Six Giant Music Retailers Will Try Online Sales Together 325
PingXao writes "The New York Times is reporting that several music retailers are banding together to test online sales. Sad to see the article's author flat-out claim that '... a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales.' The retailers are starting to get a clue but still have a long way to go as evidenced by 'Recording companies make the music...' and 'We are in the customer relationship business.'"
Any bets.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And then it will fail? I surely could do without this crap.
I kind of like it (Score:4, Interesting)
Again, I hate the music companies, but seeing the clevarness go back and forth is great to watch. I hope I can get in on it personally some day.
Re:Any bets.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Make it two dollars a pop, let me download the whole song first at a 56kbps bitrate, and I'm in.
what's next??? (Score:2, Funny)
here we go again... (Score:5, Funny)
"Downloading music on Kazaa causes me to go buy CDs, I just like to preview the songs first"
come on you know you all were thinking it...
Re:here we go again... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd be tempted to buy them except that once I can sample the rest of the songs on the album, I decide that they're a waste of money.
For some reason, I'm hooked on anime themesongs.
Re:here we go again... (Score:4, Interesting)
Downloading songs allows me to be sure about buying a CD before I do - I've wasted money on plenty of "One Hit" CDs that I never listen to.
Buying online, if available per song with a *slight* discount for a complete album, could prompt me to buy music more. The convenience it a big factor.
And even if it's set up in a DRM environment, if the sound is high-fidelity (better be if it's locked out - should be anyway) I can encode an MP3 on a second computer (maybe even the same one) and use it elsewhere.
Of course, they have to keep in mind that it's very easy to make the switch back to file-sharing if things go badly.
Prepare for prosecution (Score:5, Informative)
From the editorial: The NET Act works in two ways: In general, violations are punishable by one year in prison, if the total value of the files exceeds $1,000; or, if the value tops $2,500, not more than five years in prison. Also, if someone logs on to a file-trading network and shares even one MP3 file without permission in "expectation" that others will do the same, full criminal penalties kick in automatically.
Re:Prepare for prosecution (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that RIAA members have been found guilty of price-fixing and are clearly continuing to price-gouge, the idea that you need only rip off $1000 worth of songs puts a lot of people in danger, even if they haven't done much of this.
My best recent example of this is the Beatles 1962-1966 double LP. I went to buy this at the store (an event that would've marked my first new RIAA purchase in months), but found it was priced at an insane $36. $36!!! For an album that is 30 years old and has already sold millions of copies. Well, I balked at that. Had it been $20 or less they would have had my money. But nevertheless, if I'm found with a copy of this album, I am going to be held to the inflated price, and not anything reasonable.
At The Trial... (Score:5, Funny)
Lawyer for the prosecution: We realize, your honour, that the defendent's illegal file sharing totalled only $1,206.59, but we intend to prove that this is, in fact, equivalent to $2,892.61 in price-fixed-- ahem, value-added RIAA products, and therefore request the greater sentence....
Re:here we go again... (Score:5, Informative)
There are lots of people who really do that, though. For me, it's a little of both, but either way the RIAA is ultimately better off for it.
It would take several hands to count the number of artists that I've discovered (and purchased music from) due to finding the MP3s on my friends/family's computers.
Examples:
Re:here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:here we go again... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've noticed that few of the bands I've typed in have produced entire albums served by the same user. This suggests to me that people aren't running around trading albums, but rather they search for a band they've heard of and download the songs that are the most popular. This strikes me as the behaviour of curiosity, NOT the behaviour of somebody trying to save a few bucks.
If what I've seen is indicative of a significant population of the P2P networks, then the RIAA has absolutely no case. If one does not download the whole album, then they have not stolen. There's still plenty of value in the rest of the CD.
Is the value diminished? Some would say yes, I would say not really. The truth of the matter is that somebody searching for new music to try isn't likely to invest much time into checking the band out, thus the sale's never made. Now, the band has exposure that it never had before. One of two things are likely to happen: 1.) the user is first in line to buy the next CD produced by that group 2.) the user can recommend this music to somebody with similar tastes. Even if the CD isn't purchased to legitimize the claim, there is absolutely no basis for claiming money is lost in the situation I described.
The truth of the matter, though, is that everybody's got their own way of working. Most of the demand there is either directly or indirectly leading into revenue. If that's not enough for them, then they should consider identifying why people are downloading music and figure out how to make money with it.
Yeah, but the reason CD sales have slipped... (Score:4, Insightful)
a) discover that the CD's suck
b) get the one song that's actually good and save the money they would have spent
Kazaa isn't what's cutting into CD sales though. If you look at the stats, the amount of new music being produced by the big record labels is down. Thus, less people are feeling compelled to buy new CD's. Furthermore, any market that existed for people upgrading from tapes, etc, has been thoroughly exploited by now.
