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49 Comments
- amsterdamordeth, on 10/19/2007, -3/+75Imagine this scenario, and I suggest you read this carefully to the end. Ford stops making quality vehicles and their old customers start buying Honda's and Toyotas. Ford decides that instead of increasing the quality of their vehicles, they decide to sue Honda and Toyota for making them look bad and stealing their business. Honda decides to drop their own prices and increase their quality which in turn further detriments Ford's sales. Ford finally says, hey, maybe we should stop fighting our competition and compete with them by producing better vehicles.
But for Ford, it was too late, and Honda had a superior product and a customer base that trusts the quality they produce and their customers return to them constantly. Ford becomes obsolete in the market and then Honda buys Ford at a steal of a price and Ford again can become a popular, quality product like it once was.
Now, vehicles and media, well they are not EXACTLY comparable products. In digital terms, media can be reproduced at almost a ratio of 0. But media does have costs involved to create and market. Well what happens when the studios are no longer needed? What happens when their business model is threatened by innovation and someone else creates a much better business model and product? They lose their control. They attack their scapegoat. They fight against innovation.
Believe it or not, the major labels and studios consumer base isn't the customer buying CDs and watching movies, it is the artists creating those works. Artists pay the labels and studios to promote their product. Without the artists, they have NOTHING, and customers mean NOTHING.
In the end, everyone will suffer because of the greed and incompetency of the middleman. The middleman always loses his position when he tries to line his own pocket at the detriment of his consumer [the artist]. When more artists realize that their middleman is no longer acting on their behalf, but on the behalf of the middleman, the middleman is cut out and either something better replaces it, or the entire industry suffers to the point that only the artists and the consumers suffer. A middleman will always be required for a successful media industry. Who the middleman is will dictate who benefits more and how that industry prospers. This is called, business economics. - amsterdamordeth, on 10/19/2007, -2/+61Digg timer owned me. I will continue my rant.
Many, not all, customers are in fact the victims here. Why? Well, how many people have portable video and audio devices. I for one had one of the first MP3 players ever commercially produced. I couldn't legally get mp3's anywhere except to rip them from my CDs, and even Sony thinks that should be illegal. But it is easier and faster to get them by clicking a link and waiting a few minutes than to dig out my CD which has to many scratches on it. But then we became enslaved to this method and the alternatives were lacking, if not invisible, if not complete crap.
Movies? Well most of us know that the groups ripping movies and tv shows have far more talent and can create a higher quality rip using their skills. So, forget music [since anyone can rip a cd nowadays] and focus on visual content. 1 out of 10000 people with any computer skills can rip a high quality tv show and produce an[quality] xvid or mpeg or vcd that is properly synced and watchable. As software makes it easier, it is still inferior to the quality of groups such as LOL. So of course, the best solution is to download it, if you are concerned about quality. If you don't care about quality, take your dvd's and get "dvd-shrink" or many of the alternatives and you should be happy, but it still can take a LONG time to decode and it's illegal under the DMCA to remove the content protection off the disk.
So why did I call them victims? Because we are being sold all of these products that are COMPLETELY useless without internet file sharing. See if you can prove that statement wrong.
Who gives a ***** if my ipod video has 1 million pixels and the best quality screen to watch a youtube video of a fat kid dancing? Come on, that is a joke in itself to assume that people are buying video ipods to watch homegrown content. I would honestly think that 95% of people with ipod video devices watch television or movie content. Given the DRM and limitations or sheer lack of unavailable content (UMD for PSP, etc) that works on these devices. Sony's UMD stands for "universal media disk". Universal my ass. USB is universal because it is........ UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED. No wonder sony doesn't sell blank UMD's. I won't get into the lack of content for PSP video devices. Luckily itunes has started up, but most of us refuse to buy copies [at full price] for each of our devices.
THEY are creating their own problem, and suing and screaming and fighting and bitching. Suck my balls content industry. - RSPDude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16dude, sweet rant! that was better than the article
- frazw, on 10/19/2007, -0/+7"Those folks get it. The “Industry” doesn’t."
The industry do get it they absolutely do. It is more that they are unwilling to relinquish the control they have enjoyed for many years. They are even more unwilling to reduce profits in order to remain profitable.
Their current strategy if they continue to follow it will kill them. There are only so many file-sharers they can sue to maintain their annual bonuses for top flight execs. With each passing legal threat and court case, they are further "enraging" those who would be their customers. Its approaching the point that even if illegal file sharing were stopped their profits and sales would not rise again.
