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Sony, Universal Hope To Beat Piracy With 'Instant Pop'
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that Britain's two biggest record labels, Sony and Universal, plan to beat music piracy by making new singles available for sale on the day they first hit the airwaves hoping the effort will encourage young people to buy songs they can listen to immediately rather than copying from radio broadcasts online. Songs used to receive up to six weeks radio airplay before they were released for sale, a practice known as 'setting up' a record. 'What we were finding under the old system was the searches for songs on Google or iTunes were peaking two weeks before they actually became available to buy, meaning that the public was bored of — or had already pirated — new singles,' says David Joseph. Sony, which will start the 'on air, on sale' policy simultaneously with Universal next month, agreed that the old approach was no longer relevant in an age where, according to a spokesman for the music major, 'people want instant gratification.'"
After 50-odd years of people taping new releases off the radio, they've finally got their heads around the idea that releasing them for sale at the same time means that people will buy singles while they still like them. Now they just need to realise that people don't really buy singles any more...
That's unpossible!
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Because there is rarely anything
Regardless of how much people value instant gratification, why was a delayed release ever a good idea? Of course, it is only particularly harmful now that there exists an illegal free alternative that will satisfy demand if the song is not sold quickly enough. But what was ever gained from not selling it instantly? Just the satisfaction of making customers twitch?
Wow....the record companies are actually learning how to adapt to the new system without involving lawsuits or extortion letters.
Aren't songs leaked into the pool of piracy before they're officially released anyway? (I know movies are.) How will this make any difference then?
Imagine if all their lawyers were making music instead of DRMing.and DMCAing people.
Exactly! This was needed YEARS ago I've been making tapes from the radio since I was 5!
it's under construction
People are still paying for music?!?!?
"copying from radio broadcasts online" - seriously, do they still think this is how it makes it to online?
itunes is basically all singles?
Still, it's hard to believe the record companies were still doing that. More proof the entire industry is composed of dinosaurs.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
It's one thing to generate demand by creating fevered anticipation, but people will only wait so long before the fever dies down and the excitement turns to some new shiny that can be obtained right now. I used to be REALLY excited about Rockband 3's pro mode back in november, I was going to get the new pro guitar and learn for real. Unfortunately, Mad Catz has a bad history of underproducing their most in-demand hardware (SF4 pro-sticks, anyone?) and as a result there has been zero PS3 or Xbox360 pro instruments in any canadian stores as of yet. We've been promised it would be here in march or april, but considering the previous Mad Catz fiasco I'd be stunned if we saw any before December 2011 or even early spring 2012. I'm not waiting until the mayan apocalypse for those, so I'm moving on.
Glad to see at least some people in the music industry aren't asleep at the switch.
Now they just need to realise that people don't really buy singles any more...
I've never bought anything on iTunes or any of the other online music stores, but I'm pretty sure the business model for those is to sell singles for about $0.99 each and "albums" for about $9.99 each.
I'm pretty sure - since most albums contain mostly junk-and-filler these days - the individual songs that are popular end up selling very well.
Beating piracy is easy. Pay musicians their fair share so they will make music with originality, creativity, and integrity featuring talented musicians using actual instruments without autotuning bad vocals.
You know, music that people actually want to BUY.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Well OBVIOUSLY Sony. The main problem most of these old people have in the media industry is that they cannot get their head around the fact that they're in competition with piracy and it is a competition that they can win (even if they continue to charge). Look at Steam. Steam charges for games, but the level of service is high enough to justify the cost, or "you get what you pay for." The problem Sony and other media companies has is that they want to offer a sub-standard level of service to consumers while charging a premium rate - which shockingly consumers aren't happy with.
You can say whatever you wish about iTunes, but iTunes has proved that is the level of service is high enough, and the prices reasonable enough people will use that instead of pirated music - because they have the money and the hassle of piracy isn't worth the time/effort investment (people are lazy!). While some will always pirate, these say people have no money, and thus aren't really "customers" anyway.
Western culture, including the pop culture has long suffered from the idea that 'new is good'. This idea naturally was fostered by commercial empires, that depended on this idea to rapidly dismiss old music, movies, clothes for new items, regardless of the intrinsic value of the old products.
It seems that Sony and Universal have pursued this idea to the next step.
Paai
This amuses me, I can imagine the moment in the Sony/Universal boardroom when someone came up with this idea and was treated like a genius, whilst the rest of the world has been pointing this out as part the piracy problem to them for decades now.
It's a big reason why people pirate music, movies, and even games. The disparity between US and European release dates of films for example has always been a big part of it- if the US has already had the DVD release when Europeans are being told in a few months they'll be able to watch some film with an awesome trailer, then what the fuck do they think people will do if they have the option? Sit waiting patiently, or just acquire a US copy?
Giving people an on-demand option at the same time as scheduled options such as radio based music or cinema based film is bound to help them out- you can't tease people by "setting them up" and then wonder why they went off and acquired the content their own way rather than continued putting up with your teasing. If people want something and you wont give it to them, they'll go and find their own copy from someone else which by and large, will be the likes of The Pirate Bay.
To be fair, new releases were alway in the shops. The first you got to hear a song was after it release unless a DJ managed to grab an exclusive a day or two before release date. All this seeding song is new practice, and thankfully shown to be futile. Radio should be able music you can buy, not infinite trailers for something coming out at a later date.
Singles are back, because people aren't buying albums anymore. Too many CDs with 7 or 8 filler tracks put an end to that. Digital purchasing has brought us back to the individual song again. Maybe one day bands will stop being so rubbish and albums will be worthy again?
This has to do with how to get maximum money from impulse purchasers. While I may buy singles, I don't buy anything without considering if I'll want it in a few weeks.
So I don't buy games I'm not willing to keep. I don't buy songs I'm not going to listen to for years, and I don't buy a car every 2.1 years (which is, according to a recent car salesman I bumped into, the national average). [We are averaging a new car every 7 years.]
But then, I <humor>am old and </humor>spend money more carefully than I used to.
Most songs get a 3 hour radio rotation anyway. Or posted to youtube, so I can just listen for free.
Later on I'll buy the "greatest hits" CD at a much cheaper rate (~60 cents per song) and lossless quality.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
And you'd be (sort of) right. In 2009 more singles were sold in the UK than albums (source), although this does still represent more income from albums.
Still, the single is making a comeback, most probably due to singles being convenient for download, but impractical for a CD. Vinyl could be stacked. mp3s can be sorted in all sorts of ways. CD singles need to keep being changed.
Wouldn't it just be easier for Sony & Universal to lobby the government for speaker licensing? People, after taking a test of course, and showing proper government approved ID, will be issued speakers which will allow them to "hear" an "analog" version of the song in "audio" format.
Then, people accused of copyright infringement can have their license revoked. anyone with unlicensed speakers will face jail time of 10-25 years.
oh wait... that's their OTHER plan.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
I was surprised also, but I won't complain. It's about time these people woke up and realized that the world has changed.
Palm trees and 8
How can they associate saving from a broadcast to “piracy” ? Taping a radio with your cassette sound system has never been illegal, and saving an MP3 flux is just the modern equivalent.
I wish they'd do this for TV series.
American Dad? Sign me up.
Californication? Sign me up.
Dexter? Sign me up.
Doctor Who? Sign me up.
Family Guy? Sign me up.
The Simpsons? Sign me up.
Just let me here in Norway get it same time as US air date. Just today I discussed the latest simspon episode with a colleague - and I mean the one that aired this weekend in the US. Fuck the european TV networks and do direct delivery and see what they're still willing to pay.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Singles these days get so much repeated airplay for so many weeks on the radio that by the time they're actually available to buy legally, by any means, I'm sick to death of hearing them. This is actually a good idea, though it will doubtless result in less "successful" singles (chart-wise) because the purchases will be spread over a longer period, as opposed to the usual first week rush.
Maybe they should use the pledge system. Make a demo or something, get pledges, make the full CD. Open source could do the same.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I hardly buy any "new" music, and I don't pirate any music at all. I mostly listen to NPR and sports talk radio now, and once in a while the local independent radio station, since I'm guaranteed to always hear something new. I can't stand turning on the radio and hearing the manufactured-pop-tart-of-the-week shrieking the same uninspired lyrics every fucking time. The record labels are only interested in promoting image (see the last dying gasp of the sexual revolution that is Lady Gaga rattling on about her twat in every song), whereas I only care about talent. If I hear a new song that I like, it's usually on local radio. Fortunately for me, I live in a city with a very vibrant local music scene!
Radio should be able music you can buy, not infinite trailers for something coming out at a later date.
Uhm... preferably radio should not be yet another marketing channel for the major record companies.
and oddly enough, even my much more pop-inclined GF only buys full albums, even if she just heard the one interesting single
I dont use itunes myself, but i also shun singles, for me it is full album or nothing (sometimes a few good songs trigger me to just go full discography on a band)
People, what a bunch of bastards
Have you noticed that this radio executive has unilaterally expanded the definition of "piracy" to include recording a broadcast? He's just overturned the Betamax Case. Note the progression here: from piracy = mass producing copyrighted material for unlicensed sale (1980's) to piracy = copying a single recording from the Internet (2000's) to piracy = legally protected fair use (2011).
Yes, I know this story is from the U.K. where the laws are different, but I would be very surprised if taping a signal from the public airwaves is illegal there.
"Piracy" as used by music executives is becoming a buzzword with no meaning other than "people deciding to listen to music without buying it."
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
excellent point, they're like some high school tease getting the guy all worked up day after day but not doing anything about it only to feel dissed later when she learned he slept with the school tramp. Take the fast food industry.. pay close attention when they run their commercials. I guarantee you that they don't run a commercial at a time where there are no open stores in the area. If any market has complete understanding of instant gratification its fast food.
I don't see a compelling reason to buy music for any artist that you only like but - but don't feel you like enough to support, honestly. Otherwise you're wasting money on "Eh they're okay" bands or "they're pretty good bands".
Artists that connect with fans get my full support, cds, concerts, etc, but the rest? f em. You think (insert platinum artist here) is going to give a crap about their fans? no. They're all about $$, which isn't all about music.
Gee, I never would have expected that being able to buy something when, where and how you want might actually impact your decision whether or not to buy it.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I swear to Jeebus, I got to the end of the article summary and had to check my calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1st. Then I had to check the link to make sure it wasn't the Onion. I know we all thought these guys were dinosaurs, but this goes straight past incompetence, blows past malice, and lands straight in hug-me jacket territory. What sort of insanity is this? I stopped buying, pirating, or listening to Top 40 radio years ago; I get all my tunes from CC-licensed clearinghouses like jamendo.com or searching the Goog for CC licenses. This whole report just sounds like a discussion of 60's era soviet oppression- I know that's melodramatic, but it's got that same weird dissonance of separation of time and culture.
