Heck, if the music companies were found to be colluding by charging $15+ per CD years back (they were), what are the chances they are doing the same now when the per-tune cost remains the same as distribution costs drop?
If I may clarify this......The labels were sued not for the price of CDs, but for their minimum advertised price policy. Basically, when Best-Buy and Wal-Mart were using CDs as loss-leaders to bring consumers into the door, the labels tried to slow this with a MAP policy. The labels didn't tell those stores how much to sell CDs for, they just wanted to forbid advertising prices that low, for fear that it would drive small record stores out of business and hurt the availability of non-hit recordings (best-buy and walmart mostly only stock the "hits".
MAP policies are very common among individual companies in many industries, but the courts found that since the labels were doing it together through an industry association (RIAA), that the practice was illegal.
The physical media and packaging on a major label release amounts to about $1 per CD. The distribution and all the other stuff you mentioned amounts to less than a few dollars per CD.
Let's say that comes to a total of $4 saved by distributing online. Apple charges $10 for a full album, and a physical CD- well, it depends on where you live, but in upstate NY I pay about $14-$16 usually.
In the US, the royalty is only on specially marked "music CD-Rs". This is the only kind which will work in component burners (eg, burners that don't need a computer that are just for music). The kind you use in your computer does not include a royalty, nor does the burner in your computer.
It would make sense to go through ASCAP, BMI, and/or SESAC - the organizations that collect and distribute performance royalties (royalties for radio play and any public use of music). They already have an infrastructure built up for this sort of thing, and their methods are generally regarded as fair.
While the Windows AntiSpyware offering is only available to users of licensed copies of Windows, we do make our high priority security updates available to unlicensed users of Windows, primarily in order to prevent unlicensed Windows systems from posing a threat to the Internet if they get infected.
So the question is, why not protect non-licensed users from spyware? The short answer is that spyware primarily affects the machine that has the infection.
Sounds like he has an answer to that.
While I'm sure many disagree, I think MS is being an excellent corporate citizen by providing critical updates to unlicensed users.
The record labels' object is to make teh most money possible right? same as any company.........
Don't you think that if they could make more money by lowering prices they would have tried that already? It's a pretty simple thing, and adjusting price is usually one of the first things businesses think about.
Well, as a matter of fact, they have tried it. again and again. As much as you think lowering prices will save the music industry, study after study, experiment after experiment has proven you wrong. Despite you baseless theory backed by no recearch, there is real-world data out there showing that music prices are NOT ELASTIC ENOUGH to justify lowering prices.
Secondly, there will always be a need for high-cost marketing. While you and I may enjoy the process of spending a lot of time looking up indie bands and finding new music, most people don't. While some people are active music consumers, most are passive consumers, and the expensive marketing is necessary to sell to them. If you don't enjoy paying for highly marketed music, there are lots of artists who sell their music independently for much cheaper - even free.
To summarise:
If it was that easy, they would have though of it already
they did think of it, and it doesn't work
conclusion: it's not that easy
I rest my case....Goodnight!
if you'd like to discuss the economics of teh situation, you're leaving out a couple of large factors:
1. while allofmp3.com can sell bandwidth for 5-10 cents per song, remember that they have very few fixed costs to overcome, while record labels have very high fixed costs (the cost of making and marketing an album)
2. Demand curves never have a constant slope, and the curve depends on the price-elasticity of the product in question. Unfortunately for your theory, music demand is relatively inelastic, meaning that while reduced prices increase demand a little, it doesn't increase demand enough to justify very low prices.
To illustrate this point: You may often find popular new releases on sale for $5-7 in their first week. Record labels often do this to gain chart position. However, they lose money in this instance to gain chart position, clearly showing that music demand is not elastic enough to lower prices very much.
what are you basing your numbers on? are you just picking something from the sky? When you say $3 per album is enough to recoup costs, do you have any idea how much it costs to produce and market a major label release?
Please.....you're just like every other buffoon who rails on and on against the record industry because you know EVERYTHING about how it works and the sleazy things they do.
The cost savings of digital downloads vs. retail CDs is pretty small - the physical manufacturing of the CD costs less than a buck per CD in most cases, and I doubt distribution costs more than a buck or two per unit.
Secondly, when radio stations play songs the label gets NOTHING. Performance royalties are paid to the owner of the underlying song (the songwriter), and not to the copyright holder of the sound recording (the record label). Most artists contract with a publisher, so the publisher gets a share of the royalties, but this share is never more than 50%, and if teh artist does his own publishing (and many do) he may only have an administration contract in which he only gives as little as 10% to the publisher.
