Music DRM in Critical Condition? 377
ianare writes "Universal Music Group, the largest music company on the planet, has announced that the company is going to sell DRM-free music. The test will see UMG offering a portion of its catalog — primarily its most popular content — sold without DRM between August 21 and January 31 of next year. The format will be MP3, and songs will sell for 99 each, with the bitrate to be determined by the stores in question. RealNetwork's Rhapsody service will offer 256kbps tracks, the company said in a separate statement. January 31 is likely more of a fire escape than an end date. If UMG doesn't like what they're seeing, they'll pull the plug. UMG says that it wants to watch how DRM-free music affects piracy rates."
Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
UMG says that it wants to watch how DRM-free music affects piracy rates.
Well they should look back over the last few decades then. They've been selling DRM-free digital music ever since CDs were invented.
Now is the chance (Score:1, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
finally... (Score:2, Insightful)
nope (Score:5, Insightful)
Bollocks. I mean look up every "piracy" "statistics", they always talk about this and that much gazillions of good old bucks being lost because of piracy, yet no living human being has ever managed to give a reasonable and acceptable explanation about how those numbers make sense. Now they say they want to see how those numbers change if they sell non-drm-encumbered music ? Well, flip a coin, that'd make more sense to decide to continue or not. A better way would be to actually listen to what those pesky customers want.
Music companies have woken up to... (Score:5, Insightful)
It has finally dawned on them that DRM - far from protecting them - will take control away from them and hand it to companies like Apple and Microsoft, who become the new gatekeepers since they own the DRM technologies that are popular. It's now dawned on the music companies that it won't be long before the likes of Apple and Microsoft get big enough in the music business to simply cut out the record companies and sign bands directly.
_That's_ why they are starting to drop DRM - they have finally come to the realisation that DRM is the trojan horse that will destroy them. Not piracy.
Where are the stats from? (Score:3, Insightful)
* RSITDANTMUFG = Random Stab In The Dark At Number That Make Us Feel Good
No iTunes, no deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
"One reason would be that Universal doesn't like Apple. UMG is the largest music company on the planet, which helps explain why they are trying to ruffle Steve Jobs' feathers. At issue are contract lengths and just who gets to determine pricing. Universal would clearly like to have more control over pricing than Apple is comfortable with. The company has also said that it would like a cut of every iPod sold, similar to a deal they have with Microsoft for the Zune."
So basically, they still want money. They'll try and fail to sell a substantial amount of DRM free music on rhapsody, call it a failure, publish the results and push congress more. just an 0.05 dollar prediction.
B.
Re:Now is the chance (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Won't affect iPod use (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not going to hurt Apple, it is gonig to hurt consumers. I doubt the user experience of the other stores will compare, though I don't have a problem with every store doing it's best and at least if they are mp3s it solves the 'wont load on my ipod' problem.
I think they will still do quite well, IF people ever hear of them and have a good experience when they DO try to buy something.
TAKE THE RED PILL. (Score:5, Insightful)
THERE. IS. NO. RIAA.
Not as such. It is a like shell company so that the major music labels don't get their hands (or label names) dirty whilst suing dead people, stalking 8 year olds, and extorting grandmothers that have never even seen a computer.
Universal IS the RIAA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RIAA_member_
Judge greenlights RIAA to dig into man's past, employers
Should actually read:
Judge greenlights Major Music Label CEOs to dig into man's past, employers
Those CEOs are people. They make the decisions. They are responsible. Normal people can get their heads around that and hold those people responsible for their actions, if they so choose. The RIAA is some faceless acronym, just another brick wall. As it is surely intended to be.
Re:Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
First step, done (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict there will be little if any change. We will certainly not see more piracy. Simple reason: DRM has not and will not stop someone from copying, so whoever wanted to copy already did and probably will continue to do so. An increase, because there is no DRM, makes no sense.
