Australian Record Industry Has Best Year Ever 382
Hecatonchires writes "ARIA (Australian Record Industry Assoc.) had their best year ever, but are fudging the figures because they run counter to their anti-filesharing arguments."
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Australian Record Industry Has Best Year Ever
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BLISS is ignorance.
Keep in mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Did someone say 'monopoly'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a question here, okay? When a (not all, not many, but one) recordcompany-executive automaticly can argu that any decline in sales is due to piracy, isn't he really saying "The only way people can get music, is trough us. We are a fscking monopoly"?
Not to overestimate the intelligence, will or job-commitment of any government official or politician, but I had the distinct impression that monopolies were accounted for as "bad for the people", and was the whole reason we had anti-trust-laws.
So **AA
Re:Did someone say 'monopoly'? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure that independent record companies have complaints about the difficulty of setting themselves up, and probably can point to various anticompetitive practices, but there doesn't seem to be the widespread abuse on the lines of Microsoft. For instance, I've never heard of any of any individual company, nor the **AAs going to record shops and chains and saying "You can't sell our product if you include content from these independents". I have also not heard about any of the **AA refusing membership to new companies or independents.
Re:Did someone say 'monopoly'? (Score:3, Insightful)
You entire argument is flawed, if the currently non existent recording artist/singer/band Foo signs a contract with a given recording company, that company is most likely going to have exclusive legal distribution rights of Foo's songs through CD's, LP's, Cassettes, Online downloads, etc. They recording company can license another company to also distribute content... for a price.
Now for a bit of sarcasm to driv
Re:Keep in mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Interesting)
What I don't get is the whole "I don't want to buy a CD for just one song." argument. I don't think I've heard a decent song come out since '93.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
The trouble here is that other things than file sharing could be affecting their sales, and the only way to know is to setup a control group (filesharing vs. no filesharing), but this is not feasible. There are other methods of determining if alternate theories are more plausible than the one suggested by the correlation, but they require some degree of reliable measurement.
The real trouble in all this is that the RIAA, ARIA, etc, have a vested interest in retaining control over the music industry, so fileshring scares the bejeezus out of them (with good reason, too). It is a method where any artist can be evaluated on the merits of their talents, not their marketing team (the current model).
Think you're any good? Start a website, link some torrents, and away you go. But if you suck, or no one sees your site, then your doomed. It's easy to tell if no one is downloading your songs.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:5, Insightful)
AFAIK no-one has ever argued that file-sharing helps record sales.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Funny)
Welcome newcomer! There are many wonderful things to discover here at slashdot and may I be the first to wish you well on your exploration.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Interesting)
On Saturday I bought two albums solely because I encountered songs on Kazaa. Wouldn't have looked for them otherwise.
One point does not a curve make, I know, but hey, it's a valid datum nonetheless.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Interesting)
actually the article you (and the moderators) just read, does.
But what about our research, I hear the record companies scream. ARIA paid a research company to survey music consumers. The survey results suggest there's been a 12 per cent decrease in CD purchases by people who are into file-sharing. The greatest percentage is with the under-17s - people who don't have much money. But the research suggests those with the money, the 45 a
Re:Keep in mind (Score:5, Informative)
It is stating the findings of the research - that after file-sharing that particular group of people are buying more CDs than they were before hand. Causation isn't claimed, only correlation which is the point being made.
Maybe CD prices have dropped between the before and after file-sharing time frames. Maybe the economy boomed and hence spending on CDs. Maybe the price of DVD players dropped and suddenly a large number of people had a device that can also play CDs in the lounge room.
The quote you provided makes no claim as to the reasons why, it merely states the correlation. Exactly what the "correlation is not causation" crowd demands.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:2)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Informative)
Summary
The value of sales of music topped 500m in the final quarter of 2003, the second highest quarterly total ever recorded, representing an increase of 4.5% on the same period in 2002. Clearly the demand for recorded music in the UK remains strong.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Insightful)
The record companies do the research to prove their point that file sharing reduces sales. The people that are pro-filesharing are generally individuals who don't want to pay for the research, and the rest of the world doesn't really care enough.
