Warner Music CEO Says War With Consumers Was Wrong

l2718 writes "Edgar Bronfman, CEO of the Warner Music Group, has publicly framed the music industry's failure to accommodate file-sharing as an 'inadvertent' war on consumers. I'm left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently. 'We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding ... By ... moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.'"

Comments

Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[croddy]

Put you money where your mouth is, Eddie boy. If these lawsuits offend you as you claim, dissolve your membership in the conspiracy that organizes them. As long as you're still a member of the RIAA, and as long as the lawsuits keep coming, your comments are just as dishonest as your corrput business model.

So please... don't beat me with both fists while apologizing between blows. The beating still hurts and your "apology" just adds insult to injury.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[Arabani]

Eh, give him some time. It took him 5 years between "inadvertently" starting this "war against consumers" and admitting it was a bad decision. At that "glacial pace", I'd be pleasantly impressed if he called off the whole affair before 2012!

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[east coast]

You're drinking his kool-aid. You're making the same mistake I've seen in tons of other posts on this matter: Thinking that the RIAA is just some autonomous organization. They fact is that they're the customers of the labels too. Maybe early on the RIAA could have sold them a false bill of goods but to act like they're [the record labels] unwitting gimps this late in the game is an insult to those who know what the true relationship between these entities is.

Maybe if they can keep you pointing the fingers at the RIAA they think they're going to buy time and customer loyalty.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[Big Homestead]

I would buy you a drink if you were here right now, you nailed it. But, it is also nice to see them at a glaciers pace, slowly putting up the white flag. Thank you Radiohead for showing those suits how it can be done.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[Technician]

Put you money where your mouth is, Eddie boy. If these lawsuits offend you as you claim, dissolve your membership in the conspiracy that organizes them. As long as you're still a member of the RIAA, and as long as the lawsuits keep coming, your comments are just as dishonest as your corrput business model.

I think he just got wind of the number of people who don't trade with the enemy. He hasn't figured out what to do about it yet.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[purpledinoz]

That might be the funniest piece of BS I've read in a long time. A war was inadvertently started against the consumers, just like Hitler inadvertently started WWII.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, give him some time. It took him 5 years between "inadvertently" starting this "war against consumers" and admitting it was a bad decision. At that "glacial pace", I'd be pleasantly impressed if he called off the whole affair before 2012!

That reminds me... Perhaps I've also left it a little bit too long, and should have told Mr Bronfman that I've been inadvertently sleeping with his smoking hot wife Clarissa, for the last 5 years. I had also expected our working relationship to remain blissfully 'unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and my love stick was exploding'...

I hope he'll except my apology the same way he expects us to accept his.....

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[kimvette]

The RIAA isn't all bad. It's better that if they did have a change in heart on P2P networks, that they remain members and work to change the RIAA members' view as a whole.

But yes, you're right. Stepping down from the RIAA does make a strong statement.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[Lunarsight]

I like that they are finally acknowledging that the whole "sue the consumers" thing might be wrong. I find it pathetic that it took them this long to admit it.

I, as others have already said, believe actions speaker louder than words. If Warner wants consumers to truly believe it has seen the error of its ways, it should disassociate itself from the RIAA.

Either that, or the RIAA as a whole needs to change its stance, and REALLY mean it. (Will anybody ever believe the RIAA has turned a new leaf? Nope. The RIAA has tarnished its reputation for decades to come. The PR damage is probably irreversible at this point.)

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[homey of my owney]

I think TFA makes it clear that he wasn't saying "Oh gee, I didn't mean to sue you". He's saying "We wound up suing the very people we shouldn't have - an inadvertent war. Certainly it's nothing but bullshit if there is no change in tactics, but it seems to me to be a insightful admission.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[courseofhumanevents]

I propose we suspend Godwin's law for all future articles regarding the music industry.

Re: Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[sm62704]

Is this Eddie the Shipboard Computer, or Eddie Munster? At any rate, here's a message to Eddie:

Look, dude, you're glass. We see right through you and we're going to break you if you don't get the hell out of our way, and if you don't break yourself first.

We know you know that MP3s should be advertising for CDs. We also know that what you're afraid of isn't people downloading Lars and Gene's stuff, it's downloading your independant competitors' stuff. You control the FREE radio and you know it. You can't control the internet and you know it.

You're shaking in your boots over Radiohead. I'm afraid it's too late; you're cracked. It's too late, but I'll tell you what you should have done.

When Napster, the old Napster you bozos sued out of existance came along, you should have embraced it. You should have flooded it with 56k samples of every tune in your inventory, and gone on a PR blitz telling everyone how superior the CD was to MP3. It worked against vinyl when the CD first came out, despite the fact that there are pros and cons to CD and vinyl (each has its shortcomings), it would surely work with CD vs. MP3 and CD's vastly superior sound.

You blew it.

You no longer matter. A musician no longer needs an expensive studio and even more expensive factory, he can rent a studio even in a small city like Springfield, which has several. He can get his CD professionally mastered and copied with insert and jewell case for a couple thousand bucks, less than the price of a decent drum kit.

Now your only recourse to stay alive is to be a hitmaker.

You're stupid, Eddie, and I'll be glad when your twitching corpse stops kicking over the china and bleeding all over my government. Die, damn you, die, you worthles scumbag!

-mcgrew

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[clubby]

Seconded.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[flyingsquid]

That might be the funniest piece of BS I've read in a long time. A war was inadvertently started against the consumers, just like Hitler inadvertently started WWII.

You're seriously comparing the Third Reich to the RIAA? I think you're being a little harsh on the Germans there.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[kennygraham]

All in favor?

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[toadlife]

Anyone who says "Aye" is a Nazi!

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[Entropius]

The Germans had a minority of crazy people and a majority of scared people, after all.

The RIAA? I'd imagine your average RIAA employee is more evil than your average member of the Wehrmacht.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wehrmacht: Is that German for Wal-mart???

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[HTH NE1]

It took him 5 years between "inadvertently" starting this "war against consumers" and admitting it was a bad decision. Did they ever find those devices of mass duplication? Or those mobile infringement platforms? The suppliers of the aluminum CD spindles? The yellow cake-boxes of digital material from Verbatim?

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[PhilipPeake]

Actually, I think the consensus is that the Wehrmacht were no more evil than any other army. In fact, the reverse may be true since they tended to hold the old fashioned chivalry ideals.

What I think you are referring to are the SS and allied groups, which were much more political than military in nature - they just used military means to enforce their political ideals.

The SS is a much closer parallel to RIAA than is the Wehrmacht.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[Entropius]

I know -- I'm saying the Wehrmacht was significantly less evil than the RIAA is. By all accounts they were as honorable on the battlefield as circumstances allowed.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[cp.tar]

Anyone who says "Jawohl" is a Nazi!

FIFY.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[irtza]

considering how quickly the third reich came up in this thread, I think that we need a whole other approach. All RIAA /. summaries should mention the third reich just to pre-empt those that would make a comparison later.

if that doesn't work for you, I suggest they make a comparison to Emperor Shwa instead of Hitler thus making a shift to the European theater less likely since slashdotters will likely post about the pacific theater to show off their wealth of knowledge. We all know any decent slashdotter would at minimum search for a random fact regardding japanese atrocities once its brought up. this may be the best defense against Godwin's law.

anyhow, I've spent enough time in front of a computer.... I am going to get up out of the chair and walk down the hall and down the stairs and to the couch to go sit in front of a tv and watch a movie.... need the exercise...

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[Whiteox]

Uhhh! Sagging boobs.

sleeping with his smoking hot wife Clarissa

Re: Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[dangitman]

it would surely work with CD vs. MP3 and CD's vastly superior sound

Except for the fact that CDs don't have a vastly superior sound to MP3s. Almost all the disadvantages are on the CD's side - mostly due to it being a physical product, with all of the associated inconvenience, and environmental and manufacturing costs. We can get CD-quality music without all that "disc" nonsense.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[chawly]

YES !

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[kaizokuace]

I think the current war is a better analogy. Oh there are WMDs, we must have war! Oh file sharing is dumb we must have war!

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[kronnek]

I wonder if this creation by the music labels has gone wild. To me it seems like they are out of control and there is money to be made by continuing these lawsuits. Either by profits on people just settling with the lawyers or the RIAA is selling this thing as a quick and easy fix for slow record sales, even though the record sucks, the RIAA can fix it for them. The record labels may be the victims now to false promises and quick money schemes, maybe Time-Warner has figured out that they are getting screwed over by their own creation? kron

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[TapeCutter]

"Maybe early on the RIAA could have sold them a false bill of goods"

Or maybe the labels got greedy and coluded with each other to fend off an industry wide "threat", now that the "punks" at google are winning the pissing competition their collective "head in the sand" strategy is exploding in their face. The big money will adapt and survive, after all they have a ready made scapegoat for their greed in the form of an industry association.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[aproposofwhat]

Anyone who says "Heil!" is a Nazi!

A better fix, less likely to offend non-Nazis of the German persuasion :P

Re: Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[NoMaster]

You no longer matter. A musician no longer needs an expensive studio and even more expensive factory, he can rent a studio even in a small city like Springfield, which has several. He can get his CD professionally mastered and copied with insert and jewell case for a couple thousand bucks, less than the price of a decent drum kit.

<SCENE: INSIDE a smoky, disreputable bar. BAND has just finished a gig>

EDDIE: But who's going to market it, kid? You?

LEAD SINGER: You bet I could. I'm not such a bad salesman myself! We don't have to sit here and listen...

BASSIST: We haven't that much with us. But we could pay you two thousand now, plus fifteen when we reach Top 40.

EDDIE: Seventeen, huh!

Eddie ponders this for a few moments.

EDDIE: Okay. You guys got yourself a record deal. We'll leave as soon as you're ready. Studio Ninety-four.

Re: Put your money where your mouth is, Ed.

[sm62704]

We can get CD-quality music without all that "disc" nonsense.

Whare? I mean, you can download SHNs and FLACs but I don't see iTunes offering them.

Inadvertent post

[noidentity]

Sorry, I inadvertently just made this post and hit Submit.

Re:Inadvertent post

[Presto Vivace]

I'm left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently. I wondered the same thing.

Re:Inadvertent post

[ROMRIX]

Sorry, I inadvertently just made this post and hit Submit.

Yes, and now I have inadvertently replied to your post but only after deliberating with a team of attorneys to find the best way to bring legal action to stop these inadvertent posts from being viewed inadvertently.

Re:Inadvertent post

[morgan_greywolf]

You mean just like how I inadvertently stopped buying the music industry's products? How I inadvertently voted with my dollars, thus them to stick their product where the Sun don't shine?

Maybe that 'inadvertently' had an impact on this guy's statements?

Re:Inadvertent post

[morgan_greywolf]

Or maybe it's how I just inadvertently left out the world 'telling', between 'thus' and 'them'?

Nah. I doubt it.

Re:Inadvertent post

[MightyYar]

As he does everyday, he booted up his computer, checked his email, and then HIT THE CAPS LOCK KEY TO HUNT-AND-PECK HIS DAILY EMAILS IN ALL CAPS. PROBLEM IS, HE HIT THE "SUE" BUTTON INSTEAD OF "CAPS LOCK". he was wondering why everything came out in lower case that day...

Re:Inadvertent post

[jc42]

I have inadvertently replied to your post but only after deliberating with a team of attorneys to find the best way to bring legal action to stop these inadvertent posts from being viewed inadvertently.

Easy. First, observe that in the US (where /. is based), everything anyone writes has an automatic copyright. As the notice at the top of every /. page says:
    The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

So everyone who downloads /. posts without prior written permission from the author is doing an illegal download. If you're really serious about stopping illegal downloading of copyrighted material, you might start right here. I'm sure that all the authors of the posts here would appreciate it if you would investigate, presumably with the gracious help of the people running slashdot.org, and send C&D letters to all those illegal downloaders. Many of them can be identified easily, as they have logged in. But it's possible that many of the Anonymous Cowards (the truely criminal ones who know what they're doing and hiding their identities) can also be identified.

Be sure to submit articles describing your progress on this project. We'd all like to download and read your reports, and especially your successful prosecutions.

Re:Inadvertent post

[paanta]

I'm left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently

Um, it's easy to understand if you've ever worked for any large organization. Has anyone here had the experience of not knowing what it was that the salespeople were promising the programmers would provide? *raises hand* It's just the nature of large groups of people to do lots of stupid, contradictory things because each sub-group within the organization acts semi-autonomously. Legal departments are _always_ doing counter-productive things, because their mission is to guard the legal interests of the company, which are often directly at odds with what's morally just or what's going to please consumers. IE, suing fan clubs or suing someone for using the word Kleenex.

That said, this is a big enough issue that I don't think people at the top of the corporate food chain are totally ignorant of what is going on.

Re:Inadvertent post

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Here's an 18 year old girl they have been inadvertently pursuing for 4 years, based on 48 song files she downloaded when she was 13 and 14 years old.

This past summer they inadvertently filed a summary judgment motion against her, trying to get a judgment for $36,000 so that she can start off her adulthood with a bankruptcy.

Duh!.. - Head slapping moment....

[Anonymous Coward]

As a light bulb starts to shine..

Re:Duh!.. - Head slapping moment....

[nurb432]

Nah, they know what they are doing. Its all part of a grand plan.

Truthfully

[Macthorpe]

Two words sum this up:

consumers won If consumers got what they wanted at your expense, it does seem fairly logical that you buggered the whole thing up.

Re:Truthfully

[jawtheshark]

You know what pissed me off? That we're called "consumers"... It's degrading. I'm a customer, damnit!

Re:Truthfully

[totally bogus dude]

Damned straight. When a business starts calling its customers "consumers", you know they've lost touch. The term makes it sound like your only purpose in life is to consume whatever shlock they produce; and if a company is thinking that way, then the answer to increasing profits is obvious: just produce more stuff! It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to be what your customers actually want; because you no longer have customers, only consumers, and they'll consume anything!

You don't see small businesses using the term "consumers" very often, because they still know that in order to survive and prosper you need to actually provide something of value. Once you get to a certain size with a certain market share, you stop thinking like that. It's no longer about competing with others, trying to better yourself and provide a better service or product; it's just about selling more product to those who consume it.

Most of the industries where "consumer" is popular seem to be at a standstill, too. The music industry hasn't changed significantly during my lifetime, as far as I can tell; that's almost three decades. Same with the movie industry. It's still the same stuff produced in the same way by the same people.

(Don't even get me started on "costumers"!)

Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Ckwop]

How can you ever win a war against your own customers? If you fight them, they don't pay you and you die. How did they ever expect to win?

I think the reason they haven't made as much money recently has little to do with piracy and everything to do with the changing perception of value. Personally, I think that the value per pound spent on an album compared to something like Halo 3 is vastly different. Halo 3 at the £40 it costs is at least ten times the value to me than the equivalent number of albums I could buy for that price.

There is only a limited number of areas I can spend my disposable income. Between, Halo, the X-box 360 to play it, the iPod, iPhone there just isn't room for such an overpriced product.

