The Chumbawamba Factor 239
putko writes "Chris Dahlen has written about BigChampagne, a company that looks at peer-to-peer downloading to provide marketing data to record companies. By analyzing what folks are downloading, when and where, BigChampagne can tell the record companies what people like, what other records they like and other information critical to deciding how to allocate marketing dollars. As mentioned in the article, record companies started using this information (secretly) even as they were trying to stop filesharing via the courts."
Music servers (Score:2, Interesting)
And do they download music in order to generate traffic?
And then they sell it as vital information to understand the market.
Do they erase the downloaded songs after? I wouldn't mind working there i guess
Have their cake and eat it too! (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like something I heard someone on TV last night say. There is a group of roomates that live in a rather large house. One guy and a girl really like each other. She's fallen for him completely and he "wants his cake and wants to eat it too." Explaination, he wants this girl as his backup in case he can't find another girl to bring home from the bars or whatever.
With the RIAA using filesharing while trying to shut it down seems a bit odd to me. Recording artists for example are being "ripped off" by downloaders. Right? Well, the very same companies that are supposedly trying to stop the illegal downloading of music are using that data as a way to market or create new media.
Something else I'd always wondered about is why pirating Adobe producs was so easy. I'm using the GIMP now, but back in the day all you had to do was download and get a key-gen and Boom! You're in business. I almost wonder if Abode looked the other way in order for people to get used to using their product so that later or in a business type arena, the artist/developer would request that the company chose Adobe's products. I've got to get back to work.
Chumbawamba (Score:3, Interesting)
In particular my I recommend "Give the Anarchist a Cigarette", "When I'm Bad" and "This Girl".
Also a great live act.
The RIAA is not a record label. (Score:1, Interesting)
As far as suing goes, most labels have little to do with it, except that they are a member of organization who has made that a part of the agenda. Most of the good people at labels are more concerned about ensuring that their artists (their responsibility!) is being heard by the largest audience possible. Lawyers are concerned about piracy, the remaining ~99.9% people at a label are concerned about the wellfare of their artists.
Statistics that indicate an audience is how things get spins on radio and finally into stores. We're not talking top 10 records here (they already have an audience); we're talking new artists with often very localized audiences. People at labels are fighting to expand the audience of these new artists, who may only sell a hundred CDs a week, incontrast to a top 10 record that sells 1,000-50,000K/wk.
Please realize that nearly all people who work at a record company care about only one thing: the artists. Its a very personal thing. Potentially lost sales from piracy is the last of these people's worries.
The large music companies are dinosaurs (Score:5, Interesting)
Reality is far different-- Chumbawamba is one of the most successful punk bands in existance. They've been around for 25 years, released 20 albums & EPs, individual members released another 20 or more and have one of the largest followings of any non-mainstream bands. Their styles range from English Rebel Songs from 1381 to their modern pop-punk hits.
BigChampagne makes the same mistake as the big record companies-- they only look at the most popular bands, and are completely ignorant about the success of smaller bands and smaller labels.
The small band segment of the music industry is growing, and the mainstream music industry seems to be shrinking -- they keep complaining about reduced sales every year.
They are a dinosaur.
Re:Music servers (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny thing... You are wrong. I decided to be nice and take you up on your challenge, and every CD I checked was marked as copyrights being owned by the record label. Though on a few it wasn't easy to find.
Of course, if you've paid any attention to the bitching artists have been doing for years over how the labels treat their music you wouldn't have these dilusions that most signed bands still own the copyrights to their music, because it simply isn't so.