Pew Study Says RIAA Tactics Are Working 399
Furd writes "The Pew Internet & American Life Project has posted a new data study that purports to show that the RIAA lawsuit strategy has successfully reduced P2P filesharing. While the presentation of the data is weak (poor graphics and weak statistics), the report does suggest that there has been a change in the usage of P2P tools."
Correlation does not equal causation (Score:5, Insightful)
2. The 4 p2p application listed in Pew's report (KaZaa, WinMX, BearShare and Grokster) will naturally lose marketshare due to the availablity of newer, more sophisticated applications.
Re:Correlation does not equal causation (Score:5, Informative)
you said everything that was needed. Well done.
But the question, now, is : why such a story is posted when this is self-evident than someone is going to refute the very content of the story ? Or is it just meant to allow us to put some more sarcasms to the RIAA ? I still wonder.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Regards,
jdif
Re:Correlation does not equal causation (Score:5, Insightful)
Common sense isn't all that common, and understanding of statistics even less so. Sure, we know the statistics of the mainstream media, let alone the RIAA puppets, is a joke, but what about "regular people."
Then again, even if the "regular people" believe this statistic, what good would it do the RIAA? Well, it might put more of the fear of lawsuits into them. My girlfriend worries that I might get sued, even though it is about the same odds as winning the lottery and I don't share RIAA music. Maybe the RIAA is hoping for a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It seems futile to refute RIAA propaganda, but as they say, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Or is it just meant to allow us to put some more sarcasms to the RIAA ? I still wonder.
Sarcasm of the RIAA can be entertaining.
Articles about the RIAA attract readers.
Is this new?
Re:Correlation does not equal causation (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd also like to add number three to that list:
3. December is also a very busy time for just about everyone. Expecting people to be downloading mp3s just as much during the holiday season is just
Sidenote: as a Canadian, I dont plan on buying a single CD or paying for a single song from the major labels while I'm paying a music industry tax on my blank media.
Re:Correlation does not equal causation (Score:2)
Re:Correlation does not equal causation (Score:4, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Correlation does not equal causation (Score:5, Insightful)
You accuse the parent of "sticking it to" and "shafting it to" "the rest of the world" as if he is some sick, depraved individual whose actions exist with the sole intent of causing harm to everyone else. "How dare you not purchase my product!" you seem to say. You even go so far as to admit that you are in favor of legistlation mandating the subsidizing of the music industry by leveling a tax on people.
Until you modify your attitude of entitlement and lose your contempt for your target market, your product will continue to become less relevant and desired.
The U.S. did it 12 years ago. (Score:5, Informative)
This tax benefits mainly folks like Celine Dion and Brian Adams and whomever sings those beer commercial songs. It doesn't benefit the artists of the rest of the world.
First, it's not a tax. It's a levy, tarrif or royalty, depending on who you talk to.
Second, it is imposed by international convention just about anywhere you would like to live. http://www.socan.ca/jsp/en/resources/around_world. jsp [socan.ca]. It is infact well-distributed around the world.
Third, they succeeded in imposing a very similar system in the U.S., it happened twelve years ago. The RIAA http://www.riaa.com/issues/licensing/default.asp [riaa.com] is a member of the AARC, who admisters the royalties in the U.S. http://www.aarcroyalties.com/ [aarcroyalties.com].
I don't really understand this stuff myself, but just check out the websites. They have lots of info up there about what they're doing and why.
One thing I really don't understand, is why "Happy Birthday" can demand royalties direct through AOL/Time Warner, when systems like this are in place. Urban legend?
Re:The U.S. did it 12 years ago. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The U.S. did it 12 years ago. (Score:4, Interesting)
If you work with this stuff professionally, you should check out what those sites are saying: "Once the monies are received, AARC distributes the royalties to each artist and sound recording copyright owner it represents based on the participant's sales during the royalty year. So if a given artist's sales account for 3% of the total records sold that year by all claimants in its particular royalty subfund, they will get 3% of the royalties."
Yeah, it's a blurb about what they do, as opposed to what they actually may or may not do, but if you know otherwise, you should probably feed back on their site.
Here's some more text on it from the AHRA:
Section 1004, Subsection 3b : Digital Audio Recording Media
The royalty payment due under section 1003 for each digital audio recording medium imported into and distributed in the United States, or manufactured and distributed in the United States, shall be 3 percent of the transfer price. Only the first person to manufacture and distribute or import and distribute such medium shall be required to pay the royalty with respect to such medium.
