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PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2003 2:16 pm 
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Do you want to know what the problem with the music industry is? It's an industry, they arn't interested in putting out a really great product, they are interested in getting you to buy stuff. Music today is a consumable, it's like food. Popular music is only popular for at most six months, by that point everyone is tired of listening to it. (more on how this is achived later)

My friend gave me a gratefull dead cd for my 15th birthday, and I've listen to the whole thing at least once a week ever since then. I don't think I, or anyone else would object to paying 25, or even 30 bucks for something they get so much use out of. Popular music however, is different, every summer has it's own music, think back to Lou Begga(Mombo Number Five) in 2000, and Bah-hah Men in 2001 (I think they are the one's who sang 'Who let the dog's out'), Nelle (Hot in here) So that instead of paying 20 bucks for music that you will always love, you are going to pay 20 bucks for music that you wont want in a few months. For the record companies, this is a great thing, this means every couple of months, you will give them another 20 bucks, as opposed to giving you a cd you will always want, and therefore will have little pressing reason to buy more. (Except of course, that I like the product...)

How to make it a win win situation? I don't think you can. The corperations want to make fist loads of money, and the best way of doing that, is by raping you. It's not that the music of today isn't good, it's that the record companies arn't interested in selling you a permenant product. There is no way to charge Actor for 2k+ songs, without bankrupting him, or angering the record company. The only way to truly solve our problem, it to get rid of the consumer societee we have based around music.


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PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2003 5:40 pm 
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Or you can ignore it entirely. There is music outside of the CD stores--on the streets, in nightclubs, in garage concerts. Live bands are everywhere. If you want music for music's sake, don't buy it--if you buy it, you're letting people put a price on it.

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PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2003 7:42 pm 
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I dunno. If someone works and puts out a product, I think they should get paid for it. Granted, not at the ridiculous prices CDs are at right now, but paid nonetheless. They already get shit for having their songs played on the radio, and they can't live on concerts alone.

This is a great country because you can practically do anything you want to if you find the right loophole, law, ect. However, I think people exploit that a lot. How is it right to say "Your prices are outrageous! I'm just going to copy your music and distribute it for free!" It'd be like not liking a Zenith TV's price, mass producing them on the black market and giving them away for free.

And yes, I've heard the "music is an idea, and ideas can't be sold" line. But if that were the case, then all forms of art should be given away. Sheet music should be free. It's just an idea put down on a piece of paper. Paintings should be just given away. They're just an idea painted on canvas. Poetry and novels should be just given away. They're just ideas in book form. When that logic is applied, it can be stretched out to silly levels. If it works with music, then it's got to work with ALL art, not just one form.

And I had a thought: What if this downloading trend continues, and it totally wipes out the recording industry? That's a fair portion of this nation's economy being eliminated. We're already in the hole. In order to boost our economy, people need to start putting money INTO it, IE buying CDs, putting money BACK into the stock market, travelling via plane, ect. We can't have a viable economy if people don't want to spend anything.

But that's just my thought on the whole situation. Take is as you will.

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PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2003 9:17 pm 
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People buy good art willingly. I just bought an Ünloco CD a few days ago, because I like them and it was $10 dollars. I will not waste money, or even time, downloading a great deal of what comes out today, because its not that good. There are a few good ones, and they seem to get drowned out. Statistically, the music industry has been helped by mp3s. They are just putting out shitty music, so no one wants to buy. If music was what it could be, sells would be back to normal. Also, artists make little to no money off of cd sales unless they are extremely large anyways. A recording contract for any relatively new group has them making sometimes less than a penny per cd. Touring is about the only way to make anything at the beginning, and thats not much in and of itself...


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PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2003 9:39 pm 
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Record industry isn't too big a part of the economy. A hit on it doesn't affect us too much, I'd just either go out and spend that tax cut or put it in the bank. Money in the bank produces a lot more money anyway, more money = economy goes up.

