f13.net

I bought an import CD by mail order. It's not something most of you are going to know - a digital remaster of a 1976 recording by a German symphonic progressive rock band called Eloy (http://www.phil.uni-sb.de/projekte/progrock/Eloy/home.htm). Being the lazy bastard that I am, I immediately popped it into the DVD-RW drive in my laptop, so that I could rip it and play it through my hifi wirelessly via Airport Express (http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/). Conservation of energy is important, and it's several yards to the CD player in my component rack after all.

The first sign that something was awry was a pop up window informing me that "Your software needs to be updated to play this media". Just an OK dialog. I killed the window, and the autorun proceeded to install somthing anyhow. I suspected at first that it was some sort of horrible web-enabled application for accessing online content, akin to that garbage on the Lord of the Rings DVDs (http://player.interactual.com/). Not so. Examination of the package informed me that this was a "Kopiergeschutzte Disc", and that "Bei einigen Geraten, z.B. Car CD-Spielem, konnen Abspielprobleme auftreten".

Yes, this is a Copy Controlled (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/10/181528/569) disc, a pile of bilge with data errors deliberately inserted into the tracks such that it breaks the Red Book standard. What it was installing was a broken media player that plays low resolution compressed audio on a computer, provided that the original disc is inserted in the drive. The small print, the really really small print is informing me that it may not play correctly on equipment such as car CD players.

The idea behind this (cough) standard, known as Macrovision CDS200 (http://www.macrovision.com/products/cds/cds200/index.shtml), is to allow the majority of CD players to play the music normally while preventing CD-ROM drives from being used to duplicate its content. What is problematic with this is that a large number of consumer devices use chipsets more akin to a computer drive, and will not play the disc. Likely this will include any Walkman-type portable players, car audio players and most older boom-boxes that you own.

Unfortunately for the copy control mavens in the record industry, it turns out that newer CD players, and higher end audiophile ones of all ages just don't play these discs. However, many reasonably recent CD-ROM drives are more than happy to read them, without the added bonus of a crippled media player. Although Windows Media Player had a problem on my laptop, iTunes was more than happy to rip the disc and output the content in any form I chose. In fact, I was able to make a perfect digital copy of the music content in Red Book standard, minus the corruptions introduced by the CDS format. This copy works flawlessly where the original will not.

The fightening thing about this format is that, despite a complete lack of warning, even in the really really small print, this format has been known to break in the order of 0.1% of CD player mechanisms completely, rendering them useless, and in at least one case even burning out components and producing a smell of smoke. (http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/docs/damage.shtml) Worse yet, there is a new variant on the market, known as CDS300 (http://www.macrovision.com/products/cds/cds300/index.shtml), which is being pumped out in the US as I write. This format will stealth install DRM software preventing even the copying of true CDs on your computer, and is considerably more difficult to deal with, and confounds a significantly larger percentage of players.

The retailer that I purchased the disc from (Amazon) misrepresented it as a Compact Disc (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00024YVJK/qid=1093911242/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_2/002-1846810-2338459?v=glance&s=music&n=507846), which it clearly is not. Because it does not conform to the CD standard, there is no Compact Disc label on the packaging or disc itself. Instead there is the entirely optional CCD logo (http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/p/091702fpi_logo2.gif) of the IFPI (http://www.ifpi.org/). Sadly for the consumer, the trademark for the CD format has expired (http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=2bfqg2.2.130), and Philips is unable to effectively police the fraudulent distribution of these discs under the guise of CD.

Fuck EMI (http://www.fedge.net/emi/)

As much as I am against music piracy, this is too much.

Introducing a new standard that will cause people to have to upgrade their equipment, and also causes problems for those of us who buy music religiously but want to copy it to their iPODs is utterly fucking stupid.

As usual no one thinks these kinds of things through.  And as usual, it's the person who actually buys the music that suffers.

I've heard about this, although the story (link (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/16/beastie_boys_not_viral/)) didn't make it sound as bad.

Is this that copy-protection scheme that you can defeat by holding the left shift key?  I recall some stories about this awhile back.

--
Alkiera

People still buy CDs?  Who knew?

I had a huge collection of CDs (probably around 2000 or so) acquired over the years by hunting through the selections at my local pawn shops (that is the nice thing about military towns, pawn shops and tattoo parlours a'plenty!).  Earlier this year I went to a used music store and released them back from whence they came.

I figure a HD and a couple of CD booklets to back it all up takes up a lot less space than 2000 CDs, and it's more convenient.  I wouldn't even consider buying a disc anymore.  What's the point?

Surprise!

How about support for the Artist?

As a music dilettante who buys hundreds of recordings each year, I have decided to avoid purchasing music from any of the labels who use this form of copy protection. The only way to prevent somebody from making a copy of a recording is to make it unplayable, and ironicly enough, this seems to be the direction the industry is going. The cost of CDs is already high enough without each purchase becoming a lottery as to whether your equipment will play it.

I think that this format will help cut down Internet music piracy, because it will cut down sales. However, even if it becomes so extreme that no computer can play future releases, and only one percent of audio players can handle them, the organised pirates will simply use a working player, and copy the disc through an analog output. It's not as if the supplier of discs for a Moscow street vendor is concerned with the integrity of the digital copy.

However, if you want to pirate music on a computer, it may be comforting to know that at present, modern computer CD mechanisms are those least affected by the format designed to target them.

(Edit: unless you have an early model Pioneer DVD-R mechanism (http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/quick/#n_imac))

I guess you mean moral support.  It certainly isn't financial support, for most artists anyway.  Artists don't release new albums to make money, they go on tour to make money.  By the time your $15 gets back to the artist, bare pennies are left, most of the money eaten by members of the RIAA.  Hence, why piracy upsets them so much.  I figure Metallica either has a much better contract than the average band, or they're too drunk to figure out where their money really comes from.

Whereas artists make nice money from going on tour, getting paid large chunks of change by the companies promoting each stop on the tour.

--
Alkiera

I'm pretty certain Metallica makes a good deal more than pennies from their current album sales, seeing as they spent a quite a bit of the first half of the 90's in court with elektra over their then-current contract.  I doubt their deal is the norm, though.

