Napster Spurs CD Sales; Gets Sued Again Anyway 188
hammy writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is running this story about the results of a survey demonstrating that users of music downloading programs (ala Napster etc) actually buy more music. I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to any of the Slashdot crowd but it's nice to see a formal survey that supports our intuition. Makes many of the RIAA arguments ring a little hollow." Meanwhile, Napster is being sued yet again. That's gratitude for you.
I guess I'm in the minority (Score:1)
Re:Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:1)
Up to a certain level this may be correct. I however, make a coniderable bit more from the sales of my cd's (5 in all, and I will not men tion them or my name -posting ac-) than I do from touring (and shirt sales are a joke).
I don't make good money (I reported around 35K US last year) but I make enough to keep my house, van and enough to eat and not worry too much about where money comes from. MP3's being freely available has without question cut into my income. My music is generaly bought by people between the ages of 12 and 25 and beleive me, I feel it daily.
something to think about.
-WP
so what? (Score:1)
Re:MediaBay - Old time radio shows? (Score:1)
Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:3)
gone down since I started using Napster. Why
should I pay out good money when I've got the
music already?
Re:Hey! (Score:1)
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Buying more music (Score:3)
Of course, this _is_ almost completely hit-and-run tactics and has been since around 1990: release, go multiplatinum within a year, discard, repeat. It hugely drives RIAA label sales, but it doesn't make any new artist careers. Britney Spears is the Warrant ('Cherry Pie') of 2001. Warrant went double platinum back in '91 with that- and in ten years has not added another platinum to that total. TEN years with no further sales, after double platinum in the first year. The only difference between that and Britney is that these days, sales are up so much that Britney goes _13_ platinums in the same time period... and then, nothing, when they tire of her or when she starts demanding a career, or gets too old (say, 20...).
It's sick. But it sure as hell sells a lot of records. There is no way to sanely argue that sales are down.
Re:CD sales up, but is it what the RIAA wants (Score:5)
I'm currently studying longterm sales in the music business, and here's the deal: the bands being sought after to sell beer and things (Bob Seger, et al), are the A-List of twenty years ago.
Around ten years ago, the music business shifted to all-out A-List promotion rather than any attempt at career building. This is when you began to see bands that came out, did double platinum in less than a year, and then _vanished_. I don't mean broke up- the record remains in the catalog whether the band's still around or not, but when the record industry does this, they do incredible volume for a very brief time and when they stop promoting, NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR ANY MORE.
Beer companies don't want to use bands like that to sell beer, either. They want Bob Seger or Brooce- catalog sellers from at least 20 years ago.
What the A-List artists are these days is processed stuff- 'N Sync etc. The RIAA _can't_ lose control of artists like that, because history shows that when the RIAA quits pushing that kind of act, the sales STOP. With real bands, the sales continue- sometimes in a big way, for what's called a 'catalog killer' album. There are no such albums being made these days, and that's intentional.
This is because dealing with always new and inexperienced artists means no nasty skepticism about deal terms, no griping about contracts, no questions about what's recoupable expenses: using only new inexperienced artists means they can be contractually hosed, wrung out until all the money is squeezed out, and then dropped. If the RIAA labels had to maintain careers they wouldn't earn as much relative to the artist because the artist would develop savvy and clout and ability to negotiate contracts. The RIAA needs _virgin_ artists with no savvy or clout in order to get away with the margins it needs to survive.
It needs these margins because it's viciously squeezed by rack jobbers and independent promotion- both of which have been consolidating, bigtime. The RIAA doesn't _keep_ its money- it's gotta pay a LOT of 'protection' to independent promotion, which controls radio. It's gotta bribe people to get CDs placed in Wal-Mart, when there's only 2 slots available and they're being viciously fought over. You can see why the RIAA doesn't dare allow genuine careers to develop- it needs puppet artists to manipulate and discard. They come cheaper.
The trouble is, once you quit pulling the strings, the puppet artists collapse, and sales completely stop. When you pick an act and a single and a video specifically because it's horrible enough to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and then you dump lots of it on the market, you can move a lot of units to half-interested people- then when you have to rely on the value of the material for back catalog sales, the sales absolutely fall off a cliff because nobody really wants to hear it- it's fake.
And this is shown by the tendency of commercial music (the beer manufacturers and so on) to want guys like Bob Seger in preference to fake A-List pop stars that have sold three times as many records as Seger ever did. They know that the fake stuff will stop selling the instant the RIAA label stops pushing- and they need more appeal than that, to sell beer. They know that the RIAA is operating on a 'push' basis and can't or won't invest in developing artists that people _want_ to hear.
And THAT is what the RIAA is so scared of.
Do the math: it's all a matter of public record. You can get the information online, about sales of platinum and gold albums, and look at the sales curves before and after 1990. That seems to be roughly the dividing point.
MediaBay - Old time radio shows? (Score:2)
CD sales up, but is it what the RIAA wants (Score:2)
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I think this is a much bigger problem than just the CD sales. If people have control over what they listen to, when they listen to it, then radio has to do something drastic to get people to listen to the advertisments.
Just my humble opinion.
Hey! (Score:3)
My modem's only got 11 speeds! Where do you get one of these 33 speed modems?? I want one!! The geekiness of having 33 speeds, compared to a puny 11, would be incredible, even if the modem itself could only be running at 9600, from his description.
