Comments for State of Mind of The Arts

Comment on Warner Bros + Swedish Cop = Pirate Bay Scandal by 300baud

300baud — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:25:14 +0000

It’s the stated aim of these groups to make sure the law works in the best economic interest of their clients. I see very little difference between subverting laws and ignoring them. In fact, I would rather have them skulking around outside the law like this than have their fatty fingerprints all over our laws.

Comment on Warner Bros + Swedish Cop = Pirate Bay Scandal by SongBoom

SongBoom — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:29:18 +0000

No kidding. The *AA have always bent the law to satisfy the interests of the companies they represent.

Comment on How Low Can Album Sales Go? by Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:09:41 +0000

I may be in the minority here, but I don’t buy digital music online for two reasons:

- Lossy encoding.
- DRM.

Fix those and you’ll get a whole lot of my cash. In the meantime, it’s CDs for me.

Comment on Sony-BMG Uses Pirated Software by Mic Mell

Mic Mell — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:22:20 +0000

I think that’s a bit of a tall tale….

Comment on Sony-BMG Uses Pirated Software by mike

mike — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:48:14 +0000

I will tell you a gossip one told me one time. One day I was talking to a friend about piracy and how fast some stuff got pirated so fast and in so pristine condition. Sometimes it includes covers and all the stuff identical to the original.

After saying that, the guy told me: do you really think that all piracy comes from underground guys ripping CD’s and DVD’s and scanning covers?

I replied: what do you mean?

The guy completed: man, piracy is done in most part by the same guys who sell the original material, by the simple reason they can sell the stuff without paying taxes and royalties…

That made me think….

Comment on Sony-BMG Uses Pirated Software by ar-lock

ar-lock — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:38:38 +0000

everyone steals 1’s and 0’s (except us FSF guys).

why do more people go down for stealing music than software?
.
cause you can get good software free. good music, not so much..

so if they stop you from stealing windows, you switch to linux.
but if they stop you from stealing the beatles… well there is no equivilent.

Comment on How Collective Idiocy Left the Record Companies in Bits by Trumpton

Trumpton — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:19:35 +0000

I’ve just done some deep research on this topic, and from a scholary point of view the main points I’ve found are:

a) Competing Ego’s - ASCAP, RIAA, DiMa & IFPI some or all could be out a job with P2P distribution, therefore each is trying to keep itself in a job!

b) Polarization of offline distribution. Look at how Wal-Mart and Best Buy in the US limit choice of music available to consumers. And guess what, a study in Spain showed that P2P users like using P2P because of the range of music available. Outcome: Good case for digital distribution.

c) Record companies “we invest a lot in promotion and any hits we do have cover those acts that do not return a revenue”. This sounds like an industry that needs has been running on excess fat for a long time.

d) P2P is having a direct impact on our sales. Look at the Canadian experience where the private copying levy actually took $120M in the first 5 years, offset against $2M in lost revenues at the cost of piracy as submitted by CRIA.

e) business models for online music : Monthly subscription services such as Napster. Single item downloads such as ITunes. The problem is the latter system, runs the risk of the credit card processing adding up to more than the cost of the transaction. With a better sytem, costs could be reduced and music be made available more cheaply.

f) Publisher/Artist conflicts - a study actually showed that illegal P2P networks had a positive effect on artists revenues taken through live performances (they get more well known). On the other hand the publisher loses out because they loose the publisher monopoly on the music in the markets where P2P exists, therefore less money made through sales.

Bottom line: The answer is not simple but a change is needed.

Comment on How Collective Idiocy Left the Record Companies in Bits by Hm

Hm — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:22:53 +0000

Well dont give them so much created for just “ignoring” the internet.
Maybe they were just coc’d up to much in the late 90’s from all that money they made…as a result they missed an opportunity because they were to stupid.
This really is a lesson on how to be a success and how to be a failure.
People with the hunger (Napster, Apple, iRiver) they stayed up all day and night and solved the problem of MP3 Players, easy to download online, etc.
But those who partied day and night (Sony, Universal, Columbia Records, etc) well they enjoyed the good times and let a major and obvious opportunity slip.
End of story.
Moral of story: have fun but do some work as well.

Comment on Artist Turns to BitTorrent when his Music is Pirated by iTunes by Maggie

Maggie — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:59:23 +0000

Jerry Garcia had it right, and The Grateful Dead are still selling music…..beyond the grave!

Comment on Artist Turns to BitTorrent when his Music is Pirated by iTunes by Sally

Sally — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:13:08 +0000

I believe that musicians around the world should unite and create there own publishing and distribution company and bypass the record companies.