File Sharing Increases CD Sales 291
Andrew writes "ARIA have released figures that show for 2003, album sales have reached an all time high. In fact, according to Peter Martin, who recently went on Australian radio, before file sharing and CD burning they were selling 10 million less. Total unit sales were also at an all time high at 65.6 million. CD single sales declined 1.9 million over the year, but as Peter said file downloading is doing a better job. Should help Kazaa's legal problems."
Specific to Australia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there any reason to think that this trend might be specific to the Australian music industry (for example because P2P music sharing could help with making making Australian music more well-known internationally), or is it reasonable to take this as an indication that P2P music sharing does not really undermine the commercial viability of the recording industry, worldwide?
Re:Specific to Australia? (Score:3, Informative)
Personally I buy more CD's then a few years ago but not being a P2P person anyway and so therefore might not be representative.
Maybe, these Australian figures are that good just because of Kylie
Re:Specific to Australia? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Specific to Australia? (Score:5, Informative)
From the article: "Have you noticed that the singles and albums charts increasingly seem to bear almost no relation?"
and
"The music industry is being sustained by middle-aged men who can't use the internet."
I think there's a lot of truth there.
Re:Specific to Australia? (Score:5, Interesting)
My own opinion on what the recording industry should do is this: Give Up Selling Singles.
Treat the single as an advertisement for the album. That's why you want it to be played on the radio and MTV and on TotP, right? You want people to hear the song, to like it and to want more - and then buy the album. So: release high-quality mp3s onto the net with no restrictions whatever (except maybe 'No Commercial Use') and positively encourage their trading. Make the rest of the tracks available from the same site on payment.
You'd lose some revenue from singles sales, but that revenue stream is dying anyway; this could help strengthen the real cash cow, the album.
It worked for iD Software - why shouldn't it work for EMI?
Re:Specific to Australia? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that at BigMediaCartel.com I can access a huge library of free, unencumbered and high-bitrate mp3 singles. Wonderful! No need to bother with Kazaa, combing through countless crappy rips, when I can get the good stuff straight from the source. Off I go, then...
I navigate to the artist of my choice and I start slurping some singles. Let's say I download Radiohead's Paranoid Android, Karma Police and No Surprises. They're brilliant. I want more. I just got these from a page called OK Computer, which has a number of other tracks: I can buy access to the lot of them for (say) 10 quid. Hell, we're talking about a possible higher-bandwidth future: maybe they're even FLACs.
Now, I could go to Kazaa and look for the other tracks, but I'd have inconsistent quality, and I'd have to waste a lot of time doing it. If I spend an hour working to try to get OK Computer for free, have I really profited by it? And I'm _already_ at BigMediaCartel.com, and I've just had a good experience of their high bandwidth server.
That's a great offering. I don't have to go into town, find a CD, stand in line, etc... I could easily see myself typing in my card details and spending a _fortune_ at BigMediaCartel.com. iTunes and its competitors have part of this, but they don't have the initial hook - the lure of freebies to get you in there to start with. I notice free songs being given away as prizes in Coke bottles lately, so maybe that's a step in the right direction...
As for your mention of DVDs giving more than the movie... Personally, I'm interested in added features on DVDs, but not on CDs. I just want the music. I sit down and give a DVD my complete undivided attention for two hours; with a CD, I put it on the stereo and do something else while it plays. When will I get around to watching these bonus features on that CD? Probably never.
Re:Specific to Australia? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Specific to Australia? (Score:5, Informative)
[Note: Bean seems to be down ATM]
Re:Specific to Australia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cory Doctorow [craphound.com]'s books ( Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom [craphound.com] and Eastern Standard Tribe [craphound.com]) were posted online for free under a Creative Commons license, and Cory reckons it had a beneficial effect on his sales.
