Jupiter Report Says Napster Users Buy MORE Music 295
flufffy writes "According to this report on CNet, a new Jupiter Research report on 2200 online music fans has found that Napster users are likely to buy more rather than less music. "Because Napster users are music enthusiasts, it's logical to believe that they are more likely to purchase now and increase their music spending in the future," Jupiter analyst Aram Sinnreich said in a statement. OK so it's another Napster story -- but, of all the Net behaviour researchers out there, Jupiter are one set of people I would trust more to do their research methodically and impartially. I think that this is one of the strongest surveys of the issue released so far." I'm sure that the RIAA has statistics that will say the opposite, but I think I agree with this - just because I can download something doesn't mean I don't want the CD as well.
Re:It is both silly and untrue (Score:1)
This is all assuming that the source is owned by the customer. In fact, in the examples you mention, it's almost impossible to do the conversion otherwise.
With MP3s, it's actually quite easy to perform a "conversion" without the source. Yeah, you own the CD, but those MP3s you're downloading weren't ripped from your own personal copy.
Imagine walking into Blockbuster with a receipt for a Beta cassette of Casablanca you purchased in the '80s, and a blank VHS cassette. Will they give you a copy of Casablanca on your VHS tape? Heck no. But you could take the original Beta cassette to Charlie's Media Conversion and get it done there.
So yeah, I see the logic behind the argument (that d/ling MP3s of songs you already own on CD is still bad), but I think it's outdated logic. Thanks to modern technology, information can spread without the confines of physical media. Record companies sell physical media. Record companies are going to be obsolete very very soon.
Re:They're not stupid... (Score:1)
That's anarchy. The democracy I learned about is giving up your natural rights to protect the rights of others. You have the natural right to bash someone's skull in with a rock, but that interferes with their natural right to live. So in a society, you give up your right to bash someone in the skull with a rock, so that you don't have to worry about someone else bashing you in the head with a rock
The big problem I have whenever people start talking about 'corporations' or 'the government' is that they don't realize that corporations and the government are made up of a bunch of little people trying to get by. A bunch of little people who would like a raise or a Christmas bonus or a good health plan. It's so easy to blame some faceless corporation or government for your problems, but you're really just blaming a bunch of other faceless people.
Re:What people say (Score:2)
Congrats, you've just re-iterated the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Marketing. This affects ALL studies. And even those that rely on real-world numbers and behaviours miss the "why". You can have position (action) or velocity (explanation), but both are tough to pin down. It's a very rough metaphor.
One important thing to note:
Jupiter = Internet research firm.
Soundscan = music sales tracking company.
Yea, the Internet may very well be taking sales away from college area record stores, but, IMHO, that's more because the students are buying online rather than not buying at all. The other growth statistics for the record industry support this theory (i.e. growth continues)
Just as likely is that those people attracted to Napster are music enthusiasts who buy lots of music.
This makes sense, and supports the idea that the RIAA isn't worried about piracy, but about competition (with non-RIAA music).
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In this case, it's working surprisingly well... (Score:1)
Re:Figures Don't Lie.. (Score:1)
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Re:RIAA (Score:2)
You don't think all this was motivated by a few kids downloading MP3s, do you? Sure, it's wrong, even if it isn't necessarily hurting anyone (I've used Napster twice; each time it cost me over $100 in CDs I just HAD to get after listening to the MP3.. but that's just me).
I have an article on ZDnet (so kill me) about this very thing: TalkBack Central: RIAA vs. Artist: Will the real victim please stand up [zdnet.com]. Basically, the RIAA represents the huge record companies, not the artists. And they're being forced to contend with an unpleasant fact: they're dinosaurs, and the mammals are looking about ready for an uprising.
Lemme 'splain. There was a time, long ago, when a record company was instrumental in the recording process. They found musicians, hooked them up with other musicians, hired songwriters, producers, etc. That still happens to an extent: groups like "N'Sync" were manufactured this way. But they're the exception these days.
So now enter computer technology, which lets the artists work in their own private home studios. This was inevitable from the days in the 60s when folks like the Beatles first used the studio as part of the creative process, not just a place to lay down a few tracks. I can get better quality in my home studio than "the lads" every managed (technical, folks -- the talent just ain't there).
So, what DO the record companies do? Primarily, they manufacture and distribute CDs and tapes on a huge scale. Their clout gets their artists in the stores and on the radio. They advance musicians money against eventual royalties for making record and videos, but rarely actually pay for that. Aside from the whole meatspace distribution, they're functional as an engine of transfer in just one more way: up to 95% of the profits made on a record goes into their pockets.
Now enter Napster. Napster has two important things, even if it's morally wrong. First off, it demonstrated a great peer to peer technology, bettered still by GNUtella and others. What this did is fundamental: it moved the problem of electronic distribution from necessarily being a huge server-based project (look at the size of eBay's rig, for example, and they're just dishing up pictures and text) to Just An Application. The second thing they did was on the culture. After Napster, there are millions of college kids, and others, who now think electronic distribution is a fine way to listen to music, not just a cool hack.
So the RIAA is fighting the future. Their client face a serious loss of power in a world in which artists and listeners can have a direct relationship. And really, find a way for those musicians to get paid 25-50 cents per download, and the record companies will have no more place in this world than the noble apatosaurus. They're fighthing Napster especially, because they currently have name-enough to start doing something on the up and up, which they couldn't fight.
That's not the only place they're fighting. You may have notice the current rise in producer-created bands like the aforementioned N'Sync. It's no coincidence -- a group built that may well be owned by the record companies. Contracts have been building up to give the record companies dramatically increasing power. Go buy that new Clarke/Baxter book, and you'll see their names on the copyright page. Go buy just about any CD, and you'll see (C)2000 Sony, Inc. or some-such.
And it gets worse. If you're a consultant, you may have noticed that a major "work for hire" bill passed a few years back, effectively making it harder for you to work for a company and still claim what you did for them is an independent work, and not theirs. Well, the RIAA & co. managed to sneak what's in effect a rider to that bill through, piggy-backed on some cable TV bill, which make "recording artist" just as subject to the new work-for-hire laws as "computer engineer". So unless they had particularly good lawyers a few years back, there's a fair chance than many of the major music acts out today are effectively just employees of their record companies. Which, if nothing else, lets the dinosaurs have serious control of much of today's popular music catalog. Making it all the more difficult for an independent, legal, and micropayment-based distribution system to gain momentum.