Re:Umm.. storage? (Score:2)
Re:FYI (Score:3)
They already did [greenspun.com]. Even in Canada [tpg1.com]
Discovering music that radio ignores (Score:1)
Thankfully, a few adventurous radio stations like KPIG and XPN exist in college towns and smaller markets and they continue to play little known artists (admittedly within their format) and anything that strikes their fancy. And I'm grateful that many of these last remaining outposts of musical education allow me to broaden my horizons by streaming their signal over the web.
Services like Napster allow piracy, of course, but most people enter and leave that greedy stage of their lives fairly quickly because they eventually have better things to do. Napster's more useful and subtle killer feature is the ability to sample any song before buying it. Why didn't the music industry give consumers the ability to do this years ago? I've seen some pilot systems but nothing that caught on in most shops I visited over the years.
Therefore, Napster helps introduce prospective music buyers to bands they have only heard about by word of mouth or while visiting a friend with different musical tastes. "What's this band Dead Can Dance all about? How should I know? They never get much airplay on the radio."
For example, one of my favorite guitarists Johnny A. covered the song "Memphis" during a show a few weeks ago and since then I haven't been able to get it out of my head. The song was a bit before my time so I asked my father who made it famous and he told me Lonnie Mack. Seeing a shrinkwrapped CD in a music store didn't do much for me so I signed onto Napster and downloaded the song. "Hey, this is great!" I thought to myself after listening to the MP3 file, and after returning to the store I'm now the proud owner of "Memphis Wham".
There's a sale the music industry would have never made if it weren't for my ability to try before I buy. So these lawsuits are yet another example of modern culture's tendency to be penny wise and pound foolish.
I don't buy CDs anymore. (Score:2)
IRNI
You're a bit off (Score:1)
And yes, I've bought CDs because I've listened to a track or two on it, but I've never bought a CD because I heard a track on Napster.
If I'm using Napster why would I buy a CD when it's so much easier and cheaper just to download it? In the time it'd take me to drive out to the music store and buy the CD I've "sampled" off of Napster, I can just download the entire thing in about half the time.
In fact I don't even use CDs anymore. If I ever do buy a CD the first thing I do is rip it into mp3's and toss the CD into storage.
Mp3's are easier to transport(I can ftp them over to work), easier to play(everything is on one harddrive, never need to switch disks) and sound the same to me.
I don't use mp3's to rip people off, it's just a more conveniant format for me. And it just happens to be more conventiant to use the internet to get those mp3's than it is to use some 1950's system of record store distribution.
And until the records labels "get" that, they can sue anyone they want but they'll still won't get my business.
napster is NOT being sued again. (Score:1)
they filed a complaint, not a suit.
Re:Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:2)
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...and a little booze makes you a better driver (Score:1)
The subject is in jest and it is parodying the "study" with the realization that if you asked 100 drunks whether drinking diminishes their driving abilities, approximately 99 would say that it actually makes them better drivers. A study that asks people to give statements about their behaviours is founded in folly because people in general are liars. People will lie to try to push their views. People will lie to defend their position. People will lie just for fun.
The only way such a study could have any relevance is if the samples were totally unaware of being monitored.
Re:The problem is, it's all about FUD (Score:1)
Well, yes. I'm not in the habit of going to a live show because somebody can put together 20 minutes of decent material on TV. While the TV show turned me on to them, it wasn't enough for me to run out and blow a cool 20 on a CD. So, Napster was the missing link. Without it, no CD sales, no show sales-give me 6 mos. without seeing 'em again and I might forget who they were altogether-and this is not the kind of group you'll find on MTV. Rather obscure. Additionally, I've got a 3 year old kid, so going out is rather a pain in the ass, I won't do it on the spur of the moment.
cd they downloaded. Sounds to me it was *you* who were irrational here. You tell them you napstered their songs and still bought the cds and went to concert, and they're supposed to jump up and down, hail napster? Because of (4) people?
Not all the songs were available on Napster, but I'd have purchased the CD nonetheless. I don't have any kind of silly idea that musicians should go unpaid-not surprising seeing as how music was my career before I found I could make considerably more as a sysadmin. As for the 4 people comment, well, it's 5 including me, and in a 200 seat hall, while not overwhelming, I would not call the numbers insignificant either. I would love to have a 2.5% raise. Beats the hell outta a poke in the eye with a sharp stick...
Regards,
The problem is, it's all about FUD (Score:3)
After the gig, the members of the group came out and mingled with the audience. I mentioned to one of the members that our presence was due to Napster, she made a comment about Napster being evil. I followed up with an email to the group, specifically outlining precisely what happened and how much they made directly due to Napster. They just don't get it. They're too caught up in the concept that it's a violation of copyright to grok the fact that they are benefiting from it. The irrational fear that they are losing money is totally blinding them to the reality of the situation. You can lead a horse to water...
It's all about progress. Some people embrace it and thrive, others fear it and try to stop it. They seldom succeed, and often damage themselves in the process-although many never even figure this out.
Regards,
Yes and No (Score:1)
First, I'd like to give a classic example of strongly correlated things with no causation.
Airconditioner useage is very strongly correlated with deaths by heatstroke. It's a very very strong correlation. In the past decade, almost nobody has died of heatstroke while airconditioner usage was low.
In this example, it is very easy to spot the third-variable effect: temperature. Nobody dies of heatstroke when it is cold outside. Also, nobody runs their airconditioner when it is cold. If it is 95 and humid out, many people will die of heatstroke. By the same token, everybody who is able will be running their airconditioner.
