Time for the music industry to enter the 21st century

[Pei]

I think I have managed to find myself agreeing with Miko and Dinger in the same thread .

My essential point is given current and soon to be available technology there is no practical means of enforcing copyright. Copyright is an artificail conept anyway - as miko says intellectual property is a shaky concept.

For me there are two ends to the information aspect: Generic and Bespoke. Information tends to one end or the other (there obviously other ways to grade information as well).

Generic information has the same utility for all users (e.g. music, films, books, a software program like a game or an OS). Generic information can be generically copied and distributed with modern technology.

Bespoke information has different value for different users: usually it is useful to only a small set of users (e.g. a letter I write to my Mum, a software program that drives a company's online business - i.e. it's tied to their business model). Bespoke information is made for a specific set of users and there is little utility in copying and distributing it beyond those users.

Copyright is there to protect generic information: to give it an arbitrary status similar to real property. While copyright can be and is used for bespoke information it has little point for most of it (who wants to copy the letter I wrote to my Mum? who is interested in the software business system apart from the company who owns it and potenmtially it's close competitors?). Given that I can copy virtually any piece of information in seconds and send it to any (and multiple) destinations in seconds and given that for generic information to be useful it has to be easily available (ie.e anyone can buy it) copyright is dead. Whether this is good or bad for those who make money out of generic information I will that leave to the econimists, but it is inescapable. While someone might get a greate deal of use from getting hold of someone else's bespoke information (e.g. the business competitor example) bespoke information is rarely easily available and often actively protected: i.e. it doesn't really need copyright.

I think those who make money out of generic information have some options:
1) Sell generic information so cheaply and easily that most people won't bother ripping it.
2) Make there products more bespoke (customization, personalization).
3) Offer some form of value add that copiers can't provide (this probably comes sunder 2).

HTC is an example of 3) the AH game is generic information: it works the same for all clients (more or less). You don't have to pay to use it, and HTC make no attempts to prevent you copying it. They provide a value add: the AH server(s) themselves. I pay $15 a month to use the value add. They do however have information that is bespoke to them - the source code for the AH client and server, and the server setup. This would be of interest to their competitors and to a certain extent their clients but not much interest to, say, my Mum (again ). Consequently HTC protect this information via firewalls, physical security and don't distribute it. Breaches of all of these things can be covered by laws other than copyright that have a much better grounding in reality: breaking and entering, electronic theft and contract law.

Currently the music and film industries are taking option 4)
Sue your potential customers and try and get the government to enforce an artificial and vague concept: intellectual property.

Microsoft, Intel and the "Trusted Computing" crowd are going one step further than 4: they are forming a cartel to ensure that copyright overrides free market principles: i.e. they are trying to control all aspects of the information market to protect their interests.

The Open Source community has already grasped that generic software will be generically copied, but they are trying to enforce a different but equally flawed form of copy protection: the GPL (i.e. if you include open source software in software you write then that software itself must be open source).

The reason why I am interested in this it that I am a creator of information: I create information that tells other pieces of information and machines how to change information: i.e. I am a software "engineer". I made the choice to stick with bespoke information rather than working on generic products. Companies pay me to write software for there businesses to run some or all of their business processes. The market exists because they can't copy someone else's software to do it: their business processes are specific to them. They have to pay someone (me) to create bespoke information to suite their business.

[FUNKED1]

Originally posted by Wlfgng
Skuzzy hit the nail on the head IMO.
I have even put my stuff on the web in MP3 format only to be sadly dissapointed at the quality compared to the original.
CD's still rule for now with regards to digital quality.

You can always just zip a wav or other raw data file, or use some other zero loss compression.

[Skuzzy]

WAV's don't zip very well Funk.

I have a fundamental problem with people not getting paid for doing their work.

I have a problem with people not getting compensated for ideas that are implemented.

I have a problem with people stealing.  No matter how you dress it, stealing is what it is.

