posted
This ad was recently released by the Consumer Electronics Association. Of course, the CEA can't advocate too strongly against anti-consumer/anti-piracy measures, because CEA members like Apple have a vested interest in using DRM to maintain their market position.
quote:Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Andrew Cash and Bob Wiseman (Co-founder Blue Rodeo)
Their policy bullets are interesting:
quote:1. Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical
2. Digital Locks are Risky and Counterproductive
3. Cultural Policy Should Support Actual Canadian Artists
Here is a good summary of all of this. I think that as the major record labels increase their efforts to put a stop to both copyright infringement and fair use, these sorts of counterarguments are only going to proliferate. I see that as a good thing, because I'm not interested in buying copy-protected CDs that I can't put on my iPod, and the less DRM my iTunes Music Store downloads come with, the better. It hasn't interfered with my fair use so far, but that's only because I own an iPod. Plenty of people don't.
If anything, the record industry's efforts have resulted in me buying less major-label music, not more.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
The reason I don't buy music anymore isn't because of record companies trying to protect copywrite. Its because todays music is crappy and not worth forking over any of my money. If they would produce good music there wouldn't be this problem.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Occasional, your knowledge of contemporary must truely be encyclopediac if you can make such a statement.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Foust, I think he is generalizing rather than trying to maintain that *no one* puts out anything worthwhile.
Twinky, thanks for that, it is, indeed, good to hear.
I realized the other day (I haven't bought a CD in years because I had had it with record agencies, myself, long before they started suing their customers) that CDs are generally more expensive than DVDs. considering the production costs of video versus audio and the amount of time spent creating each one, not to mention what you actually get, I am again reminded that the RIAA and the five major labels (which are probably down to 2 by now, do Sony and Virgin own everything yet?) are a coalition to rip off the most people possible, including their own artists.
Fortunately they are dying, and good riddance.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: Its because todays music is crappy and not worth forking over any of my money. If they would produce good music there wouldn't be this problem.
So says everyone. I don't believe it. At least, I don't believe that's the real, entire reason for the vast majority of consumers.
But I'm going to leave this alone for now...I have to do preproduction in 30min, and it would be really bad for me to get worked up before that.
quote:I realized the other day (I haven't bought a CD in years because I had had it with record agencies, myself, long before they started suing their customers) that CDs are generally more expensive than DVDs.
What's interesting is that when CDs first became available, they were a lot more expensive than cassettes, despite being simpler to manufacture. The record industry claimed that this was a result of the newness of the manufacturing process, and that over time, prices would decline.
That didn't happen, of course -- and it wasn't until after the settlement in that link that we started to see discount retailers selling new CDs for less. Here in Canada, discounted new releases at our Best Buy equivalent (and now subsidiary), Future Shop, went from $16 to $14 to $12, and now some are as low as $10.
But, of course, the defendants in the suit didn't admit guilt. And they've been trying to do the same thing with the online model. Fortunately, so far they haven't been able to get Apple, the biggest player, to allow variable per-track pricing anywhere except in Japan.
quote:So says everyone. I don't believe it. At least, I don't believe that's the real, entire reason for the vast majority of consumers.
I'm curious as to what you think the reasons are. I don't think it has much, if anything, to do with copyright infringement.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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The vast majority of music I actually buy is on small, local labels or directly from bands. It tends to be the same price or cheaper, much better, and a larger portion of the money actually goes to the artists.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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it's entirely probable that a band can earn a gold record (gold CD now?) and end up in debt to their record company... one source of so-called "one hit wonders"
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Apple gets around some record labels by doing their own recordings. iTunes exclusives or something.
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: The reason I don't buy music anymore isn't because of record companies trying to protect copywrite. Its because todays music is crappy and not worth forking over any of my money. If they would produce good music there wouldn't be this problem.
Huh. And just today, I was gushing to my friends about how the advent of easy online distribution methods has caused a huge (and awesome) renaissance of GOOD pop music from the indie community. I mean, seriously. The latest records from Broken Social Scene, The New Pornographers, Pinback, Sleater-Kinney, Spoon, and Arctic Monkeys alone are some of the best rock music produced in the last twenty years. And that's just picking a list off the top of my head. Give me an hour or two to look through my iTunes playlist and I could give you twenty more bands.
Back on topic... good for these Canadian artists. I'm not a big fan of most of them, but it's good to see some big names recognizing what the independent labels have known all along.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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If it were cheap and easy to get and use music, I'd buy a lot more. I hate buying an expensive CD when I've only heard one or two of the songs, and I can guess that most of the rest will sound exactly the same, or won't be any good.
I don't want to download a song and not be able to burn it to a CD, or have to deal with some installed "protection" program, or only be able to use it with one portable device or one piece of software.
If the music companies would work with the consumers, instead of trying to screw them out of their money, they'd have a lot more fans, and get a lot more music sold.
I feel about the music industry now like I did about baseball after the strike. It's a bunch of spoiled, rich babies trying to get even more rich at everyone else's expense. To that I say, go to hell. I won't support you being a jerk and trying to rip me off. If you don't treat your customers with kindness and respect, don't expect their money.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: I don't want to download a song and not be able to burn it to a CD, or have to deal with some installed "protection" program, or only be able to use it with one portable device or one piece of software.