Right.  The artist gets screwed on album sales, but the record company can make a FUCKLOAD of money.  If the record company doesn't make money on a band, they'll stop funding recording sessions, record marketing, tours, etc.  Pretty soon, no one knows that band X just had record X come out and then record company X drops band X.

Considering how potentially-powerful today's personal computers can be as business and audio/visual tools, I just don't give a goddamn-fucking-shit about the giant record labels and their struggle to keep the "music" scene monopolized while simultaneously pushing shit-pop that is more than likely contributing as much to the general decline of CD sales as music piracy, if not moreso.  The artists that want to make it "big" without contributing to the corporate monster are perfectly capable of pulling it off with the internet as their distributor of choice, assuming they have what people want.

As an ex-musician, let me just say that believing that a band makes its money by touring so it's ok to deny them their revenue stream from cd sales is a fallacy.

I hate the recording industry more than anyone here, but I also dislike people who like bands but don't support them monetarily.

Unfortunately, the rampant piracy of music is what is leading to this impasse, and given a choice between the labels, who actually do pay the musicians, and piracy, which does not pay them a cent, I'll have to side with the industry I hate. Thanks.

While you are railing at how shitty the recording industry is, have you ever heard of Clear Channel? They are the ones who have made radio even crappier by dominating marketplaces, and have also turned venues into giant advertising outlets and dominate most regional promotions. So this mythical 'big' money artists are making by touring is tapped as hard as artist's royalties (as well as broadcast royalties because they own the radio stations), by a SINGLE corporate entity. One that provides nowhere near the services to musicians that labels do.

If you live in america, a big corporation is going to be fucking you hard and regularly. At least you can support the musicians who make your life better every day in spite of the inevitable.

Or you can be a scumbag and steal their music.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for supporting the artist even when it's only 1% of what I paid.  I just think we live in a time where, with a concerted effort, it is very possible to make the giant corporate labels fall-down-go-boom without hurting the actual music industry much.  Yeah, I know, pipe dream and all that.  Bah...

Meh, artists should be able to choose their own distribution model.

Clear Channel blows...HARD! I thought it was just me that realized radio is absolute shit now, but it's not. The monopoly has created this unstoppable monster that follows the same format regardless of the type of music. They speed up music to get in more commercial time every hour. They fired most local morning shows for more national syndicated shows they can keep better tabs on. All the while the quality (and by that I mean the overall amount of music and the variety of songs as well as newer music) has taken a slide into worthlessness. I can only listen to two stations in Atlanta now because they aren't CC station shlock.

As for piracy, I don't buy music anymore, nor do I pirate. Rock is abismal now unless you want to really work at finding it in the corners of the musical world. Rap spews five songs that get played over and over until I want to go gansta on them. Pop should be cleansed from the earth. Until we get a renaissance of the industry (HA) I'll stick to my Rolling Stones CDs.

Rappers made their own labels, and then pocket all that money themselves. They learned that record companies were taking all their money, and now the rappers are quite rich.

The thing is, rap has been around for well over a decade. I think other types of music tend to burn out of style much faster. That doesnt give it enough time to set up the infrastructure and cashflow needed.

I guess I do my share by avoiding RIAA labels, as out of the ~40 cd's I have purchased this year, only 2 were on a RIAA label.  Although there will be a third purchase later this year as Metal Blade is associated with the RIAA and I can't pass up the newest Fates Warning offering.  =(

Making CDs non-functional is a great incentive to actually buy them. Talking about stepping on a landmine to spite your pinky toe.  If I bought a music CD that wouldn't play in my car stereo, I would go ballistic.

Having worked in artist management for some time, I have to agree with Sky to some extent in the area of supporting musicians, to some extent, although the distribution of wealth is a bit out of whack.  I must take exception to his statement that he hates the music industry more than anyone here.  That's a title he'll have to fight me for.

I will start this post with my usual mantra about CD sales.

FUCK THE RIAA. FUCK THEM IN THEIR STUPID ASSES.

The recording industry is an incestuous, stagnant pool of feces-sucking leeches, each one draining their lessers on the recording industry food chain even drier. At the very bottom of the chain are the artists, who actually provide every single ounce of nutrition to this bloated horror.

The artists are, with very few exceptions, stupid fucking musicians whose only thought is to "Make it BIG!" and sell lots of albums. They don't do research, have no head for business, and think that singing tired lyrics about rebellion and trashing hotel rooms while hopped up on crack, beer, whiskey and hookers makes them rebels. Exchange rebellion for "sticking it to da man Whitey!" for rap stars. They don't read the fine print, they don't have the wherewithal to see any other modes of distribution other than what is handed to them. In short, they are like any artists, lazy sods who want to make money off of what most people do not consider " an honest day's work."

DISCLAIMER: I am a lazy sod artist, with an art degree from college, and with a hope to be a published author. When/if I am actually published, I hope to never have to do an "honest day's work" in my life again. I am the pot calling the kettle fucking black. K?

Now, along comes the managers, T-shirt sellers, concert promotors and record industry muckety mucks like producers, executives, A&R guys, etc. They see this pool of talent, instantly breaking it down into its component parts of "Profit potential" and "that creative shit they do which I could give a fuck about when it doesn't sell." They flash some dreams, drop a contract on the artists and before the artists know it, they are recording their album, preparing for a tour and somebody is paying for their liquor, drugs and women. What could be better? It isn't until they are already knee-deep in bills to the record company and wanting their royalty checks when they realize that they don't get no stinking royalty checks because the label has charged them for everything they've been enjoying the last six months to a year, and suddenly, they are up to their neck in "Make another album or you'll never see another dime." And the circle of life is complete.

Now I'm all for folks making their money; and I love me some free shit. But anyone who takes more than a casual look at the recording industry will realize that their problems with sales and piracy are of their own making. They have a system that is 99% guaranteed to wear artists down to a nub in a matter of years, leaving the artists broke, addicted and suddenly old news. All these hypocritical motherfuckers who talk about how the recording industry is so hurt by the pirates needs to start looking at the managers. Who was buying all the drugs for Nikki Sixx when he OD'ed on heroin? Are you going to try to tell me that rock stars and their managers don't have drug dealers on speed dial and credit? If rock managers were responsible, they wouldn't feed the addictions of these obviously broken people when they first sign them. The drug problem in music doesn't exist in a vaccum. Note, I'm not talking about a little bit of weed, but the shit like cocaine and heroin that has ruined many a good artist. The recording industry feeds those addictions only so long as they help albums sell, then want to claim they are helping musicians go straight when these musicians wreck their car and kill people.

