quote:I've never seen anything to convince me that it is costing either the artists or the labels money
I know plenty of people that illegally download songs that feel absolutely no obligation to purchase other songs, merchandise, or give at least some support in any other way to the artist or label. Many times these people are willing to purchase the album, but only if they can't get the album from a friend or p2p network. In fact, just the other day one of my friends said that she was going to buy a certain CD, but she was going to try to get a friend to copy it for her first, in which case she would no longer need to purchase the CD. So in these cases the artists and labels are most definitely being deprived of money.
Granted, these anecdotal examples don't exactly represent any specific portion of file sharers, but at the same time, it shows that these types do exist and I'm pretty sure that there are others besides the ones that I personally know.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:I've never seen anything to convince me that it is costing either the artists or the labels money
I know plenty of people that illegally download songs that feel absolutely no obligation to purchase other songs, merchandise, or give at least some support in any other way to the artist or label. Many times these people are willing to purchase the album, but only if they can't get the album from a friend or p2p network. In fact, just the other day one of my friends said that she was going to buy a certain CD, but she was going to try to get a friend to copy it for her first, in which case she would no longer need to purchase the CD. So in these cases the artists and labels are most definitely being deprived of money.
Granted, these anecdotal examples don't exactly represent any specific portion of file sharers, but at the same time, it shows that these types do exist and I'm pretty sure that there are others besides the ones that I personally know.
I don't think anyone's arguing that everyone is one way or the other about using filesharing as a replacement or preview for music purchases; the debate centers around which side is in more abundance, and whether the artists & record companies are experiencing a net gain/loss. Given the lack of reliable information in this regard, I've abstained from commenting on that part.
JT, we basically get each other here. I'd even go so far as to say we're on the same page. Edit: with regards to legality and acceptance of one's actions, not morality. Posts: 246 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:the debate centers around which side is in more abundance, and whether the artists & record companies are experiencing a net gain/loss.
Is the Harvard business school study or the study of the Canadian Music Industry not reliable enough for you? Why not? Realize there are practical limitations to the ability to gather information due to the nature of the topic.
quote:the debate centers around which side is in more abundance, and whether the artists & record companies are experiencing a net gain/loss.
Is the Harvard business school study of the study of the Canadian Music Industry not reliable enough for you? Why not? Realize there are practical limitations to the ability to gather information due to the nature of the topic.
I've seen neither; if they've been linked in this thread, can you point me?
Posts: 246 | Registered: Jul 2006
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quote:the debate centers around which side is in more abundance, and whether the artists & record companies are experiencing a net gain/loss.
Is the Harvard business school study of the study of the Canadian Music Industry not reliable enough for you? Why not? Realize there are practical limitations to the ability to gather information due to the nature of the topic.
I've seen neither; if they've been linked in this thread, can you point me?
I also provided a couple of less thorough links at the very top of page four.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I'd be interested to see comparisons between sales of iPods and other mp3 players vs. sales of actual music, too.
It would obviously be impossible to compare the amount of songs on people's iPods to sales of actual music, but that would be interesting to see as well.
The advent of the iPod, and their amazing marketing campaign, has made it wildly popular to have those white buds in your ears while doing... well, basically anything. I would be interested to see a study on the average number of hours per day people listen to music compared to several years ago, and then a comparison to music sales.
It would stand to reason that if music popularity was up significantly that music sales should have gone up accordingly. If, just for sake of argument, music interest increased 70% and music sales increased only 20%, could this be an argument for lost sales - even though sales increased over that span?
Does that make any sense?
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by BaoQingTian: Check out the first page, halfway down. Post is made by me.
Thanks.
The Harvard article is interesting; I like that they've explored several possible relationships but have not solidly confirmed anything.
I'll have to look into it further before forming anything representing a coherent opinion, but it will likely reinforce my gutshot stance: that filesharing is, ultimately, a positive influence on the music industry in every way, from leveling the playing field between big and small labels to making music more easily and readily accessible to all consumers.
I'm at work, so I'm leaving the Canadian article until later, but wanted to acknowledge that I am in fact looking at this and not just trying to avoid having an opinion on the matter. Posts: 246 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
I also liked the Harvard article (which is what prompted my last post) but I'm curious about statements like "it may even boost sales of some types of music".
What does that mean? What types of music? Were certain parameters put on the study that aren't detailed in the article?
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:It would stand to reason that if music popularity was up significantly that music sales should have gone up accordingly. If, just for sake of argument, music interest increased 70% and music sales increased only 20%, could this be an argument for lost sales - even though sales increased over that span?