I read "3 percent of the transfer price" as 3% of wholesale... which even for "data" CDs, is probably unnoticably low. Except for fancy packaging and a jewel case for prominent display where tapes used to occupy the shelves, I don't personally know of any difference between an "audio" CDR and a "data" CDR.
From their FAQ, they agree with what you're saying about analog media and computers. An inline D/A A/D convertor would probably make for a levy-immune copying machine.
In the end, I suppose you're right, the Canadian Act appears far more powerful... I think it was to be applied retroactively at retail... which is fiendish. The proposed levies were so high too that they would have crushed the CDR industry and closed a lot of businesses if they went through (retroactive!?).
Regarding the legitimacy of the tarrifs as applied in the U.S., it's all suspicious to me, but I don't know enough to have an opinion about it.
The Happy Birthday thing is still a little weird to me, even if the words are copyrighted, so are the words to any given song.
As for Perl, I agree wholeheartedly :-)
Re:Correlation does not equal causation (Score:2)
Not that coincidental (Score:5, Interesting)
For that matter, the two pronged assault was probably orchestrated. To launch lawsuits without a replacement technology in place would be a losing strategy. Launching legitimate music channels while building a case against the anti-capitalist P2Pers would have weakened the case for built in copyright protection.
You probably should ammend your post to say that both the lawsuit and pay per song services were part of the strategy, and that the strategy is working quite well at keeping the power in the hands of the few.
Watching the free music crowd getting played for suckers was an extremely painful thing to watch...especially since their was a better option: If there was respect for the written laws, we could have had our MP3s and copied them to our MP3 player too. Hey, we may have even been in a better position to change the laws for the better.
Re:Not that coincidental (Score:3, Insightful)
Newspeak! Double-plus un-good!
I've been hearing quite a lot of this lately, from liberal and independent media sources. I don't think anyone is using the word capitalism correctly any more. Your particular use may have been sarcastic (it's hard to tell), but I'm reacting in a more general sense to all of the "anti-capitalist forces" out there who have been perverting a perfectly good word and turning it into a label for "the status quo", which they dislike. I can rant on thi
Re:Correlation does not equal causation (Score:2)
It's surprising that the RIAA's actions haven't prevented the success of these services.
Re:In Boolean Algebra, Logic Tests You! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Pew study was based on a poll.
I believe that one might be forgiven if they were skeptical that the change in the data is due to 'lip service' rather than representing an actual change in downloading habits. It may be that RIAAs lawsuit strategy has not altered downloading behavior so much as it's influenced the respondents forthrightness in answering questions about downloading.
Re:In Boolean Algebra, Logic Tests You! (Score:3, Insightful)
New Tactics (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:New Tactics (Score:5, Interesting)
because all we trade are indie bands that gave us the rights to trade their songs freely.... really!
Our closed/encrypted group like you are going to form has worked for years. mostly it was formed to get away from the crap-quality mp3's out on kazaa and the others (192 bitrate is the absolute minimum quality accepted with CORRECT id3 tags and file naming)
the RIAA is simply moving the people underground and out of their view.
Re:New Tactics (Score:2)
because all we trade are indie bands that gave us the rights to trade their songs freely.... really!"
Well, if your private trading group only shares files tha
Re:New Tactics (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember the old ladies and little kids getting caught up in their scam^h^h^h^hdragnet?"
Well, here's what I remember:
An older person may have been improperly identified by her ISP, and I think that case was dropped.
A girl that acknowledged that she had copied thousands of files, and her family settled for a few thousand dollars.
But now I'm curious: what exactly is their "scam"?
Re:New Tactics (Score:3, Insightful)
fwiw, the RIAA would consider that a victory. Your community of a dozen or so users is far less of a threat than a community of millions.
And if you personally set it all up, you may be personally liable...
bad statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
Changing p2p habits: (Score:2, Insightful)
But there are still plenty of strong networks out there. I'm sure some of those Kazaa users have migrated over to them.
What really matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What really matters (Score:3, Informative)
Not only is this hugely exagerated, it is a plain lie. The only chance of going to jail for that, is when you charge money for it.
But they think they kan
Re:What really matters (Score:2)
there IS an increase in buying used music at used disc stores though. the two that I frequent has had a major increase in traffic cince november.