We might see more songs sold, though, since some people (like me) will turn to buying music online when there is no restriction on it anymore that limits my use in various devices of my choice. Goods I cannot use in the way I deem necessary have no value to me. If I cannot use it in my car CD player or on my MP3 player, the item is not what I want, and what I do not want I do not buy. This, though, the music without restriction, is what I want. So I will buy now when (and here's the catch) I find music that I would like to listen to. Sorry, but I don't buy the latest American Idol hypecrap just because I can media shift it.
Re:nope (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, do you remember back when distributing music was about... distributing MUSIC? Neither do I, I'm not old enough. Universal can sign and heavily promote a new Paris Hilton, Martha Stewart lovesong duet written by Michael Bolton for the next 5 months and they won't make a friggin dime. That would have nothing to do with "pirates", "ninjas", or anything else but incompetence of the management. But I'm pretty sure we'd hear it blamed on "piracy", aren't you?
If this is a "test" of anything it is how much BS the average consumer will choke down before puking.
Re:Another half-ass job (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes it is.
In the open market, music is much cheaper than that. Many talented bands are giving their music away because they can't get distribution, while record companies charge that flat 99c per track for their overmarketed hype-driven pop. Meanwhile, pirates are setting a zero price point for the pop as well.
What's needed is an open market where music producers and music consumers can reach a negotiated price, the same way any other commodity is sold. DRM might have been a part of that had the music industry been prepared to play fair. They haven't, so there's still huge niche in there for someone who can come up with the right answer.
Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
They're still holding tightly to their fantasy about P2P downloaders costing them millions and billions - but they have noticed that their introduction of DRM technologies has received an almost totally negative response from their former customers. So they'll back off on this a little and "see if the piracy rate goes up". That's not what they'll be looking at at all, that's just some spin for the media. What they're looking for is some kind of upward bump to their profits; when they added DRM their income went down - so let's remove the DRM and see if our income goes back up.
What they still can't see through their pride is that DRM doesn't reduce piracy in any meaningful way; all it does is cause inconvenience to their paying customers. It's driven more than a few customers away; buy one CD that won't play in your player and it's quite natural to avoid any CDs from that company in the future. What they also can't see is that those lost customers won't be coming back just because of some mealy-mouthed PR statement about removing DRM from some music for a short period - they've been fooled once already.
"Piracy" (copyright infringement) is an interesting thing - it only happens with items that can be duplicated and sold at a price substantially below the price of the original product. If the record companies sold CDs for 69 cents each then the "pirates" wouldn't bother with music CDs. The record companies would never willingly reveal their cost of production - but you can safely assume that it's much less than a dollar. When they over-price the finished product at 20 dollars they create their own piracy problem.
Will they ever see this simple truth? "Pirates" are a fact of life; eliminate one or a dozen and a hundred more will take their place. As long as there's easy money to be made then people will be lined up to get their share. There is nothing that the music companies, their lobbying lapdogs, the government, the courts, or anyone else can do to prevent it. As long as the product is priced far in excess of its production cost, there's going to be a "piracy" problem.
Even the folks who just "want to get it for free" would become paying customers if the price was RIGHT. But the music industry keeps turning out formula junk with one or two good tunes per CD and then asking 20 bucks for it - and then they wonder why people aren't buying it. This is the root cause of their decline - expecting top dollar for bargain basement material.
But they weren't satisfied with shooting themselves in that foot - they decided to start up their "legal" extortion racket and run people over the coals for thousands of dollars - for downloading a song that has a market value of less than a dollar. They even decided to sue some dead people, children, disabled seniors, etc. just to make sure that they offended everyone. This bone-headed plan is pure public relations poison - but they just can't stop. This turns a bunch more customers into former customers and the sales drop off even faster.
Having shot themselves in both feet, they turned to their kneecaps with DRM and rootkits. While it's tempting, I won't belabor the point about what a bad idea this was. Now they suggest that they'll remove the DRM from a subset of their catalog - provisionally, for a short period of time. It almost sounds as if they believe they're dealing from a position of strength.
What a bunch of closed-minded fools. Their doom is upon them and they act as if they're in control of the situation...
