"ITUNES is a stop gap measure - because there is NO COMPELLING REASON for anyone ot actually buy music."
A common Slashdot fallacy: "me and my cheap friends have no moral issues with pirating music and can't think of a reason for compensating the labels and musicians for the work they've done. Thus, everybody must think this way."
You'll certainly find many people around here who are with you 100% (particularly the people who've modded your post "insightful"), but don't make the mistake of thinking that everybody has the same moral compass.
When I was 19 I was writing for Phrack and had absolutely no moral issues with hacking, piracy, and the like. As I got older, and I learned more about how society works and how money is a pervasive motivator, my outlook changed. And my generation has a lot of disposable income.
It may very wll be the case that the iTMS is not aimed at the "entertainment wants to be free" crowd; I'm sure that's OK with Steve Jobs if it's OK with you. But it doesn't mean that the concept of paying for music is doomed.
"Netscape is pretty much irrelevant as a brand name these days. They should shut it all down and turn netscape.com into a museum of the internet."
Yet the traffic to their domain is about 4x that of digg's traffic. Most people reading this post would like to get one thousanth of Netscape's traffic.
The Netscape brand may not be particularly hip among the/. crowd, but they're likely making scary amounts of money.
"Nope, per cd. Its been widely reported in the past. Someone who cranks out platinum after platinum might get more, but the average musician gets less."
Can you please indulge me with a citation? Mechanicals are 8.5 cents per song, per statute. There are provisions for negotiating down from that if the composer and lyricist are also the performer, but it's not much; on the order a 25% reduction. Additionally, I have personally spoken to owners of small record companies (we're talking ten-employee outfits here) who've told me that they pay their artists > $1 a CD. Maybe they were lying to me? At any rate, looking forward to your citation.
"You're incorrect. DVDs dwarf box office receipts these days. Many movies don't even hit the black before rentals and DVD sales. And ticket sales are declining recently, people more and more prefer to watch them at home."
Here's my citation for my "half" remark: As DVD sales slow, Hollywood seeks new cash cow. The article actually states "more than half," which implies 60% - 70%. If "dwarf" were accurate as a general rule, I think that's what the article would've stated.
Thanks for the elucidation on the true costs of running an online store. Sounds like you could blow the industry apart by launching your own online store, sell tracks at $0.25, and still make a profit. You just might be in the wrong business!
Thanks for your insight! I wasn't aware that there were so many experts on the retail industry here on Slashdot.
Your plan of selling CDs for $0.50 by burning them to CD-R on demand is a great one, but it requires that everybody, from beginning to end, work for free in producing it. That does happen in some cases, of course, but it's not the industry's current business model. Even Magnatunes, the "we're not evil" record company, will only sell a download for as low as $5 per CD, and "greedy bastards" is not a phrase I'd use to describe Magnatunes.
"There are always producers who will happily work for free" is a common theory, one that was explored a bit by Ayn Rand. It may work in practice, but I sure wouldn't want to try to start a record company on the model that everybody involved would donate their time and expertise. If you can make it work, you'll blow the record industry wide open. Good luck and Godspeed.
You're correct that a CD in a Tyvek sleeve can get down to $0.10 in high enough quantities. We're talking about finished CDs here with jewel cases, inserts, shrinkwrap and Sensormatic tag. Actual finished pricing is closer to a buck.
Agreed that switching to bare CDs in Tyvek with no Sensormatic, etc. could bring manufacturing costs down a lot, but we're talking about the current retail situation.
You're correct that $1 shipping is very liberal. No "trade secrets" involved... ups.com will calculate that stuff for ya, and any logistics company will quote you a drop ship from Asia. $0.10 to bring to port and $0.20 to get to the retailer is more accurate.
"You're overestimating on royalties- top artists get in the range of $.25 per cd, many less."
Huh? Mechanicals alone are 8.5 cents a song, by law. Royalties are paid to singers, songwriters and composers. They add up, and established artists get more. Do you mean $0.25 per song?
Two bucks on advertising and promotion sounds about right. Don't forget the five points or so for price protection. And I believe that you're assuming that everybody who works on the CD will work for free, with studio time being donated. Maybe that business model will work in the future, but in today's market, that would be hard to pull off.
A gold record sells 100K copies. Most records don't go gold, of course. If a CD sells 10K copies and it cost $10K to produce (which is on the low end), that's a buck a CD amortized into the cost.
"A cd typically goes for $15. A DVD costs the same, yet a movie costs 100x+ to produce. Yes, cds are overpriced."
I was of the understanding that DVD sales account for about half of a film's revenue, and that many films have already made back their production costs once the DVD is released. This allows the studios to charge what the market will bear on the DVD, rather than having to absorb the entire production cost of the film. Am I incorrect?
"ANd at a buck a song itunes is as well. $.25 is more the range it should be, especially when you consider they don't pay for manufacturing, transportation (well, there is bandwidth, but its a hell of a lot cheaper), and only have 1 middle man at most."