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256
I actually think the online music stores help albums sell. On iTunes, and I assume the others, if an album is composed of 15 songs and you buy 1 of them at $0.99 and decide you want the rest, you can 'complete the album' for its normal price - $0.99 you already paid. I'm not a huge music buyer but for 10 or so new artists I've gone back and bought the rest of the album after the single song grew on me.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
I've never bought anything on iTunes or any of the other online music stores
I actually think they just have to give up on selling copies of music after it's released. In fact I'm surprised books haven't gone the same path yet, perhaps they will now with the pads. Though it is much harder to scan a whole paper book and convert to a file, than rip a CD. Putting a whole CD onto torrents is just way too easy.
There are options, like making the CD into more of a booklet, with lots of additional text, photos, perhaps video, software, etc. Selling shows. Advertising. Subscriptions. Updates. Services. Pledges. I personally favor pledges. Ask people what they want, let them choose their favorite art and artists, give feedback, participate, put their money in escrow, produce the stuff. Be it music, clothes, cars, or software, this model of producing things then pushing it down peoples throat with advertising just sucks.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Online sales of singles has got me interested in throw-away music again. When I was a teenager I used to DJ a lot - nothing 'creative', just parties, 21st, weddings etc.. You could get a newly released single on 7" for 99p (UK) so before a gig I would go and spend 5-10 pounds and enjoy turning up with a handful of new records. For years CD singles have been 2.99 - 3.99, so I've waited until compilation albums came out (like the NOW! series) to get 40 songs for 15.99, of which perhaps 10 I really want to play.
Just recently I've done a few weddings and parties, and I've been able to go to Amazon and buy singles for 69-99p, and the prices don't go up after two weeks. I'm suddenly really enjoying DJing again because I can turn up with the tunes that everyone wants to hear, and I don't care if I will never play them again after 6 months. Plus if I've forgotten to buy a track that everyone's requesting, I can fire up my broadband dongle and buy it there and then.
For me, being able to buy the music that everyone's listening to on the radio will be a major step forward. Of course, I'll keep buying albums of the bands that I really like (NOT dance music!!), but I'm really glad I don't have to have piles of compilation CDs just to have a reasonable mix of music most people will dance to.
Pay musicians their fair share so they will make music with originality
This assumes that a musician can make sure his music has originality. George Harrison accidentally copied half of a Ronald Mack song into "My Sweet Lord" and lost a million dollar lawsuit over it (Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music). Are there steps that a songwriter can take to prevent accidental copying, or should one accept that it might eventually happen and just buy some sort of insurance?
Quite a few tracks on iTunes are only available with the purchase of the whole album.
Pledges. I personally favor pledges. Ask people what they want, let them choose their favorite art and artists, give feedback, participate, put their money in escrow, produce the stuff.
Kickstarter.com is my *current* favorite "Pledge-based" business website for funding creative projects.
A St. Louis radio station, KSHE, is the first FM stereo rock station dating back to the late sixties (I don't remember the date, but they became my favorite station the first night they aired as KSHE-95.
From the start they played album sides, whole albums, etc, moreso when they were new than now; the 7th Day show, when they play seven full CDs uncut and uninterrupted on Sundays, is the only remnant.
Years later I was married and going to college and KSHE played Ted Nugent's new album, Stranglehold. I recorded my copy off the air. Mind you, this was decades ago before anything was digital.
My then-wife and I went to a bar in Wood River that always had great bands, cheap drinks, and no cover charge. The band took a break and we went to the car to smoke a joint (again, this was back in the stone age).
I may have been the first person ever to put big speakers in a car, and had the hatchback popped open with Stranglehold blasting.
It attracted the band, who were amazed that I had a copy of this long-awaited album two full weeks before it was available in a record store. The whole damned band piled into my Vega for more pot.
A memorable night. But needless to say, I didn't have to buy a copy of that album, or a lot of other albums that KSHE played before they were available.
I still tape stuff off the radio, only now I use a computer rather than tape. You usually get a better quality rip than you can download, legal or illegal, and the legal piracy is a lot less trouble than the illegal downloads.
If you want top-40 music, just plug your radio into your computer and sample for a couple of hours. You'll usually get the entire 40 songs on the list, and it's a matter of a few minutes to cut them into singles and convert to MP3.
Stupid record lables...
Free Martian Whores!
It is just amazing what these aging businesses will do to try to prop up a product and business model that has less and less value as time goes forward--a copy. The ability to create great quality copies and distribute them to others has never been easier. They are just going to have to transform their business model. Copies are copies are copies--everyone can do it---no big deal.
They pass new laws, re-coin old terms such as "piracy" and try to convince the dwindling masses that it is good to pay their fees to listen to music. If they had their way you would pass them some revenue each and every time you listened to something they deemed "their property". Bottom line is, if someone can hear it, then it can easily be recorded. Copes can easily be stamped in seconds. These are now a facts of life and of todays powerful technologies and there is no getting around that.
This is not piracy. Their revelations are not revelations at all--just marketing and babble. It isn't instant gratification that causes copying, it is just the simple fact that it is easy and convenient to do so. Stop screwing with our court systems, laws, and language big media! Get over it and move on... Find another way--innovate!
Sheesh, what will it take for enough smart people to collectively stop sending these greedy corporations money for their hyped and worthless products?
Instead of going on about piracy, try to figure out new ways of extending your media to your demographic, and this is a very good example of them making a good step forward not only in effort, but also in ingenuity...beat most to the punch....now if they can just figure out a way to block recording devices from recording the song from the radio, they would have solved the oldest problem in their play book.
After 50-odd years of people taping new releases off the radio, they've finally got their heads around the idea that releasing them for sale at the same time means that people will buy singles while they still like them. Now they just need to realise that people don't really buy singles any more...
Hmm. Someone ought to tell the folks over at iTunes that their business model isn't actually working, despite record profits because people don't buy singles.
Ok, sarcasm off. I think the deeper message here is that with Google, you can *measure* the actual demand, rather than guess. Turns out the classic guess of 6 weeks is wrong -- or, it may have been right back when the business process of setting up a single was invented -- and they know this only because there are good tools to measure what seems like a reasonable proxy for purchasing demand. That's an impressive step forward in progress, I'd say, and a huge win for Google. I'd like to know how much Sony paid for that information, because it is highly valuable to them.
But, if the idea of allowing interest to build up is an inherently good one (and the article does not cover that), then it would seem like the best time to release a single for purchase would be when the interest is just before or at its peak. So why release immediately, rather than after 10 to 14 days when the interest is highest?
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
As an independent composer and producer, I'm happy to see that Sony Music are continuing down their path of inevitable self-destruction. Maybe they'll make some cash out of this, maybe not. Heck, if they bother to make the downloads DRM-free (stop sniggering!), they might have a market. Personally, having released an album myself via bandcamp (at http://casimirsblake.bandcamp.com/ - please have a listen if you like electronic music :), I feel happy that there are easy, and inexpensive options out there for the hobbyist AND professional musicians. It's working for me, and I certainly feel no need or desire to contact a label like Sony. No, I haven't had many sales, but that isn't the point anyway. If I get some, it's a bonus (and thank you very much, it means a lot), but here's the thing: I just want to make and release music. Major labels now seem to exist entirely to rape talent from bands and individuals, and pocket the linings of their shareholders. Contract? No thanks!
-CasiB
I'm not sure this "similtaneous release" of content in theaters with content online idea holds much water, simply because someone has tried and failed at this approach. Morgan Freeman invested quite a bit into the idea with well intentions and not too bad execution, but the idea flopped as he learned an important point: it's not the way I receive my media, it's how much I pay for it. The large distribution studios are afraid to change their business models due to fear that they will lose control of the profit flow on what has amounted to mostly crap and rehashed ideas executed worse than the originals.
Avatar set a dangerous precedent for 3d movies. Studio execs saw how profitable it was decided all new movies with a singe computer generated effect should be in 3D, but ignored the fact that Avatar was visually stimulating from beginning to end, incorporating 3D into the production cycle, and not some cheap after thought to line a few pockets. So now I get an overpriced film, stuck in useless 3D, mediocre or re-hashed story, with over paid actors who lost their muster years ago. No thanks, I'll just wait for the DVD and continue to pay my Netflix subscription.
What I don't understand is why studios simply don't control the piracy flow. It's not hard to seed a torrent, and it's too complicated for average computer users to download torrents, so why not control the releases of a pirated film/song via sharing networks. To engage the pirates/consumers as to why they didn't purchase the film vs downloading it, then try to meet or exceed those viewers wants, needs, and expectations at a price point the market agrees with. If you want to stop piracy then find out why people pirate in the first place, then find ways to get them to pay. Oh, wait that requires creativity. Hollywood can't have creativity mucking with the business model. Oh well, like Blockbuster, the Razr, and CDs, failure to change your business as the technology changes long enough and someone else will come along and take your lunch right from underneath you.
I think a an instant buy function has very little to do with piracy. It just a cynical and artificial way of boosting single sales. If a "buy now" button lights up in the radio app when music plays, then the music with the most airtime gets more revenues and races up the sales chart faster. If radio stations also get a cut of the proceeds (as they probably would if they're providing playlists for this feature) then it just becomes payola through the backdoor.
Just let me here in Norway get it same time as US air date.
That would be 2 am Monday morning for you guys.
I agree, although the quality of The Simpsons has been so low lately that I just stopped pirating it. Actually considered deleting the X GB the last few seasons take up on my hard drive.
No, I haven't noticed that. Mostly because he hasn't said that - at least not in the article you're supposed to read (yeah, I'm new here).
This bit...
That the Exec hopes that this move will make people buy the singles rather than recording from the radio is logical, but nowhere does he imply that doing so is piracy/illegal/whatever.
Some nations in fact explicitly allow recording, and a subset thereof compensate artists, or rather their representatives who are supposed to pass it on to the artists, through levies on e.g. CD-R, DVD-R media, PVRs, media streaming devices, etc.
In my book, the difference between good art and bad art is the message, the idea communicated. The main thing isn't really the beauty of the sounds or the colors or the shapes, although it's important too. The most important thing in art is whether there is some new idea communicated, some new inspiration, something to be said, informed, accused, called out, whatever. Pretty colors with no idea inside is just a pretty bottle with no wine inside.