So, as you can see, it is very possible for two things to be correlated and not have a shred of causality between them either way. Now that that's done with, I'd like to talk about CD sales patterns amoung college students. There was a study done that quite thoughourly showed that there was a strong correlation between internet access at colleges and CD sales at nearby stores. The more internet access there was, the fewer CD's were sold.
Now, the study was done such that any possible third variable effects were tightly controlled. They compared entering freshmen classes to previous freshmen classes, and they compared classes against themselves (this years sophmores against last year's freshmen). To control any differences between these groups (this year's freshmen aren't into music, older students don't have as much free cash, etc), they also compared different universities against eachother, that as best the researchers could tell, differed only in how fast they rolled out Ethernet in the dorms. By trying very hard to control third-variable effects, the study could then claim to show causality.
The writeup of the study that I saw drew the conclusion that as more and more students got fast internet access, they became able to download their music from Napster, and therefore didn't need to buy CD's. However, a later study showed that students were buying more CDs than before. Now, we have to wonder, why did the [cdnow.com] earlier [amazon.com] study [borders.com] fail? [buy.com]
The moral of the story is: yes, correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, but if you're careful with third variable effects, it can mean causation. Even so, be sure you choose the correct source of causality.
Re:The problem is, it's all about FUD (Score:1)
How to lie with statistics (Score:2)
1) Choose a specific attribute.
2) Select two groups of people with that attribute.
3) Miraculously produce statistics correlating first group with second group.
People who download music are more likely to enjoy music than people who don't download music. People who buy CDs are more likely to enjoy music than people who don't buy CDs. Making the assertion that people who download music or more likely to buy CDs is asinine. Don't insult my intelligence. Even my PHP could have figured that one out!
People who buy dog food are more likely to take their dogs on walks in the park than people who don't buy dog food. BFD!
Re:How to lie with statistics (Score:2)
PHP stands for Pointy Headed Pinhead! Yeah, that's it! Pointy Headed Pinhead!
The rights of the artist (Score:1)
That's not what it's about.
It's about the right of the creator of an artistic work to sell the product of their endeavor. Do I have the right to insist on being compensated for creating an album filled with musical works? Do I have the right to insist that if you don't want to pay for it, then you can't play my music? In this country (the U.S.), I do have that right.
It is the Napster users who trample on our rights!
Re:I don't buy CDs anymore. (Score:1)
I'm all for freedom, but... (Score:1)
I know many people who will never buy a CD again because they can get the music in mp3.
-jfedor
Re:Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:2)
I used to spend my money on CDs.... (Score:2)
But, about a year ago I stopped buying CDs completely. I've also stopped buying DVDs and going to the movies -- mostly. It's hard, and I don't enjoy it. But, what I hate more than the loss of my music and my movies is putting more money in the coffers of the greedy RIAA and MPAA.
I appreciate wanting to protect your property, and appreciate wanting to make money from your intellectual property. But, I can't condone what they are doing to our culture (holding works in perpetual copyright so that if they ever become public domain, there won't be a copy or a way to distribute any more) and their strongarm tactics in a court of law.
Re:Correlation, causation, and none of the above (Score:1)
The saddest part of the death of Napster (Score:2)
My wife and I have been sharing large numbers of songs via Napster and several other file sharing programs. The flow of songs continues undiminished, but tragically the flow of accompanying information has stopped. The most important part of Napster was the chat. I'd see people getting an obscure artist, and message them. Or they'd be so happy to find a particular song and they want to know where I had first heard of this. I developed several good friends from Napster, talking about music. But most importantly, we'd talk about similar artists to the one downloaded. "Oh, you like A? You're going to LOVE B!" In this way, my wife and I have introduced hundreds of people to hundreds of artists...and doubtless sold many, many CDs. (We've never had complete albums if they were currently available.)
Gnutella, AudioGalaxy and most of the remaining file sharing apps don't have this chat system. You have no way to use the most valuable part of file sharing, the taste of people whose taste matches your own. You can find what you already know, but you have no way to discover ones you don't.
In their quest to protect their current profits, the RIAA cost themselves many more future sales.
Re:MediaBay - Old time radio shows? (Score:2)
I never heard of MediaBay and considering the size of their niche market, it's astounding that they would even have stock to ail.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Legal evidence? (Score:2)
I'm not so hot on the value of the statistics, either, but they at least reveal
And I think your criticism goes to far.
In the first case, I certainly don't buy 100% of the albums from which I download tracks. Of course, many of them aren't available on any album, or any that I can find. Others, I decide after a couple listens I wasn't into it, and usually end up deleting the file to make room, or else JUST NOT LISTENING TO IT. Of course, I could always change my mind later and decide I liked it, in which case I probably would buy it. And frankly, since I think most industry product blows goats, and nothing I like is on the radio, because all radio sucks these days (except WFMU), Napster is (or was) the easiest way for me to check out bands I've heard about from friends. Whenever the music industry is firmly in control of the music scene as a whole, music stinks. 1989 > 1999, in this case. Anyone see the 2001 music awards thing on ABC the other night? Forget Napster, let's just murder the music execs for crimes against humanity. I need Napster, because the industry does a terrible job of connecting me with music I like.
