Posts by Cameron Junge
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I actually think that having a price on music is a good thing.
Am I the only one to read that sentence and think that the meaning is that the only way to pay for music is thru buying CDs?
I hate to spell it out... but there's lots of ways to pay for music. The traditional way (& by traditional I mean for hundreds of years) was paying to see live performances.
I keep being amazed at how people equate "piracy" as stealing from the artist. Downloading a song does take from the artist, but only a very small amount. Something like 50c/CD. Which would be what? About 8 or 9c a track? The ones losing out are the recording company, and the other middlemen.
Even via iTunes the artist gets bugger all per track, and there's practically no cost to transfer a song to the customer.
I'm not saying that recording companies aren't needed. They are, to some extent. But, on the other hand, they cherrypick an artist, invest millions into them, charge the artist for the privilege, then shove it down the consumers throat. The number of "hit artists" is a small fraction of the number of artists who sign up.
I think the biggest thieves are the recording companies, not the people downloading. They need to start paying their artists what they're worth, not what they can get away with paying while making millions off them.
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Cameron, for the CD, simply, on physical you are paying a fee for warehousing and the sales team that brings it to your shop..about $5 last time I looked, plus the mark up for the retailer..about 30% of the cost.
That still doesn't explain how a CD costs that much to buy again. I don't want (or need) to buy a second license. And I'm not even changing format!
I guess I'm trying to point out that media companies seem to want their cake & eat it as well.
(Well, not all... some smart ones are providing digital versions on the CD/DVDs. That's clever... control the experience the consumer gets, rather than leaving it up to some low quality cam they downloaded for playing on their laptop while they're on the plane.)
Which seems to be exactly what is going to happen in the US soon when the copyright grants start being revoked. I can see it now:
Big 4: but we own the copyright on the remasters!
artist: but we've revoked your grant to them!
Judge: I'm with the artists on this... BlueBeat ring any bells?Copyright Time Bomb Set to Disrupt Music, Publishing Industries
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Oh, wonder if someone can explain why I can buy a CD for $20, and if I damage it, I have to pay $20 again to get the same thing? Or if I want it on my iPod it'll cost $12 or whatever via the iTunes store (unless I format shift, which only recently became legal).
If I'm buying a license to the music (as the Big 4 claim) then the media shouldn't matter. A CD costs less than $1 to stamp. Surely I should be able to pay $1 (plus p&p) to get a new physical copy of the music I purchased? And I should be able to buy as many physical copies as I wish, as long as I don't break the license. A license controls how I wish to use the music, not the media.
An example:
If I buy a copy of Windows 7 I'm buying a license to use it on a PC. If I damage the physical DVD Microsoft will happily post out a new DVD with Windows 7 on it (probably for free!). If I install it on more than one machine then I'm breaking the license, and thus become liable for infringement.If I want to copy the DVD to another DVD or a flash drive & use that to install the OS, then I'm welcome to do it. It's not infringing.
If I sell a copy then it's copyright infringement.
If I give a copy away, it's not infringing (it's just a DVD after all).
If the person I gave it to installs it without buying a valid key, then they are the ones infringing.I don't see the difference between buying a CD with music and a CD with computer software on it. It's all digital data, it's all subject to the same copyright protections and the same limitations. Yet the media industry seems to think it deserves special protection for some reason.
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To jump on the "non-paying customers" bandwagon...
Matthew, get real; customers are not screaming for legitimate product. Non-customers are taking stuff for nothing, stuff they would never pay for. People are carrying thousands of songs on their iPods, stolen media which they would never have considered buying.
There are various studies that have been done that show that there are plenty of "pirates" who go & buy the CD of the songs they download. This probably ties back into my comment of the experience being more important than the item. An actual PHYSICAL CD is better sometimes if it offers an improved experience.
Sometimes that CD might be of an indie artist rather than a Big Four sanctioned artist... how DARE a consumer look outside the bubble gum cloned music the Big Four provide!
Even if the stats are anecdotal, they still present a falsehood to all the stats that the *AA, et al, throw out. "Pirates" are still buying media... they just might be more selective of what they buy & how they buy it. A CD purchased from a band's website probably doesn't count in the stats as a purchase, instead it may show up as a loss - double loss in fact!
I think another thing that many of the stats don't show is that the lawsuits in the US have had an impact on the consumer. I for one have very rarely bought a CD in the last 5 years or so. Not because I can get it for free off the net, but mostly because I refuse to support an industry that abuses it's talent while also suing it's customers for not buying their crap products.