Now where are the websites with art of people who have something to say? To me, graffiti says something. Underground music, unpublished, says something. Wikileaks says something. Wikipedia says something. If I have something I want to say or do, I think it's true, and I don't give a damn whether someone wants to hear or pay or wants me dead, I have a soapbox and a mouth, or whatever tools, and I'm speaking.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
As a professional musician, I completely endorse and salute this approach.
You are welcome on my lawn.
n/t
Free Manning, jail Obama.
And how much does the licence from the PPL cost to legally do what you're doing?
http://www.ppluk.com/en/Music-Users/Why-you-need-a-licence/
Ethan 'Bubblegum' Tate - "Hello lawsuit."
Jonathanjk.com
I actually think they just have to give up on selling copies of music after it's released ... Putting a whole CD onto torrents is just way too easy.
Just because something is easy, that doesn't make it right. Believe it or not, there are many people out there who like to pay for things to encourage the future production of said things.
Be it music, clothes, cars, or software, this model of producing things then pushing it down peoples throat with advertising just sucks.
I kind of agree, but do you seriously think it will ever change? The answer is "no". Producing things is good for one thing, and without advertising we often wouldn't know about these things. With the internet and viral/word of mouth marketing becoming so easy, the advertising landscape is changing, but it's still advertising. A lot of cool stuff has gone overlooked over the years because of lack of decent advertising.
which is totally what she said
... to figure out that people want music NOW, not after it's played on the radio 50 times through every single day, many times on a day. Wow, amazing. How many people will even listen to radio these days to hear new songs? Really?
I'm sure these groups of artists have been doing this for a long time; I know several fairly prominent Christian hip-hop artists have been releasing singles and selling them on iTunes as a way to hype an upcoming album.
Single != Track
A "single" is a music industry term for a physical item that has two (possibly a few more) tracks on it. Think of old 45's or Cassingles. They are separate physical product from the album that are released for purchase separate from the full LP.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
Not true.
We jest, but in fact this is precisely how the entertainment industry has worked for decades, if not over a century.
1. New technology which impacts entertainment comes out.
2. Industry fights tooth and nail to eliminate it.
3. Industry adopts it and winds up embracing it so thoroughly that they make even more money than before.
The time between step 2 and 3 varies, but the end result is always the same. The only time this hasn't been the model followed is when the technology is developed hand-in-glove with the entertainment industry (eg. DVDs) or it is only practical for big companies to set up and produce (eg. CDs before the advent of CD burners).
It happened with recorded music (artists complained that nobody would want to see them play, eventually started selling their own music), it happened with radio (who will buy the record if you can just listen to the radio? Eventually the radio became a marketing tool), it happened with videos (who will go to the cinema when they can tape the movie? Eventually they sold pre-recorded videos), it happened with compressed digitised audio (who will buy the CD when they can pirate it online? Yet today we have a whole slew of online music stores).
I guarantee if CD burners had become cheap and half-decent five years earlier than they did, we'd have had the music industry trying to ban them too.
Usually tracks that are album-only are long tracks. The label must pay more to the publisher for tracks over 7 minutes, making the 99 cent price point unprofitable.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
Album sales have dropped for four of the last five years, and while sales of digital singles are booming, that has not yet been enough to offset the drop. Music companies sold more than 350 million singles last year, a jump of 150 percent over the previous year's total.
Having had a wedding recently, I know that, at least in Canada, the analogous license is around $50-75 for night. This is not very much, considering this was part of the cost of a $35k wedding. It actually cost me less than the license to serve liquor. Consider music and booze played a considerable part in everyone's enjoyment of the night, it was definitely money well spent.
Meh, I do buy singles. WAY more of them than whole CDs (and yes, I do pay for them).
The best thing about the digital revolution in music IMHO was not having to buy a whole CD for the one good tune and 9 filler/crap songs.
It does seem silly that it took labels this long to realize that with the short playlists on stations people are very tired of songs by the time they hit the rack.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
I can understand the appeal of singles. I've been buying albums for quite a while, but I think I'm going to switch. I've been burned far too many times lately when buying albums based on 1 single, only to discover it was the only half-decent song on the entire thing.
They're a huge pain.
"This song/movie/video isn't available in your region due to licensing restrictions"
This is amazingly common in Europe. Which is very stupid, because if I can't buy it legally, the most logical thing to do is to pirate it. If I can't pay even when I want to, the logical conclusion is that they just don't want my money.
Music today is heavily marketed and targeted for maximum sales with minimum work. This means they take something that sold before and make more of it.
If you liked it, the music today is *great*. If you don't like it, then there's *nothing* to listen to and it's all crap. It's actually all mediocre.
"In the old days", there was *real* crap. What was available was whatever was made and that was *anything*. Therefore there was *real* crap, but SOMEONE liked it. Someone who today would never get a look in because it "wouldn't sell". There were also some real gems but they didn't get repeated again and again until you got sick of it. There was VARIATION.
Encourage instances of good behavior from entities whose behavior you tend to dislike, rather than thinking nothing they could possibly do is good enough.
That does seem to be the sentiment of many of the previous comments.
That being said:
Oftentimes, a *full album* is ready to go, but the RIAA dicks around waiting to actually release it - could they cut that out as well?
(For example, those who are fans of Lupe Fiasco complained of Atlantic's foot-dragging on _Lasers_...)
A couple of my favorites, one RIAA and one non-RIAA, both have albums coming out in May 2011, but waiting the same amount of time for the non-RIAA one doesn't bother me as much because there hasn't been a hype machine running full blast.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
But now, thanks to their brilliant plan, that has changed to:
Ohhh kay then.
How old are you now, if you were 120 YEARS ago?
Granted, Whole Lotta Love was literally 42 years ago, but the airplay version was missing the groovy middle section [although the LP (release a couple weeks earlier) and most pressings of the 45 still had it]
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
YES! Instead of wringing their hands, and suing everybody, maybe they will finally figure out what to do about it. Hey recording industry, just how often do you review your policies and procedures? Have you noticed that the market has changed a little in the last 30 years???
Get your collective heads out of the sand! The old ways do not work now! It's change, or go extinct!
American Dad? Family Guy? I'm an American, and I can't stand that crap. Back on topic, do they translate the shows for Norway? If so, perhaps that's a reason for a delay. Norway's a pretty small market compared to the US; it's about the size of Alabama or Colorado, population wise.
SSC
it was definitely money well spent.
Not if you live in a country where you don't need a license to serve liquor and listen to music at your own private and personal wedding.
Why is it that authorities need to have all this control? It pisses me off.
That would be 2 am Monday morning for you guys.
I guess you missed the point by miles. This isn't the Cataclysm release where people go batshit crazy to get online within ten minutes of release. I'm not talking about it being aired a few hours or even days earlier or later. I'm talking about it taking months and years and sometimes not at all.
Typically the first season is aired only in the US. If it's a success then that season is typically sold to EU networks next year so we're a full season behind. Since for the most part they can't catch up - with some exceptions during the author's strike - they stay a year behind. Even if they stretched the seasons they'll be completely out of touch with season endings and such and they can't send two full seasons in the time the US sends one.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
do note that i didnt say anything about *buying* full discographies, and happily enough, for now that is legal here in holland
Bands that i do really like, do get my money, i do own for instance, every judas priest CD i was able to find in stories (okay, only distinct CDs, not every copy i ever saw)
People, what a bunch of bastards
They might subtitle it but they don't dub it. In any case, it's mostly because things are aired in the US first and sold to everyone else later.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Now they just need to realise that people don't really buy singles any more...
With music on physical media, you're correct. With downloaded music, however, people tend to buy songs, not albums. Obviously that's not true for everyone— I prefer albums, myself. But it's true for the majority.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
I found a much less expensive place to buy legit music from. Singles only 15 cents and most expensive album I have ever purchased was under $3 and it was a double. soundike.com
They may not have as extensive a collection but for the price!! Before passing judgment check them out. Its a Russian site but the tunes are legal and in 3 years I have NEVER had them screw me or cheat me out of my money or my identity.
If bars don't serve drunk people, then McDonald's shouldn't serve fat people...
Betamax was more complicated than you make it out to be. The court didn't just rule that all recording from the air was fair use. Specifically, they said that time shifting was fair use:
Private, noncommercial time-shifting in the home satisfies this standard of noninfringing uses both because respondents have no right to prevent other copyright holders from authorizing such time-shifting for their programs and because the District Court's findings reveal that even the unauthorized home time-shifting of respondents' programs is legitimate fair use.
On the other hand, the opinion didn't clearly specify whether building a library of tapes that you would watch over and over would be non-infringing (it likely would be infringing, since it significantly affects the commercial value of the copyright holder's work... if you tape a showing for repeated viewing, you have no reason to go purchase the VHS/DVD version). Since this was a common use of audio taping, it's very likely that taping from the radio for repeated listening isn't fair use.
I'm not totally up to date on all of this, but I'd guess it's quite likely that using MythTV to archive television shows is not fair use. On the other hand, that doesn't make the technology itself illegal, since, like Betamax, it's capable of the same substantial non-infringing uses (time-shifting).
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Now they just need to realize that people don't really buy albums any more...
There, fixed that for you.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I thought that was every online music site's business model. *shrug*
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Singles are a hell of a lot more cost-effective than entire albums. If I actually paid for my music, I would not buy an entire album unless it was awesome all the way through. I would just buy the songs I like.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Amusing as the parent's post is it does make a serious point: the record companies are changing their business model - they're doing it slowly and reluctantly, but nonetheless they are doing it. Here's my prediction of the reaction:
- This will have no statistically significant effect on piracy
- "The record wasn't available yet" will persist as a reason for piracy for a year or so among people who could have taken advantage of this
- Pirates who previously used this justification will move onto another
Why points 2 and 3? Because the vast majority of "explanations" that are given by pirates are post-facto justifications and actually have no significant connection to the real reason that they pirate, which is that it means that they can get music for free and they probably won't get caught.
Sonic drive-ins ran commercials for YEARS before they were local to the Philadelphia area. I guessed that they were trying to drum up interest from potential franchisees. It worked: we've had at least four new locations pop up in just the last four years.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I find that the sort of stuff that ends up on the radio, which is mostly pop and hip hop, has a very short shelf life anyway. Most of it is low-quality consumable junk. It's tailored for mass appeal; people go nuts over it for that first month or two until it becomes grating. That means if people haven't bought the music during that short window they're likely never going to buy it. I'm shocked stupid music executives have taken this long to catch on to this.