8.5 cent for mechanicals (if appropriate), another five cents for the performer (which would be awful, awful royalties), five points to the credit card company plus the $0.30 transaction fee (let's cut that to $0.10 if the customer buys three tracks in a day), five cents or so to cover for the expenses of producing the track, a few cents for bandwidth, ten points gross to the online store, ten points gross to the record company. Sorry, not seeing how you can squeeze that into $0.25. Can you break it down for me?
"They're both vastly overpriced. If there was actually any competition you'd see prices much lower."
How low do you believe a CD can be sold for, profitably? I'm talking selling at retail, with a finished CD with the 5% disti markup and the 15% - 20% retail markup. Assume the standard buck or so for materials, one or two bucks for royalties, and assume that everybody involved in getting the CD produced and to the store will insist on getting paid. Also, please factor in freight allowances, merchandising, price protection and the other channel expenses. Thanks in advance... looking forward to your insight.
Just to amplify what you stated: Bob Carter, the first scientist quoted in the article, is a contributor to Tech Central Station, a right-wing web site that's sponsored by, among others, ExxonMobil. TCS is run by a PR firm and publishes articles tailored to fit the interests of the sponsors. Wikipedia has more. Mr. Carter is currently working on a deep sea drilling project. My guess is that it involves drilling for oil.
"But it seems Flickr's focus is on the sharing aspect rather than the photography aspect."
I don't get that impression at all. I still quite clearly remember being told, upon signing up, that my photos would not show up on the home page until my account had been manually reviewed to confirm that I was uploading photos, and not screen shots or random art. That made it quite clear that flickr is about photos.
"I expect the policy will be clarified to allow things like screenshots from virtual worlds, but disallow things like movie posters and screenshots from desktop applications."
God, I hope not. What makes flickr so cool is that it's about photos. As many others have pointed out, generic image-hosting sites are prevalent. Second Life users can take their pick.
I think a lot of people who've read the article are making a few assumptions:
The RIAA has an agenda to promote, and thus, the things that they say should not be trusted.
The things that BigChampagne state are factual, and can be trusted.
The RIAA probably believes that it's in their interest to state that file trading is flat, as their agenda is to curb piracy and increase sales.
But keep in mind that BigChampagne is a for-profit company. Tracking P2P usage is what they do. They generate reports on P2P usage, which they sell for thousands of dollars. "File trading is flat" would not be an exciting story for them. "More people are using P2P than ever before" is great for them. It makes it clear that there's a continued need for their services, and that customers should continue to pay them to get reports on the growth of the P2P industry.
The point here is that everybody is liable to spin and distort things to support their own interests (anybody who has children already understands this). Even "good guys" like BigChampagne.
"I think the derives from a failure to understand that the majority of illegal downloads *would never have otherwise been a legal purchase*."
Failure to understand, or failure to acknowledge? It's fun to say "The RIAA is a bunch of doodyheads" and all, but I think they're capable of hiring people who tell them the truth. How they spin this, however, is a different matter. I think it's very dangerous to assume that the collective employees of the RIAA are simply too stupid to understand this. Underestimating your enemy is a big mistake.
At any rate, "would not have otherwise been a purchase" is a tautology. Nowadays, many people don't purchase music not because it's not worth the money, but because the general idea isn't something they'd consider, whereas a generation before, this wouldn't even be an issue. Their concern is that the new generation simply doesn't consider purchasing music to be worth serious consideration. Why would they, when music is readily available for free? The RIAA is not working on the micro level (let's incent 15-year-old Johnny to buy that track instead of downloading it) but on the macro level (attempting to maintain the belief that music is worth paying for).
"In reality of course it simply means the problem has maximized and naturally, with no relation to the RIAA in any way, the number of users has levelled out."
If I understand you correctly, you're of the strong belief that the various carrots and sticks (the lawsuits, the education programs, the growing availability of legit only music), have not had any effect? They have not caused a single person to stop pirating?
This sounds preposterous to me, but you used phrases like "of course" and "no relation to the RIAA in any way" so you sound pretty sure of yourself. Am I misunderstanding you?
You probably already have good reason to distrust the CRIA, but just for what it's worth, when companies report sales for stuff like this (industry rollups and the like), they don't bother going through the trouble of bringing in auditors. It's expensive and, frankly, pointless for this sort of purpose. Since, as you've pointed out, you're not an accountant or trained in business, I can see why that phrase might sound weird. Nonetheless it's par for the course.
The article stated that they "enjoyed lunch and drinks at Canadian Heritage's expense in a private dining room at Le Panache restaurant."
Here's some info on Le Panache. Entrees are $24 - $29 Canadian, which is about $22 - $26 US. That's an average price in a major metro area. But, that's probably a lot of money to the sort of Slashdot readers who clicked on this item -- the same sort who think that $0.99 for a music track is way too expensive.