Re:Non-illegal uses for Napster (Score:1)
- I'd have to climb stairs
- I keep forgetting where my car keys are
- I might forget to bring the CD back to the car, and miss it on my next trip
- It was raining, and
- I'm damn lazy.
Do I feel like an evil theif because I used napster to get a song I already have? No, not really. I'm proud, in fact, to have been using Napster in a legitimate fasion.Re:Of course (Score:1)
This is definitely true. (Score:1)
Statistics are like bikinis. . . (Score:1)
Curious George
Re:Better for business (Score:2)
According to the study, Napster users increased their spending on music. That's different than just saying they spend more than others.
I know I buy more! (Score:1)
For example: One time I was driving through Central Texas, and was listening to a public radio station. Didn't know which station it was, and it didn't matter: I didn't have anythingh to write on or with as I hurtled down I-35 at 75 mph. I heard some songs by a guy from Canada. I really liked them, but had no way of writing down the artist's name or the station.
One day, I stumbled on some of the same tunes while searching through Napster. I found the artist's name, more of his work, and even his website. I was able to make contact, and even order some of his CDs.
Score one for Napster!
Some times, as I sit here at work I search for different Classical composers. Especially for some of the more obscure ones. As I listen to their work, I can make lists, get on the web, and order their CDs.
Sure, some people abuse Napster. I like to think of it as a brilliant Marketing tool that helps me find the music I want, and SELLS more CDs for the music industry!
Re:Missing the point (Score:1)
The problem is that, when the record companies' oh-so-precious music starts being distributed through alternative channels that they can't control just by throwing money at them, it's only a matter of time before independent artists start - *argh* - getting as much air time as the "official" ones. Then pretty soon they'll start selling well too. And, of course, the independent artists get a lot more money off each CD sale than does an "official" one, so the signed-up people will decide that it's just not worth it anymore to be "official". And then the record companies' whole business is ruined.
They're desperately trying to maintain the illusion that they're still as necessary as always. Well, Lincoln once said something about fooling all the people all the time, and I think that applies here.
Same flawed idea re-hashed once again (Score:1)
Band A and Band B are in said association. Band A rules. Band B blows. Band A makes mad cash. Band B spends trust fund on CD.
Why should Band A have anything to do with Band B, much less share the dough?
Re:In this case, it's working surprisingly well... (Score:1)
Elsewhere in the world of made up statistics.. (Score:1)
Re:Important Clarification (Score:2)
Re:It works for me! (Score:3)
There is always trouble in a society when the law loses track of what most people think of as the basic ethical code. Most people would consider the above ok. But it is illegal. Therein lies conflict.
The RIAA refuses to accept what most people consider ethical, and seek to stick to a narrow interpretation of the law, in order that they don't have to change. (Because change scares them.)
This is why some members of congress are so upset about. I think that they really do want the law to mirror people's basic ethics. They want a system where people can "try before you buy" and download music without all that annoying packaging. They want a system where people can share music with their family while musicians still get paid. They want the music industry to build such a system so that most people can do legally what they think they should be able to do ethically. That way, everyone's happy. (Or most everyone, at least.)
The RIAA, not wanting to change, focuses on that subgroup of mp3 users who do things most of the population considers unethical, like copying thousands of hours of music without ever paying the artists, in order to prevent the bulk of the population from doing things that population considers completely ethical, like trying something out before buying. That's a losing proposition in the end, because you can't really fight society. Whether by changes in the law, or by rampant disregard for the law, the RIAA will lose this battle. Hopefully, for the sake of society as a whole, it will be the former, not the latter.
Does it even matter? (Score:3)
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the real question.... (Score:2)
Re:You have to factor in CD-R's, you know (Score:2)
They better not be saying that.. (Score:2)
(I think many do, but the lawyers are telling them that if they don't defend their "rights" they will lose them, and SO FAR the companies are listening more to the lawyers).
Any lawyer saying something like this should be disbarred. It's patently false. If their lawyers don't have any more of a clue than that, then they are in desperate need of new lawyers. There is absolutely no chance of losing your copyright or the right to enforce it just because you don't enforce it in all cases. Those rules apply ONLY TO TRADEMARKS. They can selectively enforce their copyrights as much as they like. There is nothing forcing them to go after Napster users. They are doing it because they want tighter control over the music they distribute. End of story.
Of course (Score:2)
It is both silly and untrue (Score:2)
You are right. It is not only silly, it is also untrue. The courts have found several times (for video AND for computer data) than you can even charge a fee to duplicate someone's copy of copyrighted material or convert it to another format. Examples of this include NTSC -> PAL video conversions, moving vidoe collections from Beta to VHS, and recovering software from outdated media such as 8" diskettes and moving it to a more convinient (e.g. 3.5" diskettes) medium.
If mp3.com is smart, they will appeal the decision against them, as there is precedent that strongly supports their position with regards to mymp3.
Either way, if you as an end user already own a legal copy of a track, you can legally download the same track from the internet. The RIAA may foolishly try to sue you, but if you can afford to fight the lawsuit you will almost certainly win -- there is plenty of legal precendence.
Of course, a lawyer I am not, but I do know that I for one will continue to save myself the hassle of borrowing a turntable and doing an analog -> wav, wav -> ogg conversion and keep downloading the music I already own, as playing mp3's is far more convinient than dealing with vinyl.
Well, yeah, but... (Score:3)
Re:the real question.... (Score:2)
The first, as cvd6262 says, is whether Napster users were already predisposed to buy more music, period, so that comparing them to non-Napster-users doesn't tell you anything about Napster, but only that they were music fanatics to begin with.
The second question is whether -- even if it were somehow proved that using Napster increases your music buying appetite -- that makes it right to distribute copyrighted works without permission.
Should a songwriter or performer have the right to say: Do not reproduce my work without permission, whether it boosts my income slightly or not? Or does society have the right to say to an author or composer: We can prove that pirating your work yields you a slight material benefit, therefore your copyright is null and void?
