Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz? 435
Phonographic Memory writes "A new study has come out that purports to show a link between file-sharing and decreased CD purchases. Covering the period of 1995-2003, the study looked for a link between owning a computer and decreased CD purchases. The researcher found that 'some US music consumers could have decreased their CD purchases (prior to 2004) by about 13 percent due to Internet file sharing.' In its coverage of the study, Ars Technica notes that the scholarly consensus on the possibility of a link between file sharing and music purchases is missing: 'the dominant impression gained from reading these studies is that finding accurate correlations between file-sharing and loss of revenue for the music industry is tremendously difficult.'"
Ofcourse it does (Score:5, Funny)
There has also been no new malls built since 2000 (Score:2, Offtopic)
Lets do some math..
low paid people + people with computer knowledge (at least enough to fire up limewire) = low CD sales.
anyone care to check my math here? Or could it also be said that we could have all had about 300 more CD's than we currently have now if gas prices weren't what they are?
Re:There has also been no new malls built since 20 (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't want their damned music. I don't want their damned music badly enough that I haven't downloaded any of it either.
That CD I bought 6 months ago? It was made on a computer. In the home of the artist. I bought it from her at one of her appearances at a local coffeehouse. It's got a CC license. It doesn't even show up on the sales statistics.
Ya think that might have something to do with the official sales numbers?
". . . finding accurate correlations between file-sharing and loss of revenue for the music industry is tremendously difficult.'"
Yeah, I have the same problem counting the number of pixies living under my bed.
KFG
Re:There has also been no new malls built since 20 (Score:5, Insightful)
There you have it. Their product is bad, overhyped, bubblegummy teenage nonsense.
When I find good music I buy it, and in the last 15 years or so the good music is coming out on smaller, independent labels.
Amen.
I buy CDs at shows all the time. The artist gets the money, I get the music, a major label record company gets nothing - everyone wins.
Re:There has also been no new malls built since 20 (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it was established [wikipedia.org] several years ago that it was actually a decline in piracy that led to global warming.
What about : increased suckage ==decreased sales? (Score:5, Insightful)
2) I have bought maybe 2 CDs in the last year, vs. 20 a year in the early 90's
This is mainly due to the high level of suckage by today's "musicians". Has anyone done a study that includes that correlation? Also I've built my collection the point where I have almost everything I want already. How does that figure in?
Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased sale (Score:2)
Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased sale (Score:5, Insightful)
And how exactly to you propose to objectively measure the "level of suckage"?
Seriously, what you say is not true. What sucks is the music that's played on the radio, not modern music. This is mostly a result of the deregulation of radio that occurred in the 90s, paving the way for a few giants to own just about everything.
The effects were somewhat delayed by the "grunge" boom; every major label was so desperate to find "the next Nirvana" that they took chances with all sorts of interesting bands that wouldn't have otherwise gotten major label deals. They have since realized that they'll make more money sticking to the formula, so they push nothing but garbage on the radio and MTV nowadays.
Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased sale (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A theory: commo
Perhaps it is a demographics shift too (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, suckage is very subjective. Another possible cause is a shift in demographics. For us people who used to buy CDs, but now don't because of perceived suckage, we have stopped buying. Period. We have not started downloading (well typically anyway). The higher volumes of new releases are now more biased away from people like me to those who like rap or whatever. Perhaps the rap-buying demographic has never been strong in CD purchases, so perhaps that explains a lot, perhaps not.
Analogy alert: if you replace a French resturant into a MacD,then expect your patrons to change and expect your sales numbers to change too. The wine bar next door should also expect changes since your average MacD eater is probably less likely to fit the wine bar profile.
Not demographics - Not Enough Cow Bell (Score:5, Funny)
But forcing Blu-Ray on me won't get me to buy the White Album again - I already burned it onto MP3.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
It'd also be interesting to see how many of the songs downloaded are by unsigned bands that wouldn't be accounted for in total CD sales anyways.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it involve booty dancing videos or angsty emo kids screaming?
No, but seriously.
The reason music sucks today is that all stations are owned by clear channel and MTV doesn't play music videos anymore.
Secondly, most major stars aren't even really musicians in their own right, but rather manufactured acts.
That said... I quote wiki: "In June 2003, Jon Wiederhorn of MTV.com referred to Marilyn Manson as 'the only true artist today'.
Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased sale (Score:2)
If your music reference is MTV or radio, then yes, it's mostly garbage.
Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased sale (Score:4, Interesting)
One thing that truly freaks me out is the blatent theft of riffs and complete lack of originality by many of the leading "Pop" artists. Hey... isn't that Madonna butchering ABBA? Rihanna pilfering SoftCell? Gwen and Fergie ripping off children's songs - or each other.
Re:What about : increased suckage ==decreased sale (Score:3)
True artists want their works to be seen, heard, shared, understood. They want to evoke a reaction in people. Of course they want to make a living too, but love of money is not what motivates them.
Lots of people in the recording business are not interested in "art". They want to make gobs of money. They want to be superstars. Tha
Nonsense! (Score:2, Insightful)
But seriously, does this shock anyone? If I'm getting the milk for free how is the cow gonna get paid? Or some shit like.
Re:Nonsense! (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah! it's just like when the casette tape killed the recording industry and the video tape put all the movie theatres out of business and the radio wiped out record sales. we've know this connection for years! ever since the public library put all the publishers out of business.
seriously. people buy cd's (and books and movies) as much for owning an artefact than for the actual content. people want to have personal libraries and large music collections and so they will buy books and movies. history proves it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a thought: If CD sales are being hurt, it's not because of online downloading.
It's because the music industry won't cater to what their customers are asking for.
And that means death to any business. Recor
Decreased CD purchases... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of things have changed in the last 10 years. P2P fileswapping is one of them. iTunes is another.
What about many of us just changing interests? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then about 1996, I moved in with my girlfriend, and the focus of my life completely changed. Again, still bought CDs, it's just music
Let's buy games and peripherals (Score:3, Insightful)
This is baseless, inane trash with no grip on reality. The "study" is 100% pure crap.
What's a simpler answer that would *also* match the observations (assuming that ther's a significant correlation)? Let's see, maybe people with computers buy computer games, War Crack, Ever Crack and other things with their disposable income.
They should bring back medieval style public humilation for people who mis-represent and distort t
The music sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
The same applies to movies. Torrents aren't killing your ticket sales.. Your crappy movies are killing ticket sales.
"Honey, do these jeans make my butt look fat?"
"No, your fat butt makes your butt look fat."
See the concept?
Re:The music sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Music today is no better nor worse than yesterday. You remember the good stuff and forget the crap, the same way I remember the good 90s music and not the crap.. That is how things work. You remember the good and discard the crap.
As you get older you learn about music and what's good and bad.. You learn yourself and your tastes, I'm sure you can understand that.. but when you're 15 you're still a young guy who will follow groups a bit more.. learn a bit more and such..
Music didn't change my friend, YOU changed.
Re:The music sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
So, now we have the Internet to discover the good stuff, along with satellite radio. The Internet user downloads what he discovers at time of discovery, so no need to purchase a CD. I t
Re:The music sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I'll be the one to decide that when it comes to spending my money since this is a highly subjective matter.
I don't buy CDs nearly as much as I used to. Radio stations play the same music they've played for about 5 or 6 years now. I find myself turning the channel to talk radio more often than not because I'm tired of hearing the same music over and over and over again.
Those are facts. We can argue the cause of the facts if you want.
Not buying CDs
1) I'll admit that music isn't as big in my life now as it was say in college. So perhaps age has something to do with it.
2) I'm older and wiser and whenever I even think about buying a CD (which isn't often) I think of better ways to spend my money.
3) Perhaps I'm falling out of touch with whatever is the fad of the day. (See #2)
Same music over and over
1) Perhaps there really aren't that many good new songs being released. (i.e. today's music really IS worse)
2) Maybe whomever is in charge of the music at the stations in my area are lazy.
3) What if (wait for it . .
While I'm thinking about it (since #3 in the second group got me on this train of thought), I'll go ahead and say what I'll wager has crossed the mind of anyone who has more than three brain cells holding hands and singing "kum ba ya". File sharing kills off bands that suck. It just does. If you download and sample the other songs from a band besides the hit playing constantly on the radio and find out that they are a one hit wonder, are you going to fork out the full price of a CD for that one song? I wouldn't.
Artists are (or should be) afraid of file sharing because it exposes their weakness at making a tight album. Music execs hate it because (among other things) it allows people to easily sample before they buy. I say easily because it seems to me that if someone takes the time to go to the music store, they would be more likely to buy something than if they didn't.