Also, the record industry is undergoing a significant fragmentation because the mass marketing of radio is driving people to find more obscure alternatives amongst local bands and on the Internet. Since the record labels offer no significant alternative on the Internet, they lose a lot of their power to control the market. Instead of having to listen to the 40 most popular songs get played to death I can go find whatever I want and play it as much or little as I want.
Basically when you get down to it, these record companies are aging dinosaurs who have a business models engineered for an environment that has ceased to exist. Evolve or die.
Re:Yeah, but the reason CD sales have slipped... (Score:3, Interesting)
on top of that, the music biz really did stop caring about music, or customers.
they forgot why we buy music, and it aint the same reason we buy food or pay rent. it is discretionary spending.
fact is, they could sell ten times as much music by volume for %10 higher revenue than today, and be raking in the cash like the glory years.
that would be called Mass Production, economics 101 here
they are making the mistake of trying to maximize unit profit instead of increase revenues with minimal profit.
in another five years, at this rate, they'll be the book publishing industry.
i give kudos bertelsmann, sending your golden goose to cashed out cows school. to sony for infighting. to time warner for AIMless wandering in search of synergy, and the rest, u suck too. die quickly so something better will arrive, without the legion of attorneys
I'll bite (Score:2, Insightful)
They do - they bankroll their signed bands' albums. And most unsigned bands are crap. Granted, most signed bands are crap. But that's irrelevant - the recording companies did bring us Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Eminem, etc..
Saying the record companies don't make the music is like saying that Boeing doesn't make airplanes, their employees do.
This isn't a good analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
If you took a whole bunch of signed recording artists, and left them in a room with the appropriate tools, the result *would* be music, because the marketing/distribution/hyping done by record companies is *not* necessary for the production of music.
At one point, perhaps the record corps were necessary for distribution, but now that physical media are not necessary, it's harder to make that case. They certainly aren't necessary in the way that Boeing are necessary for airplanes, anyway.
Re:This isn't a good analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
But then no music would reach the consumer. How do you figure that "... marketing/distribution/hyping
"At one point, perhaps the record corps were necessary for distribution,
Granted, the current state of the music industry is to much money and conservatism. Their biggest flaw is the unability to embrace new technology in a way that would benefit them and the artists. It seems they're to focused on preserving the current market instead of creating new ones. By doing so they hurt consumers. They don't realise that DRM is technologically impossible and that the DMCA is consumer unfriendly.
To say the recording industry is bloat however only shows that you have a view that's just as narrow as theirs.
Re:This isn't a good analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, but think of how much music in the 60's and 70's moved around due to word of mouth. A time when artists did more in concerts. A time where bootlegging wasn't such a crime.
There's another thing. Now is a time of pretty girls and nice looking guys getting contracts 'cause they can dance a little, sing a little and be technologically enhanced to look like a super star. Think anyone particularly thought Led Zepplin could dance the same cookie cutter coriographed way, much less professionally? I highly doubt it.
Get a bunch of programmers in a room, would you have bsd and linux?
Re:This isn't a good analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This isn't a good analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'll bite (Score:5, Insightful)
Suits should stick to business, musicians will stick to music and as such, should be the music makers. If the music industry isn't very obviously a monopoly to you or anyone else at this point, then you haven't spent enough time realizing the impact they've had.
Re:I'll bite (Score:2)
Re:I'll bite (Score:4, Insightful)
Three steps from concept to completion (Score:4, Informative)
is "making" the music the creative process of arranging notes and lyrics, or the physical process of manufacturing the CD?
Copyright law recognizes three steps in the process of making a record:
So they have created a product. But somebody still needs to create a demand for the product, and promotion is traditionally the job of a label.
Re:I'll bite (Score:5, Insightful)
The music industry is starting to create bands (Britney, backstreet boys, Milli Vanilli...) with music made by unattractive artists and lip-synched by pretty artists, but they do not create music.
The music industry looks for people who are already producing music. They take what they find, pretty it up a little, package it and flog it to the masses.
Marketing has more value than content creation in America. Just ask the near-bankrupt contract company that manufactures hardware that M$ stamps a brand on. The brand stamping is a major cash cow for M$, the production company is in the red.
old music (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the stuff I download I can't even get on CD in the first damn place. Had they re-released older Devo albums(not greatest hit compilations), I would buy it in an instant. If they released CDs of (insert obscure 80s synthpop band here), I'd buy it. Is it availble? No. Forget it then.
Probably it woudln't be commercially feasiable to release CD versions of old vinyl from bands that never got popular, but it would be cheaper than new music from new bands.
Re:old music (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:old music (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember Blockbuster Music? They had a plan to do this. They would store all the songs in wav format on a central computer, then you would use a kiosk to order your CD, which would be burned and the cd insert printed while you wait.
The RIAA wouldn't let this happen.
http://www.augustachronicle.com/stories/
Sam Goody used to do something similar with tapes in the 80s. They had a huge book with thousands upon thousands of songs in it. You'd flip through the book looking up songs, and write their ID numbers on a form. 30 minutes later, you'd have a tape with all the songs you wanted on it. I still have 2 of those custom tapes.
