Maybe they should - gasp! - try adding value that the customer wants and cannot get over the Internet through downloading rather than trying to add chains to a product that we want to legally buy. For example:
* Buy the CD and get the concert DVD for 1/2 price ... ...
Already starting to see things like this. For instance, one of Dashboard Confessional's albums comes with their MTV2 Album Covers performance on DVD. I've seen several concert DVDs lately which also include DVDs of at least portions of the concert (OAR, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy are two that are sitting on my shelf). Rob Zombie's Past, Present, Future CD (AKA greatest hits) came with a DVD of, if not all, at least most of his music videos.
Granted, once these things are mass-produced on DVD you can't assume they aren't available for download for free (someone will rip them), but I do see it as a value-add that makes the CD worth buying. IIRC none of these CD's were any more expensive than a normal CD with nothing additional included.
The real cause of music piracy is because a CD with 12 tracks isn't worth the money the labels are asking. Why anyone buys a CD which costs almost as much as a DVD is beyond me.
Oddly enough, OK Go (the musician in the article sings for them) was one of the bands whose CD, at least at Target, was released at a lower price point in the "New and Hot" section, or some such. I think it went for either $7.99 or $9.99. Granted, you rarely see "blue-chip" bands at these kinds of prices, but CDs are going lower than they used to now.
At the Drive-In's "Relationship of Command" CD selling at an MSRP of, if I remember correctly, $7.99 also leaps to mind as an example. Wasn't really all that bad of a CD, either (assuming it was your style, of course).
Slashdot will post a million articles and opinions from anybody on the Internets that hates DRM, yet never post any opinions that defend it. Who has ever heard of this alleged musician in the first place?
Actually, I have. They're not horrid (the musician is the lead for OK Go), but by no means legendary. Had a couple minor hits a couple years ago. Rode the success of bands like The Strokes, if I remember correctly. I think I still have a couple of their songs on my iPod.
And you won't hear pro-DRM articles here because most people that post on Slashdot are fans of fair use, regardless of whether they are fans of illegal music downloading. DRM restricts both. Add something about babies and bathwater if you feel the need.
No, the private individuals want access to property they've already paid for. Corporations want control of property that isn't theirs without consent, and expects the owners to pay them for them to take control. Somewhat different battle here.
Actually, that's just what some private individuals want. A few of the rest just want free stuff. The majority of filesharers (let's be honest, most people aren't just downloading stuff they've paid for, or other legal items) want reasonably priced access to content, or at least access at a price set by a competetive free market.
That's the real problem: the media rights holders are used to having a monopoly, and thus being able to charge whatever they wanted. Sure, there are multiple record labels, but only one tends to release any given piece of music. So if you want to listen to Nirvana, you had to buy it through Geffen (or Sub Pop, for their first release). Same principle for movies.
So when filesharing made it easy for people to get these things for free, it was a huge deal. So then the media companies try to institute DRM (they had already instituted some basic measures on DVD's). They get the DMCA passed. Now they're stepping on fair use rights...so now they've pissed off both the people who want free stuff, and the people who just want fair use of their own stuff. That's about 85%-95% of their customers.
Good stuff. Now they're just playing Whack-A-Mole. Shut down Napster, Gnutella and Kazaa show up. Crack down on those, and eMule and BitTorrent show up. And there's always IRC/Usenet/Sneakernet to pick up the slack too. Suing customers and trying to get them locked up is ONE way to try to cut down on P2P usage, and it's helping. Another method might be, I don't know, lowering prices to what people are willing to pay...that would damn near KILL P2P.
And no, that amount is nowhere near zero. It doesn't need to be free to compete with piracy. But it obviously needs to be less than $20 for a new movie and $15 for a new CD.
With almost every IM client for Windows offering video, I imagine there must be some demand for it. Mostly families that are, for whatever reason, seperated...kids off at college talking to parents, soldiers in Iraq talking to wives, whatever. I'll be using it because I'll be going to school 2 hours away from my wife, and during the week it isn't feasible to drive home and back...the occasional video chat with the wife will be nice. If it was not expensive, I'd probably spring for a video phone...but it'd have to be pretty cheap to keep me from just using the computer.
The biggest problem I've found is finding a client that is cross compatible between Windows and OSX (I've got a Mac, the wife doesn't)...I believe Yahoo does, but Yahoo also sucks. MSN and AOL do not, nor does (to my knowledge) ICQ.
I had a problem on OSX where if I chose "save to disk" for a download, it would do nothing whatseover...not even pop up in the download manager. But if I chose "open with" it would save it and open it just fine. Also some other bugs with choosing the application under "open with..." such as showing the wrong application (not the one I chose) but opening the right one.
Wierd stuff.
