Still More RIAA News 281
We just did an article about the RIAA's mendacity with statistics, and here come some more: first, someone has gone to the trouble to deconstruct their income figures over the past few years, showing that the RIAA's lack of investment in new releases is in itself sufficient to explain any dropping sales, and second, this website concerning the music industry settling a price-fixing lawsuit, which I believe is this one, filed two years ago.
Hang on a second (Score:2, Funny)
Nice work (Score:2, Insightful)
Good luck with getting the message across to the public at large, to people who matter, and to people who make and shape laws.
JOKE (Score:2, Funny)
(Replace Disney with your favoured record company du jour.)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Quibble (Score:4, Insightful)
And therefore, its members control what it says, and what its priorities are. Its members are saying that piracy is the problem, so the RIAA says priacy is the problem, and by complaining about the RIAA you are complaining about all the members of the RIAA.
RTFA (Score:5, Interesting)
The differnce between saying that the RIAA's income statistics are incorrect and saying that the NRA shot someone is that the NRA was likely not involved in the shooting, and likely did not colude to make the shooting happen the way it did.
The RIAA is directly reporting these statistics. They are the RIAA's collective industry statistics. Also, the RIAA members have been shown to actively colude to make these statistics what they are through price-fixing and other tactics.
On the point of calling the RIAA a monopoly, I think it's perfectly fair. Just as a corporation can act as a single entity even though it is made up of many individuals, so too does the RIAA act as a single entity for the purposes of controling retail sales of music and lobbying (i.e. buying politicians) for music-industry causes like passing the DMCA. BMI did not lobby to pass the DMCA independantly, the RIAA did. This is a tactic for gaining control over the market and over the technologies that affect the market by the RIAA.
Monopoly tactics? Yep.
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
Fair? Yes. Accurate? No. The RIAA is a cartel.
Re:Quibble (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a price-fixing cartel that has established oligopoly control of the entire market, just like OPEC. I feel it's perfectly justified to call its actions "monopolistic" since they're identical to what a monopolistic entity (like Microsoft) would do.
I've heard of splitting hairs before, but sheesh...
Re:Quibble (Score:5, Informative)
(Oversimlification follows Back in the day, trusts (e.g. the bourbon trust, the railroad trust) were organizations of the major companies in an industry. The trust's members would all play by the trust's rules, and the trust's rules often included ways to prevent non-trust companies from surviving. In the case of the railroad trust, for example, they would charge exhorbitant fees to connect local lines to trust-owned main lines; or about once a year they would design and patent new car-connectors, again charging exhorbitant licensing fees to use them. In other words, they would drive their competitors into ruin, then buy them out for a pittance.
Doubtless, the RIAA and its members have worked very carefully to avoid appearing to be a trust in any legal sense, but as the lawsuit referenced in this article claimed, the RIAA has been used as a way to improperly fix prices among its members.
I'm sure that the RIAA scaled back supply... (Score:2, Funny)
(-;
NOT!
Copyright (Score:2, Funny)
in my perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Most new CD's cost around $15-$20... Considering I usually buy a CD mainly for 2 or 3 tracks, thats about $5 or more for a single song.
Or, I could buy the singles, and pay about $5 a song
Gee, that really makes me want to buy CD's. I'll stick with Kazaa Lite, Gnutella, or something.
The only time I buy a CD anymore is when it is a small band that I want to support, and then I usually buy from their website.
Re:in my perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in the UK, most new CD's cost £15-£20, which (according to the Universal Currency Converter [xe.com]) is about $24-$32 at the moment.
We get it worse over here by far, and the RIAA and MP3 aren't in the news nearly as much as over there.
I may be accused of whining / trolling etc, but some things just get blown out of proportion.
Re:in my perspective (Score:3, Informative)
Re:in my perspective (Score:2)
Re:in my perspective (Score:2, Interesting)
Here in the Isle of Man there are now only two record stores, HMV and Switched On Records [switched-online.com]. Yes, you can do mail order but there's nothing as convenient as being able to buy something straight away at a store.
HMV shut down all the local shops by pricing them out of the market, when they first arrived, but now have an average (non-sale) price of £18.99 for a CD, which is just extortionate.
Switch On survives because the owner Gid works hard and is enthusiastic about what he does, and mainly 'cause he isn't in direct competition with HMV, targetting vinyl and DJs instead. And he supports local bands, allowing them to sell their CDs through his shop with little/no markup - something HMV are not willing to do AT ALL (company policy apparently).
