The File Sharing Report 306
An anonymous reader writes "In July, Slashdot posted an article about the file sharing experiment, which was a database where users could report items they've purchased as a result of file sharing. The author has completed the experiment and written a report outlining the results. He offers the philosophy that file sharing is a result of the industry's failure to meet the business models demanded by today's consumer, and provides many suggestions to the various industries on how to take advantage of the market emerging from file sharing to generate revenue."
coral link (Score:3, Informative)
Re:coral link (Score:2, Interesting)
Files they've just taken and not bought or deleted (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:5, Insightful)
now for a little redundant ranting...Tapes, cd's, minidiscs, vinyl albums... its all THE SAME thing.. a little different in quality or size or portability... But very similar to each other.
And on that note why dont they at the very, very least
Has there ever been a time when you were listening to something and you were like wow, I wish I could turn the other instruments off and just listen to the piano here, or just listen to the singing there, or just listen to the background vocals there... Why dont they make some dvd-a discs that let you do that? That'd be *COOL*!!!
Or make it so that when you buy a disc it includes a code that lets you go to the web and...guarantees that since your a buyer of this disc the band will let you ask them a couple questions which they promise to respond to.. Or they will grab their digital camera, take a pic *just for you* and send it. I'd pay a few extra dollars on top of a cd's usual cost for that, and I think any big fan of a band would too...
Even better would be that you dont *hafta* pay, but if you go to their web site and enter the code, you get the ability to pay the band a few dollars directly, for that one time specialty (that way the band gets the money instead of it being filtered through retailer, distributor, label, etc).. I'D BE ALL OVER THAT SHIT!!!
Instead we just get some cd-audio disc thats the same exact thing as I can just have in my hands without having to move in 5mins by using bit-torrent...It's not a moral issue here people.. Its a common-sense issue.
If mcdonalds sold a pasta dish that was as good as the olive garden, and was an exact copy... Yet offered it for half the price and delivered it to you for free... well shit... it might be a copy but damn.. thats some convenience... If corporations are allowed to make decisions based on economics not morals.. then I get to make decisions based on economics not morals when I'm dealing with corporations... fair.
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:3, Interesting)
Even better would be that you dont *hafta* pay, but if you go to their web site and enter the code, you get the ability to pay the band a few dollars directly, for that one time specialty (that way the band gets the money instead of it being filtered thro
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:2)
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:5, Insightful)
wow, I just wanted to re-iterate this. If i wasn't busy whoring my project I would make this my sig. Really, it is one of those things you read that kinda give you the shivers becaue they are so friggin right.
P.S. check out Crackpot [guiltfreep2p.com] They are really good, on an independent label and give away songs for free hehehe.
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:3, Insightful)
wow, I just wanted to re-iterate this. If i wasn't busy whoring my project I would make this my sig. Really, it is one of those things you read that kinda give you the shivers becaue they are so friggin right.
Yeah, it had the same effect on me too. It kind of summed up some vague thought that's been lurking at the back of m
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a sub-120 character version: *Ahem*
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:5, Interesting)
What about it? Unless they stole the CDs to get those rips, it costs no one a penny except the guy who bought the hard drive and the bandwidth.
How much of their music do they actually own?
Unless they are a music publisher, none of it. You think those CDs you bought means you "own" that music?
You bought a CD. You can sell the CD. The CD only happens to contain the music - scratch it so it doesn't play, then see how much you can get for it.
Now, where there is no tangible good, there is no "loss" and no ability to deprive others - and, therefore, no ownership. As someone who just lost about 40GB of music to the brain-dead mandrake partition manager, I can personally attest to this - the "loss" was entirely my own.
My friends like to tell me that they wouldn't have bought the CD anyway, so downloading it doesn't hurt anybody. This may be true in some cases, but I think most of the time people just decide that they wouldn't have bought it post download.
I'm sorry you missed this, because that's the whole freaking point!.
Think about that part again...
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:3, Insightful)
No tangable loss my ass.
