Why Starting a Legal Online Music Vendor Is Tough

Hodejo1 writes "Former MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson offers commentary at The Register saying any attempts to build a sanctioned digital music site today is doomed from the outset. 'The internet companies I talk to don't mind giving some direct benefit to music companies. What torpedoes that possibility is the big financial requests from labels for "past infringement," plus a hefty fee for future usage. Any company agreeing to these demands is signing their own financial death sentence. The root cause is not the labels — chances are if you were running a label you would make the same demands, since the law permits it."

Comments

Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[StrategicIrony]

Just because I'm allowed by law to charge someone whatever I wish for the fruits of my business, this doesn't mean I would, or that I should. I would go out of business very rapidly.

However, if I ran a cartel, controlling a monopoly share of a highly desirable resource... then I guess I understand where they're coming from.

But... wait... aren't monopolies illegal for this very reason?

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[plen246]

Competition in the free market only really works when competing products are considered to be interchangeable. Unfortunately, the music-consuming public, and much of the on-line music industry, haven't yet caught on that there are alternative, independent sources of good music. Because the entire music delivery system has been built around the big labels for decades, it will require a significant push by on-line music retailers and pull by consumers to shift the industry away from the monolithic model toward a more broadly independent and distributed model. Indeed, the big labels increasingly resemble a cartel (e.g., the RIAA business and their negotiations with on-line retailers) when it should be moving the other way.

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[StrategicIrony]

Any label is not a monopoly. The collective bargaining put together by the RIAA cartel may be, however.

I would regard it akin to... All 4 of the airlines that service my city getting together and deciding collectively to triple the price of tickets out of my city.

Yes, there are other, less desirable means of transport. The bus still runs.

Yes, it is possible to start a new airline (or a new major record label), but the barrier to entry is astoundingly high (so much as to make it almost impossible).

If all 4 carriers at my local airport were colluding to set prices artificially high, they would be slapped down HARD.

Because the RIAA labels deal in slightly more nebulous items with slightly less cohesive boundaries, they're allowed to collude all they want and nobody bats and eye.

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[StrategicIrony]

However, the RIAA represents something like 90% of the music sales in the country.

The RIAA members engage in collusion to set pricing that is detrimental to their consumers.

Since music is not a necessity like fuel or food, this won't come to light in quite the same way, but imagine all of the gasoline companies with half-decent quality gasoline, all making a cartel through which they collude to set prices at their whim?

Price collusion is one of those practices which IS highly illegal when the consumer is offered little other choice.

Possibly if a record label required you to purchase some specific device from a specific manufacturer in order to listen to their music they'd be doing something illegal

Actually, no, that's not illegal. A company can could have chosen to only release their music on Mini-Disc, for example (which would have required purchase of a Sony Mini-Disc player). That's not illegal.

What would be illegal is for 90% of the record companies to collude in making the mini-disc the only outlet for music, and then collecting a premium from vastly overpriced MD players that are now required to listen to all music in the world.

Of course, this is almost exactly what TFA describes the RIAA trying to do, but in digital medium, rather than physical.

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[Znork]

Any label is not a monopoly.

Any copyrighted work is a government protected monopoly on its own, which makes the distinction harder to make.

While an airline (or two different airlines) and a bus may get you to your destination, the fact is, despite the significant attempts to make everything sound the same, different songs are not the same destination. And you can't (generally) buy the same song from different entities.

they're allowed to collude all they want and nobody bats and eye.

See, the trouble is they don't really need to collude. Monopoly pricing is set in relation to available disposable income; it's a function of what the consumers will spend. You maximize your revenue when you raise prices to the equilibrium point where higher prices mean lower income (as the higher per-unit revenue wont be outweighed by the lost sales), and not a cent below. (This point tends to be at a level where a significant number of customers cannot afford the product, and is also the main reason for things like region coding and parallel import prevention in other similar product areas)

As the monopoly pricing is set as a function of the same thing, all the players will end up with very similar price points. After that, the main competition going on is exposure and channel control (well, apart from friendly copying).

