The Piracy Threat...?

[Erzengel]

You totally don't get what I said.

Your point is that cds are grossing marked up so you rationalize downloading music for free as an alternative?

 

[The Lizard]

R.E.T.A.R.D.E.D.

"This job is too big for Special Ops or the Navy Seals, General. It's time to call R.E.T.A.R.D. Force!"

 

[BlackLantern]

You should be flogged for even mentioning that "movie".

Lantern--will any of your prostitutes be willing to flog someone!?

You usually have to pay extra for that......it can be accomodated though

 

[Addendum]

Record sales never dropped before internet downloads, they just kept rising and rising

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

There are thousands of unsigned or underappreciated signed artists that willingly give away free downloads just to spread their music...are they any less valuable?

You value the artist by respecting his wishes about how his art is distributed.

Of COURSE if Prince or Radiohead (all Multi-Multi-Millionaires who never have to work a day in their lives again) decide they want to give their creations away for free, GREAT.

And of COURSE if music is just a hobby for some guy, OR if an artist is way more concerned with exposure than he is profit, they can give it away.



See the difference there. If they WANT to give their art away, they CAN.
If an artist NEEDS income to live or to continue to make more art, so he decides that HE wants to to sell his art, he DOESN'T GET TO DECIDE THAT, because cheap-ass barbarians decide that, NOPE, he CAN'T charge for it.

They take it upon themselves to make that decision for him, but taking his art for Free.


Pure Evil.
Pure Evil Scum.
Brutish, Inhuman, Uncivilized Savage Scum.

 

[Addendum]

If a friend asks, I'll burn a copy of a CD I bought.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

"This job is too big for Special Ops or the Navy Seals, General. It's time to call R.E.T.A.R.D. Force!"

Hahaha

RResponsibleEEasyTTwistedAAmazingRRelaxedDDangerousEEnergeticDDignified

 

[knowsbleed]

They take it upon themselves to make that decision for him, but taking his art for Free.


Pure Evil.
Pure Evil Scum.
Brutish, Inhuman, Uncivilized Savage Scum.

In the end...those people are part of a business that needs to remain competitive with technology. If they don't then they get left behind and ripped off by "pure evil, brutish, inhuman, uncivilized savage scum". CD sales are going to keep diminishing based on technology...not just piracy. Digital media will see to that.

 

[BlackLantern]

You value the artist by respecting his wishes about how his art is distributed.

Of COURSE if Prince or Radiohead (all Multi-Multi-Millionaires who never have to work a day in their lives again) decide they want to give their creations away for free, GREAT.

And of COURSE if music is just a hobby for some guy, OR if an artist is way more concerned with exposure than he is profit, they can give it away.



See the difference there. If they WANT to give their art away, they CAN.
If an artist NEEDS income to live or to continue to make more art, so he decides that HE wants to to sell his art, he DOESN'T GET TO DECIDE THAT, because cheap-ass barbarians decide that, NOPE, he CAN'T charge for it.

They take it upon themselves to make that decision for him, but taking his art for Free.


Pure Evil.
Pure Evil Scum.
Brutish, Inhuman, Uncivilized Savage Scum.

I wouldn't say scum...but the point is that Radiohead and NIN can afford to be indpendent because they have that built in audience and drawing power already.....Most other artists need a record label to organize tours, promote, market them to the public....If any band or musician is independent and they (not the record label) decide to charge 30 dollars for their cd's....will you deem that too expensive and go download it for free???

 

[bell110]

WASHINGTON-The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced today that the number of units shipped domestically from record companies to retail outlets and special markets (music clubs and mail order) fell 10.3 percent in 2001.

Specifically, total U.S. shipments dropped from 1.08 billion units shipped in 2000 to 968.58 million in 2001-a 10.3 percent decrease. The dollar value of all music product shipments decreased from $14.3 billion in 2000 to $13.7 billion in 2001-a 4.1 percent decrease, according to figures released today by the RIAA.

