[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by Dusteh

Yes I saw your point Bill about ID3 tags, but this kind of file recognition is easily avoided through rar archives of music, shared through fileshare sites such as rapidshare... or by using FLAC instead of mp3.

I think you are correct that high-bandwidth suspicious users would probably be flagged up. But can you imagine ISP's really bothering to expend resources to use a human to investigate, or in reality don't you think their automated system will more likely send a nasty letter anyway?

I certainly think that's likely to be the first form of action.
After all, it's certainly cheaper to stem that particular flow and move on than it is to chase infringers into court from the outset.

This is what I meant by heavy-handed. I am all for punishing people stealing music, but I think this method is going to throw up false-positives and cause alot of trouble for both users and ISP's.

Technology is getting smarter (and processor power cheaper) all the time and will likely be used for much of the donkey work.
Of course, die-hard downloaders will always seek to stay one step ahead.

As has been suggested, if a user is sharing publically, then labels (or their agents) may invest in staff to prowl the usual sources gathering IPs of the illegal sharers.
Moles have already been used to shut down font sharing groups/servers back when it was at its height, so it's not hard to imagine a similar approach.

Fwiw, staffing such positions doesn't add up to much money in the grander scheme of things. Besides, if it can stem a flow of illegal downloading, with the possible outcome that actual, legit sale increase slightly, then it could ultimately become a profitable exercise (according to the overall bottom line, though direct, accurate measurement is likely to be difficult).

There are companies out there which specialise in providing just such a service, so presumably, there are other companies out there who consider such services an investment, either in raw financial terms or in terms of protecting a brand.


I suspect they'll take a reasonably considered approach, scaling the first form of action according to the level of infringement - one or two, very public examples, notwithstanding.

Labels know they're never going to make all the money they've lost to downloading back. They're more likely to take the path of least resistance (whilst not ignoring the problem) by cornering people and sending an appropriately overbearing legal letter - again, a few public examples notwithstanding.

[Shiro]

"When it comes to digital contents, someone stealing your product doesn't actually cost you a cent." - great, in that case I think I won't bother designing anything new. I'll just go to your portfolios and start ripping off your designs. You never would have met my clients anyway, so you wouldn't ever have got the jobs I get, so you're not losing a dime. Easy life for me, no loss for you.

You are taking my comment out of context. I wasn't justifying stealing digital content, nor was I saying I agree with it. I was saying that there will always be a percentage of people who will steal your digital content, and spending money trying to catch them is money that could be better spent making your content better for the huge majority of people who do and will pay for it. It's almost impossible to protect digital contents, so the secret is to build your business plan so that it makes money regardless of the people who are stealing it.

[Hunch]

Originally Posted by Dusteh

I think the problem is that there is the real fear of privacy invasion and wrongful punishment. But hiding behind that you have the people who are taking music for nothing, and use the real fears as a smoke screen.

Afterall there is a massive debate across the whole internet about the BPI being evil - but you don't get such a large following in the anti-ID card campaign.

I think many of the people who shout about how amazing the digital revolution is (and I'm not talking about anyone in this thread) - are the ones who are abusing it.

Brilliantly put.

[Hunch]

Originally Posted by haku

You are taking my comment out of context. I wasn't justifying stealing digital content, nor was I saying I agree with it. I was saying that there will always be a percentage of people who will steal your digital content, and spending money trying to catch them is money that could be better spent making your content better for the huge majority of people who do and will pay for it. It's almost impossible to protect digital contents, so the secret is to build your business plan so that it makes money regardless of the people who are stealing it.

You're right, I used your comment, but my intention was more to rebuff people like Niggle, who seized on it and quoted it himself to suggest that no one suffers when people download stuff for free. However, I entirely accept that your original intention wasn't to make this point.

[Rik]

these posts are getting too long.

[Anxious]

tl;dr

[Dusteh]

Anyway, as a designer for a couple of small labels, I just hope that a shut down in filesharing will encourage more people to go back to vinyl/CD rather than legal digital files, so that I can keep working on graphic stuff I love

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by haku

there will always be a percentage of people who will steal your digital content, and spending money trying to catch them is money that could be better spent making your content better for the huge majority of people who do and will pay for it. It's almost impossible to protect digital contents, so the secret is to build your business plan so that it makes money regardless of the people who are stealing it.