My ass.

The recording industry is built off an oudated business model. They make their money off of promoting and distributing acts. But both the promotion and the distribution can be handled much more cheaply and efficiently by independent artists who also profit more from said independence. The comics industry is starting to face the same shit, except maybe without the drugs. Book publishing is getting there, but at least with books, it's much harder to get the same quality of distribution with print on demand. Sure you CAN print out a PDF of a book, but it's not nearly as handy as a paperback or as archival as a hardback, whereas with CD's, the cost of burning an almost identical quality album is neglible. At that point, the pretty packaging is secondary, because the product is the music. The RIAA's rigid stances on downloading music, and insistence on controlling ALL methods of distribution and playback is holding them back from HUGE profit potential. The rampant spread of cassette recorders in the 80's didn't kill the recording industry.

Stop thinking of people who actually BUY CD's as thieves. Stop thinking of music downloads as theft, or as lost sales. The RIAA wants a target? How about going to the flea markets and arresting the fucker with a table full of bootleg CD's. Look in Moscow and Hong Kong at the guy's selling albums for $5 that haven't even hit the streets yet. Whether they got the shit off the Internet or somewhere, if there is money to made, they will find a way to break every single method of encryption, defects or any other shit you put on the CD, because that's where they make their money. You are wasting money and time prosecuting twelve-year old girls with computers and AOL when you should be breaking Leon's legs when he tries to pawn off the new Eminem CD two days before release.

This message brought you to by the middle finger, the letter F and the tortured rantings of a starving artist.

It is not up to the consumer to decide that it's okay to steal a CD because the music company is ripping off the artist any more than it is okay to steal a car because the car manufacturer is ripping off its designers or the dealers are ripping off the manufacturers, or whatever.  Yes, I know, CDs are not cars, work-for-hire designers are not the same as artists, etc.  There are many differences in details.  My point is the underlying ethical principle involved.  These people entered willingly into those contracts and you should respect them, not try to violate them because you think you're following some nobler principle to help one party of the other.

Bruce

I never claimed to be helping or harming either one. I just don't buy music anymore, unless it's a used CD, and will only rarely download music. The only new CD's I will buy are the ones by artists I wholeheartedly support, like Rush.

It isn't worth the hassle anymore. When the artists AND the recording industry gets their shit straight, maybe they will deserve my dollars. They do not right now.

Well put Haemish, and as a businessman I do agree that the music industry is shooting itself in the foot when it starts treating customers like criminals. An embracing of the internet market would go a lot further, but that would involve thinking outside the box on how to make the cash flow.

That "funding", according to various (http://www.negativland.com/albini.html) sources (http://www.geocities.com/youth4sa/tompetty.html) critical to the RIAA empires, is just an advance that will be deducted from the artist's meager cut later on. Like a lot of other "expenses". Slave labor isn't abolished, it just plays music.

R.E.M. is one of the world's biggest rock groups NOT because of their record company, but because they spent years and years playing live before releasing a record. They built up a following, and that paid off.

Rich artists tend to be rich in spite of the RIAA, not because of them. These are the bands and artists with a following that have been able to either go outside the slavers, or demand better contracts than most are presented with.

Copyright was created for the benefit of artists' works, not to protect commercial works-for-hire. "Fair use"-preventing copy "control" is just the industry screwing the customer after screwing the artist. Like an encore.

Oh, and CD-ROM autoplay in Windows is a gaping security hole you should turn off or suffer corporal punishment for having enabled.

Aside from one richard cheese cd every other cd I buy is always used. I simply have no desire to pay 20 bucks for a cd that probably will have 1 or 2 songs I like.

Most of the stuff I buy is old enough that I don't have to worry about odd copy protection schemes. Also the used CD store I go to has a fairly no questions asked return policy so if one didn't work I would just swap it for a different cd.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the RIAA manages to scare/bore or annoy away their customers completly.


Kaid

Fortunately for me, pretty much every single CD I buy is $12 or under, due to the fact that 99.9% of it is NOT mainstream.  That being said, I still buy well over 100 CDs a year.

This is where I get pissed, it's the little guys like Arsis (http://www.willowtip.com) and Decapitated (http://www.earache.com) who get screwed because they DO rely on the money generated by CD sales.  Most of the labels that these bands are on can't afford to send their bands out on tour unless the CD sales make enough money to fund said tour.

I could give 2 shits about Metallica and Dr. Dre bitching about piracy.  I still don't think it's ok to pirate the big boys' music, however.  Its when you steal everything in sight, which a good majority of people who download music on a regular basis do, that I start getting stabby.

EDIT:  bbcode is HARD.

Get your terminology straight, it's called copyright infringement.


Try to remember that next time you exceed the posted speed limit.

Get your reading comprehension straight; I've already acknowledged talking loosely and how that doesn't change the actual point.


I don't speed.

Bruce

Bruce may not speed. But I do. And I love it.

Incoming derail...

Speed limits are a farce. The proper term is "revenue enhancement." That's what it's all about. Nothing unethical about breaking a law meant to line the pockets of greedy politicians and keep stumblebum state cops employed.

A pox on all of them. Where's my Passport...?

Well, I always heard the Capitalistic system works by not givng money to companies whose pratices you don't approve of. What other way do you suggest to show those music companies you don't like the way they handle things? The customer is supposed to vote with his money.

The problem right now is that for the music industry every CD not sold equates to one stolen CD. That ain't so, but its a nice excuse for them. I bought exactly three CDs the last two years, two of them directly over the internet from the artists. I stole exactly zero CDs, but the RIAA wants you to believe I don't buy their stuff because I steal it. In reality it is because the music is trite shit and those music company jerks need to starve under bridges for their ethics.

Problem with your analogy, there are quite some car manufacturers with euqal sortiment to choose from. If the same was true in the music industry the companies that pull that shit right now would be dead and buried already.

