Slashdot Mirror
P2P Music Downloads At All-Time Low
RedEaredSlider writes "According to research group NPD Group, the shuttering of Limewire's music file sharing service has led to a similar decline in the usage of such services throughout the US. The number has gone from a high of 16 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 to just nine percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, right after Limewire shut down its file-sharing services due to a court order, when a federal judge sided with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)."
Most people I know stopped downloading music after Spotify came a few years ago. It's an awesome service, and I gladly pay the monthly fee for it. Others take the ad supported version. But all in all, it did wonders to stop piracy.
The same can be said about Steam. I currently own over 250 games on Steam and I gladly buy more, as it's easy, fast and just works. Yeah yeah, Steam might go down in 500 years, but you know what, I don't care. It's great for me now and I probably won't be playing those games then, if they even work with that generations systems. And if I really want to play some classic again, there will always be (and even increasingly) services similar to Good Old Games and console stores that sell old games cheaply and modified to work with current systems.
Those two services have come to a point where it's easier and better to buy than pirate. Now just give me the same for movies and TV and I'm set. And I wont be making any stupid comments about how music labels are ripping off hard working artists (while forgetting the artists signed that contract themself) or how some item you buy should still be working 1000 years from now, because frankly I don't care. I just want a good working service where I can throw my money and get the product quickly and easily.
And on a related note, I just bought Crysis 2, Portal 2 and Assassins Creed: Brotherhood from Steam. All great games (AssBro has amazingly fun multiplayer where everyone have targets to kill while also being someone elses target).
Editors, can we get a story about the $75 trillion P2P lawsuit soon plz?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
There isn't much left to download.
Music sales suddenly skyrocket right? Right?? Oh, they're still abysmal. Never mind then.
youtube + ffmpeg + mp4box ftw.
There is a decline in music downloads that NPD Group is able to track.
Think about that one for a second.
Technoli
The number has gone from a high of 16 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 to just nine percent in the fourth quarter of 2010
16% of what? the article doesn't mention.
16% of the population? 16% of what it used to be?
Or are services like Pandora, Spotify, and even iTunes giving the consumers what they want at a price they want and thus helping to drive pirating down?
Ugh, both of you ACs, how can you listen to such terrible quality???
I am guessing this doesn't include the boatload of private tracker torrenting going on...
there has been an economic downturn for the last several years that seems to not be recovering or as the spin doctors like to tell it it is a "jobless recovery" so basically less & less people have the money to waste on movies & music and other trivial entertainment media, and things like beans & rice and bread are taking a higher priority than before since there is less money to spread around...
i wonder how much movies, music and video people will be buying during a complete economic depression like what there was during the 1930's
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
You mean lower than they were in, say, 1776?
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Part of the reason for this is probably that p2p services have declined in quality with more spam on gnutella than ever and the younger ones who would do the p2p'ing not knowing how to use torrents (i've tried to help people use them often and for some reason they get confused about it) additionally, streaming services cut it for alot of people specially with the advent of apps like pandora. I personally replaced limewire with firefox+media download addon+grooveshark/similar sites. The download speed from such places is often far faster than p2p
That most music right now utterly sucks?
Honestly I have not bought a song off of itunes for 3 months now because 90% of it is crap and the other 10% is uninteresting.. Lately I have been looking for illegal remixes and mashups. Those guys have some real talent...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I don't know about others, but since Amazon started selling unencrypted MP3s, I've stopped turning to illegal sources for music.
Challenge accepted.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I didn't know anyone even still used Limewire in the last few years. Maybe I'm just out of touch, but I assume the amount of people affected by Limewire shutdown was low, and most of them would have just found alternate methods.
I think if anything, any decline in P2P music downloads would be down so streaming services such as Spotify. As always, there will be the minority who will download everything and refuse to ever pay for music, but the majority are those who gladly buy CDs from their favorite artists, but don't want to pay $10+ for every album they might like a song or two on.
Of course, these are also the same sort of people that the RIAA and such count as "lost money", saying they'd have had x millions of dollars if people hadn't downloaded. In reality, these people would probably have never paid full price for most of the music they download illegally. Instead, these people are now giving Spotify money, either through monthly fees or listening to their ads, to listen to those odd songs. I don't really know how Spotify provides the music legally, but I assume they pay the record companies large sums for their music.
Most people never really cared that they were getting music 'illegally', they just wanted to listen to something and services like Limewire provided the quickest way. Now they don't.
It's one thing to say that they've gone down, but another entirely to claim what's causing it.
I used to download music because it was more convenient than driving to the store and let me sample the music before deciding if I even wanted it. Then companies started offering digital downloads, but most of it was DRM-encumbered so I still stayed away. However, after most stores went DRM-free there was no reason not to use them. Sure I could still get it for free somewhere else, but the music stores made it quicker to find what I wanted.
The only thing that still needs to change is allowing me to listen to an entire album at least once before buying it. Not all songs are done justice by thirty second previews and some albums can't even begun to be appreciated if the only thing you get are half-minute slices.
Based on my own experiences, clamping down on P2P isn't going to do anything. There are still plenty of other ways to get at the content if you want it badly enough. If companies started releasing DRM-free video at reasonable prices I'd probably spent a lot more money on that as well. If you give people a convenient solution they'll gravitate towards it. That means online, no DRM-hassle, and reasonable prices. Now that music meets those criteria I've been buying more than at any other point in my life, even before P2P was an option.
gsh
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
when Pandora and Grooveshark can satisfy all your music needs through the cloud? A drop in media piracy likely has little to do with copyright enforcement and much more to do with cloud streaming services that offer content for free.
