"Don't forget that they have a monopoly on music and have a profit margin on the order of 50%."
What record companies manage to clear 50%? EMI's about to be bought. Virgin is no more; it's being folded into Capitol and lots of people are being laid off. Doesn't sound like an industry that's doing that great.
More to the point, Warner had a profit margin of 0.27% and an operating margin of 6.3% last year, and their year over year earnings declined 73%.
I'm aware that many Slashdotters point out that the record industry is very profitable, but I haven't seen any data that supports this. Do you know something that I don't?
If you meant the smaller labels... my hunch is that CDBaby and Magnatune have better profitability than the old dinosaurs of the music industry... but they're not the ones suing people.
"What's that? The RIAA isn't getting money from any sales there? Oh, it's because of their own thuggishness and refusal to accept payments because by doing so, they'd be agreeing to the compulsory licensing and definition of broadcast media according to Russian Law?"
If, say, the record companies could get $0.02 per track from ROMS, they would have to pay the mechanicals to the composer/lyricist (often around $0.07) as well as any contractual royalties owed to the performers. This would be a net loss of at least a nickel a track, and possibly a lot more -- royalty payouts on downloads are typically around $0.15 for major artists.
The RIAA has lobbied in the past to get the mechanicals lowered, at least on downloaded tracks, and it was (to put it mildly) not warmly received by the Slashdot crowd. I think the Slashdot zeitgeist is that we don't want the record labels to pay the artists any less per track, yet we would like the record labels to license music to outfits that pay royalties that are lower than the royalties that the record labels are bound by law to pay out.
"They're making record amounts of money, despite what they tell you. This is about maximizing profit. They aren't dumb, they've run the numbers."
Hey, do you have a cite for that? I've heard that a lot but can't find any evidence. Warner Music made a profit margin of 0.27% and an operating margin of 6.29% last year. Their quarterly revenue growth of NEGATIVE 11% yoy and a quarterly earnings growth of NEGATIVE 74%.
I know, it's because they're not spending their money wisely, people who pirate wouldn't have bought it anyway and it actually helps artists by giving them free exposure, and so on, but is Warner the exception? Are there others in the cartel who are reporting profits in the sense of "record amounts" that I think you mean -- ie. moving in the upward direction?
But I agree with you, that the cost of all of these lawsuits likely isn't much, given the size of the industry, and I don't think it has a real effect on music pricing.
"It would be better for the artist if I just downloaded their songs and then went to see them in concert."
Yes, that's a common rationale. If I may ask, how many songs do you P2P per month? If it's from just five artists, that's five concerts you have to go to in order to make it "better" for the artist. That sure can get expensive. What do you do if you want a song from an artist but you know that there's a good chance that you won't have a chance to see them live? Do you do without?
If I used the "I'll just see them in concert" rationale, I'd be in big trouble. I buy maybe twenty tracks a month on the iTMS. Trying to save money by P2Ping them instead would be a big time sink and end up costing me a lot more. But if it works for you, then great.
"2. The absense of cassette and 45 singles IS certainly a 21st-Century phenomenon. The MAFIAA could certainly sell 3.5 CD singles at a reduced rate if they so chose. Making OHWs available ONLY on $15 albums means they're effectively charging $15/song."
I don't follow. The media changes, but the concept remains. Our parents and grandparents bought 45s or cassingles; today, there's iTunes and several other similar resources. It's easier than ever to get just the track that you want. Back in the day, you were limited to just the singles (and maybe a B-side); now, the record companies are selling their stuff track by track. Anybody who thinks that they have to buy that entire OHW CD, and who thinks that it was somehow easier to get around this in days of yore, just hasn't done enough research.
The GP claimed that this is why the record labels are losing money, and why he pirates. If he wants to pirate so he can save money or stick it to the man or whatever, that's fine, but in case I wasn't clear, the rationale he gave doesn't hold water. If he's troubled by the perpetual fact that there's lots of pop music out there by ephemeral bands with just one good song, then he can research and buy better music, or get just the track he wants. And if he's just after one track, he has plenty of choices besides P2P.
"Composing and performing are two different things. People make music they don't perform. Your example, when extended to programming, would mean programmers shouldn't get paid for coming up with a useful program, but rather for the act of re-typing the code for others' amusement."
I think the standard argument here is that if a composer or musician can't or won't perform live, then they're not real musicians, and thus don't deserve the money. This is, of course, complete horseshit; my library is filled with lots of music by very talented people who, for whatever reason, rarely if ever go on tour.
Another common argument is that they'll send money to the artist (the other people who worked on the album and whose ongoing employment depends on the CDs success can go fuck themselves, I guess) and then buy a t-shirt. Of my friends who actively pirate music, I have not once ever seen them wear a t-shirt extolling the virtues of some band.
"Someone making techno in his basement will never see a fucking dime via your logic."
I think deep down, many people just want musicians to accept their new place in society -- a place that's a notch below programmers, IT people, etc. on the social and economic ladder. We have the technology -- the P2P apps and so on -- and there's more of us than there are of them. Notice that lots of the arguments are on the order of "musicians should just stop being so greedy and learn to make do with less?" That's a bit like what our ancestors said to the American Indians, and our ancestors also had the technology to make it happen.
"Instead of paying $20 for a whole album where I only want select tunes, I'll use P2P."
