Challenging Music Downloading Myths 560
The BBC is reporting on a study by digital music research firm The Leading Question, which found that people who download music from peer to peer networks paid for four and a half times more music than regular music fans. Also that most of these people "are extremely enthusiastic about paid-for services, as long as they are suitably compelling." What is nice is that the BPI welcomed the findings that not all file sharers are actually evil... they still pledged to carry on the 'carrot and stick' approach though.
Common knowledge. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2)
Indeed. Yet people still down^H^H^H^Hfreeload. Care to speculate why?
Seriously, with quality services such as iTunes out there, what legitimate reasons do people have to download mass quantities of music they haven't paid for?
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Informative)
Because not every bit of music is available with iTunes... If you're looking for music from American artists, then you'll probably find it there, but don't try finding more "local" music or you'll be deceived.
What I truly hate about iTunes though is that they actually have the music I want, but it's only available on their German store, or on their British store, or even sometimes on their US store, but not on the Canadian store, which I am required to use because I live in Canada (global market my ass).
They have the file I want to pay for, but they won't let me pay for it, so guess what? I'm gonna figure out another way to get it, and that other way might not involve payment.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Informative)
As for local music, this will change as apple expands its network of content managers and iTunes will probably end up dealing with the artist directly.
This is perhaps why some albums will never appear in iTunes, the record label wants the boxed cd set to be sold and not the download.
I must mention another alternative, where many good artists are trying something totally different. I am of course talking about Magnatune, where music is not evil. You should really check it out [magnatune.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Magnatune (Score:4, Informative)
There are other websites that like Magnatune allows free or low cost music downloads. Some of these are:
Also there's Berklee Shares [berkleeshares.com] where you can find free music lessons.
FalconRe:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
And because iTunes isn't available in all countries? And because I have a very strict criterion for an online-music-shop, which wants to sell me something:
- No DRM at all. Pure MP3.
Do that, offer a broad bandwidth of different kinds of music and sell me these, and I'll be a buyer. But if you're fucking around with different reseller-rights for every country, and DRM, then you're doomed.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Interesting)
And you're right, there isn't enough choice with formats - even real life stores allow for choice of media - they have vinyl sections, cd, even tape and mini-disk. Why can't there be a lossless store for enthusiasts? - I'd really like to see this happen. They have an audiobook s
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2, Insightful)
2. Overcharging. When the cost of downloading a CDs worth of tracks isn't almost the same as buying a physical CD (and unecumbered by DRM) get back to me.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Insightful)
When you can buy a CD at a record store and only pay for the songs you want from that particular album, get back to me.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2)
I would rather buy WMA music because at least the technology behind it can be licenced by anyone willing to pay. But as I'm a *nix typ of guy that doesn't really solve my problem either.
Wasn't there an article a while back how EU should standardize some kind of DRM? Maybe thats my only hope (I lice
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Interesting)
Though to be fair of the friends I have who were mass mp3 "pirates" [arr, avast ye matey!] in last decade or so they're less so [if stopped completely] now.
It's cool when you're a teen and you wanna download everything and anything. For myself, I was part of the generation that grew up with mod/s3m/it/xm tracks and then this "net thing" hit us. So for us it was all new, fresh, cool, etc.
I think most kids grow out of it once they get a good salary and can afford 20$ for a cd...
Tom
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of things in life are unfairly priced [one way or another]. Doesn't mean you can just take them when you want.
Whether "piracy == lost sales" or not doesn't really matter. The whole point of a music career is to make a living producing and performing music. If you feel that paying for that is not worth it then you might as well not have professional musicians.
Are the RIAA and labels totally disgraceful? Doesn't matter. That's how they choose to do business.
Know that there are ways of getting good music without going through the RIAA labels. Local bands, indy bands, etc, are out there and if you were soooo concerned with unfair music practices you'd go look for them.