Re:Where are the stats from? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've said it before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats piracy rates to them? They should look at their sales, nothing else. If they sell three times as much, but the piracy rate (whatever is that, anyway) multiply by ten, why should they care? Should they suppose that they are losing that sales, even if the sales data tells them that they would never have done a but a third of them in the DRM-way? That would be really short-sight... oops, music-industry executives you said?. Then forget it all, short-sightedness is a part of the required CV there, to all external appearances.
It's not that silly, though (Score:5, Insightful)
1. CD burners have existed for ages.
2. The possibility to just copy music to cassette or movies to VHS has existed for ages, and that existed even before CDs gained much adoption. Heck, in the 90's even half the portable stereos, and every self-respecting cassette deck, had room for _two_ cassettes at the same time and a button to copy from one to the other.
3. If you think people had to wait for the Internet to swap music or movies or programs, I dare say you don't remember high school that well.
4. Before mass Internet access, there were BBSs. Frankly, now that was a bigger pirate haven than the Internet... or than the Carribeans back in the 1600's
5. Internet access isn't _that_ new and unlike everything before. Sure, only now it may have reached the grandmas or finally gotten very high speeds, but I don't think those were ever the biggest pirates anyway. If grandma wants to listen to folk songs from the 50's or for some good ol' fashioned symphonic music, she can get those for pence legally. Plus she already has her cassette and vinyl collection.
The biggest problems are teens who (A) are driven by peer pressure, and have to listen, watch, wear and say exactly what their peers appreciate. Even if he goes for the rebellious punk image, the average teenager won't actually be rebellious at all, he'll be a clone of whatever punk image is currently fashionable among his peers. And (B) face high prices for that image. And (C) don't have that much disposable income. So the pressure was always there to copy the latest fashionable album.
And those already had modems, virtually all universities had Interent as early as the early 90's, and most had access to a hi-fi where they could copy a cassette.
Plus, music companies have been complaining about Napster since the 90's, so at least at that point the world was already connected enough to make a difference, according to those music companies.
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:3, Insightful)
To continue to produce their product, any company has to make a profit. That is why your music can't be free.
Re:First step, done (Score:3, Insightful)
To buy a CD, you have to go to the store (or even drive there), push through the hundreds of other people, search for that CD, wait in line at the checkout. That and more is gone when you buy online.
Additionally, I could see another benefit. You could tie a music portal into the whole deal, where customers could listen to your new releases and buy immediately. Impulse buying can be quite powerful in a business that primarily targets the emotions of the customer, like this does. If someone listens to a tune, thinks it sounds nice, and heck, just 99 cents, what's the loss (especially if he can burn and copy at leisure), he'll buy. If he can first sleep over it 'til the next day when the store opens and in the meantime he hears it 10 times on the radio, he might not want to buy it anymore.
I could see sales increase. If this is played right and meant honestly. Whether it is we'll soon see. If the labels start their own music portals for their music and promote it heavily, they mean it seriously. If not, this is just another attempt to prove that DRM is necessary to protect their revenue, or at least prove that abstaining from DRM doesn't make people buy.
Re:TAKE THE RED PILL. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not the legal team. If one member is disbarred, I'll just hire another. If I'm the RIAA, legal fees are a pittance to me. The probably aren't even a line item on my budget.
I take exception with the union example. I do not believe that the RIAA is a union of independent artists as they purport themselves to be by the standard English definitions of the worlds "independent" and "artists". As I understand it the RIAA is a legal attack dog for several top distribution giants, each of whom control the production of artists through contracts. These distribution labels have no other obligation or duty to the artists. So perhaps a union of giant labels? UGL?
Maybe I'm wrong, but the organization is so shady and secretive... let's take a look at their board of directors, shall we:
http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=
Huh. You know, it is the weirdest thing. I don't recognize a single name on that list as a popular recording artist, just "EMI, Sony, BMG, etc." Golly, I wonder if Marilyn Manson or the Rammstein guys voted for these "union leaders". Ahh, I'm guessing no.