In essence, monopoly rights are irreconcilable with a free market economy. The business logic when you have a protected monopoly simply doesn't work the same way as competitive industries, so there's a permanent conflict of interest between the bigger players and everyone else. A conflict that is unlikely to be resolved until monopoly rights are restructured as non-exclusive revenue share rights, which simply is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[bsDaemon]

No, the problem is the problem with any other sort of art -- either people like it or not, and whatever arguments made, for or against, by music/art/literature majors aren't going to change (at least not in any significant way) the way that "regular" people view a piece.

Then there is also the problem of perception associated with the source. I could pay to self-publish a volume of my poems, but it'll be ignored by critics, unavailable to most readers and, ultimately, be a waste of money on my part. If I can't get in a literary magazine or picked up by a traditional publishing house, then the perception is that I'm not any good.

The same is only marginally less true for music, and the only reason that's the case is because of the whole punk/hardcore scene which morphed into "indie," and even then Sub Pop was just a stepping-stone to Geffen for Nirvana, and most "indie" labels have major-label distribution contracts, or try to sell their bands to the big boys so they can take their cut.

So, is most of what's out there today on MTV crap? Yes. Are the new offerings on college radio stations "interchangeable?" Functionally, yes, aesthetically, no.

But, if artists and the public realized that you don't need the distribution channel to be good, then it wouldn't be a problem -- the internet makes record labels and publishing houses anachronistic in the extreme.

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[Chaos Incarnate]

Maybe record labels. But have you seen some of the crap that's out there? Publishing houses, while perhaps anachronistic in terms of their business method, still serve a valuable function of filtering out the utter crap that you'd otherwise have to sift through on the shelf.

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[Lumpy]

Then there is also the problem of perception associated with the source. I could pay to self-publish a volume of my poems, but it'll be ignored by critics, unavailable to most readers and, ultimately, be a waste of money on my part.

Huh? are you going to self publish and then hide the books in a closet? Because I have self published 2 photo books and even have them on the shelves at Barnes and Noble. It's not hard to self publish and get your stuff out to the public.

If you self publish, then you have to self promote, self market, and self sell your books. I get maximum profits from that instead of making $0.75(max) a book sold by letting a publisher get all the money by doing all the work. If you want to sit there wishing, go ahead. It's what most writers and photographers do they make something and send it to some publishers and use the hope method.

The successful ones don't hope, they do. They push themselves, and work to get their stuff out there and in people's faces. If you wrote a poetry book, how many public readings are you doing a month? did you travel to Chicago last month for a public poetry reading at the Library? how have you marketed yourself?

0a 6f 6e 6c 79 20 74 68 65 20 6c 61 7a 79 20 66 61 69 6c

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[CastrTroy]

Regardless of whether there's good music out there from other sources makes no difference. If you want "hot new album", the only way to get it is through paying the copyright holder, and you have to pay whatever price they demand. Sure you could go out and buy 5 * "cool new indie album" for the same price, but you still don't have "hot new album". It's like the argument with Windows and Linux. Sure Linux is free, and maybe even a better product than Windows, but it isn't windows. If you need Windows to run some application, the only way to get a copy of Windows is to pay whatever MS is asking for Windows. That's the problem with competition with copyrightable items. No two items are the same. Some may be comparable, but they aren't the same. I buy mostly independent music myself, but it's going to take a long long long time before most people in society start buying whatever sounds good, and has a good price, rather than whatever has the most marketing.

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[morgan_greywolf]

Then there is also the problem of perception associated with the source. I could pay to self-publish a volume of my poems, but it'll be ignored by critics, unavailable to most readers and, ultimately, be a waste of money on my part. If I can't get in a literary magazine or picked up by a traditional publishing house, then the perception is that I'm not any good.

Well, this man, who has written a series of very successful novels, would most definitely disagree with you. (I can say that because I've met and talked with Merv at length about this very subject). His novels sell remarkably well in bookstores, on Amazon, and plenty of other places.

Oh, did I mention that he is a self-publisher? Yeah, that's right, his publishing company, Willow Tree Press, is him. (He outsources the printing, of course.)

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[UncleRage]

Unfortunately, your argument breaks itself down.

You may want "hot new album" but you may well need Windows for work, school, whatever. There's a difference.

