"Of course, you can be pretty sure the artist doesn't see any of that money, but that's not much different than CD or iTunes sales."
"Not much different."
If you're a songwriter making $0.07 a sale on the iTMS and just a couple of thousand people a month opt to use a Russian site rather than the iTMS, that is $140 less that you will make per month. The $0.07 only goes up from there, and if a couple of thousand people a month are opting to get your entire album from a Russian site because they don't think it will affect your bottom line, the delta gets much, much worse.
If anybody reading this thinks that $140 a month is not significant, please consider:
Despite the lifestyle portrayed on MTV, most singers, songwriters and composers make meager livings. $140 a month might be the difference between paying the rent next month, and not paying the rent.
If you're presently a student, or you're just starting out and you're making (say) $30K a year, you might think that once you're making $50K, or $80K, or even $100K, you'll be at a point where you won't mind it if your income goes down by $140 a month. This is usually not the case. I make about $150K a year -- more than 99% of professional musicians, composers and songwriters -- yet I would miss $140 a month, and, yes, I would mind if somebody I don't know arbitrarily decided that the $140 doesn't -- or shouldn't -- make a difference to me.
Now, it may very well be the case that it does not concern you one whit whether some songwriter that you don't even know gets that money; or perhaps you don't think they deserve that money. This is perfectly fine. The bottom line is this: if you'd rather get an album from a Russian site and save $10 so you can take your kids to McDonald's, it might mean that some anonymous musician or songwriter doesn't get to take his kids to McDonald's, but you should look after your family first. Nothing wrong with being thrifty. But don't make any assumptions about whether the musician could or could not use that money they're not getting because you've opted for a Russian site rather than the iTMS.
"I'd very happily pirate a CD and paypal the artist ten bucks if it were an option, but I won't buy any DRMed music, nor anything that puts cash in the hands of the RIAA. It's hardly at the loss of the artist, especially since in many cases I would see a concert (where they actually make money) if they played somewhere near me."
Artists do "actually make money" when you buy a track or a CD. Musicians, singers, songwriters and composers have been making money in the record biz for almost a century. We can swap stories all day about how it's tough that their cut isn't as high as we would like, or how one-hit-wonder Janice Ian signed a bad contract thirty years ago, or how record companies recoup their investment before they pay royalties, but the undeniable fact is that many, many artists and musicians make money by selling CDs.
"It's similar in Canada - we pay a levy on every blank CD, tape, etc.. which goes to the Canadian version of the RIAA to distribute amongst the artists."
An important clarification -- SOCAN is not the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA. Your version of the RIAA is the CRIA, and they don't get that levy money.
SOCAN stands for "The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada" (yes, I know, there's too many words there; their fault, not mine) and the nearest US equivalent would probably be ASCAP or BMI -- rights management societies run by and for artists.
This is important to understand if you've of the general "artists good, record companies bad" mindset. It would be a bad idea to give the levy money to the CRIA -- the artists would likely never see it -- so you can be thankful that it doesn't work that way. SOCAN is having enough trouble as it is releasing the money.
"Excellent reply, and I'll add that when you get out of school you're very likely to buy shitloads of Green Day CDs."
Like fun he will. He'll already have their entire collection on his iPod.
"Your "ripping them off" will make money for them."
Ah yes, the "perhaps I'll buy a t-shirt or go to their concert since that's where they make their real money" rationalization.
There's nothing wrong with being cheap. If you want a CD but you don't care to spend the money on it, go ahead and P2P it -- but none of this "I'm really helping the artist" nonsense. You certinaly wouldn't want some anonymous teen pulling that same stunt on you.
"They aren't entitled to success. If people don't care enough enable that success, they have no right to still receive that money."
Huge straw man. "Please have consideration for my rights" != "I am entitled to success."
I understand that it's tempting to paint somebody fighting for their rights as somebody who's asking for some sort of special entitlement. It makes them appear both greedy and stupid -- the classic straw man. But the reality is that virtually all people who make their living in the arts know damn well that there's no guarantee of success. Trying to make a living as an artist is crappy work, often with little reward.
You aren't entitled to any particular success in whatever field of work you've chosen, but I'm certainly not going to use that fact as an excuse to violate your rights.
"Then, finally, show a music executive, laughing, having lunch at some expensive restaurant, drinking fine wine, getting some young artist to sign on the dotted line. "Copyright Infringement" [fade to black] "It's NOT theft.""
The only music executive I've ever met ran a ten-person indie label. For this, he paid himself the princely sum of $25K per year. When people started "discovering" his bands' music on the original Napster and sales dropped, he had to lay off his friends. And with thousands of indie labels out there, my guess is that most "music executives" are a lot more like him than the image you've portrayed to help make people feel okay about pirating music.
Does the record industry have some very highly paid people? You betchya. But so does every industry:
"FAST CUT of scenes of kids torrenting games, searching for cracks for shareware software, etc. Show a programmer taking OSS code and placing it into his closed-source commercial app."
"CUT TO Larry Ellison zooming through the streets of Woodside in his NSX, smoking a cigar."
"FADE IN OVER BACKGROUND AUDIO OF LARRY ELLISON LAUGHING: "Go ahead and pirate all the software you want. Don't worry about the rights of people who write software. They can afford it. Just as everybody who works in the record industry is rich, so is everybody in the software industry."
Think of just about any industry of significant size, and you'll find somebody in that industry who's rich enough to make you feel okay about breaking the law at the expense of that industry.
BigChampagne tracks music pirated on the various P2P networks. Their home page has a list of the top tracks pirated this week. It matches up pretty closely with the top tracks downloaded via the iTMS.
Your experience is probably different because, like most Slashdotters, you're smarter than average and your musical tastes are more refined. But the bulk of pirates are just pulling down the stuff that's hot on the radio and in the clubs now.
"There's a band my daughter used to listen to called "Playground Heroes". Their CDs said "please be kind, burn a copy for a friend.""
Cool. Others do that as well... Magnatune encourages purchasers to give three copies to their friends. I'm sure there are many, many other bands -- and maybe more than a few indie labels -- that encourage similar small-scale copying as a form of publicity.