In the second case, I think it's a sad admission if the RIAA labels are hurt in any measurable way by users who decide not to purchase music after hearing it and deciding it's shit. If your customers that unhappy with their purchases, you've got a problem bigger than Napster.
Finally, Napster's changed my buying habits in one important way; I can't think of anything I bought in the last year that I didn't first download from Napster, and buy once it became part of my regular listening. And most of the music that did become part of my regular listening, I eventually bought on CD. Sure, not all, but the only thing Napster's really done is become a more convenient replacement for taping stuff from friends while trying to find a place I can actually buy it or deciding whether its worth buying.
But all in all, you're overlooking the real meaning of this statistic; the vast majority of people do not view mp3s they get from Napster as a replacement for music purchases. Read that 10 times aloud, and tell me that statistic doesn't mean anything to the debate. It's disingenous to claim that they must all be lying.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
I, for one, have bought more CDs (Score:1)
It all works out for me.
Actually, I've bought LESS... (Score:2)
I used to buy CDs by the ream- and was lucky if one, two, or maybe due to some freak chance, three songs on the disk were decent. Fifteen bucks for three tracks doesn't stack up in my mind- I used Napster as a screening process for content quality. It's amusing, the high percentage of albums that are composed largely of filler. Until this changes, I shall continue to thoroughly screen every album prior to purchase- had I bought the latest Fear Factory disk, for example, I would have been out fifteen bucks and sorely disappointed. (If you liked Demanufacture, well... odds are you'll hate Digimortal ) Ten minutes on Napster, pre-filtering, and I knew it was going to be a complete miss, and spent my money on the new Tool album instead.
I'm more than willing to pay for quality music. Too bad the RIAA is criminally unwilling to market it, or allow its exposure to an audience.
I'll keep my control, thank you. (Score:2)
With Napster, people have realized that music doesn't have to suck. I ditched my radio shortly after my television, as Britney Spears, Smashmouth, Blink 182 and all sorts of other premanufactured drivel hit the waves and refused to go away. I'm never in the mood for this crap, and I don't like listening to it once an hour- MP3s give me *choice* and the ability to select my audio environment with extreme predjudice.
The RIAA is just like Microsoft in this respect- yes, CD sales are up... because thanks to Napster, people who would otherwise be out of the loop have now heard of the Swamp Terrorists, Birmingham 6, C-tec, Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Skinny Puppy, Jethro Tull, and countless other bands and performers.... none of which are RIAA "A list" contrived acts. Thanks to Linux, people are beginning to realize that there's more to computers than Microsoft. The RIAA and M$ are both attacking thier percieved enemies all-out- the RIAA with lawsuit after lawsuit, and M$ with Internet Explorer, Office, and
The A-list of both groups is a mind-numbing pile of post-consumer waste masquerading as This is What You Want, and in both cases, it has been clearly proven that far, far superior alternatives exist. (Independant lables for music, Linux, Unix, BSD and Mac OS X for computers) Yet despite that proof, the hulking monstrosity of fecal matter continues to dominate both industries, simply because for every person that gives a shit (supports indie labels and doesn't run windows), there are fifty who are too ignorant to realize they should.
As long as they own the lawyers and advertising space, we're going to keep losing.
Re:Can I get a witness (Score:3)
I have not only used it to sample songs to see if I wanted to buy albums I was aware of, but also to discover new artists, and sample their songs. And in the last three months, after losing my DSL access (thank you Northpoint), my music purchases have seriously decreased again, without this method of previewing music and exploring what is available.
I suppose it's still not something the RIAA would be pleased with since quite a few of those purchases have been independent labels outside of the RIAA's realm - but I plan on continuing to focus mainly, if not exclusively, on non-RIAA artists after their wonderful attempt to keep their distribution monopoly.
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Re:I'll keep my control, thank you. (Score:2)
Whoa, never thought I'd see Tull on that list!
More seriously - I've paid for nearly complete discographies of most of the bands you mention. (Uh-oh, they're coming to take me away!)
MP3s have come in handy for filling in the gaps - the track that only appeared on the Japanese release of some obscure single, etc. etc., again - things RIAA would never market down here.
MP3s have also come in handy for discovering new stuff - there are just too many bands to go into a meatspace-based CD store and spend 2-3 hours listening to a couple of tracks from "everything" before finding stuff you like. The MP3 newsgroups solve this problem for me - a never-ending fire-hose of neat stuff to sip from, that I never even knew existed.
Cheezy plug for one of many such cool bands: S.P.O.C.K. [ttp] A little more techno/trancey than the industrial stuff, but very fscking cool. SPOCK:1999 is unbelievably tongue-in-cheek, and equally-unbelievably dancey.
Re:What is meant by "more CD's"? (Score:2)
I would say that people who buy more CD's are more likely to use Napster as well.
Are they nuts? (Score:1)
FYI (Score:2)
For those who don't know the gist of it all, the RIAA is also looking into creating its own Napster-like product which is even more hypocritical.
The debate will always continue on whether Napster has a right to do so or not. I say if the RIAA is going after Napster, they should also go after TDK, Maxell, Sony, and all other cassette makers, because gosh darnit for years millions of people have stole by recording music onto cassettes and distributing them.
If I find the article with the relevant information regarding their product I'll post it, hopefully someone else who saw the article which may have been on ZDNet or so will post it for me since I'm working (har har) and not reading
And on that note I intend to sue them since I didn't know these packets would traverse to this network...
Re:Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:2)
Buh-shit.