Market share penetration has forced many people to adopt a technology as necessary, but there is no force in the world that dictates that I must listen to the Fall Out Boys.

If you absolutely must have that "hot new album", accept that you consume what your enemy is demanding that you eat... then like it when they dictate that it be served at room temperature, on a paper plate, buzzing with flies while you sit in a dirty chair.

Re:Business logic or monopolistic cartel?

[Lumpy]

Start with google.

search terms... "self publishing"

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=self+publishing&btnG=Google+Search

lulu is a good self publisher and known in a lot of places. if you want to get into book stores you gotta buy a ISBN number and have it on your book.

do not waste time and money on "self publishing books" Everything you need to know is on google with the above search term.

Maybe I missed it ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... but I didn't see the word "iTunes" anywhere in that article.

It is possible to build a profitable, long-lasting, and legal online music business, Mr. Robertson. I'm genuinely sorry you failed to do it, but to pretend that the biggest player in the online music world simply doesn't exist is kind of childish.

Re:Maybe I missed it ...

[pla]

... but I didn't see the word "iTunes" anywhere in that article.

iTunes doesn't come close to what MP3.com wanted to do.

I don't want to start a debate about how much they had available or how lax their DRM; Put simply, they do have DRM, and they don't offer everything, therefore fall woefully short of the ideal.

That said, you make a good point... iTunes has done quite well, and I would call it a good start. Even so, keep in mind that every few months we hear rumblings about how the major labels want to "renegotiate" with Apple to charge more and use more restrictive DRM - They just don't "get" it, even when offered a viable model on a silver platter.

Horsepucky.

[pla]

The root cause is not the labels -- chances are if you were running a label you would make the same demands, since the law permits it.

Irrelevant, whether or not the law "allows" it.

As various legacy-media industries (and I don't mean just the RIAA here) slowly waste away to nothing, they have two choices - Find a way to make their product available on terms we can all agree to (and do so knowing how easily we can choose to simply pirate their content)... Or cease to exist.

The right to "past damages" doesn't matter if you have no future. These industries have a wide assortment of 3rd parties all but begging to solve their current problems for them with various forms of modern online distribution; Only stubbornness, and a near-suicidal insistance on maintaining some mythical "control" they lost over a decade ago, have kept such ventures from any chance of success.

So before you absolve the labels of blame in this matter - Ask yourself, would you, starving in the gutter, turn down a lifetime supply of Big Macs because you think the world "owes" you a home-cooked steak dinner?

Re:Horsepucky.

[stormguard2099]

I've heard a lifetime supply of just bigmacs is only 9 days tops depending on how athletic you are.

Re:Horsepucky.

[Teancum]

One of the problems here is that the author of the article seems to think the authority to change the situation lies with the court system, when in fact this is a legislative problem that is compounded by a massive mis-interpretation of what the general public thinks it ought to be about.

While I understand that the Register is a UK publication, it reads like it was written by an American (perhaps a personal bias). From an American perspective, the record companies are fighting something even tougher: The U.S. Constitution. More to the point, if the copyright clause of the constitution were to be properly interpreted to understand that the protection was only for a limited time (life + 75 years isn't a "limited time" in spite of what the U.S. Supreme Court claims). Retroactive copyright term extensions make the situation even worse... but I'm barking up the wrong issue here anyway.

The point here is that legislative bodies of the world like Congress, Parliament, and other similar bodies have been dealing with this issue as if the publishing bodies (including recording studios in the case of music) are the only individuals that need to be served when these laws are drafted. Individual consumers as well as the artists/authors/composers/performers need to be strongly considered as well, and the real point of legislation ought to be asking this question:

What can changes in the current copyright legislation do to expand the number of creative works, and "promote the useful arts and sciences"?

This is certainly not something that is being asked by legislators (MPs or Congressmen), and nearly all legislation in the past couple of decades on both sides of the pond works to kill off incentives by individuals to create these kind of artistic works. International agreements, while they do seek to "equalize copyright laws", tend to take the lowest common denominator approach and offer the best possible protection for the publisher as any of the countries in the treaty organization (aka the "Berne Convention"). This question about what can be done to promote the development of these artistic works certainly isn't being asked at these treaty conferences either, nor by the legislative bodies when the treaties are being ratified.

