With the music industry, as well as in any industry, there are market forces and external forces such as the law. In this case, it looks like record executives are lobbying for more help from the external forces because they haven't figured out how to make money off of the market that is forming with the growing filesharing community.
I don't have numbers to back me up on this, but I think people are listening to music a lot more now that it's so accessible. You can carry music on an iPod, a PDA, cellphones, certain kinds of sunglasses, basically anywhere you can fit some solid-state memory. Rather than listening to the dull roar of a subway, people are filling their ears with music. CD sales may be down, but Music as a force is way up. And instead of tapping into that force to make money, the labels are trying to shape the law to herd all the cats back into the "hard copy" market where they feel they can make money.
And yes, it IS the music execs and a sparse population of artists that are shaping the laws, because if congressmen and congresswomen ran on the platform of limiting MP3 sharing, how many votes do you think that would garner...besides Mikelavigne's...(just kidding, Mike!)
iTunes has figured out how to sell music online, make money, and make money for the artists, and they even offer some DRM-free content as well. Another site, eMusic, goes a step further and sells all of their music DRM-free in MP3 format. They add value to their proposition by offering good reviews and recommendations for their users. The business model is there and it's maturing, and if the content can be made available legally with value added to it by the particular business model of the provider, then finally music businesses would want to create as many "file users" as possible.
These laws are designed to scare people into doing business as the music execs see most fit, which limits our options as consumers. Illegal file sharing will continue until the distributors shape up a system which better fits the needs of the consumer. The music execs have engaged in a battle with the very people who keep them in business, the consumers of music, even at a time when that number of people is growing.
If you want to support artists then download files, test out all sorts of new music, and go to their concerts as often as you can. If the concert is good, buy a t-shirt and a bumper sticker. Believe me, the band makes a hell of a lot better profit margin from their ticket and merchandise sales than from their CD sales.
-Dusty |
Cruz123:
But on the other hand, the guy who distributed those mp3's just gave free buzz to 100 people, which is a very good thing! Especially if you consider NEW business models. The music industry is moving AWAY from CD sales, which is very very clear. And when I say "the music industry," I'm not just talking about the business of execs and board members, I'm talking about everyone who wants to sell music.
Here is a business model scenario I just made up: I'm a band, and I have a really good CD that gets ripped and distributed to all kinds of people who love it. They are enjoying my music for free, but the fact is they are enjoying my music. I get in touch with some companies that might want to advertise through the band, and I set up a site where I will distribute my music in every kind of format imaginable at a very high bitrate, with a click-through advertisement before getting to the download page. Nothing too obtrusive, just a recommendation from the artist. The music consumer sees it as free music, the advertiser gets all kinds of traffic and impressions, and the artist gets paid.
Throw in some more value-add like an "online meet and greet" with the artist in a chatroom, a free sticker or something, whatever, and you'll drive people in like crazy. I'm not saying this is how everyone should do it, or that this plan has no flaws, but I literally made that up as I was typing. If I can do that, then who knows what kind of cool business models are waiting to make money off of your art!
The point is this: SELLING CDS IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE MONEY FROM MUSIC. It is how the labels are familiar with making money off of music, but that power is rapidly shifting and it's scaring the hell out of them. |
Dreadhead, I think Cruz may have misused the term "buddy," but he's right on that if you put a ripped album in a shared folder on a P2P network it would be likely that at least 100 people would find their way to it. And if the band is lucky, then even more than that! |
I have never made the justification for stealing. The only case where I suggest downloading music at all is to find artists you like so that you can go to their concerts. And I fully support doing that. Believe me, I'm not going to shell out $16 for a CD of a band I've never heard and hope I like it. But if I catch wind of an interesting band and download some of their songs and enjoy it, I'll gladly pay $30 to go to a concert.
Also, here's something we should all keep in mind: "legal" does not equate to "moral." Granted, our laws are designed to reflect our cultural morals, but I think those terms are used in a little too close proximity sometimes, especially when the subject is still being debated about how our current laws relate to our new technologies. The reason it's debated is that copyright law related to the distribution of information is wholly different than property law.
Opalchip suggests that stealing an iPod is akin to stealing music. He's right that under current law they are both considered stealing in a broad sense, but the difference is that in one case you are taking something that the victim will no longer be able to use, and in the other case you are using something where credit should be given, but withholding that credit. I agree that both are wrong, but let's not say that apples are the same as oranges.