The RIAA put a stop to this too.
Re:I'll bite (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'll bite (Score:2)
If someone produces software that allows artistes to run their own Web sites selling music online or to produce customised CDs for people then there would seem to be little requirement for their services except for publicity.
Re:I'll bite (Score:5, Informative)
They received countless rejections, including the one from Decca that famously said "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out" [musicthoughts.com]. And once they did make it big, Capitol Records still felt they needed to rearrange [eskimo.com] their albums to make them more palatable to the American public.
The biggest reasons for The Beatles making it big was their pure, raw talent, plus their strong drive to be the toppermost of the poppermost [strawberrywalrus.com] because they believed they were the "best fucking group in the god-damned world" [merseyworld.com]. And Brian Epstein definitely had a lot to do with their breaking through to superstardom too.
Re:I'll bite (Score:3, Insightful)
This has been said again and again: MP3 downloads are a blessing to independent artists, and a curse to major label artists. It's a bell curve of success / downloads.
Maybe what will happen, if we're lucky, is the death of Corporate Music. An artist could only get so big without becoming unprofitable. It would do away with the artists (and managers, labels, etc) who have nothing on their minds but money. We'd be left with just the artists who truly love the music and the art. Isn't this what we had before the 80's? Beatles, Led Zep, etc? The perfect position on the bell curve?
Also can I say that your position that "most unsigned bands are crap" is truly disheartening. You'd think that Slashdot readers would understand independent music, what with all the Anti-Microsoft, Pro-Geek philosophy. The principle is totally the same: Bloated, useless, soul-less, well-marketed, poorly-produced crap vs. the true, powerful, under-budgeted, heartfelt independent. I'm excited to think that with just a little effort, you can make the discovery yourself.
Re:The record companies DON'T make the music! (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course (Score:4, Interesting)
Then again, they may just want to "give it a shot" before submitting to DRM technologies... I bet the switch is not going to be cheap for them, either.
So if the question is, if those labels happen to make a good buck selling inline, will they bury DRM ?
Sad? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is that sad? It's probably true to a degree. The good news is that these companies are trying to embrace a new distribution model. What's sad is that they may not be successful when a 100% free alternative exists with as much consumer perceived add-value to the product.
Re:Sad? (Score:5, Informative)
The submitter just assumed you've kept up with the recent revelations that sales PER ALBUM increased. The losses are a direct result of the companies releasing less albums.
Re:Sad? (Score:3, Funny)
Bad grammar aside, I never realized that new artists were such a shy, retiring lot, or that locating and signing them was such a difficult activity. I was under the mistaken impression that most of them would do anything for a bit of publicity, and would sell their own mother for a record deal. Silly me.
Re:Sad? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sad? (Score:2)
It's sad because it is stated as if it is fact. You even state that it is "probably true" - not that it IS true.
While I agree, the ability to swap songs for free has probably had an effect on the sales of music - they are coming right out and saying that it does. Basically, if they repeat something long enough, they can start stating it as fact.
It's the economy. (Score:4, Informative)
The sad fact is that the New York Times parroted the alleged reason for sales loss without some kind of disclaimer, such as "Music companies claim that a proliferation of file-swapping...". They are a reputable news organization, they should know better than to parrot facts given by a trade organization. I heard this same thing on CBS news yesterday, but I wasn't surprised. It was typical of CBS quality journalism. However, this was most certainly sub-par for the Times.
Re:Sad? (Score:3, Informative)
Why is that sad? It's probably true to a degree.
It's only one factor, and it's laying the blame with consumers, when the industry itself, and the economy in general can be blamed just as well.
Over the last 3 years, the record companies have decreased the number of titles available by IIRC 30%. The remaining 70% largely sucks. And the economic climate isn't what it used to be. And the record companies have been shooting themselves in the foot by labeling their customers criminals.
Already paid for Pressplay (Score:5, Insightful)
No Reg Required (Score:5, Informative)
By LAURA M. HOLSON
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 26 -- Six of the largest music retailers plan to announce on Monday that they are joining forces to sell music that can be downloaded from the Web.
The retailing group, called Echo, consists of Best Buy, the nation's No. 1 electronics retailer; Tower Records; the Virgin Entertainment Group; Wherehouse Entertainment; Hastings Entertainment; and Trans World Entertainment, which operates the FYE store chain. The six retail companies will each own an equity stake in Echo that together will make them majority owners.
The new effort is motivated in part by the two-year decline in compact disc sales that has forced recording companies to cut costs and lay off employees and has damaged music retailers, too. Wherehouse Entertainment, for one, announced last week that it was filing for bankruptcy protection from its creditors, in part because of lackluster CD sales. And earlier this month, Best Buy announced that it would close 107 stores.