Re:Horsepucky.

[NoisySplatter]

That movie is an exercise in propaganda. He purposefully ate too much in order to gain weight and make a sensational movie. I would take a lifetime of Big Macs any day. Nobody ever said you had to eat the whole thing.

Excuse me but the summary is wrong

[unity100]

in here : "The root cause is not the labels"

if they are making the same demands if the law permits it, they are the root cause.

Re:I tried and failed

[knutkracker]

Sounds familiar in many ways.

Re:I tried and failed

[StrategicIrony]

Are you... joking?

Or are you a RIAA marketing consultant?

This is a stellar piece of propaganda. Even the part about the kids wearing shabby clothing. Priceless.

Of course, if it's true, you need to get out of that business immediately.

I don't give a flying rats ass about piracy. The entire concept of purchasing information that is tied to a small piece of plastic is silly in the digital age, prima facie.

Your grandchildren will look at you funny when you suggest that one day, music could only be purchased on round pieces of plastic. They simply won't understand why something so trivial as "data" had to be purchased by means of a physical medium.

If you want to blame the decline of your business on digital music distribution, you would be accurate, but blaming it on piracy falls somewhere between a straw man and a red herring.

Lets look at reality.

Physical CD sales declined by 88 million from 2006 to 2007. (from 588 million to 500 million)

At the same time (2007), the iTunes music store sold about 1.8 billion tracks. They were thought to have about 60% of the market, indicating that there are about 3 billion tracks sold LEGALLY online.

So, a decline in 88 million plastic thingies sold... however, 3 billion tracks legally sold (for cash-money) online during the same period.

No, it is not really a piracy issue, it's merely a change in the distribution method of music.

You're on the wrong end of it.

Get out now.

Limited scope

[overzero]

FTFA: "The root cause is not the labels - chances are if you were running a label you would make the same demands, since the law permits it."

Unless, of course, you didn't. The law also permits playing a guitar exclusively in a soundproof booth in the middle of nowhere so that no one will ever be able to hear your music, much less consider purchasing it, which seems like the business model the major labels are moving towards.

You could, for instance, start your own label specifically to avoid this, avoid DRM, allow anyone to stream your catalog as much as they want, offer a variety of formats and purchase options, etc. I think the law permits that too.

As for viability, it might have some issues, but Magnatune has been doing that for five years now and doesn't seem about to stop.

http://www.magnatune.com/

Starting anything legal is tough

[SystematicPsycho]

As most huxsters have worked out, even if they do something illegal or border line illegal for a while and make a killing then, having no moral conscience it pays off. Unfortunately that's what's wrong with the world today. Look at the sub-prime mortgage crisis for example, how many lenders knew they were handing out bad debt? Do they care now? Probably not, they got their commission, as for everyone else, hasta la vista.

The law allowes it?

[houghi]

So if it is not strictly forbidden you MUST do it? That is a whole new twist and says more about him as a person then about the people who do it.

Re:I tried and failed (to search on Google)

[Mathinker]

First, I'm not sure why you posted ... without checking on the contents of the post you replied to.

Kind of hard to believe a Slashdot ID as low as yours has never seen that troll post before. Or are you some kind of "second-degree troll" who pretends to believe troll posts? Arrggh! My mind ties itself into pretzels thinking about the boasting conversation at a "fourth-degree troll" convention in the far future....

OTOH, I admit there has been a decided lull (thank the FSM!) in the posting of that particular one, in recent months. Maybe you just have the blessing, in this case, of a short memory. Or got stranded on a desert island for the wrong period.

Re:Wrong Conclusion

[Nursie]

Err, no, it is you that is wrong.

Whilst this may apply to trademarks, it certainly does not apply to copyrights or patents.

Is iTunes succesful

[SmallFurryCreature]

The article doesn't mention a lot of sites, in fact none of the BIG company backed sites are mentioned. And this makes me wonder, how succesful is iTunes on its own as a business? It has long been rumoured that Apple makes its money from iPods not iTunes. If that is the case, and you accept the same from products launched by the likes of Amazon then there is a 5th category, sites that barely break even thanks to the insane costs, that help keep the online music sales at the level the music industry is comfortable with.