Imagine if all you stupid children spent energy spreading word-of-mouth about indy bands instead of further spreading label music. You'd have a WIDE VARIETY of music to choose from, it wouldn't cost 20$ per CD and you'd be happier.
But no, you're stupid and ignorant and fuel the things you hate the most.
Tom
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
While that's a grand thought it's pretty damned apparent that it doesn't reflect reality. Not in any way, shape, or form, not when it comes to downloadable music (and since that's what we're talking about here, don't even bother bringing any strawmen to the dance).
Fact is, copyright violation for music is still on the rise despite all the efforts of the government and the RIAA to stop it. Th
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Interesting)
The upshot is make music cheaper, $0.99 in the US but iTunes is 99p in the UK about $1.7. Without CD and distribution costs + supplier profit, straight to web service should make music cheaper. People are paying for 1 song at $0.99
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Insightful)
iTunes is good, but sometimes I look at songs and think, "This isn't a one dollar song". Add to that the fact that downloading the all the MP3s of an album costs the same as buying a physical album, and you see that, a lot of the time, the music available online is too expensive. There is no reason that the cost should be the same.
What they need are better download services, with wider selections, and variable pricing depending on demand. I don't care if the top ten downloads are 1.50 or 1.75, but I don't want to pay 1.00 for something that only me and two other people find appealing.
I also get real sick of being locked into a player. Half those services try to make you use WMP or Realplayer, god I'd rather die. iTunes is only just tolerable.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Informative)
Interestingly I have a recording of Shostakovich' 7th symphony by the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra under Gennady Rozhdestvensky (a very strong performance by the way), and it's exactly 75 minutes long.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2)
Seriously, with quality services such as iTunes out there, what legitimate reasons do people have to download mass quantities of music they haven't paid for?
Their client doesn't run on Linux, and their music isn't in mp3 or Ogg. That's what keeps me personally from using it, I'm not saying that those are the reasons for other people. If it were web based and had mp3s available, I'd probably go crazy and spend half my income on it for a few weeks :-)
That said, after confining myself to buying CDs at conc
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:2)
Some might look at it as freeloading, stealing or worse... I see it as competition, and currently iTunes is too expensive and restrictive.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, with quality services such as iTunes out there, what legitimate reasons do people have to download mass quantities of music they haven't paid for?
Do you have a magical way of knowing whether you'll like music before you hear it? No? So I guess you'll have to hear the music before you buy it. For many people, downloading illegally is the most convenient method of hearing the music before they decide whether or not they are going to buy it.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Informative)
How is downloading music to "test-drive" it any different?
Copyright isn't property and downloading it doesn't take it away from anybody.
If you are going to download illegal music files, at least call it what it really is.... theft
Copyright infringement isn't theft, and anybody who persists in saying that it is is either an idiot or a troll. Dowling vs US, 1985, even the Supreme Court says that it isn't theft. Or try looking in a dictionary, they generally say something along the lines of "the object must be moved, however slightly, from it's original position", or a definition involving taking something, which does not occur in copyright infringement.
These arguments have come up many, many times, and nobody has ever put across a convincing argument as to why I should believe some random stranger on Slashdot about what is and isn't theft above and beyond the dictionary and the Supreme Court.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
The vagaries of colloquial English often are at odds with the more analytical, black/white approach of the typical Slashdotter.
While both sides can be argued, I think one would be tilting at windmills to stop the public at large from using "steal" and "theft" and its variants in colloquial, non-literal form. Sadly, we will continue to use phrases like "theft of service" (vis. cable TV), "stealing your thunder," "stolen kisses," "steal first base," and so on.
Just look at all the "I don't have a boat and
Re:Common knowledge is hardly ever common. (Score:3, Informative)
To back up, "Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud." So, to quote your own case, there are property interests and it's not just "run-of-the-mill theft".
