# That felt good!



## Mark Belbin (Feb 20, 2010)

So my call last night for testers has garnered one e-mail:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_From: *********@***********
To: [email protected]
Subject: keyboard library test
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:26:21 +0300

Hello,Mark!
My name is *******, Im a student of ****** Conservatory studying Composition,Piano and Percussion. I have seen your thread over at VI-control and got interested.
I've been playing piano professionally for a long time (before the Conservatory, I have graduated ******** School of Music with "Classical Pianist" and "Classical Percussionist" diplomas) . 
I have a Triton extreme keyboard controller and logic running kontakt 4.
Here's a youtube link to me performing my own piece on piano (and some percussion) called ***** with a fellow percussionist : *********link removed******8
I have played both classical piano concerts, and performed jazz,rock,metal etc on keyboards. Please let me know if you're interested in a particular style of music and I will try to send more recordings.
Thanks for your interest.
Kind Regards,
****_

Something stank about this, so I searched the piracy forums. Found ya! Here's what I sent back:

_Hi "piracy forum username",

Why help me when you can just wait and steal it on **** dot com?

Sorry, but I don't work with pirates.

Asshole._

It briefly crossed my mind to get him to send me some MIDI performances to use as demos, and not deliver product, not because that's a good thing to do, or because it would "right the wrongs", etc, but just as a small piece of payback that might feel gratifying. Of course, I wouldn't sink as low as these people. The e-mail will have to do.

Shame. He's a good player, actually. :roll:


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## lux (Feb 20, 2010)

One penny for getting the sense of this post. I'll use paypal.


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Feb 20, 2010)

How did you cross reference his name with a piracy forum?


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## nikolas (Feb 20, 2010)

Assuming he felt the need to change, you did a heck of a job there!


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## Mark Belbin (Feb 21, 2010)

Luca,

I just wanted to share the experience of having outsmarted someone who would've shared my work while it was still in beta. That woulld be all the kinds of bad, and such an effort deserves to be published. I'm still at odds as to whether I publish this guys name and e-mail, to be honest. 

Nathan,

Let's just say I'm a little smarter than him, and that that doesn't say much for either of us. :wink: 

Nikolas:

?


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## lux (Feb 21, 2010)

[quote:5c326693e7="Mark Belbin @ Sun Feb 21, 2010 10:19 am"]Luca,

Should I be prepared to take the risk of giving an unprotected beta to a volunteer who goes to said forum and steals products from developers like me? I'd provide links to sò–ø   ÅüÛ–ø   ÅüÜ–ø   ÅüÝ–ø   ÅüÞ–ø   Åüß–ø   Åüà–ø   Åüá–ø   Åüâ–ø   Åüã–ø   Åüä–ø   Åüå–ø   Åüæ–ø   Åüç–ø   Åüè–ø   Åüé–ø   Åüê–ø   Åüë–ø   Åüì–ø   Åüí–ø   Åüî–ø   Åüï–ø   Åüð–ø   Åüñ–ø   Åüò–ø   Åüó–ø   Åüô–ø   Åüõ–ø   Åüö–ø   Åü÷–ø   Åüø–ø   Åüù–ø   Åüú–ø   Åüû–ø   Åüü–ø   Åüý–ø   Åüþ–ø   Åüÿ–ø   Åý –ø   Åý–ø   Åý–ø   Åý–ø   Åý–ø   Åý–ø   Åý–ø   Åý–ø   Åý–ø   Åý	–ú   Åý<–ú   Åý=–ú   Åý>–ú   Åý?–ú   Åý@–ú   ÅýA–ú   ÅýB–ú   ÅýC–ú   ÅýD–ú   ÅýE–ú   ÅýF–ú   ÅýG–ú   ÅýH–ú   ÅýI–ú   ÅýJ–ú   ÅýK–ú   ÅýL–ú   ÅýM–ú   ÅýN–ú   ÅýO–ú   ÅýP–ú   ÅýQ–ú   ÅýR–ú   ÅýS–ú   ÅýT–ú   ÅýU–ú   ÅýV–ú   ÅýW–ú   ÅýX–ú   ÅýY–ú   ÅýZ–ú   Åý[–ú   Åý\–ú   Åý]–ú   Åý^–ú   Åý_–ú   Åý`–ú   Åýa–ú   Åýb–ú   Åýc–ú   Åýd–ú   Åýe–û   Åý
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## lux (Feb 21, 2010)

Mark Belbin @ Sun Feb 21 said:


> noiseboyuk @ Sun Feb 21 said:
> 
> 
> > ...and don't think that has any place in VI Control, imho.
> ...



for the record i still keep the eye on the ball that the damaged part is you and your product being pirated. worths specify it.


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## choc0thrax (Feb 21, 2010)

What I want to know is if pirated TN mandolins is a failed concept?


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## synthetic (Feb 21, 2010)

midphase @ Sun Feb 21 said:


> "Most software developers are right on the edge of bankruptcy because of pirates."
> 
> And this brilliant piece of news comes from where exactly?



I'm the marketing manager for TASCAM. When we had GigaStudio, I was in contact with many soundware and software developers and still am. Even the very successful ones need to spend time clearing their products off of Rapidshare and others. Wanna know who the most successful developers are? The ones that use iLok copy protection. 



> Look, I'm not defending piracy in the least, it's an issue no doubt about it. But from my point of view, I see developers with good business plans, fair pricing and good products do pretty well for themselves.



It certainly sounds to me that you're defending piracy when the user can't afford a library. And that sucks. 



> Sorry to veer this one off topic again, but when I take a look at Mark's products, I see a very niche line with very high pricing (and I've stated this much before).



Please feel free not to buy them, but you're missing out. He wouldn't need to price them so high if 19 out of 20 people didn't steal his product. 



> There are two types of pirates, the ones who justify using copied software because in their minds the price point for going legit is too steep, and those who never in a million years would intend on buying the product regardless of the price point....



Bulllllllshit, man. There is one kind of pirate, the guy who didn't pay for the libraries he's using to make music. The only difference between stealing software and stealing a guitar is you're more likely to get caught stealing the guitar. Really sad to see this attitude on a forum about using software samplers.


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## tmhuud (Feb 21, 2010)

I'm with Synthetic and Mark B. on this completely. And I'm sick to death of people who are NOT developers telling people whats right and wrong for the developer. Only developers know that and even after they tell tell folks unanimously whats affecting them you still get people saying the opposite.

Developers are saying that piracy is driving them to bankruptcy. So whats so difficult in grasping that concept?


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## mf (Feb 21, 2010)

synthetic @ Sun Feb 21 said:


> Wanna know who the most successful developers are? The ones that use iLok copy protection.


I'm curious how Spectrasonics is dealing with this piracy issue, since they don't use ilok protection, nor do they look as they're on the brink of bankruptcy.


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## midphase (Feb 21, 2010)

"It certainly sounds to me that you're defending piracy when the user can't afford a library. And that sucks. "


¿Where do you get that info from my post? 

I never even implied such a thing I merely stated that there are differences in types of piracy...is this how poorly what I write is understood by people around here?


"Developers are saying that piracy is driving them to bankruptcy. So whats so difficult in grasping that concept?"


The problem Terry is that developers don't know exactly if that's what driving them to bankruptcy...they're just speculating and is not any different than me speculating that people selling pirated DVD's is because I didn't get to score more films last year. It sounds plausible sure...but unfortunately I think the picture is much more complex than that. For one developer who is almost bankrupt there's one who is doing fantastic. Piracy being an equal opportunity offender...why then the discrepancy (hint...it's not iLok)?


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## snowleopard (Feb 21, 2010)

> Wow good thing The_Dark_Knight deleted his post



And now that everyone has vented, maybe he can also delete this entire thread. 

:|


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## The_Dark_Knight (Feb 21, 2010)

If I could delete threads I could've saved myself so much pain an suffering. I cannot...this isn't my thread anyway. 0oD


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## NYC Composer (Feb 21, 2010)

I turned down about 10k worth of proven cracked software in the past months. Wouldn't have had to even download it, just a transfer, computer to computer. The people who offered it to me are friends, in worse financial shape than I, but still. I turn stuff down politely, and I speak out for developers and against piracy, but past that, what can you do-disassociate from younger people, friends, who just don't get it?

At the same time, I feel pretty resentful of people I'm more or less competing with who have tools I don't feel I can't afford because of their willingness to steal them. It's so prevalent that I've caught myself thinking 'well, maybe I'M the chump here'-but I know it's a nonsensical way for anyone with any sense of fairness and decency to think , and I quash it.

From a business model standpoint, Mark- I thought your excellent pedal steel was originally priced too high for the market to bear, and I waited 'til the group buy to purchase it. If the recent Steven Slate group buy is any indication ( I personally thought it was under-priced ) it seems it's more of a lower price/higher volume world in this industry. That could be due to a variety of factors, i.e. market saturation, a bad economy, piracy certainly-but it seems fairly true nevertheless.Wishful thinking on my part, but I can't help wondering what a one month group buy of BBB at a final price of $[/i]750 or so would bring. I'd bet the developers would be darn happy and semi-wealthy at the end.

Further, much as I sympathize with your agonies about piracy, I hope you don't let your thirst for retribution consume you, as I fear the genie is mostly out of the bottle, and I'm afraid it will ultimately bring you little satisfaction and much bitterness. Cheers.


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## noiseboyuk (Feb 21, 2010)

Hmmm.... I was going to write that there's no way to be sure what effect piracy has, following Midphase's arguments, because it's impossible to be scientific about this issue - there being no control group. Then I thought.... hold on a minute, there IS a control group of sorts, and it's iLok. It's no a perfect control - some people don't buy any dongled product on some sort of principle (the cynics would argue that this is the principle of not paying for software). But afaik, iLok's libs are uncracked. So there is no piracy issue for them, so one can make an A/B comparison of a world without / with piracy.

But only up to a point I guess. When we say iLok, we mean EWQL, I suspect. But several things make EWQL fairly unique in the market anyway. Their promotions are very aggressive and - I think - highly successful, so this might be the reason they are doing so well (if they are - I have no idea of their actual sales figures). And, to counter, Play has had a lot of bad publicity which has put a lot of people off. So it's hardly a perfect control, but nonetheless useful, I'd argue.

But even this only gets us so far. In terms of scale, I guess NI is the closest competitor. Financially, which is in better health? I don't suppose any of us know the balance books of both companies, and if anyone does they certainly won't be at liberty to say here. Sure EWQL don't have any piracy to contend with on their Play libs, but do the financial negatives associated with having a dongle outweigh the positives? Who knows?

So I find myself arriving at where I began... we have no way of knowing. Piracy MUST hurt developers, no doubt at all. But is the cure worse than the disease? What happens to EWQL's business model when (as will inevitably happen one day) iLok is cracked?

In summary - I think it's very difficult to be truly objective about this issue. I understand midphase's arguments - if I read him right, he's not saying priacy is ok in any form, merely that its effects are not as great it might first appear, and there might be other reasons why a developer in trouble (such as pricing). I just don't have enough evidence to make any informed judgement on this. However, I'd support any developer in their own fight against the pirates though, so I still have every sympathy with Mark's sentiments, even if some of the specifics in the OP may have been unwise.


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## Chris Hein (Feb 21, 2010)

Mark Belbin @ Sun Feb 21 said:


> I can watermark the script easily enough, and the script governs almost every aspect of the library's usefullness, so it's not feasible to remove it. Trouble is, I'm at odds with the idea of spending time fighting this battle, since it is, by all accounts and evidence, a losing one :(


Hm, I think its less work than writing a post here to include an encrypted name somewhere in the script.
Nobody uploads a watermarked product to a piracy forum.
And if he does, you can lean back and count the money you'll get from him.
At least, you'll feel saver and better.

Chris Hein


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## The_Dark_Knight (Feb 21, 2010)

I will tell you candidly...a developer I worked for has crumbled apart, not from piracy, but missing the strategic inflection points and being stubborn in their ways. I'm speaking from both sides (composer and sample maker) of the table and want both sides to absolutely thrive. But it's not gonna happen because the system isn't designed to accommodate so much talent. It's designed to discriminate against talent. So business has to pool it's strengths. The enormous mass of internet users and new channel of distribution is a strength for developers. Crack users are your fans. Cheap bastards are your fans. You'll be making great tools just the same because the stuff comes from you not your elite customer base.

_the bigger picture_
I believe the world needs to move into a socialist 2.0 understanding and it needs to do it fast. It's not a selfish thing for me to say this, my life's mission already been vaporized. I just want people to not have to compete for food money, there haven't been decent jobs for several decades. We can all have a job big and small in a more organic way. Instead of "faking" work like the world is doing now (bankers, lawyers, day traders other work which expires overnight). Making the rest of us, who have to survive on scraps of forced exploitation look like worthless fools but there was never any room for us in the first place. That's one of the main reasons I became a musician, everything else was over populated with talent while music seemed to be in a slump. Now music is too. I had hoped the government would have caught up with this as being a good idea (socialize music and health care etc..), cause we composers have such a low carbon foot print and all. And we create amusement which is non-violent, and non-pornographic and overall a harmless stimulant

The real work of the world is to get the new modular grid instrumentation, addressing population problems instead of waiting for god or war. To convert to a world currency (since we're all in this together and need each others food and stuff) and to reach new technological standardization to defend ourselves against ourselves and nature. 

_zoom in_
The piracy concern just doesn't seem as big when you consider everything else contributing to product breakdown, things which seems legacy but are still sabotaging efforts of civilized human development.

As a "creative"...I want as many people as possible to have my "product", never less people. Crack users are giving you free advertising.


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## midphase (Feb 21, 2010)

I've long felt that East West (whom I'd be willing to bet was doing quite well even before they went to a dongle-based player) has had a solid retail strategy with fair pricing, top notch products with lots of bang for the buck, a (relatively) positive online presence, multi-level price points (silver/gold/platinum) and aggressive discounts at the right time (like around the holidays).

I think when they switched to PLAY it helped reign in those "potential" customers who were on the fence and too easily tempted by the forbidden fruit on a friend's hard drive. Having said that, I'd be willing to bet that their more niche products (like Fab Four and Gipsy) don't sell as well as the ones with wider appeal even though piracy is no longer a concern for them.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I'd bet Broadway Big Band sales have been lacking even though it's been dongle-protected since its inception due to its pricing structure.

FWITW...I do think attitudes are changing. Slowly but surely I see around myself more composers going "legit" than ever before. I think this is partly due to more stringent copy protection, but also due to more fair pricing, better overall products, and a moral/ethical growth spurred in part by the fact that music and media piracy has given composers a taste of what it's like to be on the victim's side of things.

However...in many cases, rather than going out and buying products that before one would have pirated, I see very much happening what Larry has described above which is that instead of pirating a product, people are just managing without it and simply not buying anything. I find this to be a particularly interesting development since it means there is less piracy happening, but developers are not benefitting from it with increased sales.

And just to be absolutely crystal on this, I've never advocated piracy or spoken in support of it. As a matter of fact, people who have read my past posts know that I've long been a supporter of more developers using iLok on their products.


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## midphase (Feb 21, 2010)

BTW Mark...it's my understanding that your products are Kontakt libraries but not Kontakt Player libraries (which require a serial authorization through Service Center). Kontakt Player libraries (like Symphobia, LASS, AIR, etc.) benefit from a copy protection layer that I believe is not present in regular Kontakt libraries (like Drums of War, Cinematic Strings, etc.)

My question is....if piracy is such a strong concern for you, why not license the Kontakt Player technology from NI and protect yourself? *

* Disclaimer (If your products are Kontakt Player protected libraries and do require Service Center to be authorized, then disregard the question since obviously I must not know what the hell I'm talking about)


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## oldbrian (Feb 22, 2010)

midphase @ Mon Feb 22 said:


> BTW Mark...it's my understanding that your products are Kontakt libraries but not Kontakt Player libraries (which require a serial authorization through Service Center). Kontakt Player libraries (like Symphobia, LASS, AIR, etc.) benefit from a copy protection layer that I believe is not present in regular Kontakt libraries (like Drums of War, Cinematic Strings, etc.)
> 
> My question is....if piracy is such a strong concern for you, why not license the Kontakt Player technology from NI and protect yourself? *
> 
> * Disclaimer (If your products are Kontakt Player protected libraries and do require Service Center to be authorized, then disregard the question since obviously I must not know what the hell I'm talking about)



What NI provides in KP is hardly a viable protection scheme, at least it hasn't been such so far. It's a bit strange that they don't license a more "serious" scheme (and why they don't allow dongle protection), instead of trying to reinvent the wheel themselves - it would be better for both the sample library developers (they'd have a protection that actually works) and NI as well (they wouldn't have to work on something that is not their area of expertise). 

The dongles alone are not enough though, they have to be carefully integrated into the software in question. If it's not "tight" enough, things could still be cracked if worst comes to worst.


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## mikebarry (Feb 22, 2010)

NI needs to get their act together on this whole CP thing. What they offer is hardly protection at all. They need to work with PACE so we can feel secure as developers. This needs to happen right now. Their protection scheme is a joke.


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## Waywyn (Feb 22, 2010)

Apart from this, I have to say sometimes it is indeed a bit weird how some people deal with pirated stuff.

A long while ago I received a message from someone asking me for my serial of lib xxx

Recently I wrote on Facebook that my trial version for a certain reverb plugin has run out. Within a few minutes I received a link from a guy: DOWNLOAD IT HERE!

Also I received lots of messages from people saying something like: Hey, I did a new track with lib xxx ... I don't have it yet, but I definitely surely absolutely plan to buy it soon.

Back then when my little guitar lib was released I got a message from a guy asking to do a review for a magazine. I granted him a version but never received an article about his test ... and he didn't even answer to my kind emails.


Yeh, sharing is fun ... as long as it's not your own stuff ~o)


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## Andrew Aversa (Feb 22, 2010)

Funny story - Shreddage was pirated a few days after it came out. This is, mind you, a $50 product that almost everyone has said we should be charging more for. It's Kontakt 2 format, open, no CP, no dongle, etc. It's cheaper than a nice dinner out, a digital download, and just generally as pirate-logic-friendly as it can be. And it got pirated anyway.

I actually posted on the (a?) torrent site hosting it and made an impassioned plea to remove it. The response was surprisingly supportive, people saying my prices were reasonable and that they would add my request to the top of the torrent description, but of course, it wasn't taken down. I even posted a discount code on the same site so that people could buy a legit copy for even LESS than $50. The code hasn't been used once, though the torrent has been downloaded hundreds of times.


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## Dynamitec (Feb 22, 2010)

zircon_st, you really shouldn't mention such facts in any forum, not even here! Those guys read this forum here as well (the Electri6ity announcement made on V.I. was posted in some big pirates forum only a few hours after I posted it here). So it might only lead to a some people searching for your library instead of buying it.

Btw. your example proves my point I made in a different thread here: the price doesn't matter. People will also pirate very reasonable priced products :( Unfortunately...


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## mikebarry (Feb 22, 2010)

One further thing I wish to add. If anything developers have noticed that piracy continues and excels under the status quo. There will be changes made, whether through public humiliation, lawsuits, new softwares, further cramping down upon legit consumers, whippings, harassing poems, debt collection agencies etc..

Let's see what happens.


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## mf (Feb 22, 2010)

You can't stop software piracy, for one simple reason: if something can be stolen, it will be stolen (especially when the punishment risk is low). Software make for an extremely easy steal. Imo, the UAD way, software/hardware hybrids would be the most logical future for devs. Iloks are good too.

