Recording Industry Hopes To Hinder CD Burning 869
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "News.com reports that the recording industry is currently testing technology that would limit the number of times that a given CD (or copies of that CD) could be burned. The idea is to let consumers 'make a limited number of copies of their music -- enough for a car, a vacation home and a friend, for example -- without allowing for uncontrolled duplication.' Currently, Macrovision and SunnComm International are developing competing versions of such 'secure burning' technology, with BMG Music Group already testing the latter company's software."
They just don't get it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The release gained some prominence after a Princeton student demonstrated that the protections could be easily evaded simply by pushing a computer's Shift key while loading the CD.
The solution to piracy is never going to find success in copy protection. As in the example, above, there is always going to be a "workaround."
I think the RIAA has to make their case to their customers in a manner that is compelling and, yes, actually encourages voluntary compliance. You should be able to make copies of a CD that you bought. It is not right, however, to make 25 copies for friends. However, slippery a slope as it is, I think it is probably okay to make a copy for a friend or two. But, it's a slippery slope and many would take issue with me.
The solution is sociological, not hardware/software.
Happy Trails!
Erick
This would be very easy to defeat (Score:5, Insightful)
Further erosion of the value propostion won't help (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Embraces and promotes the downloading channel (a la iTunes, et al).
2. Finds more ways to diversify and vary the traditional physical product (CDs). Packaging, boxed sets, picture disks, collectables, etc. The music itself has to be just one component of a well-integrated marketing. Every 10th CD will include a certificate for a second free CD!
3. Uses their distribution and marketing clout to create and promote stars--revenues then come from a variety of marketing and event activities (the Grateful Dead made most of their money from touring and even allowed "bootlegging'). The product has to evolve from being bits to being the magic of the music experience (or whatever).
The cat is out of the bag and there's no putting it back in. For better or worse, the ripping and online swapping thing will simply never be defeated. Its kind of like the "bazaar" model of development that ESR speaks of and no matter what the industry does, the "community" will find a way to crack it.
They can either die a slow painful death or evolve. In the new age, the viable product is the "rock star" (or interesting composer or beautiful diva), not the bits they spew. It'll take some work.
I guess it's time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who gives a fuck about CD's? (Score:2, Insightful)
If it ain't on the 'net, it ain't something I'm interested in
Well good for you. Obviously it is of some interest to you as you felt compelled to post your aversion to the CD format rather than just moving on to the next story as one would expect from someone who doesn't give a fuck about CDs.
Apple's already done the work (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh-huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, I'm sure this will work wonderfully. What do they plan to do, replace my CD-burning program? And how, exactly, are they going to do that? Is this just going to be another "corrupt strategic sectors of the CD" strategy? I thought they learned last time they tried that and discovered that a lot of CD players wouldn't read the CD at all. And never mind the fact that one could just rip to WAV files and then burn from there...
In short, it sounds to me like more snake oil salesmen peddling their wares to a desperate industry with a failed business model. I can't see any way to do this that's compatible with existing hardware and doesn't require control of the software. Which they most definitely don't have, no matter how much Microsoft wishes they did. To say nothing of the fact that anything implementing this "technology" would, by necessity, violate the Red Book CD Audio standard and run afoul of the same labelling laws as existing "methods".
What is the threat they are trying to defend (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about limitting piracy, but boosting sales. May seem the same thing, but in this case I don't think it is.
They never learn (Score:5, Insightful)
You guys sold corrupted and crippled disks to your customers.
Did it work? No
You tried this super duper water marking scheme.
Did it work? No, in fact Prof. Felten and his team broke it within a week
You're attacking your customers, insult them and threaten legal action..
Did it work? No, in fact you're pissing your customers off
You tried yet different approaches to "copy protect" the medium.
Did it work? No, in fact you piss people off, since the can't play their legally purchased product on their legally purchased car cd player
Is there no more new material available since you tried to force all those smart schemes on your customers?
Hell! of course! within minutes after availability on "cd"
So here's a free hint for you:
Why don't you make a product available, which is of good quality, cheap, readily available and doesn't force us to give up our privacy and suck your ducks just so that we can listen to a song? You know, sort of like Apple did it (and which rumour says you're in the process of killing by higer prices and enforced bundling).
Provide us with a convenient, realistically priced product, not being throttled by rediculous schemes (region coding anyone?). Stop insulting our intelligence and integrity and stop treating us like criminals and I'll promise:
We buy!
NB: Focusing on a good products might help sales too. There's only so much Britney and Back Street Boys you can listen to before throwing up.
This technology might actually work....... (Score:2, Insightful)
Rapid spreading (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, how receptive will people be to a CD that can only be copied 3 times over its lifetime? Let's say that you're 16 and buy the new Britney Spears CD to listen to. You make one copy for home and one for your new car. Years down the road you make 2 more copies for various reasons and then want to make a 4th dupe of the CD. Wait, you can't, because you're limited to 3 burns over the CD's lifetime. Or, more likely, the company that makes the burning software that keeps track of your burns goes out of business and suddently their servers and backend stuff to keep track of all of this breaks down. Or you run Linux and they don't make software for linux because there's not enough of a market for it. Or you have a Mac and they just don't support Macs. Or your original CD gets scratched, can you then make a copy of the copy w/out the DRM getting involved?
It's just too much for people to keep thinking about over the span of years owning music. This will fail.
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The solution to piracy is never going to find success in copy protection. As in the example, above, there is always going to be a "workaround."
There may be workarounds, but there will also be a fair number of people who will not want to put forth the effort to deal with such workarounds. It is a matter of convenience.
Now, where it gets interesting is whether the duplicates will also have copy limits. If you dupe an original and the copy scheme does not transfer to the duplicate, then what has the scheme accomplished. Nothing.
As for me, I like to dupe my CDs mainly so I can use them in the car without jeopardizing the originals. A copy limit would not hinder me in that regard.
Re:Cool, corporations control our freedoms now. (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct. Just like any other corporation, they are concerned with the Profit and Loss statement as priority #1. If they aren't, they need to be fired. The reason why they don't care how anyone feels is because those same people that hate them continue to purchase the product; so obviously public opinion doesn't make a gnat's ass of a difference. (in their minds)
Right about now, everyone hates the oil companies, but do you think they are going to trip over themselves to lower gas prices so everyone will like them again?
These simple realities are lost on Slashdot.
By the way, it's "fair use" not "free use." The copyright holder still owns the work, not the public. There is a subtle difference, but an important one.
