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Feature:The Empire Strikes Back
The music industry claims to be re-taking control of the distribution of digital music, after battering by MP3's, rogue bands selling music directly on the Net, the posting of of music files online and on-line audio sites with vast archives and libraries.
Don't bet on it.
The music industry claims to be beating back the Mp3 revolution and regaining control of the sale and distribution of music.
In recent weeks, music industry executives have begun telling the media that they are moving out of the piracy era back into a more "legitimate" - that is to say outrageously monopolistic -- marketplace.
Translation: The Revolution is Over.
But saying so doesn't make it so. Music traffic on websites, ICQ and Hotline, and via private e-mail, suggests this is a fairy tale spun for the benefit of gullible journalists and middle-class consumers.
Five major record labels - Sony, Universal, Warner, BMC and EMI - dominate the $40 billion global music business, outside of the country of Colombia perhaps the world's largest cartel. They control 85 per cent of recorded music sales in the United States.
In recent years, these labels have been caught completely off guard by the Mp3-led Net-based music revolution that permitted music lovers and consumers to acquire for free the music they wanted rather than the expensive CD's the record companies decided they should buy. The companies have also panicked at bands selling music directly over the Net, and on-line audio sites carrying ever bigger archives and libraries.
At first, the industry responded with bluster, confusion and its hallmark greed.
But the Empire has now struck back. The labels have gone to war against free digital music, lobbying colleges to shut down free music sites, threatening legal action against pirate websites, and using their music libraries and stars as weapons to persuade high-tech companies to cooperate with efforts to encrypt and control the digital distribution of music. They say they're winning.
"Eighteen months ago, people in the tech community told me I was crazy to think we could develop an on-line music business" that protects copyright, Hilary B. Rosen of the Recording Industry of America told the New York Times this week. Another music industry analyst said last week that the five major labels had come together re-assert control of cyberspace, banding together for their "collective good."
Whatever takes control of digital distribution, assuming anyone can, you can bet that the collective good of the record companies isn't the same as yours.
Industry executives claim the their recently-adopted Secure Digital Music Initiative, in which recording, technology and consumer electronic companies agreed to standards for protecting music copyrights in on-line music sales, will turn the tide.
In addition to bombarding free music websites with "cease-and-desist" letters from lawyers, shutting down 2,000 of them, according to the record companies, the music companies have spent more than $1 million on a campaign enlisting colleges to join the crackdown and persuade students not to trade pirated music. The companies say more than 200 schools have pledged to try and stop students from using campus computers or Net connections to copy recordings.
The industry is scrambling to clamp down on free online music before fall, when the major labels will begin putting their libraries online. It wants protection in place for the Christmas shopping season, when portable digital players are expected to sell through the roof.
The record companies strategy is clear enough. If the middle-class consumers pouring online get into the habit of buying music on the Web and listening to it on digital players, the companies hope they can break the cycle of free and shared music developed by kids - especially geek and college kids - in the past several years.
It isn't clear whether these industry claims are true or not.
But the reality of music distribution online suggests they aren't. The trading of songs via ICQ and Hotline and e-mail attachments, according to anybody's personal observation, and to music-loving geeks, is continuing to explode.
"That's complete BS," said one Boston geek of the industry's claims. "I've gotten 200 MP3's in the past week. You could shut down 2,000 music sites, and you wouldn't put a dent in the traffic. Not only are there thousands, but they can simply re-form and re-name themselves. The morph, form different nodes. Letters from lawyers are a joke."
And 200 colleges is a fraction of the country's schools. Nor is it clear how deeply the colleges want to get involved in policing campus websites and Net connections, a loser of a mission if ever there was one.
A Chicago music lover e-mailed me that goes on one of the messaging boards nightly where he uses "click-referrals," -- spotters online get a small amount of money - about 25 cents - to steer music buyers to websites where they can get music for little money or for free. [I went on a half-dozen Sunday night]. Countless Web sites were operating openly, along with plenty of individual traders, and all were blissfully unaware of any music industry crackdown.
"Some of the hot places are the messaging boards," e-mailed JE, who ran a free music-trading site until a few months ago. "There are millions of people in ICQ and Hotlines and those guys [the record companies] are nuts if they think they're going to stop this with a few letters and some bullshit propaganda campaigns to colleges. The idea that the websites have vanished is utterly bogus."
The battle between music lovers and the recording industry has enormous economic and political significance for other businesses and institutions.
The core issues are really choice and price, and whether individuals can take back some creative power and influence for the mega-corporations that now control American culture, from music to broadcasting to publishing. Before Mp3's, people had no option but to buy CD's, which invariably include songs they didn't want as well as songs they did. The big labels have also exerted a near total monopoly on the development of new artists, a practice the online distribution of music has also shattered.
In the United States, the five labels sell $14 billion worth of music every year. Small wonder kids rebelled and began downloading the music they wanted.
The industry hasn't responded by offering music lovers greater choice - cheaper recorders, more artists, say, or customized CD's sold in smaller, less expensive units. They're reacted mostly by working to preserve their greedy monopoly.
The MP3, like the TV zapper, has turned out to be an intensely political bit of technology. Zappers and switchers permitted TV watchers to take control of their sets back from the three networks that monopolized TV programming for half-a-century. People could make choices about what they wanted to watch, and were no longer forced to choose from the tepid offerings of three networks.
MP3's have done the same for people who listen to music. For the television and music industries -- and for many other businesses to come -- things won't ever be the same, not matter how many press releases come pouring out of corporate offices.
This is an issue many people online feel passionately about. The music companies aren't fighting to preserve artistic control of intellectual property, as they claim, but their monopoly over a fantastically lucrative -- and monopolistic -- chunk of pop culture. Logically, the ability to music listeners to record and distribute music digitally seems far ahead of the means to encrypt and control it. The industry claims that after the initial shock caused by the spread of free music digitally, it's regained the upper hand.
Don't buy it. Their propaganda is a lot more effective than their technology. These myopic pronouncements suggest the record companies haven't yet gotten the real import of interactive technologies like the zapper and the MP3: people are used to participation and choice. And they aren't like to give either up.
We're the music industry. We wish the genie would go back into the bottle and so we're going to make a lot of noise that the genie is in fact dead and hope that enough people believe us that maybe we can make a little more money before people get wise to us...
Sorry guys, ain't gonna happen. Good riddance, too.
It's an interesting idea. It would certainly cut down on piracy and illegal remixes, eh? Poor business move for big cos, good one for the little guys, but money decides these things in abscence of a large scale grassroots movement.
Regardless, check out free music philosophy -- Essentially the GPL as it applies to music. http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philo sophy/fmp.html
Ironically all the bands on the web ring are thinking free beer, but the main page hits home. Also rtmark has been in the news due to their "liberation" (a la illegal deconstruction / remixing) of a beck album, with the specific goal of having it tried in court.
Something I don't understand....
Why did the price of records double once they were distributed on CDs???
Information wants to be free.
Katz mentioned that the record labels are trying to shut down mp3 sites. Would it be really stupid to assume that they are only trying to shut down illegal ones? I wouldn't put it past them to try to get _all_ mp3s off the 'net.
Was it mentioned anywhere in the article that a large portion (most?) of mp3s are illegal?
Sure we can rebel against their unfair prices by downloading the music instead, but that doesn't make it right or legal. It's their product and they can (and should be able to) charge whatever they want for it. If you think it's too expensive, then buy indie, or go to mp3.com and similar sites. Most pop music is crap anyway.
>
0) Jon has more time
1) Jon has more experience writing
2) Jon has more time
3) Jon's ego needs to be satisfied
4) Jon has more time
An interesting idea out there is to pirate the cd, and if you like it send the artist $5 or something saying "thanks". The artist gets _way_ more than what he/she normally would and you only have to pay $5 for a cd.
:)
Don't expect everyone to be extremely eager to do this though... still, it's a nice thought.
But I do not think so of the middle man. I have no problem paying for MP3's as long as its for a reasonable price and I know that it translates into a direct profit for the artist. The record companies are scared not because people can freely trade music with MP3, but that it eliminates the need for the middle man.
This is not a reply, I hate HotJava. So the record companies want to claim that MP3's are causing people not to buy the original CD's ?? And what was in the news fairly recently? The Backstreet Boys have sold more albums in opening weekend than anyone else? Wow what an irony. In the age of MP3's, CD's are still selling like mad. I love MP3's and for me they make hard-to-find music easily and cheaply available. I haven't bought a CD in over two years and after I rip my entire collection, I might as well sell most of them to a CD exchange shop. If the record producing companies want to get mad, they should put their efforts towards people who SELL the copyrighted material, not just people like me and my buddies who enjoy listening to music. Plus 90% of the stuff I have archived (within 40 gigabytes) is stuff I would never buy, but songs that I periodically enjoy listening to. MP3 4EVER And they think MP3's are bad?? next is movies and TV shows!! It's already starting...
Making copies of music you own, for your own use, is legal the last time I checked,.
However, making digital copies (mp3, etc) of music can be time consuming. The time needed to rip and encode music could be better spent listening to that music while you surf pr0n.
That's where faster home connections (cable, xDSL) come in. You can songs that you already own (cd, tape, etc) already encoded, you just have to dl them! This is/should be totally legal under current laws.
This means that free (nee pirated) music sites have a legitimate purpose. They provide the music in a format that the music industry does not provide at retail. Its like buying a recorded tape of a CD you own. Which, by the license granted when you bought that cd, should be totally legal.
Please correct me if I'm off base here...
Although I love MP3's, I am also a musician. Does this make me a hypocrite? Absolutely not. Don't cry to me about "losing potential money", I am a musician because I LOVE MUSIC. I LOVE TO MAKE MUSIC. If people want to listen to my music, then by all means GO GET IT. I don't care if I can't take my my mercedes in for a tune up, but I'm in the industry because I enjoy making music and enjoy the feeling knowing that people want to hear MY music and that MY music makes them happy. That's what a REAL musician should feel and that's what I feel. If you're only in it for the money, then you're a selfish unrighteous fool, not a musician.
> if you can hear the music in your sound-card you can copy it.
/. awhile ago that there are some decoder type speakers are in the works... The music is encoded (encrypted?) and only becomes audio at the speaker level... as in to get the music you would have to hold up your mike to the speakers... I think any attempts to open the speakers would result in their destruction.
Someone else commented on
Pretty extreme eh?
Despite all of this, I agree... piracy of music isn't going to stop. There will always be a way.
Of course, the other things the "Big 5" are never going to distribute is music too "out there" or having "Politically Incorrect" leanings. I sincerely doubt Warner or EMI is ever going to release an album with songs like "Kill Yourself for Satan," "Violence is the Answer," or "Slaves in Hell."
www.mp3.com/hiddenagenda
Commenting on the first half of your post:
I'll even be so bold as to say that piracy HELPS the industry (software and music)!
If you have tunnelvision, as the RIAA does, business loses money because X number of pirates don't buy their product. But look at the bigger picture.
If 5 pirates each tell 5 people that the Wheezing Bones have this sweet new song out. The pirates don't buy the disc because they already pirated it. But 25 people now want to know what this new song, cd, game, app, etc is all about, so SOME of them will buy it.
Pirates are almost in the business of advertising/critique. Individually, they cost the industry some fat cash. In the whole scheme of things, they do more good than bad.
This sounds like crap - I mean Microsoft.
...
They also try to convince the public that the competition does not exist or is no good. I know of several products that are far superior to theirs. Unfortunately, they have convinced many otherwise. Just a few of the examples are OS2, Linux, Netscape, WordPerfect, Novel, Macintosh OS,
I am not trying for flames - these are my personal opinion. I don't even endorse all of these, though they are definitely of better quality. If you would like, substitute any other software package that competes with M$ - it is bound to be better.
that's a really good picture. I can just see the climate changing... and all the mammals flourishing... and the dinosaur getting pissed because all these weak mammals are romping all over THEIR land. But the enviroment won't support a dinosaur forever. Evolve, or become extinct. Seems the RIAA kinda likes being a dinosaur.
"watch your futures end...." Borg Queen - Star Trek
Because they have something I want, and because I can get away with it. Simple.
What about 20-30 year old recordings, where the labels may have folded, or disappeared?
>And I've always pictured the record industry as run by seven 300 year old men who are still alive only because of a constant infusion of the blood of young virgins.
In regards to this (I'm a musician)I had the opportunity to speak with one of my friends re: record company tastes with music. He recently talked with a record company A&R person responsible for signing artists, and this person likened the process to selling shoes. They said they look for what shoe is selling the best, and then try to find some shoes EXACTLY like it. No wonder there's no real innovation in music these days...
Also FYI, the beginning contract w/ every record company is 95 to 5. They keep 95% of all profits, and you get 5%. Also, whatever you spend in terms of publicity comes out of your 5%. After several successful albums, you can renegotiate your percentage based on your track record, but what you're essentially paying for is the label name and the distribution. With MP3s, this dependency becomes increasingly suspect.