Like the recording companies, music retailers are searching for new sources of revenue. Vinyl albums and cassette tapes have nearly disappeared in recent years, leaving retailers with the CD as their main option for selling music. But a proliferation of free music-swapping services on the Internet has led to a decline in CD sales. According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks album sales, 681 million were sold in 2002, down from 785 million in 2000.
"Obviously, there has been a lot of talk in the last three years and there have been a lot of failures," said Dan Hart, the chief executive of Echo, referring to earlier attempts by legitimate Web sites to sell music online. "But we see this as an inflection point. Retailers are saying, `This is the time to do it.' "
Mr. Hart said that Echo hoped to get licenses from the recording companies to distribute their music through the retail chains' own Web sites. In November, the Universal Music Group, which is owned by Vivendi Universal, began to distribute 43,000 of its songs through major retail and music Web sites, like Best Buy and Circuit City, for 99 cents a song or $9.99 an album. That total has since grown to 60,000.
Liquid Audio, a company that has developed technology meant to allow the secure sale of music online, has rights to 350,000 songs for downloading, but also has deep financial problems. The company agreed last week to sell some of its assets to the music distributor Anderson Merchandisers for $3.2 million as part of its liquidation.
Anderson, which is the music distributor for Wal-Mart Stores, also wants to be a distributor of downloadable music in retail outlets. That could eventually put Anderson in competition with Echo, but Mr. Hart said Echo was not opposed to working with Anderson.
In fact, Mr. Hart said he expected the pressures facing all parts of the music businesses -- including distributors, retailers and recording companies -- to motivate them all to work together to find a viable alternative to piracy. "People are saying, `Let's make it work on a real level,' " he said.
Such cooperation in online music ventures would have been unthinkable two years ago as retailers and music companies were at odds about how to best approach online music sales. More than a years ago, music labels embarked on their own online efforts, but so far they have received less than rave reviews.
Now, though, the music companies and the retailers need each other more than ever. Recording companies make the music, but it is retailers who know their customers. "Retail has always been about more than simply selling CD's," said Jerry Comstock, the chief executive of Wherehouse Entertainment. "We are in the customer relationship business."
Under Echo's plan, once the group received the necessary licenses, the partners would market their services together and separately. Efforts might include promotions like "Buy a compact disc, get a free download." The retailers could also enable customers to download music in stores using portable devices, like the Apple iPod. "No one has really marketed these services," Mr. Hart of Echo said.
But some analysts suggest that no matter how much creative and marketing muscle is behind such efforts, they will not catch on unless the music is priced right. The average cost of a compact disc, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group which represents recording companies, is $14.21. Many critics say that is expensive when compared with other media, like DVD's, which offer loads of extra features and programming.
"Any opportunity retailers have to find additional revenue in a time of falling sales is a positive," said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. "Yet we continue to think that pricing has to come down to get pirates off of the free sites and onto legitimate ones."
Cry me a river (Score:5, Insightful)
Well gee, it's not exactly like everyone else had a record year in 2002. I own a deli, and sales were down almost 30% last year over 2001. I'm likely going to have to sell the place or close it down within the next few months, but you don't see me whining to everyone in sight that things aren't going my way.
People can't "pirate" subs, gyros, or muffulettas. There is one thing and one thing only to blame for the fact that I'm almost out of business: the economy. People aren't spending the money to eat out every day, and companies are cutting back on their catered staff meetings/conferences/parties.
When nobody has any money, sales are going to decline! Get over it, Record Industry! The "piracy" argument is overplayed at best - just like everything else the RIAA pumps out - and at worst it's a red herring.
I also think the comparison of 2002 sales vs 2000 sales is a bit misleading. Things have changed a lot in this country since 2000.
Re:Cry me a river (Score:5, Funny)
the gauntlet is thrown.
any takers?
Re:Cry me a river (Score:3, Funny)
the gauntlet is thrown.
Head on over to opensandwich.sourceforge.net. It's a new P2P (Plate to Plate) sandwich sharing application. You can search by bread type, meat type, album, and condiments. It's still in beta though, so be sure to check the sandwiches you download before consumption!
Re:Cry me a river (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if they can pirate ships surely they can pirate subs too?
Re:No Reg Required (Score:2, Insightful)
Click [nytimes.com] and see for yourself.
It's about QUALiTY Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. The reason I don't buy their stuff is because they offer nothing new, innovative or that resembles a quality musical performance. This isn't just in the area of Pop, but Classical Music as well. The same operas and symphonic works, only dressed up with performers that look better on a CD jewel case.
That's why I find myself more and more buying stuff via MP3.com. Regardless of musical taste, I can find stuff there that is fresh, reasonably prices and is mure substance than hype.
Re: It's about QUALiTY Stupid! (Score:5, Funny)
> This isn't just in the area of Pop, but Classical Music as well. The same operas and symphonic works, only dressed up with performers that look better on a CD jewel case.
Yeah, ol' Mozart has been resting on his laurels for much too long now. Time to get off your arse and write something innovative, Moz!