The mythical $20 album always pops up on these sorts of discussions. If your belief that albums cost $20 is driving your use of P2P, check your assumptions. New CD releases average less than $14 now. $20 will get you a special CD, with an extra DVD or some other value-add goodie. If you don't want the fancy $20 special edition, you can buy the $14 one. No need to be driven to P2P.
"Then pops up itunes, which last I checked WAS MAKING A LOT OF MONEY. Maybe the studios should take a hint. Just because an artist slings together a couple good tracks doesn't mean you can cram with it 50 mins of filler and call it an album."
If the iTunes store is making money, then the labels are, too. Either way, it's been a perpetual fact that bad artists will put out albums with just a few good tracks; the phrase "one hit wonder" isn't unique to the 21st century, the 90s, or even the 80s. If you've been burned by this and thus you feel that you need to resort to P2P, just do a little more research before you buy. I tend to buy my music a track at a time, but when I do buy a CD's worth, it's an informed decision that I don't regret. Either way, the top pirated songs (as tracked by BigChampagne) tends to match up with the top ten in airplay and legal sales, so it appears that pirates have the same healthy appreciation for crap as the rest of the populace.
"As for TV, most shows on TV are either shite or derivative shite [CSI, CSI NY, CSI MIAMI, CSI OKLAHOMA, CSI Alaska, etc...]. I get that they're trying to make the most amount of money without actually doing work, but sometimes that doesn't work."
The "90% of everything is crap" rule applies to TV, too. There was plenty of awful TV in the 60's and 70's, too. I presume the argument here is that since TV is so bad, people are opting to pirate it instead of pay for it. I take another approach: I don't watch TV. Don't even own a receiver. Those few shows I do want to watch, I catch on iTunes.
"While I agree they're not the CRIA, what is your basis for claiming they represent "primarily artists"?"
Check out that link in my post. It pretty much spills the beans on what they do with the money. 66% goes to the people who write the words and music, 18.9% goes to performers (these aren't always the same -- some artists sing other people's stuff), and 15.1% goes to record companies.
If you have any other questions, visit the link in my post. I'm not a particular expert on the CPCC; I found the link by googling.
"I'd venture that they rarely have paid anyone over a thousand dollars. They also have a tendency to not pay people on the fringe at all. Lots of sites are suddenly unacceptable to Google once they reach the hundred dollar payout."
I don't like replying to ACs, but: I hit $1K in payouts a while back and I'm going strong. Google recently asked me (along with a bunch of other people) to add more 300x250 format spots so they can pump more ads.
"(multiply by at least 5 to convert "visits" to "hits" and multiply by another 5 since $0.01 per click is more realistic)."
Weird. I average $0.33 a click, and my content (and thus my ad mix) is widely varied. I'm not displaying particularly high-paying ads.
"I'm quite sure that the only site that has ever made a million dollars from AdSense is Google.com."
I think the folks at Digg will also disagree. It's a safe bet that they're doing in excess of 1000X the traffic of my little old site.
"How will they distribute the money? Proportional to the CD sales? To online sales? Will they just cut a check to every artists in canada? How will recompence non-canadian artists? Or is this just a scam fee going to the RIAA? (Just like the millions that the RIAA is making from their lawsuit business - that sure as hell ain't going to Justin Timberlake or Joni Mitchell)?"
The CPCC has a web site here. Hit the link on the left labelled "Royalty distribution." It's a bit dry, but you should be able to get an answer to all of your questions.
Keep in mind that the CPCC != the CRIA (Canada's equivalent of the RIAA). The CPCC represents primarily artists.
"It's not the government that's going to impose the fee, it's the CRIA."
No, it's the CPCC. This is a very important distinction:
CRIA: equivalent of the USA's RIAA. Represents record labels.
CPCC: Canadian Private Copying Collective. A non-profit agency. Most of the money they collect goes to artists.
This may be surprising, because whenever something greedy and evil in the music industry happens, why then it's got to be the fault of the record labels. This time, you can place the blame squarely at the feet of the artists.
"So it's just like the US (hint: Audio Home Recording Act)."
Nope. These two statements are true:
Canadians pay a levy on recordable media.
In some circumstances, it's legal for Canadians to share copyrighted music.
However, the following is not true:
Canadians pay a levy on recordable media. Because of this, in some circumstances it's legal for Canadians to share copyrighted music.
To be sure, lots of Canadians use the levy as moral justification to pirate as much music as they can, often citing the fact that artists are compensated by the levy (the reality is that it largely goes to Canadian artists). In other words, Canadians have their choice of 94 moral justifications for piracy, vs. the 93 that we in the United States have.
You're correct that the AHRA defines tariffs on some recordable media (including DAT machines, and those music CD-Rs that nobody buys). I'm sure there are lots of people who use the existence of this tariff as a moral justification for piracy, but the tariff certainly doesn't make it legal.
"Then all of us out here in Consumerland can rip the CDs to whatever format is appropriate to us and not go into fits of hysterical laughter when a Beatles album that was recorded 40 years ago appears in a shop with a £15+ price tag."
You are DEFINITELY shopping in the wrong places. Amazon.co.uk has most of the Beatles' catalog on sale for £7.99 - £8.99. That new "Love" is 15 quid, but it comes with a second DVD Audio disc with 5.1 sound. If you buy two of those £7.99 Beatles CDs at once, you also get free shipping. I don't think you need to patronize that shop that sells them for £15; I think they are the ones doing most of the profit taking, not the record company. Amazon buys from distributors at the same price that the indie record shops do; if Amazon is able to sell them every day for half that, then your local record shop owner is simply putting £7 into his pocket. EMI's not your problem here.