At least thats how they teach it in Econ 201. And before you say "inflation" I'll say "stuff it, thats simply not how inflation works."

The problem, as I see it, is that people WERE willing to pay 20 bucks a CD, because they had no alternatives. Now that you can get songs in MP3 format for free, the record industry either has to give you something you can't get off the 'net (special feature CDs, etc) AND make their products acceptably cheap, or die.

Its how capitalism works, you greedy fucks. You got rich by it, and by God you can get poor by it. Deal.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2003 11:19 pm 
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MiB in Regard to your post.

FapFapFap.

Thats the sound of a moderator on Slashdot hearing for the first time what those nerds keep trying to explain in complex terms.

You rip people off long enough they will get pissed and feel no guilt about stealing your stuff.

If the music industry(never say the RIAA, they are just and industry lobby group its the labels that a screwing us over with the RIAA as their pawns) hadn't spent years ripping everyone off solidly then maybe some of the people getting free music would feel at least a bit guilty about it, no one does because we've been ripped off for years.

Case in point. DVDs cost about $30au CD soundtracks $20au(Half that for the US price) I can get the Fight Club CD, with music clips, entire film, outtakes, extended scenes, commentary, publicity and a little note book about the production of the film for 30, I can get 19 songs(in total about 1hours 4 minutes) of which three are decent(Pixies: Where is my Mind, Dust Brothers: This is your life and Dust Brothers: Space Monkey(only for the second half)) all three songs are on the DVD(in the background of scenes, end credits and This is Your life has a film clip etc)

Why buy the CD when I can get the DVD and then download the three songs I wanted?

Actor.

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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2003 10:27 am 
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If you rip-off poeple long enough you end up in court, and the industry has done just that, in a price fixing case.

http://www.musiccdsettlement.com/english/default.htm

I signed everyone in my family up for a cut of the money in the settlement, and still dislike the industry for trying to charge me too much money, and preventing me from making a copy of the product that I purchased for my own personal use.
The music companies are to blame for the use and rise of 'theft' by copying and shareing, and the settlement on price fixing alone should tell the world that the companies are just plain old greedy and manipulative for their own wants.
In their world, the rules of free markets and fair business practices should not apply. They want revenues protected, not to be subject to the laws of supply and demand.
They should not be able to control or prosecute anyone for music sharing when they in fact are getting prosecuted for monopolistic behavior. Prosecution of us is using the courts to OK their own violation of laws.
FUCK the greedy bastards, if I have the music, I will share it as I have paid for it, and it is now MY property, and I don't see how we can be hurting them when they can put up this kind of money to pay off the courts.
Again, FUCK them.


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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2003 3:25 pm 
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MR. Dead wrote:


God bless mass torts

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PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2003 11:03 pm 
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MR. Dead wrote:
http://www.musiccdsettlement.com/english/default.htm


This should be tried criminally, the same way the microsoft anti-trust suit was.

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 Post subject: For the record, I'm with MiB and all them.
PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2003 11:10 pm 
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MR. Dead wrote:
FUCK the greedy bastards, if I have the music, I will share it as I have paid for it, and it is now MY property, and I don't see how we can be hurting them when they can put up this kind of money to pay off the courts.


Yeah, Dead. If I buy a game or a movie, I have the right to make copies and give them to everyone and anyone. I mean, these industries are so big, they don't have any right to complain. It's their own fault for charging such high prices.


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 Post subject: Re: For the record, I'm with MiB and all them.
PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2003 4:37 am 
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Abunai! wrote:
Yeah, Dead. If I buy a game or a movie, I have the right to make copies and give them to everyone and anyone. I mean, these industries are so big, they don't have any right to complain. It's their own fault for charging such high prices.


I seriously hope that was sarcasm/irony/satire.

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PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2003 8:07 am 
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Abunai: The difference is that, with software you have a contractual agreement not to make pirated copies of the software...such is illegal, because (all other laws aside) this is breaking a contractual agreement. Since spreading around MP3s isn't illegal (yet) and there is no contractual agreement between the record company and you, its perfectly legal to do so.

