Yes, People Dislike The RIAA Because Of Its Actions, Not Because Everyone Hates Music Business People
from the that's-a-new-one dept
We mentioned the debate going on between copyright lawyers Ben Sheffner (supporting the entertainment industry’s sue ’em all strategy) and William Patry (explaining why they’re abusing copyright law, rather than focusing on business solutions), and Sheffner’s response struck me as being wrong on a large number of points. In it, he argues that people’s general hatred for the RIAA has little to do with its legal strategy, but that people just hate the music business:
I think a lot of this negative opinion was due not to specific alleged misdeeds, but to the very nature of the business and its product. Music is about fun, escapism, pleasure. The fact that music is also a business, populated with accountants, lawyers, enforcers, and other not-so-fun people, is quite jarring. It’s natural that people react negatively when confronted with the harsh reality that it’s about more than “the music” — it’s about making a buck.
I find this incredibly unpersuasive. It’s not the fact that the music industry “makes a buck” that pisses people off, but the manner in which it does so. Sure, people have hated the industry since before Napster came around (though, I’d argue that Sheffner’s not paying much attention if he doesn’t realize how much greater it’s become — we’re talking an order of magnitude). But, the reason was actually a precursor to what’s happening today: which is that the industry was run by people who looked to screw over everyone. The history of the music business is not pretty. Sure, some people may not like “the business side,” but the issue most people have is not that it’s a business, but the way the business has been run. It was always designed to rip off both the artists and consumers at every turn. The folks who have run the music business for years have always looked at things as a zero sum game, rather than a market that can be expanded. So they squeezed everyone. It’s just that the internet made it that much more blatant.
Sheffner then tries to back up this argument with another claim that is entirely unpersuasive:
The contrast with the public’s attitude toward the software industry is instructive. The Business Software Alliance, the industry’s equivalent of the RIAA, is very aggressive in its enforcement efforts, famously offering bounties for ratting out software pirates…. But my sense (admittedly anecdotal) is that most people have little problem with the BSA acting to enforce its members’ copyrights; it’s certainly a far less unpopular organization than the RIAA. (Can you imagine the outcry if the RIAA offered rewards for turning in your friends who “share” music without paying for it?) Why the difference? My hypothesis is that people have no trouble accepting that software is a serious business, and that owners of software copyrights, who spend millions developing their programs, have every right to stop people from copying them for free.
First, perhaps it’s because Sheffner hasn’t spent much time around the software industry, but the hatred of the BSA runs incredibly deep as well. And, yes, people find their marketing schemes to be totally ridiculous as publicity stunts. The BSA is also regularly mocked (not just by us, but by the mainstream press) for its annual rollout of BS stats on piracy, that falsely count every copy as a lost sale, and then double, triple and quadruple count “ripple effects” on the economy, but never account for how the savings from not buying overpriced software also “ripple” through the economy.
Furthermore, the rather obvious reason why it’s a smaller group of people up in arms about the BSA’s tactics is that the average person rarely buys software. Most people buy a computer pre-loaded with software, and then maybe download a few applications. But actually going out and getting new software occurs a lot less often than the average person gets new music.
The RIAA’s tactics have received more attention because it’s a larger community that interfaces with them on a regular basis. It’s got nothing to do with some mystical feeling that floats around music.
Filed Under: copyright, music business
Companies: bsa, riaa
Comments on “Yes, People Dislike The RIAA Because Of Its Actions, Not Because Everyone Hates Music Business People”
At the end of the day, the RIAA’s tactics might not win them many friends, but the alternatives are to throw in the towel and go out of business. While many around here would celebrate, it would suck to see a functional business model destroyed by theives (oh sorry, infringers) who literally are picking the living carcass to death.
It is actually pretty disgusting.
Re: Re:
“At the end of the day, the RIAA’s tactics might not win them many friends, but the alternatives are to throw in the towel and go out of business.”
You promise?
“While many around here would celebrate, it would suck to see a functional business model destroyed”
If you kept a straight face while you typed that, you must have nipple clamps on or something.
“It is actually pretty disgusting.”
You should see the view from here, in the real world. It’s much worse.
Re: Go out of business??
And why should they not go out of business. There was a billion dollar business in todays money called horse carriage manufacture, there used to be a huge multi-million typewriter manufacture business. But the world has moved on since then, because these are no longer needed.
The recording companies are no longer needed, they are in their death throes now. It is artists who produce music, it is the fans who purchase it, with the internet there is no “middlemen” required because it is both a recording and communication and promotion tool all in one. So bye-bye record labels, it is only a matter of time, the cornered animal is on the attack but the outcome is the same.
Re: Re: Go out of business??
one word “Hooah!!”
Re: Re: Go out of business??
The solution was broadcast in the news over and over for months — GOV’T BAILOUT. Any business unable to succeed on its own merits (if any) applies for GOVT BAILOUT.
VRP
Re: Towel throwing
At the end of the day, the RIAA’s tactics might not win them many friends, but the alternatives are to throw in the towel and go out of business. While many around here would celebrate, it would suck to see a functional business model destroyed by theives (oh sorry, infringers) who literally are picking the living carcass to death.
Let’s be real here: The RIAA’s scorched earth policies don’t win them ANY friends. Not their artists, not the fans of the artists. Face it, piss of the people that like the art, you don’t have a lot of room to bitch and moan about not making money.
Personally, I don’t see why the hell I should give a fart in the wind about business models. Give me a reason to get my credit card out, and I might. Supporting dinosaurs isn’t my problem. The RIAA is a dinosaur, and worse, they are failing to adapt to a changing market. They are no longer the gatekeepers. In fact, I just spent over $200 USD on music. So sorry, none of the performers are signed to labels. They are too “marginal” to “make it”.
Just to be very clear: I do not support copyright infringement. This is why I completely avoid any artist that is a slave – er – signed to a label that is a RIAA member.
If my home computer has a MP3 of someone’s work, I have the original CD or a hardcopy of the email with the license to have that work. Calling me a thief or a ripoff just plain pisses me off. Way to go bucky. I’m REAL sure to buy your crap now.
Re: Re:
“… it would suck to see a functional business model destroyed by theives (oh sorry, infringers) who literally are picking the living carcass to death”
There is so much confused, hyperbolic language in that line, I literally laughed out loud. “Picking the living carcass to death” is second only to “congratulations, this is officially the overgeneralization of the year,” in most enjoyable comments I’ve seen here.
(I’m not making an argument here — attacking grammar is not a valid way to debate a point — just an observation.)
Re: Re: Re:
“congratulations, this is officially the overgeneralization of the year,”
Hey, I’m pretty sure that was ME!!!!
Sweet!
Re: Re:
“it would suck to see a functional business model destroyed by theives (oh sorry, infringers) who literally are picking the living carcass to death”
A: If a functional business model gets destroyed then it’s not a functional business model.
B: A business model that relies on government granted monopolies (ie: intellectual property) to survive isn’t a functional business model because it can’t survive in a free market. It’s a business model that parasites off of government regulation that favors it.
C: No one owes your business model money. People hate the RIAA because of their business model and they have every right not to buy their music as a result. I’m not saying they should download their music illegally either, they can find music from artists they like instead. But if people don’t like the RIAA because of their business model and the RIAA suffers as a result then the RIAA is not entertaining a functional business model.
Also, I would like to find music on Youtube that does not channel money to the RIAA or any unnecessary third party every time I play it. Does anyone have any suggestions? I used to listen to mainstream music on youtube until I found out that Google pays the RIAA money every time I listen to a song. Is there a way around this? Are there songs that youtube can play that do not channel money to the RIAA? How do I know that money is not going to the RIAA? Or perhaps there is some other web location that only plays unsigned artists that guarantees money won’t go to the RIAA? Any suggestions? Perhaps someone can start a new video medium, some website that plays music (from unsigned artists so it’s legal) who guarantee money won’t go to the RIAA or any unnecessary third party (ie: soundexchange or whatever).
Re: Re: Re:
http://creativecommons.org/audio/
or just Google Creative Commons licensed music
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Thanks.
Re: Re:
You are so compleately removed from reality it makes me laugh.
If there are no viable business model alternatives, please explain to me the eruption of the Arctic Monkeys, using their music as a promotional tool for their live gigs and merch, Trent Renzors efforts with alternative models with Nine Inch Nails and others like radio head?
The death of the recording industry as it is should be welcomed and pushed for, it has been a hollow shell for about a decade now. The drop in CD sales has increased the value of live music, with more bands doing more shows and more tours, with cheaper costs for international shows and more gigs for up and coming bands there is a thriving opportunity for any band willing to embrace it.
Re: Re:
You ignore the fact that when Napster was all the rage, music sales were increasing. When the RIAA shut down Napster, music sales began to fall.
People have always been willing to pay for music. They just weren’t willing to pay what the member of the RIAA thought they should pay.
Re: Re: Re:
Well, until the RIAA adopts a more friendly business model that doesn’t involved blaming their failures on piracy we’ll see how likely they are to turn me into a customer.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, what is their “failures” then?
Did the music industry fail to put out a popular product? No, because there are millions of Ipods jammed full of the product.
Did the music industry failto put out product on a regular basis? Nope, new music comes out all the time
Did the music indsutry fail to give their product away and stop making money? Oh yeah, they failed!
So where else did they really fail? Price? Well, in a situation of high demand, there shouldn’t be any downward pressure on price. Everyone wants the product, why should the price drop?
So please, enlighten us. How did they fail (without saying they should be giving it all away for free)?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“So where else did they really fail? Price? Well, in a situation of high demand, there shouldn’t be any downward pressure on price. Everyone wants the product, why should the price drop?”
Really? As high as the demand is (or isn’t), the supply is infinite. With an infinite supply, any demand is infinitely small compared to it. As such, price will decline. If you want to charge $1.29 for a good in infinite supply, you had better hope that your sucker of a customer doesn’t find your good somewhere else.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“Price? Well, in a situation of high demand, there shouldn’t be any downward pressure on price. Everyone wants the product, why should the price drop?”
So they want to exploit the elasticity of demand? Their mentality is, we should charge more because we can, even if the product is dirt cheap to produce. Lets see how well that convinces me to buy their product.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“Well, what is their “failures” then” Get a clue!!! How many businesses do you know that sue their potential customers??
And let’s make a clear distinction here about who “THE MUSIC INDUSTRY” is. “THE MUSIC INDUSTRY” is not the Record Labels, it is the artists and people who actually “CREATE” music. These people “ARE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY” and they don’t need the services (I mean the shafting) of the Record Labels. Nor do the music fans. NO MUSIC CREATED = NO MUSIC INDUSTRY.
