Music Industry Cocksuckers

[Righ]

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. 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. 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. 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 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, 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. Worse yet, there is a new variant on the market, known as CDS300, 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, 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 of the IFPI. Sadly for the consumer, the trademark for the CD format has expired, and Philips is unable to effectively police the fraudulent distribution of these discs under the guise of CD.

Fuck EMI

[Pig Destroyer]

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.

[daveNYC]

I've heard about this, although the story (link) didn't make it sound as bad.

[Alkiera]

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

[Big Gulp]

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?

[Krakrok]

Surprise!

[Pig Destroyer]

I wouldn't even consider buying a disc anymore.  What's the point?

How about support for the Artist?

[Righ]

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)

[Alkiera]

I wouldn't even consider buying a disc anymore.  What's the point?

How about support for the Artist?

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

[ahoythematey]

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.

[Arnold]

I wouldn't even consider buying a disc anymore.  What's the point?

How about support for the Artist?

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

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.

[ahoythematey]

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.

[Sky]

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.

[ahoythematey]

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...

[ArtificialKid]

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

[Paelos]

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.

[Pineapple]

 I'll have to side with the industry I hate. Thanks.

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.

[Zephyr]

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.  =(

[shiznitz]

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.

[Signe]

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.

[HaemishM]

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.

[SirBruce]

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

[HaemishM]

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.

[Paelos]

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.

[AOFanboi]

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.

That "funding", according to various sources 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.

[kaid]

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

[Pig Destroyer]

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 and Decapitated 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.

[Krakrok]

steal a CD

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

My point is the underlying ethical principle involved.

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

[SirBruce]

steal a CD

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

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

My point is the underlying ethical principle involved.

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

I don't speed.

Bruce

[Sable Blaze]

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...?

[Tebonas]

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.

[Arnold]

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.

[Zephyr]

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.

[toma levine]

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.

[eldaec]

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/