Oooh, that's another one that pisses me off. I bought a bunch of songs from Sony. When I did so, the agreement was that they were usable on the sony proprietary software and that I had 5 "transfers" which could either be a burned CD or to a mobile device as an mp3.
That was fine... exactly what I wanted, in fact.
But after using less than two transfers on most of my music, Sony re-did their licensing, ex post facto, and disallowed CD burning *entirely* unless you had a Vaio computer.
That was the last straw for me. I haven't paid anyone but the artist themselves for a piece of music since.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:If it were cheap and easy to get and use music, I'd buy a lot more.
What would be a "fair" price and who gets decide what the value of music should be? There will always be someone that thinks it's too cheap or too expensive.
quote:I don't want to download a song and not be able to burn it to a CD, or have to deal with some installed "protection" program, or only be able to use it with one portable device or one piece of software.
Unfortunately I think restrictions are here to stay, mostly because people have shown that they are willing and able to illegally distribute music to a significant degree. Although, I do think the services that allow burning to a CD, which is most of them, are pretty decent.
quote:It's a bunch of spoiled, rich babies trying to get even more rich at everyone else's expense.
I feel this way about most corporatations. Unfortunately, if I really want their product, then I have no choice but to pay what they demand.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by camus: Unfortunately I think restrictions are here to stay, mostly because people have shown that they are willing and able to illegally distribute music to a significant degree.
and they still are... all you have to do is d/l the mp3 into your player, then play it back from the headphone jack into a program like soundforge. Then convert the .wav to .mp3. Done. All they do is make creating copies of your music not worth doing unless you intend to actually do it large scale.
quote: Although, I do think the services that allow burning to a CD, which is most of them, are pretty decent.
Well I know Music Match, Napster, and Sony would not allow burning to a CD when I checked them out. iTunes did, but I was horrified at the sound quality... the worst CD burns I ever made.
As I said above I gave up after that.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Yeah, we bought some tracks for Music Match when they did allow CD burning-- and then they re-wrote to disallow CD burning. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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MightyCow, just do one of the techno-workarounds that every geek has to make right-free copies of their musicmatch and napster content. I've heard it isn't too tough.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:If it were cheap and easy to get and use music, I'd buy a lot more.
What would be a "fair" price and who gets decide what the value of music should be? There will always be someone that thinks it's too cheap or too expensive.
I think that if most people think the price is too high, then it's probably not a fair price.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: used CD stores are your friend. so is buying direct from the artist.
Going to hear the live music(when possible) is great, and liking bands who allow taping and trading of their performances helps, too.
There is a huge pool of free music to download. It helps the bands, and people usually like to have the studio cds of bands they like, so it does not hurt sales.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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After the Sony rootkits, I have trouble convincing myself to risk purchasing music again. I do if the artist is worth it, but only if certain conditions are met -- and it's a huge selling point if the publishing company isn't in the RIAA. I don't think I'll ever buy anything Sony again, I'm sick of their proprietary crap.
Also, I've never bought anything off iTunes and probably never will. I can buy a CD for only a few dollars more than a digital album -- and even with the similar prices (and practically free distribution model Apple practices), a CD will offer me WAY higher bitrate and limitless backups. I have no interest in bringing DRM into my life. Honestly, I've never really understood those that do.
I'm hoping Sun's DReaM will be more worthwhile than its current competitors. If ever there's a company that can't afford to be evil...
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: MightyCow, just do one of the techno-workarounds that every geek has to make right-free copies of their musicmatch and napster content. I've heard it isn't too tough.
Not to rain on the parade, but as I understand it these 'work-arounds' (i.e. defeating copyright measures) are felony offenses. I wouldn't be caught dead doing them. I'm not impressed with most of the new music and I'm DEFINATELY not impressed with the RIAA. Therefore, I haven't bought a CD for myself in years or downloaded songs illegally. So I guess you could say the RIAA scare tactics do work, but they are a two edged sword that drives away customers.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Honestly, I've never really understood those that do.
For me, it's availability and convenience. I can get albums on iTMS that I can't buy locally, and I can buy them whenever I like. When I do buy them, the album is on my machine well within five minutes of me clicking the "buy" button, and I don't even have to leave my apartment. I store all of my music on my computer in lossy formats, and generally don't notice a huge difference between my ripped files (192k MP3 and 160k AAC) and my purchased files (edit: 128k AAC) on the 5.1 speaker system that my computer is connected to.
Basically, it's good enough, and because I own an iPod (er... two iPods), the DRM hasn't been an issue for me.
posted
Live shows are great, and I like bands with liberal taping policies. I haven't bought a CD in years, but I would buy the hell out of CDs if they were only a couple dollars a piece. I'm never going to buy any music that is all DRM'd up.
Neil Young had the good idea streaming his entire album from his website on the day of the most recent release.
Still, it feels like the only thing that would fix this (And the tiered Internet plan, and a million other things) would be a vast revolt against dirty corporations. They do have all the money, but if enough people are determined enough, they could show that real power comes from people, not cash.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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