You can talk about all the legal bull all you want.  It is unethical to take food from the mouths of people who create the wonderful things we have in our lives.

I know this will get all twisted around by some sort of rationalization, but it does not change a thing.

[Pei]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
WAV's don't zip very well Funk.

I have a fundamental problem with people not getting paid for doing their work.

I have a problem with people not getting compensated for ideas that are implemented.

I have a problem with people stealing.  No matter how you dress it, stealing is what it is.

You can talk about all the legal bull all you want.  It is unethical to take food from the mouths of people who create the wonderful things we have in our lives.

I know this will get all twisted around by some sort of rationalization, but it does not change a thing.

I agree, but the current technology makes it so easy to abuse copyright  (and therefore the steal revenue) that the only thing to do (without massive intervention to reverse or slow the spread of technology) is to price the product at such a level as to make most people not bother with piracy.

Games are interesting example. Most gamers buy games rather than go for priated copies, even though its possible to download and copy "warez" games. Why? Because gamers feel they are getting value for money in what they buy and becuase right now, downloading 1000s of MB is still a hassle for most gamers and finding the ripoffs can be a hassle and invoolves a risk. Once MegaBit connection become common you will see the price of games drop so as to compete with the ripoffs as more people are preapred to take the download (though the hasle and risk remain).
With music in particular at $16 a CD many people feel they are not getting value for money so they turn to alternatives. Would that be the case at $2 or at $6 say?

Producers get paid what the market will pay. With current technology allowing the easy replication and distribution of information many people will take the rip off route. Government will not be able to stamp it out. The only choice is to offer people more value for money. Is this fair for those making money from producing and distributing information? No. Is it right? No. Is there a practical way to go back to the days of not being able to copy and distribute whenever we like? No. Time to bite the bullet. Copyright was designed to protect the information producers and make sure they got fair compensation for their product. Copyright can no longer work. We need to look for something new.

Those of us who are in the information creation business will need to have accept less money per unit, and therefore have to sell more to make the same money. Or we will need to add more value by making the information more "bespoke", or adding something extra.

Is there a way for information producers to make more money from the very things that are killing copyright: i.e. the fact that we can all copy and distribute? That's the next step.

[vorticon]

i dont think the mp3 thing is any good for artists or anything else

"cds are priced to high" is a myth

first all your ever gonna hear are the "top 50" songs that are played over and over again because mostly people only download what they've heard wich means that most new bands will be 1 hit wonders. with cds you not only get a chart topper but a bunch of other songs and once you get sick of the chart topper you start listening to the other ones wich are pretty good as well

second you get around 16 songs on a cd...at $20 your paying under 2 dollars for each song...wich is exactly the same price as you pay do download stuff off the net.

cds themselves are a LOT handier than a mp3 player heres why

mp3 player- you hear a song you like at your friends house...before you can listen to it yourself you gotta go home get to the music site download it transfer it onto your mp3 player then using the pathetic interface mp3 players use try find the blasted song.

cd- hear a song at a firends house...you can do 2 things...offer the friend a cd swap or go buy the blasted thing from a store...in both cases you get more than you bargained for

not to mention anyone can use a cd player/ buy a cd no matter how little they know about computers...wich isnt the case with mp3s

cd's are entrenched...everyone has a cd player and noone wants to go out and spend $300+ on a new one that you still need to "burn" a cd to listen to your stuff on it (and im not even sure if modern cd players will work on a old amp)...and there not about to put onboard memoru onto them because noone i know of keeps there stereo system in the same room as there computer...

the claim that mp3's quality is "really good" is crap...properly tuned FM radio sounds exactly the same as every mp3 or CD ive ever listen to...the only difference is the FM radio never skips.

overall cds are a better medium and are a lot more convienent than mp3's. (though i can see someone selling all the beatles songs on one mp3 CD sometime soon)

[irritant]

CDs would sell if they didn't cost 15 times more than they're worth. Why pay $15 (at least) for something that probably takes under a dollar to manufacture? The case probably takes maybe 1 a dollar or two to make, I don't think that's the reason CDs cost so much.