But you won't be able to play that mp3 in any new device coming two years from now.
How is a SDMI going to kill MP3?
MP3 is a music file format.
SDMI is an encryption scheme, not a music file format.
It's like saying "We are going to add the ability to password protect zip files so we can kill off"
I'm I missing something obvious?!
Btw, I can understand the music industries right to shut down pirate sites but not free music sites? A pirate site is not a free music site.
I think if I had the option of downloading and paying for an MP3 file, or downloading and paying for an SDMI encoded file which will cause hassles I'll take the latter.
No matter what you do, as long as it is possible to hear the music it is possible to pirate it. This will do nothing to stop that.
The idea is about as kooky as DIVX.
i suppose they wouldn't know about the 4.5 gigs i've downloaded in the last 24h, not to mention the 35 - 50 gigs i've already aquired.
hard to fight a battle that you've already lost.
Could the fan community simply hire (sponsor, commission, whatever) the artist for the recorded performance, instead of making copies of it artificially scarce?
That's not hard to understand. Increasing the availability of a product will not increase the demand for the product. The record companies could then gleefully pocket the extra money.
Perhaps the industry is out of date. With the boom of on-line investing, brokerages are still doing big business. Why? Because a lot of people still value the "expert" advice that people trading on their own do not have. What do record distributors offer to their clients (the artists) that they can't produce on their own? I can think of only two things: established marketing, and bucks to back up the album.
Maybe when we see some direct-to-consumer websites with enough capital to bankroll such a project, on-line music will be available. What do you think?
Beta was being plugged eagerly enough, but it turned out you can't fit a whole movie on one tape. And it cost more, because Sony were being buttheads about licensing. Consumers voted with their feet, and thus we have VHS.
How does that work? Patent threats?
products and services... it's the people who define culture, and the same people who own corporations. If we chose not to pay for
their stuff, they would have to sell something else, or go out of business.
How naive. You only get one vote; I suppose you're happy with the political system too? What? You never vote? Sorry.
Anyway, it's painfully obvious when so many great artists released all of their best material in near obscurity for the last 20 years that there is something wrong with the monopoly.. er... system. Death to your evil mega-corporation.
if i didn't steal it, i wouldn't buy it anyways. and because it doesn't cost anyone money for me to copy data, its not like anyone is losing money so its ok. if i really like the cd, i go out and buy it anyways.
Yeah, profit for the record stores. Your breakdown is true in terms of royalties, but there are other issues too. Some artist can get a signing bonus (or some other payoff or kickback), which does not come from the revenue of that album per se, but from the profits of previous albums.
I worked for a distribution arm of a music company once, and the actual cost (to employees or retailers) was only around $4 for the CD. That covers creation, royalties, productions and promotions. The record company clearly makes its profit on volume. Anything above the $4 cost actually goes to the record store.
-Ray
rwwong(at)ibm.net
Anybody remember what happened to Compuserve and their $12/hr pricing scheme after Netcom invented the $20/month flat rate pricing scheme?
I think the same opportunity exists right now in the music industry. I just wish people could get the sites like goodnoise to stop being so hung up on the price of a physical CD and adopt an internet age pricing scheme. At 50 cents an album I think the piracy "problem" may disappear too.
So it looks like an independant artist with a CD burner could sell $1.99 CD's like linuxmall and not lose out. Makes me wonder why I haven't seen anyone trying it yet.
what a surprise.
As things stand, the artist is already getting ripped off. digital music piracy has the potential to bring the music industry to its knees. If and when this happens, both artists and consumers will be far better off.
I know this sounds like a convenient excuse for piracy, but just consider what the alternative is. As long as people have no other alternative to overpriced music, NOTHING WILL CHANGE.
I just recently returned from Taiwan and was surprised with their cd prices. CD's came to around $11 each max, and that's with no extra tax to pay. And these are current hit CD's too. I wonder why the big disparity between there and the US in prices...
Of course, the Intellectual Purist should scoff at this notion, because current copyright laws only collect royalties on the "first sold" basis. Used sales don't collect royalties.
Not fair? Well, if They change it they have to change it for everything (books, recordings of all types, etc.).
Remember how *really* stupid and greedy Garth Brooks made himself look when he was making a big stink about Wherehouse reselling used CDs a year or two ago?
Don't hear too many book writers complaining about used book stores. Chances are, most published authors have a garage full of boxes of their unsold books...
If you've never been hit on by an author who is selling his own books...
Yeah, and I remember how much Robin Hood is idolized in Anglo culture.
Do you read or show Robin Hood (or Star Wars, for that matter) to your children and then tell them that it is wrong to steal, but Robin Hood really was a hero? Do you even acknowledge this dichotomy?
Or what about those Wascally Webel Wousers fighting the Imperial Senate in the Star Wars universe? Do you on one hand piss and moan about "lawbreakers" and those who "undermine the social order", while gleefully handing out $$$ to George Lucas?
If you take the standard wholesale->retail route, where typically one doubles what they pay wholesale to sell retail, going from one dollar to 16 dollars implies about 4 levels of racketeers...er, free market music entrepreneurs, who take their cut. Since I'm gonna guess that the Big 5 are pretty well vertically integrated anyways (the layers appear to be independent, but they're all agents of the RIAA...)...
...ooops, i should have thought more.
in a normal system, you would think that there was about 4 layers or so between the record plant to the retailer. Since the retailer probably ISN'T making $8/CD (but probably more like the musician, $1.00 if that), that means the recording industry probably doesn't have all thatm any independent layers. Sony spends $1.00/CD, $1.00 royalty (if that) to artist, $1.00 profit to retailer, that means they have $12-13.00/CD to spread around their books however they can for each layer to leverage/massage...
Car prices (except for SUVs) more closely follow traditional supply-and-demand economics.
M-B (can't really say this anymore for all of Daimler, as they own Chrysler) chooses to sell for per-unit profits, whereas most other car co's sell for volume profits.
The corporate margin for small cars like the Neon is $50/car for the manufacturer... (I remember reading/watching this on TV. Sorry, i can't remember exactly. Car exec said this).
If supply and demand really did affect CD prices, at least in an immediate sense, then one would think that BSBoys would be selling either for $50/CD (per-unit profits), or $1/CD (going for the loss-leader, volume sales). BUt it's $15, like all the other ones. All my favorite CDs (old stuff no one likes to listen to) still are not in the cheap bin. Here's one I don't have, but want: Sting-Nothing like the Sun. I think it still costs $15-18 at the store, but it's 10 years old music...
However, in defense of what the music industry is doing right now... We are all stealing property by downloading mp3s that we don't own the cds for. This hurts the artists, the record companies, and us as consumers by raising the prices for the albums we do buy.
==========
One could argue that buying used CDs and books hurts those artists, as well (no royalties collected on "second sales").
Since the US is a country founded on illegal actions...I don't worry too much about it. The RIAA is the evil cancer. I'd be perfectly happy buying CDs printed by the artists, where the artist pockets most of the $5-7 I pay for it, rather than the current situation.
Change requires pain.
>>Support the cause, buy Linux apps/games, buy Music from online vendors, help development.
The free issue movement and the mp3 issue are related.
What we need is to not buy licenses for software, but if we're going to give someone money for free software, give it as directly as possible to the developer. Buying, say, Civ:CTP doesn't support the free software cause. It supports Sid Meier.
-dave turner
Convenience...
Hmm... about 100GB of hard disk with MP3s on it.
Imagine THAT playlist, and having it all available in shuffle mode w/o annoying CD change times, plus the annoyance of installing new CDs in that 1/2/5/6/10/12/50/100 CD changer.
Then download to skip-proof RIO.
Hmm...
...but the radio performance money comes from ASCAP and BMI, which police the playing of music on the radio. Radio station pays ASCAP-BMI, and ASCAP-BMI pays the artist (or, more likely, the artist's contract-holding company, which takes its own cut and gives the rest to the band).
Do record stores necessarily make per-unit profits, or do they sell shelfspace to companies like grocery stores or software stores do?
...I guess I don't think about this.
Is it more ethical to buy at PriceClub/Costco (or Sam's Club, et al) 100 rolls of TP at $.10/roll or am I ethically bound to buy 100 individual rolls at 7-11 at $1.00/roll?
Neither. If it's 1am, and 7-11 is about 4 blocks from my house, and I really need a roll of TP bad!, I buy it at 7-11.
Simple enough. My choice. Best choice for me. Maybe not for you. You stay off my back, I'll stay off yours. Doesn't mean you have to respect me in the morning. Doesn't mean I necessarily will respect you, either.
Too bad this "accept the differences" has been so ripped apart by polarizing forces in our country.
I don't like body piercings. But would I advocate a law against them? Not in a general sense. But I would want to make sure that body piercers knew what they were doing and could be held accountable for their actions if they screw up (the user gets to deal with mistakes, not the practitioner).
...hmm... one must accept the legitimacy of the record company's "intellectual property". I guess I'm leaning towards IP being one of those things, rights, that you really can't give away even if you want to. If I'm a musician, does it make sense, really, that I can permanently trade my rights to my IP? It may be supported in contract law, but that's different. Sure, it happens all the time, and some would say it's "required" for the world to work the way it does. But is it, really? Or is it "required" because we think that it is?
Just because you might choose to live in a less-than-optimal situation does not mean you can't change it...
The laws may have been put in place for the musicians, but the current system has been sodomized by the RIAA so that it benefits the RIAA. The RIAA has stolen it from the musicians, who were more than happy to give it to them. Now, most of them in the RIAA's pockets won't/can't change ("won't bite the hand that feeds it", "golden handcuffs", etc.). Those that try, meet with mixed results.
I guess one way I look at the RIAA is like prostitution: The RIAA is the Pimp. The Musicans are the Hoes. And we, the customers, are the Johns. We might get our blowjobs, the Hoes might get enough money for their next round of smack, but the Pimp makes the money. But then along comes marriage or open dating... neither the Johns nor the Hoes are beholden to the Pimps (except for those who continue in that model. Some always will). Well, musically we're in the first model.
At least it wasn't as bad as it was way back when. Mozart had a huge reputation, but he was beholden to his benefactor. Or Chopin. Or Bach. Or whomever. Not too many "classical" composers died financially rich. Even more neo ones. I"m thinking of the story I read of Paderewski (Polish pianist). He signed some deal with Steinway early in the century. Back then competition was BIG between STeinway (stupid American startups) vs. the Euro piano makers. Steinway signing Paderewski was a serious coup. BUt Steinway ran him RAGGED, in competitions...er, marketing demonstrations, of Steinways vs. the Others. Paderewski had a great reputation, but he didn't exactly cash in (except he had his pick of Steinways).
Sure, I feel for the musicians. Like Billy Joel who signed a contract where his "promotor" ended up with the copyrights to his works. Or Rush, which signed a stupid 10 or 15-record contract with Mercury way back when. But Billy Joel and Rush are not atypical, just probably the more publicly known sucked into the RIAA's siren song.
While I feel for the artists, the MP3 pirates are not exactly the most evil part, nor the consumers who buy it. The RIAA is.
Or think Sheriff of Nottingham = RIAA, and your local MP3-Pirate as Robin Hood.
...not to be insulting, but Audiophiles and their fancy stuff make up HOW much of the music-buying market?
I'm glad that stuff is out there, if I win the Lottery. But I live near a busy road. I would spend more sound-proofing a room from the roadnoise and other noises of everyday living in my house than I would on equipment. Not feasible.
The other environment, my car, it is NOT possible to soundproof completely, so my fancy-pansy stereo will still be fighting with tire noise or the Good Ol' Boy in that beat up pickup truck with the rusted off (at the manifold) exhaust pipe, of Sir Hip-Hop and his 10,000-watt eardrum buster.
So the point of MP3 being bad for audiophiles is germaine to...audiophiles, but immaterial to 95% of the rest of the world.
Sorry, but that's the way it is.
So, do you have an audiophile-quality CD player (like a Macintosh...NOT the computer!) or some other esoteric CD player?
To all the RIAA people posting on slashdot about how "The artist gets half" (The standard is 7 cents, last i checked) or other blatant lies.
Luckily, most have been moderated down.
(as a side tangent, i wonder how much of the money the artist isn't getting is getting spent on issuing bullshit press releases about how MP3 is dying, and spending millions on crackdowns that don't work. I'm sure some RIAA drone will tell us:" The answer is "none". The RIAA is doing it out of the goodness of their heart for their valuable artists that they treasure. God bless them!"
)
>Is there not Kindergarten where you grew up? Your posts border on useless flamebait, like the above. Can't you make an intelligent comment without having to personally attack a person? But if you lose a single sale of your performance because it's available free on musicsnatch.net, then that is what was stolen from you. This is the same myth that RIAA perpetuates. MP3s aren't making a DENT in sales of CDs. CD sales are UP! The fact is that the people who listen to MP3s of a disc probably wouldn't have bought that disc anyway.