The internet is a very convenient way to get current information on, and instantly purchase “DOWNLOADABLE PRODUCT” directly from the originator. (books, music, software, information, news etc.) No “middleman” needed. No more candle industry, no more lamplighter occupations, we have the electric light.
By the way the music on iPods is purchased, but it does not necessarily need to be purchased from the “middleman” Record Labels. DO YOU GET THE CHANGE OF BUSINESS MODEL HERE????
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
“By the way the music on iPods is purchased, but it does not necessarily need to be purchased from the “middleman” Record Labels. DO YOU GET THE CHANGE OF BUSINESS MODEL HERE????”
funny …. I was thinking the same thing …. as an open source project …
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Oh and replace middlemen with internet…. REALLY BIG OLD GRIN!!
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Since Napster was pre Ipod, let’s see how they failed.
They failed to recognize a new format for music distribution.
Had they recognized the potential changes in their industry, they might have done something like the distribution of machines to every retail outlet in the country/world that could have burned individual songs from any collection in their catalog to a new CD.
Then, when I stopped in at Tower Records (or wherever) and I found that I liked songs from several different albums but did not want every song on them; I would bring them to the register/burning station and have my personal CD to throw into my boombox or portable CD player.(Yes, that’s where we were then!)
Of course, once it became apparent that downloading music was the next phase, offering a higher quality digital version (even with DRM) than the crappy mp3s available from Napster could have kept the cash flowing to their, already, bursting coffers.
Then, perhaps, we would all be able to play any of our music on any digital music player. The Ipod never would have become the dominate digital music player it is today.(Most likely!)
I, personally, stopped buying music from any of the big music labels when they went after Napster. (I pick up my CDs from shows now.) There is plenty of great and good music out there that is not under contract to them.
My digital collection alone could play for a month and never hear the same song from the same artist in that time. But, then, I digitize everything as I listen to it. 320 mp3 until flac came along. Now I flac everything!
What do I own besides the aforementioned digital collection?
Even with having to abandon 500 vinyl albums and about as many tapes and CDs collectively about two years ago for a move, my collection of physical music products include:
Vinyl- just over 1200
Cassettes- 150 or so
CDs- upwards of 550 (and that doesn’t include what remains of the CDs I burned from vinyl before I started digitizing!)
While I’m on the rant… Please expain to me why the cost of music never went down but the cost of movies did? The cost of production and marketing for a movie far out strips that of music!
So, yes, they failed to adapt.
We have a saying in our house: No sympathy for self inflicted wounds!
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
“Please expain to me why the cost of music never went down but the cost of movies did? The cost of production and marketing for a movie far out strips that of music!”
Movies were outrageously priced, $49.95 and $69.95 for a movie was out of sight. Basically, it was 5 – 8 times the cost of seeing the movie in the theater, which made getting am movie on DVD pointless. The price of movies dropped because the price of movies in the theaters is having a hard time pushing past about $10 a head. If theater movie prices had gone up with inflation, they would be very near to $20 a head right now, which would probably not be surpportable in the US market.
2-3 times the theater door cost seems to be about right for movies, so anywhere from $16.95 to $30 seems to play about right.
Now, a concert ticket? $200-$300 isn’t out of the question. A CD? $9.99- $18.99 depending on time and location. So a CD is anywhere from 1/10 to 1/100th the cost of a concert ticket.
How many times do you watch a DVD movie? Twice? Three times? Mostly they collect dust. How many times do you listen to a CD (or songs from it)? Possibly hundreds.
So a $15 CD and a $15 DVD cost the same, but one gives you plenty of enjoyment over and over again, the other gets a few plays and ignored.
Which one is a better value?
It’s only recently that movies are starting to see the “napster” effect that happened to music. People are getting faster internet connections, so sharing a 3-5gig file isn’t a big deal. As more and more people realize they can download movies in reasonable amounts of time for free off of the torrents, how long will it be before the movie industry is sitting in the same spot as music?
Are you ready to pay $20-$40 to see a movie at the theater?
The movie business has one advantage, they can just refuse to support DVD or other home based formats altogether, or severely limit the number of movies on DVD, and pretty much shut down the market. They can wait a year or longer before putting a movie on DVD. They have options, they don’t need DVD sales to have income (but it certainly has become a big part of the game). Drop the DVDs, charge more for theater viewings, and stay out of the marketplace.
The music people can’t do it, because their product is selling music. When they can no longer sell music, there isn’t any other major revenue streams out there. The business collapses.
had they gone digital after Napster, they would have likely just sped up the process, because to this day, there is no real way to stop digital file trading, and FLAC style files would be everywhere and free. The residual store sales of music and Itunes is the only sources of income left, and the store sales are evaporating.
Give it a few years, you guys will get your wish, the RIAA (and most record labels) will be gone completely, except maybe as holding companies to collect residuals on older music. Then what?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“How many times do you watch a DVD movie? Twice? Three times? Mostly they collect dust. How many times do you listen to a CD (or songs from it)? Possibly hundreds.”
See, your business model involves charging as much as you can charge instead of charging a reasonable price based on your costs. So if the music is dirt cheap to produce you still think it’s ok for you to charge astronomical price because you think music is valuable. By that logic we should charge $100 for a gallon of water because water is valuable. Bad business model, it will make people hate you.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“Give it a few years, you guys will get your wish, the RIAA (and most record labels) will be gone completely, except maybe as holding companies to collect residuals on older music. Then what?”
Then Joe Blow will make and distribute music over the Internet directly to fans without the RIAA (provided the government doesn’t screw it up and attempts to make the government screw it up will only have people hate you more). Now stop your scare mongering because no one is buying it. It won’t be the end of the world and no one believes it will be no matter how much you proclaim it.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Worth noting that the labels only arrived in the 20th century.
Music is far older than that. Before, music was distributed directly to the people, and then spread by the people.
The record labels came in because they could distribute music faster and cheaper than anyone else.
And now? Now the average Joe can distribute faster and cheaper. The only thing the major records can do better is initial investment costs and marketing…and the costs of music production are getting cheaper and cheaper, and so is marketing.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
The price of movies dropped because the price of movies in the theaters is having a hard time pushing past about $10 a head. If theater movie prices had gone up with inflation, they would be very near to $20 a head right now, which would probably not be surpportable in the US market.
Are you ready to pay $20-$40 to see a movie at the theater?
The movie business has one advantage, they can just refuse to support DVD or other home based formats altogether, or severely limit the number of movies on DVD, and pretty much shut down the market. They can wait a year or longer before putting a movie on DVD. They have options, they don’t need DVD sales to have income (but it certainly has become a big part of the game). Drop the DVDs, charge more for theater viewings, and stay out of the marketplace.
—
Dropping “DVD or other home based formats” altogether is out of the question. Indy movies in download format are already a part of the market and the stock holders of the movie industry must be fed and since , as you’ve pointed out, “the price of movies in the theaters is having a hard time pushing past about $10 a head”. This gives them no room to “Drop the DVDs, charge more for theater viewings, and stay out of the marketplace.” Particularly, in light of the competition for the entertainment dollar and todays recessionary market.
The gaming market, at $50+ a pop (and certainly getting used more than 2 or 3 times) for games has shown itself an agile competitor, although, the king of the hill, there, is ever changing and has been since the advent of that market. Since they often tie movies to games, they don’t get to stray too far from their current market structure. That and the fact that ample movies are made for cable/satelite transmisson. The stock holders must be fed! and they will not reward the movie industry for following the path that the music industry took. Hollywood is already crumbling as the industry adjusts to excessive costs of filming in California. More and more movies are being made in other states for the simple fact that it is cheaper!
My point about the movie industry vs the music industry was that the movie industry adjusted to the price demands of the market, while the music industry did not. The current problem of the movie industry is that it blinked when when the music moguls balked. It then let the technology industry become a hinderance with the HD-DVD vs Blue Ray battle.
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had they gone digital after Napster, they would have likely just sped up the process, because to this day, there is no real way to stop digital file trading, and FLAC style files would be everywhere and free. The residual store sales of music and Itunes is the only sources of income left, and the store sales are evaporating.
—
You can’t presume the same pathway for things like Itunes. Had they followed the pathway I laid out, Itunes would never have come into existance. Apple was only able to bring Itunes to market because the music industry was too stupid to do it themselves. ( That, also, paved the way for the dominace of the Ipod.) The DRM on Itunes shows that they could have held on to a larger share of the market as the market shifted. Had the music industry shown this sort of agility, they could have continued to be central marketing repositories for the music market. Value added products like videos, posters and tickets tied to the “Album” concept could have continued to perpetuate their base market structure.
Yes, they would still run into some of the competition and free trading that continues today, but greatly diminshed. They would have still had two things working in their favor.
First, they would not have pissed off their customers as they have. That relative good will would have still given them a continued growing market share. As it has been pointed out elsewhere, CD sales were still rising, even as Napster trading grew.
Secondly, the perception of the music industry would have changed little in the face of that relative good will and left them in the position to still be the ones most likely to be able to promte the next U2, Tool or whomever.
They could have garnered even greater freewill with price reductions. Such price reductions in the face of reduced distribution costs would have spurred greater sales and they would have made even more money off of simple volume increases.
“FLAC style files” would not be everywhere and free under that scenario as a DRM such as that used by Itunes would have minimized conversion. The grand majority of the populace is far too lazy to learn how to make such conversions and distribute them. (The 12:00 flashing VCR and the dominance of IE and MS Office come to mind.) Nor do they do it now with the music they purchase and download from Itunes. Most of the mp3s out there now come from CD rips. Few people burn their Itunes purchases to CD just so they came rip it to mp3, let alone flac which takes up about 10 times the space.
Furthermore, the movie industry doesn’t really face the same problem that the music industry does. It just thinks it does. As you pointed out a movie is only likely to see use a few times, regardless of whether it is a DVD or a download. Even with the increased size of hard drives and a reduction of file size by, say Divx. Why would you keep around anything more than your favorite movies when they can easily be found online or VOD. Your music collection, however, must be allowed to take the bulk of the space for two reasons.
1. Hunting down music to listen to is far more tedious than hunting down a movie, in particular as the music market disperses into a growing number of smaller companies and bands attending to production and distribution themselves. (Laziness!)
2.You have to stop and watch a movie. Music can be consumed while accomplishing any number of tasks, any time of the day or night. Few can sit around and watch movies and still keep their job while music is often encouraged in the work place.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“Hunting down music to listen to is far more tedious than hunting down a movie, in particular as the music market disperses into a growing number of smaller companies and bands attending to production and distribution themselves. (Laziness!)”
Not laziness, it’s the reality of a record business without nice big central clearing houses to sort, order, and widely distribute music. They are called record labels, and any band signed to a major label has plenty of music, easy to find, no problem there.