The federal government holding some sort of function "at taxpayers' expense" (another quote from the summary), particularly one where food and drinks are involved, is certainly not news here in the real world. But if I found that my lawmakers were opting to choose a restaurant in the sub-$30 range for their fetes, I'd be pleasantly surprised.
"Sure, like the time the RIAA sued a dead granny who never had a computer even when she was alive."
Do you believe this was deliberate, or a mistake? If the former (which is my opinion), then that's a huge blunder, no doubt about it. Luckily for the dead grannies of the world, the RIAA hasn't made that mistake more than a handful of times. If the latter, then yeah, that fits with your "just cares about screwing anybody they can."
"Or the time they turned their lawers on a 13 year old girl who "allegedly downloaded music off a P2P service..."."
If you're talking about the same case I'm talking about, she did download music from Kazaa. LOTS of it. They acknowledged it. The defense shared by her and her mother was that since they had paid for the upgraded ad-free version of Kazaa, they thought that this legitimized the downloading. In US civil law, "I thought it was legal" is not often an adequate defense.
It would be a huge loophole if 13-year-olds were exempt from civil liability? That would give every household with a kid a free ride for copyright violation and breaking other laws. Just tell the lawyers that the 13-year-old did it! This would be great for downloading music and movies and the like, but not so great when some yahoo with a minor in the house used that loophole to make life unpleasant for you. If a 13-year-old -- either a real 13-year-old, or "by proxy" -- tried to scam me on ebay or otherwise do me harm, I'd want the law on my side. Would you?
"I agree that music is even on iTunes still overpriced. It is my feeling that music should be offered for free by default. It costs me NOTHING to turn on the radio - only my time - and I can hear the music for absolute free there."
This raises an interesting questions. If the iTMS is really no better than the radio, and the value of iTMS music is zero, since it costs you zero to listen to the radio -- then why does the iTMS exist at all? Or, more importantly, why has it been a huge success? Isn't the radio good enough?
A similar claim is "P2P is just like the radio!". This raises the similar question of why P2P exists in the first place... it must fulfill some desire that radio does not.
Anyway, I'd like to hear D'Nell's "This Thing" right now, and in CD quality. In fact, once I've heard it, I just might want to listen to it again. Can my radio accomplish this for me?
"Just play devil's advocate here, but how is this different then riding at the front of the bus? Both are done endangering one self, both result in personal gain, both are done through ideologies of corrupt or broken systems, both are (were) equally illegal, and both have their martyrs and their advocates. Just as riding at the front of the bus "disserviced" the people who "rightfully owned" that location, downloading a song "disservices" the artist which "rightfully owns" all uses of that IP. Both situations masked the truth that it was the corrupt system that was screwing people over, not the people being disserviced, nor the people who were disservicing them."
Wow. Ocasionally when somebody goes off on the piracy-as-civil-disobedience tangent, I jokingly tell them that, yes, their actions are right up there with the Montgomery Freedom March. But now somebody has actually done it... compared P2Ping a movie to Rosa Parks' brave actions.
If you believe that this is a valid comparison, find somebody who was involved in the Civil Rights movement. Depending on where you live, it might not be too hard. Show them your collection of torrented DVDs. Show them the music on your iPod and proudly point out that the musicians did not get one red cent from you. And then tell them that you believe that downloading that media was comparable -- even in the slightest way -- to the men and women who fought for racial equality in the 1960s. The men and women who faced lynch mobs. Who faced attacks by police armed with dogs and water hoses. Who had to cope with the utter humiliation of facing down an establishment that didn't even respect them as human beings.
Take careful note of what they say. My guess is that you will hear the phrase "fucking spoiled brat" or its equivalent.
"Conversely, the annual millions radio stations pay out in licensing fees for the privledge of giving artists free air time could go towards properly staffing studios. Same for restaraunts, taxi companies, and every establishment that pays a fee for a radio playing in the background."
Interesting idea, but I'm not sure I follow. Those licensing fees go directly to the musicians. Licensing is managed by BMI and ASCAP, two performing right societies run by and for artists. The record companies see none of it.
Do you think that musicians are getting a free ride here, and the money would be better used to pay employees of movie studios? I know that many recording artists are indeed rich and greedy, and perhaps don't "deserve" these royalties, but those ASCAP/BMI royalties are often money that smaller bands need to pay the rent. I can't get my head around how it would be more equitable to give these royalties to workers in the film industry. Can you connect the dots for me?
"The real deal in all this mess is that content creators "REALLY DON'T NEED THE *AA ANYMORE" since for not much more than a data center contract, any record label, including independents, can set up their own music distribution system over the Internet."
Indeed. Magnatune is a great example. They've stated that their top artists can make hundreds of dollars a year. The catch is, of course, that to have your work published by Magnatune, you need to come up with the recording yourself -- unlike a typical recording contract, where the record company funds the recording, but they get the rights to the recording. And Magnatune is great for music fans, too -- you can pay as low as $5 for a CD if you like; you can share it, and it's free from DRM.