"And if people start whining about "only 2 or 3 good tracks on an album" then suggest that they do a little more research into music and go find some better music."
Agreed. I don't buy many complete albums, but when I do, I enjoy listening to the whole thing. It's not that hard to find good music from good artists capable of releasing entire albums of good music.
"How do you figure? They've been making quite a profit selling CDs which are easily transferable to mp3, so why would also selling mp3s hurt that profit? If anything it'd help."
Their profits were actually reported in the article. They netted 63MM pounds last year on sales of 868MM pounds. That's about 7% net margin, which is pretty bad compared to some of the companies we all know and love. It puts them on the razor's edge, which explains why they are quite paranoid about trying anything radically new.
"The translation of this concept from Russian to English, of course, is "Allofmp3""
Exactly. And since the EMI catalog would presumably include album art, it would make it that much easier for Allofmp3 to bolster their library.
The gotcha here is that customers want a "fair price," and many people have mentioned that since allofmp3 sells for less than $0.10 per track, that's a "fair price" and anything else must be henous profit-taking. The reality is that in the US, the minimum mechanical royalty payment by law is about $0.07 to the songwriter and lyricist (not to mention royalties for performers, bandwidth, credit card processing, and all the expenses that happen when people who draw salaries touch the product somewhere), so if your net cost per track is greater than $0.10, you can't break even no matter how many you sell. And as noted in the article, EMI netted eight points of profit last year, so they don't have a lot of room to play with.
People mentioned ease of use. The thing is, the people on the pro-piracy side have pretty good designers and coders, too. No matter how good Apple makes the iTunes interface, BitTorrent clients and sites like allofmp3 keep getting better, too.
What this means is that people will always find a moral reason to pirate. EMI releases their catalog in MP3 format in a variety of compression rates and with album art? Sorry, chaps, allofmp3 will give us the same thing, and they're $0.10 (lower than EMI will ever be able to sell at unless the law is changed), so EMI must be the greedy fucktards here. The iTMS is easy to use, you say? Sorry, bittorrent clients are just as easy and have just as much eye candy; thus iTMS et al. have clearly dropped the ball and we shouldn't give them our money.
I mentioned the law requiring minimum mechanical royalties. A few months back, the record companies actually were trying to change these royalties, and to say that it did not go over well with the Slashdot crowd is putting it mildly. If the law does get changed one day, then many people will certainly use the logic that if the record company isn't paying the artists, then they shouldn't have to. EMI is big and evil; allofmp3 is the our friend since they've been selling cheap, DRM-free music for a while now. Guess who will get the average Slashdotter's money?
"Isn't it simply academic for a good social engineer to get a list of names of all the RIAA 'people,'-- all the RIAA policy makers, decision makers, and lawyers, etc.? And wouldn't that pretty much be, for a good hacker, a few hundred hot pockets away from getting all their identity info? And then maybe from that point, just a few candy bars away from transferring all their money into a Belize/. account?"
Yes, that would show the record companies that they should stop using DRM. Let's show them how mature we are.
"The only reason the RIAA is scary is because of the money they have, and the money they will take from you (destroying your life in the process). Take that away, and they're not so scary."
I believe settlements have been in the range of $2,000 - $3,500. It's quite common around here to write that these amounts "destroy lives." I'm guessing that nobody who thinks this amount to be a life destroyer has plans any time soon to buy an engagement ring, or even put a down payment on a house!
To be sure, having to settle for $3.5K would be an inconvenience for me. I've seen lots of ideas here about leaving WANs unsecured, and so on, to minimize the chance of being nailed for piracy, but I prefer my approach: I don't pirate music. If I want some music, I buy it; if I don't want it, I don't. My perception of how needy (or greedy) the artist or record company is has nothing to do with it. If I'm not interested in paying the price they're asking, I just spend my money elsewhere. I also apply this philosophy to other discretionary purchases and it works pretty well.
"Caring about the music, or even the fans, does not equate to financial stupidity. As long as they can sell CDs for $15 a pop without complaint, they'll do so. (Kind of like speeders who are "just keeping up with the flow of traffic".)"
You raise a very good point. The Slashdot zeitgeist is that everybody knows that CDs are "overpriced," yet the record industry -- big and small labels alike -- sells millions of them at $14 or $15 a pop. Evidence seems to indicate that CDs are sold at the right price for the market.
Supply and demand, selling at the highest price point that the market will bear, and so on -- all simple enough concepts, but a lot of Slashdotters have a myopia when the product in question is a CD or a DVD.
"The other thing is that small indie bands/labels need more income per CD to continue operating, since their volume is so low. Major labels have all kinds of economies of scale that should allow them to sell for less, but of course they don't do it."
Agreed. However, the big labels tend to spend more on marketing, with balances it a bit.
"Um I don't think so. Sure you can find some Britney Spears in teh crap bin for 12.99, however there are still CD's out there that cost 30$ at release. There are also tons of other CD's that are hard to find (ie older than 5-10 years) that are that or more."
I base this on the fact that the average price of a new release is now sub-$14 in the US. I dunno about $30 (maybe you're talking about imports?), but you're right that it's possible to find new CDs that retail for $20 because they come with a bonus DVD or some other value-add goodie. And, of course, lots of CDs are promo priced significantly below $14. The bottom line: the average selling price for a new release is sub-$14, vs. the $18 - $20 they were going for in the early 80's. Those are the numbers I used for my math.