In conclusion I'd agree that CDs are way too expensive over here, but what can the consumer do about it? Personally I DON'T download music, but I support local bands a lot, buy secondhand whereever possible, and if I can't get it secondhand I'll wait for a sale until I can get the CD I want for
Cheers,
Re:in my perspective (Score:2)
Re:in my perspective (Score:2)
Re:many perspectives (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm glad also not to hear you (quite) say, "Well, I'd stop stealing if they'd just lower prices." Stealing will always be free (esp. when P2P cuts out the street corner middle man in the trenchcoat), and they can never compete with free. Just say "no" to extortion.
CD prices have fallen surprisingly little in 20 years -- about a third in inflation-adjusted dollars. I don't remember prices like this with vinyl, and when CD's came along there was a hefty premium for them. Yes, they provided higher quality, but I bet their production costs are now far lower.
I think the RIAA members need to do some serious introspection about their business model. That doesn't mean ignoring infringement, but realizing that the boat is sinking because of a lot of larger holes in the hull. Direct sales are a great concept; other methods to lower costs must exist. Note however that we do live in a society that somehow manages to buy $130 Nikes that cost $30 wholesale. [fool.com] (Astonishingly, Nike only makes a few dollars profit on each pair.) The record industry is far from the only industry with big markups, so don't rush to any conclusions.
The RIAA members should not abuse market statistics or fix prices to promote their cause. Resentful consumers should not steal to promote theirs. Now, all join hands and sing....
The funny thing is I'm sure 99% of the public has no idea what all this talk is about. The one-quarter who do don't even talk to the three-eighths of the 10% of the last ninth who uh... Well, I'd like to see some statistics on that, I'm 110% certain.
Re:many perspectives (Score:2, Interesting)
And if you think that's markup, I've got one word for you my friend. Plastics!
Re:many perspectives (Score:4, Insightful)
I won't even ask what you mean by "she loves loves loves her ding dongs." (Lest any guys get misplaced notions about Hilary, read this [lesbiannews.com].) I mean, I like ding dongs as much as the next guy, but....
I've heard figures for the artist's cut ranging form 50 to $2. I don't know what's accurate, but assume it depends a lot on how much leverage the act has -- there's a difference between Bruce Springsteen and WeEatToads but their CD's are both expensive. (Springsteen may be cheaper because of volume.) (And I'm not starting a f*cking debate about musical tastes!) Must be nice to be a solo artist rather than have to split the coins with other band members.
As for markup, we rarely think about it as we happily pay for it. Next time you see a box of Wheaties, ask yourself how much the wheat cost. Probably less than a raw CD. Now look at that pretty and informative 4-color box it comes in. Which costs more? Then look around at the supermarket. How much does it cost to run? A lot. What does this have to do with the price of wheat? Nothing, but it has a heck of a lot to do with the price of Wheaties.
Re:many perspectives (Score:2)
I realize that with that markup above margin, I'm buying my time back. I'm totally ok with that. 25% for the store, 25% for the distributor, and hell, why not something for the manufacturer too.
Even allowing for that, CD's are way way over priced. Without the cartel, CD's would likely be much cheaper. $5 dollars from a random guy on the street? No, probably not. While his production costs may well be higher (or not considering some of what one hears about the Chinese manufacturers), his supply chain is really short, his costs for the card table negligible. But $10 bucks for a new album, which isn't just chock full of crap, and is at least 30 minutes long, isn't that much to ask.
If the constituent members of the RIAA really have costs so high as to justify use of their super-cartel-ultra-best-friend powers, perhaps they should look into controlling costs rather than illegally manipulating the market to make up the difference. Maybe forcing the market to accept whatever crap the suits think it should like is expensive. I would certainly imagine that acts that promote themselves by word of mouth save on studio time (by sounding decent without special effect wizardry), and advertising.
Until they do something to address the problem, I have a hard time feeling anything but a dull sense that justice is done when a million petty thieves rob the giant thief swindling millions. But then I'm not a lawyer either.
Re:many perspectives (Score:3, Insightful)
That's how they'll quote you, too.
Re:many perspectives (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, CDs were cheaper to produce than vinyl then as well as now. Of course nowadays, there is no correlation with the cost to produce a CD and its price--the cost of manufacturing is so low that if marketing et. al. was left out of the mix money could be made selling CDs at $2/pop.
As for quality, early CDs provided far lower quality than vinyl initially. Yeah, we got rid of the ticks, pops, scratches, and rumbles, but great violence was done to the music by the early digital recording and mastering technology which often couldn't muster more than 13 or 14-bits of resolution at best (and often far worse). To this day, many prefer vinyl and only the recent SACD and DVD-A technologies can give well produced vinyl a run for its money on sound quality. I'm not a luddite and most of my music is now on CD, but I'm not happy about it.
Better for convenience, yes. Better for sound, decidedly not.
--Len
Re:many perspectives (Score:5, Insightful)
Stealing is not free!!