Don't believe me? Here's one of Cory's blog entries [craphound.com]:Another of his blog entries [craphound.com] continues this theme:
The long and short? Putting stuff online like Doctorow, like musician George Michael [georgemichael.com], like Baen Books, or my friend Jules Reid [moonfruit.com] (guitarist, singer-songwriter extraordinaire, English major... if you're in the Liverpool area, please support him! </shameless plug>) gets it out there - it's free advertising.
IMHO, I'm more likely to buy a videogame if I've played a demo version first. The same goes for picking up a dead-trees book, or buying a CD (or, in the near future, using a pay-per-download MP3 service). Sure, some people abuse the system, but it's still a beneficial system.
Going back to Cory Doctorow, for example. I've read his books. I would LOVE to get dead trees copies. I've passed the URLs around my friends, and some of them in the US have bought his books. Not once have I cost him a sale by passing around copies of his work, nor have I cost any other author a sale by telling people about sample chapters online (although I don't always buy the books - I don't like everything I read!). Similarly, a friend sent me a couple of MP3s of a singer called Katie Melua [katiemelua.com], and I liked her work so much I bought the album.
So, to sum up: my thoughts on media in the digital age are that licenses should be loosened and more made freely available, purely because it allows for word-of-mouth (i.e. free) advertising, and - much like a movie trailer, or putting a track on the radio - if people can see/hear/read/play it for themselves (or a cut-down version thereof; I personally think there needs to be a new kind of web-based movie trailer where you can download a couple of scenes as they appear in the film, or a 5-minute sequence, rather than the jazzy wham-bang 30-second TV trailer), they can judge it for themselves, and if Joe Public finds he likes the album/book/videogame/movie in its sample form, he's more likely to pay for the rest of it.
(Sure, people can read e-books on their PC, but what if they want a book for a flight? And okay, they can burn MP3s off the net to audio CD, but I don't have a comeback for that yet.)
Anyone want to support or refute what I said, or toss their two cents into the ring?
That's all well and good... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with the most common, widespread P2P use is that people are distributing products without the consent of the rights holders, removing that choice from whoever holds the copyright on that work.
By all means, support those who make this choice as much as you can, but do not then turn around and TAKE other peoples work, who have not made this choice, and demand that they do, or you'll just keep taking it.
p2p is not the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure p2p does cut down on the sales of some artists.
Those artists you hear on the radio or a club in passing, and think "hey, that seems cool." In earlier days you would have to buy the album to discover it is total crap and the artist is a talentless hack. But now p2p gets the word out before you get robbed. The record companies are all upset, because their whole business is putting blind people in fields of shit and asking them to find a rose. That is to say, they intentionally pump up one hit wonders to sell as many records as possible, but don't put as much effort into the whole album, and do even worse by most second albums.
It is in their interest to make money on talentless hacks, because while a talentless hack may be capable of producing a one hit wonder (usually with a longtime producer working with them on the track), they won't be able to achieve long-term success or the power that comes with it to demand reasonable percentages from the record company and creative control. Hence by having ten artists sell 10 million records a piece, they make more money than on a talented band with staying power who sells 100 million records.
It is a pump and dump but for music instead of the stock market. And just when they get the scheme nearly perfected, p2p comes along and lets people preview what they'll be getting in advance. At which point reasonable people pinch their noses and walk away from what the record companies would prefer that they buy.
Furthermore, those in the record industry that bitch and moan about the artists being robbed are a bunch of liars and hypocrites. They steal from their artists in numbers that p2p can never touch. They make it almost impossible for an artist to audit independently how many records they've sold, but inevitably when artists do audit (usually in a very limited area), they discover they are being paid even less than the lousy terms in their contracts. No part of this argument is about the artists: that is just a smokescreen for what's really going on.
It is the record companies' feces trade that they are worried about: they want to continue getting you to trade the money earned with the sweat of your back for fertilizer, meanwhile all their cows are starving in the field and they claim it is your fault for not buying enough sewage.
That business model, like all pump and dump schemes, eventually has to fail. Right now they are just trying to legislate a delay for the day of reckoning, while they can try to come up with a new scheme to sell us formulaic shit we don't want.