It's the sad truth, but until some unbiassed reseach is done the record companies will keep spouting the same old dribble as gospel.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Interesting)
Want a music example? The singles taken from Evanescene's recent album are good, but not brilliant. Once I heard the whole CD though I bought it. No ads, no video clips, no radio play was enough. Until I could enjoy it on my own terms I didn't know if I would like it enough to justify the purchase.
You can't just look at the volume of stuff downloaded and say that because every track that's downloaded isn't subsequently purchased that there's something immoral going on. I don't download commerical music off the P2P nets, but if they're anything like the rest of the world, there's a hell of a lot of crap out there that isn't worth the time it takes you to workout how crap it is.
What is "science", here? (Score:4, Interesting)
Chances are industry profits will follow the economy. The more disposible income there is, the more people will "vote" for their favorite bands. All I have to work with is anecdotal evidence: my sister bought 15 copies of the Elvis Costello CD for her friends for Christmans because she "wanted to support him." But my sister has money.
My own anecdotal experience is that the only time I bought any CDs at all was during the heyday of Napster. I bought all kinds of stuff because I was reminded of and found what was good. (Also I had money during the heyday.) I also had money before Napster, but I did not buy CDs because I got burned too often.
What if it turns out that P2P actually stokes interest in music and ultimately increases record sales more than radio broadcast does? It is ENTIRELY possible that this is the case. All of a sudden the industries are going to do this huge spin....
Didja RTFA? (Score:2)
That, and there's me. I hardly every buy music without listening first. I don't like top-40 pabulum, so that leaves downloading.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:5, Interesting)
My friend used to work for one of the big 2 record companies. He wasnt particularly senior, but he wasnt a complete chump either, think middle sales [ie keep the stores happy] kinda role.
Every friday his boss would give him about $100 AUD from petty cash to go into the bigger record stores in the City [the way the charts work is that the more popular a store, the more weight each sale has in the charts].
He would be instructed to buy maybe 10 singles of the cheesy artist said large record company was trying to plug to bring them up the charts.
The funny thing is, when I had this conversation, its one thing to assume it happens, but its another entirely for it to be completely confirmed. And its not just 1 guy, his entire department was in a similar chart-pumping scam paid for by said record company.
I always asked him what the 18year old behind the counter would say when a mid 20's guy would walk in and buy 10 of "Cheesy teen pop star latest single".
"oh its for my daughters gift bag for her birthday"
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and it goes both ways. A decrease in sales doesn't mean it's piracy. So, in essence, there is no economic "proof" either way.
Also, keep in mind, that the "correlation isn't causation" is a deductive reasoning objection. It doesn't mean that correlation isn't evidence, convincing or otherwise, it just means it isn't conclusive proof.
To note the difference, we must investigate other potential explanations for the correlation. What other factors could contribute to the increase in CD sales? Has the Australian economy improved since 1998? Apparently the number of released CDs has decreased, so that can't explain it. Has music marketing gone up? Is there any other explanation? I honestly don't know, I don't have the resources to investigate these other factors.
Again, not conclusive proof, but certainly suggestive evidence.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Informative)
According to this article: [csmonitor.com] What record industry slump? Independent labels say business has never been better.
Change is coming... (Score:2, Interesting)
Granted, the ARIA is fudging the figures to jibe with their party line...but I expected that anyone.
...their distribution-enforced monopoly is slowly slipping away.
Mirror (Score:4, Informative)
It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:4, Informative)
Copyright infringement isn't stealing either, though they can both be independently illegal. The difference here is that the copyright holder doesn't lose his rights. His exclusivity is infringed upon, but nothing is taken.
If people are going to insist on analogizing it to something else, I would suggest TRESPASSING. If I put my foot in your yard, I've trespassed. But you still have your yard; you just aren't enjoying it exclusively.
Anyone who calls copyright infringement "stealing" has an agenda, and shouldn't be trusted.