I really wish they did. (Score:5, Insightful)
Voluntary compliance is the key. Make it so that we want to comply, and stop fighting the consumer drive.
It's been a while since I took Econ, but I will always remember the invisible hand theory. The market will ALWAYS force itself toward equilibrium.
Laws, unions, anything that unnaturally hinders the market breaks equilibrium. Forcing high prices on cds. Suing your customers into submission.
Why not let the market do what it does best, and go to that point of equilibrium where profit is maximized naturally? They're holding onto a cartel-type model and it's just not going to work.
Very Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem(?) with DRM. You need to implement it in hardware AND software at the same time for it to be able to "work" (see: DVD Region Codes) and even then it's not really going to work (ibid).
Now TO BE FAIR, this idea has its heart in the right place. I don't think anyone but the most extreme zealots would argue that a person should be able to make 10,000 copies of a CD by another artist. But where is that number? It's higher than "just a couple" but probably around "several".
Or, this could be a way to make DRM seem friendly and logical, have everyone implement it, then change it so it's what we all know it's going to turn out to be: crippling and crippled.
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
So... how does this work? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean really, think about it. The only storage mechanism they have available is the local hard drive or the CD itself. Well, the CD itself would only work as a method IF the CD is actually in the burner. I sure don't use my burner READ the CD I am making a copy of, it goes into a DVD-ROM, hense no write laser. That leaves the hard drive, and unless they lockdown the CD to only be used on that 1 computer (which would actually mean it is no longer a CD), you could just:
a) delete the storage file with the current data causing it to believe the CD was never copied before
b) use a different computer
c) wipe your hard drive
d) use linux
e) use BSD
f) make an iso image of the CD and transfer that across the net...
This does nothing at all to stop actuall pirates (as can be proven by letter "f" in the above options). How long do you think it will take our current firmware hackers to do a diff on the updates and remove any "protection" from a fireware, especially in this day when people already have dual layer DVD burner firmware for DVD burners which the companies are not releasing the firmware for 6 months in order to get people to buy their $200 dual layer burner instead of their $80 single layer burner which has the same hardware...
Re:Further erosion of the value propostion won't h (Score:5, Insightful)
I can name four fundamental changes to their model which will stop most piracy overnight.
Of course, none of the above will ever happen. It stopped being about the money a long time ago. Now its about control - control over culture. Any of the above changes would reduce their control, and effectively eliminate their ability to dictate who becomes a "phenomenon" and who is relegated to back-shelf status.
Re:Cool, corporations control our freedoms now. (Score:3, Insightful)
Good feelings = good customers = many purchases.
Bad feelings = bad customers = no purchases.
Re:Convenience factor negation... (Score:5, Insightful)
It only takes one person to create a DRM-less digital copy & post it on the latest P2P network... convenience factor negated.
Totally wrong angle (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that with computers the workaround can either be automated to be as easily used as the existing tools (look at how easy it is for a tech-inept fool like me to watch a DVD on GNU/Linux) or one person "cracks" the software/data stream/whatever and passes an unrestricted copy along (look at how easy it was for a peek/poke wannabe like myself to play games on my Commodore 64 back in the 80s).
If it only takes one smart guy to destroy the restrictions, then those restrictions may as well not exist. We are looking at an industry where insiders are doing things like leaking Metallica albums and movies pre-release. Those copies don't have any restrictions built into the data or the software.
But I have to agree, I bet most of us would barely notice a copy restriction that explicitly allowed the making of first generation copies (presumably as many first generation copies as wanted-- one to CD for the car, cabin, whatever, one to the mp3 server, one to the iPod or other portable, one for a friend here and there, etc). This is how it works for MiniDisc, I believe, and it's what I would expect here.
Re:This would be very easy to defeat (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop piracy cold... (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, you'd have to one lazy bastard to waste time burning a cd when you could just buy it for 5 bucks.
Re:wake up RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Where they're wrong is thinking that public apathy will last. It won't. Computers are infiltrating more of our lives, and people will always take the time to learn how to do what they want to do.
All this amounts to is an escalation of the battle against consumer technology. Pretty soon the labels are going to have to stop fighting. This is not a war they can win in the long run.
Re:Further erosion of the value propostion won't h (Score:3, Insightful)
It didn't work for DVDs. It certainly won't work for music.
Give a greater percentage of the money to the artist, and take the costs for the things the label supposedly provides (marketing, production, distribution) out of the label's share instead of the artist's.
I don't see how this has anything to do w/anything. *MOST* people could give two flying shits about the artist and how much money they make. I am one of them. I support free music.
Stop treating your customers like criminals. If you treat them like they're criminals, they're going to disregard the law.
They disregarded the law before they started treating them like criminals.
Destroy ClearChannel. Utterly. Simply refuse to deal with them. Replace them with small local stations that are in tune with their audience. This will allow people to discover music that they like.
Sadly most people don't know that Infinity and ClearChannel exist. The ones that do already have a clue and don't listen. People think that what CC and Infinity feed them is good. Remember... People are sheep.
Re:Analog Hole, but nice try (Score:3, Insightful)
You raise an interesting point, in that I recently shopped for a high-end audio system.
At the store, I was taken to a listening room with various speaker configurations, to get a feel of the different quality levels of each system.
The salesperson played various music CDs, and I thought I could hear some strange background noise, and the salesperson agreed. We checked with a more knowledgeable guy at the store, and it came down to the actual recording quality of the CD.
The audio system was actually exposing the shoddy standards used at the recording studio!
Now, if the RIAA starts implementing methods that further degrade the audio recording, the way Macrovision introduces crap on a tv screen if you feed the signal through something between the TV and the playback device, the audiophiles will howl!
Re:Further erosion of the value propostion won't h (Score:3, Insightful)
Some might say that this is their way of trying to kill this distribution channel.
Re:"If it's digital, it can be copied" (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, you'd have to be a moron to rip your CDs as WMA files.
Re:Further erosion of the value propostion won't h (Score:3, Insightful)
But that's what the RIAA would hve you believe IS bootlegging - particularly the "trading".
stupid, out-of-touch motherfuckers... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have a vacation home. I do, however, have a job.