I'll buy used RIAA music. but only indie bands are getting my cash for new purchases.
My opinion... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know of any other fairly popular file sharing program that you can find anything with, also it seems to be that there have been success with online music purchasing, specifically iTunes with 25 million songs downloaded.
Not really big news, everyone knew if the companies offered a dollar per song, and this is years ago, napster-era stuff, that people would buy it, but the record companies wanted to buck the consumer and squeeze that last few pennies out by not changing the industry despite what the people actually wanted.
Re:My opinion... (Score:2)
Re:My opinion... (Score:2)
"Not really big news, everyone knew if the companies offered a dollar per song, and this is years ago, napster-era stuff, that people would buy it..."
No, I don't believe the sweetspot is $1/song. Think about it, for $1/song and a typical 15-song album, that's $15. Not that different for what you'd pay in a store for a physical copy (which you can easily rip), cover art, lyrics, etc. I think the online sweetspot wil be around $0.50.
People are weak. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh well, just a matter of time before highly encrypted and anonymous P2P hits the masses. Then we can all lean back and smile as they scurry about trying to stop it.
a matter of time (Score:2, Insightful)
Without a doubt.
I'd wager that the plaintext-and-public P2P networks are declining in direct proportion to an increase in the popularity of encrypted-and-(somewhat-)private networks. Stopping people who want to swap files will be every bit as difficult as stopping spammers. The infrastructure is just too well suited to the application.
New stuff is garbage (Score:2, Funny)
Re:New stuff is garbage (Score:2)
I (*ahem*) did a lot of downloading in 2002 (out of US, no legal online services), but in 2003, I've already got most stuff I would want, so I stopped. Or mostly stopped
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess that depends.... (Score:3, Interesting)
it may be working to reduce P2P, but is it also working to reduce sales of records, or also working to alienate their customers? it has with me, i guess it remains to be seen whether thats the case with sales figures 6-12 months from now.
Bad Statistics! (Score:2, Insightful)
pew falls into the RIAA beancounting trap (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, doesn't ALWAYS mean that it is...it can be a penguin in a duck suit. (lil' linux joke, btw).
kazaalite (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no way in hell I will install that spyware invested crap called Kazaa Media Desktop.
And Gnutella is way too slow over a modem, which is still the predominant form of Internet access. (Well it was when I last tried it)
The real question is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or it could be the other reason, I've got all the songs I want.
NarratorDan
Re:The real question is... (Score:2)
Re:The real question is... (Score:3, Interesting)
I truly, truly pity anyone who could say such a thing. You need friends like me who constantly bug you to listen to some new band.
Re:The real question is... (Score:4, Interesting)
My speculation is that the RIAA tactics did have a substantial effect, but only with the availability of alternative download mechanisms. In statistical terms the legal online music stores played a substantial moderating role in the causal relation between the high-publicity RIAA actions and the results reported.
With the right sort of data, it would be possible to test this speculation. Pew does things fairly well, and they may additional data which could be used to check it out.
Just because we despise the tactics of the RIAA and the structure of the music industry as a whole, doesn't mean that we have to pretend that their tactics couldn't have worked.
Biased (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, this says nothing for uncopyrighted, public-domain, or non-RIAA music, but given that the RIAA has had a history of using sledgehammers to swat flies, I daresay they'd be happier just stomping out P2P altogether than they would be with just getting their own music off of it.
Re:Biased (Score:2)
Nah... I would have thought that it is in the RIAA's best interests to claim that P2P filesharing is at an all-time high. That would be more in line with their other extravagant claims with regards to music swapping and declining sales. "105% of all Americans are using P2P! There are active music pirate rings in kindergartens! Terrorist camps are b
Hmmmm..... add migration to BitTorrent and eMule (Score:5, Informative)
I personally know that my friends are quickly moving to eMule due to the degradation of KaZaA's usability. They are having no difficulty in migrating to eMule's interface. Perhaps the RIAA should realize that attacking one source doesn't effect other sources, especially with today's computer literate college youth.
Re:Hmmmm..... add migration to BitTorrent and eMu (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be interesting if they could actually identify the people who stopped using the file-sharing programs they looked at. It might correspond to the more tech-savvy geeks who've moved on to better things.
Actually.... (Score:5, Interesting)
But the p2p hydra has many heads.
RIAA is largely blind to the activity going on in the other networks, most of which are much harder to quickly traverse than gnutella or kazaa. Also, I imagine that no one has written a spidering program for them yet.
