File Sharing, in case you haven't heard...
John Payne
shared this yet:
A Heretical View of File Sharing
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
he music industry says it repeatedly, with passion and conviction:
downloading hurts sales.
That statement is at the heart of the war on file sharing, both of
music and movies, and underpins lawsuits against thousands of music
fans, as well as legislation approved last week by a House Judiciary
subcommittee that would create federal penalties for using what is
known as peer-to-peer technology to download copyrighted works. It is
also part of the reason that the Justice Department introduced an
intellectual-property task force last week that plans to step up
criminal prosecutions of copyright infringers.
But what if the industry is wrong, and file sharing is not hurting
record sales?
It might seem counterintuitive, but that is the conclusion reached by
two economists who released a draft last week of the first study that
makes a rigorous economic comparison of directly observed activity on
file-sharing networks and music buying.
"Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically
indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates," write
its authors, Felix Oberholzer-Gee of the Harvard Business School and
Koleman S. Strumpf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The industry has reacted with the kind of flustered consternation that
the White House might display if Richard A. Clarke showed up at a Rose
Garden tea party. Last week, the Recording Industry Association of
America sent out three versions of a six-page response to the study.
The problem with the industry view, Professors Oberholzer-Gee and
Strumpf say, is that it is not supported by solid evidence. Previous
studies have failed because they tend to depend on surveys, and the
authors contend that surveys of illegal activity are not trustworthy.
"Those who agree to have their Internet behavior discussed or
monitored are unlikely to be representative of all Internet users,"
the authors wrote.
Instead, they analyzed the direct data of music downloaders over a
17-week period in the fall of 2002, and compared that activity with
actual music purchases during that time. Using complex mathematical
formulas, they determined that spikes in downloading had almost no
discernible effect on sales. Even under their worst-case example, "it
would take 5,000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one
copy," they wrote. "After annualizing, this would imply a yearly sales
loss of two million albums, which is virtually rounding error" given
that 803 million records were sold in 2002. Sales dropped by 139
million albums from 2000 to 2002.
"While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely
individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of
file sharing," the professors wrote.
In an interview, Professor Oberholzer-Gee said that previous research
assumed that every download could be thought of as a lost sale. In
fact, he said, most downloaders were drawn to free music and were
unlikely to spend $18 on a CD.
"Say I offer you a free flight to Florida," he asks. "How likely is it
that you will go to Florida? It is very likely, because the price is
free." If there were no free ticket, that trip to Florida would be
much less likely, he said. Similarly, free music might draw all kinds
of people, but "it doesn't mean that these people would buy CD's at
$18," he said.
The most popular albums bought are also the most popular downloads, so
the researchers looked for anomalous rises in downloading activity
that they might compare to sales activity. They found one such spike,
Professor Oberholzer-Gee said, during a German school holiday that
occurred during the time they studied. Germany is second to the United
States in making files available for downloading, supplying about 15
percent of online music files, he said. During the vacation, students
who were home with time on their hands flooded the Internet with new
files, which in turn spurred new downloading activity. The researchers
then looked for any possible impact in the subsequent weeks on sales
of CD's.
Professor Oberholzer said that he had expected to find that
downloading resulted in some harm to the industry, and was startled
when he first ran the numbers in the spring of 2003. "I called Koleman
and said, 'Something is not quite right - there seems to be no effect
between file sharing and sales.' "
Amy Weiss, an industry spokeswoman, expressed incredulity at what she
deemed an "incomprehensible" study, and she ridiculed the notion that
a relatively small sample of downloads could shed light on the
universe of activity.
The industry response, titled "Downloading Hurts Sales," concludes:
"If file sharing has no negative impact on the purchasing patterns of
the top selling records, how do you account for the fact that,
according to SoundScan, the decrease of Top 10 selling albums in each
of the last four years is: 2000, 60 million units; 2001, 40 million
units; 2002, 34 million units; 2003, 33 million units?"
Critics of the industry's stance have long suggested that other
factors might be contributing to the drop in sales, including a slow
economy, fewer new releases and a consolidation of radio networks that
has resulted in less variety on the airwaves. Some market experts have
also suggested that record sales in the 1990's might have been
abnormally high as people bought CD's to replace their vinyl record
collections.
"The single-bullet theory employed by the R.I.A.A. has always been
considered by anyone with even a modicum of economic knowledge to be
pretty ambitious as spin," said Joe Fleischer, the head of sales and
marketing for BigChampagne, a company that tracks music downloads and
is used by some record companies to measure the popularity of songs
for marketing purposes.
The industry response stresses that the new study has not gone through
the process of peer review. But the response cites refuting statistics
and analysis, much of it prepared by market research consultants, that
also have not gone through peer review.
One consultant, Russ Crupnick, vice president of the NPD Group, called
the report "absolutely astounding." Asked to explain how the
professors' analysis might be mistaken, he said he was still trying to
understand the complex document: "I am not the level of mathematician
that the professors purport to be."
Stan Liebowitz of the University of Texas at Dallas, author of an
essay cited by the industry, said the use of a German holiday to judge
American behavior was strained. Professor Liebowitz argued in a paper
in 2002 that file sharing did not affect music sales, but said he had
since changed his mind.
The Liebowitz essay appeared in an economics journal edited by Gary D.
Libecap, a professor of economics at the University of Arizona, who
said that his publication was not peer reviewed, though the articles
in it were often based on peer-reviewed work. Professor Libecap said
he attended a presentation by Professor Strumpf last week, and said
the file-sharing study "looks really good to me."
"This was really careful, empirical work," Professor Libecap said.
The author of another report recommended by the industry said that the
two sets of data used by the researchers should not be compared. "They
can't get to that using the two sets of data they are using - they
aren't tracking individual behavior," said Jayne Charneski, formerly
of Edison Media Research, who prepared a report last June that she
said showed that 7 percent of the marketplace consists of people who
download music and do not buy it. That number is far lower than the
authors of the new study estimated. "There's a lot of research out
there that's conducted with an agenda in mind," said Ms. Charneski,
now the head of research for the record label EMI.
Mike Rivers
In article <22adb8a0.0404...@posting.google.com> jpa...@berrypr.com writes:
> . . . they determined that spikes in downloading had almost no
> discernible effect on sales. Even under their worst-case example, "it
> would take 5,000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one
> copy," they wrote. "After annualizing, this would imply a yearly sales
> loss of two million albums, which is virtually rounding error" given
> that 803 million records were sold in 2002. Sales dropped by 139
> million albums from 2000 to 2002.
What this doesn't take into account is whether any (or all) of those
downloaders would have bought the album if they couldn't get it for
free. There are two ways that occure to me to determine this. There
are probably other ways, with similarly inaccurate results:
1. By survey. Ask downloaders of material found on "CD X" if they
would purchase a copy of "CD X" if they had not been able to
download the music at no cost. I suspect that the greatest number
would answer "no." This would prove that downloading doesn't affect
sales.
2. (even more unrealistic) Cut off all access to downloadable music
files for a statistically valid period of time, say a month. See if
sales increase. If they do, downloading does affect sales. If they
don't, it doesn't.
Of course neither of these are realistic, so I guess we'll never
really know.
> In an interview, Professor Oberholzer-Gee said that previous research
> assumed that every download could be thought of as a lost sale. In
> fact, he said, most downloaders were drawn to free music and were
> unlikely to spend $18 on a CD.
This, in my mind, does not justify that they should therefore get it
for free.
> The most popular albums bought are also the most popular downloads
And this is surprising? Popular is popular.
--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mri...@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo
~ rob ~
"John Payne" <jpa...@berrypr.com> wrote in message
news:22adb8a0.0404...@posting.google.com...
> This was in the New York Times today, just in case no one else has
> shared this yet:
> A Heretical View of File Sharing
> By JOHN SCHWARTZ
>
Thanks for the post John.
-bg-
www.thelittlecanadaheadphoneband.ca
ScotFraser
The RIAA hasn't yet seen that the preponderance of shitty music could cause
that kind of faltering sales.
Scott Fraser
Samplecraze
Yeah, sad and it's going to get worse what with EMI dropping a bunch
of jobs to cut costs. I fear Piracy, software cracks and illegal
copying and distribution of files will kill this industry.
Nick Busigin
> This was in the New York Times today, just in case no one else has
> shared this yet:
> A Heretical View of File Sharing
> By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Lately, I've been in a go-to-the-source frame of mind. So I took a look
around and found the paper that the above NYT article was based on:
The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales, (Felix Oberholzer and
Koleman Strumpf):
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf
It's quite an interesting article and well worth reading as it contains
a lot of detail that the NYT article didn't have the space to quote.
Nick
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
http://www.songbirdofswing.com
Nick Busigin nick...@xwing.org
Visit Our Indie Jazz CD Construction Project!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
ryanm
news:9a355294.04040...@posting.google.com...
>
> Yeah, sad and it's going to get worse what with EMI dropping a bunch
> of jobs to cut costs. I fear Piracy, software cracks and illegal
> copying and distribution of files will kill this industry.
>
that file sharing was having *no* effect on the industry.
ryanm
EggHd
There is one writer's opnion.
---------------------------------------
"I know enough to know I don't know enough"
EggHd
that kind of faltering sales. >>
When catalog sales are down as well?
ryanm
news:20040406223610...@mb-m18.aol.com...
> << It said that file sharing was having *no* effect on the industry. >>
>
> There is one writer's opnion.
>
opinion. Read the study if you don't believe me, it is very detailed.
ryanm
Logan Shaw
> << The RIAA hasn't yet seen that the preponderance of shitty music could cause
> that kind of faltering sales. >>
>
> When catalog sales are down as well?
So are sales at restaurants. With layoffs and unemployment, fewer
people have the cash for things like entertainment and eating out
at a nice restaurant. And yet, the restaurant industry isn't
blaming recipe-sharing for their troubles. ;-)
- Logan
Paul Rubin
TV viewing is down too, and that doesn't even cost anything. People's
priorities change and they find other things to use their time.
EggHd
and maybe one or new two songs what you have are people, like myself,
who do not buy albums for the one or two _new_ songs - >>
When has this been different?
EggHd
opinion. Read the study if you don't believe me, it is very detailed. >>
I did. You are wabting to believe that the RIAA can slant their studies but
your article can't.
reddred
" "There's a lot of research out
there that's conducted with an agenda in mind," said Ms. Charneski,
now the head of research for the record label EMI."
uh-huh.
jb
"John Payne" <jpa...@berrypr.com> wrote in message
news:22adb8a0.0404...@posting.google.com...
hank alrich
> EggHd wrote:
If people were able to remove food from retaurant's storage without
paying for it, would we expect to hear something from restaurantsą?
Nobody in the music business is whining about people using sheet music,
either, or writing their own music when they want some music for free.
--
ha
james
hank alrich <walk...@thegrid.net> wrote:
>If people were able to remove food from retaurant's storage without
>paying for it, would we expect to hear something from restaurantsą?
>Nobody in the music business is whining about people using sheet music,
It's been a long time, but there was a period when fake books were
regarded with just as much contraversy as MP3 collections today.
>or writing their own music when they want some music for free.
I maintain that the real goal of the media corporations' attack on
file sharing is to prevent a revolution from occurring where individuals
do return to making their own music. They don't mind you making music,
I guess, but they sure as hell don't want it to be easy for you to get
that music to a listening audience.
The more they can demonize the internet and the digitial medium in
general, the longer they can delay this risk.
hank alrich
> hank alrich wrote:
> >If people were able to remove food from retaurant's storage without
> >paying for it, would we expect to hear something from restaurantsą?
