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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."
2. distribute it online for free
3. make cash via ancillaries: special fan material, concerts, etc.
this is the economic model of the music industry for the future. probably for books and movies too
of course, there is always room for step 1.5: go into contract with a traditional music conglomerate to massively hype your music and reap larger windfalls of ancillary cash. this represents though a radically different business model for the traditional industry stalwarts: promoter. and nothing more. a much smaller financial footprint. oh well
but what there is NO more room for is revised step 2: charge for your music online
yes, itunes is radically successful and profitable. but mainly because it matches a low price point for a useful service: quick download, quality assurance, robust cataloging, easy searching. none of which can't eventually be beaten by competing free services as the riaa and the dead business philosophy it represents fades away
recorded music, from now on, is nothing more than advertising material
advertising material for revenue streams comprised of fan-appreciated ancillary materials and live concerts
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is basic economics. If the perceived cost doesn't outweigh the perceived benefit, then the rational actor won't do something. IOW, if the cost of a song is more than someone thinks it's worth, they won't buy it. But if the cost is effectively zero, then it only takes a small benefit to make it worthwhile to download.
I mean, seriously people. I'm no economics expert, but I did take the required class in high school, and I'm pretty sure that was covered. Do these law degree holding people really think you can ignore basic economics and not expect anyone to realize it?
I have purchased some albums multiple times due to loss, wear, theft, etc. For example, I have purchased the Back in Black album by AC|DC 6 times: 1 LP, 3 Cassettes, and 2 CDs. When the last CD got scratched beyond repair, I said the heck with it and downloaded the songs. Now, technically, doing that was illegal. But seriously, how many times should I have to purchase the same music?
The reality remains, that some sales are lost due to illegal downloading, and that the victims are entitled to compensation.
The reality remains that some sales are gained due to illegal downloading. If those sales outweigh the sales lost, how are punitive measures justified?
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
"I think you're right, which is a shame. There is music out there, really GOOD music, that will not survive in this business model."
could you explain why you think this way?
you apparently believe the pre-internet business model somehow supported quality music. yes, there was plenty of quality music under the pre-internet model
and plenty of crap
i think some starry eyed folks think quality will improve in the internet music business model. no, i believe quality will simply not change. for many reasons, not least of which: quality is completely subjective. i do not think the internet music business model will give us a flood of quality material, it will still give us plenty of crap
but i don't understand this thinking of yours that supposes that quality will go down
what WILL change is that the music world will become heavily fractured. before there were a few fiefdoms in music on a national level: pop, country, rap, etc. that's it. now, there will be a thousandfold such fiefdoms according to genre, but also, a massive new dimension of music fiefdoms: local and microlocal band appreciation will increase a lot due to distribution and networking ease. aficionados of a local new york city band may never hear of a los angeles band, and visa versa, when before, both la and nyc would be exposed to the same bands on radio
additionally, the ability to internationalize will be easier now, so that new york city band will also have a better chance to get a following in auckland and brisbane as well, as effortlessly as it has a chance to get a following in philadelphia. however, what is unknown is how that new york city band will promote in auckland and brisbane. not that in the pre-internet world they had a better ability to do so (unless they were among the rare few bands like oasis or the beatles). but the rare few bands like the oasis or the beatles will come again, and they will not be lost due to the nonexistence of the music conglomerates. no, they will find a way. quality always trickles up. and in fact, there is a lot of money, a new niche, for promotes who sniff out top level local bands that they think can go national and international as well, and make a financial bet by promoting such top shelf local acts, in order to reap the windfall of ancillary cash later
in fact, this model is a lot more democratic than the traditional music conglomerate practice of cherry picking bands according to whim and perceived taste. which means, according to some arguments, better qualit ymusic for all, after all
yes, i'm contradicting what i said before: maybe the internet music distribution model WILL result in better quality music, due to being more democratic than the old corporate model
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Try this one instead:
"I don't want to pay the iTunes price"
These are the ones that make up most of the lost sales.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
See, I think you are part of the problem in this.
That may be true, but I really don't care. You'll never get a large enough group of people to boycott, so my feeling is that the best way I can contribute to their demise is to spread their product to all who want it, for free.
While people download their stuff, they can justifiably whine about people ripping them off
I don't care if they feel or sound justified. I just want them to make less money. The fact is that I can download their stuff for free with little chance of repercussions, and I can show others how to do the same. It's already forced them to change quite a bit... DRM free music from all the major studios - wow, what a difference a few years of bloodletting makes!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Watch the RIAA completely ignore that ruling in the next lawsuit, and hope that the judge does not know about it.