In conclusion, I'll say that file sharing won't kill music or bankrupt talented artists. If the music industry is smart, it won't even hurt their bottom line that much. But I'll tell you what it will kill--the album as we know it.
Don't get too upset about it. I suspect that the overall quality of the average song will actually improve since bands will quit messing around with songs that nobody likes.
Just $0.02.
Re:Here is why you are wong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Every generation has had its share of good and bad music and the manufactured pop idols, but one thing is different today than it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago.
Clear Channel owns all the radios and MTV doesn't play music videos anymore.
This means artists are chosen by the media cartels payola system rather than a voting system by the populace.
As a kid I remember every year, there would a video that would play at midnight and then it would get popular and play at 10pm and then later it would be playing nonstop at primetime for an entire month.
Now, a band is just manufactured and *BAM* they are on the prime time whether you like it or not.
Mabye all those old bands were manufactured as well, but these days it isn't even remotley democratic.
Do you remember the days when any local band had a chance of getting their demo played on the radio and then making it big?
These days there is no such thing as a local radio station. They play the same lists on the East Coast as they do the West coast. Hell many of the shows are getting the same audio stream.
So I wouldn't say the quality of music has gone down hill, but rather the industry itself and its promotions methods. RIAA and crew are no longer satisfied with taking chances with people possibly making it big. If they sign you then they force it down everyone's throats even if they aren't liked.
Which is of course why we see more one hit wonders these days of people who real job was making jingles for commercials or have a pretty face.
It isn't the internet or piracy nor iTunes killing the industry, but the industry itself.
The only way to fix it would be to break up the RIAA monopoly and force Clear Channel to sell its stations.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought he was saying that you don't remember REM's contemporaries that were the equivalent of The Killers in those days. And in 10 years, you won't remember The Killers.
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Re:The music sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
"Amen, it looks like the top 2 albums this week will be Justin Timberlake's solo production and Clay Aiken...'nuff said"
Here some of the top tracks of the year:
I hope this helps clear things up, and that you're a little closer to understanding why people chuckle when younger people think that "today's music sucks" is some sort of unique epiphany.
Re:The music sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The music sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I neither download, nor buy music. Nothing I hear on the radio these days is worth my bandwidth or money. Furthermore, I do not have any desire to see my money go toward paying industry lawyers to sue people.
Now, if there are enough people like me, then sales will drop, right? How is that distinguishable from sales dropping due to piracy?
Moreover, there are plenty of other
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think everything that gets downloaded is new? The vast majority of my music is stuff from the 60s and 70s. And I'm 22, so it's not as if I'm a nostalgic baby-boomer or something.
Re:The music sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
"Said it before, say it again. It's not the Internet, it's the product. Music today sucks compared to years ago."
This is a constant. People approaching middle age in the 1950s claimed that modern music sucked compared to music of previous decades. As did people in the 1920s and 1870s.
People who believe in the quality of music of past generations vs. today's music are often quite certain that they are correct in an objective sense, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Nonetheless, this phenomenon is so common that there is a word to describe it: nostalgia [wikipedia.org].
I'm aware that this provides a quandary for P2P fans: if "today's music sucks" is a constant over T, then it's not a significant contributor to declining music sales. Another sticky issue is that the top pirated tracks [bigchampagne.com] match up with the top sold tracks pretty closely. "Today's music sucks" is not driving P2P fans to download old stuff in lieu of new stuff. The demand for the new stuff is strong; P2P simply provides another channel.
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Mind that not everybody listens to 'mainstream' stuff. Have you dig around independents lately? The problem for people pass that young age
i think it helps cd sales (Score:4, Insightful)
personally, i know for a fact that i wouldnt have a huge chunk of my (legally puchased) music collection had it not been for file sharing, simply because i would have never heard the bands before.
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WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
And even an inexpensive CD (been out a few years, on a discount site, etc) is about $7.99 today.
That's less than 1 cheap CD a year. That's barely 1 brand new ($15.99) CD every 3 years.
WTF?
And the 80 cent decrease? That's 1 less CD purchased every 10 years.
Re: (Score:2)
I think your confusion lies in the fact that TFA omitted the word "average" in the sentence you quote. These are averages of consumer behavior, not typical consumers. It's fun with averages that allow the average family to have (say) 2.3 children, despite the fact that most people count their children in whole numbers.