Once something goes underground, it's increasingly difficult to get reliable numbers because people are trying not to be seen doing it. Obviously some of them are succeeding.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
If you believe this, you qualify for a job at the Libyan Ministry of Information ! I hear they pay well !
There's no way this number is true. I bet it was paid for by the RIAA's lawyers so they can say, "See! The lawsuits are working!!!"
No sig today...
Pop music is so bad that people won't even pirate it.
If ever there was a time when might be shown a connection between illegal downloads and sales, this might be it. Has there been an increase in legitimate sales? I'm guessing not. I suspect that as other, legal means of collecting music online have come about, people are simply abandoning the illegal means.
People just want what they want. They aren't "criminal minds" and certainly never needed to be attacked with lawsuits. They just want what they want. When they have an affordable and legal way to get it, that's what they will do. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
OK, so we have a high of 16% in fourth quarter of 2007 and a low of 9% in the fourth quarter of 2010. Leaving aside that neither here nor in the linked story does it say precent of what, we still have the question of what happened between 2007 and 2010. The article concludes that it must be because of the shutdown of Limewire in the 3rd quarter of 2010. I might buy that if the high point had been the fourth quarter of 2009 or if they presented numbers showing a large drop between the third quarter of 2010 and the fourth quarter of 2010. Since the large drop they show me is between fourth quarter of 2007 and fourth quarter of 2010, I conclude that if we had the numbers in between we would see a steady downward trend, which would not support the conclusion they wish me to accept.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
How do they measure "percent" of use?
...music quality down 44% since the fourth quarter of 2007.
Maybe it's just because MUSIC SUCKS these days. You can't give it away.
And get off my lawn!
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
They didn't kill mixtape/cd sharing -- it's just uh....errr... all about Bluetooth now! *
Seriously though, it's really hard to tell how much of this is due to other sharing methods like YouTube, or good services like iTunes/Spotify/Pandora/etc. I'd guess both.
I think what they finally realized is that there are definitely people willing to spend money for convinience. And now that they have finally delivered on that convinience, especially to the disposable income demographic, they are seeing the profits. While of course a certain percentage will still 'pirate' (arrr excuse the term matey), these groups overlap -- and sometimes the pirates will buy. And in the places these two groups don't overlap, those are not customers -- they will pirate no matter what.
Here's the problem though... (And this was certainly a problem before and not necessarily caused by piracy). But how well are the indie bands doing? They are likely getting pirated as much as the more well-known artists (percentage-wise), but it's unlikely they have the marketing and popularity to make enough to ignore the losses. They also don't have legal teams filing DMCAs for them. And due to that overlap, there clearly are some lost sales. Not all pirated songs are lost sales, but neither are none of them.
So here's my question, (and I honestly don't even know where I fall on this one), is piracy disproportionally hitting indie bands more than the big corporate labels? Is it equal? It it the reverse? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure how one would measure that.
I guess put simply I'm just saying this: indie bands fight to pay the rent, and lost sales might make the difference. Meanwhile Puffdaddy's lost sales are the difference between renting and owning his own private jet.
*ok sorry shameless plug, please ignore, the rest of my post was srs though
PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
it must mean that most music today is definitely not Scottish
Okay, so if P2P is at an all time low and actual record sales are also at an all time low, doesn't that imply that people just don't want new music? Is it hard to replace Limewire? No. But the users need some motivation to go to a new site. It looks like people are less able to justify either their time or money to get new music than ever before.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
It's more likely that this article is a troll, and reveals that limewire represents 7% of P2P music sharing THAT THEY KNOW ABOUT.
I'd tell you a joke about audiophiles, but you wouldn't appreciate it as text instead of a 5000 kbps sound file wilth an 8000 dollar stereo.
There's no way this number is true. I bet it was paid for by the RIAA's lawyers so they can say, "See! The lawsuits are working!!!"
That or they're just measuring it wrong because they're idiots. The article is highly unclear -- 16% of what? If people start using sneakernet and private trackers that they don't have access to measure, did the amount of sharing go down? Or did it go up because downloading 1TB of music from a private tracker once and then passing it around a school or an office on an external hard drive is way more efficient than sucking it through the straw of US broadband a thousand different times?
Good. Now they should ask for only a little over 42 trillion.
This makes perfect sense. My casual observations note that music piracy has been decreasing steadily for years. There is far less reason reason to pirate any longer. Companies are selling music online, cheaper, more easily, without lock-down, and without DRM -- just like people were asking for.
Similarly, anime piracy is down now that you can watch anime online legally. It was pirated most heavily when a series came out in Japan and took 10 years before it was subtitled and released in the US and Europe. Now that they subtitle them and release them within a week, piracy has decreased.
See! Offering a product at a good value really does work!
Correlation != causation:
We don't know if the shuttering of Limewire had this effect or not. I'd wager that the availability of for-sale music at Amazon, iTunes, etc. and the availability of ad-supported music at Spotify, Pandora, etc. essentially killed this. We have to, of course, consider the effect of ridiculous lawsuits on the average user (the obvious goal, so "yay RIAA lawyers....?").
Numbers need labels:
16 percent of what?
Where's your causality now?
If this is causal, can we take the causality further in saying that the lack of increased sales in albums demonstrates that LimeWire wasn't hurting album sales nearly as much as the RIAA made them out to be? Granted, that's obvious to anyone with half a brain (or a friend with half a brain), but it's worth pointing out that the theoretical damages presented by the RIAA were always just this side of fantasy land.
last.fm streams are unencrypted MP3. last.fm + wireshark + half hour with any socket-capable programming language = no quality loss from re-encoding.