And that's why I haven't bought a single CD since 1999 - and I imagine I'm not alone. That's why the music industry is shrinking. They expect to be paid rather than realising they're competing for our money just like everyone else.

Simon.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[moderatorrater]

This is definitely off topic, but I was thinking the exact opposite. I have a large DVD and game collection that I hardly ever use. I figure I've gotten maybe 5 hours of enjoyment per DVD (some more, some less) and maybe 10-20 out of an average game. On the flip side, each song that I buy from itunes at $1 each have gotten played at least 20x. That's over $1 / hour of enjoyment for music as opposed to $3-$4 for a dvd and $.50-$6 for a game. If I buy a whole album, it usually gets the same amount or more play than the songs i buy a la carte, which usually leads to a higher value over time.

It's a rare movie or game that gets played more than 2 or 3 times for me, but it's even more rare for me to have a song that doesn't get played at least 10x. From what I've read and seen, this is the case for most people.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[bentcd]

How can you ever win a war against your own customers? If you fight them, they don't pay you and you die. How did they ever expect to win? I suspect that the record companies considered the group of pirates (that they wanted to squish) to not overlap much with the group of paying customers (that they technically want to woo). They went aggressively after the pirates, and it's taken them this long to realise that there is, in fact, considerable overlap between the two groups and that in squishing the pirates, they simultaneously enraged their paying customers. Well, now their disgruntled former paying customers.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[MightyMartian]

I agree. I think, in part, the record industry has so saturated the popular music market with crap that the talented new artists simply sink into a sea of unmitigated mediocrity. People get upset when I wax nostalgic about the 1960s and the 1970s, but let's face it, a very large part of the music we consider classic rock and pop was recorded during that period. Even into the 1980s you had hit makers like Michael Jackson who had real talent. Compare that with the vaguely homoerotic boy bands and way-too-sexualized teen female acts like Britney Spears that started showing up in the late 1990s, and you have to conclude that somewhere in that period the music industry lost its way, and become a classic economics widget manufacturer, run by people who didn't care about music, bet everything on marketing deals and focus groups (isn't the various Idol shows to be found in North America and abroad the ultimate expression of that). You get the feeling that these guys don't listen to the music they're foisting on the public.

As to Gene Simmons bitching on another /. article today, well, he's one of the creators of the music marketing machine we see now. His descendants aren't guys like Metallica or Nirvana, but Hillary Duff and the Spice Girls.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[kebes]

I think the reason they haven't made as much money recently has little to do with piracy and everything to do with the changing perception of value. Quite right. Like it or not, most music gets "consumed" in a very off-hand kind of way. For instance, people want some "tunes" for driving, working out, or while they are doing something else. They may download a song, and never listen to it (or listen to it once and decide they don't like it). As a result, the value one can place on such incidental usage is necessarily low.

Some people will indeed obtain music in order to really enjoy it, and listen to every nuance. But they are the minority (in a marketing sense anyway), and in any case they are the ones most likely to pay in various ways (CDs, merchandise, going to shows, donating money, etc.), so they are certainly not the "problem" when it comes to this "decreasing apparent value of music."

As you said, video games are a good comparison. For $30-40, you can get a Nintendo DS game that will provide you with hours and hours of focused entertainment. As such, the $/hour cost of that entertainment is low (and most people pay it without worry). On the other hand, buying an album for ~$20, when you may only listen to the tracks a few times (and listen to them "incidentally" at that) becomes ridiculous (it may end up being on the order of $/minute of entertainment).

Whether it's "right" or "wrong" is irrelevant. The fact is that people will subconsciously make these value assessments, and will not feel bad about circumventing legitimate channels if those are too expensive.

The solution, of course, is brutally simple... and totally unappealing to the music industry. If you sold music at very low cost (pennies per track, or a monthly fee that provided unlimited download of a comprehensive catalog), then people would pay for it without a second thought. But this is a scary proposition because it is tantamount to admitting that what you are selling is not some exceedingly rare and valuable product, but rather a commodity service. The industry fears that this will mean lower profits, though that is debatable.

In the meantime, people are naturally coming up with their own solutions: either ignoring copyright law or seeking legitimate channels where the pricing is more reasonable (e.g. listening to Creative Commons music from places like Jamendo and donating to "worthy" bands).

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Chosen Reject]

When you watch a movie, that is usually all you are doing (and if not, please don't watch it with me). When you play a game, that is usually all you are doing. However, music is typically background stuff. So you might have played that song 20x, but did you play it 20x doing nothing but pondering its beats and rhythms, mulling over the meaning of the message? Probably not. Most likely it just made your drive to the store not so quiet, or it blocked the noise of your computer while you surfed the web. Perhaps it enhanced the mode during your dinner. As an example, iTunes says that I've listened to Still Alive (from Portal) over 200 times, but I was really paying attention to the code I was writing. Unless at a concert, music is rarely on the center stage of what you are doing.

But even that is missing the underlying point. Time is a really lousy measure of enjoyment. That's saying that any 2 hour movie is just as enjoyable as any other 2 hour movie. If I listen to music for three hours, is that exactly as enjoyable as three hours of a Lord of the Rings movie? Is that as enjoyable as playing through Portal? Maybe, depends on what you find enjoyable. But that is a big dependency.

But even that is missing the underlying point. You pay the amount that both you and the seller agree to. If the seller is smart, he takes into consideration how much of the market is willing to pay what amount and maximizes his profits. If the buyer is smart, he considers how much the seller is selling it and how much it is worth it to him. The music industry in general might not be selling at maximum customers, or even maximum profit, but they've picked a price. If you don't like the price, don't buy it.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Anonymous Coward]

Music was so much better when artists could channel inspiration from a good acid trip. Unfortunately, the counter-culture of the 60's and 70's has largely been eradicated in the public eye, and now everything just follows a formula.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[AvitarX]

What is it that you use the iPod for if not listening tio music?

Or are you valuing the music hardware more than the content? and in doing so deciding not to buy music? Or are you concuring that the iTunes price (8-10/album) is the correct one? Or did you have such a large music library in 1999 you felt you could miss out on everything since?

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Anonymous Coward]

let's not get started on the TV show dvd boxset con (which you could have recorded for free without functional recourse)

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[MikeBabcock]

I think the implication here is that they failed to realize the people they were taking to court were also their customers. There's often a disconnect in the mind of business (created by those who stand to profit like lawyers) between one's customers and those who do things one may not like.

Another example that comes to mind would be loitering laws at malls (as teenagers who loiter often have the highest disposable incomes to spend, and those who complain are often the ones tight in the wallet).

Warner may have believed they were suing "bad people" and providing music at the same time on CD for "good people" and have finally realized (possibly as a result of recent studies) that they've in fact been alienating their customer base.

Yes yes, we all knew this already, but its also quite obvious to me that most executives thought the loud "we" who hate these lawsuits were also not customers of theirs and therefore irrelevant. I've had personal discussions about this with people who work for record companies (some related, some not) and they often have a strange view of my perspective as somehow only existing within the "pirate" world and don't see it as pervasive amongst their customer base.

Hopefully that's changing.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[nine-times]

I think you're right, which is why it might be fair to call their actions 'an inadvertent war'. The question now becomes, will they change their practices in light of this new information? Can they somehow deal with the fact that "pirates" and "customers" often overlap, and that often their non-sharing customers still want DRM-free music?

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Chosen Reject]

His descendants aren't guys like Metallica

Wait what?

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Machtyn]

It's an interesting thought. I spend far more time playing games than almost anything else, except maybe sleep (ah, but who needs sleep?) If you're only getting 10-20 hours of enjoyment from a game, don't waste your money on a $40 game. Heck, I usually don't spend $40 on a single game unless its a multipack like Civilization Chronicles which comes with all Civ games up to 4 (but not including 4's expansions), Morrowind GotY edition which includes Morrowind and both expansions, NeverWinter Nights Diamond which is NWN and all expansions, or The Orange Box from Valve Software which includes 5 separate games. If those games aren't your flavor, my wife has gotten well over 50 hours of enjoyment from the $10 Popcap games which I usually buy in bulk: 5 games at $45 or 9 games for $75, or whatever. I never buy those at 1 for $20.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Scrameustache]

It's a rare movie or game that gets played more than 2 or 3 times for me I only buy movies I know I'll want to see again.

But movies and games are a more immersive experience, I rarely just sit and listen to music, it's something I have on while I do other things.
Movies and games, however, get my full attention for the time they are on.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Dephex Twin]

Good point. Although, at least Metallica was doing something musically talented for a period of time before they decided to sell out far worse than anyone.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[MightyMartian]

I wasn't referring to Metallica's battles with file sharers and pirates, but rather with their musical and marketing lineage.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Anonymous Coward]

when have either of the *aa's gone after pirates? if you take a stroll down any flea market aisle in america, you'll find plenty of professional pirates hocking copies of whatever game/movie/album you want. the RIAA went after remixers who, ironically enough, were paid by riaa member companies to remix music. the RIAA went after college students in droves. the RIAA went after hundreds of people who seem to have been picked on because they simply did not have the wherewithal to defend themselves (and in several cases were in fact innocent.)

the fact remains that pirates--the people who purposefully and systematically acquire and re-distribute content--still make money, still operate, still pirate, and still have little fear of being taken down.

fuck this corporate asshat for trying to act like this was not his intention.
this asstunnel CEO needs to learn the same lesson as president bush, as congress, and as the american people: THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR ACTIONS AND YOU WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR DECISIONS.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Notquitecajun]

True that. Metallica was made BECAUSE of pirated copies, because no one would sell their albums in the early days. Now the drummer won't shut up and play music like he's supposed to.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[JebusIsLord]

We probably listen to music very differently. I usually pay full attention to it, so I primarily listen while driving or working out. Can't study, or read, or program, because I'm distracted by the tunes.

Conversely, Movies, or at least a lot of movies, are just background while I'm eating, making out, surfing the internet, or otherwise chilling on the couch.

Video games I think we can agree are 100% involved, but I think on a dollar/hour basis, CDs can't be beat. Probably why I own hundreds of CDs, dozens of movies, and a handful of games.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[CodeBuster]

isn't the various Idol shows to be found in North America and abroad the ultimate expression of that

IMHO that is not entirely the case. In fact, compared to the "new" material that the "professional" artists are putting out in the MAFIAA label system these days, shows like Pop Idol and American Idol are a breath of fresh air. These shows actually do find and select some talented new vocalists from among the general populations (the diamonds in the rough if you will) who would never have gotten exposure otherwise under the marketing driven, make anyone sound good in the studio, craptastic MAFIAA label system. Consider the following:

1) The contestants are selected in a grueling process of elimination where actual performance is judged brutally by judges, like Simon who doesn't pull punches when the performance is sub-par, without regard to favoritism, who the contestant is connected with, or crap like that but rather solely upon whether or not, in the opinion of the judges, the contestant could earn the best return on their (Simon's) money if they sign them for a recording contract. Now, admittedly the audience sometimes votes for bad contestants just to make some trouble, but everyone knows that they are still bad so in the end it doesn't really matter that much for who wins the competition.

2) At almost every stage the contestants get to choose what songs they are going to sing and although the choices are sometimes limited to the catalog of a particular guest professional artist or genre there are generally plenty of potential song choices for each contestant.

I particularly like it when professionals make a guest appearance on the show and end up sounding worse then the talented young contestants. They invariably invite the comparison just by appearing on the show. In fact, I don't understand why some professionals appear on the show, it only highlights the fact that they are over the hill or even worse that they were never as talented as some of the up and coming contestants...a potentially bad career move for them.

Frankly, I don't much care for pop style music, but there have been some really good female African American Jazz style vocalists on the show who sound great when they sing the old standards from the likes of Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.

My point is that contrary to contributing to the problem of mediocre music, shows like American Idol, could potentially be the antidote to no-talent bands and the crap that has come out of the marketing driven "promotion" of sub-par "artists" by the MAFIAA labels. It is really hard to hide the fact that you suck when you have to sing live in front of a studio and television audience straight into the mike with no second takes, remixing, or other studio tricks. In such situations the real talent tends to come forward while the hacks leave in disgrace (or hopefully don't even make it onto the show in the first place).

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[jackbird]

Of course, it's also a lovely way for the labels to lock said diamonds in the rough into abusive recording contracts before they sing a note.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Shakrai]

Personally, I think that the value per pound spent on an album compared to something like Halo 3 is vastly different. Halo 3 at the £40 it costs is at least ten times the value to me than the equivalent number of albums I could buy for that price

Value is what each person decides it is. I know a number of audiophiles that sink thousands or even tens of thousands of bucks into buying music and gear. I don't understand it, but there you go. I also don't understand people that build five thousand dollar water-cooled gaming systems, but if they enjoy it all the power to them.

Personally, I see value in Pandora. I have a paid membership even though I didn't really need one to enjoy it. I don't see as much value in CDs because I have to deal with shuffling them around and eventually they get stale. Ditto for DVDs. Save a few favorite movies, I don't own very many of them. How many times can you watch that movie before it gets old? Yet some people own hundreds or thousands of them.

They expect to be paid rather than realising they're competing for our money just like everyone else.

There does seem to be that arrogance, doesn't there? They do have somewhat of a legitimate case about rampant piracy of their copyrighted material, but I think their fears go a lot deeper then worrying about you downloading pop songs for free. The biggest fear is that the internet will render the recording label irrelevant. The artist already makes next to nothing on albums... so why not give them away for free instead of signing your life over to a record label to promote you?

That "problem" isn't going away even if they managed to completely stamp out piracy, which we all know is virtually impossible. Sooner or later some up and coming band will hit it big doing their promotion on the internet. Once people realize that's a viable way to do business it will be the beginning of the end of the record label as we know it. At least as far as anything new is concerned -- they will probably exist for quite a long time leeching off existing content, thanks in no small part to the ridiculous length of copyright in the Western World.

As Darwin said: adapt or die. Well, that's not what he said, but that's the basic idea ;)

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for a music distributor during 2002 which was their last year. The same year Ray Dolby (yes that Dolby) wrote a tremendous research article at the time saying exactly this, so it wasn't like the music industry didn't know so much as they refused to accept that their best customers were also the biggest down loaders.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[king-manic]

This is definitely off topic, but I was thinking the exact opposite. I have a large DVD and game collection that I hardly ever use. I figure I've gotten maybe 5 hours of enjoyment per DVD (some more, some less) and maybe 10-20 out of an average game. On the flip side, each song that I buy from itunes at $1 each have gotten played at least 20x. That's over $1 / hour of enjoyment for music as opposed to $3-$4 for a dvd and $.50-$6 for a game. If I buy a whole album, it usually gets the same amount or more play than the songs i buy a la carte, which usually leads to a higher value over time.

