Im not sure where your going with this, but one of my points is that things like net neutrality might be challenged if most of the bandwith the ISPs should have given you is taken by spam and P2P traffic that only lowers the general quality of their products, or putting them under immense pressure from global companies like the major labels. Semi-political arrangements like dedicating parts of the grid for certain content is already being discussed here in Norway. Is this a desired direction?
Apart from that, i dont think most people would disconnect from the Net unless there was P2P technology available. I know I wouldnt, I still need my daily fix of slashdot knowhow...:-)
but of course it could make people go for lower bandwith subscribtions. Which would allow the ISPs to sell more subscriptions on a lower investment in the grid.
Well, as mention in my parent post, there is enough music out there to fill a lifetime. So there is no _need_ to enter illegal filesharing.
The economical strain on young people is not something I feel I can answer for, but I dont think they would run into a fashion store and grab clothes they want. If you cannot afford what you think you need in life, its a political problem.
This is excactly my point: it is the combination of music being easy to distribute digitally and ISPs securing anonymity for their users that allows the development of someone just taking what they want. If a vaccum cleaner could be distributed digitally, Im pretty sure you would see people arguing that they could not afford it at current prices and therefore saw it their right to download it for free. But you would never see the same people walk into a store and demand a vacuum cleaner. Out of the safehaven of anonymity, this would not be socially cceptable behaviour. And its actually more weird with music, because as mentioned there is plenty of free music out there. Its just not the music you see in advertisements and on MTV.
And as said I dont think piracy is killing music as a whole. But the semanthics of TPB and their likes aggregates that this is a war on major labels, while it in my opinion strenghtens the market position of majors and rapidly killing indies.
So my point is that filesharing _might_ advocate the opposite of what the "aware" filesharer thinks. And i dont really think TPB gives a rats ass about is:-)
You are right, it sounds a bit counter-intuitive. This is something im guessing, not something i know.
My point is that music is a tool of dreams. Most people that I know picked up their guitar because they wanted to be a star some day. Money is definitely a major part of this dream. At some stage the music might be important enough to drive them forth even with no commercial success, and ill admit that these probably often turn out to become the best mucicians.
On the other hand: if there never is an economic incentive to start playing music, we might loose many a good artist that never picked up the imnstrument to start with. My point was merely that low recruting to the music scene is not good for music. And the less diversity, the more power to the major labels.
This is not a fact, but a subjective prediction based on how I concieve the music scene and what drives people to have such an interest in it.
One shouldnt exclude the other, and we have our music available as DLs directly from our own server. There is several implications, though. First, there is a minimum "tax" that we have to pay for every file downloaded, regardless of us giving it away or charging for it.
This is special for norway, i guess, but shows clearly that even if I wanted to dump prices, im not free to do whatever I want. This is a (semi)political struggle, and of course its hard to compete with the major labels in getting our point of view through to government officials.
It aims to secure a minimum income for the artists no matter how bad deals they sign, so its not all bad. But its one of the things tying my hands and feet.
Also, my most succesful artist was indeed available from tens of thousands of seeders on torrents. Only a handful bought the files available. Its hard to compete with a free lunch. On the other hand, it most definitely helped spread the word. It just turns out to be very hard to make any profit from it.
Well, I dont have any idea what the "right" model would be, but here is what I have tried: - FLAC downloads for a very low price - Free low res version of entire albums on torrents with links to buying high res files. - Webads - eCards for sharing with friends with free streaming of albums and links to FLACS - Lowered prices to about half of market price
Im not saying im doing things right, im just saying I have tried alot of the things i usually see filesharers request in discussions on the topic. Also, all of the above have had an effect, but not enough to make it even worth the worktime. A $2000 ad in a magazine about pre release free instant FLACS for people who pre-ordered one of our records generated 1 sale and about 200 extra visits to the campaign site as an example. So people doesnt even seem to be interested enough to check it out. 1 week after relase, the same album was seeded by about 500 people on TPB.
