You do understand that the artist doesn’t see any money until the initial costs are recouped, right. In some cases, they may have to even pay that money back, although usually the label just eats the cost. (One of the reasons CD’s cost so much is because of the large number of artists that make a CD but the product just doesn’t sell) The record company made an investment. If it’s investment isn’t returned, the artist not only doesn’t see any money, they will most likely be dropped from the label. People don’t pay for the CD and the artist doesn’t get a chance to make another one. Sure, a million people may have downloaded it, but another label isn’t going to take a chance on losing their investment as well.
But in the case of the library, they get the book back.
Maybe I’m misreading this. You bought 2 CD’s and the cost was $140? Wow, the prices are much higher in your area.
I don’t believe that he is planning on spending $1100 to buy any of those CD’s when he already has them on his computer.
But an OPPOSITE correlation to the one dictated by your theory, effectively disproves your theory, or at the very least relegates it to ‘interesting, but unsuppored by the facts’ status.
The great part is that if you used DATyou also had to pay a “piracy fee” on the blank tapes,for the privilege of using the tapes to record albums you already owned. If the record industry had its way, you’d pay a similar fee on all blank media, not to mention all recording devices.
And this a perfect example of someone who admits that they have no intention of purchasing what they download. Points for honesty.
Until someone can convince me that the majority of people who file share illegally are actually purchasing a good portion of what they are downloading, I will not be convinced that file sharing is helping CD sales and not harming the artist. I’m sorry, but every person I have ever seen with a substancial number of downloaded files on their computer, had no intention of purchasing any of it. Granted, that is only my personal experience, but I have never seen any unbiased proof that the opposite is true.
As an aside: I cannot believe I got sucked into another file sharing thread. As it is an issue that hits close to home, it is better for my blood pressure if I stay away from these debates. Just.can’t.resist.
Say, for example, that my theory is: file-sharing does not harm CD sales.
Scenario 1: When the correlation is the one expected by the theory.
I can point to rising CD sales in a time of file-sharing as evidence supporting my theory. But these increased sales might the result of a booming economy, and it would be possible to argue that, but for file sharing, they would be even higher. Thus, i have not refuted the notion that file-sharing harms CD sales. Scenario 2: When the correlation is opposite to the one dictated by the theory.
Someone else points to falling CD sales in a time of file-sharing, arguing that this disproves my theory. The problem here is that those decreased sales might be a result of something other than file-sharing, such as an economic downturn. Unless you can prove that the downturn is CD sales would have been less dramatic in the absence of file-sharing, you still can’t make any conclusive statements, even negative ones, about causation.
Which is fine with the borrower, since he doesn’t want the book anymore. Books are consumed differently from music.
I thought someone would say that.
One or two CDs per band, times a few bands. Let’s see: Jamiroquai, 2 CDs. Bloodhound Gang, 2 CDs. Lo Fidelity Allstars, 1 CD. Daft Punk, 2 CDs. Garbage, 1 CD. Evanescence, 1 CD. Fatboy Slim, 1 CD.
That’s ten CDs, somewhere between $150 and $200.
If he wouldn’t spend $1100 with file sharing, and he wouldn’t spend $1100 without file sharing, then it doesn’t matter. The only difference is whether or not he listens to the music.
The only relevant question is: What would they have done if they couldn’t download the files?
The RIAA can have my mp3’s when they pry my harddrive from my cold dead hands. If those fucks want to sue me, i say bring it on. I’ll make sure it is the longest, costliest, most PR damaging trial in the history of the world.
People download a song, and they like it and they buy the CD and the record company under reports the number of sales and the artist gets paid, but not what they should be paid. Cite (LA Times needs registration).
And
So, companies are trying to change their accounting practices because of a pending bill in CA, (it was never presented, IIRC) and the courts have sided with artists in the past. Again I don’t think that protecting the artist is what the RIAA is doing, they are a PAC-like group that only seeks to line the pockets of ‘big music’ - if it is at the expense of computer users or artists, it makes no difference.
If artists were smart, they would all dump the labels and make their music available on-line. The RIAA doesn’t want to be dragged into the 20th century, let alone the 21st.
Another thing just occured to me - has anybody given any thought to the notion that CD sales may have dropped due to the fact that one company - Clear Channel - controls an ungodly percentage of the nations radio stations? I’d like to see the sales of the artists that consistantly get Clear Channel play, I’d be willing to bet that they are doing just fine. I also assume that the sales drop off is in bands that aren’t commercial enough to earn corporate rock air-time.
Well, heck, I’m in the wrong business then, if you can get $150,000 damages per lifted song. I should spend the next few years making friends with lawyers and programming tape loops into techno tunes. Then if one person tries to violate my copyrights–profit!
And, I suppose, I would earn the hatred of just about all, even though I would be well within my rights. No different, then, from the RIAA.
If copyright violation is worse than theft, why didn’t the big record companies spend more money on anti-copy technology rather than anti-theft measures like “the long box”? By their account, they are losing much more money through copying.
I believe the Betamax case already did so. “Fair use” covers making copies for yourself but you break the law the second you start distributing those copies (or keep the copy and pass the original onto someone else). That’s what the RIAA is using as a excuse.