Touring is expensive. So many hungry mouths to feed, so many palms to grease. Touring sucks, too, whether it's two months in a van or a year in the Marriotts of the world.
Believe me, you're a lucky fucker if you manage to break even after a tour. Sometimes you can squeeze "tour support" money from the label, but often it's recoupable.
More bullshit. Depending on the contract and the number of tracks (which determines mechanical royalties) it's $1/CD, give or take. Indie artists get a larger cut of a smaller pie.
k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Don't be stupid (Score:1)
Besides, as has been pointed out time and time again, the major labels are at least as concerned with future downloadable-music revenue as they are with current CD revenue. 71% of the people in this survey said they would not pay to download music, and quite possibly some of the ones who said they would also wouldn't. I believe the worst threat Napster poses to the RIAA is that it establishes the precedent that downloaded music should be free.
Re:3.85 for a track? (Score:2)
Re:Legal evidence? (Score:1)
Take this quote from the article:
86% of all respondents believe that downloading tracks HAD NOT stopped them buying the album that had featured those tracks
This statiistic is vague, but I think it means one of two things:
86% of Napster (or Gnutella, Audiogalaxy, etc.) users buy 100% of the CDs whose tracks they have downloaded. Or,
Downloading a track has never stopped these users from purchasing an album that they had already decided to purchase.
I think we can all agree that the first option is unlikely in the greatest degree. And the second option is only marginally relevant, since it leaves open the possibility that these users have hundreds of MP3s whose corresponding albums they never intended to buy in the first place. So basically this is either a meaningless statistic or a lie. I'm betting on the latter.
Re:Can I get a witness (Score:1)
Re:I guess I'm in the minority (Score:1)
Moderators, assist please.
ad
New information (to me) (Score:1)
Right now I have guests from Denmark staying with me. They tell me that there is a large balck market for CD sales in Denmark. I guess the cost of an internet connection is very high there and in other parts of Europe as well. (Thats socialism for you). So napster use is not as wide spread. But the people who do use it burn CDs and sell them for around $5. Compared to the $15 to $20 the CD would cost in a retail store, my danish friends tell me that many people buy the burned CD's.
Now I don't know what sales in denmark are but I do know that black market CD sales have to hurt legitimate CD sales. Maybe the record companies should lower their prices, but even if they did they wouldn't be able to compete.
This gives me a little pause and another perspective to look at the situation. I don't think it will change my mind though.
Re:Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:1)
I own about 400-500 CDs, so I don't consider myself a freeloader. I'm just waiting for a reasonable system to appear that's fair to BOTH the artists and consumers. I would willingly pay $0.50 a song for an MP3 or $2 for a WAV file if I knew that most of the money went to the artists.
Mp3 sizes (Score:2)
I currently have 71 albums at 212,749 seconds of music. Should I encode all that at 192kbps (which is a respectable rate with good quality sound) it would consume 5.1 Gb of space.
Just thought that would help put things in perspective. 71 albums in 5 gigs at high quality.
The study may not mean what you think (Score:1)
However, look at the study. Basically it says that people who use napster buy more music than people who don't, but that's all it says. It doesn't say anything about causality, meaning it doesn't say whether Napster makes people buy more music or whether Napster users are music lovers who are predisposed to buy more music than the general population. Think about it! If you don't like music that much you aren't going to buy music or listen to Napster, are you?
Re:Umm.. storage? (Score:1)
I rip my CDs at 160K, and a complete album takes between 84 and 32MB.
Just some names from du:
re>84M ./Superhuman ./You've Come a Long Way, Baby ./The Saint (Motion Picture Soundtrack) ./Step Up To The Microphone ./Real Live ./Neverburn ./Transmitter CD Sampler Vol. 3 ./Transmitter CD Sampler Vol. 2 ./Loud and Clear
81M
86M
51M
32M
78M
67M
60M
58M
Re:anecdotally... (Score:1)
Correlation, causation, and none of the above (Score:5)
Circumstances don't mean "cause and effect". (Score:2)
--
Twivel
Re:I don't buy CDs anymore. (Score:1)
- There is no point in buying music if I can get it for free.
I think this one sentence pretty much sums up the problem.If *I* create something, and *you* enjoy my creation then *you* should follow my rules. If I "give it away" (free beer/speech) great, if I ask to be paid so I can keep doing whatever it is that *you* like then you should pay.
It's very easy to sit and say "if it's free I'm gonna' take it" without ever having been in the position to depend on making a living. You're depriving someone of making money and giving you something you enjoy in return.
I bet you would change your tune in about .0001 nanoseconds if the roles were reversed.
As it is, you just sound like an immature whiny little brat... which you are by the way.
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Bad analogy (Score:1)
People are giving out chapters of the newest Grisham novel on the street. A few people have all the chapters available, but you have to look all over the city for them, and in most cases, you have to go to other cities (servers) to find them. Many of the people giving out free chapters photocopied them poorly. Some of the chapters get cut off before the final few paragraphs or even pages. Some of the people took the time to make very high-quality copies, but again, they are few and far between and you have to look all over the place before finding them. some people don't even bother to number the chapters, so you're going to have to find a list of those chapters elsewhere to be sure you have the whole thing. Then there's the whole problem that Grisham's books all read pretty much the same (think Brittney Spears.
Now, *my* intuition tells me that if Joe Blow were to get his hands on a free chapter and likes it, he's more likely to go buy the book than he is to go through the hassle of finding all the other chapters, making sure they're in the right order, and making sure they're from the right book.