"It's good business. If I get a burned copy of your first CD and like it, I'm very, very likely to buy a copy of your second album."
That is for the rightsholder to decide. If somebody doesn't want you pirating their stuff, then don't. Who knows... maybe it's their loss, but it's their call. There's tons of music out there that you can freely copy without running afoul of anybody's rights.
"If I never hear it at all there's no way in hell I'll be buying it."
Makes you wonder how people discovered and previewed music before widescale piracy became feasible via P2P and high-bandwidth connections, huh?
I personally favor the radio (XM, to be precise), the iTMS preview feature, and pandora.com. It allows me to hear before I buy. As a result, I rarely make purchases I regret, and I don't violate others' rights.
"Just like any form of civil disobediance. Like not getting up from a bus seat even though the law says you should."
Although you later disclaimed that you are not equating the two, at some point you should take the time to talk to somebody who was involved in the civil rights clashes of the 1960s, or some other form of real civil disobedience. Explain to them that you believe that teens sitting on their ass in their basement P2Ping Gnarls Barkley is "just like any form of civil disobedience." Then watch their reaction.
Remember, kids: music piracy is civil disobedience you can dance to and put on your iPod!
"I was just wondering how much of the reported 'pirated' is older then a certian period. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the amounts by release date of the products."
I can't help you there, but you can go to bigchampagne.com and look at the top pirated music this week. Note that it's almost identical to the top ten purchased tracks as listed on the iTMS.
"None of this matters, because the market force regarding copyright is building. People in grade school today will expect music to be distributed digitally and cheaply."
It already is. Check out emusic, Magnatunes and the iTMS. The digital market is still growing exponentially, and prices are all over the board. Many people are even giving their music away for free. This has nothing to do with copyright. Digital distribution != piracy, and if you decide to become a musician, you can sell your tracks for a buck or a quarter or even give it away for free if you like. But if you do opt to try to make a living making music, and you find that giving your stuff away for free just doesn't make it worth all the hours you've put into it, God help you if people call you "greedy" and opt to pirate your stuff, using their perception of your greed as their moral impetus.
"The music corporation is nothing more then a middleman who isn't needed anymore."
Good -- then perhaps you can help me out. I'm reasonably cute; I have a good voice, I can play the guitar and I have some sheets of paper with lyrics on them. Here is what I would like to do:
Get into a studio. I mean a real studio; recording this stuff at home sounds like crap. I'm a musician, not a producer or an engineer.
Get my stuff produced, mixed, engineered and mastered. I'll need some backup musicians, as well.
Get it out to radio stations all over the country, and get it played.
Get me on TV (MTV, etc.) so that people actually know about me.
Get some work done on my look. I'll need wardrobe, photos, a stylist, the works.
Get me booked into clubs and venues.
Now, I could try for a recording contract; they'll get me a manager, an agent, and cover the costs for the production, distribution and marketing of my music. My record might not break even, which means that I may not see much, but at least I'll have a chance.
However, you point out that all these people aren't needed any more. Can you help me become a success? Note that I couldn't pay you; then you'd be in the music industry yourself and just as bad as these people that you decry. What do you say -- want to team up to make me a star, or is your "they aren't needed any more" just all talk, no action?
"Unless I'm mistaken, isn't that precisely the definition of 'overpriced'? An item is overpriced if the sticker price is higher than the market will bear - meaning, you are losing money by keeping the price higher."
I probably wasn't clear enough. When I wrote "...higher than the poster is willing to pay" I meant that in the sense of that particular poster. The common pattern is for the pirate to make the leap that because they don't want to pay that much, then the product must be overpriced for the market. That's usually incorrect; the stuff that's pirated the most is often the stuff that sells the most, too. The reality is often that the poster isn't the customer that the company is trying to get.
An assumption that many lay people make is that when you launch a product, everybody is in your target market, but that's not the case (and this is the essential theory behind the supply/demand curve). There are just certain groups of people that sometimes you don't want, or can't, sell to. Or, more to the point: Am I willing to pay $200K for a Ferrari? No. Are they overprice? No way in hell. Ferrari sells every last car it can build, and frankly, Ferrari doesn't want to build a $50K car so that I and others like me can finally enjoy a Ferrari. Ferrari may be an extreme example, but there are dozens of other brands who use pricing to define their market, and do brisk business although some people don't think their product is worth the money.
"Shoplifting (especially at those two stores) seldom has anything to do with demand for the product and more to do with the shoplifter's emotional state."
That makes sense. I think that piracy often is due to an emotional state, as well. The reality is often that one really can afford to buy that software, and one really does know that the software isn't overpriced, but there are emotional drivers that make us want to pirate.
"There have been a few notable ones though, but my favorite, and the one that really helped me understand alot of what is going on (and what is at stake) was this post yesterday by mrchaotica. Be sure to read the links to Jefferson's writings on copyright at the end of his post."
Agreed, mrchaotica is a smart cookie. I think he's on my list of friends. But I am perpetually amused when people trot out those quotes by Jefferson in relation to copyright. As if it has any relevance to today's digital world. And, of course, this is a fellow who quite likely knocked up his slave. Sally Hemming had bigger things to worry about than her freedom to copy a map or some sheet music, or having her copyrights protected. Jefferson did not see fit to grant her basic human rights.
"One of the issues I have with smaller shareware apps is the price - rather than $25 for your app, if you cut the price to say $10 more people will be tempted to pay rather than look for a crack/serial. And I am writing from experience."
This argument comes up every time piracy is dicussed on Slashdot. Somebody points out that if the rightholder simply charged LESS, then piracy wouldn't be a problem! Add the following on the part of the poster:
The belief that the supply/demand curve MUST be a 45 degree straight line.
A fundamental confusion between cost of manufacturing and cost of sale (or, if you like, the difference between gross margin and net margin),
And the belief that because the product is more than the poster wants to pay, why then it MUST be overpriced
...and hilarity ensues. The implication is that the piracy is actually the rightsholder's fault for being both stupid and greedy.