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:5, Insightful)
If people are going to insist on analogizing it to something else, I would suggest TRESPASSING. If I put my foot in your yard, I've trespassed. But you still have your yard; you just aren't enjoying it exclusively.
I don't wonna stop here. I think, it's more like they build towers and then insist on charging money for looking at them. We are not even trespassing on their property, just enjoying it, because they've made it so wildly accessible. Their only argument is "if you don't pay us, who will build these beautiful towers for you too look at?" We are consumers, after all; what happened to our right to chose?
And there's a huge difficulty of a different sort here. The pirate is now an individual, and the "theft" is happening in the privacy of our houses. The whole idea of p2p is that there's no middle man (except the ISP, and they alredy washed their hands). To fight piracy effectively, they will need to tap our wires, to know what we are doing behind the closed doors. I hope you'll agree, they shouldn't succeed at that. I believe, the change is coming.
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:2)
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's where this analogy gets sticky. Granted, yes I still have my original property, but now you have a copy of my property now too. While in this case it may not hurt me (since I'm not selling my yard), you are still walking away with something that isn't really yours.
Except in the case of music, the copy you are walking away with is something you should have payed for to get, regardless of whether there was an exchange of property or not. That is where this whole issue gets really sticky.
So it does border on actually stealing in my humble opinion. Copyright doesn't even have anything to do with it really. You're taking something that you can only get (legally) if you had paid for it.
Mostly playing devil's advocate here, because I personally don't like paying > $14 USD for 2 good songs and 13 filler tracks. If you want to call me a thief, so be it. But it's amazing how far people will go to justify stealing music. Just say you steal and move on. There's nothing to argue about and no one will judge you any different.
I mean no harm in breaking laws right? We've all gone slightly over the speed limit as well as jay walked.
Still isn't theft (Score:5, Interesting)
If indeed it is illegal. Here in Canada, we can copy CDs all you want - we pay a tax on every blank CD that's distributed to record labels, and in exchange we have the legal right to copy CDs. Not that anyone seems to make a distinction around here, the "it's theft" people still call it theft...
Re:Still isn't theft (Score:3)
1. It's not a tax, it's a levy, and
2. It only gives you the right to copy CD's you already own, for personal fair-use reasons like backup and format-shifting. It's still just as unlawful to procure copies of music you haven't paid for from friends or via P2P.
Re:Still isn't theft (Score:3, Informative)
Check the link for the full context.
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is, they do. Remember how rediculous it sounded when the MPAA and RIAA started using the term "Intellectual Property," right about the big DeCSS case? We all knew that there was no such thing as "intellectual property," there was just copyrights and patents which defined certain limited rights afforded to one party or another. Now that "intellectual property" has become lexicon, you hear phrases like "they can do anything they want with it. It's their intellectual property." Substitute the word "copyright" in that previous sentence and it just doesn't work. By defining copyrights as a form of property, property rights go along with it.
Likewise, by defining copyright violations as a form of theft, additional punative measures go along with it. A "theif" has a clear-cut definition and a lot of cultural associations with it. Being a thief means you have deprived a rightful owner of something for personal gain, and you must return the thing and be punished. Violating copyright is something completely different. That's not to say that copyright violaters shouldn't be punished, that's to say that copyright violaters didn't deprive a rightful owner of a physical object. There are also the labels of "arsonist," "mugger," "hacker," "slanderer," "murderer," "terrorist," and "con-man." They all have different legal meanings, and different cultural associations, and should all should be punished. But to call a "hacker" a "terrorist" would be disingenuous, a clear attempt to draw an inappropriate punishment for a less severe infraction. The same is true with calling a copyright violator a "thief."
Personally I like the term "pirate." It's such an antiquated term that it lacks most of its original meaning, actual piracy is incredibly rare, and it is culturally entrenched enough to become an accepted standard. I would prefer if copyright violations kept the name copyright violations, but realistically with seven syllables it would have to be shortened in Japanese fashion to copvi, and even that might have one syllable too many. "Pirate" is a good compromise term.
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:5, Informative)
According to a recent news article [sundayherald.com] its not as rare as you'd think. In 2003 there were 445 reported incidents.