To answer your other points:
1. I did not mean digital distribution. But getting distribution for PHYSICAL objects worldwide is very, very expensive and impossible to roll out for small indies. Thus major labels will always have an advantage since the can afford to make their music more available for "spontaneous buys".
2. I did not post any link because I thought it would get me flamed for advertising in the forums. Im not here to sell records, but to get input on what I could do to improve my sales. If people need reference as "proof" for what im saying, I will provide. But I dont see that its needed to run this discussion, unless people find my arguments not trustworthy.
3. Im definitely not mainstream, but I have close to 30 releases in a wide variety of sounds, and a considerable label in unonsiderable Norway. One of my releases has been on Pitchforks top 50 albums of the year, and been nominated for a (niche) MTV-award. As a curiosa, I might mention that this artists is probably the most niche of them all:-). With this in hand, it should not be to hard to find out what label I run for the Sherlocks out there:-)
Glad to see 2 well formulated posts on the subject. Props.
I will not dive deep into the technical issues as it would take a whole lot of "what ifs" and "What nots" to predict what technology could and would be implemented at some stage to counter illegal filesharing.
But the parent post adds a very interesting point: The Internet is a carrier of freedom, but here as everywhere else in society it doesnt come without responsibility. TPB does not advocate this responsibility, in my view, at a very high level. Further down the road, this _could_ lead to stronger control of user activities and/or net neutrality. I dont think most small-time pirates gives this much thought, and it _could_ prove a high price to pay. Since stuff like P2P and spam takes alot of bandwith without any of the service and content providers making money, it is not far fetched to think that ISPs in the future will consider giving up identities behind IPs that are "too active" on illegal filesharing or similar activities. Or even be forced to do so by governments.
Even though the regular slashdot-user can throw up a few proxies and dive into the comfort zone of being anonymous in no time, this is not the case with most filesharers. And the minute the neighbour's kids start getting lawsuits in their mail, parents will stop bragging about the net skills of their prodigys and how they "just download whatever they want" (like my parents did), and start learning them about property rights instead. Trust me.
I am in the position that I have run 2 companies for the about 10 years. Rarely enough, the first one doing high end web programming, and the second a small Indie recordlabel. Needless to say, I have been puleld between my love for the net, and my love for music. For years I have been in heavy conflicts with most of the music biz, advocating offensive use of the net as a new distribution channel rather than lawsuits and war with consumers.
However ive started to come to the conclusion that this is a sociological issue rather than a technical one. There are elements in the arguments coming from filesharers that rises issues not possible to solve through technology.
1. The "War on the greedy music biz" is failing. Or that is, it might be won, but at a high price. Running a small label I slowly started realizing that Im the one loosing the battle, not the major labels. The reason is simple. You wont find my music on TPB. And even when i put it there myself, people would still look around for Britney Schmears or whatever other brand the majors are launching at any given time through advertisements, media control and whatever. And even in the rare case they DO seek up my music, and even want to support my label by buying the record, they most likely wont be able to as most indies cannot distribute their records to all corners of the world until long after the air is out of the balloon.
In this way, people using illegal filesharing strenghtens the market position of the MAJOR labels, not the vivid but oh so weak Indie scene. Market power sucks, eh?
2. There seems to be alot of kids out there who really thinks music is free, and that the attempts to put down the likes of TPB is taking something away from them that they always had. This is disturbing. Ive had kids mailing me to have me send them rips of CDs as they had trouble finding them on the net. They dont thank me when I do, as they see it as a given right, and bad service from us when its not available for download. Needless to say, this is not the kids that will drive forward a music scene in the future. I dont know what this means in practical terms, but its a new kind of customer that will be pretty close to impossible to serve. This is not ideal for a number of reasons that most can work out for themselves.
3. The filesharers has a free choice to avoid stealing and hustling music they dont own any tights to. There is free music out there for several lifetimes of listening. Still people wants the stuff that they have to pay for. Why? Partly due
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for posting.