-Legion
When culture is criminalized... (Score:1)
anecdotally... (Score:2)
Gotta nice pile of vinyl, though. Okay, the refrain from Capital Radio; altogether now!
Re:It's not about money (Score:1)
Please feel free to mod my post down. Dang, I really wish there was a panic button to remove a comment made by mistake like this.
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Re:It's not about money (Score:2)
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Re:It doesn't matter if Napster increases CD sales (Score:1)
At any rate the game is far from over. The old economy companies are doing just fine. You don't see them dying by the hundreds yet and you're not going to in the future. Will they make changes? Yes. Will they start to use new methods to do business? Yes. Will they abandon their current methods of having actual people doing a lot of the work? Not likely.
Take a look at an old economy company once. They still manage great sales on old methods. Look for the ones that start to adopt the new economy methods in addition to their current plans. Those are the companies which will last. Its as simple as using all the options available to you.
What is meant by "more CD's"? (Score:4)
On the other hand, if we are saying that Napster users buy "more CD's than people who don't use Napster" then we haven't really said anything at all. People that are more interested in music would be more likely to both download and buy music than people who aren't interested in music at all.
So, which one are we really proving here?
--
Mod parent up! (Score:2)
It does, however, show that the napster-using segment is important to the music industry, and if the price of keeping them happy is letting napster thrive, then maybe they should back off a bit.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
lairs (Score:2)
Surveys are just that... surveys. The magical thing about a survey is... you can lie! I don't trust survey data because I rarely tell the truth when I take them... this may come as a suprise to all the companies that believe my real name is Spanky Twoshoes and my occupation is professional masturbator. -gerbik
Re:I guess I'm in the minority (Score:4)
- More music
- Less music
- The same amount of music
- Cowboy Neal
- I don't use napster
This poll is hereby released into the public domain.Re:Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:2)
The Problem With Music by Steve Albini [ram.org]
Spamuel's more correct than not...$1/CD is a pipedream for most. Indie bands do tend to get a bigger cut though.
It's not about money (Score:2)
This sort of article shows that the RIAA feels the same way - it's not about money, it's about maintaining their monopoly.
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
Re:I hate to break it to you, but (Score:2)
So does our legal system, but they are still allowed to do so.
Under tightly controlled rules in an attempt to ensure that the adversarial system does not unduly support either side of the case. With the understanding that errors in applying those rules will be sternly handled by a higher level court.
Hardly the same rules that surveys have :-)
Re:Legal evidence? (Score:3)
along with the RIAA's own data which shows increased CD sales?
It is a fallacy to assume that since overall sales have gone up, that Napster has not suppressed sales below what they would have been otherwise. I'm not supporting the RIAA here, just pointing out a logical fallacy in your argument. Record companies are entitled to try to make the most money they can, as long as they do so within the law not within ethics or morality (which you might hope they would consider anyway), and when someone costs them sales in violation of the law (which is what is (or rather was) at issue with Napster), they are entitled to a redress of their grievances against that party, and perhaps damages. In a civil case, as far as I am aware, incidentally or accidentally helping out the party you have "wronged" is not an affirmative defense, i.e. if you broke the law and the opposing party actually came out ahead, that is not a defense (you still broke the law). Of course, I am not a lawyer, so I may be wrong on this point....
I hate to break it to you, but (Score:5)
Whether you support Napster or not (I'm actually on the fence), you can't use surveys to bolster your argument. Neither can the RIAA. Surveys are inherently flawed as a scientific method of producing data. Surveys can use misleading questions, slightly unusual definitions, and a host of other methods to twist the results even before they are collated. Even if you have NO agenda, and just honestly want to know the answer to a question, results obtained from surveys are highly suspect, and must be taken with a huge grain of salt.
I have some (small) experience in this area, as I used to do work for a group that wanted information that could only be obtained by asking our patrons questions. After working for months to design a survey with overlapping, interlocking questions so that we could run cross checks on the results, carefully picking wordings, working long into the night to tailor the questions to specifically address the issue we wanted data for, and then administering and analyzing over 3000 responses, we discovered that: what we thought we were very clear in asking was not at all what some of the patrons thought we were asking; that nearly 30% of the survey responses were internally inconsistent as far as we could tell (ask the same factual question two different ways, and obtain two different responses); that even when the data was unambiguous, it was very difficult to understand (interpret) what the answers meant; and many other problems.
Surveys to answer the question "Does napster encourage or suppress music sales?" will never produce a valid, reliable answer. There are just too many variables. The only way to answer that question for sure is to take a representative cross section of Napster, non-Napster, and former-Napster users, and analyze their music buying behavior before and after the introduction of the Napster service, and correct the results for economic growth, socio-economic status, locale, and many other factors. And then, you MIGHT be able to say something statistically valid. MIGHT.
Re:Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:2)
Please don't use this as an excuse to steal music because its not true. Support the music you love by buying the records.
As a side note, I believe Napster helps sell records, however its the selling of records that keeps a band alive.
Re:What is meant by "more CD's"? (Score:2)
Re:Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:2)
Let us, for the moment, ignore that downloading music does not pay the people who created the music, since the recording companies tend to take more than the lion's share, many people use the money as a reason TO download.