No I'm most positive they were not pirated. The place I went to was one of the largest cd stores in Taiwan, not bought off the street...
What's wrong with cracking down on "providers" of stolen music? "Free music sites" are selling pirated CDs. I'm not sure that's a threat to some band making their own recordings and shipping the stuff via the net--how'd you crack down on that? As far as pirating--well, someone worked on making these products so these people need to get paid--including the artists. So, Katz needn't get on his soap box, especially if that involves mis-representation.
And how did it free me from the "Big 3"?
So the fact that I wouldn't have bought a CD of music anyway entitles me to its contents for free? C'mon, AC. When RMS was frustrated by proprietary software, he didn't steal it, he started work on a free replacement, GNU. If you're dissatisfied with "proprietary music," don't steal it, create a free alternative. Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.
The logic here is inescapable: "this costs more than I think I should have to pay, so I'm just going to take it."
ok - what else are you supposed to do, offer the shopkeeper half price because u think he is overcharging? or u could just go and download the songs u want.......
If you like the music, show your support of the artists and grab/dump the MP3s and spread them far and wide. The sooner the behemoth dies, the sooner the artists can form a much more resonable and artist friendly production/distribution method involving technology such as MP3.COM.
Oh, *do* by DAM cds from MP3.COM. *THAT* is the right thing to do.
Most of the complaints I see have very little to do with technology. It's mostly "the record companies charge too much for a CD."
Fine. If you are right (and you probably are), then it should be simple to sign up some like-minded artists, start your own record company and use the Wonderful W.W.W. to market these terrific CD's for a low, low price (anticpating the paranoid "all them record stores is in cahoots" arguements).
Any digitally distributed music would just be gravy and you could even give away free product with all the billions you and your altruistic friends are making.
So why don't you do it and stop whining about all the bad guys and beat them at their own game. If you settle for even half their money you will beat their asses off . . . won't you? It really is just that simple.
So why do we have capitalism? What's wrong with communism? This couldn't happen in a communistic society. But of course, you're going to flame me because your Americans and you believe your way is right...
All the shit we've had to put up with over the decades, you're god damned right they owe us.
Don't forget, CD's, DAT's, and the like. All created so that us "bogus, evil, thoughtless, talentless, destructive, profiteering bastards" wouldn't be able to make quality copies of their music without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball.
I say, fuck 'em, anyway we can.
You can have my MP3's when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
I think you have mixed up some facts here. I do know that songwriters (who may not be the actual recording artists) get paid 7 cents PER SONG per album sold. That may be what you were thinking of.
One interesting phenomenon is that MP3 sites are quite seasonal. I speak from experience. Since the students have left for the summer, a major source of these sites left with them. When they return in a month or two, you'll find a suge in the number of sites.
I wonder if these companies are observing the effect of a confounding cause...
If there are far fewer sites today than just a little less than a year ago, I say the cause is more likely the weather, not the efforts of these companies.
Anyone seen their opinions on sites like mp3.com, who are distributing perfecly legal mp3's? Or Rykodisc, who IIRC, are just selling their stuff in mp3?
BitPoet
Well, the artists lose temporarily; the music business architecture (and plenty of others) will eventually be smashed by the ability to trivially copy something digital. But the market changes all the time; this time it's just forced and fast. Rest assured that all musicians will not go broke forever. Another business model is guaranteed to take its place, and to survive, it will have to be able to coexist with the environment. Simple evolution - environment changes, you change or die, and something else is always looking to take your place.
;-)
Heh, mental picture: RIAA is a dinosaur, MP3 is a mammal
Apart from the small fraction of a percent of the musicians who have 'Made it' and are making millions off their music, most musicians should welcome the MP3 revolution as it can offer them a much larger audience, people who otherwise would never have heard their music. Small local bands invariably do some of the best music and I'd far rather listen to that than the insipid tripe on the radio or in music stores these days. Small musicians should welcome the larger audience and the larger audience should welcome their music.
Even if the major labels do keep control over the majority of the popular talent, their format does not protect against *re-recording*. Simply put, the format is naked when it comes out of someone's speakers...no matter how they encrypt it. A computer has to play a song...and at that point, another application could capture the data from the soundcard and store it to file where it can then be compressed into MP3.
So as long as I have my trusty wav recorder, no form of audio encryption will ever prevent MP3 redistribution.
It's a special internal secret in the music indusry: how to continue sodomizing the consumer with $15.99 CDs that cost less than a dollar (with packaging) to manufacture? And continue to cheat the artists they have signed? Easy!
SDMI (pronounced "sodomy")! It will preserve the monoploy and ensure total artistic and financial control for years to come! Oops! The cat's out of the bag!
Yeah, CDs when they came out in the 80's were overpriced, but they were supposed to come down to be cheaper than tapes once everyone adopted the format and the early adopters paid for the R&D. Well... guess what.... the record companies found out that people will pay a lot for music they like and can't get any other way, and they got greedy off the profits. The price of CDs kept falling, we can see this because in the past few years, CD-Rs which cost more than a pressed CD, has gone from $10/cd down to about $1/cd. I don't even want to think what Sony pays for a pressed CD. They see their cash cow being slain by the mp3 and they are scared. Believe it, they are scared. Their way of life is about to change forever. Just assume for a minute that an established artist like the Beastie Boys fulfills their contract, then decides to offer their latest songs on mp3, cutting out the record company completely? What if everyone follows suit?
The record companies are trying to push SDMI on Mom and Pop who probably don't know a damn thing about where to find mp3s, but they will also be disillusioned when they find out they accidently deleted their song they "bought" or that they can't listen to it anywhere but the PC they downloaded it to (because they lack the knowledge to transfer it anywhere else). The record companies really need to buy a clue and realize what's going on. The profits they have enjoyed for the past 10 years are gone. The control they had over the marketplace is gone. The sooner they realize this, the better off they will be. I don't mind paying for a CD, and in fact, I'd rather have something tangible to display on my shelf, and some pretty cover art to go along with it. But I won't pay $18 for that privledge. CDs have reached a price where they are no longer affordable. For now, I'll download what I want and delete it when I'm tired of it. If I really really like it (I don't want to delete it), I'll go buy it. I don't mind that. But, I'd buy a lot more if they would sell them at a reasonable price.
Like the TV remote-control, MP3 technology gives people choice. Of course, the bulk of people don't want choice - they want convenience. And who can blame them? If we all exercised personal judgement and choice in every area of our lives, we'd have no time for anything but deciding what we want. For any given person, there are maybe two or three areas about which they care sufficiently much that they actually want to exercise those choices.
In other words, even if the music industry's legal apparatus does NOTHING to stop "piracy", the majority of people will STILL buy CD's in record stores, simply because it's less time and effort intensive than downloading MP3's or burning copies of discs.
Industry experts were worried for a long time that sales of VCR's and TV's with remotes would axe commercial revenues for TV. Did they? No: they just increased sales in the home video department - of movies which people would have no trouble copying illegally.
Even if the entire world miraculously came to its senses and scaled back copy-"rights" for creators, there would probably STILL be a booming market for the music industry to package and sell works by consumers' favourite artists in attractive boxes, gathered together in a convenient store.
Did anybody teach you that gouging is worse?
Just because a mic cost $10k doesn't mean the end result is going to be 'professional'. I've heard recordings done on $100 microphones, using some guys basement and an old cheap reel-to-reel, which I would definitely consider 'professional'.
A 'professional' is someone who gets the job done, no matter what tools are available. No matter what.
A 'pompous bastard' is someone who whines about not having the most expensive tools available, who blames poor results on 'cheap gear', and who also calls something 'not professional' if it didn't cost loads and loads of money to make.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Um, isn't that what singles are for??
Posted by viperx2:
.05% loss in sound, but even if I can't I can cerinly hear the better quality in the 99.95%. The bass is clearer, the highs are sharper, and everything sounds more realistic.
Well, my opinion is that MP3s and MDs are both MUCH better sounding than CD's. I am an audiophile, and I mostly use expensive headphones to test music, seeing as how I can't afford expensive speakers. I find that expensive headphones give you a clearer sound with no "road noise" or anything else. Some may say that this is the wrong way, but I don't care. I can certinly hear the difference between analog and digital recordings off of my MD player, and with the MP3 player (sonique 1.05), I can hear the difference in variable encoding, and pure 128 encoding. Personally, I think that DACs on MP3s and MDs are MUCH better than the old CD format. As far as I can tell, usually cds are converted, then amped to a certin degree from the analog signal, where as an MD or an MP3 is pure digital until it hits the speakers/headphones. Everyone tells me that they can "hear" the
In the early days of MP3, I heard the wierd, decoding sounds of MP3s as well, and I can still hear it in older versions of WinAMP, but not in sonique, and not with variable encoding rates.
Sorry, but I have to totaly disagree with you here that bought CD's sound better than MP3s.
NOW, in responce to the packaging of CD's, I sometimes buy CDs that I download because I want the case pictures, and to free up 70MB on the hard drive. I can understand it, but the wave of the future is web site like covers, and MP3 music to download.
Personally, I hope that a "record" company starts online, and distributes singles from albumns free, then you can buy the albumn for very litte, becuase of no packaging, and no manufacturing. This is one time when the corperate assmonkeys must bow down to the monster of technology.
Posted by viperx2:
.01 to make the CD is still 15.98 for the record company! Lets say that 5 bucks of that (ha ha ha) goes to advertizing to sell MORE cds (yeah right). That gives the record company 10 bucks per CD. This just isn't right.
Niether of the options you have presented make any sense.
Price of a CD that isn't brand new and on promo discount:
16.99
That's 18.35 after the government gets thier 8%
ok, so basicly 17$ for music
17$ - 1$ for the artist, and
Here's the deal in my mind. Online record companies. This makes perfect sense. 5$ per "albumn", artist gets 2.50$, the "comany" gets 2.50 to maintian the site, maybe some illegal trading, but that is happening anyway with CDs, and bam! Sony is out of the music buisness, and all musicians are happy. Hell, with NET TV comming, we could all watch homegrown Videos on MTZ.com or something. In other words, music can be free!
What I don't understand about all this is WHY are the record companies making such a fuss about this when for YEARS people have been making tapes of anything and everything that is music. What's up with that? Well, eventually they had to narrow it down to people that sold these cassettes. Even SONY makes these blank cassettes for people to COPY! Ok, now we have CD burners.... MP3s... Umm... Digital? I guess that is the key... digital never gets bad.
If you are a musician, why not embrace the MP3 addiction people have and USE it. Start an online record company with everything an enthusist needs! Have you ever noticed that record companies sell the same albumn a few months later with B-sides on it to make more money? Come on! With an MP3 site, you could logon with a user ID, and download the B-Sides for free! Or a small added fee. This makes total sense, I am sorry to all the people apposed.
As far as illegal trading goes, YES! It will happen! It will happen till the end of time! but who wouldn't support thier favorite artist by sending them 5$ for a CD, that is less than a THIRD of what we pay now.
Viper-X2
Posted by viperx2:
Ummm... I'm sorry, but if you really want to play MP3's wherever you go, you don't need diamond to make one for you. The way the world is changing, it looks to me like more and more tech skills are going to be required, and fewer and fewer survival skills. I have friends that are building car and portable MP3 players, right now. So... if sony wants to do something as stupid as restrict the use of RIOs to some other format, hey, whatever. Our Netsocity will crack it. Our engineers will have a mod chip in days. Hell, our engineers will add 128MB of RAM to a RIO, then mod it. Sorry, but any change to software or hardware is simply an act of futility.
The only thing they can really do is scare tactics with college kids, and others. Making examples out of people. That is what will happen. But it won't change anything. A few people will be held... sure. I hope I am not one of them.
Viper-X2
- Elitism. While Slashdot is not uniformly as technical as some of the readers (Alan Cox, Tom Christiansen, and Bruce Perens all read Slashdot and I won't claim to be as skilled or as knowledgable as them
:), it seems oriented towards a more technical audience. It has not, in the past, been a forum for informing people not already interested in the material it covers. It has also not, in the past, been a place as technically inclined as Freshmeat. - As for Jon's ability to get to the root of complex problems, I sometimes disagree. He has a knack for simplifying complex issues, but I don't always feel that he simplifies them accurately; he has and seemingly always has had an agenda behind his writing, and it appears to influence his writing. Whether I disagree or agree with the apparent agenda is a non-issue; in fact I agree and disagree about evenly.
- Slashdot, in the past, has not catered to people trying to learn what the Internet is. It has largely catered to people around the same level technically as Rob Malda, and the other editors have influenced this. However, it feels like Jon Katz' contributions are a good bit afield of the others'.