BTW, what do you all think about concert ticket prices?  I've got no porblem dropping the cash on a CD I want, but I haven't been to a big concert in years.  The prices are so ridiculous these days, that you'd have to dig up Jimi Hendrix and resurrect him for me to think about dropping coin on one.

These days I'd rather go to a local club or bar and catch a rock and roll show at 2-10' from the performers, for $6-$10.  Sometimes I go and have no idea who the bands are, and often I am pleasantly surprised.

The most I have ever paid to see a concert was $25 to see Judas Priest.  Everything else is around $10-15, so ticket prices never bother me.  

Also thanks to several metal distributors, I haven't had to pay more than $14 for a cd and that was because it was the uber, extraspecial digipak with bonus tracks type deal.  The vast majority of the cd's I purchase cost around $12.

Last concert I saw was Pink Floyd at the Rose Bowl. After that, any other concert would just be a letdown. Plus I don't need additional damage to my hearing at this point.

Unfortunately the miss-selling of corrupt CDs is fairly common in the UK/EU and has been for some time...

http://ukcdr.org/issues/cd/bad/

Also someone needs to explain to me how the hell selling corrupt CDs will prevent mass piracy.

If there's money in it, then it is logically impossible to prevent someone copying information that they have read access to.

The only way to stop mass piracy is the old fashioned method of finding the people who do it and arresting them. Note to RIAA, the people in question don't live in student dorms.

ALSO, as an aside, the reason I stopped buying corrupt CDs for myself is that when you put them on a decent player, there is a significant audible negative effect on sound quality.

I agree. But part of the deal is you don't take the music anyway and just not pay for it. That's what I'm talking about here. If you like the music enough to download it, you really should pay for it. Even sending the artist a check directly wouldn't pay the engineers or other support staff that helped record it. Buying the cd is still the best way to reward everyone involved for their effort. If you're not willing to do that, but take the music anyway, and don't see the problem with that, I am sorry for the sad state of your moral code.

I used to be an avid concert-goer, I'd catch every artist I was remotely interested in because I love live music. But with ticket prices around $45 or higher at most local venues, I've also taken to catching mostly bar shows. We used to get all the great metal bands at a local bar (the Lost Horizon in Syracuse), seeing them in a bar is the best damn thing imo.

I'm also paying an average of $12 for most cds I buy, plus free shipping. I buy 5-10 cds a month. Being a member of allmusic.com (it's free) and using fye.com, I get previews of every cd I buy, I haven't bought a crappy cd in 5 years.

We don't get many concerts around here, and when we do, the prices are sometimes reasonable. But then I hear about Rolling Stones concerts selling tickets for $50+, and I just shake my head. And I'd love to see the Stones, but I'm not paying that much money to go see aging cronies wiggle their desiccated bodies to music that damages my hearing even from the 783rd row that was the best seat I can manage to get.

ClearChannel can rot in fucking hell for the blasphemy to American radio they continue to perpetrate. I'm lucky in that we finally have one non-CC radio station in town that plays decent heavy music. As it is, I've taken to either listening to AM Sports radio or CD's in the car because I can't stand the shit CC and MTV are forcing me to listen to.

If you ever want to see a perfect picture of what's wrong with the music industry, watch the VMA's. There is a perfect target for an airplane if ever there was one.

That is about average for big shows around here. Things like the Eagles, The Stones, etc go for about 3 times that.

Metallica is coming here for $75, and that's just to hear the new shit they called an "album". They officially can kiss my ass.

It's music. People don't want to pay a king's ransom to listen to it. Its not like they're selling life saving anti-venom. Its songs, and for the most part, bad ones at that. I like music as much as the next guy - thats why all the cars I've owned have radios.

I guess the way I see it, if people are going to such efforts to obtain something for free, then the cost of it is too high. Maybe if albums were four bucks, people would find it easier to just shell out four dollars than cruise the web, install spyware, and share mp3s with digital criminals in Peking.

If the problem is that four bucks per albums won't pay the rent on 3 malibu beach-front mansions and seven Humvees - well, maybe some of these artists could survive on just two beach-front mansions and three humvees. I dunno - just a thought.

I looked into getting some tickets for my wife for a Sting/Annie Lennox concert that was going to be playing near Tampa.  Outdoor concert, furthest back STANDING sections...  $77 per ticket not including the $15 parking.  Fuck you very much.

  The problem being, a lot of artists aren't making that much money, only the mainstream ones that sell a million albums.  There's a great metal band from Canada called "Into Eternity", they recently lost their singer and drummer because they couldn't afford to leave their jobs and tour.

  And as far as the money thing goes, CD profits often never ever EVER make it to the band.  That's where the recoupable expenses are deducted by the label.  There's also merchandising, which some bands don't even own the rights to, meaning for every $30 shirt they sell, they get $1, the label takes the rest ($9-$10 per shirt is probably average profit margin).  Then there's the venues in the US which charge up to 30% for merchandise sold at their locales, which is why you can buy the shirt direct from the band for $15, but it costs $25 at the show.  Then there's the fact that some bands have to PAY to perform.  All of the Ozzfest second stage bands are charged for each show they play, and gets 0 cut of the ticket sales.

  It's really a bad situation to be in as a musician.  Isn't it everyone's dream to get paid to do what they love?  I think that's where the blurring is, I don't think a lot of musicians care about the money, as long as they can continue to play music for a living, it's a dream come true.  A lot of them are actually all for the internet piracy situation, because to them, having their music heard is what it's all about.

  Obviously these are the tribulations of the smaller acts, the larger ones who can sell out stadiums are able to negotiate much more profitable contracts, if not take on all of the burden themselves and create their own label.

  So for instance, Van Halen, who averages around $750,000-$1 million gross, per concert, compares to Slipknot, which pays Ozzfest for the rights to play.  Obviously I'm not going to argue the quality of either of their music, but it shows how exceedingly skewed the situation can be.

  I'm not saying that stealing CD's is a good thing, but the record industry as a whole is a huge steaming pile of shit.

EDIT: Found a pretty nifty breakdown of "Joe Average Band" from the guy who produced Nirvana's "In Utero" album.  It looks something like this;
The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game.
 