You are confusing laziness with the inability of non-label bands to get their product out there widely distributed and promoted. They might be on 10 mp3 sites, but since most of them such and it’s hard to search, you could spend hours looking for them. Then you go to their “official site”, which hasn’t been updated in 8 months, which points to links on an mp3 site that doesn’t run anymore. Why no update? The band is too busy on the road selling t-shirts to worry about a website and music links.
You just indicated the difference between what is what will be. Good luck with the future, you just described it perfectly.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
It is laziness on entities like the RIAA who don’t even provide a list on their website of which artists are signed and which ones aren’t. Instead, as I’ve pointed out ( http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090616/0946355250.shtml ), some third party has to do that ( http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090616/0946355250.shtml ). They’re lazy, they want everything the easy way.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
“Then you go to their “official site”, which hasn’t been updated in 8 months, which points to links on an mp3 site that doesn’t run anymore. Why no update? The band is too busy on the road selling t-shirts to worry about a website and music links.”
None of this is true, someone pointed me to creativecommons.org/audio and there is probably more than enough freely licensed music for you to listen to for an entire lifetime without ever having to hear the same song twice.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
“Then you go to their “official site”, which hasn’t been updated in 8 months, which points to links on an mp3 site that doesn’t run anymore. Why no update? The band is too busy on the road selling t-shirts to worry about a website and music links.”
Even if any of this is true, which it’s not, if you don’t like a particular artist you can find another one that does update his site more often and has newer songs. Or, you can buy music from the RIAA, it’s a free market. And others can get or buy music from this specific artist who hasn’t updated his website in 8 months or go to another artist that is not associated with the RIAA or they can buy music owned by the RIAA. So what’s the problem? That the RIAA must compete with Joe Blow? Tough, it’s a free market and any attempts by the RIAA to have the government distort that free market will only make people hate them more.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Two points here:
1-It was the laziness of the music industry that they missed their opportunity to keep that market. Of course it may not have been laziness, more likely it was the haze of sex, drugs and Rock & Roll!
2-No working artist leaves their website “which hasn’t been updated in 8 months, which points to links on an mp3 site that doesn’t run anymore. Why no update? The band is too busy on the road selling t-shirts to worry about a website and music links.” Try Wilco, The Mammals, Guy Clark, or Sonny Landreth to name a few. Or go check out some of my friends at http://wrongplacesaloon.com/ Those folks all have their own sites, as well as this central repository and running memorial.
A moment of silence here for Leather and Charlie Blue…
I’m a couple of decades behind these folks, but Leather worked at laying carpet during the day as well as writing a new song every day. Maintained a couple of sites for his music and ….well you get the point! I saw him last about two years back and first thing in the morning when we got up he said “Hey let me play you a song” and picked up his guitar.
No! The laziness belongs to belongs to the music industry moguls, not the artists!
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Sorry about the confusion, my reference here about laziness—1. Hunting down music to listen to is far more tedious than hunting down a movie, in particular as the music market disperses into a growing number of smaller companies and bands attending to production and distribution themselves. (Laziness!)—was a reference to the general populace and its penchant for being lazy. Most people learn of new artists through friends (real or virtual) not by spending hours hunting out new artists.
As for this silly quote: “You just indicated the difference between what is what will be. Good luck with the future, you just described it perfectly.”
We don’t really need to hunt that hard. We’re just too lazy to do so. You are obviously unaware of
http://www.garageband.com/
http://iacmusic.com/
http://www.archive.org/
and etc. These are the folks picking up where the old music industry left off. The old music industry are the only ones who need the RIAA! Artists like Trent Reznor, Madonna and Neil Diamond continue to sell new works while the RIAA acts as leeches off their old work.
Long live the the Independant Artist!
and I’m done with this silly argument. It’s time to throw on the headphones and crank it up. I think I’ll start with Leather’s “Break the Law”
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“The price of movies dropped because the price of movies in the theaters is having a hard time pushing past about $10 a head. If theater movie prices had gone up with inflation, they would be very near to $20 a head right now, which would probably not be surpportable in the US market.”
Yet the movie industry is sustaining themselves at lower priced movies suggesting they were simply overcharging customers. You’re suggesting that if the movie industry could charge $50 per movie they should regardless of cost and what’s needed for sustainability and, again, that attitude will only turn people against you (kinda like suggesting that water should be $100 per gallon based on its value and what people are wiling to pay). This should not be about what people are willing to pay, it should be about what’s a fair price.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
“Yet the movie industry is sustaining themselves at lower priced movies suggesting they were simply overcharging customers.”
No, you are ignoring the market they were in.
Retail movies was a big enough business, but not huge. Video tapes were good sellers, but the industry didn’t hit it’s stride until DVDs came along. If video tapes were supported at $29.95, then DVD were worth more (better picture, better quality, longer life, etc). They were also more expensive to produce initially, and required stores to double stock, tapes and DVDs, for quite a long time.
The initial price for the DVD was set basically at “what they are paying now, plus a quality premium”. Was it right or wrong? I suspect it was mostly the public wrong paying near $30 for a crappy video tape, not that DVDs were relatively overpriced.
In the interim, buying movies to own has become a big business. Release dates for DVDs are pushed in marketing, TV ads, magazines, whatever. It is a volume business, unlike what it use to be. When you get volume, you get economies of scale, you get lower margins required, etc. In effect, the price of a DVD today is lower than a price of a tape then, with the higher quality.
However, and this is key – if the market for DVDs drops because of piracy, it is likely that some or all of those economies of scale would be lost. The business is profitable now because of it’s scale. a few percentage points of a really big number is still a big number, 20% of very little is still very small.
As Mike would say, it’s Econ 101.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
So then the statement, “The price of movies dropped because the price of movies in the theaters is having a hard time pushing past about $10 a head.” is not true based on what you just said. The price of movies dropped because the price of production dropped, not because movies are valued any less than music (as the statement “How many times do you watch a DVD movie? Twice? Three times? Mostly they collect dust.” would suggest). Well, the price of producing music dropped to, now Joe Blow can make music on his computer and distribute it. The price of distributing music has also dropped. So yeah, the price of music dropped and it should come as no surprise that the RIAA would lose profits now that they must compete in a free market. Of course trying to ask for government regulation that gives them an advantage will only make people hate them more.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
No, it is both. You are assuming that production is the only cost – that isn’t true.
If the ticket price of a theater visit in the last 10 years had gone up at the rate of inflation, movie tickets would be about $15-$18. The price has been stuck around $10 for a long time because of resistance in the market to a higher price. In a weird twist, the CwF thing goes on here, because people are still stupid enough to pay $12 for popcorn and a drink.
So if the price of a ticket to a movie had gone even to $15, the valid price for a DVD would be that much higher. The market appears to be supporting a price of 2 to 3 times a ticket for a DVD, right now in the $20-$30 range (with some as long as $17 or $18 at Walmart on new releases). So instead, the valid price would likely be something like $30-$45, probably seeing a $34.95 price point.
The costs of production and distribution have some down with volume, but the market itself also doesn’t support a higher price. So in the end, the studios / etc make less per sale, but with wider distribution they make more sales.
However, as internet speeds continue to grow, it is very likely that movies will suffer the same fate as music, eaten up by file sharing. At some point, the movie business will go through what the music business has been going through. I am suspecting that DVDs will dry up pretty fast, or be sold at a much higher price in “limited edition box sets” or similar to justify a significanly higher price and lower sales volumes. There are other alternatives, but it isn’t clear that the public would be accepting of any sort of DRM.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
“No, it is both.”
Then to the extent that it’s because people are unwilling to pay less you are adopting a business model that says you should charge what people are willing to pay no matter how much more they are willing to pay than cost. With that logic we should charge $100 for a gallon of water. Lets see how much people like you when you adopt that business model.
To the extent that price has gone down because costs have gone down, the same thing can be said about music. Now anyone can produce music and distribute it and so we should expect prices to go down. Yes, competition means the RIAA makes less money, but tough, stop crying to the government about it. No one owes you an unlevel playing field.
“The costs of production and distribution have some down with volume, but the market itself also doesn’t support a higher price. So in the end, the studios / etc make less per sale, but with wider distribution they make more sales.”
What wider distribution? Movies have always been widely distributed.
“However, as internet speeds continue to grow, it is very likely that movies will suffer the same fate as music, eaten up by file sharing.”
Stop with the scare mongering, no one is buying it. Yes, as Internet speeds increase and more sophisticated video editing software becomes cheaper and easier to use more Joe Blows will make their own higher quality movies and T.V. shows using video editing software and will distribute it and the movie industry will suffer just like the music industry is suffering for the same reason. Tough, that’s a free market, crying to the government for an unlevel playing field will only make people hate you. Look at Michael Moor and Sicko and the documentaries he makes, we have more and more Joe Blows creating content that people want. Yes, this is bad for the MPAA which has practically had a monopoly on this stuff, much of which was probably through government regulation (though our mainstream media probably kept us in the dark about most of that. Now thanks to the Internet everyone can communicate the unethical behavior of pharmaceutical corporations, the FCC, FDA, RIAA, etc… and know the true reason why everything was completely overpriced. BTW, if people don’t stand up against forces that want to limit and higher the price to our freedom of speech over the Internet those freedoms will be taken away from us. The airwaves used to be much like the Internet years ago but evil conglomerate forces eventually managed to control the distribution of information. Don’t assume it can’t happen to the Internet, it happened to airwaves and the same forces are working to take away our freedoms over the Internet).
“There are other alternatives, but it isn’t clear that the public would be accepting of any sort of DRM.”
I would much rather have the MPAA go out of business than to have them put junk on my computer or do anything to try to monopolize the production of movies by anyone who wants to produce and distribute them. If they do go out of business, once again, it won’t be the end of the world. If there is a market need for movies the free market will meet the need to the extent that it is needed. Keep government out.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
sp/Then to the extent that it’s because people are unwilling to pay less…/Then to the extent that it’s because people are unwilling to pay more…
“No, it is both.”
My response was specifically to the extent that prices went down because of shifts in the demand curve, that being obvious by the fact that I was specifically responding to someone who was arguing such a thing.
“You are assuming that production is the only cost – that isn’t true.”
I have made no such assumption. It also depends on what we consider to encompass production within the context of what I was saying. There are two basic costs, production (includes editing or whatever) and distribution (which includes costs of theaters).
Re: Re: Re:11 Re:
Well, I suppose there is another important (but needless) cost I left out, lobbying.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
“No, you are ignoring the market they were in.”