Steve Jobs managed to get the labels to accept the famous 99 cent, but it stalled there. 99 cent is still insanely expensive if you consider the huge cost reduction in distribution.

Apple hasn't been able to drive the price lower nor has it been able to get more music online, like getting the labels to open up their entire catelogue.

I would be very intrested to see any real figures showing that iTunes is turning a profit and enough of a profit for a company whose only product is a music store to keep it alive.

Don't forget that Apple is an awful lot like MS, it can afford to throw money at projects, and internet rumor has it that iTunes is just such a project. Not that Apple minds since the iPod is earning them every dollar spend back tenfold.

Re:Is iTunes succesful

[TheRaven64]

Apple is now the biggest music retailer in any medium. If they are making any profit on sales (I vaguely remember reading that they make something like 10Â per track) then the iTunes store is raking in money. The iTunes store and Apple-branded accessories (they don't break them down on the balance sheet, there's just iPod and 'other music-related products and services) are bringing in around $800m per quarter in revenue, which probably equates to around $100m in profit.

They might be "making" the laws, also, eh?

[Mathinker]

The summary also ignores the fact that the content industries have been gaming the legislative system, to their benefit, for quite a while....

Re:I tried and failed

[Technician]

But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame.

It's a common scapegoat, but missing the mark. Percieved value and retail price are an order of magnitude out of place.

Instead of wasting money on a shiney disk with about 45 minutes of stuff along with one good song, I can buy a DVD for half the price.

I can carbonate water at home and add my own flavoring and sugar, but I still purchase fountain drinks for the convience.

CD's are now the oposite of convience for more money. Downloads go right on to an MP3 player. CD's have to be found if still in print, ripped and put on a player.

Online is a-la-carte. CD is a canned package.

Some compainies wanted to make and install in store CD burning kiosks. Guess who killed that in the bud?

For an industry who doesn't listen to their consumers, they sure scream P-P a lot for their lack of adjusting to the market.

If you scream P-P enough, will the death of your scapegoat really fix your root problems?

Some people are offended by my blacklist system.

This would be mostly your best customers. Those who don't listen to music don't buy CD's. Those deeply into music purchases CD's and shares copies of out of print stuff or the one good song on a CD. Blacklisting them is a great way of killing the biggest part of your business. Thanks for providing great evidence the industry doesn't understand the market.

Much of the industry is selling pig in a poke packages. I bought the DC Talk album Supernatural because our church performed Red Letters, and I enjoyed the choir rendition. I hated the album, even the good track. I'm not into acid rock. Needless to say, once burnt, twice shy.

How many times have you bought an album because you only heard one song and then didn't like the rest of the album at all?

P-P expands music horizons. Most of the time when I bought albums, I heard it from friends first. (I quit buying entirely when the industry started dropping the nuke bomb on some unlucky few as a protest.)

My peak buying days was when I was in the military while in my peak piracy days with cassette tapes. The industry doesn't understand their consumers or the market.

Excuse me?

[Tim C]

I'm sorry, but just because I'm *permitted* to do something doesn't mean that I would or should.

Hand someone a right (or rather, neglect to disallow them some power) and you most certainly can still blame them for exercising it.

You are making a mistake

[SmallFurryCreature]

You say at the end the examples from history about product X trying to stop product Y from replacing it and seem to think this applies to the music industry.

You are wrong, for that to work in media it would have to be theather trying to stop movies, movies trying to stop TV. That indeed does not work.

But what is really the case is that the music industry is not being replaced. There is nothing to take over, it still is the same model that existed since recordable music was invented, X performs for Y who records it who sells it to Z who listens to it. As long as X and Y expect payment from Z, the industry will remain roughly the same. Yes, with advances in tech some X can cut out Y, but this has always been the case. Lots of musicians have in the past created their own labels, in fact most labels were started by musicians out of dissatisfaction by the existing labels, until they became big themselves.