Problem is, if you send out the message that illegal copying will go unpunished, what do you think that will do to the numbers of people downloading.

There needs to be some kind of deterrent, otherwise what's to stop everyone grabbing all your great content illegally and freely?
That warm, fuzzy feeling we get from paying for music isn't going to be enough of a carrot for a great many people.

How do you provide that great, additional content to paying customers in a way which can't then be passed onto or shared amongst non-paying consumers.

It's also an unfortunate fact that the more desirable you make the content, the more desirable it becomes for all (relevant) consumers - not just those willing to pay, but also those not willing to pay - leading to increased numbers of downloaders (though possibly, proportionately the same as before the improvements in content quality).

(Western) Society being what it is, there's no product out there which people universally want to pay for.



(Me chundering on at length in some protracted thread? This is just like old times. )

[urban1977]

Originally Posted by Dusteh

Anyway, as a designer for a couple of small labels, I just hope that a shut down in filesharing will encourage more people to go back to vinyl/CD rather than legal digital files, so that I can keep working on graphic stuff I love

Vinyl offers cleaner sound than CD when Djing. I prefer to buy Vinyl records when I mix it up!

[niggle]

If I happen to think your work is worthless, should that give me the right to use it without paying for it? It wouldn't cost you a penny directly.

I was (hypothetically) never likely to commission you to do any design work, so I was never going to be a source of income for you.
So, do I take it that you wouldn't object if I plundered your design/code for anything worth having and used it myself without either thanks or payment?

After all, it's not going to effect your bottom line, so where's the crime?

You're right, it doesn't affect my bottom line, because all the work you see is already paid for by my customers.

And you can look at my design work as much as you like and it won't cost you a penny.

What a truly, spectacularly awful example for you to choose: it actually supports the opposite of what you're saying.

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by niggle

You're right, it doesn't affect my bottom line, because all the work you see is already paid for by my customers.

And you can look at my design work as much as you like and it won't cost you a penny.

What a truly, spectacularly awful example for you to choose: it actually supports the opposite of what you're saying.

No, I think it shows how you've failed to understand the statement and the point it's making.

Nice bit of passive aggressive though.

[Shiro]

There needs to be some kind of deterrent, otherwise what's to stop everyone grabbing all your great content illegally and freely?

If that were true, no one would be buying music now. Anyone who wants free music can get it very fast and entirely free on the internet with very little effort, and pretty much no risk. Yet itunes is making a killing, so obviously people are more than willing to do it the legal way. The number of illegal downloaders is only a small percentage of the total number of downloaders.

[Hunch]

Originally Posted by niggle

What a truly, spectacularly awful example for you to choose

Well it was a truly, spectacularly awful example of you completely missing his point.

The fact that iTunes is doing very well is completely beside the point. It shows the people are willing to pay for music online, but no more so than the existence of HMV and Virgin Megastore proves people will pay for CDs from a store -shoplifting still occurs. Just because someone who would have gone to get the CD, now uses iTunes, doesn't prove anything.

I'm not sure where you get your figures from that illegal downloaders is a small percentage, but consider this: In some of the most recent figures collected (Ipoque report, August - September 2007) over half of all internet traffic was recorded as P2P. The figure varied from 49% in the Middle East, to 83% in Eastern Europe. Obviously it would be impossible to break down and identify such a huge volume of data in detail, but I think we can safely presume that the majority of this traffic wasn't for sharing 'legally ok' material.

[Bill Posters]

Originally Posted by haku

If that were true, no one would be buying music now. Anyone who wants free music can get it very fast and entirely free on the internet with very little effort, and pretty much no risk. Yet itunes is making a killing, so obviously people are more than willing to do it the legal way. The number of illegal downloaders is only a small percentage of the total number of downloaders.

You may have a point.

I think the fact alone that it's illegal deters a great many.
Similarly, I think the threat of being caught deters a great many more from doing it.

If filesharing apps were to undertake the kind of high profile promotion that iTunes has, then I think we might see a significant shift in the center of balance between legal and illegal downloads.

There are still huge sections of the web using public who's only knowledge of music downloads comes from legal sources. They don't spend time on software or techy sites where P2P apps tend to be promoted.

(I suspect that the bulk of illegal downloaders, by and large, fit a certain profile, probably male, 16-25 (possibly 14-35), with a greater than average interest in technology and possibly with an awareness of alternative music.