> >Nobody in the music business is whining about people using sheet music,
> It's been a long time, but there was a period when fake books were
> regarded with just as much contraversy as MP3 collections today.
It actually hasn't been that long; but once John Scher did the leg and
brain work to get the music publishers to understand he could sell
"fakebooks" on theretofore unparalleled accuracy and grace if they would
accept a lower per-song licensing rate the illegit fakebook market was
severely undercut.
> >or writing their own music when they want some music for free.
> I maintain that the real goal of the media corporations' attack on
> file sharing is to prevent a revolution from occurring where individuals
> do return to making their own music. They don't mind you making music,
> I guess, but they sure as hell don't want it to be easy for you to get
> that music to a listening audience.
> The more they can demonize the internet and the digitial medium in
> general, the longer they can delay this risk.
In my view, this started way back, as soon as there was one generation
borne into a world where prerecorded music was an option. Marketing
drove steadily to demean the musical potential of all of us except for
those graced by a deity with gawd-given talent, the recordings of whom
we were supposed to buy instead of making our own music. A century or so
later we have a culture of musical illiterates who have no understanding
of how very well their great great ancestors played the fiddle and
bunches of other instruments, and no realization of the solidly
gratifying experience of social musical interaction in realtime with
one's fellow humans. This is a shame, a sorry situation, and it is up to
us to recover that state of relative grace by playing music.
One of the things I love about the Dr. Shinichi Suzuki is his insistence
that all of us have musical potential that can be unleashed for our own
enjoyment. His writings are a treasure and good for one's soul beyond
their musical value, as he teaches the value of kindness to one's self.
Sermon over. <g>
--
ha
Logan Shaw
> Logan Shaw wrote:
>>So are sales at restaurants. With layoffs and unemployment, fewer
>>people have the cash for things like entertainment and eating out
>>at a nice restaurant.
> If people were able to remove food from retaurant's storage without
> paying for it, would we expect to hear something from restaurantsą?
Well, we certainly would. Although, file sharing doesn't remove
anything from anybody's computer. It copies it.
But that was not my point. My point is that economic times are
crappy. People, when faced with a shortage of money, cut the
things they can cut. Diabetics don't cut down on insulin.
People don't buy less toilet paper. They don't call the city
and ask to have trash pickup stopped at their address. They
don't, generally, ride a bike to work instead of spending money
on gas. As long as they don't sell their house, people don't
try and find a way to cut 20% off their mortgage payment. College
students don't decide to buy only 2 of the 3 required textbooks.
So, expenses that people can control are affected disproportionately.
They've got to cut their total budget by 15%, and 50% of it can't be
cut at all, so they have to cut the other 50% by 30% instead of 15%.
Thus lower sales of "luxury" items and services, like CDs,
dining out, etc. People share not just files, but also apartments.
They get roommates. In fact, where I live, apartment rents have
been a steady decline for the last, say, 3 years, of almost $100
per month each year. Apartments that were $800/month are now
sometimes in the upper $500/month range.
I am not saying that file sharing is not negatively affecting CD
sales. What I am saying is that, if the record industry wants
to convince *me* that that is the main problem, they need to show
why their industry is special and not just in a slump like so
many other industries.
Part of the reason I think this is that I basically don't download
music. Well yeah, I did download C.W. McCall's "Convoy" for
novelty effect, but I never would have bought the album, and I
never listen to it anyway. And I have gotten a CD burner, and
I've burned CDs that friends have lent me, but they won't play
in my DVD player (which serves as the main source in my main
stereos system) and in practice they sit in paper sleeves on
my desk under a pile of clutter.
Meanwhile, I still listen to my old CDs, and I buy a few, but
not NEARLY as many as I used to. I hit around 400 CDs several
years ago, and since then I think I've been growing at about
5 per year. I buy the newest Bruce Cockburn CD when it comes
out, and I bought a Waterboys CD a few months back. And I
may buy some jazz in a while. I've been thinking of buying
some old Yes for quite some time, but never have gotten around
to it.
So my personal purchases have declined a lot, and it has nothing
really to do with filesharing. It has to do with being unemployed
for most of a year and not getting back into the habit of buying
CDs since then. It doesn't help that I moved to a part of town
where there are no decent record stores. I've got to drive 10
miles to Waterloo downtown, or I just buy on amazon.com, etc.
I could go to Best Buy; it's really close, and they have hundreds
of CDs, but they don't seem to have any that are worth owning.
Well anyway, that is one person's perspective.
- Logan
ryanm
news:1gbv4r4.1uiknri1rqujy8N%walk...@thegrid.net...
>
> If people were able to remove food from retaurant's storage without
> paying for it, would we expect to hear something from restaurantsą?
>
ryanm
ryanm
> << No, actually, it was the conclusion of an empirical study, not an
> opinion. Read the study if you don't believe me, it is very detailed. >>
>
> I did. You are wabting to believe that the RIAA can slant their studies
but
> your article can't.
>
explained all of the details of how it was conducted, so I can test their
numbers if I choose to. The RIAA's studies are unavailable, all we know is
that someone over there says "We did a study, and it showed this". One is a
testable observation, the other is merely an assertion. Personally, I'll
believe an open study a lot quicker than I'll believe the assertion that
their studies showed this or that without making the data available.
ryanm
ryanm
news:yZqdnbHFGq-...@rockbridge.net...
>
> " "There's a lot of research out
> there that's conducted with an agenda in mind," said Ms. Charneski,
> now the head of research for the record label EMI."
>
> uh-huh.
>
are available for public review. If someone feels this study is biased, they
should be able to show precisely where the bias entered the equation.
ryanm
Mike Rivers
In article <E6Xcc.389$es.229@fed1read02> fish...@conservatory.com writes:
> It's been a long time, but there was a period when fake books were
> regarded with just as much contraversy as MP3 collections today.
Fake books go back to long before Xerox. Initially they were
hand-copied, and cost (through the underground) as much as $100. But
it was cheaper and more compact than carrying around a few hundred
folios of sheet music. Eventually the music publishers caught on, and
now you can buy a "royalty paid" fake book for a civilized price. At
the time, it was still difficult and time consuming to copy a printed
book (stay late at your day job and stand at the copying machine for a
couple of weeks of evenings) so buying a legitimate book was a good
choice.
We're kind of part way there today with music. You can buy individual
songs on which royalties are paid from places like iTunes. Still,
since it's easy to copy those, the temptation is there to look for
what others have made avaialble and to make available to others what
you've bought.
EggHd
They are manufacturing new product and distributing it.
EggHd
believe an open study a lot quicker than I'll believe the assertion that
their studies showed this or that without making the data available. >>
You will believe whatever supports your argument. It's human nature.
james
>Fake books go back to long before Xerox.
So do I. I'm old enough to have ruined shirts with duplicator spirit.
ryanm
news:znr1081370555k@trad...
>
> We're kind of part way there today with music. You can buy individual
> songs on which royalties are paid from places like iTunes. Still,
> since it's easy to copy those, the temptation is there to look for
> what others have made avaialble and to make available to others what
> you've bought.
>
respond to this technology which, as you yourself mentioned, is in
transition ("We're kind of part way there today with music."). Why didn't
anyone rush out to change the laws to respond to the fake books? Is the
answer possibly that it would've done more harm than good?
ryanm
hank alrich
> No one is removing cds from the label's storage.
But freeloaders are removing money from the artist's and the composer's
income. You are disingenuous with these kinds of statements. All your
fancy expositions and references to studies fall on their ass when the
rubber meets the road: you want that free lunch; you think it's fine to
steal from artists and composers.
--
ha
ryanm
>
> You will believe whatever supports your argument. It's human nature.
>
Show me empirical data.
ryanm
EggHd
Show me empirical data. >>
You are kidding right?
ryanm
>
> But freeloaders are removing money from the artist's and the composer's
> income.
>
already been found to not be true.
> You are disingenuous with these kinds of statements.
>
Pot -> Kettle -> Black
> All your
> fancy expositions and references to studies fall on their ass when the
> rubber meets the road: you want that free lunch; you think it's fine to
> steal from artists and composers.
>
No, actually, if the place where the rubber hits the road is in the
pockets of the artists, then downloading is having absolutely no effect. The
artists themselves haven't lost a penny. Speaking of being disingenuous.
ryanm
ryanm
> << Incorrect. Some of us are still open to the idea that we may be wrong.
> Show me empirical data. >>
>
> You are kidding right?
>
data showing that downloads aren't hurting the industry. I've now done so,
and the only answer I've heard is "studies can be slanted". If that's the
case, provide to me a precise reference to the slant in that study, since
all of the variables accounted for are clearly shown in the study. If the
study is biased, you should be able to provide precise references to bias in
the methodology, or you should be able to show how the results are unstable
across different input data. It's all very scientific and entirely open to
the possibility that it is incorrect in it's conclusions, all you have to do
is show where it is wrong.
ryanm
EggHd
data showing that downloads aren't hurting the industry. I've now done so,
and the only answer I've heard is "studies can be slanted" >>
They can be. On both sides. I'm not here to win an argument with you. I deal
with royalties on an ongoing basis. I am glad you have found an article after
a year that works for you. Great news.
Bob Cain
>
> Not at all. I've been asked for more than a year to provide reliable
> data showing that downloads aren't hurting the industry. I've now done so,
> and the only answer I've heard is "studies can be slanted". If that's the
> case, provide to me a precise reference to the slant in that study, since
> all of the variables accounted for are clearly shown in the study. If the
> study is biased, you should be able to provide precise references to bias in
> the methodology, or you should be able to show how the results are unstable
> across different input data. It's all very scientific and entirely open to
> the possibility that it is incorrect in it's conclusions, all you have to do
> is show where it is wrong.
>
Ryan, be it straw man or real, your argument here is
irrelevant unless you believe that performers have no rights
to the control of this distribution of their material.
Regardless of sales, that's their call or not. Please
explain why it shouldn't be. What priniciple do you appeal
to to make that argument?
BTW, absolutely enraptured with "The Spark Of Life".
Bob
--
"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."
A. Einstein
David Grant
"Bob Cain" <arc...@arcanemethods.com> wrote in message
news:c5299...@enews1.newsguy.com...
I don't think he's claiming that the study's findings justifies music piracy
(at least I hope he isn't). He's merely demonstrating that the issue of
music piracy as a whole, on a social scale, is not as big as it is made out
to be: It's overhyped. Am I right ryanm?
Mike Rivers
> Incorrect. Some of us are still open to the idea that we may be wrong.
I never said you were wrong, you just haven't proposed a workable
solution yet. I have, and you won't accept it because it infringes on
what you believe are your "rights."
Michael
ry...@fatchicksinpartyhats.com says...
and without permission.
---Michael (of APP)...
David Grant
> > > paying for it, would we expect to hear something from restaurantsą?
> > >
> > No one is removing cds from the label's storage.
> >
> Word games. You are taking the product without paying for it,
> and without permission.
> ---Michael (of APP)...
It's pretty difficult to argue that it's not immoral... but the degree to
which it is immoral can be questioned. If piracy doesn't hurt artists, as
the study suggests, it's not AS immoral.
I think the main point is that if society is not suffering from music piracy
to the extent that it was originally thought to be, then it is, in a sense,
a waste to spend so much on combating the problem. If in fact the study's
conclusion is scientifically sound, then the music industry is being very
inefficient in spending ANYTHING on piracy prevention. All they are
accomplishing is preventing people from acting immorally, and saving next to
nothing on the financial end. It's similar to the government spending money
on gun control to make it harder for people to commit gun crimes. The
government (supposedly) makes nothing off this program, it's intention is
only to prevent certain injustices from taking place. So it shouldn't
necessarily be viewed as a bad thing, but seeing as the music industry is an
INDUSTRY and not a government, one would think it's incentive would be money
and not ethics.