That's a misconception. It doesn't cost any *money* to steal, but stealing still has cost. Most notable is time cost -- it takes time to locate and download a song you want. And even then once you're done you can't be sure you didn't get a lot of data errors in the track or different songs in the album were recorded with different loudness, etc.
Theoretically, if the recording industry priced CDs below ((peoples' value of own time * length of time it takes to find the cd) + value of quality) then the could compete with piracy on a price level. Obviously everyone's value of their time is different so they'll never be able to get everyone. For me, if CDs cost $5-$10 I would never mess around with Kazaa, and I think a lot of other people wouldn't either. $20? No, thanks.
Re:many perspectives (Score:5, Funny)
Agreed. This clearly shows that our large scale piracy systems still need improvement.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:many perspectives (Score:2, Interesting)
It's already been pointed out that downloading has a time cost associated with it. Owning a CD also has a benefit (pretty CD graphics and booklet and a permanent "backup" that I don't need to spend extra for).
The real problem is that many people are willing to pay $8-10 for a CD but this is usually not an option. Given the choice between paying $18 and paying $0 many people choose $0.
Re:many perspectives (Score:2)
Yes.
A thought experiment strictly from a buyer perspective:
Interesting?
Re:many perspectives (Score:2)
Re:in my perspective (Score:2)
This is redundant.
Frankly, I don't know where I can find a $20 CD audio. Canada? Likely more, I am guessing. In the US, I usually spend between $12 and $15.
Re:in my perspective (Score:2)
Re:in my perspective (Score:2)
Units are Down. Dollar figures are not down by quite as much. Therefore you jacked your prices up too much.
This could as easily be explained by: Consumers aren't running to the store to buy the 20 year old collection of crap for $10, and are only buying CD's when it's a new release for $15
Setting up paper targets to knock down weakens the argument as a whole. Beside this item, though, the article was a great read...
Re:in my perspective (Score:2)
"Why should I go out and plunk down $17.99 for a CD, when for $19.99 I can buy a DVD movie?"
With portable DVD movie players dropping in price to the same price range as portable CD players were a few years ago, I'm starting to see something very interesting going on. Instead of seeing some guy behind the counter at the local bookstore listening to his CD collection, I'm now starting to see the same guy watch a movie while sitting behind the counter.
Re:in my perspective (Score:2)
But last week I picked up Aaliyah's new I Care For You album despite not being a big fan of her work, only having liked a couple of her songs. Why? The CD was only $9 AND came with a DVD with 9 of her videos and a 12 minute behind-the-scenes featurette.
Last night, this behavior was repeated when I picked up Chevelle's Wonder What's Next for $6 at Best Buy despite only ever having heard two of their songs, one of which was a couple years ago and thus not on this album. This one, too, came with a video and behind-the-scenes footage, albeit not on a nice shiny DVD. I don't even know whether it's really good yet, but do you see, RIAA? I _am_ willing to pay to try new artists when I'm not making a $15-$20 gamble and there's at least potential for the album to not entirely suck ass.
There's a ton of CDs I'd like to buy, but which I can't and won't buy for the prices they're available for. $9 with a DVD full of extras? I could only wish that were the norm.
groups with power (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:groups with power (Score:4, Informative)
What they don't mention is that part of the recording and merketing costs are charged to the band (Source: courtney Love in Salon article [salon.com])
Secondly, a large chunk of the money paid by the record industry is paid to
insight ? (Score:4, Insightful)
kazaa, morpheus, audiogalaxy, gnutella...
frankly, can anyone (good or vilain) pretend that closing napster possibly changed anything in online music trading habits ? and hence in any sales reports an correlation analysis whatsoever ?
I wish the author was honest.
O.
Re:insight ? (Score:2, Insightful)
- It caused a massiave influx of other online services.
- It served to bring the MP3 market to the public eye. (in its final year, napster grew by millions of users)
- It took away arguably the most relyable and fastest way of finding MP3s, but opened the way for the second rate services to rapidly expand.
I also believe that closeing napster ultamately hurt the RIAA...Re:insight ? (Score:2)
You're looking back with those tinted sunglasses, Napster was very buggy. I remember the following problems with it:
IMHO, the new ones are better, but they are of course building on the foundations of Napster.
Re:insight ? (Score:2)
Re:insight ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:insight ? (Score:5, Informative)
WinMX and AudioGalaxy both had chat rooms to discuss anything, including new music. WinMX also has a instant messaging system, and I've come across many great artists through talking to people on it. But, I prefer AllMusic [allmusic.com] for looking up new music, their "related artists" feature is pretty good.
I don't know why everyone prefers Kazza, or places it at the forefront of any p2p discussion. WinMX is much more configurable and you get great results if you know how to use it. It's like comparing Notepad with vi, sure notpad may be easier to figure out, but it's pretty limited.