I still wonder how Spectrasonic deals with piracy, for they don't seem to be affected much, or to care much. Whats most intriguing to me is that they chose not to use iloks. What's the deal here?

edit
Another reason why software piracy is impossible to fight: kids are pirates. Period. And they're aggressive and irresponsible. Can't fight them. I mean, you can, but you can't win - they're WAY too many. For every one down you get one thousand up each day.


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## Dynamitec (Feb 22, 2010)

While piracy hits big companies like Spectrasonic as well, I think they can handle it much better than small developers (same for NI). So they won't focus on piracy but on new products. I think they possibly made more money with Omnisphere or Trillian in the first quarter than other small developer will make in the whole lifetime of their products.


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## MaraschinoMusic (Feb 22, 2010)

I believe that software piracy is an unfortunate fact of life - like any other crime. Whilst copy protection in it's various forms can make it more difficult for these pirates to perpetrate their evil deeds, it is only a matter of time before the protection is cracked. I'm convinced that many of these crackers view copy protection as a personal challenge to their abilities, and are craving kudos from their peers - so they will, I'm sure, work night and day to be the first one to crack iLok...

I sympathise with the developers who are losing money because of piracy, in the same way that I sympathise with the artists who are losing potential CD sales because people are downloading their tunes, copying their albums, etc.. There is very little we users can do to change this, except to be proud that we have done the right thing and paid for the software we use (and the music we listen to...)

Although this may seem a little contradictory, I couldn't really care if someone else is using a pirated copy of something that I acquired legitimately - I don't believe that they will be able to create what I can, or what you can, just because they have the same tools. Sure, anyone can string together a bunch of loops and call it an original work, but just having a bunch of stolen samples does not make one a composer. With this in mind, I am proud to be among the principled few "iLok haters". My only concern is that the criminal minority will dissuade the developers from investing in future products for fear of losing revenue to the freeloaders and their ilk. If this happens, we'll have to all go back to acoustic instruments...


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## Dynamitec (Feb 22, 2010)

I'm agreeing with your last paragraph. But as soon as those guys are starting to ask dumb questions in forums (for examlpe "I recently 'got' Cubase, how can I do these or that?" and "these and that" are things covered on the first pages of the manual) I'm getting angry. Or something like "Here is a new track with a killer library I 'got' recently" and the library is a high quality expensive one and the track is a poor amateurish track which could have been done with the Windows GM Midi driver I'm getting angry, too. I don't know why this happens...I'm simply getting angry.


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## mf (Feb 22, 2010)

Which is like getting angry with mosquitoes for sucking up your blood. What were you doing down there by the river in the first place? They were there first. It's their place. You wanna stay safe? Stay home. It's a jungle out there.

Point is: those kids are incurable. It's their nature to steal and then to brag about it. They're pirates and proud to be. They're mosquitoes. They do what they do not because they're mean or anything, but because it's in their nature to do it: they're parasites, thieves and blood-suckers. You can't kill them all. But you can stay away from their river instead.


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## midphase (Feb 22, 2010)

"I don't know why this happens...I'm simply getting angry."

Have a coke and smile! You'll live longer that way (well...not much longer due to the corn syrup, but I digress).


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## midphase (Feb 22, 2010)

"Point is: those kids are incurable. It's their nature to steal and then to brag about it. They're pirates and proud to be. They're mosquitoes. They do what they do not because they're mean or anything, but because it's in their nature to do it. They're parasites, thieves and blood-suckers. You can't kill them all. But you can stay away from their river."


Right, but those kids will also never buy the product in the first place even if it was unkrackable. That's the point I was trying to make before, you have to be able to differentiate between "redeemable" piracy and just the background noise piracy which doesn't impact the bottom line no matter what. The guys who love to krack new software are really not into the actual software. I'd be willing to be most people who share stuff like Symphobia online have no real idea of what it is they're sharing in the first place...they just know it's cool.


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## TuwaSni (Feb 22, 2010)

This has been brought up before in a couple of other related threads - but it bears mentioning again.

It isn't inexpensive to license the Kontakt Player. Far beyond what small developers can afford. If there was a relatively inexpensive way to authorize Kontakt libs then we'd all be there - believe me.

But there is another caveat to the KPlayers - if you check the crack forums and torrents - you will find the NI stuff all over them. NI is a key target for crackers and so far just about every NI product has been cracked (just Google and see for yourselves.)

There NEEDS to be an affordable protection scheme (and one that works reasonably well) made available for small developers - elsewise there is a defacto discrimination going on as far as media rights protection. iLok works fairly well - but it can only protect software that runs - not content by itself - and - it isn't cheap to implement either.

BTW - Watermarked audio isn't cheap and only works post facto.

As to socialism 2.0 - that side of the coin is a world of even greater depraved indifference and sociopathy than the one we are currently at task with. Talking out one side of the mouth about people not having food money - while out the other extolling taking food money from developers and their families is incongruous.



Tuwa Sni


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## Udo (Feb 22, 2010)

Some developers have implemented this: people who derive income from using the software/library pay more than hobbyists (income defined as more than a relatively small amount).

Lets face it, hobbyists are in effect subsidising professional users :wink: 

If it wasn't for hobbyist buyers -
- products would cost more
- updates/upgrades would occur less frequently and/or cost more

Udo


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## The_Dark_Knight (Feb 22, 2010)

TuwaSni

Never said anything about taking food money out of the mouths of developers....you made that up just to something. I don't support pirates, you made that up to start something. I said I stand by both sides...developers and composers. And both sides are in a lot of trouble.

Socialism *2.0* <-notice a 2.0....not a 1.0. Notice there are plenty of countries that have good socialized policies that ARE NOT RUSSIA OR CHINA....Take note everything in your country with the word "federal"...is part of a socialist architecture.

As for Russia and Pirating...It's my understanding that American's and others use "proxies" to make it seem like the content is coming from Russia a lot of the time.

You can't judge success stories here very easily because nothing works like the marcom element would have you believe. Did you know, the singer in a perfect circle has a wine tasting business?


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## synthetic (Feb 22, 2010)

Watermarked audio doesn't matter if someone types in a fake name and Yahoo email address.


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## Andrew Aversa (Feb 22, 2010)

Huh? The point of watermarking is to identify the origin of the pirated copy. You have to have a legitimate name, address and credit card to purchase anything, unless you're literally a credit card/identity thief. You can cross-reference the watermark in the pirated version with a customer database and easily find out who leaked it.


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Feb 22, 2010)

zircon_st @ Mon Feb 22 said:


> Huh? The point of watermarking is to identify the origin of the pirated copy. You have to have a legitimate name, address and credit card to purchase anything, unless you're literally a credit card/identity thief. You can cross-reference the watermark in the pirated version with a customer database and easily find out who leaked it.



CS does this. It takes longer to install but it watermarks every single sample.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 22, 2010)

Oops - that was supposed to be a PM....


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## synthetic (Feb 23, 2010)

If someone uploads a watermarked copy of my software, then what? The software is pirated, damage is done. What can I do, sue that person for 5,000 lost sales? Good luck with that. That person isn't eligible for upgrades? He'll probably just download the next version. What if that person is in another country? No chance of going after them. If they registered under the name "Joe Blow?" Watermarking might be a small deterrent but isn't the solution.


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## Chris Hein (Feb 23, 2010)

synthetic @ Tue Feb 23 said:


> ... What can I do, sue that person for 5,000 lost sales? Good luck with that...


Thats not correct - its more than 5.000. 
Watermark has become a standard in music and video download.
My lawyer told me, that in germany, we have hundreds of lawsuits every day.
Two courts in cologne and Hamburg handle those cases in 15 min. for a flat rate.
If you get catched for uploading a single mp3 it costs 8.000 ,- € in cologne and 6.000,- € in Hamburg.
These lawsuits have become so much standard, that it is not a theme for the media anymore.

I believe in watermark, because if you make the guy who uploads a file fear about it
it takes piracy at its roots. Yu can't really blame someone who picks up a 100 $ bill from the street.

BTW, you don't need a real name or address, an ip-address is enough to catch anybody.

Chris Hein


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 23, 2010)

Unless I'm wrong, an IP address at a coffee shop's wi-fi hotspot isn't going to help.

But I'm curious why Mark got such a shovelful for his post. To me it seems perfectly reasonable.


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## lux (Feb 23, 2010)

Agree with Chris here, watermark looks like a really effective method, more than others. It also carries the good principle of the "unicity" of material distributed.


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## JohnG (Feb 23, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ 23rd February 2010 said:


> But I'm curious why Mark got such a shovelful for his post. To me it seems perfectly reasonable.



Me too. I don't blame him one bit. If someone were stealing my music, I'd be tempted to Name Names.

Thus, I find his restraint commendable.


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## Dynamitec (Feb 23, 2010)

One more vote for watermarking from me! I think watermarking might make it a lot of more difficult to find people who are willing to leak software to the underground!

But let me play devils advocate for a second: watermarking mostly makes sense for download-able products (since pressing individual DVDs won't be suitable for big distribution through music stores for example). But what happens if someone is buying a software but enters a false name? Is registering as someone else? This might sound far fetched, but there a criminal elements organizing groups buys to get software currently not available for 'free'. And exactly those guys will do everything to hide their true identity.

So any download system with dynamic watermarking should should definitely check if the name is really correct - for example via SMS pin or post ident or via a payment methods which make sure only a 'real' person could have done the payment.


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## Dynamitec (Feb 23, 2010)

JohnG @ Wed Feb 24 said:


> Nick Batzdorf @ 23rd February 2010 said:
> 
> 
> > But I'm curious why Mark got such a shovelful for his post. To me it seems perfectly reasonable.
> ...



I think the problem was, that he posted a private conversation in an open forum which frankly wasn't a very good idea. I can understand his anger, I really do. 
However: one should be not guilty unless proven otherwise. And there was no prove. Just an open accusation.

Anyway, the discussion after the first posts in this thread was pretty reasonable in my opinion.


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## lux (Feb 23, 2010)

Dynamitec @ Tue Feb 23 said:


> JohnG @ Wed Feb 24 said:
> 
> 
> > Nick Batzdorf @ 23rd February 2010 said:
> ...



Yes, John, Benjamin explained pretty well the matter


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## JohnG (Feb 23, 2010)

well...

not really. 

He took the names out. As I see it, a generic email that surrenders no identity doesn't require privacy.


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## midphase (Feb 23, 2010)

It's not about taking the names out IMHO...just about the fact that it seemed a bit of a "tooting your own horn" type of post....whenever anyone does that no matter what the reason you're bound to get some slack for it.

Kinda like me saying that I was really smart because I saved a bunch of money by switching to Geico!


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## lux (Feb 23, 2010)

John, I bet most people who knows him can recognize who he is from what Mark posted, looks pretty evident to me. At this point still without a reason. 

Also, Mark appeals the guy as "asshole" without knowing exactly reasons, times and evolution of his membership on that certain forum. Assumed, of course, that Mark has the absolute certainess that the guy is the same. God knows what would be if this is not.

Basically he's outing his rage against a guy who is suspicious of piracy but not fully certain. I tend to call it an hanging procedure. In my country based legal system this is simply not.

I think Mark somehow agreed about some of my impressions. And we all do emphatize with Mark and every developer who gets ripped off.


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Feb 23, 2010)

Yeah. I'm all good for catching people, but the OP didn't. He assumed.


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## Mark Belbin (Feb 23, 2010)

Nathan,

Assumed? No, I just didn't post the evidence.

Look,

1) The guy's a pirate. Open and shut. Evidence is there, but I'm not posting it, for lack of wanting to promote the forum in question. Call me a liar - as long as I haven't posted the guy's name, I've gone _easy_ on him. Anyone who think's I'd do this with a paying customer's correspondence can go ahead and say that the OP is a compromise of my professional ethics, if they can't tell the difference.

2) His piracy doesn't necessarily constitute a crime against me - whoopee. But it is a slap in the face to use your e-mail address as your piracy forum username and then e-mail a developer looking to beta test. No developer would comply, and I know no-one's saying I should...but:

3) WAKE UP CALL: (As earlier attempted by Jeff) There's one kind of pirate: The kind that needs a bitchslap.

4) Kays: This is not an ego trip. I'm not saying, "Look how smart I am", I'm saying, "Look how dumb he is." He deserves it for his blatant acts against the creators in this industry. He deserves at least to know that he's lost this little battle, that he's on the wrong side, and that some members of the right side aren't afraid to call him on it publicly. If anything, retaining his name waters this argument down. 

Unless, of course, _you_ disagree, In which case, _I_ must be wrong. See tmhuud's brilliant post:



> And I'm sick to death of people who are NOT developers telling people whats right and wrong for the developer. Only developers know that and even after they tell tell folks unanimously whats affecting them you still get people saying the opposite.



Amen. Send me your feature requests. Otherwise, let _your_ sample company speak for your marketing genius. Let me know how you paid your bills on a developer's earnings. Then I'll be all ears.

Recap: That guy pirate. Pirates bad. Opportunist ignorant careless pirates (redundacy?) even worse. Me flog. All should flog. Deserve. 

I've recieved enough supportive emails over the last two days from people *in the know *who feel the same as I do to be sure that this post is justified. 

Mark

p.s. All this is to say nothing of some of the great insights offered in this thread overall. Seeing it turn back to me being an egotist with unsupported accusations was just too much to let go.


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Feb 23, 2010)

Alright, fair enough.

What you posted to me isn't evidence. But you say you have it but don't wish to show it, which is understandable.


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## midphase (Feb 23, 2010)

Mark,

Forgive me for saying this, but you just sound really angry. I don't disagree with what you're basically saying, but to me it's coming across like you're a frustrated and negative guy and I can't imagine that winning you any points when it comes to sales.

All developers are affected by piracy, and I'm not defending hackers and pirates in the least, but most others have been more gracious about handling it in a public forum.

I've never seen Eric P, Nick P, Hans A, Troels F and on and on start a thread like this one, even though I'm sure they're just as impacted as you are by piracy.

Once again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying it's coming across weird and grumpy and it reminds me of other developers who took things way too personally and who are no longer in business I believe mostly due to creating a dark aura around themselves.

Maybe you're a really nice guy in person, I don't know...unfortunately when it comes to public forums there is no such thing as "tone of voice" 

Anyhoo, no need to continue this any further, I wish you the best and I hope you'll manage to be as successful of a developer as others around here.


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## tmhuud (Feb 23, 2010)

I say publish the names. What we need in society is more public humiliation. Hell nothing else keeps people in line. 

Why the hell not?

And thats TAME compared to what I think criminals should get in todays society.


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## tmhuud (Feb 23, 2010)

Nah-Kays I totally disagree with you. Damn right he's mad. And he should be.

And he's telling you what he thinks instead of hiding behind some sort of preconceived "Do the PC thing". Dont piss anyone off or I might lose a sale BS.

Heck - I'll buy MORE from an honest bloke anytime.


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## nikolas (Feb 23, 2010)

midphase @ Wed Feb 24 said:


> I've never seen Eric P, Nick P, Hans A, Troels F and on and on start a thread like this one, even though I'm sure they're just as impacted as you are by piracy.


Maybe they should...

Plus my guess is that Mark's e-mail was the tip of the iceberg. He didn't post the "Yikes! My stuff is on torrentz" (d'oh!), but he did post a nasty e-mail from someone who thought could outsmart him! (changed my opinion over the past 2 pages, btw. Chances of him being ok are extremely slim to even bother thinking about it).


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## midphase (Feb 23, 2010)

"Nah-Kays I totally disagree with you."

Meh...what else is new Terry?


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## lux (Feb 24, 2010)

May i kindly suggest that the thread was having a more innovative and informative trend when dealing with pros and cons of some cp protections schemes like watermark?  

i personally find that discussion of a certain interest, as probably have some effect on everyone of us. And it applies not only to samples.


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## Dynamitec (Feb 24, 2010)

> I say publish the names. What we need in society is more public humiliation. Hell nothing else keeps people in line.



Are you really serious? Get the pitchforks, burn the witches? Come one, turn your brain on. How easy is it to register on some forums with your username "tmhuud" for example? Or with a email adress very similar to yours? Or with exactly your email adresse if there is no need for email verification? Or with your footer from VI control including your name and your web adress? Think about it!

If we loose all common sense as soon as we are posting online in forums, writing things like "we need more public humiliation" without any REAL prove, than I think we won't be much better than the pirates.
Again: it is VERY LIKELY that he is a bad guy. But even the same email adress is no PROVE. And, tmhuud, please tell me - I seem to have forgotten - when had the law changed and the accused has no right to defend himself anymore? 

Sorry, I'm always trying to be reasonable. But this got to far.

As a developer I'm too confronted with the situation that I find libraries I've been working on all over net. And it hurts. And it makes me angry too. I really understand Mark and his anger. But I think almost every post in this thread made clear, that nobody thought otherwise. The only critique was the way Mark started his thread. So I don't understand why this thread again switched to the tone it has now again, while it was very reasonable and interesting in the middle part.


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## TheoKrueger (Feb 24, 2010)

Edit: less is more

+1 no public exploit

theo.


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## Hannes_F (Feb 24, 2010)

He he he ...

We have a case in Germany right now of a stolen data CD with information about thousands of swiss bank accounts obviously full of black money from german citizens. Government decided to buy the CD (from the criminals) and use the data. Word is out that for more than one million EUR embezzled tax there will be jail sentences without probation. The only way to avoid this is a voluntary report of tax evasion and payment _before _authorities get evidence of the case.

Self-reports are pouring in like crazy atm. I heard of 30 cases in Hannover only.

Pirates and thieves are provoking government to a tougher handling sooner or later, and that will cost also normal people some freedom. It is sad but that is how it is.


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## Dynamitec (Feb 24, 2010)

Hehe @ Hannes,

what I often asked myself is, IF this CD REALLY exists at all  
Anyway, I don't feel a bit sorry for those who might be on this CD, if it exists.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 24, 2010)

Kays, I have to disagree too. Mark doesn't ooze existential anger when you meet him.

He's pissed off at this particular asshole. And I understand exactly how he feels - this is a personal invasion, for lack of better words.


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Feb 24, 2010)

> If we loose all common sense as soon as we are posting online in forums, writing things like "we need more public humiliation" without any REAL prove, than I think we won't be much better than the pirates


. 

Agreed. There has been no real evidence of pirating. If the user name is the same as so-and-so, well honestly I can't judge that unless I see the name. But real evidence would be hard to get. I personally would have sent the same kind of email back, but with less accusation and in a more polite manner.


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## lux (Feb 24, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Feb 24 said:


> Kays, I have to disagree too. Mark doesn't ooze existential anger when you meet him.
> 
> He's pissed off at this particular asshole. And I understand exactly how he feels - this is a personal invasion, for lack of better words.



As i seem unable to understand invite you to epress in punctual form why:

1) the guy is a "particular" and sure asshole. Because it "looks like" he has an account in a warez related forum?

2) this is a personal invasion

Thanks


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## nikolas (Feb 24, 2010)

1. Since he has an account to a warez website, it means he's up to no good. The fact that he's no replied (anyone feeling insulted would reply actually), means he's up to no good. Do YOU have an account in a warez forum? Cause I don't! Never did and don't see the reason, since I don't pirate stuff.
2. It's personal since the guy e-mailed Mark himself, and requested to get HIS product, up for torrenting and stuff.

all this assuming the info Mark provided is correct!


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## midphase (Feb 24, 2010)

"Kays, I have to disagree too. Mark doesn't ooze existential anger when you meet him."

I haven't had the pleasure.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 24, 2010)

Lux, I'm taking Mark's word for #1. Why aren't you? What reason do you have to doubt him?