Dave
ryanm
news:MPG.1adf208ec078bbc29896f4@newshost...
> >
> Word games. You are taking the product without paying for it,
> and without permission.
>
money to produce, duplicate, ship, stock, and display, as opposed to an
intangible product which may cost time and money to create, but doesn't
constitute any *actual* loss if "stolen", right? Stealing tangible products
and copying unlicensed IP are two completely different activities and the
person casting them in the same light is the one playing word games.
ryanm
ryanm
news:ZZedc.10401$BF2.9...@news20.bellglobal.com...
>
> It's pretty difficult to argue that it's not immoral... but the degree to
> which it is immoral can be questioned. If piracy doesn't hurt artists, as
> the study suggests, it's not AS immoral.
>
question is *hundreds* of years old, and was first asked sometime around
1709 to Parliment. The question, specifically, is "how far should 'copy'
rights extend?" Do they extend all the way down to the end user, reading a
book aloud to his family? Or does it stop at publishing for profit? Morality
never comes into it.
The US started out with laws that restricted *only* publishing for
profit, all other used were unrgulated and unrestricted, and we left them
that way for 180 years. Then about 40 years ago we started extending the
rights granted by copyright. Some of these extensions were neccesary and
right (what you might call moral) to protect the rights of authors from
other people making money on their works without paying for it (like
mechanical licenses). Others were simply the greed of publishing companies
with enough money to get these extensions passed. The point is that there
must be balance. Copyright is not an inherent, inalienable right, it is a
privelege extended by congress through a mandate in the constitution, and
that mandate has very specific terms. The sum of the balance *must* "promote
science and the useful arts" for the "good of society", and the terms of the
copyright must be limited. The question now is whether or not our current
legislation "promotes science and the useful arts" for the "good of
society", or if it rather promotes the profits of special interests. Is
copyright accomplishing the intent of the law, or has it been modified and
extended to the point of no longer even resembling the intention of the
original mandate.
> I think the main point is that if society is not suffering from music
piracy
> to the extent that it was originally thought to be, then it is, in a
sense,
> a waste to spend so much on combating the problem.
>
Society isn't suffering from it at all. In fact, the only people who
stand to actually suffer from it are the publishing companies, and recent
data shows that they have actually benefitted in the rare cases where it
actually caused a measurable difference in sales.
> All they are
> accomplishing is preventing people from acting immorally, and saving next
to
> nothing on the financial end.
>
As if that is the goal. When was the last time *any* company was more
interested in promoting morality than making profits?
> It's similar to the government spending money
> on gun control to make it harder for people to commit gun crimes. The
> government (supposedly) makes nothing off this program, it's intention is
> only to prevent certain injustices from taking place.
>
Then the question is whether gun control actually works. If it can be
shown *not* to work, then would you want your government spending money on
these programs at all?
ryanm
ryanm
>
> I don't think he's claiming that the study's findings justifies music
piracy
> (at least I hope he isn't). He's merely demonstrating that the issue of
> music piracy as a whole, on a social scale, is not as big as it is made
out
> to be: It's overhyped. Am I right ryanm?
>
that the opposite viewpoint is automatically true. First, the industry isn't
actually suffering any losses due to downloading, and is, in fact, actually
enjoying a few benefits of it in the process. Second, it has never been the
job of our Congress to protect established industries from emerging
technologies. In fact, for the first 200 years both Congress and the Supreme
Court consistently ruled in favor of the new technologies over the
established industries. Every time. It is only recently that powerful
lobbies have started to cause a change in this previously singular trend.
Third, this technology is obviously in transition. You *never* pass
legislation to address a transitory technology, because then a few years
later you're stuck with an obsolete law which has a lasting effect in both
IP owners and users. The obvious direction that all of this tech is headed
is to subscription services where users don't have to carry copies of the IP
around with them in large, clunky devices with moving parts. Satellite radio
is the first step in this direction, and these kinds of services will only
get more sophisticated as we progress. On a subscription-based service,
royalty payments are guaranteed, because all use is managed through the
subscription provider, which gives you an easy channel by which to track
use. So, what I'm saying here, is that the market will regulate itself back
into a model that assures content providers of their fair share, we just
happen to be in a transition phase at the moment. Passing overly-restrictive
laws to respond to a transition is just dumb.
So basically what I'm saying is that everyone just needs to calm down
and look at this realistically, and with the big picture in mind. So far
everyone has been so concerned that they might lose $0.37 to a downloader
that they've lost sight of the big picture. As a result, we're making things
worse for the future, rather than better.
These quotes are from 1841, but could've been written this year as
easily as they apply to our current situation.
http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm
ryanm
hank alrich
> You do understand the difference between a tangible product, which costs
> money to produce, duplicate, ship, stock, and display, as opposed to an
> intangible product which may cost time and money to create, but doesn't
> constitute any *actual* loss if "stolen", right?
You obviously do not understand that taking what is not yours to take is
theft, all your bullshit aside, that deciding you can have something
without paying for it is theft and that theft deprives somebody of
something, in this case artists and composers of portions of their
livlihood. It won't do to say otherwise and maintain a society where YOU
get to own a house. You want copyright reduced? How about you only get
to own your house for a specified period, during which you may not sell
it, and when the period has expired, somebody else gets it free. It
won't do to say you took the sandwich because nobody was going to eat it
anyway.
--
ha
ryanm
> irrelevant unless you believe that performers have no rights
> to the control of this distribution of their material.
> Regardless of sales, that's their call or not. Please
> explain why it shouldn't be. What priniciple do you appeal
> to to make that argument?
>
guys give to downloaders: if you can't afford it, do without. Well, if you
want complete control, don't publish it. Once you publish it, it belongs to
the public; it has become part of our collective culture. But don't just
reply to that, reply to the next few paragraphs, please.
To be clear, copy rights are a set of rights granted by Congress through
a mandate in the Constitution. They are not a "natural" right, like "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Natural rights are inherently
intransferable, so no one really wants copyrights to be a natural right,
especially not the publishing companies, because all of the copyrights they
own would revert back to the original author and not even pass to their
heirs. Believe me, that's *not* what they want. The deal is, copyrights are
a tolerated evil, by defenition. This is not some glorious right of all
human beings, it is a necessary evil. Copyright is monopoly. Monopolies are
bad. These are the assumptions that all of this is based on, and has been
for 300+ years. The reason we tolerate those monopolies is because it makes
it worth the author's effort to produce more works, and that promotes "the
progress of science and useful arts", which is precisely the mandate in the
Constitution. The question, which has been asked for hundreds of years
already, is how far do those rights extend? Did you know that the
Eastman-Kodak company was sued for allowing anyone to be able to take a
picture of anything they wanted without getting permission first? They were
"enabling piracy", because prior to that, only the very wealthy hobbyist or
professional photographer could afford the equipment to take and process
photos. Imagine, someone can just take a picture of your house, or even your
*child*, without asking your permission first! The horror! Guess what? The
court said tough shit, you live in a society that allows some leeway between
personal privacy and personal freedom, so if it's not inside your house,
anyone can take a picture of it if they want to. So the question comes down
to, does an author really deserve $0.12 every time their song gets played,
and do I really have to ask permission of the Carmichael estate to sing "Up
a Lazy River" into my boombox at home? The original intent was to keep
people from publishing works without permission, so that no one could
compete with the author by offering his product at a lower price, at least
until the copyright lapsed. This obviously got more complicated with the
advent of recording media, but it didn't need to get as complicated as it
did.
So we're down to how far should these rights extend. The constitution
*clearly* states that they cannot be perpetual. In case you haven't seen the
Progress Clause recently, here it is: "To promote the progress of science
and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the
exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". The phrase
"limited times" clearly intends for these works to pass into the public
domain after a reasonable amount of time. The actual time limit was,
intelligently, left to Congress, since they knew they couldn't predict the
effects of future technologies. Unfortunately, Congress is available for
purchase to the highest bidder, and at present, the RIAA holds that paddle.
It has gone to the Supreme Court twice now, to determine if allowing
Congress to extend patents and copyrights is overstepping the "limited
times" language of the Progress Clause. The thought being that if Congress
can continually extend copyrights, then they are, for all intents and
purposes, perpetual, which is legislating outside their mandate. Both times
they were struck down, largely due to the justices not seeing a pressing
need to essentially invalidate all current copyrights. Both of these cases
are fairly recent (1992+).
Given that less than 2% of all registered copyrights were actually
profitable (and that is only the stuff that is registered, all new IP is
copyrighted automatically at its creation with no registration required,
reducing that number drastically), and of that 2%, 95%+ of that IP made
better than 90% of it's profits within the first year of it's registration,
what we're left with is a whole lot of copyrighted material that is simply
sitting on the shelf, slowly fading into obscurity, waiting for the
copyright to expire before anyone can make any use of it. You may be able to
think of several examples of copyrights that are still profitable many years
later (such as Mickey Mouse), but you have to realize that those are a very
small percentage (on the order of thousandths of a percent) of all the
material that is copyrighted. Why are we restricting the use of all of that
other material, since it is not profitable and the obvious intention of the
Progress Clause was to allow the author to profit from his work without
competition for a limited time? Who does it serve? Certainly not the good of
society or the author. Doesn't it seem like a shorter term that is renewable
would make more sense, allowing non-profitable works to pass into the public
domain more quickly, but allowing IP owners to continue to profit from the
very small percentage of works that are profitable? Rather than extending
the terms *after* the authors death, shouldn't we be extending the terms
while the author is alive? Doesn't that seem to make more sense, given that
the whole purpose is to encourage the *author to create more works*, rather
than to simply increase the profits for a publishing company that owns the
author's IP?
Wouldn't you agree that, at this point, Mickey Mouse is a part of our
culture that we should be able to parody or otherwise derive use from
without having to pay Disney's excessive licensing fees? And if not, why
not? Walt Disney certainly had no respect for copyrights and patents, he
"stole" blatantly from the beginning, and all of Disney's most successful
movies were derived from either public domain works (incidentally) or
copyrighted works for which they did *not* have license to use. How can you
reconcile those two viewpoints? With these laws there will be no new
Disneys, no new Fox Studios, no new technologies like cable tv and FM radio.
All of these things would've been killed as soon as they were concieved if
the laws had been what they are today. Why do we want to create an
enviornment where the innovation that brought us to this point is now
illegal? Why are we setting the barriers so high that the cost of licensing
the incidental music, art, text, and video images in a movie often make up a
significant portion of the cost of a film? On lower budget films (e.g., the
new innovators), the cost of licensing these elements is often larger than
the cost of the entire production, and is the most commonly cited cause for
new films not being released. Is this a good thing? I can show many cases of
this law clearly stifling creativity and innovation, and raising the
barriers of entry so high as to make it so that only the publishers can
afford to release creative works. Can you show how this has been good for
either the authors or the pubilc, in any way?
> BTW, absolutely enraptured with "The Spark Of Life".
>
Told you.<g> Read this when you finish it:
http://cyberlaw-temp.stanford.edu/freeculture.pdf
It's well worth the read, very enlightening, and not nearly as time
consuming as Spark was.And it's free. ; )
ryanm
ryanm
>
> They can be. On both sides. I'm not here to win an argument with you.
> I deal with royalties on an ongoing basis. I am glad you have found an
> article after a year that works for you. Great news.