No. See, loss means something that you once had, and now don't. For instance, if you had a pony, and it died at some point, you lost that pony.
If you sung a little song that you thought might bring you the cash to buy a pony in the future, but everyone "stole" your song before you could buy the horsemeat, well, you didn't "lose" the pony - you never had it. As for the song, well, you were gambling a bit. It is hard to say that me and my buddy flickering flashlights at someone
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a singularly bad comparison when dealing with IP. To build a house, you need to hire workers and buy materials FOR EACH HOUSE. When selling copies of a book or record, you pay the author or songwriter/artist to create the work, and then per unit for duplication costs.
In the case of the house, once you get paid, that's the end of the contract between the workers and you. In the case of IP, once the initial costs of paying off the author/artist are recouped, YOU CAN STILL PROFIT FROM THE MATERIAL, assuming that there is still a market for it.
So why are the publishers and recording studios (not to mention the movie studios) complaining, and what exactly are they complaining about? They're complaining because they can no longer recoup their costs in the same amount of time that they used to, and that running up their advertising and promotion tab does not deliver the corresponding boost in sales that it once did.
To illustrate, in the movie industry, the rule of thumb is that a movie must gross 3 times its production cost at the box office, IN ORDER TO BREAK EVEN. If your movie cost $100 to make (not uncommon, if it is a large production with stars and directors pulling in $10-$15 million a piece, with special effects), P&A (prints and advertising) at $40-60 million, it will need to take in AT LEAST $300 at the box office to be considered a success (because the studios only get half of the box office - the theatres get the other half, nominally anyways.) Break-even is good because there's always the ancillary markets (paytv/cable/satellite/DVD/syndication) to deliver future profits.
So what is the solution to this? The model needs to change - either the market for their product isn't as big as they think it is (meaning they need to scale back promotions, increase per-unit pricing), or they need to relax their timeframe on ROI (return on investment) - something that is hard to do in cases where the producers are using borrowed money to to push an act, or sell a movie, they need to lower per-unit pricing in order to expand the market (I have no idea what the demand and supply curves are like for music/movies/books), and compete against alternatives, OR they need to find new ways of repackaging and reselling content to different markets.
To illustrate one way of selling old material, look at Baen Books. There's a lot of old paperbacks that came out years ago that Baen is repackaging into "Mega Book" or omnibus editions. Not only is Baen filling a market need (because a lot of this material has long since gone out of print), but they are providing e-book editions in addition to the dead-tree hardcover editions. The authors of these works got paid a long time ago, and now, they're getting paid again.
Contrast this to record companies, who agressively push new acts (which are expensive, bland, and short-lived), when they're sitting on a gold mine of existing material that can be repackaged (compilations, licensing), for both CD, radio (I cannot, for the life of me, understand why record companies didn't jump on the idea of broadcasting theme stations using streaming media, and start cutting the radio stations out of the loop), and digital (ie, iTunes.) This is bizzare, because record companies made money hand over fist repackaging their libraries first for tape during the transition from 33rpms to LP records, LPs to cassette tape, and cassette tape to CDs. Why stop now?
Going back to the house labor vs. materials argument, hiring somebody to build a house for you is completely different from buying a mass-produced good. You're not dealing on a one-to-one basis with the laborer, but buying something someone produced in mass quantities, speculatively relying on the market to buy them. If more goods are produced than there is want, is it stealing when people decide not to buy those goods at the same prices that the prior buyers
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:3, Interesting)
Not even close. The longer a theater runs a particular movie the more of the box office they get to keep but even after weeks the studios still get over 90%. Movies are loss leaders, for the theater, that they use to get people into what is really a popcorn store.
"...repackaging their libraries first for tape during the transition from 33rpms to LP records, LPs to cassette tape, and cassette tap
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:2)
"I don't think this means that they are lying when they say they wouldn't have bought it."
The thing is, this becomes a tautology. When paying for something becomes optional, it becomes easier and easier to opt not to pay for it. The more comfortable one gets with "previewing" music via P2P in lieu of buying it, "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" becomes easier to say. It becomes shorthand for "I wouldn't have bought it because I can get it for free."