RIAA (Score:2)
Perhaps they just don't want to back down from the legal battles that have become so public, and say "oops"
Better for business (Score:2)
But, like most business folks, they don't have the smarts or immagination to sometimes do the counterintuitive.
Re:What people say (Score:2)
It reminds me a lot of local politicians where I live who try to take credit for the reduction in crime we've seen over the past few years. Uhm, well Mr. Mayor, the entire country has seen a drop in crime in the last decade...
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Re:Important Clarification (Score:2)
Aha! Here is the problem... you aren't buying the music they want you to! You don't think they actually care about you buying a CD from some band that few have ever heard of, do you (despite the fact that their music is really good, afterall).
Nope, they would be perfectly happy if you just ran out and bought CD's of music you hear on the radio. After all, the recording industry has gone to great pains over the years to bring the 'free' radio airplay market under their own control, so they can decide which artists' music you hear and then are likely to go out and buy.
Napster interferes with the RIAA's 'try before you buy' mechanism, the corporately-controlled audio broadcast industry.
Ever wonder why no-talent, interchangeable, over-produced 'artists' like n-Sync and Back Street Boys and Britney Spears and the like get played to death 500 times a day on a million radio stations across the country and their crap CD with one or two popular singles zoom to #1 on the charts with little or no concert tour support or any other visible means of promoting the work? Kids are basically told what music they should like and buy by nationally programmed top 40 radio shows broadcast identically in each and every market by the huge media conglomerates who have bought out all the local stations.
This struck me the other day as I was flipping channels and came across the 'Britney Spears Story' on VH1 or something, and I stopped just long engough to catch the soundbite from one of Sony's executives talking about what a great artist she was because of the x million "units" that she sold in the first few months of her new album.
He didn't talk about her talent, or how she was able to reach her fans, or anything else that I would think defines a "great artist." She is "great" because they are able to make a huge profit off a single artist and sell millions of copies of the CD.
They would rather have 5-10 artists who collectively sell 100 million "units" than 500 who also collectively sell as many CD's. Overhead and economies of scale. Today, it seems its all about maximizing profit margin, growing revenue and cutting expenses. Why put the energy into signing, developing, producing, promoting and distributing the works of hundreds of artists when there is a higher return to be earned by concentrating efforts on much fewer?
I'm sure this has been observed before, but Napster undermines the control that the Recording Industry has over the making ans selling of music. If CD sales are up partially because of Napster, the RIAA sure doesn't care, because record sales lost to piracy isn't the real issue, after all, is it?
It is the erosion of their stranglehold on the production and distribution of recorded music that has them locked in a life and death strugle with Napster.
Re:Important Clarification (Score:2)
Re:the analogy does NOT hold (Score:2)
Re:I was at a record store last night. (Score:2)
You understand my point better then the other posters. (Hint, wal-mart doesn't have many folk disks, nor does Best Buy, at least not as I like my music. So I can only go to a small store)
the problem however is this little record store has several thousand CDs that I might be interested in. I don't have time to listen to 1000 CDs just to choose which one to buy. I can listen to about 6 CDs every day at work though, which will cover their entire inventory in a year and allow listening to the ones I really like more often.
Re:the analogy does NOT hold (Score:2)
Every time this subject comes up, whether related to Napster or software piracy or whatever, somebody brings up this red herring that it's not stealing because you are making a copy. Fine, don't call it stealing; call it counterfeiting or sharing or whatever you want. It's irrelevant; a semantic wild-goose chase. The only relevant issues are the costs and benefits of the behavior vs. the costs and benefits of discouraging or preventing the behavior.
with humpy love,
Re:You have to factor in CD-R's, you know (Score:2)
A is 44.1 kHz / 16 bit. B is a lossy 128 kbps MP3. If I really want to hear the music, I'll pick A.
1. To play in your car? I really want a car mp3 player.
2. To "hear the music" you don't need high fidelity reproduction but an active imagination.
At least I think so, but I'm old. Once upon a time before computers I owned a high-tech stereo system, the hottest piece of electronic gadgetry I had. It read sound data off my collection of engraved 12"-radius vinyl discs, ones I had worn flat with diamond needles, achieving way less reproduction accuracy than you get nowadays out of a $49 K-Mart boom box. The cover art on my discs was infinitely (Ok, four times) better but all in all despite my costly and superb walnut-cased speakers the overall fidelity was inferior. Here's the point: in no way whatsoever was what I heard inferior to the technically-better-reproduced stuff youse punks listen to today.
By the way, probably more than half of the albums I bought back then, probably two thirds, I'd heard first on a cassette I got from a pal. A bootleg, a Lars-go-piss-yourself-in-fear illegal copy, dig? I wouldn't have ever bought the vinyl if I hadn't ripped off the cassette, you know what I mean? And then the record co.s wouldn't have ever sold that particular copy, hey Lars how hard can this be to grasp? Me and all my friends too. Oddly enough the record companies didn't go broke way back then. Jack Valenti is a moron.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Re:I like the research to the contrary. (Score:2)
Fuuny thing is the amount artist get per CD hasn't gone up since that time and production costs have gone way down.
Re:the real question.... (Score:3)
I've spent more on Emusic.com this year alone than all of normal CD's two years ago.
Main reason... I purchase Punk-O-Rama Volumes 1 through 5 at Emusic.com , or pick them up at the Public Library (and rip), and suddenly I'm caught up in the punk scene (not really, j/k) but it opens new doors to bands that I know I like now. Sure, there might be a few main ones like NOFX, Bad REligion, just to name 2, but what about others? These compilations and 'testing' via Napster clues me in. However, finding these type of genres on Napster is pretty low, so when a Punk band just released their new album on EMusic.com 2 weeks ago, I'm much more likely to purchase it, than try my bad luck in finding these online.
The BIGGEST improvement to my music life due to Napster/newsgroups/et al, would be the BLUES. I knew I liked the blues, knew I heard some songs I loved, but dind't know who played it, song name, nuthin'. I would NEVER have bought a blues CD at $17 a crack just to see if I liked it! Picture this... I take a crack at an album in a record store... Pay $17, take home, play once, hated it!Repeat?
Thanks to ripping a bunch of Blues compilation from the library, I now know who the kings of blues are, and know that I like them: John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, etc.