I am not ignoring anything, I am simply responding to mithrandir9x based on his/her own assumptions (that “Movies were outrageously priced, $49.95 and $69.95 for a movie was out of sight.” and that “The price of movies dropped because the price of movies in the theaters is having a hard time pushing past about $10 a head. If theater movie prices had gone up with inflation, they would be very near to $20 a head right now, which would probably not be surpportable in the US market.”). I am not making any claims on the validity of those assumptions, if you disagree with his assumptions then why not challenge his assumptions instead of my response?
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
“Indy movies in download format are already a part of the market and the stock”
This is exactly true, I can go on youtube and get all sorts of content that’s freely licensed to replace the movie industry. More sophisticated video editing software that’s easier for Joe Blow to use is getting cheaper and the only reason bandwidth isn’t getting cheaper in America (but it is in other countries) is because the government is being manipulated by evil special interest groups to grant them monopolies over the infrastructure. The movie industry must compete with Joe Blow who can make a movie just as easily with his friends and put it on Youtube (and if the MPAA tries to do anything to stop this they will, like the RIAA, turn more and more people against them).
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“Give it a few years, you guys will get your wish, the RIAA (and most record labels) will be gone completely, except maybe as holding companies to collect residuals on older music. Then what?”
Then, there will be cake.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
It’s only recently that movies are starting to see the “napster” effect that happened to music. People are getting faster internet connections, so sharing a 3-5gig file isn’t a big deal. As more and more people realize they can download movies in reasonable amounts of time for free off of the torrents, how long will it be before the movie industry is sitting in the same spot as music?
where the hell have you been? dvd’s have been available on BT for as long has BT has been around. moving movies on BT is old news.
and most traffic isn’t dvd-r’s it’s dvd ripz. an xvid of a dvd movie is 700-1400mb, and you can move and store those a hell of a lot easier than 4.7gb. especially if you are just storing on hard disk.
the new thing is hard drive parties, where you trade and copy USB hard drives. when you are trading 500gb drives (the old ones from your file server, that you replaced with 1.5tb drives) you can move tons of stuff, like entire TV series, hundred of films, you name it.
and the great thing about hdd parties is that it doesn’t take any skill, unlike the p2p scene which requires you to know how to use winrar.
The movie business has one advantage, they can just refuse to support DVD or other home based formats altogether, or severely limit the number of movies on DVD, and pretty much shut down the market. They can wait a year or longer before putting a movie on DVD. They have options, they don’t need DVD sales to have income (but it certainly has become a big part of the game). Drop the DVDs, charge more for theater viewings, and stay out of the marketplace.
yeah right. theater sales are nothing compared to DVD sales, and it doesn’t matter if you withhold sales or not. screeners leak well before retail release and cams are up a few days before theatrical release, 24 hours after at the absolute latest. the really good flicks, like the dark knight or the watchmen, i have downloaded half a dozen times as quality improves: crappy cam, decent cam, telesync, dvd screener, dvd rip, dvd-r.
so keep telling yourself film is safe, you’re the only one who believes it.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
My digital collection alone could play for a month and never hear the same song from the same artist in that time.
feh. newb. if i hit play now i *might* be able to listen to my whole collection before i’m dead. it used to be about the music. now it’s just about helping the industry decline.
i used to just download songs i liked. now grab whole discographies just because i can.
lately i just burn dvds of popular mp3s (say every uk number 1 since 1955) and leave them in public places.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Simple: because they failed to adapt to the changes in the publishing and promotion of music.
When the Internet became a commodity, the big labels could all have embraced it and used it to further their interests. Instead, they failed and sued every model that worked.
Audiogalaxy? Sued.
Napster? Sued.
Mp3.com? Sued.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
You are the idiot, that is true.
The “business models that worked” only worked because they weren’t paying for product. Easy as hell to run a store when you don’t pay for inventory. Hard as hell to compete against someone who isn’t paying for inventory.
Idiot indeed.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
What?
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Easy as hell to run a store when you don’t pay for inventory. Hard as hell to compete against someone who isn’t paying for inventory.
if you aren’t paying for inventory, why is there a store? if the inventory can be had for nothing, the customers would just go get it from the source.
Re: Re:
SNL should do a skit … literally
Re: Re:
I will celebrate that day, and mark my words — it is coming. It won’t be the end of the music business, it will be the end of the dinosaur that is killing the music business.
For my part, I grew so disgusted with RIAA that over 10 years ago I stopped purchasing music from RIAA member labels. Instead, I purchase from artists who are not connected with them. And purchase, I do! I spend, on average, about $500/yr on music.
I will never buy from a RIAA member label again, ever.
Re: Technology
“who literally are picking the living carcass to death” “It is actually pretty disgusting”
It is not disgusting at all, “ironic maybe”. Are you forgetting that it was technology that enabled the Recording Companies existence at all in the first place, and it is again technology that will make their existence irrelevant. Before there was a recording technology – no Recording Companies, after commoditizing recording technology – no Recording Companies. Ironic eh? BUT THERE STILL WILL BE A MUSIC INDUSTRY. But the dinosaurs will be extinct.
Re: Re:
“but the alternatives are to throw in the towel and go out of business. “
Oh come on now. Why not embrace new marketting methodes that the RIAA is trying tp sue out of existance? Why not /change/ things?
Oh, right, because sueing is easier and you get money out of it.
Re: Re: Re:
No, again, because nobody has put anything “changed” on the table that is a true business model. 90% of what comes up on Techdirt is “give it away and pray”, because there is no hope of income unless your prayers are answered and someone buys a t-shirt or something. Otherwise, it’s just a give away.
Even the Radiohead “name your price” thing that everyone seems to think was a great success in the end really wasn’t all that good. $3 million of income on nearly a million giveaways isn’t great money. Why not? Well, think of it this way: According to Warner Chappell Music (their publisher), In Rainbows sold 3 million copies. At retail of even $10, that would be 30 million in sales (actual number is higher). They also “admitted more people downloaded the album for free than paid for it.”
So now, if Radiohead has used ONLY the name your price model, they would have moved a couple of million copies, most of which would not have been paid for. The true money was made when the CD was sold retail.
Amazing, isn’t it?
So now then, really: What is the business model going forward?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“90% of what comes up on Techdirt is “give it away and pray”, because there is no hope of income unless your prayers are answered and someone buys a t-shirt or something. Otherwise, it’s just a give away.”
This can be said for the RIAA as well or any business model. All business models are risky, you can make a copyright material and no one may like it and you may lose profits. Or people will like it and you will gain profits. This is true with or without copyright. Someone may sign with the RIAA and end up profiting little. Or their music maybe a hit and they may make money. If someone gives away their music and people don’t like it what makes you think they will like the music if people had to pay for it? and if you’re going to sit here and falsely accuse people of liking the music from those who freely give it away and not paying the artists for it then you have adopted a business model where you mistrust your fans. If you mistrust your fans then why should they trust and appreciate you? Why should people respect you when you assume they all take your music and give you nothing. People donate money to charity (though I don’t really do that much anymore ever since I found out that most charitable organizations keep like 95 percent of the money and give maybe 5 percent to those who actually need it. Still, I give money to my local church). If there is a need people are willing to fund it and if you’re just going to adopt a business model that assumes all your fans want to scam you then don’t be surprised when you lose those fans.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
“The true money was made when the CD was sold retail.”
Again, this assumes that because something is artificially scarce and expensive and you think it’s valuable you should be able to charge whatever you want no matter how cheap something costs you to produce. You assume, “the business model that maximizes profits, even if it requires government regulations to do so, is the best one.” By that logic we should charge $100 per gallon of water because it’s valuable and the government should enforce such a law. With this attitude you can expect to lose fans.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
No, you are confusing the ability to charge anything with massive overcharging. If you don’t think the price of a CD or the price of a DVD hasn’t been finely calculated, you need to go back and get an education.
There is nothing artificially scarce about something sold in huge volumes at retail in a huge number of stores worldwide. That is a totally BS expression you picked up hanging around places like this. Mass production of recordings (pretty much since the time of wax) has pretty much made these things as common as dust. The mistake is assuming that the price has anything to do with the plastic, rather than the material on the plastic.
If we only charged money for the container things were in, pretty much everything would be cheap, because most things come in cardboard boxes that only cost a few cents. Delivered on CD, in digital form, or whatever, music has a market price (notice I don’t say value) that is similar in all case. Current market has a single song at about $1, a CD worth about $10 or so in digital format. Cover the shipping, manufacturing, and distribution of a “shiny plastic disc”, and $15 for a CD isn’t exactly overcharging.
Raising the strawman of $100 water is amusing, but it isn’t relevant to the game, because $100 isn’t the fair market price of water.
SO I say again: The true money for Radiohead was made when the CD was sold retail. The great gods of “name you price” sold more CDs for retail price at retail in the first week of release than they did in their entire “name your price” process. The name your price process would have made In Rainbows the lowest selling album of their career.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
So then why are you complaining about RIAA losing all this profit and losing fans and customers on the one hand and then saying that you’re making good money on the other? Which is it?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
“The true money for Radiohead was made when the CD was sold retail.”
So you’re making money, stop complaining about not making enough money. You just said it, you made money, so then what’s the problem? That you’re not making more money? Well, tough, it’s a free market and many artists are circumventing the RIAA and the RIAA must compete with those artists. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, and it would be unethical for you to try and resort to government intervention to “fix” it. Competition sucks, we know, but there is nothing unethical about it. No one owes you more money, if you can’t make more money in the free market thanks to competition then that’s your problem, stop crying to the FCC to try to force radio stations to play your music and pay you for it (stop trying to extort money out of others).
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
“The great gods of “name you price” sold more CDs for retail price at retail in the first week of release than they did in their entire “name your price” process. The name your price process would have made In Rainbows the lowest selling album of their career.”
Well, artists are finding ways to make money without the RIAA and there is nothing wrong with that. However, it is unethical for the RIAA to try to use the government (ie: the FCC) to extort money out of people ( http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090811/0152565837.shtml ).
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
I will go into this with the understanding that you know the costs involved with press a compact disc vs vinyl and the industry decision to move to CDs over vinyl and tape.
Let me be frank. You’re being a royal fucking dick. You’re exaggerating your value.
Let’s get your asinine comment right: In the 1970s it cost $3.50 to press a vinyl record. You sold the record for $7 to a record store with the hopes that it would sell and be a hit. The Record store would sell it for $10-$12.
Your product had a $20 value at the time (adjusted for inflation) based on the mechanical and physical value. Then all of a sudden this crazy thing called a CD comes on the market which has a 3¢ per unit manufacturing cost. What do you do? Sell it for $24.00 because it’s “Digital” and “More Clear”
Then, when manufacturing costs become 0¢, you can’t figure out how the fuck to make money on it so you sue everyone.