Re:Now is the chance (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Another half-ass job (Score:2, Insightful)
What a load of crock. Even if they offered the audio file in FLAC, I'm willing to bet you'd still illegally download the music via P2P. I can't believe you're trying to justify your actions by blaming the record companies for not offering the audio files in FLAC. Unfuckinbelievable. You've got some twisted logic there, son.
The day they do offer their songs in FLAC, you'd just find some other excuse to continue downloading them via P2P. You'll probably say to yourself, "I can get all the FLAC audio files I want on P2P for free. The only way to make me even consider paying for a mere audio file is if they can offer me something better than free."
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:2, Insightful)
If they could run the hammer program on a fab-o-matic and produce a hammer instantly, for damn near zero incremental cost, I would expect hammers to be a lot cheaper. If I have to use my own fab-o-matic machine and supply my own raw materials, I expect the hammer to be damn near free.
Re:Another half-ass job (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh please. It's rare I voice any support for the major record labels' especially given their recent behavior. However in one short paragraph you have nakedly displayed your willingness to deprive artists of any compensation AT ALL for their efforts and dressed it up with some quasi-free market bullshit argument about offering a better product! Well here's a newsflash, pirated content will always be cheaper.
If your going to copy 'mere audio files' from artists without offering any monetary recompense, fine. But at least be honest about what you are doing. A file's format doesn't abrogate you from all ethical responsibility and it certainly doesn't change what you are doing.
FLAC you and your convenient ethics.
PS: I loathe the music publishers..it's worth repeating.ABX? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:nope (Score:2, Insightful)
More importantly (since I wasn't really down with the "hair rock" or "country" on the radio 24/7 as my only exposure to new music -- actually in my home town it was more like "Poison or Randy Travis? Those are your choices. C'mon pick one.") trading tapes got me interested in buying music at all. Not only that, but I acquired a HUGE variety of tastes for different genres. I don't know how many CDs I've purchase since then, but last time I re-ripped my CDs at higher quality before shoving them back in the big box, there were well over 400. Without trading tapes, "grunge" would never have happened while I was in college, saving the major labels asses, because they creatively just thought to cram more poor quality electronica and hair rock down our throats. We apparently just wanted a break for a while. I digress.
The point is we are both just guessing when we speculate as to whether people just made mixed tapes for their own personal use. No one knows. No record companies care to measure that for a baseline. Because they don't care. They made off the cuff, insanely high guesstimates for losses for taping from radio, and were compensated accordingly. See SoundExchange and the internet radio fiasco, also basically part of the RIAA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange [wikipedia.org] That's way more profitable than finding out the truth. Just keep playing the victim if the cash keeps rolling it and society allows it! Seriously, why wouldn't they? "Heck, let's try that guessing thing again with downloading, maybe even get Apple and Microsoft to just pay us a set 10% for nothing!" Think I'm joking? They still tax blank CDs and CD recorders even when federal law has clarified that personal use copies are OK. Isn't whining and getting paid for it a much better deal that doing actual work?
How about addressing the only problem that does hurt their bottom like, like bulk counterfeiting in China? WTF is this move going to change about that?
Re:DRM... In YRO? (Score:2, Insightful)
duh.
Re:Now is the chance (Score:1, Insightful)
be honest.
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:5, Insightful)
fifteen or twenty years ago (when CD's were already fairly old technology) A computer probably not even as fast as the one you're using now was called a 'supercomputer' and cost about a quarter-million dollars. The cost of computing and the cost of network bandwidth has dropped two orders of magnitude since then.
The technology behind computers isn't just similar, it IS the technology behind distributing digital music. The processing power that cost a quarter million dollars twenty years ago costs a few hundred now. The cost of distributing a dozen songs (a CD that actually did cost a few dollars to stamp and ship twenty years ago) is now a download from a server that costs them only fraction of a cent, but they still want us to pay 1988 prices?
It will make no difference in piracy rates (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, there will be a few crusaders who want to "support the artists".