This is a really pertinent observation; I can already see where both sides will fall on this.
The record companies: Yes, those are lost sales. The filesharers: No, they are not lost sales, your net revenues are up as a result of filesharing. Me: They are not lost sales, but were still theft. Edit: Ok, not "theft" - "illegaly obtained products."
Posts: 246 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Yeah, I looked around for the actual study, the article is just a question & answer type report of the study. If anyone finds it and can post it, that would be great because it left me with a lot of questions too.
In response to a query, I think the Canadian article actually said that people spend less time listening to music now than they used to because of all the alternative media. However, I don't know if that was just conjecture or if it was part of the study.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: I'd be interested to see comparisons between sales of iPods and other mp3 players vs. sales of actual music, too.
It would obviously be impossible to compare the amount of songs on people's iPods to sales of actual music, but that would be interesting to see as well.
Something vaguely similar was done in one of my links (top of page four). The researchers were attempting to find out what portion of the music people put on their MP3 players is acquired through legitimate means. Their sample size was about 1,100 people. They found that, on average, a bit more than 70% of the music on a portable MP3 player comes from legitimate sources.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Personally, I don't own an mp3 player. (I also don't own a cell phone, so call me a Luddite all you want - I've heard it. )
I do, however, see people with iPod's all the time. On buses and trains, jogging or cycling in the park and on my street, waiting at the laundromat, on television at the world series of poker, at work in their cubicles, etc. They seem to be everywhere - far more than I remember people wearing headphones for walkmen or discmen in years past.
Plus, with mp3 capable CD players in cards, you can put hours of music on one disc, or days worth in a 10 disc changer.
Also, at your computer, you can customize hours and hours worth of playlists to listen to while surfing the web, writing email, or playing games.
I have no data for this, but it seems like people are listening to more music (and more variety of music) than ever before, just from my own observations. You would think, with such an increase in music (and such ease of listening in nearly any situation), music sales would be booming.
They're not. They've gone up a bit at the start of this year, but they're still down from years past.
Where is all this music coming from?
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:I don't think anyone's arguing that everyone is one way or the other about using filesharing as a replacement or preview for music purchases; the debate centers around which side is in more abundance, and whether the artists & record companies are experiencing a net gain/loss.
It's not quite that simple. If music sampling from the p2p networks is leading to increased music sales, then if the p2p networks are no longer avaialable, those people will then go to the many other legal services that allow music sampling. Eventually one of the companies (Apple, Real, or Napster etc.) will incorporate a free music sampling service into their pay-per-download or subscription service, which will give them an advantage over the competition. Thus, the music samplers will still lead to increased music sales, but in a legal way, while the losses from the p2p networks are eliminated.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:I don't think anyone's arguing that everyone is one way or the other about using filesharing as a replacement or preview for music purchases; the debate centers around which side is in more abundance, and whether the artists & record companies are experiencing a net gain/loss.
It's not quite that simple. If music sampling from the p2p networks is leading to increased music sales, then if the p2p networks are no longer avaialable, those people will then go to the many other legal services that allow music sampling. Eventually one of the companies (Apple, Real, or Napster etc.) will incorporate a free music sampling service into their pay-per-download or subscription service, which will give them an advantage over the competition. Thus, the music samplers will still lead to increased music sales, but in a legal way, while the losses from the p2p networks are eliminated.
I'm not sure how you're making this really, really big leap. Evidence? Or just conjecture?
Posts: 246 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
Oh, it's obviously all conjecture with not an ounce of proof, but it might be able to explain the direction the RIAA may be taking and the reasoning behind it.
My point is that it's not just as simple as "is there a net loss or net gain."
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
And, referencing my previous post, I don't think "net loss or gain" is the issue.
If music ownership is up 70% and music sales are only up 20%, that's a pretty big difference. That extra 50% increase would be in illegally copied music (either from p2p, copying from friends, or whatever). If that 50% were purchased, there would have been a far greater increase in sales.
So, if market forces predict a 70% increase, and you only are reaping a 20% increase - that 50% is lost revenue. At least from a sales standpoint.
Of course, that's all conjecture.
I do think, though, if music download sites such as iTunes and the like would offer full versions of songs that are able to be played from their site as previews (but not downloaded or put into playlists), the "sampling" of illegal music phenomenon would go away.
Or, contrarily, they could have only 80% of the song, or a lead-in "talk over" on the track saying "Preview track" on top of the music (much like DJs would talk over the beginnings or endings of songs, making taping from the radio not the same as buying the cassette - back in "the day").