What bothers me about the pervasiveness of buying individual songs is the loss of albums with a cohesive theme or outright concept albums. There's nothing to stop musicians from producing them, but if people aren't going to buy the whole thing I bet a lot of people will be a lot less inclined to bother making them. Financially, it probably makes sense to release individual songs from time to time instead of working on an entire album all in one go.
You've swallowed the lie that piracy costs sales, when studies show the exact opposite.
Kindof how the Partnership for a Drug Free America keeps the lie alive that pot causes cancer, when studies show that it actually decreases the incidence of cancer, especially among cigarette smokers.
Nobody ever went broke from piracy, but many artists have gone broke from obscurity. The reason the RIAA doesn't want P2P is because they have radio and don't need it, while their competetion, the indie bands, NEED P2P.
It isn't pirates they're afraid of, it's competetion. The record labels are made of liars and thieves, and nobody should EVER take anything anybody in the industry says at face value.
Free Martian Whores!
+1000 It's funny how willing people are to give away their liberty. Would you also willingly pay a fee to give your friends beer and listen to your stereo in your home?
Afaict at least in the UK downloads of individual tracks from legal digital download services are counted towards the singles chart.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Maybe this is why it seems like so many of the heavy users of TVTorrents.com are from europe...
I was thinking pretty much that. There would be no "piracy concern" today if they caught on a long, long time ago.
What makes people copyright infringers? Now, there are three reasons:
1. Price.
2. Availability
3. "Because it's possible".
You cannot beat 3. But these people tend to be rare, at least originally. Who would start their infringing career with the idea "there's so much musik out there, gotta have it all". In case you're infringing, ask yourself: Was that my motivation in the first place? That I want to have ALL the music out there, whether I like it or not? Of course, once you're in there, why not get that album too, it's there, download takes a few seconds, who cares, click "add" to the list of downloads.
There's little hope to beat 1. Making records and CDs cost money. And while the medium itself is dirt cheap, the fixed costs behind it are huge. Making music much cheaper is quite possible: Axe the studio behemoth behind you and you're out a ton of cost. Since studios ARE that behemoth, you won't see that from studios any time soon. But hey, originally, before people turned to torrents, they bought the CDs too. Of course, once they found torrents they instantly noticed that it would be WAY cheaper to cut out that "buy the record" step between "want to have it" and "listen to it".
So what's left is 2. And this is IMO the core reason why many people started with torrents altogether. You hear a song on the radio and you like it. You go to your record store and realize that this record is not available for sale, but it's announced for +6 weeks. BUT YOU WANT IT NOW! It's a new tune, a fresh song, you like it, you want to hear it all the time. Not just the twice per hour the radio station plays it.
And here is usually where a friend points you to torrents. Welcome to copying, forget buying.
Now, this COULD have solved the problem 10 years ago. But that horse left the barn and died peacefully somewhere on a grassy hill already.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm looking at you MTV's Skins
Bottles.
Which wouldn't really be a problem for download services.
The real question is whether the revenue gained from immediate release (hopefully) reducing piracy would compensate for the revenue lost from no longer being able to sell to a TV network as "new and exclusive". Personally I doubt it would.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
As the massive fansub crowd, and lately several "simulcast" websites show, fully translating and subtitling an episode to a different language is an effort that takes only a few hours from a professional team.
I work afternoons, due to my company being in the US, you insensitive clod!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You've heard of Hulu.com, right?
It would be easier to just license ears. Just implant all newborns with an on/off switch in their ear canal. If they don't pay a fee, they can't hear anything. This would also allow, for instance, mothers to finally get some royalties on the words they speak to babies, and all throughout their children's lives.
... but will they release them in the US, Europe and Australasia at the same time?
America, Home of the Brave.
You've heard of geoblocking, right?
Your wedding cost $35k?
I got married last year for a few hunderd dollars, and bought a house for $30k. Nice and quiet, with a nice garden in back, too!
But hey, if you have it, spend it, I'd say.
You must listen to crappy music. Good bands have maybe 1-2 songs on their albumn that sucks. NiN, Tool, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Erasure, Depeche Mode, New Order come to mind (for myself) as bands I can actually listen to the whole CD of. Sure, there are good tunes by bands with "junk-and-filler" but frankly if you only have one good tune you should either give up or go back to the drawing board so-to-speak.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Must be a slow day today for me - I read the headlines as "Sony, Universal Hope To Beat Piracy With 'Instant Cop"
Exactly. If they would follow a distribution system like Steam I would buy music all the time. I used to pirate video games all the damn time as a teenager and young adult because I either I lived in an area that didn't get new releases fast enough or I didn't feel like braving shitty traffic to go to the store to buy it. Im as poor now as I was then however when Steam came out the convenience ended up making it worthwhile to purchase games and download the day of release.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
The venue needs a PPL licence. The DJ needs a MCPS licence costing between about £100 and £400 per year depending on the number of tracks he wishes to copy.
I only play in places that have their own PPL. It's not a business, usually I'm just playing for friends, I make them aware that a license is required and leave it to them to sort it out with the venue.
Funny thing: in the US, it is STILL LEGAL to tape (or digitally record) from the radio.
And to space-shift and archive your personal tapings.
Calling this "piracy" is more proof the MafiAA are just a bunch of assholes who think they are the law.
There's more than just that. Though most of British comedy series (with the exception of I.T. Crowd and The Mighty Boosh) I cannot understand the humor in (such as The Office), there are many dramas that get remade in the US which are actually better in the UK version (Shameless comes to mind).
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Ah, if they just subtitle it, there's no reason for a delay.
SSC
As my good friend Raistlin Majere once said:
“Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it.”
Good luck with that one Sony/Universal.
PS Im aware Shameless is partially a Comedy but it always seemed more dramatic to me.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
most albums contain mostly junk-and-filler these days
Good bands have maybe 1-2 songs on their albumn that sucks. NiN, Tool, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Erasure, Depeche Mode, New Order come to mind (for myself) as bands I can actually listen to the whole CD of.
Wow... I never realized that those SIX bands were responsible for MOST ALBUMS that are released THESE DAYS.
Dammit, fool. Reading comprehension, much? And nowhere did my previous post make any indication of the type of music that I actually listen to (custom Pandora stations, by the way).
"Most?" And yet in the same paragraph you talk about one hit wonders and radio. Dude, the stuff you hear on the radio is what, maybe 1% of music? Actually, no, that is a spectacular exaggeration. Maybe 0.01% of music? Nearly all music never gets played on any radio station even once. A tiny fraction of music sometimes gets played by a radio station, though most of that is some college station. And a tiny fraction of that gets played on the Clearchannel et al radio stations and is assembly line corporate.
And just to be clear, I'm talking about recorded music, where the makers are offering their music to the public, wanting people to buy their CD or download their files via the internet. Less than 1% of that ever gets broadcast by radio stations.
These marketing geniuses are telling me that if I'm worried that people might not buy my product, I ought to offer my product for sale?
Damn! Why didn't I think of that?!?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And contrariwise, I'm in the USA, and the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV could have made over $100 from me last year by selling me TV episodes on the iTunes store for $1 instead of my having to go to BitTorrent. (Or, you know, they could sell me MPEG-4 downloads from their own site. Or put the shows on PSN. Or Amazon video. Or Netflix. I'm flexible.)
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I would be surprised if the license you pay amazon for covers your public performances of those songs. Maybe you should film yourself playing them at a wedding and post it on youtube... (Please post the cease and desist letter from Conglomo Inc. when that comes too.)
since most albums contain mostly junk-and-filler these days
Clarification, much? I only gave personal examples, hence "come to mind (for myself)". Figure of speech, much?
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
It already is, though.
You've heard of proxies, right?
German dubbed Stargate Universe aired in germany BEFORE in the US.
... because sex sells and the state of everything, from recreation to work to politics is the culmination of everyone's attempts to get laid -- short term or long term -- regardless of gender. Stop paying for sex/life with freedom and think longer term if you don't like it... I can only assume it's a self-confidence/introversion/identity crisis thing.
A wedding isn't really a private performance, it's much more like playing a song at a small club. By your logic it's fine to not pay a licensing fee if the bar is members only.
I'm not personally a fan of the industry, but this is one of their more reasonable requirements. ASCAP has to get money to pay the talent somehow. I do realize that the sharing is somewhat opaque and it's not clear how well the money is divided, but they do have a right to be paid.
Yeah, it shocked me too. It's almost like they'd reached sapience all of the sudden. I wonder if a black monolith took pity on Sony and played "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" through cafeteria speakers?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You don't want Doctor Who at the same time as the US air date. You want it at the same time as the UK air date.
There are all sorts of subscription models that make sense, but they seem unwilling to even consider.
For example, how about selling DVDs in advance? People could buy a DVD at the start of the season, get an empty package, and get streaming without commercials a day early, and have a DVD mailed every month or so and fill up the box. (Or you could buy at any time and get DVDs to that moment.) This would seem perfect for cult TV shows that sell huge amounts of DVDs but don't have amazing ratings.
How about letting people download encrypted TV shows in advance to computers, with commercials, and then releasing the key at the moment the show airs? They could even do the right local commercials so the advertisers get their money, and have DRM to delete the show after a week. It looks exactly like broadcast TV, but, hey, you don't need cable or receive digital TV or anything, and you could do it the next day if you'd missed it. Software to do this could even be embedded in DVRs...imagine if you could scroll backwards and pick a show 'to record' that already aired, and be told it would show up in an hour or so. Or if you pick too many shows at once it downloads one of them instead of recording. (Or, hell, it just downloads them regardless, and just pretends to show them live.)
Which, yes, people would crack it...which would give them a digital copy of the show with commercials, as opposed to a digital copy of the show without commercials that they can already download illegally, so that's hardly a loss for the network. The episodes could, however, have perfect encryption before the show airs...that's not DRM, that's just actual encryption you can't get past without the key.
Combine those two ideas, and people with 'advance DVDs' could get with a downloaded copy without commercials. You buy an advance DVD, your DVR (Which has access to that information.) starts downloading that show in advance, without commercials, and shows you that instead of the on-air show. Just magically. And that copy stays on your DVR until you delete it, and you can go get it again if you want.
The problem is that industry is a mess of contracts and people who use them as excuses to avoid doing anything at all to change the system. It is, frankly astonishing that Hulu happened at all, but they really are pushing to not have that be the television paradigm.
In fact, because of all the contracts between broadcasters and networks, the first people to do stuff like this are probably going to have to be a cable network, who don't have agreements with broadcasters about commercials, with a new series with contracts specifically written for handling stuff like this.