Sure, there will be a few people who can't figure out how to make bittorrent work who prefer the convenience of a one-stop download site for a fee.
But the majority of the users who have already drunk from the fountain of free music will continue to do so.
Re:DRM,Pricing,packaging; legal inferior to pirate (Score:2, Insightful)
Except that 0.000125 cents per song doesn't seem like fair compensation to the artist, does it? And that's ignoring the fact that not 100% of the proceeds may benefit the artist directly anyway. If 100,000 people purchased a 10-song album at your proposed rate, the entire revenue would only be $12,500! Even where I live, that's far below the poverty line. Split that across three or more band members, and they now have barely enough money to eat. And again- that's ignoring the fact that, unless they handle all their management and distribution themselves, the band won't see 100% of the money from the sales. Even if they're dedicated to their craft, at that rate, I wouldn't be surprised if they gave up on creating music altogether to get jobs as beggars.
Pricing can't be entirely dependent upon your storage means and your income. The actual production costs must be factored in as well. Taking that into consideration, I don't see 0.000125 cents per song being a feasible price any time soon.
Re:Another half-ass job (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me just take an example from here in Norway, a country of 5mio people. If you go to about 10th place on the album sales, you're looking at about 50,000 albums. Now I know the average is actually higher, but let's say that they were sold at 80 NOK each (the standard iTunes price), that's 4,000,000 NOK. Divide by an average band size of four and you got 1,000,000 NOK, before expenses. You know what? That's less than I bill for a year as a consultant, and I'm nothing special. Translating to net salary and taking 1/10th of that, you're talking what college kids earn during summer vacation.
Yes, I hear that's what you can get it for by pirates that don't have to make a living out of it, I could probably get it free on P2P with no problem too. Nut 0c or 10c, that's just the near-zero reproduction costs and nowhere enough to make a living off. Basicly, you'd be limited to getting money from the few places you can go on tour, and damn you if you want to stay at home with your family and not travel high and low to play. I'm sure that's great for young artists with no commitments, but not for everyone. I think if you're able to produce music that tens of thousands of people like listening to, that should be enough to make a living off in itself. The whole "the pirates can do it cheaper" is like saying "hey, I know how to use copy-paste, why should I pay for a copy of anything?"
Re:It will make no difference in piracy rates (Score:1, Insightful)
You might be happy to live with robbing people. I'm not, so I pay for my music. Fair use once I've paid for it is another matter, which is why DRM free music/video/whatever should be welcomed.
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:5, Insightful)
While I somewhat agree with a couple of things you say, I must add; Do you even know what you're talking about? I think you're just wildly spewing out numbers because you want something for nothing. Back up your figures or stop making things up.
Besides, your model of "cost" only takes the cost of distributing into consideration. The cost of creation needs to be taken into consideration too. Look into the pricing on your average studio. At your price of $0.01 a song, it would take anywhere between 50000-100000 or more purchases to make a song break even. That's not even counting money for the artist(s) to live off of, or the cut that the record labels want to get for their efforts in advertising.
I'm not saying the current price model is fair, I don't know the break down. I'm also not saying I agree with the strategies of the large record labels, I personally dislike them and the stranglehold they have on the market. But, consider the larger picture before you shoot off that songs should be available for $0.01.
Re:Silly (Score:2, Insightful)
You would expect the truth from an industry that would infect your computer with a rootkit? That would sue elderly women for supposedly downloading rap music? That would sue twelve year olds and mentally handicapped people?
You would trust this sort of person to tell the truth? Want to buy a nice bridge in New York?
Piracy has nothing whatever to do with the labels' war against the internet. The "war against the internet" includes both P2P file sharing and internet radio, that latter which it has effectively killed and the former which it has injured badly.
P2P has been proven time and time again to promote music by every single study except the one industry paid for. Roger McGuinn (from the early 1960s rock band "The Byrds") said that his career was essentially over, the labels wanted nothing more to do with him and he was playing small bars and coffehouses for chump change when the old outlawed Napster revitalized his career.
