Fallout from the Internet Debacle

gatesh8r writes "This article off of Janis Ian's site lashes out at the RIAA for "wanting to control everything that the consumer will purchase" and then proposes some mild and thoughtful solutions to the problem. Nice to see an artist write up something like this." This is her follow-up to her earlier piece.

They'll never agree to it

[Gorm the DBA]

Although the article has what would seem to be a darned fine idea for how to handle the desires and do a test, the record labels will never agree to it.

Basic macroeconomics tells us that when supply goes up, price comes down (assuming demand stays constant...I'll discuss this in a moment), so if they suddenly released the X number of tracks currently locked away in their archives to be sold, the number of tracks available to be purchased would increase, and therefore the price per track would decrease.

Although this would seem to be a good thing, and in tune with economic theory, the Record Labels work as a cartel, wherein they receive artifically high profit margins by sharply restricting output (in this case, not so much raw numbers of CD's available as the number of different tracks available in the universe of CD's). So it is in their best interests to keep the "old" music locked away and unavailable/unpurchaseable, so people will spend $14.99 on the latest CD of the new hit group.

The other option would be to increase demand so that the increase in supply keeps pace. Unfortunately, that's much more difficult to do (Market theorists have worked for many years on demand side economic theories, and haven't managed to get it right yet), and therefore experiments are dangerous to the cartel.

so, in short...great idea that will never see the light of day...and the world is much the poorer for it.

Re:Too early in the morning to be this cynical

[arkanes]

You wouldn't rake in bucks like they want and they'd use it's "failure" to push for more legislation, just like always. However, I for one would love a service where I can get a) well-labeled, properly named, high bitrate MP3s from fast, reliable servers. In fact, I've used just such a service, and although it was flat fee, I would be more than willing to pay per download, assuming that they actually had the music I wanted. I imagine alot of other people would too, and that it WOULD in fact be a viable model. It's just that simply being viable isn't enough.

Bravo, Janis.

[wirefarm]

Those of us over 30 certainly know her stuff, the old stuff anyway, but I wonder how well-known she was to younger people before this.
She's got downloads of her stuff on the site, without any DRM nonsense attached. Bravo.
She's been on Daypop's blogging top 40 for weeks - by sheer cluefulness, she's probably expanded her audience considerably. She's honest and open and candid. She speaks as one who's seen every aspect of the business since starting as a 15 year old with a controvercial song, way back when.
I would guess that I won't be the only one paying a lot more attention to what she says.

Any chance we can get her to run for Senator?

Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo

Who is Janis Ian again?

[sielwolf]

I really gotta ask because she has about as much push in the industry as I do (read: none). Now you might say that she is an influential founder of the sound of blah-blah-blah in the era of the 70's/60's/whenever folk/blues but the current problem is this:

None of the large, influential artists of today are making statements like this. Courtney Love? What, between her "acting" and holding back Nirvana material? Yeah, she is a great advocate to have for P2P... Even the loudest voices are a) still on the industry teat and b) not making any waves other than a post to their website.

And then there is the problem of the Metallicas and Dr Dre's of the world (read: the bands people would listen to if they spoke out) are on the side of the RIAA.

Don't just blame them. A lot of more "with it" artists aren't on the free and open bandwagon. Missy Elliot, the Beastie Boys, and the Chemical Brothers are all notorious for not licensing their material for sampling and willing to fight to protect it. Do you expect any of them to jump for a reasonable P2P system?

They might all be for a free Tibet but as long as it doesn't mess with them getting paid.

So what will happen:
1. RIAA will push out their P2P solution.
2. It will fail.
3. Free P2P will continue to thrive, above the levels of old ratio MP3 ftp sites (remember those days?) but below the heyday of Napster.
4. The industry and its top 100 artists will pat each other on the back and present gifts of ivory backscratchers to each other for a job well done.

Newer artists already promote

[GlobalEcho]

I think newer artists already realize the promotional value of music online. I read a complementary review of a performance by Norah Jones in the Chicago Reader. I looked on the internet for more info, found out she had samples on her website [norahjones.com], and, liking what I heard, bought the CD.

Of course, as an artist, that only works for you of you are good. Maybe that's the problem the RIAA has...it'll never work for promoting manufactured dreck.

Re:Too early in the morning to be this cynical

[Fuyu]

Even with the P2P networks being up, not too computer savvy users still ask me, where can I get this song or that song because Napster is not around anymore. They just don't know how to use these other P2P networks. If the major labels came out with their own pay to download MP3 (or prefered audio format) service, I'm sure they could attract a lot of the not too computer savvy users into paying a quarter or maybe even up to a dollar per song (still cheaper then buying a single).

Very nice

[paranoidia]

I really think that the idea of songs for a quarter or a nickel really could work for the RIAA. Sure people are posting that there are still P2P networks and that idea would have worked pre-napster, but I think it still could. The problem with most P2P networks is that you really have no promisses about what you get, or how fast you get it. Usually with songs they are fair rips and are titled correctly. But imagine a site where you had loads of bandwidth, and had every new song (and old) out there. I'd pay money to have access to that. They could have good rips in a variety of formats, and also track better what people are really listening to.

What would I pay? I'd probably pay upto around 5 bucks a month. That's 60 a year, and get enough subscribers, I don't see the problem. Bandwidth costs could be covered easily and you really don't lose a whole lot. That is except the enormous profits from CD sales, what this really is all about. But you could offer so much on a website like this, music videos, interviews, bands could keep websites up there. At least we have one coherant writter among our point of view, which I'm so pleased about. For people who don't RTFA, she got over 2200 emails, and responded to every one. Even got her account suspended twice for spamming while she was responding back. Insane.