That would eliminate those just browsing to buy, because they could browse to buy legally. What groups would then be left illegally downloading? Would we then be down to people who just want something for nothing?
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I think we also have to consider whether the 70% increase would have even existed without the illegal options in place. If we took away all the illegal methods to acquire music, then maybe music listening wouldn't have risen as much, so then you can't really say that the difference there is today (this arbitrary 50% we are talking about) is actual loss, since that difference wouldn't even exist without the illegally obtained music.. Am I making any sense? Posts: 441 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Very true. The illegal options to sample may have increased interest among those people who would not have bought the music anyway - time rich and money poor, as they say.
However, if iTunes and the like allowed better sampling (as I described above) than they do now, and the illegal options were even more curtailed, more people would start using legitimate means of sampling - with an easy option to buy.
I think the filesharing sites like Limewire need to go away, but also the legit music sellers need to adapt to offer what the consumer wants.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: They're not. They've gone up a bit at the start of this year, but they're still down from years past.
Where is all this music coming from?
According to the study I mentioned above (and linked earlier), the lion's share of legitimate music on people's MP3 players comes from ripping their CD collections. I think one reason you see more iPods around than you used to see Walkmen or Discmen is that you can carry around a lot more music on an MP3 player. With a cassette or disc-based player, you have to carry the music around separately, meaning if you want to listen to more than one album (or mix), you have to have a carrying case. Apple's original "1,000 songs in your pocket" tag line for the iPod was presumably intended to sell iPods to people who might not have bought cassette or disc-based players but were still interested in listening to music on-the-go.
BTW, I don't have a cellphone either, but I do have an iPod.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: Where is all this music coming from?
There is a whole lot more music available legally for free than you might think. Podcasts are very popular and many play only podsafe music or have the appropriate licenses to play the music they do play. Many sites offer hundreds of thousands of user created music files for free. Almost all artists/labels offer an assortment of full length tracks for free on their websites. The live music archive has terrabytes of music that is sanctioned by the bands and made available for free.
I'm not saying that the majority of people listening to music are abandoning commercial music entirely but there are many people who build their collections from the sources mentioned above.
I am Canadian so many of the legal questions are rendered moot as our copyright laws have been interpreted by the courts to allow downloading for personal use (source) . This is under appeal by the Canadian Recording Industry Association so that may change at some point.
Posts: 1336 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Yet people are still buying a lot of music even though it's totally free and legal just to download it?
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Yes. Many people still enjoy having a tangible object for whatever reason (artwork, liner notes, cd-rom features, bonus DVD, etc.) or just like to know that they are sending some money to the artist (I don't think most people realize how little of the money from CD sales goes to the artist). For other people it is more convenient to buy the CD. Many people still aren't computer literate enough to make downloading an option for them or they are just computer literate enough to be scared of the viruses they might get from engaging in such practices. Also, we are so inundated with media from the U.S.A. that many people don't understand that we cannot be sued like the people they see on the TV news stories. They assume that the same rules apply here.
Posts: 1336 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by pH: Well Sterling, I just feel that the "Oh, I use it to discover new music" justification is a load of crap, and I have given a reason why it is a load of crap, and yet....it's still held up as a reason that downloading illegally is a-okay.
-pH
Yes, there are ways to discover new music that don't involve illegal downloads beyond the thirty second clip. I know you've mentioned subscription services. I'll even suggest a few of others: internet radio stations, artist sites, legal free MP3 services (where artists either use looser copyright terms or offer limited amounts of their music to the public domain.)
Please understand, though we obviously have disagreements with some aspects of P2P and copyright, I'm not failing to heed your position.
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: So, are you saying it's okay to break as many little laws as you want because the police can't spend their time enforcing them?
The justification of "I can break the law because the law can't be enforced" is a bit silly. Does that mean it's okay for a politician to take a little bribe, or for a businessman to embezzle a little money? Those crimes are too far under the radar to be enforced, because the police have so many more important things to do with their time, so does that make committing them okay?
It seems like the "it's not a crime if you don't get caught" mentality, which removes responsibility from the individual and places it on enforcement agencies. That way of thinking is selfish and irresponsible.
Not quite what I'm saying.
With some laws, there is a degree to which they aren't enforced; it's recognized that the cost and/or harm done by a complete enforcement of the law is greater than the cost and/or harm caused by the infraction. It may even be necessary for a degree of infraction for some systems to work at all.
Some instances that could be labelled "copyright infringement" are somewhat ridiculous because the end result from the point of view of one of the participants is completely identical to the end result of a completely legal act. If I rip a song from a legally owned CD to my own drive, the end result is a file that is identical to the one I would have downloaded.