The RIAA is a bunch of overpaid slugs that want even more money.

[miko2d]

ra: They did not create the concept, it had been around in law for centuries.

 I meat that they created the concept of intellectual property as a legal feature of this country. Before that the government could not enslave a person A to make him enforce payment from user B to artist C. After that it could.

Is there a rising country somewhere with no intellectual property rights?

 Are there a country without socialism? Not a single one. Does not mean there were not plenty of them. So is the IP rights - for thousands of years people did fine without them.
 Are there no declining countries with intellectual property rights?
 
It prevents people from stealing the fruits of other peoples' labor.  That is not unjust oppression.

 If I can be drafted and forced to support enforcement of someone else's supposed rights on someone else, who did not deprive the first one from what he has, that's oppression.
 The concept of the intellectual property rights is totally arbitrary - which is the dead giveavay that it's not a natural right.

 Start with art. If you hear someone sing in the street, do you have to pay him? What if you memorise and sing his song, do you have to pay him? What if you just sing his song in you mind, do you have to pay him? What if you memorise that song not in your brain but on your piece of paper, do you have to pay him? etc., etc.

 Now to science. Let's say Bob discovers a wheel or a molecule of aspirine. Wheel and aspirine exist in nature. Somebody would have discovered them sooner or later. Do we owe Bob for that discovery? How much? For how long? Forever? 100 years? 15? Why not 15 seconds?
 Somebody calculated that we get the optimal discovery rate at 15 years? Show me that calculation. Anyway, if Jim makes a wheel that Bob supposedely owns, Bob does not lose his ability to make wheels. Why should I be taxed to shoot Jim so that he does not use wheel?

If you pay for intellectual property, whether it is entertainment, software, or medicine, you are proving that the people who created those products created something valuable.

 I hear what you are saying. I sympathise with the discoverer. I just do not see how it can be legitimately implemented.

The fact that you would rather not have to pay has no bearing on things.

 The fact that you can enslave people to enforce imaginary concepts only means you have power but has no bearing on legitimacy of such enforcements.


Skuzzy: You can talk about all the legal bull all you want. It is unethical to take food from the mouths of people who create the wonderful things we have in our lives.

 If you look up my other threads on this subject, you will see that I strongly defend intellectual property rights. There is a law, however illegitimate, and law-abiding people work in the expectation that the law will be upheld. Breaking the law would be stealing from them.
 But if there was no such law, the people would not have expectations that their IP rights would be protected, so they would take different ways to profit from their labor.

 I am talking theory here. I uphold law while I believe it to be wrong. Just like a person could condemn stealing slaves while believing slavery to be wrong.

 miko

[vorticon]

Now to science. Let's say Bob discovers a wheel or a molecule of aspirine. Wheel and aspirine exist in nature. Somebody would have discovered them sooner or later. Do we owe Bob for that discovery? How much? For how long? Forever? 100 years? 15? Why not 15 seconds?

so what your saying is if you put a lot of time and energy into building a (oh lets say holographic projector) and someone just started manufacturing them and selling them without your permission you wouldent get upset in the least?

I meat that they created the concept of intellectual property as a legal feature of this country. Before that the government could not enslave a person A to make him enforce payment from user B to artist C. After that it could.

so what your saying is that i should pay steven spielburg directly instead of the person standing in front of the theater...the RIAA is just that...the person standing in front of the theater...the RIAA is just a middle man between store A and artist C...and like anything there goal is to make money...

CDs would sell if they didn't cost 15 times more than they're worth. Why pay $15 (at least) for something that probably takes under a dollar to manufacture? The case probably takes maybe 1 a dollar or two to make, I don't think that's the reason CDs cost so much.

the cd costs about $1 to make...the case costs another dollar...the 16 songs on the cd have been determined by popular demand to be $1 each even though it costs a HUGE amount of money and time to get it recorded...CD's are priced fine.