Fantastic. What the hell do labels do again? I’m still trying to figure that out.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“Then, when manufacturing costs become 0¢, you can’t figure out how the fuck to make money on it so you sue everyone.”
When that happened, everyone started making their own copies, which means it is much harder to make money.
The problem is, manufacturing doesn’t cost zero.
(Oh, let me resolve one other issue for you: I don’t work for the RIAA, I don’t work for a record company, I am not a musician, I am not a record seller. I have zero, nothing, absolutely no connection to the music industry. So it isn’t “my” product).
a CD doesn’t cost very much to make (the actual disc is a few cents, plus the case, the artwork, etc… all reproduction costs are about 10-15 cents per unit). But they do cost to ship, they do cost to stock (hint, rent for a store isn’t at the level it was in the 70s), and so on. Oh yeah, vinyl didn’t cost $3.50 a unit. They were about $1 each – unless of course you want to calculate in the machine costs, then we can go all day on what it really costs).
It is safe to say that a CD delivered to a store, less the cost of the music itself runs probably about $4 or $5 per unit. music and label costs add another $4-$5 to that, and then they retail for anywhere up to about $18.99 or so these days from what I have seen recently.
$24 single CDs? Those are like the $50 DVDs, a thing of the past. If you want to compare the future to the future, you have to work on current numbers, not the “piss them off” numbers that amateur debaters use to try to make themselves look good.
So le me be frank: You are using extremely tilted numbers, and you are telling a lie. I suggest you go to your local record store (walmart would do) and research the price of current CDs. Then come back and explain yourself again.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The true money was made when the CD was sold retail.
dude, those days are over and they are never coming back.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
How is “give it away and pray”, which is NOT 90% of the business models … obviously you don’t read the site regularly but are going off of what someone else told you, any different from the “charge and pray” model, where you put out a product, put a price tag on it, and pray that people buy your product?
In one regard, if no one has heard your music, no one is going to pay money for it. Why pay $15-20 for music you may or may not like?
In the other regard, people are willing to try free music, may like it, and may give you money after the fact for a job well done. And they would pay the artist back by going to shows, promoting the band to friends & family with the free music, and generally create a brand value that the band can leverage in any number ways to get paid that don’t require the music listeners to shell out cash.
If the “charge & pray” method does not guarantee you sales, because if no one buys it, then the artist doesn’t make any money off of their music, are they being “stolen” from because of their “right to get paid”?
“So now then, really: What is the business model going forward?”
If any of us had this answer, don’t you think we’d be off making millions of dollars, and not commenting on a tech website brainstorming ideas? And what makes you think there’s going to be *THE* business model? There’s likely to be 1,300 business models that work on different strengths for different people with different goals. Some people want to make a bunch of money, some people want to get heard by a bunch of people … the goal will dictate the appropriate business model.
Or is that the RIAA’s solution? Wait until someone way smarter than them tells them what is going to work. Instead of actually figuring anything out for themselves? Unfortunately, they aren’t listening to anyone to hear the messages.
Re: Re:
“At the end of the day, the RIAA’s tactics might not win them many friends, but the alternatives are to throw in the towel and go out of business.”
Guess what! that’s what a bunch of “Real Business Men” actually did, they got out of the music business and sold a dying business model to LA California types and went laughing to the bank. I can name 14+ labels that saw the writing on the wall between 1998 and now, that sold out to the big 5.
Funny if you look at it as an outsider…. from the inside … oh my god we are failing lets buy more small labels for pennies on the dollar …
Re: Re: Re:
And two last words before I stop using this stupid cell phone ….
“SUCKERS!! LOL”
Re: Re: Re: Re:
actually that’s 4 words….
Re: Re: Re:
It’s called “Creative Accounting” or “Hollywood Accounting” and unfortunately, their culture of “success” has been a model for some of the biggest companies, and now there is a desire to legitimize it.
Point is, they have something that follows the rule of the law, but deviates from the spirit in which the law was written.
The RIAA is no different than these jackholes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/business/15pay.html
Re: Re:
Really? Those are the ONLY two options?
Sue thousands of people, or close up shop & go home? I can see how the recording, marketing, & distribution system is failing so quickly of they see everything in “one of two option” scenarios. Quite frankly, there’s hundreds of thousands of options available to them. You’ve taken the two extremes, and completely discounted the infinite levels in between.
How about not suing people, and not closing up shop? There’s a third option right there. Tons of people are still buying CDs, tons of people are buying mp3s, how about focusing on keeping those customers happy instead of worrying about people who aren’t paying?
How about abandoning charging for listening to music, and instead monetize other parts of the process? Charge for live music, exclusive pre-sales with incentives to pay for music production, merchandising, commercial licensing? Let people “steal” music, but charge for everything else around it?
And if it were a functional business model, then wouldn’t it be functioning? But you’re saying it’s not functioning, so it’s by definition an non-functional business model.
“a functional business model”
that little phrase negates any point you may be struggling to make.
I see the paid industry shills are still around.
Go away, trolls.
It is BLATANTLY obvious to people who aren’t paid shills that the RIAA’s business model isn’t ‘functional’. It’s like saying a rusted out car that is up on blocks in someone’s front yard is ‘functional’.
The only thieves are the RIAA execs and their extortion racket.
I would LOVE to see the RIAA Ago out of business because it’s an outdated dinosaur that is all about protectionism and entitlement and screwing over the consumers and the hard-working musicians who actually DESERVE it.
When that happens, you RIAA shill’s are going to have to go back to your jobs as minimum wage clerks at a convenience store.
Then again, maybe you can become a literal prostitute. You’re already used to being whores and getting screwed for money.
I see the paid industry shills are still around.
Go away, trolls.
It is BLATANTLY obvious to people who aren’t paid shills that the RIAA’s business model isn’t ‘functional’. It’s like saying a rusted out car that is up on blocks in someone’s front yard is ‘functional’.
The only thieves are the RIAA execs and their extortion racket.
I would LOVE to see the RIAA Ago out of business because it’s an outdated dinosaur that is all about protectionism and entitlement and screwing over the consumers and the hard-working musicians who actually DESERVE it.
When that happens, you RIAA shill’s are going to have to go back to your jobs as minimum wage clerks at a convenience store.
Then again, maybe you can become a literal prostitute. You’re already used to being whores and getting screwed for money.
What’s disgusting is your complete misunderstanding of the situation, AC. The alternatives are to innovate, adapt, advance compete. It is obviously not a functional business model if some new technology comes along and trashes it. It has ceased to be functional. It needs to change. That is what is being said here. Business needs to change with the times to continue to be relevant. Businesses that don’t are going to be left behind. It’s as simple as that.
I think the BSA gets less enmity in general because it more often (thought not exclusively) targets corporations rather than individuals. While I don’t agree with their tactics, especially not the rat program (which invites abuse), I do think corporations should pay for the software on which they run their business.
RIAA goes after individuals neither seeking nor making profit from their infringement, and is managing to squeeze inordinate settlements and outrageous judgments. That’s pretty much like going house to house shaking down families for personal use “infringement”.
For me its an easy choice as to which organization to look down upon more.
Re: BSA vs RIAA
A few reasons why the BSA is less unpopular
1. It’s license terms are less aggressive – it has always explicitly allowed backup copies etc.
2. In terms of “shrinkwrap sales” it has basically lost already – there is now no need to buy any s/w from them if you don’t want to. For most small organisations there are now adequate free alternatives for just about everything. Using illicit copies of BSA s/w is basically pointless.
3. Most s/w vendors now realise that they are selling a service – Microsoft competes with the free Linux/open office offerings by talking about total cost of ownership – in short the business model has already adapted.
Most of the things that still make me cross about Microsoft are the things they have done on behalf of RIAA/MPAA.
Re: Re: BSA vs RIAA
Couple of items.
1) BSA does not license anything, the software makers do.
2) BSA does not sell software.
3) Total Cost of 0wn3r5h1p of a windows box … heh
Re: Re:
Not as hated?!
Every time I see their name, BSA, I want to google-bomb them. Business Software Alliance, BSA. I want the search index to point to the real BSA. I’ll just have to continue the google-bombing until the BSA hits those idiots with a WWF-style trademark lawsuit.
/be prepared
Re: Re: Re:
Except the links all get “no follows” on them making them worthless. Keep going.
If you honestly believe that Mr. Sheffner is “supporting the entertainment industry’s sue ’em all strategy” then clearly you misunderstand what he is and has been saying.
Re: Re:
Elaborate?
Re: Re: Re:
No thank you. I’d rather make accusations and not back them up.
the mistaken software comparison
the software comparison is silly. with the software it’s the company who produced the product who are concerned about the license (two parties: me -> software company), unlike the music industry which is profiteering off the backs of the artists (three parties: me -> music industry -> actual artist). it would take a lawyer to see these as parallels…
Re: the mistaken software comparison
Trackman’s comment about software only involving two parties (“me -> software company”) may be true for application software, but it’s not true in the gaming industry. There you have me -> publisher -> developer. The developer often doesn’t have the kind of money required to publicise the game and pay the up-front costs to bulk-produce the physical products, so they rely on a publisher to do that for them (which isn’t exactly risk-free for the publisher). That’s changing now with downloadable titles, but many people still prefer to buy a physical product from a shop instead of a more intangible download.
Re: the mistaken software comparison
the software comparison is silly. with the software it’s the company who produced the product who are concerned about the license (two parties: me -> software company), unlike the music industry which is profiteering off the backs of the artists (three parties: me -> music industry -> actual artist). it would take a lawyer to see these as parallels…
the software comparison is silly, but not for the reasons you stated.
it’s silly because the BSA targets businesses that use software without license. running a business for a profit using unauthorized copies of the software is similar to, but not exactly like, selling bootleg copies of music.
the RIAA also shuts down large scale operations that sell bootleg copies of CD’s.
non-commercial infringement (infringement for my personal use and not for financial gain) is vastly different from commercial infringemet. the BSA doesn’t have many (if any) cases where they have sued individuals for personal infringement.
i think this is the reason why the BSA, while often maligned in information technology circles, is not nearly as hated as the RIAA.
Why do you hate parasitic stockholders and sociopathic corporate predators so much? Ok, true, so a bunch of people get sued, but a lot of other people (ok, just a few) get really fucking rich! Without rich people, we wouldn’t even HAVE music!
Re: Re:
Ok, this comment is completely effing retarded. There was no such thing as “rich people” when cavemen were beating on rocks with sticks and bones, but they still managed to make music and we’ve been enjoying it ever since. There has always been music and there will always be music with OR WITHOUT the RIAA, and even without artists and fans because ANYONE can be an artist and EVERYONE is a fan!
Re: Re:
Ha – that’s funny.