The other networks are flourishing right now. Without naming networks, the server count for my favorite p2p network is much higher than normal, as is the user count and the download speed. No one has gotten a warning letter or sued yet for activity on this network, to the best of my knowledge, although some german and spanish ISPs have begun to block the ports it uses.
Extra credit: Can you guess a name for this new network?
Slight correction: (Score:2, Funny)
I've seen the videos you're talking about, but those are really more prehensile phalluses with mouths.
Be careful what you search for, you just might find it.
Usenet (Score:2, Informative)
The only downside is that you can only download what other people have posted. But if you ask nicely someone will usually upload whatever obscure album [pair.com] I'm looking for after a couple of days. In a way, its like a IRC trading with REALLY REALLY bad lag. :)
I stopped using Kazaa... (Score:3, Informative)
That is not to say that I started buying CDs all of a sudden, far from it. The last CD I bought was more than three years ago (RATM, Battle of LA), and the only reason I did it was because it was my favourite band and I decided to show my support to them. I had the same album in mp3s since the day it came out.
This has been discussed numerous times on
So unless they will actually release interesting, creative music (instead of Britney et al), I couldn't care less about the RIAA's problems. The one way it did affect me was through the levy imposed on mp3 players in Canada, but you can always buy them from private individuals that bring them over straight from HK or Japan. But that's another can of worms, and it's off topic under this article.
Inevitable? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard the argument that consumers will not accept paying for an intangible (that is, no physical object). But the iTunes model allows the consumer, in a limited way, control over the physical. From their purchase, they burn their physical dividend. One could argue that the consumer gains *more* through DRM/license-ware, as some plans allow the consumer to burn multiple CDs.
Most of the people I know (by that, I mean average, largely non-technical) still buy the occasional CD. They hate the RIAA in the abstract for Napster, but it does not stop them from buying. More and more have given up on P2P. Whether it's fear of a lawsuit or general hastle of finding Top-40, it just isn't worth their time anymore.
The RIAA doesn't need to destroy P2P, that would be impossible. All it needs to do is break it sufficiently to make their "alternative" more attractive. I personally believe thing will reach an equilibrium, eventually. P2P will always be around, in some form, for the dedicated. The RIAA will be sure to quash anything before it reaches critical mass. While on the other hand, DRM-ware will evolve into something more accomodating.
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
Many people will always pirate popular music out of spite of the RIAA (like me).
Their unlawful methods are also under investigation right now. The RIAA is not, and will not win in any way, shape or form as you wrongly predict.
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
What about non-centralized networks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do I use Kazaa? hell no! I have to download 10 versions of a song just to get the "real" version of it... the one without some weird sound effects or just being the first 10 seconds repeated for the 4 minutes that the song should really be.
Welcome to bittorrent land. I'll not post the URL from the server I use regularly for obvious reasons, but rest assured I can get more there than I could with Kazaa anyday. Now I download whole albums at a time instead of just 1 or 2 songs in order to determine if a record is worth buying.
The great thing about bittorrent is that if people find that a song or album is fake they just stop sharing it. All of a sudden that album that should have 2000 people sharing it because it's so good only has 2 people sharing it (and they'll stop as soon as they unzip it and listen). That tells me to pass and find the real version.
I hope the RIAA realizes that instead of ending the problem they just made it burrow deeper. This time there is no centralized network that they can shut down in order to maximize profits from the unsuspecting consumer. If they kill one, 5 more will show up in it's place. I hope they are happy with what they have caused to be created.
Right now, the networks are small. Remember how small Napster or Kazaa began as? What happened a few months to a year later? Exactly... Expect 2004 or 2005 to be the year of bittorrent (or another decentralized network)
Re:What about non-centralized networks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I think that there is a common misunderstanding, particularly in the (big, scary) world outside of /., that America's youth (in general) are simply guaranteed to grow up computer-literate. While they may be more comfortable with computers than their parents, they're rarely much more knowledgable.
Although BT itself is pretty transparent, just click the link and download, actually finding usable torrents for content can be surprisingly difficult. With Kazaa, it's just open it up, search, and get many, many results (which used to be generally good, in terms of quality and authenticity, but the probability of success is decreasing), and then click. The fact that Kazaa (and Napster before it) was so transparent and simple was part of the reason so many college-students left it on, without even bothering to limit their upload.