Nothing wrong with that (Score:2)
The argument about "everything is free and no one pays" is utterly stupid and a lame duck. Besides the people who have made an overt decision to boycott this industry, I personally don't know a single person who never buys music they like. Everyone I know downloads music and, so far as I can tell, not one of them has actually boycotted the industry or never b
Re:Nothing wrong with that (Score:2)
"If it means "this is ok but I wouldn't buy it" then so what? At least the listener is going to be that much more likely to "preview" the next release."
Maybe I've misunderstood your point, but the point I was making is that it becomes shorthand for "This is okay but I wouldn't buy it because I can get it for free."
"Perhaps a small sampling, but I doubt anyone reading this can point to a single person they know who never buys but downloads large amounts of media."
This isn't the politically correct
morality in laissez faire (Score:2)
"The world economy" has reduced all our laws to the lowest common denominator. It has resulted in our nation passing
silly rabbi... (Score:3, Interesting)
You through? The tell me what makes it "their music" - and who "they" be? The record execs? Surely you aren't arguing that - those guys couldn't invent their way out of an inflatable pool.
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:4, Insightful)
Nowadays, I go onto Suprnova.org or shareaza, and I can find millions of different works, and I always wonder how many of them are still under copyright, of if this vast library of data will ever be opened up to everyone. Sure, it's illegal, but not necissarily immoral. Everyone seems to think corporations have a right to profit, but nobody ever wonders why corporations have an such an insatiable thirst for money that they'd work to digitally, or physically, enslave people.
Frankly, if mickey mouse wasn't still under copyright, as well as nearly every other single great american book, novel, movie, ect, I'd change my tune some. Companies have a stranglehold on information nowadays, one that the design of the internet is facilitating the destruction of. The MPAA and RIAA are about control, they are cults worshipping the false god of money. What is the best way to make money? Enslavement. If they were to innovate and change their business models and be constructive to society, would they then be worshipping money and making as much as they might be able to if something like the Induce act passed, or copyright was indeed extended forever?
I look on P2P apps, and I wonder what they'd be like without infinite copyright but a more logical system in place. Can any of you greedy idiots imagine that? Every single movie ever made, home video's, pictures, games. Bands from 50 years ago could become top hits today. Want to learn calculus? There are already over 20 titles on p2p apps, but there could be 100. Convert a schools book budget into the computer budget; every student gets a laptop (not even a new one, an older P2 with 386 megs of memory running win2k or linux).
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:2)
As for making a lot of money, I don't see it as a bad thing to make a lot of money. I see it as a bad thing to have too much money, or to make too much money. If you made a million in a year, that's ok. If you make 10 billion a month, that's ba
Re:Files they've just taken and not bought or dele (Score:5, Funny)
I also feel really bad for the RIAA. They are just losing so much money to my unauthorized listening. So I send them money. First, I tried to count the songs and send them $0.10 per listening, but it got overwhelming.
So, I started just sending my pay check directly to them. But then I got kicked out of my apartment and lost my job because I never washed my clothes.
But now I get an unemployment check and a welfare check, and I just send these directly to the RIAA. The poor guys, they're really hurting these days.
It's getting colder outside now, but I'm warmed on the inside knowing that the executives at the RIAA are getting their due and are no longer being harmed by my illicit listening activities.
And here's the cool part, we can all do it!
Here's the address to send the checks. I always include a note apologizing for taking out the cost of postage. I know I'm hurting an artists, but I can only do so much.
RIAA
1330 Connecticut Ave N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036
One more recent trend... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2)
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2)
Um, I hate waiting in the line at the bank too. That is why I like ATMs, debt cards, credit cards and online banking. That solves the problem well enough, that I only have to physically visit a bank once a year or so.
But grandparent truly has the problem, that (s)he can't simply go out and buy a DVD instead without waiting few months for its release first.
