VNV Nation Copy Protection
Jem
protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single. I know of at least one person
who had to work hard to bypass the protection in order to make a legitimate
copy (i.e. for personal use) of the CD that he had purchased.
There is to be a public forum on the www.dependent.de website, however I am
not encouraged by the tone of the company so far. The forum is "an attempt
to educate the consumer as well as to make available a variety of pertinent
information regarding topics such as a record label's scope of activity or
the costs involved with CD production and distribution". So, in other words
it will not be a place where the consumer may make valid criticism, but will
be a place where the consumer will be conditioned to accept the will of the
record label.
There are many bands whose music I have first encountered by downloading MP3
files from the Internet. If I have enjoyed the music I have gone out and
purchased the CD. If I have not enjoyed the music, then I delete the MP3
file. The only exception to this is an album that was no longer in
production and I was not able to purchase a copy even as an import (I had it
on order for six weeks before I finally gave up). "Illegal" MP3s have
actually increased the number of CDs that I purchase, and have given me an
opportunity to listen to music that would otherwise have been denied to me
by the record labels.
Clearly there is a problem for the record labels - they have to make money,
and they feel that they are failing to do so because their music is
available for free on the Net.
There is an answer that does not restrict the consumer's ability to copy
music, and would actually increase sales and give the consumer more choice.
Clearly the music itself is not the item that is purchased, it is the
license to use that music. The question the record companies should be
asking themselves is "How do we package the license to make it attractive to
the consumer?". Just sticking a CD in a box with a label isn't sufficient.
Including a lyrics sheet helps. Including special offers, discounts on other
products (T-shirts, posters, gig tickets) would also encourage purchases.
Multimedia CDs are also becoming popular - where additional features are
available to computer users (how novel - rather than prevent computer users
from listening to music on the PC you give them more features!).
If they're selling a license and not a collection of music it also gives the
consumer the ability to pick and mix. If there's one song on an album that I
want to have, but I don't like the remaining tracks, why should I pay for
the whole album? If I am purchasing a license to listen to that one track,
then that's all I should be paying for.
This is the message that we need to give to the record companies. Stop this
stupid copy protection scheme and deliver what the consumer actually wants.
Keep making money, and actually increase sales. Who's with me?
Jem
Chris "_Shad0w_" Crowther
> Apparently there has been a lot of consumer resistance to the copy
> protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single. I know of at least one
> person who had to work hard to bypass the protection in order to make a
> legitimate copy (i.e. for personal use) of the CD that he had purchased.
What I hate about it most that it only appears to work on Windows
machines...guess what, not everyone uses windows. I know the tracks are
CD-XA encoded MP3s, but I've no idea how to get them out so I can actually
listen to it without wandering over to a windows workstation.
I mean trying to stop illegal copying of is one thing, stoping people
who legitimatly buy the CD, or stopping people from even trying to buy it
because they can't even listen to it is something else; it's self defeating
for one.
> Jem
--
Chris "_Shad0w_" Crowther
http://www.shad0w.org.uk/
Kevin O'Gorman
>This is the message that we need to give to the record companies. Stop this
>stupid copy protection scheme and deliver what the consumer actually wants.
>Keep making money, and actually increase sales. Who's with me?
Philips are, apparently. IIRC they're a bit pissed off that CDs are being
made that deliberately violate the technical standards for such. Strikes
me as a better argument, especially if the makers of copy-protected CDs
end up having to take off the CD logo and put a warning on the box that
what you're buying will not play in all cd players, and may damage others.
K.
-
--
me: http://stunbunny.org
I have the world's worst haircut.
Chris Darkfire
scribbled with virtual crayon:
<Snip plea to stop copy protectioning CDs>
The problem is that record industry is losing sales and money because
people are either downloading MP3s or copying CDs. There is some
benefit to the record company in that some people will go on to buy
the full package but I think that is a small number and does little to
stop the tide of lost sales. I know many people who have stacks of CDs
and it is hard to find original ones in there.
Meltdown is bound to occur at some point and the question that has to
be asked it what the record industry will be like afterwards. If music
becomes free or next to free then the loss of that revenue stream will
not only affect record companies but also the bands. Maybe we can live
without the record companies and they can be taken away but what about
the bands how do they support themselves? Live gigs - attendance is
small and unlikely to support teh smaller bands and merchandise again
won't be enough. So we end up with more and more bands doing it part
time and we will loss out on some potentialy great music. The only
bands able to do anything full time will be big packaged bands with
all the hype and merchandise and no soul - lowest common denominator
music.
The record industry has dug its own grave in some ways with the price
of CDs but we are helping to fill in the hole by copying and MP3s.
See ya
CHRIS
Spooky
news:3c41c4c...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
> <Snip plea to stop copy protectioning CDs>
> The problem is that record industry is losing sales and money because
> people are either downloading MP3s or copying CDs. There is some
> benefit to the record company in that some people will go on to buy
> the full package but I think that is a small number and does little to
> stop the tide of lost sales. I know many people who have stacks of CDs
> and it is hard to find original ones in there.
But this isn't a new problem. In the days before CD ppl just used to copy
onto cassette. All you needed to do was know somebody with the album, and
give 'em a cassette to run a copy off for you. MP3s make music more
accessable, and while it's more open to abuse, it's also reaching more
people who will buy the CDs legitamately.
> Meltdown is bound to occur at some point and the question that has to
> be asked it what the record industry will be like afterwards. If music
> becomes free or next to free then the loss of that revenue stream will
> not only affect record companies but also the bands. Maybe we can live
> without the record companies and they can be taken away but what about
> the bands how do they support themselves? Live gigs - attendance is
> small and unlikely to support teh smaller bands and merchandise again
> won't be enough. So we end up with more and more bands doing it part
> time and we will loss out on some potentialy great music. The only
> bands able to do anything full time will be big packaged bands with
> all the hype and merchandise and no soul - lowest common denominator
> music.
> The record industry has dug its own grave in some ways with the price
> of CDs but we are helping to fill in the hole by copying and MP3s.
I don't think the problem is any worse now than it's ever been. I just think
the multinationals use the technology to screw even more cash out of ppl.
Fuck 'em I say.
P
Phildo RFL
"Jem" <j...@gothgems.f9.co.uk> wrote in message
news:f%g08.25337$ru2.323567@NewsReader...
> Apparently there has been a lot of consumer resistance to the copy
> protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single. I know of at least one
person
> who had to work hard to bypass the protection in order to make a
legitimate
> copy (i.e. for personal use) of the CD that he had purchased.
Why not just use the CD?
> There is to be a public forum on the www.dependent.de website, however
I am
> not encouraged by the tone of the company so far. The forum is "an
attempt
> to educate the consumer as well as to make available a variety of
pertinent
> information regarding topics such as a record label's scope of
activity or
> the costs involved with CD production and distribution". So, in other
words
> it will not be a place where the consumer may make valid criticism,
but will
> be a place where the consumer will be conditioned to accept the will
of the
> record label.
They have a product to sell, they add whatever conditions they want. If
the consumer doesn't like it then nobody is forcing them to buy the
product.
> There are many bands whose music I have first encountered by
downloading MP3
> files from the Internet. If I have enjoyed the music I have gone out
and
> purchased the CD. If I have not enjoyed the music, then I delete the
MP3
> file.
That's you. There are many people who are not as honest as you say you
are and just burn CDs from MP3s they've collected online.
>The only exception to this is an album that was no longer in
> production and I was not able to purchase a copy even as an import (I
had it
> on order for six weeks before I finally gave up). "Illegal" MP3s have
> actually increased the number of CDs that I purchase, and have given
me an
> opportunity to listen to music that would otherwise have been denied
to me
> by the record labels.
MP3s are great if you are an unknown band trying to get your product
out. Once you are established however then an awful lot of piracy does
go on.
> Clearly there is a problem for the record labels - they have to make
money,
> and they feel that they are failing to do so because their music is
> available for free on the Net.
Of courser there's a problem. You name me one company that makes a
product and distributes it for free while still turning a profit?
> If they're selling a license and not a collection of music it also
gives the
> consumer the ability to pick and mix. If there's one song on an album
that I
> want to have, but I don't like the remaining tracks, why should I pay
for
> the whole album? If I am purchasing a license to listen to that one
track,
> then that's all I should be paying for.
This is all very well if it was enforceable. Trouble is as soon as some
copy protection is installed people less honest than yourself will go
out and crack it and make it useless. The industry will have to find a
way round this problem first.
> This is the message that we need to give to the record companies. Stop
this
> stupid copy protection scheme and deliver what the consumer actually
wants.
> Keep making money, and actually increase sales. Who's with me?
You have a very one-sided view of the argument. End of the day if they
didn't supply what the consumer wants then said consumer will turn to
someone who does. For now there is no way to enforce what you suggest so
until there is the argument is pointless.
Phildo
Phildo RFL
"Spooky" <cis...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:a1simp$1qu$1...@helle.btinternet.com...
> "Chris Darkfire" <ng...@darkfire.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:3c41c4c...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
> > <Snip plea to stop copy protectioning CDs>
> > The problem is that record industry is losing sales and money
because
> > people are either downloading MP3s or copying CDs. There is some
> > benefit to the record company in that some people will go on to buy
> > the full package but I think that is a small number and does little
to
> > stop the tide of lost sales. I know many people who have stacks of
CDs
> > and it is hard to find original ones in there.
>
> But this isn't a new problem. In the days before CD ppl just used to
copy
> onto cassette. All you needed to do was know somebody with the album,
and
> give 'em a cassette to run a copy off for you. MP3s make music more
> accessable, and while it's more open to abuse, it's also reaching more
> people who will buy the CDs legitamately.
>
quality was never that of the original. With digital technology the copy
is just as good as the original as is every copy after that.
Phildo
Chris Darkfire
<cis...@btinternet.com> scribbled with virtual crayon:
>But this isn't a new problem. In the days before CD ppl just used to copy
>onto cassette. All you needed to do was know somebody with the album, and
>give 'em a cassette to run a copy off for you.
the first place - now you don't - theoretically t an album could be
put on a website and within days or even hours anyone who wanted it
could have a copy.
Secondly tape quality was poor and cassettes are a pain to use having
to rewind or fast forward them. CDs are essentially as good quality as
the originals.
Thirdly with the cheapness and commness of printers you can now
reproduce the cover as well so it looks nice as well.
> MP3s make music more
>accessable, and while it's more open to abuse, it's also reaching more
>people who will buy the CDs legitamately.
Maybe but I don't think the majority of people are using it for that
reason. All you gain by buying a full album is shiny cover and printed
CD.
>I don't think the problem is any worse now than it's ever been. I just think
>the multinationals use the technology to screw even more cash out of ppl.
>Fuck 'em I say.
Maybe - maybe it will do a lot of good I'd be the first to support
profits being siphoned off from artists. - but Phil I refuse to
believe that if EMI turned around to you tomorrow and offered you 30k
for equipment and studio time and wanted to release it after you'd say
'Fuck em' :)
Nick/Yaruar
> news:f%g08.25337$ru2.323567@NewsReader...
> > Apparently there has been a lot of consumer resistance to the copy
> > protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single. I know of at least one
> person
> > who had to work hard to bypass the protection in order to make a
> legitimate
> > copy (i.e. for personal use) of the CD that he had purchased.
>
> Why not just use the CD?
Unfortunately due to the nature of the protection (this uses a corrupt first
track I think) it won't play on older cd players, some dvd/cd players and
virtually no computer cd players (which is the way I play then since my
stereo went kaput.
To actually get it to play involved Ironically enough, a lot of work, a
freshly burned cd and removal of the aforementioned track...
Nick/Yaruar
Chris Darkfire
<yar...@dircon.co.uk> scribbled with virtual crayon:
< protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single. >
>
>Unfortunately due to the nature of the protection (this uses a corrupt first
>track I think) it won't play on older cd players, some dvd/cd players and
>virtually no computer cd players (which is the way I play then since my
>stereo went kaput.
play on the majority of PCs - as you are posting with OE I assume you
have windows so it should play happily on your PC.
Admittedly that doesn't help non Windows users.
John Hawkes-Reed
news:3c41d426...@News.CIS.DFN.DE:
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2002 18:12:42 +0000 (UTC), "Spooky"
><cis...@btinternet.com> scribbled with virtual crayon:
>>But this isn't a new problem. In the days before CD ppl just used to
>>copy onto cassette. All you needed to do was know somebody with the
>>album, and give 'em a cassette to run a copy off for you.
True. That's how I got into Pere Ubu and Material. I went out and bought
the vinyl/CDs when I could get hold of them.
> Secondly tape quality was poor and cassettes are a pain to use having
> to rewind or fast forward them. CDs are essentially as good quality as
> the originals.
You can only really say that with the benefit of hindsight. Before there
were affordable car CD players, cassettes were Good Things. (And had their
own splendid punk-rock subculture)
> Thirdly with the cheapness and commness of printers you can now
> reproduce the cover as well so it looks nice as well.
