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94 Comments
- joshman5k, on 01/20/2008, -6/+62[This comment is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Church of Scientology International]
- joel8x, on 01/20/2008, -2/+36I highly doubt that the MacBook Air is the death knell for CDs. I would say that iPods have been doing a fine job all along.
- xptweakerntn, on 01/20/2008, -0/+29http://cristgaming.com/pirate.swf
- inactive, on 01/20/2008, -3/+219-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
- azanoncello, on 01/20/2008, -3/+20Well written. Completely true. Time to grow up.
- wigren, on 01/20/2008, -2/+14FTA: "I think those currently in power simply need to grow a set and confront the reality of the situation." Dugg.
- whyufail, on 01/20/2008, -0/+11Lotta corporate drones on digg tonight. RIAA goons must not get sundays off.
- snatchmstr, on 01/20/2008, -1/+12I suppose you think that $10,000 is a fair price to pay to fill an ipod. Get real, most people cannot afford that and you wonder why it gets "shared". There is really no "affordable" way for the average consumer to buy music so they share it with each other and don't lose a wink of sleep over it.
- smacksaw, on 01/20/2008, -3/+13I did something really immoral today.
I listened to music on the radio.
Then I did something even more immoral. I watched a movie I didn't purchase. Yes, I rented a movie. Then I watched another one on my DVR and skipped ahead of the commercials.
Even though the MPAA and RIAA provided those things to me, I am immoral.
You are a simpleton. I bet you can't even comprehend how I have mocked you. - spydon, on 01/20/2008, -1/+11It isn't the consumers that adjust after the companies, it's the companies that adjust after the custormers and it is a good time for the big companies to realize that now before it is to late for their time.
- jonnyfatman, on 01/20/2008, -2/+12Avast ye hearties, shiver me timbers. Arrrrr.
- ultraJesus, on 01/20/2008, -0/+9Why is there a picture of the firefox logo?
- Murdats, on 01/20/2008, -2/+11people are doing things illegally because there is often not a viable legal alternative.
if the businesses want consumers money again, they have to earn it, otherwise its their choice to let this 'black market' situation thrive meaning less money for them. - gerjomarty, on 01/20/2008, -1/+9The notion that people who download music illegally today are like the old pirate radio stations is a good comparison. Using the same solution and paying a set fee per month and being able to use whichever service you liked is probably the best idea I've heard on the issue so far. The only problems will be getting all of the companies together and deciding how the money is split.
- betobeto, on 01/20/2008, -1/+9When I first read the title, first thought was "OMG, Yet another apology of piracy the Digg crowd likes so much, and coming from Torrentfreak no less. Yawn. Color me unimpressed".
But truth is there ain't no turning back on the need for the music industry to change its business model if it really doesn't want to become a dinosaur in a matter of years. If being able to pay a small, monthly amount to a non-profit, worldwide artist organization means I can be free to do whatever I want with any music I like without having RIAA's lawyers after my ass, sure as hell sign me up. I've been itching to create a podcast of rare, forgotten records I've collected over the years, but the thought of having a stupid lawsuit come to my door because I can't pay the cartload of money to license it has refrained me to do so.
Now, face the facts - it takes money to make and record music. Instruments, engineering, mastering... those things are not made up from thin air, and maybe that is why I don't fully sympathize with the "everything for free" mentality that pervades the Internet. There will always be the need for revenue... but selling plastic discs at $5-$20 a pop is definitely not the way to do it anymore. Not many can shell out $20 for an album... but most everyone can afford to pay $1-$2. If everyone who downloaded an album paid that amount to the artist, no one would be complaining for sure. - purag66, on 05/13/2009, -1/+9I joined Digg precisely for what this community stood for during the HD-DVD riot.
- PHiZ187, on 01/20/2008, -0/+7Piracy here acted as a market force. We have seen the results, it has forced the recording and movie studios to put their content online. Without the threat of piracy, the studios were content to sit on their asses and stick to their traditional business models. This did not give people what they wanted, reduced prices as a result of reduced manufacturing and distribution costs, portability (time-shifting), and portability (between devices). Piracy has forced the studios to meet the demands of the market.