However, to be fair, I think you're right about the trend towards decentralized networks, and I must admit, I'm not very familiar with eMule/eDonkey, but it does sound promising.
I wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
Tapering off... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, it did change my use (Score:3, Interesting)
Why use P2P? Got addicted to the variety of music present on Napster. You know, find a user with similar tastes, then grap a couple tracks you don't know, but might like. That's fun stuff that is just too damn expensive to do otherwise.
The new pay services make it pretty easy to get a lot of music, but fall way short in the finding new music area... Rock from the Aussies, techno / house / trance from Europe and Japan is very appealing to me. Didn't know that until Napster. In a way, I kind of wish I didn't given all the majors mistakes today.
I am not sure they are going to like the bigger changes however. When P2P started, I would exchange song titles with friends. Each person would just grab a copy because that was easiest. Now we are all back to the old way of doing things; namely, trading tracks directly.
How?
Ssh, scp directly from machine to machine. The music I do buy, and I do buy music just as I always have, gets ripped. Stuff I think friends might find interesting, or that ends up part of a discussion gets traded instead of just named. The stuff that comes from P2P gets hashed around and played a bit. If it's good, I buy it, then trade the quality encodes from that with whomever was interested during the critique stage. So in the end, most of the costs are there with time and distance being less of a factor. Nice improvement over dubbing parties, but it could be way better.
A while back, we were helping a small group master a CD. Sometimes it is hard to articulate production values when some people are missing the tracks in question, for example. We could lend physical media, but why? We have nicely networked computers that save a lot of time, it is foolish not to use them. Afterall, the production is happening over the Internet, why not foster the discussion as well? This sort of sharing is a totally necessary thing and can get expensive if done the way they think we should do it. The really creative folks need stuff to create from. This means a lot more music to listen to, discuss and build style influences from. If everybody hears the same top 100 crap, then we are going to get more top 100 crap --exactly what we don't need to sustain a healthy music market. P2P really helps with that, maybe it shouldn't, but the truth is it does.
Personally, I think P2P is great stuff for learning about music. It also works well for lots of other things like software, though torrents are better for new or popular software. The Apple model is a good one, though its a shame Apple and the artists do not get a bit more of the cut.
It has been mentioned many times here, but I will say it again. The majors are fools plain and simple. If they had taken the Napster deal, they would be rolling in dough right now with monthly subscriptions and marketing data up the wazoo that we paid to give them! But, nooo they want control. Today they pay the price. Lots of lawyers, annoyed customers, and the confines of age all doom them to lackluster sales and growing vulnerabltiy to potential newcomers who get it.
People all over the place are making interesting music with inexpensive equipment. Mp3.com was a first attempt to aggragate them and present them to potential listeners. It worked, but not well. Others will follow, just as the P2P clients evolve, so will they. As they get it right, the majors will be sooo sorry.
I have traded tracks all my life starting with cassette and a bit of reel to reel. For me, nothing has changed really. Napster was a brief flurry that likely cost them a few sales, but the real cost was my newly opened eyes to the real diversity in music I was missing out on. I buy music in about the same quantities I always have; namely, small quantities because good albums are few and far between, I would buy a lot more If I could get it at
RIAA tactics are like antibiotics (Score:5, Insightful)
Worked on me (Score:3, Interesting)
Ive also started using Winamp5's Internet Radio more often then not...
Maybe there is nothing worth downloading! (Score:2, Interesting)
It may be working but these tactics must be costing RIIA some money and the increase in revenue from CD sales may be hard to come.
What? (Score:3, Informative)
I think that mainstream P2P may have gone down. However underground P2P is going waaaay up. All the RIAA has done is to force this underground. The Pew study likely doens't look at the underground methods. I think most of us know what software I mean.
But let them think they've won. Hopefully it will blind them to reality and hasten their well deserved end.
This is partly true (Score:2)
Two flaws in the research model (Score:5, Insightful)
1. It was a telephone survey, which by law excludes the sampling of minors. All anecdotal research I have seen is that minors make up a significant population of online file traders. It is my opinion that this segment of the population could have a serious impact on the results.
2. The fact that the research is conducted during a time when the RIAA is efectively criminalizing file sharing will motivate people to answer dishonestly for fear of being "tagged" a copyright violator. When a survey relies on an honest answer to be an admission of criminal activity, people will not be as forthright with their answers.