You are misreading that. It does not say that copyright infringement is more than "run-of-the-mill theft". It says that copyright infringement is not "run-of-the-mill theft". I notice you didn't quote the more relevant sentence that preceded your quote:
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Interesting)
And would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive first?
Granted, being able to try something before you buy it isn't that common. After all, when was the last time you were able to try a fridge before buying it? But then again, if you decide that the fridge you just bought isn't good enough, you can take it back.
A different example: Books. I don't think I've ever bought a book without reading at least
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the main problem, too many customers of iTunes and regular music shops don't see DRM and rip-off pricing as factors, so they happily buy their £17 Britney Spears album and toddle off home. The only way anything will ever change is a mass revolt on the part of consumers. This is what happened in file-sharing and, instead of using market forces and conventional supply and demand to redress the balance, the RIAA went to th
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, i can't for a start. No credit card. The teenagers that are often the ones who have large collections of pirated music either can't afford or access it. If i had a job and earnt £20,000 per year, perhaps a £10+ CD would seem reasonable, but my Summer job of £700 won't stretch to that extortionate a price.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Seriously, with quality services such as iTunes out there, what legitimate reasons do people have to download mass quantities of music they haven't paid for?"
A common excuse around here is that a buck is still too high. It commonly goes like this: "if only the record companies would sell those tracks for $0.75 or $0.50, I'd buy them!" This is often accompanied by a claim that Apple and or the record labels "just don't get it," despite the fact that the iTMS has been a fantastically wild success by an
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Interesting)
1)I refuse to use a DRMed service. Ever.
2)$1 per song is still too expensive to use as a sampling service. I tend to download 5 or 6 songs by an artist to see if I like him, trying a new artist is not worth $5-$6
3)I refuse to use a time limited service. Rhapsody/Napster/whatever would be fine except that they don't have full selection, and if I decide to stop paying I lose the music I already acquired.
4)Not available on Linux. Pretty much a deal stopper there.
eMusic used to have the right
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please note: I'm not arguing that the RIAA doesn't deserve to lose out. The whole music distribution system (incl. most legal download sites, imho) is one big rip-off and should go down as soon as possible, to become a faded memory of the 19th century.
Daniel
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:4, Insightful)
As technology becomes more widespread and digital music distribution becomes the norm rather than the exception, there's no reason why all the major record companies can't disappear. As an artist, you would no longer need a big company to make all the CDs, and you would get more profit from your songs without a greedy middle-man skimming off the top all of the time.
Bands wouldn't need to spend large amounts of money on studio time to release and album because with a new distribution model they could just release single after single, which is how a lot of online music shoppers purchase their music. Startups could even offer their music for free to get people to listen to them (like some bands are doing now) and pay money to see them live.
Right now the music industry is full of middle-men that screw everyone involved. If a company doesn't like a band they don't have to offer them a contract. We're probably missing out on a lot of good music in the mainstream because the music industry doesn't think it would be popular. While there are certainly a lot of albums out there worth the price they ask, there's a lot more that have only a few songs worth listening too on the album. Right now a lot of consumers (those without computers or the ability to use iTunes, Napster, etc.) are forced to pay $15 for what's really $5 worth of music. Then when someone doesn't want to subscribe to this business model called "fuck everyone" the music industry does as much as it can to resist any change.
They're all quite happy having their pockets lined by someone else's hard work and dedication and exploiting the customer base as much as they can bear. This article [slashdot.org] is also pretty telling about some of the business practices these companies employ. Frankly, they don't give a damn about music, only making money. Here's hoping that the rotten bastards have a steady decline and are remeber only as a horribly oppressive and unsuccessful business model that no one will ever try again.
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Common knowledge. (Score:3, Insightful)
The BBC is reporting on a study by digital music research firm The Leading Question, which found that people who download music from peer to peer networks paid for four and a half times more music than regular music fans.