Instead, I want to offer reasons to purchase the music on CD - 1. Quality of the tracks (a good MP3 is near CD quality, but how many of the tracks on Napster were good quality?) 2. Inability to find the entire album (when I like an artist, I want all their music and, on rare occasions, the best songs aren't released and those other tracks are often very difficult to find.) 3. Photos (and lyrics) generally included with the purchase of the CD.
If the Recording Industry cut the prices they charge for CDs, a lot more people would be buying them as opposed to downloading. One hit wonders will still probably lose album sales, but quality albums would be purchased.
What's more... (Score:3)
The survey claims that 86% of respondents claim to have downloaded free music online. What this immediately suggests is that almost none of those polled were non-internet users, which isn't terribly surprising as it seems the poll itself took place online. Why his this pertinent? Because it offers no comparison between traditional music buyers and those influenced by Napster. None of this is made terribly clear in actual writing, though.
Furthermore, both the article and poll itself identify that those polled were "music fans." What about those millions of casual Napster users who aren't "fans" to a significant degree that they would both download music files AND do the right thing and purchase the CDs?
"86% of all respondents said that they HAD purchased a CD album as a direct result of downloading free tracks from it."... so they've purchased "a" CD? I know very few people who've downloaded only music from a single CD while using Napster. A better question may ask respondents whether they purchase CDs for the MAJORITY of the music that they download online.
Heck, even the question as to whether music downloads have stopped users from purchasing CDs is silly. Napster doesn't stop people from purchasing, it merely offers another option.
Worst of all, this poll conflicts with almost every other poll discussing online purchasing trends, particularly among internet users under the age of 18 (which make up a good portion of those polled). While I do feel it's reasonable to blame those organizing the poll for the wording of some questions, they can't be blamed for not adjusting their results to adequately account for outside factors, which are almost always required with online polls. All I know is that there are countless other polls and surveys, performed by more reliable sources for the most part, that conflict what one may be assumed from face value analysis of this poll. Maybe if they'd offered some interpretation of their own along with the poll results, and some analysis of sources of error, I'd be more accepting.
Oh, and the article's HTML title mispells "dowqnload." Maybe that plays some roll in my misunderstanding, heh.
Re:Force of the flow. (Score:2)
Re:Cause and effect (Score:4)
Re:Cause and effect (Score:2)
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
Other nations' laws effects on Napster.... (Score:2)
Re:Other nations' laws effects on Napster.... (Score:2)
Can I get a witness (Score:2)
Yours,
Bob
Re:Can I get a witness (Score:2)
Yours,
Bob
Re:Cause and effect (Score:2)
With regard to MediaBay, the afore mentioned survey results do not refute their argument, since they are making a detailed and precise argument rather than the wild generalizations made by the RIAA. Aside from the extremely ambiguous copyright status if the content they claim ownership of, they seem to have a decent case, as much as it pains me to say so.
--CTH
Re:MediaBay - Old time radio shows? (Score:3)
The legal status of old radio shows is a horrible mismash of copyright law, anti-piracy law, and individual laws pased in different states.
For example, early on radio broadcasts weren't copyrightable, but music recordings were. So the producer's of a show would publish and copyright a recording of the theme song, so that any recording of the show would be protected. Some shows (and early music recording) were protected my extentions made to high-seas piracy laws.
Basically you need to determin the status of a show on a case-by-case basis.
Re:Napster users buy more CDs? (Score:2)
Buying more CD's (Score:2)
Gratitude? (Score:5)
Re:I guess I'm in the minority (Score:2)
Umm.. storage? (Score:3)
lets say 10 tracks apiece with 5 meg size with 10 cds, thats 500 megs. Maybe he meant some super high quality mp3s? I think perhaps the point was missed that noone buys 3GB drives anymore, and most people don't care about the difference between CD quality and mp3 128kbps quality...
Talk About Living in Fucking Denial!!! (Score:3)
Who gives a shit if poor ol' Napster is getting another bitch-slap? The stats "proving" Napster spurs more CD purchases are simply ridiculous. There is no way anyone is going to prove any causal relationship between CD sales and Napster (good or bad) - even if such a relationship exists.
Bottom-line... Napster and its users (that includes the 6 songs I downloaded) are absolutely all about stealing music. Period. This geek media fascination with the new, reformed Napster is becoming a sad and pathetic spectacle of denial. And before anyone flames me, the Napster debate is NOT in the same universe of 'fair use' laws.
There...I feel better now.
Actually, it is about the money. (Score:2)
Yes, sales are up among napster users. But which sales? How are the sales of major labels versus independent labels? Prior to napster, the RIAA pretty much controlled the entire process by means of controlling play time on radio. Which, as this article [salon.com] noted, is unbelievably corrupt. But with P2P, people don't have to listen to the radio - they just search for the song they want to hear and get it immediately, no commercials, no filler, and browse to your heart's content. Grass roots publicity suddenly becomes much easier, there is no cost in time or money to listen to a song once. The trouble with Napster, then, is it puts the big labels on an even playing field with the indy labels, and could thereby suck some of their business away.
More importantly, if you can do almost as well with an indy or even your own label, why the hell would you want to go with a big one? The big labels could still control the manufactured stars, but all the real talent would stay away from them. In other words, the big labels would lose not just consumers but artists as well.