Im not sure where your going with this, but one of my points is that things like net neutrality might be challenged if most of the bandwith the ISPs should have given you is taken by spam and P2P traffic that only lowers the general quality of their products, or putting them under immense pressure from global companies like the major labels. Semi-political arrangements like dedicating parts of the grid for certain content is already being discussed here in Norway. Is this a desired direction?
Apart from that, i dont think most people would disconnect from the Net unless there was P2P technology available. I know I wouldnt, I still need my daily fix of slashdot knowhow... :-)
but of course it could make people go for lower bandwith subscribtions. Which would allow the ISPs to sell more subscriptions on a lower investment in the grid.
Thanks for your post.
Well, as mention in my parent post, there is enough music out there to fill a lifetime. So there is no _need_ to enter illegal filesharing.
The economical strain on young people is not something I feel I can answer for, but I dont think they would run into a fashion store and grab clothes they want. If you cannot afford what you think you need in life, its a political problem.
This is excactly my point: it is the combination of music being easy to distribute digitally and ISPs securing anonymity for their users that allows the development of someone just taking what they want. If a vaccum cleaner could be distributed digitally, Im pretty sure you would see people arguing that they could not afford it at current prices and therefore saw it their right to download it for free. But you would never see the same people walk into a store and demand a vacuum cleaner. Out of the safehaven of anonymity, this would not be socially cceptable behaviour. And its actually more weird with music, because as mentioned there is plenty of free music out there. Its just not the music you see in advertisements and on MTV.
And as said I dont think piracy is killing music as a whole. But the semanthics of TPB and their likes aggregates that this is a war on major labels, while it in my opinion strenghtens the market position of majors and rapidly killing indies.
So my point is that filesharing _might_ advocate the opposite of what the "aware" filesharer thinks. And i dont really think TPB gives a rats ass about is :-)
Thanks for your reply.
You are right, it sounds a bit counter-intuitive. This is something im guessing, not something i know.
My point is that music is a tool of dreams. Most people that I know picked up their guitar because they wanted to be a star some day. Money is definitely a major part of this dream. At some stage the music might be important enough to drive them forth even with no commercial success, and ill admit that these probably often turn out to become the best mucicians.
On the other hand: if there never is an economic incentive to start playing music, we might loose many a good artist that never picked up the imnstrument to start with.
My point was merely that low recruting to the music scene is not good for music. And the less diversity, the more power to the major labels.
This is not a fact, but a subjective prediction based on how I concieve the music scene and what drives people to have such an interest in it.
Thanx for posting.
One shouldnt exclude the other, and we have our music available as DLs directly from our own server. There is several implications, though. First, there is a minimum "tax" that we have to pay for every file downloaded, regardless of us giving it away or charging for it.
This is special for norway, i guess, but shows clearly that even if I wanted to dump prices, im not free to do whatever I want. This is a (semi)political struggle, and of course its hard to compete with the major labels in getting our point of view through to government officials.
It aims to secure a minimum income for the artists no matter how bad deals they sign, so its not all bad. But its one of the things tying my hands and feet.
Also, my most succesful artist was indeed available from tens of thousands of seeders on torrents. Only a handful bought the files available. Its hard to compete with a free lunch. On the other hand, it most definitely helped spread the word. It just turns out to be very hard to make any profit from it.
Thanks for your input.
Well, I dont have any idea what the "right" model would be, but here is what I have tried:
- FLAC downloads for a very low price
- Free low res version of entire albums on torrents with links to buying high res files.
- Webads
- eCards for sharing with friends with free streaming of albums and links to FLACS
- Lowered prices to about half of market price
Im not saying im doing things right, im just saying I have tried alot of the things i usually see filesharers request in discussions on the topic. Also, all of the above have had an effect, but not enough to make it even worth the worktime. A $2000 ad in a magazine about pre release free instant FLACS for people who pre-ordered one of our records generated 1 sale and about 200 extra visits to the campaign site as an example. So people doesnt even seem to be interested enough to check it out. 1 week after relase, the same album was seeded by about 500 people on TPB.
