Hmm…, the Let’s Bash Microsoft posting seems to have served its function (135 comments and counting!). Perhaps today would be a good day to bash the RIAA, a reprise of the comprehensive CD industry bashing posting of September 5, 2003….
A simpler formulation of the troubles of the record industry: the CD is a direct descendant of the Edison cylinder circa 1877. I.e., the record industry is demanding growing revenues from a product that is 125 years old. In 1909 a consumer might have been delighted at the idea of purchasing a Grand Opera Amberol, taking it home, and spending the rest of his life devoting storage space in his home to the physical manifestation of the audio stream. A consumer in 2003 might, however, be forgiven for insisting that paid-for music arrive ethereally, on-demand, and, if there is physical management to be done that it be done by a commercial enterprise at a remote location. This explains why Sirius and XM are gaining customers while the market for physical CDs is shrinking.
[I’ve talked to a bunch of people who own MP3 jukeboxes. When asked “Would you have paid $200 extra to have the machine preloaded with high-quality music from your choice of genres?” all said “Absolutely.” But the product doesn’t exist so these folks resorted to ripping their old CDs (not downloading; they are all too busy) rather than giving the recording industry any new revenue.]
America is still the world’s greatest Corporate Welfare State but really how is it possible for the government to help an industry that refuses to abandon a 125-year-old product that consumers don’t want anymore?
I hate the RIAA because they are fighting to halt progress. If RIAA, the movie companies and Microsoft gets their way, new ideas will cease to have the potential to change the world for better or for worse, and will be reduced to serve as spare-time entertainment.
Wouldn’t you say that the music is the product, and that only the medium is based on 125 year old technology? In the same way, isn’t a car 125 years old?
I have to wonder how much the decline of CD sales by the big companies is actually just loss of market share. I buy lots of CDs, but only a tiny fraction are produced by the major labels and sold by the big chain stores. Most of them were recorded in basement studios and produced and engineered by people who have day jobs, and which I purchase either directly from the artists at their gigs or from dealers at science fiction conventions. Many can be bought on-line as well these days. The big recording companies no longer have a monopoly on CD production. This is by no means theft, but I suppose to the RIAA and its members it is the same thing, money they don’t get (for music they wouldn’t have touched in the first place). Is there any data on sales directly by artists and very small companies?
i’d buy a lot more CDs if they were priced around $5-7. furthermore, i’d buy music online, a la iTunes Music Store, if the albums did not cost just as much as a CD. what incentive is there to buy it online if i can get an unrestricted CD in a store for the same price?
It’s hard to come up with innovative reasons to bash the RIAA. Unlike Microsoft, which could probably have done a lot of things differently, the RIAA was created and still functions with the singular goal of preserving the profit margins of huge boring music factories. This is usually enough to hate them or pay them, depending on whether you work for them (in the LA or DC branches).
Let’s bash Harvard Law School and MIT nerds who are incompetent!I hate how this blog has no way for you to sign up for notification when someone replies to the blog entry you have commented on. Given all the billions Harvard has for an endowment you’d think they’d do better.
It’s not just the RIAA. I love good movies and TV, and I just want easy access to those obscure titles that /no one will make money on/. Who doesn’t have an old TV show they’d like to look at more closely now they “understand” TV more? There are just too many movies that involve a treasure hunt to find.
Why spend so much energy trying to sell ads, when I’d be willing to directly drop some cash for good titles? There is so much unused inventory that could be converted into profit. I’m not talking about Seinfeld or A Clockwork Orange, which can be rerun and resold. Instead, I’m thinking about those obscure films and shows that I’m almost embarrassed to like, and won’t be found anywhere offline. Why have pirates move inventory for you???
I play in a band. Our album was recorded using a hard-disc recorder and a collection of microphones and basements/living rooms. We engineered and produced the whole things and we sell it at gigs and on our web site for $8.00. Our unit profit is $5.00 and 100% of it goes back to the band. As far as I’m concerned, this is how the music business should be. I never want a record deal.
We played a festival last summer and shared a merchandise booth with a bigger band that had signed a record contract. They told us that each member of the band gets 20 cents every time they sell a CD! They sold three times more CDs than we did, but made much more money. The downside is you have to gig all the time, but that is why I formed a band in the first place!
oops…should have said, but “we” made much more money…
I love the way the RIAA turns something as banal as downloading songs from the web into an energetic and risky act of resistence against the status quo, a subversive, law-breaking, even sinful activity. Like getting oral sex from your wife in Texas in 1900, sort of.
I think Justin nails why I have trouble getting up in arms over the RIAA. There are plenty of great bands who aren’t on RIAA labels, who play lots of live gigs, and who are willing to bend over backwards to get their name out.
If, as a profession, I had to listen to the latest boy band to get a reasonable job, for instance as a music critic, I’d be as pissed off about the RIAA as I am about Microsoft. But while I may have to use Microsoft software at work, I don’t have to listen to RIAA music….
…Yet. I’m sure they’re working on Howard Coble at all to push that bill through.
Hmmm…Phil seems to hate the fact that the RIAA is making money off of technology that is based on old technology. And when people rip off their copyrighted material, they go after them. Maybe Phil should view http://philip.greenspun.com/copyright/ You wouldn’t like it if you were a professional photographer who made who made his living from his photos, and then someone came along and made money off software that allowed people to rip off your pics, would you? But of course Phil is just too good for that. Maybe if your product were something that people wanted to steal, you’d get mad when they did.