Kazza is also full of spyware. I'm constantly pointing this out to friends that run it and are completely unaware of this.
Re:insight ? (Score:2)
He is quoting the RIAA stats and makes his point as RIAA is trying to make theirs. Where are the facts that poeple have gone to kazaa, morpheus or what ever to get their music? Are you claiming that the only problem affecting the Music industry is piracy? Did you read the full article?
I hope he manages to prove his point on July 4, 2003...I would hate to think that there is so little original material out there...
Re:insight ? (Score:2)
So sure, maybe now there are the same number of P2P users as there were with Napster's heyday. But when sales started declining, there weren't. Right? Iduno, I could be wrong.
Hilary Rosen eating from a dumpster (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, that means I'd have to live with the thought that Oprah is still around in 3 years, but that's a pain I can easily live with.
Oh yeah? (Score:2)
Re:Hilary Rosen eating from a dumpster (Score:2)
Re:Hilary Rosen eating from a dumpster (Score:2)
Uhhh, yeah. That's sorta the point. :)
Unit cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the mid 1980s when CDs first came out you had a choice of LP, CD, or Tape. The typical list price for a new release LP or tape was $8.99. The CD list price was $16.99.
Their reason: There was a backlog of over a year to manufacture "back catalog releases". They (record industry) said the price high price of CD was because of the manufacturing process, as well as supply and demand.
Well for CDs there's no backlog now, they use less raw material, and provide less artwork. And yet the CD price remains inflated.
Does the artist get more royalties for CD than a LP or cassette? I think not.
Re:Unit cost (Score:2)
I will gladly reward an artist who puts his/her heart and soul into his/her music, but why should I pay for an untalented tart around whom a musical concept is worked out by a bunch of producers, and all she has to do walk around in ultra-short skirts?
The system as we know it is not supporting art, it's just supporting sales. The record industry has held a monopoly in creating professional sounding music and distributing it on a large scale, but today's technology allows everyone to do it him/herself.
Instead of trying to break the RIAA, maybe we should just ignore them. Let the little kids have their Britney Spears and NSync, let the real artist create their music in an atmosphere which supports creativity, and use the internet for distribution.
Re:Unit cost (Score:2)
In that case, my computer should cost $90 trillion because it is millions of times faster than the supercomputers of the 50s that only nations could afford.
When a new type of medium or device is created, the cost is initially higher and then when the technology has matured, it usually becomes much cheaper to produce. If the music industry could make that argument about CDs, then just about every other industry could make similar claims. It's absurd.
My point is, no, they definitely don't have a point there.
Re:Unit cost (Score:2)
You want an admittedly contrived act? Well check out Tatu [mtv.com]. It seems that the've taken the single-babe act and added a touch of lesbianism that makes Madonna's early acts seem pretty tame.
Yeah, they're pretty hot (IMO). But really... isn't this going a bit too far? I guess since under-aged girls can't do porn, then must really be pushing the envelope to sell tickets/albums here.
Personally, with as contrived as these acts are, I think Vivid Entertainment should just get into the music business. Can you imagine the turnout for Raquel Darrian's first tour? Instead of 20,000 screaming teenage girls, you'd have 20,000 panting middle-aged male porn fans. Talk about a scary crowd.
Re:Unit cost (Score:2)
And they're not actually underage by UK standards either
Re:Unit cost (Score:2)
Dollar for dollar, they are. You need to spend a relative fortune to get a system that plays vinyl better than your average CD player.
howstuffworks.com is a liar (Score:2)
I'll grant you that many CDs, perhaps most, do sound much worse than the best vinyl records, but that because the CD offers so much more capability that sound engineers abuse it. CDs can record trebles so high they would melt the solenoid coils in an analog record cutting lathe. CDs can record bass so strong it would make the needle jump off a vinyl record.
So, indeed, an LP can sound better than a CD, but that's because the CD was badly recorded, not because of any limitation in the digital recording system. Even the cheapest CD player will give you a 100+ dB signal-to-noise ratio, while the absloutely best analog record player, costing in the $10000+ range, will never get more than 75 dB or so.
Re:Unit cost (Score:2)
(emphasis mine)
Capitalism is wonderful. It says that if you can sell enough of an item at $25, then that article is worth $25 -- even if it only costs you $2.50 to make and distribute. You are under no obligation to sell the item at a price reflecting the cost, it only reflects the supply of the item, and the demand for the item. If you can find enough people to buy that item at that cost, then that is what it is worth. If it costs you more to make an item than you get back by selling it, you go out of business (or demand government subsidies).
The demand is there; and the RIAA's members make a tidy sum selling CDs at a higher price than the cost of manufacturing them. And it won't change one bit until people stop buying CDs at the inflated prices.