I believe it.
First, I've already got a large collection of songs downloaded to fill my mp3 player with. Yes, some new stuff comes out, maybe I get it. But I no longer have a backlog of things to download.
Second, streaming music is available in lots of forms. I don't need to download music to bring to work; I just listen to Pandora on my cell phone.
I guess we'll be seeing that huge uptick in music sales anytime now...
*holds breath*
Like I said, most people I know use blogs that link to rapidhsare megaupload and other websites. It is much faster for them, easier and, they claim, safe.
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
Isn't that pretty much the equivalent of taping songs of the radio like was done in the olden days? What does the audio quality sound like?
"But this one goes to 11!"
I blame Justin Bieber, Rhiana, and Lady Gaga. Give me something worth downloading, and I'll download it!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Actually, I reckon it might be. In the last few years, we've seen the rise of legal and cheap streaming music services such as Spotify as well as reasonably priced, high quality MP3s available for purchase from services like Amazon. Back a few years, I was sceptical of the claims on Slashdot that if there were cheaper music available for purchase at a decent quality, that people would stop pirating. But it may be turning out that this is at least partially true. I think most people are basically honest and willing to pay for music and movies. Sure there are plenty who do see the opportunity to take stuff for free instead of paying for it and take advantage of that, but maybe a lot of people who were pirating have decided to pay - whether because they've changed their stance of piracy or because they like the reliability and convenience of the legitimate services. But it's no longer possible to say that you can't get quality digital music at a reasonable price anymore without most people thinking you're (a) dirt poor or (b) deluded. It may be that we're seeing an effect from that. Or it may be that the general social shift is to disapprove of "freetards" who take but don't give back. In any case, there are possible reasons why we could have seen piracy drop.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Don't the HD videos on YouTube have pretty good sound quality?
Personally I just buy MP3s. There are plenty of places that do them at reasonable prices. I tend to wait until albums get to £5 or below.
which is totally what she said
I guess just like me, every audiophile has already downloaded every discography of every band he ever liked.
Correlation does not prove causation, but common sense tells you that if you produce music aimed at 12 year olds, they're not going to BUY a lot of it!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Between library rentals, free services provided by some ISP's and other venues for access through various legal services, there are little to no reason to pirate music. The only time I've done that over the past few years, was when I was searching for a specific version of a track, then I could easily go through dozens of downloads till I had the exact release and title.
Editors, can we get a story about the $75 trillion P2P lawsuit soon plz? ...Oh, I'm sorry. dupe comment.
The comment I was responding to was too long so I didn't bother reading it.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Don't forget trusty old: "songname" mp3 +"index of" -inurl:html|htm|php
They are likely getting pirated as much as the more well-known artists (percentage-wise), but it's unlikely they have the marketing and popularity to make enough to ignore the losses
is piracy disproportionally hitting indie bands more than the big corporate labels? Is it equal? It it the reverse? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure how one would measure that.
indie bands fight to pay the rent, and lost sales might make the difference.
For indie bands, piracy is marketing. If they're good enough to pirate, then they will be passed around more, and more likely to achieve popularity, and sales. I'd expect guys in the average indie band to at least a part time job to help pay the rent too, and the band is just something they do on the side.
Note that I don't condone piracy, but to act like it can only have negative consequences is silly. For example, MS are happy for people to pirate their software as long as they don't switch to another platform. In the same way, someone playing or sharing a pirated song to/with their friends is still helping to make a band popular, and will get the music out to more people who are likely to actually purchase an album.
which is totally what she said
The music industry has flat out sucked the past few years. What's good to download? Another iteration of kids bop? That beaver kid? Another Disney star soon to become a drug addict?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Back in the day pre torrents etc, the best thing for me was searching for a track then being able to browse that person's hard disk for their other shared tracks. I used to find all manner of cool stuff I never knew existed or artists I'd never heard of. I'd *never* have bought them via iTunes or whatever because I simply didn't know they were there. This happened a lot with people from other countries who typically had their local bands mixed in there that you'd never find in your own country. I've lost count of the amount of albums/tracks I've bought because of that ability to dig around. Sure, some sites try and offer 'if you liked this, what about that?' but it rarely produces anything of note and misses out completely on stuff that's way outside your normal listening area. These days, most of my 'discovering' is done via obscure podcasts but it's not very efficient.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I'd say it is a combination of factors:
People are using encrypted, private trackers. Because it takes a user account for access, Ethyl Eavesdropper is not going to be able to discern who is doing what, where on those trackers.
People are wising up and using encrypted VPN services.
People are using LANs for file sharing. WAN connections are becoming more expensive, so college students in a dorm just leech off the local file server, and not bother with torrents.
Sneakernet. With 3+ TB external hard disks, one can shuttle a lot of data down the hall.
The economy is slowly improving, so people are hitting iTunes and Amazon for tracks.
Are these RIAA statistics? Are we sure that these aren't just the same old debunked numbers (regarding the high end) being spread around again? And, if the RIAA is so successful then why do they still need all this government sanctioned protection?
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
So this is all your fault!
(Backstory: Her parents paid $2000 to a couple of guys at the music industry's equivalent of a vanity publisher to pipe their kid's vocals through autotune and spend an hour doing a couple of video shoots with her and her friends. Pretty good testament to what can be done with modern technology on a shoestring budget, but also a pretty good testament to "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".)
