I, and most of my peers, have downloaded plenty of illegal music in our day. Now that the P2P services are getting worse and worse, and the legal services are getting more and more enticing, we're making the switch. I, for one, spend at least $30 a month on the iTMS each month. I do this not because I may have downloaded a P2P track here or there, but because I like music. This is not a cause-and-effect relationship.
On the other hand, my relatives over the age of 50, many of whom do not have computers and thus have never used a P2P service, do not buy a lot of music. So, in my little group, our results match those of the survey.
This is a second-order relationship: Younger people buy more music. Younger people tend to be more wired. Younger people who are online and who like music are likely to have used a P2P service at some point. This is the very psychographic that the online music stores are targetting. In other words, of course the generation of younger online music listeners is going to be the first to flock to the legal stores.
"Seriously, with quality services such as iTunes out there, what legitimate reasons do people have to download mass quantities of music they haven't paid for?"
A common excuse around here is that a buck is still too high. It commonly goes like this: "if only the record companies would sell those tracks for $0.75 or $0.50, I'd buy them!" This is often accompanied by a claim that Apple and or the record labels "just don't get it," despite the fact that the iTMS has been a fantastically wild success by any measure.
One thing I'm not sure about is whether the "they just don't get that it's wrong to sell a track for a buck" crowd really is saying that because they really can't afford a buck, or if it's a nice reason to allow them to comfortably continue their pirating ways.
"And no matter how powerful the argument, the industry believes that every single time you download something, they lose a sale. And that's that."
Mistake #1 is underestimating your enemy's intelligence. It's an important distinction: the record companies like to play it off like each illegal download is a lost sale, but that does not mean that they believe it to be so. You can be sure that they've read the same surveys we have and are aware that while some percentage of illegal downloads equate to lost sales, that "some" factor is still too high for them.
Similarly, what Bill Gates says about Linux is not what he actually thinks about Linux.
"This is something everyone knows, yet the RIAA still hasn't gotten wind of. Users would gladly pay for songs if they were sufficiently cheap and instantly available. Look at iTunes."
I believe the RIAA is aware of iTunes. It would not exist if Steve Jobs and the record company hadn't come to terms several years back. Now, 50 million downloads later, the record companies are laughing all the way to the bank. The iTMS is a retailer, just like Amazon, Wal-Mart, or Tower Records, and the iTMS is a particularly valuable sales channel for record conmpanies, RIAA-affiliated and indies alike.
"I know this is an over simplification, but this really is nuts."
You're not the first person to be confused by this. The first step to understanding it is to remember that, unfortunately, most artists and record companies are for-profit entities and need to make sales -- it's not just about publicity. Publicity is the means to the end.
Piracy is, generally speaking, a substitute for buying music.
Radio airplay is, generally speaking, an inducement to buy music.
"So if a regular Joe spreads the word about a new song and induces many thousands of random people listen to it for free it's theft, but if a radio DJ does the exact same thing he gets paid? Riiight."
The goal of record companies is, sadly, to make money. If I've already procured an MP3 of a song from Joe, I don't need to buy it -- I already have it. The record company (and the artist) make nothing. What, I'm going to voluntarily buy a copy of the album I've pirated, or go see the band in concert? Not bloody likely.
However, there have been countless times that I've heard a song on XM and subsequently hunted it down on iTunes. When I did this, both the record company and the artist made money -- in fact, the artist made a little bit when the song was played on the radio.
If publicity and exposure were the Alpha and the Omega and record companies and artists did not need to worry about making sales, then your logic would make perfect sense. There are plenty of unsigned bands who do freely use P2P services to distribute sample tracks. But if the intrinsic value of radio airplay is still boggling you, put yourself in the shoes of these bands and think about whether you'd also like some radio exposure in addition to all the kids P2Ping your stuff. Whether we like it or not, radio airplay is a big deal to up and coming artists.
"Imagine a corner of that stupid thing digging into your leg. No thanks."
I played with a prototype of this a few months back. It was quite obvious that it was intended to go around one's neck -- I don't think pocketability was even a concern for the designers, for the reasons you mentioned.