Ain't America great!
Re:Unit cost (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, most bands (IAN in the music industry) get less for CD sales, because of "Breakage." I quote from Moses Avalon [mosesavalon.com]:
He also mentions that you (as an artist) will be deducted the cost of packaging your album, which is usually 25% for CDs and 20% for tapes and LPs. Now, everyone knows that CD liners are pretty small and involve a lot less color printing than LPs... read Moses' site, it's very interesting.SheepHead
Who's ripping off whom? (Score:5, Informative)
Marketplace on NPR had an excellent report last week about how a small industry of auditors has sprung up around the music biz [marketplace.org], because it is common practice for the labels not to fulfill their contracts. An example cited in the report was that Meatloaf's "Bat Out Of Hell" album sold over 20 million copies. Granted, the album came out back in the days of vinyl LP's, but if we estimate that album prices back then were around $10, the revenue generated was $200 million. Meatloaf was only paid a paltry $1 million, far far less than he was entitled to under the terms of his contract.
The problem is that the labels hold all of the financial records, so even if an artist does suspect that his publisher is ripping him off, he has to drag the label into court just to get the accounting records released. The cost to do this starts at $50,000 to hire an auditor, and then you have court costs and legal fees on top of that. Needless to say, only the biggest name artists have the war chests to do this.
Said the auditor interviewed for the report, Not once in 12 years had he ever seen a label fairly compensate an artist without a fight.
Apparently the California state congress is starting to look into these practices, and some new legislation will likely result.
This all reaffirms to me, though, that the fight against MP3's is not about lost sales but about lost control.
Pricing is wrong, but point is correct (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Pricing is wrong, but point is correct (Score:2)
Re:Pricing is wrong, but point is correct (Score:3, Informative)
But "Bat" was a big seller from the get-go and so it was on sale more-or-less continually for over a year.
I don't know if the retailer eats the margin, or the record company pays for part of it.
Re:Who's ripping off whom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes! If the RIAA cut prices in half, people would buy more than twice as many CDs (I know I would). They might make a ton of money this way, so why don't they? Loss of control in the long run.
MP3 can be produced costlessly -- and you can fit 10x as many on a CD. They could seriously reduce cost while increasing the value of their products. So why doesn't the record industry embrace them? Loss of control in the long run.
It's time to face the music: they can't stop MP3. They just can't do it. They are only forestalling the inevitable as long as they can before the shit hits the fan and they go down in flames when nobody needs a big record company anymore. I don't know how long they can keep this act up but they can certainly keep making money until the industry "restructures" hehehe.
Re:Who's ripping off whom? (Score:3)
For those of you who aren't familiar with the 13th Amendment [loc.gov] to the United States Constitution [loc.gov], it was adopted in 1865 and outlaws slavery.
Re:Who's ripping off whom? (Score:2)
What was Meatloaf's contract? Dunno, he didn't share it with me. Just passing along info from the report, to save people the trouble of having to listen to the audio stream.
The argument is weakly presented... (Score:3, Insightful)
rant off.
Independants' Day (Score:5, Interesting)
I think, though, that his plans of flooding the market with Indie CDs, while laudable, is doomed to failure. Why? One word: airplay. There are two big, big, big players that you have to get into bed with if you want a single to get blared from the radio: Clear Channel Communications and Inifiniti Broadcasting. Well, strictly speaking, you have to go through "independant promoters," but it's all kickbacks in the end anyway. Pay for play. Do a search on Salon's archives if you want to know more about it.
And it's not that MacWizard won't have the cash up front to buy airplay (although that may be a problem too, I don't know what his resources are), it's that they won't deal with him. Not a "real" label? You're SOL. Your money's no good here.
And the sad fact is that if you want to sell 100,000 copies, either you have a bitchin' word of mouth campaign, lots of outside media attention (like the band Red Delicious got in the heady first days of MP3.com, when they were briefly the media's darlings as a band that could succeed the "dot-com way". And they're a great band, but they never got played on the mass-market radio, and so they're currently languishing, as the fans wait for a 2nd album from a "real" label), or AIRPLAY. If people haven't heard the song when they get in the ol' Subaru and bop to the mall or slog to work (or haven't heard of the artist previously), they're not going to pick it off the shelves of Sam Goody's, no matter how big the Indie Majority.
Anyway. If it works, stellar. I'll make sure to check out their signed artists on July 5th. But I don't think it's going to "storm the castle" and "kick the box into the stream" or what-have-you. Alas.
Incidentally... (Score:4, Interesting)
You will recall [slashdot.org] that, in fact there were only 156 burners, but the RIAA called them the "equivalent" of 421 since some of them were fast.
Never ceases to amaze me how easily the press is manipulated.