Why do you hate parasitic stockholders and sociopathic corporate predators so much? Ok, true, so a bunch of people get sued, but a lot of other people (ok, just a few) get really fucking rich! Without rich people, we wouldn’t even HAVE music!
Re: Re:
“Without rich people, we wouldn’t even HAVE music!”
Pardon? You’re either very confused, or you’re trolling. Many people create because they want to express something. The blues wouldn’t exist if wealth was a prerequisite for music.
Re: Re: Re:
I’m relatively sure he wasn’t being serious.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Looking back, you may be right. You AC’s all look the same to me! :-p
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Looking back, you may be right. You AC’s all look the same to me! :-p
that’s racist.
Re: we wouldn't even HAVE music!
“Without rich people, we wouldn’t even HAVE music!” Totally clueless!! First of all you confuse wealth/greed, with prosperity/abundance. Confuse money with the things that humanity needs. Such as food, clothing, shelter, and when these material things have been satisfied in plenty then the things of the spirit such as art, music and knowledge. But if you have a big suitcase full of paper money, and you are hungry but there is no food available to buy then how wealthy are you really???
Some form of music has been around since the beginning of time, since even before money, and the so called primitive tribes still have their own music, and it is a community activity. Not the domain of the selfish, the greedy and the wealthy!!!
Re: Re: we wouldn't even HAVE music!
Sarcasm meter must be broken. You fell right into it, too.
Re: Re: Re: we wouldn't even HAVE music!
Why do you hate parasitic commentators and sociopathic sarcastic predators so much? Ok, true, so a bunch of people get confused, but a lot of other people (ok, just a few) get really fucking funny! Without funny people, we wouldn’t even HAVE comedy!
Re: Re: Re:2 we wouldn't even HAVE music!
“Without funny people, we wouldn’t even HAVE comedy!”
Comedy is a copyrighted word that only I can use and it’s a patented concept that only I may exercise.
FAWK THE RIAA AND ANYONE THAT SUPPORT THEIR RAPING OF MUSIC!
Software can be functionally equivalent, music cannot
One big difference between the BSA and the RIAA is that users that are ticked off at the behaviour of the BSA often have functional equivalents available that they can switch to. Most free/open source software companies absolutely *love* BSA audits, because it emphasises one of the biggest advantages to end users of the FOSS licensing model (i.e. you only have to care about the license if redistributing).
That doesn’t work with music – if a band you like is signed with an RIAA label, then your only options are to hand over your cash to the label and hope some of it eventually makes it to the artist or else download it illegally. Unlike independent artists, those signed to the major labels often won’t have the rights to sell their own material directly to fans.
adapt or die
I don’t hate the fact that there is a business built around music. I hate the fact that the current business side exploits both the fans of music and the producers of music.
I work with musicians on a regular basis, (mostly as a photographer) but a lot of time is spent discussing ways to make money off of music. Technology has opened up unheard of potential for marketing and distribution, and artists can share/sell their work in many new and creative ways, and this is a great thing.
The difference is, while musicians want to get paid for their work, they also respect their fans. this is something the RIAA really needs to learn: Respect the fans.
If they are unwilling to learn this lesson, they can join the candle-makers, VHS, 3.5″ floppy disk manufacturers, and horse-and-buggy makers in the pages of history.
“but the issue most people have is not that it’s a business, but the way the business has been run”
The business is run by people, people make the decisions to do stupid crap like sue your biggest fans. Its really the people I hate. Not necessarily the “accountants, lawyers, enforcers” but maybe the “other not-so-fun people” that call the shots. We are talking about large companies that employ lots of people, most of those folks are not to blame, its the relatively few folks that make the decisions that are the problem. I do hate the mob bosses of the music industry and those of the software industry too.
perhaps its just me…
but any business that has to resort to an endless stream of bogus lawsuits that depend on faulty information and bogus (nay, completely fictionalized) “damages” is NOT functional and SHOULD go out of business. if you cant stay in business through sales and standard revenue streams, then you should not be in business at all.
different targets
maybe i’m wrong, but afaik bsa is not hunting private individuals for the pirated software they use on they home computers. they are after the businesses which is sort of commercial infringement.
Anyway, the difference is that music file-sharers are seeking a free version of something good. But who in their right mind would buy a “pirated” version of Windows or Word? I buy the open-source stuff to get away from that shit.
re
Really, I have to shake my head at the lunacy of some of the people who support the music industry in this matter. For years the industry screwed everyone they could lay their hands on. It was OK when they were doing it. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they have all of a sudden come to Jesus. Now they’re the victim.
“But piracy is WRONG!!” Yes, of course it is. Nice to see you’ve finally acquired a sense of right and wrong. There’s a saying in law that you have to come to court with clean hands. The music industry does not.
Re: re
HAHAHA… karma’s a bitch!
“Furthermore, the rather obvious reason why it’s a smaller group of people up in arms about the BSA’s tactics is that the average person rarely buys software. Most people buy a computer pre-loaded with software, and then maybe download a few applications. But actually going out and getting new software occurs a lot less often than the average person gets new music.”
Citation(s)?
“Furthermore, the rather obvious reason why it’s a smaller group of people up in arms about the BSA’s tactics is that the average person rarely buys software. Most people buy a computer pre-loaded with software, and then maybe download a few applications. But actually going out and getting new software occurs a lot less often than the average person gets new music.”
Citation(s)?
BSA is just less visible
The BSA is nowhere near as active as the RIAA. I’m sure if the BSA was conducting armed raids on a daily basis, they would be very much as hated as the RIAA.
Yes, a lot of people dislike the RIAA, however the BSA may soon see the same fate.
Yeah, that's about right.
I really only dislike the RIAA as a business because of their business decisions. They saw their customers embracing a new technology that liberated the music or other media from any one format and drove distribution cost down to almost nothing. And instead of looking forward and embracing the technology, they decided to do everything in their power to simply halt technology in its tracks right there.
I dislike any business when the only things I hear about are all the great new services and technologies they’ve tried to shut down to protect their own obsolete business practices. I don’t have a problem with people making a buck, but I do have a problem with somebody desperately lashing out at progress cause they can’t learn to adapt.
Re: Yeah, that's about right.
“They saw their customers embracing a new technology that liberated the music or other media from any one format and drove distribution cost down to almost nothing. And instead of looking forward and embracing the technology, they decided to do everything in their power to simply halt technology in its tracks right there.”
Here’s the thought process from the other side: “If we embrace this new technology, we will be giving away all of the product we have been selling, and our market with got from 10 billion a year to zero overnight. Hands of all the people who think this is a good business model?”
There were no hands.
looking at it from purely a consumer side, you want everything for nothing. Nothing gets you nothing in the long run, and the RIAA isn’t in the business of nothing.
It is the reason Techdirt is so funny to read, so many people flailing about yelling “free this” and “free that” and nobody thinking past the ends of their noses as to how it would really work in the long run.
Re: Re: Yeah, that's about right.
Then you don’t read TechDirt much, do you? Because most people I see commenting here are very clear that they are willing, even eager, to pay for stuff and support those who produce the stuff they enjoy. A lot just aren’t willing to support an unethical system or organization such as RIAA while they’re at it, and would like some other way.
RIAA does not equal the music business.
Re: Re: Re: Yeah, that's about right.
So you would pay if you could pay directly to the artist, even if the artist turns around and has to pay 100% of that income out to support the “business model”?
Re: Re: Re:2 Yeah, that's about right.
I’m not sure what you mean in this comment, but I do spend a lot of money on music, and every dollar I spend goes directly to the artists, 75% through their websites and 25% buying their CDs at their concerts.
I do not purchase music from artists who are signed to a RIAA-member label, not even if I’m giving them the cash directly. I do not buy from record stores (online or otherwise) nor from iTunes et al.
The traditional “music industry” has become so oppressive and awful that I can not support it in good conscience. I can and do support those that produce the music I listen to, though, in the real industry.
Re: Re: Re:2 Yeah, that's about right.
No one is against business models, we’re against bad business models like the ones the RIAA has adopted.
Re: Re: Re:3 Yeah, that's about right.
Explain to me what is bad about their business model now that wasn’t bad 10 years ago. I can only see that they are not giving away their stuff for free and not giving in to file traders who want everything for nothing.
Re: Re: Re:4 Yeah, that's about right.
Artists are coming up with good business models and people are paying (as we have shown on techdirt). Even people on techdirt are paying, so please don’t give us this nonsense about everyone wanting everything for free. Attacking your customers like this is not a good business model. Please get it through your head, blaming others for your failures is not a good business model. Others are succeeding, artists are succeeding perfectly fine with free market business models that involve no RIAA or government intervention. Please take notes, you want to know what the RIAA is doing wrong look at what successful artists (like the ones techdirt fans pay) are doing right.
Re: Re: Re:5 Yeah, that's about right.
Hussssssssh. What is not said because they need to keep it quiet. There is no longer any need for Recording Companies and their distribution model. It adds no value for the artist or the fans, just a money grab, or to use their own terminology “theft”. Sort of poetic justice tables turned if you will.
All that other smoke an mirrors stuff is just to muddy the waters and cover that fact up.
Re: Re: Re:4 Yeah, that's about right.
But if you don’t get it through your head that the RIAA and other organizations that demand copyright last forever minus one day are acting unethically and that they are demanding ISP’s to invade the privacy of citizens for their personal gain and to inflict cruel and unusual punishment and that this is unethical behavior then don’t be surprised when fans don’t want your product. It’s not piracy that’s hurting you, it’s your bad business model. I mean just look at this nonsense.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090811/0152565837.shtml
The fact that the FCC would even pay attention to this nonsense suggests the FCC is being strongly manipulated by the unethical RIAA. This has got to stop, it’s unethical and when the RIAA participates in this sort of behavior they lose fans. And when the RIAA keeps blaming it on piracy instead of their own failure they will lose more fans. The RIAA wants to force radio stations to use their product and to pay them for it. That’s extortion, it’s no wonder people can not in good conscience financially support these people. It’s not that people are cheap and unwilling to buy, you keep adopting a business model that falsely accuses people of wanting everything for free and being freeloaders you will lose fans and the public will turn against you and they will try to persuade politicians to turn against you and those numbers against you will increase and increase until forces like the pirate party become more dominant and politicians start paying attention to us.
Re: Re: Re:4 Yeah, that's about right.
Actually, RIAA was just as bad 10 years ago, and even longer. Ten years ago was when I stopped buying RIAA label music.
Re: Re: Re:4 Yeah, that's about right.
The business model was based on monopoly and control. Basically the artists and the fans had nowhere else to go. So rip-off on both ends. Now the monopoly is gone and to survive the monopoly/control business model needs to change. But leopards don’t change their spots, so it is back to the monopoly/control model, exercise their stolen copyright and sue the customers ass off.