#2 is because the guy emailed him personally with the intention of ripping him off. I felt the same way (to a much lesser degree) when I posted an ad on Craigslist and someone emailed me a bogus letter saying he wanted to pay twice my price because he had a client who wanted it...you get the idea. It's personal when that happens - the thief is invading your private space.

I think anyone should understand that.

What I still don't understand is why people have such a strong negative reaction to Mark's post. Even if you disagree with it, why would people get so excited?


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## Dynamitec (Feb 24, 2010)

Nick, I think nobody here doubts Mark. And everyone understands his anger. 
In my opinion the discussion isn't about Mark in the last part of this thread at all, the discussion is about the question if it's OK to post parts of a private post and accusing someone publicly if it's not 100% certain someone did something/is guilty. And that's not ours to judge but a court where all evidence will lay on the table. Don't get me wrong: as I already said, it's very likely the person might be the bad one here and Mark would have all rights to be angry.
But let me repeat it: fake registering with false user names, email adresses etc. is easily possible. And again: it's unlikely in this case but one can't be certain. And as long as it's not certain one shouldn't be seen as guilty. 

The question is: should we throw our rinciples of justice away just like the pirates do? Should self-justice be okay online, while it's not allowed in the real world? If so, shouldn't we be afraid of the fact that someone can register anywhere with our email, writing things under a false name and we're getting blamed for it? Humiliated publicly in forums? 

Again, IT'S VERY UNLIKELY in that case. But we simply CAN'T be certain. 

That said, I have to add that unfortunately the pirates still have it way too easy. And much more cases should land in court and damages should be paid to the developers! But that's another story. And that could lead us back to the watermark / copy protection discussion which was much more useful.

Watermarking will make it possible to determine the thief and it will allow to determine for example, how much damage because of spread copies has been caused. And I would let the sharer pay those damages if proven without a doubt.


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## Hans Adamson (Feb 24, 2010)

I know Mark as a very down-to-earth, humble guy who has worked really hard for a long time making excellent sample libraries. I have felt the same frustration and anger, and do not fault him for expressing this, and for finally having found some retribution after having been trampled on by pirates for a long time. Piracy for a developer is like having your feet stuck in a bucket with concrete trying to swim in the ocean. And what is bad for the developer is bad for the legit user...


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## Mark Belbin (Feb 24, 2010)

Nathan Allen Pinard @ Wed Feb 24 said:


> I personally would have sent the same kind of email back, but with less accusation and in a more polite manner.



Haha. Not an unreasonable suggestion at all, Nathan. Have no doubt, I've handled dozens of support e-mails from pirates in just that manner - with gracious responses that gingerly suggested they by a legitimate copy, and without dreaming of posting the conversation publicly. Nick's explanation that this is a personal invasion is a pretty good one for quickly defining the difference here, though it's hard sometimes, taking that with a smile. QED.


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## midphase (Mar 9, 2010)

Piracy has also been linked as the cause of prostate cancer and diarrhea.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 9, 2010)

Seriously Kays? You don't think the end of the record industry is mainly because of piracy?


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## Patrick de Caumette (Mar 9, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ Tue Feb 23 said:


> But I'm curious why Mark got such a shovelful for his post. To me it seems perfectly reasonable.



+1


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## midphase (Mar 9, 2010)

"Seriously Kays? You don't think the end of the record industry is mainly because of piracy?"

Nick (I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not), I have no doubts that the record industry was affected by piracy, especially in the 90's...no doubts. For me to arrive to the conclusion that piracy is causing the "end" of the record industry I would have to have information that I doubt anyone on the planet really truly has.

For me to arrive to the conclusion that Abbey Road is being sold because of piracy would require even more of a leap of reasoning which I don't think anyone (here or elsewhere) is qualified to make.

If this was a Republican vs. Liberals discussion, you would be accusing someone like Richard of having pulled those statements out of his rear end. Some of the things that have been said on this thread border on irrational mass hysteria. I'm not saying piracy is not a problem...it is, a big one even. But to blame all of the ills of the world on it is not only silly but incredibly naive.


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## Peter Alexander (Mar 9, 2010)

@Kays

The record industry has definitely been impacted by piracy. BUT! Much less spoken of, and also very true with Music Tech products, is that the post-war baby boomers are now approaching retirement. With age, buying priorities change including buying music and musical equipment. 

The year span was 1946-1964. So right now, the very youngest boomers born in 1964 are 46 this year.


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## Synesthesia (Mar 10, 2010)

Abbey Rd seem to be doing fine - in terms of business and sessions etc.

However the issue was that it is owned by EMI, owned in turn by Terra Firma who recently wrote off around a billion in losses.

The problem was not so much that it would go down for lack of business, rather that the owner might try to 'realise' the asset in cash to help their ailing business.

However, the building has been listed Grade 2 now, making it far less possible to develop, and also there seems to be a 'refinancing' in progress with Terra Firma looking for partner(s) to continue to develop the Abbey Road vehicle in its own right.

P


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## lux (Mar 10, 2010)

midphase @ Tue Mar 09 said:


> "Seriously Kays? You don't think the end of the record industry is mainly because of piracy?"
> 
> Nick (I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not), I have no doubts that the record industry was affected by piracy, especially in the 90's...no doubts. For me to arrive to the conclusion that piracy is causing the "end" of the record industry I would have to have information that I doubt anyone on the planet really truly has.
> 
> ...



+1


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## kitekrazy (Mar 10, 2010)

mf @ Sun Feb 21 said:


> I'm curious how Spectrasonics is dealing with this piracy issue, since they don't use ilok protection, nor do they look as they're on the brink of bankruptcy.



Cakewalk survives with their simple scheme. So does Sony. There's a lot of them. 

There are companies like PLP, Smash Up the Studio, Bunker 8 who have no CP on their products. Sample CDs are exchanged and pirated all of the time. 



> There's a lot of downsides.
> 
> Every developer is then beholden to the dongle-maker.
> 
> ...



That quote I got from a developer from Spectrasonics at the NSS forum. That is their philosophy.

Image Line give lifetime free upgrades on their versions of FL for those who registered online. They have manged to convert people to legit users that way but not every developer has the resources to follow that model. Plus their customer service is superb.


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## midphase (Mar 10, 2010)

"However the issue was that it is owned by EMI, owned in turn by Terra Firma who recently wrote off around a billion in losses. "

A good friend of mine used to work for Capitol (EMI...same company) and he'd constantly tell me how incredibly mismanaged that company is. They've been in danger of losing the Capitol Records building here in LA for years, which some would argue is just as historical as Abbey Road.

Their Beatles catalog is the only thing that keeps them afloat, and the occasional Coldplay and Radiohead (although not Radiohead anymore). But they generally hemorrhage money due to their poor business choices.

BTW, most record companies and film studios essentially exist because of their big hitters. For every Avatar there are plenty of Hurt Lockers which have lost tons of money (not due to piracy).


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## lux (Mar 10, 2010)

i think this hits a very sensitive point.

from my own experience i think our times feature the less prepared and aknowledged managers ever seen probably from a very long time. I'm afraid this is due to the fact recent hiring policies have been mostly inspired to personnel cutting and costs saving abilities more than market developing and strategic abilities.

The oldest the managers the better the results are in my experience.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 10, 2010)

No Kays, I wasn't being sarcastic at all!

Downloading is exactly what killed the record business. There are other factors too - possibly the demographics Peter mentions (although I haven't heard any evidence that music is being "consumed" any less today), possibly the general bombard-the-senses trend in society that makes just music without visuals not enough, part of the problem is that the music being promoted isn't as innovative overall, radio stations all play the same things everywhere, and I think the iTunes single-song model hasn't helped - but the reason the record business is gone is absolutely piracy front and center.

I'm not talking about software piracy, I'm talking about music sharing. People don't buy the albums anymore.


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## JohnG (Mar 10, 2010)

The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) estimates that *95 percent of music downloads are pirated.*

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_about/index.html
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/011509ifpi/view

According to the IFPI Digital Music Report 2010:

1. "*global sales fell by around 30 per cent from 2004 to 2009*, [and] the growth of our digital sales is slowing and even the success stories reported...will struggle to survive *unless we address the fundamental problem of piracy*."

2. "In 2009..more than one quarter of record companies' revenues came from digital channels."

3. "A variety of third-party research conclusively indicates that the net effect of illegal file-sharing is reduced purchasing of music. This is despite the obvious fact, also borne out in research, that some file-sharers are often also buyers of music."

4. "The worst-affected markets are countries where, despite the industry’s efforts, legitimate digital services have had little chance to take root. In Spain where legal problems have frustrated the ability to take action against piracy, sales fell by around 17 per cent in 2009 and the market is now about one third of its level in 2001. In Spain and elsewhere the victim has been investment in local acts. The number of local artist album sales fell by 65 per cent between 2004 and 2009. In France, the number of local repertoire album releases plummeted from 271 in the first half of 2003 to 107 in the same period of 2009. In Brazil, local full priced artist album releases by the five biggest music companies slumped 80 per cent between 2004 and 2008."

5. "According to a study by Jupiter Research in 2009, about one in
five people across Europe’s top markets (21%) are engaged in frequent unauthorised music-sharing."

6. "The movie industry is also seeing the impact of digital piracy. The MPA, representing movie studios, estimates that illegal streaming and film downloads now account for 40 per cent of its piracy problem by volume."

http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/DMR2009.pdf


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## midphase (Mar 10, 2010)

Here's another article...just to show that for any one person who says one thing on the internet, some other "expert" says the complete opposite:


"Music Piracy Not That Bad, Industry Says: “

Every year, RIAA’s global partner IFPI publishes a digital music report, which can be best described as a one sided view of the state of digital music consumption. For several years in a row the report has shown that the sales figures of digital music have gone up, but still, the industry continues to blame piracy for a loss in overall revenue.

One of the key statistics that is hyped every year, is the piracy ratio of downloaded music. Just as last year, IFPI estimates that 95% of all downloads are illegal, without giving a proper source for this figure. Interestingly, those who take a closer look at the full report (pdf), will see that only 10% of the claimed illegal downloads are seen as a loss in sales.

Contrary to the RIAA’s arguments in court, the BPI and IFPI don’t believe in the ‘every pirated download is a lost sale’ myth. Matt Phillips, BPI’s Director of Communications wrote in an email to TorrentFreak: ‘No, we don’t think every illegal download is a lost sale (and never, ever, have, if my memory serves me correctly). The estimates for lost sales revenue is [sic] not calculated on this basis.’

To come up with a ‘best guess’ of the real losses for the UK market, the music industry have commissioned Jupiter Research. For two years in a row, Jupiter estimated the losses are to be about equal to the revenue that comes from digital sales. If we combine this with the ‘only one in 20 downloads is paid for’ guesstimate, only one in 10 illegal downloads is seen as a loss in sales.

Of course we will be very reluctant to draw conclusions from research that is commissioned by the music industry itself, however, it would interesting to know what the effect is of those downloads that are not seen as a loss. Could they perhaps used by consumers to discover new music, and generate revenue in the long run?

What is clear from the report is that ‘pirates’ have shown the music industry what consumers really want. The music industry is slowly starting to recognize that they have to compete with piracy, by offering high quality products. In the 2009 report, for example, IFPI proudly reports that many services now sell DRM-free music, while they themselves are the reason why these restrictions were implemented in the first place.

In the report IFPI writes: ‘An important development in 2008 was the licensing of more online stores to sell downloads without digital rights management (DRM), meaning consumers can play the music they acquire on any portable device. In January 2009, Apple announced it had signed deals with leading record companies to offer eight million DRMfree tracks at flexible price points. The move is expected to significantly boost download sales.’

Besides the usual anti-piracy ramblings on how ISPs should help to disconnect pirates from the Internet, the report documents another interesting trend. The music industry clearly recognizes that they’ve done something wrong in the past, and is now promoting unlimited download services, either ad supported or for a low monthly fee. If done right, this ‘piracy inspired’ model might just be the future of music consumption, or at least a worthy competitor to piracy. But then again, they will find something else to complain about sooner or later.


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## synergy543 (Mar 10, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Mar 10 said:


> Downloading is exactly what killed the record business.


Yes, P2P and Napster were illegal. But what's the deal with youtube? You can go hear anything on youtube for free and its OK? Most of it isn't advertiser supported either. Certainly google (the most sueable company in the world) isn't going to take such a liablity so I don't get why youtube is OK. 



Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Mar 10 said:


> People don't buy the albums anymore.


 Yeah, 14 million hits for SlipNot on youtube (a lot of lost bucks). But I wouldn't pay one penny for that music. 

OTOH, many orchestral CDs I wish to buy are now so ridiculously expensive (some are $100s of dollars) I can no longer afford them. And for better/worse, these items are not pirated so there is no "other source" for much of the world's greatest music. :shock:

For example, does anyone know where I might be able to purchase (or acquire by whatever means) a recording of the first orchestral version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition by Tushmalov?


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 10, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ Tue Mar 09 said:


> Seriously Kays? You don't think the end of the record industry is mainly because of piracy?



First, I don't exactly think we're at "the end of the record industry".

Second, while piracy may be a factor to some degree, I think there are plenty of other reasons the record industry has had a slump. And don't forget that a major factor in music piracy was the fact that for such a long time the music industry refused to offer any _legal_ music downloads/sales. Sure, piracy hurt the recording industry, but they made some incredibly stupid decisions when it came to dealing with the issue.

And third, I think there are other factors that probably hurt Abbey Road (and similar studios) just as much as declining record sales if not more. Namely, the increasing ability to make better and better recordings at lower and lower prices. The increasing use of samples probably doesn't help either.

When pro tools hit the scene years ago, studios that did mainly mixing for TV commercials were put out of business by newer facilities that drastically undercut their prices. A similar situation to what we've seen with studios doing mostly albums but without piracy as a possible factor. I'd bet there has been a similar situation with film/TV music as well.



midphase @ Wed Mar 10 said:


> For every Avatar there are plenty of Hurt Lockers which have lost tons of money (not due to piracy).



Off topic and nitpicky, but Hurt Locker only cost 15 million to make, so while not a big moneymaker, it should end up in the black. But I agree with your point.


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## JohnG (Mar 10, 2010)

midphase @ 10th March 2010 said:


> Jupiter estimated the losses are to be about equal to the revenue that comes from digital sales.



I think this makes the point. Piracy is disastrous. 

Jupiter are saying that 1/2 of the digital revenue is lost to piracy. So if losing half your business is not devastating, I don't know what is. What industry can sustain a loss of half its revenue? Not half the profit -- the revenue. The effect on profit is much greater.

Just because piracy is partly the fault of an industry unwilling to embrace changes in consumer behaviour -- and it was obviously unwilling -- does not diminish its impact on the record business and, eventually, on us.

When people get music for free and video content for free, that diminishes the pie for us as composers. The movie business (to a significant extent) and certainly the TV business are supported by and valued to the extent of advertising's value. When stuff is free with limited or no advertising dollars and reduced legal sales, we lose.


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## lux (Mar 10, 2010)

John perhaps it means that the loss in sales on regular market is balanced by the sales in digital form. That would mean that it should be pairs. Not sure what of the meanings that quote has though.

i see that it could be unpopular but on a personal standpoint, while i dont have any lynching approach to people using downloaded audio material, i'm however in favour of severe laws against piracy. Probably if the loss for piracy accusation is high enough to be unconvenient (but not huge enough to be considered unfair) it should get the right result.

But, once piracy has its due fighting measures, i still cant see how the prices scenario would allow people to approach a legal market. When i get my ass into a music shop i barely can sort out as it was once with a nice number of cd's in my bag. 

Sometimes the fact i have to choose a very limited number of titles is such an annoying stuff that i end getting nothing at all. 

Once it was different. I've discovered so many artists that i had no idea about just buying the vynil at a very affordable price.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 10, 2010)

Mike - I wish I could agree with you about us not being at the end of the record business, but alack. Of course there's still *some* activity, but it's way down.

And it really is because people don't buy records anymore. Digital downloads would be fine as a replacement if they brought in the same profit, but they clearly don't.

Note that I'm not talking about studios. They're gone because you don't need one to make a record anymore. But that happened before the record industry collapsed.


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## juliansader (Mar 10, 2010)

synergy543 @ Wed 10 Mar said:


> Yes, P2P and Napster were illegal. But what's the deal with youtube? You can go hear anything on youtube for free and its OK? Most of it isn't advertiser supported either. Certainly google (the most sueable company in the world) isn't going to take such a liablity so I don't get why youtube is OK.



Youtube actually pays a royalty per view, similar to streaming online radio stations. However, the royalty rate that Youtube reluctantly pays (and only after long legal battles with songwriter organizations forced them to) is a pittance. Google is probably the biggest pirate out there and their original 'Don't do evil' slogan has long been forgotten in favour of squeezing money out of true content providers.


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 10, 2010)

I have to wonder how much of a factor is the public finding more information about how little of record sale revenue going to the artist versus the record company itself. I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who would like to support the artist but don't feel like buying an album is really doing that, most of the money is just going to middlemen. It probably doesn't help that the record industry has taken so many actions that have painted them as the bad guys.

While the "record industry" may be hurting or even dying, there are artists who are coming up with more direct means of sales that cut out the middlemen. If an artist can sell their music online without a Record Label, will they care if the labels go out of business? If an artist sells fewer copies but sees a higher cut per sale, are they going to have a problem with that?

What I care about is whether artists end up losing out. And it seems like the smart artists have the potential to end up the same or more money even if total dollars spent go down. If a guy in middle management at the label loses his job, it's hard for me to have much sympathy for that.


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 10, 2010)

It still looks to me that the rumours of the death of the music industry have been greatly exaggerated. We've seen a lot of questionable stats, which seem very selective.

This NY Times story - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/busin ... music.html - says that year-on-year, CD sales have fallen 16%, while digital sales have risen 12%. It's not clear if that figure includes streaming, but I think not. Neither do they say how much has been saved in terms of manufacturing and distribution. I'd say at a wild guess that, overall, the net effect is pretty small.


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## midphase (Mar 10, 2010)

"When people get music for free and video content for free, that diminishes the pie for us as composers. The movie business (to a significant extent) and certainly the TV business are supported by and valued to the extent of advertising's value. When stuff is free with limited or no advertising dollars and reduced legal sales, we lose."


Really John...really? Because from my end, I've seen my fees diminish and the music budgets get lower and lower way before anyone had any idea how to rip a DVD or much less had the bandwidth to download one.

I think the movie industry has largely done this to themselves by devaluing their products just to make an impressive quarterly gain for their stockholders. When you can buy the Titanic DVD at Ralph's checkout line for $2.99...what does that do to people's perception of how valuable what you're making is?

I second the above post about so many music videos are available for free from the record labels themselves on YouTube.

You want to know the reason why my CD purchases are down? Blame YouTube, not piracy. I haven't downloaded music since Napster went "pay service" over 10 years ago. But my CD purchases have not gone up mostly due to the current state of suckyness of music in general, and the fact that I can get that itch to hear the latest Jonas Bros. song scratched by YouTube.

I am totally and utterly amazed at the fact that record labels are so eager to have their videos on YouTube in HD quality (with audio to match) for free and yet they're still suing grandmas....amazed. 

Not to mention the fact that with a basic $10/month Netflix subscription, I can stream all the movies I want! That's what's getting our fees to get lower and lower (and greedy executives).

I honestly feel that most of the people who are blaming piracy as the root of all problems are totally out of touch with reality. I mean next thing you know is that Nick will blame the demise of magazines on piracy (because as you know those EM pdf's are all over BitTorrent).