I don't think that this would change the overall answer, that copyrighted file trading is down, but I think it would sigificantly impact the degree of its decrease. I think the Pew Internet research is most likely overstating the impact of the lawsuits.
Which actually raises another issue - how much of the decline can be attributed to other factors, such as:
1. Poor music released in 4th qtr 2003
2. Increased self-regulation of file sharing in the University/College segment
3. Filesharing becoming "old news" - basically the idea that everyone gets a TON of music when they first discover file sharing, then taper off as the previous 3 months of new music is no where near the volume of multiple decades of music people were grabbing at the outset.
4. The proliferation of licensed online music distribution, such as iTunes, Napster 2.0, etc
All in all I would conclude that the research has limited usefulness in measuring the effects of RIAA subpoena activity.
Surveys also find.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't doubt the statistics, but are threats of disproportionate punishment really the way a civilised society should behave?
So... (Score:2, Insightful)
Mike
Cloudburst Bar [freewebsitehosting.com]
Has there been a lot of music put out lately? (Score:2)
More accurately (Score:2, Interesting)
But the P2P coin has many sides.
RIAA is largely blind to the activity going on in the other networ
CD Sales (Score:2)
Re:CD Sales (Score:2)
P2P usage down and legitimate purchase numbers up would mean that the music industries are doing something right.
P2P usage down and legitimate purchases down means that they's getting it so wrong that they're stuff's too crap for even lazy people to want to download.
Not exactly a good marketing method.
As to which it is, I won't hazard a guess. But I get the sneaking suspicion it ain't the reason the RIAA thinks it is.
TiggsCrazy, Left Field Theory (Score:2)
Re:Crazy, Left Field Theory (Score:2)
The RIAA tactics don't scare me one bit. Buy or download? Either way, I'll only get the music I want. And I've not done a huge amount of either recently. There' nothing I really want to "spend" the bandwidth/discspace on at the moment.
Hell, the only 2 CDs I've bought recently were two I've had on MP3 for many months and thought perhaps I should get a legit copy.
And even the stuff I've downloaded isn't that new. More like I found random MP3s from an older disc i g
Re:Crazy, Left Field Theory (Score:2)
As you can see, either very old stuff, or a little obscure. And the 2 CDs I did buy last year were both ones I already had MP3s of for a while, but bought for the music video DVDs and nice artworks, and lyrics. And as you point out, oh no! The RIAA MAY sue me (though, we're still not sure if they can even win in court, as n
The question is - are we for it or against it? (Score:2)
On one hand, giving some data to other people is a form of free speech and once people can accept its illegal, they can also accept a pretty scary society. On the other hand, most of us spend the day writting programs
Going undergroud (Score:2)
W.A.S.T.E. , anyone?
Why would the RIAA care? (Score:2)
If they had shown that CD sales had gone up, that would be useful to them. But if P2P usage goes down and CD sales are still slumping, that can mean several things:
Their arguments about P2P causing drops in CD sales holds less water.
Their artists are getting less exposure, not more.
The "benefits" they recei
Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Not quite (Score:3, Interesting)
Also what are their polling tactics? Do they call people up "We are the RIAA, do you share music?" Who the hell is going to say "Why yes, would you like the new {insert generic band} album?".
I personally have not noticed a change in number of people sharing, or any individuals who have stopped. I have to cry social norming on this one. Social norming is when you lie and say people are doing what you want them to, then people will fall in line and actually do it. As with the posters at our school that say the average freshman has "0 - 2 drinks at a party", bullshit.
Great..Encourage them (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything can be 'proven' if you extrapolate out of context, even when the ultimate conclusion is false.
Must Admin (Score:2, Interesting)
The RIAA's strategy is definitely working. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder who/what the RIAA will blame if this double-helix trend of decreasing file-sharing / decreasing CD sales continues for a few more years. In the meantime, I'll continue to purchase games and DVDs, which provide more bang for my buck than comparably-priced, more heavily restricted CDs.
The obvious conclusion (Score:3, Insightful)
Over the next 6 months, expect the RIAA to officially request the names of each and every person who participated in the poll, so that they too can be sued/threatened.
Pew (Score:3, Funny)
I have results to share from my own "pew" study... it concludes that the RIAA's tactics STINK.
Of course it's working - but it doesn't matter. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, I quit myself and I told my friends and family to quit until the whole thing blows over (which, after the court case knocking out RIAA vs. Verizon) it seems close to doing.