Re:Too early in the morning to be this cynical

[daoine]

I think the whole point was that the 'experiment' per say would be out-of-print catalogs only. So let's be a little realistic; these catalogs are making *NO* money right now. You can't buy 'em.

Personally, there's about 10 albums that I'm hunting down that are out of print. I couldn't find them in completion on Napster even at its best. Instead, my current attempts consist of the half.com and amazon.com used pre-orders in the hopes that someone shows up to sell it. I've gotten 1.

If I could grab the rest at .25 a song I wouldn't think twice. Hunting down a song on a P2P network is easy. Hunting down several albums worth is a pain in the ass, especially if you want them all at the same rate.

Of course, there will be people who set up P2P networks, just as people copied tapes. But the fact is, nobody has ever had cheap, searchable, and complete access to the catalogs - they'd get about $20 from me in 1 day. And that's just from what I know I'm missing...

Re:misunderstanding

[evbergen]

Sharing doesn't have to be prevented. Why would you think so? Only too much sharing should be prevented, and the way to do that is to make the value and cost balanced well enough so as not to force people to share -- simply because the price is way too high.

I don't understand your remark that we need a scarcity mechanism. The only way you can have artificial scarcity in a digital environment is by monstrosities like Hollings' SSSCA/TCPA.

Tke key here is that purchasing a download from the record companies should be more convenient than p2p sharing, because of more complete catalogues, earlier availability, and so on. The value provided for your money is the convenience, just that.

CDs can add more value in the non-digital domain, such as beautifully printed booklets with photographs and lyrics. Again, make it more convenient for the biggest part of the public to buy the CD than to reproduce the contents of the package by burning and printing.

It remains to be seen though wether content companies will want to remove their intellectual property from their balance sheets and keep their distribution network and recording and marketing experience as their only remaining assets. It doesn't seem very likely, but I still think it's the only solution that can be implemented without great harm to the general public (by taking away general purpose digital equipment from it and putting a monopoly over it in the hands of the content- and software industry).

However, it will probably take a while before the US government remembers it should act in the best long term interests of the overall public instead of some short term interests as presented to them by corporate lobbyists.

Re:Sell CDs with tons of MP3s

[goldspider]

I really don't see what they'd have to gain by this. First of all, the recording industry by default sees mp3s as a Bad Thing (TM). They wouldn't want to conveniently sell their product in a format that makes it easier to copy/share/pirate/etc. Secondly, why would they sell 150 tracks on a single CD for $20 when they can get away with selling only 15 tracks on a single CD for $20?

From our point of view it would be really nice, for sure. Bur from a business perspective, the industry would be shooting itself in the foot.

A Better Revenue Model

[Anonymous Coward]

A Better Revenue Model is an "all-you-can-eat" supscription, much like cable TV or internet access. This will generate much more revenue for the industry - people will get used to paying $19.95 or $29.95 each month for all the music they want to download or stream. The industry will have steady, manageable revenue and their grosses will be higher than they ever have been. And people will have no reason whatsoever to go to P2P unless they absolutely refuse to pay for anything.

How many of you pay-per-viewed a movie this week? But I bet most of you watched something on cable; and probably stuff you wouldn't have watched if you had to pay .99 cents. (please don't let this be a debate about shitty TV - but last night it was me and Playmate Dog Eat Dog.)

If your broadband access was metered at $1/hr, would you use it as much as you do or would you be very careful, and some days not use it at all? I remember the days of CompuServe at $8/hr. You got on and off as rapidly as possible. The fact that they didn't change that in time is why it's not called CompuServe Time Warner now.

Just my .99 cents.

Re:misunderstanding

[Noel]

I don't think that'd be much of a problem. Look at it this way - under her proposal, the primary benefit is the ability to get anything that's available, and know that it's the one you want. Is that efficiency worth a quarter or nickel per track? Somehow, I think most people would think so.

Think of it as paying for the service of making easy-to-find, reliable tracks available, rather than just paying for the tracks.

Re:Too early in the morning to be this cynical

[NineNine]

I'd happily pay 25c a track rather than use a p2p client, if the following were met:
I could get the file instantly; it was guaranteed to be CD quality or better; and it was in an open format (mp3, or much better, ogg).


See? That's why it won't happen. People like you are in an incredible minority. Why?
- Instant ain't gonna happen for the majority of us with 56K mnodems, no matter who's offering it.
- CD quality? A 128 MP3 is good enough for most people. The average Joe isn't anything close to an audiophile.
- Open format? Again, most people don't even know what "open format" means. If they can download it, and play it, who cares what format it's in? Hell, I'd guess that most people don't even know.

Re:I bought CDs until...

[nolife]

Examples
Pink Floyd "Pulse" from amazon.com

Pulse Hi-Fi VHS [amazon.com](not on DVD yet) - $21.99

Pulse Audio CD [amazon.com] - $28.99

Same concert, same songs. The video has extra stuff at the end and of course, VIDEO to watch!

I wonder why it has not been released on DVD yet? I have a conspiracy theory if you want to here it.

How about "The Wall" Granted, the movie is closely related to the album but not really in standard song format throughout.

Audio CD [amazon.com] - $27.99

DVD Movie [amazon.com] - $27.99