Notice that creative, independent, offbeat, artists invariably seem to make up the examples people use when they need to point to somebody who successfully leverages the Internet and p2p. Artists, in the grandest sense of the word, often can do very well in that environment.
When people can sample music freely, and be picky about the artists they will support, the music industry can no longer control the market. And that is what they are afraid of. So stop calling it stealing or copyright infringement. The only thing being stolen is the RI's ability to sell stuff people don't really want to hear (not after they've heard the good music out there).
If you took away this monopoly, instead of 5 gigantic record companies that fix prices and control the market together illegally, you would see 500 small record companies become medium sized. Smaller record companies benefit the consumer, because now there is competition. The cost of producing, promoting, and distributing has fallen way down thanks to technology, but the big record companies keep taking more and more for this service, both from their artists and the consumers.
Re:p2p is not the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
But I digress. "The people" are speaking in their refusal to pay $20 for a CD until they know that it is of decent q
Why not download music samples from the band's.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't find samples provided by people who own the rights to distribute them, don't buy the music, and let them know that you didn't buy the music because they had no samples available.
Maybe that'll lead to more positive change than using a P2P app to commit wholesale piracy, which only fuels their perception that people just want their music for free.
There are constructive ways to seek change, and destructive ways to seek change. Wholesale P2P fuelled piracy is a destructive avenue to the change you, and all of us are seeking.
Re:Specific to Australia *and* Janis Ian - NOT (Score:2)
The premise that unregulated P2P helps CD sales is so silly I'm surprised that it's still discussed seriously. In fact on the generally pro-p2p Pho email list [pholist.org] a recent thread had "P2P helps CD sales" as a meme that should be dropped.
Any technologist who understands that a CD is just data, and that broadband bandwidth is increasingly common, as are CD-RWs and nice printers and so on, knows perfectly well that the CD itself stands no cha
Re:Specific to Australia? (Score:5, Informative)
Correction (Score:4, Informative)
An album could technically go platinum in its first week if they do a run at the factory of 50,000 (or whatever) and put them straight on a truck.
Re:Correction (Score:2)
Re:Correction (Score:2)
Of course, L. Ron Hubbard had some interesting methods for managing his best-sellerness...
Re:Correction (Score:2)
Similar to the Bible -- why is it the all-time best selling book? "Buy this book or suffer an eternity in hell!"
Yeah right, more like... (Score:5, Insightful)
-RIAA
Doesn't make any difference (Score:2, Insightful)
I've recently made the decision to only buy CDs second-hand if at all.
Don't really care how new CD sales do, since I won't be giving my money directly to the record companies...
(Yes I know I am still supporting the industry, and have indirectly paid for the CD by increasing 2nd hand sales, but you get the point...)
I hate to say it (Score:5, Insightful)
Simon.
Re:I hate to say it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I hate to say it (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're wrong. Since file sharing has been going on for years now, it's basically a constant factor.
The fact that CD sales have increased doesn't say anything one way or the other about whether file sharing impacts CD sales. File sharing has been going on, basically the same, for the last year or two... it's much more clear that there have been changes in the economy over the last year. Occam's razor, anyone?
Also, file "swapping" is not an accurate term, since the files are being copied. To swap usually implies that a physical object is transferred from point A to point B --- not that a duplicate is made and sent to point B, while the original remains at point A.
Re:I hate to say it (Score:3, Insightful)
In 2001, our company had to fire 100's of people after huge sale dropoffs. We were simply unable to blame it on pirates, and not big enough to make a national political campaign out of it.
Re:I hate to say it (Score:2)
Even further (the ultimate sin): anti capitalistic terrorism.
Re:I hate to say it (Score:3, Insightful)
Or the ultimate ultimate result: people enjoying music.
Re:I hate to say it (Score:2)
Re:I hate to say it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate to say it (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe music quality has improved? Or at least, more people like the music being created...