Third, it takes a LOT of marketing dollars to get a song on radio. While many labels use slimy and/or illegal tactics to get their songs on radio, legitimate promotional expenses are also huge. Radio generally doesn't want to play a song unless it is already a hit (the 'ol chicken or egg scenerio) so the labels spend a lot of money building buzz.
THE ONLY MAJOR INCOME STREAM RECORD LABELS HAVE IS:
sales of recordings - that's it!
There are a few minor income streams they have including sync licensing and digital streaming royalties, but these are minor. All the other places you think record labels are sucking your blood you are wrong. Except for the rare contractual exception, record labels don't get a dime from performance royalties (playing or broadcasting the song) or touring. That's why they take a larger cut of album sales - cus that's all there is.
AllOfMp3.com accomplishes this by not paying for their content.
They take advantage of weak Russian IP laws, and thus manage to rip off content owners from other countries.
Although your first four suggestions are quite reasonable, selling major label songs for much less than a dollar just isn't viable - there is too much money spent on marketing and promotion to recoup expenses. Many indie labels could conceivably sell their stuff for less, but surely it would have to be for much more than 5-10 cents.
If ripping people off doesn't bother you, then you may as well just use Kazaa.
Maybe you should actually read the case before you get snooty.
here's a quote directly from the case publication:
"...if the product at hand is capable of substantial non-infringing uses, then the copyright owner must demonstrate that the defendant had reasonable knowlege of specific infringing files and failed to act upon that knowlege to prevent infringement"
The important precedent set forth in Betamax was the "substantial non-infringing uses" test, which is not being disputed in this case. Both parties have accepted that, and the plaintiffs are challenging the defendants on other parts of the law.
And BTW, there are two kinds of law: statutory law (made by congress) and common or case law (made by judges). These "judge-created doctrines" are perfectly valid laws, until challenged and overruled. Your semantical nitpick is a bit off-target
um, I think you're getting a bit carried away.
I didn't say the whole concept of "willful blindness" is wrong. That's just the term used FOR THIS SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCE on a legal brief describing the appeal.
Anyway, that's not really relevant to this topic. The point of my post was just to state that Betamax is not being challenged in this case.
The original case went to a summary judgement over two laws: contributory infringement [A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. (114 F. Supp. 2d)], and vicarious infringement [Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc. (76 F.3d 262)].
In the original case, the judge notes during sumamry judgement that Grokster found a loophole in copyright law, which allowed them to dance around the conditions needed for contributory and vicarious infringement.
The language currently being used for this loophole is "willful blindness".
Actually, betamax was never in contention. The plaintiffs did, and still do accept the precedents set forth in that case (mainly, the "substantial non-infringing use" test).
Fair use was not in contention during this trial either.
Much more important was the Fonovisa case in which the precedent for vicarious infringement was set.
In the first paragraph you explain how allofMP3 rips off the content providers (artists, labels, songwriters), and then in your second paragraph you go on to say something to the effect of: "Well, if these guys can sell it so cheap, it really shows us how bad iTunes prices are".
Also, it is not a legal way to get what you want. It is quite illegal outside of Russia, and still quite immoral in or out of Russia.
Buying music from them is like buying a used car stereo from some guy on a street corner
Here's an excerpt I copied (haha, irony shmirony) from the legal info link on allofmp3.com's web page:
Users are responsible for any usage and distribution of all materials received from AllOFMP3.com. This responsibility depends on the local legislation of each user's country of residence. AllOFMP3.com's Administration does not keep up with the laws of different countries and is not responsible the actions of non-Russian users.
It's great that Wilco wants to give their music away, and I would have no problem with that, if it was only their to give away
BUT
They decided to enlist the help of a record label to help them market their music. While Wilco may make a nice living off touring and see their record only as a promotional tool, records are all the label has.
So if Jeff Tweedy thinks it's great to steal his music, maybe he should ask Mary who works in the Promotions department at Nonesuch records, or Barry who works in IT, or Richard who sweeps the floors, or Jamie in packaging, or the countless other stakeholders in Wilco's records.
Although I haven't read up on this product, I doubt that a PC motherboard could supply the juice needed to power a tube properly. It's most likely a starved plate tube stage - a tube with a low plate voltage, which doesn't sound good at all, and has none of the advantages of a proper tube OR solid state gain stage.