>
ryanm
ryanm
>
> I never said you were wrong, you just haven't proposed a workable
> solution yet. I have, and you won't accept it because it infringes on
> what you believe are your "rights."
>
appropriately. Yours were granted by Congress, after having been properly
lubricated with $$ by special interests. Mine were granted by the
Constitution and are not subject to Congressional review. And none of that
is an opinion. All of it can be shown with documentation, including the part
about lubricating the bills with $$ to get them through Congress. Campaign
and party contributions are a matter of public record, and the RIAA maxed
out their contributions every year they had a new, more restrictive bill
before Congress.
And I have proposed a workable solution: chill the hell out and let the
technology mature, the market will regulate itself. In the mean time, study
(currently under peer review) has shown that the effect of downloading is
negligible. Literally, the potential effect is smaller than the margin of
error used to track sales, and within that margin, the potential effect is
generally positive, rather than negative. So, if it's not actually hurting
anyone, responses like hardware locks and encrypted discs are a huge waste
of time and money, and will only cause further dissatisfaction by customers.
ryanm
james
ryanm <ry...@fatchicksinpartyhats.com> wrote:
>Is this a good thing? I can show many cases of
>this law clearly stifling creativity and innovation, and raising the
>barriers of entry so high as to make it so that only the publishers can
>afford to release creative works. Can you show how this has been good for
>either the authors or the pubilc, in any way?
Raising the barriers for entry into entertainment *is* the goal, make no
mistake.
It's arguable that it's for the good of society, since entertainemnt
is on the short list of things still produced in the US and consumed
elsewhere.
Tim
> << Sales dropped by 139 million albums from 2000 to 2002. >>
>
Well, an amusing bit is that the RIAA never releases the number of
albums produced. To say that 139 million fewer albums were sold is
utterly pointless.
What if, for example, the entire industry released 100 records in
2000. And then in 2002 they released only 70 albums. Wouldn't it be
logical to assume that fewer albums would be sold?
If you put out fewer albums, then it stands to reason that there will
be fewer sales (even if you put out more copies of the same albums).
It would be a rare and low percentage of people buying multiple copies
of the same album.
The decrease is significant if the number of titles released is
statistically more or approximately equal for each year with NO drop
at all among the number of titles in any genre.
So, anyone got the RIAA number of titles per year? My sources show :
1999 38,900 titles shipped
2000 no data that I could find... interpolating gives about 35,250
2001 31,734 titles shipped (according to SoundScan)
2002 27,000 titles shipped (according to RIAA)
Each year we have at least 4,000 fewer titles (or 12-15%).
Hey, if that trend continues, then by 2003, each buyer would have to
buy one extra copy for every two titles paid for in order for the
record companies to keep up with 1999 levels.
How do you expect to keep sales UP by releasing fewer titles?
Also, after about this many years, don't all the vinyl albums that
were ever planned for release on CD sort of wind down? I mean... how
many albums remain to be converted to CD format which will still sell?
reddred
"ryanm" <ry...@fatchicksinpartyhats.com> wrote in message
news:1078rmc...@corp.supernews.com...
> "reddred" <opa...@REMOVECAPSyahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:yZqdnbHFGq-...@rockbridge.net...
> >
> > " "There's a lot of research out
> > there that's conducted with an agenda in mind," said Ms. Charneski,
> > now the head of research for the record label EMI."
> >
> > uh-huh.
> >
> Sure, but the difference is in the methods. The methods for this study
> are available for public review. If someone feels this study is biased,
they
> should be able to show precisely where the bias entered the equation.
>
> ryanm
>
>
Absolutely. I was referring to the fact that she is head of research for
EMI, and is complaining about biased studies. I can't imagine EMI releasing
a study that wasn't good for PR.
jb
ryanm
>
> You obviously do not understand that taking what is not yours to
> take is theft, all your bullshit aside, that deciding you can have
> something without paying for it is theft and that theft deprives
> somebody of something, in this case artists and composers of
> portions of their livlihood. It won't do to say otherwise and
> maintain a society where YOU get to own a house. You want
> copyright reduced? How about you only get to own your house
> for a specified period, during which you may not sell it, and when
> the period has expired, somebody else gets it free. It won't do to
> say you took the sandwich because nobody was going to eat it
> anyway.
>
have different names and different laws that apply to them. They are *not*
the same thing. All you deprive someone of by "stealing" IP is the
opportunity to sell that IP. While this *is* an infringement of their
copyright, it is *not* the same thing as theft of tangible property. We are
not *guaranteed* a profit, only the chance to try to make one. please read
the laws that apply for a better understanding of these issues, instead of
constantly repeating the same old mantra about "stealing". It just makes you
look ignorant.
ryanm
ryanm
news:dbidc.3723$es.2141@fed1read02...
>
> Raising the barriers for entry into entertainment *is* the goal, make no
> mistake.
>
patronage of these corporate sponsors (labels/studios) to allow us to
create. Without their permission and sponsorship, anyone who manages to get
past the cost barrier out of their own pocket will be crushed by the
controlling interests to keep them from competing.
> It's arguable that it's for the good of society, since entertainemnt
> is on the short list of things still produced in the US and consumed
> elsewhere.
>
Except that everyone is complaining about the lack of "fair and
balanced" programming on tv. Can't they see that this is a direct product of
the bullshit the major content owners paid the FCC to let through? Now Clear
Channel not only controls the delivery medium, it actually "creates" the
news for us. These issues *are* intertwined. How everyone can go from
cussing Microsoft in one breath and praising the RIAA in the next baffles
me, because those two want exactly the same thing. Or how they can cuss Bush
and cuss downloading at the same time, because *those* two are on opposite
sides!
ryanm
abor...@ichips.intel.com
> ryanm wrote:
>>
>> Not at all. I've been asked for more than a year to provide reliable
>> data showing that downloads aren't hurting the industry. I've now done so,
>> and the only answer I've heard is "studies can be slanted". If that's the
>> case, provide to me a precise reference to the slant in that study, since
>> all of the variables accounted for are clearly shown in the study. If the
>> study is biased, you should be able to provide precise references to bias in
>> the methodology, or you should be able to show how the results are unstable
>> across different input data. It's all very scientific and entirely open to
>> the possibility that it is incorrect in it's conclusions, all you have to do
>> is show where it is wrong.
>>
> Ryan, be it straw man or real, your argument here is
> irrelevant unless you believe that performers have no rights
> to the control of this distribution of their material.
You are engaging in the classical logical fallacy known as "false
dichotomy".
The choices are not limited to "performers have no rights to the control of
this distribution of their material" and "performers have all rights to the
control of this distribution of their material"
There is a third choice - "performers have limited rights to the control of
this distribution of their material"
Coincidence of coincidences this third choice is what Ryan is arguing in
support of and is also exactly what the Framers of our illustrious
Costitution had in mind when they wrote the Progress clause - the source
of all our copyright law.
> Regardless of sales, that's their call or not. Please
> explain why it shouldn't be. What priniciple do you appeal
> to to make that argument?
The principle (held by the Constitutional Framers and encoded in the
Progress clause) that the control should be limited in time and for the
purpose of furthering scientific/artistic advancement for the benefit of the
PUBLIC.
--
Aaron Borgman HE Design Engineer
abor...@ichips.intel.com
JF4-4-C5
phone: 503-712-3212
Disclaimer: All above opinions are mine... not Intel's
Bob Cain
> "Bob Cain" <arc...@arcanemethods.com> wrote in message
> news:c5299...@enews1.newsguy.com...
>
>>Ryan, be it straw man or real, your argument here is
>>irrelevant unless you believe that performers have no rights
>>to the control of this distribution of their material.
>>Regardless of sales, that's their call or not. Please
>>explain why it shouldn't be. What priniciple do you appeal
>>to to make that argument?
>>
>
> No *inherent* right, no. My response is the same as the one many of you
> guys give to downloaders: if you can't afford it, do without. Well, if you
> want complete control, don't publish it. Once you publish it, it belongs to
> the public; it has become part of our collective culture. But don't just
> reply to that, reply to the next few paragraphs, please.
I really don't need to. I read them but they don't change
my response. We fundamentally disagree on the first premise
of any argument so there really can't be one. It is more,
really, than a premise. To me it is an axiom and those are
unarguable. You can blame Ayn Rand for that. :-)
>
>>BTW, absolutely enraptured with "The Spark Of Life".
>>
>
> Told you.<g> Read this when you finish it:
>
> http://cyberlaw-temp.stanford.edu/freeculture.pdf
>
> It's well worth the read, very enlightening, and not nearly as time
> consuming as Spark was.And it's free. ; )
I will definitely read it. Thanks.
Mike Rivers
> You do understand the difference between a tangible product, which costs
> money to produce, duplicate, ship, stock, and display, as opposed to an
> intangible product which may cost time and money to create, but doesn't
> constitute any *actual* loss if "stolen", right?
You do not understand the concept of opportunity cost. Ask your
friendly local MBA.
If you have a downloaded copy of the recording and you're listening to
it, you're in the same class as the paying customers who bought the
product because they enjoy (or think they'll enjoy) it. The difference
is that you didn't pay for it. The money the rightful seller didn't
collect from you is counted as a loss of a potential customer. You're
not reaching into his pocket and taking money out of it, you're not
putting money into it when you should be.
The "it actually helps sales" argument is based on the postulate that
someone who downloads music will then purchase something that he
didn't know about other than from downloading. This works for
independently produced recordings and it's probably a good thing.
However, there's plenty of exposure for major label artists without
downloading, and the money they lose from potential buyers who don't
have to pay can be substantial.
To those who say "It's not good enough for me to buy." I ask - have
you deleted the file from your disk?
Mike
> Logan Shaw wrote:
>
> > EggHd wrote:
>
> > > << The RIAA hasn't yet seen that the preponderance of shitty music could
> > > cause that kind of faltering sales. >>
>
> > > When catalog sales are down as well?
>
> > So are sales at restaurants. With layoffs and unemployment, fewer
> > people have the cash for things like entertainment and eating out
> > at a nice restaurant. And yet, the restaurant industry isn't
> > blaming recipe-sharing for their troubles. ;-)
>
> If people were able to remove food from retaurant's storage without
> paying for it, would we expect to hear something from restaurantsą?
> either, or writing their own music when they want some music for free.
I must reiterate that what we know is that CD sales as tracked by
soundscan are down. This does not mean that CD sales are down. There
is a much greater market now than in the past that goes outside of the
channels that Soundscan tracks. And that is what this is really all
about. It is about turf and protection money essentially. What the
digital revolution has allowed so far is for smaller market musicians
to sell their CD's (CD-R's as well) on the internet and and gigs and
smaller stores. Local music is having a renaissance but it isn't
being played on MTV or your favorite corporate radio station. This is
not about illegal downloading it is about the use of intimidation to
control access to a market.
As I have stated before, if any of this included protection for
consumers, it might be fair, but it doesn't. That is why it is easy
to justify illegal downloading. The consumer is not being represented
at the legislative level while the RIAA and friends is.
Actually, along the same vein, and directly affecting smaller market
musicians, is the complete shut down of community radio and community
access to the air waves. I am certainly not up to snuff on this but
there is legislation requiring community access to radio time, and
this can include local music, and it is completly being ignored. Just
another reason to have no sympathy for the FCC and their partners in
crime the RIAA and others.
EggHd
And?
Paul Rubin
> I must reiterate that what we know is that CD sales as tracked by
> soundscan are down. This does not mean that CD sales are down. There
> is a much greater market now than in the past that goes outside of the
> channels that Soundscan tracks. And that is what this is really all
> about. It is about turf and protection money essentially. What the
> digital revolution has allowed so far is for smaller market musicians
> to sell their CD's (CD-R's as well) on the internet and and gigs and
> smaller stores.