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:4, Insightful)
I would instead go back to music and suggest this: an open-air concert that is a non-free event, but with random people walking by, and into, the area. They listen for a while (or the whole time) and walk off without paying. There was plenty of room, the quality was approx. the same, and everyone (paying or not) walked away having had a similarly satisfying experience. Did the non-payers steal music? Not any more than walls, chairs, and trees did. But they did get something for nothing, something which wasn't expected to be had for nothing.
It's not theft. It's a free lunch. And there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, even when there is.
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem a little confused. The copyright holder does lose his right: he loses the right to decide upon the fate of that individual work such as charging you a fee for using the work.
OTOH, I don't think that means that it qualifies to be called stealing though, technically nothing has been stolen. It would be stealing if the copyright owner had made the copy, and then you took that copy: but it's not stealing when you make the copy yourself. That's the distinction.
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:2)
They still can choose the fate of the work but the copy lives on which in my opinion is not a bad thing in a world where copyrights last as long if not longer than the creator.
The system was built so works would eventually enter public domain after suitable compensation to the creator. This system works, the modifications are rediculous especially from a software standpoint.
Imagine waiting 70 years
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:2)
What does this have to do with digital distribution? This has always been true.
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:2)
Copyright infringement isn't stealing either, though they can both be independently illegal. The difference here is that the copyright holder doesn't lose his rights. His exclusivity is infringed upon, but nothing is taken.
If people are going to insist on analogizing it to something else, I would suggest TRESPASSING. If I put my foot in your yard, I've trespassed. But you still have
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:5, Informative)
Some definitions (Score:2)
1. Stealing: Deprevation of property, usually limited to tangible objects. The intent is to deprive the owner of an object, such that you may use/sell it.
2. Copyright infringement: Obtaining or making a copy of copyrighted material without paying appropriate royalties. Eg downloading copyrighted materials.
3. Copyright stealing: Changing
Re:It's NOT STEALING. And it never will be. (Score:3, Insightful)
Rather I think of 'information wants to be free' as being similar to other aphorisms such as 'water seeks its own level.' Obviously water isn't actually seeking anything, it's just a way to describe what tends to happen.
Information tends to become widespread. Once it leaves your control, you typically can't get it back. So to put it another way, you might say 'secrets don't want to be kept.'
Whether the information is secret because it's scandalous, or slightly secret m
Lovely acronym (Score:4, Funny)
HA! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:HA! (Score:2)
I remember someone posted a link in a discussion once to this company. I thought at the time, "There's a great use for it, and the record industry can profit". It would let them get back on the cutting edge, rather than 6 months behind.
~Will
Repeat? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Repeat? (Score:3, Flamebait)
Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, come on (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, come on (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, you'd need to define exactly what you mean by "growth". Amount of revenue, profits, people employed? None of those imply that the growth should be equal to the number of CD sales. For example, the profits might well be increasing by 10%, while the CD sales increase by 5%. All this means is that the industry has been able to increase their profit margins. Not that piracy is hurting them.
In fact, the logical conclusion to dr
Re:Oh, come on (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, it's gotta be those darn pirates.
Re:Oh, come on (Score:3, Informative)
Truth is that CD sales went up since p2p networks were released, but I'm not claiming there is a connecton.
Truth is CD sales went down when with the economic downturn, but I'm not claiming that economics and CD sales have any connection whatsoever.
Truth is CD sales went up with each new p2p network released and went down when the p2p networks were shut down, But I'm not claiming there is any connection.
Truth is that record compaines have fe
Re:Oh, come on (Score:2)
Despair, Pirate Scum !!! (Score:5, Funny)
Listen now, ye yellow-livered one-eyed pirate scum ! Ye thought ye had em down, didn't ye ? Bu they're still rising, ain't them ? Ye can't keep them Music Empire down, can ye ?!?
Look at these numbers and despair, ye pirate scum !
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Quantity not quality ? (Score:4, Funny)
Given the crap nature of 99% of current music, either Aussies have *really* bad taste, or the quantity of crap being rained from above must have gone through the roof...