De gustibus non disputandum est. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't argue over taste.
I think a better way to express this is that the normal ways of marketing music don't promote enough product diversity. This is especially so here in the good ole USA, where unless you are lucky enough to live in a town with a plethora of college stations, the radio stations are own by a tiny handful of companies and have virtually the same format.
If most people aren't particularly interested in what is played on those stations, then most people aren't going to go out and buy music.
So, how are we, the silent majority, going to find music we like, and more importantly from the industry's point of view, are willing to shell out money for?
The problem for the recording industry is that they don't know how to market to the vast majority of people. Probably if you segmented their business, they make a tiny bit of money out of a fair number of songs, and a huge amount of money out of a small number of hits. They're focused on the hits, but the long term growth potential is in expanding the customer base for music. That's a lot harder.
P2p is a double edged sword. It really increases the market for music, but it undermines the revenues. Most importantly it kills the hit revenue model that's the industry cash cow. If I were to put together a solution for the industry to survive and grow, I'd get it out of the business of attacking its customers and do something like this: promote convenient online retail models like iTunes, and promote a healthy webcasting environment with a low cost of entry for webcasters. In other words, you want some college student in his dorm to be able create a hit webcasting service that will promote tons of your music, then you want his listeners to be able to buy that music easily.
This would be an overall win-win. Prices would drop, but volumes would increas so there was a lot more money entering the system.
Re:De gustibus non disputandum est. (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean "owned by ONE company (Clear Channel) and have EXACTLY the same format."
Re:I hate to say it (Score:2)
Re:I hate to say it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I hate to say it (Score:2)
Wow, she bought enough CDs to make the ARIA profitable? She must have blown every cent she had! Speaking of blows, heard any of her albums?
RIAA will counter.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact they won't admit that there are millions of casual listeners who may like a piece of music, but not like it enough to buy it.
Re:RIAA will counter.... (Score:5, Interesting)
As long as I can listen to the radio for free (cost to end user) I'll just assume that music is free - after all - they give it away over the airwaves!
P2P is the new radio - it's advertising - get used to it! Adapt to it - make money off concerts perhaps, or writing music for films, or TV? Or why not be a true artist and not make a dime off your music, but work for a living to pay for your expensive hobby and idulgence.
There's more than enough recorded music created so that you could listent to new stuff all you life and not hear something repeated. Why should we pay for something "new" which is just old and recycled?
Actually Radio stations pay to play (Score:2)
Re:Actually Radio stations pay to play (Score:2)
Re:RIAA will counter.... (Score:5, Interesting)
For that reason, we've been toying with the idea of sending non-riaa'ed music on air. Letting "indie" musicians have their music braodcast for free, and we don't pay them either. Mutually beneficient. The local norwegian "riaa" was extremely sceptical when i asked them about this, and they didn't really beleive me that there are in fact musicians out there that don't register their music to RIAA etc for royalties. I've had a couple of dealings with these people as it's part of my job, and to be honest, they scare me a bit when it comes to their views on copyright.
Re:RIAA will counter.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course, as you point out, if I could buy music as cheaply as your radio station can, there'd be no need for downloading music for free! Turning your figures around the other way, if 20,000 people can listen to a CD (lasts about an hour) for $2, could one person listen to a CD 20,000 times for $2? No - a CD costs $10 -$15 - $20 dollars to buy for as many listens as you want, but I be
Re:RIAA will counter.... (Score:3, Insightful)
You may find that you have to play 100% independent music to become ASCAP free (or whatever the norwegian alternative is for the royalty collection). I am pretty sure that is the case with online-radio streaming (which has it's own rules, I know... so may not apply with air-waves at
Re:RIAA will counter.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:RIAA will counter.... (Score:3, Insightful)
To be honest (Score:5, Interesting)
The point is that until they make cd's a reasonable price compared to their production and distribution costs (please start your rant engines now ladies and gentlemen) and stop trying to make them more attractive with all sorts of cr@p on them that stops them working in most players then the invitation is not there to buy CD's in the numbers that i used to (maybe 30 vinyl ablums and maybe 20 cd's a month)
I know that this sounds like a rant but its what i feel
Re:To be honest (Score:3, Funny)
Re:To be honest (Score:2)
I dont use a car so there is no need for it to go out of the house really, all other tunes are stored on the computer. And trust me when I play my music you can hear it all through the house
Re:To be honest (Score:2)
Isn't that technically illegal to make MP3s of albums you already own? Or is that just CDs? Or maybe I could just notice that you have a
Re:To be honest (Score:3, Informative)
Re:To be honest (Score:3, Informative)
However, some modern reco
Re:To be honest (Score:2)
There are no spelling mistakes just uncaptured bugs....