Know what's more wierd? I downloaded the 1.5 release, and all the problems are fixed. Yes, the SHA1 for both files (the 1.5RC3.dmg and the 1.5.dmg) is the same. Yet still, the problems are gone.
Revolutionaries at Sony indicates that the Playstation 1 was sold at a loss initially, as well. I'd consider it to be a source that should know about such things.
Actually, many consoles have, I believe, sold at a loss initially, but I think the plan is usually to have them profitable within 6-12 months.
You might want to tell your friends that an unsold xbox makes MS lose more money than a sold one.
Except that there really is no such thing as an unsold Xbox. It's not like they had 30 million of the buggers manufactured at launch time back in 2001. If they are truly losing money on the hardware, the only time buying an Xbox won't hurt them more than not buying one is towards the end of the product's life cycle, when they're trying to unload the last batches of inventory.
I'm not sure that the statement "they are damaging Nintendo" is accurate. As you point out, MS's XBox division lost BILLIONS. Nintendo still makes billions. Sure, they are a close 3rd in the overall units sold count, but they started losing ground WAY before MS got into the market, when Sony released the PS1. Sure the Xbox might be canabalizing some GC sales, but it's tough to say wether or not the Xbox's 'success' is taking away more from Nintendo or Sony. (IMO, XBox and PS2 demographics seem to overlap MUCH more than the XBox and GC).
In addition, I think the Revolution is evidence that Nintendo has very little desire to compete with either Microsoft or Sony (which, if you were Nintendo, would YOU want to play in that arena?) directly...instead they'd rather release a console that is completely different from the two.
And I predict it will sell decently...between fanboys (myself included) and parents, Nintendo has a fairly steady market now. And while I can see myself buying either a PS3 or Xbox, I think it's unlikely that I'll be buying both this generation*...whereas the Revolution, being different from either, will probably earn itself a spot in my living room. And Nintendo is smart: they don't buy into the whole "take a loss on the system and make it up on the games" strategy as much...they know that once you can make a profit on the system, AND make a profit on the games, it's easier to make an actual profit overall.
* In reality, the only reason I bought both a PS2 and an Xbox is because the PS2 came out first, but the Xbox had better online play (never considered buying an Xbox until Live came out). This generation I suspect the Xbox 360, which likely will now have BOTH of those going for it, will put the hurting on the PS3.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they should - gasp! - try adding value that the customer wants and cannot get over the Internet through downloading rather than trying to add chains to a product that we want to legally buy. For example:
...
...
* Buy the CD and get the concert DVD for 1/2 price
Already starting to see things like this. For instance, one of Dashboard Confessional's albums comes with their MTV2 Album Covers performance on DVD. I've seen several concert DVDs lately which also include DVDs of at least portions of the concert (OAR, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy are two that are sitting on my shelf). Rob Zombie's Past, Present, Future CD (AKA greatest hits) came with a DVD of, if not all, at least most of his music videos.
Granted, once these things are mass-produced on DVD you can't assume they aren't available for download for free (someone will rip them), but I do see it as a value-add that makes the CD worth buying. IIRC none of these CD's were any more expensive than a normal CD with nothing additional included.
I got a dead rat on my doorstep this morning.
:)
Your doorstep? You're cats must not love you. Mine bring them all the way to my BED!
The real cause of music piracy is because a CD with 12 tracks isn't worth the money the labels are asking. Why anyone buys a CD which costs almost as much as a DVD is beyond me.
Oddly enough, OK Go (the musician in the article sings for them) was one of the bands whose CD, at least at Target, was released at a lower price point in the "New and Hot" section, or some such. I think it went for either $7.99 or $9.99. Granted, you rarely see "blue-chip" bands at these kinds of prices, but CDs are going lower than they used to now.
At the Drive-In's "Relationship of Command" CD selling at an MSRP of, if I remember correctly, $7.99 also leaps to mind as an example. Wasn't really all that bad of a CD, either (assuming it was your style, of course).
Slashdot will post a million articles and opinions from anybody on the Internets that hates DRM, yet never post any opinions that defend it. Who has ever heard of this alleged musician in the first place?
Actually, I have. They're not horrid (the musician is the lead for OK Go), but by no means legendary. Had a couple minor hits a couple years ago. Rode the success of bands like The Strokes, if I remember correctly. I think I still have a couple of their songs on my iPod.
And you won't hear pro-DRM articles here because most people that post on Slashdot are fans of fair use, regardless of whether they are fans of illegal music downloading. DRM restricts both. Add something about babies and bathwater if you feel the need.
No, the private individuals want access to property they've already paid for. Corporations want control of property that isn't theirs without consent, and expects the owners to pay them for them to take control. Somewhat different battle here.