It's a rare movie or game that gets played more than 2 or 3 times for me, but it's even more rare for me to have a song that doesn't get played at least 10x. From what I've read and seen, this is the case for most people. It really depends on who you are. Music is background. Radio is enough. I buy a few albums but I get bored with them after the 4 or 5th play through. Thus I get ~5h of entertainment for $10-$25. A Movie will be played maybe 3 times. So for $15-$30 I get ~5h. I have a taste for fairly deep games (Warcraft 3, diablo, FFXII, Ratchet and clank oddly, etc..) thus for $50 I get between 20h (ratchet and clank) - 2000+h (warcraft 3, at least 1h a day for 5 years).

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[garett_spencley]

I completely agree with you about Gene Simmons and was actually going to bring him up as an example of why I feel that the rest of your post isn't quite accurate.

In the 60's and 70's you had bands like Kiss and The Monkeys who were entirely about show and very little about music. Boy Bands are the descendants of Motown groups. You mentioned Michael Jackson as being an example of a talented artist but it's arguably groups like The Jackson 5 that gave birth to modern boy-bands.

Madonna was taking off her clothes on stage while Britney Spears was in diapers.

There's a lot of great music still being made it's just that MTV and the radio only cater to the most requested (and thus the most marketed hits) and so if you turn on the radio it's very easy to get the impression that only crap is being produced. There's a lot of amazing artists out there who are getting signed to big labels and touring ... Dido, Esthero, Thievery Corporation, Circa Survive, Audioslave, Velvet Revolver to name a few.

My point is, mass media has always been a circus and it will always continue to be. But buried in the cheesy clown acts that please the children are the really talented Chinese acrobats who still manage to do some pretty amazing acts even though so much attention gets put on what the kids like.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[king-manic]

People get upset when I wax nostalgic about the 1960s and the 1970s, but let's face it, a very large part of the music we consider classic rock and pop was recorded during that period .... Compare that with the vaguely homoerotic boy bands and way-too-sexualized teen female acts like Britney Spears that started showing up in the late 1990s, Your forgetting the legitimately interesting bands like NIN, Smashing pumpkins, Nirvana, Food Fighters, Beck, Timbaland, Kanyewest, No Doubt, Arcade fire, Greenday, etc.. who got their start in the 90's and 00's. Remember who decides what is classic? Mostly well established influential media types who currently mostly grew up in the 60's and 70's. Music didn't lose it's way. It's been 80% suck like it's always been. You've just conveniently forgot about the dreck from the 60's and 70's.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Admiral Ag]

"Madonna was taking off her clothes on stage while Britney Spears was in diapers." That's nothing dude, Alice Cooper was wearing diapers on stage while Madonna was in diapers.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm ... when I use music as background music, it usually means that I'm wading through a pile only to select some nice tunes that I can thoroughly listen to them at a later time and relisten dozens of times. If I find something interesting I will usually slow down whatever I was doing, and direct my attention more to the music.

For example, this post was supposed to be really brilliant, but while writing this I was also listening to an anime soundtrack (School Days) to find the EDs that I like. I found one, and this post went downhill from that moment on.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[mrchaotica]

I usually pay full attention to it, so I primarily listen while driving or working out. Can't study, or read, or program, because I'm distracted by the tunes.

Then I sure as Hell hope you don't live anywhere near me, because you're a huge danger on the road! Either shut off the noise and pay attention to the road, or don't drive!

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[24-bit Voxel]

I use my iPod as a hard drive. 80GB and fits in my pocket. On top of that it has me 3D reel on it so whenever a potential client asks, I have it on me and they can see it right then. It makes me look pretty spiffy.

Yeah I listen to music on it, but it's music I've had for 10 years. I really don't care all that much about music anymore. Sure I'll iTunes out a single once and a while, but only because I need it for a project or because I can't get the tune out of my head.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[mrchaotica]

I second this: the only games I've bought recently (i.e., within the last year) are as follows: the Orange Box ($40), Morrowind GOTY ($20), SimCity 4 Deluxe ($5), and GTA San Andreas ($20/free after gift certificate). The next game I intend to buy is Oblivion GOTY, but I'll wait a year or so for the price to drop (at which time I'll also have played through the Orange Box, and maybe even have hardware capable of running it well). It takes a heck of a lot of value to get me to pay for a game!

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[mitgib]

It's a rare movie or game that gets played more than 2 or 3 times for me, but it's even more rare for me to have a song that doesn't get played at least 10x. From what I've read and seen, this is the case for most people. A very excellent analogy of cost for value received, and I share you view on it. Now in my mid-40's, I don't really find much new music I care to buy, sure there is an exception like anything else, but the music I enjoy the most and will pay for is in the bargain bins now, so I can buy almost any classic rock album for $8 give or take, and get another 30 years of enjoyment out of it, listing to it 2-3 times per week. A movie? I personally will not watch a movie more than once a year, so $15 on average for a DVD for 90-120 minutes of entertainment is very high when compared to the value received from music. And look at this new trend for Television at $2 per episode, are they out of their mind? That is $3-6 per hour of entertainment, if it even turns out to be entertaining, I can't see how this what consumers want. I'd love to see a device I purchase that used swarming technology like BitTorrent and allowed me to subscribe to content on a monthly/yearly basis like Cable/Sat providers offer, but make it a la carte if I so choose, if your content is worth it, I'll buy it, if not, I'll pass. I think this type of service would allow many more aspiring producers/directors/networks to get exposure and lower the barrier to entry and open the public up to more choice at s lower cost that can be viewed when the consumer wants, not when the network wants to air it. Leave the commercials in, mark the video when to que up commercials and then tailor the commercials based on my personal/household demographics, and stream a boatload of commercials onto this box to subsidize those who've content I've chosen to view.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[HTH NE1]

let's not get started on the TV show dvd boxset con (which you could have recorded for free without functional recourse) No, let's!

If you were on the ball early enough to start recording them from the start of the season, never missing one, at the best quality you could achieve, including the 5.1 digital sound, with minimal glitches from the transmission, and you don't mind the on-screen bugs and lower-third advertisements and editing out the other ads yourself, sure you could get by without purchasing the box sets.

However, some shows are shot with DVD release in mind, like Stargate SG-1 where the ends of acts were set up so that hard cuts could be used instead of fades on the DVD, and no cuts to the same scene without any time passing. Even musical cues are edited to be seamless between acts on DVD.

After taping a lot of television as a kid, I find that I prefer my collections to be legal. Still, I am more hesitant in buying the most recent complete season of 24 after having done a Firewire capture and mastered my own anamorphic DVD set (including an episode each from South Park and The Simpsons), including menus and trailers, because I could. I may yet try my hand at a 3x DVD or HD Rec set. But I will definitely buy if it is released in an HD format. I want to be honest.

I generally only archive what's on TV if I consider that it will become unobtainium later. Of three new series I picked this year, one was picked up for 22 episodes and another will be short an episode due to the writer's strike (wasn't as good as I'd hoped anyway, and I missed two, so I may just toss them all out if reruns won't fill).

Still, some DVDs have noticeably less content than originally aired. The War of the Worlds TV series is missing the opening hand-over-Earth sequence in each and every episode and Odyssey 5 is missing every episode recap, the cut causing an audio glitch on one episode.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[pikakilla]

1) The contestants are selected in a grueling process of elimination where actual performance is judged brutally by judges, like Simon who doesn't pull punches when the performance is sub-par, without regard to favoritism, who the contestant is connected with, or crap like that but rather solely upon whether or not, in the opinion of the judges, the contestant could earn the best return on their (Simon's) money if they sign them for a recording contract...
Fraid not bud. http://www.votefortheworst.com/auditions

They could take any old sap and make him into a star (see that horrible guy who sang shebang or whatever it was called)

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[linuxrocks123]

I know I'm rare here, but, whenever I listen to music, that is all I'm doing. So it's not "background stuff" for everyone.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Dragonslicer]

I particularly like it when professionals make a guest appearance on the show and end up sounding worse then the talented young contestants. They invariably invite the comparison just by appearing on the show. In fact, I don't understand why some professionals appear on the show, it only highlights the fact that they are over the hill or even worse that they were never as talented as some of the up and coming contestants...a potentially bad career move for them. Or maybe those professionals from 30 years ago were popular because of more than the technical quality of their voice. American Idol doesn't have the only 12 people with good singing voices in the world. There are tons of people around with singing voices as good as, if not better than, anyone on American Idol. Most of them, however, use their talents for musicals, choirs, or the like (or don't sing professionally at all). Personally, I don't really care how good a singer's voice is; if you give them crappy writing and repetitive, machine-generated percussion and guitar parts, I won't be at all interested in listening to them.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Hydian]

If I listen to music for three hours, is that exactly as enjoyable as three hours of a Lord of the Rings movie? Is that as enjoyable as playing through Portal? Maybe, depends on what you find enjoyable. But that is a big dependency.
Not a fair comparison as there is no promise of cake for sitting through a Lord of the Rings movie.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[CodeBuster]

They could take any old sap and make him into a star

So they edited the auditions, did anyone think that they weren't going to do that or that Simon and his cohorts would personally hear every last one of the tens of thousands of contestants who tried out? Please, its a television show not an completely objective process for selecting the very best singer on Earth. For example, they call the winners of the NBA Championships the "world champions" but does that mean that there isn't a better group of basketball players anywhere on the planet? Of course not.

As for making any old sap into a star, suckage is suckage whether you make it far in the show or not. No amount of promotion or hype was going to make Sanjaya the winner of the show. You might argue that the winners of some seasons are better than others but that is really unavoidable, there are too many variables in the whole process for that not to happen, but you would be hard pressed to claim that the winners are just any old untalented saps whom the producers wanted to make into the "winners". They have mostly been good to excellent IMHO. Perhaps you disagree, but really would you rather have the Idol system, flawed though it may be, or the MAFIAA picking the winners with no public input, except when it comes time to sell music, whatsoever?

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Machtyn]

offtopic, I know, but it relates to the previous post.
I built myself a sweet system earlier this year. Almost a money is no object on most components, it came out to be a $1500 computer when all components are added up (including previously purchased, but not replaced components such as the dual monitors.)
Here's what I ended up with:
Mobo: eVGA nForce 680i SLI
CPU: Intel E6600
RAM: 2GB Corsair (CM2X1024-6400C4) A bit on the high-end, price has dropped more than half since I bought it.
Video: BFG GeForce 7900 GS (with the thought to go SLI when prices come down and it will support Dual monitors)
Audio: Soundblaster X-Fi (with the cool front-bay attachment.)

Oblivion looks fricken' awesome! I've got a lot of the features turned on high. I've maxed at 150 fps (when looking at a wall, hehe) and averaged around 50-60fps. But for some reason the Oblivion gates and the stone that removes the Oblivion gate brings my framerate down to about 10-15fps. I don't know what it is with the color red. Morrowind's portals (at the ruins) did that to my previous rig.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you don't like the price, don't buy it"
Yeah, pirate it instead :)

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[blind biker]

I completely agree. I have been thinking the same for some time, but it seems so popular to bash Idols for some reason.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[illtud]

Your forgetting the legitimately interesting bands like NIN, Smashing pumpkins, Nirvana, Food Fighters,

I missed them. I like a good bunfight, I might check them out.

[Paging Dr Freud... I'm guessing you're 20 stone and had a Hershey bar in your mouth typing that...]

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Blackhalo]

"Michael Jackson who had real talent." Really? I am skeptical as to whether the talent resided with Jackson or the producers of his music. Granted, Thriller was an exceptional album but, how much of that was Jackson?

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Blakey Rat]

Everyone's different. Like you, I frequently have movies going as background to whatever I'm doing-- as long as the movie is a great classic. If it's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, It's A Wonderful Life, etc, I'll stop what I'm doing and either have to stop the movie, or start paying full attention to the movie. I also usually have my own movie, or sometimes movie background sound, going while playing video games, I virtually always turn the video game music off. And with World of Warcraft, all bets are off. I've actually played WOW and Civilization 4 at the same time before. (Civ IV is turn-based of course, but it's still normally pretty consuming.)

Attention game makers: ALL games should have windowed mode! Don't make me choose between your game and a DVD, let me do both at once! That is all.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[AvitarX]

"On top of that it has me 3D reel on it so whenever a potential client asks, I have it on me and they can see it right then. It makes me look pretty spiffy."

That's genius, but I would call it a business expense then (Hurray for tax deductions).

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[dukieduke]

Exactly. There was the same amount (or more) of dreck produced in the 60's, 70's and 80's as there is today. One hit wonder was not a term coined by The Oneders. The Archies (Sugar, Sugar)? Ron Holden and the Thunderbirds? Bob Luman? Rosie and the Originals? The Jarmels? That's just the beginning of the 60's.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[Deliveranc3]

Yea but the music industry started looking at how much money consumers had total and trying to increase demand through monopoly advertising, and consumers have started to question the level of production expense and difficulty being provided by the manufacturer.

It's capitalism 2.0... and the consumer will win round 1.

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[pikakilla]

the site is a bit long, but basically it says that they don't pick the best people, only those who will sell them the most music. Business wise, it makes perfect sense, however, the system does not let the best rise to the top, and those choices that the public is presented with are those which are cherry picked to sell the most records. The entire show is a ruse to line Simon's pockets anyway (his company owns the rights to the show and the contract of the performer).

Re:Disposable income not piracy is behind falls.

[MightyMartian]

Jackson wrote or co-wrote most of that album. He was, in his day, a legitimate musical genius (not that I actually like his music). The problem with Jackson was that he became a freak, so that all of his accomplishments in the late 1970s and early 1980s are overshadowed by child sex allegations and his Howard Hughes persona. Still, if we put those aside, Thriller is as great an accomplishment of artistry and recording as was ever made. It probably makes his later fall all the sadder, because he came down from the very pinnacle of entertainment success, rivalling THE major occupiers of that throne; Elvis and the Beatles, and now leads some strange vampiric lifestyle, pissing money away with little chance that he can ever again achieve commercial or creative success.

stop the lawsuits

[Dr_Art]

So, umm, when are you going to drop the lawsuits???

It's easy....

[pablo_max]

"I'm left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently."

Easy...just like our government inadvertently took away ever more of our freedom with the patriot act ;)

Re:It's easy....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everything is political. Shut your noise hole.

Who won?

[AlHunt]

>as a result of course, consumers won.

Really? What do I get? Have all the lawsuits been dropped and all the judgements and settlements been refunded and consumers reimbursed for their legal fees? Did I miss something?

I'm still boycotting new music purchases.

Re:Who won?

[harrkev]

I'm still boycotting new music purchases.

Don't do that. Jusy boycott the big labels (the ones that support the RIAA). There are still lots if indie labels out there that are consumer friendly.

I also happen to find that the music is better, too.

Re:Who won?

[kebes]

as a result of course, consumers won. Really? Winning a battle doesn't mean you get everything you want... but it does mean you've prevented your enemy from getting the thing they wanted from you.

In the "war on piracy" their intention was to prevent people from sharing music (i.e.: to at least maintain their previous business model). However, the consumers won that war: at present people routinely fileshare. Most people I know have an iPod (or equivalent) and all of them have it filled with music, where they only paid for 0-20% of those tracks. The average consumer is file-sharing. The industry couldn't stop it. The consumers won that battle, and the industry lost.