Starved plate tubes are commonly used in cheap audio gear as a marketing gimmick so they can be billed as having the "tube sound".
the people profiting are (1)the publishers (read: RIAA) who don't have to do anything but rake in the royalties while others pay for the distribution
The RIAA represents record labels, not publishers. Many big record labels have in-house publishing, but still most artists publish their songs with third parties.
Publishers are making out alright with digital downloads, however record labels are jsut making out ok. While it is true that they do not pay for distribution for digital downloads, they still must pay for marketing, the cost of which dwarfs the cost of distribution. This marketing must be paid for with a profit margin much smaller than that of a CD.
A real studio still takes way over $20,000 to set up. More in the range of ten times that. 2,000 gets you a computer in a bedroom, not a studio.
Also, duplication can be had for about 50 cents per CD (i doubt this figure includes packaging), but professional replication (as opposed to duplication which is done on CDRs, not regular CDs) costs much more. A typical major label, large quaqntity release costs about $1 per CD to manufacture and package. SMaller quantities cost more per unit, up to the $3 per CD range
Marketing is insanely more enpensive now than it was in the '80s, and marketing costs are such a large piece of the pie, that it nearly renders production and manufacturing costs irrelevant in the big sceme of things.
Actually, the Betamax ruling had relatively little to do with the Grokster case.
The two laws in contention were:
1. Contributory infringement
2. Vicarious Infringement
for more reading on contributory infringement, check out (Adobe Systems Inc. v. Canus Prods., Inc., 173 F. Supp. 2d 1044, 1048 (C.D. Cal. 2001)) and (A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 114 F. Supp. 2d 1019).
and for reading on vicarious infringement have a peek at (Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc., 76 F.3d 262)
The Fonovisa decision is particularly interesting. It deals with a swap-meet operator who basically operated a brick-and-mortar version of a P2P network. The precedents in that case are very intriguing when applied to P2P.
If you read the judge's ruling in the Grokster case, he does say that there is a loophole in copyright law which allows P2P to operate legally, and he gets in a call-to-action for congress to close this loophole.
You shouldn't have any control over what you sell after you have sold it. That is a "natural" law of economics.
As long as those conditions of control are stated before the exchange, and considered part of the deal, then no "natural" laws are violated.
In any agreement, if party A does not like the terms set by party B, then party A is free to decline the exchange.
Slashdot Mirror
This article is about something happening in the US
If I may clarify this......The labels were sued not for the price of CDs, but for their minimum advertised price policy. Basically, when Best-Buy and Wal-Mart were using CDs as loss-leaders to bring consumers into the door, the labels tried to slow this with a MAP policy. The labels didn't tell those stores how much to sell CDs for, they just wanted to forbid advertising prices that low, for fear that it would drive small record stores out of business and hurt the availability of non-hit recordings (best-buy and walmart mostly only stock the "hits".
MAP policies are very common among individual companies in many industries, but the courts found that since the labels were doing it together through an industry association (RIAA), that the practice was illegal.
The physical media and packaging on a major label release amounts to about $1 per CD. The distribution and all the other stuff you mentioned amounts to less than a few dollars per CD.
Let's say that comes to a total of $4 saved by distributing online. Apple charges $10 for a full album, and a physical CD- well, it depends on where you live, but in upstate NY I pay about $14-$16 usually.
That sounds pretty consistant to me
In the US, the royalty is only on specially marked "music CD-Rs". This is the only kind which will work in component burners (eg, burners that don't need a computer that are just for music). The kind you use in your computer does not include a royalty, nor does the burner in your computer.
It would make sense to go through ASCAP, BMI, and/or SESAC - the organizations that collect and distribute performance royalties (royalties for radio play and any public use of music). They already have an infrastructure built up for this sort of thing, and their methods are generally regarded as fair.
Sounds like he has an answer to that.
While I'm sure many disagree, I think MS is being an excellent corporate citizen by providing critical updates to unlicensed users.
The record labels' object is to make teh most money possible right? same as any company.........
Don't you think that if they could make more money by lowering prices they would have tried that already? It's a pretty simple thing, and adjusting price is usually one of the first things businesses think about.
Well, as a matter of fact, they have tried it. again and again. As much as you think lowering prices will save the music industry, study after study, experiment after experiment has proven you wrong. Despite you baseless theory backed by no recearch, there is real-world data out there showing that music prices are NOT ELASTIC ENOUGH to justify lowering prices.