To answer your other points:
1. I did not mean digital distribution. But getting distribution for PHYSICAL objects worldwide is very, very expensive and impossible to roll out for small indies. Thus major labels will always have an advantage since the can afford to make their music more available for "spontaneous buys".
2. I did not post any link because I thought it would get me flamed for advertising in the forums. Im not here to sell records, but to get input on what I could do to improve my sales. If people need reference as "proof" for what im saying, I will provide. But I dont see that its needed to run this discussion, unless people find my arguments not trustworthy.
3. Im definitely not mainstream, but I have close to 30 releases in a wide variety of sounds, and a considerable label in unonsiderable Norway. One of my releases has been on Pitchforks top 50 albums of the year, and been nominated for a (niche) MTV-award. As a curiosa, I might mention that this artists is probably the most niche of them all :-). With this in hand, it should not be to hard to find out what label I run for the Sherlocks out there :-)
Glad to see 2 well formulated posts on the subject. Props.
I will not dive deep into the technical issues as it would take a whole lot of "what ifs" and "What nots" to predict what technology could and would be implemented at some stage to counter illegal filesharing.
But the parent post adds a very interesting point:
The Internet is a carrier of freedom, but here as everywhere else in society it doesnt come without responsibility. TPB does not advocate this responsibility, in my view, at a very high level. Further down the road, this _could_ lead to stronger control of user activities and/or net neutrality. I dont think most small-time pirates gives this much thought, and it _could_ prove a high price to pay. Since stuff like P2P and spam takes alot of bandwith without any of the service and content providers making money, it is not far fetched to think that ISPs in the future will consider giving up identities behind IPs that are "too active" on illegal filesharing or similar activities. Or even be forced to do so by governments.
Even though the regular slashdot-user can throw up a few proxies and dive into the comfort zone of being anonymous in no time, this is not the case with most filesharers. And the minute the neighbour's kids start getting lawsuits in their mail, parents will stop bragging about the net skills of their prodigys and how they "just download whatever they want" (like my parents did), and start learning them about property rights instead. Trust me.
I am in the position that I have run 2 companies for the about 10 years. Rarely enough, the first one doing high end web programming, and the second a small Indie recordlabel. Needless to say, I have been puleld between my love for the net, and my love for music. For years I have been in heavy conflicts with most of the music biz, advocating offensive use of the net as a new distribution channel rather than lawsuits and war with consumers.
However ive started to come to the conclusion that this is a sociological issue rather than a technical one. There are elements in the arguments coming from filesharers that rises issues not possible to solve through technology.
1. The "War on the greedy music biz" is failing. Or that is, it might be won, but at a high price. Running a small label I slowly started realizing that Im the one loosing the battle, not the major labels. The reason is simple. You wont find my music on TPB. And even when i put it there myself, people would still look around for Britney Schmears or whatever other brand the majors are launching at any given time through advertisements, media control and whatever. And even in the rare case they DO seek up my music, and even want to support my label by buying the record, they most likely wont be able to as most indies cannot distribute their records to all corners of the world until long after the air is out of the balloon.
In this way, people using illegal filesharing strenghtens the market position of the MAJOR labels, not the vivid but oh so weak Indie scene. Market power sucks, eh?
2. There seems to be alot of kids out there who really thinks music is free, and that the attempts to put down the likes of TPB is taking something away from them that they always had. This is disturbing. Ive had kids mailing me to have me send them rips of CDs as they had trouble finding them on the net. They dont thank me when I do, as they see it as a given right, and bad service from us when its not available for download. Needless to say, this is not the kids that will drive forward a music scene in the future. I dont know what this means in practical terms, but its a new kind of customer that will be pretty close to impossible to serve. This is not ideal for a number of reasons that most can work out for themselves.
3. The filesharers has a free choice to avoid stealing and hustling music they dont own any tights to. There is free music out there for several lifetimes of listening. Still people wants the stuff that they have to pay for. Why? Partly due