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Trying to Stop Music Piracy in China
Lorgo_Numputz writes "Salon Magazine has an article on an MP3 crackdown in progress, with an interesting stab at a solution. (And RIAA thinks they have it bad in the U.S.). It's not a "crackdown" in the U.S. sense, with lawyers and courts, but rather an appeal to the public's sense of fairness. But it's an interesting tactic, and whether it works or not, it's certainly a nicer way to deal with online music piracy than the RIAA's.
The notion of mp3 trading as being "theft" seems out of place in that sort of system, doesnt it?
Dear, dear, what would Chairman Mao have said about MP3?
Regards,
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Its long past due for market pressures to start forcing music publishers to sell for a reasonable price. There is no way a music CD, which costs a quarter to make (including case), should sell for 6000% its value. At most, we should be paying $5 for them.
Maybe chinese music publisers will realize that they can undercut the cost of CDR blanks (and the pain of burning copies and distributing them) and start selling Cd's for a few bucks (in much greater quantity).
But nah, that would make too much sense. And it would also fulfill the promise the music industry made to us so long ago (cd's being so much cheaper to make than cassettes). And last thing they want to do is act responsably.
Wow... I just had a spiritual experience.
After reading the message intended for the Chinese masses, I must confess I have seen the light and must repent. It is time for me to delete the 10 gigs of MP3s I have downloaded from the web.
However, a new Quandary now arises. What do I do with the 10 gigs of MP3s I've made from my own music collection? Since I use legally obtained software that uses a pirated algorithm (Which IMHO should not be patented) I'm confused if I've seen enough light to delete them too? I think not.
And since it's going to be too hard to figure out which songs are in which category... I think I shall have to turn off the light again and live in blissful ignorance and with great Music!
Power to the Music!
Quack
Maybe chinese music publisers will realize that they can undercut the cost of CDR blanks (and the pain of burning copies and distributing them) and start selling Cd's for a few bucks (in much greater quantity).
Coming from Hong Kong (where piracy is just as rampant as mainland China, and where most of our shipments come from China), it's very tough for music publishers to beat the price of pirate CDs. Right now, you can buy a pirated CD album in Hong Kong for around $12.5 HK dollars, which is ~ USD $1.60 (software is a bit more expensive, around $3.20 per CD - so Visual C++ 6.0 was around 3 bucks :) And if you make the effort to take a train to China, you can buy CDs for at least half the price in HK (one CD for ~ 80 cents US)
Pirated DVDs cost a little more, but nothing more than a dollar or two US.
Considering how pirates in China actually employ huge commercial CD stamping machines, and how they don't mind to make only several cents of profit, it will be hard for music publishers to undercut them, sadly enough : (
Piracy cannot be stopped by goon squads, even in this country; piracy is too easy, and the number of pirates can easily number in the millions. You cannot use force to stop it.
I heard a story on NPR a while back, saying that 10% of the jobs in this country are protected only by copyright, and it makes sense. Certainly my company, Hammerhead Productions, is dependent on people paying money to go see movies.
The movie business is in for a terrible fall, though, if they don't work very hard to make people want to respect the copyright. I see no effort whatsoever being expended in that area. The financial articles about movies today, if anything, would encourage piracy -- as they tend to describe the fabulous fortunes being made by the top actors, producers, and directors. Nothing will make one want to pirate more than feeling that one's hard-earned money is going to fatten some undeserving persons wallet. Studios are going to have to find ways to demonstrate the
contributions made by the huge majority of the people who work on films, other than just racing their credits by at the end of a film. The carpenters in the world might identify with the grips, the advertising writers with the script supervisors... There has to be an identification with the people involved.
If the film industry is as clueless as they appear, though, we'll end up unable to finance films with budgets of millions of dollars any longer. Perhaps we'll end up with a film industry like the current porno [video only] industry.
To take another lesson from the Chinese, we live in interesting times.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Nah, the movie industry is not only protected simply by copyright. No matter how many bootlegged digital or analog copies of movies are passed around, the boxoffice is not really affected. If that were the case, video rental would be killing the movie industry. But that ain't the case. People are still willing to shell out ever-increasing amounts to see movies in theatres. That's what protects the movie industry.
And that's why porno went all video. How many people want to go see one at a theatre when they can watch a video at home?