I read something else interesting, that something like *a third* of
all CD's being sold are counterfeit, i.e. manufactured illicitly in
pressing plants with labels and insert pamphlets that look just like
the authorized versions, and sold to the public, sometimes in record
stores, and sometimes from the street vendors who also sell $10 fake
Rolexes. That is a stupendous number of CD's, far larger than the 7%
decrease we've supposedly seen this year. I wonder if those CD's are
included in the Soundscan figures. They are really, indisputably
costing the industry money, and while there's an occasional arrest
made over those things, it's kind of revealing that the industry is
mostly concerned about downloads.
Bob Cain
>
> There is a third choice - "performers have limited rights to the control of
> this distribution of their material"
Point taken.
> The principle (held by the Constitutional Framers and encoded in the
> Progress clause) that the control should be limited in time and for the
> purpose of furthering scientific/artistic advancement for the benefit of the
> PUBLIC.
So you and Ryan's position is that control is solely for the
benefit of the public. That absolutely violates my personal
sense of ethics regardless of the U.S. constitution.
Having read it numerous times I somehow fail to remember any
such principles embodied in that document including the bill
of rights that accompanies it. Not saying it isn't there
but I'm surprised I don't remember it.
Scott Dorsey
>
>I read something else interesting, that something like *a third* of
>all CD's being sold are counterfeit, i.e. manufactured illicitly in
>pressing plants with labels and insert pamphlets that look just like
>the authorized versions, and sold to the public, sometimes in record
>stores, and sometimes from the street vendors who also sell $10 fake
>Rolexes. That is a stupendous number of CD's, far larger than the 7%
>decrease we've supposedly seen this year.
Is that a third of all CDs sold in the US, or a third of all CDs sold
worldwide? That actually seems kind of low if it's a worldwide figure.
It seems awfully high for the US.
>I wonder if those CD's are
>included in the Soundscan figures. They are really, indisputably
>costing the industry money, and while there's an occasional arrest
>made over those things, it's kind of revealing that the industry is
>mostly concerned about downloads.
The bootleg CDs are a substantial problem in Asia, but there isn't all
that much that the American labels can do about it. It's an occasional
problem here and one that will probably be getting worse as there is
more and more overcapacity at Asian replication plants.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
james
Paul Rubin <http://phr...@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
>I read something else interesting, that something like *a third* of
>all CD's being sold are counterfeit
I knew a girl in the 80's who had a "boyfriend" that was in the service.
Every time he got leave, he would arrive with a large box of pop music
cassettes with the labels in Arabic. I never really asked much about
them (and the poor guy apparently never suspected just how, um, popular
his sweetheart was.)
Anyway it shouldn't surprise anyone that the counterfeit market moved to
compact disc; after all they are cheaper to make.
>They are really, indisputably
>costing the industry money, and while there's an occasional arrest
>made over those things, it's kind of revealing that the industry is
>mostly concerned about downloads.
"I lost my keys."
"Where did you lose 'em?"
"Over there."
"Why are you looking here then?"
"Light's better."
ryanm
>
> You do not understand the concept of opportunity cost. Ask your
> friendly local MBA.
>
to IP, because I understand that they are different.
> The "it actually helps sales" argument is based on the postulate that
> someone who downloads music will then purchase something that he
> didn't know about other than from downloading.
>
Not *only* if they hadn't heard about it another way, but if they
wouldn't have bought it without hearing it first, and bought it after
downloading. It is an *additional* advertising channel, but that doesn't
make it irrelevant just because they heard the single on the radio once.
> However, there's plenty of exposure for major label artists without
> downloading, and the money they lose from potential buyers who don't
> have to pay can be substantial.
>
Not according to the only open study available.
> To those who say "It's not good enough for me to buy." I ask - have
> you deleted the file from your disk?
>
Is there any reason why they wouldn't?
ryanm
ryanm
news:31554a99.04040...@posting.google.com...
>
> So, anyone got the RIAA number of titles per year?
>
ryanm
ryanm
>
> I really don't need to. I read them but they don't change
> my response. We fundamentally disagree on the first premise
> of any argument so there really can't be one. It is more,
> really, than a premise. To me it is an axiom and those are
> unarguable. You can blame Ayn Rand for that. :-)
>
totally missed the important stuff. According to the constitution, copyright
is a right granted to you, not an inalienable right. If copyright were
inherent then you could never sell it to someone else; inalienable rights
are inherently non-transferable. The *public* grants that right to the
artist, not the other way around.
So, to say that the artist has some kind of superior right to his works
after they have been released is to ignore the constitutional mandate that
gives you that copyright in the first place. From a legal standpoint,
copyrights are a necessary evil. They are a monopoly, which is bad. So we
limit the scope and term of the monopoly in order to balance out that evil,
just enough to encourage the creation of more works without unnecessarily
restricting the public's right to those works. Sure, you have supreme
control over your work. Right up until you release it, and then it belongs
to everyone.
ryanm
ryanm
>
> So you and Ryan's position is that control is solely for the
> benefit of the public. That absolutely violates my personal
> sense of ethics regardless of the U.S. constitution.
>
intolerably hot weather in Antarctica too. You're *used* to the current
system, and you have adjusted your values to match it. That doesn't make it
right.
> Having read it numerous times I somehow fail to remember any
> such principles embodied in that document including the bill
> of rights that accompanies it. Not saying it isn't there
> but I'm surprised I don't remember it.
>
Straight from the source: "The Congress shall have power... To promote
the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to
authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and
discoveries;" (I snipped the other powers pertaining to regulating commerce,
coining money, establishing post offices and roads, etc. Google for "us
constitution" and check out Article I Section 6 to see it in context.)
This is not an intrinsic right, it is a right *granted* to copyright
holders by the people (through Congress), for a limited time and for the
express purpose of promoting progress (in other words, making it worth the
creator's time to create by giving him the opportunity to make some money on
it before the public takes ownership). In other words, pretty much the
opposite of what it is being used for now, which is hoarding IP in order to
collect royalties from it. It is based on the assumption that the public
owns *all* published works to begin with, and they are merely giving you the
right to make some money on it first, since you came up with it. This is all
done for the good of society, because creativity and innovation is to be
rewarded. However, these days it is being used to punish creativity, by
putting 16 year old programmers in prison for making a DVD player software
for Linux. Does that sound like promoting progress?
And you can't honestly believe that the law says you have some supreme
right to control your own creations, can you? After the SC told broadcast tv
that they had no say in who rebroadcast their shows? After they told the
cable companies that they had every right in the world to rebroadcast tv
shows, as long as they pay a small statutory fee (read: set by congress, not
the creators of the content). They certainly didn't get to decide *which*
medium it would be delivered in or *which* company could rebroadcast it. The
SC *obviously* didn't see any intrinsic right to your own creations once
they've been published; they belong to the people, otherwise you wouldn't
have published it, right?
Nowhere in there does it state that every single performance, recording,
copy of sheet music, and any other copy (tangible or not) of a particular
work deserves a royalty, that came later, after the RIAA started writing the
laws (literally). In truth, the assumption to begin with was that *all* uses
would be unregulated except for a few, very specific activities, which
generally revolved around making a profit on someone else's work. We are now
to the point, however, that *every* use requires permission and most have a
license fee attached to it. The framers would puke if they saw the system we
have in place today. And I'm not one of those people who say we should stick
to the constitution by the letter, because they were smart guys and know
better than we do. I am, instead, one of those guys who are impressed with
the fact that the framers had the foresight to leave certain things to
Congress because they knew that technology would make any laws they wrote
obsolete. What they didn't count on was how easily bought Congress is these
days. They also mentioned certain things very specifically, and in very
clear terms, and those things, I believe, should be held to dearly (Bill of
Rights, etc).
But when it comes right down to it, it is not the job of Congress to
prop up failing business models in the face of emerging technologies. Time
and again over the past 200 years both Congress and the Supreme Court have
reaffirmed this, by telling the special interests "tough shit" and that they
would just have to adjust to the new environment. I see no reason now for
Congress to prop up the recording industry (not that it even really needs
propping up, since they haven't had any demonstrable losses) in the face of
P2P sharing. Technology has moved on, and the industry needs to as well. So,
even if they were actually losing money to P2P sharing, the *proper*
response from Congress should be "tough shit, learn to adjust to the new
tech." This has been their response every other time technology put someone
out of business, and where are all the buggy whip manufacturers today?
Uh-oh, they went out of business, or they found another business to go into.
I find it hard to sympathize, because companies are not people. Their
primary interest is in the bottom line, I expect them to behave accordingly,
and they've never disappointed me yet. What disappoints me is the response
of Congress and the people in general, especially people in this group who
should know better.
ryanm
Bob Cain
> "Bob Cain" <arc...@arcanemethods.com> wrote in message
> news:c54ps...@enews2.newsguy.com...
>
>>So you and Ryan's position is that control is solely for the
>>benefit of the public. That absolutely violates my personal
>>sense of ethics regardless of the U.S. constitution.
>>
>
> Yeah, well, if you live in a freezer, you might complain about the
> intolerably hot weather in Antarctica too. You're *used* to the current
> system, and you have adjusted your values to match it. That doesn't make it
> right.
Hogwash. I've held these basic ethics for at least 40
years. While I've been an inventor and developer for most
of them, the ethics came first and my knowledge of my talent
came second. You damn betcha I want my talent to be
considered valuable and you damn betcha that I wish to have
control over its distribution and the rewards that acrue
from it even if that means assigning it to someone else in
return for the facilities to exploit it. I expand those
same ethics to all forms of human creativity, constitution
or no constitution. That document is not my ethical litmus
test even in the fairly rare instances where it is still
applied.
>
> Straight from the source: "The Congress shall have power... To promote
> the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to
> authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and
> discoveries;" (I snipped the other powers pertaining to regulating commerce,
> coining money, establishing post offices and roads, etc. Google for "us
> constitution" and check out Article I Section 6 to see it in context.)
Thanks, I didn't remember that such socialist drivel was
actually so enshrined. I still fundamentally disagree with
the sentiment and find it ethically abhorent. "For the
progress of science and _useful_ arts" be damned. My talent
is for my exploitation and no one else's unless I give the
rights away, sell them or trade them for others and there
are no defaults involved in that. You can take them from me
when you pry my stiff and bloody fingers off whatever weapon
I need to defend them.
You see, my axiom, and probably my passion about it,
preceeds yours and theirs.
Mike Rivers
In article <7xvfkah...@ruckus.brouhaha.com> //phr...@NOSPAM.invalid writes:
> I read something else interesting, that something like *a third* of
> all CD's being sold are counterfeit
Since I don't suppose those sales are tracked by Soundscan, that could
certainly contribute to the "sales are down" statistic. I know this
was a problem with cassettes maybe a dozen or so years back, but it's
been quite a few years since I've heard of a CD pirate being busted.
Most of the legit pressing plants compare the music they press (as a
file) to a data base and won't do the run if it looks like it's not
legit - like if it's been issued by someone else. So either these are
pretty small bootleg operations or they're big enough to run a
pressing plant. Either (and probably both) could be true.
Mike Rivers
> > To those who say "It's not good enough for me to buy." I ask - have
> > you deleted the file from your disk?
> >
> Is there any reason why they wouldn't?
Someone else might want to hear it or want a copy.
It's not good enough to buy but it doesn't take up that much
disk space so might as well keep it.