For Z having every X be his own seller is also messy, you don't buy books from writers do you? Hell, you don't even buy them from publishers mostly, you buy them from bookstores. Would you really be comfortable giving your credit card details to every artist asking for 10 cents for their latest album? Not that that would work, the credit card companies want bigger fees. Sure there are some small sites that try to be the go between but there you go already, that site is going to want payment, exactly the same as the labels, and the more they advertise their new sign-ups, the more risks they take, the more they want paid on each song they manage to sell.

The entire problem lies in the recording. In theory, this allows a musician to earn an infinite amount of money from a finite and fixed amount of work, this never works. Play around in virtual economies such as found in games for a while to see why not. Usually, the more you want to earn, the more you got to invest. Imagine a simple chart, X is amount of money invested in a concert, Y is the money earned from tickets. Obviously if you want Y to increase you first need to invest in X by renting a bigger arena.

But with recorded music, this doesn't work, the cost of recording a song is relatively straightforward, rental of studio, salery for techies, but the potential earnings can be anything really. With a piece of recorded music, with every tech advance you are getting closer to a product that has an infinite supply for a finite cost. For, lets say 3000 dollars I can get a song, that I could potentially sell an infinite amount of times and with copyright as it is I got a century to do it in.

This is of course very tempting but it only works if I am the sole supplier of that song. If everybody who has a copy can share that, then all I can count on is to sell 1 copy and at 3000 dollars, finding that first punter is going to be tricky.

The music industry can make enormous profits THANKS to the fact that its product is in infinite supply BUT it can only make those profits if it somehow makes that infinite supply finite.

Live music isn't the answer, is a concert ticket really worth 100 dollars or more if EVERYONE could have a front row seat? Well the answer is TV, everyone has good view and you don't pay 100 dollars for a live concert not even if the camera is on stage!

Live music obeys the normal economic rules, recorded entertainment does not.

What can we do about it?

Very little, you could make a law that stays every recording can only be sold an artificial number of times before it must be re-recorded. This would make it a finite supply product obeying the normal rules of the economy, if you want a specific recording, then just bid for it against other intrested parties. It would solve a lot of problems, but I doubt everyone would agree to it, including the buyers.

You could severely limit the amount of time you could sell a recording. It would have to be severe, a period of maybe a couple of years, this would give popular music a short-time to recoup their costs, give them a change to earn

Re:I tried and failed

[hey!]

Well, I think you have some good points, but the fundamental shift I see is not in how music is distributed, but how it is consumed

The LP album is, essentially, a concert piece. Thirty years ago, singles from an album were what hooked people into buying, but people sat down and listened to a whole album, all of the A side then all the B side. They didn't play one track, hop up and take the needle off, remove the disk and put it in its sleeve, remove another record put it on the platter, then carefully set the needle down on a specific track.

CDs are the same.

With digital music players, they can and do play a jumbled sequence of single tracks. It's a kind of return to the day when wealthy patrons had musician servants that composed short pieces like "Fanfare as Lord So and So Sits Down to Dinner". People use music players to provide that kind of soundtrack to things they do in their lives, like working out on a Stair Master.

The LP or CD is more like a symphony, a longer work that makes sense in the context of middle class people making an evening of going to the concert hall.

If the labels want to sell CDs, then they have to sell CDs that are more than random collections of mediocre songs tied to one or two song that the consumer wants. It's not the mediocrity of the filler material that's the problem, it's that it is filler material in the first place. I happen to like opera, but there a plenty of bits in even the best opera nobody is going to put on their play list unless they're listening to the whole thing through.

the root cause is not the labels?

[nimbius]

gimme a break. the root cause is a conglomerate of labels who arguably add nothing of value anymore to music, as online distribution has supplanted them almost entirely.

its not their fault. if you were about to be unceremoniously kicked off your pile of bloodmoney, you'd fight like hell too!

Cover versions

[tepples]

And you can't (generally) buy the same song from different entities.

Lennon/McCartney's licensees would beg to differ, as would anyone else who's ever recorded a cover version. I seem to remember seeing at least a dozen different versions of "Macarena" on the old Napster. If there's no cover version of a given song, that's your cue to record one under whatever mechanical license scheme is in effect in your country.

A conflict that is unlikely to be resolved until monopoly rights are restructured as non-exclusive revenue share rights, which simply is unlikely to happen any time soon.