The interesting thing is that I doubt very much that the retail industry bothers with this. Do Fry's or Best Buy ask themselves "perhaps the way to lower shrinkage is to lower our prices?". Not likely. But on Slashdot, pricing strategy is the alpha and the omega of the piracy industry. People seldom want to admit that they are simply cheap.
If you've pirated stuff because it's $25 rather than $10, then bully for you... you've saved $25 and I hope that $25 savings helped you out. But perhaps the software vendor actually knew what they were doing when they priced it at $25. This does not, however, remove their right to complain about piracy, or take measures to stop it.
"Prove that MOST don't. Statistically speaking that is."
You can do this yourself by charting (by your best estimate) the explosion of piracy since the advent of P2P and comparing it to the (largely flat) sales figures. Even if half of the people who use P2P end up buying the material, it would have caused a drastic rise in legitimate sales that just isn't there.
Hardcore P2P fans point out that sales would have been much, much worse if P2P hadn't come around, and that P2P has actually saved the industry by generating incremental sales from the explosion of piracy. This is a bit hard to swallow on a common sense level.
For what it's worth, I've never met a person in real life who claims to do what you do: download an album, and then buy it. 100% of the people I know who get their music via P2P do it to save money, plain and simple. Buying a copy when they already have a perfectly good copy in their share directory would not make sense to them.
"However that isn't taking into account that this should have been dropped the second the guy did."
Question for you:
Let's say you needed to take some guy to court. Say, he messed up your roof repair, or he crashed your car, or did any of a million other things that might have caused you harm. Let's say you were suing for $10K, and you'd gotten a settlement or a judgement in that amount.
Then he dies.
Do you let it go, and kiss that $10K goodbye? Or do you attempt to collect it from his estate, as per normal practice?
Another question:
Let's say that, God forbid, your parents pass away. They owe $100K on their house, and $10K to MasterCard and/or VISA.
What do you think the right thing is for the banks to do? Write off that $110K? Or, should they attempt to collect from the estate?
I know that in the former case, it would mean that you would likely get a free house, and in the latter, you would either have to sell the house to pay the note, or assume the debt. But what do you think the banks should do? Would your answer change if you were in the banking industry, or you owned a bank and knew that your stock price relies on your profitability?
No right or wrong answers, of course; just wondering your opinion.
"There are excellent artists who have consciously made the decision to not go with the RIAA sanctioned labels for this reason."
Excellent point.
"At this point in time, it seems clear that the proper decision is to boycott these people."
Agreed. I don't concienciously boycott music from RIAA labels, but it just so happens that most of the stuff I buy nowadays is from indie labels that aren't RIAA affiliates. There's lots of great stuff out there.
"The only legal means of buying music today that I will do is from the used CD store, but otherwise, I'm going to "pirate" and do whatever it takes to not directly support these people anymore."
WHAT?
You said it yourself: there are lots of excellent musicians out there who are choosing not to go with RIAA labels.
So why pirate RIAA stuff?
If you opt to buy from indie labels that forego the DRM and the lawsuits, or if you buy from "new model" record companies like Magnatunes or CDBaby, or if you're seeking out unsigned artists, then you're taking a stand and voting with your dollars as a consumer.
If your choice is to just keep pirating RIAA stuff, you're just showing them that you're a cheapskate. Nothing wrong with being a cheapskate, but you're not a part of the solution.
"Seriously. Why aren't the major news outlets making a big deal out of shit like this?"
Because it's perfectly normal. Experienced people understand this. Many Slashdotters -- as shown by your "insightful" rating -- do not.
When you die:
Your credit card companies will attempt to collect your debt from your estate.
The bank that holds your note on your house or your car will still insist on being paid. They will attempt to take it from your estate.
Anybody who has an uncollected judgement or settlement against you will attempt to take it from your estate.
If you didn't already understand this, you really need to -- there will come a time when your grandparents or parents die. If they pass away owing money to anybody for any reason, their debts will likely pass along to you. If they owe $100K on their house, then when they pass, you will owe $100K on the house.
If I had sued somebody who'd done me wrong and I'd gotten a settlement or a judgement, if they died, I would certainly collect from their estate. And so would you.
"1. The RIAA is a convicted monopoly guilty of price fixing."
You make some good points, but in this case you are being intellectually dishonest by using "monopoly" and "price fixing" in the same sentence to fool people into thinking that the record labels corroborated with each other to fix prices. This is not what the price fixing settlement was about, by a long shot.
Here's how the Universal price fixing thing went down:
Wal-Mart and Best Buy -- two companies that are not friends of the average Slashdotter -- started selling CDs at or below cost to incent customers to get into their stores.
This, of course, hurt smaller record stores, indie stores, and chains that sold primarily CDs and (unlike Wal-Mart) didn't have these huge stores full of high-margin electronics or pajamas to sell to make up the difference. They simply could not compete with Wal-Mart and Best Buy, who were selling CDs at or below cost.
A couple retailers, Tower Records and TWE (plus, I believe, another retailer whose name I forget) went to Universal and asked for help.
Universal set them up with what's called a MAP -- "minimum advertised price" program. Universal would give them what's called "coop funds" -- in other words, they would help pay for Tower's newspaper ads -- as long as they didn't advertise prices lower than a certain amount. They could sell for a lower price, of course, but they couldn't put the pricing in the ads.
Wal-Mart and Best Buy got wind of this and went to the government.
The government then bitch slapped Universal.
Tower Records filed for bankrupcty. The death of the indie record store continues to this day.
I should point out that lots of industries have MAPs. If you see an ad that says "price too low to mention" or "call" for certain brands, that's often because the vendor's running a MAP. Apple has had a MAP on the iPod, but they've eased up recently. I work in the computer peripherals industry -- mice, keyboards and the like -- and we run MAPs all the time. Sure, it's price fixing, but it's price fixing of a sort that everybody does, and it's largely overlooked.
So why was Universal nailed? Because they pissed off Wal-Mart and Best Buy.
You should consider the price fixing settlement a good thing if you happened to have bought a CD at Tower Records or TWE during the period (in which case, you were entitled to a refund), or you enjoy buying your music at Best Buy or Wal-Mart, or if you don't particularly mind the homogenization of the music industry that Best Buy and Wal-Mart have brought about, or if you don't mind that indie record stores are going the way of the dinosaur. As you can probably guess, I don't put myself in that camp, but YMMV.
