What are the music and movie business so worried about with pirating music and movies (software is another issue entirely)?

MP3s are not nearly as good quality as CDs (as is evidenced by the 8 hours of music on a disk vs. the 1 hour CD-quality allows). Pirated movies are rediculously bad quality, and movies can be rented not long after release in a movie store for $3.00. Downloaded movies of even perfect quality will not be able to compete with movie theaters until most people have 30 foot tall screens in their home-theater.

How much money do musicians and film studios need to make?

I think with the increasing amount and acceptance of pirating, the People are speaking against CDs that cost pennies to make being sold for $15.00, concert tickets that start at $35.00, and movie ticket prices going up by $0.50 every year (with a profit of millions of dollars). This is aside from big musicians and top-list actors making millions personally.

Perhaps this is also a reaction against the handful of media corporations being nearly the sole dictators of the content of media (Music, TV, Movies, News) available to the public.

These viewpoints are not intended to condone theft, however I think the Music and Movie industries would benefit by learning from the message implied by the huge increase in filesharing and implement changes in their sales methods accordingly: We don't want to pay so much for your products; We want to be able to pick-and choose the content we buy (buying only the songs we want, for example); We want a greater variety of content; We want at-your-fingertips availability.

I say again that I don't know what the music and movie industries are worried about. We are the same people who shelled out $300 for the first CD players, and repurchased our record, 8-track, and tape collections in the name of improved quality. We are the people who buy High Definition, flatscreen TVs, pay $2.00 extra to go to IMAX theaters, and will probably pay more for digital movie theaters to show movies as well as pay-per-view events.

Digital piracy is an exponentially larger means of theft than taping songs off the radio or from CDs, movies off TV or from videocassettes, and sharing bootleg concert recordings. However, as long as the media industries continue to improve media quality itself, and perhaps re-evaluate their sales methods, filesharing poses the same threat as these less high-tech pirating technologies.


This post isn't about the legality of the Gnutella network or filesharing itself. Gnutella exists for the transmission of non-copywritten materials.

What are your ideas on this?

The MPAA and the RIAA are a bunch of capitalist pigs. Once the revolution starts, their members will be *******.

Hey Taliban,
Executed? That sounds quite threatening.
Are you serious with killing them?

Maybe I should really edit this post...

In every good revolution, the wealthy will face the righteous anger of the poor. So, I am serious about ***** them and the rest of the economic elite, once the revolution starts and the threatening tone was all but unintentional.

However, I don't want to bore you with my ideas on how to wash away western decadency with capitalist blood.

OK,
Yeah no problem, this is a free world.
The problem is that communism won't work in my humble
opinion: I'm a Chinese and I've seen how *great* it worked
in China. But look, I bet you wouldnt be different if you have
a label. You would also suck the money out of the pockets
of the *mortals*. Am I right?

why do you sepak with this troll. better ignore him

Well, Paradog, - I am not a communist. I just the usual potential mass murderer who would write his name into the book of histories with blood if he ever gained enough power to do so.

Well thats your thing.

Well said Gratis. With that statement I can agree, except that it is the middleman that gets most of the money (agents and record label), not the musician.

Musicians are granted loans to record their songs, etc. Usually, loans for startup bands are around 50-100K. But the more popular they get, the bigger the loan. Some are not always able to pay off those loans (look at those "one day" artists such as McHammer), even if they appear to live in "pure wealth". Very few are able to make more than they owe. It's one reason why you see so many more independent record companies lately.

I know about this middleman situation not only from "stories", but also from experience.

There's even a website devoted to circumventing the middleman now, called MusicLink (formerly FairTunes). I don't think it will change the situation of piracy much, but it's probably something to look into: http://www.fairtunes.com or http://www.musiclink.com

As for the distribution of non-copyrighted material, I rather think in terms of copyrighted material that was specifically released on Gnutella and other mediums for the purpose of promotion. This is something I'd love to see more, and one of my main focus points with my Gnutella client. I'd like to see unsigned bands to show off their talents. kinda like a distributed version of the MP3.com website. It'll help the distribution of music that is not spoon-fed to the consumer's by radio stations that only have the option between "Yes, boss" and "No, boss" (thus do what they're being told to play).

I think that Gnutella and other P2P distribution systems will allow record companies and organizations to rethink their strategy. Consumers are given access to a lot more information using the Internet, than they ever had before. Information is always worth more than money.

I work in the recording industry and, naturally, if my music is played on TV or Radio or distributed on CDs, I receive an author's fee. I don't think anyone would argue with that right and I suppose that most people would understand my feelings if my income was drastically reduced by piracy and I became angry.