This is a lie. This is NOT what they found. They found that these people spend 4 and half times more on legal digital music purchases than non-downloaders. The way this is written, it sounds like the average downloader who
Sadly, (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:3, Insightful)
By chasing down people for using P2P they just cement my opinion that we should be downloading free music via legal alternatives like etree, dimeadozen, etc.
I just can't imagine why people would be enticed to further support the RIAA's actions rather than dropping support for them all together.
It's the sad nature of the public. They love to be abused.
Re:I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:2)
Yes thats it, the RIAA/MPAA are enforcing their copyrights by seeking legal justification and that makes them evi. Well yea, why didn't I think of that. Sort of like the police who are enforcing the local/state/federal laws - that must make them evil too.
Can the **AA's do a better job, certainly. Can they stop recklously slinging statements th
Re:I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:2)
You're confusing things here so let me help you sort it out:
Re:I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:2)
The RIAA is not the same as the police and shouldn't be enforcing laws.
I don't download music illegally so I'm not doing anything wrong by advocating that others shouldn't either.
People should not support a conglomorate that claims they are losing millions to these pirates yet spend thousands in legal fees trying to prosecute them.
You are correct:
The RIAA should not be enforcing laws, and they are not. They are spending their money to tra
Re:I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:2)
Then you shouldn't even question what I am doing. People need to be educated that what the RIAA is doing/saying is non-sense. There are legal, viable, and possibly better alternatives out there.
How would they ever know if they weren't told be someone who does? We have the power, the medium, and the message. Don't just shut down and give up because you think i
Re:I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:2)
The way to fix it is to lower prices, and make it easier to get a legal copy than an illegal copy. Downloading is a pain in the ass. I'd rather have a legal copy, but I'm not going to spread 'em for the RIAA for the privledge of listening to their music.
Re:I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:2)
Then we get to price fixing - and the **AA's were sued for this, but they won. They obviously did not get the big hoopla as the current cases are getting because the media is not supporting them.
Getting the mu
Re:I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's even worse than that; they simply don't care.
The world is a good place as long as they can get their Top 40 fix. Finding quality alternatives to major-label music is just too much work. The RIAA knows they can walk all over these people, and so they do.
It's just a shame when people who DO care are impacted.
Re:I'm all about legal alternatives... (Score:2)
Ahem:
Dave Matthews Band, Los Lonely Boys, Wilco, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, and Pearl Jam (just to name a few) are all "well known" bands that are distributed and listened to on radio stations daily around the world.
Next?
Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:2)
I'm just genuinely curious if posting stuff like this could end up screwing yourself over a few months/years down the road when some big corporation wants to make an example of you to the public.
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:2)
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:4, Funny)
If this isn't an epitome of evilness, I don't know what else could be...
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:2, Funny)
It was my girlfriend's birthday. No, seriously, I have a girlfriend. Hey, I'm not kidding.
Stop looking at me like that.
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that this is the primary reason, why the cartelists so much hate the internet. The reason is control or loss thereof. Prior to the internet you had virtually no chance in hell to get your music published, unless you agreed to a contract, which makes slavery actually look like the prefered choice [negativland.com]. The Internet can change all that. Everybody with a [insert favorite instrument], a cheap microphone and
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:3, Interesting)
Product differentiation is the key to high profit margins, and corporations know this. You don't see one kind of Campbell's soup on the store shelves, do you? No, because people will pay more for their favorite kind of soup (spicy gristle w/salted rinds, yum!) rather than a simple old standard. There's plenty of reason to dislike the recording industry, but your argument is misguided here...
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Recording companies stay in business because they control artists' access to listeners. The Internet is threatening this, and the recording companies are going apeshit over it.
Re:Downloading isn't evil at all. (Score:2)
Hands up (Score:5, Interesting)
I spend as much money as I can afford on CD and vinyl and am completely unapologetic about downloading leaked pre-releases, deleted releases, music I'd consider buying but only after hearing (RIP John Peel, there are fewer and fewer places to do so), and sometimes just music I've not yet the money or time to buy...