Pardon me for a sec, I'm going to do the politician's trick of answering my own question.
"But why would you ever need to download a file, if you can just rip it from your own drive?!"
Then, we get into weird realms of legality. What if the disk is under some kind of DRM software? What if I can't rip the file? Maybe I can't even play the disk... But someone in Finland has found a way to circumvent the DRM?
...Okay, so why don't I just download the circumvention?...
...What if it's illegal in my country? Just to add to the silliness, what if that circumvention is legal in Finland?
Oy.
So, there could be a situation where fair use says I can have a back-up copy of the disk that I own but can't play because the only CD player is a computer that won't play a disk with DRM software. But the only way I can use my music is for a distant person to offer it for download (possibly illegally), having circumvented the DRM software (possibly illegal or quasi-illegally), for me to download it (possibly illegally.) And then I have a digital copy of a disk I own... The ownership of which, arguably, is legal, since I would be able to copy it for my own purposes under fair use, were the DRM to allow it.
Except, the EULA forbids circumventing the DRM.
Except, the only way to read the EULA, if it's clearly stated, is to open the disk packaging. And once opened, the store you purchased the disk from won't accept its return, largely because they believe you may have copied it.
...Maybe you begin to see why I don't accept either the legality or the morality of copyright issues as black and white.
And, yes, I recognize for some of the actions I've described, a defendant might be taken to court. However, with a competent defense, they might well win.
And the whole thing would cost more money and time than is worth it to anyone.
Which is part of the reason so many of these things get settled out of court.
Which is kind of a pity, really, since some of these issues of copyright and fair use really could use more of a hammering than they've gotten. Instead, the group that can afford to throw more money at it gets their way... until they have to do it again.
Which is, again, part of why I say some interpretations of the law are good for neither the people they convict nor the people they protect.
<crickets>
...And I'm reserving the right to quote back parts of my increasingly long-butt diatribe back to people who single out individual parts to misinterpret. Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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We've been talking a lot about "filesharing" and "piracy" with regards to music, but the term is not limited to that. Any electronic file can really be shared via p2p sites, or through email or whatever.
By accepting music filesharing, is the door not opened for other types of filesharing?
In this specific case, I want to look at a niche market that has a limited number of consumers and does not have nearly the clout or economic stature of the music industry.
I'm talking about roleplaying games.
The roleplaying industry (in print form) is dying slowly. For years they have had difficulty making a profit from their print product, and for years they've been trying to stamp out those who type or scan books onto the internet for free distribution. When I worked at White Wolf, this was a constant issue and the webmaster was constantly writing emails threatening legal action to people who violated copyright in this way.
The books had a hard enough time making a profit, yet people who were fans of the game were pirating copies instead of buying them - which led to lower profits and smaller print runs, and even defunct game lines.
The gaming industry is switching rapidly to .pdf games, which do not have the overhead of print games, but this opens the door to piracy even further. The product is already in a downloadable and transmittable form.
With such a small consumer base, and significant production costs, "fans" of the medium who share modules and games around are actually limiting the producers' ability to make more product (and lowering quality, as producers can't afford to pay quality writers' rates and instead must go with untested writers).
Still, the culture of filesharing bleeds into this area and has far more significant impact than in the music industry. My worry is that eBooks can go down the same road, but I think Baen Books and others have shown that isn't a foregone conclusion (though it may be when eBooks and eBook readers become more popular).
I just wanted to interject that the culture of selfishness that stems from filesharing has a wider impact than just music.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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To kind of riff off of what Cow just wrote, I think one aspect of all this that hasn't been touched on is that it's good to have a store, a neutral place where like-minded people can hang out. For people who like games and comics, it's your local games and comics store.
These places can't exist without money that they get from selling games and comics.
If they do not exist, it's harder to meet like minded people who read comics and game.
Therefore, it's harder for that community to thrive in a city.
I know, I know, you have electronic communities, but I don't think they're the same. For one thing, I think it is significant for society at large to see that comics and gaming exist. I think the sign out front of a comics store is a good way of saying 'We exist'.
For another thing, from the gaming aspect, you need a lot of space to play some of those suckers and unless you are blessed with a large table and an equally large space to play warhammer 40k, rpgs, mage knight and what have you, you can't play.
I can't really speak to the music industry and its health, but I can tell you that comics and games, and comics and games stores, are struggling and they need all the cash they can get. You stupid fookers that steal this stuff off the net are pissing in your own back yard. Stop it before I come over to your house and pee in your shoe.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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FlyingCow: I'd like to comment on your role playing information, because I find that it has a lot of similarities with the music file sharing.