So, Magnatune is great for musicians who have the means and ability to create their own recordings, and who are satisfied with making hundreds of dollars a year. And it's great for music fans who want to pay about half of what they would on iTunes, and who don't like DRM -- in other words, pretty much everybody reading this.
Why Magnatunes is not hugely popular with either musicians or the general public is, as the math textbooks like to say, an exercise left to the reader.
"There totalitarianistic utopia has ended but they refuse to seek out new means to an end. Do they realy believe a threat of "noones gonna make movies anymore if they can only become millionaires instead of multi-millionaires" is gonna work?"
I think the effect of piracy on the filmmaking industry is more subtle than potential multi-millionaires only becoming millionaires. They deal with the revenue loss in more ordinary ways, like shooting more projects in Canada, resulting in fewer jobs available for crews in the USA (most of whom are not even close to being millionaires). Or, spending less money on special effects, which means fewer jobs for people who work in the FX business (likewise, your typical worker in the FX business is not a millionaire). However, as it's unlikely that anybody reading this works in the film industry or knows somebody who does, I don't think this is an issue for most.
"The EFF is painting a picture of people who are pirating for teh sake of pirating becauase they feel it's the right thing to do. None of the people I know who actively copy movies and songs have every mentioned once screwing any institution. For them it's "I can watch this new movie at home, on my big screen TV, with my popcorn and drink and not fork over $25 for my wife and I to go to a theater and probably have a better experience" or "This let's me have tons of music I wouldn't go buy just so I can listen to it and see if I like it" and things like that. There's no magical army of "copyfighters" out there. Just people who want free media."
Agreed 100%. Everybody I know who's pirated has done it to save money. I have never once heard any of my friends utter something to the effect of "I'm sticking it to the man" or "I'm committing civil disobedience" or the like.
I think that wrapping it in the clothes of a social revolution makes it more appealing for some people than simply stating that they want to save money. There's nothing wrong with being cheap. If people need to come up with ideologies in order to use the tools they have to save money, then they're thinking too hard.
"Piracy is when someone actually takes something of value and realizes the value of it themselves."
Interesting. When I type "dict piracy" into the Firefox browswer bar, the relevant definitions are:
The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy.
the unauthorized copying, distribution, or use of another's production (as a film) esp. in infringement of a copyright b : the unauthorized use, interception, or receipt of encoded communications (as satellite cable programming) esp. to avoid paying fees for use
Many folks claim that these definitions of the word "piracy" are new; perhaps even invented by people who make their money off of ideas. This is not the case. The OED shows it going back some 300+ years; here's a quote from Justice William Story in 1841's Folsom v. Marsh:
"It is certainly not necessary, to constitute an invasion of copyright, that the whole of a work should be copied, or even a large portion of it, in form or in substance. If so much is taken, that the value of the original is sensibly diminished, or the labors of the original author are substantially to an injurious extent appropriated by another, that is sufficient, in point of law, to constitute a piracy pro tanto."
(pro tanto means "only to that extent.")
It's great that you are pro-sharing; it's passion like yours that will change the world. But attempting to redefine the word "piracy" may not be your best bet if you're aiming for credibility.
"Isn't it ironic that hollywood is seeing some of their biggest profits in ages..."
I wasn't aware that the film industry profitability is at an all-time high. Where did you read that?
"For those in NYC, how often have you seen "bootleggers" in front if the federal building, state office buildings even near police precints selling pirated copies. Why doesn't hollywood focus on finding the sources of these centers and shutting them down."
The ability to walk and chew gum at the same time may be more prevalent than believed. With all the "why don't they go after the real pirates" talk around here, it's surprising to see the results whenever an item makes it to Slashdot regarding shutting down Chinese pirates, or other large-scale pirating of physical media. There's the usual screaming of bloody murder; common reactions are that the Chinese DVD factory owners are just trying to make a living; pirated DVDs are simply part of the culture, the US government shouldn't be pressuring China, the guys were just helping poor people who can't afford to pay $20 for genuine DVDs, and so on.
Here's a release that was just posted today (PDF, sorry):
And here's a release from last month about shutting down a flea market in San Diego in which pirated DVDs were sold (again, PDF, sorry).
When you wrote "Why doesn't hollywood focus on finding the sources of these centers and shutting them down" did you mean that you don't think the MPAA is doing enough here?
Slashdot Mirror
"ITUNES is a stop gap measure - because there is NO COMPELLING REASON for anyone ot actually buy music."
A common Slashdot fallacy: "me and my cheap friends have no moral issues with pirating music and can't think of a reason for compensating the labels and musicians for the work they've done. Thus, everybody must think this way."
You'll certainly find many people around here who are with you 100% (particularly the people who've modded your post "insightful"), but don't make the mistake of thinking that everybody has the same moral compass.