"This past year was a difficult year in the recording industry, and there is no simple explanation for the decrease in sales. The economy was slow and 9/11 interrupted the fourth quarter plans, but, a large factor contributing to the decrease in overall shipments last year is online piracy and CD-burning," said Hilary Rosen, President and CEO of the RIAA. "When 23 percent of surveyed music consumers say they are not buying more music because they are downloading or copying their music for free, we cannot ignore the impact on the marketplace."

This is from the RIAA website in one of their press releases...

Yes, quoting the RIAA is completely an unbias source. I think the bold illustrates a better view of why sales fell that year then because of downloads.

 

[Addendum]

Pirates blew up the Twin Towers

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

Radiohead and NIN can afford to be indpendent because they have that built in audience and drawing power already

Thanks to ONE thing.
Those big, evil, awful, exploitative record companies.

 

[bell110]

You value the artist by respecting his wishes about how his art is distributed.

Of COURSE if Prince or Radiohead (all Multi-Multi-Millionaires who never have to work a day in their lives again) decide they want to give their creations away for free, GREAT.

And of COURSE if music is just a hobby for some guy, OR if an artist is way more concerned with exposure than he is profit, they can give it away.



See the difference there. If they WANT to give their art away, they CAN.
If an artist NEEDS income to live or to continue to make more art, so he decides that HE wants to to sell his art, he DOESN'T GET TO DECIDE THAT, because cheap-ass barbarians decide that, NOPE, he CAN'T charge for it.

They take it upon themselves to make that decision for him, but taking his art for Free.


Pure Evil.
Pure Evil Scum.
Brutish, Inhuman, Uncivilized Savage Scum.

If an artist is more concerned about his profits, he's more of a business man then an artist. But hey, if the artist values profits he deserves to fail. I've seen lots of bands live. There are the bands that give away free copies and band that sell their **** in the back of the club. The bands that I've gotten free cds from, I get to listen to over and over again and I remember who they are. The bands that sell their cds, I never remember who they are.

 

[BlackLantern]

Yes, quoting the RIAA is completely an unbias source. I think the bold illustrates a better view of why sales fell that year then because of downloads.

I really don't think there is an unbiased source when it comes to this subject.

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

If an artist is more concerned about his profits, he's more of a business man then an artist. But hey, if the artist values profits he deserves to fail. I've seen lots of bands live. There are the bands that give away free copies and band that sell their **** in the back of the club. The bands that I've gotten free cds from, I get to listen to over and over again and I remember who they are. The bands that sell their cds, I never remember who they are.

Bulls*** Bulls*** Bulls***

You are so clueless that I have to assume you are 10 or 11 years old, I PRAY that's the case.

People think "PROFIT" is a bad word denoting amoral greed.

BULLS***.


Profit!.......is, what's left over after you replace the money you spent on producing the product.


If I spend $1,000 to have a thousand CDs made, and I try to sell them, and I make back $1,001..........then my PROFIT, was ONE F***ING DOLLAR.

Now if I'm trying to make back enough money to CONTINUE CREATING THE ART I LOVE SO MUCH, it is not wrong to try to make back more than ONE DOLLAR.

It FURTHERS your Art in the future, it doesn't detract from it.





You're mixing up people for whom the profit IS the reason they make music, with people who want to profit BECAUSE they want to make more art.



Just clueless.

 

[bell110]

Music sharing doesn't kill CD sales, study says

Researchers at Harvard and the University of North Carolina say music swapping isn't to blame for falling music revenue, and might even help sell CDs.
By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: March 29, 2004, 3:58 PM PST
TalkBackE-mailPrint del.icio.us Digg this