Secondly, there will always be a need for high-cost marketing. While you and I may enjoy the process of spending a lot of time looking up indie bands and finding new music, most people don't. While some people are active music consumers, most are passive consumers, and the expensive marketing is necessary to sell to them. If you don't enjoy paying for highly marketed music, there are lots of artists who sell their music independently for much cheaper - even free.
To summarise:
If it was that easy, they would have though of it already
they did think of it, and it doesn't work
conclusion: it's not that easy
I rest my case....Goodnight!
if you'd like to discuss the economics of teh situation, you're leaving out a couple of large factors:
1. while allofmp3.com can sell bandwidth for 5-10 cents per song, remember that they have very few fixed costs to overcome, while record labels have very high fixed costs (the cost of making and marketing an album)
2. Demand curves never have a constant slope, and the curve depends on the price-elasticity of the product in question. Unfortunately for your theory, music demand is relatively inelastic, meaning that while reduced prices increase demand a little, it doesn't increase demand enough to justify very low prices.
To illustrate this point: You may often find popular new releases on sale for $5-7 in their first week. Record labels often do this to gain chart position. However, they lose money in this instance to gain chart position, clearly showing that music demand is not elastic enough to lower prices very much.
what are you basing your numbers on? are you just picking something from the sky? When you say $3 per album is enough to recoup costs, do you have any idea how much it costs to produce and market a major label release?
Please.....you're just like every other buffoon who rails on and on against the record industry because you know EVERYTHING about how it works and the sleazy things they do.
The cost savings of digital downloads vs. retail CDs is pretty small - the physical manufacturing of the CD costs less than a buck per CD in most cases, and I doubt distribution costs more than a buck or two per unit.
Secondly, when radio stations play songs the label gets NOTHING. Performance royalties are paid to the owner of the underlying song (the songwriter), and not to the copyright holder of the sound recording (the record label). Most artists contract with a publisher, so the publisher gets a share of the royalties, but this share is never more than 50%, and if teh artist does his own publishing (and many do) he may only have an administration contract in which he only gives as little as 10% to the publisher.
Third, it takes a LOT of marketing dollars to get a song on radio. While many labels use slimy and/or illegal tactics to get their songs on radio, legitimate promotional expenses are also huge. Radio generally doesn't want to play a song unless it is already a hit (the 'ol chicken or egg scenerio) so the labels spend a lot of money building buzz.
THE ONLY MAJOR INCOME STREAM RECORD LABELS HAVE IS:
sales of recordings - that's it!
There are a few minor income streams they have including sync licensing and digital streaming royalties, but these are minor. All the other places you think record labels are sucking your blood you are wrong. Except for the rare contractual exception, record labels don't get a dime from performance royalties (playing or broadcasting the song) or touring. That's why they take a larger cut of album sales - cus that's all there is.
AllOfMp3.com accomplishes this by not paying for their content.
They take advantage of weak Russian IP laws, and thus manage to rip off content owners from other countries.
Although your first four suggestions are quite reasonable, selling major label songs for much less than a dollar just isn't viable - there is too much money spent on marketing and promotion to recoup expenses. Many indie labels could conceivably sell their stuff for less, but surely it would have to be for much more than 5-10 cents.
If ripping people off doesn't bother you, then you may as well just use Kazaa.
Maybe you should actually read the case before you get snooty.
here's a quote directly from the case publication:
"...if the product at hand is capable of substantial non-infringing uses, then the copyright owner must demonstrate that the defendant had reasonable knowlege of specific infringing files and failed to act upon that knowlege to prevent infringement"
The important precedent set forth in Betamax was the "substantial non-infringing uses" test, which is not being disputed in this case. Both parties have accepted that, and the plaintiffs are challenging the defendants on other parts of the law.
And BTW, there are two kinds of law: statutory law (made by congress) and common or case law (made by judges). These "judge-created doctrines" are perfectly valid laws, until challenged and overruled. Your semantical nitpick is a bit off-target
um, I think you're getting a bit carried away.
I didn't say the whole concept of "willful blindness" is wrong. That's just the term used FOR THIS SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCE on a legal brief describing the appeal.
Anyway, that's not really relevant to this topic. The point of my post was just to state that Betamax is not being challenged in this case.
Betamax was never questioned in the case.