As they say, however, the battle may be won but the war is far from over. The grander issue here is whether copyright law itself is valid in its present form... and whether changing it means more protections/enforcement (for the established industry), or more freedoms/rights (for the citizens).

I'm still boycotting new music purchases. As well you should. There are so many better sources for music (independent labels, creative commons music, etc.) that there is no excuse for purchasing any music from companies involved in the unethical legal and lobbying tactics of the established cartel.

That's when the real victory will come: when these currently "fringe" sources of music become the norm, and the established cartel withers away (or reinvents itself to survive).

Re:Who won?

[zotz]

"Don't do that. Jusy boycott the big labels (the ones that support the RIAA). There are still lots if indie labels out there that are consumer friendly."

These days, if you are not using a Free license, and preferably a copyleft one, I don't consider you consumer friendly. Your works are always subject to being bought out and abused. Even if against your will.

Even if I like your stuff, unless I am getting paid, I try my best not to promote you or your stuff unless you are going the Free route. And after all, why should expect to be paid for your efforts but think you can count on mine for free?

all the best,

drew

Re:Who won?

[AlHunt]

>Winning a battle doesn't mean you get everything you want

Nah, screw that. If I won the war, I want reparations.

Re:Who won?

[sm62704]

I'm still boycotting new music purchases.

Don't boycott music, boycott music from the RIAA labels. Buy CDs from local bands, most of whom are every bit as good as teh RIAA-label bands.

Re:Who won?

[Sibko]

Winning a battle doesn't mean you get everything you want... but it does mean you've prevented your enemy from getting the thing they wanted from you. I think that's actually called a stalemate.

Death throes of an industry

[gethoht]

All these lawsuits are just an outdated industry with an outdated business model trying to stay alive. They want to keep the margins as high as they were when vinyl was being pressed. They're not adapting, they're just kicking and screaming theirselves out of business.

Re:Death throes of an industry

[bwy]

All these lawsuits are just an outdated industry with an outdated business model trying to stay alive. They want to keep the margins as high as they were when vinyl was being pressed. They're not adapting, they're just kicking and screaming theirselves out of business.

That is really the entire problem in a nutshell. The funny part is, this is almost 2008. The time for the recording industry to be pioneers was back in 1995! Thirteen years ago! They could have become a major player in the digital age been a guiding force. Almost every other industry in this country adapted themselves in some form or another to do business in this new age.

Re:Death throes of an industry

[Anonymous Coward]

In the mid-'90s, I remember an article in the late, great "Musician" magazine about record labels slipping "digital delivery clauses" into artist contracts, which stipulated a greatly reduced royalty rate compared to the rate paid for physical recordings. They saw the technology coming but assumed that they would continue to be the gatekeepers for recorded music, and put their efforts into shafting artists rather than covering their own asses. Payback's a biotch!

Re:Death throes of an industry

[Anonymous Coward]

That is really the entire problem in a nutshell.

Is THE problem an entire industry, an outdated business model or the falling margins due primarily(?) to file sharing (i.e. copyright enfringement)? Why is oversimplification is so unavoidably seductive (even here on /.)? I realize that many people can't help but desire the sight of their own writing, but really...

The music industry has many mouths to feed. Artists, production staff, manufacturing, S&M, distribution and management are all a part of the 'industry'. They are all feeling the pinch from declining revenues. Is it any wonder... the overall structure is based the assumption that growth and consolidation are infinitely sustainable and that hard copy distribution of digital information, in the age of the Personal Computer and wireless broadband, will accommodate the promises made by the tech industry. This in a time when marginal levels of median expendable income are in decline and the real cost of living is in flux for oh so many reasons. Not the least of which is the realization that global consumption of an ever expanding population, based on wasteful and polluting production methods, for goods that are shipped the world over, is UNsustainable in the long run.

I think it's interesting to hear people pander to the notion that music conglomerates will die and that the new age of digital distribution will change the world as we know it, for the better. The players change, but the song remains the same. Currently, it seems to me, the corporate music revenue contractions have accompanied greater diversity in commercial inventory selections available to the consumer as well as burgeoning competition for the consumer technology dollars devoted to the change in distribution, storage and reproduction of those choices. Production costs and options have changed with the times as well. Enhanced products can include text, graphics, video and music, and the market has yet to exhaust the promise or promotion of fidelity, resolution or completeness that might be made available to the end user.

Has anyone bothered to look at the combined sales of copyrighted music productions as compared to consumer investment in new technology necessary to facilitate storage, portability and reproduction of the individual's inventory. There's no guarantee that music revenues will rebound as music/video player sales levels off, especially when the market for gizmos has hit a comfortable stride and utilizes the same psyche techniques to encourage invideous comparison and depends upon regular return of the customer to facilitate its own production schedules and revenue projections. Furthermore, the fragmented efforts of music companies as they attempt to partner w/ for a share of the promised holy Cellular distribution grail may actually hinder their core business development. But I am willing to bet that as time goes by, the players will have changed and both markets will have grown overall. The ever-present question is who will survive, to sell another day.

Personally, I don't own a portable player, and I am still waiting to have access a complete set of studio or live mic tracks, made available to me on DVD (or some medium of greater capacity) from which I can mix my own version of any or all of the various songs offered by my favorite artist or group, live or in concert. I am disappointed the I cannot yet walk into a live venue and walk out with either CD's downloaded to the thumbdrive in my pocket or a key to an encrypted online download accessible directly from each artist's webiste, via my broadband connection as soon as I have returned there. However, I do not expect that as long as executives at the top of large corporations like RCA or SONY can take years to realize that they are alienating people (consumers, end-users and fans) by trying to control their personal use of the Personal Technology for the which they pay, both dearly and personally, I will see such innovation mad

first end the war

[spune]

You should end the war on consumers before you start talking about how it was a mistake.

Re:first end the war

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this like the Bush Administration declaring mission accomplished then having another x number of years to fight the war.

Re:first end the war

[superwiz]

repeal the 17th amendment Really? Direct election of senators? May I suggest 16th ammendment as a better target?

Re:first end the war

[spune]

No, modern responsible government has high overhead and taxation is necessary. I want to give states leashes to control the federal government. Also, to make states more prominent in politics. I think removing direct election of senators would make the federal government less autonomous.

Re:first end the war

[superwiz]

But does it have to be an income tax?

Ironically

[Floritard]

His use of the word glacial reminded me of this xkcd comic. I wonder if he's a fan...

Re:Ironically

[IdeaMan]

DOH! And I was wondering who it was that was causing global warming!

Turn of the tide

[AmVidia HQ]

With studies showing correlation of downloaders also buying CDs, and example set by Radiohead/Magnatune that patronage model of the arts can still mean good business. And with lawsuits against students and moms failing. A testament that not even megacorps can always buy/use laws against the people.

This is when Big Media have to start looking at the internet differently. The same way the studios did when they looked at Betamax/the VCR.

Re:Turn of the tide

[Torodung]

A testament that not even megacorps can always buy/use laws against the people. Oh, they proved they can buy the laws (the Congress), and they even bought the DOJ, but you can't buy every judge.

Score one for the Judiciary, and the concept of checks and balances amongst three branches of government, that are organized in different ways and are not monolithic.

--
Toro

Re:Turn of the tide

[freezingweasel]

> A testament that not even megacorps can always buy/use laws against the people.

Nope, every so often you actually have to look pro-citizen as opposed to f-the-consumer. Bush didn't get in on "let me turn this into a police state", but on "I'll protect you, those guys will let the terrorists sneak in at night and give your dog peanut butter sandwiches".

The fact that someone with a partly missing military record could pull this off, in one case against someone with accomplishments to tout, without people asking "Wait a minute, why would they want to specifically target us, when we're so far away" astounds. I used to wonder how people could buy utter propaganda, but from the debates I've picked with various people, the root problem is NOT shrewd rhetoric.

People WANT to believe in something, desperately. It can be religion, politics or save-the-whales, but once many people mentally invest in something, direct evidence in their face often isn't enough to convince them to change their minds. The reason politicians can walk away from anything with a blanket denial in the face of undisputable proof is because their voters are willing to dismiss anything negative as FUD spread by the other party.

The executives of the music companies were trained to believe firmly in "business as usual". They see technology as a tool or a toy, by which I mean something of minor importance and capability. The net is potentially 2-3 new types of cd player to sell music in, perhaps one per computer platform. Under ideal circumstances, they would astro-turf music formats, re-selling music as it moves between protected versions of mp3, ogg vorbis and other formats. Until now, technology has been on THEIR side. What consumer could afford professional grade equipment? What consumer could build the equipment to rip them off? With the advent of a large enough # of users who can created "devices" like WinAmp and a means to spread this to those who can't make it themselves, suddenly the consumer is making the technology to THEIR specs! THIS isn't supposed to happen!

Technology is safe because the peons buying can't do anything to change it, and those who can build something can't afford to mass produce. Many more businesses than the music industry bought into this, if only because of the belief that they were too big to be stopped.

If the music industry that exists today crumbles, it will do so with many of the higher ups in denial, unable to concieve of how anything so large could be taken down.

Perhaps

[Otter]

I'm left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently.

I think he means that back in the Napster lawsuit days, when all you idiots were crying about how the RIAA should be suing illegal filesharers and offering up a stream of condescending analogies about how toolmakers shouldn't be responsible for the actions of users, they made the mistake of believing you.

Re:Perhaps

[nine-times]

Well I think the problem was also believing that there's a clear distinction between "illegal file sharer" and "customer". As though there aren't plenty of people who are both.

So the record industry set out to wage war on "pirates" and inadvertently ended up attacking their own customers and hurting their own business interests. Instead, they might have realized that the people "pirating" their content were also "sharing" their content and thereby giving free marketing. They might have realized that the mass "piracy" that took off with Napster was less an issue of lawlessness and more an issue of their business model going obsolete.

Re:Perhaps

[Penguinisto]

If they had some sort of clue as to how to accurately and correctly identify illegal filesharers (you know, instead of issuing blanket subpoenas, suing dead people and obvious technophobes, et al)... most of us wouldn't have much problem with it. If they actually used some common sense in choosing folks who passed around pirated files ...that weren't children, there would be even less of a problem. If they finally restricted their targets to people who were obviously making money from it (you know, like the real physical media bootleggers do), there would've be zero problems at all.

Instead they got all ego-happy and power-hungry. They began doing blatantly stupid things.

I wouldn't be so quick to blame those who made the (very cogent) argument of going only after the actual pirates, you know? There's always at least one right way and numerous wrong ways to implement any given task.

/P

Re:Perhaps

[cowscows]

I think the other side of that coin was providing a reasonable alternative. Napster made it very obvious that there was a large group of people interested in getting music online. Sure, some of those people were only interested in the lack of a price tag, but others also appreciated the ability to get music basically immediately, without leaving their house, and having a humongous library of songs to choose from.

Lots of people are willing to pay for music offered that way. The RIAA gave us very crappy online stores at best, and tried to take away the more useful alternatives. It's true that there are some people out there who will never pay for music online, but it was a big mistake for the RIAA to act as if we were all like that.

The fact that the lawsuits that the RIAA has filed were often very haphazard, and the sorts of people they went after seemed more spiteful than productive. The damages that they claimed were ridiculous, and the fact that they settle for a tiny percentage of what they claimed shows how full of crap they are.

Re:Perhaps

[nine-times]

If they finally restricted their targets to people who were obviously making money from it (you know, like the real physical media bootleggers do), there would've be zero problems at all.

But you see, the problem is that they don't want/need to go after the bootleggers. It isn't the bootlegging industry that's sharing content on P2P networks. It's college kids, little girls, and the nice couple next door. The whole problem with the situation is that their business model was created by distribution, based on the inability of some random guy to press 10 million vinyl records in his basement and distribute them worldwide for free. However, in the digital age, some random guy can effectively spread millions of MP3s around the work for free (well, you have the cost of a computer and Internet service).

So don't think these lawsuits were an effort to stop bootlegging "pirates" who make money from selling illegal copies. The goal was to protect an outdated business model.

Re:Perhaps

[cdrguru]

Napster made it clear that people wanted music for free. Napster and its successors have filled that desire. Now anybody with a fast Internet connection gets music for free.

End of story.

Sure, if are a "distributor" you ran the risk of getting RIAA's attention.

Yes, lots of people offered to pay. And then they found out they didn't have to. A few people still pay, but not enough to sustain an industry. It's like shareware - if you don't have to pay 5% do. The rest are just going to take what is offered.

Re:Perhaps

[Sax Maniac]

Good point, but, maybe that was under the assumption they would actually sue people who really were guilty of large-scale infringment.

Instead, we seem get suing of groups of random people who may or many not even know what the hell an mp3 is, large groups of people who have exhanged comparatively tiny bits of music and are not large infringers, suing people and then dropping the case when they begin to lose to in order bankrupt them with legal fees, threatening entire schools, and another various forms of general asshattery.

"consumers won"?

[urcreepyneighbor]

Then how come you're still shooting at us?

Re:"consumers won"?

[geminidomino]

Because the war's over, it's just peacekeeping and rebuilding action now...

Re:"consumers won"?

[Volante3192]

Does this mean Bronfman is going to roll out a huge 'Mission Accomplished' banner over Warner Music HQ?...

Re:"consumers won"?

[j33pn]

Let our new motto be, "Mission Accomplished!"

Re:"consumers won"?

[elmaxxgt]

Just... try to look unimportant... they might be low on ammo.

Re:"consumers won"?

[HTH NE1]

Then how come you're still shooting at us? It isn't easy being a copyright cop.

I don't go around gratuitously suing people and then brag about it in seedy IP lawyers' bars. I go around gratuitously suing people, and then I agonize about it afterwards to my children.

And I write legislation. Though I haven't anything new passed through Congress yet, so I better warn ya, I'm in a mean mood.

Re:"consumers won"?

[HTH NE1]

It's a sad day on Slashdot when a Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide paraphrase gets modded Troll.

it's not the lawsuits

[l2718]

Ah, but he's not apologizing for the lawsuits -- he's apologizing for not releasing DRM-riddled restrictively-licensed music fast enough, which he thinks is what forced consumers to share music illegally. He's still behind the lawsuits (except when his own kids share music -- then it's a "family matter" best punished by the parents). He's warning the cell-phone companies that unless they allow limited sharing, consumers will find their own solutions, and not talking about tactics. The content industry (music, film etc) still seems to have no idea what the consumers want, or that the offering people what they want is usually much better than coercing them to buy what you want them to buy.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[badasscat]

Ah, but he's not apologizing for the lawsuits -- he's apologizing for not releasing DRM-riddled restrictively-licensed music fast enough, which he thinks is what forced consumers to share music illegally.

Exactly. The bottom line is this article isn't saying anything like what's being implied in the summary; in fact, just the opposite.