But it's not the real thing, is it? (Unless you'm buying new Severed Heads
CDs, of course. Tom Ellard burns & prints them up himself. This is another
Good Thing b/c all my money's going to the people that made the music,
rather than on some tour-jacketed scumbag's coke-budget.)
>> MP3s make music more
>>accessable, and while it's more open to abuse, it's also reaching more
>>people who will buy the CDs legitamately.
Yes.
> Maybe but I don't think the majority of people are using it for that
> reason. All you gain by buying a full album is shiny cover and printed
> CD.
And cash in the pocket of t-j'ed s above.
I really don't buy the propaganda from GlobalRecordCorp.
You say 'majority' - majority of *what* precisely? Majority of people with
CD burners and broadband internet access who like <random band> and can be
bothered to arse around with <P2P filesharing malarkey>? What sort of
number is that, expressed as a percentage of the worldwide market for
<random band>?
I strongly suspect that spending yea-million on Mariah bloody Carey films,
or signing just-about-to-be-past-it (come on, by the time a band is visible
enough for the accountants in charge of GlobalRecordCorp, they're already
playing stadia and are unlikely to produce anymore worthwhile music) rawk
groups, or disastrous forays into dotcommery.
It's just entirely convenient for The Man to use the (self generated)
hysteria about The Wicked(literary rather street sense) Internet and how
it's destroying his/their freedom to screw the artists in indentured
servitude for even more money than before. This means they'll ram even more
ugly legislation through the US system (and therefore the rest of the
world).
>>I don't think the problem is any worse now than it's ever been. I just
>>think the multinationals use the technology to screw even more cash out
>>of ppl. Fuck 'em I say.
Absolutely.
> Maybe - maybe it will do a lot of good I'd be the first to support
> profits being siphoned off from artists. - but Phil I refuse to
> believe that if EMI turned around to you tomorrow and offered you 30k
> for equipment and studio time and wanted to release it after you'd say
> 'Fuck em' :)
Record companies don't 'give' you money. It's an advance against sales.
(less promotion, video, t-shirt, etc, etc, costs)
This is how it work(s/ed) in the US. More recent information welcomed:
Jem
"Phildo RFL" <Ph...@phildo.net> wrote in message
news:a1sjd2$t54g7$1...@ID-77649.news.dfncis.de...
>
> They have a product to sell, they add whatever conditions they want. If
> the consumer doesn't like it then nobody is forcing them to buy the
> product.
Of course they're not forcing me to buy the product, but if by adding
"whatever conditions they want" the product becomes useless (i.e. it won't
play on my CD player) then it's a case of them forcing me NOT to buy
something that I'd actually quite like to buy.
> > This is the message that we need to give to the record companies. Stop
> this
> > stupid copy protection scheme and deliver what the consumer actually
> wants.
> > Keep making money, and actually increase sales. Who's with me?
>
> You have a very one-sided view of the argument. End of the day if they
> didn't supply what the consumer wants then said consumer will turn to
> someone who does. For now there is no way to enforce what you suggest so
> until there is the argument is pointless.
I think you're missing my point, and in fact partly making it for me.
There shouldn't be any enforced copy protection mechanisms at all. It's
never going to stop a pirate. If you can't digitally copy a CD, then there's
absolutely nothing to stop you plugging the audio output from your CD player
into a sound card and producing an MP3 that way. Also, there will always be
software methods to bypass protection. So what is the point of the record
industry wasting money on copy protection, and pissing off legitimate
purchasers, when it's just going to be circumvented anyway?
If they want us to buy the music instead of getting it for free the only way
they can possibly do it is by packaging the product. The idea of a "license
to use" is perfectly workable without the need to enforce it. The trick is
not to force people to buy the license, but to make them want to buy the
license because they want it, because it gives them added value over the
free MP3 download.
If they give the consumer what they want, the consumer will buy it. If you
give the consumer less than they want, then the consumer will turn to the
pirates. It's so simple even a record company must see the sense in it.
Don't copy protect the CD - add value to the product. Then people won't need
to go to the pirates in the first place.
Snooze Control
> protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single.
I'll be honest here, It's the first I've herd of it.
> I know of at least one person
> who had to work hard to bypass the protection in order to make a legitimate
> copy (i.e. for personal use) of the CD that he had purchased.
What is Legitimate use is up to the company holding the copyright of the cd. If
they deem it is better that nobody be able to copy thier music for personal use
as the price for preventing illegal copying then that is thier right.
> There is to be a public forum on the www.dependent.de website, however I am
> not encouraged by the tone of the company so far. The forum is "an attempt
> to educate the consumer as well as to make available a variety of pertinent
> information regarding topics such as a record label's scope of activity or
> the costs involved with CD production and distribution". So, in other words
> it will not be a place where the consumer may make valid criticism, but will
> be a place where the consumer will be conditioned to accept the will of the
> record label.
What? You mean a public forum where big business may post thier side of the
argument and not just get slagged off by the they have power they must be evil
bregade? How terribly unbalenced.
> There are many bands whose music I have first encountered by downloading MP3
> files from the Internet. If I have enjoyed the music I have gone out and
> purchased the CD. If I have not enjoyed the music, then I delete the MP3
> file.
You use this as an argument for things like napster but I don't hold with this.
It is more of an argument for sites like MP3.com where bands can put out a bit
of thier album whilst holding back the rest of it for such folk as are
prepaered to pay for it giving people a chance to sample their music and a
reason to buy the cd.
> The only exception to this is an album that was no longer in
> production and I was not able to purchase a copy even as an import (I had it
> on order for six weeks before I finally gave up).
Since you now have the album on mp3 the demand for it to be repressed is less
and thus even less likely to happen and the band that are seemingly deserving
of some earnings for a job well done and presumerbly down on thier luck if
thier album is no longer selling enough towarrent another print run will be
deprived of earnings that they may otherwise have made.
> "Illegal" MP3s have
> actually increased the number of CDs that I purchase,
No "" about it.
and for every person like you that claim they buy more because of illegal
copies of music I have com across 5 that just boast about how many gigs of mp3s
they have.
> and have given me an
> opportunity to listen to music that would otherwise have been denied to me
> by the record labels.
Oh how nasty, the big bad record lables are victimising you. there is a big
difference between denieing you music and just not pushing it at you.
> Clearly there is a problem for the record labels - they have to make money,
> and they feel that they are failing to do so because their music is
> available for free on the Net.
>
> There is an answer that does not restrict the consumer's ability to copy
> music, and would actually increase sales and give the consumer more choice.
> Clearly the music itself is not the item that is purchased, it is the
> license to use that music.
I would put it differently for the sake of clarity. It is not the CD it's self
that people are buying but the right and ability to lissen to the music on it.
Am I right in saying that this is what you are saying here?
> The question the record companies should be
> asking themselves is "How do we package the license to make it attractive to
> the consumer?". Just sticking a CD in a box with a label isn't sufficient.
> Including a lyrics sheet helps.
Only in some cases yes but I think looking at it from the point of view of the
goth scene where the songs are more lyric based may have made you miss the fact
that with alot of more popular music lyrics are less relivant to the music and
sometimes just the same 2 lines repeated. Also what would become of the
wonderful acts of imagination like the lyrics that come with the dream deciples
album Cure For Pain
> Including special offers, discounts on other
> products (T-shirts, posters, gig tickets) would also encourage purchases.
So your saying that people should be buying cd's becuase they have the best
T-shirts, posters or special offers as opposed to the best music?
> Multimedia CDs are also becoming popular - where additional features are
> available to computer users
Which also get copied and passed about.
> If they're selling a license and not a collection of music it also gives the
> consumer the ability to pick and mix. If there's one song on an album that I
> want to have, but I don't like the remaining tracks, why should I pay for
> the whole album? If I am purchasing a license to listen to that one track,
> then that's all I should be paying for.
If albums were sold with just a bands 5 best tracks on as opposed to 12 the
album would proberly end up costing the same as a full album. but you would
lose alot of good tracks that aren't popularist enough.
> This is the message that we need to give to the record companies.
No it bloody isn't
> Stop this
> stupid copy protection scheme and deliver what the consumer actually wants.
What's that? Free music becuase that's what most of this amounts to for most
people. We know licencing dosn't work. The software market proves that. I got
treated like an idiot when I admited to buying the licence for some of the
software on my machine. "Only companies do that." I was told and it's only
companies do that. Name me one reason a companies would want to buy music?
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Fredrik
>
[snip]
just explain to me why you think anyone needs a record company?
:-/
--
snip the bit that keeps crashing
http://uklinux.net
Snooze Control
> What I hate about it most that it only appears to work on Windows
> machines...guess what, not everyone uses windows. I know the tracks are
> CD-XA encoded MP3s, but I've no idea how to get them out so I can actually
> listen to it without wandering over to a windows workstation.
Ok, I will admit that limiting people to computer only use is dumb. It stops
all thier customers who don't have a computer or want top lissen on the road.
Do they mension in decent sized print on the case taht you have to have a pc to
lissen to it?
Snooze C
Dave H
<snip/>
>> Stop this
>> stupid copy protection scheme and deliver what the consumer actually wants.
>
> What's that? Free music becuase that's what most of this amounts to for most
> people. We know licencing dosn't work. The software market proves that. I got
> treated like an idiot when I admited to buying the licence for some of the
> software on my machine. "Only companies do that." I was told and it's only
> companies do that. Name me one reason a companies would want to buy music?
Hmm... what about telephone "on hold" musack? ;o)
Ultimately though, if the copy-protected 'CDs' turn out to inconvenience
legitimate users and push the boundary of what is considered "fair use"
too far towards the recording industry, it will be a PR disaster for the
music labels. I have a right to copy music I own on CD, and a CD that I
can copy has added value that a copy-protected 'CD' does not. If I'm
unable to play the next VNV release I'll obviously be demanding my money
back.
Dave
--
Dave H "So many times...
lorian/at/darkwave.org.uk Tried not to wonder"
br...@pwei.net
>
> > Apparently there has been a lot of consumer resistance to the copy
> > protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single. I know of at least one
> > person who had to work hard to bypass the protection in order to make a
> > legitimate copy (i.e. for personal use) of the CD that he had purchased.
>
Well there bloody well should be resistance to this kind of crap, from
what I have read about this technology it prevents the CD's being played
on certain types of players and therefore erodes the purchasers ability to
use the goods.
I dont pretend to have all the answers but its clear to me that the future
of music distribution is in some kind of digital format, the CD's days as
a mass market distribution method are numbered without doubt.
--
Brett Carr http://www.pwei.net
ICQ: 111573756 AIM: brettpwei
PGP: On Request
Snooze Control
> Philips are, apparently. IIRC they're a bit pissed off that CDs are being
> made that deliberately violate the technical standards for such. Strikes
> me as a better argument, especially if the makers of copy-protected CDs
> end up having to take off the CD logo and put a warning on the box that
> what you're buying will not play in all cd players, and may damage others.
Surely if the Compact Disc logo is on the box it is in breach of the law as
this is no more a Compact disc than a PC CD ROM and should probably be marked
such or be in breach of trading standards law.
br...@pwei.net
> > Apparently there has been a lot of consumer resistance to the copy
> > protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single.
>
> I'll be honest here, It's the first I've herd of it.
>
> If albums were sold with just a bands 5 best tracks on as opposed to 12 the
> album would proberly end up costing the same as a full album. but you would
> lose alot of good tracks that aren't popularist enough.
>
> > This is the message that we need to give to the record companies.
>
> No it bloody isn't
>
I think the message that we have to give to the record companys is that
they can't take the piss basically, anybody who has any sense about them
will realise that they should be paying for the music they get by whatever
means they get it but a reasonable amount. The record companys must
realise by now that things must change and probably (Hopefully) in a big
way. It could mean the death of huge record companys and return music to a
more direct (and grassroots) status, then again it might not. Whatever
happens I dont think that copy protection is the answer because it WILL be
broken by somebody.
> > Stop this
> > stupid copy protection scheme and deliver what the consumer actually wants.
>
> What's that? Free music becuase that's what most of this amounts to for most
> people. We know licencing dosn't work.
> The software market proves that.
No it doesnt, one of the largest and most succesful companies on earth
relies on this revenue stream and many more do very very well out of it,
oh I know its not perfect and for every product sold there are X copies
made but it can gardly be denied a lot of people are making a decent
licing out of it.
> I got
> treated like an idiot when I admited to buying the licence for some of the
> software on my machine. "Only companies do that."
I buy licenses for software that is a reasonable price for a good product,
admittedly this is shareware usually and I wouldn't dream of paying for an
MS product, even though I use them on a daily basis.
> I was told and it's only
> companies do that.
Well there is a school of though that says some companies like MS are
quite happy for a certain amoutn of Home User type piracy as it raises
awareness of their products and creates a demand in the commercial sector,
where they can and do make real money.
> Name me one reason a companies would want to buy music?