Simon
"Current" music isn't crapper than old music. (Score:5, Insightful)
Stumble accross someones old record collection in a loft sometime and it will no doubt be quite craptacular.
fixed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Old music looks good because time has filtered away the crap, not because it was better at the time.
Or... (Score:2)
Savy Consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
The same is true with music. I for one prefer to download the entire CD to listen to all the tracks. Most online music sites have the first 30 seconds of each song. I really don't feel like I know enough from those 30 seconds to decide if I like the CD. I can usually decide that I don't like the CD. Think of how many people get upset because there's the won good single on the radio and the other tracks are all crap? I will happily go out and buy a CD if I feel it is worth the cost. I have bought more CDs because I listen to the whole CD and decide if I like it enough to buy it.
Re: (Score:2)
This just in! (Score:5, Funny)
Bargain Bin Browsers (Score:5, Insightful)
These are the people who spend hours pawing through the big bins of massively discounted CDs you see in the corner of many music stores.
These discs are often compilations or recordings that, for one reason or another, simply never sold at the full retail price.
Although the bargain-bin browsers will happily pay $1, or even $10 for these discounted albums, they'd never ever consider paying full price.
The only way the stores can clear them is to virtually give them away.
Well the arrival of P2P filesharing networks has produced the ultimate extrapolation of the bargain-bin browser.
These are the people who will download a track or an entire album -- but only because it's free.
They would likely never buy the album or tracks in question -- even if they did turn up at $5 in the local bargain-bin.
So do these people really represent lost sales to the recording industry?
No they don't.
A huge percentage of those who download a large proportion of the music found on P2P networks simply would never buy the music they copy to their PC's hard drive or CD writer.
For the recording industry to claim otherwise is, to use the politest term that springs to mind, disingenuous.
Yes, filesharing probably does have some negative effect on disc sales, but the recording industry have brought that on themselves by overstating their case to the extent that nobody actually believes them any more.
Re:Bargain Bin Browsers (Score:3, Funny)
No... wait a second...
Scariest part of the article.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even the FBI has become involved. It says music piracy has become its third priority behind terrorism and counter-intelligence. A number of US Congress members who rely on the entertainment industry for campaign funds lobbied the FBI to spend more money hunting file-sharers and CD burners. So now CDs in the US carry FBI stickers warning of fines of $250,000 or five years in prison.
I sincerely hope they aren't expending much effort on chasing down teenagers with cablemodems. Given the fuckups at the FBI in the past several years, I would think that they have their hands full just trying to keep the citizens of this country from being killed. Unfortunately, I am never surprised at what money can buy these days.
Re:Scariest part of the article.... (Score:2, Insightful)
So does the War On Drugs even rate in the top ten now?
Re:Scariest part of the article.... (Score:2)
If I had a say in US law enforcement, I would tell the music industry to stop smashing people kneecaps, would charge those who smashed the kneecaps of musicians in the past (ext
Home taping (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, home taping obviously didn't kill music, Simon Cowell and Pete Waterman did. But that aside, the difference between then and now is simply that the record companies are taking a tougher line and are being allowed to do so by their tame politicians. The problem isn't a new one, but the "solution" is.
Re:Home taping (Score:3, Interesting)
Home taping was limited by: time taken to dub the album; usage of physical media; the number of people you knew or could get in contact with via conventional means (snail mail, phone, fax etc.etc.). So one person sharing an album had limited impact due to constraints on time, resources and reach.
A pervasive network such as the Internet allows someone to share w
Legal in Canada (Score:3, Interesting)
That means, you can't give away the copies - they're for your personal use only. But, you can always give away the original, since you bought it, and you don't have to destroy the copies, or even stop using them. You can even borrow or rent a
Re:Legal in Canada (Score:3, Insightful)
And when all audio disks (I noticed and approve that you made the distinction) are loaded down with non-Red Book DRM, will the tax go away?