Re:It's about QUALiTY Stupid! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is completely aside from the fact that they're lying. Their own numbers show an increase in both profits and sales... Its just that the increase is less than their "projected" increase. Of course, this must be because of filesharing. The economic downturn can't have anything to do with it!
It's about earnings reports (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, I tend to think that much of the recording industry's bemoaning of music piracy has more to do with spinning bad earnings reports. As we read [slashdot.org] last week, the dogs of Sony corp. are it's music divisions. Management has to offer some sort of explanation to its stockholders, and "We no longer have any idea to produce creative products, and market them in the Internet Age." simply doesn't wash.
Apart from the oft mentioned and unquantifiable lack of creativity in new artists today, I think that studies will find that the decline in CD sales can be explained by the fact that consumers are taking their entertainment dollars (reduced by the current economy) elsewhere: why spend $15 on a CD with 40 minutes of music when you could buy a DVD with 1.5 hour movie, special features (often including music videos) for the same price or a bit more?
Re:It's about earnings reports (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but the most I've ever watched a film is 6 or 7 times. I've listened to many of my albums hundreds of times, if not thousands.
Biased View (Score:5, Funny)
You didn't like the Rolling Stones new album either?
Re:It's about QUALiTY Stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not likely to buy a DRM restricted songs either, not even if they are good and cost 99 cents per track. I'm not going to spend time fighting the DRM if I want to play my purchased music in some unapproved but legal way (mp3 player, dvd, another computer, etc).
99 cents per song unrestricted ogg format if they have a huge archive and some form of useable way to pay? Sure, I'd go for that.
How many times are we gonna pay for music? (Score:5, Interesting)
It explains that we're going to pay the same music twice or three times: once to download, once again when we put it on a CD-R or a hard-drive (anti-pircay copy taxes), and finally when we buy the CD! The article above is worth a read.
Re:How many times are we gonna pay for music? (Score:2)
About time if you ask me.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And look at it this way.. no distribution costs, no media to press, no packaging, no middlemen so it's either going to work out at a lower cost (ha!) or better profits (maybe not such a bad thing) or somewhere in between.
Software companies have been doing this for years, especially those with the "decent software, fairly priced" philosophy.
At last, the music industry has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 1990s. Whatever next?
My guess (Score:5, Insightful)
The record labels still don't believe in non-DRM downloads, and if they were going to go that route, they wouldn't trust someone else to do it for them.
But, if this powerfull group of retailers decided to go non-DRM, the labels would be powerless to stop them. They can't afford to sanction or boycott their top selling channels. This is especially true with Wherehouse filing for bankrupcy recently.
My biggest hope from all of this is that industry layoffs allow the record companies to consider lowering prices for a change. I actually switched to buying directly from smaller labels where I could find CDs for $14 or so each.
Re:My guess (Score:3, Insightful)
That will be their downfall. No consumer is going to switch from an open solution such as ogg/mp3 to a DRM format, that only plays on their own PC.
The only people who have done this so far have been unknowingly been tricked into it, with tools such as MS Media Player which by default secures the songs you rip. And not one of them has been happy about it.
The alternative is available everywhere, free and portable. The fact that it is technically illegal isn't going to change many peoples mind on which to go with. Anyone knows that you have to beat your competition to win the race.
Sales are down... (Score:5, Informative)
Sad to say? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure it's sad, but as the business sections of the main media rags are little more than Corporate PR publications, is it at all surprising? The company says it, and then the newspaper quit attributing it to the source, thereby trying to pass it off as Fact. As most of the readers don't question what they read, it quickly becomes public opinion.
Sigh... (Score:5, Interesting)
The silly demonizing of the record companies is really getting counter productive. In a strict sense, of course, the recording companies don't "make" the music (of course the artists do, but under contract), just like software companies don't "make" the software (their programmers do, under contract), and just like home-building companies don't "make" the homes (the construction workers do also under employment contract).
But it is a useful shorthand to say all of the above. Without the record companies the vast majority of songs that get traded so happily on P2P networks would never have made it to rippable CDs in the first place (as an aside, I always found the usage of the term "rip" in this context to be somewhat revealing).
And the poster's implied distinction between the record companies and the people who "made" the music suggests that the artists are uniformly against the record companies and their efforts in this area. P2P advocates are being flat-out chauvinistic if they think that all artists - or maybe even a majority - disagree with the RIAA's stands. It irks me when I see a few artists' views trotted out with the implicit assumption that their views are representative...what's the real big picture ?
To be sure, there is a vocal group, but I wonder whether they're getting disproportionate press precisely because they're arguing something more controversial - you never hear about Metallica complaining about P2P anymore, because it's just boring and it seems obvious.