The whole point of my posts above is that the music industry is putting up picket fences to block a tsunami when it should be building boats. When people started making mixed tapes, they were sure that was going to kill the music industry. Then CDs came around, and people stopped buying tapes. Then people started burning CDs, so they crippled our computers with DRM software. Now the music has been boiled down to the data, and that's the new medium. They can either learn to deal with it by creating new business models, or they can spend their time making the moral case for new laws that don't fit the new times while Apple's iTunes continues holding 80% of the online music sales.
My point is not a moral one. I'm saying that the strategy of using the law to keep your market share is a fatally flawed one, and should be abandoned.
-Dusty |
I think Dreadhead shows us that there are not just two sides of the fence. Because I definitely don't agree with anything stated above. Artists should be able to make a good living off of their talent and hard work. The trick is to find a way to do it within the current trends and capabilities of technology. |
Exactly, Psacanli. Robin Hood be damned. |
As far as "new-and-improved" DRM goes for downloads...I wouldn't count on that. As soon as a new rights management is released it starts getting cracked by an entire community of people who are just as smart as the guys who created it, which is why nothing has stuck so far. There has been some interesting talk about using digital watermarks to at least trace the digital path that an illegally downloaded song takes and identify it on someone's computer, but that only improves the Label's ability to prosecute, which I don't think has been too much of a problem so far.
The debate about the morality of listening to a sound you haven't paid for might be interesting, but that's not the problem that needs to be solved. The information has been freed from the medium, and there's no cramming it back in, no matter how much you might hate it!
-Dusty |
Pascalini, as to the artists demanding and enforcing the way the medium is accessed, the problem is that the medium is now 1's and 0's, and the access point is almost anything electronic. After a sound (with sound being inherently analog) is converted to a digital form, it can be forwarded, copied, and pasted just like a line of text. All the information you see or hear from a computer is essentially the same stuff.
Look at it this way: you can build some little sand castles near the shoreline, and then build a nice big robust sand castle next to those ones, with a nice big sand wall and moat surrounding it. The little sand castles will wash away soonest, and the big one will take a little longer because it has all the extra stuff, but it will all wash away because it's all sand! That's what we're dealing with in the digital world as well. Everything is 1's and 0's, including the security and rights management software that protects the song which is also encoded in 1's and 0's.
With the information being freed from the medium, the only way to control the access of the music would be to control access to computers (or in my analogy above, the access to the beach.)
The point is this: Pandora's box has been opened. If you're familiar with that Greek myth you'll know that there was no way to get the evil back into the box, but there was hope contained in the box as well. The digital demon has escaped, but if the Labels could just recognize that this has also released an opportunity for amazing profits that can also make their consumers happy and their artists rich, then we would all be happier listeners!
-Dusty |
Opalchip -
You're making the same argument again that you made earlier about stealing an iPod. I've already addressed that above. There is a BIG difference, legally, physically, (possibly not morally, that's the debate here), between taking something that someone will no longer be able to use once you have taken it (such as a bike, iPod, or any physical object you may choose), and enjoying something for free when you should be crediting the creator of whatever you're enjoying.
Music is an idea, not an object. If you want a stronger argument, and you're tied to the idea of a physical object, then you could talk about the patent for a bike. If someone obtained the plans for the design of a bike and then photocopied it and posted it on the internet, then you would be closer to the argument at hand.
If you want to make the point that stealing is morally wrong no matter what form it is in, then you'll need to find a way to say that without blurring the line between property law and copyright law. They are separate things. You feel that they are both wrong, and that's your opinion, but they ARE separate things.
-Dusty |
A Digital File is a "thing". Incorrect. A digital file is not a "thing." That would be like saying that an idea is a physical object. The file is an organization of 1's and 0's that your computer can interpret as a sound. A digital file is no more a "thing" than a song is a thing. One point you're missing is that the owner of the file (the artist) will now NOT be able to sell that file to whomever you give it to (or to you). Nope. It is incorrect to say that the artist cannot sell that file to me if I already have it free illegally. Even if I had downloaded the file illegally, I could still go to iTunes and download it legally if I felt so inclined. It's true that someone may not feel so inclined, but it's false to say that they can't. The points above are exactly the reason we have copyright law in the first place. -Dusty |
And I think that puts an end to this thread. |