If you're specifically looking for a player to put in your pocket, you're right -- this isn't the product for you. But it looks pretty darn cool as a pendant.
"Maybe the congressman should disclose in who's pocket he is."
He's a Republican from Texas, and is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. For Timo and our other friends in the UK: put together "Texas" and "Energy" and you have "oil." He worked in the oil industry before he was elected to congress. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the oil industry is his top contributor -- they gave him nearly a quarter million bucks in 2004.
In an interview on NPR, he stated that he wanted to collect the raw data so that he could pass it along to his own "experts" -- that is, scientists in the employ of oil companies. In other words, he wants to use the scientists' own data against them.
" The appointment of a Piracy Czar during a time of war betrays monied interests. Especially considering the current administration's propaganda regarding terrorism. It is like appointing a Jaywalking Czar during a bout of gang violence."
The important thing here is that the goal of our country's fight against piracy is to make money. Let's face it -- our government is greedy, and wants to get more tax dollars from the companies that produce intellectual property. This "time of war" is costing our government billions, and they've got to get that money from somewhere. Collecting more taxes from the software, movie and music industries seems like a good way to start.
To apply this to your humorous example, if the Jaywalking Czar set a $100 fine for jaywalking and used that money to fund the fight against gang violence, then it might be a good idea -- as long as I wasn't the one caught jaywalking.
Agreed. I don't have the wisdom to predict the success or the failure of this endeavor, but as with all government programs, if they're going to do it, let's at least hope it's successful, so we get at least some benefit out of it.
In my case, taking care of just one pothole on my route to work, or reducing pollution by just a few PPM trumps my ability to go to the seedy part of my local big city to procure a $1 DVD.
"Wasting billions of dollars in the short term to get back billions later (at a possible loss) via taxes doesn't make sense."
You're correct that spending $X to make back $X-$N is counterproductive. I don't have enough data to predict whether the government will be able to avoid this pitfall, but I think that comparing it to the war on drugs and predicting its ultimate failure is over-reaching. China is not Colombia. Those who predict failure on the basis that we can never 100% stomp out piracy are missing the point. It's all bout the ROI, not zero tolerance.
"To give billions in cash, weapons, and training to people that might later use those same weapons and training back on us just doesn't make sense."
Agreed. Then again, I'm a big fan of the Monroe Doctrine. If the expense of creating the post of anti-piracy czar does indeed ultimately pay for itself, let us hope that the government uses the money wisely, not stupidly. The power to make this happen is ultimately in our hands, or at least so we're led to believe.
Thanks, but let's turn this into a more positive discussion. If you have a better way of funding our fight against terrorism, disease, et al. than by protecting our biggest economic interests, please discuss. Whether you or I like it or not, our government needs money to operate, and the sale of intellectual property is one of our country's biggest industries. That's the reality, and simple bromides like "Hollywood fatcats" will not solve this problem.
I don't know many people who in the movie industry, but I make more money than all of them. You're absolutely correct that the top-paid executives in the movie industry make obscene amounts of money, but this is the case for virtually all industries. This fact alone is not sufficient to condemn our government's efforts to extract more tax dollars out of them.
" we wouldn't have to buy pirated copies. Heck, i could pay $1 to watch Star Wars, but i sure as hell don't want to pay $10. Piracy is so rampart because people don't see the value in spending so much for so little. It's as if you had to pay $10 for a pack of gum, when we all know that such a price is ridiculous."
Very astute. Likewise, if grocery and department stores lowered their prices, rather than following the Econ 1A "what the market will bear" principle, fewer people would have an impetus to shoplift.
"Thinking about that a little, what right does *AA have to sue anybody? Is the media actually THEIR property, or is it the property of the artist?"
The words and music, as well as the publishing rights, belong to the composers and songwriters. The copyright on the recording is typically held by the record company.
"You know what, that is not even the point. The point is that we shouldn't have to deal with these artificially inflated prices."
If the margin that the record companies make on selling music troubles you, you'd be in for some sad times indeed if you were to learn where record industry margins fall in relation to margins for the food, clothing and computer accessories and pretty much everything else that you buy. The record industry is, by necessity, a low-margin one. The cry of "artificially inflated prices" makes us feel better about resorting to piracy, but doesn't make much sense to those who understand the realities of speculative markets and the retail industry in general.