Re:Hands up (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hands up (Score:2)
I've yet to meet a musician who disagreed with my stance...
Telling the truth? (Score:3, Insightful)
sticky carrots ecch (Score:2)
I have a quest (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I have a quest (Score:2)
Try before you buy (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice to hear the CD before you pay $20 for one good song and fifteen crap songs. I have never downloaded off of a P2P myself though.. ((smile))
Re:Try before you buy (Score:2)
You're wasting your time (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole piracy/peer-to-peer argument has been done and done. And no matter how powerful the argument, the industry believes that every single time you download something, they lose a sale. And that's that.
Statistics and studies do not matter to these people. Your desire to kick the tires before you buy doesn't matter either. You got it - you didn't pay for it - we lost money. Of course the reality of it is something totally different, but these organizations have had a stranglehold on their commodity for so long, they're not comfortable with anything less than a stranglehold.
So they fight. And if that means ignoring studies and taking up ridiculous positoins - so be it. We're convinced - but they are never going to be.
Re:You're wasting your time (Score:3, Insightful)
But we should *not* stand down in the face of their tactics as that's exactly what they are hoping for. We, the educated public, should continue to spread the anti-conglomorate message to those people that might have been swayed by the rhetoric being passed along by the RIAA.
Tell people that there are viable alternatives out there for them to listen to the music they enjoy. There are bands that do support free distribution of their music and *those* are the
Re:You're wasting your time (Score:2, Informative)
They are shrewd businesspeople and they know as well as you and I that we will acquire music legally if given the occasion. The Economist has already revealed that their losses has little to do with music download and has helped if anything
What they want to do is to frame the question in such a way that they can promote legislation that will do away with fair use and will strenghte
Re:You're wasting your time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: They are smarter than you think, though (Score:5, Insightful)
But they do need to cry foul, and keep up the appearances that every single download is a crime, and a lost sale. They are using the same strategy of fear mongering that our government is fond of.
The reasons are simple. If they were to let up and say, ok so some music downloads are ok, but we still think we are losing sales, then their entire basis for legislation is thrown out the window.
I hope it doesn't sound like I'm defending them. I think the RIAA, and cooperations like them, are some of the absolute WORST things about this country.
But I can understand why they are keeping up the public relations stint of crying foul. They don't need music fans to believe them. They just need congress to. As soon as they "convince" congress with their "arguements" ($$$,$$$,$$$) they will get more legislation that will introduce more DRM, and possibly even remove the free-use clauses from current law.
They know full well that some bands are discovered soley through the internet. They just don't care. That is a small drop in the bucket compared to the marketing machine that makes acts like Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys sucessfull. They don't need underground marketing when they have pepsi jingles and MTV in the middle of time square.
What I can't figure out is why they pay so much for marketing crap bands when we would be just as happy with zero marketing for good bands. We'll find the music on our own. The RIAA could probably make just as much money if they just gave up. But I hope they don't. I hope they legislate themselves into the grave.
Spend more not less! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Spend more not less! (Score:2)
Bribery (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, that's obvious.... (Score:2)
I may eventually regret using Yahoo Music Unlimited, but one of the nice things about it is that you get to find out which CDs really stink and aren't worth buying.... Turns out, almost all CDs out there are really bad.
I'm sure that this isn't a shocking revelation, but the fact that M.C. H
RIAA = bad, downloaders = good (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Credit given where credit's due (Score:2, Insightful)
Giving them credit is like patting a child on the head and telling them "good job!" when they ea
I've spent loads more since using P2P networks! (Score:3, Insightful)
More seriously, my wife's and my music purchasing really picked up after we discovered Napster all those years ago. Sampling a couple of songs from an artist often convinces us we want the whole album, and we still really enjoy the permanance of physical media (yes, we rip all our CDs, but I think of the collection of actual media as an aesthetically interesting, if not large, physical backup).
carrots? (Score:5, Interesting)
"'...which is why we need to continue our carrot and stick approach to the problem of illegal file-sharing,' he [Philips] said."
