Challenging Music Downloading Myths 560
The BBC is reporting on a study by digital music research firm The Leading Question, which found that people who download music from peer to peer networks paid for four and a half times more music than regular music fans. Also that most of these people "are extremely enthusiastic about paid-for services, as long as they are suitably compelling." What is nice is that the BPI welcomed the findings that not all file sharers are actually evil... they still pledged to carry on the 'carrot and stick' approach though.
Common knowledge. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sadly, (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:3, Insightful)
By chasing down people for using P2P they just cement my opinion that we should be downloading free music via legal alternatives like etree, dimeadozen, etc.
I just can't imagine why people would be enticed to further support the RIAA's actions rather than dropping support for them all together.
It's the sad nature of the public. They love to be abused.
Telling the truth? (Score:3, Insightful)
A little honesty, mmkay? (Score:1, Insightful)
No, they paid 4.5 times more for legally downloaded music. This study doesn't take into account the amount spent on music in general including physical CDs, and as such the correlation could only apply to downloads, and that opens the door for all sorts of non-causal relationships.
For example, aren't filesharers likely to more strongly represent the tech savvy demographic? And wouldn't people who often swap MP3s be more likely to be happy to listen to MP3s rather than physical CDs?
Try before you buy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice to hear the CD before you pay $20 for one good song and fifteen crap songs. I have never downloaded off of a P2P myself though.. ((smile))
You're wasting your time (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole piracy/peer-to-peer argument has been done and done. And no matter how powerful the argument, the industry believes that every single time you download something, they lose a sale. And that's that.
Statistics and studies do not matter to these people. Your desire to kick the tires before you buy doesn't matter either. You got it - you didn't pay for it - we lost money. Of course the reality of it is something totally different, but these organizations have had a stranglehold on their commodity for so long, they're not comfortable with anything less than a stranglehold.
So they fight. And if that means ignoring studies and taking up ridiculous positoins - so be it. We're convinced - but they are never going to be.
Spend more not less! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please note: I'm not arguing that the RIAA doesn't deserve to lose out. The whole music distribution system (incl. most legal download sites, imho) is one big rip-off and should go down as soon as possible, to become a faded memory of the 19th century.
Daniel
Re:Hands up (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2, Insightful)
2. Overcharging. When the cost of downloading a CDs worth of tracks isn't almost the same as buying a physical CD (and unecumbered by DRM) get back to me.
RIAA = bad, downloaders = good (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Credit given where credit's due (Score:2, Insightful)
Giving them credit is like patting a child on the head and telling them "good job!" when they eat a cookie.
When they start making real changes, and start understanding the new culture, then I'll be interested.
And yes, I read the article. According to the fifth word of the fifth paragraph, "of"
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Insightful)
iTunes is good, but sometimes I look at songs and think, "This isn't a one dollar song". Add to that the fact that downloading the all the MP3s of an album costs the same as buying a physical album, and you see that, a lot of the time, the music available online is too expensive. There is no reason that the cost should be the same.
What they need are better download services, with wider selections, and variable pricing depending on demand. I don't care if the top ten downloads are 1.50 or 1.75, but I don't want to pay 1.00 for something that only me and two other people find appealing.
I also get real sick of being locked into a player. Half those services try to make you use WMP or Realplayer, god I'd rather die. iTunes is only just tolerable.
I've spent loads more since using P2P networks! (Score:3, Insightful)
More seriously, my wife's and my music purchasing really picked up after we discovered Napster all those years ago. Sampling a couple of songs from an artist often convinces us we want the whole album, and we still really enjoy the permanance of physical media (yes, we rip all our CDs, but I think of the collection of actual media as an aesthetically interesting, if not large, physical backup).
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Insightful)
When you can buy a CD at a record store and only pay for the songs you want from that particular album, get back to me.
Re:You're wasting your time (Score:3, Insightful)
But we should *not* stand down in the face of their tactics as that's exactly what they are hoping for. We, the educated public, should continue to spread the anti-conglomorate message to those people that might have been swayed by the rhetoric being passed along by the RIAA.