There is a place for teaching people more; embracing the analog world, as you said. And there is a place for people, fully comfortable with the digital world, to sit down, BS, and be comfortable without trying to explain every second word. For the former, Linux.org and Linux.com and a host of other sites of varying repute and quality exist. For the latter, it seems that KernelNotes, Freshmeat, and Slashdot are the only general sites.Why is it so unreasonable that Slashdot not be all things to all people?
--Matthew
Where in my post did I say I didn't buy CDs? Where did I say I copy CDs when I want music instead of purchasing a packaged version? Nowhere, that's where, and that you jumped to the conclusion for the sake of an "artists rights" crusade underminds all of your argument. None of your points apply to me; they're all misguided attacks. Please, next time you feel the urge to piss on someone, aim away from your own legs.
I think $15 is way too much for a disc when it only costs $0.08 to produce, a few cents to transport, a few cents to stock, a dollar goes to the artists, and $13.50 goes to the record companies. It's called capitalism; they sell it and it's my choice to buy it or not. I don't approve of these high prices so I don't pay them. That doesn't mean I'm a criminal or haven't bought CDs in the past. I've been known to buy used CDs, and I'll buy CDs worth the money for the packaging and convenience.
Get your head on straight.
I think it was an older article on Slashdot which prompted this notion, but I can't find a source, so I'll rephrase it:
This is the saddest part. Information doesn't "want" to be free; it is free. It's the humans who aren't prepared to deal with this.I sat down the other day and counted- there are at least 5 radio stations in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area on which you can hear Alanis Morriset (KS95, KQRS92, Cities-97, Zone-105, and now Point-104). This is good if you happen to be Alanis Morriset. If you're not, it just makes it that much harder for your music to be heard.
:) to gain any sort of national radio exposure.
Note that I'm not picking on Alanis here- I'm just using her as an example. The playlists of pretty much all radio stations is limited to a small handfull of national bands the music industry backs, and maybe a local artist or two. It's hard for a small band like Six Mile Bridge (http://www.loosegoose.com/) (plug plug
This is where MP-3s will come in. Consider for the moment the advantage of a small band releasing some of it's tracks for free- and go "if you like this, come buy our CD/MP-3/Cassettes!". Open-source music as loss-leader for the musicians.
The bands who do this won't make as much money as Alanis or Madonna- but it'll make it easier for them to garner a national following and sell to a slightly smaller percentage of a much larger market. Which would mean the difference between the musicians being able to make a comfortable living doing what they want to do, rather than having to flip burgers to pay the rent.
Oh, and more real choice in our music selection, rather than just what radio dial position we want to listen to Alanis on.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Glastonbury festival, where it always strikes me: there are some *really good* unsigned bands. Sure, there are plenty of *bad* unsigned bands, but there are also plenty of bad *signed* bands too.
MP3 gives these bands a chance to distributed their work without involving big record companies, and although it will take time, I'm hoping that this will become a mainstream source of legitimate music. I don't really approve of leeching commercial CDs onto MP3, because it paints MP3 as "just" a means to piracy.
One reason it's easy to find music you like on CD, is that there is a huge infastructure of magazines, radio shows, web sites etc all dedicated to reviewing and publicising new music. At the moment legit MP3s are not a part of that system.
There's a certain class of radio DJ, who I'll call the "independent DJ" - the BBC's John Peel is one of them, I'm sure there are plenty in the US - who choose their own playlists, and get sent dozens of recordings every week from which they choose what to play; I really hope that these people discover MP3 as a medium, so that instead of saying "That was Foo and you can get the CD from Bar records, 117 suburban street, Leeds", they'll say "That one isn't available on CD, but the site with the MP3 is linked from this show's website". It'll happen. Eventually.
And when that happens, I'm pretty sure that many of the bands *I* want to listen to, won't even *want* to sign to a record company.
--
As for the middle class consumers, yes the class of people who download free(speech) music and pirated music is the same class of people who are shelling out their sheep-money to the RIAA. Middle class consumers--that's a big class.
--
(sourceCode == freeSpeech)
The law has very little to do with morality. A law changes when it becomes more expensive to maintain the law than to change or drop it. Either the enforcement is abandoned and the law forgotten (so-called "blue laws"), or citizens openly flout the law and it is eventually changed (remember the 55 mph U.S. speed limit?).
The 1995 situation with respect to music distribution and record-label monopoly power is founded on copyright law. The record companies are not about to get together and change that law to our favour, and I'd be really surprised if the U.S. congress breaks their tradition of putting big companies' interests first. If we want music in Y2K to look different than 1995, copyright law must change - and we will have to change it ourselves.
One could make a good case for mp3 "piracy" as a legitimate form of civil disobedience. There's a long tradition of deliberately breaking bad laws in order to demonstrate their absurdity. Modern copyright law is certainly absurd; it's unenforceable and often meaningless.
"Piracy" assumes that current copyright law is valid and should be maintained. I do not agree with this assumption.
-Mars
While I know that it is very common for the writing community to eschew the pedestrian "topic" or "plot" in favor of prose sent jumping through hoops, I have little tolerance for it.
I am interested in reading "news for nerds" or original cxontent that provides new information or greater insight into a topic. Since none of these needs of mine were satisfied from this article, I had to ask what the point of Jon Katz's newest attempt at self-promotion (aka "article") was. Isn't this whole thing supposed to be about "Stuff that Matters"?
-Dean
First of all, did we really need an entire Jon Katz article to tell us that the RIA trying to crack down on MP3? What's wrong? Was it a slow news day or something? Is there some reason why Jon Katz is so much more qualified to write this stuff than Rob Malda?
Secondly, much as I think that MP3's are great and the recording industry is fairly evil, why does Jon Katz mince words? Let's face it-- the crackdown is against pirated music being distributed over the 'net. The lawsuit against Rio was BS, surely-- a blatant crackdown against MP3 itself-- but forcibly shutting down many music sites amounts to cracking down on pirated music. Technically, there's really nothing wrong with doing so. That's why they're called _illegal_ copies. So, impotent as this "crackdown" is, why doesn't Katz just call the sites with "free music" what they are? Sites with "pirated" music.
Also, I would bet pretty heavily that most of the people trading and downloading this "free music" are part of the same "middle class consumers" that Katz simultaneously criticizes as tools of the recording industry.
-Dean
I've often thought that a good use of the ID tag fields at the end of an MP3 file would be to have something like the following attached to the music: "If you like this or other songs by this artist, send $1US or 1 beer to POB 88, Sometown USA 98765-1234." Sorta like shareware for music; voluntary, friendly, and likely to generate a small but steady income.
Then again, I like the idea of GPL music, with the artist making money on promotions, live performances, and personal association. If Mozart were alive today, I'd pay $$ to see him conduct, rather than listen to a free/pirated rip of the Obscuranian National Orchestra performing his tunes off some LaserLight brand cd.
I think not...(*poof*)
The roar of SDMI's death emanates directly from the pipes of loud-ass motorcycles all across the US.
Today I picked up a copy of Cycle World magazine, and on page 84, I read a full-page article on how the Rio is an excellent solution to (a) magnetic tank bags damaging cassette tapes, and (b) cd players skipping from the vibration of the bike. (Disclaimer: Although I did once stuff some earbuds into the lining of my helmet just like a zillion other people, I don't advocate anyone else doing it.)
Discussion of MP3 piracy controversy? Not a word. Suggestions about SDMI? Nope. Any hint that there's anything in the world that would dethrone MP3? Nah. The worst thing they could say about the product was that it doesn't come with software for the Mac. Given that MP3 already has this kind of fully-immersed mainstream exposure, SDMI has as much chance of displacing MP3 as I do of fighting off a cruise missle with a stick.
I think not...(*poof*)
I sorta hate to toot my own horn here, but I've known that the music industry isn't winning all along. My nice little website Puremp3 has been gaining members form the outset, and now that it is easier for sites to apply via a keen web interface, I've been getting 10-20 new members a day. At this rate, I'll hit 1000 sites by the end of the year easily.
/VERY/ slim chance that anything will stop MP3 in the near-future.
Even if the companies behind SDMI and music protection get their way and alot of the colleges start cracking down on mp3s, it will stil go on. About all that colleges can do is scan the Samba shares for mp3s or anon ftps within their IP block(s), and then pull the connections. As a college student that's seen this happen to many students before, it's not that big a deal. You get a visit from a network guy who verifies that the directory you were sharing isn't shared, and might delete the mp3s in that directory. Other than that, they aren't allowed to do anything else.
Most of the people who do these visits use mp3 themselves, so it realy isn't in their best interest to delete the mp3s. The sites are usually back up on a non-standard port or private ftp within a matter of days, if not hours. The IT departments in most colleges don't have the resources to do an all-out MP3 crackdown.
Bottom Line: There's a
You can't see this if you have sigs turned off.
The MP3, like the TV zapper, has turned out to be an intensely political bit of technology. Zappers and switchers permitted TV watchers to take control of their sets back from the three networks that monopolized TV programming for half-a-century. People could make choices about what they wanted to watch, and were no longer forced to choose from the tepid offerings of three networks.
I'm having trouble seeing the "intensely political" benefit of the remote control. Before I had one, I could take back control of my TV set from the three major networks by getting off my ass, walking to the TV, and changing the channel. I could take even more control by turning the thing off.
Now that I have a remote control, I can take back control of my TV set from the three major networks by remaining on my ass.
Have we become so sedentary as a society that the ability to stay on our asses is an intensely political victory?
I look forward to reading Katz's celebratory column when technology finally gives us the ability to Web surf on the toilet.
Rogers Cadenhead (Web: http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench)
No, this has nothing to do with raw materials, rationing, or anything else. It has to do with artists getting what they deserve. As it is, they get hardly anything from their work.
.02
If you like the music, show your support and buy the stupid CD for a lousy $15 and quit yer whining. The artists will stop making it (or at least, the label will stop selling it) if it isn't profitable. That's called capitalism.
bottom line, whenever a product which a company is trying to sell becomes available elsewhere for free, it threatens their bottom line. So you really can't blame them. That's called capitalism. An artist *needs* a label because there's no other way to get their music to a mass audience (obscure websites and little blurbs on mp3.com don't cut it). And the labels will go away if the profits go away.
Get real, cheapskate. Buy the CD (my collection nears 200..) and get over it.
My $
Heh. I should know better than to try and parse HTML correctly when I'm ranting.
Baptist Death Ray on MP3.com: http://www.mp3.com/baptistdeathray
Baptist Death Ray on AMP3.com: http://www.amp3.net/baptistdeathray
Chris Wright
the Baptist Death Ray
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
that's the standard artist cut -- 7 cents per CD sold. And out of THAT cut comes all the costs of manufacturing and distribution, paying off the studio engineers, paying off the band manager and promoter, and paying for touring costs.
If you really think that's a pretty hefty chunk of a $15 CD, the dollar is a lot stronger where you live than where I live.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
John Katz is correct in his assertion that the RIAA (the organization that represents the major labels) is trying desperately to take control of music distribution over the internet. He is also correct in implying that the MP3 music format is part of a revolution that could, if we play our cards right, topple over the stranglehold that the "big 5" have had on music distribution in the United States and all over the world.
Where he is entirely wrong, however, is in the assertion that the sites the RIAA are targeting are in any way associated with this new revolution.
Pirate music sites are nothing new, have been nothing new, and will be nothing new. Nothing that they do will ever have any appreciable affect on the music industry, and anyone who believes so is just buying into the RIAA's propaganda. The RIAA likes to use pirate sites as their straw man because they can't touch the real threat: the musicians and web sites that post MP3s of music that are 100% legal.
As a musician who posts his music on the internet in the MP3 format, I am much more of a threat to the RIAA than a ripped & encoded pirated copy of anything put out by Nine Inch Nails.
Sure, NIN is a lot more popular and well known than the Baptist Death Ray. Sure, NIN is sought after and will be downloaded more than the Baptist Death Ray. But the Baptist Death Ray and other artists with similar beliefs are setting up a dangerous precident: that it's OK for the artist, not a record label, to decide who is allowed to download what music. And that the artist, not the record label, can take full responsibility of his/her product.
Of course, the RIAA can't force musicians to go to labels, can't force musicians to relinquish their rights to their music, so they claim they are trying to protect their artists from piracy. Bull. They are trying to protect the industry from the Baptist Death Ray, Bruce Satinover, Mickey Dean and his Talking Guitar, MadelynIris, and every other musician who wilingly, of their own volition, and more importantly legally releases their music in the MP3 format for free download and distribution.
The RIAA has been targeting sites of pirated music and forcing the site maintainers to shut them down. Whoopee. What they can't do, and what will really bring them down if this takes off, is make me and my comerades-in-arms stop releasing music under the MP3 format.