I might want to listen to it a few years from now.
Mike Rivers
> Straight from the source: "The Congress shall have power... To promote
> the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to
> authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and
> discoveries;"
This protects the intellectual property. If you write a song and
someone else writes a song that's sufficiently similar to yours which
doesn't fit any of the allowed uses, you have the right to sue for
infringement.
Once the work has been published, the IP owner is obligated to grand a
license (which is not free use) to anyone who wants to use the work or
create a derivitive work from it.
After a certain amount of time, there is no longer protection. You may
use any of Beethoven's symphonies without requesting a compulsory
license. I understand that you think this time period is too long and
restricts the use of a copyright work from being source material for a
new work.
This is in no way related to CD sales or how downloading affects them.
> This is not an intrinsic right, it is a right *granted* to copyright
> holders by the people (through Congress), for a limited time and for the
> express purpose of promoting progress (in other words, making it worth the
> creator's time to create by giving him the opportunity to make some money on
> it before the public takes ownership). In other words, pretty much the
> opposite of what it is being used for now, which is hoarding IP in order to
> collect royalties from it.
The thing that gets the royalties coming in is a value-added product.
It's a song published on paper for which royalties will be paid based
on the sale of sheet music. The song can be pitched to a recording
artist by the publisher, who will then collect royalties based on
sales of the recording (you think this is easy?), a phonograph record,
CD, tape, DVD, etc. It's the value added to the copyright that makes
it worth money.
> It is based on the assumption that the public
> owns *all* published works to begin with, and they are merely giving you the
> right to make some money on it first, since you came up with it.
Huh? How can the public own something which has not yet been created?
Or are you suggesting that as soon as something is created, it belongs
to the public? That doesn't sound like it promotes creativity.
> This is all
> done for the good of society, because creativity and innovation is to be
> rewarded. However, these days it is being used to punish creativity, by
> putting 16 year old programmers in prison for making a DVD player software
> for Linux. Does that sound like promoting progress?
I think there's a little more to it than that. The premise is that if
you want to circumvent a protective feature you can do so by using a
different player. If you accept the premise that it's valid to play a
DVD on a computer, then there's a valid reason for there to be a Linux
DVD player. However, if rules of the game have been established and
the player does not incorportate those rules, then they're not playing
nicely. If there were charges filed, what exactly were the basis for
those charges?
There have been precedents of prosecuting those who make tools to
defeat purposely included copy protection schemes. There is a class of
DAT recorders (consumer use) which were not allowed to be sold in the
US without implementing SCMS. There were some devices which had no
other purpose but to defeat SCMS when making a DAT-to-DAT copy which
were forced off the market (others remained - they cost more, had more
switches, and were designed for professional applications which were
deemed valid - a pirate willing to spend a little more money can buy
one). Back when "uncopyable" floppy disks were the means of copy
protection for off-the-shelf software, copy programs that would copy
them went back and forth in courts.
While it could be shown that there are legitimate uses for any of
these devices, the number of people who had legitimate use was far
smaller than those who just wanted to use them for illigitmate
purposes. Few people actually back up their software. Musicians who
record themselves on consumer DAT and want to make copies of their
recordings are far scarcer than (the industry hoped - it didn't turn
out that way) consumers who wanted to trade "perfect clones" of
recordings that they owned. That's the way laws are made.
> And you can't honestly believe that the law says you have some supreme
> right to control your own creations, can you?
No, and I don't believe it does.
> Nowhere in there does it state that every single performance, recording,
> copy of sheet music, and any other copy (tangible or not) of a particular
> work deserves a royalty, that came later, after the RIAA started writing the
> laws (literally). In truth, the assumption to begin with was that *all* uses
> would be unregulated except for a few, very specific activities, which
> generally revolved around making a profit on someone else's work. We are now
> to the point, however, that *every* use requires permission and most have a
> license fee attached to it.
That's because of mass communications, today there's a greater
opportunity to make money than ever before. Used to be that if you
wrote a song, you went to the market on Saturday and hawked printed
copies of it. It probalby never occurred to Ye Olde Prynter to run off
a few extra copies of it and sell them out the back door of the print
shop, thereby taking potential profit away from the publisher. Today
the functional equivalent can, and does happen.
> But when it comes right down to it, it is not the job of Congress to
> prop up failing business models in the face of emerging technologies.
I agree. It's the job of the business to fix their problem, and to do
that, they need to redefine the business. But there may need to be
laws that support and defend the business model. The 70 year copyright
isn't the problem. It's the cost of making a profit in a saturated
market that's the problem.
> I find it hard to sympathize, because companies are not people. Their
> primary interest is in the bottom line, I expect them to behave accordingly,
> and they've never disappointed me yet. What disappoints me is the response
> of Congress and the people in general, especially people in this group who
> should know better.
Unfortunately, our country is based on maintaining a certain level of
prosperity. If the major labels were reduced to the same level as
independent artists, where would be hope of getting a major label
artist contract, or even having a song you wrote recorded by a major
artist so you could make some serious money from it be? Would it
stimulate creativity if your potential for making any more than a good
dinner's worth of money from your writing was reduced to practically
nil? There really is a need for big business. It spawns small
businesses. And for songwriters, their creativity is their business.
Peter Rhalter
> hank alrich wrote:
>
> > Logan Shaw wrote:
>
>
> But that was not my point. My point is that economic times are
> crappy. People, when faced with a shortage of money, cut the
> things they can cut. Diabetics don't cut down on insulin.
> People don't buy less toilet paper. They don't call the city
> and ask to have trash pickup stopped at their address. They
> don't, generally, ride a bike to work instead of spending money
> on gas. As long as they don't sell their house, people don't
> try and find a way to cut 20% off their mortgage payment. College
> students don't decide to buy only 2 of the 3 required textbooks.
>
DVD sales are up, CDs are down. If it's the economy, how do you explain that?
Peter Rhalter
David O Kane
thousands of hours learning to play their instruments, thousands of dollars
purchasing equipment, hundreds of hours rehearsing and recording their
product, and due to propagation by file sharing, are getting 10,000 pieces
of fan mail per week claiming the writer "Loves your new mp3, and am sending
it to all of my friends so they will know how great you are too!!"?
Too bad suckers?
That's what copywright laws are for?
Power to the people?
You were stupid to create fungible product in the first place?
Shut up and get to work on more music that we can enjoy?
Meanwhile this group is incuring living and business costs (the mail alone
is killing them). And they haven't seen a dime from the hundreds of
thousands of times that people have enjoyed the fruits of their labor.
Yeah... I realize the unlikeliness of this scenairo; but the fact that your
friend is mistakenly arrested driving your car because of misconstrued
permission from you shouldn't repeal the laws against carjacking.
I'm sitting on the fence on this one. And when I look deep inside at why, I
think "Goddamn Record Co.'s are making enough now anyway. And the fuckin'
artists... don't even get me started on that". If I surf past one more
episode of MTV Cribs with some tattooed, highschool dropout, future has-been
struttin' around a 20,000sq ft mansion with 12 Farrari's in the driveway...
All for singing about how shitty his life is.
But that is more of a "Thou Shalt Not Covet" issue. There are PLENTY more
people in this world that are poorer than he is richer than me. So many that
I'm glad that there are laws, and an enforcement mechanism in place that
would prevent them from unilaterally implementing a more "equitable
distribution" of my wealth. But laws can be changed, so, at least until
enough activists join together to change the law, I'm protected from that.
I guess I'm asking whether artists should be denied that same protection?
Peter Rhalter
The law clearly states that authors and inventors have, "...the
EXCLUSIVE right to their respective writings and discoveries..." I
believe that gives an artist the right to determine which channels
he/she will use to distribute their creations.
You, personally, have decided that, based on a single study by a
couple of college professors, that artists no longer have this right —
that anything published belongs to the public. Do all laws become
invalid if some study, somewhere, says they aren't useful?
Peter Rhalter
Jay Kadis
rhal...@aol.com (Peter Rhalter) wrote:
There's an inherent problem with laws: they're static. Laws written a hundred
years ago are still on the books, even though the situations they addressed have
changed dramatically. The founding fathers had no inkling of the technologies
that allow the immediate, free dispersion of intellectual properties
electronically. Laws are only as good as their general applicability allows for
flexibility demanded by change. Perhaps there needs to be a way of limiting the
number of laws so that when a new one is needed, an old one must go to make
room. A classic case was the California law requiring railroad tracks to meet
at the border: left over from a time when track gauges were not standardized.
(I hope this one has been repealed since my high-school political science class.)
Nevertheless, there need to be some protections for intellectual properties if
we want to promote the free sharing of ideas while still encouraging the
creation of such works. With globalization has come a new challenge to
protecting our music and literature: rampant unlicensed copying in places our
laws don't apply. There doesn't seem to be a simple answer: once technology is
developed it becomes a steamroller, flattening attempts to halt its inexorable
roll down-hill. We're always playing catch-up with social policies. Perhaps
it's time to make social decisions before technologies are employed instead of
after. Our lawmakers aren't very good at thinking ahead.
-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ------x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x-------- http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~jay/ ----------x
Michael
reddred
"David O Kane" <david...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:S4ydc.3149$A_4....@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> What are you going to say to the indie band with a heart of gold who
spends
> thousands of hours learning to play their instruments, thousands of
dollars
> purchasing equipment, hundreds of hours rehearsing and recording their
> product, and due to propagation by file sharing, are getting 10,000 pieces
> of fan mail per week claiming the writer "Loves your new mp3, and am
sending
> it to all of my friends so they will know how great you are too!!"?
>
CD sales are up. DVD sales are up. The industry is not dying. Neither is p2p
downloading.
jb
EggHd
From last year. But CD sales are down from 3 years ago. BUt nothing has taken
the place of Backstreet, Britanny, N'Sync etc as well.
Who the fuck knows.
Mike
> Ryan,
>
> The law clearly states that authors and inventors have, "...the
> EXCLUSIVE right to their respective writings and discoveries..." I
> believe that gives an artist the right to determine which channels
> he/she will use to distribute their creations.
>
> You, personally, have decided that, based on a single study by a
> that anything published belongs to the public. Do all laws become
> invalid if some study, somewhere, says they aren't useful?
>
> Peter Rhalter
These laws are based on the artists ability to enforce them
essentially. Because
of the expense of legal process, that means, most artists don't
benefit from them at all. In fact, they are victimized by them. The
people that can enforce them are big record labels and publishers etc.
This forces artist to beg to be
taken under the wings of these big organizations while having their
remunerations chipped away at and sometimes completely stripped. And
that is the lucky ones.
abor...@ichips.intel.com
>>
>> There is a third choice - "performers have limited rights to the control of
>> this distribution of their material"
> Point taken.
>> The principle (held by the Constitutional Framers and encoded in the
>> Progress clause) that the control should be limited in time and for the
>> purpose of furthering scientific/artistic advancement for the benefit of the
>> PUBLIC.
> So you and Ryan's position is that control is solely for the
> benefit of the public. That absolutely violates my personal
> sense of ethics regardless of the U.S. constitution.
Yes. Monopoly in the United States is only allowed with certain
restrictions. Patent/Copyright is a monopoly which is allowed by the
government for a limited duration and under specific conditions to encourage
the advancement of the "state of the art" (by allowing the "inventor" to
recoup his investment) for the benefit of the public.
> Having read it numerous times I somehow fail to remember any
> such principles embodied in that document including the bill
> of rights that accompanies it. Not saying it isn't there
> but I'm surprised I don't remember it.
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings and Discoveries;
Mike Rivers
> DVD sales are up, CDs are down. If it's the economy, how do you explain that?