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Least thats how I see it.

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PostPosted: Sun May 18, 2003 11:26 pm 
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Besides, the music industry only shoots itself in the foot every time it cracks down on music sharers. So many people share music, that it basically eliminates all customers who are not so indoctrinated (if you will) by the companies that they think paying $20 for about 3 good songs is a good deal.

Course, most of the "sharing" that I do is of public domain music or the occasional fan-dubbed music video. Not, of course, counting all the anime and shooters...

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PostPosted: Thu May 22, 2003 11:33 am 
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Some interesting points... gotta agree with MiB's take on it, I view copyright of music as demanding that everyone pay for your personal police force so that you can leave your $10 bills lying all over the place. That only makes sense when applied to music, though, you can't really generalize about IP.

For example, I think it's entirely fair that a business (and its customers, in turn) should be guaranteed an official name, trademarks and so forth. You ought to be able to start Widget Co. and if some asshole sets up a Widget Co. down the street to trick your customers, you ought to be able to clobber him in court.

It is still a burden, but without it, how do you do business?

Patents are a trickier issue. They're still a good idea because without patents, it would be very difficult to convince people to front up the money for what is often massive R&D costs. Drug companies may be greedy fucks... but once they've developed a drug, we've got it forever. It's not an inherently bad system. The problems stem from the fact that it's been very difficult for the government to retain experts to keep up with the pace of innovation.

That brings me to copyright. You enjoy the fruits of copyright every time you pick up a book to read it. Whatever solution you come up with, it shouldn't break the areas of copyright that are working quite well.

It hasn't adapted cleanly to the digital world, and has been much abused (in the States at least) by Disney and... oh, that's right, all those *artists* who paraded in front of Congress to demand insanely long terms for copyright. I wonder: if copyright expired after 15 years, wouldn't 99% of these problems just go away?

If all music, software, etc that was 15 years old was in the public domain, would we be having this debate at all? The RIAA would still make money off small children who wanted the latest and greatest, and more discerning listeners would stop listening to indy crap and would buy actual good music from 20 years ago.


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PostPosted: Fri May 23, 2003 2:11 am 
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Quote:
I view copyright of music as demanding that everyone pay for your personal police force so that you can leave your $10 bills lying all over the place.


Dude, that analogy made no sense.

Quote:
I wonder: if copyright expired after 15 years, wouldn't 99% of these problems just go away?


Not really. Recording companies still make good money off music from twenty years ago, and if anyone started a bill shortening copyright I'd bet the RIAA would lobby the shit out of Congress to get it overturned. Goddamn interest groups...

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PostPosted: Fri May 23, 2003 7:45 am 
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I wonder: if copyright expired after 15 years, wouldn't 99% of these problems just go away?


Not really. Recording companies still make good money off music from twenty years ago, and if anyone started a bill shortening copyright I'd bet the RIAA would lobby the shit out of Congress to get it overturned. Goddamn interest groups...


Doppelganger-X4 makes a good point, regarding the fact that recording Companies "Digitally Remaster" Old music so they can resell it to the public, thus renewing their copyright. So even old favourites(?) can't be distibuted without a license.


Anyway, the Record Companies keep throwing lawsuits at Music swapping sites, trying to shut them down, so they can "Keep Music Coming."

The Problem is though, once this occurs (Assuming file distributors no longer exist), the Record Labels <b>will raise the CD cost, because they will know that people who want one particular song will have to fork out a shit load of cash.</b>

When this happens, consumers will rise up to defy the recording industry (again) and redistribute these files as MP3s all over the internet.

But some record companies do not have <i>exclusive rights to MP3 formats of their music.</i>

Technically there is a stalemate here. Everything will become a constant loop in this scenario; Though I seriously doubt any Record company is willing to go bankrupt suing every single webmaster that distributes these files.

