomings
$1 a song may seem pricey, up until the fact that you consider the average $10-$15 CD has around ten songs on it - meaning you pay $1 (or more) for each song on the CD anyway.
the only benefit it has is immediate delivery
Nope. With iTunes and other services, you can listen to clips (or on Yahoo, you can "rent" as many songs as you want and listen to them in their entirety) before you buy the full song. Or - here's the biggest benefit - if you don't like the entire CD and only want a few of the songs on it, you end up paying $15 for your one song and the privilege of owning garbage. With online services, you buy only the songs you want and don't get railroaded into paying extra for the rest of the trash on the disc.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Your statement describes my situation...
;-)... Even so, I have 167 items currently in my library. How is this possible? _All_ of the rest are rips of my CDs (basically all the CDs I've bought in the last 2 years... I haven't gotten around to ripping the old stuff).
I got an ipod nano for christmas (well, and a combined birthday present since my birthday is around christmas) and I have bought a total of 1 song and 1 video (yes, I know the nano can't play video... but I go to UT and _had_ to buy the highlights for the rose bowl
I have not a _single_ illegal song in my collection but haven't bought many either.
Further, my brother in law also got an ipod (shuffle) and got a $10 gift certificate from itunes (from me)... by the time I had left his house 4 days after christmas... he _still_ hadn't spent it all (he had bought about 8 songs). He was also filling up his collection with CDs....
So I think the 10 songs per 1 ipod sounds about right. Despite what _we_ make think here on slashdot, there are an awful lot of consumers out there who got ipods for christmas and don't know a damn thing about any P2P networks or how to get "illegal" songs.... all of these people just install itunes and enjoy how easy it is to buy music (unless you like Evanescence...).
Friedmud
Unless everyone bought a $200+ player to listen to the same 10 songs over and over, they're getting songs from elsewhere, which must be illegally.
I have around 850 legally purchased CDs and about 300 vinyl records. The total cost of the collection would approach $20,000, and until recently I was buying a several new CDs every month. I have bought a few locally produced CDs over the past year or so, but none from the major ARIA/RIAA companies, and I have no intention of purchasing from those companies ever as a result of their unethical practices.
I welcome every dirty sleazy DRM effort the RIAA member companies attempt, because every trick they play, every downloader they harass, every squeeze they make, gives more traction and more income to the independant musicians who value their fans and make music for the sake of the music.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
'In the seven-day stretch between Christmas and the new year, millions of consumers armed with new MP3 players (primarily iPods) and stacks of gift cards gobbled up almost 20 million tracks from iTunes and other download retailers' (Emphasis mine)
/. hordes, but I don't expect it from so-called professional companies (yeah, yeah, Slashdot is a professional company, OSTG and all that, but this is a news aggregator, it's not supposed to be their speciality to do the sort of reporting Nielsen has done here).
Bad Nielsen Soundscan! Your fanboyism is showing! Precisely what was the point of mentioning that the MP3 player most bought was the iPod? The one I bought myself certainly wasn't; the one I bought my girlfriend certainly wasnt; who cares? Not everyone is painfully in love with the iPod and it's line of bastard cousins.
I'm used to this sort of Apple/iPod namedropping from the
Am I the only one left who can't bear to go one story without some reference to how superior I am to everyone else for having the sense to buy a particular brand of pocket MP3 player?
-1, Flamebait, sure, but this is really getting rediculous.
(For the record, I am a happy Mac user on the desktop)
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
In no jurisdiction that I am aware of is it illegal to rip and listen to a DRM-unencumbered CD (or record, or tape) that you already own. I would not be surprised if existing music collections is actually the bulk of material listened to.
It is illegal in the UK though many people do it and the authorities seem to be turning a blind eye.
I know plenty of people who do artistic things for free or at a personal loss. They do it in order to share things with the people around them. The truth is that most good art is underground and most corporate "art" is not worth anything, much less the exorbitant price tags it carries. You're trying to equate artistry with employment. Most of the world's artists make very little money through their avocations. Even the "art" or entertainment that is being mass-marketed provides very little benefit to most of the artists involved. So basically, the most elite (re: popular) of musicians and actors, and the label/studio bigwigs - a small percentage of the entertainment industry - have much to lose, while people serious about their art, who do it for personal reasons and will likely never see significant profit, are either unaffected, hurt very little, or *helped* by the kinds of things that seem to bother a few rich people who really don't care the least bit about the people who consume their products. It would be nice if everyone were compensated according to the combination of his/her talent and the amount of work he/she puts into a product, but that isn't the case anymore, and so the artists of the future will be poor but committed idealists who will pour their hearts and souls into their work, and the art/entertainment world, and the consumer, will benefit as a result.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: That averages about 660,000,000 of each kind.
Most artists will make alot from CD sales at concerts (much more than buying from a retailer or direct from the label). If you're not sure, ask the merch people whether the band will make more money from CD or t-shirt sales. Depending on volume, and design, colour, and size of logo(s), the t-shirt probably costs between 4 and 10 dollars to make, while a CD generally costs less than 2 dollars (for materials - an album might cost $500 or $100,000 to record and master). As a fan of the group/performer, it serves your interest to buy the music, because it shows the group/performer that people want to hear more new music and are willing to pay to support it. If the band is getting a bad deal from the label, then shame on the label for their avarice and shame on the band for not thoroughly reviewing the contract.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: That averages about 660,000,000 of each kind.
I'm sorry for all the nay-saying Slashdot Geeks: But consumers just don't care about DRM. Everyone I know who buys music from an online music service is getting secure WMA or FairPlay music files, copying them to their MP3 players, and whistling with happiness. I have yet to hear one of them go "Oh My Gosh! You mean, I can't copy those files to another MP3 player? Or to my friend's MP3 player"
Now, maybe in 3 years when they go to buy new MP3 players they will complain that their music collection is useless. But more likely, they will burn those music files to CD, then MP3 them again and be fine with it. I can hear the screams of anguish from the audiophiles talking about the loss of quality from the MP3->CD->MP3 conversions. It won't matter since most of those MP3 players come with cheezy earbuds anyway.
Right now, DRM is winning. This is really bad news for those of us who don't want to hack their BIOSs to install Linux in a few years...
So, you think that "artists" should develop their ideas and put them into a form that can be seen and shared, but for free? And you think that all artists should have a "day job", perhaps working at McDonanld's, in order to live (food, shelter, etc.). Is there any room in your vision for artists that want to focus exclusively on their art and can do so because people find it worthwhile and are willing to pay for it? These, mind you, are not artists that do their work because they love money. I am talking about artists that can do their art because of money.