Now, for clarity's sake (and to make sure my words aren't yet again taken out of context), I'm not denying that piracy is an issue, and a big one at that. Nor am I advocating piracy in any way shape or form. I'm merely saying that to single handedly blame all of the problems on it is misguided and naive....naive...naive....naive!


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## midphase (Mar 10, 2010)

Hulu anyone? Seriously....WTF????


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## JohnG (Mar 10, 2010)

Kays,

You are a really good guy and a really smart guy -- I know. But in this particular instance, you are totally off the mark. Every studio executive is maniacally focused on advertising's decline as a revenue source, and what to do about it. 

It has been going on for decades and is accelerating, both because of piracy and the dilution of the value of an advertising slot on any particular program on television. That dilution has taken place largely because of eyeball time drawn to the internet and a steady proliferation of television and cable offerings. When there are more choices, the eyeball count gets smaller for any one choice. When advertisers see that, they change their spending habits and put it toward what they think is best, and that's been a steady trend away from the old filmed entertainment.

This is no secret -- the data is all over the Wall Street analyst reports and it's been discussed ad nauseum by investors.

The studios saw what piracy did to music and they know what it is doing, and will do, to filmed entertainment. Most of the studios earn money from music in addition to film, and they know exactly by how much that business has been wrecked by piracy and changing consumer behaviour.

They know they have no choice but to follow the audience and they have learned (from music) that it's better to put content out there yourself, legitimately, with some kind of revenue sharing from the platforms, rather than just get smoked by pirates and others willing to flout copyright law. But many of the new channels -- some of which you mentioned -- are nowhere near as profitable as the old ones.

Avoiding piracy is the number one reason why the time cycle has collapsed between a film's initial release and DVD release (and the Pay-per-view etc.). They are not trying to give away revenue, they are trying to preserve it. And contrary to popular belief, they are not short term thinkers.

Music fees' decline has been doubly accelerated, not only by the decline in value of television advertising (and, hence, content) but also by an influx of people willing to work for nothing, and a redefining of what represents acceptable quality. And other stuff that we all know about.


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## midphase (Mar 10, 2010)

John, 

You're still not drawing a clear line between the demise of our fees and piracy...sorry. Your speculation is not any better than mine. I wish it was as simple as "I talked to so and so at WB and..." but it's not. These guys are just as clueless about what's going on, and don't let them tell you otherwise.

Decline in ad revenue is mostly due to Tivo and people watching less TV overall and turning either to premium cable like HBO or the internet. I know that I watch a lot less TV than I did 10 years ago. Why? Because my eyeballs available time is being fragmented by tons of other things that were simply not available before.

Keep in mind that for every dollar you and I lose, someone is gaining (and no, that wouldn't be internet pirates). For example, as much as we complain about loss of revenue from film and TV, I know plenty of guys who are making a killing off of videogame gigs. For every DVD which sells less, iTunes and Netflix are making tons more money (I own stock in both of those companies and lemme tell ya...I'm making money hand over fist with those).

So it's not all so black and white as some around here would have you believe. Piracy is a problem, but it's not the sole reason as to why things are the way they are. Piracy has been affecting the record (and movie) industry for decades. When I was a little kid, we had copies of Raiders and Star Wars on VHS, that was a looong time ago! Remember cassettes? When I was in high school we were trading those way more than what goes on now. Just because things are changing and shifting it doesn't mean that it's all because of piracy.


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## Hans Adamson (Mar 10, 2010)

midphase @ Wed Mar 10 said:


> Remember cassettes? When I was in high school we were trading those way more than what goes on now. Just because things are changing and shifting it doesn't mean that it's all because of piracy.


Kays,

Cassette copying was/is not piracy. It is 100% legal and covered by an agreement with the recording industry providing royalty fee from empty casette sales as far as I know.

/Hans


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## midphase (Mar 10, 2010)

Cassette copying is 100% illegal is you give it to all your friends! What you're referring to is the right to make a copy for oneself....totally different than what I'm talking about.

Maybe in Sweden they had different laws....but if that's the case...add a piracy tax to hard drives, burnable media and ISP's...I would 100% support that.

This is what I'm talking about....we need to look at creative new ways to address the problem...not just bitch and whine and put ourselves on some self-righteous podiums like I see going on around here (not you Hans....you're one of the most humble guys I know).


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## JohnG (Mar 10, 2010)

Kays, my point is that:

1. the value of what we do is highly correlated with the value of advertising,

2. the value of advertising on the media that we have traditionally, as film / TV composers written for has gone down,

3. the amount of money producers are willing to bet on a new show is definitely, unquestionably lower than once it was because the payoff is lower,

...and therefore everything related to the shows and broadcast revenues, including music, is worth less.

And part of that -- a big part of that -- is the fragmentation of things like TIVO, as I acknowledged and agree.

But the value of movies has also declined -- directly and explicitly -- because of piracy, because the value of PPV, Showtime and other premium cable, and the DVDs has declined significantly because of piracy.

I am not guessing; it's unambiguous. I kind of don't understand how you would imagine it could be otherwise? The window between release of a film and its appearance on torrents is now --negative! The movie's on torrents before it's released and the DVD release, which used to be scheduled months or even a year later, is now very, very soon after the theatrical.

There is only one reason for this, and it's piracy. That's the specific reason the studios are doing it. Otherwise, they'd keep the money form PPV etc. that they are used to making.

Not the sole reason for lower fees, of course; but a big one.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 10, 2010)

And as to #2 and 3, *everything* supported by advertising is in trouble. That means the entire broadcast industry is sucking.

For example, I ran into the president of a well-known audio hardware company the other day, and he told me that they've been going to the NAB convention for the last 30 years but aren't this year. Luckily he still has live sound and churches keeping him alive, but the lack of concentrated eyeballs is putting the survival of a lot of things in question.

Will there be enough advertising to support well-produced TV programming, for example?


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 10, 2010)

The studios blame piracy, but I still don't buy "but the studios said so" as evidence of that.

I think that the studios just want to get their DVD money sooner, and capitalize on the momentum of theatrical advertising instead of having a gap where people forget about the movie and have to be sold on it again.

In the case of record sales, the main thing people point to as alleged evidence of piracy is declining sales. But the film industry had their biggest year ever last year and generally have been on an upward trend.

Sure, there's no question that piracy of films exists and that copies are often out on or before release date. But unlike music, where copies are as good as you'll get from a paid download, film bootlegs tend to be a guy sitting in the theatre with a camcorder. I'm not convinced that many people are willing to forgo seeing a movie for that. And I'm not sure what the convincing evidence is that film bootlegs actually decrease ticket sales - a shortened window to DVD is something studios choose to do, not evidence of anything.

And DVD sales are way down right now because we're in a transition to a new HD disc format (which was embroiled in an ugly format war for a couple years). I don't see any evidence that it is due to piracy instead of the cyclical result of a format shift. Or even a glut of dirt cheap DVD rental and streaming options.


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## midphase (Mar 10, 2010)

"I am not guessing; it's unambiguous. I kind of don't understand how you would imagine it could be otherwise? The window between release of a film and its appearance on torrents is now --negative! "

Sorry but we'll have to disagree on this one. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that box office receipts are bigger than they have ever been. Hollywood is turning in record profits. Sure some kid in Russia is downloading Iron Man 2 as we speak, but this is not a sizeable enough percentage that would cause you to get paid less. Of course studio execs will tell you that...what a great excuse...how convenient. 

Don't be fooled, studios are making money hand over fist, in case you didn't notice there's a little film out there who just broke the 2.5 billion dollar mark for gross income. You don't think the kid in Russia had it on his hard drive 6 months ago?


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## lux (Mar 10, 2010)

I've read billion times this debate and it never outputs a definite and common point of view.

In my impression thats because both positions are probably partial. Those who dont consider piracy a real issue probably miss the point that it is a real issue and that sooner or later policies will change country after country. 

on the other side those who point the piracy as the mother and cause of all issues usually makes a wrong assumption. They assume that stuff is devoted to sell in any case, once piracy is off. This is imho a pretty wrong assumption, mostly because with piracy off the real problem showin' off next will be: why stuff keeps selling low? 

It is not a case if most of the shops are fullfilled with '70 and '80 and some '90 titles. And its not a case that still so much stuff is sold from ages when good music aired. I mean, with actual crisis why the hell should people get the old glorious titles? Because they're better, way better. 

No crime law will help then unless we start considering a crime being a pointless manager in actual music industry.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 10, 2010)

Well, there are five parallel discussions going on and you have to analyze each differently: piracy and software sales, piracy and the record industry, piracy and DVD sales, piracy and recording studios, and piracy and box office receipts.

The conversation is weaving in and out of all of them, and they don't have much to do with one another.


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## P.T. (Mar 10, 2010)

I don't watch TV or go to movies any more.
I find my computer much more entertaining.

I rarely listen to the radio because the music isn't very good.

I don't buy music anymore because it isn't very good.

What I listen to is mostly what other home recordists post for free on the internet.
That is the most interesting music currently available.

Music made by people who make it because they love music and the creative process rather than made by people trying to fit into premade marketing packaged genres.

There used to be music that was aimed at a commercial audience that was also excellent music. 

Though the mindset of the public has changed and they seem to expect music to be more or less free.


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## JohnG (Mar 10, 2010)

Kays, if you are basing your argument on box office of Avatar, then you're off on a tangent.

Every studio is under fire from its investors precisely because the return on capital of the studio business is terrible. The increases in box office are nowhere near enough to offset the increases in costs, and besides, box office is only one slice of the revenue that is needed to nurture a healthy studio film business.

Which is why DVDs' cratering is a disaster for the studios.

I am not basing this on some conversation about my own fee, as you are implying, Kays. There is tons of information out there; most of these companies are public and a lot of information is accessible.

You seem to be saying that piracy is exaggerated as an issue for the industry and thus, indirectly, for us. I think its importance is enormous and directly impacts all composers and players, because a business that's fat and happy doesn't stick it to everyone with quite the tenacity that a lean and hungry one does.

Anyway, maybe we've had enough on this? 

It's interesting. Thanks for chatting!


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## Hans Adamson (Mar 10, 2010)

P.T. @ Wed Mar 10 said:


> I don't watch TV or go to movies any more.
> I find my computer much more entertaining.
> 
> I rarely listen to the radio because the music isn't very good.
> ...


I wish there were more people like you, and there would be no piracy problem. Unfortunately, the pirates, by definition, download works that are protected, not free. They are everywhere, and they hurt the business that survives on producing these films/music/programs.


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## midphase (Mar 10, 2010)

"Anyway, maybe we've had enough on this?"

I agree, I don't think we'll find common ground on this particular issue. Further, it's unfortunate that neither one of us is in a position to sway the studios one way or another.

I guess just about all we can do is buy our media and software legitimaly and offer guidance by example?


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## JohnG (Mar 10, 2010)

Good idea, Kays!


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## lux (Mar 11, 2010)

yes


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## germancomponist (Mar 11, 2010)

When I listen to the radios or watch tv, for me, it seems that the music industry produced more and more music for the teens and childs in increasingly lower quality.

I think piracy in any way is very bad and harmful for all industries, but in the music industry there is also so many s-h-i-t- produced, no wonder that the sales stagnant.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 11, 2010)

A brief thought- the only reasons video piracy is not as rampant are:

1. It takes a long time to dl a movie.
2. Not as many people have gotten as fluent with the technologies for stealing movies(yet) as they have with the ones allowing them to steal music.


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 11, 2010)

JohnG @ Wed Mar 10 said:


> Kays, if you are basing your argument on box office of Avatar, then you're off on a tangent.
> 
> Every studio is under fire from its investors precisely because the return on capital of the studio business is terrible. The increases in box office are nowhere near enough to offset the increases in costs, and besides, box office is only one slice of the revenue that is needed to nurture a healthy studio film business.



It's not just Avatar, the TOTAL box office receipts for the year were an all time high. And it has been generally trending up for the last couple decades.

If the studios can't make a decent return on increasing grosses, then they are mismanaging their business. Especially when technology costs have been declining - in general, costs of making a film are not increasing. Studios are just choosing to spend more - it's not like they have to put out films that cost 200M+.



germancomponist @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> When I listen to the radios or watch tv, for me, it seems that the music industry produced more and more music for the teens and childs in increasingly lower quality.



Actually I think that it has always been that way, it's just that the good music is remembered while the weak, pandering music is long forgotten. People forget that in the early days of rock and roll, most of the biggest sellers were people like Doris Day and things like soundtracks to movies like Sound of Music or West Side Story.



NYC Composer @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> A brief thought- the only reasons video piracy is not as rampant are:
> 
> 1. It takes a long time to dl a movie.
> 2. Not as many people have gotten as fluent with the technologies for stealing movies(yet) as they have with the ones allowing them to steal music.



Don't forget 3. The initial bootlegs of a movie (theatrical release) are usually some guy in the back row with a camcorder. That just doesn't compare to mp3 downloads that are as good as the versions for sale. As download speeds increase, movie piracy will increase somewhat, but it likely won't reach the level of music piracy unless the bootleggers can come up with a way to improve quality of the videos.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 11, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Mar 10 said:


> No Kays, I wasn't being sarcastic at all!
> 
> Downloading is exactly what killed the record business. There are other factors too - possibly the demographics Peter mentions (although I haven't heard any evidence that music is being "consumed" any less today), possibly the general bombard-the-senses trend in society that makes just music without visuals not enough, part of the problem is that the music being promoted isn't as innovative overall, radio stations all play the same things everywhere, and I think the iTunes single-song model hasn't helped - but the reason the record business is gone is absolutely piracy front and center.
> 
> I'm not talking about software piracy, I'm talking about music sharing. People don't buy the albums anymore.



Here is a perfect example of what Nick is talking about. In 1984 I co-wrote a song with the late Paul Jabara that was on Julio Iglesias" first English language album. It entered the charts at #4 on Billboard. My first check was for $75,000 and the album went on to sell 5 million copies.

2 Years ago, due to the producer sampling one of my songs, I was on Mims' first album. It also entered the charts at #4 on Billboard. My first check was for $3,300 and the album went on to sell app. 1/2 million copies.

So yes, downloading piracy has hurt.


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## JohnG (Mar 11, 2010)

Mike,

First, it is impressive to me that, with no research or experience managing a film studio yourself, you feel confident enough to disparage those who do and reveal to all of us that they are "mismanaging their business." It's actually rather hard to do, and the guys running them are not dumb.

Second, if you think the pirate movie guys are using a camcorder in the back row, you are not keeping up with the latest pirate tactics. Some copies, of course, are not that good, but a large number are getting digital copies that are virtually pristine, buying them from runners, assistants, duplication houses out the back door, or others with access. Studio execs know the pirates' copies are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing -- even the packaging is often quite good. That's why it's such a threat.


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 11, 2010)

JohnG @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Mike,
> 
> First, it is impressive to me that, with no research or experience managing a film studio yourself, you feel confident enough to disparage those who do and reveal to all of us that they are "mismanaging their business." It's actually rather hard to do, and the guys running them are not dumb.



Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

I said _IF_ they can't keep making money as grosses go up they're doing something wrong. I'm not convinced that "return on capital of the studio business is terrible." I'm also not convinced of your blanket statement that costs are increasing (and that argument isn't bolstered by at the same time complaining that composers are making less and less).



JohnG @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Some copies, of course, are not that good, but a large number are getting digital copies that are virtually pristine, buying them from runners, assistants, duplication houses out the back door, or others with access.



True, there are some leaked copies that are excellent. I haven't really looked into the specifics of what percentage of bootlegs are those leaks, are they really getting to be the majority of bootlegs?

And if the biggest source of bootlegs is now from within the studio itself, isn't that something the studios should have a better shot at cracking down on? If the biggest problem is coming from their own employees (or at least contractors they are doing business with) then it seems like the biggest problem they need to solve is their own security.


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## Ed (Mar 11, 2010)

Going to throw out a controversial idea, but try and be rational 

It seems to me that in a lot of ways pirates have forced technological progress. Sure, its bad for the individual most of the time, but look at the history. With Napster record companies realised that they couldnt stop people from downloading music for free so what did they do? They decided they had to try and make a business model out of it. When faster internet speeds made it possible to watch whatever movie or tv show you want for free on the internet (first it was downloading them, now streaming them) they initially tried to ban it all, when they eventually realised they couldnt do it and couldnt morally blackmail them into not doing it, they decided to make money from it. Which is why you have websites like Netflicks and other kinds of sources. 

Another interesting thing to think about might be the question: To what extent have pirates themselves had to undertake changes in their business model? Years ago, though not that long ago, when the internet was younger than it was today, pirate websites offering cracked software and other such things usually required you to go through an ad filled usually virus infested website or series of websites usually making you dance through a variety of hoops in order to get the thing you went there for. For example many would team up with porn sites requiring their visitors to sign up for a trial membership first, before they would release their crack or whatever it was. It didn't even matter if that person gave up since they had already clicked through various ads already.

Obviously some "crackers" do it for the buzz rather than the money, but surely the money made in black market certainly would come into it providing the intensive for wanting to do it in the first place. Now with the advent of torrents, there is no reason for their "customers" to go to their dangerous websites anymore. Yet, cracks are still made. How then do they now make their money? I don't know, maybe they team up with the torrent search engines themselves perhaps. This probably doesn't provide quite as much money as the previous situation did, but it might provide more stability as well. Since this way the torrent search engine is in something of a gray legal area of not actually hosting the files but can still make money from adverts. 

Going back to the original point though, could it be that pirates could also force companies to come up with better customer service as well? Downloading something may be free, but if the customer service and support is good enough this could well be enough to be an incentive to that person to buy it, even if they previously did download it. In fact in that case the crack itself may even be beneficial since they have already gotten used to it so wont want to switch to a competitors product. Whatever the case is companies should realise that just because you may have 10,000 people illegally using your product, it doesn't mean that you would have 10,000 more customers if the illegal copy didn't exist.

Just looking at this objectively rather than emotionally guys


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## midphase (Mar 11, 2010)

I agree with Ed (damn)!

Now on to Jay:

"Here is a perfect example of what Nick is talking about. In 1984 I co-wrote a song with the late Paul Jabara that was on Julio Iglesias" first English language album. It entered the charts at #4 on Billboard. My first check was for $75,000 and the album went on to sell 5 million copies. 

2 Years ago, due to the producer sampling one of my songs, I was on Mims' first album. It also entered the charts at #4 on Billboard. My first check was for $3,300 and the album went on to sell app. 1/2 million copies. 

So yes, downloading piracy has hurt."

With all due respect Jay, I have no idea what point you're trying to make. 

Is it that your check was less? I would assume that's because licensing fees have gone down (arguably not because of piracy) and because in the second case you were only licensing a sample and not the entire song?

Is it that both albums debuted at #4 yet sold less copies? But what Billboard charts are we talking about here? There are tons. #4 on the Classical chart is bound to have different sales than #4 on the Pop Charts and so on. Plus there are so many factors as to when it was released, and the fact that in 1984 there was no such thing as SoundScan. Also we're talking about "album" sales or "single" sales? iTunes makes it much more appealing for someone to buy the single track rather than the whole album...same with Amazon etc.

I'm just confused...no dissing what you just said but I can't follow how you got from point A to point B.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 11, 2010)

midphase @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> I agree with Ed (damn)!
> 
> Now on to Jay:
> 
> ...



Yes, my point is that on the pop charts a #4 CD release is a fraction of the sales that it used to be. And sure, while the ability to buy a single song legally is part of it, certainly it is not the dominant factor.