Chris Wright
the Baptist Death Ray
Baptist Death Ray on MP3.com
Baptist Death Ray on AMP3.com
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Cost breakdown here, on the question of how can CD "clubs" sell for a low price: CD Club FAQ: Ethical Issues. It does not, however, get down as far as exactly how much the artist gets, or how big a cut goes to producers, the label execs. But interesting as much as it does analyze.
You're talking past each other here.
Of course.
But, the real issue is whether copying bits ever constitutes theft. When I buy a hard-disk, I physically own all of the bits on that drive. Is it theft if I change their states such that they correspond to the music of a given song?
Besides, see the other posts on here by actual musicians who welcome the arrival of cheap redistribution outside of the shadow of the recording industry. If it were stealing, who would you be stealing from if the artists themselves are happy to let you have it?
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
I actually thought about this a few days ago, also
being a musician and wondering how MP3's are
affecting musicians. As far as I know, I think
most bands make most of their money doing tours
and that sort of thing, while most of the money
from CD sales doesn't go to the band. It seems
logical to me that in the near future a band could
do quite well by just releasing recorded music for
free as MP3's and then making their money entirely
from tours and performances. I think record
labels are more concerned about becoming obsolete in a few years than losing money from the piracy that is going on today. Just my two cents...
I dunno, the DVD folks did a great job of making something which is playable completely unsecurable. If DVD were less secure, we'd have a player for Linux. We don't. Guess why?
Just had to call you out on a point. You can record audio at 44.1khz and 16bits in stereo all you want. It's not professionally produced. Or did you really use that $10,000 microphone and the $15,000.00 effects processor, etc.... in a 250,000 acoustically perfect room? Didn't think so.
the legal responsibilities of the executives of a company are to their shareholders. You can be thrown in jail for violating this. Check your facts.
Check ASCAP, BMI, and Harry Fox's webpages for information on artist reimbursement.
Unfortunately I can't shed any tears for you here. You didn't take any of the financial risk, so why should you reap any of the financial gain? There are plenty of artists/novelists out there. If you get your book published, you're going in knowing what's going on. $50,000 is more than you had when you started. But how the hell do you think you're going to print, market, distribute, and sell 100,000 copies of your own book? Therefore unless you market it some other way, out of your pocket, then you're not taking any financial risk. Sure, you're the "talent", but there's plenty of talent running around. If you want to sell it, you've got to be a salesman. And these companies are.
It didn't "work out" that people "prefer to buy the movie", this was designed. VHS was forced on an unwitting consumer market due to its built-in limitations on copying. VHS degrades *greatly* with each successive copy. One can make about 3 levels of generation while leaving the tape somewhat viewable. Betamax, on the other hand, has all of the same features as VHS and two further enhancements: 1: better image resolution/quality, 2: can make many more generations of copies. Is it really any wonder why we have VHS?
The core issues are really choice and price, and whether individuals can take back some creative power and influence for the mega-corporations that now control American culture, from music to broadcasting to publishing.
I guess I'd better sell my stock, 'cuz I'm an owner of those evil mega-corporations. I guess I'd better stop choosing to use their products and services... it's the people who define culture, and the same people who own corporations. If we chose not to pay for their stuff, they would have to sell something else, or go out of business.
In the United States, the five labels sell $14 billion worth of music every year. Small wonder kids rebelled and began downloading the music they wanted.
Sounds more like people with $14 billion dollars bought the music they wanted. People getting what they want makes other people want to rebel? I don't understand this line of thought. Perhaps the intermediary logics are missing.
Zappers and switchers permitted TV watchers to take control of their sets back from the three networks that monopolized TV programming for half-a-century. People could make choices about what they wanted to watch, and were no longer forced to choose from the tepid offerings of three networks.
Please. Until entertainment industry executives break into my house and force me even to buy a television, much less watch it all of the time, the idea that people don't have a choice is a joke.
You have a choice not to watch TV. Or to watch only public TV. Or not to own a TV. Or to change the channel. (And unless by "zapper" you mean "free cable or digital broadcasting", your point is silly anyway.)
As for the rest, there have been garage bands making tapes and CDs and what-have-you for decades. The real revolution is just a means of communication.
--
QDMerge -- data + templates = documents.
how to invest, a novice's guide
As our local paper put it: it's not so much piracy as it is mutiny.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
As our local paper put it: it's not so much piracy as it is mutiny.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Oh, man, I just *love* to answer some of these "music industry" letters!
I'll come right out and say it: quality and the "music Industry" have nothing to do with each other. Quality comes from the soul. If they have it, that means someone sold it to them.
'nuff said.
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
That's very commendable of you, but you'd probably be better off finding out the address of the artist and sending them a check. They sure as Hell ain't being supported by the record company.
Oh--I'm sorry. I guess a *couple* of them are. The ones they want to *milk for everything they can get.*
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
Actually, I'm kind of hoping things will turn out this way: When people realize their *art* is easy to distribute via the Net, they'll be *encouraged* to once again *learn* how to read music and play an instrument. Because people will *hear* what they do, even if they don't have the skill to get around the music industry. Remember, music is becoming a "lost art" *because* people don't want to have to *deal* with managers, record distributors, record companies, recording studios that want you IN AND OUT AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, and all the other *drek* that comes with trying to show people your talent. Look, the only people who seem to get anywhere with music these days are those who want to grab that gold ring on the end of the stick attached to their forehead. That doesn't leave much room for people who just want to make music, does it? Because the only way you can get that gold ring is to cater to the LARGEST AUDIENCE YOU CAN POSSIBLY GET, and art be damned. I read a book long ago called Against the American Grain by Dwight MacDonald, (now out of print,) in which he refers to this phenomenon as "masscult." Pander to "the masses" so you can fill your auditoriums and pockets, by trying to FIGURE OUT what they want ahead of time, then GIVE IT TO THEM, as MANY OF THEM AS POSSIBLE. Don't bother to try and develop your own art, then see how many people are interested.
I'm hoping that ubiquitous distribution of freely-available music will start to change this. Maybe musicians who would otherwise not bother because of a limited audience, will now realize they can get samples of their works out there, where anyone can see them and take copies. Then, when that happens, the good ones will get the shows, the concerts, the auditoriums, and the small venues based on the VALUE OF THEIR ART, *not* on the results of some stupid surveys and PR campaigns.
When that day comes, I might be more inclined to check out new music. Because I'll know people are once again putting their soul into it.
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
Very good point. And that's why all you people out there pirating copies of record-company fare should do this:
(1) stop pirating, and also stop buying the CD's.
(2) get out there and do your *own* music.
(3) get together with musicians who want to get their music *heard* but don't want to deal with record companies and their crap
(4) Go to their clubs, concerts, invite them to your parties, get copies of their mp3's and *listen* to their music.
It's time to do that. Music isn't something you use for wallpaper, or to fill that void of silence while you study. As long as you continue to believe that it *is* for those purposes, these problems will continue to plague you. When you ride a bus or walk the street, use that Rio to listen to some *art*, not some ripped-off Sony cd.
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
I walked into one of those chain "record" stores at the mall last weekend. I hardly ever do this since they rarely carry any music that I'd consider listening to but there was a mildly interesting CD that I wanted to check out. Seeing that the average price for CDs has gotten into the $18-$19 range I turned around and walked out.
I guess I'll go back to ordering through Wayside. I'll save tons-o-money and find the music I enjoy all at the same time.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
And the thing is, rather than using this as a way to get themselves a deal with a major label, the band can just continue on as they are. Maybe cdnow will start making copies of the cd and selling them, so the band doesn't have to do it all themselves. I doubt mp3 will ever kill cds, but it might change the way we buy them, and it will certainly change how the profits are divided.
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotect sex.
Bite the hand.
What will be interesting is that RIAA has to know that FUD ain't going to cut it for very long with an Internet crowd, and that they will be forced to fall back to their next line of defense, the artists they've already signed, and the network of radio stations, concert promoters, ad execs, and the like. I predict that RIAA will pressure these vassals to refuse air time to Internet-only artists, and try to lock them out of 'traditional' forums, even more so than they already do by controlling the marketplace.
The big argument that RIAA and their lapdogs will soon put forth is that they have all the marketable acts, and the no-name bands who are trying to self-publish aren't worth listening to. So it becomes of vital importance that several Internet-only artists get enough attention and sales that RIAA is forced to deal with them on the artist's terms.
I also agree that the implications of technologies such as MP3, Linux, the Open Source model, and the publishing power of the Internet will cascade from market segment to market segment. This really is the Information Age, baby, and you better be looking at how your business is going to be a part of it.
I guess not...it's probably the same 80% who cheat on tests, too, or the 55% of these cheaters who don't think there's anything wrong with it.
The logic here is inescapable: "this costs more than I think I should have to pay, so I'm just going to take it."
"A Mercedes-Benz is ridiculously over-priced, so by your thinking its cool to just bust in to the dealers lot and take as many as I want?"
Be careful of this analogy because it easily falls apart. When you steal a Mercedes from the dealer then the dealer can no longer sell that car. You have done much more than deprive him of a potential sale... you've also deprived him of the goods he is selling.
I will say this one more time: "Physical property _cannot_ be compared to intellectual property." Period. End of story.
Does that make it right to steal someone elses intellectual property? That's a topic for another debate.
The only way to compare with your analogy would be if you could make an exact duplicate of a Mercedes-Benz for free without costing the owner a dime. Would that be bad? Maybe. Would Mercedes-Benz still be able to get away with charging so much for a car? Probably not.
They would have to sell service instead of product.
"Create something yourself some time and you'll understand."
I have but I don't. Personally, I don't create music to sell it. I create it because I enjoy it. That is my right. Don't assume that anyone that creates something for themselves will automatically agree with you.
All generalizations are wrong. Err... except that one?
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
Nuf said.
Buy a $50 shrinkwrapped box and as a bonus get an OS -- FREE!!
I wrote this on a local mailing list sometime ago, I think it's relevant to this:
My guess is that the record companies are going to change. if they will not they will die. This will not take place in the immediate timeframe, but in a space of, five- ten years. definitely. The analogy I an thinking of is what happened with the music sheet printing industry..
Before recorded media was common place (phonographs) the biggest music industry players ware printing companies who made sheet music for musicians. a lot of people had pianos and other musical instruments so they used to by the latest music as sheets of paper with the staff notes.. (singles..) and books of their favorite composers work (albums..) with recorded media it took some time, but eventually the printed music industry has become irrelevant in relation to the recorded
media industry. The interesting thing is that the music did become more accessible as a result: you didn't have to know how to read notes and play the piano/violin/whatever to enjoy music, you could just by the new record stick it in your phonograph and enjoy.
The MP3 revolution (basicly electronic distribution revolution of which the MP3 is the killer application) is doing the same in a roundabout way. it's not making music more accesible to consumers. It's making the CHOICE of music more accessible to consumers : more musicians can release music then ever before since it's cheaper and more convenient to do so via the traditional routes (via record company).
Artist are free to do the kind of music they want to do with out pressure of record companies to make music which is "easy to sell". everyone wins. especially the consumer: again: in a free market the key is choice!
--------------------------------
wrong. AFAIK most musicians LOOSE money from record deals.
The useal deal is that the artists gets an advance to produce a recording, from the record company. He pays it back from the money he profits from the record sales - that is HIS CUT OF THE PROFITS! arround 10%.
care to do the math again?
--------------------------------
The motivation behind the excersising of a right (in this case, the right to protect intellectual propert) does not invalidate that right.
I don't need to prove to anyone that I am using my right to privacy for the "collective good." I don't need to prove that I am using my right to free speech for the "collective good." I may be using my privacy to stockpile plans for the overthrow of the government, and I may be using my right to private free speech to convince others to help me implement that plan. But I still have both of those rights until it is proven that I have committed a crime.
Katz argues that record companies should not have the right to their intellectual property because they charge too much for us to use that property. I think $4 is too much for Katz's last book and he's charging even more for it than that. If I printed up my own copy and started selling it for $1 or giving it away, I'm still committing a crime.
outside of the country of Colombia perhaps the world's largest cartel. They control 85 per cent of recorded music sales in the United States.
Why not say the same thing about the car industry? I think that Chevy is too much, but there aren't enough choices. There are a lot of industries that have five companies or less which make up 85% of the market share. Are all of these industries controlled by cartels? The fact that these companies act in unison to protect their intellectual property does not make that action illegal.
If they act in unison to fix prices, that is illegal.
But even if they fix prices and terrorize small children and fail to understand geek culture and torment nuns with spitballs and run prostitution rings and charge too much for music and charge too much for Brittney Spears posters and won't post those naked pictures of Brittney which we know they have...
...this doesn't mean you can get a Korn cd free.
Their intellectual property rights remain intact.
musicians never make the majority of money on CD sales themselves, especially the non-huge musicians.
Even the non-huge musicians make infinitely more money off a CD than they do off a pirated MP3.
You may want to check my math on that. I've been out of college for a few years.