What carrots? All I see are sticks. Are good file-sharers being rewarded at all? Let's see...
New CD at Best Buy, at a cut-rate price: $12.00
Paying for an entire CD with 15 songs off of iTunes: $14.85, not including the hidden costs of their DRM.
It seems all we're getting are sticks and heavier sticks from the recording industry. Yet they think they're being nice by offering to license music for a more expensive price. Fuck them, I'll save my $15 bucks and download free music off archive.org.
Re:carrots? (Score:5, Informative)
If you download the whole album (instead of one track at a time) it's only $10, or about $0.67 per song. There is a well-known tool for removing Apple's (intentionally) weak DRM, so that's barely an issue anymore.
That's Not What it Means (Score:3, Funny)
-Waldo Jaquith
Ambiguity (Score:2)
I think dividing the test set into illegal/not-illegal downloaders might be misleading. I'd be more interested in connected/unconnected. The second group would contain all music purchases without internet access who then would have purchased $0 from the internet. At least comparing digital downloads vers
Same Old, Same Old (Score:3, Interesting)
It's pretty much a repeat of history. Back when FM radio and analog tape cassette recording was in its infancy, the music industry also cried foul about people recording music from radio shows and claimed it was cutting into their profits.
Studies of that time showed similar results to the one mentioned in the article: people who recorded music from radio also bought a heck of a lot more music than those who didn't. Ultimately radio served as an advertising medium and wasn't hurting sales at all. The music industry eventually made its peace with radio.
We can only hope that eventually the music industry will relearn this old lesson...
Re:Same Old, Same Old (Score:3, Insightful)
We can only hope that eventually the music industry will relearn this old lesson...
No, we really don't want P2P services to turn into the monolithic, streamlined corporate marketing scheme that radio has become. The only reason the RIAA "made peace" with radio is because they effectively took control of it. Only a very tiny fraction of stations are not owned by some corpo
Things never change (Score:5, Interesting)
24 years ago, the recording industry was making the same exact claims that they are making today -- they are losing huge amounts of money due to "piracy". Back in those days, personal computers and the Internet were almost non-existant. CDs didn't exist and the main form of recorded music was the vinyl LP. According to the RIAA back then, the villain was cassette tape recorders. People were borrowing their friends albums and recording them onto cassettes instead of buying their own copy.
So, the RIAA commissioned a study that they hoped to take to Congress as proof that they needed tougher laws to deal with this terrible problem. But a funny thing happened. Their study showed that people who had a good quality cassette deck in their stereo sysytem bought nearly twice as many albums as people who didn't.
Sound familiar?
I question the validity of these findings. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't download (Score:5, Insightful)
I rarely, if ever, download music - legally or not.
Interestingly, I haven't bought a CD for myself in years...
I wonder if the RIAA assumes I'm a pirate because I'm not feeding their monopoly. I wonder if the RIAA is even aware that people like me have stopped buying music because we got sick and tired of being treated like criminals - copy restricted CD's, lawsuits against music fans, etc...
I wonder if it ever occurs to the **AA's that their revenue shortfalls are due more to the manner in which they treat their customers than piracy. Face it - while the average Asian may have a good reason to commit music piracy, the average American is affluent enough that they'd rather buy music than steal it. Yet, most Americans want to know they like something before they buy it. And this is what P2P provided.
I don't use P2P. I don't buy music, either. Wonder how long it will take the likes of the RIAA to figure out the connection between the two...