A study of file-sharing's effects on music sales says online music trading appears to have had little part in the recent slide in CD sales. For the study, released Monday, researchers at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina tracked music downloads over 17 weeks in 2002, matching data on file transfers with actual market performance of the songs and albums being downloaded. Even high levels of file-swapping seemed to translate into an effect on album sales that was "statistically indistinguishable from zero," they wrote.
"We find that file sharing has only had a limited effect on record sales," the study's authors wrote. "While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing."
The study, the most detailed economic modeling survey to use data obtained directly from file-sharing networks, is sure to rekindle debates over the effects of widely used software such as Kazaa or Morpheus on an ailing record business.
Big record labels have seen their sales slide precipitously in the past several years, and have blamed the falling revenue in large part on rampant free music downloads online. Others have pointed to additional factors, such as lower household spending during the recession, and increased competition from other entertainment forms such as DVDs and video games, each of which have grown over the same time period.
Executives at file-sharing companies welcomed the survey, saying it should help persuade reluctant record company executives to use peer-to-peer networks as distribution channels for music "We welcome sound research into the developing peer-to-peer industry, and this study appears to have covered some interesting ground," said Nikki Hemming, chief executive officer of Kazaa parent Sharman Networks. "Consider the possibilities if the record industry actually cooperated with companies like us instead of fighting."
The study, performed by Harvard Business School associate professor Felix Oberholzer and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill associate professor Koleman Strumpf, used logs from two OpenNap servers in late 2002 to observe about 1.75 million downloads over their 17 week sample period.
That sample revealed interesting behavioral, as well as economic, data. Researchers found that the average user logged in only twice during that period, downloading about 17 songs. Some people vastly overshot that average, however--one user apparently logged in 71 times, downloading more than 5,000 songs.
The two professors narrowed their sample base by choosing a random sample of 500 albums from the sales charts of various music genres, and then compared the sales of these albums to the number of associated downloads.
Even in the most pessimistic version of their model, they found that it would take about 5,000 downloads to displace sales of just one physical CD, the authors wrote. Despite the huge scale of downloading worldwide, that would be only a tiny contribution to the overall slide in album sales over the past several years, they said.
Moreover, their data seemed to show that downloads could even have a slight positive effect on the sales of the top albums, the researchers said.
The study is unlikely to be the last word on the issue. Previous studies have been released showing that file sharing had both positive and negative effects on music sales.
The Recording Industry Association of America was quick to dismiss the results as inconsistent with earlier findings.
"Countless well-respected groups and analysts, including Edison Research, Forrester, and the University of Texas, among others, have all determined that illegal file sharing has adversely impacted the sales of CDs," RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss said in a statement. "Our own surveys show that those who are downloading more are buying less."
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[jks]

Oh cry me a river

no need for you to cry just because you're being proven wrong.

 

[BlackLantern]

Music sharing doesn't kill CD sales, study says

Researchers at Harvard and the University of North Carolina say music swapping isn't to blame for falling music revenue, and might even help sell CDs.
By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: March 29, 2004, 3:58 PM PST
TalkBackE-mailPrint del.icio.us Digg this