As I've already mentioned, I happily paid $25 (or whatever) for the NIN CD, after already downloading it for free (legally!). And I also went to their concert... and bought a t-shirt. None of the Big Four got a single cent of that.
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Isn't there a place where the twain can meet?
Not on PAS, it seems... the local coffee shop, maybe?
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In fact copyright is premised on the observation that the marginal costs of distribution may be next to zero
Um, if copyright wasn't designed to protect scarcity, why would it need to be introduced when the cost of duplicating a book had dropped to a very low value? Your argument makes no sense!
And btw, copyright, in itself, doesn't prevent "piracy". It simply allows the copyright holder certain legal rights to protect their IP once it's been copied.
To take it back to the topic, the problem with ACTA is that it protects copyright while removing fundamental rights of the consumer. It's core premise is guilty until proven innocent, and too bad if it destroys your livelihood, you shouldn't have been (accused of) downloading media!
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Yes, but even a Kindle is still an object. What a Kindle most decidedly is not is vaguely book-like. That is the objection of Paul and Islander, and even myself to quite some degree. I like books.
I think that's the fundamental thing that most media companies miss. It's the experience that consumers are buying, not the physical item specifically.
What I mean by that is that I can go and buy a DVD for $30 which a few extras that I want to see, or I can spend $50 and get it in a steel case with a bonus disc. I'm getting the same product, but paying more for the experience!
I can buy a hardcover book, or a paperback. Paperback might be 1/2 the price, yet still the same experience as the hardcover.
I can buy a CD with a few lame pics, or download the MP3s I like off iTunes. iTunes allows me to choose the songs I like without the crappy "fluff" or the lame sleeve. Or I might pay $25 for a CD with a cool sleeve (10,000 Days is an example).
Aside: why can I pay $30 for a new release DVD of a 2hr move that cost 10's of millions (at least) to make, yet pay $20-25 for a new release 60min CD that may have cost a few hundred thousand?
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@Paul: You're making 2 mistakes in regards to digital distribution.
First off, you assume that a consumer isn't willing to pay. Many consumers would be quite happy to pay a low fee for easy access to media (music, movies, etc), and many often do with systems like the iTunes Store and NetFlix.
Secondly, you assume that media organisations can't make money from digital distribution. Media organisations have been crying foul for years when a new competing technology comes along. There's sheet music, the gramophone (record player), VHS, cassette tape, CD, DVD, etc. Each one has been labeled as an immoral technology who's only purpose in life is to destroy the fundamental right of media companies to make money. Look where the media companies are now? DVDs make more money than ticket sales!
The problem media companies have is thinking that they can control consumer demand for access to media thru whatever means they think is fair. They embrace cutting costs, but hate to pass those on to the consumer. They provide a crap product then wonder why consumers look elsewhere!
Let me ask: do you think it's fair to cut the wireless internet access for a whole town because one person downloaded a movie via it? The MPAA thought so!
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/12/mpaa-shuts-down-enti.htmlIf the media companies spent the money they've "invested" in to DRM, PR, court cases & lobbying to provide products for consumers, then we'd have an amazing system that would be very lucrative. You are right that people like physical copies. But I won't spent $8 for a CD single when the whole album costs $15 on special. While some media is perfectly consumable in a purely digital form, many other forms can be quite profitable. Look at NIN - gave away their album as MP3s, then sold a bunch of CDs and box sets. Value add, my friend, value add.
Sell the consumer what they want & they will buy it. Sell them what you THINK they want, and they'll go find what they really want elsewhere.
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@robbery: As is happening right here, the Govt has realised that making a large portion of the population criminals thru every-day activities isn't in their, nor society's, best interest.
Do you have MP3s on your PC? Have your transferred any CDs to your MP3 player? Unless you bought those MP3s online, you've committed a crime. It is currently illegal to copy a CD to you computer. Changes to the Copyright Act that are in progress will make that simple action legal.
The Govt has decided, over the cries from the media industry, that allowing people to transfer purchased media from one format to another is beneficial to society. They're willing to accept that theoretical increase in piracy is worth it for the rights of the population.
& in regards to copyright, the intent was to protect creations and allow the creator to make some money from their ideas without being ripped off by others. Now-a-days that's been perverted by many vested interests.
And in regards to your matter transporter analogy... if the object was copied, then the original owner has lost nothing. It's not theft.
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I did network engineer-y things. Router configuration and management. Switch configuration and management. Connectivity management. Capacity planning and management. Traffic analysis. Also management of things like email, web and DNS servers. Things at layers one-through-four of the TCP/IP network model...
So what you're saying is that you don't use a PC, you tap on a wire like MacGyver did!