I think you have put your finger on it. The government is doing this because they are greedy and they want more money -- money in the form of tax dollars from the entertainment industry. Intellectual property is one of the USA's biggest exports and brings in billions and billions of dollars into our economy.
You mentioned terrorism, poverty, famine, disease, etc. Unfortunately, our government needs money -- and a good dose of wisdom -- to address these issues. Protecting our country's economic interests may be a good way to start.
"Why do the rest of the American public sit there and refuse to acknowledge that this Anti-Piracy bullshit is nothing but a rehashed attempt to increase protections for Big Business under the guise of protecting *our* interests?"
You are not necessarily speaking for all Slashdotters when you use "our".
I have very little interest in buying a pirated DVD for China, or utilizing a P2P service to download music without permission of the copyright holder. However, I am interested in adequate healthcare, roads kept in good condition, and other quality of life issues for which our state and federal governments are primarily responsible. The government wants those additional tax dollars from the Microsofts and EAs and 20th Century Foxes and Capitol records of the world.
Whether you and I like it or not, the fact is that intellectual property is one of the US's largest exports and the income that it brings into this this country plays a major role in the quality of life we enjoy. Our government taking this steps might ultimately hinder my ability to get a copy of the latest DVD for free rather than paying the $5 rental fee or the $20 Netflix subscription or just buying the damn DVD for $20, but I don't lose any sleep over this.
"This would not be a problem, if Microsoft was not planning to take over the search market."
Google is planning to take over the search market, too. Like Microsoft, they are a public, for-profit company, and they want to win. This is why they poached Dr. Lee.
"I was sitting here thinking I'd put my band on there until I read that. I don't pay to get my CDs in online stores, why should I pay for this?"
I think Mindawn is actually hoping you'll take this approach. If you don't think your band is appealing enough to make $50 in sales for the rest of your life, then you self-select out, and Mindawn is saved the hassle of cataloging tracks from bands whose own members don't think are good enough to make any sales.
Meanwhile, bands who think their tracks have sufficient appeal will cough up the $50 lifetime fee. The $50 helps keep Mindawn in business, and Mindawn's customers are rewarded with a higher quality-to-crap factor, thanks to the the bands who seriously evaulate their marketability and determine that they're not capable of making their $50 back on Mindawn, ever.
By the way, I listened to your MP3s on your web site. I really dig your sound (but it could use more cowbell). I hope you reconsider listing yourself on Mindawn.
"Oh, I don't know, AllOfMP3.com has complied with the law of their country (to the letter, if not to the spirit - would you expect more from the RIAA?)"
Yes -- artists will make a hell of a lot more money on an RIAA-supported online store than they will on AllofMP3.
"The fact is that it is on line, has a fairly good catalog, and it's cheap to try. Heck, I got a newish Jimmy Buffet album recently from them. Lets just say that if Jimmy gets his payment, it will be far more than the music was worth. I'm just happy I was out less than $1 for that crap."
Rather than resorting to piracy, why not simply sample the wares of the tens of thousands of musicians who are willingly giving thier stuff away, and embrace the try-before-you-buy method?
If that's not to your liking, the all-you-can-eat subscription music sites (Yahoo!, Real, Napster, and the like) encourage this sort of thing. Downloading some music from a band you're not sure you like incurrs no additional cost. And Yahoo! is only $4.99 a month, which is less than an hour of work even if you make minimum wage. It's simply not worth rationalizing giving money to some Russian site just to save five bucks.
" I think I speak for everyone when I say: What is a mindawn, and what part of left field did that decision come out of?"
Perhaps the decision-makers made the mistake of putting too much trust in Slashdot users -- you know the refrain: "the music industry is going to die real soon now! Consumers demand lossless, DRM-free music! And Linux support!". If that's the case, however, the decision-makers may have missed this article, which seems to indicate otherwise.
"On a more serious note, when will the TV and movie industry finally get it? I'm still stuck with downloading Stargate Atlantis over P2P as it doesn't air here (in Finland) at all... Give me the option to pay (a reasonable sum) for Pete's sake!"