And it's going to totally fuck up syndication deals too, but, frankly, those are on the way out. No one's going to watch reruns like that in the future...they'll just demand 'An episode of BtVS I haven't seen in a while' and get that episode with instantly inserted ads from the people who hold the 'syndication rights'. They're not just going to fill the extra airwaves with old shows. It will function more like 'free, ad supported, on demand programming'. (Which will actually work a lot better for the advertisers, but is going to be nearly impossible to figure out how to do for current shows, legally.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
They still sell 45's? Sweet!
I drank what? -- Socrates
Thick as a Brick ROCKS!
I drank what? -- Socrates
Well, this is quite funny... You a business and have the privilege of "music on hold"? $150 please!
http://www.ppluk.com/files/tariffs/PPLPP084.pdf
playing music in your exercise class?
http://www.ppluk.com/files/tariffs/PPLPP022.pdf
want to play music in your office???
if your factory or office has an audible area of 100m2or less and you only use "traditional" radio or television broadcasts, you may be eligible for a concessionary licence fee of 50% of the annual fee in the 600m2 band
Surcharge
If you have been publicly performing sound recordings without first obtaining or renewing your licence, the fees below will be subject to a 50% surcharge. This is designed to act as a deterrent to unlicensed public performances of sound recordings, and to compensate PPL for the considerable administrative effort expended in detecting and taking action in respect of these infringements of copyright.
http://www.ppluk.com/files/tariffs/PPLPP212.PDF
The last 2 bits is if you are listening to your radio at work.
What a glorious era, when listening to public radio is no longer free.
Or, better yet, movies. The movie you just watched in the theatre should be on DVD/Blu-Ray for $5 on your way out. How often have you been blown away by a movie in the theatre, only to realize days later that it wasn't so great after all. Why not capitalize on the post-theatre excitement? Studios would make bank!
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
As an American who gets hulu.com, and all the listed shows, you obviously have never been in the position ths parent is experiencing. Hulu.com is not available in most countries. Nor is there any realistic way to get access to it, via proxies or otherwise.
On a side note, its attitudes like this that make people think Americans are oblivious of the rest of the world.
ASCAP has to get money to pay the talent somehow.
+1 Funny
You do realize that ASCAP and related collection agencies are about a billion dollars and 15 years behind on the payments to artists. Their excuse was often "we couldn't find the artist", even for names like Bruce Springsteen and U2.
even because sometimes the best song in the albun is not the one that was playing incessantly in the radio. YMMV.
What ? Me, worry ?
Yeah, but note that it's still collusion between the two biggest players in the market. What else have they secretly planning?
If the top players in the airline industry did a joint announcement of a new business model, the DoJ would be all over them.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I have the impression that Google gives this info away for free, via Google Trends. I'm fairly sure that iTunes, however, charges a pretty penny.
Not that Google doesn't have a lot of info which you cannot get via Google Trends. For example, Sony might be interested in knowing what kinds of MP3 players are searched for by people who have also searched for a certain song --- to get info like that you probably have to pay Google good coin.
Used to be 4. Convenience. Not true for music now that we have iTunes (A legal music store not rendered useless by DRM, tiny library or other such flaws) but still true to some extent for movies. Going to a store takes time and effort, and people are busy and lazy.
I guess i can finally ditch my FM radio with built-in cassette recorder. Oh wait.. I don't have one of those, and haven't for like 20 years. EGAD
Film and music industry people LISTEN UP - immediate downloads, high quality, low price.
Satisfy those three, and you will be satisfying market demands.
Are you being intentionally obtuse, or did you just not understand what you read? The article stated that in the past, people pirated the songs off of the radio (or, more probably, just got rips from radio station employees), weeks before it is released.
Your post fails epically, because it assumes that the majority of people only buy music because they cannot obtain it for free. The boom in sales of digital music (in the form of singles), indicates that you are probably wrong in this assumption, to a large extent.
So where is this line? If I play music in my house, do I need a license? What happens if I have some friends over? What happens if I have lots of friends over? If I have lots of friends over, and two of them just got married?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
My thing is that the songs are still vastly too expensive. I'm sorry, but a dollar for something that's played on the radio damn near constantly as is is too much. Alternatively, if you're a band that's been around for a long time, your discography is NOT worth $500 to me. It's worth maybe $10. If you had a flattr account, I'd be all over clicking you repeatedly. But you don't. If you came to town, I'd pay to go to the concert. But you don't. Most places skip over Winnipeg, Manitoba. You're not worth the $50 in gas, hotel bills, and hours of driving for me to see you in a neighbouring province or in the USA.
So until you give me an option other than highway robbery, I'll take my song how I can get it and listen to it the whole 5 times a month maybe that it comes up in my MP3 player.
The wedding was probably conducted at a place of business--an event hall, for example. Such places, because they are businesses, are required to have liquor licenses to sell alcohol. They aren't likely to allow outside alcohol for liability reasons. Further, the DJ was probably hired; anyone acting as a DJ for hire is also a business, and that carries with it certain restrictions.
That's different if you're having the wedding in your back yard, your friend is bartending using liquor you bought at the store the other day, and your brother is doing the music. None of that requires the licensing and fees.
The difference, basically, is in whether you hired people to do those functions of your wedding, or you do them yourself. Judging by the amount spent on the wedding in question, I highly suspect it was the former.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Well, the dumb*ss behavior by the major labels has taught the vast majority of young people that the best way to get music is to pirate it. You get the newest music in the most convenient way by pirating it.
Now the labels are saying, no wait, we'll give you the newest music in a somewhat convenient way and you get to pay for it.
How is this better than the free model that 500 million people under the age of 25 have grown accustomed to?
The Japanese do the complete opposite of what the
American music industry does. In Japan, the singles come BEFORE the album.
So artists might have 3 or 4 singles(over the course of a year) that lead up to the album.
Singles are like previews for the upcoming album.
The album will contain the main songs from all the singles. So people
will already be familiar with some of the songs on the album.
I really wish the American music industry would try this approach.
What they do now is released the album first and then the singles come
afterwards. Most albums today are mostly filler with 2 or 3 good songs.
Really, the album is dead in America. It's just a few good singles with
filler songs slapped on to fill up the rest of the CD.
You've heard of proxies, right?
And you need an American credit card. And they may at any time shut off any known proxy service or something. And you need a lot more tech-fu than to torrent anything, though I admit that shouldn't be a problem to a slashdotter. And after that, you're probably still violating the ToS so you are breaking contract law which is civil law, which is exactly the same as the copyright violations are prosecuted under. So you can jump through all those hoops and you're still breaking the law, the only thing you'll end up with is a lower chance of getting sued which really is extremely low and extremely much cheaper on this side of the pond anyway.
And slightly cheaper I guess, but I tend to buy the BluRay releases to support the shows I like. I figure AACS/BD+ is practically broken since they haven't been able to stop the decrypters for quite some time now and I'm all for promoting broken DRM. It still sucks for Linux but I'd rather market forces keep them from moving to another new DRM system rather than having to deal with yet another round of forced obsolescence. And as a biological limitation rather than a technical one, 1080p is enough for everyone. Anything more will be like SACD and DVD Audio (Consumers: huh? and huh? /me want mp3/aac)
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
A wedding isn't playing songs to attract customers, and therefore profit. It's playing the song to enjoy it privately.
With video? I'd much rather pirate - oh wait... ;)
if we don't consider the octave there are 12 possibles notes (C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B) so we have 12*12*12*12*12*12*12*12 =429 981 696 possible melodies for just 8 notes.
The first pitch in a hook doesn't count because melodies are similar when transposed into any key (12^7 not 12^8). And on average, I'm guessing only half of those intervals will sound musical in context (6^7 not 12^7).
first 8 different duration
The duration of the last note in a hook is hard to determine (8^7 not 8^8). And when determining similarity, as opposed to round-trippability, a better model is probably either just short and long relative to the other notes (2^7 not 8^7). Now we have 6^7*2^7 = 35,831,808. If we have 7e9 potential composers on the planet, and only 3.5e7 distinct hooks, we get about one hook for each 200 people.
I found a much less expensive place to buy legit music from. Singles only 15 cents and most expensive album I have ever purchased was under $3 and it was a double. soundike.com
They may not have as extensive a collection but for the price!! Before passing judgment check them out. Its a Russian site but the tunes are legal and in 3 years I have NEVER had them screw me or cheat me out of my money or my identity.
From what I've heard, the Russian sites usually pocket 100% of the revenue. Which is worse than simply pirating the tracks.
Wait, people still listen to music on the radio?
No, but a professional DJ is.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They have always had junk and fillers, it's always been that way. There are some notably exception in each generation.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
My point exactly. People have grown accustomed to pirating music and therefore getting it for free. In some cases, certainly, this was due to particular mistakes made by the record companies; I would argue that in many cases it was simply due to the allure of being able to get music for free and not get caught, but the cause is now immaterial. The pirates now expect to be able to get all the music they want for free, with no consequences, and there is no change in the media companies' business model that can compete with that. For all the moral posturing and purported justifications I believe that it comes down to the very simple fact that pirates don't want to pay for music and will not pay for music again unless the supply of free downloads dries up.
In the longer term and more generally, of course, there is a significant advantage to paying for music, since the advent of widespread piracy threatens to put out of business some of the musicians that many would consider the most worth supporting, such as the highly trained musicians that make up classical orchestras. That, though, is an advantage that accrues to society rather than to the individual, and is therefore unlikely to factor in the "should I personally pay for this particular track" calculation.
That depends what you mean by "translating". Most fansubs are absolutely horrible quality, full of mistakes, misunderstandings, clumsy translation, excruciatingly poor writing, etc.
If I was a content owner I would definitely not want my work subjected to that kind of mangling -- particularly not if it was something like the Simpsons that became famous for clever wordplay, cultural references, and other such things that are notoriously difficult to translate.
My thing is that the songs are still vastly too expensive. I'm sorry, but a dollar for something that's played on the radio damn near constantly as is is too much. Alternatively, if you're a band that's been around for a long time, your discography is NOT worth $500 to me. It's worth maybe $10. If you had a flattr account, I'd be all over clicking you repeatedly. But you don't. If you came to town, I'd pay to go to the concert. But you don't. Most places skip over Winnipeg, Manitoba. You're not worth the $50 in gas, hotel bills, and hours of driving for me to see you in a neighbouring province or in the USA.
So until you give me an option other than highway robbery, I'll take my song how I can get it and listen to it the whole 5 times a month maybe that it comes up in my MP3 player.
Quoted in full because it is such a perfect illustration of the point I was making in my GP post.
