Music Piracy War: A waste of time?

[TarJak]

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...328-1ccrl.html

Interesting article on new research which suggests music piracy alone is not to blame for a decline in recorded music sales.

I've always subscribed to the theory that people who access pirated material are not potential customers anyway and would be unwilling to buy the content regardless of the cost.

The question I have is whether increasing availability of pirated music means a growth in people wanting their music for nothing. Certainly it mus degrade the prices paid for the content.

What say you?

[Jimbuna]

IMHO the people who pirate the music only do so because a, it is free and b, they have no intention of paying and wouldn't anyway if that was their sole option.

[TarJak]

What is interesting in the research is that live music spending has grown to be a larger market than recorded music spending. Maybe people would rather see their favourite band than just hear them?

Also what do you think of the "License to download" idea? Would that work?

[danlisa]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Also what do you think of the "License to download" idea? Would that work?

Why would people who purchase music legally agree to paying an additional levy on their connection? Could work, but would be a PR nightmare.

I also agree with your understanding of Piracy = Lost Sale. How can the music industry quantify lost revenue when someone who downloads a track would never have bought it in the first place. 'Piracy' is a usable buzz word to explain their own shortcomings in their business practices.

I lost any/all sympathy (If I ever had any) with the Music Industry the moment they introduced Broadcast Licensing and Copyright Licensing to all audible devices (office radios, on hold music etc....). For my office, my employers would need an annual license just to play a local Radio Station that would total approx £3500 because it can be 'possibly' heard by more than 5 people.

So, personally I think they could look a little closer to home for a solution to their dwindling sales.

[NeonSamurai]

Canada has(had?) a similar with recordable media like blank cassette tapes where a premium was attached to the sticker price (sort of a hidden tax) that was then distributed to the music companies. As a result here it is perfectly legal to copy your friend's music cds and the like. However I am not sure that the law has kept up, as I am not aware of any premiums on mp3 players, or devices that hold data (hard drives, usb keys etc).


Anyhow I am not overly convinced that piracy of anything = lost sales most of the time (definitely not the absurd 1-1 ratio the industrys likes to tout). For one thing, pirates pirate way more then they could ever possibly afford. Some pirates do the try before you buy thing, or buy what they liked best. Also in the article I think they are right, people have far less disposable income now, what with all the crap everyone thinks they need (Iphones, Ipods, multiple computers, plasma TVs, console systems, etc). So its not surprising that sales for music (and games) would be down. Plus the added cost of all this DRM which in the end does almost nothing to stop or slow down rates of piracy.

The industries would be better off focusing on areas that are difficult to pirate, like live music venues, and for games online/bonus content.

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

The industries would be better off focusing on areas that are difficult to pirate, like live music venues, and for games online/bonus content.

I agree they have been sticking their heads in the sand for years trying to prop up model that has very little relevance in this day and age.

[Torplexed]

I think that the idea of free music on the internet is so powerful not because it’s free, but because it allows us to minimize the risk of being cheated. Free is so enticing because it eliminates the risk of buyer’s remorse. Nobody wants to buy something and then discover that it’s not what they expected. Even if the price of that thing is just a few cents, the psychological aversion still exists. When something is free, that risk is eliminated entirely. It may still not be what you expected, but at least you didn’t lose anything by paying for it.

There’s an entire group of people under the age of about 30 who believe that music should be free because that’s the world they’ve grown up in. So that’s where the future lies. The reason Steve Jobs and Apple have been so spectacularly successful at reinventing the music business is because they’re the only ones who’ve managed to invent a hardware and software platform that mitigates the risk factors involved in owning music and appeals to younger people. And they made it sexy and stylish. Apple didn’t win on technology. Nobody does, ultimately. They won on business smarts.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by TarJak

I've always subscribed to the theory that people who access pirated material are not potential customers anyway and would be unwilling to buy the content regardless of the cost.

Do you also subscribe to a theory that people who rob banks are probably not the bank's potential customer and are unwilling to save their money?

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The record industry itself has a long history of cheating the performers and creators out of their just due, from Alan Lomax, a producer, putting his own copywright on unclaimed songs to collect royalties to Fantasy Records tricking John Fogerty into a contract that forced him to pay royalties to the record company every time he performed his own songs.

never heard of this example before - paying to play your own songs - insane!