Has anyone conducted polls of major artists to see where they stand and how they feel about the RIAA ? I'm not talking about disenfranchised had-their-day-in-the-sun-more-than-a-decade-ago artists (*cough*Janis Ian*cough*) and I'm not talking about little independent artists who probably secretly would *love* to get a big record deal if they could - what about a survey of artists in the Billboard 100, or artists with the best selling CDs in the last 10 years, or the top 100 artists traded on Kazaa/Gnutella...or some other reasonably objective criteria that defines a sample of artists under contract to record companies represented by theRIAA ?
What is needed here is hard, representative statistics, not agenda-laden anecdotes that fit whatever story happens to be convenient with the story-teller's philosophy.
Re:Sigh... (Score:3, Insightful)
May I point out that in order to rip a CD, you need to have a CD in the first place, which probably means that you have bought it.
Ripping a CD is perfectly legal under the current law, DMCA included. It's also perfectly moral, though YMMV -- Your Morals May Vary, of course.
RIAA tries to tell people that it's illegal to make copies of music, but it's a big fat lie. Anyone can make as many copies of his music as he wants. What's illegal is distributing. As long as I don't distribute it, I can rip all my CDs, convert the music to
So I am not sure what exactly do you find revealing about the term "rip".
amazing! (Score:2)
- the people downloading music to try-before-you-buy are buying CDs anyway.
- the people downloading music and NOT buying CDs are faced with the choice: pay for music, or continue to get it for free?
- the people looking for better music will still be looking at scores of cookie-cutter bands (until their tastes mature and discover tasty indie rock).
- the people looking for Added Content and Bonus Stuff still won't be getting stuff like the Michelle Branch Crotch Scratch-n-Sniff sticker, or centerfold foldouts, in their CD cases.
and finally, just read the article to see what a bad idea the whole thing is. on the one hand, you have the phrase "Liquid Audio" mentioned. on the other, you have Best Buy shutting down 107 stores. and then you have "Liquid Audio." OMGWTFBBQ LIQUID AUDIO?! ABANDON SHIT!
one last thing: thank the lord jebus to the story author or whoever it was that added the "&partner=GOOGLE" to the url. no registration for NYTimes articles! WAHOOO!
Sherman Act (Score:4, Insightful)
Any bets, this won't get past the Sherman Anti-Trust Act?
At the very least, I'm sure there will be consumers proteection issues for price-fixing out the wazoo for DRM challenge music files!
That will make me run out and buy! Unforunately, the media companies just don't get it. I will NOT spend 18 dollars on a CD, and neither will most (all!) of my mid-20 to mid 30s friends. So there aren't not "losing" music sales to music file sharing. They just aren't getting any sales anymore because I am fed up of them feeding me schlock and expecting me to pay for it. As far as I'm concerned the ball is in their court to offer non-DRM challenge MP3 (Ogg, whatever!) files to me at a reasonable per song rate (reasonable to me seems to be a buck fifty to 2 bucks a song (average 12 songs over an 18 dollar CD)). Then frankly, I will pay for music.
Until then, I'm buying up as much cheap casettes as I can so I can "time-shift" my music to MP3 format -- That is Fair Use!
But will they have a clue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Naturally you'd still have lamers on p2p, but then these people would never use a pay site anyway, even if meant wasting ten hours to find and download the same songs that the pay site sold for seven dollars.
CD Sales are down because they released fewer CDs (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the record companies just settled [usatoday.com] a price fixing suit in which they admitted they were overcharging consumers. This point seems to be overlooked by the RIAA in its attempt to place all blame for the woes of the music business at the feet of mp3's. Is it possible that the decrease in CD sales is related to the conspiracy by the major record labels to inflate prices?
Smells like collusion (Score:2)
Customer relationship? (Score:2, Informative)
What buisness is not?
If you bought a CD in the last few years, get your $20.00 from the Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation Settlement. Click the red text on the lefthttp://www.musiccdsettlement.com/english/defa
Life and Death for the Record Companies (Score:2, Interesting)
They are searching desperately for some means to survive in the connected society, as their business model disintegrates. Is anyone surprised that they are taking desperate (and not well-thought-out) measures?
Facts and Fiction. (Score:4, Interesting)
Any proof? I have not seen any closing stores yet, but I have seen an OPENING one (due in a month). If they close 107 stores and open 108, that's not quite the same as just closing 107 stores...
The average cost of a compact disc, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group which represents recording companies, is $14.21.
What is the average cost of a DVD? An audio tape? judging by the prices, the audio tape costs much less on average, yet it's the same music...?
When will they get it??? (Score:3)
Can't Beat Them? Join Them! (Score:3, Interesting)
So that's the biz plan of the RIAA (MPAA may be different):
There is only a couple of problems with this plan: (a) selling... er... forcing sh!t down the throat of the average consumer, like Britney Spears, does not bring a lot of $$$ and (b) file-based protection will never work, unless (c) you also force people to use stuff like Palladium -- but that opens up another can of worms for both the RIAA and its allies.
Prognosis? Will work for 6 months top. Past these point, somebody will figure out a way to crack the system. He/She'll get his ass burned badly by the RIAA lawyers, but that will be the end of it.