thank you for unclenching your buttocks
Re:To be honest (Score:3, Funny)
Uhhh, dude, he already lost all credibility when he wrote...
Re:To be honest (Score:2)
But I object to your amusing characterisation of vinyl being hiss, crackle, pop, repeat.
As for "Fidelity be dammed" - there is no fidelity. After recently attending a classical recording session, and hea
Re:To be honest (Score:2)
What do you use to think? What do you use to feel? Ostensibly, your brain on both. Are you a being, or are you just a collection of cells, tissue, and microorganisms? When you say "I think," you are stating an opinion which, IOW, is how you feel. They are exactly the same, semantic troll.
Better music (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumers are not just mindless fools who dumbly follow economic up and downturns: they are downloading more AND buying more CDs
Re:Better music (Score:2, Funny)
Come now. no need to be silly.
Fire sharing is good for the record industry (Score:4, Insightful)
The other reason for more sales would be online music shops that keep prices low. However as soon as you go into a high street shop the prices are rediculous for none chart stuff! You looking at 16GBP - 18GBP for a single studio album - this is the record industrys problem else where in the world OTT prices!
Re:Fire sharing is good for the record industry (Score:5, Insightful)
I do the same thing, and prices on CDs are actually very low in Canada.
I don't like to get a CD and find only one song I like. If I do, I won't buy another CD for months.
With Kazaa or Limewire, I can download a few songs and see what I think of the band. This is why I've been willing to buy Offspring, Collective Soul, Dr. Hook, Huey Lewis, Matchbox 20's new album, Otis Redding, Rush... and why I'm currently looking for The Odds (they were out of stock here, because their lead singer toured recently) and The Traveling Wilburys (out of stock since the 1990s).
Go ahead and make fun of some of the bands I like. It's certainly a weird mix! The point is that I know I like these bands, because I've heard enough songs by them.
Re:Fire sharing is good for the record industry (Score:5, Interesting)
The price here really is the issue. Not only the fact that it's GBP15+ per album, it's the fact that within 6-12 months it's often dipped to just below the GPB10 mark.
I don't think the companies realise quite how much the high prices are hated. The post-Christmas sales bring prices down to what most people are generally prepared to pay. if this wasn't true, the places wouldn't be quite so damn packed at the time.
With prices that high, the only way you're going to buy the album is either if you're a die-hard fan of the band or artist, or if you've already heard the album. 'Cos there's no way I'm spending over a tenner on a blind music purchase.
And currently the only cheap way of previewing music is by downloading from the internet. Certianly it's the only way to find out if a band's non-radio-played tracks are any good.
And even then, so many times I've held off on buying an album (whether I have it on MP3 or not...) until the price has dropped. if the price doesn't go down, I spend my money on a different artist instead.
TiggsPeer to Peer Economy (Score:5, Interesting)
If my theory holds good, this news item will not prevent them from using legal strong-arm tactics - they will fight to retain their market share.
Re:Peer to Peer Economy (Score:5, Insightful)
You're probably right here. Whether legal or illegal, downloads of music can enable you to cut out the middle-man - at least to an extent anyway.