Very true, its clear to me that the potential Licensing of music has some
flaws in it but no more than the copy protection of a legacy music medium
whose sales are falling and will be replaced by digital distribution in
the future anyway.
The record companies need to come up with ways of investing in the future
and not crippling the past.
David Gerard
Phildo RFL <Ph...@phildo.net> wrote:
:"Jem" <j...@gothgems.f9.co.uk> wrote in message
:news:f%g08.25337$ru2.323567@NewsReader...
:> Apparently there has been a lot of consumer resistance to the copy
:> protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single. I know of at least one
:person
:> who had to work hard to bypass the protection in order to make a
:legitimate
:> copy (i.e. for personal use) of the CD that he had purchased.
:Why not just use the CD?
You should try putting your CD collection on a large hard disk and doing
the thousand-disc shuffle off it. You will then appreciate what an
annoyingly primitive pain in the arse dealing with the physical silver
things really is.
(I am at the stage where I never play a CD off the silver disc - I put
every new CD on the server and play it off that.)
Once you start on said path, you'll really get the complete fucking shits
with this copy corruption bullshite.
:Of courser there's a problem. You name me one company that makes a
:product and distributes it for free while still turning a profit?
Red Hat.
:This is all very well if it was enforceable. Trouble is as soon as some
:copy protection is installed people less honest than yourself will go
:out and crack it and make it useless. The industry will have to find a
:way round this problem first.
Giving up, I expect. All seven tracks from the 'Genesis' EPs are readily
available on the AudioPrivateer of your choice.
War on your own customers is a battle you will *lose* once they realise
what's up.
--
http://thingy.apana.org.au/~fun/ http://www.rocknerd.org/
"Many of the kinder souls here are throwing clues his way, but he seems
to have this weird idea that instead of catching them, he's supposed to
be hitting them back over the net." (Lionel)
David Gerard
Chris Darkfire <ng...@darkfire.co.uk> wrote:
:Meltdown is bound to occur at some point and the question that has to
:be asked it what the record industry will be like afterwards. If music
:becomes free or next to free then the loss of that revenue stream will
:not only affect record companies but also the bands. Maybe we can live
:without the record companies and they can be taken away but what about
:the bands how do they support themselves?
With day jobs, the way they do in the present-day music industry.
: Live gigs - attendance is
:small and unlikely to support teh smaller bands and merchandise again
:won't be enough. So we end up with more and more bands doing it part
:time and we will loss out on some potentialy great music.
I think losing out on the next Britney or N'Sync would be well worth it,
though.
:The record industry has dug its own grave in some ways with the price
:of CDs but we are helping to fill in the hole by copying and MP3s.
WARNING: MP3s and CD-Rs are spreading music!
David Gerard
:Apparently there has been a lot of consumer resistance to the copy
:protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single. I know of at least one person
:who had to work hard to bypass the protection in order to make a legitimate
:copy (i.e. for personal use) of the CD that he had purchased.
Has anyone gotten a comment from the band yet? Let's see how arrogant Human
League copyists can get over the originality of their art ...
Snooze Control
news:3c41c4c...@News.CIS.DFN.DE...
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2002 14:31:00 -0000, "Jem" <j...@gothgems.f9.co.uk>
> scribbled with virtual crayon:
> <Snip plea to stop copy protectioning CDs>
> The problem is that record industry is losing sales and money because
> people are either downloading MP3s or copying CDs. There is some
> benefit to the record company in that some people will go on to buy
> the full package but I think that is a small number and does little to
> stop the tide of lost sales. I know many people who have stacks of CDs
> and it is hard to find original ones in there.
Now I know What they are doing I have to say their current tactic will not
work. It is the ability to play cd's on discmans and hifi systems is why people
use them. If forced to play on computer people will be more likely to save a
long walk across town to the record shop and download an MP3.
> Meltdown is bound to occur at some point and the question that has to
> be asked it what the record industry will be like afterwards.
There is no easy answer since you can't stop copying. Only education about the
effects will work and that will put the moral minority at a greate disadvantage
and paying even more. any thing that can be converted in to a form that can be
played out of a speaker can be coppied.
Snooze Control
> I don't think the problem is any worse now than it's ever been. I just think
> the multinationals use the technology to screw even more cash out of ppl.
> Fuck 'em I say.
I don't think it's really about screwing people. It's their right to be payed
for the music they produce after all. I think they have an obvious hole through
which money that leagaly should be theirs is escaping and therefor have people
trying to plug the gap.
They are waisting their time looking for a technological solution. There isn't
one. In the end there will just be music ripping programs that record strait
from the final out put to the speacker just like you save a screen dump in word
but for speakers. the only way they can win this battle is education that
pirating is a crime and has a damaging effect not just on the big guys but the
little companies. Socioty currently has a thing against big corporations just
for exsisting. HMV could save the world from total anhialation for free you
would have peop[le saying it was just a publicity stunt. Add to that the fact
that it is in peoples advantage (For the short term) to justifie to themselves
getting free music and they have a hard battle to fight.
Snooze c
http://www.darkfurr.org/poems/exscuses.html
Phildo RFL
>
> "Phildo RFL" <Ph...@phildo.net> wrote in message
> news:a1sjd2$t54g7$1...@ID-77649.news.dfncis.de...
> >
> > They have a product to sell, they add whatever conditions they want.
If
> > the consumer doesn't like it then nobody is forcing them to buy the
> > product.
>
> Of course they're not forcing me to buy the product, but if by adding
> "whatever conditions they want" the product becomes useless (i.e. it
won't
> play on my CD player) then it's a case of them forcing me NOT to buy
> something that I'd actually quite like to buy.
Hey, I'd like to buy a car with the looks and performance of a Ferrari
but the price and fuel economy of my Peugeot diesel but do I start
moaning at the car companies when they don't give me what I want? End of
the day the company has it's priorities and if they think combatting
piracy is more important than you being able to play the CD then tough
shit.
> There shouldn't be any enforced copy protection mechanisms at all.
Yes there should or less-than-honest people will make copies and not pay
for the product.
> It's
> never going to stop a pirate.
It will if they can get it right.
> If you can't digitally copy a CD, then there's
> absolutely nothing to stop you plugging the audio output from your CD
player
> into a sound card and producing an MP3 that way.
But you'll lose quality that way. The copy will not be as good as the
original which is the problem witht he technology available today -
every copy is as good as the first.
> Also, there will always be
> software methods to bypass protection. So what is the point of the
record
> industry wasting money on copy protection, and pissing off legitimate
> purchasers, when it's just going to be circumvented anyway?
So what are they supposed to do? Allow free copying of their product?
End of the day they are a business and what they need to do is to keep
changing the copy protection or find a method that people won't be able
to crack.
> If they want us to buy the music instead of getting it for free the
only way
> they can possibly do it is by packaging the product. The idea of a
"license
> to use" is perfectly workable without the need to enforce it.
I disagree because people will not want to pay for something when they
can get it for free.
> The trick is
> not to force people to buy the license, but to make them want to buy
the
> license because they want it, because it gives them added value over
the
> free MP3 download.
I think you have a very rose-tinted view of all this. Who is gonna want
to buy something when they can get it for free? Hell, with scanners and
printers you can even duplicate the sleeves etc now.
> If they give the consumer what they want, the consumer will buy it. If
you
> give the consumer less than they want, then the consumer will turn to
the
> pirates.
If people can get it for free they're not going to pay for it. People
are naturally dishonest as a whole.
>It's so simple even a record company must see the sense in it.
If they put on your rose-tinted spectacles then maybe they will.
> Don't copy protect the CD - add value to the product. Then people
won't need
> to go to the pirates in the first place.
Your logic is very flawed. End of the day it has become possible for
people to make copies as good as the original in the same format very
cheaply just by downloading it from the internet, a resource that was
never available in the days of cassettes. Somehow this new music
everyone wants has to be paid for and the companies need to make their
profits to satisfy their shareholders and pay wages but if everybody can
download a CD and burn off their own copy on the day it is released then
where is the money going to come from? Right now not many people have
fast connections/CD burners etc but that figure is growing rapidly. If
something is not done now to copy protect the product then once everyone
has access to this technology there will be no new music produced
because it will not be economically viable to do so given that everyone
chooses to steal the product rather than buy it. If you download an MP3
and burn it onto a CD without the copyright holder's permission then you
are a thief, simple as that. Now you try to justify your criminal
tendencies by saying it's the record company's fault they are forced to
try and stop the piracy from happening? Get real.
Phildo
Phildo RFL
"David Gerard" <f...@thingy.apana.org.au> wrote in message
news:slrna44d...@aspc083.longword.dyndns.org...
> :Why not just use the CD?
>
> You should try putting your CD collection on a large hard disk and
doing
> the thousand-disc shuffle off it. You will then appreciate what an
> annoyingly primitive pain in the arse dealing with the physical silver
> things really is.
Sadly those that choose to steal their music instead of buying it are
making life difficult for you. Don't blame the record companies, blame
the music pirates.
> (I am at the stage where I never play a CD off the silver disc - I put
> every new CD on the server and play it off that.)
>
> Once you start on said path, you'll really get the complete fucking
shits
> with this copy corruption bullshite.
All the more reason to find a way round the problem.
> :Of courser there's a problem. You name me one company that makes a
> :product and distributes it for free while still turning a profit?
>
> Red Hat.
And who the fuck is that?
> :This is all very well if it was enforceable. Trouble is as soon as
some
> :copy protection is installed people less honest than yourself will go
> :out and crack it and make it useless. The industry will have to find
a
> :way round this problem first.
>
> Giving up, I expect. All seven tracks from the 'Genesis' EPs are
readily
> available on the AudioPrivateer of your choice.
If they give up then where will the new music come from?
> War on your own customers is a battle you will *lose* once they
realise
> what's up.
The war is not on the customers, it is on the thieves who choose to
download their music and steal it instead of paying for it.
Phildo
Snooze Control
> I have a right to copy music I own on CD,
Leagaly speaking No, Not unless they say you can.
> and a CD that I
> can copy has added value that a copy-protected 'CD' does not. If I'm
> unable to play the next VNV release I'll obviously be demanding my money
> back.
Ultimately I think this is what will break this little sceme.
Unless they bring out cd players that can handle this format then nobody will
by it and most people wouldn't invest in such a player unless all the major
companies all released just copy protected CD's at which point sombody would
either bring out software to get round the new standard and we would be back
where we started. (Who buys a DVD player that can't do multi region these
days?)
Snooze C
Phildo RFL
"Snooze Control" <sno...@darkfurr.org> wrote in message
news:9ea5c38768069a79c32...@mygate.mailgate.org...
>In the end there will just be music ripping programs that record strait
> from the final out put to the speacker just like you save a screen
dump in word
> but for speakers.
You obviously know very little about digital audio. A copy made that way
would have all sorts of compression, distortion and noise added to it
and each time it was copied then the quality would degrade, same as with
cassettes.
The problem with digital is that every copy is as good as the first and
that the music is freely stolen and distributed on the net so you don't
even have to know anyone with an original to copy from any more. End of
the day this is going to kill the music industry because people choose
to steal a product instead of buying it and therefore it won't be worth
making that product any more.
Phildo
Phildo RFL
"Fredrik" <nerdsfer...@SOFTbtinternet.com> wrote in message
news:3C422381...@SOFTbtinternet.com...
> just explain to me why you think anyone needs a record company?
>
advertising, to front the money to have the music recorded in the first
place etc etc. Plenty of reasons. It's OK for smaller acts who only sell
a few hundred CDs to sell direct but without the clout of a major record
company behind them a small act is all they will ever be.
Phildo
Phildo RFL
"Dave H" <lor...@darkwave.org.SPAMTRAP.uk> wrote in message
news:slrna446sn...@dmh.org.uk...
> I have a right to copy music I own on CD
No you don't. Unless you have written permission from the copyright
holder then you have no such thing.
Phildo
David Gerard
Phildo RFL <Ph...@phildo.net> wrote:
:"David Gerard" <f...@thingy.apana.org.au> wrote in message
:news:slrna44d...@aspc083.longword.dyndns.org...
:> War on your own customers is a battle you will *lose* once they
:realise
:> what's up.
:The war is not on the customers, it is on the thieves who choose to
:download their music and steal it instead of paying for it.
Oh, the customers are just collateral damage then.
Personally, I suspect bands should be discouraged as much as possible. But
that's just me.
Jozafeen
>
> > What I hate about it most that it only appears to work on
Windows
> > machines...guess what, not everyone uses windows. I know the tracks are
> > CD-XA encoded MP3s, but I've no idea how to get them out so I can
actually
> > listen to it without wandering over to a windows workstation.
>
> Ok, I will admit that limiting people to computer only use is dumb. It
stops
> all thier customers who don't have a computer or want top lissen on the
road.
>
> Do they mension in decent sized print on the case taht you have to have a
pc to
> lissen to it?
>
that indicates it's protected is a tiny copyright line for the protection
software company on the back.
They did make it clear that UK didn't have a 'fair use' law like the USA and
it's illegal to copy anything (even onto cassette) for personal use already.