When I was 19 I was writing for Phrack and had absolutely no moral issues with hacking, piracy, and the like. As I got older, and I learned more about how society works and how money is a pervasive motivator, my outlook changed. And my generation has a lot of disposable income.
It may very wll be the case that the iTMS is not aimed at the "entertainment wants to be free" crowd; I'm sure that's OK with Steve Jobs if it's OK with you. But it doesn't mean that the concept of paying for music is doomed.
"Netscape is pretty much irrelevant as a brand name these days. They should shut it all down and turn netscape.com into a museum of the internet."
Yet the traffic to their domain is about 4x that of digg's traffic. Most people reading this post would like to get one thousanth of Netscape's traffic.
The Netscape brand may not be particularly hip among the /. crowd, but they're likely making scary amounts of money.
"The menu in iPod is identical to the list view in NeXTStep by NeXT , now part of Apple, and predating anything Creative did with its player menus."
Cool. If you can find any MP3 players that ran on NextStep and which were launched before Creative's, I think you've found some prior art!
"Nope, per cd. Its been widely reported in the past. Someone who cranks out platinum after platinum might get more, but the average musician gets less."
Can you please indulge me with a citation? Mechanicals are 8.5 cents per song, per statute. There are provisions for negotiating down from that if the composer and lyricist are also the performer, but it's not much; on the order a 25% reduction. Additionally, I have personally spoken to owners of small record companies (we're talking ten-employee outfits here) who've told me that they pay their artists > $1 a CD. Maybe they were lying to me? At any rate, looking forward to your citation.
"You're incorrect. DVDs dwarf box office receipts these days. Many movies don't even hit the black before rentals and DVD sales. And ticket sales are declining recently, people more and more prefer to watch them at home."
Here's my citation for my "half" remark: As DVD sales slow, Hollywood seeks new cash cow. The article actually states "more than half," which implies 60% - 70%. If "dwarf" were accurate as a general rule, I think that's what the article would've stated.
Thanks for the elucidation on the true costs of running an online store. Sounds like you could blow the industry apart by launching your own online store, sell tracks at $0.25, and still make a profit. You just might be in the wrong business!
Thanks for your insight! I wasn't aware that there were so many experts on the retail industry here on Slashdot.
Your plan of selling CDs for $0.50 by burning them to CD-R on demand is a great one, but it requires that everybody, from beginning to end, work for free in producing it. That does happen in some cases, of course, but it's not the industry's current business model. Even Magnatunes, the "we're not evil" record company, will only sell a download for as low as $5 per CD, and "greedy bastards" is not a phrase I'd use to describe Magnatunes.
"There are always producers who will happily work for free" is a common theory, one that was explored a bit by Ayn Rand. It may work in practice, but I sure wouldn't want to try to start a record company on the model that everybody involved would donate their time and expertise. If you can make it work, you'll blow the record industry wide open. Good luck and Godspeed.
Thanks for the reply!
"A cd costs about 10 cents to manufacture."
You're correct that a CD in a Tyvek sleeve can get down to $0.10 in high enough quantities. We're talking about finished CDs here with jewel cases, inserts, shrinkwrap and Sensormatic tag. Actual finished pricing is closer to a buck.
Agreed that switching to bare CDs in Tyvek with no Sensormatic, etc. could bring manufacturing costs down a lot, but we're talking about the current retail situation.
You're correct that $1 shipping is very liberal. No "trade secrets" involved... ups.com will calculate that stuff for ya, and any logistics company will quote you a drop ship from Asia. $0.10 to bring to port and $0.20 to get to the retailer is more accurate.
"You're overestimating on royalties- top artists get in the range of $.25 per cd, many less."
Huh? Mechanicals alone are 8.5 cents a song, by law. Royalties are paid to singers, songwriters and composers. They add up, and established artists get more. Do you mean $0.25 per song?
Two bucks on advertising and promotion sounds about right. Don't forget the five points or so for price protection. And I believe that you're assuming that everybody who works on the CD will work for free, with studio time being donated. Maybe that business model will work in the future, but in today's market, that would be hard to pull off.
A gold record sells 100K copies. Most records don't go gold, of course. If a CD sells 10K copies and it cost $10K to produce (which is on the low end), that's a buck a CD amortized into the cost.
"A cd typically goes for $15. A DVD costs the same, yet a movie costs 100x+ to produce. Yes, cds are overpriced."
I was of the understanding that DVD sales account for about half of a film's revenue, and that many films have already made back their production costs once the DVD is released. This allows the studios to charge what the market will bear on the DVD, rather than having to absorb the entire production cost of the film. Am I incorrect?
"ANd at a buck a song itunes is as well. $.25 is more the range it should be, especially when you consider they don't pay for manufacturing, transportation (well, there is bandwidth, but its a hell of a lot cheaper), and only have 1 middle man at most."