I actually really feel sympathic for t
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but when I must choose between the large, heartless, monopolisitc corporation and an individual, I'm going to pick the individual no matter what the crime they stand accused of. All of this contreversy is related to the dilema in American politics: Group rights/corporate rights vs. personal rights. There used to be a day when corporations carried a larger burden of taxes than families. That ended around the time of Reaganomics, when families started to pay a larger percentage of taxes than corporations. Since that time, we've seen a politicians take rights away from people to make corporate life easier. The DMCA added few new laws and protections. It just made enforcement easier, at the expense of personal rights and privacy. It makes me seriously question who is lazier, the downloader or the people charged with protecting copyrights.
Every person who downloads a song is protesting, regardless if they know what message they are sending. People are voicing their complaints about an aging business model that produces merchandise of questionable quality. If yoiu buy a CD that has 1 or 2 good tracks and the rest is crap, you can't return it. Almost any other type of merchandise can be returned if it doesn't meet the customers needs. You also can't send in a damaged CD and get a new one for the cost of the medium and S&H. You have to go out and buy a new one at full price, which means that you have two licenses but one medium. They are also protesting unfair practices that buy politicians and remove personal rights (like fair use) and privacy. Instead of seeing the writing on the wall, the music industry has decided to sue thousands to prove a point. They are proving that, in America, it is cheaper to settle than to defend yourself. They are proving that business can force consumers to stay within a decades old business plan to spare the pain trouble of evolving. They are proving that the idea of the free market is inferior to a planned economy. They have proven that you don't need to listen to your customers as long as you have lawyers.
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2)
To make your lame analogy even close to correct, what you meant to say was you XEROXED they money of little old ladies (or more correctly, xeroxed the money of large mafia hit-men), allowing those women to use thier money, but still allowing you a copy.
Otherwise, what you are saying is that when I download a copy of a song, I am now the ABSOLUT
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:3, Insightful)
What the fuck happened to you?
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2)
That a good question. You'd better believe that the executives won't take a hit. In the recording industry, image is everything and is to be considered a business expense. There is a legitimate reason they need that personal jet, multimillion dollar huose, monthly new car, and ten thousand dollar a day coke habbit.
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:3, Insightful)
It costs them time and effort (and the potential to get pregnant or contract an STD). When the day comes that a prostitute can have sex with an infinite number of men at once, with no additional effort, and she doesn't even have to know that it's happening, then maybe your analogy might make a little sense.
Yeah, I know, I'm responding to a guy named "irc.goatse.cx troll," but I figured that some
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2)
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:3, Interesting)
Movie started at 9:20 according to the theatre. I LEFT at 11:40. That's 2:20 of my life, and the movie was only 90 minutes of that, if I'm not mistaken. I seriously was so bored by the time the movie started I couldn't concentrate on anything but the shooting.
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2)
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well done! You actually had me for a second! Talk about EXCELLENT trolling... it wasn't until I noticed the "uh," did I catch the sarcasm!
I was going to say something like "So, you'd rather sit and wait through 6 hours of downloading torrents than just show up 10 minutes late to the movie?" or "What a crock of crap. I can't believe you'd stoop this low and stand on ground this weak to justify your intent to violate copyrights!".
But, it'
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2)
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:3, Insightful)
I also do not appreciate the increasing ads at the same time as increasing ticket prices. The food is too expensive to buy anymore as well. The theatre experience as a whole has degraded significantly.
What I am about to say to you might blow your mind: Perhaps if you weigh the experience of a theater with the current prices, ads, etc, versus downloading it and watching it in your own
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2)
If you don't agree with certain things, vote with your moolah. Go rent it if you have HAVE to. Go buy it on VHS/VCD/DVD or whatever. But if you don't like watching the theatre ads, it still doesn't give
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2, Funny)
one large popcorn - $5.00
two extra large cokes - $7.00
My husband sneaking a hip flask of rum into the theater for the coke - Priceless.