It took (give or take) 15 years between the viability of the MP3 format and the first hugely successful online music stores.
The online video retail market right now is like what the online music market was five years ago: it's there, but it's not widely used by content producers or consumers. With Apple, Creative and Microsoft all making noises about video players (either officially or unofficially), we'll probably have to wait less than five years. The leaked Netflix screenshots and other signs have been promising.
Sometimes it sucks being on the bleeding edge. I don't think it's an issue of whether the industry "gets it" -- they get it just fine; they understand that these things take time to build a market.
"we should support "smaller" sites like eMusic, so they can expand their selection to include more popular selectioins and have a chance to compete with the likes of iTunes. They off high quality, legal, non-DRM mp3s for 22-25 cents (depending on your monthly plan)."
It's interesting that you mention that. A common claim that I see on Slashdot goes something like this:
When will the music industry wake up and realize that consumers demand DRM-free music?
You've underscored the unfortunate reality: most consumers don't care. If the Slashdot sentiment were correct, it would have been eMusic (or Magnatunes, or MP3Tunes, or another one of the struggling DRM-free sites) in the article headline, and some lone Slashdotter would have been exhorting others to give the iTMS a chance.
I mean, who hasn't edited Phrack? I gave it a go for issues 15 through 17, where I predicted that Phrack would survive at least through issue 34. At the time, I didn't know it would reach its absolute nadir with issue 33.
The reason for the change in issue 15 and then in issue 18 was schooling -- we crazy kids were actually going to college to try to do something more productive with our lives (in my case, it didn't work).
" I think the submitter wasn't seriously suggesting DRM, but rather trying to say that this was some sort of DRM. You're right, of course, that it isn't. Neither is an armored truck, nor a safe. They're all just plain security."
I think perhaps the submitter was using the word "digital" per its other meaning -- that is, the people who put the books into safes and attached locks used their fingers to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
I, and most of my peers, have downloaded plenty of illegal music in our day. Now that the P2P services are getting worse and worse, and the legal services are getting more and more enticing, we're making the switch. I, for one, spend at least $30 a month on the iTMS each month. I do this not because I may have downloaded a P2P track here or there, but because I like music. This is not a cause-and-effect relationship.
On the other hand, my relatives over the age of 50, many of whom do not have computers and thus have never used a P2P service, do not buy a lot of music. So, in my little group, our results match those of the survey.
This is a second-order relationship: Younger people buy more music. Younger people tend to be more wired. Younger people who are online and who like music are likely to have used a P2P service at some point. This is the very psychographic that the online music stores are targetting. In other words, of course the generation of younger online music listeners is going to be the first to flock to the legal stores.
"Seriously, with quality services such as iTunes out there, what legitimate reasons do people have to download mass quantities of music they haven't paid for?"
A common excuse around here is that a buck is still too high. It commonly goes like this: "if only the record companies would sell those tracks for $0.75 or $0.50, I'd buy them!" This is often accompanied by a claim that Apple and or the record labels "just don't get it," despite the fact that the iTMS has been a fantastically wild success by any measure.
One thing I'm not sure about is whether the "they just don't get that it's wrong to sell a track for a buck" crowd really is saying that because they really can't afford a buck, or if it's a nice reason to allow them to comfortably continue their pirating ways.
"And no matter how powerful the argument, the industry believes that every single time you download something, they lose a sale. And that's that."
Mistake #1 is underestimating your enemy's intelligence. It's an important distinction: the record companies like to play it off like each illegal download is a lost sale, but that does not mean that they believe it to be so. You can be sure that they've read the same surveys we have and are aware that while some percentage of illegal downloads equate to lost sales, that "some" factor is still too high for them.
Similarly, what Bill Gates says about Linux is not what he actually thinks about Linux.
"This is something everyone knows, yet the RIAA still hasn't gotten wind of. Users would gladly pay for songs if they were sufficiently cheap and instantly available. Look at iTunes."