And how has that model been working so far, for a business that depends heavily on public relations and a customer/fan base???
Microsoft is walking down the same path, and the result will be somewhat the same. Individuals, corporations, governments always work their own destinies. To quote from a related concept: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap”. In the long run there is always justice and order even in business models. How about “don’t be evil” as the basis of a business model? Watch how this one works over the long haul for the company that has it and if it continues to practice it.
Re: Re: Re:4 Yeah, that's about right.
“I can only see that they are not giving away their stuff for free and not giving in to file traders who want everything for nothing.”
And that, is why you fail…
Re: Re: Re:4 Yeah, that's about right.
Explain to me what is bad about their business model now that wasn’t bad 10 years ago. I can only see that they are not giving away their stuff for free and not giving in to file traders who want everything for nothing.
good idea: treat the paying customers with respect.
bad idea: using DRM to aggrivate and inconvenience paying customers
good idea: embrace new delivery methods that reduce costs
bad idea: waste money on dubious lawsuits
10 years ago i was trading zip disks of mp3’s with co-workers and downloading mp3’s from napster on dialup. i had 2 or 3 gigs back then. i have a terabyte now, easily.
most of the music i was downloading i had already bought on cassette or vinyl and it just wasn’t available on CD.
that was the problem:
1) selling my old collection back to me again
2) crushing the small record stores where i learned about music thereby making the music i wanted to buy no longer available
3) raising prices while lowering quality
4) refusing to embrace digital delivery
Re: Re: Re:5 Yeah, that's about right.
“good idea: treat the paying customers with respect.
bad idea: using DRM to aggrivate and inconvenience paying customers”
Nice to say. But while you may be a nice guy, worthy of respect, the guy next to you is turning around and pushing the music off to torrent sites as fast as he can, banging out copies like pooh out of a constipated monkey.
The respect has to be mutual. If you aren’t respecting the artists and the labels, then why the hell should they respect you?
Re: Re: Re:6 Yeah, that's about right.
Nice to say. But while you may be a nice guy, worthy of respect, the guy next to you is turning around and pushing the music off to torrent sites as fast as he can, banging out copies like pooh out of a constipated monkey.
wow, analogy fail.
DRM does nothing to stop piracy. pirated stuff doesn’t have any DRM on it, either because the DRM is stripped before upload, or because it was ripped from a format that never had it to begin with. all DRM does is make the pirated version more valuable AND inconvenience your paying customers.
see, a paying customers has already paid. they should be the people you treat well, after all they actually paid you.
if you prevent a paying customer from making use of your product, they will stop paying for the product.
if you want more paying customers, make paying for your product worthwhile. taking peoples’ money and giving them a product that is inferior to a freely available version is a really bad idea.
as for respect… well, the recording industry is in a mexican standoff with file sharers.
the industry argument is “we will respect consumers when consumers stop file sharing.”
the file sharing argument is “we will respect the industry when the industry starts to respect us.”
this is great and all, but file sharing costs file sharers nothing, and fighting file sharing costs the industry money at a time when revenues are drying up.
so it doesn’t matter which side is right, which side deserves respect, or even which side is legal. the fact of the matter is that this is a war of attrition and the industry is fighting with finite resources (money) and the file sharing side is fighting with unlimited resources. one side can go on indefinitely and the other side can not.
Re: Re: Re:4 Yeah, that's about right.
” Explain to me what is bad about their business model now that wasn’t bad 10 years ago.”
You can now very easily copy or distribute music.
Re: Re: Yeah, that's about right.
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.
Publilius Syrus
(~100 BC)
Re: Re: Yeah, that's about right.
“It is the reason Techdirt is so funny to read, so many people flailing about yelling “free this” and “free that” and nobody thinking past the ends of their noses as to how it would really work in the long run.”
heh. funny. i’m pretty sure that music and musicians have existed for millennia without the riaa. that strikes me as a substantially longer “long run” than the ~55 years the riaa has been ’round.
the best part? the riaa will eventually go away whether you think techdirt is funny or not.
m3mnoch.
Re: Re: Yeah, that's about right.
“It is the reason Techdirt is so funny to read, so many people flailing about yelling “free this” and “free that” and nobody thinking past the ends of their noses as to how it would really work in the long run.”
Maybe if you read more than you laughed you would see how off kilter this point is. That’s all TechDirt is:
1. So many people flailing about “free this” and “free that” and then explaining how it works
2. People for copyright completely ignoring everything that is being said, and never actually reading the points that are being made in favor of “free” business models
3. People explaining for the 14545th time how it would work
4. Trolls flailing about yelling “free doesn’t work” and “deserve to be paid” and nobody thinking past the ends of their noses as to how the old system just doesn’t work anymore and only has as long as it has because of backroom deals & government protectionism.
Re: Re: Re: Yeah, that's about right.
Alan, with due respect, puhleeeze!
The free business models out there are leveraged on a couple of basic principals:
1. Someone else will pay the bill
2. Some fans are stupid enough to overpay massively just to belong
3. without raw material costs, almost any business model looks good.
1 covers everything from advertising to “lots of t-shirts”. 2 includes those t-shirts, plus other artifical scarcities like “autographed” anything, “limited edition” stuff that can be reproduced on a moments notice, and so on. 3 basically says “if you don’t pay for what you give away, and you get a little of 1 or 2, you can be rich!”. Or at least sell out to Google.
I have read many, many explanations here, and they always end up back at these three points. There are plenty of variations, but they all come back to the simple points.
Pathetic
“They only hate us because of what we are. It’s not our fault. We’re the victims here. No one else is hated like we are for doing the same things. Poor us.”
It’s a pathetic attempt to paint themselves as the victim. I’ve seen saran wrap that’s less transparent.
Solution
Copyrights last 20 years. NO exceptions. After 20 years…PD!
Re: Solution
As a very successful starving artist I support this type of reform.
Okay ... going back to an old comment of mine ...
The 5 Stages of Loss have a beginning its called denial…..
“I think a lot of this negative opinion was due not to specific alleged misdeeds, but to the very nature of the business and its product. Music is about fun, escapism, pleasure. The fact that music is also a business, populated with accountants, lawyers, enforcers, and other not-so-fun people, is quite jarring. It’s natural that people react negatively when confronted with the harsh reality that it’s about more than “the music””
Ooops forgot the last couple lines....
Stating publicly that you are filing these suits to make people afraid to download music does not help your case. Stating that filing suits is a method to increase public awareness and stop downloading doesn’t help either. How does saying one thing, lying to peoples faces, and doing another thing make people like the RIAA. It doesnt, people hate you because you are dicks.
No, it is the RIAA’s + major labels action which have ended my long tradition of giving them money, lots of money — $100 per month or more to the majors. I moved to a boycott when the major labels moved to suing individuals.
Fortunately, there’s an endless supply of used copies available for most major label releases that I want.
I thing the RIAA brings us a great service. They use their money to go and find talent and bring it to us… and we should pay for that. At the same time, they are treating their customers so horribly.
Re: Re:
RIAA doesn’t do this, it’s their member labels that do. And even that service is not important anymore. In this day and age, it’s easy to find more great music than you could listen to without the assistance of a record label. I do it all the time.
This is the fundamental issue — almost everything that the traditional record labels have done, the value they’ve added, is no longer of any real value. They’re obsolete.
There is still a role for some services that help guide people to the music they want, but the traditional labels fail at this pretty massively, since their system is rooted int he economics of the past. In the past, you had to have megastars with mass appeal to make money. Now, you don’t — an artist can directly cultivate an audience, even a relatively tiny one, and make as much money as they ever did.
The public wins because we can all have access to music more directly appealing to our particular tastes (in other words, less vanilla) and the artists win because they don’t have to go platinum to make a living.
RIAA represents dinosaurs who do nothing but harm music and the artists that produce it.
“I find this incredibly unpersuasive.”
—————–
I find that incredibly ironic.
“there was no such thing as “rich people” when cavemen were beating on rocks with sticks and bones, but they still managed to make music and we’ve been enjoying it ever since.”
——————
Oh God, it’s TechDirt’s weirdest poster, the guy who always makes caveman references as if the fucking Paleolithic era was some kind of cultural golden age. Your obvious pseudo-retrospective boner for pronounced foreheads, full body hair, tribal warfare and ape-rape amuses me to no end. Please refrain from reason and remain an idiot forever. Your comments are fast-becoming the only reason to check back here. If you haven’t already, I highly reccomend you steal (or “tangibly infringe” if you prefer) the biggest tub of moisturizer you can find then pirate a nice 1080P copy of “Quest for Fire”. If that means we won’t be seeing any more posts from you for a few months, so be it. You deserve a vacation.
“…and even without artists and fans because ANYONE can be an artist…”
Yes, “ANYONE” can be artist just like “ANYONE” can be a surgeon, a mathematician, an athlete, or a race car driver. If you’ve ever extracted a sliver from your finger — you’re a surgeon! If you’ve ever balanced your check book –you’re a mathematician! If you’ve exerted yourself to a elevated heart-rate — you’re an athlete! If you’ve ever exceeded the speed limit — you’re a race car driver! And if you’ve ever cobbled together a sentence, finger painted with feces, sang in the shower, used a disposable camera or taken cell-phone footage of your dick — THEN BY GOD SIR, YOU ARE AN ARTIST! NAY! AN ARTISTE! And don’t let anyone tell you different…
LOL
Re: Re:
Oh wow. I didn’t expect Nathan Myhrvold to post in this thread!
Still staying sane, Nathan? How’s the ongoing search for an office manager?
Re: Re: Re:
FYI:
It seems Nathan Myhrvold doesn’t have an actual T-Rex in his living room anymore.
Well, at least it’s no longer described on his wikipedia entry. Now, other commentary may prove otherwise. Nonetheless, your point of trying to connect the delusions of IP folks like Nathan to cavemen seem somewhat invalid.
Based on his wikipedia, it looks like he’s decided to focus more on cooking, possibly pursuing the direction of becoming a chef of some sort.
Re: Re:
“Yes, “ANYONE” can be artist just like “ANYONE” can be a surgeon, a mathematician, an athlete, or a race car driver.”
You can’t be serious. Can you? You must have deliberately misinterpreted what that poster was saying.
Let me clarify — just because an artist is “professional” doesn’t mean he’s any good. It just means he gets paid. Just because an artist is “amateur” doesn’t mean the artist stinks, it just means he doesn’t get paid. A large percentage of the best music I’ve ever heard has come from “amateurs.”
The music label system does not consistently reward the best artists — it greatly reward some terrible ones and misses some of the best. It all seems a bit random in terms of quality. In my opinion, it’s one of the signs that the labels are worthless and need to go away, artistically speaking.