I think it’s cute that many of the people who are all up in arms against the RIAA because they’re enforcing copyright are the same people who freak out about the idea their software might be pirated, or their javascript taken and reused without attribution.
I have a friend whose brother took a job as an investment banker in London. Not wanting to cart his 300+ CDs across the Atlantic, and planning to log long hours at his new gig, he left his CDs behind, along with two Apple iPods he bought. My friend gets to keep one of the iPods in exchange for ripping all the CDs, putting them on the iPod and mailing it to London.
In fact I think there are some computerized CD jukeboxes out there that can rip discs en-masse. Curious that Best Buy or Apple Store don’t offer MP3 player pre-loading service so people can bring in their own discs and walk out with a stuffed player. Apple is in the added position of being able to sell new music as Phil describes via iTunes Music Store and pre-load it onto an iPod, which they could then ship to you.
Tom: Who ARE you? You comment on nearly every posting and yet we don’t know anything about you. Where do you live? Age? Occupation? What motivates you to comment on every entry here? Are you actually interested in all of these random topics?
Incidentally, ReQuest Multimedia (who used to do consumer MP3 jukeboxes before they departed for the greener fields of high end installed systems) offers music-loading services for their boxes.
Phil:
To be honest, after reading previous posts of Tom I came to conclusion that he must be you.
And answers to your questions:
Where do you live? – > search philip.greenspun.com there must be some clues
Age? – > 40+3days
Occupation? – > Teaching CS,… for more information see the above link
What motivates you to comment on every entry here? – > For some, posting flame-baits is way to hard a temptation to resist.
Are you actually interested in all of these random topics? – > Well, since the suspect actually statred all these topics he must also be intersted in them.
Does suspect possess enough IQ to devise such a plan? – > You must be kidding, he entered MIT at age 13!!! (and my mom thinks his son is too intelligent too handle)
I’m 28 years old and I come from Iran. My occupation at the moment is analyzing Conspiracy Theories which is done by a near three decade old B.R.A.I.N. biochemical computer (The product line closed at 1979 since both first and second prototypes were too expensive to maintain).
Kamyar, that was brilliant. I wonder what turning 40 is really doing to Prof. Greenspun… Let’s bash Microsoft, Let’s bash the RIAA, Sun as the new RIAA… I’m turning 30 in a few weeks, I wonder what that will do to me.
Phil: Why does it matter? I’m not an interesting person. I post on topics that interest me. I didn’t realize I was supposed to provide personal info in my posts and the fact is this: It’s not at all relevant to the things I’m posting on. I’m not employed by the RIAA if that’s what you mean.why-would you prefer I quit posting? I thought this was a back and fro of ideas and comments, not Oprah.
oh, and: Also note that I don’t post on everything. E.g., I don’t post my opinions on those CS arguments, since a. I know I know nothing about that and b. It doesn’t really interest me.
Tom: I’m just curious what would motivate a person to comment on nearly every post, especially when he seldom seems to have an actual idea or an alternative perspective. Mostly your postings seem to be motivated by envy or spite of other people (usually me, sometimes readers who contribute actual ideas) and are filled with conjectures about what motivates the original writer. Moreover, in most of the cases where an actual idea has been contributed by someone the person leaves a URL and an email address so that we can judge the idea in the context of that person’s other writings.
So if you’re not willing to divulge any demographic characteristics about yourself, can you at least explain why you comment on so many of the postings here? If you have actual ideas, why not start your own blog? If you don’t have ideas, what is motivating you to comment so energetically?
I don’t want a blog, I like to comment. Above is my email address if you want to get ahold of me or communicate outside of this blog-world. I contribute real ideas. Negating an idea you find false is just as real as making affirmative statements. If you want to know about me: I’m from the Northeastern corner of the USA. I’m under in my 20s and hold a very boring job. I hold a High School diploma. I’m white and short. I make under $30k/year. I just don’t see how that’s relevant to posts about the recording industry of america.If you don’t like comments, why have a comment section? You are the one who is supposed to have the ideas anyway, not me.
> I’m under in my 20s and hold a very boring job
I think this (the boring job part) is the key to all that commenting…
Hey Tom:
One: In your post above, are you accusing Phil of hypocrisy? I’ve read his stuff on copyright before, and I know his approach to enforcing copyright on his work is rather different than the RIAA’s. Your reasoning isn’t really backed up.
Two: Admittedly, an accusation of hypocrisy can be a nice a rhetorical flourish, but even if Phil’s own enforcement of copyright on his works made the RIAA look like a bunch of BSD-license zealots, it would not invalidate his arguments. This is one example of the ex concessis case of the ad hominem fallacy: like it or not, a hypocrite can make true statements and can make correct arguments.
Three: Implying that no one would want to steal Phil’s work is a lame and (by the link you give) incorrect personal attack.
Where’s the idea in your post?
Paul: How true is that.Brent: Pt. 1: Not hypocrisy – I’m just pointing out that copyright enforcement is important. Pt 2-I agree. (see point 1) Where’s the idea in your post?