- smacksaw, on 01/20/2008, -1/+8We've already established that it's not stealing. I bet you think that if I take a picture of you, I'm stealing your soul, LOL.
Anyway. Let's say piracy is obviously wrong. So how glaringly wrong are lawsuits that circumvent the letter of the law and violate the spirit of the law to sue people without due process? Erosion of privacy and civil liberties? Make your case to defend those as well, otherwise you are a hypocrite and what you say does not matter. Morals is morals, Cleetus. - roodammy44, on 01/20/2008, -1/+7Technology changes things.
Companies sometimes go bust because they don't keep up with the times
The internet now means that the copying, marketing and distribution of any media now costs next to nothing.
How can they justify charging more when their costs have gone down by such a massive amount?
Everyone knows only a small fraction of CDs paid the artists.
If the companies put the prices down to a rational level (say, a 10% cut out of what the artists get) and had an easy way to get DRM-free music, there would not even be a problem with piracy.
Greed kills markets - ckedge, on 01/20/2008, -0/+5http://dagobah.biz/flash/Pirate_full.swf
(same song, different treatment) - djbon2112, on 01/20/2008, -0/+5Or, how about we let the artists, every artist, decide and market for themselves? I support artists. I buy T-shirts, I go see shows. As has been said, the internet now allows anyone to market their music or art for practically free. There is no need for record companies, or the RIAA anymore. I will NEVER buy another CD from the RIAA. Ever. The scum-sucking bottom feeders of the music business do not deserve my money.
- AntBing, on 01/20/2008, -1/+5I'd pay the 5-10 bucks a month.
- catalysis, on 01/20/2008, -0/+4This article is a lot of wishful thinking. The end game is that you will eventually not be able to make money with music recordings and the whole art will just slowly die. This is really easy to see coming if you just think about it and stop wishing for changes that will never work, there is no "growing up" that can be done here. First the quality will significantly deteriorate due to lack of funds and the "youtubization" of music, then artists will stop bothering with recording at all.
People try to argue that recording is still necessary to "get your name out" so you can supposedly make more money touring but that isn't how it works. Record labels get your name out by spending lots of money on promotion, the money they get by selling CDs. No sales money = no promotion= pointless. Gangsta rap and pop music will continue to sell well for a while because poor urban and rural people don't have access to internet and mp3 players yet, but it will all die out eventually. There will still be some live music of course, which will be good. - Tippis, on 01/20/2008, -1/+4The problem is that it's not just about cost -- it's about availability.
If a company refuses to make something available to me because they (erroneously) don't think there is a market for it, then guess what? Snap goes the law, and I copy it without remorse.
Personally, I make no excuses for my piracy -- I just call the companies idiots for not wanting my money. - inactive, on 01/20/2008, -1/+4I hope the RIAA doesnt change their name. it uses all 3 letters in the pirate alphabet.
AAARRRR EYE AYE AYE - SilverNakamura, on 01/20/2008, -0/+3I would definitely be willing to pay $5 or so to get unlimited music downloads. If only the music industry would wake up and stop shooting themselves in the foot, they could be making some 3 billion+ dollars.
- thestaton, on 01/20/2008, -0/+3I do believe that Radiohead, Madonna, & NIN are already paving the future. You pay what ever you want for their album, and the money goes directly to them. If a band produces good music they can succeed, without the major studios or RIAA.
- z28com, on 01/20/2008, -1/+4If you ever get sued, SIMPLY DON'T PAY! Just because a person wins a lawsuit doesn't mean they get paid. It's simply a debt you owe. Go bankrupt on those *****. I know lots of business owners who sued and won and still never got the money. All they got was a judgement. BE A BILL BEATER. DON'T PAY! ***** THEM ALL!
- purag66, on 05/13/2009, -0/+3It'd be $5/month and revenue is usually measured annually. So divide 600 million by 12 and you get 50 million subscribers. That's very reasonable.
