Recording Industry's Unexpected Benefit from P2P 335
Matthew Schultheis writes: "Yahoo / AP is reporting that the record industry is using the files traded on Kazza et al. to track where music is popular. It turns out that they even pay for this information. 'It's the most vast and scalable sample audience that the world has ever seen'" Now if they could only use this data to somehow put out better music...
Eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ironic... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's big business for you.
You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe a smart lawyer could so something with this. (Score:2, Insightful)
Optimistic Aren't You? (Score:5, Insightful)
Naah. They'll use it to reduce the quality of the music down to the 'most efficient level', whereby the quality of the music is just above the level at which it stops selling.
Re:Benefitting from a crime... (Score:5, Insightful)
DON'T get me wrong, though. I AM IN NO WAY ADVOCATING, CONDONING OR APPROVING OF, what the nazis did, their methods, or of utilizing such procedures. It is one of the most dispicable acts in the history of mankind. Nevertheless, it is a fact that society uses the information they obtained through these methods.
This is not an uncommon situation. In psychology there are a LOT of classic expirements that would not be performed now due to ethical concerns. That in NO WAY limits the usefulness of that information or the fact that is has been used as the basis for a lot of theoretical framework. An example would be the researcher at John Hopkins Medical Center who conditioned a young child to be very phobic of anything that was white and fluffy. Such experiments are not ethical, but much of what we know about phobias and treating them is a result of his research.
Flame me if you wish, but we DO use information gathered in an unethical manner frequently--as long as it is regarded as accurate, which the data gathered by the nazis is. They were, if nothing else good can be said, very methodical in their research.
Once again, I DO NOT CONDONE WHAT THEY DID.
Re:Eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
You make it sound like selfishness is not a virtue. What drives the world? Certainly not solidarity.
I agree that the RIAA uses underhanded, evil tactics to this end; I do not condone their actions. In fact, I'm boycotting the RIAA and only buying from indie labels or direct from the artists. (I just bought the new Hot Hot Heat album... 8/10 stars for reminding me of the Clash)
-Paul
They spent 4 years... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
it's really not that hypocritical (Score:4, Insightful)
But then there's also the first part of the above sentence -- the world as it is now features p2p and music sharing. Even if this isn't the world as they want it, they need to figure out how to exploit it as best they can. Hence, makethe most of (from their perspective) a bad situation, and mine p2p for some useful data.
They're trying to maximize their profits. If there's money to be made scouring p2p data then they'll buy the research, but just because they are scavenging some benefit out of it doesn't make it hypocritical for them to want it to go away .. it just makes them pragmatic.
Read this carefully... (Score:5, Insightful)
As any 1st year marketing major could tell you, this data will not be as useful as one might imagine. Knowing who wants a product (in this case, a CD) in no way relates to knowing who is willing to pay for a product. Some consumers want Ferraris; not all of them will buy one (for reasons of Price). Without a clear way of associating user names with demographic or psychographic data, this will not even help to more clearly define the target audience for an artist. All this data represents is the number of computer literate people who are actively sharing a song; this may or may not be related to whether they actually enjoy the song; this may or may not be related to whether they would/could pay for the song; this may or may not be related to the fake files that are being posted on KaZaa (that song's popular? Shove a couple thousand fakes online; discourage lots of people). Move along people, nothing to see here...
Re:Eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of crying about how every single company wants to exploit the consumers, why not just hold each one accountable for their own actions? People need to quit acting like anybody with money is dying to fuck them over. Hold each group accountable for their own actions instead of making broad generalizations.
isn't it ironic? (Score:2, Insightful)
prof. hojo
Re:If RIAA music is soooo bad.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Piracy is not the reason. (Score:5, Insightful)
What? Not piracy? Then why in the world would they want to kill a system that is so beneficial to them?