I don't know anything about the record industry...
...but authors of fiction books generally get 6% of paperback cover price and 8% of hardcover sales price.
So roughly $0.30 and $1.60 respectively.
In the record industry I believe there are minimum sales numbers which must be met before the artist begins to see royalties. But how the hell would I know.
But he doesn't actually LOOSE (sic) money. If your understanding is correct and an artist is paid a $1000 advance and he only receives $4.50 in royalties ( 10% of 3 cd's at $15 each), then he still makes $4.50.
Now if he spent his $1000 on cheap whoresex and now he doesn't have it to pay back, then he may think he lost money, but his net gain is still $4.50.
This is the same as the book publishing industry. An advance is just that: advance payment in anticipation of money that will be earned.
I gladly fork over $10 under the Street Performer Protocol to the first functional SDMI converter/stripper which successfully (and reliably) output MP3 files. I wish I had the technical know-how to make it happen myself, but... Anyone with me?
Slashdot: Liberal News for Nerds. Liberal Stuff that Matters.
>Guess why?
Well, I don't completely disagree with you, although I must say that one of the reasons we don't have a player is the encoder H/W card manufacturers aren't giving out specs, and nobody really cares about software decoding. Not enough people to come out with a player, anyway.
Kinda like video card manufacturers...
-k. ^-^ ^D
The Mercedes point was that stealing is wrong. If someone owns something, they are free to charge what they like for it. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Stealing is stealing - and it's wrong.
I'm sure that all of you who proclaim that the world owes you a living are either:
a) Kids
or
b) Unsuccessful and bitter.
Do you think a computer consultant is worth $220 an hour?
Some companies charge that anyway - regardless of what you think.
The only valid arguement that we, the consumer, can make is that the record companies hold a monopoly and hold back competition. This is difficult to do though, since artists sign on with one record company. Kind of hard to have competition if only one company can legally sell the music. Ironic isn't it?
To justify yourselves by saying things like 'well, they still have a copy too', is immature and shows a lack of respect and education.
The kids will eventually grow up. That's not a problem. 20 bucks is lots of money to everyone at one point. The rest of you are simple thieves.
Here's my idea as a musician:
Musicians band together to form regional website co-ops. The musicians get 90% of profit (after cd & packaging and on-site ads and distribution costs), unlike mp3.com (which gets 50%, a still outrageous cut). 10% goes to people (musicians or lackeys) running the site.
I'm convinced that something like this will eliminate most of the majors, and regional indies can make deals with the co-op for wide-area and international distribution.
Ok all, there's lots of good comments here, but one thing missing... links to places to get *legal* MP3s!
GoodNoise - I like this place, they have some free mp3s, plus mp3s at $1/song or $10 for an entire album. They even are set up so if your download is interuppted, you can still go and get the music. They have some good artists, including my personal fave, They Might Be Giants.
MP3.com - I haven't really used this place much, they have a *ton* of mp3s available for download free, but last I checked it was kind've hard to find out who was good and who isn't, this may have improved now though.
Also, if you're an artist, check out D.A.M. (Digital Automatic Music) System . They give you 50% of the sales from CDs! With a non-exclusive contract! I don't make music myself, but this sounds like a really great deal to me.
--LeBleu
If you're reading this you're part of the mass hallucination that is Kevin the Blue.
I'm curious... If I pay about $20 (w/ tax) for a CD in the store, how much does the artist get? I figure the store gets about half, the recording company most of what's left.
The companies tell you that they need big markups since 4 out of 5 records never turn a profit (recording, distribution, marketing costs, etc.) I can now record CD-quality sound at home on my PC and distribute it, so this argument goes away.
My mother used to make dresses, get paid about 25c to sew one. She could buy them ex-factory, at cost, for about $5-10, and they sold in stores for about $50-100. The Internet revolution for S/W, music, etc is the elimination of the middlemen.
Does anybody have some real numbers on where the money goes? Would an artist be better off selling individual MP3s for 25c a song?
Yeah, but.
The music industry's efforts to control content through strong arming hi-fi hardware companies (or by *being* hi-fi equipment companies) are doomed to failure because...
The hi-fi industry is just as doomed as the record industry. Computers are going to replace everything except amps, headphones, and speakers. Everything else will be software running on portable general-purpose computers.
And guess who controls software...
Sony is scared all right, but not half as scared as they should be.
-bonkydog
Quid rides? Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. -Horace, Satirae
Personally, I don't mind the writing style, because his articles aren't technical. (Actually, this particular one had a bit of a flamish/rantish technical edge to it, and he ditched the MS ActiveISO.)
But if he's using slashdot as an editorial mechanism, why should we be upset? He's asking us for a harsh review of his ideas before they go to mainstream readers who aren't as aware of these issues. Isn't that a Good Thing?
-Imperator
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
It really *is* as simple as 'theft is theft'. If it's copyrighted, and you don't follow the originators EULA (superceded by govermnet regulations of course, as in the 'fair use' act), you are stealing. Please live with it, because the other option is a world where there is no reason to create anything.
Giggle. Trust me, money isn't the only reason to do things. I'll happily forgo all the crap thats created to make money (Titanic, Backstreet Boys, Jurassic Park) for REAL art thats made out of love.
If money is all that you will create for, I, for one, would hate to see what you create.
Your example is one of an ego driven artist then, instead of one driven by greed.
I, for one, would be glad if my ideas spread the planet. I don't care that anybody knows that they are mine. I don't care if some other self-centered, ego-maniacal, attention-craving maggot claims that its "his" idea. If its a good idea, knowing that somebody else can use it and make their life better is all i need.
Remember, _I_ can still use my original idea for my own gain as well.
This is why information is different from a material good. You can't stop its spread, so stop trying. Find another way to make a living than depending on government handouts/welfare via copyright/IP/patent law, because if you dont, you will find yourself on the street in short order.
Such a device would just 3 times as expensive and probably have lower sound quality than a similar unencrypted one. All the while it offers nothing to consumers who choose to buy encrypted over unencrypted. Sounds like divx to me...
And I can't wait. They can still make money with MP3, just like Red Hat and others can make money with a "free" OS like Linux. They will just have to change their tactics. I think this whole thing will be better for us, and the artists.
Can you say paradigm shift?
That is exactly what the industry needs to do to start making money from this. Embrace the change, make some adjustments and the money will start to roll in.
If there is _one_ company, it's a monopoly. If there are five, then it's an oligopoly.
Also, the big problem is that the riaa and music industry can force those cute digital players to play _only_ sdmi music, and not mp3s. What do we do then? I think what will happen is the mp3 community will be forever trading on computers and soon-to-be out of date portables while consumers on sdmi will have hi-fi-like players and cool new sdmi-only portables. RIAA will force anyone making mp3 stuff (rio, mpman, etc) to move to sdmi "or else."
This is sorta offtopic, but maybe you'd consider buying your CD's at best buy, or buy used ones. One man's trash is another's treasure.
Lowmag.net
Didn't anyone's parents teach them that stealing was wrong?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
No it isn't, its not like you have to have a CD.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Read the article.
While making mp3s available for people to copy is copyright infringement, there is a legal question as to whether copying those files is fair use, because, as the article says, your hard drive is not legally considered a digital audio recording device. Several copyright lawyers in the article expressed their opinion that copying the files, under current law, would be fair use.
All rather academic from a personal standpoint, I prefer vinyl.
Basically.... Using illegal MP3's is the choice of the individual. Sure, we all do anyways, but the fact is that they -are- illegal
That's not what the article says.
I have to agree with this, but an additional point: musicians never make the majority of money on CD sales themselves, especially the non-huge musicians.
:)
Instead, they mainly make it on concerts and other live appearances. The simple answer, if you want to support the band, and not the huge extremely affluent music industry, is that MP3s are fine, but go to concerts of the bands you enjoy. Then you help the band, and don't help the industry.
Of course, I tend to buy CDs of those artists as well, simply because, well, automobile MP3 players aren't common yet. That and it's difficult to autograph an MP3.
I don't think so, if you can hear the music in your sound-card you can copy it. It may be hard, but in the end the program has to send raw sound bit to the sound driver (or even worst to the sound card) and that when you could capture and copy. Capturing raw bits and converting them to mp3.
If even one person has access to something then this something is crackable/stolable.
--
"take the red pill and you stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabitt hole goes"
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
Just tare the code out and cut the wires on the magnet. then digitize that... dosn't seem so hard.
if you can hear it, you can save it...
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Why not go to K-Mart/Target/Wal-Mart for CD's?
You can get new releases for like $9-12 USD. Also, aren't there good deals online? I really disagree with Wherehouse (used to be Blockbuster Music), Sam Goody and others charging $18+ USD for cd's. Yeah, I know Wal-Mart and others only sell censored copies, but most of what I like doesn't need to be censored :)
*cough* Barenaked Ladies *cough*
-------------------------------------
I mean really, of course you're going to lie, cheat, and fight against anything that you see as taking money away from your pockets.
They can see the beginning of the end this Christmas season. As Jon says, those Rio's and other MP3 players will fly off the shelves this year. This is gonna be one of those times when the music industry is going to have to make what we want, not what they want to shove down our throats.
And I can't wait. They can still make money with MP3, just like Red Hat and others can make money with a "free" OS like Linux. They will just have to change their tactics. I think this whole thing will be better for us, and the artists.
-------------------------------------
And lets not forget about Milli Vanilli or Vanilli Ice. Use 'em and toss 'em away, disposable artists. Most musicians would (and do) sign away their lifes work for a chance to sign "big". I, for one, will be glad to see this practice go away.
+&x
Stealing is stealing - and it's wrong.
Sorry, but this is silly.
What about stealing from people who steal?
What about exploiting people because of their ignorance? or your power?
What about your duty to disobey unjust laws? or should we follow blindly what our leaders hack together as rules (influenced by those that would profit from said laws)
Black and white are both great colors, but there are so many many more of them, some quite beautiful.
I got in an argumet unrelated to this the other day, and the final point of logic he used before giving up was the fact the he was older than me.
Do you think a computer consultant is worth $220 an hour?
Some companies charge that anyway - regardless of what you think.
Again this falls to the same flaw as the Mercedes argument. I give you an hour of my time, I no longer have it. It is a FINITE resource. Give me a relevant example and you'll get some credit, until then, NO SOUP FOR YOU!
+&x
My guess is they are all pirated (tough to enforce copywrong over seas) This is MUCH worse than listening to MP3 becuase someone other than the artist/creator is profiting. I see this as much, much worse than downloading MP3s, which I associate with listening to the radio, i.e. legal as hell and morally right.
+&x
Some clarification.
My statement of stealing from people who steal was poorly worded and very specific to this situation. It was refeering to "stealing" through the use of MP3s (which I dont think of as stealing at all, look at radio) and "stealing" through point two (exploiting people because of their ignorance? or your power?). Referring quite specifically to the "Empire"(Big 5) and consumers (Me)
You go girl, just watch what you define as 'unjust'.
I do, very carefully. (and sometimes I, gasp, change my mind)
But if you lose a single sale of your performance because it's available free on musicsnatch.net, then that is what was stolen from you.
Losing a sale = stolen ?
I know some salesmen that have been seriosuly screwed over by customers. We should call the police. I don't think of MP3's or anything digital as having a physical form (stealing them intellectually is to claim credit for them (not to "own" the thoughts themselves(nested enough for you?))), which I feel is wrong), allowing them to be stolen by the sole act of possession. Set a strong magnet next to your PC and see how temporary they are. Use Windows and watch it eat your disk and tell me how temporary they are. Watch your HD crash and tell me....
MP3's equivalent (in the future) in our culture now is the radio. It's temporary and cheap to give to a lot of people.
I consider much of this moot anyway (but I like to arg, er, debate) since I think current copyright laws are immoral (or at least their severe abuse are, extending the copyright of Mickey Mouse for 20 more years after 75 years of protection far outlasting the life of the only person who should have "intelectual property" to it, that's a bunch of crap. Corporations are NOT people, and if they were everyone would hate them for how they act. Um, sorry, it's late........
+&x
Why are they that much? MP3.com has sent me tow CDs so far for free. And last i checked, you can buy CDs en masse for about a nickle each.
I'd pay 5-10 $US for a CD, not 15-20 $US
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off
If anyone, I mean *ANYONE* at all were to buy something this convoluted and sick, I will immediately lose all faith in humanity.
- =^o.o^=
Basically, the only people to benefit from Music piracy are people who copy - individually, individual gain from somebody elses work. This surely flies in the face of causes such as Free Software or Open Source? Becuase in this situation, the originator suffers - sucky eh?
I think this may have been brought up before with regards to software "piracy", but just because someone pirates a song/album does not necessarily mean that someone is losing out. This does not legitimize piracy, but claiming that it is inherently harmful to "the originator" is not correct. In fact, it could be beneficial to the originator. Say I get an MP3 from someone, I like the sound of it and buy the entire CD.