- iticu, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2Didn't you learn from Radiohead selling their music for any price their listeners wanted to pay?
The music industry will still make money, it just won't need companies like the RIAA.
Which is good, because the RIAA are clueless, greedy *****. - iticu, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2Yea, how dare they express an opinion and leave it open to debate like that!
Stupid know-it-alls! - mutagenesis, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2This is a good article, but it just barely misses the head of the nail.
What it got right:
-legal action is not the way to go for labels. Your chances of being sued currently over 1 year of piracy? .06%. The money collected per pirated song (4 billion) through law suits? Around $.01. Minus the moral issues, one would have to be a ***** to not pirate music. Who wants to pay 100x as much for media with limited formats? I'm waiting for a chorus of yehs.
-Current model stifles competition. I think it does enough to explain this
What it got wrong:
-Middle men are still needed. Yes and No. Middle men are not really needed in the form of Record Labels. Perhaps to press CDs, but no for internet distribution. Artists typically get around $.03 per song I believe. It is not a major source of revenue for them as much as promotion for their concerts and T-shirts. Revenue gained through internet advertising? about $.005 (half a cent for those bad at math). That's is not for click advertising and pop-ups, or banner ads though, just an image. It may seem small, but that is 6 of those ads to cover $.03 per song. That would be enough to pay the artist, and the website could have more advertising than that. Download sites such as Ruckus can pay for the over-inflated cost of songs, through advertising and a fee, websites could pay with just advertising if business is done directly with the web page.
Even if artists earn more than $.03 per song, it could still be covered by advertising. Websites could create deals with artists directly, either giving them a royalty rate or a flat fee.
Even if artists end up earning less per song than they do now, a larger market would make up for it. Pirated songs do not equal those of legally downloaded songs, but there are many people who do not buy music because they don't want to spend the money and wont pirate because of fear of a lawsuit. This would end up creating a market for artists where small bands can create a larger fan-base, making it easier to make it big. Piracy does help smaller bands gain publicity, this would do more than that. - cozb, on 01/20/2008, -1/+3lol, and bank robbers influence security system designs for banks...what's new?
- ploke, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2I still do not see how such a system would work without DRM. It looks to me like it hinges on the idea that the entire archive of copyrighted music already made is worth $5 (the cost of downloading it, assuming you could get it all in one month), and that people would keep paying a monthly fee after that to legally get new music.
In other words the whole system is built on downloads of new music. I am all for a new business models, but I just don't think that the model touched on in the article can work. Am I missing something? - theantix, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2I still use music sharing sites occasionally, but mostly just to listen to an album before I decide if I want it or not. I don't know about anyone else, but I think the $8 Amazon MP3 charges is perfectly reasonable price for a good album when you get it in non-DRM format and decent bitrate.
I'm even happy to pay more than that for something like Radiohead when it actually goes to the artist directly. Think about it, for the price of two lattes you get music you can and probably will listen to for decades.
How the hell does anyone still find this overpriced? - Mjolniir, on 01/20/2008, -1/+3Depends on your view of right and wrong. Many people in this world consider ethics to be relative, and if they are, right and wrong are pretty much arbitrary. We have to deal with legal and illegal and leave right and wrong for philosophers.
Just for the record, I am not into moral relativity. I think infringement and piracy (really two different things) are wrong, and I also think that the idea that this proposed "new" model is really a glorified subscription model, which has been tried several times, resulting in dismal failures. I think what we are heading towards is a world where multiple models for legal downloading of entertainment are supported. iTunes is already working even WITH DRM, and now they are starting to have some competition. There are some people who actually like subscription services, so they may have a future in spite of past failures. We can have multiple models because the method of distribution is so cheap it is easy to deliver for any model.
CD's are nowhere near dead, by the way. Sales are down but that does not equal dead. Hell vinyl is still around, what makes you think CD's will die? They will diminish in importance, but probably not die off for a long time to come. Many, many people still like going out and buying a physical product. - danarama, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2I confess I listened to a major label artist's entire album on myspace for free. I also downloaded some willfully posted mp3's from a kick ass underappreciated indie group I found on a blog through hype machine.