I'm minded to remark that in USia (and UKia) income tax was a short term measure to support a war [infoplease.com]. Funnily enough, when the war ended, the tax stayed.
I don't buy CD's because..... (Score:4, Interesting)
I am still listening to U2's The Joshua Tree (which I bought years ago) and Crowded House. The only thing lately I have heard that was interesting was Ben Harper - even then, only a couple of songs were good.
I mean, sure....Post Modernism is ok - but the same Hip Hop crap about some American cultural "issue" is getting really boring.
It's all the same, but I am supposed to keep forking out AU$30 per album. I don't think so.
Re:I don't buy CD's because..... (Score:2)
Sad to hear this... (Score:3, Insightful)
This begs the question... (Score:5, Interesting)
The cynical answer is that P2P is never about artist royalties or piracy it's about the fact that one P can be the artist and the other P can be the customer with no sign of ARIA or RIAA anywhere between the two. These big music industries are not fighting for the survival of music and musicians, they're fighting for their own survival at the cost of artists and consumers.
Re:This begs the question... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's all about C O N T R O L!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Pure and simple.
This is about spin and control. The record industry's profit/distribution/business model has been turned on its ear. They don't know how to respond, so they sue everyone in sight, bribe (oops! - "LOBBY") lawmakers. etc. All to keep the status quo while they figure it out. So far they haven't been able to. After all, digital distribution (MP3's etc.) have only been around for OVER FIVE YEARS ALREADY!! Besides, we wouldn't want the MARKETPLACE to decide, would we? God forbid another company be allowed to take business from them!See, the RIAA is sleazy and corrupt. They are a cartel. Five companies (soon to be four if they have their way) control something like 90% of the recorded music available for sale in the world. They like their monopoly. They want to keep their monopoly. Wouldn't you?
So, they lie cheat, bribe and do whatever they have to in order to keep the cash cow giving milk. If that means telling Congress that CD sales are down 10% due to downloading when the real reason is that they MANUFACTURED LESS CD's in order to keep the prices up, so be it. After all, the way they see it, you're not really lying, you're just SUPPRESSING THE TRUTH by witholding information.Besides, don't you think that Congress KNOWS what they're doing??!! After all, the politicians INVENTED SPIN!. Don't you think they know whan they're being spun? It's just that the spin comes with a nice bribe attached.
We have the best Government that $$ can buy and until they're voted out, nothing will change!... And don't hold your breath for THAT to happen! :(
About the author (Score:5, Informative)
There isn't much bio information on the website but he is in his second year of presenting Triple J's current affairs program and was previously a reporter for same. You can listen to the show online.
He has written some interesting articles for the Sydney Morning Herald [smh.com.au] in the past, including this one on the decline of Sydney [smh.com.au] and another on censorship of CDs [smh.com.au].
cheers
marty
Price of CDs in Aust (Score:4, Interesting)
How's Australian radio? (Score:4, Insightful)
Humans are naturally drawn to music, especially new interesting music, and will seek it out from some source. P2P is really the only alternative in US cities (i.e. Houston) that are Clear Channel owned and have no music scene.
People will not buy on a blind risk. Why don't the record labels go after the radio monopolies instead?
You jump too quickly to conclusions. (Score:2, Funny)
If file-sharing really didn't affect them, they wouldn't bother going through all the tro
Singles sales (Score:2, Insightful)
The target audience for singles is different, (too cheap/poor to buy the whole CD), and it much easier to get a single from p2p than a whole album....
Reversal of Fortune (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's the record industry that's getting a free ride from file-sharing - a massive marketing system that allows music lovers to get exposed to all kinds of music without the record industry having to pay a cent.
That describes my experience EXACTLY. If you're like me, you remember not too long ago when anytime you met someone in a band, you couldn't wait to ask them what they'd been listening to lately. When everytime you were at the book store, you rifled through the back of music mags looking at the What's Hot list. When you watched MTV late at night (when the format went off tight rotation) hoping to pick up some first-hand "insider" knowledge of whose star was poised for imminent ascendence. You'd go to the record store, buy a few CDs from the list you'd put together, buy a few more that you hoped would pan out, and go home. I considered myself lucky if, after all the advance work, I ended up with one out of three that actually made it into regular play.