New cds in general seem to cause my aging car stereo to struggle already so
I tend to run off a copy of any I buy already as it copes with thicker cdr
media better and also in case of theft.
If it wasn't for mp3, I wouldn't have bought as many cds by new bands in the
last year because the cost of them is too high to take a chance on a new
band without hearing them first. That's where the record companies should be
looking to increase their sales.
I know that the mainstream music fans at work resent the fact that new bands
hit the charts and already seem to be living a millionaire lifestyle and
big/rich enough to do arena tours, bring out their own dolls/spaghetti and
suchlike so it does no harm in their eyes to copy their output.
Joza
Jozafeen
>
> > Philips are, apparently. IIRC they're a bit pissed off that CDs are
being
> > made that deliberately violate the technical standards for such. Strikes
> > me as a better argument, especially if the makers of copy-protected CDs
> > end up having to take off the CD logo and put a warning on the box that
> > what you're buying will not play in all cd players, and may damage
others.
>
> Surely if the Compact Disc logo is on the box it is in breach of the law
as
> this is no more a Compact disc than a PC CD ROM and should probably be
marked
> such or be in breach of trading standards law.
There seems to be some confusion here. The CD is intended to play normally
in a stereo (but may confuse older ones that won't recognise tracks) and, if
played on a PC, will only allow play using it's own media player, not Winamp
or similar which has audio extraction plug-ins etc.
They probably won't work on DVD players or non-Windows PCS.
Joza
Spooky
> End of the day though a cassette has a very limited bandwidth and the
> quality was never that of the original. With digital technology the copy
> is just as good as the original as is every copy after that.
And when I'm in my car with all that engine noise, the quality of the media
means bugger all. It's the only place I use cassettes... road rage would
probably double overnight if they stopped making tehm.
P
Spooky
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2002 18:12:42 +0000 (UTC), "Spooky"
> <cis...@btinternet.com> scribbled with virtual crayon:
> >But this isn't a new problem. In the days before CD ppl just used to copy
> >onto cassette. All you needed to do was know somebody with the album, and
> >give 'em a cassette to run a copy off for you.
> the first place - now you don't - theoretically t an album could be
> put on a website and within days or even hours anyone who wanted it
> could have a copy.
Yes, MP3 makes things easier and more accessible but the fact remains;
Pirating music is not a new problem. I still stand by my statement that
while MP3 might be allowing more abuse, it's also opening up more music to
people who would not have heard it otherwise, and then go out and buy it. Of
course, this might not be true for the multi-million selling artists on big
labels with their media saturation and merchandising hype. However, when
you're at that level when you are releasing 6 singles off an album, videos
and DVDs, the use of the word *theft* becomes contensious. Complaining about
music pirating like it's something new is just plain greed.
Of course, when you are the smaller level of a band like VNV Nation, you
might have cause to worry about the effect MP3 has on sales, but then you
are turning a blind eye to how much MP3 played a part in you getting to
where you are today.
> Secondly tape quality was poor and cassettes are a pain to use having
> to rewind or fast forward them. CDs are essentially as good quality as
> the originals.
Yes, but MP3 quality is not as good as CD. It's not far off but some of the
high end gets lost and for the music snobs among us, that's just not good
enough.
> Thirdly with the cheapness and commness of printers you can now
> reproduce the cover as well so it looks nice as well.
You could do that before with a photocopier. Again this isn't something new
causing a boom in piracy.
> > MP3s make music more
> >accessable, and while it's more open to abuse, it's also reaching more
> >people who will buy the CDs legitamately.
> Maybe but I don't think the majority of people are using it for that
> reason. All you gain by buying a full album is shiny cover and printed
> CD.
> >I don't think the problem is any worse now than it's ever been. I just
think
> >the multinationals use the technology to screw even more cash out of ppl.
> >Fuck 'em I say.
> Maybe - maybe it will do a lot of good I'd be the first to support
> profits being siphoned off from artists. - but Phil I refuse to
> believe that if EMI turned around to you tomorrow and offered you 30k
> for equipment and studio time and wanted to release it after you'd say
> 'Fuck em' :)
As this is totally hypothetical, I can hypothetically say I'd tell them to
fuck off. I'd want total artistic control, image rights, plus I'm worth more
than £30k.:o)
P
Spooky
>End of > the day this is going to kill the music industry
Hurrah!! No more record labels. Fantastic! Just bands making music and
distribution themselves at gigs... more ppl at concerts... how cool and punk
rock would that be? :o)
P
John Hawkes-Reed
[ And Mandy Rice-Davis rules apply, of course ]
> "Fredrik" <nerdsfer...@SOFTbtinternet.com> wrote in message
> news:3C422381...@SOFTbtinternet.com...
> > just explain to me why you think anyone needs a record company?
> >
> To get the product into the shops, to arrange publicity, to buy
> advertising, to front the money to have the music recorded in the first
Um. That's a self-perpetuating wossname, y'know. GlobalRecordCorp paid
(dunno, 25k was the figure I heard) to wallpaper Camden (and I mean
*wallpaper*) with Llama Farmer handbills a couple of years ago. They
are/were supposed to be an 'Indie' band on an 'Indie' label, mind. Did
this shotgun-debug campaign hype the little buggers into the chart? No.
Did it raise the bar for other bands with the (percieved) same indie
status and their associated garden-shed record labels? Oh yes indeed.
On the other hand, someone of the order of [Macy Grey|Kelis|random other
Guardian-reader's fave] was 'publicised' by word of mouth alone.
Allegedly. No information was forthcoming over how much viral marketing
went on there.
On the third hand, dance culture does well enough without
GlobalRecordCorp, thanks all the same. Largely because the production
and consumption models don't fit how they work, unless you're the
Chemicals or Orbital.
So it seems to me that the expensive kind of publicity that it does take
major financial welly to arrange is largely redundant. The sort of bands
that get that treatment are the Britneys of the world - A tidy sum has
already been invested, because this 'product' sprang fully-formed from
some exec's forehead, so in order to recoup (and it's all about that
word) they're forced by their own hands to carpet-bomb the available
media.
Regarding the recording process, it was my understanding that digital
portastudios are pretty much The Shit right now. Hell, if you're making
weebly-weebly records, a copy of Reason or Fruityloops is all you need.
Machine punk rock, kids! Smash the system!
I absolutely don't deny that Proper Studios staffed by Trained
Professionals are fine things, but there's a world of difference between
'Audiophile' and 'Good enough for the cloth-eared gits who buy top-40'.
And of course there's always Steve Albini.
--
JH-R
John Hawkes-Reed
Sounds good to me. Packs of shambling A&R-zombies roaming Camden until
they're set upon and torn limb from limb by redundant music journalists
in search of plus-ones? Enduring image, isn't it?
Hopeless tossers who'd looked on being in some jingly-jangly retro band
as a career path forced to work in McDs instead? Excellent. Yes, I do
want fries with that, Gallagher minor.
--
JH-R
Kevin O'Gorman
>Surely if the Compact Disc logo is on the box it is in breach of the law as
>this is no more a Compact disc than a PC CD ROM and should probably be marked
>such or be in breach of trading standards law.
That would be their argument, yes.
K.
-
--
me: http://stunbunny.org
I have the world's worst haircut.
Aidan Skinner
<sno...@darkfurr.org> wrote in
<ff2261a375179e9b968...@mygate.mailgate.org>:
> > I have a right to copy music I own on CD,
>
> Leagaly speaking No, Not unless they say you can.
Fair use allows copies for personal use, such as backups, or copying
to another media (such as making a tape to play in the car).
IANAL, this does not constiute legal advice etc. etc. etc.
- Aidan
--
ai...@velvet.net http://www.velvet.net/~aidan/ aim:aidans42
finger for pgp key fingerprint: |-----------------------------
01AA 1594 2DB0 09E3 B850 | Vengence is mine, sayeth the
C2D0 9A2C 4CC9 3EC4 75E1 | sysadmin
Aidan Skinner
<sno...@darkfurr.org> wrote in
<f57da1fd1822cb44264...@mygate.mailgate.org>:
> What is Legitimate use is up to the company holding the copyright of the cd. If
> they deem it is better that nobody be able to copy thier music for personal use
> as the price for preventing illegal copying then that is thier right.
But they extract a tax on blank tapes and cds (and, I believe, videos)
that is to compensate them for the losses they incur due to copying,
even if they're not used for illegal purpouses (such as backing up
computer data, copying freely copyable music, recording interviews...)
If they're putting protection on the media, then they should stop
charging the fee.
David Gerard
Phildo RFL <Ph...@phildo.net> wrote:
:The problem with digital is that every copy is as good as the first and
:that the music is freely stolen and distributed on the net so you don't
:even have to know anyone with an original to copy from any more. End of
:the day this is going to kill the music industry because people choose
:to steal a product instead of buying it and therefore it won't be worth
:making that product any more.
"Kill the music industry" ... you don't know just how delicious those words
are to me.
Oh, hold on, you're trying to *discourage* MP3 sharing?
I have this sneaking feeling that music will do just fine without the music
industry.
(Home fucking is killing prostitution!)
John Hawkes-Reed
>
> On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 04:56:13 +0000 (UTC), Snooze Control
> <sno...@darkfurr.org> wrote in
> <ff2261a375179e9b968...@mygate.mailgate.org>:
>
> > > I have a right to copy music I own on CD,
> >
> > Leagaly speaking No, Not unless they say you can.
>
> Fair use allows copies for personal use, such as backups, or copying
> to another media (such as making a tape to play in the car).
Nope. Not in the UK. ISTR it is/was in the FAQ and everything.
(I wouldn't mind people getting confused with US vs $Local_country laws
so much if the US weren't quite so confused themselves.)
Which is interesting (in a mildly odd way), since that means I've been
(presumably) actively breaking the law since 1979, which is when I
discovered the Fun of Mixtapes.
Of course, since I've been getting away with Crime for such a long time,
my sense of right and wrong have been irrepairably damaged and I now
break The Law on an almost daily basis without a second thought. Only
last night I was looking out some old 7" records and a Big Black bootleg
with the intention of burning them to CD. Whereas in actual fact, I
should have been writing to GlobalRecordCo to ask them to release
'Working and shopping', 'Sound of impact' and Stanton's Home EP on CD so
I may line their pockets once again. Allegedly.
</Sarcasm>
Or, if I see the bloke(s) from Tools you can trust down the pub I could
bung them a tenner, thus cutting out the middle man.
--
JH-R
John Hawkes-Reed
> But they extract a tax on blank tapes and cds (and, I believe, videos)
Not here. Canada and some other bits of the EU, yes. (I think)
--
JH-R
John Hawkes-Reed
[ ... ]
> I have this sneaking feeling that music will do just fine without the music
> industry.
>
> (Home fucking is killing prostitution!)
[FX: Hysterics]
Damn apposite as well. I can just see GlobalRecordCo execs driving round
in twatty pimp-cars and crap hats.
Anyway. We're only hearing reasonable debate (and this is being very
reasonable) from only one person 'within' The Industry here. There are
clearly other Producers of Music here - what do y'all have to say?
I vaguely recall Roo Horatii becoming Very Shouty on the subject of
Napster, but I'd certainly partaken of a couple of glasses of lemonade
by then, so he may have been explaining the Coventry ring-road.
--
J 'Home taping is skill in music' H-R
Graham Clark
> > Philips are, apparently. IIRC they're a bit pissed off that CDs are being
> > made that deliberately violate the technical standards for such. Strikes
> > me as a better argument, especially if the makers of copy-protected CDs
> > end up having to take off the CD logo and put a warning on the box that
> > what you're buying will not play in all cd players, and may damage others.
>
> Surely if the Compact Disc logo is on the box it is in breach of the law as
> this is no more a Compact disc than a PC CD ROM and should probably be marked
> such or be in breach of trading standards law.
Indeed. Furthermore, to do so presumably puts the poducer in breach of the
conditions they agreed to on licensing CD-related technology from Philips.
Having gone to a lot of trouble to establish standards and interoperability,
Philips are hardly going to sit back and let a few pissant no-hope little
record labels dilute them.
After all, this puts certain hardware manufacturers out as well - they have
to consider whether this will hurt sales of CDRom drives, whether they're going
to have to do a lot of firmware updates to escape it, and so on. All of these
companies have contracts to licence CD IP, and while some of them (Sony) have
record businesses that might conceivably be helped, others don't. And even if
you're the size of Philips, do you really want Matsushita coming after you for
their pound of legal flesh?
From Philips' POV, they can hardly be put in a position of favouring contract-
breakers (by turning a blind eye) at the expense of their more loyal and law-
abiding customers.
Anyway, there was a link of slashdot.org on Saturday to a German story about
this. There'll be the usual rambling discussion of it all as well, I'm sure.
G.
Chris Darkfire
<hi...@netcity.co.uk> scribbled with a virtual crayon
<Snip MP3s for research Versus avoiding buying CD>
>> Maybe but I don't think the majority of people are using it for that
>> reason. All you gain by buying a full album is shiny cover and printed
>> CD.