Nothing wrong with copying. That's what remix culture is all about. The song itself may be execrable, but the explosion of creativity it's inspired is nothing short of awesome.
I just use iTunes, honestly. Sure, the quality isn't as good as it absolutely could be, but it's leaps and bounds beyond the average mp3 I used to find in crappy malware infested software like Limewire. I've been buying all my music from there over the last few years. Early on the DRM was bothersome (especially when I wanted to listen to my music on my Linux box, though it's easy enough to get around that) but now they've removed that. I get the idea that pirating is "better" because it's free, but at this point in my life I'm willing to spend money on the things that I enjoy, especially when I look at it as an investment
1. Find music I like
2. Support the artist by buying their music
3. Artist makes money, has the means to create more music
4. ???
5. Profit! (Enjoy more music from the artists I like)
Why is it then that I'm looked at like an extra-terrestrial being when I tell people I pay for things?
Sure, not ALL of the money goes to the artists, but that's not within my control. Paying for the music gets the artist a piece of the pie while pirating gives them nothing.
Eventually, artists will smarten up and start selling their own music (see: Radiohead) off of their own websites and get even bigger pieces of the pie.
I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
I was trying to find an obscure album. I tried harvesting used record stores, p2p, etc. Turns out the damn thing was on iTunes for 10 bucks. Can't beat that.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Whatever they're reason, it's just as easy to posit the counter argument that this is evidence of what some people claimed all along: give us relatively cheap, unencumbered, decent bitrate downloads and we'll gladly pay for them. Drop the price a little more and watch this swing even further - prices are currently hovering just above what I'd consider impulse buy territory, I think a drop of a couple of pounds on the average album and they'd reap some pretty big returns.
can't you just pirate, then buy one of their t-shirts? That's where they make money you know.
I don't have any numbers on the subject, but I can speak for myself. Personally I go out of my way to make sure that the indie bands that I enjoy get my money. Be it through sales, donations, advertisements, whatever. If I enjoy the artist and I KNOW that they're the low-budget type that really needs the sales to pay the bills, I'll definitely go out of my way.
That's not to say that I pirate everything else that the big corporations have to offer, that's not true at all. It's just that I put forth the extra effort to ensure that the artists I enjoy continue to create whatever it is that they're creating.
I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
As well as fiddling with devices we own, selling our books, CDs, DVDs, iPads, and any other rights we might have over the products we purchase.
Let's just stop pretending we own anything a corporation sells.
I just makes problems and subtracts from the bottom line -- the greatest sin.
When was the last time that worked and didn't just take you to a fake web server index page that was just a bunch of links through to dodgy malware sites?
That's becoming a problem with search engines in general lately, not just looking for mp3's. I swear it seems like regardless of what I happen to be hoping to search for, half the pages popping up on Google's front page now are random gibberish spam pages that were setup just to pop up on a Google search.
I browse in Ubuntu so no malware is likely to affect my system, but just navigation through the trash on the net is becoming more and more of a headache.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Apparently you don't even need Premium. According to their Get Spotify page, you can "Take your music abroad" with the Unlimited plan for £4.99 (~$8) per month. Still a good share more than Pandora, at $3 per month, on a yearly basis. But apparently Spotify gives you better control over your music - you can actually pick songs! Instead of just waiting for them to come up on your radio station.
Why would you waste precious bandwith on the trash made in Idols, Popstars and all those other not-music-but-profit related shows?
Most people don't because they listen to actual music.
I tried iTunes once, HATED the DRM. Probably fine on a Mac, but on Windows the DRM meant I had to use iTunes Media Player (DO NOT WANT), or basically have Quicktime/iTunes load in the background when I tried to play the songs with a Winamp plugin.
(I no longer use Windows, and I'm not going to use iTunes ever again. Currently waiting for a decent online movie/TV store in the UK, tho LoveFilm isn't bad and is getting better..).
which is totally what she said
I download all kinds of songs, but none of them ever end up on this thing you are calling a CD? What's that?
Hey music industry suits. You know what will really slow down music pirating? When iTunes goes to a subscription-based services once all those pretty new servers are online in North Carolina, that's what! Unless of course you'll play the usual music industry thug card an not allow that.
HD YouTube videos convert to 256kbps MP3 audio, standard-def to 128kbps (AFAIK).
Quite decent IMHO.
I tend to use the better Web-based-converter sites myself.
Of course, you have to like the performance itself, and it has to be a decent recording job, as usual. :)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
And since they charge 30 cents a cd in Canada, they have effectively legalized downloading.
YANAL
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I blame Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
From what I have read sales are still declining, if they have managed to make a sizable dent in piracy, what will they have left to blame it on?
But apparently Spotify gives you better control over your music - you can actually pick songs! Instead of just waiting for them to come up on your radio station.
Pick songs, build lots of playlists, share those playlists with others, excellent search tools (including the useful sorting of search results by popularity), pretty decent bit-rate with the premium service (320kb/s Ogg Vorbis), artist information, related artist links. Really impressive catalogue. It's a very good service.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
There is no longer DRM on iTunes music files.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
I don't find iTunes to be that bad when playing music. Especially if you have a big enough library to take advantage of the 'Genius' playlist thing. It's pretty good.
I haven't used Winamp since WMP10 came out. I never liked WMP, but the sound quality was far better than Winamp. Has the sound quality in Winamp gotten any better? If so, that might be an interesting option. I did really enjoy writing plugins and skins for it. Was good times.