I can listen to music for free on the radio. Ok not free I'm subjected to ads (unless I listen to the BBC) but essentially without money leaving my wallet but I have no freedom to choose when I listen. I expect that I should pay for the freedom to listen to music at my leisure, but that isn't how the music industry sees it. They think we are paying for the music itself, not the freedom. It should be the case that you once pay for a product you should be free to do whatever you like with it except use it for profit without permission. The record industry however in an ever increasing need to preserve profits believe that you pay for the medium upon which the music is distributed and even then on a per device basis. Imagine applying this argument to the CD age. Imagine if you had a CD player in your house and your car but you had to buy a CD for each. Does the music industry think that is appropriate?
Now as far as quality goes I don't expect that you should be entitled to free upgrades in quality, that is to say you buy a DVD and then expect to get the Blue-Ray for free because you already bought the film once. That isn't right, you bought the film at quality x, which you didn't have a problem with and were probably quite happy. When a new technology comes along offering the film at quality x++, that is called progress and it is your choice to upgrade or not but you shouldn't resent that unless the company has deliberately promoted their lower quality products one week whilst holding back the superior product from market in an attempt to make you pay again the next week.
I'm probably not adding much to what has already been said but I felt I needed to throw my hat into the ring. - inactive, on 10/19/2007, -0/+7Music labels are offering a service (package, distribution and promotion), and Artists are consumers of that service.
- AliasHandler, on 10/19/2007, -0/+6What they don't understand is if they embraced the digital revolution when it started nearly a decade ago, and shifted the business model to incorporate digital sales, they could have saved themselves. Constantly fighting the consumers is bad PR and bad business. They failed to see that digital sales, although they cost less, actually save them money on the printing of actual CD's. The cost of a digital copy is MINISCULE compared to the cost of printing a CD (either contracting a company to print the physical CD's, or printing it themselves, both of which require alot of money to run a printing facility and staff it, as well as budget for human and machine error, as well as maintenance of the machines or what to do when one breaks down, then followed by shipping to thousands of retailers across the country and insuring everything along the way) as opposed to sending a digital file to a digital retailer. The lost revenue (who pays 22.99 for a CD anymore?) is made up by cost savings as well as limited by a more massive volume of sales.
- BurnTees, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6are we trying to set a record for number of front page RIAA / Music Industry related articles today?
- YoshoKatana, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5It seems like they have the best of both worlds. They are providing a service to the artists, but making money on the final product. It's like if Google sold ads to a company, then got part of the company's profits as commission.
- skellener, on 10/19/2007, -1/+6I still prefer CDs myself. Better quality and no DRM. Lately I've found that many bands while offering MP3s for free on their own sites, are also selling their own CDs. Whenever they do this I absolutely buy the CD. It gives me a better quality version of their music (and a built-in back-up) as well as supporting the band. This is the way to do it. Pay directly to the people making it!! Remember, music will still be around long after the music industry is dead and buried.
- xposiactionx, on 10/19/2007, -1/+5Let me preface this. I am in a band on a smaller, definitely not major, label.
Speaking from the artist's side, we are both product AND consumer. I'm not sure how much everyone knows about the small or mid-major recording industry, but it's not what most people expect. Sure they pay for you to record (most of the time), sure they pay for LIMITED press, but guess what? Your band wants to sell 1000 copies of your own CD? PAY UP. Say, with printing, a CD costs the label $2.25. The BAND / ARTIST buys it for $3.25. The label sells it for $10 on the street, but the band only sees money AFTER all the recoupable costs have been paid for. That means the recording (you thought the label paid for, but you do with sales), the press (yup, artist), and anything else like videos, tv appearances, all that comes out of the bottom line. So who is paying the label? The BAND and the CONSUMER. Dont get me wrong, I love our label, but people tend to look past the fact, that it is a loan you are repaying, and then you are financing future operations by having to purchase your own CD to make any money on it.
So yeah. - indiephoenix, on 10/19/2007, -1/+5Well, in this case, the fans have greater control of how much goes to the artist. Furthermore, I wasn't aware of any credit card companies pursuing music related copyright infringements like the RIAA. Besides, this revolution or whatever you want to call it, isn't about short changing someone of money. It's about not having to deal with the tyrannical behavior of most major record labels.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5you forgot your /rant
- inactive, on 10/19/2007, -0/+3Just like SCO they will learn that taking up with lawyers as a business model will result in their ultimate destruction. noone ever wins in that situation except the lawyers.