However, the write-up omits so much of the background that it's useless out of context. My music purchases per year have probably increased five-fold since the advent of CDs, yet my CD purch
Nope. That was my point. (Score:2)
When you average it out (not the best approach in my opinion, but that's a different thread), the average loss is STILL less than 1 new CD per year.
Think of it as a step function, until the de
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's a good thing, too -- I hear the Coast Guard takes a dim view of piracy these days!
Re: (Score:2)
The answer always depends upon the question (Score:5, Insightful)
End of story. So, yes, you could answer that music downloads hurt music sales, but that only identifies the symptom and ignores the actual problem.
analogy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. (Score:4, Insightful)
Three days ago I had no intrest in Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon, but a friend had the rom so I went "WTF, I'll give it a try".. I found out it played just like nethack, some minor changes, but in my head it became "Pokemon Nethack". I played it for a couple of hours and decided that this was a game I'd want to play on my DS rather than on the PC. So today I ordered the game and it should be here in a few days.
Did I hurt the game industry by using a rom before I bought the full copy or buy a game I didn't have an intrest before I played it? Roms and P2P music has become the new demos, people will buy games they think are worth the money or they'll download games they didn't think were worth the money. You could even argument because of the rom I've now told Slashdot that they can get a Nethack like game on the DS now and may have even sold more GBA/DS consoles/games, but that maybe going too far.
Quality will always sell.
Re: (Score:2)
However, if you download MP3s, you can burn a CD, upload them to your iPod or whatever, you can really do pretty much whatever you like with them.
Can you honestly tell me that you would have still bought the game if you could have
Funny that (Score:2)
Percent Confidence & Uncontrolled Variables (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, there it is, the word 'could.' So on a level from one to a hundred, where does 'could' lie? I mean, if this was a rigorous statistical procedure -- no matter how complex, they should be able to give a percent confidence. You can measure deviation from your model and give it to me that way but I'm concerned that there might have been uncontrolled variables affecting the sale of CDs.
And I believe that iTunes Music Service has been out since 2001, is that accounted for? It doesn't seem to be if you search the below linked document. I mean, I assume this study is targeting illegal downloads. iTunes is legal to my knowledge yet it would still decrease CD purchases.
If you'd like to read the paper, it can be found here [bepress.com] (PDF alert).
While this study does take into acocunt some variables, I'm just afraid there are too many for it to be conclusive. I would recommend that the article ignore Family Size and find out how many of their users used a legal music download service.
Also, is 2,000 samples per year enough to be accurate? Possibly, but then again, they are talking about an economy of 250 million consumers.
Re:Percent Confidence & Uncontrolled Variables (Score:2)
Bingo! I read TFA, and quite frankly, it isn't worth anything. They should be ashamed to have reported such unsubstantiated claims. If I'm reading this correctly, that drop of 13% could just as easily been caused by iTunes. In fact that conclusion would actually make more sense when you consider the millions
Causation vs Coincidence (Score:2)
Proving that a correlation is causative instead of coincidental IS very difficult. You could also blame the drop in CD revenue on other factors during this same time frame. You could make the case that Global Warming is the cause of lower sales.
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone, repeat after me - CORRELATION is NOT CAUSATION.
Some other contributing factors: The dramatic increase in the suckiness of corporate rock, a stagnant economy, a war, general bad blood between consumers and the RIAA, and, uh, I dunno, iTunes?. I'd like to see a more detailed study that also tracks smaller, independent labels and/or simply non-RIAA-aligned labels, not to mention tracking iTunes purchases.
Personally, I think the decreasing number of pirates at sea is causing a parallel reduct
Actually, File Sharing HELPED the music business (Score:5, Informative)
1. Nicholls State University is in Thibodaux, Louisana which isn't exactly a hotbed of business research
2. His study doesn't state where the funding to conduct the study was obtained from.
3. The data came from the Consume Expenditure Survey, which is notoriously inaccurate
4. RIAA has cut back on advertising and promotion for music across the board
5. Their sales were actually better while Napster was in operation, without any additional expenditure on their part.
Just my 2 cents,
QueenB
Competition (Score:2)
Downloading isn't always illegal (Score:2)
I used to buy dozens of CD's a month.
In 2001 I started using LEGAL on-line streaming music services (like Rhapsody).
I have bought maybe a dozen CD's since then.
While I have downloaded music from Napster (when it was presumed legal) as well as places like EMusic and Apple, I have never used an illegal service.