>
Absolutely - don't get me wrong I abhor the prices we have to pay for
CDs, which is as much the consumers fault as record companies or big
chains. Unfortunatley for some bizarre reason people seem to prefer to
shop at Virgin/HMV etc than at an independent even if that independent
is cheaper.
>I really don't buy the propaganda from GlobalRecordCorp.
Somebody has to pay for the production, marketing, distribution of a
record as well as pay the band. Yeah there may well be shiny suited
execs getting rich in the process in large corps but that is a side
effect.
>You say 'majority' - majority of *what* precisely? Majority of people with
>CD burners and broadband internet access who like <random band> and can be
>bothered to arse around with <P2P filesharing malarkey>? What sort of
>number is that, expressed as a percentage of the worldwide market for
><random band>?
Growing VERY fast - and I still think that most people who download
and keep an MP3 do not go out and buy the album and I think that an
even higher percentage of people who directly copy CDs don't then buy
the original.
>Record companies don't 'give' you money. It's an advance against sales.
>(less promotion, video, t-shirt, etc, etc, costs)
No but they offer it and it is essentially free money - because unless
I'm wrong providing you supply the goods (singel/album/whatever) you
don't pay - maybe you will never get paid either but it hasn't cost
you.
See ya
CHRIS
icicle
something that rarely comes up in this kind of *ahem* discussion.
Have you ever listened to the singles that an artist releases and thought
"ooh, they're good, I must buy the album so I can listen to the rest of
their music" then when you get the album home (by now 14.99ukp out of
pocket) and have listened to it, you realise that the single is *the only
good track on the album*?
With the proliferation of mp3's and the chance now to listen to the *whole*
album before you decide whether you want to buy it, I find myself a lot more
choosy about which albums I actually want to own. CD's are way too expensive
for me to waste the money on one or two tracks that I like.
Now, I know some people are fine with illegal copies in their music
collection, but personally I'd rather buy the CD and have a nice legal CD
with some pretty artwork sitting in my CD racks (for one thing, they're a
lot easier to tell apart), and I think a lot of people feel the same way
(more than the record companies would have you believe). However, I do
believe a lot of bands at the moment are throwing any old crap together on
an album and trying to con you into buying it by only really expending the
effort on one or two decent tracks and releasing those as singles.
tbh, this is one of the major reasons I haven't (yet) bought a VNV nation
CD. When they're good I really enjoy what they produce, but 80% of the stuff
they bung on the albums/eps/whatever seems to be space filler, and I'm not
paying upwards of 12ukp for a couple of tracks, even if I do really like
them. It's not just VNV of course, it applies to a lot of bands, and
probably more so to the mainstream bands than the less well known artists
who might just still be in it for the love of the work rather than the fat
wads of cash to be made from conning the public.
On the original topic of copy-protecion, my own personal opinion (and I
believe it may be written in law somewhere...though possibly America) is
that the owner of the copyright has the right to do whatever is necessary to
the product to prevent it from being copied as long as *this does not impede
the right of the consumer to review the product* - and this means that
preventing it from playing on some CD players is a definite no-no as is
another new form of copy protection which actually degrades the quality of
the recording (!) banking on the fact that CD-players are actually less
accurate than CD-drives and won't notice the injected white noise (there's a
story on slashdot somewhere). This does of course only apply if they market
it as a CD (mentioned elsewhere I believe). If they market it as a new
format and make *clear* that it really isn't a CD, honest, it just might
happen to play on your CD drive, then afaic they can do whatever the f***
they like to it.
I still won't buy it though.
cheers,
--
jo/icicle
0xdB status : embryonic
http://www.icicle.34sp.com
Graham Clark
> Record companies don't 'give' you money. It's an advance against sales.
> (less promotion, video, t-shirt, etc, etc, costs)
>
> This is how it work(s/ed) in the US. More recent information welcomed:
>
> http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/problemwithmusic.html
Courtney's speech is at :
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/
and is also worth reading. It's along the same lines.
"Worst of all, after all this, the band owns none of its work ... "
The record industry is infamous for screwing recording artists. Anyone
who thinks that any significant amount of this extra money will find its
way to the people making the product seriously needs their head examined.
How many times has "My baby just cares for me" been a hit? And how much
did Nina Simone get paid for singing it?[1]
None of this is about singers and bands and songwriters and musicians.
All of it is about shareholders and interest rates and dividends.
G.
[]1 Several, and nothing.
Whisky-Dave
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2002 14:31:00 -0000, "Jem" <j...@gothgems.f9.co.uk>
> scribbled with virtual crayon:
> <Snip plea to stop copy protectioning CDs>
> The problem is that record industry is losing sales and money because
> people are either downloading MP3s or copying CDs.
The same way the film insdustry was going because of the Video recording.?
Next thing will be DVD copying will bring Hollywood down.
> There is some
> benefit to the record company in that some people will go on to buy
> the full package but I think that is a small number and does little to
> stop the tide of lost sales. I know many people who have stacks of CDs
> and it is hard to find original ones in there.
Maybe lower the price that might encourage people not to bother copying,
rather than charging what they do. i.e a fiver not fifeteen.
Then there's the argument of, have they actual lost a sale ?
They assume that you would have bought a copy of it,
and at £15 a time it's unlikely so they haven't lost a sale.
Personaly I rarely copy music but that's because it's not worth the time &
blank CD.
> Meltdown is bound to occur at some point and the question that has to
> be asked it what the record industry will be like afterwards. If music
> becomes free or next to free then the loss of that revenue stream will
> not only affect record companies but also the bands.
Do we really need a records industry ?.
It seems to just self promote itself and arrange award ceromonies.
If the musisc isn't 'good' enough do we really need it artificially hyped
by them ?
>Maybe we can live
> without the record companies and they can be taken away but what about
> the bands how do they support themselves? Live gigs - attendance is
> small and unlikely to support teh smaller bands and merchandise again
> won't be enough.
Like anything else in life if it's not wanted why promote and sell it.
Can you think of a 'good' band set up by a record company, all they really
do
is change and repackage a band so that it'll sell to the masses and make
money
for the company, which may even change the bands original music style .
Music needs band promoters not record makers.
>So we end up with more and more bands doing it part
> time and we will loss out on some potentialy great music.
Size isn't everything.
> The only
> bands able to do anything full time will be big packaged bands with
> all the hype and merchandise and no soul - lowest common denominator
> music.
But these are held (sometimes just to make money)together by the record
companies.
>
> The record industry has dug its own grave in some ways with the price
> of CDs but we are helping to fill in the hole by copying and MP3s.
Maybe if the record companies were their to help musicians and their music
rather than to make themselves money I'd fell more sorry for them.
To make music all you really need is a few like minded people
to get together and make a noise if others like that noise then they can
contribute in a way they the makers want, if they don't the the makers
stop playing.
IMHO of course :)
Graham Clark
> "Jem" <j...@gothgems.f9.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:rjo08.26297$ru2.339319@NewsReader...
> > If you can't digitally copy a CD, then there's
> > absolutely nothing to stop you plugging the audio output from your CD
> player
> > into a sound card and producing an MP3 that way.
>
> But you'll lose quality that way. The copy will not be as good as the
> original which is the problem witht he technology available today -
> every copy is as good as the first.
S/PDIF, coax, soundcard . . .
Copy protection? Never heard of it. Until they move us all onto
DVD-audio players that don't have full-rate digital i/o, of course.
Anyone want proper digital i/o on their machines? Nope, didn't think
so.
> I disagree because people will not want to pay for something when they
> can get it for free.
There have always been ways for people to get music for free. My sister
(when she was about twelve, I hasten to add) used to tape stuff off the
radio. The quality was quite adequate for her purposes. These days she
buys records and CDs, just as I do.
> If people can get it for free they're not going to pay for it. People
> are naturally dishonest as a whole.
Then how come the record industry is still so profitable? There's been
no downturn in sales due to all this stuff in the UK. There's been a
slight downturn in the States, but that's more likely to be because
they're in recession at the moment (I didn't notice the record execs
pointing out that little infonugget in their pleading speeches, though).
And, of course, because they keep releasing shite that even the most
brainwashed of consumer zombies won't buy. How much did they lose on the
last Mariah Carey album?
G.
Graham Clark
> Now, I know some people are fine with illegal copies in their music
> collection, but personally I'd rather buy the CD and have a nice legal CD
> with some pretty artwork sitting in my CD racks (for one thing, they're a
> lot easier to tell apart), and I think a lot of people feel the same way
> (more than the record companies would have you believe).
Pretty much everyone I've met who is both interested in listening
to / collecting records, and much above about 16, feels this way. Judging
by the buoyant CD sales figures, I'd say this is probably not just my
experience.
G.
Kevin O'Gorman
>End of the day though a cassette has a very limited bandwidth and the
>quality was never that of the original. With digital technology the copy
>is just as good as the original as is every copy after that.
Not true in the case of the mp3 format, this. Quality is highly
dependent on encoders and bitrates and such, and no matter what you do
data is lost in the course of the conversion.
Nick/Yaruar
> > > I have a right to copy music I own on CD,
> >
> > Leagaly speaking No, Not unless they say you can.
>
> Fair use allows copies for personal use, such as backups, or copying
> to another media (such as making a tape to play in the car).
I though tone of the major flaws of british copyright legislation was the
lack of fair use clauses in the statute...
Although our IP legal team are in the pub so I can't check that one ;-)
It was one fo the great things when videos became widespread and it was
technically illegal to keep the recordings for a period of more than a
short time....
Nick/Yaruar - bating lawyers a speciality
John Hawkes-Reed
> chains. Unfortunatley for some bizarre reason people seem to prefer to
> shop at Virgin/HMV etc than at an independent even if that independent
> is cheaper.
"The public wants what the public gets" (God. Using Weller lyrics. How
much power can I go?)
> >I really don't buy the propaganda from GlobalRecordCorp.
> Somebody has to pay for the production, marketing, distribution of a
> record as well as pay the band. Yeah there may well be shiny suited
> execs getting rich in the process in large corps but that is a side
> effect.
No they don't. See other messages. Getting CDs pressed up costs around
sixpence these days. Vinyl's a bit more. (And follow the Albini link.
The maths is done for you.)
> Growing VERY fast - and I still think that most people who download
> and keep an MP3 do not go out and buy the album and I think that an
> even higher percentage of people who directly copy CDs don't then buy
> the original.
Well sidestepped. So, no hard numbers for $Bad_people then.
> >Record companies don't 'give' you money. It's an advance against sales.
> >(less promotion, video, t-shirt, etc, etc, costs)
> No but they offer it and it is essentially free money - because unless
> I'm wrong providing you supply the goods (singel/album/whatever) you
> don't pay - maybe you will never get paid either but it hasn't cost
> you.
Free money? Yer'avin a larf, you are. It's A LOAN. Shylock is a god to
these people.
Record companies get away with ripping musicians off because said
musicians are still daft enough to believe the above lie.
--
JH-R
Aidan Skinner
<yar...@twisted.org.uk> wrote in
<20020114130723...@toybox.twisted.org.uk>:
> On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Aidan Skinner wrote:
>
> > > > I have a right to copy music I own on CD,
> > >
> > > Leagaly speaking No, Not unless they say you can.
> >
> > Fair use allows copies for personal use, such as backups, or copying
> > to another media (such as making a tape to play in the car).
>
> I though tone of the major flaws of british copyright legislation was the
> lack of fair use clauses in the statute...
Apparenlty I'm wrong. This doesn't surprise me. ;)
John Hawkes-Reed
> Courtney's speech is at :
>
> http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/
>
> and is also worth reading. It's along the same lines.
Great Christ. Things are far worse than I thought.
--
JH-R
Nick/Yaruar
> ok...I've read the rest of the thread and thought I ought to mention
> something that rarely comes up in this kind of *ahem* discussion.
>
> Have you ever listened to the singles that an artist releases and thought
> "ooh, they're good, I must buy the album so I can listen to the rest of
> their music" then when you get the album home (by now 14.99ukp out of
> pocket) and have listened to it, you realise that the single is *the only
> good track on the album*?
I dunno, at least with VNV you know when you buy the album you will get
songs which all sound the same as the 3 singles you liked ;-)
Nick/Yaruar
Nick/Yaruar
> > "whatever conditions they want" the product becomes useless (i.e. it
> won't
> > play on my CD player) then it's a case of them forcing me NOT to buy
> > something that I'd actually quite like to buy.
>
> Hey, I'd like to buy a car with the looks and performance of a Ferrari
> but the price and fuel economy of my Peugeot diesel but do I start
> moaning at the car companies when they don't give me what I want? End of
> the day the company has it's priorities and if they think combatting
> piracy is more important than you being able to play the CD then tough
> shit.
A better analogy would be buying a car and believing it will take you from
a to b then finding when you reach the outskirts of london it has an
automatic cut off which won't allow it to be driven outside the
metropolis.