"You can't tell me with a stright face that they used to cost 48$ a CD, even factoring in inflation thats a bunch of bunk."
"If the artist would hold the copyright (as opposed to selling their soul, as it is now) and all the record companies didn't behave as one, there could acctually be competition. Artist Arr could go to record company B's studio and make a record. After this, Arr could go to studio C and do basicly the same record there, a new version in C's studio."
Artists do keep the copyright for the words and music. The record company has the copyright on a particular sound recording of the work. With rare exception, the production of the sound recording was financed by the record company.
Artists are typically prevented from simultaneously working with two record labels due to their contract, not due to copyright. Recording contracts are usually exclusive. For what it's worth, that's not a notion unique to the recording industry -- I have a desk job in the computer industry and my employment contract states that I can't work for a competitor at the same time.
By the way, while we do get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the fact that artists tend to hold their own copyrights on words and music, Slashdotters tend to get prickly when artists try to exercise those rights. For example, it's these rights that allow artists to get paid when their music is performed publicly, such as on a radio station or in a bar or restaurant. These rights are managed in the US through BMI and ASCAP, performing-rights societies run by artists, for artists. Yet when, say, a bar or restaurant owner decides that they'd like to play an artist's music without paying the artist, and BMI or ASCAP sues said business owner, the Slashdot zeitgeist is that it's the artists that are evil here, and not the business owners who are violating the artists' rights.
"There are no free markets in goods protected by copyrights and patents."
...or in a market in which brands exist, for that matter.
Take the examples of Weird Al or Madonna. Sure, I don't need to have a CD by either of those two. And, I can probably find half a dozen other artists that are similar to Weird Al or Madonna; I might even like them better than I do the aforementioned. But as long as Weird Al is on exclusive contract with just one record company, I only have one source, so my only choice is to shop for the best bargain. If I interpret you correctly, there's not really a free market here.
Now, replace "Weird Al" or "Madonna" with "Lotus Elise" or "iPod nano" (or even "Zen nano") or "Nike shoe" or "Bird's Eye Frozen Corn" or "Coca-Cola." They're brands. And only one company has the right to produce that product under that brand.
Sure, I could try to break this "monopoly" by making my own shoes and putting a fake Nike logo on them, and selling them for a lower price, thus breaking the "monopoly" that Nike has. Yet the cops would come after me just as sure as if I'd set up a plant to produce Madonna CDs without permission.
Nike and iPod are, of course, trademarks. And if you think copyrights are evil, keep in mind that the default state of trademarks is perpetuity!
And pretty much everything you buy has a trademark associated with it.
So, the question is: you've stated that there are no free markets for goods protected by copyright and patent. Do you believe the same to be for goods protected by trademark?
"It costs less to manufacture a CD than it used to to make an LP... so if that were true then CDs would cost LESS (inflation adjusted) than LPs did back then."
I'm surprised at how many people aren't aware that for lots and lots of things that are sold at retail, the manufacturing cost is a small percentage of the cost of sale. It's true for PC peripherals (the manufacturing cost for my products is about a third of the cost of sale), it's true for cars, it's true for clothing, and it's true for items in the grocery store. Selling hard goods via retail is inherently inefficient; there's inventory to manage, and everybody who touches it gets paid; these costs add up fast.
Either way, CDs do cost less than LPs did back then. I was buying LPs for $8 or $9 in 1983. $9 in 1983 = $17.50 in 2007 money, while the average price of a new CD is around $13 - $14. Did I misunderstand your point?
"The problem of course is that there's no real competition in the music publishing industry - you don't see competing companies trying to undersell each other with the latest say Rolling Stones CD - copyright laws essentially create monopolies."
Right, copyright is a monopoly. But supply and demand still apply. How well the latest Rolling Stones CD sells depends on how good it is, and the price at which it is sold. Nobody needs it and the higher the price, the more people will find that they can do something better with their money. If the Rolling Stones were, say, the only cure for pancreatic cancer, then your statement would apply quite well. But any given CD by any given band pretty much epitomizes the idea of discretionary spending.
"1) there are plenty of us who were around and remember the initially massively over-priced CD and promises of huge price drops once the technology took hold,
Which they have; they've dropped about 60% in constant dollars since launch.
"2) pretty much everyone of any age already knows that CDs are a lot more expensive than they should be, not a lot less."
Yet nobody is able to exploit this. Even Magnatunes, which pushes the cost of the music production onto the artist, still sells CDs for $8 each, direct. CDBaby, another cool company, sells CDs for $14. And there are hundreds of really cool indie labels -- run by people who are musicians, or who really and genuinely care about the music -- that also sell their CDs for typical pricing.
"This is yet more panic-induced, ill-conceived **AA FUD, when will these people learn how to die with dignity?"
...then why don't you become the one that kills them? I'm 100% serious. If everybody knows that there's this amazingly huge profit margin built into CDs, then there must be somebody out there who can figure out how to find artists, produce their work, pay them fairly, give their stuff proper promotion, and sell a reasonable number of copies at $3 or $5 or even $7. The record companies clearly don't -- they still only manage to net around ten points at the end of the year. From what I read on Slashdot, it's a market that's ours for the taking.
Slashdot Mirror
"Don't forget that they have a monopoly on music and have a profit margin on the order of 50%."