I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
With 300GB torrents named ALL MUSIC EVER, I think everyone already has acquired everything they ever wanted, and only need to add the sporadic new tune.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
For me it would be interesting to see how much music sales increase when the sites are shut down (if it causes decrease in overall file sharing) so we can actually have some real statistics 1 downloaded song = x lost sales.
I think there are some websites that are essentially automating this process, giving you only the finished MP3 to download instead of the entire video.
I like http://www.youtube-mp3.org/ for SD videos (128kbps MP3) and http://www.makeitmp3.com/ for the HD ones (256kbps MP3)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
In what way does WGA make it difficult to pirate Windows? It's optional.
Bill Gates: "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-212942.html
which is totally what she said
I know, that doesn't change that they started off with DRM. Perhaps selling DRM laden music was a catalyst for getting DRM free music, but I'd rather only support those who don't give in to that bullshit.
Strangely I guess I wouldn't mind DRM quite as much on videos, as my little netbook can't even handle playing HD video and I currently would be more likely to use video services on my PS3 or Xbox 360.
which is totally what she said
I bet the decline in music downloads is due to crappy quality of new music that isn't even worth pirating.
"all i wanted was a pepsi..."
Bullshit
I don't know sorry, I stopped using Windows around the same time I first tried iTunes actually. Since then I moved to OSX, and now Ubuntu full time (I do mostly web development at work, so can use whatever the hell I want :) ).
The main thing that turned me off iTunes was lack of a dynamic playlist. I generally use Exaile now, or something Rhythmbox if I have my (bought used, so that I can connect to the nifty iPod speaker docks and car stereos, etc) iPod..
which is totally what she said
If you're on the phone, or playing a game, you don't need music. (Or cigarettes. Phone usage has made a big dent in young people smoking.) Music competes with Farmville and Angry Birds now.
(c) Geographically restricted...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Somehow, I think it's more likely that NPD Group's research or their method of measuring downloads is flawed.
Pandora certainly plays a part in this. Also, many people I know (myself included) now have massive music collections, that were built up since the napster era. We don't download nearly as much as we used to because we already have everything. And if we are stupid enough to lose our music, its far easier to copy a friend's collection than to re-download everything.
My $.02
(c) Geographically restricted...
Well perhaps, but the big majority of posters on Slashdot are in the USA or Europe.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
A quote that was specifically talking about the unenforcability of copyright law in China and explicitly looked forward to the day when it would be and people would have to pay for their software.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The music sucks.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The other day I heard my daughter playing music I didn't recognize on her iphone (plugged into speakers, in her bathroom). I asked where she got it (ripped cd, itunes purchase, loaned from friends) and she didn't seem to understand the question.
Turns out, she's streaming the music from youtube. Apparently you can create a playlist with a youtube account and stream whatever is available there. I didn't realize that. This is a lot easier, and more non-geek friendly, than figuring out how to torrent music, unpack it, and add it to your itunes playlist. She says her friends have basically replaced itunes with youtube playlists because it's easy and it works anywhere you have a browser. I wonder if this could be a major component on the dearth of downloading?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
That context doesn't really make a difference. It's obviously pretty damn difficult to enforce copyright law in the rest of the world too, and his sentiments about the US and UK would be the same. Obviously he'd prefer if everyone paid, but if anyone is going to be installing an OS for free, he'd still prefer it was Windows.
which is totally what she said
to be honest, how do you go about recording directly form what the sound card is outputting?
I admit I'm not having any luck with the initial Google-fu on the matter
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
maybe people look at you funny because you use the word "malware" when you're talking about downloading mp3s. You don't sound very well informed about the topic, and perhaps a bit... er.... biased. Perhaps you make money by selling intangibles at massive markup, giving undeserved economic clout to degenerates IMNSHO?
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
That context doesn't really make a difference. It's obviously pretty damn difficult to enforce copyright law in the rest of the world too, and his sentiments about the US and UK would be the same. Obviously he'd prefer if everyone paid, but if anyone is going to be installing an OS for free, he'd still prefer it was Windows.
And obviously if someone hit me I would rather it was with a fist than with a knife, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about being punched and the original statement was that Microsoft are "happy" for people to pirate their software. Your article most certainly does not show that. When someone says: "context doesn't really make a difference", I get very wary.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I know, that doesn't change that they started off with DRM. Perhaps selling DRM laden music was a catalyst for getting DRM free music, but I'd rather only support those who don't give in to that bullshit.
You have GOT to be kidding me.
if I cannot get it directly from the musician or for free I don't buy it. The website http://riaaradar.com/ helps figure out if the band is worth buying.
notice they did not see they saw the same increase in music sales. The lawsuits don't work.
Miles David, eh? thd famoud trumped played?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Anthony Mouse was taking about the RIAA trying to make the oldschool distribution model more necessary. One thing that would allow them to do is screw musicians on patent-licensing for DRM schemes
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I've never bought a digital download. I just sell them!
http://www.acetonestudio.com
That was a rather good comeback. I think we can all agree that as long as it sounds good, it's fine. The question of how much you have to spend until it sounds good enough varies per person and per equipment -- that and some people fall for scams rather easily.
I actually like a fair amount of mainstream stuff - as such, I'm tired of it all getting lumped together and flamed, even though a lot of it _does_ suck. (If I give examples, you'll just think that they suck too.)
[Relative] obscurity and/or the past aren't the only places to find stuff you actually like listening to (even though I've got plenty of that material too.)
Seems problems the music itself is a somewhat different issue from their problems adapting to the change in business models for distribution.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
The question of how much you have to spend until it sounds good enough varies per person and per equipment -- that and some people fall for scams rather easily.