Tell people that there are viable alternatives out there for them to listen to the music they enjoy. There are bands that do support free distribution of their music and *those* are the bands that need to have our continued support.
The more we support bands that do allow us to freely trade their music the more will come along.
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't download (Score:5, Insightful)
I rarely, if ever, download music - legally or not.
Interestingly, I haven't bought a CD for myself in years...
I wonder if the RIAA assumes I'm a pirate because I'm not feeding their monopoly. I wonder if the RIAA is even aware that people like me have stopped buying music because we got sick and tired of being treated like criminals - copy restricted CD's, lawsuits against music fans, etc...
I wonder if it ever occurs to the **AA's that their revenue shortfalls are due more to the manner in which they treat their customers than piracy. Face it - while the average Asian may have a good reason to commit music piracy, the average American is affluent enough that they'd rather buy music than steal it. Yet, most Americans want to know they like something before they buy it. And this is what P2P provided.
I don't use P2P. I don't buy music, either. Wonder how long it will take the likes of the RIAA to figure out the connection between the two...
It's not simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to use Napster and some of the others for two things: (1) downloading music that can't be bought, i.e. out-of-print albums, b-sides, etc. and (2) trying music. Back then, I bought numerous CDs after trying music I really liked. Some of these CDs were retail CDs, where I wanted a higher quality sound than a low-grade MP3. Others were b-sides I bought on CD singles off of eBay because I wanted the better sound quality. But I also bought a lot of retail CDs I never would have bought if I had to buy them without hearing them first. So the bottom line for the RIAA is that the P2P effect is not simple: file sharing has caused me to buy music I downloaded, but not always at retail. More music may be sold as a result, but it's not all profit for the RIAA.
The unfortunate part about the new online services is you can't browse the catalogues without first signing up and selling your soul to their DRM. I would love to see if out-of-print music is available on some legal download services, such as out-of-print albums and b-sides, but I doubt there is anything on these services you can't find in Circuit City or the mall, so I don't ever sign up for the DRM.
The one thing no one ever mentions is the CD replacement effect. People who grew up listening to cassettes and LPs in the 70s and 80s got jobs in the 90s and could afford to dump their cassettes and buy CDs. This sort of generational shift in media will never happen again, and the RIAA's sales figures were bloated by people buying albums they already had. The effect is over. Everone now is buying music on CDs from the beginning, and has nothing to replace.
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
"lost dollars" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, with quality services such as iTunes out there, what legitimate reasons do people have to download mass quantities of music they haven't paid for?
Do you have a magical way of knowing whether you'll like music before you hear it? No? So I guess you'll have to hear the music before you buy it. For many people, downloading illegally is the most convenient method of hearing the music before they decide whether or not they are going to buy it.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
The BBC is reporting on a study by digital music research firm The Leading Question, which found that people who download music from peer to peer networks paid for four and a half times more music than regular music fans.
This is a lie. This is NOT what they found. They found that these people spend 4 and half times more on legal digital music purchases than non-downloaders. The way this is written, it sounds like the average downloader who spent $50 a year on CDs in 1995 is now spending $200 on music. This is not stated or supported by the article. Study after study after study has conclusively shown a net depressed impact on music sales, especially in Europe, due directly to downloading music illegally.
Also that most of these people "are extremely enthusiastic about paid-for services, as long as they are suitably compelling." What is nice is that the BPI welcomed the findings that not all file sharers are actually evil... they still pledged to carry on the 'carrot and stick' approach though.
No, not all file sharers are evil, nor should those of us who choose to obey the laws have to tolerate failed-from-birth concepts like DRM and copy protection schemes. But for you people to sit here and still insist after all this time that piracy is somehow generating revenue for the music industry is completely stupid. It's not. It's costing them more money than it's making them. You can sit here and recite your tired anecdotes about how you and your friends and everybody you know buys more music because you can sample it.