His "war" with consumers, from his perspective, is that the music industry wasn't offering consumers what they wanted, so they went out and took it. But if you read the rest of his comments, the problem is he still isn't understanding just what it is that people want. He thinks that DRM-free music is just being used as a means to an end rather than being an end in itself. He thinks that if the record labels just give everybody music pre-made in the formats that they want, even if it comes saddled with DRM and even if consumers need to buy the same music over and over, that they will buy it as long as it's easy and convenient enough for them to get it.

He's totally missing the point, which is that if I have a CD, or a DRM-free digital download, I buy the music once and can then put it anywhere I want to. I can listen to it, my wife can listen to it, I can make a ringtone out of it, I can put it on my iPod or make a mix CD. His idea is still to sell you multiple copies of the same tracks in all these different places, and he thinks where his company went wrong was in not doing that early enough. That's just as wrongheaded as Warner ever has been.

And he says absolutely nothing about the lawsuits, which he will no doubt continue supporting.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Shakrai]

still seems to have no idea what the consumers want

That's easy. Consumers want the ability to buy content and use it on any device of their choosing. Personally, I want to be able to take my music and load it onto my mp3 player, play it on my car stereo, play it on my home stereo and listen to it on my computer. I don't want to have to buy it for each of these formats. I don't want to have to pay for it on a monthly basis with subscriptions.

Subscriptions may prove profitable for videos (Netflix is proof of this), but people generally want to own their music and be able to do whatever they want with it. This isn't rocket science people.....

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[PriceIke]

Hear hear. I Was going to drop my $.05 on this matter but you did it for me. Thank you!

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Admiral Ag]

This is a fair comment. But, while not letting him off and continuing to remain eternally vigilant, perhaps we should salute him for admitting he was wrong, or at least beginning to admit he was wrong. Lord knows it's hard to get any of these people to do it. Barracking them unmercifully may give one a sense of self-righteous please (I know I feel that way), but it probably won't make things better and might make them worse.

If he's prepared to admit that the industry was wrong in this case, then perhaps there will be DRM free music in the near future. Apple is already selling a ton of it, and customers need to encourage the other majors to get on board (and to offer more flexible formats as well). It's been obvious to thinking people from the beginning that DRM was a dead end.

The music labels are slowly waking up to what the rest of us know. That is that it is worth tolerating a certain amount of illegal file sharing in order to give legitimate customers more reason to buy their products. I could have pirated the thousand bucks worth of music I've bought from iTunes (most of it now DRM free), but it was easier and cheaper just to pay Apple for it a bit at a time. And I haven't stopped buying CDs at all.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Its hard to say at this point looking back at what might have been. I think if there was a drm encumbered 99 cent music store before napster, it might have prevented a lot of file sharing. Napster succeeded primarily because it was easy. People were downloading copies of songs they already had because it was faster than ripping them. I don't think Napster would have gotten any VC money if there was already a RIAA approved online music store. In those days, I downloaded music for free most of the time because it was unavailable in any other format. I couldn't actually buy the music ( rare singles, limited selection at cdnow and retail stores) by any legitimate means.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Anonymous Coward]

But, while not letting him off and continuing to remain eternally vigilant, perhaps we should salute him for admitting he was wrong, or at least beginning to admit he was wrong.

In other news, Saddam admitted that he was wrong when he ordered destruction of all WMD in Iraq. If he had them he could either publicly hand them to UN for destruction, or just to use them against invaders; either would have prevented the invasion.

The point here is that we can't laud people for admitting their wrong until we understand what is it that they see as "right."

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Sancho]

More and more devices can play video. I think the time will come when it's almost as ubiquitous as music, and at that point, we'll see how the MPAA fairs.

As it is, the MPAA tends to only send C&D letters rather than suing. My hope is that they see the error of their ways and stop DRMing content. Of course, it's wholly up to the members of the MPAA, in this case--they can choose to stop using CSS any time they want.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[MartinB]

His "war" with consumers, from his perspective, is that the music industry wasn't offering consumers what they wanted, so they went out and took it.

Which is pretty much bang on the money. Along with point (b) which is that he finally gets that suing consumers for doing that won't help sales.

But if you read the rest of his comments, the problem is he still isn't understanding just what it is that people want. He thinks that DRM-free music is just being used as a means to an end rather than being an end in itself. He thinks that if the record labels just give everybody music pre-made in the formats that they want, even if it comes saddled with DRM and even if consumers need to buy the same music over and over, that they will buy it as long as it's easy and convenient enough for them to get it.

Actually, he's right again in principle, but where he falls down is perhaps not understanding just quite how far he needs to go to get over that easy and convenient enough barrier for enough people. And I think he gets the economics better than you do in that you're an edge case. Not that that's wrong, but he doesn't need to go so far as to please everybody; just enough to be sufficiently profitable. There's a tipping point of levels of freedom/convenience (for they are the same thing) at which enough people are satisfied enough to spend the money.

This is what Apple also realised before the record industry, and got roughly correct - you can share iTMS tracks between enough computers and burn them to CD enough times for enough people's needs to sell enough tracks to make it worthwhile. Balance it right and only the edge case people will be dissatisfied. Those being somewhat congruent with the people who demand Ogg support on their iPods.

I should also point out that that balance level of course can move over time. So the iTMS deal of yesterday may not be convenient/free enough to strike the same balance tomorrow. And it may be that in the end, the destination point is universally available, entirely unrestricted formats. But that day is not here yet.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Ash Vince]

His idea is still to sell you multiple copies of the same tracks in all these different places, and he thinks where his company went wrong was in not doing that early enough. The problem is that this is not without precedent. When CD's were first released a lot of people did go out and buy the same music they already owned on Vinyl on CD.

From his perspective they have managed to get the public to do this once before so why can't they do it again?

Most of the reasons why they will not get away with this again are technological and I would bet if anyone tried to explain them to him they go straight over his head. I would also bet that anyone trying to explain it to him would have a very tough time as it is probably not something he wants to hear.

Can you imagine trying to explain to your employer that his entire business model was not going work and may well bankrupt the company? Especially after he had publicly locked the company into a particular path. He would have to exercise such an about face it would end his career.

I do think that a CEO of a record company saying this is actually quite positive news though as it may be the start of a slow change of focus / direction where the executive is walking a fine line between losing shareholder confidence and completely alienating his customers. After engaging in the tactics that RIAA have been for the past 5 years can you imagine him saying that he has been wasting millions of pounds of the shareholders money on court cases that were ruining his companies public image? He would have to do a VERY good job of explaining why it has taken him so long to realise what he was doing.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[ajs]

The content industry (music, film etc) still seems to have no idea what the consumers want No... they know exactly what the consumers want, what the consumers say they want and what the analysts say the consumers say they want. They even know that all three of those are different things.

What they also know is that they're sitting on top of the world's most rigged market with stockholders demanding increasing profits. They're literally staring down the gun-barrel at their own extinction and trying desperately to figure out how they can dodge the bullet. They can't. They know they can't. That makes them desperate.

Now perhaps bizarre DRM and rootkits will start to make sense to you. They don't think these are reasonable actions that come without gobs of risk. They're just out of options.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Anonymous Coward]

Has nobody noticed that they're sharing all their music for free (ad supported) on imeem.com - I mean I can't believe that nobody responding to this has mentioned that 6 months ago they were suing this company and now they're sharing all their music through them.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[jelton]

It makes absolute sense if you think about from his perspective. Of course, when I try and place myself in his shoes, my nose starts bleeding and my brain hurts. Does that mean anything?

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[telbij]

He thinks that if the record labels just give everybody music pre-made in the formats that they want, even if it comes saddled with DRM and even if consumers need to buy the same music over and over, that they will buy it as long as it's easy and convenient enough for them to get it.

I think this might actually be true if they had gotten to market early with sane DRM. Apple's approach, for instance, doesn't actually bother most people (if FairPlay becomes unsupported at some point in the future, that's a different story). Fortunately for us anti-DRM advocates, the RIAA has hamfistedly stumbled through their own market like a retarded giant, destroying value in every nook and cranny, and making the anti-DRM case to the most tech-illiterate consumer.

The bottom line is the music industry is full of self-entitled suits sitting in chairs raking in a million bucks a year for talking fast. They've got a stranglehold on radio, but their control over production and distribution is evaporating before their eyes. If they don't get humble real fast and learn to add some value like they did 50 years ago, musicians will simple reorganize themselves into a new industry. The film industry at least has some breathing room due to the sheer expense of film-making, but the music industry as we know it could be dead and gone in 10 years.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[SanityInAnarchy]

I can make a ringtone out of it

Funny you should mention that, because that is where the recording labels make most of their money nowdays.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Whiteox]

When CD's were first released a lot of people did go out and buy the same music they already owned on Vinyl on CD. Correct up to a point. I quickly stopped buying AAD (Analog Mastering, Analog Mixing, Digital Recording) and only bought those that were DDD.
Eg: Japan "Tin Drum" is wholly much better on vinyl than the CD version of it, especially the bass. And who wants another copy of Dark Side of the Moon when you've got a master cut on vinyl!
Mind you, there were no music downloads at that time (circa '83)

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[joto]

He thinks that if the record labels just give everybody music pre-made in the formats that they want, even if it comes saddled with DRM and even if consumers need to buy the same music over and over, that they will buy it as long as it's easy and convenient enough for them to get it.

I'm not entirely convinced he is wrong about this. People seem to be happy to spend money on ringtones, even though most cell-phones can record their own ringtones by holding them up against a speaker. If the price is right, I can easily see consumers buying the same content over and over again. As a matter of fact, many of us already have. First on LP or MC, then on CD, and then later on DVD, or a collectors box, or whatever.

He's totally missing the point, which is that if I have a CD, or a DRM-free digital download, I buy the music once and can then put it anywhere I want to. I can listen to it, my wife can listen to it, I can make a ringtone out of it, I can put it on my iPod or make a mix CD. His idea is still to sell you multiple copies of the same tracks in all these different places, and he thinks where his company went wrong was in not doing that early enough. That's just as wrongheaded as Warner ever has been.

Sure, that's what I want. And it's what many others want. But if the music companies make it cheap enough, and convenient enough, to shop music legally, but in restricted formats, I'm not entirely convinced that it's going to happen. The consumer demand might not be large enough, even though both you and I want it.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[joto]

Correct up to a point. I quickly stopped buying AAD (Analog Mastering, Analog Mixing, Digital Recording) and only bought those that were DDD.

Why? It's not like those letters had anything to do with quality. As a matter of fact, I never understood why they put them there in the first place. It's not like they gave the consumer any choice to buy the same album recorded and mixed in different ways. And even if they did that, I would find much more interesting ways to do that, than to simply change recording and mixing equipment, which I'm sure was pretty high-end either way. Such as using different producers, etc...

Eg: Japan "Tin Drum" is wholly much better on vinyl than the CD version of it, especially the bass. And who wants another copy of Dark Side of the Moon when you've got a master cut on vinyl!

I'll take your word for the "Tin Drum" statement, although I doubt that was the common case. Back then, CD releases weren't usually compressed to death, like they are today, but would be exactly like their vinyl counterparts.

But vinyl loses quality each time it's played, and DSofM is such a good record, that I would certainly prefer to have it in a format that doesn't deteriorate as easily.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[nametaken]

"He thinks that if the record labels just give everybody music pre-made in the formats that they want, even if it comes saddled with DRM and even if consumers need to buy the same music over and over, that they will buy it as long as it's easy and convenient enough for them to get it."

While I'd prefer to agree with you, I don't think he's missed a thing. I think he's looked at iTunes and seen dollar signs. And what does iTunes sell? DRM'd music... and shit-tons of it. Why? Because "it's easy and convenient enough". I don't think most consumers even know they should give a damn about DRM. They know they want 1 song, not 20, and they want it right now. iTunes provides that, and that's enough to be successful. These dinosaurs just want their grubby fingers in that model as much as possible, despite being late to the game. They're not interested in coming up with something wholly new, clever and equitable for both sides.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Whiteox]

Without getting into a HIFI debate, casual listening of a well produced vinyl record (AAA) and the CD version (AAD) on above average systems does show a difference, especially in the 'sound staging' and eq.
The only way I could test this was to tape both versions (Tin Drum) on cassette or reel to reel with no eq on zero-ed in meters.
Apart from added tape hiss and some compression, it was much preferable to listen to the vinyl version.

However, the phono input on my amp was pre-set to incorporate an RIAA eq envelope - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phono_input and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization - and I only found out about this because my amp allowed me to switch it out.

On the 'Tin Drum' AAD Cd, I don't think that the RIAA eq was enabled/disabled when pressed and consequently gave an inferior product.
There were other transfers that suffered the same fate - like Toccata in D Minor (Bach) that had wonky eq.
ABBA did record in DDA and their CD versions sounded less compressed (DDD) and with better, flatter eq.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[rtb61]

I think the around about point that was being made, was rather then declaring war on consumers they should have created their own itunes, ipod, iphone music etc. delivery system.

It is about holding onto their old publishing styles albums through music stores rather than progressing onto their electronic music delivery systems. All they have done is cause considerable harm to their brand, rather than taking their brand into the 21st century and adding things like, search, msuic delivery, video delivery, web portal, gaming and social network. They merged with AOL and basically went no where and done nothing with it.

The have a lot of work to do to catch up, and match news corps work with myspace.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[drinkypoo]

He thinks that if the record labels just give everybody music pre-made in the formats that they want, even if it comes saddled with DRM and even if consumers need to buy the same music over and over, that they will buy it as long as it's easy and convenient enough for them to get it.

I don't agree with your interpretation, although I think you're close. I think he thinks that if they gave consumers media "protected" with a DRM system that would let them do [most of] the things they want to do with their media, then they would accept DRM media. And I believe that he is for the most part correct.

The problem with the idea is that no "useful" (to the copyright holders) DRM scheme can actually do that! You can't keep the user from breaking or at least bypassing your DRM without using hardware which contains the complete decryption engine including the key. Eventually even that tactic will fail because electron microscopes are coming down in price and image processing algorithms continue to improve. It won't be all that long before you can pop the head off an IC, scan it, and get out a netlist (well, for a single-layer IC. Multi-layer will continue to be more complicated, but I'd bet there's some way to strip the layers away.)

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? There's a actual barrel that the media industries are looking down? With their eyes? And their extinction is really down there somewhere? Wow. Scary shit. Scary literal shit.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[joto]

It sounds to me like you should put your CD-player into the CD-input on your amplifier, and the gramophone into the phono-input before you complain too much about wonky eq from the producers. If you were able to hear a difference (apart from vinyl cracks and pops) when recording both sources to ordinary cassette tape, there must be something seriously wrong about your setup. Even reel-to-reel doesn't come close to the quality of vinyl or CD when you stick to the prosumer price-range.