This was a wakeup call for the RIAA labels, who then realized that if it could revitalize McGuinn's career, it could launch someone else's. McGuinn no longer needed the labels, and neither did anyone else.
"Piracy" has nothing to do with it. If I want the latest top 40 song; indeed, if I want all 40, all I have to do [kuro5hin.org] is plug my radio's headphone jack into my sound card's AUX IN jack with a two dollar cord from Radio Shack and tune the radio to any top-40 station. In two hours I'll have all 40 of the top 40.
If I want indie music I need P2P or internet radio. It's not about "piracy", it's about killing the competetion. It's about keeping McGuinn, other old musicians, and young unsigned bands out of your ears. The labels control teresstrial radio, but they don't and can't control the internet.
If you want to find my friends from The Station's song "The Fog" and search for it [google.com] on P2P, you're likely to download Radiohead's completely different song of the same name and get sued by Radiohead's label for trying to find a song a completely different band made and wants you to hear.
The RIAA and its labels are evil. Don't listen to their lies, and stop listening to their music.
-mcgrew
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:3, Insightful)
At the end of the day, profit margins on CDs are so high that it is highly unlikely piracy rates would become high enough to make them unprofitable.
Plus, musicians produce things that can't be pirated like live shows.
Be fair! (Score:2, Insightful)
If you can't beat em', join em' (Score:4, Insightful)
Rather than trying to sue them out of existence, the RIAA would have been better off simply destroying them the capitalist way - Drive them out of the market with (possibly unfair) competition.
They could easily have charged twice what allofmp3.com charged and still done well for the following reasons:
1) Better selection if they did it right. (This would be hard - allofmp3 had a better selection than many of the "I only carry music from one of the major 5 labels" official online stores.)
2) Easier payment. EASY as hell compared to the nightmare that was getting credits on allofmp3 before they were totally shut down.
3) Still far less expensive than current prices. $1.30/track is a little to expensive for "impulse buy", and means that people are only going to buy tracks they've heard. With allofmp3, I would routinely buy entire albums if I liked one track because it was so inexpensive to do so. (Oddly, people buying entire albums is one of the things the RIAA wants people to do and why they resisted any form of online sales for so long...) Likewise, with allofmp3, I would routinely buy additional albums if I liked the first one as a total impulse buy.
The RIAA was stupid with how they handled allofmp3. They looked at it and simply saw, "we're not getting paid". They were too blinded by that greed to look at allofmp3's business model and the fact that allofmp3 was proof that if you gave people content at the right price and convenience, they were perfectly willing to pay for music rather than download it for free.
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:3, Insightful)
There are very few who write once, and then sit back and do nothing as multiple copies are sold.
Re:Now is the chance (Score:2, Insightful)
The Internet is free advertising for artists, it's not something to let you bath in a sea of cocaine with beautiful models until your brain exits through your ear.
Are everybody breaking the rules? Well, the rules are broken.
Just get over it.
won't affect piracy (Score:2, Insightful)
All DRM did was increase discussion about DRM and increase animosity for an industry that (for whatever reason) seems hellbent on nurturing the worst music ever created...
I used to believe that music will be pirated until the intrinsic & extrinsic values met (artists and labels put out quality music) but that's not true either.
I have ~1100 cds in my collection, I have purchased every single one. The only tracks I have dl'd on my computer are the few I received from iTunes via bottlecaps and a few cds released via creative commons license.
All the whiners saying that it's not piracy or theft, you're even worse than the **AAs. Thanks to you, private companies have totally freaked out and started trying to protect their content via draconian and gestapo tactics because you are exploiting technologies that are largely misunderstood by the general public. The GP and **AAs know that you are and that they don't understand the technology so their natural and defensive (albeit immature) response is to exploit it.
Now music companies are trying to respond to the backlash against the RIAA by *trying* to trust the consumer not to pirate their property and ya know what, I don't really care any more because I know all these a**holes are still going to pirate and give the record companies to continue to jack up their prices ultimately hurting me, the purchaser (by forcing me to continue buying used cds only) and the legitimate artist, who doesn't get a share of that increase anyway.