Not much of an argument for the RIAA, since all they want to sell is mainstream crud, and I can hear that crap on the radio anytime, and make my decision that way. But definately interest in non-mainstream music must be tripling as we speak.
I think that many people who usually buy a lot of CD's, still are. If you love music enough to buy that many at that price, you may continue to. However, we have to admit many of them have cut back drastically. As far as people like myself who never bought too many anyway (My total collection was only 120) then the sales went down to practically Zero, but my online sales have gone way up.
Rader
Re:Well, yeah, but... (Score:2)
Re:I think.. (Score:2)
You actually purchased CDs having no idea what was on them?! Do you never listen to the radio? Did you actually look at a prospective purchase and say, "Gee, I've never heard any of these titles, but I'm gonna buy it anyways."
Frankly, I find this pretty incredible, and therefore conclude that the rest of your statements are lies as well.
like buying a DVD only because of the trailer of the movie.
Anybody who buys a DVD after seeing only a movie trailer is a moron. Like somebody who buys a car because the picture on the billboard looked so cool.
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Re:What people say (Score:3)
It would also be in the auto maker's interest to ensure metal and plastics are weak and never improve, as more people would then have to buy more cars more often. The point is that there are many things companies can do, ofetn unethical, to boost their sales. There are a lot situations that an industry's consumers can be forced into that would increase their revenue. Crushing online music distribution may indeed bring sales even higher, but at the cost of innovation and forward movement. No doubt most executives would be happy to make this tradeoff; however, the ideal of the free market is to PROMOTE new ideas, not step on them.
Re:I think.. (Score:2)
Well no wonder the RIAA doesn't like it. They need to sell albums, and how are they going to do that if you can tell the cream from the crap? Remember that 90% of everything is crap [tuxedo.org], so that means that they'll lose 90% of their artists. So buy a boy band CD today and help the poor little RIAA!
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Some issues... (Score:2)
(and if you have a T3 or something, it's still faster, because you can have a multi-cdrw-dvd-jukebox-60x-whatever cheaper than the cost of the T3).
That assumes that I pay for the T3 solely for the purpose of downloading MP3s. If I have the T3 for work, or some other purpose, then it doesn't become a cost factor when comparing the cost of downloading versus ripping my own mp3s.
because if they close napster, a dozen similar sites will appear
Do you even know what Napster is? Hint: It's not a website.
Of course, if at some point it would be easier to me downloading all the cd rather than buying it
Many of us download mp3s AND buy the cd. This seems to be supported by the Jupiter study. This will probably become much more prevalent if we could get the damn record companies out of the way. Then we could more directly support the artists we like.
Instead, they should try to make the buying thing easier, and give it added value(maybe you buy mp3 on the net and get some merchandising?), so people will still prefer buying it than pirating it.
They also need to drop the prices quite a bit. They've been screwing us over for far too long. At least the FTC finally caught them on something (price fixing). Too bad they didn't have to refund the $400+ million they overcharged consumers.
Then the thing I'd really like to see (but is probably the most unlikely of all) is for them to start giving the artists better deals, allowing them to retain ownership of their music, and paying them more. The contracts that most artists have today are a sad, sick joke. Whether the artists are to blame for signing or not, the industry is definitely taking advantage of its position of power and screwing most artists over. Would be even more nice to see artists abandoning the industry and working out a new system so that we fans can deal with them more directly. We would get the music cheaper and they would get paid more, while retaining ownership of their music.
Re:I like the research to the contrary. (Score:2)
And in other news (Score:2)
Not /. PC to say this, but... come on. (Score:2)
Yes, I know, this isn't a popular thing to say around here. I really wish people would figure this out. The thinking here seems to be backwards.
Look at free software. Now here's a place where we got it right. Personally, I think Stallman's views on software morality are a bit extreme, but the reason the GNU project is so respectable -- even to someone like me who believes in strong intellectual property rights -- is that he didn't say "I think the current system is bad, so I'll break the law"; he said "I think the current system is bad, so I'll make a better system."
I've heard it argued that musicians have no intrinsic right to profit from their music. I think this is insane. If you want to argue from this angle, you don't have an intrinsic right to free music.
Like it or not, Metallica music isn't a natural resource. It wasn't an obvious thing somebody discovered. It was created by Metallica. If you think that Metallica shouldn't earn money for what they do, that's fine. But don't go online and download Metallica music and think you're not stealing. I have more respect for a thief who says he's a thief than a thief who claims he's standing up for his rights. I'm surprised more people don't.
The most important part of all of this is that there IS a free-software equivilent to music. There are countless bands online who are more than happy to provide MP3s of their music for free. And if you haven't seriously checked them out, you really should, because there are some great songs out there.
With all the free music out there, the argument that downloading Metallica is a right has gotten really tired. If you're one of these people, maybe you should reevaluate your position. You say that you buy a lot of music anyway, you say the RIAA is big and evil, you say Metallica is invoking morally wrong intellectual rights. I say you wanted something, you stole it, and now you're trying to make yourself feel a little bit better.
Non-illegal uses for Napster (Score:2)
Many people, including many media organizations and the music industry fail to see that Napster is only the tool. Copying information illegally has been around much longer than Napster. How many people have VHS tapes of movies that they copied?
Hilary Rosen quote (Score:5)
I think we can all agree that Hilary Rosen topless is a bad thing, and if that's what happens when people use Napster, I'd rather they stop.
WEll for GODS sake , DUHHH! (Score:2)
I hope that the people out there who also understand this happen to be people in positions of power or some sort of authority
(whether by the hoi polloi, or the understanding of the Wizard of OZ.)
Re:the real question.... (Score:2)
I can say the opposite. My CD purchases were curbed a while ago by having to pay rent and buy food and other such little things. As such, I've gotten picky about my music, and have now bought several CDs on the basis of having heard mp3s of the songs first. In some cases, I would probably have bought a CD, if not necessarily the one that I did get. In others, though, I heard the mp3s, said, "Wow! They're really good!" and went out ant bought a CD.
--Phil (Although most mp3s I've heard that weren't from my CD collection came from friends' computers.)
What people say (Score:4)
It is also dangerous to imply causation. Even if you prove that Napster users buy more music, you can't say that Napster causes people to buy more music. Just as likely is that those people attracted to Napster are music enthusiasts who buy lots of music.