To address your point about free software... Every time you boot up your linux machine you're benefiting from someone else's work (at no cost to you, for that matter). Furthermore, you're allowed to distribute unlimited copies without compensating the originator. The only difference (besides that whole against-the-law stuff) is that artists (or more specifically, the record label) generally don't give their permission for you to do so without compensating them.
Basically....
Using illegal MP3's is the choice of the individual. Sure, we all do anyways, but the fact is that they -are- illegal. I don't care - I've made choices to the opposite, and I'll deal with it. My personal reason for deciding to? Because the record companys are all -more- amoral ( or antimoral ) than the people who screw them over. Or, to put it another way, they're more capitalistic. But I believe this isn't an exact reply to Mr. Katz's article, but just an assertion, so I'll withold from spamming the rest of you anymore.
ns
"I could float off the floor if I wished to. But I do not wish to because the Party does not wish me to." - Abridged,
What Katz neglects to mention in his article is the other major effect that the mp3 revolution is having on the music industry. Small bands like my own ( Billingsgate) have been able to reach an international audience using mp3's and avoiding selling ourselves out to a major label. For established artists, this influx of small bands into the common market is going to force these established artists to rebel against their labels to continue competing against the incoming army of small bands. On that note, please check out my band's music at mp3.com. --Random Brainwaavs
The laws were put in place for the musicians. If I'm a professional songwriter, I'd like to be paid for my work. Without the copyright laws, I don't get paid, and I end up flipping burgers for a living. If I'm a musician, I'd like to at least choose whether or not to get a cut of the money that others make from my work. If a musician wants to give away CDs but charge for radio play (a bad idea, IMO), they should be allowed to try. Some people seem to be proposing that all music be free, regardless of the wishes of the author or performer. This seems shortsighted to me.
As I see it, these are the major problems with the current situation:
- Most musicians don't want to deal with business crap, and the record companies offer a "package deal": we take care of everything, in exchange for most of your profits.
- When you're busting your ass playing dive bars for gas money, an advance of several thousand dollars sounds really, really good, even if the per-album profit is disgustingly small.
- While there are indie labels that treat bands with more respect, they don't have the international reach of the major labels, and $.50 each on 10,000 records is still more money than $5 each on 100 records.
At the moment, I have about 10G of MP3s on my home computer. NONE of them are illegal. Most are from my CD collection, but I also have a bunch of stuff from mp3.com & other sites that allow downloads, some stuff from goodnoise, er, emusic, and some stuff from a local band that gave me permission to record some of their stuff.Like anyone else with a fat net feed, I could get this stuff for free, but I don't. There's a lot of music out there that I'd really like to have, but if the only legal way to get it is to buy the CD, I buy it or do without. The musicians deserve a cut of my money, in whatever method they choose (traditional CD sales, pay-per-listen, or mp3 sales). If I don't like it, I don't listen.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
Yeah, well, have you tried looking for a single lately? Many of the big hits aren't released as singles, in order to get you to buy the whole album. This seriously annoys me, because I got into the habit of buying remix maxi-singles of my favorite songs back when they were $5-6 a pop. Now many are more like $10(!), if they're even available domestically.
--
I don't know about the rest of you all, but I actually have bought more CD's since I started collecting MP3's. Generally it goes that I'll hear one or two good songs, off the CD, and then decide that I want to buy the album to support the artist.
I think a better argument could be made still.
Suppose you have a super-strech limo; you let your friends and aquaintences drive around in it with you all the time. Unfortunately, you don't have any documentation to prove that it's yours. One day one of your so called friends claims that the limo was his the whole time and a lot of people believe him. This person has effectively stolen your limo.
Now suppose you have an idea, a song, a program or whaterver intellectual property you want. You tell all your friends and aquaintences about it and they all like and enjoy your ideas. Unfortunately you don't have any documentation to prove the idea was yours. One day one of your so called friends starts claiming that the idea was his all along and a lot of people believe him. This person has stolen your idea.
I think the big thing I'm trying to get across is that noone likes stealing on either side of the divide. The problem is that stealing intellectual property is fundamentally different than stealing physical goods. Ownership of an idea is usually based(both socially and in the law) on who thought of it first. To say that an idea that has already been thought of is "yours" is not stealing in the traditional sense but plagerism.
I think you can really see how this is true when you see how atrists get when someone is plagerizing their stuff. The same artists that that are thrilled that someone actually cares to bootleg their songs get pissed as hell when some one steals their songs.
erp! no, it not quite that simple. Artists frequently also have o buy the physical media and the cover art out of their royalties. The exact deals are negotiated artist to artist though. I watched a VH1 special on Led Zeppelin and one of the big things that they said about them was that they were popular enough for the label to pay for the record sleeve and artwork.
Anyway who do you know that could live on $1000 for the time it takes to make a CD?
The real root of the problem here is the publishing industry as a whole, not just the recording industry. While the market is a bit more open in the book publishing industry, the return that the artist sees is about the same. As an author (unpublished as of yet, but), if I sell a novel, the publishing company will sell it for, lets say, 5.99. How much of that do I see? If I'm lucky, I might see a whole quarter -- or maybe 50 cents if I have a proven track record of bestsellers. That means if my book sells 100,000 copies (that's pretty damn good, for a first novel anyway), I make a whole $50,000. That will keep me just fine -- but the publishing company makes over ten times as much!
I imagine the story is much the same with the music industry. I don't mind paying for CDs (I am not really fond of MP3s, but I tend to make a lot of MDs from my CDs and friends'), but it sort of makes me sick to think that 90% of my purchase is not going to the people who created it, it's going to the people who market it. Granted, they deserve their fair share, but when they basically screw over the artist, it gives me a bad taste in my mouth.
I'm as happy as anyone to rip off the big fat
corporations, but what about the artists? I don't
believe the supporters of the MP3 movement can
claim the moral high ground until the creators of
the music are getting the payment they deserve.
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
You are so right, music companies HAVE to have 14 billion a year.
What is right is right, what is wrong is wrong. The law very often has nothing to do with right and wrong.
Sony Sucks! Man, do they!
Every time I deal with that A-hole corporation I fell like I need a shower.
I mad the mistake recently of buying a sony satellite system. The LNB (electronic end of the dish) died. I called the people I bought it from and they told me I had to get the part direct from sony. I thought something was weird when he told me "If they give you any crap about honoring their warranty, get the supervisor's name and call us back". Sure enough, the tech basically told me to go out and BUY a replacement part! I had to get REALLY hostile before he would send me the g**
damn part!
/flame
/rant
There, I feel better now.
At least in Holland, the collective music industry has formed one big monopoly that has been overcharging people forever. It is a fact that cd shops are threatened whenever they try to sell CDs for a price the distributors think is too low.
It's very much like Microsoft, except that our DoJ isn't doing anything about it (there have been announcements of criminal investigations, but nothing ever comes out of that).
A while ago the industry announced they are planning to do something about those evil people who will buy cheap CDs when they are on vacation abroad. And last week they demanded a 5 guilder tax on blank CDs of 2.50 guilders.
Stealing is wrong. It is good that parents teach that to their children. But as children grow up, they learn there's more than black and white. Sometimes stealing is the right thing.
Oh, but do not forget they donate a few % to the artists...
This only works if SDMI would encode songs into files of 17 gigs.
The point is that if you can play SDMI on your pc, then it is possible to catch the raw audio stream, and if you have that it's easy to make an mp3 out of it.
Send the artist $0.25 for every illegally obtained song and he would be more than refunded.
Ehm, which Milli Vanilli are you referring to, the the guys from the video clips, or the guys who did the actual singing...:)
But I agree, they are all victims of the industry.
Yeah...they could make them put the CD serial number in or something as proof of ownership (*cough* CDDB *cough*)
if i were a real musician, I would agree. but being not a musician, I agree too. the point of being a musician, or an artist of any sort (i'd like to consider myself a visual artist) is that you enjoy doing your work, and you only want to be happy in what you do, and make others happy (an occassional perk, I believe). money is not an issue because you're doing what you're doing because it is IN you to do it. money is an occassional perk (a never perk for me, but i'm not a "professional" either, and i don't try to sell any of my work), but not a requirement for you to enjoy doing what you do best....
Insert mind here.
I assume your definition of "quality" is the type of music - how good it is. Which is true. In the era of corporate music agendas, "quality" music is quickly sacraficed for the sure sell. What's new and successfull today becomes tommorow's cookie cutter mold for the next X bands.
Of course... I wasn't thinking of that definition of quality. I'm thinking quality in production.
"Protect our intellectual property!", screams the recording industry.
"Stop ripping us of with overpriced recordings!", replies the Annoyed Consumer.
The interesting thing is... it can actually happen this way. I've seen it. Granted... not in the US. The law does not allow for it.
I spent some time in Saudi Arabia a few years back. There's nothing like a shoping trip at the local Saudi mall and/or shopping district to give you an "Old World Bizzare" kind of feel. One of the interesting things was that the Saudis (at least at that time - this is changing as I understand it) did not recognize International copyrights. As you can imagine, this lead to stores who's main traffic were copied software and music tapes.
The tapes were cheap. They came in all genres of music. And they often included "extra tracks" of that artist's music, or perhapse a simular artist. The recording quality was OK, but the tape itself and its packaging were inexpesively done.
While these "pirate" stores were common, the amazing thing was to see stores selling "legitimate" recordings too (sometimes at the same store). The label-produced recordings were more expensive, but I noted that they weren't MUCH more expensive. And the big selling point? Quality. The legitimate tapes were better quality in both recording as well as materials.
Quality production and a competative price allowed intellectual property holders to sell their wares even in a marketplace that allowed copies of those same products to be sold cheaper.
Now... this isn't to say that intelectual property laws are wrong. I'm certainly not advocating dropping these laws and spawning a "legitimate" piracy industry. Instead, I think the interesting thing to note was that legitimate products CAN sell against cheap knock-offs IF the legitimate version offers additional value.
In our case, a cheaper CD may remove the economical insentive to overlook convenience, quality, and legality lacking in pirated music. It's worked elsewhere.
Main reason is no specs for the format being easily available...
But the greater problem is that of there not being any low cost MPEG-2 encoding hardware (in order to do it fast enough to make it worthwhile).
When I can get an MPEG-2 video encoder card for the same price as a sound card ($15 - $100), then we will see DVD cracked.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
We might see the same thing happen to them as is happening now with MP3 encoded music.
I can imagine there being books "published" on the web, then extreme copying all over hell-and-back - publishers whining, etc. just like what is happening now.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
on a pressing run of about 10,000 CDs, you would expect to pay around $.20 for each CD, and then maybe $.40 for packaging.
i agree that CD prices are outragous, but you can't reasonably expect that music companies sell CDs at cost. they are huge, bloated and bureaucratic institutions with lots of cronies to pay. and with a lot of crappy bands, there are too many royalties to be dolled out. some of the more talentless bunches must hire songwriters (read:N'Sync, etc) to write that crap. those song writers collect.
truthfully, a band like N'Sync doesn't make that much money of their CD sales. most of that money is dealt out to the studio musicians (who get paid obscene amounts of money), the label and every other Joe who can stake a bit of claim. their big (and it is big) money comes from touring and merchandise bearing their likeness.
remember, when you buy a major label CD, you're paying for that lawyer who sent you the "cease and desist" order. there are two easy ways to avoid major label crap; buy used - as long as you're willing to wait a few months until someone tires of the new Beck CD and decides to rid themselves of it, then you should be okay. or, just buy independent. that's where the most interesting music of the last ten years has come from, anyway.
"I think you can really see how this is true when you see how atrists get when someone is plagerizing their stuff. The same artists that that are thrilled that someone actually cares to bootleg their songs get pissed as hell when some one steals their songs."
These are two completely different things. I don't think that someone downloading an mp3 and then saying that they wrote and recorded the song happens very often.
I'm sorry, but this article is just absurd. The intentions may be all well and good, but the point from which it was argued is simply ludicrous. Record labels are in the business to make money, not as part of some grand capitalist conspiracy to enthrall the music-loving public, and neither is Katz and other bootleggers some group of little Contras or Rebel Alliance battling some evil empire. Get real. Mr. Katz's penchant for fantasy makes it sound like he is a charter member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Music is, by definition, a LUXURY item. You do NOT need it to survive. This is NOT a matter of life and death. If you don't want half of the songs on an album or think the CD costs too much, DON'T BUY THE DAMN ALBUM! Buy the single. Borrow it from a friend. Listen to it on the radio. Or buy nothing! This may come as big news, but you'll live either way. The success of this format would in no way sound the death knell of liberty and consumer choice. Wake up already. There are thousands of small labels that will have no part in this, and with the state of digital recording (CHEAP and EASY, consumer DAT is absurdly high quality) and distribution (the Web), any band with even a modicum of ambition could set up a DIY operation with relative ease.