I have no problem believing that computer ownership is linked to decreased CD sales. However, I don't accept that that link means illegal file-sharing.
Decreased by X% to ... what? (Score:2)
I haven't seen a link for the paper, so they may have accounted for this issue. However, let's assume for a minute that households owning computers are likely to be slightly more affluent than households that don't own a computer. Were those households spending more money on music before Napster? And given that the economy had a downturn around, oh, 2002, would it be reasonable to assume that the total spending on music (a luxury item) across all households approached a more uniform amount? In other wor
Journal of Law & Economics (Score:2)
The current issue of the Journal of Law & Economics [uchicago.edu] has four articles dealing with similar issues and analyses. The authors of each of the articles are, as typical in academic literature, fairly cautious in drawing their conclusions and they are a mixed bag. The articles and their topics are limited in scope but they're peer reviewed and fairly interesting. Alejandro Zentner, the author of one of the article "Measuring the Effect of File-Sharing on Music Purchases," seems to have reached a similar co
Let's talk about plastic discs holding 12 songs (Score:5, Insightful)
Before we talk about filesharing, we should talk about the more basic issue: transmissable digital file formats vs. plastic media discs
stored in poorly designed (easily breakable) jewel cases.
Let's face it: CD's suck. And I'm not talking about the music. I'm talking about the medium.
CD's have to be swapped out of the cd player. They hold too little music. They're easily damaged. And the jewel case is one of the worst atrocities
of industrial design to be inflicted upon humanity in the last 20 years. (I'd say 30% of mine are broken).
MP3's by comparison are instantly accessible, contain meta data, are sortable, and can be shuffled into infinite playlists. Not to mention, they're
not breakable.
When the recording industry pushes CD's, they are pushing a sub-par product on us.
The music industry was slow to adopt a commercial alternative, and when they did they gave us DRM infected, vastly overpriced, low bitrate shite because they were
still convinced that if given no other alternative we would continue to buy the sub par plastic discs.
But there was an alternative: An infinitely better, cheaper, higher quality and more accessible alternative. The recording industry attmpted to
control the market at the expense of the consumer. They gambled and they lost.
When businesses offer subpar products they fail.
The message to the recording industry is simple: Sell me non-DRM infected tracks at
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I agree wholeheartedly! Not only music, but software too! $280 for Windows XP? $4000 for AutoCAD? I spend more time listening to music than working on these software and I wouldn't even pay $5 for them. Selling tiny plastic for hundreds or even thousands of dollars is preposterous! Get rid of the activation crap and make them available for download at about $10 each. Otherwise, P2P remains as my only method of getting software for my business!
Also, what is this GPL crap that comes with these free software?
I sure hope so! (Score:2)
If the music industry can be driven completely out of business I say bloody good job!
Its all about making money for lawyers and suits.
No dice, Monkey Boys. (Score:2, Insightful)
The methodology of those studies suck. None of them properly isolate for external variables, like: Just about everything else Johnny Download can spend money on for entertainment. And his motivations for shifts in spending habits.
As an aside, most people pushing the idea refuse to acknowlede that Johnny Download's disposible income does not ramp up infinitely, and that Jo
hooiee (Score:2)
Not really surprising, but not really important (Score:2)
My sig... (Score:2)
truer words were never spoken (Score:2)
Kudos to to Ars Technica for presummarizing the Slashdot discussion in TFA. We can all go home now.
You only get half the annecdotes you need (Score:2)
Slashsot has a lot of this, I've already seen many posts like this:
"you know, I wasnt interested in song X, but I downloaded it for free, and after a few days it grew on me, and what the hell, I ordered the CD, so they got an extra sale"
Thats fine, almost certainly true, and people are being honest about it, and thats great
Re: (Score:2)
Oh I'm sorry, you wanted an admission?
I will happily download games. If there's nothing in it that interests me in netplay or playing it more then once, I -won't- buy it, it's not worth it. And I don't feel a bit bad about that, if you're going to make a linear "throwaway" game you deserve no better. At least not unless you're offering it for under five bucks.
On the other hand, if it is worthwhile, I'll be on my way to the store. See how easy that is? Make decent stuff and people will buy it!