The original case went to a summary judgement over two laws: contributory infringement [A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. (114 F. Supp. 2d)], and vicarious infringement [Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc. (76 F.3d 262)].
In the original case, the judge notes during sumamry judgement that Grokster found a loophole in copyright law, which allowed them to dance around the conditions needed for contributory and vicarious infringement.
The language currently being used for this loophole is "willful blindness".
Actually, betamax was never in contention. The plaintiffs did, and still do accept the precedents set forth in that case (mainly, the "substantial non-infringing use" test).
Fair use was not in contention during this trial either.
Much more important was the Fonovisa case in which the precedent for vicarious infringement was set.
In the first paragraph you explain how allofMP3 rips off the content providers (artists, labels, songwriters), and then in your second paragraph you go on to say something to the effect of: "Well, if these guys can sell it so cheap, it really shows us how bad iTunes prices are".
Also, it is not a legal way to get what you want. It is quite illegal outside of Russia, and still quite immoral in or out of Russia.
Buying music from them is like buying a used car stereo from some guy on a street corner
Did you actually read your first paragraph before you wrote your second paragraph?
Just in case you didn't know, allofmp3 exploits a loophole in Russian copyright law, thus they PAY NOTHING for their content from non-russian artists.
You might as well use Kazaa...It's ripping people off just the same.
It's great that Wilco wants to give their music away, and I would have no problem with that, if it was only their to give away
BUT
They decided to enlist the help of a record label to help them market their music. While Wilco may make a nice living off touring and see their record only as a promotional tool, records are all the label has.
So if Jeff Tweedy thinks it's great to steal his music, maybe he should ask Mary who works in the Promotions department at Nonesuch records, or Barry who works in IT, or Richard who sweeps the floors, or Jamie in packaging, or the countless other stakeholders in Wilco's records.
Although I haven't read up on this product, I doubt that a PC motherboard could supply the juice needed to power a tube properly. It's most likely a starved plate tube stage - a tube with a low plate voltage, which doesn't sound good at all, and has none of the advantages of a proper tube OR solid state gain stage.
Starved plate tubes are commonly used in cheap audio gear as a marketing gimmick so they can be billed as having the "tube sound".
The RIAA represents record labels, not publishers. Many big record labels have in-house publishing, but still most artists publish their songs with third parties.
Publishers are making out alright with digital downloads, however record labels are jsut making out ok. While it is true that they do not pay for distribution for digital downloads, they still must pay for marketing, the cost of which dwarfs the cost of distribution. This marketing must be paid for with a profit margin much smaller than that of a CD.
A real studio still takes way over $20,000 to set up. More in the range of ten times that. 2,000 gets you a computer in a bedroom, not a studio.
Also, duplication can be had for about 50 cents per CD (i doubt this figure includes packaging), but professional replication (as opposed to duplication which is done on CDRs, not regular CDs) costs much more. A typical major label, large quaqntity release costs about $1 per CD to manufacture and package. SMaller quantities cost more per unit, up to the $3 per CD range
Marketing is insanely more enpensive now than it was in the '80s, and marketing costs are such a large piece of the pie, that it nearly renders production and manufacturing costs irrelevant in the big sceme of things.
whoops, forgot to get in the line breaks. sorry about the difficult formatting on that message
Actually, the Betamax ruling had relatively little to do with the Grokster case. The two laws in contention were: 1. Contributory infringement 2. Vicarious Infringement for more reading on contributory infringement, check out (Adobe Systems Inc. v. Canus Prods., Inc., 173 F. Supp. 2d 1044, 1048 (C.D. Cal. 2001)) and (A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 114 F. Supp. 2d 1019). and for reading on vicarious infringement have a peek at (Fonovisa, Inc. v. Cherry Auction, Inc., 76 F.3d 262) The Fonovisa decision is particularly interesting. It deals with a swap-meet operator who basically operated a brick-and-mortar version of a P2P network. The precedents in that case are very intriguing when applied to P2P. If you read the judge's ruling in the Grokster case, he does say that there is a loophole in copyright law which allows P2P to operate legally, and he gets in a call-to-action for congress to close this loophole.
You shouldn't have any control over what you sell after you have sold it. That is a "natural" law of economics.
As long as those conditions of control are stated before the exchange, and considered part of the deal, then no "natural" laws are violated. In any agreement, if party A does not like the terms set by party B, then party A is free to decline the exchange.
Freedom is a beautiful thing