What record companies manage to clear 50%? EMI's about to be bought. Virgin is no more; it's being folded into Capitol and lots of people are being laid off. Doesn't sound like an industry that's doing that great.
More to the point, Warner had a profit margin of 0.27% and an operating margin of 6.3% last year, and their year over year earnings declined 73%.
I'm aware that many Slashdotters point out that the record industry is very profitable, but I haven't seen any data that supports this. Do you know something that I don't?
If you meant the smaller labels... my hunch is that CDBaby and Magnatune have better profitability than the old dinosaurs of the music industry... but they're not the ones suing people.
"What's that? The RIAA isn't getting money from any sales there? Oh, it's because of their own thuggishness and refusal to accept payments because by doing so, they'd be agreeing to the compulsory licensing and definition of broadcast media according to Russian Law?"
If, say, the record companies could get $0.02 per track from ROMS, they would have to pay the mechanicals to the composer/lyricist (often around $0.07) as well as any contractual royalties owed to the performers. This would be a net loss of at least a nickel a track, and possibly a lot more -- royalty payouts on downloads are typically around $0.15 for major artists.
The RIAA has lobbied in the past to get the mechanicals lowered, at least on downloaded tracks, and it was (to put it mildly) not warmly received by the Slashdot crowd. I think the Slashdot zeitgeist is that we don't want the record labels to pay the artists any less per track, yet we would like the record labels to license music to outfits that pay royalties that are lower than the royalties that the record labels are bound by law to pay out.
"They're making record amounts of money, despite what they tell you. This is about maximizing profit. They aren't dumb, they've run the numbers."
Hey, do you have a cite for that? I've heard that a lot but can't find any evidence. Warner Music made a profit margin of 0.27% and an operating margin of 6.29% last year. Their quarterly revenue growth of NEGATIVE 11% yoy and a quarterly earnings growth of NEGATIVE 74%.
I know, it's because they're not spending their money wisely, people who pirate wouldn't have bought it anyway and it actually helps artists by giving them free exposure, and so on, but is Warner the exception? Are there others in the cartel who are reporting profits in the sense of "record amounts" that I think you mean -- ie. moving in the upward direction?
But I agree with you, that the cost of all of these lawsuits likely isn't much, given the size of the industry, and I don't think it has a real effect on music pricing.
"It would be better for the artist if I just downloaded their songs and then went to see them in concert."
Yes, that's a common rationale. If I may ask, how many songs do you P2P per month? If it's from just five artists, that's five concerts you have to go to in order to make it "better" for the artist. That sure can get expensive. What do you do if you want a song from an artist but you know that there's a good chance that you won't have a chance to see them live? Do you do without?
If I used the "I'll just see them in concert" rationale, I'd be in big trouble. I buy maybe twenty tracks a month on the iTMS. Trying to save money by P2Ping them instead would be a big time sink and end up costing me a lot more. But if it works for you, then great.
"2. The absense of cassette and 45 singles IS certainly a 21st-Century phenomenon. The MAFIAA could certainly sell 3.5 CD singles at a reduced rate if they so chose. Making OHWs available ONLY on $15 albums means they're effectively charging $15/song."
I don't follow. The media changes, but the concept remains. Our parents and grandparents bought 45s or cassingles; today, there's iTunes and several other similar resources. It's easier than ever to get just the track that you want. Back in the day, you were limited to just the singles (and maybe a B-side); now, the record companies are selling their stuff track by track. Anybody who thinks that they have to buy that entire OHW CD, and who thinks that it was somehow easier to get around this in days of yore, just hasn't done enough research.
The GP claimed that this is why the record labels are losing money, and why he pirates. If he wants to pirate so he can save money or stick it to the man or whatever, that's fine, but in case I wasn't clear, the rationale he gave doesn't hold water. If he's troubled by the perpetual fact that there's lots of pop music out there by ephemeral bands with just one good song, then he can research and buy better music, or get just the track he wants. And if he's just after one track, he has plenty of choices besides P2P.
"Composing and performing are two different things. People make music they don't perform. Your example, when extended to programming, would mean programmers shouldn't get paid for coming up with a useful program, but rather for the act of re-typing the code for others' amusement."
I think the standard argument here is that if a composer or musician can't or won't perform live, then they're not real musicians, and thus don't deserve the money. This is, of course, complete horseshit; my library is filled with lots of music by very talented people who, for whatever reason, rarely if ever go on tour.
Another common argument is that they'll send money to the artist (the other people who worked on the album and whose ongoing employment depends on the CDs success can go fuck themselves, I guess) and then buy a t-shirt. Of my friends who actively pirate music, I have not once ever seen them wear a t-shirt extolling the virtues of some band.
"Someone making techno in his basement will never see a fucking dime via your logic."
I think deep down, many people just want musicians to accept their new place in society -- a place that's a notch below programmers, IT people, etc. on the social and economic ladder. We have the technology -- the P2P apps and so on -- and there's more of us than there are of them. Notice that lots of the arguments are on the order of "musicians should just stop being so greedy and learn to make do with less?" That's a bit like what our ancestors said to the American Indians, and our ancestors also had the technology to make it happen.
"Instead of paying $20 for a whole album where I only want select tunes, I'll use P2P."