Back then, I used to work in a small radio-station where we had some pretty ok (but certainly not over-the-top) equipment, and let me tell you, when we got a DAT-player it just blew the five times more expensive (and regularly maintained) reel-to-reel out of the window in terms of audio-quality. Not that we really cared, the DAT was more cumbersome to use, so it mostly ended up collecting dust.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Whiteox]

It sounds to me like you should put your CD-player into the CD-input on your amplifier, and the gramophone into the phono-input before you complain too much about wonky eq from the producers. Are you trolling?
I too was involved in sound mixing and live recording at the time. A 10" reel-reel traveling fast had little hiss with Dolby A and suffered little from compression, even though I had to switch it in on occasions. As I said earlier, I used it to compare some recorded vinyl against it's CD counterpart. I did manage to flatten the CD version by playing around with the eq - dropping the highs and boosting the low to midrange, comparing that by downmixing both versions onto cassette.
What I found was that AAD CDs had tape hiss from the masters and were mixed with vinyl in mind. These were not remixed for CD, but 'ripped' from the final mix to (probably) DAT and then pressed to CD.
Now the eq of a CD version of a vinyl mix suffered. An ADD CD or DDD CD didn't. I am presuming that the RIAA eq was transfered to the AAD CD and the CD inputs on amps did not have the required RIAA circuitry.
As for me getting the inputs wrong? Give me some credit.
Input from a turntable into a CD/AUX input is so low that it is unlistenable.
Input from a CD into a phono input (with or without RIAA eq) will blow it up or overload it - (the stage A amp).
Also, reel to reel on a radio station isn't set up for speed but time instead. 90 mins/reel is better for radio than 30 mins for live recording, so the recorders are slow, thus more hiss and compression. Same technology but different setup.

Re:it's not the lawsuits

[Shakrai]

More and more devices can play video. I think the time will come when it's almost as ubiquitous as music, and at that point, we'll see how the MPAA fairs.

Perhaps, but even if video was a ubiquitous as music, I don't think the same arguments apply to the movie studios as do the record labels. Just about anybody can buy the gear required to master a recording. Just about anybody can pay somebody to press CDs for them and/or use the internet to distribute content.

There's a little bit more involved in the production of any movie (even one without the special effects that seem to substitute for plot these days) then there is in the production of a record release. I think you'll still see movie studios around in one way or another -- maybe an upstart will shake things up and force them to abandon the DRM -- but they will still be around.

Lawyers are the problem here

[Z00L00K]

since they will only earn money if they can run a lawsuit - doesn't matter if they win or lose the case - they always win the money anyway.

Sometimes I would like to see the Klingon legal rules about the lawyers...

Re:Lawyers are the problem here

[sm62704]

Sometimes I would like to see the Klingon legal rules about the lawyers...

Was Jesus a Klingon? Luke 11:46 - "And he [Jesus] said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers."

-mcgrew

Paying = Winning?

[Anonymous Coward]

How, exactly, does the consumer win by paying over $220,000?

Re:Paying = Winning?

[sm62704]

These are marketers. Polish that turd. It's like the old car commercials, which I have finally decoded.

Pontiac: "We build excitement". The brakes and handling suck.
Chevy: "Like A Rock". Damned thing won't start
Ford: "Quality is job 1!" They have a lot of work to do in the "quality" department.

It's kind of like the lottery, too - "you can't win if you don't play". You can't lose, either.

These boys are liars. If Zaphod were listening to these bozos, his glasses would go jet black in no time. It makes me feel dirty just listening to them.

-mcgrew

Its called saving face.

[DaedalusHKX]

The sheeple have moved onto a new drug... ipod, itunes, zune, etc... online shops.

The really smart ones have been pirating the music all along, and maybe buying merchandise from the actual concerts. Personally, I know a few local bands that got their start selling CDR's of their own music. They're still small but at least those of us who like them, listen to them live and know most of them by name/face in real life. Can't say that with the big boys. Once they "sell out" as it were, they all develop "star syndrome", and forget who got them where they are. Loyalties shift, from their art to their profits, and the art shows it. I am all for selling or exchanging everything under the sun, but I strongly disbelieve that better art can be produced if businessmen are involved in its production. If the primary motive is profit, it isn't art, it is mere labor. And a labor for the love of something other than the labor involved, will show in the final result. As far as I've seen, it always does.

The market is self correcting, and right now the small players have the means to play the game on their own terms. This scares the crap out of the big boys. This is why they're forcing to move government and corporations in the direction of control and restriction over the online medium. Have to reign in the freedom the internet guaranteed to those who used it. Too much information is available that challenges the status quo, and it is available for free... all one has to do is sift it. Too many products are being sold without the leeches stealing their cut... this will have to change if big monopolies, both in government and business, are to survive and oppress the next century also. China is leading the way, and the rest of the world's "democracies" are quickly learning to follow the leader.

Re:Its called saving face.

[garett_spencley]

Can't say that with the big boys. Once they "sell out" as it were, they all develop "star syndrome", and forget who got them where they are. Loyalties shift, from their art to their profits, and the art shows it.

Just curious. How many "big boys" have you known personally that "sold out" and stopped being your personal friend after they became famous and started releasing poor art ?

Also, as a musician I can tell you that a lot artists' "first album" are collections of songs that had been written and perfected over the many years that they were trying to put something together that's "successful". Then when they get signed they're under contract to put out so many albums over a specific period of time. That might support your theory that business is bad for art, but keep in mind that the bands that don't enter into such contracts end up releasing one album every 5 - 7 years (Esthero and Screaming Trees are two examples that come to mind) and their fans scream just as loudly for not having fresh content as Metallica fans scream loudly about their new stuff being crap.

It's a catch-22. Either bands put out a mediocre album every 1 - 2 years and tour and make enough money to live or they work day jobs and put out an awesome album every 5 - 7 years and don't make nearly enough to live doing what they really want to do. It's a personal choice and no one is in a position to say that one is better than the other.

Re:Its called saving face.

[HTH NE1]

The sheeple have moved onto a new drug... ipod, itunes, zune, etc... online shops.

The really smart ones have been pirating the music all along, and maybe buying merchandise from the actual concerts. How would you categorize those that have not been buying CDs long before anyone even suggested boycotting music?

Modern media is already supersaturated with music. I feel no compelling reason to possess any of it for its own sake.

Re:Its called saving face.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The sheeple..."

I stopped giving a fuck about what you think right there.

It's funny that you insult people who are followers while yourself being one, referring to people as "sheeple" wasn't your line and the shit you spew isn't yours either.

You're just a different kind of follower, so stop pretending you're special. And your post shows quite obviously that your arrogance isn't supported by any kind of intellectual prowess.

Re:Its called saving face.

[twistedsymphony]

Well, it does change from artist to artist but you make a good point and I can see the senario described fitting perfectly with a number of artists I listen to regularly.

A bit off-topic but what you describe is only part of the problem. While they're being contractually forced to produce new "art" on a regimented timeline they also usually have all-day every-day to spend improving their technique and producing that new art as opposed to 1 or 2 jobs with music on the side.

I think a bigger problem is that when they're down in the ditches they have a good pulse on the people that they play their music for, once the reach stardom they're spending more time with corporate big wigs and marketing types than they are with their fan base and as a result they lose touch. Obviously everyone reacts differently to different situations but I've found that the best musicians are those that either spend a lot of time with their fans, keeping a good grip on that pulse, or those that spend a lot of time with other musicians sharing new ideas and exploring new territories.

Re:Its called saving face.

[AndersOSU]

How would you categorize those that have not been buying CDs long before anyone even suggested boycotting music?

Old.

Hey I like the white album too, but I can only listen to it so many times before I crave something new. Oh, and art tends to evolve, and it is interesting to see how old bands influence new bands.

But I respect the onion on your belt, I'll be getting off your lawn now.

Re:Its called saving face.

[garett_spencley]

A bit off-topic but what you describe is only part of the problem. While they're being contractually forced to produce new "art" on a regimented timeline they also usually have all-day every-day to spend improving their technique and producing that new art as opposed to 1 or 2 jobs with music on the side.

That can actually be a problem though.

My wife and I started an online business a few years ago and it grew to the point where I could sit back and "let the money roll in" so to speak. We weren't wealthy by any standards but we were living comfortably and didn't have what you would call a day job. I decided to focus on my music. I practiced 8 - 12 hours per day and released an album (sorry for the shameless self plug).

You know what I found ? Practicing all day every day was a great way to give myself "musical writer's block". Most of the "magic" happens when I've taken a break for a little while. Even people who knew their entire adolescent lives that they wanted to grow up to be musicians and carry it into adulthood (and actually have talent rather than delusions) can find that they grow tired of it pretty quick when it's an all day every day kind of thing. That's one of the possible reasons why bands like No Doubt and The Beatles (not to compare them, just use them as two examples of artists that have been through this) radically changed their style and genre from album to album. The only problem with that is that if you do it too much your label might drop you since they often want clones of your original success.

Re:Its called saving face.

[HTH NE1]

Hey I like the white album too, but I can only listen to it so many times before I crave something new. Oh, and art tends to evolve, and it is interesting to see how old bands influence new bands. I think the only Beatles I have is the Let It Be album on CD. If I want to hear something new, I can turn on the radio, TV, or see a movie. I don't replay what I have very often. What new stuff I do get I'll play half a dozen or so times through then retire it (so I tend to memorize track order as well). Of my last four CD purchases, three were soundtracks (Electric Dreams, Battlestar Galactica 3, and Dethklok), and one a remix CD (ULLAdubULLA II).

I have an iPod Shuffle. I use it mostly to listen to podcasts (and get annoyed that some in AAC I downloaded from iTunes still won't play). A lot of the other stuff are things that I find quotable but not Googleable (like The Adventures of Ruby). I have yet to buy anything from iTunes.

There was one new song I heard on a TV show that I thought was interesting enough for me to check out other stuff by the artist. Then I heard two other shows use the same song in the same week. That turned me off. I couldn't even tell you its name or artist now, only that the singer's voice was modulated to sound like an organ.

Re:Its called saving face.

[mrmud]

Here's a blog from a smaller band regarding an record company trying to get them on board.. and the amusing result.

In other words...

[Jaysyn]

... the customer is always right. (Because they are spending the money.)

Finally!

[radiumhahn]

I bought every album I listen to. My friends bought every album they they listen too. We buy less music because there is less music we like available right now. We "hate" you waging war on us because you signed 1000 artists and rushed their CD production thinking a % would go big. New flash "If you build it they won't come". Your "Field of Dreams" growth plan was stupid. Slapping the hand that feeds you was stupid. People like music for the experience. You business practices interfered with peoples enjoyment of the product. OF COURSE THAT KILLED SALES! If MacDonalds punched every visitor in the face people would eventually stop craving french fries.

Re:Finally!

[Mayhem178]

If MacDonalds punched every visitor in the face people would eventually stop craving french fries.

It's been done.

Problem is with the antiquated business model

[deviated_prevert]

The industry missed the fact that consumers are miffed at the "album" way of selling music. 10-15 years ago a different business model should have been launched. If there were music kiosks in stores with the ability to burn disks on demand then there would be no reason for this situation. Consumers are more interested in choice. The consumer could pay less for cheapo compilations of mp3 crap...or more for high quality audio disks, from the same source. There would also be the added benefit of not having to put up with unsold inventory and the distribution nightmares of gazillions of disks.

An easy source for some older classical music recordings would also result in increased sales. If you have an interest in classical music the change that has taken place over the last 10 years is disgusting, there is no longer an easy source for good classical recordings which is my biggest gripe! Edgar is right the industry has no one to blame but themselves for alienating the public.

Axiom: The Customer is ALWAYS right..

[JackMeyhoff]

while they hold the money you want, they are always right (even when they're wrong) :)

Doubletalk

[Spy der Mann]

Saying the war with consumers WAS (past tense) wrong, implies that the war has finished already. But what about the College Opportunity and Affordability Act, concerning colleges and filesharers?

No, the war ain't over, and we haven't won yet. But be warned: We WILL win. Sooner or later, we will win. Whether you make peace with us or are mercilessly defeated, depends on you.

Re:Doubletalk

[IL-CSIXTY4]

Is this some new trend in the business world? I read the other day that some bigwig at Sony was saying the high-def format war was a mistake, and it seems like there's been a rush of new Blu-Ray ads since then. Is this some kind of distraction tactic?

Re:Doubletalk

[magus_melchior]

I don't have mod points, and if I did, I would give them all to you if it were possible.

They're transitioning past the "lawsuit" stage into the "lobby" and "buy politicians" stage. Believing that an industry CEO admits defeat while lawsuits are ongoing and subpoenas still filed is like believing Chamberlain's talk about "peace in our time".

(Curse you, Godwin.)

They never learn

[Billosaur]

"We used to fool ourselves,' he said. "We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding.

He should have asked the ice man, the milk man, the telephone operator, etc. They probably thought their industries would never change, until one day they were handed pink slips. When they walked outside, the world had changed. That's the constant -- change. That's a CEO's job -- to anticipate, recognize, and plan for, change. Not only is he a little late in recognizing this (the damage that's been done isn't going to be undone anytime soon), but he hasn't done a very good job doing his job.

Re:They never learn

[DeanFox]

He's the heir to the Seagram's fortune. He wouldn't remember the milk man, but his servants might. The men running these corporations live in different worlds.

These men don't have a clue what the common person wants. They've never bought a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread in their lives. They end up giving us what we want by watching profits. They're guessing that if profits go up they must be doing something right. If profits go down they shoot in the dark until profits go back up again. But understand what we want? No.

-[d]-

Bingo

[Kythe]

Call off the dogs, then talk to us about how you shouldn't have gone fox-hunting.

It's not just the overlap

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I'm sure there is some considerable overlap between people who (to some degree) pay for music and people who (to some degree) rip it illegally. But I don't think that's the root cause of the problem (or at least, not the only root cause).

The basic problem is that by attacking the pirates, the megacorps have made their products worse even for 100% legitimate users. I am sick and tired of having to sit through unskippable ads at the start of legally purchased DVDs. I am sick and tired of having to wait several seconds while my legally downloaded music track is checked out by some DRM-checking engine. I'm sick and tired of having to jump through hoops to "activate" my legally installed software. I'm not even going near various new toys (I'm looking at you, HD discs and Windows Vista), in large part because I don't trust them not to break and the companies who took my money to leave me hanging after all the horror stories.

Now, sure, part of their problem is that by doing this they make their legal products relatively worse than the illegally ripped versions, rather than equivalent except in price and legality. This no doubt motivates a significant number of people to rip things just to avoid the crap.

But they also make their products worse in absolute terms. Why on earth would I pay the same amount of my money for something that is less pleasant to use than what I used to get? In fact, why would I pay my money at all, when I can use numerous legal alternatives that come without the headaches, even without resorting to copyright infringement? I have a finite budget, and I can find entertainment from perfectly legal sources that don't line the pockets of big media: live music or recordings by independent artists, OSS for software, etc. Does it really matter that I haven't seen the latest blockbuster movie on HD-DVD, or played the latest DirectX 10-enabled game, as long as I'm entertained by what I spend my leisure budget on?

The short answer is no, it doesn't. If the megacorps want me to spend my hard-earned money on their products rather than someone else's, they need to make the better products. This argument has nothing to do with ripped versions of the same products, and everything to do with more pleasant alternative products becoming more widely available.

what apology?