Furthermore, the recording industry clearly doesn't want any competition when it comes to digital distribution. They're not opposed to P2P distribution per se, just that they aren't getting paid for it. If they can sell by the song (or even pay-per-play) they can charge amounts equal to or more than it would take to buy the whole CD without even having the overhead of shipping the physical product.
cryptochromeLegal evidence? (Score:2)
Is it possible for Napster to enter these things as evidence that, far from being "contributory infringers" (or whatever the legal mumbo-jumbo word is), they are in fact "contributory salespeople"?
Ryan T. Sammartino
Re:Correlation, causation, and none of the above (Score:2)
The question of "might they have grown even more without Napster" is, in my mind, in that class of really hard to prove questions that you point out.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Please read the story (Score:5)
And if you read on to the end of the story, you'll see that the guy writing the story has no idea what he's talking about...
a quote from the story - "Seriously, how many people are prepared to spend several days - because that's how long it wil take on 33 speed modem - downloading a whole album and then listening to inferior sound quality; additionally, how many people have hard drives with the hundreds of gigabytes of memory required to store more than a few dozen CDs? About 10-12 CDs worth will completely use up the memory of a 3GB hard drive."
I think that says it all right there... 3GB for 10 albums in MP3 format? I don't think so.
I support Napster, free downloading, etc... but this "Scientific Survery" was garbage.
Mostly garbage anyway (Score:2)
I just bought a CD which I had completely downloaded in MP3 format (through gnutella), and was very impressed with. So I would answer to the survey that, yes, I would buy a CD that I downloaded music from. But on the other hand, I probably would have bought a CD at that time anyway, so gnutella downloads simply helped me make that decision. I'm certainly glad I bought the CD since there is so much more to hear that doesn't come through on MP3's 128 kbps quality. I'm not a raving audiophile, but I'm not deaf either. Somewhere inbetween. :-)
But will gnutella/Napster cause me to buy more music than I would ordinarilly? Maybe -- it allows me to sample a larger diversity of music, which might get me to buy CDs I wouldn't buy ordinarilly and thus inspire more of an appetite for music. Or, maybe I'll just find out that the CDs I've been considering really don't sound as good as I hoped. I think the former scenario is more likely, but I honestly don't know the answer, even for myself!
So this should make it obvious that any kind of survey like this one is not going to disclose any truth about whether or not Napster is helping the music industry. Also the major source of bias in a survey like this is: Who's choosing to take this survey? It's obviously people who are familliar with Napster, as the first statistic showed. It's probably also people who think Napster is good, and want to "prove" it. So even if the survey questions were insightful it still wouldn't mean anything.
I also hated the comments about the music industry needing to be more selective, supporting only a couple dozen artists! I agree with the general conclusion that the music industry should be worried about things other than Napster, but I think the music industry is much too limiting rather than permissive, way too comercial and concerned only with the bottom line.
I think the best music is the stuff that would never be released as a single. The bad songs are the ones that you instantly like the first time you hear them, and get tired of quickly. These get airplay because the execs are listening only for that instantly-appealing hook. The good songs are the ones that take some time to grow on you. These are stamped out by the industry as much as possible.
Re: How Statistics are Misused (Score:2)
- One in three women will be sexually assaulted.
- You are 8 times more likely to shoot someone you know than an unknown intruder in your home.
Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for Napster all-the-way, but we should really beware of media-generated statistics like this.Translation: 1-in-3 will get drunk and have consentual sex, then regret it and decide that she was raped. Mike Tyson was a victim of one such woman. Additionally, you take the number of incidents and divide by the number of women - NOT ACCOUNTING for the fact that a lot of these women are habitually dating abusive guys.. they're the low-lifes you see on COPS every week. 1-in-3 my ass...
Translation: Yes it's true, (and guess what Einstein,) usually the person who is assaulting or robbing you IS somebody that you know - an ex-boyfriend, or a former friend or relative who has a problem with you and won't leave you alone. Such people SHOULD be shot.
Re: That's because of people like me..... (Score:2)
The RIAA's antics... (Score:2)
Personally, I refuse to pay $17.99 + tax for a CD that has maybe 2 or 3 good songs on it. CDs should cost less than tapes: the media costs less to produce and the data is worth the same regardless of the format. Yet they're still $8 more than the same album on tape. The whole thing just screams "rip-off", and I haven't bought a CD in years for this reason alone. Instead, I download the one-hit-wonders, listen to them for a couple of weeks, and move on to the next one. I've yet to download an entire album - it's too darn much work to find every song perfectly encoded.
I'd be willing to pay a small monthly fee - $5 or so, but certainly not more than $10 - for a service full of high quality music and unlimited downloads. IMHO, considering the fact that CD sales continued to rise greatly last year in spite of Napster, I think the RIAA could add a ton of money to their bank accounts with such a system - and hopefully give some of that to the artists. I'd never pay for a peer-to-peer system like Napster, though. Too hard to find high quality encodings, and why should the RIAA profit over the use of our bandwidth?
As for this survey, it's obviously flawed, as are most surveys. I never did understand why anyone thinks they can interview a few thousand people and call it good, considering there are billions of us. If they interviewed a few million, the data might be a little more valid.
Re:Other nations' laws effects on Napster.... (Score:2)
1. Napster is a company based in the United States, and therefore is subject to U.S. law.
2. The Berne Convention. The existence of the Berne convention allows countries to pursue copyright infringement violations in other coutries.
3. The IFPI [ifpi.org]. A sort of international version of the RIAA. They recently busted a group of college students in Taiwan for music-swapping, and had their equipment seized.