"Thriller" sold what, 30 million units? We will never see anything close to that again. Nor will we see 30 million legal downloads either.


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 11, 2010)

Ashermusic @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Yes, my point is that on the pop charts a #4 CD release is a fraction of the sales that it used to be. And sure, while the ability to buy a single song legally is part of it, certainly it is not the dominant factor.
> 
> "Thriller" sold what, 30 million units? We will never see anything close to that again. Nor will we see 30 million legal downloads either.



First, there will be huge variances in the number of copies a #4 release sells even from week to week. Second, comparing total sales based on the number it releases at is meaningless since one could drop to #95 in the second week while the other maintains strong sales for a long period of time.

Beyond that, even assuming that the top records aren't selling as many copies as they used to, that doesn't mean it was mainly caused by piracy.


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## Ed (Mar 11, 2010)

Ashermusic @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Yes, my point is that on the pop charts a #4 CD release is a fraction of the sales that it used to be. And sure, while the ability to buy a single song legally is part of it, certainly it is not the dominant factor.
> 
> "Thriller" sold what, 30 million units? We will never see anything close to that again. Nor will we see 30 million legal downloads either.



I haven't really been reading this thread properly so forgive me if I am going to say something thats already been talked about.

I think a want to stay in the past makes some see the lack of CD sales as a bad thing and while it is on a certain level it requires business' and corporations to adapt. 

The ones that can't adapt are no longer economically viable and so are removed from the system. When all the banks were going backrupt a little while ago, this was really a good thing since all the banks that caused the bad debt in the first place that couldnt sort themselves out were removed. Unprofitable business' that were not helping the economy closed, bad for the individual of course but bad for the economy? I don't think so. Unprofitable business usually means those business' taking out loans they can't pay back. The economy likes loans and debt of course, but only when they can be paid which is why your credit card company loves it when you can only pay back the minimum but gets upset with you when you start missing your payments.

Even pirates and the black market themselves are essentially just as much a business as any other it just happens to be trading in illegal/stolen/etc wares rather than a legitimate product. Internet pirates enjoyed somewhat brief glorydays a few years ago where they probably profited quite considerably that I do not see how they could replicate again. As a software pirate the advent of torrents probably did a lot to hurt their income maybe as much as it did the software companies they were stealing from in the first place! As I said before I don't know what the software pirates are doing to make money now, but it is as I said before either they find a way to make money, forced by technological progress in this case, or their business fails as it no longer becomes economically viable to produce these cracks. So if they are making decent money still, it would have to be in another area. 

What the software people must do is find a way to also adapt to it, since it isn't going to go away and there's only going to be more technological progress in the future. It may mean offering better customer support, intensives such as free easy upgrades and support and so on. If you look at a company like Tonehammer, imagine if they were just a faceless personality-less company that didn't interact with their userbase at all and was quite slow responding to emails and support questions. While I can't prove it I would bet that a significant amount of their customer base would be more attracted to illegal copies rather than buying their own. Going back to the CD sales issue then, the record companies have to come up with a way to get people buying and that means changing or loosing money. They can't keep thinking back to the good old days where they used to sell 100 million cds, that was then and times have changed now and they will again, they have to keep moving forward. 

That is why we have 3D films being so promoted now, because so many people have DVD and Blueray with great home cinema systems that they don't go to the cinema as much. And that isn't even anything to do with pirates! They want to get people to go back to the cinema, so they had to come up with a new incentive. Eventually they'll have to come up with another.


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## midphase (Mar 11, 2010)

""Thriller" sold what, 30 million units? We will never see anything close to that again. Nor will we see 30 million legal downloads either."

Taylor Swift's Fearless (vomits a little in my mouth) sold over 6 million copies last year...which outsold Thriller in 1982. I seriously doubt (hope) that Taylor Swift has the type of staying power that MJ has...so no, chances are 30 years later it won't have sold 51 million copies...but if we're comparing apples to apples (or rather fruit roll-up apples to real apples), then I'd say not much has changed.


PS.

I agree with Ed some more.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 11, 2010)

It's fine to talk objectively about business models and such, but to me, theft is theft, and all the analysis and explanation for the theft of digital content and software is moot. From my perspective, the thievery points to a sort of groupthink moral bankruptcy, and I'd love to see more punitive measures taken. I'd also like to see more watermarking, DRM, whatever it takes to protect the creators. I'm sure if bread was easily steal-able, people would steal it, but less so, because people are trained to believe that is theft of something that has intrinsic value, whereas digital media is considered ephemeral .

To content creators who are having money taken out of from their pockets, I think the discussions of changing business models are probably considered sort of cavalier. The larger question, it seems to me, would be' how do I go on doing what I do and protect myself so I can make a living from my work'?


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## Pzy-Clone (Mar 11, 2010)

midphase @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> ""Thriller" sold what, 30 million units? We will never see anything close to that again. Nor will we see 30 million legal downloads either."
> 
> Taylor Swift's Fearless (vomits a little in my mouth) sold over 6 million copies last year...which outsold Thriller in 1982. I seriously doubt (hope) that Taylor Swift has the type of staying power that MJ has...so no, chances are 30 years later it won't have sold 51 million copies...but if we're comparing apples to apples (or rather fruit roll-up apples to real apples), then I'd say not much has changed.
> 
> ...



Not much have changed???

There`s too much BS in this thread.
These things are monitored VERY closely, and no...piracy did not hurt music sales in "the 90s"...infact, they kept on growing up untill the year 2000...

These are some ACTUAL figures published by Nielsen Soundscan for the US marked:

In 2000 album sales surpassed 943 million units, according to figures published by Nielsen Soundscan.

Since peak year 2000, US-based album sales have dropped an unbelievable 514.6 million units, or 54.6 percent. (2008)!!!

Overall, album sales in 2008 (both digital and physical) landed at 428.4 million, also according to Nielsen. 

And it has just continued to decline the last 2 years.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 11, 2010)

> When all the banks were going backrupt a little while ago, this was really a good thing since all the banks that caused the bad debt in the first place that couldnt sort themselves out were removed.



That's not what happened, actually, but that's a whole different discussion.

But there is a tie-in, and that's that you people who are so adamant that piracy is insignificant - or to be more specific, instant delivery of stolen copies of albums or movie DVDs is insignificant - are the same as extreme conservatives who say that the marketplace solves everything, capitalism is brutal, and if you can't figure out a solution then tough. Then you point to Taylor Swift and Avatar.

Well, as John implied, those few examples at the top are irrelevant; it's like saying "Look at Goldman Sachs. They're doing well, so those unemployed people just need to reinvent themselves."

These are entire industries that are struggling with lower revenues! The movie industry relies on revenue beyond what it gets from the box office, and iTunes sales aren't making the record industry thrive (in fact many if not most single song sales are lost album sales).

It's true that the horses have left the barn and that for there to be a music industry going forward the whole business has to be rebooted, and focusing on how to do that might be a good idea. But piracy really is what caused the spiral.


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 11, 2010)

Pzy-Clone @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> In 2000 album sales surpassed 943 million units, according to figures published by Nielsen Soundscan.
> 
> Since peak year 2000, US-based album sales have dropped an unbelievable 514.6 million units, or 54.6 percent. (2008)!!!



That completely ignores the sales of singles.



Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> you people who are so adamant that piracy is insignificant...



Who specifically is so adamant?

For the record, I don't think piracy is insignificant. I think it's something that is incredibly difficult to even measure, much less figure out how many sales are lost because of it. And I take issue with those blaming it for all issues with all facets of the entertainment industry, particularly when that blame comes from the assumption that any decline in revenues that happens while piracy exists must be caused by piracy.



Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> These are entire industries that are struggling with lower revenues! The movie industry relies on revenue beyond what it gets from the box office



So do you have a number showing that the film industry has been seeing a revenue decline overall? (which is still a separate issue from whether such a decline is necessarily caused by piracy)


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## Ed (Mar 11, 2010)

NYC Composer @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> It's fine to talk objectively about business models and such, but to me, theft is theft, and all the analysis and explanation for the theft of digital content and software is moot. From my perspective, the thievery points to a sort of groupthink moral bankruptcy, and I'd love to see more punitive measures taken. I'd also like to see more watermarking, DRM, whatever it takes to protect the creators. I'm sure if bread was easily steal-able, people would steal it, but less so, because people are trained to believe that is theft of something that has intrinsic value, whereas digital media is considered ephemeral .
> 
> To content creators who are having money taken out of from their pockets, I think the discussions of changing business models are probably considered sort of cavalier. The larger question, it seems to me, would be' how do I go on doing what I do and protect myself so I can make a living from my work'?



Theft is theft, fine. Of course theft of a car is still undeniably different to theft of a software program since you are "copying" the item rather that stealing the physical item. I realise software manufacturers, the record and film industry said its exactly the same, but its still different. That's not to say software piracy doesn't hurt anyone, it does and especially hurts small developers but lets analyse the difference.

Imagine you're a car salesmen and you have a selection of cars for sale. You have purchased those cars from others, you get your money back and a profit from when you sell those cars on to others. Now imagine half those cars were stolen. Ignoring the insurance aspects, all the money you paid to buy those cars has now gone. This is quite damaging since you now have lost, *literally*, quite a considerable amount of money!

Here's where its different for software developers...

If someone were able to go up to one of those cars and scan it using some device which would then replicate that car exactly as the one you are selling then drive it around as if they had bought it, what have you lost? You have only lost *potential income.* Even though they are now using a product you are selling without paying for it, you haven't physically lost anything unlike the previous example. 

For thousands of years people have been selling physical products, if you wanted to steal it you had to actually take it from someone. Really this problem of software theft has only really been a problem in the last 15 years or so and I don't think many are used to it and some still want to treat it as if its the same thing as traditional theft. Obviously I am not including VHS tape copies in this, something that had been around a little longer than that. But VHS tape copies usually didn't look as good and you had to actually get a physical copy from someone real. But with the internet anyone can download anything at 100% quality (_or near 100% with audio and video_) in the comfort of their own homes whenever they like.

But this all begs the question, what *is *theft? 

Is it theft if you record music off the radio? It is theft if you listen to music you haven't paid for on youtube? Is it theft if you give someone a "mixtape"? Is it theft if you convert some itunes DRM music to another format so you can use it in other devices that the DRM isn't meant to allow?

What is law isn't necessarily ethical of course but the reason this is confusing to people is that its such a new technology. With internet speeds and other advances happening all the time its going faster than we can get used to it. It is a fact of life people are going to have to get used to that this is going to happen, people are going to make mixtapes for people, people were going to record music off the radio and people are definitely going to listen to music on youtube.

But lets go back to the car salesmen analogy. The people who do use this replication device on your product can now be divided into at least two main groups: People *would *would have bought your car but didn't because they could get it for free & people who *wouldn't* have bought your car if they had to actually pay for it. 

I don't want to make excuses for downloading software you didn't pay for, but simply saying theft is theft is really just an emotional response. When you really look at it it doesn't make much sense to say it. 

So how do you stop it? You either come up with a way to stop them from doing so, which might work for a little while until they beat you. However you have now expended even more resources and money in developing something that has been beaten anyway. Or, you beef up the protection to such a degree that it annoys the people who still buy your cars. There is a happy medium of course, but the best way to make people buy your products is to make sure they like the service and support. You can't beat all pirates but you can do things to win back potential people to buy your product.

Does software piracy hurt developers? Of course it does, but to varying degrees depending on what kind of business you own. For small developers it is very bad especially if you only have a few products and especially if those products are quite expensive. However for a company like Steinberg for example they may actually GAIN customers. Why might that be? Well when you have 13-14-15 year olds downloading cracked versions of Cubase eventually those kids grow up. They buy proper studio equipment and want the stability of support for the product they can't get if they are using a copy. But which sequencer would they get? Obviously they are going to get Cubase since they are already used to it. 

Its all a lot more complicated than even this makes out, but once again its not the same as physical theft of an actual physical object. 

If you want to talk about DRM, dongles and authorisations and so on this has an effect too and all very interesting to talk about. Some will help slow piracy while others will increase the likelihood of piracy and some will even make your legitimate users seek out these illegal programs simply so they don't have to deal with the copy-protection for software they already paid for... and will resent you for it.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 11, 2010)

Mike Connelly @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Beyond that, even assuming that the top records aren't selling as many copies as they used to, that doesn't mean it was mainly caused by piracy.



Seriously? Find me a record executive or best selling artist who does not believe that the far lesser number of units sold now from 20 years ago is not primarily due to piracy.

I submit to you that some things are obvious because they are bvious.


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## Ed (Mar 11, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> But there is a tie-in, and that's that you people who are so adamant that piracy is insignificant - or to be more specific, instant delivery of stolen copies of albums or movie DVDs is insignificant - are the same as extreme conservatives who say that the marketplace solves everything, capitalism is brutal, and if you can't figure out a solution then tough. Then you point to Taylor Swift and Avatar.




Oh its certainly not insignificant.

The music industry are loosing a lot of money compared to what they used to be making. But they have to keep up with technology, it couldn't keep going the way it was going and the only way it could keep going the way it is going is if the internet never existed. 

But the internet did arrive, Napster did happen (_and was going to happen regardless of if it was Napster or not_), youtube is here. With great cinema systems and affordable DVD and Blueray players meant people stopped going to the cinema as much. So what did the studios do in response to declining audience levels? They started marketing 3D and making 3D films, that is a direct response to the fact that technological progress was taking away their customers. 

The music industry has to do the same and could probably do more. But credit were credit is due they had decided at the time not to close Napster completely and worked with them and now we have things like itunes and Spotify. Film companies and TV studios now make their shows available to watch for free online, but why? Mostly likely in response to people watching them for free on the internet. This way they can give people a way to do that but also get advertising revenue from the views. In some cases piracy has directly helped, for example South Park can be watched all for free on the internet legally (so long as you're in the US) and creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have always said that people "illegally" watching their shows on the internet only helped them. This only applies in certain occasions of course and doesn't apply to everyone, but its worth noting. 

So you could think the internet might destroy these industries, but I think they will come up with new things (_as we have seen)_ to keep the money rolling in ...because they have to.


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## kdm (Mar 11, 2010)

Perhaps digital sales aren't being taken into account here. The music industry revenue charts I've seen show an increase in digital sales that exceeds the losses in physical sales (CDs and DVDs), and overall music sales were up by 2% in 2009 (that includes all formats, singles and albums). 

The question is, does the digital transition translate to a net loss in revenue? And if so, is that simply because the prices (and percentage income) for a digital version are generally lower than CD/DVD (depending on costs, varying percentages from iTunes, etc)?

Piracy has an impact and has to be addressed of course, but I firmly believe this ongoing transition to an eventual all-digital/streaming delivery industry has had a much greater impact. Just go into a Borders or Barnes & Noble and check the CD/DVD section - CDs (classical and jazz esp) are down to a fraction of their original sizes - simply because CDs aren't selling compared to iTunes/mp3. DVDs take up 90% of that section of the store now, so DVDs aren't falling by the wayside.

The bigger challenge is how to keep revenues in tact for artists and content providers when the consumer's mindset on value vs. delivery format, cost and availability is radically changing.


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## Pzy-Clone (Mar 11, 2010)

More figures:

TOTAL US music sales were $14.6 bln in 1999, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

$10.1 bln 2008.

United States will decline to $9.2 bln in 2013, according to Forrester Research.

And dont think its better for the rest of the world...in some territories its much worse.
And yes, there has been a increase in digital singles sales, but not in any way does that make up for the total loss from the general decline and falling album sales.


I just dont understand how some people, completely unsubstantiated btw, will go on about the record industry NOT being in a BIG crisis...Jay Asher is rigth, its so obvious and EVERYONE in the industry knows it, have felt it it...and most certaintly have felt the financial consequence from it.

And whats ever worse...is that the top 20 position albums now, percentage wise suck up a larger portion of the total sales than previously...so that when Susan Boyle and Lady gaga both sell 6 mill each of their album in 2009 WORLDWIDE (!), the consequence for all the smaller acts and artists out there are even more significant...so unless you are a top name, making money from music sales have become close to impossible the last 6 years.

In the music biz..theres a point of break even every artist has to reach in order to be financialy justifiable...in other words, for a increasingly large percentage of musicians out there now...they simply dont have the income to justify producing music on a pro level anymore. There`s a certain amount of investment that needs to be made for a record to be comperable to the standard or norm as we knew it...so the consequence is, unless you can sell a big amount of units...you wont get signed today, When you..say 10 years ago could have gotten a deal with a small indie.

Lets be clear..when we are talking about the industry being dead, we are not talking about Madonna and U2. They will survive for the time being....but all the other hardworking, small artists, indie labels, etc etc...that have been decimated by the decreasing sales.

So , you will only see a continued focus on a few select hit records and music marketed towards groups with the lowest dload ability...that being kids music, and mature music, etc. The depth and broad range of genres and quality we are used to will ...or have already ceased to exist in a commercial context, so no doubt there will be a endless line of Lady Gaga`s in the time to come. so yay, great times ahead indeed.

So do go on with your nifty little theories while more and more studios, artists and labels go out of buisness.
Once they all come here looking for a lucrative career in movie scoring you might start taking things more seriously


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 11, 2010)

Ashermusic @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Seriously? Find me a record executive or best selling artist who does not believe that the far lesser number of units sold now from 20 years ago is not primarily due to piracy.



You're asking me to find someone who is willing to take some responsibility for how their stuff is selling instead of blaming someone else for it? That's hilarious.

I don't think anyone is going to dispute that there are many executives and artists that believe piracy is to blame. But just because someone believes something doesn't make it true.


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## midphase (Mar 11, 2010)

Just as an aside....I find it ironic that some of the worse culprits of copyright infringement and (for all intents and purposes) piracy have been the labels themselves. 99.99999% don't know what goes on behind closed doors, but my Capitol/EMI friend who was one of the top execs over there (and who has since moved on to the film industry) has told me some stories you wouldn't believe. According to him, the labels are not above stealing anything and everything they can, as long as they can hide behind ambiguous contract wording. I don't know if they have gotten any better since most of this stuff happened about 10 years ago, but they are just as guilty of abusing copyright.


"I just dont understand how some people, completely unsubstantiated btw, will go on about the record industry NOT being in a BIG crisis"

Nobody is denying that the industry is in a big crisis. I just don't think it's as simple as "just make piracy go away and everything will be back to normal"

I am also aggravated about all the hypocrisy around here. Show me one person who says he has never ever made an illegal copy of something (be it music, video, software, samples, whatever) and I'll show you a big fat liar!


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## Ed (Mar 11, 2010)

midphase @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> "I just dont understand how some people, completely unsubstantiated btw, will go on about the record industry NOT being in a BIG crisis"
> 
> Nobody is denying that the industry is in a big crisis. *I just don't think it's as simple as "just make piracy go away and everything will be back to normal*"



And the thing is, that's not even an option.



> I am also aggravated about all the hypocrisy around here. Show me one person who says he has never ever made an illegal copy of something (be it music, video, software, samples, whatever) and I'll show you a big fat liar!



Yea and as I said look at youtube  Most of us have even posted stuff here from youtube, in fact Fredrick doesn't even consider that bad I guess since he doesn't delete those links like he does other forms of copyright infringement.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 11, 2010)

Things have the value people assign to them, Ed. That includes music, cars, gold, what have you. Recently, someone boasted in a chatroom I was in that she had illegally downloaded 20,000 songs. To me, illegally obtaining 20,000 x $.99 (the going legal rate, give or take) worth of music equals Grand Larceny. Everything else is sophistry.