Personally, I can hear a difference between a 160kb/s Ogg file and a 320kb/s Ogg file on speakers that cost around £170. I don't know if I could tell the difference betwen 320kpbs and something nearer to it in encoding around 224 or 256kb/s. I think I can with Classical music but I haven't done an actual test, whereas with 160 vs. 320 the difference is so obvious I don't need to test. Likewise, I don't know if I hear a difference between my existing speakers and something more expensive. I also have a Xonar D2X sound card and I can hear the difference between the output on that and my onboard S/PDIF. So in my case, a cost of around £250 gives me a very appreciable difference over onboard sound and my previous speakers (which were around £40 and stereo but extremely good for the money).
I don't know how much more benefit I could get from spending higher
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
That's why I use Amazon and its MP3 download service.
Publishing headlines such as these typically get reactions that range from "Hell, no! We're still pirating up in dis!" to "I knew it! It's the pirate kiddies who're to blame for music industry losses". Does anyone ever wonder whether publishing numbers like these could be, for the RIAA and associates, a graceful way out of the anti-piracy business? As long as they can indicate that they have made an impact on the P2P music piracy going on they can then look the other way while reaping the word-of-mouth publicity benefits (and others) of this same P2P music piracy. Do you think they've learned from their ongoing 10 year old battle with the P2P industry?
$x = ($x * 10) % 10 >= 5 ? 1 + int $x : int $x
No, but the judge who ruled this exact way a few years back was.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
The real question would be:
Have CD sales gone up at the same time as P2P downloads have gone down?
THAT would be the true measure of whether their lawsuits are working or not. I'm willing to be they're not, because otherwise the *AAs would be shouting from the rooftops that CD sales have gone up now that they've dealt a blow to piracy.
The silence is telling.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Before there were computers, the total P2P music downloads were, I believe, zero. Are you saying it's lower than that?
Seriously? That's so 2008.
I met an artist (Fox Elipsus: http://www.elipsus.net/) that told me he hates selling on iTunes because he only gets like 10 cents a song. He's got 3 albums he made himself. He actually told me that he'd rather people pirate his songs than buy them on iTunes, but he sells them there because people buy them there. He even told me if I couldn't afford to buy his music the day of his show, he would tell me where I could download them (pirate) for free. His goal is to get his music out there. I even have a signed CD cover from him saying I could upload all of his music to torrent sites :D.
I have doubts rock will ever be back to where it was in the 70s, and it's been downhill ever since - at least in the mainstream. There are still plenty of great bands and artists though -- my favorite being the White Stripes. Now that I think of it, I suppose it depends on your definition or genre of rock.
(1) I have enough music already (~3000 tracks). I don't need to get much more, from any source, legal or not. I expect a lot of people are in this situation now.
(2) One click file hosting sites are among the most popular on the planet for a reason. I think a lot of people have simply shifted to them from P2P services.
Streaming Stations. While previously on a decline—due to the RIAA in ability to think—are getting better. Groove Shark and stations? like it make downloading needless.
affordable good quality music for $1 or less from countless sources
Free music DLs from popular artist and underground a like...
Who needs to steel?
Besides, the stigma now is that what ever you pay for the music helps the artist... so people are paying even if it is free.
Like most of the comments, it's just because people are getting it from elsewhere, places that are not monitored in the same way. Users are smarter now and limewire was too obvious, the youtube rips etc are now unmonitored and uncounted... Easy. Oh and reason B, music has become crap and the reason for downloading it has been diminished, thus sales are still down. Limewire was so 5 years ago...
I mostly listen to music while biking, so low quality doesn't matter. You can't hear highs and lows over the wind anyway...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I completely agree, can't wait until they start an HD TV/movie service (bound to happen) :)
I love things like Amazon and my PS3 with LoveFilm (I also have a 360, but Zune is too expensive IMO), but I often think people are just going to accuse me of being a shill if I go on about them too much!
which is totally what she said
Please explain? Something tells me you own an iPad.
which is totally what she said
Fine, happy was a bit of a strong word. I almost just said "but they're happy to" again here.. to me, if they just let it happen, they're "happy" to let it happen. They could have done a lot more to shut illegal copies of Windows down, but they would rather keep people hooked than try to eradicate piracy (because that's impossible).
which is totally what she said
White Stripes! Absolutely. You won't find them top 100 though :/ The downloading community is dominated by poor taste in music.
300,000,000 people can be wrong!
So... you're not okay with DRM'd music because it's "bullshit", even if it did lead to DRM-free music offerings, but you're okay with DRM'd video, which somehow isn't "bullshit" because it doesn't affect you. All right then.
Yes, I'm okay with it (not ideologically, but practically) if it doesn't affect me, the consumer.
I dislike DRM which is tied into specific files such that I cannot use on any platform I wish. I don't mind DRM if it's tied to an account and is available on any (open) platform, as is the case with streaming video.
Same with current gen console games, they are not locked down to one console, the discs will work anywhere, and online accounts can be linked to multiple consoles, where you can re-download downloaded games. That is exactly how DRM schemes should be - a convenience rather than a pain.
