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17,000 Downloads Does Not Equal 17,000 Lost Sales
Andrew_Rens writes "Ars Technica has a story on a ruling by a US District Judge who rejects claims by the RIAA that the number of infringing downloads amounts to proof of the same number of lost sales. The judge ruled that 'although it is true that someone who copies a digital version of a sound recording has little incentive to purchase the recording through legitimate means, it does not necessarily follow that the downloader would have made a legitimate purchase if the recording had not been available for free.' The ruling concerns the use of the criminal courts to recover alleged losses for downloading through a process known as restitution. The judgement does not directly change how damages are calculated in civil cases."
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The albums I've bought that I wouldn't otherwise have had I not been able to download and try it first? I buy MORE albums now that I did before Napster et al opened my ears to new artists and songs.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I'm with the Judge on this one! Even when I first started downloading music on Napster, I often wanted to get a better perspective of a particular musician or group before purchasing CDs or going to a concert. There are a lot of artists out there whose music I enjoy that I would not have if I had not downloaded their music. Much in the same way as listening to the radio -- except that, thanks to major corporations buying out all the radio stations in the country, that media is now dead. Sadly, the music industry neither has accepted this, nor have they embraced the new media (internet). Hopefully, they'll eventually realize that you can't sustain an entire industry based on income from lawsuits alone, and get with the times. If they don't get this, then I say, let 'em die!
There's one band in particular whose entire discography I downloaded. I couldn't find anyone who has the CDs and the previews on Amazon were insufficient. Within a month, I liked it so much that I wanted to have higher-quality, lossless rips and to support the band, so I bought every album the band, and have bought every one since.
I know I'm certainly in the minority in my desire to support the band for its efforts, but there are more people out there like me.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
If you had read the ruling, you'd have noticed that this judge seems to be smart enough to realize that, even assuming a sale was lost, the amount the victims lost is not the same as the sale price.
The price of sale is equal to cost + profit. If a CD costing $10 is shoplifted instead of sold, the seller loses $10. If a CD is downloaded illegally, the seller may claim he lost a sale, but he cannot claim he lost the CD he had to produce and deliver to the store at a price. He still has the CD to sell, at a profit, to another customer.
I wonder what the reaction would be if a judge told the RIAA this: "OK, you lost a million sales. You can get $10 million in restitution, under the condition that you manufacture and deliver one million CDs to the defendant, who is free to sell those CDs at whatever price he can get".
You guys are kidding yourselves if you think that one pirated song equals one lost sales.
I do not think they're kidding themselves; I think they're deliberately fooling others, for fun and profit.
You can't take the sky from me...
See, I think you are part of the problem in this. On one hand, you say the RIAA doesn't deserve money from you. On the other, you illegally download their creations, sending a clear message that you have some demand for what they offer. If you want the RIAA to go away, just ignore them, and everything they create. While people download their stuff, they can justifiably whine about people ripping them off (because even though 17,000 downloads != 17,000 lost sales, it's also true that 17,000 downloads != 0 lost sales).
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
You'll never get a large enough group of people to boycott
Then how do you explain their abysmal sales? Piracy? No, the years-long established boycott is working, but they're not blaming me and our boycott, they're blaming you and your piracy.
Stop downloading that crap. Download their competetion, the indies, instead. Most indies WANT you to download.
Free Martian Whores!
From Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture (I've abridged the quote drastically)
Type B (try before you buy) can do nothing but increase sales, and every study not financed by the recording industry has concluded that "pirates" spend far mor of their money on music than non-pirates.
Lessig's book is available online under a GPL license, as well as in bookstores. Oddly, being able to legally "pirate" it hasn't kept it out of the bookstores, despite the atti-pirates' bleating that if you can get it for free you won't pay for it.
Only thieves have the mindset "if I can get it for free I won't buy it". Most people have scruples. Unfortunately the people in the RIAA labels don't.
Free Martian Whores!