I would bet all the money in my pockets on the fact that the AC who posted this would not in fact pay for that 1 dollar track if it was less expensive, will not buy it if it is on special offer, and will not buy it in the future if inflation makes the 99c price tag effectively lower. The goalposts, which I would wager have already moved a substantial distance toward the horizon, would simply reveal themselves to be yet more mobile. 50c would still be "highway robbery", or the concert would be too expensive, or too far away, or on an inconvenient day; and the Flattr account if it ever comes into being will be dismissed as not actually getting any money to the artists themselves, or as too inconvenient, or as too risky to be trusted with credit card details. The explanations will still be made with great emotion and conviction, as in the parent, no matter how unbelievable they become, because that way they can make this about righteous indignation over the greed and mistakes of the record companies and pretend that it isn't actually about their own meanness and selfish desire not to pay for something when they can get it for free.
'people want instant gratification.'
Maybe they just want to play the song when they want to, instead of listening to some annoying disk jockey play 10 songs and countless commercials for an hour before they get around to playing something interesting. By then I've driven to where I'm going, my car is parked, and I'm watching a movie with my girlfriend.
That's the reason people buy music instead of listening for their favorite song on the radio. Radio sucks ass. Sometimes I turn on the radio to hear what's new, but I don't listen to the radio to hear a particular song I want to hear. That's what my iPod is for.
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
After 50-odd years of people taping new releases off the radio, they've finally got their heads around the idea that releasing them for sale at the same time means that people will buy singles while they still like them. Now they just need to realise that people don't really buy singles any more...
Never was a problem. Working at the radio stations playing the music...just snagged what I wanted when I first played it...no waiting & made sure others would hear it.
You could, you know, not live in the shithole that is Manitoba.
Until you do that, you can keep your toonies and loonies, ya hump!
Signed,
The Bands You Dismissed Out Of Your Own Personal Stupidity
This will have no statistically significant effect on piracy
You're right, of course. This will have no significant effect on piracy. It likely will, however, increase sales, once again demonstrating that piracy and sales are only vaguely related, and certainly not in the simple, direct way that people often assume.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
This will have no statistically significant effect on piracy
You're right, of course. This will have no significant effect on piracy. It likely will, however, increase sales, once again demonstrating that piracy and sales are only vaguely related, and certainly not in the simple, direct way that people often assume.
I don't quite see how this will demonstrate that piracy and sales are only vaguely related. Surely all it shows is that piracy is not the only factor influencing sales? I assume that by the "simple, direct way" you mean the idea that every pirated track means a lost sale; I would dispute that that is in fact a common assumption but even if it were I don't see how this would show it to be false.
Good grief. I am so tired of the American's are oblivious to the rest of the world comments. You pulling that out of whatever orifice because I'm not aware of specific IP blocking in one country is beyond asinine. But since you brought it up, I'll bite.
;-)
Everyone, everywhere is the same. People only care about the things that effect them.
The fact is that the US is a HUGE country. It's all well and fine to say that Europeans are broader in their awareness, but it's not accurate. Europeans know more about other Europeans. That doesn't make you more aware of the world in general, just the part of the world that's around you.
I put a call out to all those Europeans (just the ones who are on this particular high horse, the holier-than-thou crowd; the rest of you are cool): Are you aware of the plight of the American Football fan? The challenges we face every season to be able to watch games we want to see that are outside of our conference? Of course not, because that doesn't concern you in the least. You Xenophobic b*stards!
And the only reason we hear all these complaints is because someone outside the US wants us to care about one of their issues. Which is generally some combination of wanting something the US has, or wanting the US to do something for them, or do something differently that will benefit them.
If sales go up but piracy does not go down, how does that not show that a pirated track isn't necessarily a lost sale? Did the demand suddenly and coincidentally rise?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
gratify this, asshole.
Making it available before radio is great, but not far enough.
Sell it online before it ever reaches radio. Then you get real fans of the band getting it early, which they love, and they can spread the word about it.
Freezepop's latest album they sold online, where you could buy the CD before it was out - but right away you got to download the songs.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I live in Canada, and I've travelled extensively throughout much of Europe and Asia, and you are simply deluded. On average the Americans I've met, whether in the US or internationally, are far more oblivious of both the world at large and their immediate surroundings. Not just ignorance, but a lack of awareness, insight and understanding. Don't get me wrong, Americans are usually very nice, polite people otherwise.
Furthermore, in my experience the biggest thing people want of America[ns] is for it[them] to go away, not come and rescue them from themselves or whatever you think Americans do on the world stage.
Ya no kidding. Providing music to consumers how and when they want it will increase sales and decrease piracy? Who would have guessed that providing something of value is more effective than vague legal threats and erroneous metaphors? If I were Sony, I would leverage a little more and start the price at $2.25 or $1.83 and drop it every day by 3 or 2 cents respectively over the 6 weeks until it hits the .99 cents mark.
The Simpsons improved in the past 2+ seasons, in my opinion. The most recent episode was hilarious - Smithers and Moe remake the bar as a"gentleman's club" :)
The show had long been too kid-friendly, but the writers are back in shape. Full of references the kids won't get, and generally not subject matter for pre-teen prime time.
The networks need to make more worldwide simultaneous releases, and legal digital distribution MUST become a part of their offering. HBO are doing well with their upcoming series - A Song of Ice and Fire is coming to most regions around the second half of April. Then again, they probably need to since they spent £30 million on it :)
Just add the option to download some high quality episodes for a reasonable fee. I'd settle for 720p, about 2 gigs or so per hour, in at least some H.264 variant. Pretty please?
You can download torrents of all those about half an hour after the usa air date.
Check out eztv or bt-chat
Altho they also show up on the pirate bay after a few more hours.
All that crap airs on my tv. But i'd rather watch it on the pc since i can pause and fast fwd. Plus no commercials.
Really? Because this particular tangent is about the rest of the world (e.g. Norway) wanting American television. I'm sorry you have a you centric view of America[ns] based on the experiences you have had in your travels, but it reinforces what I was saying.
You only care about something when it effects you. Personally, I am very familiar with Canadians. And I could say something just as absurd, having spent many summers on the beaches in New England, and travelled, and blah, blah (I'm already bored). I could allude to things relating to sunblock, deodorant and a either a phenomenal disregard for local custom or unbelievable sub par math skills exhibited from 100% of the Quebecois tourists I've had the dubious pleasure of interacting with (and that would number in the thousands, btw, not a few people in a pub), but that's idiotic. It's an absurd argument. Everyone one of those people, who are probably wonderful people in their own right, to their own communities, to their friends, were exhibiting a lack of awareness, insight and understanding.
Why? (a question you should ask.) Because they were acting just like every other person on the planet. They could give a flying whatever about what I was thinking about them at the time. Likewise of the Americans you've encountered. The envy you're feeling comes from you caring more about something than someone else does. But what you really need to do is stop being so arrogant. The fact is, you caring about something doesn't make it important. End of story.
Maybe the fact that people get bored of these singles so quickly should tell them something...
An underlying problem here, is that copyright is being used to do something that it was not intended to do. When copyright was created, there were no different formats - you either published a book, or you didn't. Now, there are different ways of releasing something (e.g. selling tracks online vs playing them on the radio), and copyright control is being used to ensure that one of them comes out before the other.
And why should they have to pay extra to have translators and Norwegian dubbers just so you can get your tv shows ASAP? That stuff costs money and time, and you want it for free, and right now, it seems.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
they also tend to pay the _wrong_ artist, too. administrative errors aren't that unusual. ...perhaps if there were global surveillance and sufficiently advanced recognition software (shazam on steroids), they could get the figures right and pay everyone a representative amount?
i think there'd be unfortunate implications to global surveillance somehow.
So where is this line? If I play music in my house, do I need a license?
Nope.
What happens if I have some friends over?
Still no.
What happens if I have lots of friends over?
Still no.
If I have lots of friends over, and two of them just got married?
Still no.
So when does it flip over to "yes"?
Typically the trigger is hiring/paying for a DJ.
Also having the event at a rented venue can do it.
Music is my number one hobby and I've been a fan of good British and American rock music for almost 4 decades.
Despite the decline in the UK of independent high street music stores and even the last chain music store HMV suffering some real financial problems currently, I personally have never had such a wide selection of really great rock music to go and spend my money on. (Incidentally, I refuse to buy lossy digital downloads, I just buy CDs.)
Not only is rock going through a revival currently with lots of good new bands, but a huge amount of classic albums have been remastered, expanded and re-released (no, I don't have a problem rebuying an album I already own if it's a great album and I'm getting something extra second time around) and even really obscure albums from the 60s, 70s and 80s are suddenly appearing on CD for the first time.
With the amount of new rock albums coming out all of the time, this suggests to me that record companies are making some profits from them, otherwise they would stop releasing the stuff. That in turn suggests that *ENOUGH* people are going out and buying the CDs, presumably because they don't mind handing over hard-earned cash for good quality products.
Now look at the vast amount of sterile, manufactured crap that exists in the music charts today & you begin to understand why people won't pay good money for it - because it's disposable crap that is quick and cheap to produce that is designed to go out of fashion and be thrown away, just like an old piece of clothing.
So limiting piracy has *ABSOLUTELY NOTHING* to do with how quickly you release something but *EVERYTHING* to do with the quality of what you release - if it's good enough quality, a lot of people will buy it.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
almost like reproduction is a biological imperative or something?
Absolutely they can most series are 20-24 episodes, with some being less.
There are 52 weeks in a year, and there is no reason they couldn't double up like they do here for some series (human target is doing that right now)
Wait, people still tape songs from radio?! I've not seen a cassette tape in ages! (Or listened to any broadcast radio for that matter...)
I'm a big music lover, be it rock, metal, blues... and i buy quite a few cd's direct from the artists, but i wouldn't even want to touch any of those popular pop 'artists' with a 7 foot barge pole, advertisements only work on people who are exposed to them i guess.
This is also why they're fighting internet based radio systems, for example, last.fm is forbidden to provide streaming to mobile phones over TCP/IP outside of the USA, UK & Germany, the labels won't allow it.
Apparently, the packets you receive wirelessly are somehow different, i dunno.
Since when is that piracy? That's fair use.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Fuck proxies, the Internet is a global system, i get enough of that shit from youtube & sony music vids not playing in Belgium, geoblocking is ridiculous, i've got money to spend, if they let me, but no, they'd rather have me pirate
I don't need translations, my english is good enough, so is my french & dutch, there's no reason not to sell to people capable of consuming your product. I wouldn't mind a (reasonable) delay for translation/dubbing, but it has to be reasonable (and i don't mind having to pay for it)
That depends what you mean by "translating". Most fansubs are absolutely horrible quality, full of mistakes, misunderstandings, clumsy translation, excruciatingly poor writing, etc.