By the way, the record industry isn't a monopoly any more than the auto industry or ice cream industries are. Lots of Slashdotters say it is because they like the sound of it, but they are mistaken.
"5. The members of the RIAA are still making billions of dollars of profits. I have not heard of any lay offs or losses so their need for special protection seems to be in question."
The record industry has been forced to consolidate due to dropping sales and profits. Remember Columbia Records? Bought by Sony BMG. Geffen? Polygram? Bought by Universal. And, yeah, there have been layoffs. As for losses, just check the earnings reports. Ever notice that unless it's part of a gigantic behemoth (ie. the "Warner" in "Time-Warner") you never see a record company in the Fortune 500? It's a crappy, speculative, low-margin market to be in... net margins are on the order of 10%; meanwhile, Logitech netted something like 35% last year. The only "record company executive" I have ever known ran his own label. He had ten people and paid himself the princely sum of $25K a year. When people "discovered" his stuff via the original Napster, he had to lay off his friends.
Pirate if you like; it's a good way to save money. If you can get an album via P2P rather than via the iTMS, then that's $12 in your pocket. But don't over-rationalize to the point that you get your facts wrong.
"Artists who allow free downloading of their music find that is *INCREASES* sales."
That makes sense. If I'm an unsigned artist, I may as well release my stuff for free, at least to start. It's a good, cheap way to get some publicity in the beginning.
However, this doesn't make it okay to pirate an artist's work if they would rather that you not.
That's the great thing about the free market economy: each of us can opt in. I might choose to give my stuff away for free, or release it under the GPL, or distribute it at a low cost without DRM... whatever best suits my needs. The next guy might choose to release his stuff through a label, or sell it commercially, or put DRM on it. That's his prerogative. Nobody reading this should feel justified in violating that person's rights because I've chosen a different path. Again... there's plenty of free music out there, no need to resort to piracy.
"RIAA members aren't terrified of piracy, they're terrified of competition."
P2P isn't competition any more than the guy selling "fell off the truck" merchandise in the parking lot is competition for Best Buy. The competition to the old school labels is the smaller, non-RIAA affiliated labels (of which there are thousands), and the online labels and stores that are trying out new business models: Magnatune, CDBaby, emusic, and the like. If you choose to patronize these folks, you're showing the RIAA that the the competition is doing a better job and that they need to explore less-restrictive DRM and more flexible pricing. If you're using P2P, you're just showing the RIAA that you're a cheapskate.
"it's been ages since i've seen the articles pertaining to this, but you can read the text of the AHRA online."
It's also known as Title 17, Chapter 10. Here's a copy, for anybody who's interested.
"The AHRA was expressly written to address concerns by copyright interests that people would use recording devices to share recordings with friends. To remedy this in a balanced manner, they charged a small levy on recording devices/media in return for the cartels forfeiting their rights to pursue cases of individual copying as infringing."
You are referring to 1008:
"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."
I believe that you are correct that the specific case of copying a friend or neighbor's tape is exempt from action.
As an aside, many Slashdotters take this "noncommercial" notion and run with it. They state -- incorrectly -- that this makes piracy via P2P legal, as it's just making a copy for 10,000 of one's closest friends. When it became viable to distribute thousands of copies of an item at practically no cash (and thus not requiring that cash be paid for the pirated item), the DMCA closed this loophole.
"I find the phrase "Digital Rights Management" fundamentally flawed. If I have a right to whatever they're trying to regulate, then they shouldn't be regulating it. The correct term would be "Digital Privilage Management.""
The "rights" in this case, of course, refers to the copyright owner, not the consumer. Whether we like it or not, the law does give them a set of rights.
The problem is when DRM prevents the consumer from exercising their fair use rights (and I am talking about actual fair use rights, and not Slashdotters' often fucked-up understanding of fair use). If more people understood fair use, and if the honor system actually worked, then DRM would not be necessary.
"The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries?"
Brilliant! Now tell the NAACP that "colored people" is an outdated term, and the the ACM that "computing machinery" is pretty archaic, too. And, of course, the AC's note that nobody uses telegraphs anymore, so AT&T need to get with the times.
"I wonder if they ever get confused with the International Federation of the Pornographic Industries?"
"Now instead of having a large range of MP3s to choose from I can choose from a limited range of music that is encumbered with DRM. Where do I send my money?...allofmp3.com I guess. I wonder if the music industry will eventually get it?"
The way to really make the music industry "get it" is to use sites like Magnatune and emusic, not the Russian pirate sites.
Magnatune and emusic sell DRM-free music with the artist's permission, and give a hefty cut to the artists; much more than the traditional record companies do.
If you and everybody reading this start supporting efforts like Magnatune and emusic, you'll show the music industry -- record companies and artists -- that there's a real market out there for DRM-free music. They'll be able to expand and sign bigger and better artists and show the traditional record labels some serious competition.
If you just keep giving your money to some Russian site, you're showing the music industry that you're just a pirate, and they'll write you off.
Note that I'm not saying that using Allofmp3 is wrong... if you acknowledge that you don't particularly care if the musicians get paid, then go ahead; no point in wasting your time on Magnatune and emusic which inflate their prices so they can pay the artists. But you won't be sending a particularly productive message to the music industry.
"They were paid to play roles, not for their creative input. They played their roles and now the show is about to be canceled. End of story."
Well said. I should just point out that the composers and songwriters who wrote much of their stuff did receive royalties. If you are simply a performer, and not the person who actually wrote the words or the music, you will likely be paid less. Composers and songwriters have minimum royalties (called mechanicals) set by law; if you're just a performer, you don't have those protections.
Yes, she does get quoted a lot, since she wrote that essay. Many Slashdotters might not have even heard of her if she hadn't written it. She doesn't mind her stuff being downloaded (I wouldn't either, if I were her, since apparently she's never made any money from record sales, ever). She signed a bad contract when she was a teenager, more than 30 years ago.