Re:Incidentally... (Score:2)
A few years ago, when some jumbo jet crashed amid much media hoopla, the news reports went thusly:
From the reputable news channel: "This plane has a great safety record, with a history of only X crashes in Y years."
From the tabloid news channel: "This plane has a history of crashes!!"
Equally "factual", but the spin sure is different.
How long??? (Score:2, Funny)
Think they could use the DMCA for that...
This settlement is crap (Score:2, Informative)
Read the settlement, its a hoot.
amazed (Score:2, Interesting)
complains the RIAA keeps on making and thinks
people still believes what they say ?
About all the missing sales they get because
people download mp3s - do they really believe
every mp3 downloaded is a cd less sold ??
Do they think someone with thousands of mp3s
would buy thousand cds ? We don't have unlimited
budgets..
And now they're complaining they don't get as
many profit as the previous years;
Hey we live in a capitalistic world..
the market also changes, and you should evolve
your product.
If your product doesn't sell anymore you've
only got yourself to complain to..
You don't hear McD complain these days that
people buy less burgers and pizzas or other
take-aways should be closed or are illegal ?
One mistake by the author (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe not. The author of the article goes on to argue that file swapping, which may have killed the singles market, couldn't add up to this amount. Alas, he didn't read the quote properly. $4 billion is what they attribute to physical piracy, not online swapping. There are parts of the world where you can buy just about any CD, music or software, for a fraction of the price of retail. In a street market in Thailand I saw MS Office and NT Server for $20 (with activation keys), music CDs of current US and European pop releases for $5, PS games for $5-10. All were in jewel cases with artwork.
Physical piracy is their real enemy, not file sharing.
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This just in... (Score:4, Funny)
If you people are going to continue ... (Score:4, Funny)
Quote from article (Score:4, Informative)
I believe the quote is "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." from H.L. Mencken, the noted satirist.
P.T. Barnum's quote is "There's a sucker born every minute."
Hate RIAA? Sign up for your free $20 (Score:4, Interesting)
The terms of the settlement are that people who bought music CDs, records or cassettes between 1/1/95 and 12/22/00 can apply for a refund of up to $20.
But: Like most class action settlements, the terms are not necessarily favorable to consumers. For example, the settlement fund is $67,375,000 in cash plus $75,700,000 "worth of" prerecorded CDs. If "the number of claims filed would result in refunds of less than $5.00 per claimant, there will be no cash distribution to individual consumers. Rather, the cash portion of the settlement shall be distributed to mot-for-profit, charitable, governmental or public entities[.]"
Find out more at musiccdsettlement.com [musiccdsettlement.com]
Disclaimer: The poster (me) expresses no opinion as to the merits (if any) of this class action settlement, and this post is not legal advice nor is it an advertisement or solicitation for legal services.
Re:Hate RIAA? Sign up for your free $20 (Score:2)
Screw "tact", the settlement absolutely SUCKS. No question about it. No ambiguity, or moderating factors. Suck, suck, suckity-suck.
Not so much the individual payouts, which if I had only bought half a dozen CDs in that time, I would consider reasonable (assuming, of course, that they don't get so many claimants that it drives the disbursement to below $5 each).
But two major problems exist - First, it doesn't take into account how much music each person bought (personally, I bought on the order of 200 CDs in the period under consideration - Which has dropped to around 4 in the past two years due to the RIAA's political and ethical policies). And second, NEW CDS STILL COST $15-$20 EACH!
This makes the SECOND time (that I know of) that the RIAA has gotten a beat-down for price fixing, yet they continue to do it.
Yet another complete BS class-action suit. Until the FTC tells them "lower prices or don't sell in the US", which I doubt they can (and certainly wouldn't if they could), no improvement will happen. Why? It costs the RIAA (members) *FAR* less to pay a combined $140M once per decade than to allow fair market competition to lower prices by 50% or so. Start getting settlements in the tens of billions, and they *might* pay attention (at once per decade, that would eat into around 10% of their income... Noticeable, at least). This paltry little mosquito doesn't even make them reach down and scratch.
Re:Hate RIAA? Sign up for your free $20 (Score:2)
You said it, I didn't.
Yet another complete BS class-action suit.
You can always opt-out, and go down to small claims court and file your own lawsuit. Bring all the receipts you saved for the overpriced records, tapes, and CDs you bought during the period in question. Hope you didn't miss the statute of limitations for those 8-tracks!
Re:Hate RIAA? Sign up for your free $20 (Score:2)
TRANSLATION: The lawyers are getting paid bigtime. The rest of you are out of luck.