Anecdotes C & D (Score:2)
I've got news for the RIAA... (Score:2)
Sure there might have been a drop in CD sales (highly questionable, IMHO, until I've seen the report and had a chance to look at how the ``researchers'' got their numbers) but it hasn't got all that much, if anything, to do with file sharing. It's your product, gentlemen. Folks aren't crazy about what your selling. Or how you're selling it. And, especially how you're going after people that you perceive are costing you lost sales. I don't care how many rights you have, suing little old ladies that don't ow
maybe habits have changed and quality has declined (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with these studies (Score:2)
And in related news... (Score:5, Insightful)
'some US music consumers could have decreased their CD purchases (prior to 2004) by about 13 percent due to Internet file sharing.'
In related news, some Congressman might now be accepting 80% more bribes, 50% of people might be below average, and 100% of statistics prefaced with "some" and "could have" are sensational bullshit. If you've got real statistics, you don't say "some might have."
False Correlation (Score:2)
Olde Fashioned Sand Bagging (Score:2)
Give up the sand bagging. The Flood broke through a long time ago. The RIAA were not there. Your Horse is Dead! Take your "Buggy Whip" franchise with you. The Horse and Buggy days are over.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics (Score:2)
If you think that the reason they don't use public transportation is that they own a car, then you'd be wrong. Most of the people who own automobiles live in suburban and rural areas. The lack of public transportation in these areas means that they *can't* use public transportation and therefore *must* drive cars.
This is a classic case of
Link? Absolutely (Score:2)
1. I buy music on CD.
3. RIAA sends nasty letter to my ISP; sues one of my friends.
4. I realize how evil RIAA is.
5. I buy many fewer CDs.
Genius.
Rock vs Pop (Score:3, Interesting)
File Sharing DOES hurt the music biz... (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, there is a lot of music that is very hard to find on file sharing networks. Whole genres of music are pretty much unaccounted for on file sharing networks. If you can't listen to it on an FM radio station, good luck finding it. There might be a successful business model in selling fewer records of more artists, than selling more records of a handful of artists.
Regardless, it is not the role of the government to be propping up outdated business models. I think it is pretty clear that the automobile was pretty disastrous to the blacksmithing and livery industries... but it created even more profitable industries in the long run. Think of the mess we would be in if we tried to save the blacksmithing and livery industries as large scale parts of our economy. True, file-sharing IS stealing and immoral, I don't deny that: but so is taking my tax money against my will, in order to fund a government agency to preemptively go after file sharing, or to legally harass potentially innocent people, or to legally restrict new technologies because they *MAY* potentially be used for file sharing. The immorality of file-sharing (extremely minor evil, if it is evil at all) is far outweighed by the immorality of the draconian methods required for enforcement.
And specific to the music industry... WE WILL NEVER HAVE A SHORTAGE OF MUSIC!!! Music is one of those things people enjoy doing without payment... and one of those things that garners a lot of non-financial rewards (attention, respect, adoration). Look at all the garage bands, amateur musicians, people making demo CDs, people posting their music free on websites, and tell me that we would not have lots and lots of music, even if the entire industry collapsed. Making music is not like building airplanes, in that it takes vast amounts of capital and can be dangerous if done by people who don't know what they are doing.
Real World example.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Fast forward a few years. I'm in the Navy and just bought a killer sound system. I live in the housing with no expenses. I find music I like down the hall. I buy a few LP's. I get a car. I get an LP badly scratched so it skips. I buy a case of good Maxell tapes. Make a set of tapes for the car (Can't play LP's in the car) and another set to play to preserve the original LP quality. I get a few tapes tangled in a friends car tape player. No problem, recreated a replacement. Also traded a few tapes (before lawsuits start, the Statute of Limitations ended about 25 years ago) so yes I pirated music in my youth. It also happened to be my peak music buying years. For the music that I really liked, it was worth buying a pristine copy. I bought the Mobile Sound Fidelity Labs copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at a premimum price. It has been played less than 15 times in the years I have owned it. Each time was to cut a tape from it to preserve the original.
If I didn't have a tape deck and a good way to expand my library by sharing, I would probably have just stuck with radio and not have ever heard of Pink Floyd. File sharing is a marketing tool. Learn to embrace it.
Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz? (Score:5, Insightful)
As for DRM protected content for $1 a song, the protection limits my ability to move to a new ipod every year without loosing music. The price point is too high, who has $10,000 to shell out on music to fill their iPod nano?