- PintSki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3so true, personally i hope the "middleman" gets obsolete, sad for the people that work there, but when you work for a company that has no own product and thrives on their artists, robbing them in any way they can, they shouldn't be surprised that when the technology finally becomes easy enough to create your own distribution system, you get bypassed, seriously, what is their added value? the distribution, publicity,manufacturing of Cd's and studio's , not a single thing you can't do yourself (even at home nowadays! thank you Internet)
- EXreaction, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Dugg for the rant...and title.
- azprofessional, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Until Clay Aiken is hung for his crimes against music and general creepyness I will continue to download to avoid having to see anymore cutouts of his or the American Idol ***** machine production's faces.
If they want to sabotage themselves, be my guest, I don't listen to the radio, buy mass marketed music (except the odd outstanding artist achievement)
I will pay more for independant distribution deal artists, more for vinyls and download whenever it fancies me and I need a preview of whether to buy it on Itunes or not.
In this vain if I cut out the downloading out completel and this was the prototype for music purchasing, the labels would still go bankrupt, but hey thats just me, you have to show me more than helium inflated, autotune driven over-produced schlock with big label polish for me to buy it.
Sorry, pop is a nightmare, and mainstream is the calling card of the zombie.
Goodday - sotopheavy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+24 pronged attack... did anyone else think DVDA?
- bdbr, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Talk to your average person on the street, and they know very little about the RIAA and its tactics. Tell them about it, and the vast majority really won't care. The big labels never really hinged on the "goodwill of the consumer" in the first place.
Also, consider that 90% of music sales are still CD. Half the people in the US don't even have internet access (and broadband is even less), so downloads are many, many years from eliminating CDs. OK, iTunes is far and away the digital music king...with about 5% of the music sales. This article asserts that 5% "single-handedly saved the retail music industry", when the music industry declined several times that much!
I agree the US music industry has been killing itself, but it was in the 90s; with a 2-pronged attack on itself:
1. They let radio consolidation happened. We have about three music conglomerates setting the playlists for the entire country. Anything not on those three top 20 lists won't get heard much at all. Of the big 4 labels are almost guaranteed to have something on that list, but they'll have thousands of artists who never will be.
2. They killed Napster. This could have been their gold mine; it was a centralized service and all it had to do was become a subscription service. If the price was right and the protocols were still portable, illegal P2P might have just disappeared. But the opportunity to control the consumer (with DRM) was just too much of a temptation for the labels.
Its still a multi-billion dollar industry; don't fool yourself into thinking its "dead" because a few artists who got rich from it have defected. The "problem" never was how established artists might sell music. - amsterdamordeth, on 10/19/2007, -0/+2The first comment was merely to show how one company failing to keep up with business innovation and customer demand can destroy the business. Given ford's current predicament, it was an analogy of business economics that is true for any industry.
The suing part was only there to show the idea of finding a scapegoat before realizing they screwed it up themselves. - amsterdamordeth, on 10/19/2007, -0/+2Truly someone who didn't read the entire comment before closing their mind.
- amsterdamordeth, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Thats why i said they are the middleman. Did you read the entire article?
A middleman is needed for the majority of the industry. Who the middleman is, is determined by the value of that middleman by the artist and end customers. - zweben, on 10/19/2007, -1/+3Right. And Ford has an infinite inventory of cars which costs them nothing to produce or distribute, only to design.
- Gerz1219, on 10/19/2007, -0/+2I'm not sure that's true. Once music became uncoupled from a physical media, the demand was always going to be for songs rather than albums. The RIAA's entire pre-1998 business model revolved around selling a couple of good songs on an album full of crap. Even if the major labels had embraced the digital distribution model immediately, and offered their entire combined catalogs DRM-free at reasonable prices, the market for music would have shrunk. Not just because of piracy and lower prices, but because the intangible concept they relied upon to oversell their product -- the album -- ceased to exist once it no longer possessed a physical form.
The music industry was rightfully threatened by the digital revolution, because from the outset it devalued and lowered demand for their product. There was going to be a major contraction no matter what. The suits simply did what suits do, which is to say they ignored certain long-term realities and gave silly PowerPoint presentations that reflected a pro-active, can-do attitude that promised a clear-cut direction for maintaining the status quo -- always at the expense of the consumer, because their needs are diametrically opposed to the labels' interests. No executive was ever going to walk into a meeting and say, "Our revenues are going to fall 50% in the next five years, and there's nothing we can do about it but lay people off."