DVDs are cheaper than CDs, rental shops buy a lot of DVDs, they're
more "family-enjoyable", people usually treat the whole DVD as an
intact program rather than select one or two secenes and ditch the
rest, plus there isn't yet rampant P2P trading. While I know it
exists, it's still a lunatic fringe thing since getting the real thing
is inexpensive enough that it's not yet worth the time to download for
most people.
Ricky W. Hunt
>
> DVDs are cheaper than CDs, rental shops buy a lot of DVDs, they're
> more "family-enjoyable", people usually treat the whole DVD as an
> intact program rather than select one or two secenes and ditch the
> rest, plus there isn't yet rampant P2P trading. While I know it
> exists, it's still a lunatic fringe thing since getting the real thing
> is inexpensive enough that it's not yet worth the time to download for
> most people.
>
OK, I'm showing my ignorance here...I've never seen one of those DVD's made
from someone sitting in the theater with a digicam but it must be a pretty
common thing as it's even been a plotline on Seinfeld and now some theater
chains are offering rewards if you catch someone in the theater doing it. My
question is, what do these DVD's look like? It seems they would look like
crap (filming a screen????) not to mention the sound. And DVD's are fairly
expensive as it is. So, how cheap do these theater-taped-bootlegs go for on
the street and what in the world is the point in buying them? It sure can't
be picture or sound quality and I'm guessing they're at least $5 a piece so
it doesn't seem much a "bargain" (especially given the quality) so the only
enticement I can see is being "the first" to have a copy (before it hits the
stores). Am I missing something?
S O'Neill
> In article <9a588718.04040...@posting.google.com> rhal...@aol.com writes:
>
>
>>DVD sales are up, CDs are down. If it's the economy, how do you explain that?
>
>
> DVDs are cheaper than CDs, rental shops buy a lot of DVDs, they're
> more "family-enjoyable", people usually treat the whole DVD as an
> intact program rather than select one or two secenes and ditch the
> rest, plus there isn't yet rampant P2P trading. While I know it
> exists, it's still a lunatic fringe thing since getting the real thing
> is inexpensive enough that it's not yet worth the time to download for
> most people.
And Apple's iTunes music store sells one song at a time. I've bought lots of
those, and left the sleepers on the CD in the store. And millions more have
done the same. So there is a enough difference in what they're selling to
account for that. Maybe Apple has put a dent into CD sales?
1 movie = $10-20, or $2-5 to rent
1 song = $0.99
1 song and a lot of dead weight = $17.99
ryanm
news:qkEdc.1030$cD2.24121@attbi_s51...
>
> OK, I'm showing my ignorance here...I've never seen one of
> those DVD's made from someone sitting in the theater with a
> digicam but it must be a pretty common thing as it's even been
> a plotline on Seinfeld and now some theater chains are offering
> rewards if you catch someone in the theater doing it. My
> question is, what do these DVD's look like? It seems they
> sound. And DVD's are fairly expensive as it is. So, how cheap
> do these theater-taped-bootlegs go for on the street and what
> in the world is the point in buying them? It sure can't be picture
> or sound quality and I'm guessing they're at least $5 a piece so
> it doesn't seem much a "bargain" (especially given the quality)
> so the only enticement I can see is being "the first" to have a
> copy (before it hits the stores). Am I missing something?
>
They download them off the internet and burn them to VCD so they can see a
movie at home while it's still in the theatre. Now, they buy them in other
countries, because sometimes the lag between US release and international
release can be months or even a year or more. So it's the ability to see the
movie before anyone else can that drives people to do it.
Again, though, this is nothing new. Movies have been available on usenet
binaries groups since the late 80s. And they're not always the
camera-in-the-theatre type captures either, sometimes they have time code
and watermarks on them and are obviously pre-release copies for movie
reviewers and stuff. Or sometimes they are the pre-releases that the studio
uses for test audiences. That kind of thing. But I don't think anyone is
really buying those in the US, they are just downloading them and watching
them on their computer. But, just like cds, this has been going on for more
than a decade already and it hasn't seemed to hurt ticket sales any. At
least not as much as the pirate videotape industry has.
And don't take this to mean that I advocate videotaping movies and
distributing them, I'm just making an observation on the situation.
ryanm
ryanm
>
> Someone else might want to hear it or want a copy.
>
> It's not good enough to buy but it doesn't take up that much
> disk space so might as well keep it.
>
> I might want to listen to it a few years from now.
>
to hear it again? I think you're unnecessarily attributing malice to these
people, they're just people, like everyone else. Given how easy it was to
get, why would they even think about archiving it for possible future use
when they know they can just as easily download it again? Once the new wears
off, the vast majority of people dump all the music they have downloaded and
never look back, because, like most internet activities, it is a huge waste
of time that can be better spent elsewhere. Like in front of the tv.
ryanm
ryanm
>
> Since I don't suppose those sales are tracked by Soundscan, that could
> certainly contribute to the "sales are down" statistic. I know this
> was a problem with cassettes maybe a dozen or so years back, but it's
> been quite a few years since I've heard of a CD pirate being busted.
> Most of the legit pressing plants compare the music they press (as a
> file) to a data base and won't do the run if it looks like it's not
> legit - like if it's been issued by someone else. So either these are
> pretty small bootleg operations or they're big enough to run a
> pressing plant. Either (and probably both) could be true.
>
guise of being legit cds.
ryanm
ryanm
>
> Huh? How can the public own something which has not yet been
> created?
> Or are you suggesting that as soon as something is created, it belongs
> to the public? That doesn't sound like it promotes creativity.
>
similarities in those two words. As long as you don't publish it (read: make
it available to the general public), you have complete control over it. Once
it's published, it's ours (collectively). However, what the progress clause
does is allow you to make some money on it before others can come in and
undercut your prices, presumably so that you can recoup your investments and
even make a bit of profit.
> I think there's a little more to it than that. The premise is that if
> you want to circumvent a protective feature you can do so by using a
> different player. If you accept the premise that it's valid to play a
> DVD on a computer, then there's a valid reason for there to be a Linux
> DVD player. However, if rules of the game have been established and
> the player does not incorportate those rules, then they're not playing
> nicely. If there were charges filed, what exactly were the basis for
> those charges?
>
The basis was the DMCA. Under the DMCA, circumventing copy protection is
a cime regardless of whether that circumvention actually results in an
infringement or not. And it comes with a nice fine and prison sentence. What
this basically means is that *any* innovation based on existing technology
is criminal, because all of those existing technologies are under copyright,
and the only way you can expand on them is to circumvent their copy
protection. If the DMCA existed 20 years ago, the internet would've never
existed, because the protocols it uses would've been protected works which
cannot be extended except through illegal means. We are essentially painting
ourselves into a corner, where stagnation is the *only* possibility.
> While it could be shown that there are legitimate uses for any of
> these devices, the number of people who had legitimate use was far
> smaller than those who just wanted to use them for illigitmate
> purposes. Few people actually back up their software. Musicians who
> record themselves on consumer DAT and want to make copies of their
> recordings are far scarcer than (the industry hoped - it didn't turn
> out that way) consumers who wanted to trade "perfect clones" of
> recordings that they owned. That's the way laws are made.
>
It's the way they are made *now*. It's not *supposed* to be the way they
are made. This is a *very* recent trend, only starting about 25 years ago.
This is about personal freedom. All uses should be unrestricted except for a
few specific cases, not the other way around. What we have is the opposite
system, where all uses *are* restricted except for a few specific cases.
This is counterintuitive if progress and innovation is what you want to
reward.
> That's because of mass communications, today there's a greater
> opportunity to make money than ever before. Used to be that if you
> wrote a song, you went to the market on Saturday and hawked printed
> copies of it. It probalby never occurred to Ye Olde Prynter to run off
> a few extra copies of it and sell them out the back door of the print
> shop, thereby taking potential profit away from the publisher. Today
> the functional equivalent can, and does happen.
>
Incorrect. In fact, the whole reason copyright law was invented is
precisely because of the scenario you describe above. That, and because all
the local publishers (booksellers) would buy a copy at market and then the
next Saturday there would be 10 more vendors selling the same book for lower
prices. These are *exactly* the activities copyright was intended to
curtail. It was *never* intended to regulate use by consumers.
> I agree. It's the job of the business to fix their problem, and to do
> that, they need to redefine the business. But there may need to be
> laws that support and defend the business model. The 70 year copyright
> isn't the problem. It's the cost of making a profit in a saturated
> market that's the problem.
>
So do you think we should be passing legislation to make it easier for
the big guys to profit in a saturated market by making it more difficult for
the little guys to do so? And 70 year copyrights are *part* of the problem.
If the little guys can start out selling public domain works at lower prices
than the majors (who are busy profiting from their protected IP), it gives
them the opportunity to make a name for themselves so that, when they have
an original creative work to offer, they haven't been run out of business by
the majors they are competing with. But if all the public domain works are
100 years old or older, there's not much chance of them being able to make
ends meet in the interim, is there? What kind of market is there for 100
year old technology? Or even 100 year old music? If we had kept 28 year
copyrights (14 for works that aren't commercially viable), right now there
would be a thriving market for the works of the 50's, 60's, and the first
half of the 70's. Additionally, there would be an enormous amount of
previously unreleased music by all of the artists from that period which
would be added to the market, producing new sources of income for smaller
companies, since the majors can't be bothered to release those works. It
allows the smaller companies to provide for the niche markets that the
majors ignore because it's not profitable enough. Instead, the majors will
keep those works locked in a vault (or in a closet at the studio) until they
have deteriorated beyond use, and then no one will ever get to hear them
again. Ever. For the sake of greed.
> Unfortunately, our country is based on maintaining a certain level of
> prosperity. If the major labels were reduced to the same level as
> independent artists, where would be hope of getting a major label
> artist contract, or even having a song you wrote recorded by a major
> artist so you could make some serious money from it be? Would it
> stimulate creativity if your potential for making any more than a good
> dinner's worth of money from your writing was reduced to practically
> nil? There really is a need for big business. It spawns small
> businesses. And for songwriters, their creativity is their business.
>
I agree with you completely, this is how it has always worked. The
problem is that the big businesses are *now* using the law to protect
themselves from competition with the little guys, so where is the hope in
starting a business if you can never become one of the big guys? It's about
*balance*. I'm not talking about reducing anyone to anyone else's level, I'm
talking about loosening the grip that the big players have to make
competition possible.
ryanm
ryanm
news:9a588718.04040...@posting.google.com...
>
> The law clearly states that authors and inventors have, "...the
> EXCLUSIVE right to their respective writings and discoveries..." I
> believe that gives an artist the right to determine which channels
> he/she will use to distribute their creations.
>
set was 14 years, renewable once. That means, however, the exclusive right
to *profit* from it, not the exclusive right to decide who can see it and
who cannot. You get to choose your own publishing company, choose a price
for it, and others may not compete for a limited time. But once it is
released, you have no control over what the people do with it, at least
according to the original laws and the intent of the Progress Clause.
> You, personally, have decided that, based on a single study by a
> couple of college professors, that artists no longer have this right -
> that anything published belongs to the public. Do all laws become
> invalid if some study, somewhere, says they aren't useful?
>
I don't know where you got this idea, given the rather large number of
references, quotes, legal documents, court decisions, and examples I have
posted. Sounds to me like you dropped in to the thread late and have no idea
of what has been going on.
ryanm
EggHd
set was 14 years, renewable once. >>
The writer doesn't loose their rights.
hank alrich
> 1 song and a lot of dead weight = $17.99
I recently bought Eliza Gilkyson's _Lost and Found_ CD. No dead weight
at all. Superficial pop is where most of everything seems to be dead
weight.