Although I still side with the artists and labels on this one, but am torn
between freedom of use and combatting widespread piracy.
Hopefully a more elegant solution will be achieved.
Although as always the markets will eventually deal with the problem with
people either stopping producing music, pirates stoppping production, or
more likely a equilibrium will be reached...
Nick/Yaruar
Chris Darkfire
<jk...@hplb.hpl.hp.com> scribbled with a virtual crayon
>No they don't. See other messages. Getting CDs pressed up costs around
>sixpence these days. Vinyl's a bit more. (And follow the Albini link.
>The maths is done for you.)
studio time etc etc that need to be paid for.
I fully agree that CDs are overpriced BUT a free process from band to
consumer cannot be maintained either. If there is anything inbetween
it has to be paid for by someone. Maybe we would be better with every
musician being in a part time job and recording on bedroom 8tracks but
I think not.
>> Growing VERY fast - and I still think that most people who download
>> and keep an MP3 do not go out and buy the album and I think that an
>> even higher percentage of people who directly copy CDs don't then buy
>> the original.
>
>Well sidestepped.
Absolutely :)
> So, no hard numbers for $Bad_people then.
Nope but they must be making an impact or the reason for the
converstaion would have never happened and the figures for Napster
hits etc is high. It would be hard to fully calculate - A straw poll
on here would probably give close to 100% of people who had either
downloaded an MP3 or copied a CD. Addmitedly this group is more
technology orientated but I still think it would be very high anyway.
>Free money? Yer'avin a larf, you are. It's A LOAN. Shylock is a god to
>these people.
It's a loan/advance whatever but if you sell bugger all records you
personally don't lose any money but company does. I'm willing to be
proved wrong on this as I've never released a record!
Whisky-Dave
> > There shouldn't be any enforced copy protection mechanisms at all.
>
I think it should be up to the creators of the music not the sellers.
> Yes there should or less-than-honest people will make copies and not pay
> for the product.
If you're talking of not being honest I think record companies come a close
second to polititions. :)
> So what are they supposed to do? Allow free copying of their product?
But it's not their product is it, they're only doing what they're doing to
make money
from someone elses talent. Technological speaking we are now in a postion of
not
needing record companies. If a band wants to make music it can.
The problem comes when you want to make money out of it.
In the same way Buck palace would work, you pay to go in but you
don't have to pay to take photos and the queen doesn't ask you for
money if you want to hang them on your wall.
> End of the day they are a business and what they need to do is to keep
> changing the copy protection or find a method that people won't be able
> to crack.
Well that's up to them, but I doubt everyone that previously copied will
them
pay out to buy pucka CDs in the future I guess most just won't bother.
Maybe putting music down on their list of prefered pastimes.
We've seen the cinema industry change.
From the hardly anyone anyone will go now you can rent on video,
to most old cinimas changing from 1 or 2 screens to increase to a
multiscreen.
There doesn't seem to be any shortage of readies to fund new movies.
> I disagree because people will not want to pay for something when they
> can get it for free.
But why shouldn't it be free? as free as a repeat on the BBC.
Or maybe I should charge bands for the time I spend listening to their music
;-)
> I think you have a very rose-tinted view of all this. Who is gonna want
> to buy something when they can get it for free?
Buy the is CD and get a free poster, cheap gig ticket, 2 quid of next album.
Free badge.
> If people can get it for free they're not going to pay for it. People
> are naturally dishonest as a whole.
It's not dishonest, just a way of maximising the use of personal resources
;-)
> End of the day it has become possible for
> people to make copies as good as the original in the same format very
> cheaply just by downloading it from the internet, a resource that was
> never available in the days of cassettes. Somehow this new music
> everyone wants has to be paid for
Why?, if a band or singer creates a tune why must only a select few
be allowed to make a profit (vast profits) from it.
Surely it should be up to the creator (no not God).
> something is not done now to copy protect the product then once everyone
> has access to this technology there will be no new music produced
> because
I think it'll go back to live music rather than squeeky clean prodcutions in
expensive
studios with expensive people.
> If you download an MP3
> and burn it onto a CD without the copyright holder's permission then you
> are a thief, simple as that.
> Now you try to justify your criminal
> tendencies
Is it ?.
[1] I've read a few Msc student reports (yeah I was bored) on software
piracy,
one of particular interest was viewing it from the Jewish perspective which
goes
a long way back . Theft is depriving someone of an item or idea.
i.e to take without persmission an item and the creator not having the
right to
use that item for himself.
[1] A student report that would need checking for it's historical accuracy
as well as it's curent content.
John Hawkes-Reed
>
> Last episode "John Hawkes-Reed" <hi...@netcity.co.uk> said:
> >But it's not the real thing, is it? (Unless you'm buying new Severed Heads
> >CDs, of course. Tom Ellard burns & prints them up himself. This is another
> >Good Thing b/c all my money's going to the people that made the music,
> >rather than on some tour-jacketed scumbag's coke-budget.)
>
> Of course, under that model, Severed Heads will never have another hit
> single.
(The buggers are supporting New Order. I am *way* jealous of Sydnites)
In point of fact, that's not true. There have been enough records that
made it well up the chart due to white labels getting into the hands of
Peelie or Pete Tong to prove it.
--
JH-R
John Hawkes-Reed
> OK maybe so but there are still other costs marketing, recouping
> studio time etc etc that need to be paid for.
Sod marketing. Factory never used to bother.
> I fully agree that CDs are overpriced BUT a free process from band to
> consumer cannot be maintained either. If there is anything inbetween
> it has to be paid for by someone. Maybe we would be better with every
> musician being in a part time job and recording on bedroom 8tracks but
> I think not.
I get my Severed Heads CDs for $12 each (inc P&P). No record company
sees my money. Why is this model so hard to understand?
[ But I have the same problem when discussing the GNU project or
anarchism. People just can't seem to understand how things can work
without The Lizards In Charge. ]
> > So, no hard numbers for $Bad_people then.
> Nope but they must be making an impact or the reason for the
> converstaion would have never happened and the figures for Napster
You really think so? Go read the Courtney Love article that Graham
pointed to.
> hits etc is high. It would be hard to fully calculate - A straw poll
> on here would probably give close to 100% of people who had either
> downloaded an MP3 or copied a CD. Addmitedly this group is more
> technology orientated but I still think it would be very high anyway.
That would be true, but that would be a desperately small sample of a
subculture that's (by and large) had to do without GlobalRecordCo for
quite some time, so has become reasonably good at finding its own
entertainment.
I wouldn't want to base an argument on that. Though it would suit The
Man (100% of people we asked on usenet download mp3s and pr0n! Ban
Usenet now!) down to the ground.
> It's a loan/advance whatever but if you sell bugger all records you
> personally don't lose any money but company does. I'm willing to be
> proved wrong on this as I've never released a record!
They loan you the dollar. If the record doesn't pay, you still owe them.
The (US) law has/is being changed to stop people declaring bankrupcy as
an escape.
--
JH-R
Graham Clark
lisp
*snip*
Use that universal ripping device - a phono to phono cable and a decent
audio set up.
--
(lisp) - http://www.technodykes.org/lisa
My other car's a cdr
Phildo RFL
"Kevin O'Gorman" <spi...@maths.tcd.ie> wrote in message
news:a1ul2a$4c0$1...@graves.maths.tcd.ie...
> "Phildo RFL" <Ph...@phildo.net> writes:
> >End of the day though a cassette has a very limited bandwidth and the
> >quality was never that of the original. With digital technology the
copy
> >is just as good as the original as is every copy after that.
>
> Not true in the case of the mp3 format, this. Quality is highly
> dependent on encoders and bitrates and such, and no matter what you do
> data is lost in the course of the conversion.
>
to the average user. Any copy made after that is as good as the 1st
generation copy.
Phildo
Phildo RFL
"John Hawkes-Reed" <jk...@hplb.hpl.hp.com> wrote in message
news:3C42AF88...@hplb.hpl.hp.com...
> Phildo RFL wrote:
>
> [ And Mandy Rice-Davis rules apply, of course ]
>
> > "Fredrik" <nerdsfer...@SOFTbtinternet.com> wrote in message
> > news:3C422381...@SOFTbtinternet.com...
> > > just explain to me why you think anyone needs a record company?
> > >
> > To get the product into the shops, to arrange publicity, to buy
> > advertising, to front the money to have the music recorded in the
first
>
> Um. That's a self-perpetuating wossname, y'know. GlobalRecordCorp paid
> (dunno, 25k was the figure I heard) to wallpaper Camden (and I mean
> *wallpaper*) with Llama Farmer handbills a couple of years ago. They
> are/were supposed to be an 'Indie' band on an 'Indie' label, mind. Did
> this shotgun-debug campaign hype the little buggers into the chart?
No.
> Did it raise the bar for other bands with the (percieved) same indie
> status and their associated garden-shed record labels? Oh yes indeed.
There are exceptions to every rule.
> On the other hand, someone of the order of [Macy Grey|Kelis|random
other
> Guardian-reader's fave] was 'publicised' by word of mouth alone.
> Allegedly. No information was forthcoming over how much viral
marketing
> went on there.
There are exceptions to every rule.
> On the third hand, dance culture does well enough without
> GlobalRecordCorp, thanks all the same. Largely because the production
> and consumption models don't fit how they work, unless you're the
> Chemicals or Orbital.
Dance culture doesn't sell nearly as many units as mainstream music. It
works but unless you are really into the scene you will never hear of
most of the artists involved.
> So it seems to me that the expensive kind of publicity that it does
take
> major financial welly to arrange is largely redundant.
From just 2 examples against thousands of others that say otherwise?
Just because you managed to find 2 exceptions to the rule the whole
multi-million pound industry is dead? Maybe I should call up the people
I work for and tell them to get packing now because JHR has deemed that
their jobs will be gone by the end of the week on the strength of two
examples that he managed to dig out which proved that their
long-established marketing departments, press agents, market analysts
and teams of professionals are all wrong and he is right?
>The sort of bands
> that get that treatment are the Britneys of the world - A tidy sum has
> already been invested, because this 'product' sprang fully-formed from
> some exec's forehead, so in order to recoup (and it's all about that
> word) they're forced by their own hands to carpet-bomb the available
> media.
Exactly. This is how the music industry works. It's true of all acts
though, not just the Britneys. Everyone incurs costs and these costs
need to be recouped and a profit made, same as any other business.
> Regarding the recording process, it was my understanding that digital
> portastudios are pretty much The Shit right now.
They're not bad. You still need to know how to use one and also get the
information into the machine though. You can give someone a top of the
line machine but if they don't have a clue how to work it then you
miught just as well have given them a dictaphone.
> Hell, if you're making
> weebly-weebly records, a copy of Reason or Fruityloops is all you
need.
> Machine punk rock, kids! Smash the system!
Great but 99% of what comes out of kids with those sort of set-ups is
unmitigated shite. All it does is make it harder for you to sort through
the dirt to find the diamonds. While I don't agree with the corporate
majors telling every body what music they like, I do think record
companies are a necessary evil and the anarchic system you seem to keen
on will only serve to lower the quality of music available for everyone.
> I absolutely don't deny that Proper Studios staffed by Trained
> Professionals are fine things, but there's a world of difference
between
> 'Audiophile' and 'Good enough for the cloth-eared gits who buy
top-40'.
Not as much of a difference as you might think. The majority of stuff
that comes off digital portastudios is crap because the people recording
it still have no clue about mic technique, compression etc etc.
Phildo
Whisky-Dave
>
> "David Gerard" <f...@thingy.apana.org.au> wrote in message
> news:slrna44d...@aspc083.longword.dyndns.org...
>
> > :Of courser there's a problem. You name me one company that makes a
> > :product and distributes it for free while still turning a profit?
> >
> > Red Hat.
>
> And who the fuck is that?
FYI It's a Linux operating system.
Linux is one of the better ways (because of the way it's written IIRC) to
back up your CD's including some copy protected one's including PS.
It's also free.
Ideal for us, we run about 80 PCs on Linux cause it's free,
else we;'d need to buy 80 Windoze OS's and 80 copies of office.
which aint cheap at half the price, but for nuffing :-)
> If they give up then where will the new music come from?
People that are in the music business for something other than profit.
> > War on your own customers is a battle you will *lose* once they
> realise
> > what's up.
>
> The war is not on the customers, it is on the thieves who choose to
> download their music and steal it instead of paying for it.
I'm not saying it isn't a valid worry but I think a time will/has come
when music will distributed by those that are intrested in the business
rather than those in the business of making money out of music.
John Hawkes-Reed
>
> John Hawkes-Reed <jk...@hplb.hpl.hp.com> writes:
> > Great Christ. Things are far worse than I thought.
>
> Courtney Love making sense, you mean?
Well, there's that as well.
The numbers aren't a surprise, and I was aware of some of the
lawmaking-for-profit that had gone on, but I'd not realised that US
radio was that bent.
Live and learn.