In the case of songs, it has already been so restructured: recording artists share their revenue with composers.

That's one person's opinion...

[xednieht]

The article clearly states that it is merely an 'Opinion' note the upper left hand corner tag.

Other than that I would offer another view. There's still plenty of opportunity to grow online music.

When the dust settles, many moons from now, the emerging model will be a hybrid between what Napster was and iTunes is. It will probably emerge outside of the US because the morons on Capitol Hill are too quick to appease the idiots at RIAA. But it will emerge. Think Janis Ian and many more like her.

Of course if by some miraculous turn of events RIAA decides to invest in technology instead of lawyers it may start here, but don't hold your breath. Blinded by greed, crippled by stupidity.

Re:I tried and failed

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

"Are you... joking?

Or are you a RIAA marketing consultant?"

And the answer is .... B.

Damn story pops up every time an article is posted that is vaguely connected to music and internet. It's just some PR drone connected to the music industry doing his sorry job.

And you had the bad luck to read it before it was modded into oblivion and took it seriously.

Re:I tried and failed

[houghi]

3 billion tracks legally sold

Let us put that in perspective. At 10-15 songs per album, that is 200-300 million albums. Even at 20 songs per album, this would mean 150 million albums.

Deduct the 88 million less sold is an increase of albums sold of 62 million.
So instead of the decrease in albums sold, of 88 million, there is an actual increase.

I knew you were right. I just wanted to make it less dramatic and not compare oranges with apples.

And we do not even talk about the extra income from ring-tones. Something that did not happen in the past.

Re:I tried and failed

[Jason Levine]

I thought I had read this before so I did a search and came up with this: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/2/103735/275 This post was made in 2003 (and references a previous post on Slashdot, so it could easily be older than that.) You are simply reposting a 5 year old story word for word. I somehow doubt that you are the original author (which would, ironically, make that post copyright infringement ;-) ).

That said, there are a couple of big holes in this story.

Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame.

The author admits to not knowing why people aren't buying CDs, but then immediately jumps to the "inescapable truth" that Internet piracy is to blame. It isn't because the selection isn't to the buying public's taste, or because a Walmart opened down the block with better prices, or because people were buying more DVDs/video games/etc. Nope, it *had* to be Internet Piracy! And why?

The statistics speak for themselves - one in three discs world wide is a pirate.

Not to overuse a XKCD meme, but: Citation Needed. So I did a Google search and came up with this article: http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20050623.html

Ok, the article is 3 years old, but let's let that slide for a bit. The piracy that the article speaks of is commercial CD pressing. You know, the folks who obtain one CD, burn a hundred copies, and sell them on the street corner for $1.50 each. That is a completely different form of piracy than the guy who clicks "share this folder" in LimeWire/Kazaa/etc.

On The Internet, you can find and download hundreds of dollars worth of music in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the music industry, from artists, to record companies to stores like my own.

Yes, the Internet does make piracy (of the P2P sharing kind) easier than it used to be. It does also have the potential to destroy the music industry as we know it now. However, many new technologies are disruptive events. The industry either has to adapt or die. When cars first came out, it was disruptive to the people in the Horse and Buggy Industry. We don't hold technology back simply because one industry doesn't want to change how they operate. For an example of how the music industry might adapt, look to eMusic and Amiee Street. As far as local record stores go, they either find a way to adapt (perhaps kiosks selling personal mix CDs) or they die out. It's just a fact of business life.

Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business. Unlike CDs, it's harder to copy books over The Internet.

In the years since this post was originally written, advances in book piracy have been made.

As for the National Register of Pirates idea, it is quite obviously a bad idea. The original poster of this seemed to be of the opinion that the courts were taking too long so pirates should just be added to a list without a trial. Let's put aside the question of how the RIAA would get the pirates' identities and how it would be enforced for a moment. (Big questions, mind you, but let's assume some process gets put into place.) How will the list be kept focused on pirates and kept clean of the falsely accused? We have only to look at the No Fly List for an example of how a blacklist with no oversight or clear removal process can wind up triggering many false positives. If some other Jason Levine pir

The root cause is overly long copyrights

[jmichaelg]

Back before there were lawns, copyright ran for 14 years. In 1790, it was extended to 28 years. From there, it slowly got extended until 1998 when Congress saw plenty of donations and all of a sudden, it shot up to the author's life plus 70 years.