Record company:  $ 710,000  
Producer:  $ 90,000  
Manager:  $ 51,000  
Studio:  $ 52,500  
Previous label:  $ 50,000  
Agent:  $ 7,500  
Lawyer:  $ 12,000  
Band member net income each:  $ 4,031.25  

The entire breakdown is here (http://www.negativland.com/albini.html).

I went to the concert when the tour came to Cincy. They only played 2 songs off of that piece of shit.  If you check out livemetallica.com you can see the playlists for the euro and recent leg of the tour.  Just ignore the whole "buy .mp3 of our concerts!" goal of the website.

-- > amusing

"Those damn French. Wanting to make money off of our attempt to make money!"

And Haemish, at least you can avoid CC on some level.  Jcor was bought out by CC here, and they owned ALL the stations except the classical and some of the ignorant ass urban music shit stations. (including the AM talk stations.)   I listen to the radio in the mornings because the DJs are pretty damn funny, then it goes away.

 Hell, one of my co-workers commented "Shit, must be 7:20" when I asked why he said "They're playing Danzig's 'Mother' it's always around that time when they play it." I hadden't realized that until he pointed it out. I wonder if XM radio is any better for playing new stuff/ more varieity.

His name is Steve Albini.

I find it amusing though, that he likes to demonstrate a bad example himself by charging any band with major label status (like Nirvana or Bush) the most extreme prices for engineering one of their albums. Rougly in the million dollar range. He's the most expensive producer around as far as they're concerned.

Good thing is that he's recorded and continues recording countless albums from no-names and indies without any payment whatsoever.

Anyways, what I'm wondering is: Would some of you still pay $15 and deal with anti-piracy schemes for artists who put out the albums themselves (ie. indies)? What's the argument with here? The big bad music industry, or the idea of IP?

Copying != stealing.

Stealing involves the physical displacement of tangible property and consequently denies the owner usage of the physical object that was taken.

Copying does not dispossess property. Only a claim of potential loss of revenue due to illicit copy in lieu of purchase. A preposition that has been called into question, and the case can be made that the converse is true – that so called copyright infringement leads to an increase in revenue. History is replete with such vivid examples.

The PR campaign to equate copying music (or other media) with wanton piracy is disingenuous – to draw correlation between thugs that pillage, rape and plunder with a pimply faced, pencil mustached, pre-pubescent adolescent filling his HD is a gross affront to freedom and justice.

Reading comprehension != You.

Bruce

Music is overpriced. That's all there is to it. It holds with concerts and it holds with compact discs. Reduce the price and I'll buy more as long as I find something I like.

Microsoft's online music store was launched a day early today. I caught the story over at Ars (http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/20040901-4151.html). It's nice that Microsoft is offering 160kbps encodes, but I really refuse to purchase music online unless 256k/320k is offered. Lossless would be best, but I doubt that'll ever happen. $10 an album online is too much for crappy quality (to my ears).

These antipiracy attempts are just fun. There are even ripper tools in the works, that bypass all firmware logic incl. error correction on the drive, and just use it to move the laser under the right positions. All ECC, TOC decoding, data readout and what-not is done completely by the software, thus allowing complete control over the ripping behaviour, without having the drive/firmware go apeshit over all these hacks implemented on the disc. I don't recall the name, but I'm sure it exists, even tools like EAC are already bypassing some hardware behaviours.

So you'll be releasing your novel for free on the internet then?

Oh, there's no hypocrites in this crowd! :P

Fun for actual priates I'm sure - less fun for people who want to make legal copies for things like playing in the car but really can't be arsed with this crap. eg. me.

Also less fun for people with a decent CD player in the living room who therefore get audible artifacts from the CD corruption. Again, eg. me.

Selling faulty CDs does not prevent piracy, it just makes legal copying a pain in the ass and reduces sound quality.

He won't, and neither will I. But given the choice by my future publisher, I would prefer to release digital versions over the Internet without assinine copy protection schemes that make it harder to read (or print) for actual paying readers while simultaneously NOT stopping pirates and freeloaders from getting what they want for free.

There are better solutions to the "piracy" problem than giving honest customers BROKEN FUCKING PRODUCTS.

Best analogy I can think of bookwise would be: You buy a book in which the text appears to be completely garbled. In order to read it, you have to use one of those "red filter decoders" you get in cereal boxes.

Nobody wants to read a book like that.

I think that you guys are missing a fundamental issue:  In about every type of commodity that I can envision prices are adjusted to accomodate for loss.

In retail, prices on goods are raised to cover losses that incur to shoplifting and damage.  I would assume that the music industry also "adjusts" their prices to account for people downloading/cd burning/taping music from primary sources.  

The solution that seems most logical to me would be to create a method by which copying copyrighted music would be very difficult and, at the same time, lower music prices to the point that it's cheaper (from a time perspective) to purchase the music than to copy it.  As technology advances, download access to music may be one vehicle that drives the price of popular music down.  

The people at the top will always steal from the artists... that's capitalism.

But does it make it therefore moral to read ungardbled photocopies of said book, having never bought it?  And we're not talking in a library or from a friend; we're talking about someone running off, effectively, an unlimited number of printings of the ungarbled text and letting you have one for free.

Bruce

Who said anything about photocopying? I don't want to read a book like that, so I don't buy it. End of story. It's up to the book publisher to figure out why I don't want to buy his book. I don't know why you're reading piracy into my post.

I'm not reading piracy into your post.  I'm asking if you think that justifies piracy.  It seems like you don't, which is fine; you agree with me and disagree with some of the previous ethically-challenged posters in this thread.

Bruce

My point is that I'm not really worrying about the piracy angle; that's going to go on whether anyone likes it or not.
The question is, do they realize they are making the "bad sales" situation even worse with a really bad idea?

Piracy is a straw man. Any fucking idiot can photocopy a book and then give it to his friend. Or let his friend borrow the book and read it without paying for it. This is the way it has always been. Is the borrower somehow stealing the book? He hasn't paid for his use of the copyright.

Music sales didn't die when everybody and their brother had a tape recorder. I know as a teenager, I copied MANY cassette tapes, as well as movies on VCR. I wasn't a lost sale, since I wasn't buying the tape anyway. It isn't theft, and it didn't ruin the industry. The rich got richer, and the artist is still getting screwed.