Both industries have a large target demographic among teens, who have limited funds. In my experiences, there are many cases where the music industry and the role playing game industry (if there is such a thing) attempt to milk their consumers by releasing products which are mostly fluff: Albums with one good single and a lot of really bad music or role playing books with a few pages of important rules, and a lot of filler.
I understand the reasoning. How can you recoup the expenses of selling a 10 page book or an album with one song? You have to make a 200 page, hard bound Player's Guide and a fancy CD with lots of artwork, then sell them for a whole lot of money.
Both industries also have a glut of titles, most of them pretty bad, or simply derivative copies with nothing worth while to add. The companies want to cash in, so they make "Best Of" and Greatest Hits albums, they make Spells and Sorceries Guide and the Book of New Worlds to boost sales.
The poor consumers simply don't have the money to buy everything. They're being offered a trough full of pig manure, expected to wade through it looking for the gems, and pay the companies for any of the crap that gets stuck on their boots in the process.
I'm not saying that this justifies theft. I am saying that the greed of the industries, or at least their business models, promote file sharing and illegal copying.
Would you pay $60 for a cheeseburger because it was served on a plate with 40 lbs. of parsley? Why should the industry expect someone to pay $60 for a role playing book with 10 pages of important information and 190 pages of filler? Why should someone pay $18 for a CD with one good song and 8 bad ones?
If the industries were willing to adjust their business model, give the customers what they want, and stop trying to pull a fast one to make money, I think a great deal of their problems would go away.
Unfortunately, they only seem to know one way to do things, so rather than learn and grow, and give their customers what they want, they think they'll succeed by bullying people so that they can continue to rip them off.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Okay, from that post, you obviously don't play RPGs - or at most, you dabble here and there.
The RPG industry does not have a "large" demographic anywhere. A successful print run for a book may be 10,000 copies. Some of the most popular books top off at 50,000 copies over their entire lifespan. You're talking about a tiny demographic, and it's not mostly teenagers - it's spread pretty evenly between 16-35 year olds.
quote:the role playing game industry (if there is such a thing) attempt to milk their consumers by releasing products which are mostly fluff:
Yes, there is such a thing. And if a roleplaying company produces fluff, it doesn't sell. Even books that are highly anticipated have a hard time selling, with a ravenous fanbase for Changeling unable to sell out even a 2,000 copy print run of the game line's final book.
The problem is that if you have five gamers, only one will buy books and serve as a "library". The others will often either borrow books they want, or worse, scan copies to print out for themselves.
It's this practice that has crippled many game lines, because the fans who want more material pirate it - essentially preventing new material from being written for lack of funds.
A successful game line can pay its writers 6 cents a word or more, which draws in the experienced professional writers to make the product of high quality. A game line that is struggling can only hope to offer 3 cents per word, which forces them to rely on new, untested talent or fans who would take any amount of money to say they were published in that game line. The fewer copies sold (aka, the more copies pirated), the more of the latter you will get.
As a freelance writer for RPGs and a member of a freelance listserv, I can assure you that the industry standard compensation for writers is decreasing - and sometimes publishers go under before they can pay their writers at all.
quote:Both industries also have a glut of titles, most of them pretty bad, or simply derivative copies with nothing worth while to add.
At the start of the Open Gaming License, there was a boom of new game lines published taking advantage of the newer, more open rules about using specifically d20 products. The RPG consumers had X amount of money, and the industry kept getting new publishers trying to get a piece of that pie. What happened was, X was divided too many ways, most of those new publishers couldn't make ends meet, and the glut of new d20 books subsided.
quote:They're being offered a trough full of pig manure, expected to wade through it looking for the gems, and pay the companies for any of the crap that gets stuck on their boots in the process.
Difference between game companies and music companies is that you can flip through whatever game book you want and see exactly what you're getting with regards to art, content and quality. You always have been able to do that. The books that are crap don't get pirated - it's the books that people want, but don't want to pay for.
Bad books don't sell, and their companies go under. Good books sell and barely cover costs. Often good books sell and are pirated, and don't cover costs, and their companies still go under.
quote:If the industries were willing to adjust their business model, give the customers what they want, and stop trying to pull a fast one to make money, I think a great deal of their problems would go away.
What you don't understand is that the industry *is* giving customers what they want - which is more game material. The books they want the most, they pirate the most. Of course, that means the books that are most sought after can make about as much money as the books that aren't as sought after.