Yet lots of musicians do make money in the record industry. Some make a little. A few make a lot. Some are for illegal downloading. Others are against it. Many have foregone the record label route and put their own stuff up for free, or for a charge. Everybody has a different story.
I think the best, and most honest, reason to use P2P to get your music is because you'd simply get something for free rather than pay for it. It's human nature, but apparently many people have a hard time simply acknowledging that they'd like to save money, and that they aren't particularly concerned with the rights of rightsholders.
I am not trying to put words in your mouth, but I think that for many Slashdotters, the thought process goes like this:
Janice "who's she" Ian doesn't like record companies and doesn't mind if people download her stuff.
Therefore, there are probably more artists who feel the same way -- maybe even most of them do.
Thus, I am absolved of any moral issues with pirating music.
Magnatune is their own label and the DRM-free route is a pillar of their business. My understanding about emusic (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the selection is a mix of stuff from bands without a label, and from labels who are willing to give the DRM-free model a try.
I heartily encourage you to give both services a try. If Magnatune and emusic succeed, we can show the major labels that there's a legitimate demand for DRM-free music. If only allofmp3 succeeds, then we show the major labels that we're a bunch of cheap pirates.
Slashdot Mirror
"Of course, you can be pretty sure the artist doesn't see any of that money, but that's not much different than CD or iTunes sales."
"Not much different."
If you're a songwriter making $0.07 a sale on the iTMS and just a couple of thousand people a month opt to use a Russian site rather than the iTMS, that is $140 less that you will make per month. The $0.07 only goes up from there, and if a couple of thousand people a month are opting to get your entire album from a Russian site because they don't think it will affect your bottom line, the delta gets much, much worse.
If anybody reading this thinks that $140 a month is not significant, please consider:
Now, it may very well be the case that it does not concern you one whit whether some songwriter that you don't even know gets that money; or perhaps you don't think they deserve that money. This is perfectly fine. The bottom line is this: if you'd rather get an album from a Russian site and save $10 so you can take your kids to McDonald's, it might mean that some anonymous musician or songwriter doesn't get to take his kids to McDonald's, but you should look after your family first. Nothing wrong with being thrifty. But don't make any assumptions about whether the musician could or could not use that money they're not getting because you've opted for a Russian site rather than the iTMS.
"I'd very happily pirate a CD and paypal the artist ten bucks if it were an option, but I won't buy any DRMed music, nor anything that puts cash in the hands of the RIAA. It's hardly at the loss of the artist, especially since in many cases I would see a concert (where they actually make money) if they played somewhere near me."
Artists do "actually make money" when you buy a track or a CD. Musicians, singers, songwriters and composers have been making money in the record biz for almost a century. We can swap stories all day about how it's tough that their cut isn't as high as we would like, or how one-hit-wonder Janice Ian signed a bad contract thirty years ago, or how record companies recoup their investment before they pay royalties, but the undeniable fact is that many, many artists and musicians make money by selling CDs.
"It's similar in Canada - we pay a levy on every blank CD, tape, etc.. which goes to the Canadian version of the RIAA to distribute amongst the artists."
An important clarification -- SOCAN is not the Canadian equivalent of the RIAA. Your version of the RIAA is the CRIA, and they don't get that levy money.
SOCAN stands for "The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada" (yes, I know, there's too many words there; their fault, not mine) and the nearest US equivalent would probably be ASCAP or BMI -- rights management societies run by and for artists.
This is important to understand if you've of the general "artists good, record companies bad" mindset. It would be a bad idea to give the levy money to the CRIA -- the artists would likely never see it -- so you can be thankful that it doesn't work that way. SOCAN is having enough trouble as it is releasing the money.
"Excellent reply, and I'll add that when you get out of school you're very likely to buy shitloads of Green Day CDs."
Like fun he will. He'll already have their entire collection on his iPod.
"Your "ripping them off" will make money for them."
Ah yes, the "perhaps I'll buy a t-shirt or go to their concert since that's where they make their real money" rationalization.
There's nothing wrong with being cheap. If you want a CD but you don't care to spend the money on it, go ahead and P2P it -- but none of this "I'm really helping the artist" nonsense. You certinaly wouldn't want some anonymous teen pulling that same stunt on you.
"They aren't entitled to success. If people don't care enough enable that success, they have no right to still receive that money."
Huge straw man. "Please have consideration for my rights" != "I am entitled to success."
I understand that it's tempting to paint somebody fighting for their rights as somebody who's asking for some sort of special entitlement. It makes them appear both greedy and stupid -- the classic straw man. But the reality is that virtually all people who make their living in the arts know damn well that there's no guarantee of success. Trying to make a living as an artist is crappy work, often with little reward.
You aren't entitled to any particular success in whatever field of work you've chosen, but I'm certainly not going to use that fact as an excuse to violate your rights.
"Then, finally, show a music executive, laughing, having lunch at some expensive restaurant, drinking fine wine, getting some young artist to sign on the dotted line. "Copyright Infringement" [fade to black] "It's NOT theft.""
The only music executive I've ever met ran a ten-person indie label. For this, he paid himself the princely sum of $25K per year. When people started "discovering" his bands' music on the original Napster and sales dropped, he had to lay off his friends. And with thousands of indie labels out there, my guess is that most "music executives" are a lot more like him than the image you've portrayed to help make people feel okay about pirating music.
Does the record industry have some very highly paid people? You betchya. But so does every industry:
"FAST CUT of scenes of kids torrenting games, searching for cracks for shareware software, etc. Show a programmer taking OSS code and placing it into his closed-source commercial app."
"CUT TO Larry Ellison zooming through the streets of Woodside in his NSX, smoking a cigar."
"FADE IN OVER BACKGROUND AUDIO OF LARRY ELLISON LAUGHING: "Go ahead and pirate all the software you want. Don't worry about the rights of people who write software. They can afford it. Just as everybody who works in the record industry is rich, so is everybody in the software industry."
Think of just about any industry of significant size, and you'll find somebody in that industry who's rich enough to make you feel okay about breaking the law at the expense of that industry.
"I don't know about that."