This is great news for musicians and also for music-lovers.
However, understandably, the companies whose strength and profits come from a business model built around being the middle-man owing to lack of infrastructure to do without one are less than enthusiastic about the prospect.
They want their market-share. Fair enough.
TiggsThey work for their market-share. Fair enough. But the work they're doing is based on an old paradigm that's fast becoming irrelevant - or in trying to keep the status quo based on an increasingly-obsolete tech-level.
But their market-share is based on being a middle-man in a world where the middle-man is seen as less relevant. The Internet makes it easier to do things with less (visible) intermediate assistance.
Re:Peer to Peer Economy (Score:2)
Re:Peer to Peer Economy (Score:2)
Courtney Love agrees with you. The fear of the gate-keepers is that someone will knock down the back wall: that physical reproduction costs will become (have become) so cheap that artists can communicate directly with audiance, without a cost-of-entry prohibition dictated by physical manufacturing and distribution costs. This will remove the need for Capex-rich gat
Slashdot spin (Score:5, Interesting)
First we have situation (a), where the total CD sales increase, as in this article. Slashdot routinely cliams this as very strong evidence that copying of music actually helps sales. (References: [1] [slashdot.org], [2] [slashdot.org], [3]). [slashdot.org]
But in situation (b), when CD sales fall, [slashdot.org] the Slashdot editors suddenly forget the strong casual link that they'd earlier claimed, and declare that this must be due to a poor economy or other non-file-sharing factors.
My question is: how can you rely on a poor economy to explain case (b), while blatantly ignoring the positive effects of a booming economy on case (a)?
Don't get me wrong... I download mp3s all the time, and quite a few of them are not legit. I think copyright is royally screwed up.
But I'm not going to play with the facts to try to claim that my downloading activities actually help the recording industry. That's just bullshit.
Re:Slashdot spin (Score:2, Funny)
I am.
Re:Slashdot spin (Score:3, Insightful)
File sharing can help or hurt CD sales of mediocre music.
File sharing hurts CD sales of bad music.
Re:Slashdot spin (Score:2)
I've only bought 10 casettes in my life (last time around 1990, all of them pirated anyway) and no music CDs/DVDs. I've bought some movies on VHS (mostly pirated) or CDs (all pirated) and I go to movie theatres sometimes (rarely). Other than that, I turn to P2P for all my movie needs. But frankly, I don't care about movie or music in
Just heard on NPR... (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe.. (Score:4, Funny)
Personal experience makes me say "Damn straight!" (Score:5, Interesting)
After getting a credit card, I regularly buy their records over the net. Their music has also made me interested in other Irish music, which I buy (Dubliners, Clancy brothers, Christy Moore, etc. etc), most of which is unavailable in my country.
The bottom line is that i have spent a whole lot more money *because* of p2p, than had I bought all the songs I've downloaded, which I wouldn't have anyhow, because most of it isn't good enough to be worth my money.
No news for Kazaa! (Score:5, Insightful)
The anti-piracy argument assumes that consumers have elastic wallets but this is simply wrong, and trying to say that p2p increases appetite for music is just entering into a falacious discussion.
The music industry should take an example from the movie industry, which is making record profits from DVD sales. Product, product, product. Make it amazing. Make it collectible. Make it rich. People _will_ buy it, when they can't.
Australia is a boom market for music most probably because the boom in house prices makes everyone feel afluent. Wait until the house market collapses, and wow! the music market will follow.
No news for Kazaa! at all, I'd say.
Re:No news for Kazaa! (Score:2)
Of course it doesn't increase the appetite for music. however, it does (or at least can) increase one's chances of finding stuff that actually interests you.
I don't like more music than I did before finding P2P, but I have found more of the kind of music that I already did (or would) like. And that's the key here.