It's not the same as the music industry. There is no "sampling" to see if you like a product. People read a product in the store, like it, go home and try to find it on the web. Or, people buy a product, like it, then offer it on the web for whoever wants it - or email it to their friends so they can save some money.
quote:Unfortunately, they only seem to know one way to do things, so rather than learn and grow, and give their customers what they want, they think they'll succeed by bullying people so that they can continue to rip them off.
A lot of this happened because TSR (the makers of Dungeons and Dragons and the most published game company in the world at that point) kept their prices artificially low and eventually went bankrupt. Yes, the most published and well known company went bankrupt because they were charging *too little* for their product. They were also forcing the industry to keep those artificially low products to stay competitive with the big boy on the block.
Of course, after TSR went belly up, it was bought by Wizards of the Coast (makers of Magic the Gathering) who retooled their business model and saw that they had to charge a lot more, because TSR didn't increase costs based on inflation in nearly twenty years.
The quick jump in pricing needed to prevent bankruptcy angered many consumers and they turned to illegal filesharing to get what they wanted - causing the industry to struggle more.
This has forced the industry to learn and grow, as you put it, and move into .pdf sales over the last few years. While this lowers prices on products (less overhead) and increases unit sales, it also makes piracy that much easier.
The ePublishing Guide sold by RPGNow.com says that piracy has become a fact of life, and that there is little you can do about it other than being vigilant in looking for illegal copies of your product on the web. It further says:
quote:In general, any copy protections that are attempted by publishers have resulted in more negative feedback from valid customers than it’s worth in sales lost to pirates. As this chart shows, by far the most hated practice from publishers is turning off the ability to cut and paste from your document. Worse still is if you add a password protection on the PDF or other such thing.
So, pirates will lose you sales by illegally copying your material, but any efforts to stop them will lose you sales in frustrated customers.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: Yes, there are ways to discover new music that don't involve illegal downloads beyond the thirty second clip. I know you've mentioned subscription services. I'll even suggest a few of others: internet radio stations, artist sites, legal free MP3 services (where artists either use looser copyright terms or offer limited amounts of their music to the public domain.)
There's always the library too. I go to the library at least once a week, and I generally check out at least a couple of CDs each time. I've checked out a mountain of crap, but there have been a few artists I've been delighted to have discovered.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:So, pirates will lose you sales by illegally copying your material...
I guess the question here, as with music, is "how many of those pirated copies are actually lost sales?" Sure, when I was a teenager, only a couple of us had copies of the AD&D 2nd edition Player's Handbook, and the rest of the players would just thumb through them on an as-needed basis. But then, you don't really need six copies of that book in order for six people to play the game. If only two have it, and they share, is that really four lost sales?
Added: I'm not saying that piracy has no impact on PnP RPG sales; I don't know enough about industry sales figures to make such a judgment.
However, I think you also need to consider the impact of CRPG development on PnP RPGs. For example, these days I play NWN a lot more often than I play D&D... and I don't even play World of WarCrack.
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quote:But then, you don't really need six copies of that book in order for six people to play the game. If only two have it, and they share, is that really four lost sales?
It isn't, but if none of the players own a legit copy, it is two lost sales. If the piracy is as widespread as FC is saying, I would expect that there would be plenty of groups that didn't have any purchased copies of the rule books among them.
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posted
::Adding this as a seperate post rather than an edit, although it addresses something that twink said in his edit of his previous post::
quote:However, I think you also need to consider the impact of CRPG development on PnP RPGs. For example, these days I play NWN a lot more often than I play D&D... and I don't even play World of WarCrack.
This is an excellent point. Another factor to consider are the online open source D20 rules that we've been using for the most part in our PBEM and forum based games. Their existence has meant that most of us playing in the games haven't had to shell out for rule books.
On the other hand, their existence also means that people who were a little bit interested in role playing, but not interested enough to actually spend the money on the books got exposed to the world of PRGs, and may buy books in the future, I suppose.
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posted
While online RPGs have become very popular, they offer a different product. It's like comparing sales of decks of cards to sales of online poker software.
The niche market of tabletop rpg players still exists, and the .pdf market has been doing very well - people like that they can pay $5-$10 for a product they used to pay $15-$30 for, that is also searchable, with maps and pictures that can be enlarged and printed for their players.
Still, you will find people buying a .pdf module, then posting it on their website for all to see. Or you will find people buying a $5 module, then copying it for friends so they can run it in their own gaming groups.
Before, if you bought a book you would surely share it with friends - but while it was out, you couldn't use it, and if it was a highly used book, you'd need more than just one copy to go around.