Has been true about 5-7 years ago for anime, and about 4-6 years for live action shows at least as far as translating japanese/german/french to english goes. Nowadays, the professional subs are generally considered by fans to be of lower quality, with fansubber crowd doing editing/translation passes and re-releasing the "professional" releases.
That and copyright infridgement pressure from fansubs has pressured at least anime industry to already do simulcast releases on the net with sites like crunchyroll "airing" new shows within hours of official airing in Japan. I'm fervently hoping this will also be the case for more mainstream shows - as grandparent noted, Europe is notoriously at least a season behind on most of the popular US shows.
of course it is. sex isn't the mistake... paying for it with freedom is. you don't have to give away your liberty to have companionship and procreation. you don't have to buy ANYTHING -- even deoderant -- and you'll still find SOMEONE who will hang around your stinky self, assuming you go outside and aren't an a**hole. $35000 on a wedding/mating ritual that supports the status quo and gives more money/resources to the people who build their livelihoods on farming/herding/driving people's mating rituals adds to the problem. then all of a sudden you're wearing pants and bowing to your political representative... WHY? because he has the "BEST" pants and makes the most money and has the best shot at getting laid for those reasons. gimmie a break.
stop giving cults control of your sex drive/life (churches and nations with their marriage and masturbation rules; companies, musicians, and celebrities who sell the sex life you want and who you continue to sell your soul/identity to...). yeah it's a basic drive, but giving your freedom up to get it puts the cart before the horse. sex is free, porn is free, art is free... stop paying for it/supporting it and the curators of it will leave you alone. on the other hand, the more you beg/try/flail the tighter the rules get, the less sex people have, the higher the profitability/demand... there's only one answer.
stop buying love and start making it.
stop trying so hard.
Sorry, you only have the fair-use right to purchase CD's from a store. Everything else is grand theft.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
its not just the record companies.
We are now in the digital age, where digital media can be consumed on so many different devices around the home and also ones we take with us.....except that the media companies are still in the stone age!
Here in Australia we can get digital music from itunes and bigpondmusic and that's about it. Thankfully bigpondmusic do MP3 and itunes is now DRM-free.
For video it is the same choice - itunes and bigpondmovies. And its been this way for years.
Its time for the media companies to wake up and smell the roses...
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
My buxom blonde date and I are single. She chose the an a la carte entree. Not the same thing.
ASCAP/BMI licensing (in the States, at least) has traditionally involved the venue, not the performer.
Kid-proof tablet..
Divide the people interested in music into three groups (obviously this is a massive simplification and leaves out many other groups, but it's sufficient for our purposes):
Group A - The people who wanted to buy the music when it came out, and were therefore paying customers before
Group B - The people who wanted to buy the music when it started playing on the radio and only didn't because the track wasn't yet available
Group C - People who pirate music instead of buying.
Split up like that it's clear that an increase in sales can come from people in group B buying music who previously didn't. As long as there are a large enough number of people in group C who are not also in group B - i.e. a large enough number of people who pirate music rather than buying it for reasons other than the date that the tracks go on sale - there could be theoretically be a large increase in sales without any fall in piracy and without showing anything about the pirates (other than that claims that this was the reason for their piracy were false).
To show that pirating music does not reduce sales you would need a fall in piracy without a consequent increase in sales. Personally I suspect that if pirated music were suddenly to become impossible or risky to obtain there would be an increase in sales. Of course this wouldn't show that every act of piracy is a lost sale but I don't know anyone who's seriously arguing that who doesn't have a vested interest (normally increased damages in court) for exaggerating the effects of piracy.
Well, they got the "instant" part right, it's just the "pop" part which isn't such a great idea.
This. Getting TV (and films) to people using the huge advantages the Internet provides for distribution of content.
Personally, I envisage some sort of "Steam for video" (minus the DRM) - software that you install on your computer and has a store, community and library of TV series and films (although with better library organisation/customisation):
You browse for stuff you want (older stuff there as well), fork over your 40p per episode (1p/minute, for normal stuff, more for new stuff, less for old stuff) and have it download to your computer in an "open"ish format, so you can watch it on any platform (although I imagine that last part will never work).
To that you add Steam-style pricing; special offers all the time (e.g. "buy this entire season/series for quarter-price", "pre-order this season and get a special TF2 hat"). You would be able to pre-order a season, (maybe free pilot episodes?) and then be able to download the episodes in advance encrypted, and have them decrypted on the release date (probably just after the "on air" broadcast; need to give the cable companies their first go).
Then throw in a recovery system (Steam-style, where you can redownload anything you've paid for at any time from anywhere - my main gripe with AmazonMP3), a p2p-distribution network (might as well get users to help distribute - and encourage them to keep the files in the default folder), and a streaming service for "on the go" viewing, or those without vast hard drives.
There - a whole plan, for free.
Of course, it will never happen; licensing laws are far too complex, the cable companies will never go for it as they like their exclusive licenses and don't trust the Internet, and apparently "restricted access streaming" (i.e. AppleTV/GoogleTV/Hulu/Canvas) is the way forward...
stop trying so hard.
Many species have "proof of fitness" rites as part of mating rituals. Being able to spend 35K does show some sort of fitness ;).
sex isn't the mistake... paying for it with freedom is. you don't have to give away your liberty to have companionship and procreation.
You may see it as slavery, others see it as a token of their love.
Lots of people give up certain freedoms in order to play certain games. When you play soccer you choose to abide by the rules. Without the rules, there's no fun in the game. Yes you're not supposed to do certain things while playing the game that you can do freely when not playing the game. But there are millions of people who still find the game fun even though millions of others might not ;).
You don't like the game, don't play it. Others seem to like it, who are we to tell them not to play?
How about letting people download encrypted TV shows in advance to computers, with commercials, and then releasing the key at the moment the show airs?
I think you can do that with the BBC iPlayer Desktop in the UK (without adverts). Slight downside with the BBC iPlayer is that it only stays on your system for a week or so after you've watched it before getting deleted.
I was thinking pretty much that. There would be no "piracy concern" today if they caught on a long, long time ago.
What makes people copyright infringers? Now, there are three reasons:
1. Price.
2. Availability
3. "Because it's possible".
Unfortunatly, due to the long time taken before catching on, I would consider adding:
4. Habit
People in general don't like to change how they do things (this applies to lots of things, not just music and computers), if someone is used to getting stuff off bittorrect, they probably know how to do it quick and efficiently, knowing where to search and what for, etc. and would be resistant to any new "Now you can go to this site instead and do these different things to get the same file"
I like many of these ideas, but they are impossible because they require a competitive experimental market. Because of copyright licensing, as it currently stands, no one (except Apple) can try (and fail) new methods because they'd need to negotiate with each and every rights-holder. And the rights-holders won't try these because it interferes with their existing (even if declining) markets.
There's no reason it has to be like this. Since copyright is a centralised government monopoly grant, there's no moral reason why there isn't a centralised government licensing system, to simplify the ability of new players to experiment in new markets.
But it won't ever happen.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
is with guns. Piracy is ship to ship armed robbery and kidnapping. All the DRM and Instant Pop in the world won't stop piracy. Sony should hire some mercs or have their navy escort the ships.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Tivo?
And they wonder why shutting down torrent sites is like a game of whack-a-mole. Dexter, SGU, Burn Notice and Fringe are usually available on btjunkie 8-12 hours after air time (PST). While it is a hassle to get a solid connection many times, fastpasstv has them within one to two hours after air time. They are missing a huge revenue stream by not offering TV streaming in a timely manner. And Hulu? They are hand tied by their various agreements. Even Hulu Plus cannot offer fresh TV episodes with the speed of the aforementioned.
Windows assumes you are an idiot...Linux demands proof.
it applies to buying music period or letting any of your money go towards music. it's your money, and your purchases represent something if you want them to.
Oh. Sorry. Nevermind, then!
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Certainly a free pilot episode. Perhaps even the first two or three. With none, or almost none, commercials. (Perhaps a quick ten second 'Sponsored by Ford' or whatever.)
At hopefully by then you've pushed 'Like' and you get each episode as it comes out, of, if you're way behind, it just downloads the next three episodes and deletes them and gets more as you go along. With normal amounts of commercials if you don't pay, without any if you did.
There's all sorts of ways to do this.
And it changes the whole paradigm for advertisers and for networks. I suspect that TV networks will be expected to supply all the shows, all the time. No syndication or first-run or exclusivity...advertisers just buy the right to put ads in the show.
In fact, TV networks wouldn't have to set the prices or anything...what could happen is that advertisers simply bid how much they'd like to pay to show you an ad during that show, and you have to 'outbid' them to get rid of that ad. I.e., whoever pays the network the most would decide if there was an ad or not, and what ad it was. (Perhaps there'd be groups you could join and they'd bid on your shows instead to show you less, but very targeted, ads.)
Or, alternately, this could work backwards...TV networks are willing to let someone watch the show for a fee, and advertisers 'buy' that right to resell to you, and you are, essentially, interacting with them. (Or direct if you'll pay.)
There's all sorts of interesting stuff that is utterly impossible because of stupid licensing laws, but, like I said, all it takes is one studio actually starting a series like this.
As for the lack of DRM and playing it anywhere, there's no way in hell it will happen, although it's a sorta stupid problem. And easily solvable:
What they need to do is only distribute stuff with commercials, and then it doesn't matter what DRM you have, you can watch it with commericials, just like over the air. And there's a sorta DRM software that runs on your computer, and only your computer, that will decode the skips of the commercials so you can watch it without.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Distributing with commercials won't be enough, as commercials tend to be region-specific and can be stripped from the files quite easily.
My other thought concerning TV shows is that the production companies should stop bothering with the whole "getting networks to bid" thing, and instead just sell licences for a flat rate to anyone who wants it (i.e. "for $n you can show each episode once", "for $m you can show them as many times as you like", "for $p you can distribute them" and so on).
This way the power reverts from the Network to the production company - although it doesn't cover the issue of initial costs, which I understand the networks tend to pay for.
But then, I'm all for reworking licensing laws - something like the original copyright law, whereby if someone was charging too high a price you could take them to the authorities who could force them to charge less...
For a second I thought that they had developed a DRM scheme that would start playing Pop Music 30 seconds into whatever you were listening to. This is much better.
Sig missing. Reward.