The mythical $20 album always pops up on these sorts of discussions. If your belief that albums cost $20 is driving your use of P2P, check your assumptions. New CD releases average less than $14 now. $20 will get you a special CD, with an extra DVD or some other value-add goodie. If you don't want the fancy $20 special edition, you can buy the $14 one. No need to be driven to P2P.
"Then pops up itunes, which last I checked WAS MAKING A LOT OF MONEY. Maybe the studios should take a hint. Just because an artist slings together a couple good tracks doesn't mean you can cram with it 50 mins of filler and call it an album."
If the iTunes store is making money, then the labels are, too. Either way, it's been a perpetual fact that bad artists will put out albums with just a few good tracks; the phrase "one hit wonder" isn't unique to the 21st century, the 90s, or even the 80s. If you've been burned by this and thus you feel that you need to resort to P2P, just do a little more research before you buy. I tend to buy my music a track at a time, but when I do buy a CD's worth, it's an informed decision that I don't regret. Either way, the top pirated songs (as tracked by BigChampagne) tends to match up with the top ten in airplay and legal sales, so it appears that pirates have the same healthy appreciation for crap as the rest of the populace.
"As for TV, most shows on TV are either shite or derivative shite [CSI, CSI NY, CSI MIAMI, CSI OKLAHOMA, CSI Alaska, etc...]. I get that they're trying to make the most amount of money without actually doing work, but sometimes that doesn't work."
The "90% of everything is crap" rule applies to TV, too. There was plenty of awful TV in the 60's and 70's, too. I presume the argument here is that since TV is so bad, people are opting to pirate it instead of pay for it. I take another approach: I don't watch TV. Don't even own a receiver. Those few shows I do want to watch, I catch on iTunes.
"While I agree they're not the CRIA, what is your basis for claiming they represent "primarily artists"?"
Check out that link in my post. It pretty much spills the beans on what they do with the money. 66% goes to the people who write the words and music, 18.9% goes to performers (these aren't always the same -- some artists sing other people's stuff), and 15.1% goes to record companies.
If you have any other questions, visit the link in my post. I'm not a particular expert on the CPCC; I found the link by googling.
"I'd venture that they rarely have paid anyone over a thousand dollars. They also have a tendency to not pay people on the fringe at all. Lots of sites are suddenly unacceptable to Google once they reach the hundred dollar payout."
I don't like replying to ACs, but: I hit $1K in payouts a while back and I'm going strong. Google recently asked me (along with a bunch of other people) to add more 300x250 format spots so they can pump more ads.
"(multiply by at least 5 to convert "visits" to "hits" and multiply by another 5 since $0.01 per click is more realistic)."
Weird. I average $0.33 a click, and my content (and thus my ad mix) is widely varied. I'm not displaying particularly high-paying ads.
"I'm quite sure that the only site that has ever made a million dollars from AdSense is Google.com."
I think the folks at Digg will also disagree. It's a safe bet that they're doing in excess of 1000X the traffic of my little old site.
"How do I contact the organizations making these proposals?"
Sheesh. I found the CPCC's site with about two seconds of googling:
http://cpcc.ca/english/contactUs.htm
"How will they distribute the money? Proportional to the CD sales? To online sales? Will they just cut a check to every artists in canada? How will recompence non-canadian artists? Or is this just a scam fee going to the RIAA? (Just like the millions that the RIAA is making from their lawsuit business - that sure as hell ain't going to Justin Timberlake or Joni Mitchell)?"
The CPCC has a web site here. Hit the link on the left labelled "Royalty distribution." It's a bit dry, but you should be able to get an answer to all of your questions.
Keep in mind that the CPCC != the CRIA (Canada's equivalent of the RIAA). The CPCC represents primarily artists.
"It's not the government that's going to impose the fee, it's the CRIA."
No, it's the CPCC. This is a very important distinction:
This may be surprising, because whenever something greedy and evil in the music industry happens, why then it's got to be the fault of the record labels. This time, you can place the blame squarely at the feet of the artists.
"So it's just like the US (hint: Audio Home Recording Act)."
Nope. These two statements are true:
However, the following is not true:
Canadians pay a levy on recordable media. Because of this, in some circumstances it's legal for Canadians to share copyrighted music.
To be sure, lots of Canadians use the levy as moral justification to pirate as much music as they can, often citing the fact that artists are compensated by the levy (the reality is that it largely goes to Canadian artists). In other words, Canadians have their choice of 94 moral justifications for piracy, vs. the 93 that we in the United States have.
You're correct that the AHRA defines tariffs on some recordable media (including DAT machines, and those music CD-Rs that nobody buys). I'm sure there are lots of people who use the existence of this tariff as a moral justification for piracy, but the tariff certainly doesn't make it legal.
"How am I supposed to get to these seeds in a post-apocalyptic world?"
With this."Then all of us out here in Consumerland can rip the CDs to whatever format is appropriate to us and not go into fits of hysterical laughter when a Beatles album that was recorded 40 years ago appears in a shop with a £15+ price tag."
You are DEFINITELY shopping in the wrong places. Amazon.co.uk has most of the Beatles' catalog on sale for £7.99 - £8.99. That new "Love" is 15 quid, but it comes with a second DVD Audio disc with 5.1 sound. If you buy two of those £7.99 Beatles CDs at once, you also get free shipping. I don't think you need to patronize that shop that sells them for £15; I think they are the ones doing most of the profit taking, not the record company. Amazon buys from distributors at the same price that the indie record shops do; if Amazon is able to sell them every day for half that, then your local record shop owner is simply putting £7 into his pocket. EMI's not your problem here.