I'd certainly be interested to see any actual data on the array of profiles of illegal downloaders. I suspect they'd 'cluster' quite predictably.

I'd also be interested to see if iTunes and other legal download resources have customer bases which consist of relatively few customers [compared to customers of total music outlets] with high individual spends or large customer numbers with lower individual spends, or some other combination/balance.)



Home users tend to be of the variety which visits the Yahoo/ISP/whatever homepage, which about a year or two ago, started advertising music downloads. And that's possibly the first they knew about digital music, let alone about downloading it.

They're generally unlikely to read the Technology sections of news outlets, so are unlikely to come into contact with the story unless it runs as a sitewide headline.


Still, I as said, I suspect that if it were to become common knowledge that, whilst it still illegal, the powers that be weren't actively going to try to catch or punish you, we might see a different public attitude to illegal downloading.

Either way, I'm not convinced that removing the threat of discovery and punishment is necessary or likely to prove helpful.


…imo.

[w1sh]

Originally Posted by Stickman

Only steal from rich bands.

That's what Robin Hood would do.

Agreed. Rich bands don't need any more money. And poor ones definitely could use the cash.

[Paddy]

When music piracy affects the musicians themselves I will give a shit.

Right now it is labels who suffer and not musicians. If piracy is bad for music, why are there more bands recording and performing now than at any other time in history? There are more than 500 festivals taking place this year in the UK alone.

Piracy is said to be bad for the music industry, but it is not piracy that is causing the decline in sales for the major labels. Music is becoming cheaper to make, record, market and distribute (through websites and services such as MySpace, Purevolume, Last.fm and Tunecore) and this negates a lot of the need for label representation to get heard. Hurrah! The music industry is dead. Long live the music!

David Byrne wrote a very interesting article about the changing music industry in December of last year. (Incidentally, the article also includes some beautiful information graphics.)


Back to the matter at hand:

I don't believe I was informed, when I signed up with my internet provider, that I would have my web habits shared with outside agencies. It's actually not a million miles away from the Facebook scandal.

The system is flawed and will no doubt cause a substantial amount of outrage from web users.

EDIT: I should also add that I'm a musician myself, and everything I've released for public consumption is available for free on Last.fm.

[Dusteh]

I have to disagree slightly. I know from first hand that small independent labels are being hit hard, labels that are run by the artists themselves. It is modern electronic music that is being hit the hardest because its fanbase consists of techy-savvy young men.

Amon Tobin had a rant about it; Amon Tobin, the music industry and the web

And Mike Paradinas (Mu-Ziq) said;

It’s started to get better. There was an impact yeah; our sales went down to about a quarter of what they were. In 1998, an average album would probably sell about 3,000 quite easily, depending on the quality obviously. And then in 2000 it had gone down to about a third, and 2002 was probably the worst year, we were struggling to sell 500 of anything. But having increased the profile of the label we’re doing better with certain things, but it’s still hard to shift 500 of something really obscure.

So fuck the majors yes... but what about the minors? Not every artist wants to make their living from live performances or DJing.

[Accurate]

I'll never buy an actual music CD ever again. Why would I? I'm only going to have to burn it to my computer and then convert it into MP3's so I can listen to it in my car/ipod/sound system etc.

Itunes and other music providers need to shake up their download system. It's too complicated, and there are too many restrictions in place.

I use Itunes, but have had HUGE problems when trying to copy the music onto CD's etc. I'm aware it is to stop piracy, but it's just no good.

My rant over. That's all I have left in me until next year!

[niggle]

Nice bit of passive aggressive though.

Thanks!

Your mistake is simple: you tried to equate music piracy to someone ripping off my designs.

But pirates only view the content, they don't use it to make money. Ripping off my designs is instead broadly analogous to sampling music without perimission and using it in a new track to sell - but that's illegal anyway!

No industry has the right to stand still and no company has a right to keep churning out shit and expecting people to keep paying for it. It's in the nature of the market that innovators - like iTunes - flourish while those who can't and won't grow - like HMV and the major record labels - wither and die.

That's just the way capitalism works. Innovate or die. Copyrights expire, IP dies with companies. If you stand still you get run over and good fucking riddance.

[Dusteh]

It's not like anyone will be looking at your portfolio anyway eh?