Ripping my music collection makes sense because I like to be able to listen to music anywhere.. but with movies and TV I generally only want to watch them in places when I already have access to a broadband connection and a comfy seat (ie, home and friend's/family's houses). Other people will have different use cases and opinions, but this is my opinion on the matter.
which is totally what she said
The "piracy is marketing" argument I think is a half truth. While it does help get people known, what happens when the percentage of piracy far, far outpaces the purchases? I also don't think people purchase albums much anymore either. Hasn't that declined sharply? You just know there are some people out there getting widely pirated and seeing little to no money from their work. I know a lot of people claim they themselves particularly like to help the indies, but you know that not everyone does, and that some (a lot? just a few? I don't know) fall through the cracks.
Also, if a band wanted the kind of press and marketing one receives from giving away a free track they could give it away themselves. When pirates give away a track, they take that option away from the band. They also probably don't link back to the band's website or Amazon or iTunes or something where you can purchase a track or learn more about the band. Instead they, (and all the middlmen in the piracy chain), plaster their sites with ads (think piracy forums, megaupload, etc). So the whole "marketing" they are getting is being done without their interests in mind. And while this marketing is "virial" -- it is of dubious quality promoting interests of shady thirdy parties, rather than the bands. Though the RIAA/big labels might be just as toxic is this regard too, two wrongs don't make a right, there's no equivalency.
I think you're right in that there is benefit to getting your name out there, but realistically is that benefit worth the damage that piracy also causes? That's the real question we should be asking, isn't it? And honestly I don't know the answer. Because only some of those are lost sales it may well be not a big deal. But it's hard to imagine that piracy hasn't ruined at least one or two good bands. (While of course the RIAA has probably ruined quite a few more than that but again, it's not about equivalency).
And while I say all this, note the irony is not lost on me that the app in my sig is designed to share MP3s. (Though legally I believe it to fall under fair use). But I guess these are all the questions I have asked myself as well. Wondering if I too am a cog in the machine.
PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
The 'pirates' from limewire probably moved elsewhere. How do they know they didn't? Did they magically scan the entire internet to see how many music 'pirates' there are or something?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
The combination of free and legal music, streaming music, and increasing mobile bandwidth has caused increased competition in the consumer music market. In my humble opinion, the $12 to $18 cd has been replaced with unlimited legal music for cheap to free. Also recording technology has decreased in price and increasing options for self recording. This change in self recording options has greatly increased the amount of indi music on the web. It is so easy to record your own album, I have made 2 so far this year. http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/84829 http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/87181
I don't get it.
even have a signed CD cover from him saying I could upload all of his music to torrent sites :D
And you know what the really irritating thing is? The RIAA and/or some music label would probably come after you anyway, claiming that you're pirating their music. That's already happened, actually: they're not too careful about everybody else's rights, it seems.. I rather think they believe that they're entitled to a piece of everyone's pie, regardless of whose pie it happens to be.
Not surprising, I suppose. The average leech doesn't much care if you want him sucking you dry or not either.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Europe is not one country...
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
because i have already downloaded all i want, 'cept for maybe new stuff coming out.
So no, i am not downloading as much music as I was say, 5 years ago, by far.
Of course, recently i did start downloading flac's to replace MP3 copies of stuff I didn't have a CD of.
So yes, i can understand that music file sharing isn't as big as it was, but it ain't going to stop.
Be seeing you...
Europe is not one country...
??? Is this some sort of Zen thing?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Since I'm helping to publicize this, I recommend the following
"Opportunist, Beaver Leech Equilibrium Principle"
As for a Greek Symbol, I want the omega... ever since I've taught my children to refer to me as their Alpha and Omega when they want to kiss my ass to buy them a new toy, I've grown quite partial to it. Think we can bump Ohm?
To my mind it's no different from someone posting up a link to a band's song on YouTube. Well, YouTube does have DMCA agreements in place, and links to buying stuff (presumably on iTunes, I've never clicked those links, I just go to my preferred music store and search for the artist).
You have to remember that pirates will play/send songs to friends who themselves actually like to buy songs (but are not averse to listening to new songs that people send or link to). Even the "pirates" themselves often buy music. I used to get songs sent to me all the time, occasionally copied stuff from friends' collections etc, while I was a student. I still bought some music, but not so much. Since I got a job, I've gone back and bought all the stuff that I really like, and deleted the rest. I think the arguments about people buying when things are convenient and reasonably priced is very true. And I definitely think that an indie band has a lot more to gain than lose from their music being illegally uploaded to YouTube/rapidshare/whatever.
which is totally what she said
P2P downloads are going down because everyone's too busy downloading the latest releases off Rapidshare, Megaupload and all the other clones. I'm not sure if the RIAA just doesn't get this, or is purposefully ignoring it for propaganda reasons.
"Malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, dishonest adware, scareware, crimeware, most rootkits, and other malicious and unwanted software or program" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware
I can't be the only one who had issues with software like Limewire, Kazaa and the like.infesting my PC with this crap. (Regardless of if it was from the software itself or the p2p content it provided).
I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
It's a slightly less blatant version of: "What the fuck makes you believe that content is uniformly availably in Europe? it's a bunch of countries with their own little local distributors, this should be obvious if you think about it for 2 bloody seconds".
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Well elsewhere in this article, I've already given a country by country list of where Spotify is available in Europe. I'm well aware that it is a "bunch of countries". The point is that it's a bunch of countries where such services are, or are rapidly becoming, available. Sure, exceptions here and there, but I don't think it was unreasonable of me to talk in the general case about such services to a population that is predominantly in areas where these services are available - i.e. the US and most of Europe. True, if you're in Africa or India or South America, you're going to have more trouble. But I was talking to Slashdot which doesn't (as far as I'm aware) have a large audience in those regions.