However, everytime I told people this, I also told them about the false arrests, and the fact that they're suing 12 year olds from the projects, and said "If you want them to stop, stop buying CDs."
Then I point them at CDBaby.
I've bought more albums in the past 8 months since they've started this crap than I have in my entire life - and NONE of them have been from RIAA member labels.
Oh, also...
That doesn't mean that stopping P2P stops downloading. Newsgroups and IRC are still going strong, and are only bolstered by this.
The RIAA's strategy just doesn't work on a fundimental level. The only people who are going to be informed enough of the strategy to be frightened are going to be frightened enough to be pissed at the labels and not buy their stuff.
-- Funksaw
I'm done sharing (Score:3, Insightful)
My last batch of downloads I can recall was trying to find something new. Polynesian and asian music, some french stuff I can't understand, but it sounds good. I wonder how many other people have sort of had their fill and are taking a break.
One COULDN'T pay until recently.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that you can legally buy music online, people are (or atleast seem to be).
Why did it take the misuc industry meatheads so long to offer a legal alternative for something people clearly wanted (and were willing to pay for)?
Re:It worked for me (Score:4, Funny)
You must have really damn good ears if lossless music "doesnt sound good to you", sir.
Re:It worked for me (Score:3, Informative)
All lossy music sounds like "cassette-quality" to me; I much prefer flac, since technology has allowed me to deal with 50 mb 3-minute songs like its no big deal.
Re:It worked for me (Score:2)
I can hear the difference in cymbols. That's where most of the data is thrown away -- the bright, punchy cymbols.
Re:It worked for me (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It worked for me (Score:5, Informative)
My point is that while you may not like psycho-acoustical compression like mp3,vorbis,aac,etc - you are still losing information with your so-called "lossless" formats, it is just that the choice about what information to through away is not directly based on human perceptual capabilities but rather simple mechanical inability.
Re:It worked for me (Score:5, Insightful)
That quibble aside, yes I agree with you. Taken to its logical conclusion, the best way to listen to great music is hearing great musicians play it live. So get out there and support them, dammit!
I'm sorry, but that's total bull crap (Score:5, Interesting)
Now lemme explain why anything more than 20bit/96KHz is bull crap. First, let's tackle 96KHz. Raising the sampling frequency to 96KHz actually makes sense, because it becomes a lot easier to make a good sounding CD player. You don't need oversampling anymore and you don't need high-order digital filter to filter out the harmonic images in inaudible band. The same thing applies to recording. You can record with less than perfect low-pass filter, and even though there will be horrible aliasing you won't be able to hear it anyway as it will be well above 20KHz. Now let's consider 24bit part. If you calculate the potential dynamic range of a linear DAC with full 24 bit input you will see that it at this point it is PHYSICALLY impossible to construct an analog amplifier that will fully exploit more than 20 bits of its dynamic range. Why? Because the dynamic range will be limited by the noise floor, which in turn will be limited by thermal noise in resistors and semiconductors. Calculations show that anything above 20 bit is simply not worth the effort - you won't be able to hear a single bit of difference anyway, the first 4 bit will be well below the noise floor.
Re:I'm sorry, but that's total bull crap (Score:4, Informative)
Calculations show that anything above 20 bit is simply not worth the effort - you won't be able to hear a single bit of difference anyway, the first 4 bit will be well below the noise floor.
Be careful how you do those calculations. Frequency domain methods, such as FFT and/or the human ear, can detect periodic signals well below the "noise floor".
Re:I'm sorry, but that's total bull crap (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people don't have hearing which exceeds a 90dB dynamic range - a few extra bits are lost on them. He simply pointed out that going beyond 20 bits is completely silly since you can't even mechanically reproduce the sound using any known technology - even if you could you probably wouldn't hear the difference.
The higher sampling rate does not contain any additional audible information - your hearing doesn't exceed 2
There is NO "staircase nature" in digital signal (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sales? (Score:2)
What is also important to remember is that correlation does not always mean causation. And even if there is acausation, it is important to know, which way it works. Did people turn to "legitimate" online sources due to increased legal activities and monitoring by RIAA? Or did people stop using illegitimate sources when they found n
Re:ok fine (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, the sales are down by 20%. Popular filesharing is down by 30%. Offcourse, this is not proof. You have to take into account iTunes and likes, and the decline of the economy.
But I can't help and smile