I believe the RIAA is aware of iTunes. It would not exist if Steve Jobs and the record company hadn't come to terms several years back. Now, 50 million downloads later, the record companies are laughing all the way to the bank. The iTMS is a retailer, just like Amazon, Wal-Mart, or Tower Records, and the iTMS is a particularly valuable sales channel for record conmpanies, RIAA-affiliated and indies alike.
"I know this is an over simplification, but this really is nuts."
You're not the first person to be confused by this. The first step to understanding it is to remember that, unfortunately, most artists and record companies are for-profit entities and need to make sales -- it's not just about publicity. Publicity is the means to the end.
Piracy is, generally speaking, a substitute for buying music.
Radio airplay is, generally speaking, an inducement to buy music.
"So if a regular Joe spreads the word about a new song and induces many thousands of random people listen to it for free it's theft, but if a radio DJ does the exact same thing he gets paid? Riiight."
The goal of record companies is, sadly, to make money. If I've already procured an MP3 of a song from Joe, I don't need to buy it -- I already have it. The record company (and the artist) make nothing. What, I'm going to voluntarily buy a copy of the album I've pirated, or go see the band in concert? Not bloody likely.
However, there have been countless times that I've heard a song on XM and subsequently hunted it down on iTunes. When I did this, both the record company and the artist made money -- in fact, the artist made a little bit when the song was played on the radio.
If publicity and exposure were the Alpha and the Omega and record companies and artists did not need to worry about making sales, then your logic would make perfect sense. There are plenty of unsigned bands who do freely use P2P services to distribute sample tracks. But if the intrinsic value of radio airplay is still boggling you, put yourself in the shoes of these bands and think about whether you'd also like some radio exposure in addition to all the kids P2Ping your stuff. Whether we like it or not, radio airplay is a big deal to up and coming artists.
"Imagine a corner of that stupid thing digging into your leg. No thanks."
I played with a prototype of this a few months back. It was quite obvious that it was intended to go around one's neck -- I don't think pocketability was even a concern for the designers, for the reasons you mentioned.
If you're specifically looking for a player to put in your pocket, you're right -- this isn't the product for you. But it looks pretty darn cool as a pendant.
"Maybe the congressman should disclose in who's pocket he is."
He's a Republican from Texas, and is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. For Timo and our other friends in the UK: put together "Texas" and "Energy" and you have "oil." He worked in the oil industry before he was elected to congress. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the oil industry is his top contributor -- they gave him nearly a quarter million bucks in 2004.
In an interview on NPR, he stated that he wanted to collect the raw data so that he could pass it along to his own "experts" -- that is, scientists in the employ of oil companies. In other words, he wants to use the scientists' own data against them.
" The appointment of a Piracy Czar during a time of war betrays monied interests. Especially considering the current administration's propaganda regarding terrorism. It is like appointing a Jaywalking Czar during a bout of gang violence."
The important thing here is that the goal of our country's fight against piracy is to make money. Let's face it -- our government is greedy, and wants to get more tax dollars from the companies that produce intellectual property. This "time of war" is costing our government billions, and they've got to get that money from somewhere. Collecting more taxes from the software, movie and music industries seems like a good way to start.
To apply this to your humorous example, if the Jaywalking Czar set a $100 fine for jaywalking and used that money to fund the fight against gang violence, then it might be a good idea -- as long as I wasn't the one caught jaywalking.
Agreed. I don't have the wisdom to predict the success or the failure of this endeavor, but as with all government programs, if they're going to do it, let's at least hope it's successful, so we get at least some benefit out of it.
In my case, taking care of just one pothole on my route to work, or reducing pollution by just a few PPM trumps my ability to go to the seedy part of my local big city to procure a $1 DVD.
"Wasting billions of dollars in the short term to get back billions later (at a possible loss) via taxes doesn't make sense."
You're correct that spending $X to make back $X-$N is counterproductive. I don't have enough data to predict whether the government will be able to avoid this pitfall, but I think that comparing it to the war on drugs and predicting its ultimate failure is over-reaching. China is not Colombia. Those who predict failure on the basis that we can never 100% stomp out piracy are missing the point. It's all bout the ROI, not zero tolerance.
"To give billions in cash, weapons, and training to people that might later use those same weapons and training back on us just doesn't make sense."