The people just downloading songs off the Internet are NOT THE CRIMINALS. The people making MONEY off of downloading pirated songs, selling bootlegged CD's on street corners, THOSE are the people who are stealing. They are taking money from the artist, the distributor and everyone else.

But as someone earlier said, you don't find them in college dorms. They aren't 12-year olds.

This is not some overblown issue of "morality" of stealing or not stealing.

In the case of the aforementioned theoretical novel of mine: Am I going to get my tits out of whack because some guy sends a copy of his book to his buddy? No. Will I get my nose bent ouf of shape and sic lawyers on a motherfucker selling knockoff copies of my book without permission? You goddamned right I am.

Stop seeing it as a black and white issue and maybe your solutions won't be so polarizing.

Yes, he is.  Although what he's "stealing" isn't a book; it's the author's and publisher's IP, and it's not so much "stealing" as violating their rights.  He should be punished to the full extent of the law.

Bruce

What about someone getting ahold of a copy of your book in Word format and putting it out on Overnet/gnutella/whatever?  You're cool with that?

We aren't talking about making a tape of an album, a singular copy of a purchased work. Thus the photocopy example is a bad one.

It's more like people not buying your book because they can freely download the entire text from the internet.

Not a copy here and there, a copy that anyone in the world can access for free, despite the fact that you count on sales of that product to make your livelihood. Thousands, millions of free copies.

That's why the RIAA is pissed, it's not a myth, it's the reality. Anyone can go online and find just about any album you can think of and download it, for free, and most people don't see any problem with that. Except those who are trying to make a living from it.

Thus we have to deal with crappy copy protection attempts and legal attacks. Like I said, I don't like the RIAA, but at least they pay the musicians (or pay for their recording, manufacturing and distribution, if the album doesn't sell enough to make profits after everyone has their finger in the pie). It's shitty, but it's the way it is, and not buying cds and still taking the music is not going to help the situation, it's going to make it continually worse. Musicians will never work for free, nor should they. If you don't want to reward the artist, you don't get to take the music. It doesn't work that way. Musicians aren't doing it for charity.

Welcome to the New Prohibition.

Making money off of shared culture isn't an unalienable human right.

It ain't like I can stop it, now is it?

Besides, a Word format book will not print or read as well as a paperback/hardback in the hand. If some mutton chops feel such a need to get my book out there, so long as they aren't making money off of it, I might be a bit irritated but otherwise unconcerned.

Which is why we aren't locking up librarians.

I'm surprised this thread hasn't spawned the "sampling vs. stealing" debate as well.  

It's about blame and liability.  If I'm a recording artist (see also author, playright, etc.) and the stuff I created is making someone else more money than I am, it's going to provoke a response.  When people pour their life into a piece of work, they get pissed when some 3rd party with business savvy can get rich from their sweat.  I'd say this is a pretty fundamental human response.  

So what happens? They look for someone to blame.

Ethically, I think that people ought to support those artists that inspire them.  Sadly, this also supports the money-grubbers that also benefit from the artist.  It's a viscious cycle.  Are people burning CD's, bootlegging, and getting music without charge to blame?  Not really.  But I don't think that anyone can argue that copying a cd does decrease the revenue to the artist... no matter how small.

It's very easy to sample music at most music stores and bands' own websites.  It's saved me from spending a fortune on crap.

I must be having clarity problems today.  

By sampling I meant things like the use of VH's Jamie's Crying by Ton Loc or Vanillia Ice using Queen/Bowie Under Pressure.

There are millions of better examples I'm sure, but I mostly listen to Classical/Jazz/early rock and proclaim ignorance.

This is where comparing a book to a music cd fails.  The analogy does not work.

In order for the analogy to work, the person would be able to take the word document, press print, and get a nice hardbound copy of your book that takes maybe 10 minutes.  He can then take this book around just like if he had bought the hardcover in the store.  And he can easily print copies for his friends or send them the electronic and they could print this hard cover.  Oh, and all the materials that this magical hardcover bound 'printer' cost about 50 cents per copied book and can be bought at any local computer store.

There is physical value in a book.  The same cannot be said for music as most don't give a shit about liner notes.

And yet, given the massive difference in reproduction costs, I can buy 2 legit paperback books, likely 8-12 hours of original entertainment, for the cost of 1 legit CD which will hopefully last an entire hour on the first play through.  Hardback books are more expensive, but I see them as a premium I can't afford in most cases, I can wait the extra few months for paperback, or I check the hardcover out from the library(which is IP theft according to SirBruce, apparently) .  I have bought a few, as gifts or in cases where time was of the essence (my signed copy of War of Honor) or cases where the hardcover is neccesary for book integrity (the hichhiker's guide books in one volume, the reason my friend buys all of R. Jordan's book in hardcover).

Anyway, I feel this is sufficient proof that the music distribution system is screwed up.  Books have a far more difficult to produce medium(by pros or amateurs),  are arguably more entertaining, and yet are less expensive to purchase legit copies of.  Is this related to the large number of competing book publishing companies and the lack of a 'BIAA'?  Could be.  Could be.

--
Alkiera

They need to sell a license that entitles you to get the material in ANY (including future) format, including physical, for a reasonable duplication and S/H fee.

They'll never get it.

That's actually one of the points I was making. Until Ebook readers are as easy to handle as an actual book, the Intellectual Property itself is only a part of the product as a whole. CD's of almost exact quality can be copied and produced easier than my theoretical novel could be, so the reproduction of one of those might hurt the artist a bit more than of novels.

However, for someone who just wants to read my book or hear a CD, quality of reproduction is less of an issue than actually getting the book. In the same way the comics you and I have downloaded aren't equal to the originals, they are a good substitute, especially when you consider the difficulty inherent in finding the originals of some of those things.

Regardless of quality, as an artist, I would rather make a little money and have a lot of people read my book, than make a little more money and have absolute and total control over every single viewing of said book. If I found someone selling copies of my book, I'd sic the dogs on them like a motherfucker. If I saw my book on the P2P networks, I'd more than likely shrug and hope that some of those downloads turn into eventual sales of current and future works.

The idea of attacking people who actually want to read my book is just silly to me.

Just out of interest, how many have you published that are actually out there making money for you at present ?