--
ha
ryanm
news:jay-A122E0.0...@news.stanford.edu...
>
> There's an inherent problem with laws: they're static. Laws
> written a hundred years ago are still on the books, even
> though the situations they addressed have changed dramatically.
> The founding fathers had no inkling of the technologies that
> allow the immediate, free dispersion of intellectual properties
> electronically. Laws are only as good as their general
> applicability allows for flexibility demanded by change.
>
founding fathers were. Rather than setting down a static law on this, they
merely extended the power to Congress to make the laws which pertain to
copyrights, with a very few, simple requirements: the term *must* limited,
and the intent *must* be to promote progress while guaranteeing the creator
an opportunity to profit on his works before anyone else does. In this way,
*no* technological advance can make the Progress Clause obsolete, because it
doesn't actually specify anything but it's intent. It says "this is the
idea, now Congress should write laws that follow this idea but relate to
current technology". It's beautiful. The only problem is that Congress can
be had for a price, and as a result the laws no longer reflect the intent of
the Progress Clause.
> A classic case was the California law requiring railroad
> tracks to meet at the border: left over from a time when track
> gauges were not standardized. (I hope this one has been
> repealed since my high-school political science class.)
>
Texas still has a law on the books that says cars approaching the limits
of a city must come to a complete stop and honk the horn, in order to warn
the townsfolk that a car is coming. This was because too many people
complained about those damn newfangled automobiles scaring the horses.
> With globalization has come a new challenge to protecting our
> music and literature: rampant unlicensed copying in places our
> laws don't apply.
>
There will never be anything we can do about that, short of conquering
them and making them part of the US, and therefore subject to our laws. I
don't see that happening anytime soon.
> There doesn't seem to be a simple answer: once technology is
> developed it becomes a steamroller, flattening attempts to halt
> its inexorable roll down-hill. We're always playing catch-up
> with social policies. Perhaps it's time to make social decisions
> before technologies are employed instead of after. Our
> lawmakers aren't very good at thinking ahead.
>
Technology is *supposed* to be a steamroller. That's what we like about
it. It utterly ignores established models and marches on without regard for
old schools of thought. It is precisely a policy of encouraging this
steamroller to keep rolling that has brought so many technological advances
to the US. We're not just smarter than everyone else (contrary to what many
Americans believe), we have (or *had*, anyway) a Congress and a Supreme
Court that told the old school to "learn to deal with it", because we're not
stopping progress just because your business model doesn't work in the new
environment.
The sky above your land used to belong to you. All the way to the stars
and an indefinite extent beyond. The advent of the airplane caused problems
for people who were concerned about their *property rights*. Can you imaging
the mess of airlines trying to secure license to cross over every person's
property in their flight path, not to mention the cost? The Supreme Court
told the people "tough shit, the air belongs to the public for the good of
society, regardless of what your property deed says", and that was that.
Some might say that this is proof that the constitution and it's mandates
are capable of becoming obsolete, but again, the constitution doesn't
generally set down the specifics, what it does is set down the ideas and
intentions, and then allows Congress to specify the details, changing them
as necessary to address social and technological climate changes. So we
could throw out all existing copyright law and rebuild it without violating
the intent of the Progress Clause, and actually, that probably wouldn't be a
bad idea, given the present stat of these laws.
ryanm
ryanm
news:934b3e2c.04040...@posting.google.com...
>
> These laws are based on the artists ability to enforce them
> essentially. Because of the expense of legal process, that
> means, most artists don't benefit from them at all. In fact,
> they are victimized by them. The people that can enforce
> them are big record labels and publishers etc. This forces
> artist to beg to be taken under the wings of these big
> organizations while having their remunerations chipped
> away at and sometimes completely stripped. And
> that is the lucky ones.
>
afford to make use of these laws, everyone else is simply abused by them.
ryanm
ryanm
>
> Hogwash. I've held these basic ethics for at least 40
> years.
>
that? "Monopolies are bad, unless it's *my* monopoly..."? There is a
fundamental contradiction within your ethics. Care to enlighten me on how
those two concepts can be reconciled?
> Thanks, I didn't remember that such socialist drivel was
> actually so enshrined. I still fundamentally disagree with
> the sentiment and find it ethically abhorent.
>
I'm about as far from socialist as they get, but I don't have any
problem with this particular clause, because it has been shown (for 200
years) to work, and to actually encourages the freedom that keep the
socialist urge in humanity at bay. Look at America and what it's
accomplished. Look at the internet. None of this would be without a strong
and well-supported public domain.
> You see, my axiom, and probably my passion about it,
> preceeds yours and theirs.
>
I believe that is because you're not really looking at the big picture
yet. Honestly, I hope I can change your mind. Like many people on this
forum, you're an intelligent person with an open mind in general, but you
also have this one issue (that I'm aware of) for which you have locked it
down and thrown away the key a long time ago. This seems to be the case for
many people. I believe that opening the eyes of just a few of those kinds of
people (people in this group, for example) would be a great move forward for
realistic and useful copyright legislation. If you or Roger or EggHd or
Harvey were to say "you know what, he's right", how many more people would
suddenly be willing to listen rather than simply repeating the old mantra
about stealing?
ryanm
ryanm
news:S4ydc.3149$A_4....@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> gold who spends thousands of hours learning to play their
> instruments, thousands of dollars purchasing equipment,
> hundreds of hours rehearsing and recording their product,
> and due to propagation by file sharing, are getting 10,000
> pieces of fan mail per week claiming the writer "Loves your
> new mp3, and am sending it to all of my friends so they will
> know how great you are too!!"?
>
The reality of the situation is that if you are getting 10,000 emails a
week proclaiming how good the music is, the only reason not to be selling
500-1000 cds a week to those people is poor management and marketing. People
naturally want to support the artists they like, and if you can't make sales
out of that much attention, then you need new managment.
ryanm
Mike Rivers
In article <qkEdc.1030$cD2.24121@attbi_s51> ricky...@hotmail.com writes:
> OK, I'm showing my ignorance here...I've never seen one of those DVD's made
> from someone sitting in the theater with a digicam
> what do these DVD's look like? It seems they would look like
> crap (filming a screen????) not to mention the sound.
I would expect so. I hadn't thought of that as part of this
discussion. I expect that this is only relevant during the period
(seemingly shorter and shorter) between the time the movie opens in
theaters and comes out on DVD.
> And DVD's are fairly
> expensive as it is. So, how cheap do these theater-taped-bootlegs go for on
> the street and what in the world is the point in buying them?
I doubt that they sell on the street (at least in the US), but may get
shared over the Internet. The point is that you can watch the movie at
home before the commercial DVD comes out. Some people get off on that.
ryanm
news:20040409193852...@mb-m03.aol.com...
> << You are *almost* correct. Exclusive rights for a limited time. The time
> set was 14 years, renewable once. >>
>
> The writer doesn't loose their rights.
>
ryanm
hank alrich
> The reality of the situation is that if you are getting 10,000 emails a
> week proclaiming how good the music is, the only reason not to be selling
> 500-1000 cds a week to those people is poor management and marketing. People
> naturally want to support the artists they like, and if you can't make sales
> out of that much attention, then you need new managment.
A far more likely "reality" is that the people who freeload the music
will neither bother to buy it, nor bother to let the artist know how
much they appreciate it.
--
ha
Bob Cain
> "Bob Cain" <arc...@arcanemethods.com> wrote in message
> news:c558i...@enews4.newsguy.com...
>
>>Hogwash. I've held these basic ethics for at least 40
>>years.
>>
>
> But you're against monopolies, though, right? How can you reconcile
> that? "Monopolies are bad, unless it's *my* monopoly..."? There is a
> fundamental contradiction within your ethics. Care to enlighten me on how
> those two concepts can be reconciled?
I don't know. I have not spent much time really thinking
about the larger concept of a monopoly and don't have any
opinion that I could back up. I haven't begun to really
consider incorporated monopolies and probably won't. I
merely speak to my rights to my work.
>
>>You see, my axiom, and probably my passion about it,
>>preceeds yours and theirs.
>>
>
> I believe that is because you're not really looking at the big picture
> yet.
That's correct.
> Honestly, I hope I can change your mind. Like many people on this
> forum, you're an intelligent person with an open mind in general, but you
> also have this one issue (that I'm aware of) for which you have locked it
> down and thrown away the key a long time ago.
Oh, come on. That's too easy. You can say that about
anyone that holds a position different than yours and I
could just as easily say it to you.
Bob
--
"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."
A. Einstein
Bob Cain
Au contraire:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained
by the people.
Mike Rivers
> > I might want to listen to it a few years from now.
> Yeah, but why keep it when you can always download it again if you want
> to hear it again?
Because you'll have to find it again. I've learned that the Internet
isn't permanaent, but it always changing. Web sites disappear, content
on web forums disappears. Maybe only one person had that song and he
went straight.
> I think you're unnecessarily attributing malice to these
> people, they're just people, like everyone else.
Did I say anything malicious in my message? Someone asked why I might
not delete a song that I downloaded and didn't like.
> Given how easy it was to
> get, why would they even think about archiving it for possible future use
> when they know they can just as easily download it again?
Hah!
Hah Hah!
Hah Hah Hah!
Hah Hah Hah Hah!
Hah Hah Hah Hah Hah!
Archiving on the Internet, indeed. Thanks for the laugh. Good think
the coffee cup was on the desk and not in my hand.
Mike Rivers
> As soon as it is *published*, it belongs to the public.
Hoo, boy, have you made up a bad interpretation of that! It doesn't
BELONG to the public, it's available to the public. Very big
difference there.
If you wrote something else signinficant, put it in another message. I
skiped a lot that looked like complete bullshit.
> So do you think we should be passing legislation to make it easier for
> the big guys to profit in a saturated market by making it more difficult for
> the little guys to do so?
Why would you think I believe that?
Mike Rivers
> I don't know. I have not spent much time really thinking
> about the larger concept of a monopoly and don't have any
> opinion that I could back up. I haven't begun to really
> consider incorporated monopolies and probably won't.
The reason not to have a monopoly is that it promotes competition.
However competition can only go so far in making like products more
attractive to the buyers than their competitors. Look at what happened
when the telephone compnay monopoly was broken up - we have choices
now, sure, but they're all about the same when you analyze what's
under the marketing, and in fact the cost of phone service has risen
about as much as I'd expect given the cost of updating infrastructure
and inflation. No bargains there, and I waste my time fielding phone
calls a few times a month from people who tell me I can cut my long
distance phone bills (when they have no idea that my long distance
phone bills are practically zero right now).
When it comes to product, independents can't hope to compete with
majors - they can't afford the lights and the smoke and the MTV
rotation, no matter that their music might be better. So there will
always be, in effect, a near monopoly on major label music, and there
will be independent music. But you can't really say that they're
competing in the same marketplace, because they aren't.
hank alrich
> Yeah, but why keep it when you can always download it again if you want
> to hear it again?
Because if I decide I want to hear a song I don't want to have to go get
online, find that song, download it, and then listen to it over a
computer. I want to drop it right there and then into my preferred audio
playback system and _listen to the music_.
--
ha
reddred
> << CD sales are up. DVD sales are up. >>
>
> From last year. But CD sales are down from 3 years ago. BUt nothing has
taken
> the place of Backstreet, Britanny, N'Sync etc as well.
>
> Who the fuck knows.
>
Not me. If I did, 'the problem' would have to be simple, and it's not..
jb