Originally Posted by DarkFish

I don't know about other cultures, but amongst metalheads it's pretty much an obligation to buy albums of bands you like. Not for the music, you can get that everywhere across the interwebz, but to support those bands. In the same way that you buy band merchandise (shirts and stuff) from their official retailers. You can print your own shirt for half the prize, but you don't support the bands by it so it's considered really cheap to do so.

Same in Punk/HC - no I'm not talking about Blink 182 , not so much in terms of merch however, more regarding the music. I think this is one of the last music genres where 7 inches are still common.
I might add that most independent bands play their arses off in live performances and sell their stuff at concerts. So every cent goes directly to the band.

This is the way it should be: work for your money ya lazy bastards and perform on a stage!

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Do you also subscribe to a theory that people who rob banks are probably not the bank's potential customer and are unwilling to save their money?

Yes I do. It doesn't make either action right. Do you know somewhere you can download free money?

[tater]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Yes I do. It doesn't make either action right. Do you know somewhere you can download free money?

Qualify for EITC or other welfare.

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by tater

Qualify for EITC or other welfare.

EITC?

Yes but you have to qualify for those so the don't count.

The point is that the bank robber analogy is a very poor one in this case..
I don't know any bank robbers but I don't see them as being potential customers, otherwise they wouldn't need to rob a bank.

Back on topic....

My kids pointed out to me last night that illegal downloads are now redundant anyway as they consume most of their free music from YouTube.

[GoldenRivet]

When i was a kid... 16, 17, 18 years old, and i liked a band, i used to go down to best buy, or wal mart or wherever - and buy their CD.

I still have many of those CDs in near perfect condition. but thats it... i cant remember the last time i walked into a store and purchased a CD, and other than an impulse buy of some romantic music with my wife or something in the check out lane - i havnt purchased a CD in probably 10 years or more.

the reason behind it?

there are several.

for starters take a look at ipods. you no longer have to buy a whole album with 20 songs on it just so you can listen to the same three favorites over and over again - with itunes for example, you can just nab any individual song for 99 cents.

another great music source is youtube. in the mood for a specific song? just search it on youtube, chances are it is uploaded there. Sure youtube may remove the video, but it will be right back up tomorrow.

Pandora Internet Radio... it costs nothing and you can listen to music all day long, 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year.

In the history of recorded music there have been hundreds of format changes as technology comes along to allow for better listening or recording etc.

in my lifetime alone we have gone from vinyl records, to 8-tracks, to cassette tapes, to CDs, to mp3s to ipods etc... now my phone has more physical memory available just for the purpose of holding songs than my computer did just 5 or 6 years ago. I have argued that the 70s through today have been among the most interesting times to grow up and live in because things are advancing so fast its almost like being in a time machine i mean, there are kids today who are 20 years old and have never seen a vinyl record in action - let alone used one or went to the store on a mission to BUY one.

one interesting thing now is we are undergoing not only a change in format to digital music - with the various file types etc... but accessibility to music has changed drastically in the past decade.

children are alive today, who will grow up to find it ludicrous that people once actually had to physically go to a store to get the music they wanted to hear.

i dont think piracy is the problem


i think that the industry itself - despite its best efforts - has not been able to grow and adapt as fast as the technology - the format changes - and the accessibility to music has been able to grow and change over a relatively short time span.

when we went from 8 track tapes to cassette tapes not a great deal changed... sure, cassettes were smaller and more portable than 8-tracks, and yes... the cassettes held more music but on the whole, it wasn't really a major leap in technology.

it wasnt a major leap at all, it was a baby step.

in fact all the format changes have been baby steps... until recently.

the baby steps the music industry has been taking since the first recordings have been the norm, but now... the baby is expected to take huge sprawling giant strides.

[gimpy117]

I think music piracy is a reaction to a bad business model. Ipods can hold 30,000 songs. at $1.00 who has the money to buy all that music?

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Yes I do. It doesn't make either action right. Do you know somewhere you can download free money?

Become a big corporation?