Re: "I find this incredibly unpersuasive."
“I find this incredibly unpersuasive.” Have a little bit of a comprehension problem do we???
Well lets see if we can put it in kindergartenese. There have been artists in the past who painted pictures and sometimes gave them away for free, those same pictures today can be sold for millions of dollars. Ancient art that they steal from graves, and even “caveman” graves can also be sold for large amounts of money. Was the person who created the stone phallic symbol an artist? Was a Picasso an artist, because I would not give $20.00 for any of his so called art pieces?
So in your obsession with everything having to have a monetary value, it has escaped you that this (buying art) behavior is only the rich flaunting their money in a different investment vehicle. And there really is no connection between art and money, the same way that there is no connection between athletes and money. Some of the best athletes never got paid, and some of the best artists died in poverty. So is their wealth or popularity during their lifetime a measure of their talent? And have no patients of your high paid surgeons never died on the operating table? So how talented can they be, or why do they need insurance?
So maybe when he was making reference to “cavemen” he was making reference to pseudo intellectuals like you at a metophoric level beyond what you can perceive. Same as the phrase “don’t be evil” is a metaphor for “don’t be MS”.
Re: Re: "I find this incredibly unpersuasive."
Vincent Van Gogh didn’t make any money therefore his paintings are all worthless. Paper money has only been around for a few centuries; coinage, a little longer. Bartering? Where would you even begin.
But art? Art has been around since the very beginning of human history. Art is the process of making marks with one thing on another, essentially. Where was I?
Oh, right. THEM STEALERS ARE DESTROYING MUSIC!!!
Re: Re:
“I find this incredibly unpersuasive.”
—————–
“I find that incredibly ironic.”
I find this incredibly incredible.
KODAK!
Techdirt's Very Existance
It has occurred to me, in all these arguments, all the debates about music and news and art without copyright, the very existence of Techdirt seems to disprove all of the points the pro-copyright supporters seem to make.
Without the incentive of ownership, people would not create. Well according to the author of this site, he does not write to own more than others. He has time and again pointed to websites that take the articles directly. The RSS feed is complete; technically no one has a reason to come to website if the ‘copyright’ was the important part.
Of course, Techdirt is also giving away the ‘content’ the so called ‘valuable’ stuff away for free. As far as I know not a single one of you people pay to read the articles. Excluding of course, your internet connection. Speaking of the posters!
If we MUST have copyright at the time of creation because without it, no one would write or create, does that mean the ONLY reason you post a comment is to own a comment? Do you not care about the discussion, the value of your ideas? You only want to own? Without that part of copyright law, would you cease to write? Or at least, cease to post until your post is registered duly with the Copyright Office?
Speaking of registration. I am guessing here, but I do not think Techdirt registers their copyright. Of course, with the way things are, they have it by force; so, would they register it if they did not? Obviously only a question that can be answered by them.
Oh and HERE is a good one. “Without copyright and protecting the artists, music would not get made.” Okay, let us forget the past, classic music, pre-copyright music, none of that matters. Let us simply look at today. Without copyright, no one would write music. Without ownership, monopoly, the ability to dictate the exact how of their music, and without being able to earn from it every time someone uses it, no one would write music. So the Creative Common License is never used on Music, right? Well no, there are at least 10,000 SONGS covered by CC, which can be upwards of 30,000 Copyrights (Music, Lyrics, and Recording, not even counting things like Arrangement and notation.)
Software is even bigger in this regard, without paying for the software, no one would get paid! Without being paid, Microsoft would have to close its doors, and no one could live on creating a program, and the age of technology would come to a screeching halt! Only we know there are TONS of programs and code segments out there not under restrictive Copyright, the type the industry claims we need more of less we go to a new technological dark age.
So really, how do you justify your position? Techdirt exists. Creative Commons is being used. FOSS is booming. Not one of them relies on Copyright. To the maximalists, even some supporters, these people, these creations cannot truly exist. How do you rectify this in your mind?
Re: Techdirt's Very Existance
Because stealing is wrong? It says so in the bible? Who cares? Every year that passes is another year where they lose the argument. I can’t wait to be having this exact same conversation in 2019! It’ll just like 1999! Let’s party!
Re: Re: Techdirt's Very Existance
There’s a missing be in there. Party!
Re: Techdirt's Very Existance
You miss the point.
Mike’s words lose value as they are displayed. This isn’t communications for the ages, this is transient, sort of like another one of those crappy remixes that pollute the music world these days. Mike doesn’t ‘copyright’ his material because 10 minutes after it’s posted, it is stale.
Now, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, 30 years later, still isn’t stale. Elvis Presley’s stuff still isn’t stale.
If all we are talking about is protecting the ignorant remix universe, I say toss it all to the dogs and be done with it. But real musicians deserve our respect, and they deserve to have the rights to their works. No moron 13 year old in Mom’s basement has the right to take that away from them, anymore than he has the right to shoplift.
Society as a whole is sinking when we come up with excuses to tolerate theft and piracy.
Re: Re: Techdirt's Very Existance
I was trying to come up with an excuse for your inability to understand what “theft” means, but there really is no good excuse for stupidity. Sorry.
Re: Re: Re: Techdirt's Very Existance
I was trying to come up with an excuse for your inability to understand what “theft” means, but there really is no good excuse for stupidity. Sorry.
getting paid to be obtuse isn’t a good enough excuse?
Re: Re: Techdirt's Very Existance
“If all we are talking about is protecting the ignorant remix universe, I say toss it all to the dogs and be done with it.”
So you are to be the arbiter of what is “real art” and “worthwhile”? You know what? In my view, Led Zepplin’s stuff, and Elvis’s stuff, is incredibly stale. That’s why I don’t listen to it anymore. Why is your opinion more valuable than mine?
“But real musicians deserve our respect, and they deserve to have the rights to their works.”
True, even though you just disrespected a whole crowd of real musicians yourself. I don’t think anyone here is arguing that musicians don’t deserve respect and shouldn’t have the rights to their works. At least, I’ve never seen anyone make such an argument.
The arguments are:
1) Copyright should be limited in time and scope. The limits in the original law would be fine.
2) The music industry cannot survive in the manner they’d historically operated in, and there’s nothing they can do to change that fact. They need to find a new way to operating or go out of business — and it looks like they’re choosing going out of business. This is not an ethical argument, but a pragmatic one.
Re: Re: Re: Techdirt's Very Existance
I don’t think it’s fair that the trolls get paid to spout garbage and you reasonably respond for free.
Re: Re: Techdirt's Very Existance
say what?
so, by this rationale, the declaration of independence is damn near worthless?
bzzzzzt — wrong.
idea != property. music != property. the point was not missed.
m3mnoch.
Re: Re: Techdirt's Very Existance
“Now, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, 30 years later, still isn’t stale. Elvis Presley’s stuff still isn’t stale.”
Like hell it isn’t. “Wayne’s World” did a great spoof proving that point.
BSA doesn't go after the individual
If the RIAA only went after business, even just the likes of Napster and Piratebay I think they would be mostly forgiven by the general public. The BSA for all it’s problems does not make it about the guy that has software on his home machine, they make it about the business that has 100, 500, 5000 illegal copies of software.
“Let me clarify — just because an artist is “professional” doesn’t mean he’s any good. It just means he gets paid. Just because an artist is “amateur” doesn’t mean the artist stinks, it just means he doesn’t get paid.”
—————————–
Just because a doctor is “professional” doesn’t mean he’s any good. It just means he gets paid. Just because an athlete is “amateur” doesn’t mean the athlete stinks, it just means he doesn’t get paid.
A large percentage of the best athleticism I’ve ever seen has come from “amateurs.”
With the rise of affordable protein shakes and in-home exercise equipment, it has now become easy for “ANYONE” to be a world class athlete. The NBA, NFL, MBL etc might soon find themselves out-competed by this rising tide of “amateur” athletes who are just as good, if not better than the current “professionals”.
….LOL
Riiiigghhhttt
“With the rise of affordable protein shakes and in-home exercise equipment, it has now become easy for “ANYONE” to be a world class athlete. The NBA, NFL, MBL etc might soon find themselves out-competed by this rising tide of “amateur” athletes who are just as good, if not better than the current “professionals”.”
Yes, because EVERY professional was born wholly complete AS a professional-whatever and never wasnt a professional. They never had to learn, they never had to struggle, they never went through any internships or “paying dues” where they werent being paid for being the immaculate conception of their profession, srpung forth complete and without any of that “amateur” stain to mar their perfect professionalism that they were born with from the egg.
Try to get the POINT of the piece before you ramble on about it by just substituting words with ZERO understanding of the underlying principles of the argument.
But, I am moving towards the postion of
HATING every business person in the music business.
If you hang around with assholes don’t be surprised when some of the opprobrium rubs off on you.
..
Who cares who is being the most hated tbh..?
I agree with the ones who say that the actual business model needs to adapt.
The middleman is no longer needed.
The Freetardation Station
Techdirt wants the entertainment industries to cater to freeloaders and then hope to make up the difference with t-shirts, mahogany boxes, and mini-golf play dates with fans.
When pressed on how t-shirts, mahogany boxes and mini-golf play dates will fund a 100 million dollar movie (or any other expensive endeavor) Mike will excitedly mumble something like “but, but, but why do movies COST 100 million dollars? That’s the REAL question!”
Hell, Nina Paley’s much publicized (in freemunist circles) indie-movie hasn’t even made half it’s initial investment back after two years and it only cost 300k!
But, but, but why do movies cost 300k? that’s the REAL question!
And on and on…
LOL
Re: The Freetardation Station
Techdirt wants the entertainment industries to cater to freeloaders and then hope to make up the difference with t-shirts, mahogany boxes, and mini-golf play dates with fans.
If you think that’s true, then you will fail in your business. Because that’s not what I’ve said at all. But, who are we kidding… we already know you’re failing at your business. And your answer is to lie about those of us trying to help you?
Re: Re: The Freetardation Station
Mike, it’s exactly what you said. Infinite goods should be free, by nature should be freely distributed, and trying to stop it is stupid.
You want a small minority of the people, paying way over value for something, to support the freeloaders. Heck, you are even doing it here on Techdirt, pushing t-shirts, books, and whatnot to support your free service (this site). You suggest that bands should make their music freely available for download, with the hope of attracting more fans to their shows (the ultimate in “give it away and pray”), which again requires the band to raise ticket prices to hope to make back what it lost on the music sales.
You may think a bunch of us “have it all wrong”, but all we are doing is applying your words to the real world. A few exceptional cases (usually with very clear alternate explainations) don’t make your theory float.
RIAA
i agree, everyone loves the music business, not just the people associated with it.