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## Pzy-Clone (Mar 11, 2010)

midphase @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Just as an aside....I find it ironic that some of the worse culprits of copyright infringement and (for all intents and purposes) piracy have been the labels themselves. 99.99999% don't know what goes on behind closed doors, but my Capitol/EMI friend who was one of the top execs over there (and who has since moved on to the film industry) has told me some stories you wouldn't believe. According to him, the labels are not above stealing anything and everything they can, as long as they can hide behind ambiguous contract wording. I don't know if they have gotten any better since most of this stuff happened about 10 years ago, but they are just as guilty of abusing copyright.
> 
> 
> "I just dont understand how some people, completely unsubstantiated btw, will go on about the record industry NOT being in a BIG crisis"
> ...



I agree.
But lets not pretend its not mainly due to piracy.

Hypocrisy, well...personally im not too conserned about the morality of piracy, morals and ethics change over time...it`s just a case of accepting the mechanics of cause and effect....take something without paying , and it will be at the expense of someone else.

But if thats how the general population sees it (music has no value)... it ceases to become moraly wrong to take it, which is what has happened imo.

But after all, theft is a concept as old as humanity itself...should not shock anyone that if given the oportunity...people will steal.
The main problem as i see it, is that taking music is no longer considered stealing.


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## kdm (Mar 11, 2010)

Ed @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> midphase @ Thu Mar 11 said:
> 
> 
> > "I just dont understand how some people, completely unsubstantiated btw, will go on about the record industry NOT being in a BIG crisis"
> ...



That's all my post was pointing out. But the solution isn't to cry that the sky is falling on behalf of record labels that have ignored the signs for a decade, but to look at the changing landscape and figure out how to make it a viable change for us as musicians, artists, composers, etc.

The declining value of art has been discussed here many times before, and I've expressed my concerns over the trend, so I hope you don't think I am somehow dismissing the industry's problems carte blanche. 

Conversely, generalizing and isolating blame for the decline in sales to piracy alone doesn't help solve the value of art problem. Piracy is only one piece of the digital media revolution that is changing the whole cost/value structure of media. Napster may have started the biggest part of the landslide i the 90s, but it didn't propagate it into 2010 - paying consumers did, and delivery companies looking for ways to cut costs (i.e. royalties, etc) to lower the cost for content to the consumer. The industry has moved to looking for quicker and easier ways to get media to the end consumer, almost ignoring the impact on content providers.

Like Kays said, it isn't as simple as just making piracy go away. The consumer's mindset changed - just as it did with the introduction of lower cost cassette albums in the vinyl days, and just as it did when CDs replaced both, even at twice the price. Likewise, the $0.99 song and $9.99 digital album has killed the $17 CD.


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## midphase (Mar 11, 2010)

Pzy,

I think you raise a good point. I think most people view software piracy somewhere between running a red light and letting your dog poop on the sidewalk without picking it up.

Now, I do believe it's gotten a lot better...especially among musicians and artists in general...but boy in the late 90's it was a free for all from what I could see. 

Anyway, I think new world problems can't be solved with old world mentality. This goes for everything across the board from terrorism to piracy to health care.

If I was king of the world, I would seriously consider accepting piracy as a reality of the new world...but I would tax the crap out of it and with that tax revenue I would establish an ASCAP-like system where the revenue is distributed to artists on a who-is-most-pirated basis. So how do you tax piracy you say? You don't tax piracy itself as much as you tax everything that is needed to make it happen. So storage, writeable media, ripping and copying software, internet providers, computer manufacturers, portable media players manufacturers, and on and on.

Of course the counterargument is that "hey...I don't pirate...why should I be taxed?"

Well...guess what bozo...it's a small price for all of us to pay to ensure that the artistic community stays alive and thriving...not any different than me being taxed to send someone's kids to school (I don't have kids so why should I pay?).

See? Aren't you glad I'm not in charge?


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## midphase (Mar 11, 2010)

BTW...for all those who gasped when I suggested effectively legalizing piracy....may I also bring up two other things that are highly illegal and yet I think should be legalized? You got it...sex and drugs. Prostitution and drugs (most definitely pot...you might make an argument against the heavy shit) should IMHO be legalized and heavily taxed.


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## Synesthesia (Mar 11, 2010)

Ashermusic @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Here is a perfect example of what Nick is talking about. In 1984 I co-wrote a song with the late Paul Jabara that was on Julio Iglesias" first English language album. It entered the charts at #4 on Billboard. My first check was for $75,000 and the album went on to sell 5 million copies.
> 
> 2 Years ago, due to the producer sampling one of my songs, I was on Mims' first album. It also entered the charts at #4 on Billboard. My first check was for $3,300 and the album went on to sell app. 1/2 million copies.
> 
> So yes, downloading piracy has hurt.



This is a very interesting point that Jay makes - I don't want to speak for him but I believe he is referring to his royalties from mechanical copyright on the song itself - not the recording.

I think its worth pointing that out - Midphase I think you might have assumed he meant mech royalty on the _track_ - absolutely, in that case a sampling would have reduced the payout, but thats a different kettle of fish.

I am assuming, for my interpretation, Jay - that you didn't produce or record the Julio track and license it to the label, but that you are referring to songwriting mechanicals in both cases, but correct me if I am wrong.

Songwriters stand to lose out hugely from the change from physical sales to downloads..

Cheers,

Paul


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## Pzy-Clone (Mar 11, 2010)

midphase @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Pzy,
> 
> See? Aren't you glad I'm not in charge?



yes, i can hardly contain myself 

I dont agree tho.
I say let it die, sadly.
Perhaps then, we will realize what we have been taking for granted the last 15 years.

Things come and go, it would not be the first buisness to dissapear, nor will it be the last. Supply and demand.

The main question as i see it, is not why people are stealing... thats crystal clear to me...becouse they CAN, But why was it not dealt with?
We all know WHERE it is, whom is providing it, its not like a big secret.

Where has all the money gone? Who is profitting at the expense of the artists?
(and to point the discussion back on topic, all this is applicable to both Dvds and software imo)

Surely if there were only losses and no one thrived on piracy, this would not have happened ? I dont think we are seeing the big picture yet, at least its not taken into account when dealing with this topic.

I dont see what can be done at this point, so we just have to accept the consequence of our actions, i guess we get what we deserve


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## choc0thrax (Mar 11, 2010)

midphase @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> BTW...for all those who gasped when I suggested effectively legalizing piracy....may I also bring up two other things that are highly illegal and yet I think should be legalized? You got it...sex and drugs. Prostitution and drugs (most definitely pot...you might make an argument against the heavy shit) should IMHO be legalized and heavily taxed.



Prostitution should definitely be legalized. It's idiotic. As for drugs and piracy I dunno, those can be a slippery slope. One day your chillin, hangin with your son billy, hotboxing in the bathroom and then a year later he's dead, lying face down on your back yard trampoline wearing only a shower curtain with bear tranquilizer strewn about. It might seem innocent for your little Suzie to illegally download the latest Jonas brothers "jam", but before you know it she's intercepting freighters in the Indian Ocean and texting insults to you in Somali.

Of course, though, I think pot should be legalized. Alcohol is legal... The government could make a ton of money off of legalizing pot.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 11, 2010)

> You're asking me to find someone who is willing to take some responsibility for how their stuff is selling instead of blaming someone else for it? That's hilarious.




That was directed at Jay and not me, but NO IT'S NOT HILARIOUS. It's entirely appropriate because it's the biggest part of what happened, and whether or not you want to believe that also doesn't make it not so.

The music industry was firing on all cylinders, warts and all, for decades. Its engine has since developed other problems, but the big malfunction that caused the pressure build-up leading to the other problems was piracy.

At this point eliminating piracy wouldn't solve the whole problem any more than fixing the oil leak that caused the engine to blow will undo all the damage.


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## Hans Adamson (Mar 11, 2010)

So, should the European Union remove the individual's right to his intellectual property from its human rights charter, since it isn't such a big deal and nobody gets hurt? :?:


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## Pzy-Clone (Mar 11, 2010)

choc0thrax @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> midphase @ Thu Mar 11 said:
> 
> 
> > BTW...for all those who gasped when I suggested effectively legalizing piracy....may I also bring up two other things that are highly illegal and yet I think should be legalized? You got it...sex and drugs. Prostitution and drugs (most definitely pot...you might make an argument against the heavy [email protected]#t) should IMHO be legalized and heavily taxed.
> ...



yeah, but take a stroll downtown Amsterdam by night and you will very quickly realize why all those things should remain illegal.



Hans Adamson @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> So, should the European Union remove the individual's right to his intellectual property from its human rights charter, since it isn't such a big deal and nobody gets hurt? :?:



Well, eventualy that might happen if things continue ?

Intellectual property is not a "god-given" rigth imo, it is a contemporary concept that very well might change, dissapear or be rendered obsolete in accordance with the general zeitgeist. 


The point i was making, is that once a law is not considered valid by its citizens, it is meaningless and will ultimatly find its way into the legislative doctrines. 

So its not case of making a consious decision...what the people want, the people get, no?


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## Hans Adamson (Mar 11, 2010)

Removing the means to support yourself by creating books, art, films... We need to get used to the home-made stuff then.


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## Peter Alexander (Mar 11, 2010)

@Jay Asher - consumption and purchasing are two different things. 

In a study of one radio format, of 100% of listeners, 25% bought the music and 75% listened for free. 

On the Mac, there's iTunes "radio" - that's consumption.
On the PC, there's Windows Media radio - that's consumption.
On iPhone and other sources there's Pandora - that's consumption.
On cable, you can listen to streaming audio
On the Internet, there's the Naxos Music Library with 300,000 unduplicated tracks for listening only.

My point here is that you can consume music without purchasing music. With an aging population, CD purchasing is down for that reason alone, not to mention the other issues regarding music quality to drive purchasing.

Not being contrary, just pointing out the other side.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 11, 2010)

Sometimes people want to commit genocide. It's not equivalent, obviously, but because 'the people want it' doesn't make it right or good for them necessarily.


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## Peter Alexander (Mar 11, 2010)

*The premise:* Going back to the original point though, could it be that pirates could also force companies to come up with better customer service as well? 

*The premise restated:* Going back to the original point though, could it be that *stealing* could also force companies to come up with better customer service as well?


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## Ed (Mar 11, 2010)

NYC Composer @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Things have the value people assign to them, Ed. That includes music, cars, gold, what have you. Recently, someone boasted in a chatroom I was in that she had illegally downloaded 20,000 songs. To me, illegally obtaining 20,000 x $.99 (the going legal rate, give or take) worth of music equals Grand Larceny. Everything else is sophistry.



So what did you think of my car salesmen analogy? Can't you see there is an objective difference between the two? And do you consider listening to music on youtube theft as well? When people recorded music off the radio, is that theft? Because its all still copyright infringement.


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 11, 2010)

Have to say, some of this debate is becoming myopic. Here's my reality... I can listen, all day, to any songs I damn well like and I don't pay a single penny for them. And guess what - it's all legal. It's called Spotify. My only inconvenience is an advert every 20 minutes. And no-one from the record industry is telling me how awful it all is.

People can quote stats and scream "piracy" as much as they like, but the genie is way out of the bottle. The legal music business has moved on. TV viewing is down too, but the TV industry hasn't collapsed either. This is all the result of technological progress (with piracy fuelling the fire, of course). Personally - I like to own my own stuff. I often try on Spotify, then legally download when something really clicks (guilty admission - last purchase was La Roux!)

There will be no return of the "golden age" of album sales. But what we have now has HUGE plus points too - you can record and master an album and sell it on iTunes for peanuts - and it can be damn good. Find yourself some clever PR or be a cracking live act, and you're in business - potentially with no record company to rip you off. The model has changed... there's good and bad in that. I deplore piracy, but I'd rather see a positive attitude to the opportunities than endless whinging about the so-called good old days.


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 11, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> That was directed at Jay and not me, but NO IT'S NOT HILARIOUS. It's entirely appropriate because it's the biggest part of what happened, and whether or not you want to believe that also doesn't make it not so.



In case you misunderstood me, I wasn't saying piracy was hilarious, I was saying that making the argument "it must be true because the record company execs say so" is hilarious. And yeah, it is.

Seriously, ask a record company executive? While I'm out doing that, should I ask a cigarette company executive if smokes cause cancer?


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## Pzy-Clone (Mar 11, 2010)

NYC Composer @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Sometimes people want to commit genocide. It's not equivalent, obviously, but because 'the people want it' doesn't make it right or good for them necessarily.



True, many things are not good for us , thats very obvious.

BUT a broad range of quality music, films and software is not really a prerequisite for human survival , so even if those markeds diminish, dissapear or change, its not really a huge loss for alot of people in the grand scheme of things, and we have to accept that the devaluation of intellectual property is already happening, especially coupled with the digital formats of today.

Is it good for us? well, its not bad for us either really ....like the man said, Cha-cha-cha-chaanges. We need to adapt yes. But more so we have to realize that our actions have consequences, even online.

And we have to realize that while we, the "artists" suffer and complain...somone else is thriving on the backs of our hard work ...so it is a loosing battle...faced with the possibility of personal gain "morality" will always loose, that at least should be clear by now.


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## lux (Mar 11, 2010)

i think we should seriously consider using our time and efforts to find creative ways for increasing sales of legit stuff...


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 11, 2010)

Mike, the record executive is also more likely to know what's going on, and that's obviously what Jay is saying. He didn't really expect you to pick up the phone!

What you're saying is that the record executive would blame himself if he were being honest, and I disagree with that. He would certainly be responsible for some problems, but not for the entire collapsed model of people hearing music they like and then going out and buying the record.

A record producer friend of mine thinks that we're eventually going to end up with a tax on internet service itself, some kind of watermarking, and then royalties every time something is downloaded.


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## Ed (Mar 11, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> A record producer friend of mine thinks that we're eventually going to end up with a tax on internet service itself, some kind of watermarking, and then royalties every time something is downloaded.



And the thing is if people don't like it they are just going to download an illegal copy, they will find a way to do it. They are just going to have to figure out a new way to make money.


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## Hans Adamson (Mar 11, 2010)

Ed @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 11 said:
> 
> 
> > A record producer friend of mine thinks that we're eventually going to end up with a tax on internet service itself, some kind of watermarking, and then royalties every time something is downloaded.
> ...


Learn a trade as a plumber maybe. Or pack groceries in a supermarket. Then create in the evening when they get home... ~o)


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## NYC Composer (Mar 11, 2010)

Ed @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> NYC Composer @ Thu Mar 11 said:
> 
> 
> > Things have the value people assign to them, Ed. That includes music, cars, gold, what have you. Recently, someone boasted in a chatroom I was in that she had illegally downloaded 20,000 songs. To me, illegally obtaining 20,000 x $.99 (the going legal rate, give or take) worth of music equals Grand Larceny. Everything else is sophistry.
> ...



I understand the difference and see your point. Yes, there's an objective difference-however, as you agreed, theft is theft.That the thing being stolen is more ephemeral than an automobile, unquestionable. On the other hand, try recording your next 200 track, 30 plug in opus on a Honda Accord! 

No I don't consider listening to something on YouTube to be theft, nor did I consider listening to the radio theft back in the dinosaur days.

I don't think calling digital media 'sharing' theft makes me some sort of Luddite. I don't constantly whine about it, but when a discussion comes up and people suggest one should 'move on', well, I've moved on from a lot of things without changing my mind about them. Just because a behavior becomes socialized into a norm doesn't make it ok, at least not to me. I know that ship has sailed, but any effort to halt piracy, criminalize it or find a way to tax it or make it more burdensome will get my support.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 11, 2010)

Synesthesia @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> Ashermusic @ Thu Mar 11 said:
> 
> 
> > Here is a perfect example of what Nick is talking about. In 1984 I co-wrote a song with the late Paul Jabara that was on Julio Iglesias" first English language album. It entered the charts at #4 on Billboard. My first check was for $75,000 and the album went on to sell 5 million copies.
> ...



Correct, Paul.


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 11, 2010)

There's a standard compulsory royalty for the writer when a CD is sold, right?

Is there a standard amount for a download sale as well, or is it something negociated or otherwise set case by case?

How do the specific numbers compare?


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## Ed (Mar 11, 2010)

NYC Composer @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> I understand the difference and see your point. Yes, there's an objective difference-however, as you agreed, theft is theft.That the thing being stolen is more ephemeral than an automobile, unquestionable. On the other hand, try recording your next 200 track, 30 plug in opus on a Honda Accord!



I think you're taking my analogy too far with that last sentence... . 



> No I don't consider listening to something on YouTube to be theft, nor did I consider listening to the radio theft back in the dinosaur days.



That actually completely different things though. 

Music and movies are removed from youtube for copyright infringement all the time. I can upload some John Williams scores and eventually they will probably be taken down if one of their legal team spots it. Thats because its not legally meant to be there. The radio is a legal listening experience because they licence the right to play the music on the radio, this is why they call "pirate" radio "pirate" radio at all. Its because they don't pay any money to the record companies. In the early days pirate radio could arguably have helped the record industry in the long run making famous various bands that didn't get a chance before with the offshore pirate stations in UK in the 60s. Today pirate radio can carry heavy fines and prison sentences! If you record the music from legal radio, that is also classed as copyright infringement of course. You can also buy music from websites that has DRM on it meant to stop you copying the music and playing it in different places, however circumventing this means technically you are breaking copyright law even though technically you still paid for it. In the word of films if you buy a different region not meant for your country and you "crack" your DVD player or rip the movie in order to watch it this again is illegal.

Are any of these things "theft"? If theft is theft, then you'd have to say all of them are by definition and something I'm sure you would be guilty of as well. 

What Im saying is, its not black and white.


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## midphase (Mar 11, 2010)

"A record producer friend of mine thinks that we're eventually going to end up with a tax on internet service itself, some kind of watermarking, and then royalties every time something is downloaded."


I LOVE IT! Bring it on! I LOVE IT!


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## NYC Composer (Mar 11, 2010)

Ed @ Thu Mar 11 said:


> NYC Composer @ Thu Mar 11 said:
> 
> 
> > I understand the difference and see your point. Yes, there's an objective difference-however, as you agreed, theft is theft.That the thing being stolen is more ephemeral than an automobile, unquestionable. On the other hand, try recording your next 200 track, 30 plug in opus on a Honda Accord!
> ...



I agree, it's probably not completely clear. On the other hand, using cracked software downloaded from a warez site- d'ya think anybody thinks to themselves-'oh heck, might as well, this is perfectly legal'. Or someone who dl's 2000 songs on Limewire, think they're thinking it's legal?

YouTube confuses me, I admit. I don't know what the heck's going on there. I know studios and record companies upload stuff there to create a viral buzz. Who knows what's what??


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 14, 2010)

The UK's Guardian newspaper has a very interesting take on this debate here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/bl ... stry-facts - coming down heavily against the music industry party line. Well worth a read.


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## OneThrow (Mar 15, 2010)

That's a good article.


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## midphase (Mar 15, 2010)

I think that's a great article...thanks for posting it Guy.

I'd like to know what the guys who chimed in saying that piracy is destroying the music industry think of it....would make for interesting conversations.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2010)

What's interesting about it, other than its obvious contrarian bias? Where are the figures regarding contraction of the sales figures for recorded music over the past ten years? Those figures for live shows replacing recordings in revenue- you don't think those are telling? Also, where do you think the vast bulk of that was made? I'll tell you-U2, Springsteen, Madonna, etc.


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## JohnG (Mar 15, 2010)

The article is nonsense. It lumps together live performance and music sales, which are two different things altogether, adds in sales of ringtones which may or may not benefit artists, and dusts its hands off saying "what's all the fuss about?"