So stop bitching and moaning and comparing yourself and your plight to Washington and Jefferson (or Luke Skywalker), because you're nothing alike. Tis the very height of arrogance and narcissism to assume otherwise. You're just another typical lazy consumer, sitting at a keyboard, ripping off music. Wow, how exciting. Maybe Pacino can play you in the movie. If you don't like the labels, stop whining and get off your ass and do something about it. Boycott. Buy indie. I don't care, as this will almost certainly never effect me as I virtually never buy big label music, but then again I'm not the one bitching. If you want to make a difference, come back down to Earth and do something, because your foolish words will change nothing.
You should see the prices in Europe. CD average prices are probably more than $20 US.
But isn't the purpose of the Doomsday machine lost if you keep it a secret!
We are in an unstable transition, so it is not surprising that we can't easily identify the "fair thing to do." The main services provided by record companies are promotion and distribution, and the Internet threatens their hold on both. Recording and production equipment are vastly cheaper now and are much less of an issue. Record companies are classic middlemen, like the railroads that used to take most of the profits from agriculture. Existing contracts are binding, and we are obliged to respect them. But a new economic model is forming, and the record
companies can't expect to retain such an overwhelming share forever. (Funding the right congressmen will postpone the change.)
(Reality reasserts itself sooner or later.)
The Music Business, at least in the context of the major labels, has always been centered around the idea that what really matters, what really rakes in the cash for them, is the single. Because of the lack of focus on artist development and the marginal attention that things like musicianship and quality songwriting get, "artists" keep cranking out albums with only one or two songs of note. Is it any wonder then that the masses who are sick and tired of paying $18 in the jaded hope that they might get more music of value than what they hear on the radio would then utilize a medium like MP3 that affords them the opportunity to have the one song they love and leave the rest of the dreck behind?... Especially among an increasingly monetary- and technology-savvy youth?
I can't help but think that in some sense the labels have helped dig their own grave on this one. And I for one am more than happy to watch them jump in.
-cp
I'm expecting ad-supported servers all over eastern europe and other free countries, to offer SDMI/MP3 translation.
If the porn sites can't get a lid on copying, what the hell is a low-tech outfit like ASCAP smoking, if they think *they* can do it?
The very fact that it's possible to decode SDMI at all to play it back, means that its content isn't securable.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I was thinking to myself.. If you were in the music companies shoes, what would you do to stop the MP3 piracy trend? Technology or behavior?
Is there anything that can be done from a technological standpoint to stop pirating?
--
Given that space-shifting is now legal, it becomes possible for non-profit websites to legally distribute ripped music, I think. If they require everyone who enters their site to acknowledge that they must own whatever CD the songs they are downloading comes from, then that might be construed as fair use.
The web sites are only providing a convenience: the music the user already owns in mp3 format. It seems to me this might stand up in court if someone has the uhmmm... courage to go up against the RIAA.
Just my opinion and all...
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
The cd's are more popular than cassettes and therefore they can charge more in good capitalist ethic. The royalties they give the actual artist are a pittance for all but the highest sold artists.
That they think that their new format for music and/or legal action against mp3 sites is just not realistic. Free music for the taking, and they think they can police the net for *mp3, HA!
This is the downfall of the music monopoly.
I see the future of music being that the artist sells either albums or mp3s off of a site like mp3.com or off of their direct website.
However, in defense of what the music industry is doing right now... We are all stealing property by downloading mp3s that we don't own the cds for. This hurts the artists, the record companies, and us as consumers by raising the prices for the albums we do buy.
I'll admit, I trade mp3s, my friends do, business partners trade with me for songs, it's everywhere. I try to make it a point to buy cd's that i really like, but with the massive amounts of music out there for the taking, who can say no to free music?
We are all at fault who have a mp3 collection, but i'd suggest buying music when you can to support artists, especially good independent ones. Sure i don't buy all the music i have an mp3 for, but i do still buy cds.
Support the cause, buy Linux apps/games, buy Music from online vendors, help development.
We are all geeks, just admit it and get on with your life.
Actually, it did "work out". Just not for the reasons you're implying. It "worked out" because Sony was.. well.. less than forthcoming with Beta's specs. It was a closed system. VHS was developed by the entire industry, and very open. Open but bad beat Closed but good. (I had a Beta, I was rather sad when tapes abruptly stopped being made for it. Same goes for Laserdisc.)
Hmmm. Isn't that how artists want it, though? The 60-75 minute album has become a staple of music in the last two decades. I'm not sure I WANT that much choice, to choose exactly the songs I get. I'm not alone when I say that most of my favorite songs are songs I never heard until I bought the album for another song. This kind of choice can kill any music that isn't completely catchy. Right?
grep -ri 'should work'
I agree most heartily.
:-)
However, by giving the "ooh, this is my new favorite song" crowd the choice of buying mini-cds with only the most popular tracks, might that bring down the price on the albums for those of us who aren't as flighty?
I will always be an advocate for more choices. And if you don't like it, don't buy it.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Take for instance Kristin Hersh. ThrowinMusic uses mp3s as a marketing tool. For a very low subscription rate, you get access to mp3s of demos and unreleased tracks. Past being a treat for their fans, it sustains interest in KH/Throwing Muses back catalog and primes the pump for new releases. It will be interesting to see how independents like Dischord and DGM adapt to mp3s, but I'd be shocked if they didn't find some way to use them to the advantage of their artists.
Seems to me that it is one more way that established and new artists can survive without having to tithe major labels. It also reminds me of the tape trade that catapulted Metallica. This is just a lot faster.
The distribution (or pirating) of Mp3's is a reaction to an inflated market. Distributing mp3's does not hurt the artists who produce the music. It is the recording industry that benefits from this -- the artists have a deal for so much $/cd sold. Then the industry doubles or triples this price (does anyone remember the promise that after a few years the prices of cds would drop due to the inexpensive nature of the technology?).
The industry has raised prices contiuously and is now feeling the backlash of consumers. This will continue until the recording industry recenters itself (a bit) to the consumers' needs.
Sure, everyone can copy VHS tapes if they want to. A while ago this was a large concern of the same industry. It has worked out that people still prefer to buy the actual movie. What has resulted though is that the prices charged for videos (buy/rent) has dropped drastically.
The same will happen in the recording business.
The artists won't be hurt, simply the big wigs will have their budgets recentered a bit...
With the ridiculous prices of CD's nowadays, is it any wonder that mp3's are booming? I was at the local Tower Records this past Monday for the first time in about a year, and I don't plan on going back for another year. Their regular price for CD's is $18.99! Typically the CD's are about 45 - 50 minutes long, which translates out to a rip off. Why buy a CD when you can just get the one or two songs you want off the net? Small wonder artists are starting to put their songs on the net. With the high prices no one buys the CD's and so the labels keep upping the price. It's a vicious loop with the artists and customers getting screwed. I laugh at the thought of the labels shutting down illegal music sites. 2000 sites shut down to date is a mere blip. Hardly noticeable at all. Good luck major record labels! You're screwing yourself!
Bottom line is that a surprisingly large amount of the money goes to the artist! The music stores take about 1/3 to 1/2, and of the remainder, the artist gets most of it. The reason the record companies can make a killing is that they take a small cut from *every* artist they sell. Mp3 is hurting artists, there's no doubt.
Wah!
According to what I've been reading, it's SDMI players, not MP3 players, that'll be rolling off Wal-mart's shelves this Christmas. Diamond Multimedia has announced that they'll support means to suppress piracy (if only to stave off lawsuits). The five record companies have untold gobs of money to spend, and they are fighting for their stock-holding lives right now. They're cleverly going straight to the colleges to try and stamp out the enlightenment going on. Watch out for the record industry, 'cause I have a feeling they're going to give Mp3 a run for it's money (or lack of it).
Remember, people are tech-stupid. They'll shell out for "Easier Digital Music".
Wah!
In regard to the comment about Universities joining the crusade to stop Mp3 usage by students...
My school (University of Oklahoma) apparently joined. Everyone got an email which basically said (in about 500 words or so) don't download Mp3s using school property.. That was the last anyone ever heard about it.
It hasn't made much of a dent though, about a month ago I found the Phantom Menace soundtrack and about 12 gigs of other serving off a university machine! Not to mention the movie itself. Makes you really hate your modem.
capt.
It's been perceptively stated more than once that the articles posted here by JonKatz don't appear to be written for a highly technical audience. Oddly, they seem to be written for release to other journalists, as if Katz were trying to establish himself as the "geek mouthpiece", an eloquent representative of the unwashed geek populace.
/.'s reputation for his own personal glory.
But Katz knows he can only succeed at the fame-game if his articles have credibility. And what better claim than to be "Slashdot's Jon Katz". He posts his articles here, probably not even caring especially what our reactions will be, and refers to them as proof that the geek community worships his every typo.
Katz is worse than a clueless newbie. He's is cynically trading on
DO WE WANT TO BE REPRESENTED BY JON KATZ?
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Valid point - I'll try and see if it's true by playing many stadium gigs, as opposed to local Pubs n Clubs :)
...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Mong. Prole Scum.
* Paul Madley
*...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Remember: Nothing is Cool.
The Music Industry differs a bit from the software industry. The actual musicians get but a small cut of profits, the rest goes to the companies coffers.
...Student, Artist, Techie - Geek *
I'm all for avoiding getting ripped off, but I kinda feel for the Artists.
I'm pretty happy to use "free" Microsoft products - well, as happy as one can be when using MS stuff! But I always feel a little guilty if I copy a song.
Yes, we're being ripped off, yes CD's are overpriced, yes... erm, yes - the phone went... I've forgot. But if we could somehow get lower prices and ensure the artist gets a fair cut, then I'd be happy.
I'm completely hypocritical in saying this (in respect of my HD contents), but Piracy is theft.
I dunno what to say to justify my saying this, but... Don't be sitting there, smugly grinning, knowing you have 1000's of MP3s on your system. Instead, sit there, safe in the knowledge that the big companies are ripping of you, me, the artists, the vendors. Everyone.
Basically, the only people to benefit from Music piracy are people who copy - individually, individual gain from somebody elses work. This surely flies in the face of causes such as Free Software or Open Source? Becuase in this situation, the originator suffers - sucky eh?
And yes, I am a musician... kinda shows huh?
Mong. Apologising for his disjointed argument.
* Paul Madley
*...Slacker, Artist, Techie - Geek *
Remember: Nothing is Cool.
sorry guys, but you've lost this one. We, the consumers and artists, are sick of paying 20 fuckin dollars for a CD. There's no way that you are gonna stop us from giving our bands more exposure and saving money!! We the people are the ones who decided, your days are numbered...
Procrastinators, Unite Tomorrow!!
Well I just saw in new issue of Stuff picture of Mega Mp3-Song CD's from Malaysia.
All of U2 on one CD for ~5.00(us), Etc
Another Nail?
I had to reply after I read the message about Mp3 seasons. That is definately true. After most of the normal website were shut down almost all the mp3's I get come off shares. And the only place you can find that many shares with fast connections is college. At my school almost every computer that is shared has mp3's available. I can't even imagine how many mp3's there are available on the school network. As long as you don't put up and ftp, they school doesn't stop you. I know from experience. Check out www.scour.net. Their site searches shares. But make sure it is during a semester. Summer isn't to great but you can find some stuff. Fall and Spring you can find anything.
People, their what's for dinner.
The Internet music revolution is not just about MP3 file downloads but about streaming audio too. We run a commercial-free Internet radio station that gives indie artists exposure without pirating their songs. Listeners enjoy a variety of free music including unsigned bands, and can get access to the bands directly via a posted website URL or e-mail address. These bands might never get played on traditional radio - and licensing royalties are acknowledged.
If I were a musician, I would try to get on the streaming audio sites like http://www.greenwitch.com
Broadcast agreements for artists can be read at http;//www.greenwitch.com/indie
Obviously, I'm a bit biased but I want to give a shoutout for streaming audio Internet sites.
There's a longer rant about why MP3s are not an incipient social revolution at the beginning of another issue.
glenn
No matter how prevalent MP3 becomes there is still going to be a place for an actual recording.
Besides what you call an "out of the box experience" (the packaging, the extras, whatever) there is an audible quality difference between an mp3 an a real recording, particularly vinyl (analog? good lord!).
MP3 has a washy aftersound, almost tinny and robotic. It is definitley not even near cd-quality. For an audiophile listening on a high end system the difference is amazing...
Perhaps when listening on a low end handheld device like a Rio mp3 is comparable to cd but as soon as you get to the higher end MP3 just does not cut it. Not to mention MP3 is another form of digital music... and I beleive digital music is intrinsicly lower quality than its analog counterpart.
I think of the MP3's I download as a preview of the commercial product I'll eventually buy.