- joseke7, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2I think there's another huge point that's missing... What's going to happen to independent bands who don't have the advertising muscle to make a successful impact over the internet, that takes money. For artists like NIN or Radiohead it's a lot "easier" in the sense that they're already an established act with a huge worldwide following, a lot of people know about them, but if you're just a new band, and now people don't buy any new cd's or you can't get more than say 2,000 sales on your site, then how are you going to pay for other expenses you have to incurr?, e.g. touring, equipment, etc and not to forget to make new records. As someone already pointed out, this things cost money, for a good recording you need to have good recording equipment, good producers, good tunes, the biggest problem is also that people don't value music anymore, they just look at it as a commodity, as a throwaway thing... you download this summer's hit single, then you forget about it next month and you download a different one... It's just that the problem is a lot more complicated that this guy puts it, it's not only about the middlemen, ***** them, they are just money grubbing bastards that profit from creative individuals. And talking about the 5 dollar fee, it sound's like a good idea, but how are you going to distribute the income to all the artists all over the world?? I mean if you're very big, chances are you'll get your share, but if you're an independent artist, chances are your cash will get lost somewhere along the way... and remember that most bands begin that way, most band need to be independent. An artist needs a career, an artist needs support and something to grow or build upon and if multinationals are just not gonna give independents what they made because they're not a part of their roster or just to wipe out the competition (and that's a lot of times what they do, people behind the curtains think like businessmen not artists or even music fans), then that doesn't seem like a pretty good solution. The biggest problem with the industry is that it marketed itself into oblivion disrespecting it's own consumers. It gives us ***** music, in ***** formats, with even more ***** content, but people are just content to download the thing or have it on their cellphones for "free". Meanwhile people who do like music, have to conform with either downloading tracks they like because the physical distribution of a lot of albums is poor, cd stores lack in catalogue and the prices are too high or retailers just make the cd aisles smaller because they're not making much money out of music anymore, so they make more ketchup aisles. I think that is the core of the problem. Music business used to be run by people who loved music, now it's run by people who love money, and they think that producing art is just like making kool-aid and marketing it to the people... Dunno... it looked like a better article but I think it lacks a lot of insight....
- Travelsonic, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2"If everyone who downloaded an album paid that amount to the artist, no one would be complaining for sure."
Assuming it were possible to do so easily, without the **AAs making it once again impossible. - Spoomeister, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2" the information age is about to hit puberty. Fiber optic cables are sprouting in unexpected places."
And I have these unexplained... feelings. Here, I've written a poem: "why do nice girls hate me? ..." - joshuaer, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2Great idea i really like it my question is, How much money do torrent sites make a month? seems like you could go legal like napster and only charge people 5.00 a month if you wanted to or am i just missing something.
- JQP123, on 01/20/2008, -1/+3So what happens when "pirates" just continue with what they're doing without paying for a subscription? Oops! This new business model is no more viable than the old one. But in the end, I suspect that all this won't turn out quite the way that the pirates expect.
CD sales are obviously dead --- but my guess is that all *sales* of music are equally dead. Once you can't just anonymously *buy* music any more, there will probably be a lot less piracy. In the not too distant future, music will be *broadcast only* to an approved device and by subscription only, much like mobile phone service, cable TV, or satellite radio.
- joeanon, on 01/20/2008, -0/+2Grow up people. The internet will be owned by corporations just like TV and all other industries.
There is simply too much profit in the internet for them not to buy it AND there is absolutely nothing an apathetic democracy will do about it.
It's easy for corporate America to give us just enough to keep us content but in control.
There is no reason to think the internet is some endless frontier land. It will be rounded up, bought and sold like any other medium. It just takes time to monopolize and perfect their business models, but honestly, they make billions either way, so whats the rush.
That's the fate of leaving your communication medium in the hands of private industry without solid regulation.
If we listen to Ron Paul we'll be handing everything over to private industry. The federal government is the ONLY real weapon we have in this.