Then it blames the industry for being stick-in-the-muds (which to a great extent is fair), comparing illegal downloads to the water in a sea with the industry as hapless sailors. 

Except that the metaphor is totally wrong. Piracy is illegal (in most places, not all of course) and either way is taking something for nothing, that cost time and money and energy to produce.

Dismissive articles like this and saying complaints about piracy are for whiners and ostriches with heads in sand ignores the enormous decline in overall revenues for the music industry's sales of recorded music, and the enormous traffic of "free" (i.e. stolen) music.


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## Hans Adamson (Mar 15, 2010)

I find it curious that someone who says he is against illegal downloads of music, at the same time tries to discredit those who produce the music, when they claim they are hurt by the illegal downloads? - No, this guy is trying to give an air of impartiality while actually defending illegal downloads. That is for sure. And he is doing it by presenting a slanted version of reality.


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## chimuelo (Mar 15, 2010)

I perform 6 nights and 3 days every week and get by. The beauty of it is I love what I do for a living, but I use to make 4-6 commercial jingles everyweek.
Now I do 1 or 2 a month maybe.
Everything in the industry has changed and that is also the beauty of the Biz.
It's a simple survival of the fittest, simple as that. 
I have to work harder every year to make the same amount of money and next year I will be going solo as a DJ/Live synthesist using Modular synthesis and other showmans tricks just to stay above the generic entertainment since generic pay does me no good.
I grew up playing Jazz & Classical for peanuts, then Rock LP's for great money, then cover tunes live 6 nights a week and in the last 15 years the money stays the same as the cost of living goes up. Hence next years new endeavor.
Sure I could whine about pirates, and how the industry is lame compared to way back when, etc. It matters not. What matters is you sink or swim according to your ability to remain unique, even if the pay doesn't seem to increase.
And 30 million albums was incredible, and that was because the music was fresh and new, but back in those days Concerts made you want to buy the album if the band was hot, and I know MJackson was a freak and did wierd shit, but as a live performer and lover of the theater, NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY has since made me stare in awe as they perform, not even these fine Vegas strippers that jump up on stage on occassion.
Micheal J, deserved every dime, and that record will never be broke so I agree on that.
But sadly, I will probably never see anything to come close to the Victory Tour Concert again. SInce watching him live, I can barely keep awake with any performers except comedians these days.

Sink Or Swim, that's my 2 cents. Be different, and try and find something unique with your compostition, and even if it doesn't sell 30 million......................it's yours and nobody can pirate the honor at least.

BTW...................Why did Micheal Jackson and Lisa Presley really get divorced....................???????????????????????????????????????????????


There was a big misunderstanding when he said wanted kids..............
Ankyu....................ANkyu...........................Please....stay seated.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2010)

chimuelo @ Mon Mar 15 said:


> I perform 6 nights and 3 days every week and get by. The beauty of it is I love what I do for a living, but I use to make 4-6 commercial jingles everyweek.
> Now I do 1 or 2 a month maybe.
> Everything in the industry has changed and that is also the beauty of the Biz.
> It's a simple survival of the fittest, simple as that.
> ...



That's all cool, and I admire your energy and drive, however, stating realities hardly qualifies as 'whining'.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 15, 2010)

Reality or not, there is nothing wrong to say that when things are getting worse to state that they are getting worse. There is a whiny way to do so and a not whiny way to do so.

If I write that IMHO most contemporary music sounds like crap because of the obsession with making it sound as loud as possible, that is not necessarily whining.

If I write that my composing fees have gone down because of the cheap availability of tools and the lowered expectations of those who hire, that is not necessarily whining.

If I write that my royalties from recorded songs have gone down because of piracy, that is not necessarily whining.

What it is is a simple condemnation of deteriorating standards and ethics. And I think it is undeniable.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2010)

I said REALITIES, damnit.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 15, 2010)

NYC Composer @ Mon Mar 15 said:


> I said REALITIES, damnit.



Excuuuuse me! Make that "Realities or not"


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2010)

No no no- when I say REALITY, I mean REALITY ( or realities).

So, you see, it DOES matter.


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2010)

Ashermusic @ Mon Mar 15 said:


> Reality or not


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2010)

(Jeez- see what you've done?? You've turned me into Batzdorf-lite.)


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## Ashermusic (Mar 15, 2010)

NYC Composer @ Mon Mar 15 said:


> No no no- when I say REALITY, I mean REALITY ( or realities).
> 
> So, you see, it DOES matter.



I am so confused >8o


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2010)

Heh. Never mind.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 15, 2010)

Ed wrote:



> And the thing is if people don't like it they are just going to download an illegal copy, they will find a way to do it



The point is that there wouldn't be any illegal copies- all copies are legal and there's a royalty every time a watermarked file goes through an ISP's server. To be honest I haven't thought through the concept all the way yet, but I do find it interesting.

It would have some technical hurdles, of course, but I don't know that they're insurmountable.

Nor for that matter do I know what everyone assumes: that copy-protecting your wares is going to remain a fool's errand for time immemorial.


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## midphase (Mar 15, 2010)

Well...what's coming out of this discussion appears to be a bit of an ideology difference.

It would seem as if we all agree that piracy is not a good thing and it's damaging the system...however the extent of that damage and the degree of illegality of it seems to be quite subjective.

Some people maintain that piracy is identical to stealing a physical object...like a car for example. Others dismiss the comparison since stealing implies the removal of an object from another's possession, while copying does not deprive the original owner of the object (if people could "copy" their friend's cars....a lot of people would be pirating cars).

Some people maintain that piracy is negatively impacting the record and movie industries to the point of bankruptcy, while others say that the revenue has simply shifted from one point of sale to another and piracy is simply accelerating what would probably be a natural trend anyway.

It would also appear as if the degree of damage to the industry is impacted in one's opinion by the perception of financial well being of that industry...it's harder to feel guilty about downloading a song illegally while the artist is portrayed by the press as indulging into excesses of luxury for example....or while the record or film industry report record earnings.


I guess this discussion is really not any different than a religious or political discussion. We have disagreements and supporting "facts" on either side. One person will point to an article, the other person will accuse the article of being biased and pulling statistics out of thin air and vice versa....hence the only thing that becomes apparent is that the conversation will continue to go on without any agreement or concession from either side. 

IMHO it is all very interesting to read and I find it a very eye opening and educational process.


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 15, 2010)

Great post, midphase. I thought it was an excellent article in The Guardian. I've made the point many times - as have others - that music revenue is CHANGING. Why is a somehow not relevant to include sales of ringtones or merchandise? Do Hollywood studios ignore receipts from merchandise? Merchandise will be built into the business plan for a blockbuster from the word go (not necessarily a good thing, but a fact of life).

I think many of us react against a bald "piracy is killing music" because, clearly, it isn't (and the Guardian makes this point very well). [TANGENT] The very phrase "Piracy Is Killing Music" was used in the UK by the BPI and was emblazoned across albums with a skull and crossbones logo. Circa 1980[/TANGENT]

I think piracy IS theft. I think reasonable efforts should be taken to prevent it (most of all, anything that can be done educate people to think of it as theft). I don't think the best way forward is simply to complain or demand all file-sharing teenagers a thrown in jail / fined excessively.

Loved chimuleo's post too. Surely each of us will have different musical skills we can call on to help us adapt to the changing times? Who knows - some of it might even be fun?!


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## NYC Composer (Mar 15, 2010)

Stockholm syndrome, culture/age divide or blithe ignorance? YOU decide!


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## midphase (Mar 15, 2010)

Well, at the very least I think we can all agree that this is not a black/white issue but has many many shades of grey.


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 15, 2010)

Another nail in the coffin for the "music is dead" narrative, this time from the BBC and PRS (UK's songwriter revenue collection agency) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8567099.stm. For the first time in the UK, online royalties are growing faster than CD / DVD decline.


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## midphase (Mar 15, 2010)

Link doesn't work for me.


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## midphase (Mar 15, 2010)

I think it's fair in order to reach a more complete and well rounded opinion of what's happening to our industry, to be exposed to various articles and events happening as we speak. Once again, this is meant to help paint a complete picture and to highlight that things are not as black and white as some would like it to be.

Just this past week I read an article in the AFM magazine that stated that the RIAA and the NMPA (Publishers) have reached a settlement of $265 million for unpaid mechanical royalties to writers and publishers.

Let me state that again....the RIAA (i.e. all the record labels) were trying to shortchange Writers and Publishers by a whopping $265 million for the past decade.

Perhaps Jay Asher should re-evaluate who is to blame for his radical drop in mechanical royalties?

With headlines like these, it becomes a bit difficult to ask people to "do the right thing." It's a bit like when you see a cop run a red light or park illegally in front of a fire hydrant....it kinda does things to people's respect for the law.

Link to the article is here:

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_ ... 2d660d4f87

Link to funny fire-hydrant police video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=052S1yg-zR0


Thoughts?


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## midphase (Mar 15, 2010)

BTW...I realize the conversation has shifted from Sample Developers to Record Labels and Film Studios. 

Personally there is no argument from me that piracy is bad for sample developer...big or small and that it's important to enforce copy protection and keep the users honest.

However, I find this discussion about the record and film industry so fascinating and in some ways...although it's related...it's so different at the same time....really interesting.


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 15, 2010)

Rogue character at the end - try http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8567099.stm


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## Ed (Mar 15, 2010)

midphase @ Mon Mar 15 said:


> Some people maintain that piracy is identical to stealing a physical object...like a car for example. Others dismiss the comparison since stealing implies the removal of an object from another's possession, while copying does not deprive the original owner of the object (if people could "copy" their friend's cars....a lot of people would be pirating cars).
> 
> Some people maintain that piracy is negatively impacting the record and movie industries to the point of bankruptcy, while others say that the revenue has simply shifted from one point of sale to another and piracy is simply accelerating what would probably be a natural trend anyway.



And I'd again like to point out that some people have come out and said that piracy has actually *helped *them. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have said again and again that people watching South Park on-line only helped them in their careers. Again, it doesn't apply to every situation, but isn't that interesting?


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## choc0thrax (Mar 15, 2010)

I think we're forgetting the industry that's really getting slaughtered: the porn industry. Why order Bangkok Ladyboys 7 and FEDEX leaves it with your neighbor Dan when you can just stream it instantly for free and use Firefox's DownloadHelper to save it on your HD.


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## Hans Adamson (Mar 15, 2010)

choc0thrax @ Mon Mar 15 said:


> I know a guy who back in the day when there was that big Napster craze decided to use it to download a Marilyn Manson song. Somehow the file was mislabeled and it turned out to be a cue from Danny Elfman's Sleepy Hollow score. He had never really heard film music away from the actual film but he really dug this new music. The next day he bought the Sleepy Hollow soundtrack which set him down a path of loving film scores and buying hundreds of score albums. This new music inspired him to try to make his own orchestral music and then over the years he proceeded to pump around 15k into music related software/hardware and samples. He's even gotten some music gigs and thinks he may be able to make a part time job out of it...all because of one pirated mp3. Anyways just a story.


Nah... that story is just not realistic choc0...


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## choc0thrax (Mar 15, 2010)

Hans Adamson @ Mon Mar 15 said:


> choc0thrax @ Mon Mar 15 said:
> 
> 
> > I know a guy who back in the day when there was that big Napster craze decided to use it to download a Marilyn Manson song. Somehow the file was mislabeled and it turned out to be a cue from Danny Elfman's Sleepy Hollow score. He had never really heard film music away from the actual film but he really dug this new music. The next day he bought the Sleepy Hollow soundtrack which set him down a path of loving film scores and buying hundreds of score albums. This new music inspired him to try to make his own orchestral music and then over the years he proceeded to pump around 15k into music related software/hardware and samples. He's even gotten some music gigs and thinks he may be able to make a part time job out of it...all because of one pirated mp3. Anyways just a story.
> ...



I can't tell if you're being serious. Hmmmmmm (o)


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## Hans Adamson (Mar 15, 2010)

If you had said 10k I would have believed it. But 15k... no way..
8)


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## choc0thrax (Mar 15, 2010)

Hans Adamson @ Mon Mar 15 said:


> If you had said 10k I would have believed it. But 15k... no way..
> 8)



It's only 15k cuz he bought VSL's orchestral cube way back when the Canadian dollar was worth less/worthless. o/~


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## midphase (Mar 15, 2010)

"Why order Bangkok Ladyboys 7 and FEDEX leaves it with your neighbor Dan"

I really dug 1,2 and 3....then 4 started going off the rails, and by the time they hit 7 it was utter nonsense. Trust me...you didn't miss much.


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## kitekrazy (Mar 17, 2010)

Ed @ Mon Mar 15 said:


> I think you could easily say "_home cinema systems are killing cinema_". They are technically, that's why they had to come out with something new (3D) to get bums in seats again.



It's also had an effect on the music industry. Music is being mixed down in the studios geared toward portable apps. Rolling Stone had an article on this a while back. Lower bitrate mp3s @128k sound really crappy on a stereo system. The whole audiophile thing is dead.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 17, 2010)

Kays, I don't agree that the issue is ideological and that people come up with "facts" to support their position.

There are multiple factors and many things that you can only speculate about (for example how many pirated copies of [whatever it is] are actually lost sales), but I still think there's plenty of objective reality.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 17, 2010)

By the way, does anybody know how to decompress a RAW file? I just downloaded LB 8 and I can't wait to see it.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 17, 2010)

http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/10/03/17/ndp.member.says.compensation.needed.on.mp3.players/ (http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/10/03/17 ... 3.players/)

Canada may tax MP3 players just like blank media.


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## midphase (Mar 17, 2010)

"Kays, I don't agree that the issue is ideological and that people come up with "facts" to support their position. "

I think that's part of the problem. An article will say something like "An industry study estimates that $80 million are lost each year to illegal downloads." but they won't disclose how they arrived at such a figure. The companies usually hired to conduct those studies are hired by the RIAA itself. Just like there are plenty of right-wing financed studies which show that oil drilling ad pollution has no impact on the environment. People throw the word "Fact" around so easily these days, like the idea that Obama wants to kill your grandparents.

If there is one thing that I fully agree with RichardGAmes is that statistics and commissioned studies have become utterly meaningless. You can make any number or study say anything you want it to say as long as you frame it a certain way...ever seen Thank You For Smoking?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 17, 2010)

97.9% of all statistics are made up on the spur of the moment.


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## JohnG (Mar 17, 2010)

Hold on a bit though, Kays. Figures and estimates are not "utterly meaningless" unless you condemn any estimate with potential error as utterly meaningless. If a car is driving really fast into a tree its speed is not utterly meaningless to the occupants just because you don't know how fast, exactly, the car is going.

1. For sure, record company sales have dropped enormously. That is a fact one can't argue with -- even if one includes legal downloads such as iTunes. Moreover, Apple gets a nice big chunk of the money, so a dollar of revenues from an iTunes sale is not equal to the profitability of the olden days.

2. As Jay pointed out, you hardly make any money now, compared with a decade or two ago, even if you write a track that is undeniably a hit. Lots of reasons, but still, that stinks.

3. Studios are completely changing the way they release movies to address piracy. Whether or not we personally agree that piracy is real, those with a focused interest in the topic absolutely do and are spending big dollars to combat it. The window between theatrical release and DVD release has nearly collapsed, specifically because of the belief that otherwise pirates will eat up the market. The studios have a lot of money riding on this and plenty of people measuring very carefully what's going on; they have absolutely no interest in foregoing those extra dollars just out of panic. They believe it's real and have gone to great lengths to measure, in aggregate, just how bad the problem of piracy is. Sure, they know that there can be other reasons -- full shelves, bad movies -- for the dramatic reduction in DVD sales, but they believe piracy is a big issue and have conducted a lot of research to support their change in behaviour.

4. The return on capital at studio businesses is in the mid-to-high single digits, according to Wall Street analysts, far below the 15% range that would allow those companies to recoup a return commensurate with the risk and the amount of dough they have tied up in that business. So, shareholders are putting studios under pressure to reduce investment in film.

So what?

So, when we are part of a hugely profitable machine, we at least have a chance of getting paid well. When that machine's box office is up but revenues have declined sharply on the so-called "ancillary business" relating to a film -- pay per view, DVD, soundtrack sales, cable premium -- profitability is down and people get paid less.


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 17, 2010)

JohnG @ Wed Mar 17 said:


> 1. For sure, record company sales have dropped enormously. That is a fact one can't argue with -- even if one includes legal downloads such as iTunes. Moreover, Apple gets a nice big chunk of the money, so a dollar of revenues from an iTunes sale is not equal to the profitability of the olden days.



But John, according to the BBC article above, this isn't true. Revenue from digital sales more than offset decline from traditional media last year for the first time. And coming from the PRS in the UK, I'd say that was as close to a fact as we're likely to find. Also, it appears that singles sales are higher than at any point in history. So I'm not sure how you arrive at the statement "that is a fact one can't argue with" (well, I just have, anyway!)

And while online retailers take a chunk today, so in-store retailers used to take a hefty chunk too. The name and nature of the retailer has changed, that's all.


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## midphase (Mar 17, 2010)

Back for more? Ok. 


"Hold on a bit though, Kays. Figures and estimates are not "utterly meaningless" unless you think an estimate with potential error is utterly meaningless. If a car is driving really fast into a tree it's not utterly meaningless to the occupants just because you don't know how fast, exactly, the car is going."

Faulty analogy, we're talking about statistics and studies at the moment, like if someone said that a recent studies shows that if you have blond hair you're 75% more likely to drive into a tree but the researcher doesn't disclose exactly how they made such a determination.


"1. For sure, record company sales have dropped enormously. That is a fact one can't argue with -- even if one includes legal downloads such as iTunes. Moreover, Apple gets a nice big chunk of the money, so a dollar of revenues from an iTunes sale is not equal to the profitability of the olden days. "

Once again, I'm not arguing against record sales being down (although we are all familiar with big corporation fondness for "creative accounting") but rather the "why" Regarding the second part of your statement, Apple's piece of the action is actually smaller than what Best Buy, Wal Mart, Amazon, and record stores back in the day used to grab (anyone remember Tower Records? No? Young crowd huh?). Further, with digital downloads, all duplication, shipment, printing and other costs associated with physical media have greatly diminished if not completely disappeared.


"2. As Jay pointed out, you hardly make any money now, compared with a decade or two ago, even if you write a track that is undeniably a hit. Lots of reasons, but still, that stinks."

Man...you got no argument from me that making less money stinks. And I think guys like you and Jay have a wee bit more headstart than I have in the biz and probably feel the sting less than I do.



"3. Studios are completely changing the way they release movies to address piracy. Whether or not we personally agree that piracy is real, those with a focused interest in the topic absolutely do and are spending big dollars to combat it. The window between theatrical release and DVD release has nearly collapsed, specifically because of the belief that otherwise pirates will eat up the market. The studios have a lot of money riding on this and plenty of people measuring very carefully what's going on; they have absolutely no interest in foregoing those extra dollars just out of panic. They believe it's real and have gone to great lengths to measure, in aggregate, just how bad the problem of piracy is. Sure, they know that there can be other reasons -- full shelves, bad movies -- for the dramatic reduction in DVD sales, but they believe piracy is a big issue and have conducted a lot of research to support their change in behaviour. "

You say tomato, I say tomato. Seriously, I think when all is said and done I don't believe for a minute that piracy is the real driving force behind some of these decisions. The record and film guys keeps saying the same thing over and over in front of the press, but it's not any different than Republicans being against the health care reform because they think it's "socialist". We all know that the real story will never come out of those lips.