8.5 cent for mechanicals (if appropriate), another five cents for the performer (which would be awful, awful royalties), five points to the credit card company plus the $0.30 transaction fee (let's cut that to $0.10 if the customer buys three tracks in a day), five cents or so to cover for the expenses of producing the track, a few cents for bandwidth, ten points gross to the online store, ten points gross to the record company. Sorry, not seeing how you can squeeze that into $0.25. Can you break it down for me?
"They're both vastly overpriced. If there was actually any competition you'd see prices much lower."
How low do you believe a CD can be sold for, profitably? I'm talking selling at retail, with a finished CD with the 5% disti markup and the 15% - 20% retail markup. Assume the standard buck or so for materials, one or two bucks for royalties, and assume that everybody involved in getting the CD produced and to the store will insist on getting paid. Also, please factor in freight allowances, merchandising, price protection and the other channel expenses. Thanks in advance... looking forward to your insight.
Just to amplify what you stated: Bob Carter, the first scientist quoted in the article, is a contributor to Tech Central Station, a right-wing web site that's sponsored by, among others, ExxonMobil. TCS is run by a PR firm and publishes articles tailored to fit the interests of the sponsors. Wikipedia has more. Mr. Carter is currently working on a deep sea drilling project. My guess is that it involves drilling for oil.
Here are the articles he's written for TCS. I do not trust him to have an objective opinion on global warming.
"But it seems Flickr's focus is on the sharing aspect rather than the photography aspect."
I don't get that impression at all. I still quite clearly remember being told, upon signing up, that my photos would not show up on the home page until my account had been manually reviewed to confirm that I was uploading photos, and not screen shots or random art. That made it quite clear that flickr is about photos.
"I expect the policy will be clarified to allow things like screenshots from virtual worlds, but disallow things like movie posters and screenshots from desktop applications."
God, I hope not. What makes flickr so cool is that it's about photos. As many others have pointed out, generic image-hosting sites are prevalent. Second Life users can take their pick.
I think a lot of people who've read the article are making a few assumptions:
The RIAA probably believes that it's in their interest to state that file trading is flat, as their agenda is to curb piracy and increase sales.
But keep in mind that BigChampagne is a for-profit company. Tracking P2P usage is what they do. They generate reports on P2P usage, which they sell for thousands of dollars. "File trading is flat" would not be an exciting story for them. "More people are using P2P than ever before" is great for them. It makes it clear that there's a continued need for their services, and that customers should continue to pay them to get reports on the growth of the P2P industry.
The point here is that everybody is liable to spin and distort things to support their own interests (anybody who has children already understands this). Even "good guys" like BigChampagne.
"I think the derives from a failure to understand that the majority of illegal downloads *would never have otherwise been a legal purchase*."
Failure to understand, or failure to acknowledge? It's fun to say "The RIAA is a bunch of doodyheads" and all, but I think they're capable of hiring people who tell them the truth. How they spin this, however, is a different matter. I think it's very dangerous to assume that the collective employees of the RIAA are simply too stupid to understand this. Underestimating your enemy is a big mistake.
At any rate, "would not have otherwise been a purchase" is a tautology. Nowadays, many people don't purchase music not because it's not worth the money, but because the general idea isn't something they'd consider, whereas a generation before, this wouldn't even be an issue. Their concern is that the new generation simply doesn't consider purchasing music to be worth serious consideration. Why would they, when music is readily available for free? The RIAA is not working on the micro level (let's incent 15-year-old Johnny to buy that track instead of downloading it) but on the macro level (attempting to maintain the belief that music is worth paying for).
"In reality of course it simply means the problem has maximized and naturally, with no relation to the RIAA in any way, the number of users has levelled out."
If I understand you correctly, you're of the strong belief that the various carrots and sticks (the lawsuits, the education programs, the growing availability of legit only music), have not had any effect? They have not caused a single person to stop pirating?
This sounds preposterous to me, but you used phrases like "of course" and "no relation to the RIAA in any way" so you sound pretty sure of yourself. Am I misunderstanding you?
You probably already have good reason to distrust the CRIA, but just for what it's worth, when companies report sales for stuff like this (industry rollups and the like), they don't bother going through the trouble of bringing in auditors. It's expensive and, frankly, pointless for this sort of purpose. Since, as you've pointed out, you're not an accountant or trained in business, I can see why that phrase might sound weird. Nonetheless it's par for the course.
The article stated that they "enjoyed lunch and drinks at Canadian Heritage's expense in a private dining room at Le Panache restaurant."
Here's some info on Le Panache. Entrees are $24 - $29 Canadian, which is about $22 - $26 US. That's an average price in a major metro area. But, that's probably a lot of money to the sort of Slashdot readers who clicked on this item -- the same sort who think that $0.99 for a music track is way too expensive.