(Most of this should be obvious, but it ought to be said.)
Music industry stats are just as shaky. To imply that record sale declines close to universities are due to Napster ignores all sorts of alternate possibilities, such as changing musical tastes, increasing purchase of music from online sources, etc.
Re:the real question.... (Score:2)
i find my self buying more CDs now that i have a broadband connection at home, but often what i buy is in a completely new genre for me as a listener. part of this is due to napster and part of this is due to the influence of friends who have moved to new areas of the U.S.
so for me, yes i am spending more on CD music (yes i am above the age of 24) but i am spending it on stuff most mainstream labels shun.
that's nice and all (Score:2)
whether or not their reasons for not wanting to give it away are valid, it's still their choice, as it should be.
Napster is nice and all, but to say "this doesn't hurt them as much as they are claiming it hurts them" just seems irrelavlent.
________
Re:Non-illegal uses for Napster (Score:2)
cliches (Score:2)
No, actually it wouldn't. If they're fighting Napster in order to make more money, then they shouldn't stop it "at all costs." If the costs of stopping Napster are greater than the losses incurred due to Napster, then it's not in the industry's best economic interest.
People use these stupid cliches and don't even think about what they're saying.
Re:the analogy does NOT hold (Score:2)
You should be allowed to make a copy of it, you should not be able to pass the copy off as an official ten dollar bill. Similarly, you may also make a cologne which looks and smells like (insert expensive cologne here) and sell it under a unique name, but if you pass it off as (insert same name of expensive cologne here) you are breaking the law. The same applies to generic clothes, they can copy the appearance of an expensive brand, but they can't claim to be made by the company which makes the expensive brand.
musicians association solution (Score:2)
in a nutshell:
- the physical distributors and merchandisers pay into the
musician's pool that pays and feeds the musicians.
- the musicians pool distributes it equitably among its active
producers.
- from the pool comes more new music. which is given away for
free. unlimited digital copies for everyone - AIFF,
never again a dime paid for anything that's just DATA.
- the distributors get fresh music, and sell and package more STUFF.
- the distributors pay back a percentage of sales back into the pool.
- so it comes back around and feeds itelf in a positive fashion.
>> that's the most important part.
so all the software is free - before we had radio and tapes,
now we have unlimited copying of files over the web - you get
mindshare from it. then people still buy your stuff. i've got
a copy of lewis carol by download - i bought the book too.
you can download red-hat for free, but its a best seller at
chapters.
the thing is - if you press a record or burn a CD and put it on
sale, it is something physical, and a percentage goes back, but
the artist is not paid direct - it goes to the musician's pool.
perhaps one way of doing it would be then to dole out the shares
each month by percentage of overall free downloads from a server
(e.g. napster) that offers them up for free. may have to weigh
the downloads - this has to be intelligently moderated. this
needs some more thought behind it - so that it works equitably
for those involved. that's the job of the association.
the economic principles i have grasped in only rudimentary form.
i'm afraid i really don't do it justice. however, there is a
viable alternative to the capitalism-communism dichotomy that
exists here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/S
extra ideas:
- certified teachers
- certified distributors
- classes of members:
- novices
- students
- apprenticeships
- professional
Re:Well, yeah, but... (Score:3)
And on the musician side, it'll force mainstream artists to come up with complete, filler-free albums.
Re:Some issues... (Score:2)
You can use the juke-cd-... for other things, as a backup system, or whatever.
Are you trying to advertise juke-cds or what? What difference does it make what I could do with a juke-cd if I already have a T3 line and use it to download mp3s rather than ripping them myself?
and i don't think they will find that "getting out of the way" is an acceptble market strategy.
They can have whatever strategy they want. I don't care. I plan to continue writing to Congress and supporting those that want to change the way the system works. It's broken because it does not serve artists or fans anywhere near as well as it serves the record companies. This needs to be rectified and it will probably involve the record companies getting out of the way, or at least taking a back seat and learning their new place in the world. They don't create a damn thing, and they should not be the ones to be profiting so highly from the work of those that do create. It's time to fix things. Whether they like it or not makes no difference to me, just as they don't care whether I like their practices or not.
Single Decent Song seeks Napster Hating Audiophile (Score:3)
Would you buy a house that had only one room without flourescent green paint and a notice that said you were unable to change the paint color?
I think.. (Score:4)
make better choices.
Personally, i have bought more CDs because i have
tried them before. I have even explored other
genres that I previously couldnt afford.
Now, everytime i buy a CD, its something
i really want because i already tasted; like
buying a DVD of your favorite movie.
A year or 2 ago, 50% of the cds I bought sucked and
I had no way to find out until after i bought it;
like buying a DVD only because of the trailer
of the movie.
So, mp3 have brought me:
1. wiser choices
2. less deceptions
3. enjoyed other music otherwise i wouldnt have
4. more CDs
MP3's are the best promotion tool out there (IMHO) (Score:3)
Re:the analogy does NOT hold (Score:2)
Because the poster is right in the particulars and clueless in the import: It is "just semantics", but that doesn't imply it is unimportant. This whole struggle is not about right v. wrong, or even permissible v. illegal. It's about perception. If the Copyright Cartel can convince the average citizen that copyright infringement is stealing -- or better, somehow it's "piracy" -- then they get to take advantage of a built-in connotation, immediately making people thinkg "Oooh, stealing is wrong. So this must be wrong."
"Infringement" does not have that same embedded meaning, so it doesn't rouse the emotions. Of course -- make no mistake here -- the RIAA and the MPAA most certainly do not want to have this settled by reason. The chances are far too good that, considered reasonably, their arguments are untenable. No, the Copyright Cartel want to triumph via the emotions. After all, manipulating emotions is the core of their business anyway. So they attempt to frame the debate in a way to push the buttons of the uninformed.
Sadly, too many seem willing to cede choice of the emotional/intellectual terrain to the enemy... and as any good general will tell you, that spells defeat. Pay attention to Cosmo (from Sneakers [imdb.com] ), if you really want to understand this conflict:
This makes sense (Score:2)
I was at a record store last night. (Score:2)
As the subject says, I was at a record store last night. A couple thousand CDs, mostly folk and bluegrass. I looked at many, but in the end didn't buy one. I've bought bad folk records, and I've bought good ones. I love folk but the catagorie is large enough that some of it bores me. I wanted to buy anouther CD, but not knowing any of the artists I was not willing to take a chance on any.