When I told you that I perceived you as part of the problem, I actually meant, a part of the problem, not just some external fuss that doesn't affect you. It's a problem for you too, and a problem for people you know. In your efforts to hurt the RIAA, you may be only hurting them temporarily, and helping them gain a stronger stranglehold on policing your communications, and invading your privacy. Your actions may leave them as an unprofitable business with significant, almost universal demand, which makes them a prime candidate for government subsidies. Your actions allow (and encourage) others to be part of the same problem, fuelling and exacerbating it.
If you were to boycott them entirely, and spread the message as far as you can, you might actually make a dent in downloads and sales. Then again, maybe people actually do want the RIAA's music, and there's not much you can do about it. Whatever it is, what you are doing isn't helping anyone.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Then how do you explain their abysmal sales? Piracy? No, the years-long established boycott is working, but they're not blaming me and our boycott, they're blaming you and your piracy.
Their sales are explained in a couple of ways. First and foremost, their sales were bouyed for a few years after the advent of CDs (the 90's) by people replacing vinyl with CDs. I gave them a lot of money to do just that. Then I stopped. Second, their current music is substandard by any measure - they are so desperate to just use a formula that there's little risk-taking nowadays.
Then there's digital downloads. They could have entered this game early and easily made the move from CDs to downloads. Instead, Steve Jobs dragged them kicking and screaming into it, and it still took him, what, 7 or 8 years to finally get them to give up on DRM? Their cluelessness has definitely hurt them.
Finally, their sales aren't off that much. They're down 10-20% from the high. No big surprise given the above.
I remember during the last recession (circa 2002) when the MPAA was trying to push through their "superdmca" bill in the states, and I sat across from their slimy lawyer Geoff Beauchamps in a meeting with our state representative. He lamented that the record industry's sales were off by 10%. I asked him how they'd kept their sales up that well in a recession, as mine were off by 50% (I wasn't kidding). Music is non-essential, people are going to buy bread before they buy a CD.
Anyway, they've spent years digging the hole that they're in, and most of what they're doing now is looking for a better shovel.
Do you have ESP?
"Penalizing me or my countrymen 1-to-2 dollars for every song we download is fair."
Excuse me? When is a penalty for performing an illegal act supposed to be "fair"? First, charging the same price as a legitimate download definitely isn't fair, and actually is an INCENTIVE to steal.
What if you were caught attempting to steal a CD and they only charged you the price of the disk? Everyone would try to steal. Best case, you get away with it, and worst case, you pay no more than if you had paid the legitimate price. Where I live the fine for littering and dumping trash is $1,000. Is that "fair"? Don't know, but what I do know is that you don't see many people throwing trash out the windows of their cars. The risk simply isn't worth it.
And what's with the "tree of liberty" BS? Attempting to equate stealing a purely discretionary item that's available from plenty of legitimate sources with patriotism is simply laughable from one side, and an insult to those who died fighting for our liberty on the other.
Finally, try to RTFA for content. The article does NOT say anything about "Penalizing $150,000 for every [song] song..."
FTFA: "For example, the RIAA said that 183 albums were transferred through Dove's server 17,281 times, then multiplied that by the wholesale price of a digital album in 2005 ($7.22) to conclude that its member companies were owed almost $124,769 in restitution..."
That's $124K TOTAL, and not $150K PER SONG. (And charging a "fair" price per album, BTW.) Making up your own numbers doesn't help your argument, as it makes people wonder just what else you're lying about...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I thought I had spelled it out enough for you, but evidently not.
When you are a slave, no matter what you do, you cannot gain your freedom.
When you face potential damages for downloading copyrighted songs that you don't want to pay for, you have the choice of not downloading them.
Do you understand the difference between the two situations? Then you understand that your forefathers would be horrified at your cheapening their experience by likening it to your own position.
The straw man is yours: I never said that you said anything about your black brothers being inferior. You said that the position you would find yourself in if you downloaded music illegally (facing damages) is like slavery (i.e., unavoidable). The implication is clear: you have no choice but to download music without the permission of the copyright holder. The law says that this is stealing, so you imply that you have no choice but to steal.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Then stop downloading songs that you don't have permission to do so, then it's pretty easy to avoid every having to pay a single cent in those fines.