Reminds me of this quote from Jack Valenti: (Discussing the plausibility of anti-piracy advertisements featuring wealthy Hollywood figures) "I found the most convincing part to be the working stiffs, the guys who have a modest home and kids who go to public schools. They make $75,000 to $100,000 a year. That's not much to live on. I don't have to tell you that." (Entertainment Weekly, 18/04/2003) http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Jack_Valenti
As for limited copying, it sounds more and more like we're buying licenses to listen to music, not a shiny 5" disc. Tell you what: if I can buy a CD once and get free replacements for the rest of my life if the disc gets lost, stolen, or damaged in any way, and update it to new formats as they come out (I know a guy who has bought "Dark Side of the Moon" on 8-track, LP, cassette, and twice on CD) then maybe I'll start accepting the idea that you can dictate how I can listen to it. (PS: assuming the hardware is heavily DRM'd and otherwise useless, I'll expect free updates for my car and home systems to handle each new DRM scheme.) Until then, kiss my ass. As long as I'm buying the hardware and the discs, I do with them as I please.
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the point that really needs to be driven home to the RIAA. I hate having to go through and make sure all tracks are in right spot through www.cdnow.com or some other online store if they aren't explicitly tagged on the files (which is usually the case). If the music industry would realize if they really dropped the price of cds down to a reasonable level, say under $10 after tax, their sales would sky rocket. As someone had mentioned in a previous article the golden sell for Americans is the $5-$10 range. This is where most fast food and other meals are priced and many of us rationalize spending around that amount because a cd seems much more of a better investment (can be used over and over) than a simple meal. Additionally we can easily avoid spending $5-$10 elsewhere by skipping some other impluse buy and therefore are still even for the week in our budget.
Re:furthermore... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
They DO get it. They get it quite well in fact. They aren't stumbing around blindly in the dark here--this is a well-planned, definitive, malevolent ATTACK on all consumer electronics.
They get it quite well, and that's why they're doing this.
Interesting quote (Score:3, Insightful)
"What labels have told us is that their agreements (with the download services) are relatively short term, a year or under, and so they believe that they have the capability to require (the burning tools to be added) next time around," Macrovision Chief Executive Officer Bill Krepick said.
To all those who were bitching about PlayFair [hymn-project.org], keep this in mind: if you do not strip away the DRM from the music that you bought for your use, some day the music studios will just yank the ability to play your tunes anywhere. This is why projects like PlayFair are so important: they let you control how you use your own media. All this talk about PlayFair leading to piracy is pure bullshit.
Why do this? (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as I have at least one legacy, DRM free machine lying about, I will be able to capture that tune digitally. How can you stop me? DRM all soundcards? Outlaw legacy hardware? Legislate mandatory Cochlear implants that only recognized digitally signed and authorized music?
Really, I think this is just another thing the RIAA can point at when they tell Congress to legislate them back into the black. "See, see what those hacking music sharing terrorists did now? They BROKE our encryption! They CIRCUMVENTED our protection mechanisms! Clearly these sophisticated sabateurs can only be stopped if we have laws that can incarcerate them and an enforcement policy that generates enough publicity top scare potential terrorists. Here's a draft to get you started. Yeah, we know the first ammendment is going to be tough to excise, but we thought we'd ask in case Bush got re-elected. Besides, 'better to shoot for the stars' right?"
They're positioning themselves. Ultimately, they hope they can make legally downloaded music more restricted than music from a CD, and they probably can.
Re:This would be very easy to defeat (Score:5, Insightful)
And then some bright spark would crack the encryption and they'd be back to square 1.
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting that you make the point of scanning and reprinting. How many people do you know will photocopy an interesting magazine article or newspaper clipping to give to a friend? I certainly have seen it plent of times.
This is the important point: The rights of the copyright holder are LESS IMPORTANT than the goal of getting the information to the public. It's a balance. The copyright holder does not need to be paid for every single copy that takes place, no matter how much record labels whine. It's about reasonable compensation as an incentive to release works to the public, NOT about guaranteeing a revenue stream.
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
CD burning technology has been widespread for years now, as has file sharing. And it is a fact that CD sales continued to climb, despite illegal price fixing on the part of the record labels, until the demise of Napster. Let's face it, most people aren't making enough copies to warrant this sort of action by the labels.
Do you realize that for all the moaning and complaining the labels do, they are still making profits that would make any small business jealous? Never ever forget, that this stopped being about money a long time ago. Money is a secondary issue now. What these companies are really after now is control.
The most interesting bit is that in the grand scheme of things, speaking from an economic theory standpoint, it doesn't matter if consumers share music with 1 or 10 or 100 people. Most consumers will share less than 2% of their CDs with less than 5 people, and a portion of that sharing will generate new sales. So it all becomes a wash in the end.
The time, money, and energy the labels are spending trying to shut down music sharing is a utter waste, and won't even pay for itself in the end.
Buy Used CD's (Score:3, Insightful)
RIAA and it's thugs don't get a cut,
there's incredible variety of music,
and you can do what you will with the bits on the disk.
So many complain about the lack of diversity
in RIAA's current crop of "entertainers,"
while there's about a quarter-century of
digital music waiting to be rediscovered.
Re:furthermore... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Further erosion of the value propostion won't h (Score:3, Insightful)
*MOST* people could give two flying shits about the artist and how much money they make. I am one of them. I support free music.
Wow.
Most people *I* talk to have the exact opposite opinion. They feel ripped off not because the artist is getting rich off of CD sales, but because the middle-men are taking the majority of the cash. In fact, most people *I* talk to would rather download a complete album from $P2P_APP and send the artist $5 directly via mail.
But hey, if you feel that the artists don't deserve any money, that's certainly your right to think that way. I like free music too, but I certainly don't *expect* artists to do it with absolutely no financial incentive.
Example of WHY copying should never be limited (Score:4, Insightful)
So here's my point....I have a large colletion of CDs, and I like to do a lot of outdoor sports. So, I carry my CDs around in one of those large BINDERS. This comes with me in the car, camping, etc...
One summer, I brought my CDs to the beach, and sand got in the binder. As anyone can imagine, 3/4's of my collection in the binder got scratched beyond use.
Since then, I've learned my lesson, and I copy my CDs and use the backup CDs to carry around. When they get scratched, I re-copy them, and put them back in the binder. Heck, for $30 for 50 blank CDs, it's a lucrative way to guarantee the usability of my collection.
But now, with this article, they're saying that I should only be able to make X number of copies...meaning that after I've screwed up my CDs say, 15-20 times, I have to buy it again, or take the original with me. How is that fair? Seriously folks, this is a real life example of how this could hinder someone. I REALLY do this. What is their answer going to be, "be more careful with your CDs?"