For example, I used to play Werewolf, and the Core rulebook and Player's Handbook were needed constantly throughout gameplay and character generation. It slowed things down a lot to have to use one book for a six person group, so two of us bought extra copies - bringing the total of each of those books to 3 instead of 1.
It was a popular game, and that was reflected in multiple sales of one book per gaming group.
We could have simply scanned the book into my friend's computer and printed out copies for ourselves (or emailed it) - many people do this instead of buying a second book, and the game line (a game line they like! and often a game line they want more books from!) suffers because of it.
Of course, eight years ago, that process was a lot harder than it is today. Scanners were more expensive, fewer people had high speed internet to make emailing such a large file worthwhile, and compiling the book into a format for easy transfer would have been hard.
Now, the obstacles to piracy of gaming materials have lessened, and prices on books have increased so that companies can pay their staff and their overhead - making piracy more attractive.
With .pdf games, which are growing rapidly in popularity (and, I believe, are the future of tabletop roleplaying), all obstacles to piracy are removed, making the industry more vulnerable.
Of course, costs (and subsequently, prices) are a lot lower on .pdf games because you don't have to pay for printing, warehousing, shipping, binding, etc. However, you do have to pay for writing, artwork, editing, layout, eMall fees, website design and maintenance, etc.
The current feeling is that the only thing you can do is to trust people won't pirate your material and be vigilant in discovering and stopping the ones that do.
Unfortunately, the culture of entitlement and getting something for nothing that is so prevalent with music makes me much less trusting.
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quote:This is an excellent point. Another factor to consider are the online open source D20 rules that we've been using for the most part in our PBEM and forum based games. Their existence has meant that most of us playing in the games haven't had to shell out for rule books.
Actually, online RPGs have increased tabletop sales in some areas. For instance, the Warcraft tabletop version didn't come out until after World of Warcraft was so popular.
Also, if you notice, the System Reference Documents (SRD) that we use online do not have any information on character generation or creation, nor do they include deities or other system specific information. Also, monsters and antagonists are limited.
I'm pretty sure those who run games have hard copies of the books in front of them (or at least hard copies of some books). While the d20 SRD has made it much easier to write modules and campaign settings to sell in .pdf form, a new player can't use them to start fresh. There's a lot of gaps in the information.
Of course, other game companies, such as White Wolf, are not open systems, requiring you to buy their core rulebooks.
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posted
The other thing I'm just realizing is that this discussion is only starting. The advances that FC mentions are going to continue, making it easier and easier to digitally download and dupe pretty much any and all media in the near future. The last ten years it's been music; how long until it's movies? And not the current method -- downloading or bittorrenting a grainy bootleg or ripped DVD, but downloading image files that unzip with one click and contain everything the DVD (or HD-DVD) has (menus, special features, commentaries, and all that noise).
This argument is just starting.
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quote:Unfortunately, the culture of entitlement and getting something for nothing that is so prevalent with music makes me much less trusting.
I think this may be the crux of our disagreement (such as it is). I think the spectacular and continuing success of online music stores shows that people are willing to pay for music even when files of equivalent or greater quality are available for free illegally.
I recognize, though, that PnP RPGs are a very different market, so online distribution may not be the success that it has been in the music industry.
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posted
I bow to your superior knowledge of the role playing industry FlyingCow. My experience is only with several gaming groups, and hanging out in game stores, so I probably made some incorrect generalizations.
My friends and I who play (all in our 20s-30s) have dozens of RPG books each, usually several copies of the core books for any game, and each of us will have one supplement or more.
I know when I was younger, I couldn't afford that kind of spending, so my friends and I would scrounge through used book stores and buy the tattered old $8 copy of the book that was $25 new.
Honestly, I'd be really interested in doing some writing for a RPG company, so I sympathize with their difficulties. I want the companies to survive so I can keep playing new games, and I want them to do well so they can pay me to write for them. I want talented musicians to put out new music and make a living at it too.
I just think that some smart people need to figure out new ways to make these things work, without alienating all the fans who are expected to pay for all this stuff.
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quote:My friends and I who play (all in our 20s-30s) have dozens of RPG books each, usually several copies of the core books for any game, and each of us will have one supplement or more.
You and your friends are the target demographic, and may you continue to prosper!
Younger kids often get books bought for them by parents, as gifts for birthdays or holidays. They rarely can afford the money for game books, at least in any quantity. These days, the target is more younger adults with free time and an income.
In fact, most people who download online .pdf games print them off at work.
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posted
Yeah, I only owned one RPG book as a kid (AD&D 2E Player's Handbook), but since starting my job a year and a half ago I've bought four (all Call of Cthulhu stuff, one d20 and three Chaosium).
