The Internet: All the music in the world that nobody's buying…

[lilith2k3]

@synthgeek

is it not possible that they would have bought at least some of it if the free download wasn't an option? I think it's also nonsense to say it hasn't had any effect on sales.

Yep, right. Some of the pirates even buy CDs.

And when you read my statement with some patience, you'll find in the last paragraph:

Instead of piracy (alone), changed customer behaviour should be taken into account for decreasing CD sales.

That means, the focus is to small, if you only take piracy into account.

Piracy may not be the only reason for decreased sales, but I'm sure it doesn't help.

D'accord.

@A.M. Gold

there's the simple fact that they most likely don't want to have the government looming over them expecting them to handle the difficult task of trying to police these activities or, worse yet (for them) holding them legally liable for the massive amount of copyright infringement that goes on within these networks.

I think, the ISP are right, resisting such demands.
You would not accuse a buliding enterprise, because bankrobbers use streets. And so you could not make the ISP liable for what their customers are doing.
If a customer infringes copyright, you could charge and sue him. That is legitimate and you have the right to do so.

Furthermore it is not the job of the ISP to monitor the complete traffic.

Besides: What about the term "privacy"? Is it a neglectable right, as long as some crooks get caught? What about the privacy of those who aren't pirates?

[DeepFiber]

I remember reading something a year or 2 ago about why the record sales were down. Lets say the total amout of money spent on media were 100 and 50 or those went to cds, 30 to movies and 20 to games, what happened was this: the balance shifted, so now games and movies took a big chunk out what traditionally went to cds, insted of just coping with it the music industry blamed piracy, well now with all these new laws and lawsuits has the sales gone up? Hell no, wanna know why? because people got tired of their b1tching and just blew ALL their money on something else, on someone who didnt want to put you in prison or give you a big fine not even remotely in relation to your "crime".

In reality what this is all about and has always been is this:
the major labels with their back street boys were making great sales because they had a monopoly situation, their artist were the only ones on the radio and the only ones you could buy, and the only ones people knew.

Then came internet and people started thinking and soon realised "hey this shit is crap, there is much better stuff out there" and soon the the focus was shifted to unknow artists and new uncommercial genres, stuff you couldnt buy in the store, actually you could only find on the p2p networks. And those artist now started seing some attention, some of these artists actually used these networks to market themselves as their main channel.

And this is what it all boils down to, the labels cant compete with dvds/movies, cant compete with xbox360/ps3 and their games or computer games because the quality of their product is too low, but what they can compete with are these annoying unknow artists and genres "stealing" their remaining share, where are they?? Ah theyre on those p2p networks, lets shut em down!! Lets try to control what people listen to by shutting down these competing media channels so people turn to our stuff again!

That didnt work out too well because people just got irritated and new p2p networks and programs were invented, because people wanted to be able to choose for themselves what to listen to.

Did I meantion people got tired of buying an album and discovering theres only one or 2 good tracks on those. Some people argued they wanted to listen to the whole album before they payed for it, and they did, found it was not really worth paying for so they just didnt. Had it been better maybe a sale would have been made, who knows.

None of these strategies worked, so now it was time to lean on politicians and
sue people, this is a good temporary strategy, since if you sue someone you get money equal to 100s or 1000s of sold albums all from one "customer" so you actually dont need to sell any albums at all you just need to sue people.

Yeah thats just my little angle on this whole nonissue. I would call it evolution of music not something that can be fought, because the fight was over already before it started.

[AndreasKrebs]

I still find this discussion - no offense intended! - quite backward oriented. All these analyses of piracy and music industry would only help if they led to a clear new perspective... We cannot restore ways of music business that worked in the 80s or perhaps 90s, we'll have to invent ways of making music in an economical context of TODAY.

Things have changed (they always did). What do we do next?

Cheers,
Andreas

[A.M. Gold]

Pump gas.

[hao nao]

music is for sale?

[P.T.]

I think DeepFibr's post above is pretty good.

Also, there is a lot of good music being offered for free by the people who make it, even though it can be difficult to find, that is usually better than what I hear on the radio.

I rarly listen to radio anymore and many people I talk to say they don't listen to radio anymore.
You would think that the music industry people would figure out that people don't like their product.

[A.M. Gold]

music is for sale?

No, it's donations only.

[kritikon]

Things have changed (they always did). What do we do next?

The music biz as a whole might do well to release some decent music, for a start. When I look at what's around near the end of the 00s, I don't hear that much difference to what was around at the end of the 90s and almost back to the end of the 80s in many instances. That's almost 20 years when there's been no major shift in music. I can look at the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s and see each decade a whole groundshift in music, its presentation, style, lifestyle and general hype/marketing/lifestyle that goes with it. Some decades had more than one major shift. Music has stagnated for 15-20yrs IMO, so no wonder sales are going down. Certainly mainstream music has stagnated, and I haven't personally heard much in the leftfield that isn't some form of rehashed elctronic dance, rehashed hiphop, rehashed post-punk thrashy guitar stuff, or rehashed rock. So every couple of years they rehash either the 70s or the 60s or the 80s. Either way, it's old.

Music isn't that restricted that every conceivable mutation has already been done. There's more to be done, but for some reason it just isn't getting out there, or simply isn't being done. Probably isn't being done. Even in the movies now, it seems every 2 out of 3 films is a rehash of something already well done in the past. It's invaded the whole ethos of life in the Western commercial world - rehash something old and save effort, and money on paying talent. Lost music sales is just a symptom of the whole commercial ethos prevalent in the West at present. TBH, the music industry deserves to die if all it can pump out is the same old shite we've had for at least this decade...