Re:One more recent trend... (Score:2)
I swear, if it gets much worse I'm going to seriously start thinking about an EDL-type solution that can remove the ads by overlaying something generic. e.g. In Castaway, all the annoying 'FedEx' branding would become 'ACME', or in BladeRunner (*oh no! not that sacred cow!*) the giant Coke sign would become some generic japanese symbol.
Of course, it wo
I've purchased 10 albums due to file sharing (Score:4, Interesting)
speaking of stealing... (Score:2)
Man, did your momma have any offspring that can think for themselves?
yabbut... (Score:2)
Errrmm... I mean, unless you're an international corporation. Then exploiting cost loopholes and licensing structures is just free market economics.
steal this (Score:2)
It's either a "free world economy" or it isn't. You can parrot the corporations all you like - your arguments will then remain just as irrational and moot.
Problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Greed blinds all (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true, but the music/movie/computer software industries are unable to grasp that concept. They are so consumed with greed, so consumed with an unquenchable thrist for more money -- even when they are already taking in record profits -- that they believe there is only one way to do business:
An iron-fisted, totalitarian control of everything, in a world where there is no such thing as "fair use".
Their thinking is so clouded by a fog of greed that they can't even begin to grasp the idea that selling a good product at a fair price will bring in more money than all the lawsuits and copy protection schemes combined.
Re:Greed blinds all (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Greed blinds all (Score:2)
Re:Greed blinds all (Score:2)
"You forget that few copyrights are held by the person who has created the work."
In the case of music, the people who write the words and music typically own the rights to the music. Often (in the case of the "singer songwriter") this is also the performer.
When a record company pays for the recording, engineering, producing, distributing and marketing of a song, the record company often gets (or shares) copyright of that particular recording of the song. This is so the record company can try to reco
Re:Greed blinds all (Score:2)
"And then there's the greed of the people that don't want to pay for someone else's hard work too, and consider that work "public domain"."
You have nailed it. Many people pirate for the simple reason that they'd rather not pay for something. Naturally, nobody wants to think of themselves as greedy, so it's often cloaked in a veil of social protest -- they are fighting for consumer rights, or fighting an evil organization, and so on. It's perfectly natural to want something for nothing... but this is
Ok (Score:5, Insightful)
And when there is complete disregard for the investments of the companies that worked to make the supply, there is bankruptcy and mass unemployment.
The television industry is obviously benefiting from the consumer's ability to download a few episodes online.
It is doubtful the industry would complain about "a few episodes."
Making the media available in a much more timely fashion may increase revenue.
Agreed. Entertainment companies in particular are the undisputed champions of foot-dragging when it comes to the requests of their markets.
There is a significant market of users who would download software should they find it useful to them, however these same users refuse to pay for software that won't run on their system, is poor quality, or misrepresented.
There is also a very large group of users who refuse to pay for software at all, no matter the price or the quality. Oh, they'll download it and make full use of it, but they will also categorically refuse to contribute a single dollar to the purchase price.
Quality must be paid for. This is no less a fact than any of the other statements in this argument. The economy depends on the ability for artists, producers, retailers and all of their vendors, suppliers, etc. to invest time and money and make a profit on these products.
If there is no demand (demand requires sales) there will be no supply. If there is no money, there will be no products.
Re:Ok (Score:2)
Re:Ok (Score:2)
Yes, this can lead to chaos. It is, however, temporary. Suppliers who need to get $18 an album under the current model can't lower their prices, so they go out of business. But one of thr
Re:Ok (Score:5, Insightful)
But, they also know something else, which apparently you don't. That is, with the production of these media products also comes the production of the desire for them. There's no natural demand for these things: people can get entertainment almost anywhere, at least they are certainly no where near a position where they have to worry about running out of it.