[resfilter]

there's no real apology for lawsuits in this article, in fact i don't think he mentions riaa or lawsuits once, or takes any kind of blame for the increasing flood of copyright infringement that's happened.

his 'fighting the consumers' thing speaks more to fighting what consumers want in release formats and product value rather than their constant legal confrontations on copyright infringement.

they're admitting to the realization that the format of the content they're releasing is responsible for lost sales, and confirming their success with formats such as itunes bundles

what he's come up with is anything but a 'rare apology', ALL the record executives realize that the audio cd retail distribution model is outdated, and most of them likely wouldn't be ashamed to admit that.

biting the hand that feeds you = bad

[themushroom]

Took this long to realize you cannot sue your customers and still keep them as customers?

Next press release: "Falling CD sales not due to piracy, it turns out, but due to record companies alienating customers."

Simple

[Torodung]

"I'm left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently."

Easy. Lobby your incompetent bunch of lawmakers to pass an industry sweetheart bill allowing you to file them in bulk, at little to no risk or cost to the filer, and in defiance of centuries of legal precedent.

If they hadn't filed those suits, they would have been sued by their shareholders for gross negligence.

It was a foregone conclusion of the DMCA, not a malicious act. Blame Congress. They're a bunch of lawyers, and they should know better than to create a special legal circumstance for a special interest with lots of money and power to begin with.

--
Toro

Re:Who won? Part 2

[asphaltjesus]

You forgot collusion, which the Kazaa owners have mysteriously settled http://www.sharmannetworks.com/content/view/full/321/

Other collusion investigations have quietly ended (surprised?) as well. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39118776,00.htm

A nice summary of how the whole thing works: http://techdirt.com/articles/20060112/1223218.shtml

This kind of mea culpa is a way to deflect the obvious control of global media distribution. They are still going to overcharge you for a DVD, and screw most of the creative/production people with questionable accounting. Please don't start a "but actors are getting paid..." discussion. A FEW actors get paid ridiculous sums, media conglomerates get paid even more and no one is the wiser.

Whether /.'ers like it or not, there's no reason to celebrate.

and apple won

[circletimessquare]

by filling the void the record companies should have filled. now iTunes dictates to the record companies the terms under which they operate. it's a power vacuum that the record companies should have filled when they had the opportunity, and they failed capitalize on that opportunity

they instead viewed digital content as a threat because they liked their model: $20 per CD, 60 cents to the artist, "only one song i like" to the consumer

now it's belt tightening time, if not outright extinction. artists can distribute online on their own terms. giving away free music with an online tip jar is still better money than the suffocating terms the record companies pay artists. and artists make their names online: who cares if the record company can hype you on mtv or the radio. myspace, facebook, hello?

hard to figure how the old record behemoths matter anynmore. their relevancy shrivels every day. sorry, dinosaurs. must suck to realize you're extinct. guess it's time to sue some more grandmothers out of spite i suppose

nothing but shortsighted assholes and losers. good fucking riddance to the whole lot of them

Re:and apple won

[cdrguru]

iTunes is probably the most successful music venture in the 21st century. iTunes is delivering 3-4% of the music downloads - the rest are free.

How the heck is iTunes a success or even relevent?

Follow the porn industry

[freshmayka]

The porn industry has always adapted rapidly and successfully when new consumer technologies emerged that could benefit their business.

If I was a CEO today trying to figure out what the next big "change" will be, I'd keep my eyes on the adult industry and study how they have adapted to the new business environment.

Re:Follow the porn industry

[vux984]

I'd keep my eyes on the adult industry and study how they have adapted to the new business environment.

1) Hi my name is , and I'm a lonely lonely, come see my pictures on my website.
2) Get M E g A d i K !
3) 69% of women say that more semen is arousing. Increase your load...
4) No minors allowed. Click here to enter and see the hot porn only if you are 18 years old (or are willing to lie)
5) Your baby maker needs to be bigger...
6) Infinitely deep cross linked websites with no content.
7) Pioneers of, and one of biggest remaining proponents of the flashing banner ad.

Yeah, the world needs more enterprises with vision like this.

Not Kool-Aid, Whiskey

[good soldier svejk]

You're drinking his kool-aid.

The Bronfmans made Whiskey, not Kool-Aid. Admittedly, Sam Bronfman bent some ethical rules smuggling product through Capone's Chicago organization during prohibition, but overall the family has a good rep.

Re:Not Kool-Aid, Whiskey

[Dystopian Rebel]

overall the family has a good rep HAD a good rep... until they left off booze smuggling and became part of the truly immoral Musico-Idolatry Complex.

Re:Not Kool-Aid, Whiskey

[Jamil Karim]

the family has a good rep. How good? Exalted? Revered? Honored? Friendly? ;-)

Re:Not Kool-Aid, Whiskey

[Kris_J]

Apparently he spent months becoming friendly with the Bloodsail Pirates, then realised it screwed over his engineering.

Warner & Simmons

[scharkalvin]

Let's lock Gene Simmons in the bathroom with Warner's CEO and
see what happens.

Re:Warner & Simmons

[sm62704]

Let's lock Gene Simmons in the bathroom with Warner's CEO and
see what happens.

I have a better idea. Lets lock them in a room with Steve Ballmer and a chair.

Read this guy's resume.

[Animats]

Well, what do you expect? Read Bronfman's entry on Wikipedia. He was the heir to Seagram's Liquor. His whole life has been carried along by family connections. Highlights from Wikipedia:

• "He was particularly active in school theatre, an interest his parents supported by donating to construct The Ann and Edgar Bronfman Theatre during a 1967 expansion at The Collegiate School, the prestigious private school in Manhattan which Edgar Jr. attended."
• "The summer before his final year of high school, in 1972, he was a credited producer on the film, The Blockhouse. Despite his inexperience, Bronfman's involvement was accepted because of his connections and access to financing."
• "By 1994 he became the Chief Executive Officer (of Seagrams), where he began a move away from the traditional liquor business and into entertainment. The first step in this diversification was the widely criticized sale of Seagram's stake in DuPont."
• "Bronfman, Jr., then led Seagram into a disastrous all-stock acquisition by French conglomerate Vivendi in 2000."
• "Seagram's for all intents and purposes ceased to exist."
• "On February 27, 2004, Bronfman finalized the acquisition of Warner Music Group and he has served as Chairman and CEO of the music company since that time."

He didn't build up Warner Music, or move up within the company, or come to it from success elsewhere. He bought the thing with inherited money, after a long career as a failed executive.

Re:Read this guy's resume.

[Trailer Trash]

He didn't build up Warner Music, or move up within the company, or come to it from success elsewhere. He bought the thing with inherited money, after a long career as a failed executive.

To be brutally honest, it's unlikely that he can do worse than the guys who are running the other RIAA "members".

Re:Read this guy's resume.

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't build up Warner Music, or move up within the company, or come to it from success elsewhere. He bought the thing with inherited money, after a long career as a failed executive.

Not to chance subjects, but it sounds vaguely like someone else I know who is in the White House.

We Americans have always loved to claim that we got rid of monarchy in favor of democracy, but the truth is that we just replaced it with a corporatocracy. There are a lot of things that need to change in this country.

Oh hell

[sm62704]

Edgar Bronfman, CEO of the Warner Music Group, has publicly framed the music industry's failure to accommodate file-sharing as an 'inadvertent' war on consumers

I'm SO sorrry, I got that damned nasty lawyer all over you. Here, let me get you a napkin...

Pff...

[sunami]

Inadvertent my ass... They got Title IV Section 408 passed of the DMCA on purpose (http://www.xkcd.com/344/)

What he said:

[Rolgar]

"'inadvertent' war on consumers" Quite simply, they didn't recognize that there are not 2 types of music consumers, 'pirates' and 'customers', but three, 'pirate-non-customers', 'non-pirate-customers' and 'pirate-customers' and while the 'non-pirate-customers' might be the most profitable per-capita, the third is a sizable (maybe even majority) portion of their customers and they don't like being treated like criminals.

Re:What he said:

[Reverend528]

What about non-pirate non-customers? The amish don't listen to recorded music.

False choice

[Anonymous Coward]

"Either bands put out a mediocre album every 1 - 2 years"

Yeah... the Rolling Stones.... Mediocre Album after mediocre album. Ever year for decades. Their fans must be dumb.

Or the Eagles. Look at all that crappy material... released like clockwork once a year.

Or Billy Joel. He sure sucks. For 30 years.

Or Bruce Springsteen.

Doesn't it strike you as odd that talented people (songwriter/performers) have had long, stellar careers releasing albums like clockwork. But it requires patience and spending money on talent development. It seems to me once upon a time, the labels did value talent and craft. But they must've decide it was cheaper to go with 1 hit wonders. Just a guess.

Re:False choice

[mr_mischief]

Bigger names demand bigger cuts. The studios/labels/A&R people want big hits from small names so they keep more of the money.

Re:False choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, those are perfect examples, actually.

The rolling stones? yeah, they had a few good songs. Mostly crap.

The eagles? Um, they NEVER put out ANYTHING worth listening to. I cringe every time I hear that stupid "hotel california" abomination. It was terrible the first time, it doesn't age well.

Billy joel? yeah, some serious stinkers out of him.

Springsteen? you've got to be kidding me. vaguely catchy meaningless pop garbage.

I think you've proved GP's point perfectly with your examples. Those aren't musicians, they're industry hacks, with as little talent as britney spears.

An inadvertent download....

[bushboy]

I expected my media would remain blissfully unaffected even as the wheels of consumerism, constant marketing and legal threats was exploding ... By ... moving at a rapid pace, I inadvertently went to war by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, I won.

His mea culpa is convenient

[awfar]

They still don't like you, and only tolerate you while you hand them a dollar.

As he said, you can get what they have elsewhere.

Do it and never look back.

Yeah, I am still PO'd as for my youth they all had a pricing and sales model which made it nearly impossible to enjoy music, my culture, at a price that I did not have to trade off something like food.

System Shock 2

[Akaihiryuu]

Slightly offtopic (or not), but I couldn't resist. That really reminded me of the behavior of the Hybrids in System Shock 2...how they would run at you and beat you with pipes while apologizing to you and screaming for you to run away.

Re:System Shock 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, yes, one of the creepiest aspects of the game.

Incidentally, one of the lines the Hybrids moaned at you was (if I recall correctly):"Your song is not ours!"...

Except he missed the point anyway

[allthingscode]

He's so focused on music that he missed even his own point: give customers what they want, don't try to make them take what you think they should get. Yes, we want easy to access music, because with the newer technology, we shouldn't have to do the same old thing to get music. What he should be telling the carriers is to stop thinking that they can push what they want onto customers, because the customer will find a way to get what they want anyway. Apple is fighting that very thing with the iPhone. Bronfman should be telling Apple to quit and listen to the customer rather than trying to control them.

Consumers won?

[3.2.3]

"consumers won."

Really? I can't see how anybody won anything. Consumers were sued. That's hardly a win. And now everybody hates the music industry more than ever before. That's not a win, either.

The RIAA/MPAA are kind of like GW Bush, fighting a war they never should have started, that nobody wants, and that is doing nothing but harm.

Only Possible Response

[Nom du Keyboard]

"Edgar Bronfman, CEO of the Warner Music Group, has publicly framed the music industry's failure to accommodate file-sharing as an 'inadvertent' war on consumers.

Well yeah!

And you actually get paid more in a year than I'll see in my entire lifetime to run a major record company???

Put Up or Shut Up

[maz2331]

Okay, if he is serious then he needs to take action:

1. Repudiate all the lawsuits immediately.
2. Pay every defendant's legal fees and Warner's share of any money recieved in settlements or judgements.

Money talks, and bullshit walks.

WHOOPS I JUST INADVERTENLY DOWNLOADED ANOTHER CD!

[quonsar]

Damn, I hate it when that shit happens!

At least they recongize it is over

[cdrguru]

Consumers/sharers won. Music has no monetary value today. If you want to sell some recorded music, you might find some people that don't know how to download or have too slow an Internet connection. Some people might pay money on iTunes for the same MP3 that you or I would just download for free. A few folks with heavy guilt complexes might want to pay or they wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

Now the record companies can move on. Only problem is, where are they going to move to? Nobody in their right mind is going to pay lots of money for trinket go-with items like jewel cases for their CDs. Pretty much the "recorded music industry" is going to disappear now that the exec's have figured out their "war" is over.

I'd expect to see in the next year or so some new media distribution deal coming along. One that doesn't involve music in any way but is difficult or impossible for the average person to re-distribute. Probably because of raw size, but also temporal locality - something like a 24-hour live Big Brother show but only on the Internet. If you miss something, well, keep watching because something completely new and original will happen - just keep watching 24x7.

Just think about some unknown "instant celebrity" having a camera on them 24x7 (night vision in the dark) for people to watch. Look! She's combing her hair again! Look! She is putting on THAT dress!

Re:At least they recongize it is over

[plasmacutter]

they could simply transition into pr and merchandising firms, and compete with the relevant marketing and agencies.

god knows they can subsist on their bloat for a very long time trying things until something works.

Re:At least they recongize it is over

[shark72]

"god knows they can subsist on their bloat for a very long time trying things until something works."

You're referring to Warner? Their share price has dropped from $27 to $7.50 since January, they're down to $280MM in liquid cash, and they lost $14MM last quarter. At this burn rate, they have less than five years left.

This is incongruous with the Slashdot "the record companies make insane profits" meme, but it's the ugly truth. Ed'll be out of a job soon if he can't turn WMG around.

A subtle plot

[XHIIHIIHX]

Geez, doesn't anyone pirate videogames anymore? Music and DVD's are so pointless, why buy something that you can record from the radio or tivo in a few months or rent on netflix? This is all a subtle plot so that slashdotters don't notice that their entire ability to pirate videogames has been usurped by peer - to - peer videogaming aka MMOG. Brilliant!

i actually agree with you

[circletimessquare]

iTunes is just a stopgap measure between the old world and the new

in the new world, all music content will be free. artists will support themselves with tip jars and advertisements and touring. and THERE WILL BE NO MIDDLE MAN. because the internet has simply replaced them

iTunes, bertelsman, polygram: dust in the wind. the dutch east india company. extinct. defunct, irrelevant and unnecessary

and these developments have nothing at all to do with all the tired old legal arguments. it will just happen, because it's simple economic forces at work

the final implications of the new technology called the internet is the extinction of all music publishers

bummer

[Myopic]

Great. It seems a few people in the industry and just beginning to dawn on the idiocy of their actions.

Bummer it's too god damned late. Sorry guys, you could have delivered musical nirvana in 1996 (musical nirvana, not the music of Nirvana) but instead you refused to take any action, followed by insisting on taking only the action of suing your customers. It's a decade late for you to start saying you 'get it', and the fact is there are only a few of you who get it anyway.

(Musical nirvana would be like Napster except with an inexpensive pay system: all the music ever recorded in high-quality format easily searchable for inexpensive cost. That would have been possible in ~1995, and certainly by 2000 or 2001.)