BigChampagne tracks music pirated on the various P2P networks. Their home page has a list of the top tracks pirated this week. It matches up pretty closely with the top tracks downloaded via the iTMS.
Your experience is probably different because, like most Slashdotters, you're smarter than average and your musical tastes are more refined. But the bulk of pirates are just pulling down the stuff that's hot on the radio and in the clubs now.
"There's a band my daughter used to listen to called "Playground Heroes". Their CDs said "please be kind, burn a copy for a friend.""
Cool. Others do that as well... Magnatune encourages purchasers to give three copies to their friends. I'm sure there are many, many other bands -- and maybe more than a few indie labels -- that encourage similar small-scale copying as a form of publicity.
"It's good business. If I get a burned copy of your first CD and like it, I'm very, very likely to buy a copy of your second album."
That is for the rightsholder to decide. If somebody doesn't want you pirating their stuff, then don't. Who knows... maybe it's their loss, but it's their call. There's tons of music out there that you can freely copy without running afoul of anybody's rights.
"If I never hear it at all there's no way in hell I'll be buying it."
Makes you wonder how people discovered and previewed music before widescale piracy became feasible via P2P and high-bandwidth connections, huh?
I personally favor the radio (XM, to be precise), the iTMS preview feature, and pandora.com. It allows me to hear before I buy. As a result, I rarely make purchases I regret, and I don't violate others' rights.
"Just like any form of civil disobediance. Like not getting up from a bus seat even though the law says you should."
Although you later disclaimed that you are not equating the two, at some point you should take the time to talk to somebody who was involved in the civil rights clashes of the 1960s, or some other form of real civil disobedience. Explain to them that you believe that teens sitting on their ass in their basement P2Ping Gnarls Barkley is "just like any form of civil disobedience." Then watch their reaction.
Remember, kids: music piracy is civil disobedience you can dance to and put on your iPod!
"I was just wondering how much of the reported 'pirated' is older then a certian period. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the amounts by release date of the products."
I can't help you there, but you can go to bigchampagne.com and look at the top pirated music this week. Note that it's almost identical to the top ten purchased tracks as listed on the iTMS.
"None of this matters, because the market force regarding copyright is building. People in grade school today will expect music to be distributed digitally and cheaply."
It already is. Check out emusic, Magnatunes and the iTMS. The digital market is still growing exponentially, and prices are all over the board. Many people are even giving their music away for free. This has nothing to do with copyright. Digital distribution != piracy, and if you decide to become a musician, you can sell your tracks for a buck or a quarter or even give it away for free if you like. But if you do opt to try to make a living making music, and you find that giving your stuff away for free just doesn't make it worth all the hours you've put into it, God help you if people call you "greedy" and opt to pirate your stuff, using their perception of your greed as their moral impetus.
"The music corporation is nothing more then a middleman who isn't needed anymore."
Good -- then perhaps you can help me out. I'm reasonably cute; I have a good voice, I can play the guitar and I have some sheets of paper with lyrics on them. Here is what I would like to do:
Now, I could try for a recording contract; they'll get me a manager, an agent, and cover the costs for the production, distribution and marketing of my music. My record might not break even, which means that I may not see much, but at least I'll have a chance.
However, you point out that all these people aren't needed any more. Can you help me become a success? Note that I couldn't pay you; then you'd be in the music industry yourself and just as bad as these people that you decry. What do you say -- want to team up to make me a star, or is your "they aren't needed any more" just all talk, no action?
"Unless I'm mistaken, isn't that precisely the definition of 'overpriced'? An item is overpriced if the sticker price is higher than the market will bear - meaning, you are losing money by keeping the price higher."
I probably wasn't clear enough. When I wrote "...higher than the poster is willing to pay" I meant that in the sense of that particular poster. The common pattern is for the pirate to make the leap that because they don't want to pay that much, then the product must be overpriced for the market. That's usually incorrect; the stuff that's pirated the most is often the stuff that sells the most, too. The reality is often that the poster isn't the customer that the company is trying to get.
An assumption that many lay people make is that when you launch a product, everybody is in your target market, but that's not the case (and this is the essential theory behind the supply/demand curve). There are just certain groups of people that sometimes you don't want, or can't, sell to. Or, more to the point: Am I willing to pay $200K for a Ferrari? No. Are they overprice? No way in hell. Ferrari sells every last car it can build, and frankly, Ferrari doesn't want to build a $50K car so that I and others like me can finally enjoy a Ferrari. Ferrari may be an extreme example, but there are dozens of other brands who use pricing to define their market, and do brisk business although some people don't think their product is worth the money.
"Shoplifting (especially at those two stores) seldom has anything to do with demand for the product and more to do with the shoplifter's emotional state."
That makes sense. I think that piracy often is due to an emotional state, as well. The reality is often that one really can afford to buy that software, and one really does know that the software isn't overpriced, but there are emotional drivers that make us want to pirate.
"There have been a few notable ones though, but my favorite, and the one that really helped me understand alot of what is going on (and what is at stake) was this post yesterday by mrchaotica. Be sure to read the links to Jefferson's writings on copyright at the end of his post."
Agreed, mrchaotica is a smart cookie. I think he's on my list of friends. But I am perpetually amused when people trot out those quotes by Jefferson in relation to copyright. As if it has any relevance to today's digital world. And, of course, this is a fellow who quite likely knocked up his slave. Sally Hemming had bigger things to worry about than her freedom to copy a map or some sheet music, or having her copyrights protected. Jefferson did not see fit to grant her basic human rights.
"One of the issues I have with smaller shareware apps is the price - rather than $25 for your app, if you cut the price to say $10 more people will be tempted to pay rather than look for a crack/serial. And I am writing from experience."
This argument comes up every time piracy is dicussed on Slashdot. Somebody points out that if the rightholder simply charged LESS, then piracy wouldn't be a problem! Add the following on the part of the poster:
...and hilarity ensues. The implication is that the piracy is actually the rightsholder's fault for being both stupid and greedy.
The interesting thing is that I doubt very much that the retail industry bothers with this. Do Fry's or Best Buy ask themselves "perhaps the way to lower shrinkage is to lower our prices?". Not likely. But on Slashdot, pricing strategy is the alpha and the omega of the piracy industry. People seldom want to admit that they are simply cheap.