"And if people start whining about "only 2 or 3 good tracks on an album" then suggest that they do a little more research into music and go find some better music."
Agreed. I don't buy many complete albums, but when I do, I enjoy listening to the whole thing. It's not that hard to find good music from good artists capable of releasing entire albums of good music.
"AllofMP3.com sells it over and over and over. So can EMI."
...but why would you buy from EMI when the pirate sites sell it for pennies on the dollar?
"How do you figure? They've been making quite a profit selling CDs which are easily transferable to mp3, so why would also selling mp3s hurt that profit? If anything it'd help."
Their profits were actually reported in the article. They netted 63MM pounds last year on sales of 868MM pounds. That's about 7% net margin, which is pretty bad compared to some of the companies we all know and love. It puts them on the razor's edge, which explains why they are quite paranoid about trying anything radically new.
"The translation of this concept from Russian to English, of course, is "Allofmp3""
Exactly. And since the EMI catalog would presumably include album art, it would make it that much easier for Allofmp3 to bolster their library.
The gotcha here is that customers want a "fair price," and many people have mentioned that since allofmp3 sells for less than $0.10 per track, that's a "fair price" and anything else must be henous profit-taking. The reality is that in the US, the minimum mechanical royalty payment by law is about $0.07 to the songwriter and lyricist (not to mention royalties for performers, bandwidth, credit card processing, and all the expenses that happen when people who draw salaries touch the product somewhere), so if your net cost per track is greater than $0.10, you can't break even no matter how many you sell. And as noted in the article, EMI netted eight points of profit last year, so they don't have a lot of room to play with.
People mentioned ease of use. The thing is, the people on the pro-piracy side have pretty good designers and coders, too. No matter how good Apple makes the iTunes interface, BitTorrent clients and sites like allofmp3 keep getting better, too.
What this means is that people will always find a moral reason to pirate. EMI releases their catalog in MP3 format in a variety of compression rates and with album art? Sorry, chaps, allofmp3 will give us the same thing, and they're $0.10 (lower than EMI will ever be able to sell at unless the law is changed), so EMI must be the greedy fucktards here. The iTMS is easy to use, you say? Sorry, bittorrent clients are just as easy and have just as much eye candy; thus iTMS et al. have clearly dropped the ball and we shouldn't give them our money.
I mentioned the law requiring minimum mechanical royalties. A few months back, the record companies actually were trying to change these royalties, and to say that it did not go over well with the Slashdot crowd is putting it mildly. If the law does get changed one day, then many people will certainly use the logic that if the record company isn't paying the artists, then they shouldn't have to. EMI is big and evil; allofmp3 is the our friend since they've been selling cheap, DRM-free music for a while now. Guess who will get the average Slashdotter's money?
"Isn't it simply academic for a good social engineer to get a list of names of all the RIAA 'people,'-- all the RIAA policy makers, decision makers, and lawyers, etc.? And wouldn't that pretty much be, for a good hacker, a few hundred hot pockets away from getting all their identity info? And then maybe from that point, just a few candy bars away from transferring all their money into a Belize /. account?"
Yes, that would show the record companies that they should stop using DRM. Let's show them how mature we are.
"The only reason the RIAA is scary is because of the money they have, and the money they will take from you (destroying your life in the process). Take that away, and they're not so scary."
I believe settlements have been in the range of $2,000 - $3,500. It's quite common around here to write that these amounts "destroy lives." I'm guessing that nobody who thinks this amount to be a life destroyer has plans any time soon to buy an engagement ring, or even put a down payment on a house!
To be sure, having to settle for $3.5K would be an inconvenience for me. I've seen lots of ideas here about leaving WANs unsecured, and so on, to minimize the chance of being nailed for piracy, but I prefer my approach: I don't pirate music. If I want some music, I buy it; if I don't want it, I don't. My perception of how needy (or greedy) the artist or record company is has nothing to do with it. If I'm not interested in paying the price they're asking, I just spend my money elsewhere. I also apply this philosophy to other discretionary purchases and it works pretty well.
"Caring about the music, or even the fans, does not equate to financial stupidity. As long as they can sell CDs for $15 a pop without complaint, they'll do so. (Kind of like speeders who are "just keeping up with the flow of traffic".)"
You raise a very good point. The Slashdot zeitgeist is that everybody knows that CDs are "overpriced," yet the record industry -- big and small labels alike -- sells millions of them at $14 or $15 a pop. Evidence seems to indicate that CDs are sold at the right price for the market.
Supply and demand, selling at the highest price point that the market will bear, and so on -- all simple enough concepts, but a lot of Slashdotters have a myopia when the product in question is a CD or a DVD.
"The other thing is that small indie bands/labels need more income per CD to continue operating, since their volume is so low. Major labels have all kinds of economies of scale that should allow them to sell for less, but of course they don't do it."
Agreed. However, the big labels tend to spend more on marketing, with balances it a bit.
"Um I don't think so. Sure you can find some Britney Spears in teh crap bin for 12.99, however there are still CD's out there that cost 30$ at release. There are also tons of other CD's that are hard to find (ie older than 5-10 years) that are that or more."
