JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Industry Message Forum RIAA wins again

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business/media/28piracy.html?_r=2&ref=technology

They are still out there watching

Bill,

Cool. $7000 won against about $3.5 Billions lost. Yea! time to celebrate.

MAB

A little bit of hyperbole there Marc, We all know that:

1.) Most of the illegally downloaded music would NOT have been purchased so the "losses" are way over estimated.
2.) Record companies arbitrarily made CD prices really high -- because they could. This helped, over time, reduce CD sales.
3.) If record companies had some "thinking" in their management teams, they could have embraced the download model (ala i-tunes) or subscription model (ala Rhapsody) and could have made illegal downloading feel more "wrong".
4.) Some people don't equate buying records with supporting the artist -- we've all heard the horror stories of past albums selling millions, but somehow the artist "owes" the record companies at the end of it all.

I am not defending illegal downloading, just saying that the record companies and RIAA actually come off as being the bad guys in this situation.

Kevin

Kevin,

Mostly what I have seen over the past ten years is that with the general public (mostly college and high school kids) ANY one who is trying to get paid for music are the evil ones. I agree and understand with what you are saying. Most everybody missed there. And there were several people, ASCAP, BMI and others, trying to address it 15 years ago.If fell on deaf ears and there was an attitude of "we'll figure it out when we get there' that permeated the industry. Having the same people who created the and distributed the music also be the primary creaters of everything from CD burners, and all software to download it, didn't help. But what you gonna do?
Genie got out of the bottle and everybody has suffered. For people like me that make a living trying to advise people how not to lose their savings, dreams and hopes, it is very difficult to deal with. There is no end to people that make trips, and try to find out ways to live out their dreams, only to find out that for the most part, that dream doesn't exist any more. And watching one more company after another, fold, end business, and one more writer and artist, working day jobs, bitter and pissed off about it all. And of course this is not just the music industry. About every industry is feeling it one way or another. Internet is a great tool. But exacts a great price.

MAB

I think I agree with Kevin. The general public seems to have a mental disconnect between the artist and the record company. Maybe they, too, have heard the stories about artists being routinely screwed by the record companies. But it's true they don't have the slightest hesitation about ripping the Big Boys off.

I don't see them doing the same to us small-timers. The public seems fairly respectful of the fact that we're trying to make a little money off our music, and appears comfortable with the idea that we ought to get paid for what we do. Maybe it's because they think they know us, and don't know the likes of Britney Spears and Toby Urban because they're too big and too remote.

That said, I do think one has to deal with the presence of the Internet, and what it's good for. The idea that one can listen to music free, and maybe download it for free, is a fact of life (and partly the result of price-gouging by the record companies), and maybe one has to adjust the business model to reflect that. I don't know if what I'm doing is right (and certainly not everybody is doing what I do). I figure anything I've got posted on line is up for grabs, and I'm going to use the Internet as a promotional tool, to get people to gigs and get 'em to buy records (both of which they are doing).

Joe

Marc/Joe: Hard to argue with anything you've all said there. For us, we've signed up for the Rhapsody service, so we get "unlimited" listening and downloading to the MP3 player for $14.95 a month (there are some things you can't listen to without ponying up more $$$). I wonder how Rhapsody pays the record companies/artists?

Kevin

Rhapsody only pays a fraction of a cent to the music owner when someone listens to the song.

It would seem that some people feel "entitled" to get things for free. That entitlement mode of thinking is unfortunately rather common.

Tom

Probably just like radio play and probably better than nothing.

Kevin

Guys,

Sorry about my rant sometimes about the Internet and music. I use it quite frequently and realize the potential and nessacities involved. I stay in communication with my clients, do critiques, online writing and things like that. It is just the entire mentality of demanding everything for free that some people exhibit. That is what bothers me.
Recordings of music have always been more of a promotional tool to get people to shows than anything else. But for people entering the world of music and expecting it to be their ticket to riches, are unrealistic.
I think it is great to be able to get music out there. But we have to understand the limitations we have being paid. Joe does have good points about the smaller audiences and us. It is pretty easy (comparatively) to get someone to pay for a CD if the cost is reasonable, and it goes directly to the music maker.
It is a tough business but someone always seems to come up with a new moustrap. Keep posting about what works for you.

Good luck and great to hear from you all,

MAB

Rhapsody 2008-11-15 Walk On Out of Here $0.009 One stream
Napster 2008-11-15 Girls With Big Boy Toys $0.001 One stream

That is what they pay per stream. Napster pays less.

As you can see it will take a LOT of streams before I can buy a new corvette.

Unless you're a criminal, the creative fields are the only fields where stealing is allowed, promoted, and possible because of the internet. Click, Cut and Paste make it simple to steal. Criminals can steal identities and create false orders but most of us aren't criminals. We simply steal the creations of other folks--news articles, photographs, songs, poems, etc. Google built a business on stealing though they finally had to curtail it somewhat. I'm as guilty in some ways as others. I want things for nothing. This newsgroup costs me nothing. When it's down I get upset as if I'm entitled to it.