If you've pirated stuff because it's $25 rather than $10, then bully for you... you've saved $25 and I hope that $25 savings helped you out. But perhaps the software vendor actually knew what they were doing when they priced it at $25. This does not, however, remove their right to complain about piracy, or take measures to stop it.
"Prove that MOST don't. Statistically speaking that is."
You can do this yourself by charting (by your best estimate) the explosion of piracy since the advent of P2P and comparing it to the (largely flat) sales figures. Even if half of the people who use P2P end up buying the material, it would have caused a drastic rise in legitimate sales that just isn't there.
Hardcore P2P fans point out that sales would have been much, much worse if P2P hadn't come around, and that P2P has actually saved the industry by generating incremental sales from the explosion of piracy. This is a bit hard to swallow on a common sense level.
For what it's worth, I've never met a person in real life who claims to do what you do: download an album, and then buy it. 100% of the people I know who get their music via P2P do it to save money, plain and simple. Buying a copy when they already have a perfectly good copy in their share directory would not make sense to them.
"Copyright infringement is NOT theft."
We know, Richard, we know. It's a figure of speech, like "theft of service", "stealing a kiss" or "stolen thunder."
"However that isn't taking into account that this should have been dropped the second the guy did."
Question for you:
Let's say you needed to take some guy to court. Say, he messed up your roof repair, or he crashed your car, or did any of a million other things that might have caused you harm. Let's say you were suing for $10K, and you'd gotten a settlement or a judgement in that amount.
Then he dies.
Do you let it go, and kiss that $10K goodbye? Or do you attempt to collect it from his estate, as per normal practice?
Another question:
Let's say that, God forbid, your parents pass away. They owe $100K on their house, and $10K to MasterCard and/or VISA.
What do you think the right thing is for the banks to do? Write off that $110K? Or, should they attempt to collect from the estate?
I know that in the former case, it would mean that you would likely get a free house, and in the latter, you would either have to sell the house to pay the note, or assume the debt. But what do you think the banks should do? Would your answer change if you were in the banking industry, or you owned a bank and knew that your stock price relies on your profitability?
No right or wrong answers, of course; just wondering your opinion.
"There are excellent artists who have consciously made the decision to not go with the RIAA sanctioned labels for this reason."
Excellent point.
"At this point in time, it seems clear that the proper decision is to boycott these people."
Agreed. I don't concienciously boycott music from RIAA labels, but it just so happens that most of the stuff I buy nowadays is from indie labels that aren't RIAA affiliates. There's lots of great stuff out there.
"The only legal means of buying music today that I will do is from the used CD store, but otherwise, I'm going to "pirate" and do whatever it takes to not directly support these people anymore."
WHAT?
You said it yourself: there are lots of excellent musicians out there who are choosing not to go with RIAA labels.
So why pirate RIAA stuff?
If you opt to buy from indie labels that forego the DRM and the lawsuits, or if you buy from "new model" record companies like Magnatunes or CDBaby, or if you're seeking out unsigned artists, then you're taking a stand and voting with your dollars as a consumer.
If your choice is to just keep pirating RIAA stuff, you're just showing them that you're a cheapskate. Nothing wrong with being a cheapskate, but you're not a part of the solution.
"Seriously. Why aren't the major news outlets making a big deal out of shit like this?"
Because it's perfectly normal. Experienced people understand this. Many Slashdotters -- as shown by your "insightful" rating -- do not.
When you die:
If you didn't already understand this, you really need to -- there will come a time when your grandparents or parents die. If they pass away owing money to anybody for any reason, their debts will likely pass along to you. If they owe $100K on their house, then when they pass, you will owe $100K on the house.
If I had sued somebody who'd done me wrong and I'd gotten a settlement or a judgement, if they died, I would certainly collect from their estate. And so would you.
"One and four are indisputable facts."
"1. The RIAA is a convicted monopoly guilty of price fixing."
You make some good points, but in this case you are being intellectually dishonest by using "monopoly" and "price fixing" in the same sentence to fool people into thinking that the record labels corroborated with each other to fix prices. This is not what the price fixing settlement was about, by a long shot.
Here's how the Universal price fixing thing went down:
I should point out that lots of industries have MAPs. If you see an ad that says "price too low to mention" or "call" for certain brands, that's often because the vendor's running a MAP. Apple has had a MAP on the iPod, but they've eased up recently. I work in the computer peripherals industry -- mice, keyboards and the like -- and we run MAPs all the time. Sure, it's price fixing, but it's price fixing of a sort that everybody does, and it's largely overlooked.
So why was Universal nailed? Because they pissed off Wal-Mart and Best Buy.
You should consider the price fixing settlement a good thing if you happened to have bought a CD at Tower Records or TWE during the period (in which case, you were entitled to a refund), or you enjoy buying your music at Best Buy or Wal-Mart, or if you don't particularly mind the homogenization of the music industry that Best Buy and Wal-Mart have brought about, or if you don't mind that indie record stores are going the way of the dinosaur. As you can probably guess, I don't put myself in that camp, but YMMV.
By the way, the record industry isn't a monopoly any more than the auto industry or ice cream industries are. Lots of Slashdotters say it is because they like the sound of it, but they are mistaken.
"5. The members of the RIAA are still making billions of dollars of profits. I have not heard of any lay offs or losses so their need for special protection seems to be in question."
The record industry has been forced to consolidate due to dropping sales and profits. Remember Columbia Records? Bought by Sony BMG. Geffen? Polygram? Bought by Universal. And, yeah, there have been layoffs. As for losses, just check the earnings reports. Ever notice that unless it's part of a gigantic behemoth (ie. the "Warner" in "Time-Warner") you never see a record company in the Fortune 500? It's a crappy, speculative, low-margin market to be in... net margins are on the order of 10%; meanwhile, Logitech netted something like 35% last year. The only "record company executive" I have ever known ran his own label. He had ten people and paid himself the princely sum of $25K a year. When people "discovered" his stuff via the original Napster, he had to lay off his friends.