Then, everything changed. In my case it started with Hotline. I noticed that in addition to warez, there were sporadic postings of music...and suddenly, a veritable flood. Mostly, it was bands I'd never heard of before. After a brief period of being annoyed at having to look harder for Bryce plugins or KPT add-ons or whatever the hell I was cruising for, I decided to check out some of these MP3s. It was like taking a starving Ethiopian to Royal Fork Buffet. I tried entire genres of music I'd never heard before. Electronic music suddenly made sense. Soon, I was arranging lists of sites that specialized in types of music I couldn't have even named a year before. As James Burke might say, it was The Day The Universe Changed.
Within six months, I ran across the early version of Napster. It was buggy as hell, but the idea of looking on someone else's hard disk to see what they were listening to was like the gift of Promethian fire. It empowered me. Instead of being a remora fish picking among musical scraps left over by people who "knew" what was happening in music, I started becoming someone who knew what was happening. My listening habits started diverging from, and then absolutely veering away from, the Top 100. For the first time, it became transparently obvious that mass music is a processed, focus-group-derived product like mass food or mass clothing or mass anything else. It's not that I felt snooty, just awakened...and for the first time ever, in command of what I listened to. I entered a golden age of enjoying music like never before. Now, I could go to the record store and buy CDs with a 90% or even 100% success rate, compared to maybe 30% in the old days. I no longer felt ripped off. The more I downloaded, the more CDs I felt like buying.
Bottom line: P2P is the greatest marketing tool ever devised for music. I have hit my forehead and said 'Doh!' about a thousand times over the last few years as I've watched the ham-fisted tactics of the RIAA, and their utter inability to change with, and exploit, the revolution in music. They should be getting fatter and happier than ever by seizing new technologies, and surging forward with the explosive push of free, ubiquitous marketing and feedback provided by P2P.
Instead, they are suing 12-year-olds and college students, and selling "secure" DRM CDs that won't play on your computer. They are flunking Business 101 not only by alienating an entire generation of customers, but BY TRYING TO DISMANTLE ONE OF THE MOST ASTONISHING FREE MARKETING GIFTS EVER BESTOWED ON AN INDUSTRY.
Nuff said.
You answered your own question... (Score:5, Insightful)
So tell me again why the record industry crushing P2P is stupid? It's wrong and evil, but not stupid per se.
strange rationale against piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, if piracy increases sales of physical CDs, then it might be reasonable to assume that the first step in getting away from the physical-media-based distribution system would be to stop that which drives those sales. If the record industries are trying to impliment a download-based distribution system, it'd make sense for them to [persecute|prosecute] online piracy. After all, which is more appealing to the average consumer, downloading a song for free or downloading a song for a dollar/pound/yen/whatever?
If this is the case (and I make no claims that it is), then I can't say that I like the methods that have been taken (suing ISPs, suing impoverished little girls, etc.), but it would at least make the whole thing a bit more sensical/sane/intelligent, in my opinion.
(FYI, I have not read the article... yet, and it should under no circumstances be construed that I'm making excuses for the recording industries of the world and their lawyers. Quite frankly, I think I hate the bastards.)
~UP
an appropriate reference (Score:3, Funny)
'nuff said
Common sense (Score:3, Interesting)
CopyRIGHT is not (Score:3, Interesting)
It is worth noting that Copyright is not an intrinsic right, but rather, a government granted privilege. Arguments which focus on how "piracy" is a violation of an author's rights are typically trying to push their point via pathos persuasion (i.e. invoking pity or sympathy). These are colloquially referred to as "crap arguments."
Of course, the definition of "intrinsic rights" is debatable; I believe they include the right to private property and freedom from coercion, and nothing else.
Re:Copy Control (Score:3, Insightful)
Just my 2 cents worth (or should that be '2p')
Hal
Re:Copy Control (Score:4, Funny)
So take it back to the store, demand your money back, and go download it.