You are not the people that are costing them money. It's the millions of high schoolers and young college students who are the problem. They have little to no disposable income (college kids especially) and so are downloading to get their music. I don't blame them, I don't even condemn their actions, but I also don't deny that what they're doing is unquestionably illegal and is costing the legal owners of those songs money.
This issue will not be resolved until the Hillary Rosens of the world stop castigating all of the internet for being the thieves she thinks we are (copy infringement is not theft, Hillary, we another law for theft and it's called...er...theft). And it won't be resolved until you self-righteous chest-pounding downloaders here stop defending your activity as some moralistic crusade against the evil content cartels who are determined to brand you as evil just because you have a guilty pleasure for "Dueling Banjos" and won't be caught dead at a Wal*mart at 3:00am buying the soundtrack to Deliverance.
You're both wrong, you're both oversimplifying the situation, and you're both motivated by completely self-serving interests.
I support open source, I support free software, I oppose DRM in general, I oppose anything that limits my ability to exercise the rights, freedoms, and privileges that I enjoy as a law-abiding citizen, especially the legislation of the RIAA's business model. But I don't deny that there are people who match my profile who engage in widespread copyright infringement and then either lie about it, pretend it's not illegal, or defend it with some holier-than-thou diatribe (much like this one) about why it's justified.
It's illegal, you're breaking the law, you're costing them money. Period. And although I don't blame anybody for downloading something illegally, I don't blame the people who are losing money from this activity for trying to put a stop to it. I don't agree with their tactics any more than I agree with the Slashdotters doggedly insisting that nobody is being harmed so what they're doing isn't wrong.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Insightful)
As technology becomes more widespread and digital music distribution becomes the norm rather than the exception, there's no reason why all the major record companies can't disappear. As an artist, you would no longer need a big company to make all the CDs, and you would get more profit from your songs without a greedy middle-man skimming off the top all of the time.
Bands wouldn't need to spend large amounts of money on studio time to release and album because with a new distribution model they could just release single after single, which is how a lot of online music shoppers purchase their music. Startups could even offer their music for free to get people to listen to them (like some bands are doing now) and pay money to see them live.
Right now the music industry is full of middle-men that screw everyone involved. If a company doesn't like a band they don't have to offer them a contract. We're probably missing out on a lot of good music in the mainstream because the music industry doesn't think it would be popular. While there are certainly a lot of albums out there worth the price they ask, there's a lot more that have only a few songs worth listening too on the album. Right now a lot of consumers (those without computers or the ability to use iTunes, Napster, etc.) are forced to pay $15 for what's really $5 worth of music. Then when someone doesn't want to subscribe to this business model called "fuck everyone" the music industry does as much as it can to resist any change.
They're all quite happy having their pockets lined by someone else's hard work and dedication and exploiting the customer base as much as they can bear. This article [slashdot.org] is also pretty telling about some of the business practices these companies employ. Frankly, they don't give a damn about music, only making money. Here's hoping that the rotten bastards have a steady decline and are remeber only as a horribly oppressive and unsuccessful business model that no one will ever try again.
Re:You're wasting your time (Score:3, Insightful)
To me the real argument is the nature of entertainment. Can entertainment be packaged like a bottle of soda so that the owners are compensated everytime a person drinks that kind of soda. The production and development costs are not really an issue either. If you take a bottle of soda from the market and pay only the actual cost of the product, minus shop profit, that is still stealing. It would be my argument that entertainment cannot be packaged. I can lend my DVD of a movie. I can make a copy of music to tape. I can drive my car down the road and entertain the world with my favorite CD. So where is the happy medium?