The context of my comment about the services was a discussion about people justifying piracy - something I come across on Slashdot and few other US / Europe-based echo chambers, but not many other places. That's why I felt it acceptable to respond to you pointing out that most of the audience here are in the US or Europe. No offence was meant. Your earlier statement about Europe not being one place, I wasn't 100% certain what you were getting at as for purposes of these services, Europe is rapidly being provided with them.
Anyway, that's what I was getting at with my posts.
H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Norway, Spain and the UK. 6 out of 27 EU members. 41 percent of the population (EU + Norway and Switzerland, generously excluding all of the Balkan republics, Ukraine or Belorussia). I don't think there is any need to examine any of the conclusions from the faulty premise of Spotify being available in "Europe".
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I can sort-of understand boycotting a company to get them to change their behavior. Or in the case of Apple, because they're a greedy, homogenizing entity led by a narcissistic sociopath, catering to a bunch of arrogant, hipster sheeps who think by mindlessly hewing to an image that they're somehow independent and creative thinkers rather than completely dominated consumers. No, I do not own an iPad. But to avoid a company in perpetuity just because they once did something you didn't like, that they subsequently remedied, seems beyond silly.
Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Norway, Spain and the UK. 6 out of 27 EU members. 41 percent of the population (EU + Norway and Switzerland, generously excluding all of the Balkan republics, Ukraine or Belorussia). I don't think there is any need to examine any of the conclusions from the faulty premise of Spotify being available in "Europe".
I said (if you go back and check what you're arguing against) "digital music being available to purchase." That's a lot more than just Spotify. I don't get what your aim is here. You seem to have an agenda to try and say that I think Europe is just one country and are going to some effort to do that, despite evidence to the contrary. I just don't understand what your issue is.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Well, all those reasons too, that and the iTunes interface is IMO awful (and not sure it even works with Linux, have never tried). And Amazon is cheaper.
I used to love Apple when I was a kid, and I still would choose OSX (though not iOS) over Windows where possible - but I really don't want to encourage Apple right now. Everything about them still screams DRM, even if their music files aren't DRMed.
which is totally what she said
And I said that there are geographical restrictions, not that there is no downloadable music for sale. There are places in Europe where you can get just about anything, there are places where you have to hunt around and there are places where your options are restricted. If you didn't think that Spotify was a good example, you needn't have brought it up.
You talking about the non-existent "general case" of the lack of geographical restrictions in Europe. Coverage is spotty and fragmented and the smaller (and further east) you go, the worse it gets. For the purposes of discussion there is no such region as Europe, no matter how well UK, Germany and France are covered.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
if you were only downloading music, your claims def. sound very off base. If you were downloading software, and are not a software developer yourself (i am) then, yes, it can be bad. But for music only, no, downloading music does not have anything to do with malware. (aimed at the readers of this comment) Try not to be such a click addict
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Why is it then that I'm looked at like an extra-terrestrial being when I tell people I pay for things?
Sure, not ALL of the money goes to the artists, but that's not within my control. Paying for the music gets the artist a piece of the pie while pirating gives them nothing.
I do both, and that itself discredits the idea that pirating "gives them nothing." For instance, I started getting more into classic rock and downloaded Billy Joel's discography (God knows how long ago, years). Since then I have purchased hard copies of pretty much every Billy Joel album I've been able to find, many in both CD and vinyl. I have bought about fifteen more albums than I otherwise would have right there. That is one example of many.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
And I said that there are geographical restrictions, not that there is no downloadable music for sale.
Yes, and I was talking about the availability of online digitial music in the context of excuses for piracy. All the way through, that is what I have been talking about. You say "if you didn't think that Spotify was a good example, you needn't have brought it up" but it is a perfectly good example. I never at any stage started talking exclusively about Spotify, but you took the list of places Spotify is available as your starting point to try and argue against my original point. I'll re-state that point now: People on Slashdot claiming that they can't get music legitimately online only make themselves look either (a) dirt poor or (b) deluded. As the vast majority of people on Slashdot are either in the USA (more than 50%) or in Europe (where in most of the European countries music is available for sale online), that's not an outrageous thing to say and I don't get why you are determined to pick an argument over it. You say that I'm talking about the "non-existent general case", but actually the general case perfectly well exists - it's the case that the vast majority of Slashdotters have such music available for purchase to them online. Which you seem to agree with. So there you have it - a "general case" which you claim not to exist.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
For intra-European geographical restrictions, yes.
You yet have to demonstrate this.
There is no general case in music availability in Europe, prices and selection varies by country.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
If you can claim that all (with whatever qualifiers you keep applying of course) people on Slashdot are in the US and the Europe (again, with qualifiers excluding places that don't fit the mold) you might as well claim that everyone is affluent and eliminate (a) as well. It's as justified as attacking my (c).
There are places, even in Europe (particularly in eastern Europe), where downloadable music is overpriced and the convenience aspect is non-existent (you have to hunt around to find what you are looking for). Ignoring this doesn't make it disappear, if you can have (a), you can't dismiss (c).
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Right, so those are good reasons to avoid Apple. I feel the same way, I really like OSX but I just don't want to buy anything that it can run on (I don't think of hackintoshes as valid platforms). In fact, I would probably pay $200 for it to run on a PC. Or maybe more if they got rid of the ridiculous upgrade-every-year-or-two thing they have. But that's the thing, if they did that, or priced their hardware reasonably, or actually made itunes a decent mp3 player, I'd probably buy their stuff. I'm not going to say "ok, since Apple used to be overpriced I will never get one!" or "because OSX used to be platform-dependent I will never get one!"