The only way this is going to ever get fixed is to have the artists have a LARGE revolution and stop using these companies to markey their materials. As simple of a solution as that is, there are so many facets involved to make it a reailty that....it probably will never happen. Especially since the artists that proliferate these schemes are multi-BILLION-dollar (Dr. Evil pinky to the lip) contract holders.
Anyway, thought everyone would like to see a real example of how copying works for me, and what it helps me be able to do. These limitations serve nobody. There will always be software that can RIP tracks, and once ripped, they will always be able to be burned again and again, so they really should just give up.
One word of advice: Don't get rid of your old programs that perform RIPPING. They don't have DMCA/copyright protection/DRM built into them yet, and will continue to work into the future. They might be slower, they might not be as pretty, and they might not have burning capabilities built RIGHT INTO THEM, but they will continue to work. KEEP YOUR OLD PROGRAMS ON ARCHIVE. My
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They never learn (Score:4, Insightful)
Provide us with a convenient, realistically priced product, not being throttled by rediculous schemes (region coding anyone?). Stop insulting our intelligence and integrity and stop treating us like criminals and I'll promise:
We buy!
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I would love to be in the business where I had a monopoly on a product that everyone from 12 to 25 is willing to go out of their way to get, and my only problem was to figure out how to get people to pay for the product.
It is quite clear that the market wants more music than they can afford to obtain legally from a store. I hate to break it to the RIAA, but we all know that recording a CD and distributing it costs practically nothing. How many CDs would you buy if they were $2 a piece? How many new artists would you try if they were $2 a piece? How many CDs would you pirate if they were $2 a piece?
We are in a time where aquiring entertainment is relatively easy, and we have a decreasing attention span. Most Americans have at least 40 channels of TV to watch, upwards to 200 channels. We have the internet, where there is practically an infinite amount of entertainment that is instantly available. But I would guess that most Americans have less than 200 CDs. 200 CDs is only about 150 hours of entertainment, assuming that each CD is about 45 minutes in length, and that every track is worth listening to. I'm guestimating that people spend at least 5 to 7 hours a day on electronic entertainment in some form or another.
So, keep doing what your doing RIAA.
Re:I have a better idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
they're still livin in 2000 (Score:4, Insightful)
i mean, yeah, the buzzwords have changed, but it sounds exactly the same as all this revolution rubbish some years ago.
but what these morons don't get: as long as a cd player actually plays a cd, it can be copied. every soundcard is able to record it's own output stream. the only way this would work is via new devices. oh wait, it won't. i forgot, every stereo has analog output. and every soundcard is also a D/A.
nay, morons everywhere. they're way of thinking reminds me of something...ah yes, they think like machines.
Workaround (Score:4, Insightful)
Step two, rip to lossless format.
step three, burn to CD.
Wow, some copy protection.
Wait I got anotherone. Step one, run the out of my soundcard to the line in. Or use audiograbber to just grab soundcard output digitally.
Step two, record.
I may get some quality loss, but not even as much as a mp3.
Or wait, couldn't I even make a ISO of the disk and burn it that way instead of track by track?
What happens if I use linux, or a mac?
What happens when I just download the mp3's of someone who already did this and burn them to CD?
The RIAA needs to stop with the nonsense and focus on a digital distrubtion network. I think ITunes has already shown people are willing to pay for quality digital music. Take that model, make more quality music, and make it more profitable.
Anything (Score:1, Insightful)
What you say? (Score:5, Insightful)
It didn't work for DVDs. It certainly won't work for music.
What the hell are you talking about. You can get most DVD's now for between $10 to $20, and people are buying a HUGE number of DVD's, with copying issues being only a footnote. Consider how much work goes in to producing a DVD (never mind the movie) vs. producing a CD, and that the prices are generally worse for CD's than movies!
DVD's are showing EXACTLY why reducing prices would work for music!
Re:I really wish they did. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps because the record companies have a better grasp of economics than you: what the market does best is _minimise_ profit. Free markets benefit the consumer, not the producer. If someone is making a profit on something, then in a free market someone else can sell the same thing for less (but still making a profit), and gain market share. The result is that in a perfect market, prices will stabilise at a level at which nobody makes any profit.
Of course companies know this and that's why they do everything they do to distort or escape the market. Fundamentally there's only three ways out: either gain a monopoly or join a cartel (microsoft, OPEC), get the government to bankroll you through subsidies (most western agriculture), or stay ahead of the game through innovation and/or strong branding (Apple, BMW).
Once your business gets stuck in the commodity rut, then your margins are so low you can only hope to make money out of massive volumes. That's why you don't find any small companies manufacturing non-specialist consumer electronics (eg TVs,DVDs): margins are too low. The RIAA is scared shitless that if they lose control of the music business, music will head down the commodity path and prices will collapse. Since they're acting to protect the interests of their shareholders, you can't really blame them for doing everything they can to prevent this. You CAN blame your legislators for failing to stand up to them, though.
Re:furthermore... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:furthermore... (Score:3, Insightful)
Logical flaws in your argument (Score:2, Insightful)
Correlation is not causation.
File-sharing is even more widespread than it ever was during the Napster days, and more people have broadband. Just because Napster went away and then CD sales went down doesn't mean anything. In fact, it could be argued that causing Napster to go away made pirates create even more P2P apps, and so even more people were pirating artists' work than ever before.
Oh, I forgot, we're scapegoating the RIAA here and ignoring the artists in this equation. You know, those nameless people who actually rented the studio and spent a couple of months recording the music.
Do you realize that for all the moaning and complaining the labels do, they are still making profits that would make any small business jealous? Never ever forget, that this stopped being about money a long time ago. Money is a secondary issue now. What these companies are really after now is control.
Yeah--control over their own copyrighted materials. How dare they. The nerve!
The most interesting bit is that in the grand scheme of things, speaking from an economic theory standpoint, it doesn't matter if consumers share music with 1 or 10 or 100 people. Most consumers will share less than 2% of their CDs with less than 5 people, and a portion of that sharing will generate new sales. So it all becomes a wash in the end.
Ah, made-up Slashdot statistic! Let's just pull numbers out of our asses and not cite a source.
The time, money, and energy the labels are spending trying to shut down music sharing is a utter waste, and won't even pay for itself in the end.
So many people are pirating the fuck out of everything, what's the big deal if the companies dare make attempts to prevent the violation of their rights that's going on? Or do copyright holder rights only matter when it's a situation of the GPL being violated? That seems to be the only time people around here care about being ethical.