Agreed. Then again, I'm a big fan of the Monroe Doctrine. If the expense of creating the post of anti-piracy czar does indeed ultimately pay for itself, let us hope that the government uses the money wisely, not stupidly. The power to make this happen is ultimately in our hands, or at least so we're led to believe.
Thanks, but let's turn this into a more positive discussion. If you have a better way of funding our fight against terrorism, disease, et al. than by protecting our biggest economic interests, please discuss. Whether you or I like it or not, our government needs money to operate, and the sale of intellectual property is one of our country's biggest industries. That's the reality, and simple bromides like "Hollywood fatcats" will not solve this problem.
I don't know many people who in the movie industry, but I make more money than all of them. You're absolutely correct that the top-paid executives in the movie industry make obscene amounts of money, but this is the case for virtually all industries. This fact alone is not sufficient to condemn our government's efforts to extract more tax dollars out of them.
" we wouldn't have to buy pirated copies. Heck, i could pay $1 to watch Star Wars, but i sure as hell don't want to pay $10. Piracy is so rampart because people don't see the value in spending so much for so little. It's as if you had to pay $10 for a pack of gum, when we all know that such a price is ridiculous."
Very astute. Likewise, if grocery and department stores lowered their prices, rather than following the Econ 1A "what the market will bear" principle, fewer people would have an impetus to shoplift.
"Thinking about that a little, what right does *AA have to sue anybody? Is the media actually THEIR property, or is it the property of the artist?"
The words and music, as well as the publishing rights, belong to the composers and songwriters. The copyright on the recording is typically held by the record company.
"You know what, that is not even the point. The point is that we shouldn't have to deal with these artificially inflated prices."
If the margin that the record companies make on selling music troubles you, you'd be in for some sad times indeed if you were to learn where record industry margins fall in relation to margins for the food, clothing and computer accessories and pretty much everything else that you buy. The record industry is, by necessity, a low-margin one. The cry of "artificially inflated prices" makes us feel better about resorting to piracy, but doesn't make much sense to those who understand the realities of speculative markets and the retail industry in general.
I think you have put your finger on it. The government is doing this because they are greedy and they want more money -- money in the form of tax dollars from the entertainment industry. Intellectual property is one of the USA's biggest exports and brings in billions and billions of dollars into our economy.
You mentioned terrorism, poverty, famine, disease, etc. Unfortunately, our government needs money -- and a good dose of wisdom -- to address these issues. Protecting our country's economic interests may be a good way to start.
"Why do the rest of the American public sit there and refuse to acknowledge that this Anti-Piracy bullshit is nothing but a rehashed attempt to increase protections for Big Business under the guise of protecting *our* interests?"
You are not necessarily speaking for all Slashdotters when you use "our".
I have very little interest in buying a pirated DVD for China, or utilizing a P2P service to download music without permission of the copyright holder. However, I am interested in adequate healthcare, roads kept in good condition, and other quality of life issues for which our state and federal governments are primarily responsible. The government wants those additional tax dollars from the Microsofts and EAs and 20th Century Foxes and Capitol records of the world.
Whether you and I like it or not, the fact is that intellectual property is one of the US's largest exports and the income that it brings into this this country plays a major role in the quality of life we enjoy. Our government taking this steps might ultimately hinder my ability to get a copy of the latest DVD for free rather than paying the $5 rental fee or the $20 Netflix subscription or just buying the damn DVD for $20, but I don't lose any sleep over this.
"This would not be a problem, if Microsoft was not planning to take over the search market."
Google is planning to take over the search market, too. Like Microsoft, they are a public, for-profit company, and they want to win. This is why they poached Dr. Lee.
" With Google being located in Mountain View, California, is that part of the contract even enforcable?"
Yes. It was signed in Washington.
"I was sitting here thinking I'd put my band on there until I read that. I don't pay to get my CDs in online stores, why should I pay for this?"
I think Mindawn is actually hoping you'll take this approach. If you don't think your band is appealing enough to make $50 in sales for the rest of your life, then you self-select out, and Mindawn is saved the hassle of cataloging tracks from bands whose own members don't think are good enough to make any sales.
