[niggle]

So in business terms, which is better:

Tolerate a tiny amount of leakage in your business compared to the billions you already make for the sake of good brand image?

Or

Pursue and prosecute anyone who refuses to pay your extortionate prices?


Genuinely good and well-priced products don't need bully-boy thug tactics to sell, they sell themselves. Attacking people who try your product before they buy or who can't afford to buy it anyway isn't just obnoxious it's atrocious business sense.

[Shiro]

The majority of people will choose the legal route to get something rather than the illegal route. So if you accept that some people will steal, and instead of focusing time, effort and money on those people, and instead focus your time, effort and money on providing a better service to your customers, you should still make money. When it comes to digital contents, someone stealing your product doesn't actually cost you a cent. Of course it's income that you aren't getting, but it's not negative income - you didn't have to pay for that item to be produced. And the majority of stolen music probably wouldn't have bene bought if it the people stealing it had to pay for it, so it's not like all the music stolen is lost revenue. Work the amount that will be stolen into the business plan, and focus on making money regardless of that. In a digital world, its almost impossible to prevent theft, as we are seeing by the fact that people are still downloading stolen music.

[steveb]

Some interesting opinions on the subject on the Inependent's blog too IndyBlogs: Cyberclinic: Music downloads – resistance is futile

[niggle]

When it comes to digital contents, someone stealing your product doesn't actually cost you a cent.

Smart reply, and very true.

It's the downloaders who carry the cost - hosting, storage, bandwidth and distribution - not the industry.

[Anxious]

Originally Posted by Bill Posters

It's not a stretch to say that, even at half the price, the amount of music which passes through the hands of a typical sharers/downloaders goes far beyond their disposable income were they to buy it.

Price is an easy excuse and probably a genuine reason for a small minority of downloaders, but it's likely to be the ease with which music can be freely obtained that leads the majority to take advantage.

I suspect that high-minded 'principles' play a far smaller part than its cool to admit.

I agree with you in the cause, I'm not naieve enough to think that people download simply because they can't afford it.

I'm saying that the music industry should reduce their prices to an affordable level for the average joe, and anyone who continues to take the piss should be dealt with in the appropriate way.

People are always going to rip the arse out of illegal downloading, but if the 'industry' provides an affordable, easy to use alternative, people should have no reason to complain and resort to other means, and deserve to be 'punished' if they continue.

Musicians deserve to be paid well for their music, but romping in with the cattle prod isn't going to help!

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by oli

Yes, but Im sure that a lot of illegal downloaders have also purchased a lot of legal music in the past - not good business to prosecute your customers !

That's bs.
So, because you once bought a legit copy of Photoshop, Adobe should be fine with you downloading a hooky copy of Illustrator?

The fact that you sometimes do the right thing doesn't give you the right to do the wrong thing and not be held accountable.

Do you give away new design work to past customers?
Do you charge them half price because they've payed the full asking price in the past?

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by niggle

So in business terms, which is better:

Tolerate a tiny amount of leakage in your business compared to the billions you already make for the sake of good brand image?

Or

Pursue and prosecute anyone who refuses to pay your extortionate prices

Genuinely good and well-priced products don't need bully-boy thug tactics to sell, they sell themselves. Attacking people who try your product before they buy or who can't afford to buy it anyway isn't just obnoxious it's atrocious business sense.

It's extremely common for businesses to seek to clamp down on forgers, infringers, etc…
Hasn't crippled any industries, afaik.

Are the majors struggling to shift product because downloaders don't love them (beyond the natural peaks and troughs of the publics's music buying habits). How many majors have gone broke?

Victimising criminals? Whatever next!?

[oli]

Im not saying its right, just that from a customer relations point of view its not the best tactic and only angers people.

My point of this thread is that the music industry keep getting it wrong, they should be embracing downloads and making it easier and cheaper for people, not wasting time chasing the few wrong doers. They could save loads of money on distribution costs, making cds and provide cheaper downloads and offer people the option if they want a hardcopy.

Look what Radiohead did with their last album, they made a packet from downloads only - thats the way forward, the labels just need to catch up and give people what they want - easy, cheap downloads.

The labels are used to having it all their way for so long and dont want to adapt and change and untill they do people will keep illegally sharing their music.

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by niggle

Smart reply, and very true.

It's the downloaders who carry the cost - hosting, storage, bandwidth and distribution - not the industry.

So, again, if someone copied your design exactly and used it to promote whatever they wanted, you shouldn't object because their infringement isn't actually costing you a penny?

Don't get me wrong, I'm the first to groan at the false comparisons made between 'stealing a CD/DVD' that you get on the F.A.C.T. adverts of (UK?) DVDs. I'm fully aware that it's infringement, not 'stealing'.

The argument has never been that the industry is directly footing the bill for downloaders, just that it's losing revenue because people are consuming the product without paying the asking price.