Re:What you say? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I really wish they did. (Score:3, Insightful)
Laws, unions, anything that unnaturally hinders the market breaks equilibrium. Forcing high prices on cds. Suing your customers into submission.
I took econ too, and that's not what I got out of it. The market does indeed find an equilibrium, but sometimes that equilibrium is a monopoly.
Scale effects and natural monopolies make it so that in almost every product category doubling your marketshare will more than double your profit. As a result, markets, over time, without law restricting them, inevitably tend towards monopoly or oligopoly through mergers, acquisitions and just plain old outcompeting the other guy.
Even adam smith, the guy who coined the invisible hand theory was clear about the necessity of antitrust law.
I'm personally also of the opinion that unions are a byproduct of market inefficiency. In a highly efficient free job market (with a sufficiently large number of equal job suppliers), the qualities of the jobs offered won't drop so low that unions become necessary.
Why not let the market do what it does best, and go to that point of equilibrium where profit is maximized naturally? They're holding onto a cartel-type model and it's just not going to work.
Incidentally, it's been shown that if a market is monopolized the overall market efficiency drops, but the individual profit of the monopolist increases. Monopolization (or cartelization) and profit-maximalization go hand in hand.
Re:furthermore... (Score:4, Insightful)
and you know what? If these fuckers would only do something to make people want to buy the CD, say by lowering the price, or maybe actually producing good music, then there wouldn't be an issue. But no, it's easier to spend billions of dollars on R&D than it is to actually find and develop artists, instead of just spoonfeeding us the trite crap that they are now. BAH.
<singing>But I'm just preaching to the choir...</singing>
Sub-$10 range (Score:5, Insightful)
When the MPAA first released titles on DVD, they were in the $20 range. They lowered prices when releases of older movies came out on DVD, many to the $10-$12 range, and low and behold, people buy them. They buy them in droves! I know people who bought their first DVD player a year ago who are already up to eighty titles, and they don't even watch movies nightly.
As much as I hate region coding, their prosecution of Jon Johansen, CSS, and the like, I can justify buying their products because I still get my money's worth most of the time. The $5.99 bargain bins at Walmart, Target, and many of the movie/media stores only help the matter. They understood that the prices they charged for Laserdiscs ($30-$70 depending on the title and the packaging method) just was not going to work if they wanted widespread adoption.
I know that it's not entirely fair to compare DVDs and CDs, because of the size of the content of most DVDs, but they're still little flat discs that are packaged and sold similarly. While CDs take up less space, if they were cheap enough they'd have a hard time keeping them on the shelves. Everyone would have that new hot CD because they could justify spending a little more than a meal on it, versus a week's food budget.
Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think they even need to do that. Lemme quote something else you said here:
" It is not right, however, to make 25 copies for friends."
Despite how fast CD burners are, they're still not fast enough to make 25 copies without wanting to tell your friends go buy it you cheapskate. CDs are cheap enough that this really isn't worthwhile. It's one thing to make that occasional copy for a friend, but 25? Ugh. I couldn't even stand burning 25 discs to backup my precious porn.
"The solution is sociological, not hardware/software."
I respectfully disagree. The solution is economical. A good deal of what the industry calls piracy is really an expression of demand. People want individual songs, people want lower prices, and they want an easy way to try out new tunes. If they want people to be 'legit', then a.) they need to market iTunes, Rhapsody, etc a good deal more and b.) If those aren't enough, then look into what else people want, maybe CD kiosks where you can make a custom CD.
People are not, by nature, dishonest. People are happy to pay for something as long as they enjoy what they're getting. If they stop treating them like thieves and start treating them like a new market to cater to, they'll enjoy higher profits and fewer dishonest trades.
analog (Score:1, Insightful)
2) Sample cassette playback.
3) Burn 1,000,000 CDs.
If MP3s are acceptable quality, then a single conversion to analog and back is also acceptable.
Re:Sub-$10 range (Score:5, Insightful)
From Amazon.com: High Fidelity DVD [amazon.com] - $14.99 New, $7.99 used. High Fidelity Soundtrack CD [amazon.com] - $14.99 New, $8.99 used.
When the prices are that out of whack, the comparison is entirely fair.
Impossible (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid bastards. They don't think anyone has the right to duplicate anything, AT ALL, unless THEY say so. Which, of course, they'll never do, they don't like people being able to repair heavily scratched CDs with EAC and some time. Hell, I just fixed a CD for a friend of mine.
Uh... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is Slashdot, where people think The Who is still a relevant band.
Your argument makes no sense anyway. If today's music is so crap, why do so many people pirate it? It's a copout to say, "Well, maybe if they would just produce good music." That's not even the issue. Piracy isn't right just because you aren't a member of the MTV demographic anymore. You're implying piracy will go down if they make good music, which begs the question--why are people pirating music they think is bad?
Oh, that's right, it's an irrelevant issue and you're just scapegoating the music industry in order to justify piracy and ignore artist rights. Slashdotters have yet to legally or morally justify pirating an artist's music.
Re:CD Copy Software Support? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The blank CD taxes should be doubled (Score:4, Insightful)
What if I'm using blank CDs to transfer content THAT I AUTHORED, to a mastering plant? Besides, they already get their money from Music CD-Rs, leave my Data CD-Rs alone plz.
Re:I really wish they did. (Score:5, Insightful)
2) This means you can also make money as the lowest cost producer at a desirable quality level instead of being a monoplist/unethical company.
3) Your interpretatino of commoditty businesses is ass-backwards. You do NOT need mass quantites. Instead what happens is the company that is the lowest cost producer at a given quality level drives everyone out of business, because only they can profit at that price. So they quickly GROW to be huge. Later on they take advantage of some scaling advantages, but that is secondary, not primary. Only companies in small markets (i.e. specialist markets that you excluded.in your example) can not grow that big because their pond is so small. If you personally come up with a better, cheaper business model then Dell, then you could start up a lower cost producer that will within 5 years be bigger then Dell. That is after all what Dell did against the big boys that had all the "economies of scale" advantage.
4) Music is ALREADY a commodity market. The RIAA wishes it isn't, but their wishes are meaningless. They have tried to use laws to block the free market from treating it that way but their efforst are doomed to failure. Songs are worth less than $1 / song, and the market will eventually force the RIAA to realize this.
5) The RIAA is not a producer of consumer goods. They USED to be a producer of retail consumer goods (stored music), and as such they abused their serfs (musicians). They are now a producer of commercial services for their freed serfs(advertising, legal rights, etc. etc.) . They are scrambling to try to provide more and better services for their workers, but have a history of abusing them, so are having a tough time making the transistion. Worse their profits as a producer of retail consumer goods was huge and they are being babies about accepting the much lower profit margins they deserve as commerical services companies.