And I think this is where the parent was going. The new reality may in fact reduce the profits of the labels, and, if not, require a reworking of the model. It is the nature of humans to want to get stuff with minimal work. It is why we have all this cool technology. So, there is no reason to say the labels are evil for wanting profits and not wanting to work. We all do that. And anything that requires them to make less money or do more work is unacceptable because that is not the desired path. Likewise, the average consumer needs to take responsibility for their desires. Yes, advertising makes us want this stuff, and it is really unfair to make us want stuff we cannot have. But if we do not attribute a fundamental right of the firms to profit, we cannot attribute a fundamental right of the consumer to have lots of stuff.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that this is the primary reason, why the cartelists so much hate the internet. The reason is control or loss thereof. Prior to the internet you had virtually no chance in hell to get your music published, unless you agreed to a contract, which makes slavery actually look like the prefered choice [negativland.com]. The Internet can change all that. Everybody with a [insert favorite instrument], a cheap microphone and a recording device can be a publisher now and circumvent the established distribution channels. If anybody listens to such music is a whole other question, of course.
If the music industry doesn't change their business model from a mere media distribution model (media in my book include DRMd files) to a value adder (promotion, marketing, infrastructure, artist scouts, etc) and continues their rather odd "criminalize-thy-customer" business model my prediction is that 10 years from now they are deader then Jimmy Hoffa.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, i can't for a start. No credit card. The teenagers that are often the ones who have large collections of pirated music either can't afford or access it. If i had a job and earnt £20,000 per year, perhaps a £10+ CD would seem reasonable, but my Summer job of £700 won't stretch to that extortionate a price.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:0, Insightful)
This comment got modded as insightful, and I suppose that it is. I think it's an unfortunate affirmation that the "album culture" is fading. If consumers can just pick and choose songs, why should artists bother releasing anything other than what they feel confident will be a hit single? Why bother stringing themes throughout multiple songs or writing tunes that are longer/heavier/whatever-er than what passes as a single. Whole albums give a context to individual songs that enhance the experience of each song.
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: They are smarter than you think, though (Score:5, Insightful)
But they do need to cry foul, and keep up the appearances that every single download is a crime, and a lost sale. They are using the same strategy of fear mongering that our government is fond of.
The reasons are simple. If they were to let up and say, ok so some music downloads are ok, but we still think we are losing sales, then their entire basis for legislation is thrown out the window.
I hope it doesn't sound like I'm defending them. I think the RIAA, and cooperations like them, are some of the absolute WORST things about this country.
But I can understand why they are keeping up the public relations stint of crying foul. They don't need music fans to believe them. They just need congress to. As soon as they "convince" congress with their "arguements" ($$$,$$$,$$$) they will get more legislation that will introduce more DRM, and possibly even remove the free-use clauses from current law.
They know full well that some bands are discovered soley through the internet. They just don't care. That is a small drop in the bucket compared to the marketing machine that makes acts like Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys sucessfull. They don't need underground marketing when they have pepsi jingles and MTV in the middle of time square.
What I can't figure out is why they pay so much for marketing crap bands when we would be just as happy with zero marketing for good bands. We'll find the music on our own. The RIAA could probably make just as much money if they just gave up. But I hope they don't. I hope they legislate themselves into the grave.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Seriously, with quality services such as iTunes out there, what legitimate reasons do people have to download mass quantities of music they haven't paid for?"
A common excuse around here is that a buck is still too high. It commonly goes like this: "if only the record companies would sell those tracks for $0.75 or $0.50, I'd buy them!" This is often accompanied by a claim that Apple and or the record labels "just don't get it," despite the fact that the iTMS has been a fantastically wild success by any measure.
One thing I'm not sure about is whether the "they just don't get that it's wrong to sell a track for a buck" crowd really is saying that because they really can't afford a buck, or if it's a nice reason to allow them to comfortably continue their pirating ways.
Re:Same Old, Same Old (Score:3, Insightful)
We can only hope that eventually the music industry will relearn this old lesson...
No, we really don't want P2P services to turn into the monolithic, streamlined corporate marketing scheme that radio has become. The only reason the RIAA "made peace" with radio is because they effectively took control of it. Only a very tiny fraction of stations are not owned by some corporate monstrosity like ClearChannel, who hand down playlist edicts from on high as if they were carved in stone tablets.