There needs to be some way to sample music before I buy it.
YOUR analogy does not hold... (Score:2)
>10 dollar bill. Should you or should you not
>be allowed to make a copy of it?
It *IS*, in fact, perfectly legal to copy US currency. You see it all the time in novelty stores... Sometimes it is play money for kids. Some times it is turned into notepads. Some artists have sold HAND PAINTED (and *VERY* real looking) reproductions as art.
Fair use, apparantly, applies, at least in principle, even to currency.
What it is *NOT* legal to do is attempt to pass that $10 as genuine currency. To that end, there are laws governing the accuracy of the reproduction. I forget the exact details, but they generally run along the lines of:
Photocopies must be blown up X% bigger
or they must be shrunk Y% smaller
or they must be copied onto a different color paper.
Ever noticed that the "funny money" sold for kids to play with is always reproduced bigger or smaller than the real deal? That's why.
>(Assuming that you have access to the technology
>to make an undetectable duplicate)
Which is where *your* analogy REALLY breaks down.
I defy you to find me ANY set of MP3 tools that will: rip a red book track to AIFF (that's WAV for you windoze users), compress it to MP3, expand it back to AIFF, and then be able to pass a diff with the previously ripped AIFF file, to say nothing about the original red book track.
I don't think you'll find one. To be fair, you don't have to use a single toolset. Choose the BEST ripper, the BEST compresser, and the BEST expander you can find.
It ain't gonna happen. Because as anyone who ever bothered to read the MP3 spec knows, it is a (very) lossy compression scheme. The algorythm discards data (all too often the wrong data) in favor of a smaller file size.
(if you want an example of non-lossy compression, go have a look at etree)
And far from being detectable only via diff, it's easily detectable with the good ol' eardrum version 1.0. If you play MP3s on a real stereo with good speakers (the $2 headphones on your discman or rio don't count. Neither do the $100 el cheepo POS speakers on your computer), you *DO* notice an extreme degredation of quality compared to a red book CD. And the same, of course, applies to CDR's burned from expanded MP3s.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Fear of Change (Score:2)
Re:Better for business (Score:2)
We seem to have cause and effect mixed up: people who buy a lot of music are more likely to use Napster than those who don't. I don't think it works the other way round. Whichever way you look at it, the music companies are going to lose money through Napster and (under present conditions) the artists too.
That might not be necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think many people seriously doubt it's happening.
I like the research to the contrary. (Score:4)
In other news, computer stores and books stores next to college campuses are showing the lowest sales rates in years.
I [amazon.com] wonder [buy.com] why? [varsitybooks.com] Could there perhaps be a connection? [cdnow.com]
Completely True! (Score:2)
I just downloaded some unreleased tracks off a Who album I've had forever(Live at Leeds, of course), and it has rekindled my interest in buying the remastered CDs of my older Who recordings I have collected. There ya go.
i buy less because of napster (Score:2)
see, before i'd know a song was by a certain artist, say the left handed midget lesbian eskimo albino song by the dead milkmen. i don't remembe the name of the song and i don't remember what album it was on.. previously i'd have to go buy every dead milkmen cd, or buy them randomly (or god forbid, ask the guy who works at the store), but now, i can figure it out on napster, then just buy that one cd!
actually that's mainly a joke,..
napster doesn't affect my cd buying habits at all, i don't play mp3s in my car, and i don't listen to cds on my computer
but the RIAA doesn't care. they want control over how all the music is distributed. period.
the only way you might be able to make them care is to show that they will LOSE a lot of sales if Napster goes away. there really is no way to prove that (because it almost certainly isn't true.)
...dave
Interesting results. (Score:2)
Bah (Score:2)
However, for every one of us, there's 20 poor college kids or script kiddies who are rapidly filling their brand new 80 GB hard drives with every MP3 they can find. I'm playing devil's advocate here; I'm certainly not siding with the RIAA, but let's be honest with ourselves.
Figures Don't Lie.. (Score:2)
My question is: Who does the RIAA think it protecting ? brick-and-mortar retailers ? mom and pop retailers ?
Important Clarification (Score:5)
In addition, I must say that I personally use Napster, and I certainly buy more music than I did before. I'm exposed to more groups that I wouldnt' have heard of, and I'm much more likely to hear a song or two and like it, then go out and buy the album. I have no CD burner at home, and I'd like to be able to listen to the music on my discman and in my car, not just when I'm in the same room as my computer; and anyway, it's much easier to use for sampling and exploring than it would be if I was trying to download entire albums. And I'm willing to bet that sales near colleges have gone down because of CDNow and other such services that are cheaper and easier to get good music from than most music stores that take advantage of college towns.
What Napster is going to hurt most (Score:3)
going to be the "one hit wonder" music industy.
This would include most movie sound tracks. If
a band puts out an album on CD that has 12-18
good tracks of music that I want to listen to
then I would purchase it. If a band puts out
an album with one song that is good and the rest
is complete crap I would much rather download that
song off of napster and never bother to get the
entire album. Napster is going to promote good
music as apose to quick buck money maker single
hit albums and movie sound tracks.
Re:Hilary Rosen quote (Score:2)
Better Rosen than Hatch.
Warez (Score:2)
IMHO Napster is very similar to Warez : You get your heart set on getting a particular program and you head out to the local #warez-dcc channel and start looking for FTP sites, DCC servers, etc. After many hours of missing files, corrupt archives, FTP servers that mysteriously shutdown just as you're finishing a file, you run to the local EB and buy it because you're so pissed and you now just want to get the bloody software. I think it is prudent and very wise for the software companies to put up their own `warez' servers that serve up crap, and I have a good feeling that they do : What else could explain 20 ZIPs inside 17 RAR's inside a ZIP that's packed into a PAK that's inside a ARJ, etc. etc. etc., and when you finally get to the milky center you discover a corrupt file.