YES They Do (buy singles anymore). I love the ability to select my songs, be it from Amazon, I^Tunes, or Audibile or whatever. Who nowadays wants to buy a CD with their desired song or songs but with a bunch of songs they really don't want? This is an excellent business model-instant gratification- money is not the object, but the access and availability, and the ease of use. I prefer to pay for my songs but if I can't get them in a form where I can put them on my media players, then I have to resort to nefarious means. So make them available in easy to use format and adaptable to multimedia and I will purchase, happily. Money is not the object, but access and adaptability is.
Distributing with commercials won't be enough, as commercials tend to be region-specific and can be stripped from the files quite easily.
Really? Easier than searching newsgroups or torrents right after the show and downloading without commercials at all?
The TV networks are operating under a logical fallacy, although sadly I'm not sure of the name. It's where you compare options against the way the world 'should be' in your head, and not the actual way the world is.
With the actual way the world is, copyright is unenforceable. Copyright always required some 'friction' to work, so that normally the only copyright violators were personal use, or commercial use, and copyright holders could ignore the personal use and sue the companies doing the commercial use.
That is over. Copyright law cannot function in a society with digital copies. This isn't a moral judgment, I'm not asserting that 'information wants to be free', it's not any sort of 'stance'...it's a fact. It's like trying to operate automobiles in a world without friction.
Television need to understand this. Luckily, their business model is selling ads, and can function within a universe where everyone freely copies stuff...if, and only if, they manage to get their ads in it.
They can either put those ads in there, and hope the convenience of watching the official stream at the moment of release beats running some 'ad stripping' software, and maybe live, or they can die. Those are the choices. It doesn't matter what anyone wishes were true.
My other thought concerning TV shows is that the production companies should stop bothering with the whole "getting networks to bid" thing, and instead just sell licences for a flat rate to anyone who wants it (i.e. "for $n you can show each episode once", "for $m you can show them as many times as you like", "for $p you can distribute them" and so on).
Like I said, I think it would be clever if this happened on an individual basis...someone wants to download an episode, advertisers can 'bid' as to how much they'd pay to have commercials in it.
Not literally at that moment, obviously, but someone would say 'I will pay 50 cents each to stick commercials in an 1000 episodes of BtVS' and someone else will say 'I will pay 40 cents for 10,000', and the 50 cents go first, and then the 40 cents. Sorta like how Google Ads work, in fact.
And what would be really interesting is if you let viewers also bid. If I'm willing to pay 60 cents for no ads, I win.
Instead of having networks handle all this, they might instead simply sell the entire ad space to another company, which could then parcel it out. Some companies might do what I suggested above, some companies might decide on targeted ads, so they know who you are and can give you 5 minutes of really specific ads, some companies might have people who pay subscription fees and a small extra fee and get episodes without commercials, etc, etc.
But then, I'm all for reworking licensing laws - something like the original copyright law, whereby if someone was charging too high a price you could take them to the authorities who could force them to charge less...
I think a saner way to do that is to require a mandatory level of sales to renew copyright. You get it for seven years. At the end of seven years, you must demonstrate that X people have purchased a copy, and/or Y people have viewed a copy, to keep your copyright. (The exact number should probably be based on the number of copyrighted works you currently have...the more you have, the more popular it has to be to hold on to. A TV network has to show a lot of viewers, whereas with someone with a single indy film that they can sometimes get a local theater to show doesn't have to show very many viewers.) And you must do this every 7 years.
Or you can enter the work in a mandatory licensing scheme, which means you will continue to get a percentage of the money people make off it, but that percentage can be as low as a dollar a copy or something.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Easier than searching newsgroups or torrents right after the show and downloading without commercials at all?
Easier for someone to quickly get access to a nice, clean version of the broadcast in a convenient format, strip the commercials and stick it on a file-sharing website. This still counts as "making it easier for the pirates" - but either way, the regional aspect of commercials still applies - very few companies will be in a position to push the same commercials in more than a couple of countries.
The TV networks are operating under a logical fallacy, although sadly I'm not sure of the name. It's where you compare options against the way the world 'should be' in your head, and not the actual way the world is.
Wikipedia suggests the Nirvana or Perfect Solution fallacy, or at least, that seems similar. And yes, much of the anti-pirate lobby seem to argue along these lines; forgetting that they are doing better financially now than they ever have. A common mistake is to look at the "number of downloads" rather than the "number of sales that didn't occur due to piracy - the number that occurred because of piracy". The first number is meaningless, but sounds scary and justifies the anti-pirates' salaries.
That is over. Copyright law cannot function in a society with digital copies. This isn't a moral judgment, I'm not asserting that 'information wants to be free', it's not any sort of 'stance'...it's a fact. It's like trying to operate automobiles in a world without friction.
I disagree - I think that copyright law can function perfectly well in our society - it is merely enforcing it that is problematic. The same can be said for speeding (and there are many parallels between the two) - many people speed, and very few are ever caught and punished as it is difficult to identify infringers without invasive surveillance. But the mere existence of the law (and the few who are punished) combined with the logical arguments for the law are enough to keep many people driving - if not legally - at least sensibly and safely.
Luckily, their business model is selling ads,
Speaking as an avid watcher of BBC programs, I must dispute this; most TV networks are in the business of selling advertising space (aside from subscription services), but I would argue that the TV production companies are in the business of selling/distributing content, so if they can find alternate ways of distributing material for a fee, they no longer need the networks.
Not literally at that moment, obviously, but someone would say 'I will pay 50 cents each to stick commercials in an 1000 episodes of BtVS' and someone ... ... who pay subscription fees and a small extra fee and get episodes without commercials, etc, etc.
The Google Ads-style idea does sound interesting, but once again we run into the problem of taking power (and potentially revenue) away from the networks. While the networks remain the gatekeepers for TV, it will be very hard to wrestle any control from them (same with record labels and music, and film production companies and film).
I think a saner way to do that is to require a mandatory level of sales to renew copyright. You get it for seven years. At the end of seven years, you must demonstrate that X people have purchased a copy, and/or Y people have viewed a copy, to keep your copyright.
This sounds a little to... obligatory or mandatory for my tastes. Mandatory licensing or "public domaining" is a very dodgy place to go to, as it transfers powers not to the public (as copyright expiration should) but to the relevant authority. The better way (imho) of achieving the same effect is to allow renewals of copyright after n years, but charge a fixed fee (or possibly increasing for e
There are so many bands making so much great music who are completely dissociated from the recording industry that I don't really care what steps they take to stop piracy. Most of my music is free, and when I do buy an album it's usually me handing the artist some money from my pocket and them handing me a CD.
I don't really care how 'easy' they make it for me, or 'convenient'. I will never buy something willingly that is locked with DRM. Once they've digitized the content, making it completely unintelligible until somebody else's invention interprets the 1's and 0's, it's no longer something they own. Digital ownership is an impossibility in a free society.
Easier for someone to quickly get access to a nice, clean version of the broadcast in a convenient format, strip the commercials and stick it on a file-sharing website. This still counts as "making it easier for the pirates"
Yes, in much the same way that balloons full of air make it easier to breathe in some hypothetical way. Except, um, everyone's breathing fine without those.
You cannot make things 'easier' that are, at this point, almost entirely automated. See here. Bones episode 6x10 aired 9-10 EST Thursday. While that doesn't tell you the exact time it was posted, my news client does...the SD copy says 22:00 EST. Yes, the SD was posted while the final commercials aired.
There's no such thing as 'easier' pirating of TV. It is utter nonsense to make any decision based on that concept. It cannot become easier. It's like easier breathing, or easier gravity.
There's easier downloading of those things, because where copies can be harder or easier to find, but actually producing copies is just happening, in damn real time, magically. It cannot become 'easier'.
- but either way, the regional aspect of commercials still applies - very few companies will be in a position to push the same commercials in more than a couple of countries.
Well, yes. And?
There's not really any point to share the version with commercials via P2P when anyone can just download it anyway.
Wikipedia suggests the Nirvana or Perfect Solution fallacy, or at least, that seems similar. And yes, much of the anti-pirate lobby seem to argue along these lines; forgetting that they are doing better financially now than they ever have. A common mistake is to look at the "number of downloads" rather than the "number of sales that didn't occur due to piracy - the number that occurred because of piracy". The first number is meaningless, but sounds scary and justifies the anti-pirates' salaries.
That's not the fact I was arguing about, although the fallacy seems right.
I was talking about the fact that the TV industry seems to make decisions based on things like 'not making piracy easier', which is, as I said, utter nonsense. Or 'We can stop people from having copies of our show'.
TV studios cannot, under any circumstances whatsoever, in any manner, no matter what they do, keep TV shows out of the hands of people who wish to watch said TV shows. This is a fact. It doesn't matter how much they want it not to be true, it doesn't matter how much they scream, it doesn't matter what they get the law to say or how much they sue people. It doesn't matter if it actually will destroy the TV industry, or even destroy the entire Earth. The fact is still true.
It's an actual paradigm shift, not one of those pretend paradigm shifts that businesses talk about, but an actual one. The reason copyright worked is that it required work to break it. So the only people that broken it were for their use (And they sure as hell weren't doing that work for charity.) or companies that attempted to profit and subsequently got sued out of existence.
Copyright has, as hidden a fundamental premise, that copies are non-trivial to make, so that people don't make a bajillion copies and hand them out to everyone for fun.(1)
We never noticed this fact before, but it was one of the implicit assumptions behind making copyright work. And it's no longer true.
TV studios can either have copies in people's hands with ads possibly in them (Which requires them actually giving out those copies.) or they can have copies in people's hands without the ads. That is the actual choice. There are no other options.
I disagree - I think that copyright law can function perfectly well in our society - it is merely enforcing it that is problematic. The same can be said for speeding (and there are many parallels between t
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I like many of these ideas, but they are impossible because they require a competitive experimental market.
No they don't. They just require a TV studio that makes some deal with TiVo and write a PC client.
While it would be nice if there was some actual clearinghouse of all this, there's certainly no need to start that way.
What's stopping them now is that half the advertising agencies are idiots who have no idea how to deal with any changes in their industry at all.
Of course, as they don't know how to deal with the internet either, they're in the process of dying or actually learning.
And the rest of the problem is that half the studios are in the same company as TV networks, and thus have pressure to not make those networks entirely obsolete. But it just take a few production companies to realize what's going on there and threaten to set off on their own before the studios will start acting sanely.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
You can 'don't care' all you want, but you're a minority.
But, as I pointed out, it's entirely stupid to DRM content with commercials. Studios want people to watch that!
The television industry is in a much position as they face the total disintegration of copyright than the music or the movie industry is. Because they already give their stuff away for free, and pay for it with ads.
If they'd just remember that, and actually do that over the internet, everyone would be happy.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?