I mean, it’s not like contemporary musicians, or even their soulless executives, are the people who invented the means to share the information in bulk — that was the geeks. This isn’t poetic justice. (It might be poetic justice if we were talking about software piracy, but that seems not to be as big an industry because the geeks are also really good at protecting the stuff.)

In any case, the “It’s only music” argument, from my perspective, is exactly why people shouldn’t make grandiose liberty-or-death for their right to free music. How exactly did my generation get this spoiled?

What a rip off, I spend less on my internet connection and i can download as much as i want.

-Anon

Correct. And in classical piracy, on the high seas, what is enshrined in law is the ability to take a shotgun to said pirates wherever and whenever you like with impunity.

The market worked that out and it’s been a workable solution ever since.

Who the hell do you think buys your BS about “piracy is the new way” and producers must “adapt to the new” ?

What lesson has every major producer of goods learned about this “new market” from chinese pirates producing inferior copies ?
When Ping produces a set of golf clubs using the finest metals on earth and some Chinese asshole knocks out a replica set using aluminium, what lesson should they take away about this “new market” ?

That if they want to compete with criminals ripping them off they should screw over the consumer too ?

What ? Tell us you intellectual fraud.

Once again I agree. So many people have an overly romanticized concept of reality.

The truth of the matter is, the worm turned a good long while ago.

I’ve always maintained that the danger associated with crushing citizen’s liberties for something so obviously trite as music is shameful. And there are a lot of artists who are really a bunch of greedy hypocrites, looking for an elite, cool, cash-rich lifestyle. Hold on while I grab my wallet…

If I don’t believe in Jesus, why the hell am I going to elevate some “star-wanabe’s” myth status when I can do what he/she does at home, on my own, for free? It’s work, but it’s not labour. Playing live is labour. And should be rewarded as such.

It has always been possible to freely reproduce works at no cost to the original author. This is precisely why copyright law was devised (back in the 1600s, believe it or not). The only difference now is that piracy now costs nothing to the pirates either.

I agree with the original author: Recorded music will eventually be an add-on service for your cell phone or ISP.

The average brain surgeon makes a lot more money than the average musician. In fact, the average brain surgeon probably makes more money than the average rock star. The guy you see standing behind the counter at 7-11 makes more money than the average musician.

The only truly rich rockstars are the ones are wrote and recorded many albums over many years that were consistently bought by millions of people. One-hit-wonders and contemporary pop stars eventually have to get day jobs, or end up on “Celebrity Mole.”

http://pluking.blogspot.com

$0.17 Musicians’ unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists’ royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead[/quote]
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6558540/walmart_wants_10_cds/quote

Ok so where do they get off charging $35-$40 (25-27 Euros) then? The greedy leeches can shove their crap where it belongs!!

Aside from those considerations, while there are ongoing inconsistent legalities, that isn’t my problem, and I’ll do what I think is right and fair.

From what I’ve read even of US law there are plenty of legal justifications to do so, and I believe that when it’s all sorted out I’ll be too old to care anymore, but it will be legal everywhere, and not just in some countries as it is now.

Anyhow I wouldn’t know who I’m downloading from and if it’s all ok in their country, and neither should I have to be concerned. The Internet is multinational while the cartels want to maintain price fixing, boundaries, and nationalistic propaganda

99% of music I want is either unavailable in my area, “deleted”, or has an exorbitant markup. Have they ever heard of market pricing one wonders. Jacking the price up through the roof may seem nasty and profitable, but in reality doesn’t sell. Pricing fairly (about 10% of current retail) is what will drive up sales despite file sharing, and reap the big profits. But they are too arrogant and up themselves to do that, and so they pay for their own greed.

Btw when are Heroes and Terminator coming back ???

Right.

So this means we can no longer sell:

Seeds
Animals
Movies
Software

Bummer. I’ll let everyone know. Thanks for clearing that up.[/quote]

Specious logic, thanks for trying.

Seeds and animals have inherent costs in the reproduction formula. While on the other hand, digital media has none. One digital copy to another costs nothing to perform, assuming a local disc transfer, and nothing more than the costs of bandwidth for a remote one.

In the New Media you are able to sell service and experience, but you will not be able to sell media itself, at least not in any significant way from a corporate-perspective. As music and movies are so easily copied and the production chain is so large, it is impossible to secure and prevent duplication before the product reaches market. Once the majors are forced to accept this reality and embrace digital downloads it will already be to late for them, as we all know – the genie is out of the bottle – and the majority of the world is not going to pay the studios a dime for digital downloads. But by selling the cinema experience and increasing the quality of the products they bring to market, Hollywood will survive. Ditto the music business, although I believe the Major labels will find themselves left in the dust of history as home recording technologies become increasingly cheaper and musicians are able to share their songs without having to sell their souls for market access – because the market is free and open to anyone, you just have give it away. And if it’s any good, you’ll get gigs and the people will come and buy your merch; and I believe artists will find a more meaningful connection and relationship with their audiences, and fans will feel all the more closer to the music they love and that moves their lives…

I don’t make any assumptions about how the industry will act in the long term, you’re right, it probably will become corrupt again. This generation’s pirates will become legitimized, form a new establishment and almost certainly become corrupted sometime in the future. I don’t see why this wouldn’t happen, it always has in the past.