--
JH-R
kin...@hfwork1.tn.tudelft.nl
> Not as much of a difference as you might think. The majority of stuff
> that comes off digital portastudios is crap because the people recording
> it still have no clue about mic technique, compression etc etc.
Umm. In this case, you have failed to make an important distinction
between (potentially crap) sound-engineering and (potentially crap)
artistic content. In many cases I'd take dodgy sound but great
music over great sound-engineering but dodgy music.
#Paul
Graham Clark
> I don't think my
> (god forbid) children are going to have shelves full of plastic cases:
> depending on how things go they'll either have "pay-per-listen/view"
> agreements, digital "ownership" (download lyrics, replace cover art
> with free poster, whatever), and so on. In short, although I find the
> actions and intents of record companies reprehensible, I'm simply not
> sure whether the "mp3-lovers buy CDs too!" argument holds up in the
> long term.
>
> Comments?
If this changes things enough for the record industry to be in trouble,
then I guess that they'll just have to accept that the economic changes
which have made them obscenely rich will destroy them. After all, those
who live by the gun . . .
When it comes down to it, music was made and enjoyed before the industry
existed - and before copyright law existed. Plenty of bands have survived
off their Tshirt sales, getting nothing out of their record company and
record sales except publicity. Rely on webshites, magazines, newspapers
and radio stations instead. It won't be the end of the world.
G.
John Hawkes-Reed
[ ... ]
> There are exceptions to every rule.
Oh, indeed. I'm not in your business, so only the most egregious
money-wasting makes my radar. As it were.
But I'm sure there are many other examples of the publicity machine
being cranked to meltdown for no useful result.
> Dance culture doesn't sell nearly as many units as mainstream music. It
> works but unless you are really into the scene you will never hear of
> most of the artists involved.
Yes. That's true of any musical subculture. I pulled 'dance' out of the
Discussion Hat because it's this *huge* underground thing that can drive
fine records (and awful ones, but they seem to be mainstream-recordco
generated) into The Chart, and therefore public consciousness w/o huge
advertising spend or wall-to-wall rotation on MT-bloody-V and its myriad
hellspawn. That's just down to people going to the (non HMV/Virgin) shop
and buying a record they liked.
I note that Tongy played an Adfinem track the other week. First Whitby
band on the Essential Mix. Result! Goth is the new dance. Or something.
> From just 2 examples against thousands of others that say otherwise?
> Just because you managed to find 2 exceptions to the rule the whole
> multi-million pound industry is dead? Maybe I should call up the people
> I work for and tell them to get packing now because JHR has deemed that
> their jobs will be gone by the end of the week on the strength of two
> examples that he managed to dig out which proved that their
> long-established marketing departments, press agents, market analysts
> and teams of professionals are all wrong and he is right?
A chap can dream, damn your eyes! :)
[I'm with Bill Hicks on the subject of marketroids in general]
> Exactly. This is how the music industry works. It's true of all acts
> though, not just the Britneys. Everyone incurs costs and these costs
> need to be recouped and a profit made, same as any other business.
Quite so. It seems to me, though, that much of these costs are
self-generated. (The business of business is business) And it all does
seem arranged such that all the money ends up in the pockets of the
GlobalRecordCo execs, rather than the poor fool with the guitar who made
it up in the first place.
> They're not bad. You still need to know how to use one and also get the
> information into the machine though. You can give someone a top of the
> line machine but if they don't have a clue how to work it then you
> miught just as well have given them a dictaphone.
As you say. It took me about a year to be able to drive a PortaOne
properly - in that I'd stopped watching what the meters were doing and
was listening to what was going on. And I was, then, reasonably
proficient with analogue kit and knew one end of a 'scope from the
other.
> > Machine punk rock, kids! Smash the system!
>
> Great but 99% of what comes out of kids with those sort of set-ups is
> unmitigated shite. All it does is make it harder for you to sort through
> the dirt to find the diamonds. While I don't agree with the corporate
> majors telling every body what music they like, I do think record
> companies are a necessary evil and the anarchic system you seem to keen
> on will only serve to lower the quality of music available for everyone.
Sturgeon's law applies equally to all endeavours.
Removing the A&R layer will stop shite such as Proud Mary and f-ing
Toploader getting shelf-space, in favour of some more interesting bands
like (say) Leechwoman or Skinflowers, neither of whom are deemed 'an in
sound' by some coke-addled twat.
We buy music mags and listen to the wireless so they can manage the
editorialising process for us. It's no bloody use at all if what they're
handed is pre-processed by 'what the recordco thinks will sell next
month' They obviously have a financial interest in trying to shift the
crap that cost them the most in studio time or coke or plastic surgery
or whatever.
> Not as much of a difference as you might think. The majority of stuff
> that comes off digital portastudios is crap because the people recording
> it still have no clue about mic technique, compression etc etc.
I think what I'm trying to get at is that recording something reasonable
(Voodoo Ray was bodged up on a kitchen table, after all) isn't beyond
the wit of man. Neither does it take six months at Rockfield with daily
visits from the coke-bloke, regular bouts of tractor-polo and an
arse-wiping and AC30-polishing tech.
--
JH-R
Phildo RFL
"Aidan Skinner" <ai...@velvet.net> wrote in message
news:slrna45f3g...@crushed.velvet.net...
> On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 04:56:13 +0000 (UTC), Snooze Control
> <sno...@darkfurr.org> wrote in
> <ff2261a375179e9b968...@mygate.mailgate.org>:
>
> > > I have a right to copy music I own on CD,
> >
> > Leagaly speaking No, Not unless they say you can.
>
> Fair use allows copies for personal use, such as backups, or copying
> to another media (such as making a tape to play in the car).
>
I do have a problem with is the copies then being freely distributed on
the internet.
Phildo
Phildo RFL
> Of course, since I've been getting away with Crime for such a long
time,
> my sense of right and wrong have been irrepairably damaged and I now
> break The Law on an almost daily basis without a second thought. Only
> last night I was looking out some old 7" records and a Big Black
bootleg
> with the intention of burning them to CD. Whereas in actual fact, I
> should have been writing to GlobalRecordCo to ask them to release
> 'Working and shopping', 'Sound of impact' and Stanton's Home EP on CD
so
> I may line their pockets once again. Allegedly.
You obviously don't get it. Should you do this for your own use then
fine, you already own the original material and have (hopefully) paid
for it. Should you now however make copies of said CD and sell them or
give them away for free then you are now into serious piracy territory.
That is what the record companies and artists have a problem with.
Phildo
Phildo RFL
"Jozafeen" <indu...@BIGSPAMTRAPblueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ssv08.2168$gc1.19...@news-text.cableinet.net...
> If it wasn't for mp3, I wouldn't have bought as many cds by new bands
in the
> last year because the cost of them is too high to take a chance on a
new
> band without hearing them first. That's where the record companies
should be
> looking to increase their sales.
That is what MP3s are best at doing. It's the criminal element with
lower moral standards that rip whole CDs and put them on servers for
anyone to download that are ruining the best possible use the format
could have. MP3 is the best way a new artist can get heard but at the
end of the day people aren't satisfied with that and have to have all
the latest releases for free and sod everybody else.
> I know that the mainstream music fans at work resent the fact that new
bands
> hit the charts and already seem to be living a millionaire lifestyle
and
> big/rich enough to do arena tours, bring out their own dolls/spaghetti
and
> suchlike so it does no harm in their eyes to copy their output.
It's all image. They have to be seen to be successful so people will buy
their records. If Joe Public thinks everyone else likes a particular
artist he will like them too being the good little consumer sheep he is,
same as most of the record-buying population.
Phildo
Phildo RFL
"Chris Darkfire" <ng...@darkfire.co.uk.NOSPAMPLEASE> wrote in message
news:3c42e110...@news.freeserve.net...
> >Free money? Yer'avin a larf, you are. It's A LOAN. Shylock is a god
to
> >these people.
> It's a loan/advance whatever but if you sell bugger all records you
> personally don't lose any money but company does. I'm willing to be
> proved wrong on this as I've never released a record!
>
very shrewd with your contract when you first signed). I know of several
successful acts who are still paying back the record companies what they
owe them from previous attempts at fame that went wrong.
Phildo
Phildo RFL
> I get my Severed Heads CDs for $12 each (inc P&P). No record company
> sees my money. Why is this model so hard to understand?
It works great but how many people have heard of severed heads? How many
CDs can they honestly expect to sell without some form of marketing
push? Why is this model so hard for you to understand?
Phildo
Phildo RFL
"Whisky-Dave" <admira...@email.com> wrote in message
news:a1uo6i$761$1...@beta.qmul.ac.uk...
> > So what are they supposed to do? Allow free copying of their
product?
> But it's not their product is it, they're only doing what they're
doing to
> make money
> from someone elses talent.
So is every other company in the world. Every product has to have a
creative brain behind it who designs it. Every product has to have
someone who actually makes it. End of the day the company owns the
product and they sell it on to you while the people involved in its
creation get paid.
> Technological speaking we are now in a postion of
> not
> needing record companies.
Not true.
> If a band wants to make music it can.
And the money to do this comes from where exactly?
> The problem comes when you want to make money out of it.
Nope. You need money to make the product in the first place.
> We've seen the cinema industry change.
> From the hardly anyone anyone will go now you can rent on video,
> to most old cinimas changing from 1 or 2 screens to increase to a
> multiscreen.
> There doesn't seem to be any shortage of readies to fund new movies.
Can you try speaking English in future please? Would make your
arguements easier to understand.
Anyway (if I've managed to understand what you were trying to say)
you'll find people still do go out to the cinema as canm be seen by
visiting any multiscreen on a weekend. If the people will pay to go see
new films then the money will be found to make those new films.
> > I disagree because people will not want to pay for something when
they
> > can get it for free.
> But why shouldn't it be free?
Because it costs money to make in the first place.
> as free as a repeat on the BBC.
They're not free. Your licence fees goes to pay for them. The actors,
writers etc all get their royalties.
> Or maybe I should charge bands for the time I spend listening to their
music
Why? You are the consumer not the producer, the customer not the seller.
> > I think you have a very rose-tinted view of all this. Who is gonna
want
> > to buy something when they can get it for free?
> Buy the is CD and get a free poster, cheap gig ticket, 2 quid of next
album.
> Free badge.
People won't bother if they can download it for free.
> > End of the day it has become possible for
> > people to make copies as good as the original in the same format
very
> > cheaply just by downloading it from the internet, a resource that
was
> > never available in the days of cassettes. Somehow this new music
> > everyone wants has to be paid for
>
> Why?, if a band or singer creates a tune why must only a select few
> be allowed to make a profit (vast profits) from it.
> Surely it should be up to the creator (no not God).
The creator plus the people that front the investment needed to get that
creator and his product in front of the customers. These people aren't a
charity and want a return on their investment.
> > something is not done now to copy protect the product then once
everyone
> > has access to this technology there will be no new music produced
> > because
> I think it'll go back to live music rather than squeeky clean
prodcutions in
> expensive
> studios with expensive people.
I don't. I think it will kill the music industry and leave us with dodgy
bands playing pubs to a few of their mates while everyone goes out to
dance to soulless dance music. It's pretty much gone that way already
but MP3 piracy will be the final nail in the coffin.
> > If you download an MP3
> > and burn it onto a CD without the copyright holder's permission then
you
> > are a thief, simple as that.
> > Now you try to justify your criminal
> > tendencies
> Is it ?.
According to UK law, yes it is.
Phildo
John Hawkes-Reed
>
> John Hawkes-Reed wrote:
>
> >I get my Severed Heads CDs for $12 each (inc P&P). No record company
> >sees my money. Why is this model so hard to understand?
> >
> >[ But I have the same problem when discussing the GNU project or
> >anarchism. People just can't seem to understand how things can work
> >without The Lizards In Charge. ]
>
> their concerns using the solution - the Internet.
Quite.
Look chaps - you're communicating over the Usenet (a functional anarchy)
using products *given away* by the authors.
Obviously neither of these concepts can possibly work in the real world,
everything you see here is an illusion and The Man will be along soon to
give you more Soma.
--
JH-R
John Hawkes-Reed
A few more now... :) That's http://sevcom.com kids! Visit today!
I would imagine about the same set/number of people who've heard of
Cabaret Voltaire or Einsturzende Neubauten. They're not a band that's
been usefully marketed, and Lord knows enough labels have tried.
I'm not privy to the hard numbers of CDs sold. My understanding is that
it's been significantly more successful than was previously imagined.
--
JH-R
John Hawkes-Reed
> You obviously don't get it. Should you do this for your own use then
> fine, you already own the original material and have (hopefully) paid
> for it. Should you now however make copies of said CD and sell them or
> give them away for free then you are now into serious piracy territory.
> That is what the record companies and artists have a problem with.
Which is fair enough, but railroading through US laws (dunno what's
happening this side of the pond) such that I don't have the right to do
what I want with the CD I buy, or indeed have bits of my computer grass
me up to the FBI if I listen to an (Evil! Satanic! Unlicensed because
it's a home-brewed track) MP3... Isn't the way to get the clueful public
on your side.