[AVRO1]

-dead-,
I never said Jimmy Hendrix was still alive now did I.
The CD cost me a little less then 15$ CAN for 12 classics.
I call that a bargain.  Compilations like this are less expensive.
The people who put the CD out had to put it on CD and all that stuff and they got paid just like I do for work.
Would you work if they did not pay you? I didn't think so.

But if RUSH decides to stop making music because of this ***** then the music industry looses a great band.
They are still here because they have built a solid fan base through great music.
A music band about music! The HORROR!!!!!!!!

Britney is there because of her sales figures, once they drop
Britney will be forgotten like all the trendy artists are.

Good sound is the most important thing to me.
And once the shows are over, what have you left?
Memories is all you get for a much higher price then a CD.

[irritant]

Originally posted by vorticon
the 16 songs on the cd have been determined by popular demand to be $1 each even though it costs a HUGE amount of money and time to get it recorded...

Yeah, a little bit of encoding on a CD costs a dollar,  determined by popular demand.

[Skuzzy]

I'll use some of the ideas/concepts here to demonstrate a point about creative works.

I have created a full white paper and a plan on how to kill 99% of the SPAM on the Internet.  It would require no legal bodies, or government entities to be involved and would work world-wide.

I see no way to get any compensation for this, so it sits here and will never see the light of day.

That is what happens when due compensation is not forth coming for creative ideas.

Hey irritant,..I bet you do not own a car either.  Ever check to see what it actually costs to build the millionth copy of a car?  Rationalization at its finest.

[Dowding]

Isn't an eternally grateful world enough to persuade you to release it? Such a selfless endeavour may bring unexpected rewards. You could be the Mother Teresa of the IT world!

[ra]

I meat that they created the concept of intellectual property as a legal feature of this country. Before that the government could not enslave a person A to make him enforce payment from user B to artist C. After that it could.

Patents and copyrights did exist in America before the Constitution.  Enforcing these, or any rights, is not slavery.

So is the IP rights - for thousands of years people did fine without them.

People did fine without any rights for thousands of years.  Intellectual property rights were recognized once technology evolved to the point that non-physical endeavors became valuable in a monetary sense.  

The concept of the intellectual property rights is totally arbitrary -

What is arbitrary is your distinction between physical property and intellectual property.  It can cost $100 million to develop a drug which will save millions of lives.  Yet you would argue that the knowledge of how to create that drug is public property.

Start with art. If you hear someone sing in the street, do you have to pay him? What if you memorise and sing his song, do you have to pay him? What if you just sing his song in you mind, do you have to pay him? What if you memorise that song not in your brain but on your piece of paper, do you have to pay him? etc., etc.

No.  

I hear what you are saying. I sympathise with the discoverer. I just do not see how it can be legitimately implemented.

What is illegitmate about its implementation?  Third parties are often required to enforce rights.

ra

[miko2d]

vorticon: so what your saying is if you put a lot of time and energy into building a (oh lets say holographic projector) and someone just started manufacturing them and selling them without your permission you wouldent get upset in the least?

 I would be upset about being cheated if I had a guarantee in advance that I would have exclusive right to manufacture and sell the stuff and that guarantee was broken after I built it.
 If I knew in advance that I would have no exclusive right, I might still be upset but it would have been my responcibility to undertake the project in such a way that it could be easily duplicated.

so what your saying is that i should pay steven spielburg directly instead of the person standing in front of the theater...

 I am not saying you do anything. If Steven Spielberg can do something that you are willing to pay for, you two can work out an equitable arrangement without enslaving me.


irritant: Yeah, a little bit of encoding on a CD costs a dollar, determined by popular demand.

 If someone voluntariy pays $16 for a CD, it means that person receives better value from the CD than $16 - otherwise the exchange would not take place.
 The costs to the manufacturer are totally irrelevant.

 miko

[-dead-]

Originally posted by AVRO1
-dead-,
I never said Jimmy Hendrix was still alive now did I.