However, having seen the music industry from the inside, it's clear to me that the big labels are not interested in supporting up-and-coming musicians. Nor are they at all interested in adding to the world's cultural heritage. So what is their goal?

TO MAKE DOSH, MOOLAH, SPONDULICKS, MONEY, CASH!! AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!

How do they achieve this?

The real mastodonts like Sony, Warner or Universal have a list of 'meal-ticket' artists (like the omnipresent Britney or N'Sync) which they promote and manage by:

- carpet-bombing TV, Radio and Magazines with advertising (especially those with teenage audiences or readerships)
- arranging placements on high-audience TV and Radio programs (you think the producers, presenters, VJs or DJs choose playlists or guest artists? Think again!)
- getting the music on big-budget film soundtracks (even if the songs don't actually appear in the film: "music from and inspired by ......") which is easy for labels like Universal or Sony as they also distribute movies.
- getting the artist to sign a Mephistopholean contract which obliges him/her to record x albums, do promotional tours and more or less say yes to everything (including a pathetic percentage)
- surrounding the artist with songwriters, stylists, spin-doctors, producers etc. to ensure that the product is as commercial as possible (the artist is lucky if he/she has any say).

These measures cost a lot of $$, so they don't tend to spend much on promoting other 'risky' (ie. 95% of the world's) artists thus strangling musical diversity and the artists' own creativity.

They also mean that if they're going to promote a new soloist/band, they choose/create a clone of a successful artist - usually fabricated from scratch with auditions (like New Kids on the Block>>>Take That>>>Boyzone>>>N-Sync etc.etc.etc)

With this kind of financial muscle, they brainwash their way into the heads of millions of kids (who are susceptable to marketing and don't mind spending $15 of their parents' money to buy the CD). They fix prices by puting pressure on distributors and obviously have a big say in what CDs are sold in major stores:

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0...38103,00.html.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/17918

They completely suffocate other artists and smaller labels who can't compete with massive scale marketing. In short, 4 or 5 record labels more or less totally control the entire music industry (Capitol Records, Sony Music, BMG Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music).

Until P2P came along!

The rapid rise of Napster made it clear that millions of users were (and are) fed up with the mafia of the big labels - last year record sales in the US went down for the first time ever (I believe). P2P is a distribution channel that the labels have no control over. For this reason the RIAA shut down Napster and has taken legal action against Fastrack (Kazaa, Grockster, Old Morpheus). This has created a completely anachronistic situation where the major record labels are now at war with their consumers. Doesn't exactly fit in with the "Customer is King" theory, does it?

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,37857,00.html
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2..._morpheus.html

As a musician, I feel sorry for legitimate artists who lose some of their income through piracy. But the situation of the big labels has become unsustainable and a revolution is necessary to level the playing field and restore diversity and creativity to commercial music. Even successful artists can be severely limited by these labels (take Prince/TAFKAP/silly symbol, for example) so in the long run it's best for everyone. The labels take the biggest cut of CD prices so they will suffer far more than most artists and, quite frankly, I think they deserve it after so many years of price fixing and general abuse - I've spent something like $3000 on CDs in the past 12 years.

P2P allows independent artists and small labels to promote and distribute their music internationally at little cost - better than the web where most (though not all) searches and hits are governed by commercial criteria. I already know of bands who have become reasonably well-known through word-of-mouth and distribution on the web / P2P. This type of support can then snowball with offers of concerts or recording contracts. P2P could even become one of the major (legal) distribution/promotion channels for music in the future. On some occasions, for example, I have downloaded an mp3 and later bought the album.

The situation is not quite so bad in countries like the USA, UK, Germany or France where a lot of strong independent labels exist. However, these are still relative ghettos - each genre with its specialized radio stations, cable channels, concert venues and publications - since the mainstream is still totally controlled by the biggies. In Spain, where I live, the indy labels are weak with pathetic budgets and minimal distribution while mainstream music is anodine, repetitive crap (with 0 diversity) listened to by brainwashed kids who know all the lyrics by heart. This, for someone who loves music is soul-destroying.

I know there are other people who will see the moral issues in a different light but I really think P2P is a good thing for music in the long run. I see the current situation as a transitional phase. The big labels HAVE to change and the RIAA simply won't be able to shut down all the file-sharing networks (though maybe they'll make some impact in the US of A by pressuring ISPs). I sincerely hope that, after a couple of pendulum swings and a few years, things will settle back into some degree of normality (and legality).