So GP is still right.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Nobody is illegally downloading anything!
If you have a license for the media, you are allowed to do what it states. If you offer the files for download without license, and someone takes them, then you have broken the contract (=license)! The downloader got it from you with no license (that is your implicit contract), so he can legally do with it, whatever he likes to do with it. Like offering it to others. Nothing illegal here at all. No theft (original still in the hands of the owner). Only a broken contract, that the seller can sue for (and rightfully so). So first and foremost: Stop spreading bullshit FUD propaganda from the RIAA!
Now on to the question, why people download the songs rather than buying them. First: It's easy and cheap. Second, and more important: To them, it's not worth the money that they could buy it for, somewhere else. Ask people from which spot on they would buy it, and what comfort they would expect. Most of them want it to beat the easiness of some file-sharing app (nice tool, no copy protection, fast downloads, everything available [even a live version from 1972]), while offering the full package (high quality, properly tagged, cover, lyrics, replay gain, bpm... whatever tiny plus you can get, include it!). The amount that they want to spend, on the other hand, varies greatly, with personal views, taste, personal budget, and so on.
To me, some song from the charts, that I like, but that is not in my top list, in good mp3 quality, would be worth some 5-20 (euro)cent. A rare DNB track that I loop over and over, because I love it that much, that has all of the above mentioned features, and that comes from an artist that I respect and know, could easily be worth 5 €.
But I can't pay those prices. I have to pay what they say, or not get it at all. Despite there not being any costs in producing the copy, and the huge costs of the original coming mainly from the giant budgets that those people assign themselves (like the producer getting 60% of the money, while the artist gets 3.5% [and the RIAA even wanting this value to drop].) If you calculate maybe 100,000 sales for a song, what's the price for a single track, divided by 100,000? It sure does not cost 100,000, to create that song, including all profits. Calculate the material (amortized over the years of usage), the studio rent (including the producer), and the marketing. Then add some cash for the artist himself. And a RIAA member fee (should be something like $50 a year). Then divide this by the tracks produced (eg. an album). And you get maybe some thousand dollars per track. Not 10,000, and surely not 100,000. So this would result in less than 10 cent per track for this example. A price that I, an a buyer, can completely agree on. Even if it only sells so 10,000 people (a rare track that i love), I would stay at or below $1.
But the greed of the industry, and being used to living in luxury.
I worked with someone who had direct contacts to the bosses of all the big five (now four). He told me, that usually, "meetings" look similar to this: He gets out of the elevator, and gets offered cocaine in lines as thick as your fingers. And after (or before) the actual talking, they call themselves some hookers.
I know he did not lie to me, because I sat right next to him, when he was loudly speaking to them on his phone, laughing about what fun they had, and that he would have a new offer, so he should call the bitches in, or something alike.
I hope this makes reality a bit more clear for you.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Cory Doctorow and Lawrence Lessig manage to sell Little Brother and Creative Commons despite the fact that you can download these books freely under a GPL license.
The RIAA should take note and do the same. They should stop lying to people and calling a music download a "sale". It's only a rental.
If I buy a thing, I own it can can do whatever I want with it (save make and sell copies, which is no different from CDs as counterfeit Rolexes). I can loan it to a friend, I can sell it to a used bookstore, I can play frisbee with it.
With a download I have no rights at all. I can't legally lend it or sell it or do anything with it whatever except listen to it.
The RIAA has made the mistake of convincing people that when they buy a CD or download an MP3 they're buying music. They aren't. With a CD you're buying the physical media, the printed track list on that CD, liner notes, cover art, often lyrics, etc. The music is incidental; you don't own that, only a single copy. To recreate a CD from online materials would cost the downloader more in his time than the CD costs.
When you download a song, whether from Pirate Bay or iTunes, you have nothing. When you buy the CD you have a physical object that you own.
People like to own physical crap. Hell, they'll buy rocks if you tell them the rock will be their pet!
The RIAA should follow their independant competetion by using P2P as a form of advertising, rather than try to kill the indies by destroying their means to get the word out.
Free Martian Whores!
Then how do you explain their abysmal sales? Piracy?
Yes. CD sales have gone down steadily, and it's thanks to pirates like me. Arrrrrr.
Download their competetion, the indies, instead.