"4. The return on capital at studio businesses is in the mid-to-high single digits, according to Wall Street analysts, far below the 15% range that would allow those companies to recoup a return commensurate with the risk and the amount of dough they have tied up in that business. So, shareholders are putting studios under pressure to reduce investment in film. "

Listen, from my perspective all of that has absolutely nothing to do with piracy....and if it does it's a far smaller percentage that you're lead to believe. The complexity of this business is beyond human comprehension and there are many many reasons as to why studios have screwed themselves in recent years. Shortsightedness and greed being two very big ones. Wall Street and Burbank are closer than you think.


"So, when we are part of a hugely profitable machine, we at least have a chance of getting paid well. When that machine's box office is up but revenues have declined sharply on the so-called "ancillary business" relating to a film -- pay per view, DVD, soundtrack sales, cable premium -- profitability is down and people get paid less."

John, I like you and have an enormous amount of respect for you as a composer and a person...but I wonder if you really have such a simplistic outlook on the way the corporate world runs. I can think of many many reasons as to why our music budgets keep getting cut lower and lower, and none of them have to do with piracy and profitability. Next time you're on the lot, swing by the executives parking lot and count the Maseratis and SLR Class Mercedes. Trust me, these guys are doing just fine and it sickens me to no end when my studio buddy complains about ONLY pulling in $400k/year. You and I are getting screwed...no doubt, but the kid in Sweden who's watching Green Zone on his laptop had little or nothing to do with it. Never once in my career have I heard someone say to me "holy crap....we just made a killing on that last film so we're going to double your cut on the next one." Wanna see where the money is really going? Get your hands on your next film's budget breakdown and look at the cut that the "producers" are taking out of the film before any money is spent on the actual film....then call me and we'll go hang out at bar and drink ourselves into oblivion.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 18, 2010)

Nick Batzdorf @ 17/3/2010 said:


> http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/10/03/17/ndp.member.says.compensation.needed.on.mp3.players/
> 
> Canada may tax MP3 players just like blank media.



Not with Little Bush in power:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technolo ... story.html


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## nikolas (Mar 18, 2010)

midphase @ Wed Mar 17 said:


> Back for more? Ok.
> John, I like you and have an enormous amount of respect for you as a composer and a person...but I wonder if you really have such a simplistic outlook on the way the corporate world runs. I can think of many many reasons as to why our music budgets keep getting cut lower and lower, and none of them have to do with piracy and profitability. Next time you're on the lot, swing by the executives parking lot and count the Maseratis and SLR Class Mercedes. Trust me, these guys are doing just fine and it sickens me to no end when my studio buddy complains about ONLY pulling in $400k/year. You and I are getting screwed...no doubt, but the kid in Sweden who's watching Green Zone on his laptop had little or nothing to do with it. Never once in my career have I heard someone say to me "holy crap....we just made a killing on that last film so we're going to double your cut on the next one." Wanna see where the money is really going? Get your hands on your next film's budget breakdown and look at the cut that the "producers" are taking out of the film before any money is spent on the actual film....then call me and we'll go hang out at bar and drink ourselves into oblivion.


That kid in Sweden, also happens to have in his laptop Omnisphere, Nuendo 3, and whatever else one may wish. And he's trying his hands on anything. And he can be successful (unless we want to start an argument on self-taught vs educated and so on, which I have no intention). 

The combination of having any mp3 you wish for free, and having any program to make your own music and publish your own music for literally free is something to consider I think.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 18, 2010)

While empirical data is always a good thing, it does not therefore follow that we have to park our common sense at the door.

It is not a huge leap of common sense to conclude that when people can get something for free illegally that they used to pay for with no consequences, particularly in a society that is at best ambivalent about whether or not it is even wrong to do so, that it will have a MAJOR impact on incoming revenues.


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## lux (Mar 18, 2010)

i made lot of cassettes out of vinyls when i was a teenager and nobody cared about that. Almost all of people i know had the same habit. I purchased hundreds vinyls when i had a bit more of financial potential.

As a matter of fact though records and tapes had different sound. most of times tapes sucked a bit compared to vinyls and mostly they got ruined in a few months due to magnetic loss.

At that time having a copied record and an original record was different. Today it isnt the case and most of times people get pirated lossless copies of a record. 

Probably they should find some way to get back that difference again. Not a matter of quality though (as i supposed nobody would care at this point) but having a different offer for some other reason (physical items, smells, attached sex toys, whatever). As every time i get a cd with that ridicolous booklet and nothing else at 30 euros i feel ripped off a bit. 

Luca


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## midphase (Mar 18, 2010)

"i made lot of cassettes out of vinyls when i was a teenager and nobody cared about that. Almost all of people i know had the same habit."

This is a valid point. One might say that it's much more widespread today, but I'm not 100% sold that it wasn't as widespread 20+ years ago.

Also...remember used CD shops? To a record label, stealing music online or purchasing a legal used CD is the same exact thing. I remember in the 90's Garth Brooks tried to pass a law that would require used CD stores to pay a portion of the sales to the labels, but I'm not sure it ever passed.


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## midphase (Mar 18, 2010)

"The combination of having any mp3 you wish for free, and having any program to make your own music and publish your own music for literally free is something to consider I think."

Hello Nikolas,

Absolutely...I totally agree with you that software/content download is an issue that we need to figure out some way to get a handle on (whether through taxation, better copy protection, or a combination of both).

However I get a rise when I read statements like "almost all sample developers are on the brink of bankruptcy because of piracy", or "piracy is the reason why record labels are going out of business" because I don't think that those are accurate statements.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 18, 2010)

> Not with Little Bush in power



Ideology aside, frankly I never thought taxing media made a lot of sense. I used cassettes to copy records so I could listen to them in the car, among other things, and I wasn't burning CDs of pirated music.

You could argue that media players are used differently in the real world, but even then I don't see how you could tax them highly enough to cover the losses.

I think taxing internet service and distributing royalties for each file transfer makes more sense...except for the technological hurdles. And I supposed urban areas with public wi-fi could be a problem.

***

Lux, surely you understand why illegal taped copies of records were a miniscule issue compared to what happens today? That tape is a linear medium, and even professional cassette replication facilities couldn't turn out copies at a fast enough rate to put more than a scratch in record industry's paint?


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## Andrew Aversa (Mar 18, 2010)

> "piracy is the reason why record labels are going out of business" because I don't think that those are accurate statements.



Having actually studied the music industry for 4 years straight as part of my college degree, I'd say that IS a pretty accurate statement. Everything I've studied supports that. Once Napster hit the scene, the recorded music industry started to really tank. Sure, the proliferation of home studio recording (thus increasing the total # of artists) made an impact as well, but the widespread consensus even in the academic world is that piracy had a substantial effect on record sales.

Now, saying that all sample developers are close to going bankrupt due to piracy... that's not really accurate. Most developers I know are feeling the hurt but since the overhead for creating sample libraries is significantly lower than the overhead for creating and promoting a major label album, reduced revenue doesn't affect us as much (put simply, we have lower costs.)


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## JohnG (Mar 18, 2010)

noiseboyuk @ 17th March 2010 said:


> Revenue from digital sales more than offset decline from traditional media last year for the first time.



I'm talking about the 30% drop over five years. This particular change is of course welcome, but doesn't offset the enormous chunk taken out of the business. All this says is that maybe the decline is over? Hopefully things pick up from here.

As far as singles sales, that says nothing about the decline in album sales or overall revenue from music, which surely has plummeted, measured in aggregate.

I am not going to try to defend corporations, but the argument that "they are greedy pigs and it's all lies and propaganda" is illogical, or at least a non sequitor. The studios made tons more money off of pay per view and cable and DVD by dragging out a film's release cycle slowly, as they did in the very recent past. Their decision to shorten that cycle has everything to do with piracy, as they in fact give up a lot of revenue by doing it.

Of course they are greedy. That's what business is all about, fear and greed being the most reliable predictors of human enterprises.


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## midphase (Mar 18, 2010)

"I am not going to try to defend corporations, but the argument that "they are greedy pigs and it's all lies and propaganda" is illogical, or at least a non sequitor."

But I didn't say that John....please go back and re-read what I said. My point is that to put the blame squarely on illegal downloads is simplistic at best. And to assume that the more money the studios make, the more a composer makes is also naive.


"Their decision to shorten that cycle has everything to do with piracy, as they in fact give up a lot of revenue by doing it. "

I guess we'll have to continue to disagree over this one.


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## lux (Mar 18, 2010)

midphase @ Thu Mar 18 said:


> "i made lot of cassettes out of vinyls when i was a teenager and nobody cared about that. Almost all of people i know had the same habit."
> 
> This is a valid point. One might say that it's much more widespread today, but I'm not 100% sold that it wasn't as widespread 20+ years ago.
> 
> Also...remember used CD shops? To a record label, stealing music online or purchasing a legal used CD is the same exact thing. I remember in the 90's Garth Brooks tried to pass a law that would require used CD stores to pay a portion of the sales to the labels, but I'm not sure it ever passed.



yup, used cd shops are more or less the same as piracy to companies.

i still say that large part of the loss of sales is due to average material, cheap managers and complete lack of fantasy. And its likely to get even worst, as i dont see any change signal coming from the industry.

The fact most big stores in my town survive selling lot of old '80 an '90 titles at a fraction of a current cd price is to me the best sign that:

1) music coming from that ages kicks today's music ass big time
2) cd prices are completely out of range


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## germancomponist (Mar 18, 2010)

lux @ Thu Mar 18 said:


> midphase @ Thu Mar 18 said:
> 
> 
> > "i made lot of cassettes out of vinyls when i was a teenager and nobody cared about that. Almost all of people i know had the same habit."
> ...



+100! 

What I always say.. . o-[][]-o


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## midphase (Mar 18, 2010)

Just to conclude my position on this matter (I think 8 pages of this thread is probably plenty):

I think piracy is a negative issue (but not the only one), and alongside many other issues it's causing a pretty radical shift in the way things are done. This shift is bound to benefit some, while hurting others. I believe an honest and open discussion about everything that's going on is always welcome and I wish more of it happened on a larger scale than this thread.

I think the complexities of this subject are enormous and have many facets with a large amount of grey areas. It would be foolish to believe that this can be covered online with short posts. 

I am always open for an evening of discourse at one of the local watering holes, John...Nick...anyone? Might yield some interesting insights and at the very least provide some enjoyable company.


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 18, 2010)

JohnG @ Thu Mar 18 said:


> I'm talking about the 30% drop over five years. This particular change is of course welcome, but doesn't offset the enormous chunk taken out of the business. All this says is that maybe the decline is over? Hopefully things pick up from here.



Quite agree. The music industry has been an oil tanker, taking forever to turn its course around. Napster, back in the day, gave people what they wanted, albeit illegally - the technology was there many years ago. The good news is that finally the legit world has caught up. It's easy and cheap to buy practically anything now, and DRM is being consigned to the history books (I never bought a download unless it was DRM-free). IMHO, this positive alternative is one of the biggest weapons against piracy. And like you, I hope the only way from here is up!


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## choc0thrax (Mar 18, 2010)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/1 ... 03809.html

Thought this was a pretty funny story of Viacom vs. Youtube.


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## Ed (Mar 19, 2010)

choc0thrax @ Thu Mar 18 said:


> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/18/viacomyoutube-secrets-to-_n_503809.html
> 
> Thought this was a pretty funny story of Viacom vs. Youtube.





> "For years,* Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube,* even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It *deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked*. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. *It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom.* And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users. Executives as high up as the president of Comedy Central and the head of MTV Networks felt "very strongly" that clips from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report should remain on YouTube. .... In fact,* some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself*."



:lol:


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## Udo (Mar 19, 2010)

Deleted.


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## P.T. (Mar 19, 2010)

I think that CD prices are too high also, but the comparison to the price they sell 80's and 90's CDs for is not that simple.
Those old CDs have already paid for themselves. The studio time and other overhead has been collected and now any money they make is profit, no matter how little.

Still, CDs and also download mp3s are too expensive.


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 20, 2010)

P.T. @ Sat Mar 20 said:


> I think that CD prices are too high also, but the comparison to the price they sell 80's and 90's CDs for is not that simple.
> Those old CDs have already paid for themselves. The studio time and other overhead has been collected and now any money they make is profit, no matter how little.
> 
> Still, CDs and also download mp3s are too expensive.



Actually I don't agree with this - I think current mp3 prices are pretty much in the right ballpark. What's happening now (finally) is we're seeing competition and sales in that marketplace - in the UK Amazon will do occasional mad deals where you can get good, recent albums for £3. I picked up an extended version of Lungs by Florence + The Machine for £5 from Play last week. Considering CDs were £15 some 15 years ago, these seem really good prices to me. I do want the artists to get SOMETHING when I get their album!

Also, reading some of the above posts (and in other threads too) I think some people are in serious danger of just appearing... well... old! Now I'm in my 40s, I was into the Human League first time around for goodness sakes. But I think it's really lazy to say "all current music is rubbish". There's SO much out there, filtering through the dross might be hard (and if I hear one more autotuned RnB / pop knockoff I'll hurl), but there are some fantastic bands and artists. I'm playing the Florence album on a near-loop at the moment! Stunning songwriting, production and musicianship and though you can hear echoes of influences, it seems really fresh to my ears.


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## midphase (Mar 20, 2010)

I knew something good would come out of this thread...now I know who Florence and the Machine is!


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## germancomponist (Mar 20, 2010)

Read here: 

"Welcome to IMSTA
The International Music Software Trade Association (IMSTA) is a nonprofit association which represents the interests of the music software industry. Its primary goal is to change end-user behavior in order to reduce the demand for pirated music software. IMSTA pursues this goal through education and not litigation."


Link: http://www.imsta.org/


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## nikolas (Mar 21, 2010)

On the samples industry, for a small switch of areas, I find that very aggressive marketing strategies are also killing the industry itself. I came about samples 5-6 years ago and bought my first library, on a sale for XMas. I had to cut, save, ask and beg from people who owned a credit card (cause I'm against that... and a newbie on the Internet back then) to get the spectacular and very priviliged price, which would last for a limited time only... 

Jump 5-6 years ahead and I read this "It's back AGAIN. 2 for 1, etc". So the same library now costs between 150$-200$ (if my math is correct), along with its own player (which is better than Kompakt player, no doubt). 

Although piracy has had its toll there, I can't shake it out of my head that the marketing strategies of this particular company. And since we are talking, in effect, for one of the biggest players in the game, it wouldn't be unreasonable to speculate the implications in the whole market.

Now, take the above and apply it to music and the mp3s.


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 21, 2010)

Do you think that this marketing strategy actually encourages piracy, Nikolas? I recently started the "In Praise of Spectrasonics" thread because after much thought I realised that their pricing strategy (combined with free upgrades) was probably sounder in the long term than aggressive sales. But maybe I'm a hypocrite, because I've made use of those sales in the past.

I guess the sales point has been much discussed. Once you've had a 50% off sale, you must sell much less at full price in the future. There again, I see the sense in starting high and getting one set of customers (largely pro), then steadily dropping to widen the user base. I'm not sure it has much effect on piracy though.


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## nikolas (Mar 21, 2010)

noiseboyuk @ Mon Mar 22 said:


> Do you think that this marketing strategy actually encourages piracy, Nikolas? I recently started the "In Praise of Spectrasonics" thread because after much thought I realised that their pricing strategy (combined with free upgrades) was probably sounder in the long term than aggressive sales. But maybe I'm a hypocrite, because I've made use of those sales in the past.


NO! Not at all!

What I was saying is that this marketing strategy had its toll on price cuts on sample libraries. Nothing to do with piracy, but with pricing!

Sorry if it came out the wrong way!

And I've also used those types of sales a few times, but I generally buy on a need bases, rather than impulse (except on a few exceptional cases... )


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## midphase (Mar 22, 2010)

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/universal-music-to-cut-price-of-compact-discs-ftimes-0e63c43b6eed.html (http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/univer ... b6eed.html)


Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing?


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## noiseboyuk (Mar 23, 2010)

midphase @ Mon Mar 22 said:


> http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/universal-music-to-cut-price-of-compact-discs-ftimes-0e63c43b6eed.html
> 
> 
> Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing?



First reaction was that it's almost irrelevant, because CD is a dying format. Then I thought - hmm, actually I think it will die a very, very slow death so maybe not. I suspect there's an awful lot of people with a CD player who still think downloading is something to do with the drugs trade, and have no interest in mp3s at all.

With VHS and DVD, the tape-based format disappeared amazingly quickly, because there was suddenly a better, cheaper alternative. I think CD / MP3 will coexist for far longer, because the jump to no media is a huge conceptual leap compared to merely changing formats.

So as to reducing CD prices... if this has the effect of further reducing download prices I can see how a spiral down could happen. It must always be more expensive to manufacture a CD than host downloads. I guess it's objective, but I think current prices seem a good compromise between being accessible and good value vs getting revenue in. On the other hand - I guess if all albums were $5 potentially more would get sold, kids could afford more etc. So... like you I guess, I dunno!


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## Nathan Allen Pinard (Mar 23, 2010)

midphase @ Mon Mar 22 said:


> http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/universal-music-to-cut-price-of-compact-discs-ftimes-0e63c43b6eed.html
> 
> 
> Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing?



They are attempting to get people to buy in stores more, which yes, can be a very good thing.

Why? Because they buy the whole album, not just one song.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 23, 2010)

noiseboyuk @ 20/3/2010 said:


> ... t I think it's really lazy to say "all current music is rubbish". There's SO much out there, filtering through the dross might be hard (and if I hear one more autotuned RnB / pop knockoff I'll hurl), but there are some fantastic bands and artists. I'm playing the Florence album on a near-loop at the moment! Stunning songwriting, production and musicianship and though you can hear echoes of influences, it seems really fresh to my ears.



+100 

They used to make good music in the ________s (fill in the blank based on when you were open to new popular sounds/ideas).


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 23, 2010)

Nathan Allen Pinard @ 23/3/2010 said:


> They are attempting to get people to buy in stores more, which yes, can be a very good thing.
> 
> Why? Because they buy the whole album, not just one song.



And other things, like movie dvds, box-sets, candies, posters, magazines, t-shirts, etc.


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## nikolas (Mar 23, 2010)

Not to mention the physical activity of actually going out of your bedroom (or hourse). And I'm being dead serious here. If there's one negative thing coming from the net, in more general, is the hours one sits in front of the computer! (how more derailed can a thread get, huh?)


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## lux (Mar 23, 2010)

Nathan Allen Pinard @ Tue Mar 23 said:


> midphase @ Mon Mar 22 said:
> 
> 
> > http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/universal-music-to-cut-price-of-compact-discs-ftimes-0e63c43b6eed.html
> ...



I agree, a very good thing.

Also, one of the thing i loved in the past and i see menaced by single song selling is concept albums. There have been so many beautiful concept albums in the music history.


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## tmhuud (Apr 15, 2010)

http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2010/04/counterfeiting-and-piracy-undermines-the-incentive-to-create/ (http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2010/ ... to-create/)


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## Mark Belbin (Apr 16, 2010)

Bang on, Terry. Bang on.



Mark


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## kitekrazy (Apr 19, 2010)

lux @ Tue Mar 23 said:


> Nathan Allen Pinard @ Tue Mar 23 said:
> 
> 
> > midphase @ Mon Mar 22 said:
> ...



People use to buy 45s so the single song concept is nothing new. There's also those one hot wonder LPs many people regret buying. The other side was with an LP, if the art work was great and the music was bad you still got something out of it.


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