Re:Here's an idea.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, right.
Re:The blank CD taxes should be doubled (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as I am within the law, I will continue to buy data CD-Rs, and if I hear plans of them actually adding a 'music tax' to data CD-Rs, then I'll stock up on a few spindles before they can sink their claws in.
Music as an impulse purchase (Score:3, Insightful)
Assume that it costs a dollar to press a CD and ship it to your local music store. Say it costs two dollars to produce a custom compact disc and art, and ship it to an individual's home.
Back of the envelope math says that the record company makes fourteen dollars per disc under the first pricing scheme, and two dollars per disc under the second. Will they sell seven times as many discs under the new model? No? Then they're not going to change.
Well, part of the reason they might not sell more is because you're pricing it so low as to be an impulse item. Impulse sales, however, rely on fast and convenient. If a user has to be online, go to the site, select the tracks or album, etc. it no longer becomes a fast, convenient thing. Will they buy more albums? Definitely. They'll practically fly off the shelves I bet. The real money though is in making music an impulse item. Heard that catchy new single? Get the album for $4-5 near the checkout counter. The recent plans to make concert recordings available immediately after the show go right along with this in the same way as buying a cd for $10 off the merch table because you liked the band.
This is already sort of being done with DVDs. Go into almost any Best Buy or other big box electronics retailer and you'll see a rack of $10 DVDs by the checkout just begging you to think about that one movie that you sort of like or haven't seen in a long time. It's not fully there yet because it's not quite as cheap, but it's a step in the right direction.
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)
So does the RIAA. They 'give' artists up to a buck a cd sold. They take 9 at least for themselves. Yet there's rarely bitching about that. You people claiming that 'pirates' are stealing from artists are only partially correct. They're mostly stealing from record company executives. I don't personally think it's ok to steal music from anyone, and I think any artist who gives up 90% of their earnings to some record company exec deserves to get screwed, but really it isn't the downloaders who are exhibiting 'pirate'-like behavior. Who cares if the music is good or bad or indifferent? If it's distributed by the major labels, a.k.a. head ripoff practitioners, I don't buy it. I buy only from independant artists because they get more of my money. If you want to truly support artists, rather than help some exec buy his second hummer, buy independant. Many terrific artists, such as MC Frontalot for example, give you their music for free. I personally would rather give my money to someone who paradoxically isn't making music to make money. I realize that's a twisted view, at least from the RIAA's perspective, but it's how I see things.
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well really it is. The purpose of copyright law is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" but the WAY that this progress is promoted is by.. (wait for it)... generating money for copyright holders(!)
You are right though that making money for the copyright holder is the MEANS to the end and not the end itself. Copyright law needs to be extensively reformed. The current time limit (70 years after the death of the artist) is FAR too long, so long that it is becoming a BARRIER to the "progress of useful arts"
The copyright holder does not need to be paid for every single copy that takes place,
No, they DO. I make my living as a "copyright holder" - I am an illustrator and a designer. I sell copyrights on my work to my clients, I have often had people "steal" my work, using it commercially without compensating me... my clients competitor is getting my work for free. Art for it's own sake may be a labor of love (product illustrations on the other hand never are) but I still need to eat (thus the product illustrations). When my clients competitors just use my work without compensating me, I'm sorry but that IS and SHOULD BE a crime.
There is a certain amount of hypocrisy here. If Microsoft just lifted GNU code wholesale and turned around and sold it without honoring the terms of the license there would be outrage. But why? doesn't information want to be free? Why can't they just do what they want with it freely (making their own alterations and selling the binary result for a profit)? Free software is only possible with Intellectual property law backing it up. You can give it away under CONDITIONS because you OWN it (at least for a time).
Re:furthermore... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:click on: burn and send (Score:4, Insightful)
No one can know for sure whether a new artist is going to sell. But their job is to try to predict it the best they can by doing market research and having informed opinions on what a profitable artist is. Television studios, movie studios and book publishers all have to decide what to produce and what not to, and these industries aren't complaining about the "cost" of being wrong. Why should the music industry be any different?
Re:Convenience factor negation... (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who are most likely to be deterred by these measures are those who have the least to gain by circumventing them: the people who have already purchased the CD. The real pirates have a great deal to gain by breaking the DRM, and they won't be stopped. The worst case scenario for them is making a digital copy from the analog output.
You're pretty much guaranteed to get DRM free copies distributed by actual pirates, so the music will get out there. Except now you've inconvenienced your paying customer, who can no longer burn a CD for his car, or download to his MP3 player. Now your paying customer, who in giving you his money has already indicated his desire to be honest and do the right thing, has an incentive to seek black market sources for the music. "Damn, I can't make a copy if this CD I just bought!" "Haven't you heard of Kazaa? Just download it from there." And he'll do so guilt free because he's already paid for the music. Maybe he didn't know how to get pirated music before, but now he does.
Next time, will he go through the song and dance of fighting the DRM restrictions on the CD, or just click that little icon on his desktop?
I think today I'll go to my boss and propose spending millions of dollars developing a technology that annoys our customers, doesn't effectively protect our IP, does nothing to improve our profit margins and exposes us to legal risk. Let's see how long I keep my job.
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I really wish they did. (Score:3, Insightful)
This makes no sense. Free markets benefit BOTH the consumer AND the producer, by the principle of mutual benefit which all voluntary trade is founded on. If that market had no benefit to the producer, there would be no market!
The producers produce, precisely because they have determined it will benefit them to do so. The consumers consume, precisely because they have determined it will benefit them to do so. The end transaction (voluntary trade) is engaged precisely because each party determines a benefit for themselves.
When you go to the store and buy a gallon of milk, you do so because you would rather have a gallon of milk than $3. You have determined that the milk holds more value to you, at that time, than $3. The store sells you the milk because they would rather have $3 than the gallon of milk. They have determined that $3 holds more value to them, at that time, than the milk. The outcome is mutual benefit.
This is how (and why) wealth is created: after the transaction, each party is left with MORE, not less, wealth than they started with.
Re:They just don't get it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is not about artist, craftsperson, or support person jobs (see the MPAA ads concerning movie pirating).
This is all about job protection. The jobs that are being protected are marketing people, 'executive' management, and other high priced people that provide little to nothing in the way of product or product enhancement.