Pirate if you like; it's a good way to save money. If you can get an album via P2P rather than via the iTMS, then that's $12 in your pocket. But don't over-rationalize to the point that you get your facts wrong.
"Artists who allow free downloading of their music find that is *INCREASES* sales."
That makes sense. If I'm an unsigned artist, I may as well release my stuff for free, at least to start. It's a good, cheap way to get some publicity in the beginning.
However, this doesn't make it okay to pirate an artist's work if they would rather that you not.
That's the great thing about the free market economy: each of us can opt in. I might choose to give my stuff away for free, or release it under the GPL, or distribute it at a low cost without DRM... whatever best suits my needs. The next guy might choose to release his stuff through a label, or sell it commercially, or put DRM on it. That's his prerogative. Nobody reading this should feel justified in violating that person's rights because I've chosen a different path. Again... there's plenty of free music out there, no need to resort to piracy.
"RIAA members aren't terrified of piracy, they're terrified of competition."
P2P isn't competition any more than the guy selling "fell off the truck" merchandise in the parking lot is competition for Best Buy. The competition to the old school labels is the smaller, non-RIAA affiliated labels (of which there are thousands), and the online labels and stores that are trying out new business models: Magnatune, CDBaby, emusic, and the like. If you choose to patronize these folks, you're showing the RIAA that the the competition is doing a better job and that they need to explore less-restrictive DRM and more flexible pricing. If you're using P2P, you're just showing the RIAA that you're a cheapskate.
"it's been ages since i've seen the articles pertaining to this, but you can read the text of the AHRA online."
It's also known as Title 17, Chapter 10. Here's a copy, for anybody who's interested.
"The AHRA was expressly written to address concerns by copyright interests that people would use recording devices to share recordings with friends. To remedy this in a balanced manner, they charged a small levy on recording devices/media in return for the cartels forfeiting their rights to pursue cases of individual copying as infringing."
You are referring to 1008:
"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."
I believe that you are correct that the specific case of copying a friend or neighbor's tape is exempt from action.
As an aside, many Slashdotters take this "noncommercial" notion and run with it. They state -- incorrectly -- that this makes piracy via P2P legal, as it's just making a copy for 10,000 of one's closest friends. When it became viable to distribute thousands of copies of an item at practically no cash (and thus not requiring that cash be paid for the pirated item), the DMCA closed this loophole.
"I find the phrase "Digital Rights Management" fundamentally flawed. If I have a right to whatever they're trying to regulate, then they shouldn't be regulating it. The correct term would be "Digital Privilage Management.""
The "rights" in this case, of course, refers to the copyright owner, not the consumer. Whether we like it or not, the law does give them a set of rights.
The problem is when DRM prevents the consumer from exercising their fair use rights (and I am talking about actual fair use rights, and not Slashdotters' often fucked-up understanding of fair use). If more people understood fair use, and if the honor system actually worked, then DRM would not be necessary.
"From one of the richest cash companies im the world who owns the Office? Yeah! Pinching pennies, are they?"
Correct. This is exactly how they became so wealthy.
"The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries?"
Brilliant! Now tell the NAACP that "colored people" is an outdated term, and the the ACM that "computing machinery" is pretty archaic, too. And, of course, the AC's note that nobody uses telegraphs anymore, so AT&T need to get with the times.
"I wonder if they ever get confused with the International Federation of the Pornographic Industries?"
Yeah, somebody points that out every time, too.
"Now instead of having a large range of MP3s to choose from I can choose from a limited range of music that is encumbered with DRM. Where do I send my money?...allofmp3.com I guess. I wonder if the music industry will eventually get it?"
The way to really make the music industry "get it" is to use sites like Magnatune and emusic, not the Russian pirate sites.
Magnatune and emusic sell DRM-free music with the artist's permission, and give a hefty cut to the artists; much more than the traditional record companies do.
If you and everybody reading this start supporting efforts like Magnatune and emusic, you'll show the music industry -- record companies and artists -- that there's a real market out there for DRM-free music. They'll be able to expand and sign bigger and better artists and show the traditional record labels some serious competition.
If you just keep giving your money to some Russian site, you're showing the music industry that you're just a pirate, and they'll write you off.
Note that I'm not saying that using Allofmp3 is wrong... if you acknowledge that you don't particularly care if the musicians get paid, then go ahead; no point in wasting your time on Magnatune and emusic which inflate their prices so they can pay the artists. But you won't be sending a particularly productive message to the music industry.
"They were paid to play roles, not for their creative input. They played their roles and now the show is about to be canceled. End of story."
Well said. I should just point out that the composers and songwriters who wrote much of their stuff did receive royalties. If you are simply a performer, and not the person who actually wrote the words or the music, you will likely be paid less. Composers and songwriters have minimum royalties (called mechanicals) set by law; if you're just a performer, you don't have those protections.
"To quote Janis Ian:"
Yes, she does get quoted a lot, since she wrote that essay. Many Slashdotters might not have even heard of her if she hadn't written it. She doesn't mind her stuff being downloaded (I wouldn't either, if I were her, since apparently she's never made any money from record sales, ever). She signed a bad contract when she was a teenager, more than 30 years ago.
Yet lots of musicians do make money in the record industry. Some make a little. A few make a lot. Some are for illegal downloading. Others are against it. Many have foregone the record label route and put their own stuff up for free, or for a charge. Everybody has a different story.
I think the best, and most honest, reason to use P2P to get your music is because you'd simply get something for free rather than pay for it. It's human nature, but apparently many people have a hard time simply acknowledging that they'd like to save money, and that they aren't particularly concerned with the rights of rightsholders.
I am not trying to put words in your mouth, but I think that for many Slashdotters, the thought process goes like this:
Magnatune is their own label and the DRM-free route is a pillar of their business. My understanding about emusic (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the selection is a mix of stuff from bands without a label, and from labels who are willing to give the DRM-free model a try.
I heartily encourage you to give both services a try. If Magnatune and emusic succeed, we can show the major labels that there's a legitimate demand for DRM-free music. If only allofmp3 succeeds, then we show the major labels that we're a bunch of cheap pirates.