I base this on the fact that the average price of a new release is now sub-$14 in the US. I dunno about $30 (maybe you're talking about imports?), but you're right that it's possible to find new CDs that retail for $20 because they come with a bonus DVD or some other value-add goodie. And, of course, lots of CDs are promo priced significantly below $14. The bottom line: the average selling price for a new release is sub-$14, vs. the $18 - $20 they were going for in the early 80's. Those are the numbers I used for my math.
"You can't tell me with a stright face that they used to cost 48$ a CD, even factoring in inflation thats a bunch of bunk."
Straw man.
"If the artist would hold the copyright (as opposed to selling their soul, as it is now) and all the record companies didn't behave as one, there could acctually be competition. Artist Arr could go to record company B's studio and make a record. After this, Arr could go to studio C and do basicly the same record there, a new version in C's studio."
Artists do keep the copyright for the words and music. The record company has the copyright on a particular sound recording of the work. With rare exception, the production of the sound recording was financed by the record company.
Artists are typically prevented from simultaneously working with two record labels due to their contract, not due to copyright. Recording contracts are usually exclusive. For what it's worth, that's not a notion unique to the recording industry -- I have a desk job in the computer industry and my employment contract states that I can't work for a competitor at the same time.
By the way, while we do get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the fact that artists tend to hold their own copyrights on words and music, Slashdotters tend to get prickly when artists try to exercise those rights. For example, it's these rights that allow artists to get paid when their music is performed publicly, such as on a radio station or in a bar or restaurant. These rights are managed in the US through BMI and ASCAP, performing-rights societies run by artists, for artists. Yet when, say, a bar or restaurant owner decides that they'd like to play an artist's music without paying the artist, and BMI or ASCAP sues said business owner, the Slashdot zeitgeist is that it's the artists that are evil here, and not the business owners who are violating the artists' rights.
"There are no free markets in goods protected by copyrights and patents."
...or in a market in which brands exist, for that matter.
Take the examples of Weird Al or Madonna. Sure, I don't need to have a CD by either of those two. And, I can probably find half a dozen other artists that are similar to Weird Al or Madonna; I might even like them better than I do the aforementioned. But as long as Weird Al is on exclusive contract with just one record company, I only have one source, so my only choice is to shop for the best bargain. If I interpret you correctly, there's not really a free market here.
Now, replace "Weird Al" or "Madonna" with "Lotus Elise" or "iPod nano" (or even "Zen nano") or "Nike shoe" or "Bird's Eye Frozen Corn" or "Coca-Cola." They're brands. And only one company has the right to produce that product under that brand.
Sure, I could try to break this "monopoly" by making my own shoes and putting a fake Nike logo on them, and selling them for a lower price, thus breaking the "monopoly" that Nike has. Yet the cops would come after me just as sure as if I'd set up a plant to produce Madonna CDs without permission.
Nike and iPod are, of course, trademarks. And if you think copyrights are evil, keep in mind that the default state of trademarks is perpetuity!
And pretty much everything you buy has a trademark associated with it.
So, the question is: you've stated that there are no free markets for goods protected by copyright and patent. Do you believe the same to be for goods protected by trademark?
"It costs less to manufacture a CD than it used to to make an LP ... so if that were true then CDs would cost LESS (inflation adjusted) than LPs did back then."
I'm surprised at how many people aren't aware that for lots and lots of things that are sold at retail, the manufacturing cost is a small percentage of the cost of sale. It's true for PC peripherals (the manufacturing cost for my products is about a third of the cost of sale), it's true for cars, it's true for clothing, and it's true for items in the grocery store. Selling hard goods via retail is inherently inefficient; there's inventory to manage, and everybody who touches it gets paid; these costs add up fast.
Either way, CDs do cost less than LPs did back then. I was buying LPs for $8 or $9 in 1983. $9 in 1983 = $17.50 in 2007 money, while the average price of a new CD is around $13 - $14. Did I misunderstand your point?
"The problem of course is that there's no real competition in the music publishing industry - you don't see competing companies trying to undersell each other with the latest say Rolling Stones CD - copyright laws essentially create monopolies."
Right, copyright is a monopoly. But supply and demand still apply. How well the latest Rolling Stones CD sells depends on how good it is, and the price at which it is sold. Nobody needs it and the higher the price, the more people will find that they can do something better with their money. If the Rolling Stones were, say, the only cure for pancreatic cancer, then your statement would apply quite well. But any given CD by any given band pretty much epitomizes the idea of discretionary spending.
"1) there are plenty of us who were around and remember the initially massively over-priced CD and promises of huge price drops once the technology took hold,
Which they have; they've dropped about 60% in constant dollars since launch.
"2) pretty much everyone of any age already knows that CDs are a lot more expensive than they should be, not a lot less."
Yet nobody is able to exploit this. Even Magnatunes, which pushes the cost of the music production onto the artist, still sells CDs for $8 each, direct. CDBaby, another cool company, sells CDs for $14. And there are hundreds of really cool indie labels -- run by people who are musicians, or who really and genuinely care about the music -- that also sell their CDs for typical pricing.
"This is yet more panic-induced, ill-conceived **AA FUD, when will these people learn how to die with dignity?"
...then why don't you become the one that kills them? I'm 100% serious. If everybody knows that there's this amazingly huge profit margin built into CDs, then there must be somebody out there who can figure out how to find artists, produce their work, pay them fairly, give their stuff proper promotion, and sell a reasonable number of copies at $3 or $5 or even $7. The record companies clearly don't -- they still only manage to net around ten points at the end of the year. From what I read on Slashdot, it's a market that's ours for the taking.