A study of file-sharing's effects on music sales says online music trading appears to have had little part in the recent slide in CD sales. For the study, released Monday, researchers at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina tracked music downloads over 17 weeks in 2002, matching data on file transfers with actual market performance of the songs and albums being downloaded. Even high levels of file-swapping seemed to translate into an effect on album sales that was "statistically indistinguishable from zero," they wrote.
"We find that file sharing has only had a limited effect on record sales," the study's authors wrote. "While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing."
The study, the most detailed economic modeling survey to use data obtained directly from file-sharing networks, is sure to rekindle debates over the effects of widely used software such as Kazaa or Morpheus on an ailing record business.
Big record labels have seen their sales slide precipitously in the past several years, and have blamed the falling revenue in large part on rampant free music downloads online. Others have pointed to additional factors, such as lower household spending during the recession, and increased competition from other entertainment forms such as DVDs and video games, each of which have grown over the same time period.
Executives at file-sharing companies welcomed the survey, saying it should help persuade reluctant record company executives to use peer-to-peer networks as distribution channels for music "We welcome sound research into the developing peer-to-peer industry, and this study appears to have covered some interesting ground," said Nikki Hemming, chief executive officer of Kazaa parent Sharman Networks. "Consider the possibilities if the record industry actually cooperated with companies like us instead of fighting."
The study, performed by Harvard Business School associate professor Felix Oberholzer and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill associate professor Koleman Strumpf, used logs from two OpenNap servers in late 2002 to observe about 1.75 million downloads over their 17 week sample period.
That sample revealed interesting behavioral, as well as economic, data. Researchers found that the average user logged in only twice during that period, downloading about 17 songs. Some people vastly overshot that average, however--one user apparently logged in 71 times, downloading more than 5,000 songs.
The two professors narrowed their sample base by choosing a random sample of 500 albums from the sales charts of various music genres, and then compared the sales of these albums to the number of associated downloads.
Even in the most pessimistic version of their model, they found that it would take about 5,000 downloads to displace sales of just one physical CD, the authors wrote. Despite the huge scale of downloading worldwide, that would be only a tiny contribution to the overall slide in album sales over the past several years, they said.
Moreover, their data seemed to show that downloads could even have a slight positive effect on the sales of the top albums, the researchers said.
The study is unlikely to be the last word on the issue. Previous studies have been released showing that file sharing had both positive and negative effects on music sales.
The Recording Industry Association of America was quick to dismiss the results as inconsistent with earlier findings.
"Countless well-respected groups and analysts, including Edison Research, Forrester, and the University of Texas, among others, have all determined that illegal file sharing has adversely impacted the sales of CDs," RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss said in a statement. "Our own surveys show that those who are downloading more are buying less."
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and this is coming from the university system.....o no they aren't biased at all.....

 

[Addendum]

Far less biased than a report issued by the music industry or a group that works with them.

That RIAA report you posted, without a link, had just as much bias as say, a report issued by Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company that second hand smoke isn't a significant health risk

 

[BlackLantern]

I admire Radiohead for doing what they are doing, but I wonder what their fans would think if tomorrow they just decided to say "hey we're Radiohead and we feel like charging $50.00 for our CD's now"

 

[bell110]

Bulls*** Bulls*** Bulls***

You are so clueless that I have to assume you are 10 or 11 years old, I PRAY that's the case.

People think "PROFIT" is a bad word denoting amoral greed.

BULLS***.


Profit!.......is, what's left over after you replace the money you spent on producing the product.


If I spend $1,000 to have a thousand CDs made, and I try to sell them, and I make back $1,001..........then my PROFIT, was ONE F***ING DOLLAR.

I know what profit is *****e

Now if I'm trying to make back enough money to CONTINUE CREATING THE ART I LOVE SO MUCH, it is not wrong to try to make back more than ONE DOLLAR.

It FURTHERS your Art in the future, it doesn't detract from it.

I said before, I'm not against people making profit. But I can read between your lines. You basically would like to get paid to play guitar and smoke pot the rest of your life. I understand, I would too. I play guitar because I like to. I don't "create" music that I want to share with the world, and if I did, I wouldn't be so egotistical to think that people would actually want to buy it.

And you are wrong. It does not cost a cent to make music. After you have your instrument, you're ready to go. It cost money to record music and distribute music. So it's bull**** to think that you need to make a profit to "continue" making music.

And when people want to see you play live, that is where you make your coveted profit from. And if people don't hear your music, they won't come to your shows, and you will continue to NOT make a profit.

You're mixing up people for whom the profit IS the reason they make music, with people who want to profit BECAUSE they want to make more art.



Just clueless.

I think you're the one that is mixing the two up. You don't NEED to make a profit to make more art. My friend's band has been together for 10 years, have two cds pressed, and still have not made their money back, yet they keep playing and keep doing shows.

 

[bell110]

I admire Radiohead for doing what they are doing, but I wonder what their fans would think if tomorrow they just decided to say "hey we're Radiohead and we feel like charging $50.00 for our CD's now"

What? What is the purpose of that statement? I'm sure some die hard fans would still buy it. But for the most part, not many people would get that cd. Are you trying to help prove the pro-downloader's point now?

