Record Labels Change Minds About Sharing MP3s 243
Mass Defect writes "While the RIAA continues to sue people for p2p file sharing, the record labels have made an about-face and given their blessing to users sharing MP3s via the social networking site imeem.com. In May this year the site was being sued by Warner for allowing users to upload photos, videos, and music to share. However to everyone's amazement, instead of being flattened, imeem.com managed to convince the label that this free promotion was a good thing. In July imeem.com signed a deal with the label. Since then the site has added Sony, BMG, EMI, and now the biggest fish of them all, Universal. Imeem now has the royal flush of record labels supporting its media-sharing service, each getting a cut of the advertising revenues generated by their catalog. Finally someone has figured out a way to do 'YouTube for MP3s' without getting sued out of existence."
Yawn... (Score:5, Interesting)
What we're seeing here is the Record Companies trying to appeal to our better judgement, while making one last effort to maintain an iron grip over their content. And it's just not going to work.
You see.... last year was arguably one of the best years on record for independent artists and labels for this very reason. The amount of *great* content being released by small labels was staggering to say the least, and I'd be pretty certain that more than a few of these artists got their "big break" via P2P.
Meanwhile, the talent on the major labels was.... crap... to say the least, and it has nothing to do with the inevitable backlash that occurs between generations. Most of the "Top-40" artists are untalented, formulaic, and absolute rubbish.
The crackdown on P2P, and the agreement with Imeem is at least in part trying to mask the fact that the RIAA's members have completely lost the ability to identify and sign new talent. On the other hand, the indie labels have gotten quite good at it.
The days of rock stars with million dollar salaries are over. The labels need to accept the fact that music is going to become increasingly diverse over the next several years, and that their old strategy of promoting a very small number number of superstar artists just isn't going to work any more.
Re:here's the answer (Score:5, Interesting)
What I wondered is how much it costs an advertiser per page view. A bunch of kids that never buy anything could prove to be expensive to an advertiser. Remember the free Net Zero? I expect the content providers to squeeze the middle pretty hard. They overcharge for any use of their product. This will be no exception. Advertisers payments will go directly to the record companies and the website will go broke. Nobody providing RIAA content is making a lot of money and negotiations often bread down. Look at the fees they were trying to charge webcasters and the higher fees they were trying to push on iTunes. This outfit is next in line for the squeeze. They will be squeezed to the point they have to raise advertising rates to the point the advertisers demand more in your face exposure for the money or they go bye bye.
Re:A couple of choice comments on the announcement (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think the Status Quo is justifiable. I don't think the lawsuits, the intimidation, the harsh penalties, none of this is justifiable against a casual downloader.
I have concluded this, right after I thought a while about the value of music. Live shows have value, just as T-Shirts, Posters, and other physical art has value. A CD without a reasonable media replacement policy has little value and the cover art that comes with CD has almost no value. The actual audio portion of a song I receive from radio has little value.
And thus the Audio portion of a MP3 file has little or no innate value. What gives MP3s greater value are what you can do with them. If you have a collection of MP3's it just as important to have correct & complete ID3 tagging as it is to have the audio portion. This allows you to group, sort, find, and select specific files. Being able to discover new music based on past preference and the current state of the world of music also increases value (you could call this meaningful targeted advertising).
So in my MP3 music collection very little of what has value comes from artists, the record label representing them, or the industry associations that bank role their operations. The ID3 tags are from places like music brainz and LastFM, the manipulation is from applications like iTunes, Song Bird or Media Monkey, the advertising is from blogs, webpages, forums, and torrent trackers.
Where are the labels and industry associates in this?
Why should I pay these people a lot money when I so little of what gives the MP3 value comes from them?
Because this is the legal frame work we find ourselves in? This isn't a very satisfying answer.
Because the Artists deserve money for their art? The current system is designed to prevent the end consumer from paying the artists directly and I'm not giving money to the bankers and advertisers they do business with. Besides, they have plenty of opportunity to get my money when they tour in support of their album. And then I'm buying T-Shirts and Concert Tickets, and the occasional CD.
Re:pHR33 L394L /\/\P3z!!!1!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Are we seeing the start of "128kbps are just previews, 256kpbs is what you are prepared to pay for"?
IMEEM Confuses and Infuriates me! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:pHR33 L394L /\/\P3z!!!1!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Vorbis is an excellent compressor, but LAME often beats it, mainly because it's a very mature codebase and it's psychoacoustic model has been tweaked to near perfection. Vorbis can get there - but it'll take time. What's really hurting Vorbis is the lack of support in iTunes/iPods - the most popular players out there. If Vorbis was available on this platform, you'd see a lot more interest in development, I think.
I've ripped all of my CDs to FLAC, then transcode to MP3 as needed for our iPods.
Re:"Stealing" (vs copyright infringement) (Score:3, Interesting)
If I go to WalMart and shoplift a CD, that's stealing. WalMart no longer has the item; it's gone. If I get caught stealing that $25 CD, I'll be arrested for misdemeanor retail theift, released on my own recognnisance (which I can't spel and don't care to look up) and will have to go to court and pay at most a couple hundred bucks in fines.
If I infringe copyright the copyright holder still has copyright, and still has his music. He hasn't lost anything. If I get caught I'll either pay a $4,000 extortion fee or get hauled to court in a civil suit and pay up to $150,000.
THAT'S the difference between stealing music and copyright infringement.
-mcgrew [slashdot.org]
Re:A couple of choice comments on the announcement (Score:2, Interesting)
i agree with you. the point is that that phenomenon is hardly exclusive to the music industry.
Who makes nike shoes? some chinese laborman. Let's say he makes a couple hundred pair of shoes a month. His salary is nowhere near the 12.5% of the cost of a couple hundred pair of nike shoes.
I know, i't s a tricky analogy, but give it a spin: how many cents does the original designer that worked in any given pair of nike shoes get for each shoe sold? i bet is much much much less than 12%, or whatever.
Yes, musicians are under-paid. But in capitalism, EVERYBODY that does not own his own bussiness is under paid, and that includes a vast vast vast majority of people, specially in other countries (other than the us, that is).