It's not simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to use Napster and some of the others for two things: (1) downloading music that can't be bought, i.e. out-of-print albums, b-sides, etc. and (2) trying music. Back then, I bought numerous CDs after trying music I really liked. Some of these CDs were retail CDs, where I wanted a higher quality sound than a low-grade MP3. Others were b-sides I bought on CD singles off of eBay because I wanted the better sound quality. But I also bought a lot of retail CDs I never would have bought if I had to buy them without hearing them first. So the bottom line for the RIAA is that the P2P effect is not simple: file sharing has caused me to buy music I downloaded, but not always at retail. More music may be sold as a result, but it's not all profit for the RIAA.
The unfortunate part about the new online services is you can't browse the catalogues without first signing up and selling your soul to their DRM. I would love to see if out-of-print music is available on some legal download services, such as out-of-print albums and b-sides, but I doubt there is anything on these services you can't find in Circuit City or the mall, so I don't ever sign up for the DRM.
The one thing no one ever mentions is the CD replacement effect. People who grew up listening to cassettes and LPs in the 70s and 80s got jobs in the 90s and could afford to dump their cassettes and buy CDs. This sort of generational shift in media will never happen again, and the RIAA's sales figures were bloated by people buying albums they already had. The effect is over. Everone now is buying music on CDs from the beginning, and has nothing to replace.
"lost dollars" (Score:2, Insightful)
Why should a download song cost the same as a CD? (Score:2)
Were not getting all the goodies that come with a CD so why should we have to pay $9.99 for a downloaded album?
If the downloaded albums were cheaper Id take a chance on groups ive never heard of.
Tell me... (Score:2)
What is nice is that the BPI welcomed the findings that not all file sharers are actually evil... they still pledged to carry on the 'carrot and stick' approach though.
I mean, we've seen plenty of stick action in the US and recently the EU, but what are those figurative carrots they are speaking about?
Oh, maybe they consider letting us pay for downloaded songs via iTunes etc. a big favour.
Or not having people assaulted by hired goons - at least for now.
Nahh i'm evil (Score:5, Funny)
I am evil hear me roar.
Of course this is true. (Score:3, Informative)
I, and most of my peers, have downloaded plenty of illegal music in our day. Now that the P2P services are getting worse and worse, and the legal services are getting more and more enticing, we're making the switch. I, for one, spend at least $30 a month on the iTMS each month. I do this not because I may have downloaded a P2P track here or there, but because I like music. This is not a cause-and-effect relationship.
On the other hand, my relatives over the age of 50, many of whom do not have computers and thus have never used a P2P service, do not buy a lot of music. So, in my little group, our results match those of the survey.
This is a second-order relationship: Younger people buy more music. Younger people tend to be more wired. Younger people who are online and who like music are likely to have used a P2P service at some point. This is the very psychographic that the online music stores are targetting. In other words, of course the generation of younger online music listeners is going to be the first to flock to the legal stores.
Typical Slashdot responses (Score:3, Informative)
When you can now go to iTunes and preview all the music you want (well, the first 30 seconds of it), you have no justification for still doing this. I won't argue, the RIAA is evil. They price fix and people should be legally going after that monopoly. But just because some group is using crappy practicies, it doesn't give you the right to break the law.
That being said, I actually don't care if people download music or not. Just don't try to justify that you are doing the right thing. Because you aren't.
I buy all my music (Score:3, Interesting)
But I've stopped buying from big chains and only buying from the musicians themselves at their shows (they get half the take, instead of 2 cents) or at local indie music stores where they get $1 from the $12 CD price.
my prediction is this situation will continue to get worse as more and more people avoid the price-fixing parasites at the middle tier and reroute from the consumer to the provider (musicians).
Re:I don't see... (Score:2)
Re:A little honesty, mmkay? (Score:2)
I'm not one to defend the practices of the RIAA or give them any edge in their war on their customers, but these statistics are pretty obvious. Of course those who use P2P are going to buy more music -- they're much more interested in listening to music than your average Joe. Whereas your average person listens to the radio or watches MTV for cues on what to buy, those who make music a larger part of their life use other methods in order to find music that better suits their taste