So if they take advantage of Britney Spears and her producers so much that they stop releasing music. Will the filesharers care? No. They'll just listen to something else. If Britney Spears never existed no one would ever want Britney Spears, and they know that. People are happy with whatever entertainment is handed to them. Even in the face of the most insipid productions, they'll consume it. "There's never anything good on t.v." is the eternal complaint, yet everyone still watches it. Why? Because it doesn't matter, it's good enough, and fucking easy to get. So if everyone stole television until driving it's supply into oblivion, they wouldn't care, it sucks anyway. They'd do something else. What did people do before television? Read? Listen to the radio? Maybe go to a play? People weren't dying left, right and center then because of the inexistence of television or Britney Spears and they wouldn't be now. And, with the new information technologies of today, they certainly don't fear a world without television proper.
And most of them certianly don't feel forbidden to take advantage of others for moral reasons. They understand what Nietzsche meant, even if they haven't read him, well enough to know what slave morality is.
Re:Ok (Score:2)
But for your prediction: what about the 'Trusted Computing' everyone is talking about? Do you expect it to be a failure? The RIAA and MPAA and Microsoft and Intel all seem quite keen on it; they obviously see it as feasible. Would you expect consumers to react against it?
I think the majority would take it. With only a tiny minority moving over to the indie markets that exist now.
Propelled by digital media (Score:2, Interesting)
* For better quality recordings
* For a medium they can easily watch on their TV
* To avoid lengthy downloads
* To own the complete set
* The medium became available
This will not apply with the
Re:Propelled by digital media (Score:2)
We already have the speeds for this! It is the availibility and reliability that is lacking. If content providers would realize they are selling a service intead of a product they would provide access to the full season at the properly commoditized price and people would buy it.
File Share as an Adversting Channel (Score:2)
File sharing works as a backdoor viral type of advertising...It is more more effective than traditional advertising because the people doing it pretend that they are adbusters. Opening disparaging ads increases the effectiveness of one's message...increasing sales.
File sharing should be thought of as an ad source...just one of those ad channels that you didn't join willingly...but can be lucr
Re:File Share as an Adversting Channel (Score:2)
I personally reject everything that is obvious as bourgeois [reference.com] and petty
or this...
I personally reject everything that is obvious as bourgeoise [reference.com] and pretty
probably the latter right;)
merde!
other applications (Score:2, Insightful)
* Gives them time to let the music grow on them
People make these demans about $15 cds, but there are software packages out that that cost $500 plus where the same demand applies.
Alias has understood these demands and released the PLE (personal learning edition) where people can use an impressive (slightly crippled) version of their $2,000 + softw
Re:other applications (Score:2)
Elements? a good starter for photoshop, Adobe Premier LE...
take a look at this page with all these free tryouts [adobe.com]
Acrobat
Adobe Encore DVD
Graphics Server
Adobe Graphics Server
After Effects
Atmosphere
Audition
FrameMaker
GoLive
Illustrator
InCopy
InDesign
PageMa
people are generally honest (Score:2)
Re:people are generally honest (Score:2)
The terms of the sale are set out in advance. If you don't agree to those terms, and the seller isn't willing to negotiate, that doesn't mean you can just take what you want.
Re:people are generally honest (Score:2)
With all due respect... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, maybe I should cut him some slack, since he's just one guy collating the data. But maybe he could cut me some slack by gathering resources commensurate to the size and nature of the sample.
I am not sure I agree (Score:4, Interesting)
Nowadays, however, the Internet has finally broken down even this barrier completely, to the point where we can now distribute intellectual property to the entire world with only a few clicks of a mouse, at virtually ZERO cost. At this point, the ONLY way we can now make intellectual property "scarce" or have any real economic value, is by trying to limit or deprive people of "natural rights" that they otherwise would have.
There are STILL two classes of people in intellectual pursuits: those who create information, and those who consume it. The sooner people realize this, the better. It is high time that we start accepting the idea that we MUST limit the "rights" of consumers if intellectual property is to retain any value at all. Information is may be easy to distribute, but anything that is truly valuable to people is NOT by any means easy to create or find. If we are to make it worth people's while to create music, art, databases, or any other kind of intellectual pursuit, we MUST come up with a way to limit the ability of information consumers to re-distribute such things on their own without payment to the person to created the information.
moron (Score:2)
How about this? we all support speech we like, don't support that we don't like, and let the fucking free market (that thing the entertainment industry likes to spin but doesn't believe in any more than most of us believe in Santa Claus) decide where the money goes.