The music industry is like the T-1000 flailing about in molten steel. You can't help but feel a little sorry for its pathetic, fruitless attempts to survive the inevitable. - thcobbs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Mew
- MattB123, on 10/19/2007, -1/+2The Internet has been eliminating broker-type positions since it caught on in a mainstream way. In the old days, you needed the middleman broker because they could put the two halves of the deal together that might not otherwise find each other. Now that the two halves can find each other on the Internet, in many cases the broker is no longer needed.
I just bought Radiohead's new album yesterday, and today I bought Galactic's latest from Amazon as an mp3 download. While iTunes is great for what it is, I don't like the hardware lock-in Apple's proprietary format comes with (don't own any Apple branded audio or video gear).
So even though Amazon is still making deals with the labels, the ones who want to play may continue to get some money from me, and those who don't won't. I commend Radiohead for striking out on their own too. I'll continue to support any reasonably priced DRM and hardware lock-in free ways to get my music fix. Hopefully the momentum will continue. This is a good direction for the industry to go, even if they need to cut some fat to adapt to the new business model. - mastercheif, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Umm, we have a reply button?
- rotophonic, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Thanks for the great response, Amsterdam. My thoughts run parallel to yours. We're now watching the ugly thrashing of a drowning industry. It's ugly and if you get close, they'll drag you down with them.
Aliashandler, I had long meetings with some of those music executives as they sought to convince me that a music "subscription" that allowed me the temporary ability to download and listen to as much music as I wanted (one that would disappear as soon as I stopped paying) was better than owning a download. I mean, Big Music even tried to subvert the notion of a subscription: it's not like when I stop paying for Time Magazine my back issues disappear.
Finally, I'd really like to thank Radiohead handing the drowning industry a 1000 pound weight. - masgrada, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2 I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President."
- solid12345, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2CD's rock, mp3 players are nice but there is nothing like flipping through your cd book and popping an album into your truck's stereo and waking the neighbors.
- kaotikillusion, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1That movie was definitely prophetic.
- mattx, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1LOL nice 1
- amsterdamordeth, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The artists are basically selling their product to the labels/studios for a purpose. That is what I meant. Customers are customers yes. But if you remove the initial product that was purchased by the label and studio, you don't have an end product to sell to the customer. I should have said in the comment, "and studios ONLY consumer base". but it was a small point in the comment. Sorry for the inaccuracy.
- Coinspinner, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Dugg for the hilarious title....
- jayhawk88, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Let's just go ahead and summarize these "four points" shall we?
- Protect your product from people who are trying to steal it
- Continue to release music that the people most willing to purchase said music find appealing, but those who are most likely to not purchase music do not find enjoyable
- Attempt to find ways to maximize profit
- Incorrectly assume that anyone who wants to use your music in non-conventional ways is only doing so to further music theft
Look I'm not going to argue that the music industry isn't killing itself, because it is, but this is just silly. Only one of those points is valid. The music industry does what it does for two reasons:
1. A large number of people running the show do not properly understand technology and it's effect on their industry
2. Technology is threatening to release artists from under the industries thumb. - IADTatami, on 10/19/2007, -1/+2Good god, what will it take to get people to stop calling copyright infringement 'theft'?
Please stop. It's not theft. If you're caught infringing upon the copyrights of others, they charge you with copyright infringement.
The reason that they do not charge you with larceny is because you haven't stolen anything. You've infringed upon someone else's copyright. - jizzlies, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1There are some majorly long replies to this one. Reding iz hard...
- pmuschi, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I don't think your analogy where Ford sues Honda and Toyota is valid. But the second part of your post is right on.
- Kiltzg, on 10/19/2007, -0/+1The record companies don't have much time left to find a viable business model. The old one is obsolete, it is nonsense to keep throwing money at trying to "save" it.
Let's just move on, and hope the music industry, with or without the record companies, finds a way to follow! - heathuff23, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Quit spamming digg!!
Diggers, click on his profile here:
http://digg.com/users/jordanshoes
and then digg him down and choose "report as offensive"
He keeps creating new accounts with this spam garbage - ktrough, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1In my opinion, the industry is well aware of these issues and just doesn't care. They will continue to decline, and then their shareholders will require new leadership. New leadership will resurrect the companies by embracing the new technology.
For those who are old enough to remember the birth of consumer video tape, the birth of consumer cassette tape, etc, the issues are essentially identical and the arguments certainly WERE identical. Technology advanced, the public embraced it, and the industry cried bloody murder that the new tech would allow consumers to make quality copies of media and therefore "put them out of business".