I buy games. I buy music. (Score:2, Funny)
Responsible Downloading (Score:3, Interesting)
in fact, i have 'discovered' several bands by simply typing their name into KaZaA and subsequently bought their cds.
if the BPI/RIAA/whoever get upset at people downloading whole albums, i an understand it, particularly if they would have bought the album. and that is the problem, they need to work out who is stealing by downloading an album they would otherwise be prepared to buy, and those exploring music by downloading something random they have never heard of before.
last year, i downloaded some Fountains of Wayne tracks, because one of my mates was wearing an FoW t-shirt, and i liked their name. i liked the music. so did my girlfriend, and some of my housemates. i bought a couple of their albums, as did a house mate, and we saw them on tour.
we would never have done any of this if i hadn't downloaded the original tracks.
can someone please explain how (at least in the long-run) i/we damaged the music industry by this horrific infringement of copyright?
Re:Responsible Downloading (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. But you have to follow RIAA-logic on this one (kinda like the equivalent of 420 cd-burners...). The explanation is easy, you just need to read any RIAA-statement with fine print.
Okey, here goes. You caused a potential sales-loss. When you downloaded the music (instead just of buying in the first place), you could have disliked the music and left it at that.
Had you bought the cd in the first place, and then disliked it, the RIAA would still make money. P2P prevents this collosal source of revenue.
All new pop-releases seems based on this ingenious system. And any downloading of (especcialy crappy) music causes a potential sales-loss.
Repeat after me, potential sales loss. This is a "real" thing, btw.
Now you got it?
Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
What is it about new technology... (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems that the instant reaction by so many, including the music industry, is to make an enemy of something which could so easily be a potential friend.
The music industry instantly took a dislike to the filesharing apps and p2p networks - why? Because they were causing lost sales...certainly. But so often in this day and age, music (and other) companies fail to see the bigger picture. Loss of sales isn't the only thing that p2p networks cause.
Why don't they also look at p2p networks as massive, global advertising? And not only that, massive, global free advertising. Why does the thing that could help you so much instantly have to be rejected?
One could hark back to the days of the first submarine - another invention widely regarded as counter-productive as an example. You can almost hear them saying "A boat that's designed to sink? You're insane!" The fact that these "sinking boats" would become massively useful, widely used, and fulfil their great potential (albeit a potential to blow people up) was largely ignored.
And we have the same today. In the form of global, user-viewable, massively-multi-user (to coin a phrase) free advertising. I never understand why knee-jerk reactions such as "it's losing us sales, it's bad, kill kill kill, sue sue sue", having been shown to be so often counter-productive in the past, can't be avoided, and the full potential realised.
Re:What is it about new technology... (Score:2)
Stop trying to legitimise it (Score:2, Insightful)
ARIA might not be as crazy as the RIAA ^.^ (Score:2, Interesting)
And in other news... (Score:3, Interesting)
But that doesn't make murder any more right or palatable, does it?
The ends do not justify copyright violation - although it may make the recording industry think twice about cracking down too hard on it.
Nah, that would mean they'd be thinking intelligently.
It is about suits, iTunes and new artists (Score:3, Insightful)
But one other thing has changed - $1 song downloads. The rise of iTunes and other $1 per song services demonstrate what everyone knew and the RIAA kept denying. If users have choice and can buy songs they want at a reasonable price and conveniently, they will buy and not steal. The record industry finally listened to the customers and adopted new business models and surprise, customrs responded by buying more music.
We also have to consider that the record industry is a cyclical business. There are years with little new and interesting music. In years where the new product is crap, people don't buy. Record companies, like TV channels, see some trend and then try to find 1000 ways to clone it, because cloning is easier than creating. Nora Jones is selling a lot of albums. She is original. Yet another gangster rap guy wearing baggy pants and spewing profanity and hate is just boring! We buy new and interesting not boring.
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (Score:2, Insightful)
Same argument w/ original radio (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Same argument w/ original radio (Score:3, Insightful)
If I listened to radio in the 20's I would really have had no way to record the broadcast unless I was hella rich, and very technically astute (very few people had the ability to actually make recordings back then).