I have no problem with paying artists, craftspeople, or support people. They are the folks providing me with great music, great movies (?!), great TV (ok . . . maybe not), and great books (?!).
I have a great deal of trouble paying advertising 'executives', focus group managers, and other people who impose their lack of sensibilities on what I may or may not experience.
For a more humorous and scathing treatment of these folks (and telephone sanitizers) read Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
These people use copy protection, DRM, and deep pockets to influence lawmakers for one reason and one reason only . . .
. . . to protect their 6/7+ figure salries and lifestyles.
What people are willing to pay for is changing. People are less and less willing to pay for garbage. Corporations are less and less willing to pay consultants for knowledge that leaves the company as soon as the consultants leave the engagement.
Traditional (read last 30 years) business executives are scared. Traditional business schools are scared. They will do anything to protect the status quo.
Parallels between selling IP and selling hard goods in the 1900s can be drawn. What sold then was a quality product that would accomplish the task a buyer wished to accomplish.
What will sell now are the insights that artists provide and the skills to solve increasingly complex problems of interest.
Good artists are rare. I will pay (have paid) money to obtain copies of their work. Solving complex and interesting (to me) problems is worth paying for.
The entire business of foisting garbage on an increasingly unwilling public would die if it were not for the activist legislation funded deep-pocketed individuals.
They sell protectionist schemes to lawmakers by promising to support future initiatives and thus keeping the current lawmakers in power.
They sell protectionist schemes to stockholders by promising increased worth.
All of this is for one purpose and one purpose only - the accumulation of wealth/power by people who do nothing but accumulate wealth/power.
The solution . . . . as Sean Penn stated:
"But if we do not participate in an educated democracy, we participate in its demise."
Re:furthermore... (Score:4, Insightful)
And as for the copies, how does it know what generation it is? AFAIK it has no way of telling the copy software to decrement a counter or anything like that.
I'm really just trying to figure out how this whole scheme is supposed to work without relying on a centralized "DRM Server" to keep track of copies.
you got it (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I am concerned, they are economic terrorists, using bribe money to get laws passed, and other general goonish behavior. And they have always been that way, too, as far back as I can remember, always using bribes, black mails, pay offs, etc to maintain a lucrative monopoly.
So, I just boycott paid for music in general. I just quit. I listen to it on the radio, maybe there's some advertising during the music shows that will get me to go check out a product, but as for paying for copies-I just "say no". They want to get real on what stuff really coists, get a clue on a real business model, I might reconsider, but so far, everything they do has pushed me further into the "I won't buy it anymore" camp.
Re:Sub-$10 range (Score:3, Insightful)
The costs of creating a DVD out of a movie on film are fairly small. The equipment to do a good transfer isn't cheap, but most of it has been around since the Laserdisc days and still does a good job. They have to create the menuing system, produce any bonus material, and clean up the transfer, but I'd bet that they can do it in a matter of a couple of months for less than $200,000. All that it comes to then is stamping out the DVDs, packaging them, and distributing them.
Music is messed up because the system is more broken. Money isn't made through radio by and large, despite the numerous times particular songs are played. They expect to make their money through sales of CDs, and are probably afraid that if they lower the prices that all they'll see is lower profit without appreciable increases in sales numbers. We can argue that if they're cheaper we'll buy them, but convincing record labels to try this just isn't working.
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's actually a pretty accurate statement. Not so long ago, most music appealed to most of the population. Call it cheezy or corny, but entire families would listen to the stuff they now play in Branson. I'm sure there's always been "kid music" that adults hate, but that was the exception rather than the rule.
Now, however, I challenge you to find any mainstream music that is halfway palatable to anyone over the age of 30. The music industry has completely abandoned two thirds of the population with the excuse that older people don't buy music. Newsflash: I have a lot more money than 99.99% of teenagers. I think nothing of dropping cash on a nice satellite TV system, so what makes you think that I would steer a few of my entertainment dollars your way if you made music that I actually enjoyed?
I will never buy anything by Usher, 50 Cent, or Limp Bizkit. As long as the major labels market to kids, they won't receive a penny from me. Do you really think that I have a radically different opinion than the majority?
You're implying piracy will go down if they make good music, which begs the question--why are people pirating music they think is bad?
Most people aren't. A lot of kids are pirating the junk that they hear on their local ClearChannel affiliate. Trading music has almost always been a "youth thing"; older people tend to buy the things they want to hear. It's almost like saying that most people love Bud Light because they'll happily pay $5 for admission to a keg party; it completely ignores the huge portion of the populace that stays home and pays full price for the good stuff.
Re:It doesn't matter, here's why (Score:2, Insightful)
History is rife with 'contracts' that people willingly signed but which are not legal. If you sign a contract that states you will give up your firstborn child to someone, it is not legal just because it's a contract and you signed it.
They take that much in order to pay:
The studio
The artists having a place to stay
New equipment for the artists to use during recording
The producers
The mixers
The level of hardware used in the studio
The mastering studio they send the music to
The art department
The marketing department
The pressing plant
The distributors
Coverage of expenses on all the thousands of other acts they fund that don't return on their investment
And much, much more
That's funny, I was talking about profit, not total revenue. All of those people/things are paid BEOFRE it becomes PROFIT.
Nobody here knows any artists or has met any or asked them, yet everyone claims to be their guardian angels--somehow accomplished by ripping them off and making sure they don't get paid for their work.
Actually, I do. I know several artists who are doing what they can to make it on their own, because the deals that record companies offer are not fair to them. It's harder to make it on your own, but you can sell cds for 5 bucks each and still make 4 bucks, if you're not chained to a megalabel.
I'm sure John Carmack will thank you so much for "protecting" him from the evil publishers when you pirate Doom 3 to make sure those evil execs don't get a share.
I never said a single thing about game companies. As far as I know, John Carmack is not a member of the RIAA. Also, I never advocated stealing anything. You have attributed that to me because I don't like the RIAA. Yet you talk about knee-jerk reactions. Funny.
So you pirate it instead? Are you implying it's okay if others do as well?
I don't pirate anything. Why do you equate 'I don't buy' with 'I steal?' I never said I get it without paying, I simply don't get music released on megalabels, either by paying for it or by not paying for it.
90% of earnings aren't going to some single record company exec
90% of the PROFIT is not going to the artist. The total earnings figure is different, but the PROFIT structure for those companies is heavily, heavily weighted towards the execs. Sorry if you don't believe it. Ask A Tribe Called Quest about it sometime.