It's not file share that is there problem, they are their own problem. Their business model is horrible and I can't wait until they collapse over the next 10-15 years. Once the music conglomerates go broke or more artists move to independent labels that don't overcharge I will start buying CD's again. They claim its in the advertising and number of artists that they have to sign that cause prices to remain high. If they quite charging such a premium and actually went to a few shows put on my burgeoning artists they could cut those "costs" in 1/4.
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But we are supposed to be happy that CD prices didn't rise to $30 or more by following inflation of other consumer goods.
http://www.riaa.com/News/new [riaa.com]
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RIAA FAQ point-by-point (Score:4, Informative)
This is so good it just had to be answered... heh.
A friend of mine calls this "lying with your teeth in your face." I call it stupid. First off, the RIAA members are public corporations, and the big boys are all growing. In fact, they have been growing for quite some time. You have public records to demonstrate this on any finance site you want to visit. What's changing is the business model. Now, in specific, that "unit shipments have fallen" figure fails to account for online sales and other alternate media formats. This is just bad statistics.
Which clearly demonstrates that music sharing is not illegal. Sharing copyrighted music to which you do not have a valid license or ownership of the copyright is illegal. This is a fine point that the RIAA would appreciate if you simply forgot.
In other words, you are responsible for your own actions. Yes, thank you. Now would you please stop trying to sue ISPs, dead people and little kids?
Music sales are soaring. There, that was easy.
Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz? (Score:5, Funny)
your friends are idiots or are lying to you because they hate you and don't want you to enjoy ipods like they do.
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With iTunes and iPod, you can get your music by ripping your CDs, Vinyl, whatever.
I can certainly understand and respect the position of someone who either doesn't want DRM, doesn't want to buy from iTMS because of the fact that you get a lower quality recording than a CD, or even because you only want to enjoy "free" music (creative commons, etc.)
However, I still think that the iPod is a nice MP3 player, even without iTMS, that is better than most of its competition. Also
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Most of my firends with iPods are dedicated users
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but then why am I joining in, I'd not buy one anyway. I prefer my cheap, almost disposable 1gb mp3 player. It cost £30, and works just fine.
Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the RIAA, that makes you a thief. You're a thief if you buy used music. You're a thief if you buy music on sale. You're a thief if you buy any recordable media other than Music CD-Rs, and you're a thief if you use them for music. And even with DRM, you're a thief if you bought it from iTunes and a thief if you bought a CD (you bought music; you must like to steal it too, so here's a free rootkit so we can keep an eye on you). You're a thief if you listen to the radio, you're a thief if you hum or whistle, you're a thief if you can sing, play an instrument, or keep a beat, until they sign you to a label(*) and they can start stealing back from you.
And you're a thief if you don't buy enough new music every 10 minutes.
Basically, everyone's a thief. You've stolen profits they could have had if you'd just bought more.
You haven't lined their pockets enough.
(*) I'm only kidding on that point. They don't sign people who can sing, play instruments, or keep a beat; they have machines to fix that now. It's easier to keep a perfomer if all their talent actually comes from the label's hardware. (They're still working on supplanting physical beauty; lip-syncing stand-ins aren't working well enough.)
Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are correct, but it makes a crappy backup.
Lossy AAC to CD audio and back to lossy MP3 is quite a degredation in sound quality.
That and you use your ID tags.
Personally, I use an iPod but I rip my CDs I purchase from the store to 256kps MP3s for quality and compatibility of all my players (Audiotron, CD mp3, and iPod and VBR is problematic on the CD and audio tron)
I'm tempted to start doing high quality MP4 because I'm an audio freak like that. Too bad iPods don't support FLAC or OGG, but I still like my nano.
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This study overlooks so much its rediculous. Its comparing Dollars spent, not # of CD's purchased (completely ignoring the CD price fluxuations caused by price-fixing and Big-box marketers like Walmart), its tracking computer owners vs non-computer owners (which brings a lot of economic deltas into the case). Its junk statistics designed to back the RIAA's case, not gain real insight.
Re:Does File-Sharing Really Hurt the Music Biz? (Score:4, Insightful)
On a more serious note, how could they seriously not realize that owning a computer opens up new entertainment mediums to people? 1 computer game is 2-5 CDs... it's not like people have a limitless supply of entertainment money.
Gotta love bad studies...
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There's no way that the the big music companies can sustain the current way they do busness. The reason they exist is that it's very expensive to make and distribute CDs across the country and around the world. It used to be very expens
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