Didn't think you had - hence my second para started: "Seriously, though".
I was sort of pointing out that Hendrix's example applied to your initial music industry model (MIM) - "If you go work in a factory, you expect to be paid. These guys make music, buying the albums pays their wages" - makes the comparison fall flat on its face.
I mean Jimi hasn't been to the factory in over 30 years, on account of being dead - but he should still be getting paid? For what?!? What are you - some sort of communist? He was one of the best workers the factory every saw, sure - a regular Stakhanov - but he's dead, dammit. Perhaps you could argue that in the music industry, choking on your on vomit is an industrial accident... but it's a slim case
I've not heard of any dead people (or their families) collecting wages in Hong Kong factories 30 years after - maybe the US has different labour laws, though.  

OK, comedy rant mode set to "off".

Always remember when thinking up a MIM or trying to argue against someone else's MIM - the best model for the Music Industry is the Music Industry.

The CD cost me a little less then 15$ CAN for 12 classics.
I call that a bargain.  Compilations like this are less expensive.
The people who put the CD out had to put it on CD and all that stuff and they got paid just like I do for work.
Would you work if they did not pay you? I didn't think so.

Well now here's a thing: the pirates out here seem to make so much profit selling CDs and DVDs for $1.25 that it's all run by organized crime. Which is odd, if  - as you seem to imply - $15 is a fair price to cover the sort of costs involved. We should also consider that the economy of scale for a record company pressing CDs, would drop the unit cost much further than a few local pirates could manage. And it would seem from their other activities like extortion, protection, prostitution and drugs, that high profits are a big factor in determining organized crime groups' enterprises.
So in answer to your question - no I wouldn't work for nothing, but I wouldn't expect to get much money off people if I was selling someone else's music at about ten times what the mafia charge for it either. Especially if you can get it for free on the net.

But if RUSH decides to stop making music because of this ***** then the music industry looses a great band.
They are still here because they have built a solid fan base through great music.
A music band about music! The HORROR!!!!!!!!.

Mention Rush and the phrase "The Horror" certainly springs to my mind. Generally with the delivery of Marlon Brando at the end of Apocalypse Now, but that's music tastes for you - it's all subjective, so I'll not indulge in any more comedy at your bestest band's expense.
So - if I'm reading it right - you reckon "they are still here because have built a solid fan base", and following  from your first post, "solid fan base" really means (in financial terms) "guaranteed CD sales".
If you read my post, you'll find that all I said was that from a band/artist's perspective, the big earners are tours, not CD sales. So for me a solid fan base means people who pay for the shows and buy CDs. I just place (from a bit of research into the music industry) the CD sales as the lesser of the two revenue streams. Lesser by a large factor.

Britney is there because of her sales figures, once they drop Britney will be forgotten like all the trendy artists are.

Well, we can but hope and dream.

Good sound is the most important thing to me.
And once the shows are over, what have you left?
Memories is all you get for a much higher price then a CD.

Well memories and the chance to pay the band some of those wages you posted about first time round. Remember my original post? - that whole "the CDs don't actually pay their wages, the shows do" scenario? My gist is that the CD's profits go largely to a big company - in the case of Rush, Atlantic Records - while the tour profits usually go mostly to Rush.
Here's the CD breakdown:
Royalties on a CD run at 10-15% of retail price per unit sold. Out of this the band has to pay for the producer (who usually takes 3%) and then with the rest the band has to pay back to the record company: the packaging - another 15-30% of the original royalty rate, studio time, promotions, advances, etc, etc.
Net result: approximately 80% of all albums sold never reach the point where the band gets royalty checks, so most bands do not get any money from CDs ever.
Figures from http://www.music-law.com/contractbasics.html.
Remind me again who's stealing from the musicians? Looks to me like the record companies are doing it much better than the pirates ever could.