State governments are harder to organized and easier to corrupt. More importantly, privacy and ownership should be national issues. We can't have people privacy rights changing from state to state any more than we can have our current change from state to state.
THIS is what voting and federal government are for. - nickwebb, on 01/20/2008, -0/+1You raise a good point, number of attendees to concerts are not likely to increase. Quite the contrary. However, given that a good chunk of the sales involved in ticket distribution (Ticketmaster is something I equate with Big Media) would no longer be controlled by Big Media, introducing competition, and you've already recouped quite a bit as well as giving the band much needed control.
Second, of course you would never donate to a band you haven't heard. The idea is that, if music is free, you will download music as you are already doing: from friends, family, virally off of the internet. I know that myself and everyone else I have met has been introduced to new bands and even genres that they would not have ordinarily given the time of day before simply because of the viral nature of free music. SO, given that a band's music is reaching a broader audience because it is free, a band is going to have much more exposure. Because of the onslaught of music, you are GOING to see useful ratings, citings, and linking going from music you DO enjoy to the more obscure. And then you will check it out, if not only for a preview. This is how people will weed out the good from the bad.
Third, if a band's music is accepted, they are likely to come into money, be it donation or otherwise, by the populace to keep them making music. I can site so many examples in all sorts of areas even outside of music that this has proven true: If people like it and want it, they will do what it takes to keep it.
As for your last point, any band that is part of Big Media is obviously utilizing their merchandising engine. What I am stating is that their merchandising engine is not needed for a band to meet the same goals. And if a band is managing their own merchandising, that is, however THEY see fit, then all costs associated with the merchandising should be accounted for to their own desires. This means that all NET profits go to them, simply because they retain control.
Big Media companies came around only to help market bands, and along the way, managed to take over all functions of the band other than composing and performance (and even then, they still manage to control the bands). The advent of the internet and the sharing movement has surpassed all other marketing strategies, as news travels fast now. And like I said, if a band is worth its salt to the public, its going to be popular and therefore prosperous. I'm in marketing, so I kinda have a decent perspective on what is and isn't needed. - KaiUno, on 01/21/2008, -0/+1Well... We have here in Holland. For the commonly used, safer than alcohol drugs at any rate. And we're still doing okay down here. (Oh look, dowloading music is also legal here.)
- nickwebb, on 01/20/2008, -0/+1I completely empathize with your cynicism and pessimism, but are you so naive that you truly believe the government is going to keep the internet free from corporate abuse and monopolization? Tell me, how easy is it for you to put up a web page right now? Then tell me how easy it is for you to find a lower price on a telephone line in your area? The government sure as ***** regulates telecommunications, and look at where that has put us: almost last in all of the developed countries in terms of speed.
The market will always be better for the people. Its when regulation hits that we lost competition. It seems counterintuitive in its purest forms, because if the government behaved as the people wanted it to, it WOULD make sense for the government to regulate. Unfortunately, our government is, by way of elected officials, barely ran by voters, let alone educated voters. No, lobbyists and the pursuit of power are what truly dictate most legislation. Again, look at mammoth telco companies. You watch, the mobile arena is next. Regulation is already well established, and soon you won't have any choice. All it takes is one company with enough money to back a bill that states we should have a 'unified wireless network'. Once it passes and is established, watch your bill shoot straight up. - danarama, on 01/20/2008, -0/+1people will pay but this article is just talking about some hypothetical fee paid to some abstracted monolythic entity that some how honestly redistributes this fee based on popularity. How is this done? Sounds like a knew strategy for itunes if you ask me. Replace .99 for a song with 5$ for access all month. Oooo really revolutionary.
- Tysto, on 01/21/2008, -0/+1So what? Buying CDs is not an investment strategy. How much is your last vacation worth now? Try selling that on eBay.
- purag66, on 05/13/2009, -0/+1That's the best idea I've heard so far. (Not being sarcastic here). If RIAA set up annoying pop-up adds on their websites and you had to sit through a 1 minute commercial before downloading any song for free, hell I'd do it.
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