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quote:I think the spectacular and continuing success of online music stores shows that people are willing to pay for music even when files of equivalent or greater quality are available for free illegally.
Yes, but it's also a lot larger market with a lot more leeway in profitability. If 70% of the music on an iPod is legit (which I think was referenced earlier), then 30% is not. If games were pirated 30% of the time, they can't recoup money from concerts and other avenues.
Of course, I understand that those 30% would not all have bought the product anyway. Still, if 10% would have, that's significant.
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posted
I confess, I've made text files to copy character stats from archetypes in RPGs like Feng Shui: Shadowfist, which are frequently out of print. It just takes forever to make characters if everyone has to pass one increasingly battered copy of the book around. But I did buy the book in the first place.
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quote:I'm still not sure I understand the legal logic for these suits. As far as I can tell, it's not the p2p services but rather the users of them that are breaking copyright. Could someone show me what the legal rationale is for it being their fault?
Squicky, I don't know if your original question about the legal theory was ever answered to your satisfaction. Take the following with a large grain of salt. Each principle could be a long article in and of itself.
First we need to note that we're talking civil liability, not criminal. The threshold showings are simply much lower.
There have traditionally been two principle theories of secondary liability (liability for someone else's act) for copyright infringement: Vicarious infringement and contributory infringement.
Vicarious infringement is when someone copies on your behalf. The prototype example is an employee copying Windows to install on company machines. That's not what's at issue here.
Contributory infringement has two elements: 1) knowledge and 2) substantial participation.
Substantial contribution is pretty easy: absent the defendant's actions, would this specific act of infringement have been able to occur? If an injunction could stop the specific acts of infringement taking place, then it is likely that there is substantial contribution.
Knowledge is based on a reasonableness standard. If the defendant knew or should have known infringement was occurring. The fact that a technology may be used to infringe on copyrights does not in and of itself impute knowledge. For example, photocopiers have many valid uses. The fact they can be used to violate copyright protections does not mean Xerox knows of any such use. The general rule, very much in flux, is that the presence of substantial non-infringing uses of a given technology will insulate a defendant from contributory liability absent proof of actual knowledge. Knowledge will be imputed if the information about what is shared is given to the company, even if the company doesn't keep records.
The rule isn't quite as protective as it sounds, however. Expert testimony that a technology is primarily used for infringing may possibly overcome the defense. The Supreme Court did not rule on this with respect to P2P file sharing in Grokster. "Willful blindness" can be treated as knowledge.
Instead, the Grokster Court created a third form of secondary copyright liability called inducement: "one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties."
It cited three acts that could lead to a finding of inducement: 1.) the defendant "showed itself to be aiming to satisfy a known source of demand for copyright infringement, the market comprising former Napster users;" 2.) the defendant did not "attempted to develop filtering tools or other mechanisms to diminish the infringing activity using their software;" and 3.) how much money the defendant makes is depends "on high-volume use, which the record shows is infringing."
The problem in understanding this is that it is impossible to say what a Supreme Court decision really means until the Court explains what it actually meant in a subsequent decision. So beyond this bare guidance, which was not presented as an exhaustive list, we don't know what qualifies as "inducement."
This is all meant to be an explanation of the state of the law, not to comment on its rationality. It's also important to note that the Court did not say Grokster was liable, only that the case could proceed to trial.
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quote:It's also important to note that the Court did not say Grokster was liable, only that the case could proceed to trial.
So, if I understand correctly, the Court created a new form of liability that Grokster "may" be guilty of, effectively saying "if they are doing *this*, then yes they are infringing" - but they aren't trying the case, just clarifying law to make it possible for a case to be tried?
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quote:So, if I understand correctly, the Court created a new form of liability that Grokster "may" be guilty of, effectively saying "if they are doing *this*, then yes they are infringing" - but they aren't trying the case, just clarifying law to make it possible for a case to be tried?
Depending on what you mean, yes.
Grokster moved for summary judgment, which is granted if there are no "genuine issues of material fact." What this means is that, in civil cases, a judge will rule in favor of one party prior to trial if, according to the subset of facts which are not contested, one side should win "as a matter of law." The trial judge granted Grokster's motion and the 9th circuit upheld that decision. SCOTUS overruled and essentially said, "if these facts are found to be true, then Grokster could lose, so there should be a trial."
posted
Okay, so the Court said that certain facts were legitimately allowed to be used to make a case against Grokster, without making any value judgement as to Grokster's possible liability.
In essence, it said things were not so cut and dry as to be settled by a summary judgement.
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