Actually, that's just what some private individuals want. A few of the rest just want free stuff. The majority of filesharers (let's be honest, most people aren't just downloading stuff they've paid for, or other legal items) want reasonably priced access to content, or at least access at a price set by a competetive free market.
That's the real problem: the media rights holders are used to having a monopoly, and thus being able to charge whatever they wanted. Sure, there are multiple record labels, but only one tends to release any given piece of music. So if you want to listen to Nirvana, you had to buy it through Geffen (or Sub Pop, for their first release). Same principle for movies.
So when filesharing made it easy for people to get these things for free, it was a huge deal. So then the media companies try to institute DRM (they had already instituted some basic measures on DVD's). They get the DMCA passed. Now they're stepping on fair use rights...so now they've pissed off both the people who want free stuff, and the people who just want fair use of their own stuff. That's about 85%-95% of their customers.
Good stuff. Now they're just playing Whack-A-Mole. Shut down Napster, Gnutella and Kazaa show up. Crack down on those, and eMule and BitTorrent show up. And there's always IRC/Usenet/Sneakernet to pick up the slack too. Suing customers and trying to get them locked up is ONE way to try to cut down on P2P usage, and it's helping. Another method might be, I don't know, lowering prices to what people are willing to pay...that would damn near KILL P2P.
And no, that amount is nowhere near zero. It doesn't need to be free to compete with piracy. But it obviously needs to be less than $20 for a new movie and $15 for a new CD.
With almost every IM client for Windows offering video, I imagine there must be some demand for it. Mostly families that are, for whatever reason, seperated...kids off at college talking to parents, soldiers in Iraq talking to wives, whatever. I'll be using it because I'll be going to school 2 hours away from my wife, and during the week it isn't feasible to drive home and back...the occasional video chat with the wife will be nice. If it was not expensive, I'd probably spring for a video phone...but it'd have to be pretty cheap to keep me from just using the computer.
The biggest problem I've found is finding a client that is cross compatible between Windows and OSX (I've got a Mac, the wife doesn't)...I believe Yahoo does, but Yahoo also sucks. MSN and AOL do not, nor does (to my knowledge) ICQ.
I had a problem on OSX where if I chose "save to disk" for a download, it would do nothing whatseover...not even pop up in the download manager. But if I chose "open with" it would save it and open it just fine. Also some other bugs with choosing the application under "open with..." such as showing the wrong application (not the one I chose) but opening the right one.
.dmg and the 1.5 .dmg) is the same. Yet still, the problems are gone.
Wierd stuff.
Know what's more wierd? I downloaded the 1.5 release, and all the problems are fixed. Yes, the SHA1 for both files (the 1.5RC3
Go figure.
Revolutionaries at Sony indicates that the Playstation 1 was sold at a loss initially, as well. I'd consider it to be a source that should know about such things. Actually, many consoles have, I believe, sold at a loss initially, but I think the plan is usually to have them profitable within 6-12 months.
You might want to tell your friends that an unsold xbox makes MS lose more money than a sold one.
Except that there really is no such thing as an unsold Xbox. It's not like they had 30 million of the buggers manufactured at launch time back in 2001. If they are truly losing money on the hardware, the only time buying an Xbox won't hurt them more than not buying one is towards the end of the product's life cycle, when they're trying to unload the last batches of inventory.
I'm not sure that the statement "they are damaging Nintendo" is accurate. As you point out, MS's XBox division lost BILLIONS. Nintendo still makes billions. Sure, they are a close 3rd in the overall units sold count, but they started losing ground WAY before MS got into the market, when Sony released the PS1. Sure the Xbox might be canabalizing some GC sales, but it's tough to say wether or not the Xbox's 'success' is taking away more from Nintendo or Sony. (IMO, XBox and PS2 demographics seem to overlap MUCH more than the XBox and GC).
In addition, I think the Revolution is evidence that Nintendo has very little desire to compete with either Microsoft or Sony (which, if you were Nintendo, would YOU want to play in that arena?) directly...instead they'd rather release a console that is completely different from the two.
And I predict it will sell decently...between fanboys (myself included) and parents, Nintendo has a fairly steady market now. And while I can see myself buying either a PS3 or Xbox, I think it's unlikely that I'll be buying both this generation*...whereas the Revolution, being different from either, will probably earn itself a spot in my living room. And Nintendo is smart: they don't buy into the whole "take a loss on the system and make it up on the games" strategy as much...they know that once you can make a profit on the system, AND make a profit on the games, it's easier to make an actual profit overall.
* In reality, the only reason I bought both a PS2 and an Xbox is because the PS2 came out first, but the Xbox had better online play (never considered buying an Xbox until Live came out). This generation I suspect the Xbox 360, which likely will now have BOTH of those going for it, will put the hurting on the PS3.