The music industry has truly embraced the Marketing Age, and thus (popular) music has transformed from a pull medium to a push medium. The only records in stores, basically, are the ones you hear on the radio, on TV, and are advertised everywhere; they are the low-risk, high-profit "mass-appeal" products. Once in a while a great musician will become popular, and that will allow him/her/them to overcome their indentured servitude to their recording contract. However, the majority of the "popular" acts are only semi-talented, very attractive people who are being marketed like they're the Second Coming. The internet (P2P), on the other hand, is still a haven for slightly less popular, but vastly more talented, people. I would love to see more record companies on the internet dedicated to artist's rights and proud of the music they underwrite and sell, instead of focusing so much on the business end of things that an artist becomes a "product" instead of a person (I know a few of these exist, but I can't think of any off the top of my head).
Do we really want P2P services, and by extension, the internet, to turn in to radio?
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Recording companies stay in business because they control artists' access to listeners. The Internet is threatening this, and the recording companies are going apeshit over it.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
And because iTunes isn't available in all countries? And because I have a very strict criterion for an online-music-shop, which wants to sell me something:
- No DRM at all. Pure MP3.
Do that, offer a broad bandwidth of different kinds of music and sell me these, and I'll be a buyer. But if you're fucking around with different reseller-rights for every country, and DRM, then you're doomed.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2, Insightful)
> Are the RIAA and labels totally disgraceful? Doesn't matter. That's how they choose to do business.
You think that if the RIAA were any different, they'd still have an issue with piracy? I seriously doubt it. First of all, piracy is not a "problem" at all, as this and other research repeatedly points out. People who share music get exposed to more music, and this drives sales. Secondly, if the music industry didn't systematically gouge its customers and paid more attention to what the customer wants instead of dictating to them what they (the RIAA) want them to want, perhaps people wouldn't feel the need to pursue alternative means and methods to get what they want.
The simple truth is a free economy can only work when the consumer has power that must be respected. P2P has given us that leverage, and now the music industry has no choice but to pay attention to them. This is a good thing. iTunes Music Store is one of the first usable and fair music stores that actually delivers what customers want, and (unsurprisingly) it has become the most successful.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Insightful)
A classification of file sharers (Score:2, Insightful)
- A. There are some who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing
content. Thus, when a new Madonna CD is released, rather than buying the CD,
these users simply take it [...]
- B. There are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing it [...] The net effect of this sharing could increase the quantity of music purchased.
- C. There are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content
that is no longer sold or that they would not have purchased because the
transaction costs off the Net are too high [...]
- D. Finally, there are many who use sharing networks to get access to content
that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away.
How do these different types of sharing balance out? [...] From the perspective of the law, only type D sharing is clearly legal. From the perspective of economics, only type A sharing is clearly harmful. Type B sharing is illegal but plainly beneficial. Type C sharing is illegal, yet good for society [...]The "net harm" to the industry as a whole is the amount by which type A sharing exceeds type B."
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2, Insightful)
The obvious example is the concept album - imagine a world in which Pink Floyd's The Wall (or the Who's Tommy, or Rush's 2112, or Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime)existed only as a collection of individual tracks distributed independently of each other. While the songs from these albums certainly are capable of standing alone, their inclusion in albums of conceptually related material gives them additional meaning, and adds context that allows them collectively, as an album, to be greater than than the sum of the individual parts.
Even ignoring concept albums for the moment, track order can have a significant effect on the mood of an album, and add continuity that otherwise would be lacking. Try taking a familiar album and playing it in shuffle mode sometime - the songs are still familiar, but it feels completely different.
Professional Musicians. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the main problem, too many customers of iTunes and regular music shops don't see DRM and rip-off pricing as factors, so they happily buy their £17 Britney Spears album and toddle off home. The only way anything will ever change is a mass revolt on the part of consumers. This is what happened in file-sharing and, instead of using market forces and conventional supply and demand to redress the balance, the RIAA went to the courts.
