Napster Not To Blame

enjo13 writes "Slate is running an article on the music industries recent troubles. It articulates exactly what Slashdot has preached all along.. that the Music industry is suffering at its own hands and has no one to blame but itself. All I have to say is... finally." There's actually been a number of pieces like this, but I think this one says it best.

Re:What is this slate.msn.com?

[KelsoLundeen]

What are you, twelve years old?

Slate has been around for years. Almost as long as Salon (if not longer.)

Michael Kinsley used to edit it. (The same Kinsley who used to sit off to the side of Buckley's _Firing Line_ and goad good ol' Bill with nuggets o' thought.)

Wait, if you don't know Slate, you probably have no idea who W F Buckley is either, right? Or his National Review?

Last time I saw WFB was on Charlie Rose. WFB hosting for Rose. My god. What a painful experience that was.

Anyway, do yourself a favor. Even if you think NR is fulla shit and WFB is fulla shit then hop on over to (a) Slate (occasionally), (b) National Review (occasionally), and (c) the New Republic (occasionally).

You don't need to agree with the views -- but dear god, my boy, get yourself at least a respectable smidgeon of political knowledge -- and awareness of the "standard" political rags -- so you can refrain from posting bizarre stuff like "What is this Slate thing?"

Re:The why rip and collect it if so bad?

[hawkbug]

People don't rip? Myself, and 4 other people I know with mp3 players in our cars or portable mp3 players sure as hell do. Granted, I download some songs here and there, but also rip 10x more than I download from purchased cds. I don't want my cds sitting in the car melting from the heat, or getting scratched because some fool doesn't know how to handle them correctly. I love groups like 311, and have gone to great lengths to even purchase their unreleased stuff off their own website. Don't tell me people don't rip music just because you don't, and as a result end up stealing everything you listen to.

Re:Even the Once-Cool Now Sucks

[illsorted]

The point is, it's not just new artists targetted at the 18-25 market...all of music is sucking ass lately.

Well, perhaps not all music. For my money, there [flecktones.com] are [galacticfunk.com] still [lesclaypool.com] some [phish.com] acts [charliehunter.com] out [johnscofield.com] there [radiohead.com] with real musical talent [mmw.net].

Re:Hypocritical bastards...

[Todd Knarr]

Except that what you describe existed a long time ago. It was a service hosted at, unsuprisingly, my.mp3.com. You could download anything from a huge library, the only catch was that before the server would give you a digital copy of your CD you had to provide it with a checksum of the data off your CD. Sure you could hack around this, but for 90% of people it meant that you had to prove you already owned it before you could download it. Legal sharing.

3 guesses what service was the first target of the RIAA, long before Napster even existed, and the first two don't count.

Re:Innovation is still out there...

[tmark]

Give me a break. Someone puts out a record, and has free downloads on her website, and is making money, and THAT is supposed to be an indictment of whatever the RIAA is or is not trying to do ? For all we know, she would sell MORE records if she had a big music company pushing her with the marketing force that only a big music company has. I'm not saying she would or not, but my point is that ONE (or two, or ten) EXAMPLE(s) DOES NOT THE ARGUMENT MAKE.

metal blade

[stego]

Metal Blade distributes the mighty lamb of god [www.lamb-of-god] and GWAR [gwar.net],so they can't be all bad...

Speaketh the Seers, Forrester Research

[dogfart]

Much of this is based on a study conducted by Forrester Research, "Downloads Save The Music Business [forrester.com]. Forrester has high credibility with corporate types. A good article to send your congress-critters, keep in your file, etc.

Quoting the introduction:
"Labels are in trouble, and it's not from file sharing. To tap into $2 billion in new revenues, they must let people find, copy, and pay for music on their own terms."

Free as in speech, but not as in beer. Not that beer is ever really free...

Re:Don't get it

[legojenn]

I just wonder if CD sales are also down because people^H^H^H^H^H^H consumers are getting music delivered to them in other ways than file sharing or purchase. On my ExpressVu satellite receiver, I get 30 audio channels and I do listen sometimes to the 80s, folk, jazz and classical channels, and I'm sure the record companies are not licencing the broadcast of the music for free.

I do this is mostly because radio sucks, but it is annoying to go to a record store, indy or chain, and just not be inspired to make even one purchase.

Other than via satellite receivers, there must be other ways that people are listening to music that are not traditional. Internet radio, digital radio etc....

Re:Stealing ... yes they are

[Totally_Lost]

stealing one cd from the store is a misdemeanor and worth a slap on the hand and maybe a small fine. Do it two or three times and you are likely to go to jail a few days, steal 200 CD's from the store and you just commited a felony theft of about $2,000 that will send you to jail for a long time if you hit the three strikes provisions.

Re:BS Fan and Proud to Admit it

[IxnayOnTheIxnay]

Pink, No Doubt, Shakira, Aquilera, Spears Er, I take exception to that. No Doubt is no Britney knockoff. They are a ska band whose first album came out in 1992. What grade was Britney in then?