You can throw all the pointed comments and neato-sounding buzzwords and catchy phrases you want about correlations and statistics and this n that to try and prove that it's not piracy or it's not theft but you're really just making excuses and really no better than what you're complaining against.
So I hope this works out but it doesn't matter anyway because I prefer a lossless copy and unlike the pirates or the **AA, I'm not a thief.
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:3, Insightful)
Popular artists regularly spend tens of thousands Per Song!
What we need to have happen is a change to purchasing true licenses for works we want to, that actually grant us rights to continue to do so. This money should go directly to the artist. 10c per song for this would be a HUGE amount more than artists currently get paid for song sales, but is still cheap for us. Organizations like the RIAA should be able to purchase Distribution Licenses from the artists. Then we buy Media from the RIAA (or whomever else) for a reasonable price that actually reflects their costs...which again, would likely be in the order of 10c per download...more for actual physical media. (Given your proof of purchasing a license for the contents of said media). Yes, this would be a LOT less than the RIAA currently rakes in...but it's STILL basically free money...and then the artist is actually getting paid because the RIAA isn't playing bullshit games of collecting money on behalf of all artists, but then paying them a meager pittance, and not even to the artists that are necessarily making the SALES.
Like that'll ever happen though.
And? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You fail at Capitalism (Score:2, Insightful)
First, the audience doesn't give a shit about the executives, so the audience is not willing to compensate them for anything. Second, "what they do" has as much to do with self-promotion, backstabbing and kissing ass as it has to do with productive activity. Third, executives are overhead. The only reason they get paid as much as they do is because the corporate governance structures disempower shareholders. It's well-known that there is no correlation between executive compensation and corporate performance. Furthermore, US levels of executive pay are an aberration in the global marketplace and they are getting in the way of our companies' ability to compete outside our own increasingly stagnant backwater.
Competition for resources happens not only between corporations (when they don't rig the market to evade it, which they'll do whenever they can get away with it). It also happens within corporations. There are a number of strategies for individuals to get a bigger slice of the pie that don't necessarily align with the interests of the shareholders or employees of the company. In fact, one of the toughest challenges of management is how to encourage real performance while weeding out the self-promoting narcissistic sociopaths who attach themselves to revenue streams the same way maggots flock to roadkill.
Another thing to consider is just how people find out about music. There is a lot more music than anyone can physically listen to, and in the old-school model of music distribution, unless the music is broadcast on mass-market radio or cross-promoted (say, by including a song in a movie), audiences won't hear it. And what they don't hear, they won't buy. But the access to these markets is controlled by a small number of firms. Only they can get enough ears to hear your song so that you have a chance of selling those millions of records. But that also sets them up as gatekeepers who keep the largest share of the proceeds. In addition, the balance of power between five guys, a handful of roadies and a manager versus a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate does not favor the smaller party during contract negotiations.
Based on this, my hope is that the Internet has enabled the exchange of music over social networks at such a low cost that the middlemen (middleweasels?) have lost their clout. And those highly-paid music-industry execs? They can taste the market economy's power of creative destruction and move on to other jobs that their "unique" skill sets qualify them for, such as giving blowjobs through knotholes in the walls of truckstop restrooms for spare change.
Capitalism is no more a meritocracy than Darwinism is. The "fittest" are those who win the game-- by definition. The Social Darwinists believed that this made the winners morally superior. That was based on a misunderstanding of both Darwin and of capitalism, and anyone who has ever met some of the "winners" will understand just how wrong that notion is. The only thing the winners are better at is winning under the present system. Change the selective pressures and different selections will occur. Anyway, there is more corruption than competition in American so-called "capitalism" so the real competition is about who can most effectively buy off a legislator or give a kickback to a media outlet.
Re:GODDAMIT make it $0.01 and THEN maybe !! (Score:3, Insightful)
Your salary needs to be more than $60,000 after taxes in order for you to break even.