The only person who can decide value is the consumer, it is an entirely subjective measure. Therefore, the only person to decide whether a store's return policy or music's method of consumption is "fair" is the consumer. If they don't percieve it to be fair, they withdraw their custom. It is because the majority of consumers apathetically accept DRM restrictions and record company pricing that it has continued for so long.
If there were a mass revolt against iTunes' DRM, the situation would change or the record companies would lose their customers. Not even the record industry can survive without customers.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2, Insightful)
As adults in whatever country we reside, we know that we have a set of rules that we live by. I can only talk for America here, but if there is a rule/regulation / ordinance that is unfair, and you are in the majority, you can change it. No it is not easy, that's the point. Fight for your rights.
OK, sorry rant is done.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
The vagaries of colloquial English often are at odds with the more analytical, black/white approach of the typical Slashdotter.
While both sides can be argued, I think one would be tilting at windmills to stop the public at large from using "steal" and "theft" and its variants in colloquial, non-literal form. Sadly, we will continue to use phrases like "theft of service" (vis. cable TV), "stealing your thunder," "stolen kisses," "steal first base," and so on.
Just look at all the "I don't have a boat and an eyepatch, so I can't possibly be a pirate" posts to see that Slashdot is not a very homonym- or colloquialism-friendly place. Those of us who revel in colorful use of the English language may indeed be called idiots or trolls (to use your words) by the Slashdot crowd, but that's okay: my guess is that O'Reilly manuals are more the norm around here than the great works of literature.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:1, Insightful)
Well yeah, I can indeed afford $20 for a CD these days. However, what I can't afford is $200000 for 10000 CD's...
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
While that's a grand thought it's pretty damned apparent that it doesn't reflect reality. Not in any way, shape, or form, not when it comes to downloadable music (and since that's what we're talking about here, don't even bother bringing any strawmen to the dance).
Fact is, copyright violation for music is still on the rise despite all the efforts of the government and the RIAA to stop it. The penalties if you get caught continue to increase but these fear tactics haven't made a noticeable dent in the activity; last month the U.S. reached the point where 70% of all people with internet accounts at least 'sometimes' engaged in acts of online "piracy". This isn't an activity restricted to certain age brackets (e.g., college kids) or income levels.
Economics 101: if a big chunk of the populace is actively engaged in the black market despite the risks, then something is seriously wrong with the model which spawned the black market in the first place. If the majority of the people who have access to the black market actually use it then your model isn't just flawed, it's fucked up beyond repair.
Bad economic models encourage otherwise law-abiding citizens to break the law in order to obtain what they want. It doesn't matter a good goddamn whether you think it's right or ethical; what you *think* doesn't matter for shit. The only thing that matters here is identifying the cause of the behavior and working to eliminate it, replacing the broken economic model with one that works well enough to at least partially satisfy everyone concerned.
It's pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain what that new model would be: cheap high-quality mp3s, no DRM, preferably no obstructionist middle man between the band and buyer. It doesn't take a fucking rocket science to figure out that if the latest Britney CD was sold online at $0.50/track in a 320/44 mp3 that it'd sell like hotcakes - especially if the buyer knew that 90% of the profit were going straight to Britney herself.
Are the RIAA and labels totally disgraceful? Doesn't matter. That's how they choose to do business.
It does matter. To say anything else is just plain ignorance. Economics 101 again, see above.
Imagine if all you stupid children spent energy spreading word-of-mouth about indy bands instead of further spreading label music.
I see. You're one of those egotistical college fucks who thinks he's somehow superior to everyone else because he hates Britney but waxes lyrical about some shitty garage band. Grow the fuck up, junior; being a 'rebel without a clue' doesn't make you cool, and never will.
But no, you're stupid and ignorant and fuel the things you hate the most.
Count yourself in among the ranks of "stupid and ignorant", not to mention "arrogant". Try wrapping that tiny brain of yours around some basic economic theory before spouting off on the topic again, because it's clear you don't have the first fucking clue what you're ranting about.
Max