It's funny you rag on nameless execs so much when it's the artists and their gold toilets, huge mansions, classic car collections, and second hummers I see on MTV Cribs all the time. You want to paint this portrait of the evil execs stealing the food right from the poor starving artists' mouths. It's a complete lie and not how the system works at all.
You're the one believing the lie if you think artists really live like that. Sure, if they're a huge, established name with many years of successful records under their belt and smart money managers, they're doing well. However, many of the houses you see on MTV Cribs aren't paid for. Don't you ever watch 'where are they now?'
You've got to be kidding me. Pirates aren't acting like pirates? It most certainly is the pirates exhibiting pirate-like behavior. Man, what a spin.
Yeah. It's so much like taking over another ship at sea and relieving them of physical goods. Arr!
You must realize by now that calling copyright infringement (and I'm only loosely using *that* definition) 'piracy' is ludicrous. Of course you will keep doing it, because it connotes what you would like to convey. Just don't accuse *me* of spin when I don't want to call an apple an orange.
That entire rant about where you want to put your money was pointless. Why would I give a shit if you buy RIAA or non-RIAA? It's irrelevant to the discussion.
Maybe to your side of it.
Re:Uh... (Score:2, Insightful)
People copy music for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which people are too cheap to pay for it. Most people just don't care anymore. The technology they scoffed at has finally been made idiot-proof enough that they can use it. It's been said a million times, but there is no technological solution to a moral problem. Copying music will occur until it is impossible to do (that is an unachievable goal), or it becomes more convenient just to pay for it.
I don't care if they cripple CD's. What I DO care is that they LABEL them. I want to know IN THE STORE that it won't work on my Mac. Until that happens, they are asking to be sued.... again.
While there are people on slashdot who would argue copying music should be legal, no one advocates not compensating the artists. Setting up a P2P system where people paid a fee to get music would be a BOON to labels, provided it was REASONABLY priced. Why does iTunes work? Because the restrictions are few, and the price is right. Wal Mart's scheme doesn't work because the price may be right, but the restrictions are too great a hassle.
Besides, the Who isn't what Slashdotters consider relevant... it's Led Zeppelin.
It's more price than quality (Score:3, Insightful)
Price is the biggest factor by far for most people I know when deciding to buy a CD or DVD. It doesn't matter how much you love a group when it costs more for an audio CD than a DVD.
DVD: Hundreds to thousands of support staff, actors, recording, sound, audio, video, foley, and F/X artists with budgets in the millions.
CD: A half dozen schleps in a room for a week or two to record an album with maybe a dozen people supporting the effort.
Yet both are $20-25? The RIAA thinks people are morons, but the only fools are the execs who think people are stupid enough to pay $20-25 for an item whose real cost coverage point is only $2-3, including promotions, advertising, roadies, groupies, and drugs.
Sure I prefer older music, especially blues. But that doesn't stop me from enjoying the occasional spark of talent from current styles. I even like some of it enough to buy it.
Real talent has no age, and plays multiple styles as their career progresses. I just have no more use for the bubblegum stars like Spears than I did for their equivalents when I was in high school. Every generation has it's useless, talentless candy fluff whose major "skill" is looking good enough in front of a camera to be built up into a teen idol for a few years.
Re:Convenience factor negation... (Score:2, Insightful)
They're not just looking at the short term (although ironically they are)... If they limit DRM-free channels, and convince people that controls are necessary and normal, then they're one step closer to pay-per-play pricing models. That removes any possibility for an alternative business model because they're no longer people who find and create music, but they become the defacto distributors.
Right now they distribute through channels they can't control. That means competition, which means no profits (in the economic sense). If they control distribution, which pay-per-play inherantly allows, then they control every use. Fair use is damned, and so is any alternative business model.
This isn't just about losing fair use rights; it's also about destroying legitimate business models at the bequest of a failing one. It has no legitimate legal justification. It's politics and they're winning.
Re:Cool, corporations control our freedoms now. (Score:3, Insightful)
"I wasn't aware that free-use included allowing a limit"
Who's ignorant and uniformed now? Jackass.
Re:Sub-$10 range (Score:3, Insightful)
The Matrix Reloaded DVD: $13.99
The Matrix Reloaded soundtrack CD: $16.99
Enter The Matrix video game: $19.99
The video game on a plastic disc, which probably cost less than a million bucks to produce, costs 40% more than a DVD of the film, which costs tens of millions! Those goddamn greedy software programmers! Let's punish them for their greed by pirating the hell out of the game and calling it a social protest!
Whoops, sorry, I forgot how many Slashdotters make their money.
But anyway, yeah. I wholeheartedly support the notion of selling CDs for below $10. Selling at below cost is always good for business. And, I'm sure that Slashdotters have a much better understanding of the supply/demand curve in the record industry than, say, the accountants and economists who actually work for that industry.
I'm looking forward to the first person to +5 insightfully point out that CDs cost only $0.25 to press, thus there's bags of margin to be made at sub-$10, so I can school them on the important differences between manufacturing cost and cost of sale, and between gross and net margin. It's a pity I'll have to, with all the financial geniuses around here.
Doesn't make sense (Score:1, Insightful)
That doesn't make sense.
If you stick a CD in your Windows PC, it will (for most people) auto-execute. So provided you don't let it execute its DRM shield, the CD disk cannot be protected in the way they describe.
I rarely say "can't" in the computer field, but this time I say "can't".
Its like the last Sarah McLaughlan album. It tried to execute its copy protection, and the copy protection was a lame 2 session CD, with the first session data, so it didn't look like an audio CD. So I just copied the CD, but told the copy program to ignore the first session. Boom. Instant Audio CD without the protection.
Why does the RIAA think my HD is an appropriate place for their DRM crap?
Re:Sub-$10 range (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA is fighting P2P because it makes them obsolete. For a couple thousand dollars, a band can produce a quality album and distribute it themselves over the Internet, which the consumer can then burn to a CD or put directly on an MP3 player. The album artwork can even be sent electronically and printed on the consumer's machine. There's no longer a need for an entire industry to produce and ship the plastic discs. Under P2P, the distribution model no longer has any value to the artists or to the consumer. The labels do also provide marketing, which is of value to the artist, but since this marketing gets paid for by the sales of the plastic discs, it's still reliant on the distribution model. There's just no incentive for the recording industry to adopt P2P. They've been making so much money for so long on their current business model that the risk of adopting a new technology that would unseat that business model is just too high.
Re:oh no (Score:2, Insightful)