You need a database created? Fine - if you can get it free, so what? That means I have to come up with some way to add value to it, or I make no money.
Re:I am not sure I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Never.
Economics is about how we distribute scarce resources among unlimited needs and wants. However, information is *NOT* scarce, but you know what is? The time and effort of the creator required to forge a GOOD first instance; THAT is the naturally scarce SERVICE that we should be modeling our new payment systems around in the face of the reality of free-
Re:I am not sure I agree (Score:2)
There's no NEED to artificially limit distribution technology with laws or other technology; such attempts are doomed to fail.
There is still scarcity in the system; scarcity of skilled creation. As long there is a demand for people's creations, and people willing to create, there will be a market. The middle men, who rel
The other side (Score:5, Interesting)
Without that side of the situation also investigated, this "research" is pretty much a bunch of useless self-selected self-reported anecdotes from people who - let's face it - have plenty of motivation to exaggerate how commerce-friendly their activities are.
It's about control... (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting report, and after reading it it seems to me that it was well done and the result may be valid, but the RIAA doesn't care. It's not just about the money, it's about control. Consider that the **AAs are organizations that produce nothing.
They do however control everything they get their greedy little hands on. File sharing isn't just a threat to them because of copyright violations, it's a threat because the media is distributed beyond their control. I'm sure the idea of any piece of content flowing from the artists to the eyes and ears of the public without first passing through their gates is a nightmare for them. After all, with today's technologies, who needs a **AA ?
Justify yourself (Score:2, Informative)
That's all it is... we used Napster because we were cheapskates, not because of some failure by the entertainment industry. If you want legitimate and convenient music downloading, go use ITunes. The solutions exist... you have no more excuses.
So please, be honest with yourselves... there's no moral
Re:Justify yourself (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the killer aps of the Napster age, is the ability to "surf" collections. To basically see what other people who have similar tastes, and to explore then looking for new stuff. Because of the consolidation of radio, that was and still IS the killer app of the P2P age. Community. We all want it.
Re:Justify yourself (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry for the rant... it's frustrating to see article after article of ba
Re:Justify yourself (Score:2)
Re:Justify yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
the music industry needs to get on it and start making entire
Re:Justify yourself (Score:2)
While I do agree that distributing music without the artist's/composer's permission is unethical, if these results support the author's conclusions (we don't know yet, because the actual results haven't been published) the RIAA's strategy really does need to be re-evaluated.
Also, while distributing material without the artist's permission is unethical, there *are* many other ways people can conveniently obtain entertainm
fair and balanced, news at eleven (Score:2)
Proof? I Don't Think So. (Score:2)
I suppose it bears repeating: information goods (music, movies, software, books) are pure public goods [wikipedia.org], and therefore a well-documented case of market failure (for example, demand in this situation will not nec
Re:Proof? I Don't Think So. (Score:2)
That's why it's so fun to watch.
Hardly scientific (Score:2, Insightful)
a) Too cheap
b) Too expensive
And then claiming that the 97% who said they were too expensive is evidence of inflation of international radish prices, and launching an investigation into radish cartels is the wholly justfied.
The 3% who said they were too cheap? Well they're obviously working for the cartels, aren't they.
Compromise Now or Lose Later (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet.
When this technology becomes rock-solid -- that is, when P2P means fast, good, non-malware-downloads -- THAT'S when the *AA will realize their nightmares.
This _is_ coming. They should really stop putting their fingers in the dyke and work out a compromise.
What file sharing has inspired me to buy!! (Score:2)
(cheap) zing.
'Lossy' versions (Score:2)
So, really you arent even downloading the same thing as in the stores.
Thats why people go ahead and buy it, better quality AND you get the extras that come with the cd.. ( plus you support the artist, a little.. RIAA gets most of the purchase )
There are very few cases where it is sampling (Score:5, Interesting)
The reaction of the people I lived with at my dorm when they saw that my music collection was not only legit, but that I had almost as many MP3s from my used CDs as they had taken off of AudioGalaxy was just... shock. I'm not rich, by any stretch of the imagination.