The music industry was like the drug industry and the RIAA acted like the government: consumers had a demand and the RIAA/government thought that demand was morally bad, so instead of meeting demand in a reasonable, safe, and profitable manner, they stuck their heads up their asses and made the problem worse. In reaction, consumers filled their own needs created by their own demands with their own products and services, cutting the RIAA/government completely out of the equation completely.

If the industry 'gets it' in the next five or six years, it won't matter; if they 'get it' tomorrow, it won't matter. The time to get it was about 1997, maybe 1998, and certainly by 2000. You didn't get it, and you have caused yourself irreparable harm. You will survive, but you will not thrive in the brave new world you allowed to be created without your input or help. And I'm happy enough to see them go. I think they add value to the music culture, but not much.

Haha, nice question...

[DaedalusHKX]

I'll answer by stating merely that you and I are in the same boat. I buy little or no music at all, and for the most part I prefer orchestral music rather than lyrical stuff.

So I would call those who prefer not to go ga-ga over bands and their internal issues as "free".

----------------

Now for my own opinion of "mainstream music" and the urge to have it blasting non stop? As far as I've seen, participation in certain types of music concerts and or CD/tape collections tend to be more related to "fitting in" or "belonging" to a certain group (thus elevating one's status in society by being a member of some group or other, even if the group membership is the "depressed loner goth", it is still a "group"). It is also the fear of being truly alone with silence and introspection as one's only companions that drives participation, and the fear of silence, rather than the actual love of any type of music. The desire to hear voices and be "not alone" is what drives the urge so many have to keep the TV on, non stop and the desire to buy myriad CD, tapes, MP3's etc. It also seems to be why said discs, tapes or files have to be on the Walkman or iPod running non stop, with earmuffs drowning the user in sound.

Gods only know, if the user had some silence, with nature as their only sound source, the individual might have to take stock of the world and learn to live life, instead of merely running a rat race of someone else's design. But then again... since when is introspection valued by the fast food generations? That stuff is passe, old school, not fast enough, and it makes those senses actually work, rather than be kept on the IV drip.

My antidote to mainstream culture exposure is to take a hunting trip or fishing trip every chance I get, merely because it is relaxing to be out of doors. I rarely actually take a shot at any game, I mostly go to enjoy my time as a human being, away from all the rats chasing some cheese that is just out of reach.

Re:Haha, nice question...

[totally bogus dude]

As far as I've seen, people who prefer orchestral music tend to think they're better than everyone else, possibly just as a side-effect of having less popular tastes. This tends to isolate them a little as none of their friends enjoy the same kind of music as them. They sometimes get teased a bit, too: "don't let so-and-so pick the music, all he listens to his boring orchestral stuff."

To compensate, they denigrate anyone that enjoys more common or mainstream music, trying to convince themselves that nobody actually likes that sort of thing and only listen to it because they're so desperate to appear to fit in, or because they're such complete sheeple they can't stand being alone with their thoughts. Everyone knows that introspection and enjoying life is a privilege only enjoyed by the elite few, who appreciate the finer things.

It's not as if anyone could enjoy the rhythm and hook of mainstream music, or find it invigorating. Certainly there's no chance people might associate such music with the fun times they've had socialising with their friends and generally enjoying life and connecting with other human beings.

I guess musical pretentiousness isn't reserved for the indie-rock crowd after all.

Re:Haha, nice question...

[DaedalusHKX]

I wasn't denigrating music that is "enjoyed" but what I see to border on near obsession with mainstream music or those that produce it (I actually have no pity for those harmed in accidents they could've avoided by not wearing iPod earbuds while traveling, whether they were operating the vehicle or hit by it. I also have no pity whatsoever for those who killed themselves when Kurt Cobain gave birth to the Doom cheatcode IDCOBAIN.)

As for music...most of it just helps me unwind. Personally I prefer utter silence or a good (preferably heated but still polite) discussion, but I've still got Metallica's Black Album and a whole bunch of Megadeth/Nightwish on my shelf. That doesn't, however, mean that it is what I prefer to listen to non-stop. Music has its purposes, but that isn't to drown out the world around us and the things we should be focused on (such as driving, walking, operating heavy equipment, etc.

Just my opinion. (I still have something by Biggie or Dre somewhere in my tape collection from high school, and to shock the truly sissy boys I still have an ICP tape lying around, its labelled "soft lyrics" but that's another story. I still like Bon Jovi or Hardline while I'm cruising on the highway }:) The list could go on and on, but I presume you get the idea :)

It is all about how I feel at the time. Orchestral stuff is good to unwind... different types of music induce different emotional responses. I've not bothered to emotionally hamstring myself by listening to only ONE type of music. I simply do not understand why so many people choose to be drowned in sound while doing things they should be fully paying attention to. Such as life. Frankly, I still hold that anyone hit by a car while wearing iPod buds should be denied coverage and the person that hit them, should receive the benefit of the doubt, unless the (other) driver is wearing iPod buds him/herself... in that case, no coverage to either of them, and NO lawsuit or appeal capacity at all.

War was wrong!

[Intron]

... because we lost.

Show us that we're all on the same side

[Dachannien]

If Bronfman really cared about the customer, he'd read this article and speak out against the RIAA's assault on college financial aid.

Obligatory Billy Joel's "Leningrad"

[plasmacutter]

"they won" he says..well..

"What do they keep on fighting for?"

come on RIAA, time to turn your ships around and tear the cuban missiles down!

In other news...

[Ang31us]

Hell freezes over and pigs fly. ;-)

Re: Time is a fine measure

[TaoPhoenix]

Purchases are for whatever you'd like to do with them. (Some uses more creative than others as seen on YouTube .)

I've definitely gotten "days" worth of enjoyment out of certain songs, because it made some other experience that much fuller. "Gee. I could play with this shareware. Or, I could play with the shareware with tunes going full tilt for the same four hours."

The short duration of enjoyment is a problem that began to kill the arcades and certain restaurants.

goodwill spending.

[DragonTHC]

Edgar Bronfman: "Please, please buy our wares. we know now that we were wrong!"

Me: "Get bent, asshat!"

That's corporations for you...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

... just when they look like they're going to do something not entirely unselfish (like fight piracy), they realise that they can make more money in the short term caving to populist ideology.

Getting it right

[CopaceticOpus]

Bronfman went on to say he would be pressing the RIAA to drop all lawsuits immediately, and that Warner would repay the excessive fees and settlements levied against file sharers. He then revealed Warner Music's new online store, featuring albums available in FLAC, 320kb mp3, and ogg formats, with most albums selling for $3-$5. Albums over 25 years old will be offered for free, with advertising to compensate the server costs.

He went on to state that many of his label's acts had been promoted based on style over substance, and that these acts would no longer be actively promoted. Instead, Warner's new site would also provide a place where any band could freely compete for listeners based on word of mouth and the quality of their work, with the most appealing bands rising to the top, and being rewarded with the opportunity to be promoted by Warner. Warner will split the profits from album, t-shirt, and touring sales with the bands, but the bands will retain full creative and copyright control of their works.

Oh wait, that didn't happen at all.

To stop the RIAA:

[Lost Penguin]

The only way to stop the RIAA is through a series of "secondary boycotts" and public protests.
For example:
Boycott BestBuy for selling RIAA sponsered CDs.
Get a license to protest, as per any city or state laws.
Stand in front of BestBuy all day with picket signs; "BestBuy supports RIAA/MPAA lawsuits against you"
Keep this up till BestBuy removes all CDs/DVDs from their stores.
Go to Walmart and repeat......
Next?

*snort*

[zogger]

...some funny stuff, man! yada yada "The brakes and handling suck." BWAHAHAHA! Love those market speak translations, you should do them for more cars and more products. soap powder "Gets your whites whiter than white!" translation "We got ahold of some industrial toxic waste free for hauling it off that makes cloth very white and fall apart after three washings-the kickbacks from the cotton lobby are great!"

stuff like that

Re:*snort*

[sm62704]

Damn, I only got a 4. Tough room!

I want to take this seriously, but...

[jelton]

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt (enough rope to hang themselves with). But, given the paucity of Mr. Bronfman's concessions, it seems premature to alter my own behavior. I would be much more receptive to his statements (and therefore inclined to reconsider my current boycott of Warner (as part of the RIAA)) if his statement had included the following sentiments:
Based upon this conclusion, Warner Music Group (WMG):

1. Is either currently withdrawing from all lawsuits against alleged P2P users, or is investigating doing so;
2. Has officially communicated its displeasure with the current lawsuit regime to the RIAA; and
3. Will work with leading copyright scholars to draft a consumer's bill of rights that will, at the very least, clarify fair use in the context of sharing and sampling.

While I don't believe that the recording industry has engaged in a criminal conspiracy, I do note that when such a conspiracy exists, the law demands more than mere withdrawal from the conspiracy in order to shield a participant from further liability from the acts of their co-conspirators. By analogy, then, WMG's participation in lawsuits against P2P users has sullied WMG's reputation and mere renunciation of the "war on consumers" is inadequate to rectify the harm done. They are going to need to take some affirmative steps to atone for what they have done, at least in my eyes. I'm not counting on any of this happening, mind you, just thinking out loud.

Are you listening, Warner?

Re:I want to take this seriously, but...

[shark72]

"I like to give people the benefit of the doubt (enough rope to hang themselves with). But, given the paucity of Mr. Bronfman's concessions, it seems premature to alter my own behavior."

I presume that by this, you mean acquiring your music via P2P. That's perfectly fine, and expected -- it's essential to understand many people's rationalizations for piracy versus their actual reasons for piracy. For many people, the rationalization this year is DRM; in previous years, it was availability (until availability got a lot better) and price (until price fell below a buck a track). But the true motivator is much more primal: P2P music is FREE. And no matter what Messr. Bronfman and his ilk do -- they could sell uncompressed, DRM-free for $0.50 each -- many people will still not "alter their behavior" -- they'll help themselves to those uncompress, DRM-free tracks via P2P, and simply come up with a new rationalization.

Warner's got to find that thin line and do what it takes to grow their business while making a profit (something they failed to do last year), and understand that there's a certain segment out there that will continuously play the "close, but not quite" card.

Re:I want to take this seriously, but...

[jelton]

Actually, I meant boycotting RIAA members. Although I used Napster back in the day, I have made a point of obtaining all of my music legally since then. I either buy used CD's (such that my own money doesn't flow into the RIAA coffers) or buy independent music. That being said, I agree with you that most people provide rationalizations for the free taking that goes on and that the WMG and Bronfmans of the world will have to learn with a little loss on the margins, because the alternative is a "war on consumers."

Bullshit

[MrKaos]

this guy realises that consumers are about to crucify his greedy industry, this is the "please don't give us what we deserve" plea.

The war probably was inadvertant

[einhverfr]

The idea is quite simple. They thought that Napster was a few bad apples stealing from them (please, don't attack me for saying this-- I am not agreeing with them, just saying what I think they believed). So they sued Napster, and similar services popped up.

The problem with organizational inertia is that it tends to build, and this was an unseen slippery slope. Pretty soon they found things had gone way out of control and pretty soon we see all out war with consumers (which has still not begun to abate despite these statements).

The war was inadvertently started when the Napster lawsuit was filed, in the same way that WWI was inadvertently started when Archduke Ferdinand embarked on his visit to Sarajevo.

Napster heyday

[Morky]

I remember when Napster was shut down in it's prime. I thought, OK, music downloads are on the radar of the music companies. Now they will put their 60-year libraries of music online for sale, and at consistent, high quality - it will be awesome. But they didn't. I still don't understand why they were and are so shockingly dumb and slow. The internet should have sent their revenues sky high, but they have tragically fucked it up.

On a side note, music subscription services' pricing models baffle me. I'm mean it's absurdly cheap. The folks who sign up for them are the types who like to listen to lots of different types of music, and probably were previously buying a lot of music. Now they have basically all the music in the world for $10/month. How does the music industry make money on that?

Too little, too late

[Legion303]

Your industry went to war with consumers the minute it placed a "piracy tax" on the blank cassettes I used for my own created music, Bronfman. "Winning" isn't good enough for us anymore.

nonsense

[Scudsucker]

Searching for what you want, slow connections, seeders that disconnect on you, dealing with poorly encoded, incomplete or fake files - P2P is only "free" if your time is worthless. To borrow the line about the economy: its about the convenience, stupid. If you make decent money and don't have a lot of debt, it is more convenient to buy from a legit source as long as the service is good and the price is reasonable. If you don't make decent money, you aren't going to be able to buy the stuff in the first place. There is no functional difference between someone who downloads something for "free" because he can't afford to pay for it and someone who never would have purchased it in the first place - the company sees no money in either case. And if you have a lot of debt, you're already a good little consumer to the maximum of your ability (and maybe beyond).

End of Story.

OP is an idiot

[Lord Flipper]

. I'm left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits [CC] inadvertently.

The use of inadvertent, was to denote that the lawsuits went after 'pirates', but the collateral damage was inflicted, mostly, on 'consumers.' get it? We sue on purpose, but accidentally bite that hands that feed us. God damn, it isn't rocket science, and Warner Bros guy should get a little slack here.

to late, you are irrelevant

[Dan667]

I am so looking forward to the day that the top forty is not shoved down out throat and bands have to make it on talent once again.

Identification of filesharers

[Anonymous Coward]

was what the RIAA screwed up on.

They managed to net OAPs without computers, monthers completely clueless about computers and when they found them, the punishment meted out was sadistic in it's overreaction.

Then they bring up shit like one music exec's daughter caught filesharing was told off and said sorry. Where was the $220,000 fine then?

Pretension is fun!

[paladinwannabe2]

Don't make fun of the poor guy- for a lot of people, all they have to be pretentious about is their poor musical taste.

At least one in the SS was not "evil"

[Lost Penguin]

I had a great uncle in the SS; he wrote a letter to Hitler "informing" him of the "terrible things happening to the Jews without his knowledge".
He died in the gas chamber..... /Sigh

What good is music on a phone?

[FishinDave]

He was talking to mobile phone companies, telling them to give consumers what they want. Well, what sort of music services does a phone user want? I can't imagine a phone being the ideal platform for listening to music. So it can only be a delivery platform. Let me buy music with my phone and deliver it to the device of my choice. That's what consumers want.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

[Anonymous Coward]

His were short and funny. Yours was far too verbose and fell short.

Basically, you did for wit what they did for business: you tried to emulate while having no idea just what made it in the first place.

Bronfman...

[ratboy666]

Sam Bronfman made his fortune by bootlegging whiskey from Canada to the US during Prohibition, dealing with the likes of Al Capone in Chicago. Edgar is his son, born in 1929.

and that is why I aked him..

[zogger]

...to do some more! He is much better at it than I am, so we are in agreement here. I'd thought I'd give it a whack though..why don't you try one, just for fun?

Translation

[NoMaster]

'... we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.'

Translation: 'We lost. Now, let's talk Marshall Plan...'

(or maybe 'Sorry - I tripped, and my lawyer went off accidentally...')