[Bill Posters]

I personally think the demise of the CD (or all physical formats) could be the best thing to happen to the music industry. Were it not for the need to pour serious money into physical products, the cost per artist/per song could be brought down drastically.
This would enable labels, major and independent, to invest time and money in new acts knowing that the cost exposure of getting the product to market would be relatively small.

Whether we like to admit it or not, the high asking price of CDs does help labels recoup lost investments in bands which failed, for whatever reason, to make an impact on the market (read: break even, as an investment).


Digital download is currently the cheapest method of release. I'd like to see labels focus on that and possibly only produce physical products for those acts which have proven market interest in physical product.
(That said, that's probably not too far away from the current model, after all.)


Of course, there are sure to be many who object to the deprecation of the physical format as well as many who object to a download-only release on the grounds that it marginalises those without internet.


Fwiw, I consider myself a socialist (small s), and I love music with a passion that I reserve for few other things. But I find it hard to rail against the record industry because it charges 'too much' for what is, by any measure, a luxury good.

[urban1977]

How will the ISP know what files are illegal or not?

[niggle]

It's extremely common for businesses to seek to clamp down on forgers, infringers, etc…
Hasn't crippled any industries, afaik.

And the music industry - is it doing great business now compared to say 10 years ago?

Or are their sales in the shitter and just getting worse?

[Bill Posters]

File names, presumably.
They'd probably be given a db of some sort by the labels/industry reps, containing names of known copyrighted tracks and artists.

Any matches could be flagged, the source/destination IPs matched against access logs, etc…


Depending on processor power, it may even be possible to read ID3 tag info, so simply renaming the files alone may not provide complete protection.
Of course, users could potentially change file names and ID3 tags. That being the case, I'm not sure there would be any accurate way for an ISP to identify illegal file downloads.

Those uploading/download large numbers of audio files, even with no 'matches' being triggered, might be targeted for closer inspection, possibly by having some files intercepted and checked manually.

[urban1977]

BBC NEWS | Technology | Warning letters to 'file-sharers'

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by niggle

And the music industry - is it doing great business now compared to say 10 years ago?

Or are their sales in the shitter and just getting worse?

10 years ago, sales were down on 10 years earlier as well.
20 years ago, sales were down on 10 years earlier.

Iirc, music sales (in the West, at least, certainly in the UK) have been in a gradual decline since the end of the '70s, long before filesharing became an option; even considering the 'Home taping is killing music' era.
The reasons for lower music consumption are a matter for debate of its own*, but the fact remains that it's not a trend anomalous to the digital filesharing era.
It's likely that filesharing has had less of an impact on general sales trends than both the industry and the anti-industry sectors would like to admit openly.

* It's possibly partly down to having so many other forms of recreational activity to distract us, steadily becoming available throughout the past 30 years. More TV and radio channels, home video, computer and video games, the interwebs, …

[Dusteh]

Why bother paying for a legal download when you can get the actual CD album for the same price via amazon warehouse sellers? Many people, myself included, feel happier holding something when we part with cash.

mp3s are only popular because they are being stolen, download prices need to drop to encourage more legal users.

And arguments over the future of music aside, Urban1977 is spot on, how are ISP's going to know you are sharing music? Are they monitoring for p2p / torrent sharing data - does that mean downloading albums in rar format from rapidshare is going to slip through the net? And what about all the legal net labels, if I choose to download the Thinner back catalog from soulseek, is my ISP going to send me a nasty letter? It is heavy-handed, ill thought-out and there is going to be a nasty mess and some ISP's being taken to court by users I expect.

[niggle]

They've been getting progressively worse since the end of the '70s, long before filesharing became an option.
The reasons for lower music consumption are a matter for debate of its own, but the fact remains that it's not a trend anomalous to the digital filesharing era.
It's likely that filesharing has had less of an impact on general sales trends than both the industry and the anti-industry sectors would like to admit openly.

So, you admit that it's not a price issue.

We know that record sales are in the toilet and getting worse.

You admit that sales are dropping independent of downloading.

So where's the "crime" in this? If downloading has nothing to do with falling sales and doesn't damage revenue, what harm is it doing that needs to be prosecuted?

[Dusteh]

mp3s are killing the home taping industry.

[d*d]

Originally Posted by Dusteh

Why bother paying for a legal download when you can get the actual CD album for the same price via amazon warehouse sellers? Many people, myself included, feel happier holding something when we part with cash.

I don't use CD's anymore - If I buy a CD I end up copying it over to my computer to listen to so it's easier to buy via iTunes - it's the future old man, let go your materialistic ways

[Dusteh]

I've got 1TB of flac files, I rip a Cd and then stick it on the shelf.

But if I'm going to buy the album legally, I'd rather have the CD, the artwork AND the digital files, rather than just the digital files alone. CD lifespan = 100 years. My harddrive lifespan = 5?