Either that, or some enterprising company from Korea or Taiwan will figure out that there is a lot of $$$$ to be made selling non-Palladium compliant hardware to people who want it. Game Over.
Too little, too late. Sorry, RIAA.
No need for reporting (Score:5, Interesting)
The 25% decline in industry output, the economy, the specifics of the offerings, the collusively illegal prices, the wide variety of other available choices for purchase, the ubiquity of music available free on MTV, these are all bothersome and distracting. And "reporting" can tire one out.
Yeah I supposed it has nothing to do with ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Downward spiral... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nowadays, with the recording companies trying to force me into buying worse products at higher prices (now there's a way of competing you won't learn in school!) I'm getting so annoyed that I *really* don't want to buy anything. If I do, some of my money will go into things like crappy CD's and lawsuits, which I don't want to support.
It's becoming a political statement for me not to buy CD's or copy protected music. At least not at full price.
And that will of course make the record companies think there's even more DL'ing going on, with more efforts on their part to stop me
Strangely, it seems like we'll both loose. They won't get my money and I won't get the music that I want. Oh bummer. What's needed is a new business idea, where the middleman is either gone or doing something else.
Music middlemen still irrelevant (Score:3, Insightful)
WooooHoooo! (Score:2)
Aaaaaaaarrrgggh!!!! (Score:2)
Set up to fail? (Score:2)
WRONG again (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't bought many cds lately, and it's not because of the Internet (since I don't use p2p). My decline in purchases is for two reasons:
1) CDs are too bloody expensive
2) Current music selections SUCK.
Get a better variety of music out there, and don't charge so fcsking much for a CD (weren't the prices supposed to come DOWN over the years?), and you'll get more customers. It really is that simple.
The Cdnow Experience. (Score:5, Interesting)
How the record companies can come back (Score:5, Interesting)
The major American motion picture studios are doing better financially than the major American record labels partly because a movie often pays for its production at the box office alone, whereas a record has no box office at all, except for motion picture soundtracks.
Solution: Make music videos for all songs on an album. Interweave them with a cheap plot, and turn them into a movie. (I'm thinking like Moonwalker but hopefully better written.) Release the movie theatrically on the Friday before the album comes out. Then, after a few weeks in the box office, put the videos into MTV's heavy rotation.
This should be easy enough for Sony, Warner, and Universal, who own both a record label and a movie studio. It may not work for Bertelsmann and EMI, who don't have major U.S. movie holdings.
If I am talking out of my rear end, please explain to me in polite language why this wouldn't work.
I havent bought a CD in about 5 years (Score:3, Insightful)
And I probably never will. All the artists I listen to are dead or in drug-induced comas or something.
It became clear to me long before the whole P2P-vs-DRM issues that the music industry has nothing left to offer me. I already own all the music I'll ever want to listen to.
Likewise, I've never purchased a movie, and probably never will. I'm just not the type to watch a movie again after I've seen it, so I dont see the point in owning one.
That said, I don't give a rats ass what happens to the entertainment industry or P2P.
They can lock it all up with DRM so noone can hear it, they can make it all public domain and print the sheet music on toilet paper. They can charge $300 per minute of audio, or give it away for free. They can mandate that Yoko Ono is to do backup vocals for every song until the end of time just so people wont want to hear it.
They can go bankrupt, go to jail, go to hell.
I just dont give a shit.
And I'd wager that every day another handful of people like me come to the exact same realization. RIAA members sell images. Few people truly love music enough to pay to listen to it.
Vote with Your Feet (and your money) - Go Indy! (Score:3, Interesting)
Then, get out there and tour - pay your dues every weekend to promote your music and your website. You're not here to get rich quick - you are here because you love the music.
~~~
The best thing music lovers can do is start donating to these pioneering indy bands - and stop buying CDs - unless it is absolutely worth it (and I don't consider much new music produced in the past 5 years worth it - with a few exceptions).
a gross, yet accurate oversimplifacation (Score:5, Informative)
To be more blunt. A CD comes with 74 minutes of audio only content, with possibly a little extra photographic or artwork on the case. For the same amount, you can buy a DVD with 90-120 minutes of AV content, plus typically anywhere from 5-20 minutes of extra, behind the scenes, get to know the creative artist footage, interviews, promos, etc.
Bottom LINE. The labels are not providing the same amount of Bang For the Buck value in their products as the studios.
Short version of the article (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what I read:
Bla bla bla bla... we are, again, going to attempt to sell music online that you can only play in our players for a limited amount of time or for as long as you keep paying us. You mp3 player will be useless, and don't even think about burning CD's
Sell non-encrypted mp3's online, or any other format I can convert to MP3. I want to play MY music in MY mp3 player and MY CD player!
I know the article didn't say what format they were going to use, but I am open for anyone that wants to bet against me when I say that the music will be encrypted in one way on another.
I wonder if they will ever understand...