Because of a problem that they consider bigger than piracy: The growing number of independant artists, many of whom are becoming increasingly popular. Yes, that's right folks. The RIAA doesn't want to protect its poor artists from the piracy that is putting them in the poorhouse. On the contrary, the RIAA is the one putting its poor artists in the poorhouse. No, no, no, folks. The RIAA is doing this to take business away from the artists that the RIAA is incapable of putting in the poorhouse, because it is incapable of stealing their money, because they didn't sign their soul over to the RIAA.
That, my friends, is why the RIAA wants to kill filesharing.
Better music? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think there's a lack of good music being recorded - I think there's a lack of good music being marketed.
For every John Coltrane or Cibo Matto or Ani DiFranco song being downloaded over P2P, Britney Spears is being downloaded at rates 100 times more. Do you know how difficult it is to find the Seatbelts' (Yoko Kanno's soundtracks for Cowboy Bebop) music over P2P? And Bebop's a relatively popular anime over here. What about music that doesn't have that sort of avenue to market itself? I suspect the "better" music isn't being downloaded.
And the stats the recording companies get show that, which reinforces the audience's "obvious need" to see Britney chasing Madonna around a bedroom in a video. Thus, they continue to market said brand of music, and we continue hearing it and thinking we want it.
If you want to see the market shift to "better" music, then this is a case where you have to get people to not only download things over P2P, but to make sure that they buy the albums they like (yes, I said "buy" because even the little labels and the self-published artists are spending money to record - it's not free (yet)). That will help bring better music to the marketplace, but I doubt we will ever see a truly diverse popular music scene...
It's called (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes it's terrible some of these things happened but it would be even more tragic if we refused to gleam some good out of it. They would have been tortured and murdered purly for evil. Many people died in horrific ways but because of the information many more are saved. If I'm going to be tortured I'd certainly hope something good and useful was learned in the process.
I'd roll in my grave if the cure to cancer was found by committing some horrific experiments on me and society refused to take advantage of it. I'd also roll in my grave if those who committed the horrific acts (and those who encouraged them) weren't seriously punished and denied any and all financial reward from their discoveries.
There's nothing hypocritical about it.
I'd be more surprised if the RIAA wasn't trying to get something good out of this situation.
It has exactly zero to do with condoning the rampant piracy.
There's nothing wrong with making the best of a bad situation. There's something seriously wrong with you if something bad happens and you just whine about it and play helpless victim.
Ben
Re:Eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Selfishness is a character flaw, not a virtue. Unfortunately, it is also human nature. If not for selfishness and greed, we could have a true altruistic society; one where everyone worked for the good of the community instead of themselves. In other words, selfishness is why communism is only good on paper.
Not allowed to profit from crime (Score:1, Insightful)
If they want to benefit from it they should make it legitamate
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/fileshare (Score:1, Insightful)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/filesh
"BigChampagne is Watching You
In fact, they're tracking every download and selling the data to the
music industry. How one company is turning file-sharing networks into
the world's biggest focus group."
The RIAA does what these days? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are afew such websites around i think but no major (as in RIAA mainstream) musicians are involved so its shadowed by the big guns, and because most RIAA musicians are in it #1 for the money (people dont dream of being famous on some website they dream of being on every tv and having shit loads of cash, i know i do). Interesting things have a habit of spreading around the internet quickly (memepool), ie. people are always sending eachother links to the latest flash game that lets you slap bush etc, and interesting things could easily include music so if you did start a band and produced music that everyone liked whats to say you couldnt make it big in afew weeks just through word of mouth and email?
Re:Eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, in the examples you use the "benefit" is knowledge on (a) how better to fight the phenomenon, or (b) how to fight off similar phenomenon. There is no net benefit to humans in this example, but rather information on how to reduce the likelihood of bad effects from these phenomena. For example, learning how to better fight viruses has no inherent value other than to fight viruses. We'd much prefer that they just go away, then there'd be no use of such information.
In the RIAA case, the information they are gathering is not to better fight P2P, they are gaining information that would be useful independent of whether or not P2P existed. In other words, if P2P did not exist, they would have a good business reason for wanting it to exist.
It's a subtle, but important, difference.