 

[BlackLantern]

What? What is the purpose of that statement? I'm sure some die hard fans would still buy it. But for the most part, not many people would get that cd. Are you trying to help prove the pro-downloader's point now?

Your whole point seems to be that you don't want the record labels to profit because they are this evil life sucking force that is only concerned with money and you seem to be very pro-artist.

So what if the artist has decided that their work was worth more than you are willing yo pay??? It is their work and it is their right to determine its worth....

 

[Wilhelm-Scream]

I said before, I'm not against people making profit.

You're a backpedaling liar. I'm not surprised.

But hey, if the artist values profits he deserves to fail.

But I can read between your lines. You basically would like to get paid to play guitar and smoke pot the rest of your life. I understand, I would too. I play guitar because I like to. I don't "create" music that I want to share with the world, and if I did, I wouldn't be so egotistical to think that people would actually want to buy it.

You are an idiot.

I loathe marijuana, and can not stand most stoners. My music has already been bought by the fans. Just because your music sucks and would not generate any interest doesn't mean that everyone's in the same boat as you.

And you are wrong. It does not cost a cent to make music. After you have your instrument, you're ready to go. It cost money to record music and distribute music. So it's bull**** to think that you need to make a profit to "continue" making music.

And when people want to see you play live, that is where you make your coveted profit from. And if people don't hear your music, they won't come to your shows, and you will continue to NOT make a profit.



I think you're the one that is mixing the two up. You don't NEED to make a profit to make more art. My friend's band has been together for 10 years, have two cds pressed, and still have not made their money back, yet they keep playing and keep doing shows.

More idiocy.
1) This isn't just about music.
As I said earlier, I'm right now in the process of saving up to make a film.
I want a really nice steady cam rig. The one I want costs $18,000.
I need animatronics in the movie. That costs money.
I need actors in the movie.
That costs money.
There are optical effects involved.
That costs money.


Next, my old band was the biggest band in town. All the other bar bands were making from 0 to maybe 50 bucks and free beer when they'd play.
My band was making 1 to 2 thousand a night, because more people really wanted to see our show.

One of the reasons was that we got sick of all the grungy, boring, everyday f***s in their dirty T-Shirts and holey jeans, glumly strumming their guitars, and the chubby rappers in their hoodies and tennis shoes, standing on a stage like a lump.
So we wanted to put on a spectacle.
It cost a f***ing fortune to put on each show with all of the lights, bombs, smoke, scenery, costumes, etc.

And when we got paid, we'd just plow it back into the next show.
The shows were a giant spectacle that financed itself...through PROFIT.
We weren't all born with millionaire Mommies and Daddies to pay our ways through life and spoil us.
We had to work hard, to create something, and then enjoy the fruit of that labor.

If we weren't making any money, we wouldn't be able to realize OUR ART as effectively, which was, conceptually, to create a visual/sonic experience that blew everyone else out of the water.

*b00m*, you are wrong.
You're arrogantly assuming that life and art for everyone else is exactly as it is for you and your circle.
And that's how you people think.
You think YOU decide what can be charged, and when someone is rich enough, and what you're entitled to.

Makes me ill.

 

[Stikmann]

I’m a little curious if “illegal downloading” is sort of a “WMD” of the entertainment industry these days though. I mean in the lagging sales in the music industry and the hit the movie industry has taken too. I don’t doubt that illegal downloads are a concern but it would seem that the rise in legal music downloading would be causing people to lose their jobs just as much (in the CD manufacturing business). I, for one am old school…I like having my CD collection. Whatever the situation is though, the music business is obviously at a point where they have to fundamentally alter their entire existence due to the new nature of technology. Human nature being what it is; when it’s easier to turn on your computer and download any song/album you want, then to actually buy that song/album…something’s got to change. I’m curious what the music business will be in say 10 to 15 years. One day people will be saying, “Yeah, I remember when you could just hop onto the newsgroups and download any song/TV show/movie you wanted. Those were the days!”