the RIAA's new strategy

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kobayashi

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i cant believe no one has posted an article on this of late...

Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Fred von Lohmann on the Recording Industry Association of America's new plan to target those hosting large quantities of songs for trade via file sharing services,
It's plain that the dinosaurs of the recording industry have completely lost touch with reality...At a time when more Americans are using file-sharing software than voted for President Bush, more lawsuits are simply not the answer. It's time to get artists paid and make file-sharing legal. EFF calls on Congress to hold hearings immediately on alternatives to the RIAA's litigation campaign against the American public.

why would they do this now, after the relative success apple has enjoyed? would we all not be better getting behind iTunes clones and a lot of marketing?

it seems file sharing is a new reality the industry has to deal with and at some level it will always be present. but competition and some viable options for PC users would win over a lot of people.
 
RIAA and other associations like this one do not get it.
those downloading are thos who buy too.
This is silly.
 
As much as I hate Apple computers, understand they are pioneers. The PC world will get their online music service (it will be cheaper and worse than Itunes), it is just a matter of time.
 
I am sorry ouizy, but I can?t agree with you. The industry has been trying to launch online services for ages now. But they failed. Apple is nice, but imo its been game over for about two years.

Some of the problems of the industry are:

1) no kid will pay for music if it can be downloaded for free
2) it is too late, much too late, the industry wasn?t sleeping, but eating itself
3) no more artist development
4) wrong investments at the wrong time
5) huge promo budgets for airplay
6) CDs are still far too expensive, downloads as well

and the list goes on and on. Talk about the new way, new business model, has been underway. At the moment, many creative artists prefer to market themselves via internet, move less units but with considerably higher percentages and much more control. Or signing an independent contract w people who actually care about music, who specialize in certain markets etc.

The sueing thing is just ridiculous. It has been going on for some months, but tell me how the RIAA wants to sue a hundred million kids, no way. And the kids know that. It is a scandal the RIAA pisses consumers off, but I guess thats what lobbying groups in Washington are there for. Anyway, their website?s been hacked numerous times.

There are a few possible ideas who could attract the consumers back to spend some money, without telling details.

I am curious what kind of copyright laws will be implemented in order to "secure" the composer?s royalties.

I think amongst musicians there is a tendency to want to play more live gigs, too.
 
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The paradox is that, as much as they have less sales album-wise, MP3 players are big business. The paradox gets even more interesting when you have companies like Sony, whose music division is on record for losing money, but whose electronics division is making record profits through MP3 device sales. It is hard to feel sorry for businesses operating under those paradigms.

The other big question to ask is whether or not MP3 downloads are actually and conclusively hurting their sales. Since 1999, during the dawn of Napster's popularity, quality albums also plummetted. Then you also have economic downturns, which have affected all industries, not just the music industry. And, yes, there are many people I know who have bought *more* music since the MP3 era (myself included!).

The music industry is going to have to make some changes to its business models, not just Draconian lawsuits and inflexible DRM technologies. Both risk alienating consumers and doing the exact opposite of what they intended--consumers getting pissed off and not buying music at all! After all, thus far, all copy protection technologies have been utter failures when stacked up to sophisticated hackers. Needless to say, all "encryption" must be "decrypted" by hardware, before it can be played. Hence, all copy protection will be cracked, so, with inflexible copy protection schemes on music CDs, they risk all of their consumers mass downloading their music and not buying at all!

Melon
 
melon said:
The paradox is that, as much as they have less sales album-wise, MP3 players are big business.

Melon


from what i've seen companies who control both music and consumer electronic interests have tentatively entered the actual mp3 market with proprietary file formats, such as sony's ATRAC3. these are panned as cumbersome and unweildy because of the file transformation neccessary (no one trades ATRAC3 files) and sales have thus been slow. i would hazard a guess that sony is still turning off a profit off secondary mp3 market products such as cd-r's and minidisc.

the iPod aside, the most succesful mp3 players that i am aware of are from companies with no apparent music interest: creative, samsung and rio.
 
melon said:
The other big question to ask is whether or not MP3 downloads are actually and conclusively hurting their sales.

It is interesting that one of the most downloaded artists, Eminem, sells a couple of millions of albums anyway.

Another interesting argument is the marketing thing... people listening to songs online and then going out to buy them on CD. All the internet is a giant marketing machine, but the music industry just forgot to use it properly.

Anyway, alltogether, I do think that downloads hurt sales, considering the number of downloads. But they are not the primary reason the industry is in crisis. A number of other factors are about the same important (one of them the RIAA)
 
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