Napster is pretty much the same. It is close to useless now even bothering with Napster because the noise ratio is EXTREMELY high and the bogus song ratio is increasing dramatically. If I was the music industry I would do my best to fill Napster full of noise and garbage, and I'll bet that's exactly what they do.
Who commissioned the research? (Score:2)
I'm not saying the research is invalid--in fact I agree with it--but when push comes to shove defending napster against RIAA and the like, these questions will come up and we should have the answers. preliminary browsing at Jupiter's site didn't reveal anything...
Look at the big picture (Score:2)
But I think they can see where this is headed, and that's what worries them.
Re:RIAA (Score:2)
1. Fill a room wall-to-wall with cash and light it on fire.
2. Run around the room, tracing the path of a star'd-pentagon yelling: "yippie, yippie"
3. Go back to your office and figure out how you can squeeze out some more money
4. Go back to step 1.
What Napster is like with Real Bandwidth (Score:2)
then you start to explore.
and, guess what? a lot of those mp3's got hisses, pops, get cutoff at the end, are poorly ordered, sometimes it can be a real chore to get the whole album (always missing a track and whatnot). know what this means? you get a great preview. a really great preview. you hear most of the album. and if it stands out... you (OMG!) buy the cd!!
now, don't get me wrong. you download a hell of a lot more than you buy. but you don't have to buy cd's only to find that there's only one good track anymore.
so after you buy it, whaddya do? first thing: rip it. rip it properly: no hisses, no cutoffs, numbered tracks, etc. and burn it so you can listen to it in your car (on your mp3 cd player -- you have one, right?), at work (on your computer -- you are a geek, right?), or at home (on your computer through your badass sound system).
it's truly a beautiful thing. and if i didn't buy your music, the reason is simple: i didn't like it. at least i found out before i spent anything.
Re:the real question.... (Score:3)
This is a big part of the RIAA members' fear of Napster and digital music in general - changing, unpredictable tastes. People who can go online and play around, sharing music with friends and strangers are more likely to be exposed to a wider range of music than people who listen to their meticulously programmed Top-40 (more like Top-15 these days) station.
Someone exposed to a wider range of music is less likely to direct all of their dollars and attention to the pap promoted and spoonfed to listeners. This mean fewer economies of scale from the marketing and A&R perspective, and the decline (not demise) of the superstar, with a return to more niche acts. A good thing from my perspective, but from a record company viewpoint, it's more efficient to keep people buying Brittney, Garth, and Jay-Z (or their handful of superstar peers) to the exclusion of most smaller acts.
I say, bring on the subscription model, and let the record companies recoup the loss in marketing efficiency in lower distribution costs (shipping bits instead of atoms). All You Can Eat is the model we need now, and as long as unsigned and signed but non-RIAA affiliated artists get access and listening habits have the same legal privacy protections as video rental habits, I'll be delighted.
Something tells me that day is a long way and 2^10 lawsuits away, alas, and may never happen w/ respect to privacy and outsider access.
-Isaac
Missing the point (Score:2)
The point, of course, is that copyright is (or at least should be, depending on what country you are) a social contract. The public gives up their freedom to copy "owned" works in exchange for the assurance that, if they buy it instead, the people who make it will be able to continue producing more of it. This concept evidently depends on the idea that treating your work as material property - i.e., jealously protecting it from unauthorised copying - is the only way to make money from intellectual goods.
Well, this report is proof to the contrary. If the public is no longer willing to keep up with the current copyright system, and the producers can still make enough money without it, then there's really no reason to continue with the current system: it's in the best interests of everyone to just come up with a new agreement.
Of course, to the record companies (as for all middlemen), the issue isn't really money; they have enough of that already. It's about power. For a long time they've had a virtually unbeatable monopoly on recorded music, and now they're losing it. That's unacceptable. So you can fully expect that, to the detriment of everyone, they'll keep fighting to retain the current system where they alone dictate the rules.
This survey is right on. (Score:2)
That, and I like the cover art, and I like supporting good bands.
Re:I was at a record store last night. (Score:2)
Anyway, they have a "DJ" counter where you can listen to ANY CD in their inventory before buying it. It's kind of a cool idea. I really hate it that they re-wrap the CDs before selling them, though. I don't really like buying CDs that have finger prints on them -- I HAVE bought CDs, un-shrink-wrapped them, to discover a bigass fingerprint on the data side of the disc.
Hilary still missing the point (Score:3)
"I think that if I own my shirt and you borrow it, it doesn't matter whether or not I have another shirt. You're just not entitled to borrow it without my permission."
Hilary, you made my point for me. Are you the manufacturer of the shirt? If so, then you can sell it to me. Then I own it.
If you bought the shirt from the manufacturer and I don't have your permission to borrow it, fine. That's stealing.
If you bought the shirt from the manufacturer and you allow me to borrow it, then no harm, no foul. In this case, if you're the manufacturer, you don't have the right to control what someone does with it after you sell it.
Sorta slippery that she put that "without my permission" thing in there. More spin for the masses. She implies that Napster users don't have the permission of the sender to transfer a file. I thought the whole thing was that you made your files available exactly for that purpose, implicitly giving permission by that action. Oh well, the battle of words and publicity continues...
Just my
Re:Of course (Score:3)
Yet, there are also those who hang out at Costco [costco.com] every Saturday around noon just for the free samples. Everyone I know who does this also shops, but I suppose there must be a few that don't. Likewise, there are people who will never buy another CD as long as there's Napster.
I don't buy many CDs. I didn't before I started collecting MP3s, and I still don't now that I have a 6GB+ archive. However, as the collection grows, I'm getting more and more interested in having a lot of music, and therefore I'm becoming more and more interseted in purchasing CDs - not necessarily music I've already gotten from Napster, but just music in general.
--
this is certainly true in my case. (Score:2)
There are reasons for this that I don't normally see come up in the legal debates:
1. The napster community, and especially the scour community, is totally inbred with incomplete files. User1 gets 75% of a song, which remains in his shared folder. Users2, 3, 4, 5 etc. all get 75% of the 75% file, and so forth. Diminishing returns.
2. MP3 sound quality, for the most part, SUCKS. I mean, I listen to them all the time because of their convenience, but if I get an mp3 of a band that I really like, I buy the CD to hear the cymbals, to hear the bass, etc.