Anyway. I was going by a/the UK copyright FAQ that I found here:
http://www.platopress.co.uk/copyright/faq/faq06a.htm
Which seems to be of the opinion that home recording is agin the rules
in the UK.
--
JH-R
Phildo RFL
> > > :Of courser there's a problem. You name me one company that makes
a
> > > :product and distributes it for free while still turning a profit?
> > >
> > > Red Hat.
> >
> > And who the fuck is that?
>
> FYI It's a Linux operating system.
Then how do they make money if it's free?
Phildo
Phildo RFL
<kin...@hfwork1.tn.tudelft.nl> wrote in message
news:hsru1a...@luke.lsr.ph.ic.ac.uk...
recording quality we were discussing not the quality of the actual
music. JHR tried to claim top studios were as good as proper studios
with skilled engineers, I merely put him right.
Phildo
kin...@hfwork1.tn.tudelft.nl
> No, it is you who has failed to notice the distinction that it was
> recording quality we were discussing not the quality of the actual
> music. JHR tried to claim top studios were as good as proper studios
> with skilled engineers, I merely put him right.
I "failed to notice" because your post, which I just reread to make
sure, didn't really make it. Not to me, anyhow.
#Paul
kin...@hfwork1.tn.tudelft.nl
They sell Red-Hat related services. Just like if you gave away
copies of some sort of Phildo's-Wibble-It magazine with the
knowledge that some of the readers would then hire you to wibble
for them.
#Paul
Taoist (Dark Trix)
> > > > Red Hat.
> > >
> > > And who the fuck is that?
> >
> > FYI It's a Linux operating system.
>
> Then how do they make money if it's free?
The money is made from the support of the product.
Taoist
Kevin O'Gorman
>That is what MP3s are best at doing. It's the criminal element with
>lower moral standards that rip whole CDs and put them on servers for
>anyone to download that are ruining the best possible use the format
>could have.
It's easier to decide that an album is worth buying once you've heard
tracks other than the singles. Not to mention the fact that downloading
a full album over a 56k or less modem link (still the most common consumer
connection) is tedious and error-prone, so people aren't very likely to do it.
Not to mention the fact that once they do, if they copy it to CD they do
experience a loss in quality, granted not as much as they'd get with
cassettes.
And it's really idiotic to talk about moral standards when you make
even a cursory examination of the music industry, which I presume you have
at some stage. The labels do everything in their power to divest the
artists of copyrights and money, people offering mp3s for download are
at worst just ignoring the issue of copyright.
K.
-
--
me: http://stunbunny.org
I have the world's worst haircut.
Spooky
> > Technological speaking we are now in a postion of
> > not
> > needing record companies.
> Not true.
I'd argue that Dave is right and you are wrong.
> > If a band wants to make music it can.
> And the money to do this comes from where exactly?
You don't need money. The advances in home recording softward is rendering
hardware obselete. It's arguable if software will ever replace hardware
completely because it doesn't have the same *feel*, but it CAN do the same
job.
You don't even need money to buy it if you download a cracked copy off the
net, but then that's a different can of worms altogether. :o/
> > The problem comes when you want to make money out of it.
> Nope. You need money to make the product in the first place.
Only to initially press it, and if that initial pressing sells then it
becomes self financing.
P
Kevin O'Gorman
>Then how do they make money if it's free?
Support, and people also often choose to buy the boxed version, either out
of love or for the paper manuals/convenience of not having to download the
bloody thing, coz it's really big.
Jem
> Sadly those that choose to steal their music instead of buying it are
> making life difficult for you. Don't blame the record companies, blame
> the music pirates.
The music companies are reacting to their inability to cope with the new
media. Had they got on the bandwagon ahead of time by, perhaps, setting up
an infrastructure where music could be acquired online legally, they
wouldn't be in this mess now. It's still their outdated attitude to the
music industry that is preventing this from happening now. They're not
competing against each other because they all have different artists. In
fact, the complete opposite is true: if I buy a CD of one genre and I like
the style, then I will buy more music of the same genre regardless of the
label. If they all agreed to share their music on-line through authorised
distributers, with a fixed fee to download the tracks, just think how much
easier that would be for Joe Public than trawling through the filesharing
networks.
There is no way to copy protect music. Period. It cannot be done. If it can
be made audible, it can be recorded. Stuff the quality - MP3 is a lossy
format, but it's also the most popular. All the record industry can do is
inconvenience the pirates, who will be able to mass produce a workaround to
suit their ends, and the users who find they can't play music that they have
purchased on equipment that they own.
> The war is not on the customers, it is on the thieves who choose to
> download their music and steal it instead of paying for it.
The thieves in this instance are the ones least likely to be affected by the
actions of the record industry, while the customers suffer immediately.
Copy protection of music is absolutely impossible. Otherwise, there wouldn't
be any MP3 copies of VNV Nation's "Genesis" CD out there. It's a waste of
time, money, and effort by the record companies. It results in them selling
an inferior product at higher cost, inconveniencing their customers, and
totally failing to deter pirates.
That's the whole point. It doesn't work now. It will never work.
Jem
> > > > :Of courser there's a problem. You name me one company that makes
> a
> > > > :product and distributes it for free while still turning a profit?
> > > >
> > > > Red Hat.
> > >
> > > And who the fuck is that?
> >
> > FYI It's a Linux operating system.
>
> Then how do they make money if it's free?
By repackaging it, offering additional services and features. People can
download it from the net for nothing. Or they can buy a prepackaged
distribution with a manual, a support contract, extra software etc etc.
In other words, a similar model to the one I was advocating for the music
business in my original post. The product is free (operating system, music,
or whatever) but you pay for the package.
Jem
"Taoist (Dark Trix)" <jimco...@lineone.net> wrote in message
news:jlE08.289$X5.4...@news.randori.com...
...not only that. While you can download it for free you can also purchase
it in a box with a manual in PC World or other computer store. Phildo
reckons people won't pay for a product that they can illegally download for
free. If that's the case, then why are people paying for a packaged product
that they can legally download for free?
Jem
news:ff2261a375179e9b968...@mygate.mailgate.org...
> Ultimately I think this is what will break this little sceme.
> Unless they bring out cd players that can handle this format then nobody
will
> by it and most people wouldn't invest in such a player unless all the
major
> companies all released just copy protected CD's at which point sombody
would
> either bring out software to get round the new standard and we would be
back
> where we started.
Hmm... Sony, for example, are defending their right to copy protect music,
and they also produce music players. Maybe they want CD copy protection to
inconvenience users so much that they have to buy approved hardware (also
lining the pockets of the record companies) to play copy protected music.
Call me a cynic.
> (Who buys a DVD player that can't do multi region these
> days?)
Most people, I would say, given that you can pick up a Region 2 player for
£90 in Asda. OK, so most DVD players can be region unlocked, but most people
don't bother to unlock them. The Region 2 DVD range is perfectly adequate
for your average consumer, so they wouldn't be interested in buying imported
DVDs.
That's part of the problem - consumer apathy.
Jem
> Of course, since I've been getting away with Crime for such a long time,
> my sense of right and wrong have been irrepairably damaged and I now
> break The Law on an almost daily basis without a second thought. Only
> last night I was looking out some old 7" records and a Big Black bootleg
> with the intention of burning them to CD. Whereas in actual fact, I
> should have been writing to GlobalRecordCo to ask them to release
> 'Working and shopping', 'Sound of impact' and Stanton's Home EP on CD so
> I may line their pockets once again. Allegedly.
>
There's another argument against the record industry. All their figures
about loss of income assume that every piece of music that is copied would
have led to a sale. This is not true. A friend in the US sent me a mix tape
containing around 20 tracks. I liked two, and was entirely indifferent about
the rest. I purchased the CD from which the two tracks came. I would not
have heard that music had it not been for the mix tape, therefore I would
not have purchased that CD. However, even if I had heard the other tracks
from some legitimate source (eg on the radio) I would not have purchased
those CDs.
Once again, the argument returns to my original suggestion of purchasing a
license to mix and match music. The music could be easily accessible online,
for a low cost, and I could legitimately make my own mix CDs. Alternatively,
I could purchase the non-copy protected CD from a store (along with anything
else in the package that adds value to my purchase) and cut my own mix CD or
MP3 collection.
Jem
>
> "Fredrik" <nerdsfer...@SOFTbtinternet.com> wrote in message
> news:3C422381...@SOFTbtinternet.com...
> > just explain to me why you think anyone needs a record company?
> >
> To get the product into the shops, to arrange publicity, to buy
> advertising, to front the money to have the music recorded in the first
> place etc etc. Plenty of reasons. It's OK for smaller acts who only sell
> a few hundred CDs to sell direct but without the clout of a major record
> company behind them a small act is all they will ever be.
That's true, but the record company decides which music gets put in the
shops in the first place. Popular music isn't popular because the public
want to hear it, it's popular because the record industry makes it so.
That's a very sad state of affairs, and it's seen the demise of some top
quality acts.
Even when a band succeeds in getting a record contract they're always
stitched up by the record company, who always make far more money out of the
contract than the artists themselves. Even a loss making band could be
profitable for a record company.
But Phildo's right - how can a struggling band get the finance and resources
to get themselves off the ground without the record industry? No bank's
going to lend money to a pop group! It's not right, but it's the way the
world works.
Jem
news:slrna44d...@aspc083.longword.dyndns.org...
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2002 14:31:00 -0000,
> Jem <j...@gothgems.f9.co.uk> wrote:
>
> :Apparently there has been a lot of consumer resistance to the copy
> :protection on VNV Nation's Genesis CD Single. I know of at least one
person
> :who had to work hard to bypass the protection in order to make a
legitimate
> :copy (i.e. for personal use) of the CD that he had purchased.
>
>
> Has anyone gotten a comment from the band yet? Let's see how arrogant
Human
> League copyists can get over the originality of their art ...
Presumably the band back the record company, but it would be interesting to
hear their views on the general debate. I only picked VNV Nation because
their copy protected single is generating a lot of comment anyway.
Bands need to maximise their publicity and their income. A record company
will help with the publicity, but will actually reduce their potential
income (they take a cut after all). Usually the record company has them by
the balls until the band is powerful enough to take control of their own
destiny. Unfortunately the only real power they ever get is the ability to
choose another record company.
The record company simply have profits in mind. They don't care about the
bands (there are more where they came from) and they clearly don't care
about the consumers. Unfortunately they have the power to steamroller both
the bands and the consumer.
The consumer should have the real power for change, but how do we use it?
Napster should have been a wake-up call to the record industry but they
missed the point...
...or did they?
Their answer was to copy protect CDs. People clearly want to be able to
download music to play on their computers. The copy protection stops people
playing CDs on their computers. The record industry closed down Napster, and
they're working on the others. So, at the end of all this the music
companies will have control of the computer download market, and they'll
have stopped you playing CDs on your computer.
Result - you have to buy your music twice. Once to play on your CD player,
and again to download.
Stop them now. We have the power!
Loki
"Graham Clark" > If this changes things enough for the record industry to
be in trouble,
> then I guess that they'll just have to accept that the economic changes
> which have made them obscenely rich will destroy them. After all, those
> who live by the gun . . .
> >
>
> G.
>
Loki scrawled:-
I could not agree more, record companies charge a lot for a CD, make a
fortune out of it; anything that hurts the big ones is fine with me!
DJ'ing next at:-
For the latest news on clubs, live events
and for music reviews
go to:- www.loki-music.co.uk
Loki
"Jozafeen" >
> If it wasn't for mp3, I wouldn't have bought as many cds by new bands in
the
> last year because the cost of them is too high to take a chance on a new
> band without hearing them first. That's where the record companies should
be
> looking to increase their sales.
--
Loki scrawled:-
I agree, I download listen and if I like it, I but it
Loki
--
Loki scrawled:-
IMHO the records companies who put on this so called protection should mark
it on the CD case in big letters, if I buy a CD I have the right to play it
with whatever CD media I chose and if it's not marked then I would want my
money back. (not suitable for ther purpose it was intended) as it says in
the "sales of goods act".
The protection is not that hard to get over, if you have a decent music
system then plat it on that connect leads to the tape monitor output sockets
and straight into the in socket on the soundcard on the PC and record it.
Years ago there was a campaign from the music industry "Home tapeing is
killing music" it didn't and nor will P2P, and if it hurts the big names in
the industry, then IMO all well and good; they've had it their way for too
long.
One advantage of P2P is that it does enable users to get hold of deleted
songs, which they cannot buy, so what's the problem with that.
the audiogalaxy url that was given by somebody earlier in this thread
should read www.audiogalaxy.com
Phildo RFL
> Neither does it take six months at Rockfield with daily
> visits from the coke-bloke, regular bouts of tractor-polo and an
> arse-wiping and AC30-polishing tech.
>
Ah, you were also at the recording of a yet-to-be-released CD by a band
who seem quite popular on here then? You just described their time at
Rockfield to a "T".
Phildo