One thing that bothers me (Score:2, Interesting)
"Each year, of the approximately 27,000 new releases that hit the market, the major labels release about 7,000 new CD titles and after production, recording, promotion and distribution costs, most never sell enough to recover these costs, let alone make a profit." (from the RIAA Price of a CD page).
Now, perhaps the number of releases *has* declined markedly over the past couple of years. But it strikes me as an awful big assumption to just plug in this 27,000 number as the number of new releases for each of the past two years.
Again, not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying that it could as well be an average over the past decade or an inexact number thrown out in a context other than market data. It's a slender thread on which to hang a big chunk of analysis.
Were the Horse Salesmen this mad at Henry Ford? (Score:2, Interesting)
Could you imagine this country if an RIAA 'like' organization formed from horse trading companies in the early 1900's to try to keep Henry Ford from putting them out of business? Saying Henry Ford's Model T violated the HTIAA's patent on selling transportation methods.
Sure downloading copyrighted material is illegal, but they have to do somethign about it. Obviously people are fed up with $20 CDs.
Barter? (Score:2)
Pondering out loud... (Score:2)
To quote Sam Clemens, "There are three kinds of lies...lies, damned lies and statistics." Trouble is, the American press (and by extension, the general American public) sees numbers and believes them to be absolute truth. The running joke/slogan seems to be "garbage in, gospel out".
It all sort of makes me wonder, though...what would happen to these numbers if the Generally Accepted Accounting Practices were applied?
Just my two cents' worth...save up the change for a root beer or something.
RIAA Doesn't Collect Data? (Score:4, Insightful)
"While the RIAA does not collect information on the specific costs that make up the price of a CD, there are many factors that go into the overall cost of a CD -- and the plastic it's pressed on, is among the least significant."
They admit they don't really know the costs. They don't have the data so they speak from ignorance. Or, they do have the data but don't want to admit what they know.
Re:RIAA Doesn't Collect Data? (Score:2)
How about doing this (Score:2)
AOL,Murdoch, etc., so they wont give people information. How about the slashdot editors putting up a page that gets regularly updated.. with information about indie and small bands.. what genre are they, where can people buy their music and stuff.
I feel that rather than talking about extreme steps like boycott etc., slashdot should put up a page so that atleast slashdotters hit on it.... son it will show up on googles results too! More information the people will make things better. We can have an ask slashdot story about indie and small bands and then the most informative posts can be used to compose the page initially.
Declining revenue (Score:2)
Of course their declining record sales have nothing to do with the public is now fed up of mass marketed pop music where record contracts are won not by original musical talent and song writing , but by nieve and desperate [will-youngonline.com] individuals in f***ing competitions [idolonfox.com] while real talent falls into the gutter, leaving a trail of destruction [sky.com] in its path while the instigators [ananova.com] get rich.
The only thing killing music [bbc.co.uk] is not kids downloading mp3's or pirating dvds at market stalls but by the industry killing itself, kids are simply getting ripped off [talentculling.com] by these marketing/record companies and have just started to realise globally [smh.com.au] they are being taken for idiots
why is it that so many companies in the industry (or others for that matter), have so much contempt for their customers and choose short term monetary gains instead of actually concentrating on producing superior products ?
Everyone always overlooks the real root motive (Score:4, Insightful)
You have posted a great article. It's very informative and insightful and missing a couple important things.
First, I appreciate your promotion of independent artists and justly compensating them, but I disagree with you're numbers. Let me humbly suggest a different split. 16% for production costs. 34% marketing and bribes (we can dream that clear channel and mtv are with in budget). 16% for the label, 16% for investors and 17% for the band. I don't think anyone would disagree with their cut, but what I'm really trying to express is the rule that you spend twice as much on marketing as you do on R&D. And in this case, the world's demonstrated that marketing often counts more for sales than product quality.
Second, as the above somewhat illustrates, the real enemy of both the consumer AND the labels is radio consolidation and the evil empire of clear channel and the event venue lackies it holds. They limit our choice and variety. For the artist and labels, they charge too much money. At one time, music was often the program that pulled people in to listen to adds. Because of extravagently high payola.. er, I mean, "promoter" costs through elimination of competition, the radio stations have really become NOTHING BUT ADVERTISING. Ads are paid for, programs are paid for, automate and underpay local talent, buy out the competition and then print your own money. The Conrad Burns '96 telecommunications act did good things, but it brought more harm than good and needs to be corrected. The record labels have much much more to gain from investing in policial bribery to bring back competition than they have from making all their consumers and benifactors criminals.