Revert copyrights to the original 14 years and you'd see all kinds of music and art. Pandora.com (an outstanding music delivery idea) wouldn't be talking about pulling the plug and people would be exposed to so much outstanding music and video that we'd see a resurgence in creativity in this country.

Re:I tried and failed

[smoker2]

I agree, and significantly that's why I stopped buying CDs. I am a fan of Pink Floyd, the real Floyd, before Roger Waters left. Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Wish You Were Here. All of those albums were works of art, designed to be listened to in their entirety. But what happened on CD ? They put audible breaks in between the tracks. Ruined it completely for me, I may as well have recorded each track individually myself and slapped them together to form an album. Strangely enough, I can do that now and I make a better job of it than the official labels do.
This phenomenon is not unique to CDs either. Watching a movie on TV has got to be a pain these days due to the incessant ad breaks. You can't build an atmosphere and immerse the viewer in a situation when the dialogue switches to overly loud irrelevant material every 20 minutes. That's why I record things I want to see and rip the ads out - to restore the natural flow of the original work. I no longer have to keep the remote in my hand so I can rapidly turn the sound down to reasonable levels, I can sit back and absorb. Can you imagine a book where every 20 pages a loudspeaker erupts telling you that you're paying too much for car insurance ?

Committed?

[rgviza]

>The service just isn't attracting users at all, in spite of the marketing major label WMG has committed to do

They may have "committed" but I've never heard of Lala and I'd be interested in using it. All I can say is that WMG is doing a terrible job marketing this. I have the feeling they *want* it to fail, as a propaganda stunt. It's the only explanation. WMG has bottomless pockets. If they wanted it to succeed they'd be killing everyone in the online music business with their catalog.

In fact in a search for Online music download Lala's not on the first 5 pages. A comparatively small payment to Google would ensure page rank or at least advertising on the results. Not surprisingly an Apple ad (the destination of which shows has a link to iTunes on the landing page) is at the top. They are actually trying.

Nada...
Here's what does show up:
      1.
            Download music online
            Groundbreaking technology like the
            new Genius feature. iPod touch.
            www.apple.com/ipodtouch
      2.
            Zune Music Player
            Get your ears ready for
            the ultimate music experience.
            www.Zune.net
      3.
            Download/Play/Burn Music
            Legal Access to 5,000,000+ Songs.
            14 Days Free then only $12.99/mo!
            www.Rhapsody.com
      4.
            Napster® Official Site
            Listen To 6 Million + Songs
            With a Free Trial - Napster®!
            Napster.com
      5.
            Download Music Online
            As low as $.27 per song!
            25 Free MP3 - No risk 7 day Trial
            www.eMusic.com
      6.
            Top 3 Legal Music Sites
            Top 3 Music Download Sites Reviewed
            Download All your Favorite Music
            www.Real-Music-Reviews.com
      7.
            Download Online Music
            Unlimited Free Music on AOL® Radio
            Find Music You Enjoy on One Site!
            Radio.AOL.com
      8.
            Top 5 Music Sites
            Top 5 Music Download Sites Reviewed
            Download your Favorite Music Now
            www.HotMusicDownloader.com

DRM free with lots of options and great music. The only thing killing Lala is WMG. They've got Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Rush, and the White Stripes for crying out loud! Their catalog is unmatched.

I just joined ;) At $.89 per song too. I think the author has a warped sense of what "committed to marketing" means, or didn't bother checking for himself. If I was a WMG executive, I'd have the marketing VP in a meeting finding out what the hell he does 8 hours a day.

-Viz

Re:I tried and failed

[Technician]

I did this with Dark Side of the Moon with Audacity. Ripped it to FLAC, edited out the dead spots carefully matching the waveform tails and saved the result. My Album now has 2 tracks, side A and Side B. Awesome. I need to take the time to do the rest.

Watching a movie on TV has got to be a pain these days due to the incessant ad breaks.

Agreed, which is why I won't miss TV when they switch off analog. I almost never watch it now.