The federal government holding some sort of function "at taxpayers' expense" (another quote from the summary), particularly one where food and drinks are involved, is certainly not news here in the real world. But if I found that my lawmakers were opting to choose a restaurant in the sub-$30 range for their fetes, I'd be pleasantly surprised.
"Yes, Mr Stallman, the Prime Minister would love to meet with you but I'm afraid he will be busy washing his hair that day."
A tactical mistake. Having met RMS, I suspect that hair-washing is something to which he does not attach particular importance.
s/former/latter in my first paragraph.
"Sure, like the time the RIAA sued a dead granny who never had a computer even when she was alive."
Do you believe this was deliberate, or a mistake? If the former (which is my opinion), then that's a huge blunder, no doubt about it. Luckily for the dead grannies of the world, the RIAA hasn't made that mistake more than a handful of times. If the latter, then yeah, that fits with your "just cares about screwing anybody they can."
"Or the time they turned their lawers on a 13 year old girl who "allegedly downloaded music off a P2P service..."."
If you're talking about the same case I'm talking about, she did download music from Kazaa. LOTS of it. They acknowledged it. The defense shared by her and her mother was that since they had paid for the upgraded ad-free version of Kazaa, they thought that this legitimized the downloading. In US civil law, "I thought it was legal" is not often an adequate defense.
It would be a huge loophole if 13-year-olds were exempt from civil liability? That would give every household with a kid a free ride for copyright violation and breaking other laws. Just tell the lawyers that the 13-year-old did it! This would be great for downloading music and movies and the like, but not so great when some yahoo with a minor in the house used that loophole to make life unpleasant for you. If a 13-year-old -- either a real 13-year-old, or "by proxy" -- tried to scam me on ebay or otherwise do me harm, I'd want the law on my side. Would you?
"I agree that music is even on iTunes still overpriced. It is my feeling that music should be offered for free by default. It costs me NOTHING to turn on the radio - only my time - and I can hear the music for absolute free there."
This raises an interesting questions. If the iTMS is really no better than the radio, and the value of iTMS music is zero, since it costs you zero to listen to the radio -- then why does the iTMS exist at all? Or, more importantly, why has it been a huge success? Isn't the radio good enough?
A similar claim is "P2P is just like the radio!". This raises the similar question of why P2P exists in the first place... it must fulfill some desire that radio does not.
Anyway, I'd like to hear D'Nell's "This Thing" right now, and in CD quality. In fact, once I've heard it, I just might want to listen to it again. Can my radio accomplish this for me?
"Just play devil's advocate here, but how is this different then riding at the front of the bus? Both are done endangering one self, both result in personal gain, both are done through ideologies of corrupt or broken systems, both are (were) equally illegal, and both have their martyrs and their advocates. Just as riding at the front of the bus "disserviced" the people who "rightfully owned" that location, downloading a song "disservices" the artist which "rightfully owns" all uses of that IP. Both situations masked the truth that it was the corrupt system that was screwing people over, not the people being disserviced, nor the people who were disservicing them."
Wow. Ocasionally when somebody goes off on the piracy-as-civil-disobedience tangent, I jokingly tell them that, yes, their actions are right up there with the Montgomery Freedom March. But now somebody has actually done it... compared P2Ping a movie to Rosa Parks' brave actions.
If you believe that this is a valid comparison, find somebody who was involved in the Civil Rights movement. Depending on where you live, it might not be too hard. Show them your collection of torrented DVDs. Show them the music on your iPod and proudly point out that the musicians did not get one red cent from you. And then tell them that you believe that downloading that media was comparable -- even in the slightest way -- to the men and women who fought for racial equality in the 1960s. The men and women who faced lynch mobs. Who faced attacks by police armed with dogs and water hoses. Who had to cope with the utter humiliation of facing down an establishment that didn't even respect them as human beings.
Take careful note of what they say. My guess is that you will hear the phrase "fucking spoiled brat" or its equivalent.
"Conversely, the annual millions radio stations pay out in licensing fees for the privledge of giving artists free air time could go towards properly staffing studios. Same for restaraunts, taxi companies, and every establishment that pays a fee for a radio playing in the background."
Interesting idea, but I'm not sure I follow. Those licensing fees go directly to the musicians. Licensing is managed by BMI and ASCAP, two performing right societies run by and for artists. The record companies see none of it.
Do you think that musicians are getting a free ride here, and the money would be better used to pay employees of movie studios? I know that many recording artists are indeed rich and greedy, and perhaps don't "deserve" these royalties, but those ASCAP/BMI royalties are often money that smaller bands need to pay the rent. I can't get my head around how it would be more equitable to give these royalties to workers in the film industry. Can you connect the dots for me?
"The real deal in all this mess is that content creators "REALLY DON'T NEED THE *AA ANYMORE" since for not much more than a data center contract, any record label, including independents, can set up their own music distribution system over the Internet."