Last, that leads to what the REAL issue with RIAA is. The RIAA's end consumer, the people who pay them, are the records labels. The RIAA has to justify thier high costs to the labels every year. Every year, they have to justify the existence of this perpetual parasitic beauracracy. The labels feel that they get good benifits from the current payola system; they just don't like today's prices. If they didn't like it, the lables have plentry of shills to create politicial winds of change. The RIAA's consumer is the labels, NOT THE CONSUMER. They don't care about us; we aren't even the corn in Rosen's shit. They are paid by the labels. What this whole piracy thing is about marketing themselves as relevent to the labels. Let me repeat; the RIAA's emphasis on piracy is their effort to keep getting money from the labels and to start asking them for more money. Yes, of course it's all about money. The RIAA and the labels know the numbers and reasons you cited. They are pursuing what they feel is a safer, more profitable route. The labels are culpable in all of this of course. I just think you need to cite and remember the root motive to all of this non-sense.
Good Luck!
No harm to the market (Score:3, Insightful)
This sentence of Hilary Rosen is often quoted to prove harm filesharing is doing: "When 23 percent of surveyed music consumers say they are not buying more music because they are downloading or copying their music for free, we cannot ignore the impact on the marketplace." And I see that it is used again in this article. What this really means is that 23 percent are not changing their buying habits, and 77 percent are spending more. Where's the harm to their marketplace? This is typical politician double-speak - I can see her laughing everytime she sees it quoted. With the figures they published they are doing better than most anyway.
Someone please help me out here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Between the dates mentioned (Jan. 1, 1995 to Dec. 22, 2000) I bought hundreds of CDs and LPs. "Up to $20 per claimant" does justice to someone who bought 5 or 10 CDs during that time... but completely screws those who bought a lot more.
I read the section on my legal rights which states...
I'd assume that I could opt out of the settlement group and then file a claim independently... but that sounds expensive and time consuming in order to (doubtfully) recover what would be, at most, a couple bucks per CD/LP (maybe $1K total if I calculated that way).
The other option, and maybe more preferable, would be to become a member of the settlement and then show up a the courthouse to object (Portland, ME is a couple hours away... could be an interesting/educational trip to be sure). Maybe if we could organize a small army of people from nearby with LARGE music collections to come and (hopefully) testify/object. What do you think folks? I'm game.
-S
A true story (Listen RIAA) (Score:4, Insightful)
When I got home I jumped on Gnutella and found a song from his new CD and downloaded it. I liked it. Then I downloaded another and liked it too.
The next day I went out and bought the CD.
The RIAA can learn from this. Without being able to sample some songs so I could decide whether or not I wanted to buy the whole CD, I never would have plunked down my cash for an unknown (to me) artist. Thanks to Gnutella, James McMutry made a sale, and got a new fan.
Fill out Web form, get a check... (Score:2)
(Or did I just give my name, address, date of birth, and last four SS digits to a scam artist?)
If this is for real, it should be widely publicized.
the problem with music (Score:2, Interesting)
the problem with music [negativland.com], by Steve Albini
**PARANOIA** (Score:2)
Even if Rust Consulting is legit (and I admit, it looks like it is), I'd still worry about the security of their database.
Guess I'll have to pass up that $20.
Honor System (Score:2)
Fact: Unauthorised digital distribution of copyrighted material is _never_ going to be stopped. Therefore, rather than try and beat it (impossible), accept it.
The new form of digital distribution is chaotic. Whether it be underground websites, Usenet, Kazaa, let it be.
However, along with all digital entertainment content, include details of a website from where you can make an honour payment for the material you have obtained. MP3's etc. can use meta-data (ID3 tags etc.) and Video can just display a "Thanks, if you've enjoyed this please pop online and pay us".
'Round and 'round we go (Score:4, Insightful)
You really want the RIAA & members attention?? (Score:3, Insightful)
- Stop buying music from the big 5 members of the RIAA (Sony, etc.) that essentially belongs to popular but truly "garbage of the month" purported to be hip, fresh, etc. --from any source.
- Only buy CDs where there is quality music (your definition not mine) throughout the whole album.
- Buy independent labels that have good reputations for how they treat their talent, or better yet
- see if you can find a way to buy from the artists directly or through a direct distribution medium -- i.e. artist to distributor to you, no big five profit
- Send a snail mail to any local radio station playing crap music from the big 5, suggesting that they play the better music indie labels and suggesting that you'll change your listening habits to their competitor's station if they don't.
Want to make it hurt even more?- Send a copy of each one of the radio station letters to the big 5 studios every time your selection has caused the indie labels make money and the big 5 didn't make a nickel.
- Send a copy to MTV explaining that you change the channel every time the crap music's video comes on.
- Maybe send even more copies to the NYT, LA Times, Washington Post etc. Bury the RIAA companies with exposure in the mass media via snail mail barrages and see if they can maintain the same kind of cartel pricing and crap music peddling in the glare of major media. Then you might just get their attention.
Still interested? or is standing up to the corruption just too much bother?hee (Score:2)