And you know what the irony of it is? Many of these "kids who couldn't buy them anyway" were driving much nicer cars than my 11 year old Honda Accord. It's nothing more than a bunch of rich brats who don't want to spend $10-$15 on a CD so that they can upgrade their beamer, at least around here. I just got Draconian Times by Paradise Lost in the mail today from Amazon's used products market. It cost me $5 before shipping and handling for a total of ~$7.50.
I have even more contempt for the RIAA than most of my geek peers because unlike them, I actually own all of my music that the RIAA wants to control. I didn't get it off of a file sharing network, I bought it either from a store or from the iTMS. That is also why when I bitch about those bastards that older people will actually listen to me. File sharers are free loaders, people like me have paid our dues to the RIAA and are getting shafted anyway.
Dubious value .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Fairplay to the author - that admission of bias was early on, and upfront. However:
Without the author giving stricter criteria here, one is left wondering if data that did not fit with the authors thesis was 'questionable' - it certianally would fly against his expectations, but that does not make it nesecerally invalid. Granted, given it was on here, there was probably a crapflood from the trolls that was justifiably deleted - but a reader cannot be certain it was just crap that was deleted.
There is also a serious flaw in premise with the study.
The latter quote is somewhat opposed to the former. If the value of a film is ephemeral, as the former implies, why do people purchase it? Both cannot be literly true.
The discussion of TV shows suggests there there needs to be a way for people to preview the shows, before purchasing, in order to drive sales. Doesn't the broadcasting of these shows on TV count?
From my reading of the report, the only thing I can draw from it reliably is: that some section of the people who download media later go on to purchase it.
That's not a strong conclusion, and skirts around some far more interesting (although much harder to answear) questions, such as: What proportion of illegal downloads lead to a sale? How many people would have puchased something if they could not have downloaded it, and how does that vary? [0]
In short, I don't feel anymore informed about anything after reading this report.
[0] For example, I think that highly marketed items (e.g. blockbuster films) and essentially not-marketed items (e.g. music from some unknown band) would show a difference here.
Copyright notice (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Copyright notice (Score:2)
One is right, one is wrong (Score:2)
What _I_ want... (Score:2)
But here's the service that I want.
I own a vinyl copy of Big Brother & The Holding Company's classic live album "Cheap Thrills". I do not have the hardware to facilitate ripping the songs to mp3. I think it is quite ethical for me to download songs from that album.
Actually, I want a service where
one sided? (Score:2)
Anyone who thinks no copyright equals no art (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, there are literally hundreds now, and quite a few are well drawn, intricately plotted, creative and imaginative. They publish weekly or more, for free or for "busking" style donations, on the open internet, with no DRM. Some artists make a living that way. Many more do it as a hobby. The number of comics out there just keeps on rising.
Surely this is a strong enough counter-example? Even with zero "business model", art would flourish.
Re:The thing about file sharing..... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not true, it may have taken me a long time to find it but I found a copy of Nasty Magnus (a count basie tune that almost no-one has) when the song is impossible to find anywhere else.
About purchases... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have avoided making purchases in spite of the fact I used to spend - literally - thousands of dollars a year on records, tapes, CDs and DVDs. Through most of my life, in fact, because I'm one of those "artsy" types who likes to have lots of the good stuff around. You think I don't miss my Smashing Pumpkins collection? My Alice Cooper discography? Sgt. Peppers?
You think it doesn't suck boycotting these motherfuckers? You really think none of us are making sacrifices? You think I can't tell the difference in sound between the MP3 rips available most places and the CD? I wish these motherfuckers would pull their heads out of their asses and get it together to the point I didn't feel like a traitor to my ethics (not to mention my Constitution) when I entertain the notion of giving them my money to replace the tangible items I have lost.
Re:Where is the data that supports these conclusio (Score:2)