To test this, get ahold of a CD and an mp3 of anything produced by Daniel Lanois, Robert Fripp or any Peter Gabriel album and listen to the differences... It's astronomical, really.
Music is audio, and quality is what matters. If it wasn't for gnutella and Scour i wouldn't have bought half of the cds or gone to half of the shows i've been to in the last 2 years.
That's not to say that I don't think the industry has the right to protect their stuff, I'm just saying theiy're going about it the wrong way and for the wrong reasons.
Re:Well, yeah, but... (Score:2)
I wouldn't neccessarily think so. Even though a large percentage of the music available on napster servers are available as singles, There are plenty of (rarities && b sides && songs not on singles). Now if you think of you average napster user with 100+ songs on there hard drive, how manyt of them purchase singles on a regular basis. I personally don't. Also the majority of "hit singles" I download from napster are songs that I could only see myself buying either as discount rack singles or part of (sound tracks || compilation cds). Now I'm sure there are people who have bought less singles because of napster. However, I think in general napster users do buy music. There decisions may have been affected by napster, but mainly in what they buy not how much.
They're not stupid... (Score:3)
Of course, the fact the everyone wants to be able to do the above doesn't seem to make an impact anymore... the democracy I learned about was based on the idea that The People could do any damnfool thing they wanted as long as most of them wanted to do it. That includes putting all the musicians on the planet out of business, which according to the RIAA is what The People would do if they weren't kept under their careful but benevolent control...
Re:What people say (Score:2)
The causal relationship isn't neccessarily important here. What is important is the fact that, for whatever reason, Napster users tend to also buy more CDs, which means by alienating the users of Napster, the RIAA is alienating one of its better customers. Regardless of the industry or the reason, finding fault with your best customer base is ALWAYS, from an economic standpoint, a bad thing to do.
Re:Single Decent Song seeks Napster Hating Audioph (Score:2)
I know this is true for me (Score:3)
I've bought quite a few CDs recently after hearing MP3 versions. Some have been major label releases, others have been independent artists who've uploaded samples of their stuff to MP3.com. I anticipate more of the latter than the former as time goes by, since the major labels won't touch a lot of the stuff I like. And that is what I think the RIAA is really afraid of -- people being able to select from material outside of the hundred or so major label acts.
You have to factor in CD-R's, you know (Score:3)
1. Cable connection
2. 4x CD writing
3. $0.80 CD-R's
4. Music
5. Friends that would pay for these particular CD's
Evaluate the cost comparison:
A. $12-$15 CD at the store
B. $0.80-$1.00 of CD-R + time + possible profit from selling the CD
Which would you choose, A or B?
Re:Better for business (Score:2)
that persons relative music spending changed since using onlune music
sites.
Re:Important Clarification (Score:2)
While I agree with the overall point of your comment (which is probably the same overall point as everyone's comment, which is generally "stick it to RIAA where the sun don't shine"), I have to argue the logic that you claim proves the causality.
The problem is that we basically run into the chicken and the egg scenario: did usage of online music services increase spending on music? Or did the increase in spending encourage the use of online music services? The question was "whether the money they spent on music purchases had increased, decreased or remained the same since they began visiting music destinations on the Web." It was NOT, as it should have been to prove the causality, "whether the money they spent on music purcahses had increased, decreased or remained the same as A RESULT OF beginning to visit music destinations on the Web."
Or, maybe, they aren't directly related at all -- it could simply be that the people in the survey, for whatever reasons, became more interested in music at that point in their lives, and as a result increased their spending AND their online music service usage independently. It's entirely plausible that both of these factors are in fact dependent on some third factor, such as the average temperature in their underwear drawer, and are independent of each other.
Re:I like the research to the contrary. (Score:4)
Even Best Buy's prices have started edging up over the last couple of years. (Hey, check this grammar out -> ) While still considerably lower (Best Buy that is) than most campus record stores, most college students cannot afford to pay the prices the music industry charges at music stores accessible to non-car-owning college students in order to make margins on their $0.50 production charge and $12.00 "distribution" expenses.
With the wide availability of music, and the low cost of shipping through the mail, the music labels cannot justify the prices of their products in my mind. Especially when I see musicians with gold records going broke.
I live in L.A. now (yuck!) and the few musical artists I've talked to (and most others for that fact) seem to agree that the musicians make about $0.50 per disk sold. Some would even say that that number is high. Granted this is useless anecdotal evidence, but the fact that I've never heard of a musician reaping $5.00 per disk (which would come closer to justifying the price of a $15.00 CD) tells me I cannot be too far from the truth.
Breakdown:
-Burn CD $1 (that's a high estimate)
-Pay the artist $1 (another high estimate IMHO)
-Ship the CD $3.20 (USPS priority mail, up to 2 pounds...how many CD's in 2 pounds?)
-Advertise...lessee here...put the music on the internet for free (not extremely expensive venture when talking about selling thousands of CD's a day)...let radio stations download the music and don't charge them royalties (a BS practice in my mind)...how much can this cost?
Oh, wait a second...I forgot the booze and couches and TV's and stereo equipment that even non-executive management gets at Universal Music Group (I seen it with my own eyes). That's gotta be where that extra $10.00 charge comes from? Duh?
The whole debate (Score:2)
How is it that something that is infinitely, perfectly reproducible yet intangible has any value?
Of course I think software authors deserve to earn a living. I am not convinced, however, that if I duplicate an album I wasn't going to buy anyway, dollar bills magically disappear from some artist's wallet. It's one of those "if everyone does it..." scenarios, but not everyone does do it.
There really needs to be a midpoint where we can agree on what kind of value to place on IP. This is an issue that affects much more than just software and music, and a lot of people make their livings off of it.
--
Less control to the RIAA (Score:2)
I think these statistics held by the RIAA are less about both distribution control and about artist control, as Courtney Love explained [salon.com] quite well.
Tools like napster loosen the recording industry's control over which artists will eventually make it to the top, thus making the companies the most money. The recording industry knows that the more control they wield over the artists, the more revenue they can generate for themselves. The digital revolution may be what gives the individual artist the exposure that the recording companies once offered so exclusively.
I see, now, how this will obsolete not only the record companies' business model, but their business, as well.
the analogy does NOT hold (Score:4)