Very little can be done to alleviate the problem. <i><b>It may be wrong to give free mp3s away, but it is also wrong to Price gouge those who are willing to pay.</i></b>

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Last edited by angryblackmage on Fri May 23, 2003 7:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Fri May 23, 2003 7:53 am 
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Not really. Nothing is "wrong" with charging as much as you can get for your product. Thats like saying its wrong for gum to be 1 buck a pack- as long as people are willing to pay, who cares? If you don't want to pay 1 buck for a pack of gum...DON'T BUY IT. Similarly, if you're not willing to pay 20 bucks for a CD...DON'T BUY IT.

Attaching moral authority to any particular supply/demand curve is absolute silliness. The only 'immoral' thing the record companies seem to be doing is that they refuse to adapt to the changing market. As I mentioned, they either adapt or eventually die. At which point either newer, better, record companies will come along who know what they're doing ("we have the technology" etc) or everything will move to the internet.

Price fixing is idiocy. As long as filesharing is available, there will be COMPETITION with the people charing 20 bucks per CD, and THIS, nothing else, is what will bring the prices down to acceptable levels.

The record company refuses to see its own fate. When I download an MP3, I am not breaking any law. I am no more gyping an artist out of money than I gyp Ted Turning out of money when I switch from AOL to Net Zero.

See?

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PostPosted: Fri May 23, 2003 9:29 am 
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Quote:
I wonder: if copyright expired after 15 years, wouldn't 99% of these problems just go away?



http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html


The fact of the matter is, copyright laws are ridiculously long. They didn't used to be as long as they are now, set at 50 years if I remember correctly, but was changed recently in a legal case. Why? Music like Elvis' and the such from the 50s was about to come into public domain. The RIAA didn't want that, now did they...


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 9:23 am 
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Yeah, I know I'm ressurecting a somewhat dead thread. I got a lot to say on this matter though.

The prices currently being charged for music trading online is really obscene. One dollar per song is about four times what it should be.

Think about it carefully. A CD is a physical thing. It has to be manufactured. The people who manufacture it need to be paid. The case is a physical thing. The people who make that need to get paid. The insert is a physical thing. The paper manufacturers need to get paid, then the printers need to get paid, then the graphic artist and everyone he works with needs to get paid. The people who put the packaging, CD, and case together and shrinkwrap them into a sellable product need to get paid. The printer who churns out those "parental advisory" stickers need to be paid. All this comes out of the cost of a CD, which I get for about $16, a chunk of which goes to the expenses of providing that song in a consumable format. Then there's the middle men, the stores, and warehouses, all of which go into distribution. Keep those words in mind, as I'm not even going into the cost of recording and such. Just the cost of distributing the music.

Now, I want all the songs off an album, let's say it's a greatest hits, and it's eighteen songs at a buck a song. Now I pay even MORE for the damn thing online.

Why?

The cost of hosting and transferring an MP3 should be about $0.05 per song. That's it. That's the cost of providing and distributing the music. I don't know exact numbers and costs, but a nickle to a dime per song ought to be able to cover the hosting and transfer costs effectively. If a dime covers expenses of distributing the song, where does the other $0.90 go?

Yup, right back into the same music industry everybody is crying about ripping you off. They stand to make more money this way than with CDs, cause in the long run they are charging you almost as much, if not more for some collections, and they don't need to spend anywhere near as much in expenses.

Realistically. A song online should be $0.25. Even if the artist got only a dime out of that, or even a nickle, that's a hell of a lot better than the current market where a new artist only gets about a nickle PER CD SOLD.

I'm still getting ripped off, except now I don't even have the pretty packaging to show off in my case.

Excuse me while I medicate the bleeding in my ass. :x

Edit: Fixed some bad BBCode.

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Last edited by Captain Zefram Mann on Tue Jul 01, 2003 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 9:30 am 
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This is why people should buy online music from the artists directly, whenever possible.

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