But now, I can take that mp3 and hand it off to millions of other people.
The only way tha
Acronyms (Score:3, Funny)
Bad news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would rising sales of obsolete technology and non-biodegradable plastic discs be good news for anyone?
In other news:
Bio-energy research increases fossil fuel consumption! Everybody wins!!
The sooner CD:s, DVD:s and all other tangible intangibles fall into the Eternal Pit Of Ridicule and Oblivion, the better.
what they are really afraid of... (Score:2)
unless Im buying fertilizer...
Even causation doesnt help Legal issues (Score:2, Informative)
This doesn't necessarily help Kazaa because the legal precedent is there with radio play that the artists and their agents MUST be reimbursed. Using the argument of 'piracy helps sales' offers no
Look, it's simple (Score:5, Funny)
When the economy is good, fileswapping increases the sale of CDs.
When the economy is bad, fileswapping decreases the sale of CDs.
Of course, you could substitute "herding unicorns" for "fileswapping" in the two sentences above and still arrive at the same conclusion.
Some do, some don't (Score:2, Interesting)
I vaguely recollect:
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't.
Ernest (1st Baron) Rutherford (1871-1937)
No, no, no, you've got it all wrong (Score:2)
It's been said before ... but iTunes, Napster ... (Score:3, Insightful)
From 1999, until approximately summer 2003, the sole way I searched for new music was by using LimeWire (a java client for Kazaa and others).
The only way I could information (quickly) about a song was to do such a search.
For example: Music from Mitsubishi Commercials. You type "mitsubishi commercial" into LimeWire - comes right up - you type "mitsubishi commercial" into iTunes - you get "The iTunes Music Store contains 0 records for your search, please try again."
Now, this relates to CD sales in that, if I found the song, and liked it, I went out and bought it, sometimes getting them from iTunes (at least within the past year).
So file sharing DOES translate into physical sales - I'm SURE I'm not the only one or even in the minority of users who do this.
oh great. (Score:3, Insightful)
Some of us don't steal software and music and why should those few of us that don't engage in theft have to pay for the sins of the many.
Collective punishment is WRONG..
It must be because of file sharing... (Score:2)
Whatever you want (Score:2, Interesting)
CD sales have doubled (Score:2, Funny)
is it just me, (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, I don't believe the RIAA either when they say that file sharing is the reason sales are down. But then again, I thought most slashdotters felt the same way. Why is the RIAA (rightfully) chastised for false cause in that argument, yet slashdot publishes a story with the same logical error and people lap it up?
Simply because filesharing is out there now, and record sales are up in Australia, doesn't mean filesharing caused the increase. What will they say a year from now, if sales suddenly slump? Certainly not "filesharing killed Australian music sales".
Re:Where's the causality? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the entire point is that to claim that P2P is causing increased sales is at least as defensible a position as the record industry's continual complaints over the last few years that P2P was the cause of decreasing sales.
It's actually pretty obvious from reading the article that the reason for increased sales was a decrease in prices, and a less pessimistic economy. People felt they were getting more value for money, and thus bought 8% more units (resuitling in a 2% higher gross after the price reduction was taken into account). But given that the record industry has been ignoring the fact that they were selling an overpriced product in a depressed economy, and have been blaming their downturn on file-sharing instead, it is perfectly justifiable to turn that argument around and assume that any increase in sales is attributable to the same force.
The world makes a great deal more sense if you don't go around taking everything you read literally.
Charles Miller
Re:File sharing does NOT increase sales... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, on a larger level independent labels are selling a lot more music because people actually have an ability to hear their music. For the first time ever radio isn't the only means to hear new music!
The main problem facing any music artist is not peer-to-peer, it's lack of exposure. Peer-to-peer helps those artists who cannot get exposure through normal means, e.g., radio and MTV. Peer-to-peer only hurts those relevantly huge stars that get tons of exposure, and the bottom line of major record labels who relies on huge stars.