I generally buy the Indies. Sometimes if you write them saying you want all of their albums, they'll even send you swag like t-shirts and such. I've even gotten hand-written notes!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You're absolutely correct! I placed no value on music (it simply did not matter to me at all) until I came to college, where I realized how easily pirateable it was. A bit of sampling later, I found that good music actually existed when it's no longer the case that you only hear the current top-20 hits. Since then, I've started buying a fairly decent quantity of music.
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.
I know, and I disagree. We have different takes on what is happening. I see the record companies in decline, and I claim that piracy is a big part of that.
You might be right that it will cause unforeseen consequences... it might even make things worse. I'm not Nostradamus, so what do I know? I just think that it is hopeless to organize an effective boycott, though I would probably support such a thing if the piracy route doesn't pan out.
When a kid gets a new iPod, I can either lecture him on the evils of the RIAA and ask him not to buy any music, or I can hand him a few DVDs full of the last 3 years worth of top 100 music. The latter GUARANTEES that he won't buy the music, and with some luck he'll pass the disks along to his friends.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So how does that make it right? That's my issue with all this. Your argument seems to boil down to "If I like them and they want money, I'll give them money and grab their work. If I don't like them and they want money, I'll still grab their work anyway."
Well now you're addressing a different level of the debate. This is where it turns to "Mickey Mouse Perpetual Copyright Laws" vs "The Right to Share the Fruits of Our Common Culture". Your angle on this is premised upon the supposition that copyright law as it stands is reasonable, fair, and proper. When the stated purpose of copyright is to promote the continued expansion of the public domain by granting a limited monopoly on reproduction of works of art, the current state of law is nearly impossible to defend. When the law is so far out of alignment with reasonable behavior, it becomes impossible to define what constitutes acceptable limits. When reasonable act (sharing a 40's Sinatra song*) carries the same punishment an arguably unreasonable act (sharing a track off the new McPopStar CD), there is no incentive for people to act reasonably.
Until we can disabuse the recording industry of the asinine notion that holding a copyright ought to be a perpetual property right, disobedience of the law is going to continue. Suggesting that the best way to change bad law enacted by powerful monied interests is to obey it and politely lobby corrupted** lawmakers to change it is to ignore the history of bad law. These things don't change until public outrage forces the issue, and public outrage generally doesn't arise until punishments for perfectly harmless (but illegal) activities become an issue. Civil disobedience isn't some noble tool to be limited to only lofty goals like desegregation and universal suffrage. It is, in fact, often the only available tool for fighting certain intractable abuses of government.
* To address the two biggest false arguments against short copyrights: 1) Sinatra isn't going to record any more songs, no matter how long after his death the copyright on My Way lasts. Even if he wasn't dead, loss of copyright on a 50+ year old recording would hardly have made him quit the business. 2) If he wanted to pass his legacy on to his descendants, he should have had to put money away in a trust fund, or teach them to fucking sing. Plumbers' kids can inherit the business, but they better know how to lay pipe.
** In this case, "corrupted" runs the gamut from literally taking payments, to simply believing the false notion that "copyright" == "ownership of a work as a property right".
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
From a point of view the parent has a point. Another poster on /. recently posted that he makes less than 10k/year and supports himself, his wife and their two kids in their $40k fixer upper home that was nearly paid off.
How many times a year do you have to call a plumber or electrician, really? There is a line between working for modern convenience and working to support an economy based upon gluttonous consumption. Game consoles, fancy restaurants, Wal*Mart's shelves full of junk are way outside the realm of necessity as far as leading a healthy and fulfilling life.
In a sense we "slave away" in our day jobs for what purpose? I read a paper a while ago (I don't remember from where exactly, but it was a pretty prominent university), dated sometime in 1996 which suggested our economic output was so far beyond that of 50 years prior we could all take a way more vacation than we do without any impact to our culture (in fact I believe it said 2 years per individual). How much MORE is the globe producing ~13 years later?
Property ownership isn't a right? Fifth Amendment? And I'm pretty sure you cannot be denied medical treatment if there is immediate need and if such a denial would lead to death or lifelong suffering.
While I'm not about to throw in the towel on the world I grew up in and know, I am personally looking to shed excess and focus on a more fulfilling (to me) way of life. This includes reducing the amount I spend on "things" and increasing the amount I spend on experiences (travel, guitar lessons right now). At some point, I really do plan on growing as much of my own food as I can, working on maintaining my own house, etc.
What good is having someone else do all that for me if I have to work my life away to pay for it and not enjoy it?
No sig for you!!