Obviously that didn't happen. Once the industry (finally) embraced the technology, they opened new markets and expanded their profits by a huge margin. They will do the same thing again (eventually). Profit is profit and stockholders will sue if you are screwing the pooch for them.
Now the >real< change in the equation is the fact that computer IPs give the industry a paper trail (so to speak) to pursue with legal harassment. Hence all the legislation efforts and latest litigation push. Recording television shows on VHS and making cassette mix-tapes and copies obviously have no such paper trail to work or the industry would have attempted the legal "solution" earlier. We are still in new territory, and the industry still believes it can control the public through DRM and litigation.
Once the numbers prove that this tactic is absurd and has failed miserably, I believe they will have a leadership shake-up and will come back with a new "embrace the future" type of stance. At that point, you'll be able to buy music out of vending machines (and everywhere else) for well under a dollar a track and there won't be any more attacks on fair use such as ripping to PC or music players.
That's my .02 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Give these DRM nutt jobs a message! Stop paying for music and movies! Share person to person! Not via the internet! When the money stops flowing........ they will stop the Mom&Pop attacks for downloading a ***** song!
- abomb97, on 10/15/2007, -0/+0Read this follow up article from the artists perspective:
http://www.digg.com/music/Another_FREE_Legal_Album ... - mrsdsn, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0FYI, the MP3 downloads sold at amazon.com are all DRM-free.
- Yildrak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0The problem is the entertainment industry won't change their tactics. They went from investing in ten bands in the nineties in the hopes of having one profitable band in the end, to wanting every investment to be profitable. As their market has changed - who, in their right minds would still pay 20 bucks for a plastic disc containing maybe 15 tracks? - they didn't adapt. Similarly, who will pay 50 bucks for a DVD, when cinema and rental have already covered all the production costs and then some? They simply won't realise that if they sell more units at a reasonable price, their sales would skyrocket and their total profit would increase. They keep focusing on the price per unit, which is shortsighted. The biggest profit is now in reaching the biggest market and selling the most units, not the price per unit.
As long as all the money goes to the non-talented marketeers and not the talented artists, I will never pay more than 8 euros for a cd. If I was certain even 50% went to the artist, I'd buy cd's at their current prices. But since that's simply not the case, I'll download the music and go to live shows that DO profit the artists. - mrbojangles9211, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1God bless Radio Head for their free cd, you pay what you want!!! They are true musicians, doing it for the love of the music.
- solid12345, on 10/19/2007, -3/+1Radiohead drops label. Radiohead sells album online. Credit card companies get a dollar processing fee every album sold. Credit card companies get rich. Gee, the cycle starts all over again. Wake up people, this is no revolution it is only changing who profits monetarily.
- Meowbiusfox, on 10/19/2007, -3/+1I am already dancing on their graves,it's exhilirating.
I peed on it too.
I hate the "industry",passionately.
A bunch of bottom line,Seagram's blowin,suit-tard wearin robots,ALL OF THEM.
It's like calling the music you have slaved over to write arrange produce and record "product."
I hate people like this.I also hate people who use the term"vertical market" and assorted other
stupid terms when it's all bollocks.
BTW,This move by Radiohead isn't going to do diddly squat to make anything
any better for the countless thousands of artists out there that are indie,plus with MAd Donna
signing a deal with the Wal Mart of the concert promotion industry Clear Channel,(a.k.a ***** Channel)
the only concerts you will be able to see in the future are those artists bought
out by Clear Channel ,since they OWN the radio stations,and all the venues.
Get ready for 20 years of Eagles reunions,Steve Miller Band,Mad Donna,U2? and
pensioner era Rolling Stones gigs coming to a city near you.
I wish Sirius and XM would band against Clear Channel and go into
the same racket with them if only to provide some competition but
that's a long shot due to several factors I won't elaborate on here,namely a
retarded federal goverment that seems to think that anti-trust laws don't apply
to this so called"industry" which is now totally de-legittimized by
Ken Lay types x10000. - ssj2119, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0Great reply first poster. Exciting times
- DieselDan, on 10/19/2007, -10/+4I disagree with you on the point that the artists are the consumer base of the labels.
Point in fact, artists are not the consumer... they are the product. The record label, in fact, act as a middle-man, packaging and distributing the "product" (as in, the work of the artist) to it's consumer base, which are the end-users of the product (aka, music fans).
Other than that, your point was well-taken, and honestly, more insightful than the posted article.
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