...I actually think this present financial crisis may be a good thing in the long run in terms of stimulating creativity. Generally after bad times, there's a sudden surge in inventiveness, progress and creativity. And boy does music need some stimulus.

[A.M. Gold]

I think this article, about how major labels approached the internet ten years ago, is germane to this discussion:

http://www.mosesavalon.com/mosesblog/?p=481

[TristezaOrange]

Google sent me a couple of alerts yesterday that someone made a Rapidshare search for "Electric Sound Continuum" and I don't know about how you guys would take it but I was really flattered. Of course my income is not dependent on music, so I have a very different perspective than a pro musician.

[amiga909]

http://www.mosesavalon.com/mosesblog/?p=481

interesting in-depth read. thanks.

as i read it, the author believes the key is that the govs and courts come up with (finally effective!) prosecution and media regulation.

Since then, the Supreme Court of the US has upheld stiff fines from RIAA lawsuits. Britain is now penalizing file sharers,. ISPs have agreed to work with the RIAA and other special interest groups in assisting them with finding and punishing P2P users. The tide is changing. The storm is clearing. When will the music biz naysayers wake up?!

i am sceptical about this. while its true punishment will have some effects, its not the key. why:
- there were many tries before. yet in a democracy the gov cant prosecute a majority.
- the structure of the internet requires international solutions. and if the worldwide govs werent able so far to regulate a much bigger problem such as nuclear weapons, why should they work it out with p2p?
- strict prohibition never was an effective way to stop unwanted activities. criminalizing users even lowers the credibility of the state if its about something that is not socially endorsed. punished users rather look like martyrs then.

the internet will change. yet rough law-and-order heads will rather slow down the process.

the internet still is very young. internet mentality is still dominated by youngsters that dont know what it means to take responsibility and to make a living.
i stopped using p2p networks (napster, emule) years ago cause i realized its a waste of time. there are some nice idealistic sides but finally i neither got money nor reputation in the real world.
still, u can say u do it for idealistic purposes. then again ur faced by the fact some people infiltrate idealistic communities and abuse them. like selling copies on the street, using mp3's for dj-business or market urself with loads of socket puppet accounts. and more recently, making money out of your facebook/myspace profiles.


the key of change is education. parents and school teachers that teach their kids - based on their own actual p2p experiences. u cant teach anybody about something u dont understand.
and this is just beginning to happen as families and education institutions emerge whose members grew up with the internet themselves.

still it wont go back to big music consumer markets, imho:
if my kid spends lonely days on meaninglessly searching and sorting downloads, i'd be worried and say: u like that stuff? meet people, go to a concert!
if my kid makes makes money with others people work (selling, dj'ing), i'd get mad.

[kelvyn]

Pump gas.

The only sensible statement so far...

Music has lost its mojo and the crisis we all are facing is just the tip of the iceberg. Despite all logical arguments for and against protecting the artists copyright one thing remains true... we need to make money to exist. Most of the musicians I know who have studied music make money teaching people who will probably end up making music as a hobby because it's impossible to make money as a professional musician these days. A lot of well known bands struggle to make ends meet and despite the plethora of great bands on myspace hardly any of them are making enough to live on.

It's all very well saying times have changed and that we have to devise new economic strategies in these difficult times and that technology cannot be stopped but we all have a consciounce and that means... BUY WHAT YOU USE!!! If everyone adopted a simple credo of fair play we would be having less of these threads and spending more times creating music that people could buy.

[dbrane]

Video killed the radio star, they say. If the internet kills the video star it's fine by me.

Discussions on P2P and copyright infringement tend to become about morals or the lack thereof. I just wish to add this to that debate; People made up their own rules about fair use long before P2P. We didn't call it piracy back then, but lending/borrowing vinyl and taping stuff was commonplace when I grew up. It was how you made new friends and found out about music you had not previously heard. Sure, this is all based on personal experience, but that has a lot more weight than numbers given by IFPI anyway.

Personally, I like buying vinyl (or CD's if I have to) still, it's stupid sentimentality probably, but I'm sad to see the old-fashioned physical stores go.

[Goratrix]

The market is too saturated now. There's too much music already available. Contrary to what happened in the 50s and 60s, where new kinds of music completely replaced old music, especially for young people, we now have a vast archive of recorded music available that doesn't "get old". I could listen to what Velvet Undergound did in the 60s and it still stands very well against any contemporary noise band. The same goes for almost any genre of rock music, even for electronica and other genres.

[amiga909]

It's all very well saying times have changed and that we have to devise new economic strategies in these difficult times and that technology cannot be stopped but we all have a consciounce and that means... BUY WHAT YOU USE!!!

+1
is conscience the key then? dont we need hard regulation or people will keep on stealing? ot is regulation struggling against a technology that cannot be controlled?
somehow yes..ironically it looks like technology has made life easier for us, and at the same time it seems to demand more human qualities..

The market is too saturated now. There's too much music already available. Contrary to what happened in the 50s and 60s, where new kinds of music completely replaced old music, especially for young people, we now have a vast archive of recorded music available that doesn't "get old". I could listen to what Velvet Undergound did in the 60s and it still stands very well against any contemporary noise band. The same goes for almost any genre of rock music, even for electronica and other genres.

interesting argument.
no economically mislead industry, no societal decay of morals.
its the music itself that has come to an end - music is 'finished', nothing to buy anymore?
indeed its hard to think of any 'new' music style that could acoustically surprise me, stuff that was regarded as being unmusical noise, like a howling guitar feedback, computer bleeps or - more recently - glitch effects.