Meanwhile, bands who think their tracks have sufficient appeal will cough up the $50 lifetime fee. The $50 helps keep Mindawn in business, and Mindawn's customers are rewarded with a higher quality-to-crap factor, thanks to the the bands who seriously evaulate their marketability and determine that they're not capable of making their $50 back on Mindawn, ever.
By the way, I listened to your MP3s on your web site. I really dig your sound (but it could use more cowbell). I hope you reconsider listing yourself on Mindawn.
"Oh, I don't know, AllOfMP3.com has complied with the law of their country (to the letter, if not to the spirit - would you expect more from the RIAA?)"
Yes -- artists will make a hell of a lot more money on an RIAA-supported online store than they will on AllofMP3.
"The fact is that it is on line, has a fairly good catalog, and it's cheap to try. Heck, I got a newish Jimmy Buffet album recently from them. Lets just say that if Jimmy gets his payment, it will be far more than the music was worth. I'm just happy I was out less than $1 for that crap."
Rather than resorting to piracy, why not simply sample the wares of the tens of thousands of musicians who are willingly giving thier stuff away, and embrace the try-before-you-buy method?
If that's not to your liking, the all-you-can-eat subscription music sites (Yahoo!, Real, Napster, and the like) encourage this sort of thing. Downloading some music from a band you're not sure you like incurrs no additional cost. And Yahoo! is only $4.99 a month, which is less than an hour of work even if you make minimum wage. It's simply not worth rationalizing giving money to some Russian site just to save five bucks.
" I think I speak for everyone when I say: What is a mindawn, and what part of left field did that decision come out of?"
Perhaps the decision-makers made the mistake of putting too much trust in Slashdot users -- you know the refrain: "the music industry is going to die real soon now! Consumers demand lossless, DRM-free music! And Linux support!". If that's the case, however, the decision-makers may have missed this article, which seems to indicate otherwise.
"On a more serious note, when will the TV and movie industry finally get it? I'm still stuck with downloading Stargate Atlantis over P2P as it doesn't air here (in Finland) at all... Give me the option to pay (a reasonable sum) for Pete's sake!"
It took (give or take) 15 years between the viability of the MP3 format and the first hugely successful online music stores.
The online video retail market right now is like what the online music market was five years ago: it's there, but it's not widely used by content producers or consumers. With Apple, Creative and Microsoft all making noises about video players (either officially or unofficially), we'll probably have to wait less than five years. The leaked Netflix screenshots and other signs have been promising.
Sometimes it sucks being on the bleeding edge. I don't think it's an issue of whether the industry "gets it" -- they get it just fine; they understand that these things take time to build a market.
"we should support "smaller" sites like eMusic, so they can expand their selection to include more popular selectioins and have a chance to compete with the likes of iTunes. They off high quality, legal, non-DRM mp3s for 22-25 cents (depending on your monthly plan)."
It's interesting that you mention that. A common claim that I see on Slashdot goes something like this:
When will the music industry wake up and realize that consumers demand DRM-free music?
You've underscored the unfortunate reality: most consumers don't care. If the Slashdot sentiment were correct, it would have been eMusic (or Magnatunes, or MP3Tunes, or another one of the struggling DRM-free sites) in the article headline, and some lone Slashdotter would have been exhorting others to give the iTMS a chance.
Google is a general-purpose search engine. This guy was running a site called "mp3s4free." He knew what he was doing.
I mean, who hasn't edited Phrack? I gave it a go for issues 15 through 17, where I predicted that Phrack would survive at least through issue 34. At the time, I didn't know it would reach its absolute nadir with issue 33.
The reason for the change in issue 15 and then in issue 18 was schooling -- we crazy kids were actually going to college to try to do something more productive with our lives (in my case, it didn't work).
" I think the submitter wasn't seriously suggesting DRM, but rather trying to say that this was some sort of DRM. You're right, of course, that it isn't. Neither is an armored truck, nor a safe. They're all just plain security."
I think perhaps the submitter was using the word "digital" per its other meaning -- that is, the people who put the books into safes and attached locks used their fingers to do so.