Indeed. Magnatune is a great example. They've stated that their top artists can make hundreds of dollars a year. The catch is, of course, that to have your work published by Magnatune, you need to come up with the recording yourself -- unlike a typical recording contract, where the record company funds the recording, but they get the rights to the recording. And Magnatune is great for music fans, too -- you can pay as low as $5 for a CD if you like; you can share it, and it's free from DRM.
So, Magnatune is great for musicians who have the means and ability to create their own recordings, and who are satisfied with making hundreds of dollars a year. And it's great for music fans who want to pay about half of what they would on iTunes, and who don't like DRM -- in other words, pretty much everybody reading this.
Why Magnatunes is not hugely popular with either musicians or the general public is, as the math textbooks like to say, an exercise left to the reader.
"There totalitarianistic utopia has ended but they refuse to seek out new means to an end. Do they realy believe a threat of "noones gonna make movies anymore if they can only become millionaires instead of multi-millionaires" is gonna work?"
I think the effect of piracy on the filmmaking industry is more subtle than potential multi-millionaires only becoming millionaires. They deal with the revenue loss in more ordinary ways, like shooting more projects in Canada, resulting in fewer jobs available for crews in the USA (most of whom are not even close to being millionaires). Or, spending less money on special effects, which means fewer jobs for people who work in the FX business (likewise, your typical worker in the FX business is not a millionaire). However, as it's unlikely that anybody reading this works in the film industry or knows somebody who does, I don't think this is an issue for most.
"The EFF is painting a picture of people who are pirating for teh sake of pirating becauase they feel it's the right thing to do. None of the people I know who actively copy movies and songs have every mentioned once screwing any institution. For them it's "I can watch this new movie at home, on my big screen TV, with my popcorn and drink and not fork over $25 for my wife and I to go to a theater and probably have a better experience" or "This let's me have tons of music I wouldn't go buy just so I can listen to it and see if I like it" and things like that. There's no magical army of "copyfighters" out there. Just people who want free media."
Agreed 100%. Everybody I know who's pirated has done it to save money. I have never once heard any of my friends utter something to the effect of "I'm sticking it to the man" or "I'm committing civil disobedience" or the like.
I think that wrapping it in the clothes of a social revolution makes it more appealing for some people than simply stating that they want to save money. There's nothing wrong with being cheap. If people need to come up with ideologies in order to use the tools they have to save money, then they're thinking too hard.
"Piracy is when someone actually takes something of value and realizes the value of it themselves."
Interesting. When I type "dict piracy" into the Firefox browswer bar, the relevant definitions are:
The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy.
the unauthorized copying, distribution, or use of another's production (as a film) esp. in infringement of a copyright b : the unauthorized use, interception, or receipt of encoded communications (as satellite cable programming) esp. to avoid paying fees for use
Many folks claim that these definitions of the word "piracy" are new; perhaps even invented by people who make their money off of ideas. This is not the case. The OED shows it going back some 300+ years; here's a quote from Justice William Story in 1841's Folsom v. Marsh:
"It is certainly not necessary, to constitute an invasion of copyright, that the whole of a work should be copied, or even a large portion of it, in form or in substance. If so much is taken, that the value of the original is sensibly diminished, or the labors of the original author are substantially to an injurious extent appropriated by another, that is sufficient, in point of law, to constitute a piracy pro tanto."
(pro tanto means "only to that extent.")
It's great that you are pro-sharing; it's passion like yours that will change the world. But attempting to redefine the word "piracy" may not be your best bet if you're aiming for credibility.
"Isn't it ironic that hollywood is seeing some of their biggest profits in ages..."
I wasn't aware that the film industry profitability is at an all-time high. Where did you read that?
"For those in NYC, how often have you seen "bootleggers" in front if the federal building, state office buildings even near police precints selling pirated copies. Why doesn't hollywood focus on finding the sources of these centers and shutting them down."
The ability to walk and chew gum at the same time may be more prevalent than believed. With all the "why don't they go after the real pirates" talk around here, it's surprising to see the results whenever an item makes it to Slashdot regarding shutting down Chinese pirates, or other large-scale pirating of physical media. There's the usual screaming of bloody murder; common reactions are that the Chinese DVD factory owners are just trying to make a living; pirated DVDs are simply part of the culture, the US government shouldn't be pressuring China, the guys were just helping poor people who can't afford to pay $20 for genuine DVDs, and so on.
Here's a release that was just posted today (PDF, sorry):
Anti-Piracy Officers Seize 283 Optical Disc Burners From Movie Pirate in Penang
And here's a release from last month about shutting down a flea market in San Diego in which pirated DVDs were sold (again, PDF, sorry).
When you wrote "Why doesn't hollywood focus on finding the sources of these centers and shutting them down" did you mean that you don't think the MPAA is doing enough here?
Agreed. We've probably all heard this one:
Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick Two.
With women, it's:
Sexy, Smart, Sane. Pick Two.
Although, sometimes "fast, cheap, good" also applies to women...