Zero, hence my use of the word "theoretical" to describe said novel earlier.

So will you eventually put the book up for download here if we "promise" to buy it if we like it?

Do I look stupid?

No, I won't put the book up for download for free. Yes, I would hope that anyone interested in my writing will pay for said book when/if it gets published. Depending on the contract(s) with my hypothetical publisher, I will offer an EBook version for purchase.

Will I personally attack anyone I find downloading the book for free? No, because though they aren't paying me for it, they aren't making any money off it either. If my publisher feels the need to pursue that, that's their legal right, though I won't support gestapo tactics.

Will I sue/harrass/send out attack lawyers on any motherfucker that tries to make money off of copies of my book that he is not authorized to do so, such as bootleggers on the streets? Hell yes, as that's what copyright law was SUPPOSED to do, protect the original author of a work from having some other bitch make money off his shit.

Actually, what it is supposed to do is get as many works into the public domain as quickly as possible, so that everyone can make as much money off your shit as possible.

Too little copyright protection and there is no incentive to produce works, too much and economic 'rents' exist.

Hence the use of the word 'limited' in the US constitution.

Copyright is meant to expire.  Works were supposed to enter the public domain after a period of time.  That's why Mozart cds are so cheap.  Anyone can hire an orchestra, record it, press it onto a cd.  It's why copies of Homer's Illiad and the complete works of Shakespeare are so cheap.  I believe the limit was meant to be 80 years.  This was extended in the US not so long ago.  Disney didn't want to face the prospect of losing copyright on Mickey Mouse.  If this behaviour isn't checked there will come a time when copyrights never expire and the only thing that does is stifle creativity.

Originally, try 15.

You don't have to be stupid to offer free downloads of books you also sell in paper form (http://mindview.net/Books). You just need a different business model than the classic industry-oriented one.

Subscription based services.  It's all about the subscription based services...

I think the person who begins setting up official forums for various celebrities with subscription fees will end up minting money.  All you need is dynamic content to go along with it.  That shouldn't be hard to produce.

First, you make said celebrity post to the forums so their fans feel they are part of that scene.  Said celebrity and the more ambitious  fans can post photos, rants, et al as they vie for one another's attention.  Also (and this is the kicker), snippets and teasers of the upcoming thing said celebrity is working on can be posted to the forums to give people their money's worth, generate buzz and give the artist valuable feedback.

This could take the form of a few pages an author is having trouble getting right, a song that your favorite band rattled off while working on the next album, concept shots of the new implants your favorite pornstar is considering, etc...

I'm sure this has already been done in some form or another, but it doesn't seem to have taken hold yet.  If I'm wrong please gimme some urls.  :?>

You ever worked in a creative endeavour?
The last thing you want is input from the unwashed masses.
That's where some MMOG designers go wrong, reading the boards, promising to implement everyones good suggestions and then pissing everyone off, when it turns out to be impossible.

Read Stephen Kings Misery for a good example of fan-influence on a creative work...

We do focus groups and listen to the general gist of what our readers want - but our own knowledge and gut feelings still supercede any reader suggestion or answered questionaire (I'm a subeditor at a highly sucessful  pc mag)

Apart from that, you're right, that people would probably pay money for a board where they felt they had the ear of the artist. A lot of artists do this allready - it's called marketing (and some like Moby seems to do it for kicks as well... but I'm sure the original suggestion of an official board came from the marketing people)

Are you suggesting we go into the offices of EA and start busting ankles with a sledgehammer? I'll go along with that.

Bring the noise.
Cheers..............

Wasn't the book version of that scene much, much worse?

I had that idea years ago.  Nowadays bands release an album every 2 or 3 years and a kid could graduate high school while waiting for new material to come out, while the singles are being replayed to death.

I thought it would be cool to setup a sbuscription service ($5 a month or so).  The band's management would book studio time a couple times a month at a tour stop.  The band could go in, cut a cover or new song in a few takes, and the single could be mixed, mastered, and uploaded to their web server.  Also, the service should give the fans more intimate access to the band - forums where the celebs post and chat sessions.  They would also get the ability to buy merchandise only available to subscribers.

Last I checked, Einsterzende Neubauten was doing something like this. But uhm, I don't know a single high school kid besides me that listened to them (mind you this goes back the better part of a decade), let alone knows how to pronounce their name.

David Bowie does this as well with BowieNet.

the whole 'record companies going broke because of downloading' is such bullshit by the way.

All the big record companies are making more money than they ever have.

eg http://www.ars-technica.com/news/posts/20040903-4156.html

I mainly listen to dance music which you can't really get on CD anyway, and since I dont buy vinyl the only way I can listen to most of the music besides in clubs is by downloading it.  The artists who make the tracks actively encourage this because its the best way to give people access to their music and it helps them get name recognition.  And even though its a niche market they still make enough money to produce.

I firmly believe that the best music is made by people who arent in it for the money anyway.  Its the bands who are doing pub gigs and the DJs who play in clubs who are making most of the best music, not the popular artists making millions producing formulaic songs.

A true music artist is going to be happy doing their thing and making the average wage.  And the best are still going to be making fotunes just from their live shows anyway.

I would love to see the record companies go bust and CD's go out of fashion and have everyone downloading music for free but unfortunately its not going to happen.

Nobody is going to pay for a forum anytime soon.

And if you can make someone pay for the 'dynamic content' then it's something they'll pay for anyway.

Beats me why everyone (other than challenged marketing people) seem to believe subscription is an automatically superior tarriff system for almost everything these days.

Customers like to own things. Customers do not feel they own things when they do not pay a one off fee and get to keep that something forever. They also generate resistence to the customer signing up to what feels like a longer term commitment.

Why have digital video recorders not taken off like video tape did? Dumbass subscription systems combined with the abscence of an obvious physical form of the media. They feel too temporary for most customers.

Why have dvd's done so well, and cut so dramatically into cd sales? Exactly the same reason, you buy it, you often only watch it once, you stick on a shelf and be happy, or lend it to a friend and be happy, it's all good.

Subscription isn't bad in all circumstances of course, utilities will always be subscriptions. But utilities (internet, tv, etc included) also have the strongest history of having their margins raped of almost any sector. Why the hell do people want to be like utilities lately?