Why I Download Instead Of Buy (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sick of the games the music industry plays by not releasing certain mixes of tracks they play on the air, only releasing some songs as singles and bullshit release dates for tracks the radio already has. If you're going to play it on the air - sell it or I'll just get it elsewhere.
Once I noticed I'd been downloading more than a few MP3s by the same artist, I'd actually buy the albums. Not only was this to show support for the artist, but it allowed me to make a high-bitrate rip to MP3 of the entire CD for my own personal use. With the introduction of copy protection, however, I doubt I'll ever buy another CD again unless the music industry sees the error of its ways.
What would you pay? But wait, don't answer yet! (Score:3, Interesting)
way that consumers want, the rest could follow. Even if they took the
chance on one artist's catalog to see how it went. As an example,
if the Beatles catalog was offered online as highest quality mp3s,
consistent clean meta data, no drm. $15 bucks per album, 1 buck per
single. The complete catalog, at a clean, consistent quality level.
(Something that's not available from p2p these days).
No catches, no proprietary player. You could also order the same
content on physical media with bonus fetish material at a price premium,
say another 10 bucks. Not everyone has broadband. If it's encoded at
a high bit rate, it's not worth the time and hassle for everyone to download
and mirror.
Would this venture be out of business in 6 months? Discuss.
Re:What would you pay? But wait, don't answer yet! (Score:3, Insightful)
So your saying that I need to now either buy a broadband connection or pay another 10 bucks (or download the stuff at work). Why can't I just go to the damned store on the way home and buy the thing with the mp3s, the audio cd, the album art, liner notes, etc? Is there some fundamental problem here? Discuss.
they won't get publishing rights (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why even services like pressplay and musicnet do not have a very good selection. For background, see this article [com.com] where Universal lost a lawsuit when it was sued by the publishers when they attempted to put music that they owned the copyright for online.
Echo! (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, I'm glad to see these guys have managed to stay alive and if their new service is like the old one I'll definitely check it out.
Formula for success: lower prices (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a precedent for this type of scenario. Remember Compuserve in the late 80s and early 90s ? It had several hundred thousand members and charged $6 and $12 per hour for access. Remember what happened when Netcom introduced the $20 per month flat rate plan ?
I realize that given the greed of the current music "industry" leaders this won't happen soon, but besides that does anybody think it *wouldn't* work and solve most of the "piracy" problems if it was given a chance ? Compuserve always said their prices were a bargain and no one could do it for less also.
Catchy Name (Score:3, Interesting)
It's nice that retailers are joining the mutiny against record companies, even if only the way rats jump ship. The whole record business is heading for a niche -- old music -- music recorded in the days when record companies were able to force musicians to hand over their rights, when the companies could become the owners of the music, could make it "their" music. You see that phrase in the article... get permission from record companies' to download "their" music. Record companies still think of musicians as contract labor making a product for them. It's happening slowly, but as more musicians find ways to get their music heard without locking into record deals, the ownership of music by record companies will dwindle to an oldies collection.
My Letter to the Editors of the NYTimes (Score:5, Insightful)
Ms. Holmes has either succumbed to the incessant propaganda of the big music labels or has an insight into global economic causal relations that would make even Chairman Greenspan envious.
During the same time period that peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have been active, several other factors have existed that seem as likely or more likely to explain the recent decline in CD sales.
1. The music industry has consolidated to such an extent that many radio stations sound exactly alike, reducing consumer choice and interest.
2. The music industry focuses almost all its promotional efforts on a few super-artists who have a chance to sell millions of records (Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Boy Bands, etc.) and so non-mainstream or non-teen-pop artists that would interest people over age 25 (with purchasing power) do not get the exposure necessary to attract new fans.
3. Consumers have more products competing for their limited dollars than ever before. DVDs, wireless phones, digital cable, broadband internet, PDAs and a host of other things soak up time and money that used to be spent listening to music and buying CDs.
4. The music labels over-charge for their products (and were even recently convicted of illegal price-fixing [state.ny.us] and they have not offered a reasonably priced alternative to file-sharing networks that does not cripple the downloads in some way (limited playbacks, unable to burn to CD, expires after a set time, etc.) It's not surprising then that when consumers don't get what they want, they don't shell out their hard-earned cash.
5. There is an overall slowdown in the economy, if no one has noticed.
In response, consider instead that:
1. Jupiter Communications did a study in 2000 at the height of Napster usage that showed Napster users bought MORE not FEWER CDs [com.com].
2. Actual artists claim that file-sharing increases their sales. [janisian.com]
I would have hoped that a reporter for The New York Times would be more careful about so casually asigning a single cause to such a complex effect.
[snip personal info]
If published, please print name and city/state only.
They'll always be clueless! (Score:3, Insightful)
Orbitz.com anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now it's 2 years later, none of that has happened, and Orbitz is just another online travel service.
I don't think this will be any different.
Re:YOU COCK-SUCKING MUMSHIT (Score:5, Funny)