Well ultimately Adam, that’s what I was on about in my Page One rant about the woeful general state of the music business. The RIAA can go on as much as they want about file sharing cutting into CD album sales. Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t.
But what I take offence to is that RIAA won’t be honest about their shocking duplicitous payola relationships with company’s like Clear Channel.
In short, the relationship works like this… the RIAA needs FM Radio exposure to make music “get inside people’s heads”. From there, album sales take off. The FM Radio industry needs music to fill the gaps between advertising bursts. But they are very wary of losing listeners. Any music which is too confrontational or too “edgy” - well that sort of music won’t ever make it on air. The FM Radio industry, in particular Clear Channel, charges billions of dollars annually to the RIAA to play “their music” on air, and the RIAA pays this money because it means exposure, which translates into album sales. However, the RIAA also knows that music which is edgy or risky won’t ever get on air, so they play it safe. As a result, we now have a firmly institutionalised cycle of lowest common denominator where only “safe” music becomes a hit, because only “safe” music is getting massive exposure.
As I said, I have nothing but contempt for what the RIAA and the US Commercial Radio industry have allowed to happen to the music business. Talent means nothing anymore. Quality music means nothing anymore. It’s all about playing it as safe as possible to scare away as few listeners as possible between advertising bursts, and as a result, the music which is coming out of the USA is almost universally pure unadulterated dross.
Even my beloved Foo Fighters ended up becoming just another watered down bland effort. Their 4th album was rejected by RCA. It was too edgy. The band had to go back and record it entirely a 2nd time before RCA would back it. The result was indistinguishable from Good Charlotte or Linkin Park. Pure dross.
The lack of a benefit is a harm, and the lack of a harm is a benefit – the two are merely opposite ends of one process, in a manner of speaking. If a fan fails to purchase a CD he otherwise would have because of file sharing, then the record company and musicians have been harmed by file sharing (and the fan). Therein lies the burden.
I suppose you could say that. But you must admit that a person who downloads a song and doesn’t buy the album is no more “harming” the artist or label than a person who doesn’t download the song and doesn’t buy the album.
The burden is to prove that file sharing actually prevented him from buying the CD. You can’t just jump from “he has 1000 songs on his computer” to “he would have bought 100 albums if not for file sharing”.
Suppose a person is planning to buy the new Metallica album, but after reading a bad review online, he decides not to. That bad review has cost the band a sale, just like file sharing - the only difference being that the guy who reads the review isn’t going to listen to Metallica’s new music at all. If you say the review doesn’t harm the artist, but file sharing does, the only explanation is that the act of listening to an artist’s song somehow causes harm if you haven’t paid for it.
Boo Boo Foo, on the subject of exposure, you might be interested in this Wired article. A company called BigChampagne filters P2P search statistics and sells the information to record labels, to get an idea of which bands are popular (as determined by P2P downloads) but not yet represented on the radio:
Mr2001? Thanks for the article. I remain unconvinced however that too much can be gleamed from P2P statistics - apart from being able to identify certain demographic trends. I take such a stand because, well, oddly enough P2P is actually a very private one-on-one transaction. It’s a different beast compared to what FM Radio can achieve. Think about your typical peak hour drive into work. Compare the music you hear at THAT time, and the number of ads you hear at that time, to say, 1am or even 12 midday. The music which is played during peak-hour is totally “safe bet” music, because the stations correctly identify those periods as maximum listener audience time, and it would be a reckless thing indeed to risk losing advertisers by losing listeners.
The up side to FM Radio is that you can set up a nice little hi-fi system in the office and have all your co-workers listen to tunes during the course of the day. Radio stations recognise that this happens, and so do the RIAA. In my research thus far, it remains king - by a long, LONG way - in terms of planting a song inside your head. You know what I’m talking about - that syndrome where a tune plays enough times that it becomes familiar and it’s kind of etched into your melodic memory. The RIAA lives for that, as does Commerical Radio. Shit, something had to explain the meteoric rise of Avril Lavigne, and it was FM Radio.
My point here I guess is this - truly huge record sales - and I mean MEGA sales - well they’re not easily achieved. We’re all familiar with the story of an artist who pumped out a great album which never took off - or for that matter, we Australians are quite familiar with some killer albums which have been released down here but could never get a foot in the door in the USA because they simply couldn’t pay the “playlist kickbacks” to get on air.
I honestly believe that P2P remains a symptom of exposure, as averse to being a cause of exposure. In my considered opinion, that is.
Until someone can convince me that the majority of people who file share illegally are actually purchasing a good portion of what they are downloading, I will not be convinced that file sharing is helping CD sales and not harming the artist.
Ok, confused here.
Let’s say that Joe Blow likes Britney Spear’s new “song.” And let’s say that Joe works at Wendy’s making minimum wage. Joe doesn’t buy CD’s. Joe is more concerned with paying the rent.
Joe is never going to buy Britney’s CD, computer downloading or no. But he likes that one particular song, so he downloads it.
How has Britney lost money, considering he was never going to buy her CD anyway?
Just.can’t.resist.