Okay, now I'm wildly curious.  What exactly is the maximum legal penalty for borrowing a friend's copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and then reading it, thereby violating the author's rights?  How about the lender - is he an accessory to the intellectual rape of Douglas Adams's corpse?

Weezer did something similar with the Green Album.  They released a few versions of each song on MP3 from their site while the album was in production and solicited feedback on which version was best.  

They didn't go overboard with it and submit it to a vote or anything stupid like that.  But they let people have some influence at least.

However, most people don't consider the Green Album that great, and they haven't done it since AFAIK.  Take that as you will...

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if a copy right holder was so foulish as to sue over someone lending a book to someone else who then read the book, the copy right holder would be laughed out of court and potentially countersued.

Legal problems start happening when you start making and distributing copies of a copy righted work. That is after all what "copy right" means; the monopolistic right to make copies of something.

Mediums other than books like music and movies have other bullshit attached to them like "performance" rights while software usually has "licence" agreements or "terms & conditions" which are suppost to govern what you can and can't do with a piece of software.


Optimally big media copy right holders would like to have DRM hardware screwed into each of your orifices that charges ($$$) you each time you experience something they created.

An amount exactly equal to the loss incurred due to the lending. Arguably you could stretch this to the full sticker price of the book, technically legal exposure is lower, since the transgressor has saved the publisher all the variable costs associated with an additional copy.

Incidentaly, it remains entirely legal to sell on your copy, and then buy it back from the person you sold it to. In some countries that right is limited by the provision that you cannot sell the book for less than the price you paid for it. In other countries it is limited by the provision that you cannot sell the book for more than the price you paid for it. And in another bunch of countries again, you can only sell for exactly the price you paid for it.

This reminds me of a new law being sponsored in legislation right now:  the "Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act" (or INDUCE ACT for short).

I'll quote an article found in Maximum PC that shed some light on the subject (Maximum PC, Oct.2004, Pg.16):

"Senators Orrin Hatch & Patrick Leahy recently proved that idiocy is indeed bipartisan by sponsoring  the Inducing Infringements of Copyrights Act.  Under this sterling piece of legislation, it would be a crime to aid, abet, or "induce" copryright infringement.  Although the Electronic Frontier Foundation has pointed out that this rather broad bill would make the Apple iPod, Toshiba's miniature drive in the iPod, and even a review of the iPod subject to criminal penalty, Hatch cheerfully promises that the bill is only intended to go after the "bad guys," such as the makers of file sharing applications.  If you believe him, don't call him at (202) 224-5251, or Senator Leahy at (202) 224-4242."

WTF is going on in Washington?!  How many of these corporate cock-suckers are having our senators tossing their salad?  I knew politics were bullshit but this is unbelievable!  Everyone's got everyone else's hand in someone's pocket and I'm not even getting a decent handjob!

I wonder how long it'll be before it's illegal to listen to a radio station at work?

According to this logic libraries must be racking up billions in copyright infringment penalties.  Or maybe you just don't know what your talking about?

Just to be clear: You do know that what you write is merely hypothetical, yes? That due to the "first sale" doctrine, people are free to do whatever they want with the physical object they bought (the book or CD), even toss it, lend it - or sell it "second-hand" at any price the buyer is willing to pay? (Except copy it, of course. I need to add that or someone will grasp the straw that I wasn't explicit about it.)

If someone sells their own car to someone, the manufacturer does not get anything from the sale. Same holds for books and CDs. Why do you feel it should be any different?

(Then again, it's a pity that copyright - meant to protect artists - is being abused to protect what is little more than designed industrial products.)

The sane approach to dealing with this is already in place, and simply needs extended to include personal broadcasters and listeners. (http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php)

The gross revenues of the music industry in total are around some 11 billion dollars. Which is why Steve Jobs is up to some nefarious deal in his "lawsuit settlement" with Apple Corps. He can afford to, as can most major players in other industries. Its very clear to me that with the popularity of recorded music, the industry is selling far below reasonable expectations. Too much money is being demanded of too few people. Opening voluntry collective licensing to consumers would draw a huge increase in profits for an industry that is apparently unable to grow.

Or we could just keep the status quo, and criminalize an even larger percentage of our population than we already do under the War on Drugs. (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:h.r.4077:)

Public libraries get explicit exemption.



I don't feel it should be any different, and I'm not suggesting that in practice it is any different.

A lot of stupid stuff is codified into law.

I imagine a lot of the recent copyright laws, (nonsense like it being illegal to circumvent anything the publisher views as copy protection in order  to do something that is otherwise legal) will look just as bizarre and just as rarely/never used in 50 years time.

This was kind of my hidden meaning in my last paragraph.

/em makes note to avoid being subtle in future.




Again, key point, copyright law is not intended to protect artists, it is intended to bring as much material into the public domain as quickly as possible. Artist or industrial protection is an interesting side effect.

This is why it's reasonsable to consider most recent changes to copyright law to be broken.

I have yet to see a coherent argument for why the original laws (where copyright expires after 15 years) ever needed extending.

This sounds like a great idea to me. Especially if you allow P2P programs that charge for the software to reap some of the benefits of the licensing fees by bundling the $5 in the purchase price of the software. Not that many people buy P2P software, but still.

You guys need to read the Oct. issue of playboy with the interviews from perry ferral, david drahman(ok i probably fucked that up who cares), chuck D, and some record exec.   Some of the things that are said in that interview are amazing about how many artists dont care how people are getting a hold of their music just as long as its getting out there....but for every artist that says this there is one who disagrees with that sentiment...They also brought up the great point that not only does the RIAA go after the people who download music illegally, but they also support the companies and such that sell blank disks and disk burners and such.....they are making money on both ends of this....anyways its a good article and they have naked computer characters in there also!

Naked computer characters you say? Angelina Jolie with pistols strapped to her otherwise naked thighs?

I assumed he meant Lara Croft retextured with no clothes.  Far less interesting than waht you suggest.

--
Alkiera

So then you both missed previous threads talking about this?

It's not Lara or Angelina.  It's Bloodrayne, the woman from the newest Leisure Suit Larry game and a few others.  Here's a worksafe link (http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/25/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/) to a CNN article about it.