But that doesn’t exclude the possibility of the majors and the file sharers coming to an understanding of some kind in the near future, in fact that has to happen for this current period of chaos to be replaced with a new order, which is then corrupted.

I think we agree on this. The great thing about the presence of pirates is they keep the markets in check, they are the market’s subconscious, and when there is a problem, a market failure of some kind, the pirates begin acting up until the situation is rectified.

Sorry Matt; I disagree. You did an earlier story, actually, fairly well done but with a few crucial failings on the rise of piracy and the need to compete rather than stifle.

The same core failing is in your argument here: you assume that if for even one instant pirates and mafIAA can negotiate a ceasefire / bff business plan, then forever and ever the dinosaur mafIAA will stay true to the deal, never again over-restricting their products, GROSSLY overcharging for their products, or abusing their customers.

This is where you are mistaken.

Its unfortunate, too, because I was very impressed with your presentation on piracy, and you made the point repeatedly – British radio, British record companies, American record companies, Fox studios, Hollywood – so many examples of outlaws opposing the system, then within less than one generation becoming even more corrupt than the system they once fought. And this will happen with piracy.

Honestly, I mean no offense, but did you not see the trend? That every successful outlaw/pirate person or company or country ended up being more oppressive than the original oppressor?

That is exactly what will happen to the so-called “successful” venture that legalizes/”legitimizes” piracy!!!

I agree that the current mainstream digital media business model needs to change; I agree that it needs to be better; I agree that it cannot compete (although it is economically possible) with piracy; but I COMPLETELY disagree that if the business world ever comes to its senses, it will be the end of the need for piracy.

Piracy is the competition, the thorn-in-the-side, that spurs these dinosaur mafIAA of all shapes and sectors to be better (more productive, high quality, contributing to society rather than taking from it) competitors.

In closing, the argument is philosophical; you do see much of the economic, but miss all of the long term and philosophical meaning behind the movement.

Evans Blue, Reveille, Within Temptation (sound)
Zeitgeist, Network Convoy (picture)

$0.17 Musicians’ unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists’ royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead[/quote]
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6558540/walmart_wants_10_cds

if he talking bout piracy on a national scale confined within the u.s,and limited to music industries,maybe it would work,…just maybe,….

however,applying a solution for a specific industry on a global scale to all types of industries is just plain b.s,

piracy is not a revolution,it has started since man could aquire,store and retrive knowledge,some of the best example would be the art of paper making,which was stole and used worldwide,to the extreme that even violence was applied to get this know-how. check wiki,…

and yes,file-sharing is a mean to
an end,and to meet that end on a global scale is far from possible.

among the things that needs to b sorted out are:
unfair price due to unfavourable conversion rate.
consorship-movies that are allowed in certain countries were banned in “certain” countries,even games.
and the type of ppl that just wants somting for nothing.

and btw,i didnt see any period of chaos created by piracy.the stock market didnt fluctuate due to piracy,execs didnt leap to thier death from hi building due to piracy,9/11 created a period of chaos,piracy didnt.

just b’cos a handgun *could* kill it didnt mean u can win wars with it…
and the correct title for this article should be “MUSIC piracy COULD b a negotiation,not a fight”

ps:2 wrongs still didnt make a right

The sale of Bebo.com to AOL for $850 million last week sparked a fresh wave of opining about music piracy, with Billy Bragg and Michael Arrington both stepping into the ring. The problem is, they are both wrong….

Thanks for the link – good article. It’s worth pointing out that a flat rate tax and a license fee are two different things. This article seems to be talking more about taxes, which I don’t think are a good idea for all the reason the article spells out.

A voluntary license fee would be different. It wouldn’t be perfect, just like radio play royalties and publishing aren’t perfect, but I think it’s the best option we have. Watch out for a new paper by Bennett Lincoff on this next month.[/quote]

I think the perfect solution to the digital monetization is if you could access music for free, and easily contribute money directly to the artist if you thought it was worth something. Just like Radiohead did except without forcing the $1 fee. Of course this is a huge problem because most successful artists no longer own what they create and if such system ever were setup, the money would line the pockets of corporations and not the artists. But I can dream all I want right?

It took weeks of bargaining (still going on) to convince our children to return something for filesharing music. How much for a song, how much for an album etc. was of course an issue. What I found more important was: “What do we do with the money?” We agreed to pay money into a common piggy bank. Every month we donate this money to a band or label that publishes their music under a free
license. We all have to come up with new bands from time to time to
spread the money. That makes us deal with the issue and with alternatives. We also had animal and human rights organisations, free software projects and alternative energy concepts coming up in the discussions. And of course there were ideas to spend the money on computer games:-D Sure, but in the
end the idea caught on that this money needs to be spent on music. And we already got the music from the net.

So why not just buy the files? I believe P2P for whatever goods are exchanged is a better concept than a top down system where someone else decides for me what’s available. So I like to keep it around, which means that I need to use it.
Actually, some of the music that I like is not available even in second hand record stores or flea markets. But it’s on the net where I can share with someone half-way around the world. Also I get to promote what I like, because I can make it
available. I think of this as a kind of active communication. Our children grow up with P2P. I won’t keep them away from what might become the main distribution channel in the future.

These are of course just some points and all of them are arguable. Hey, but that’s what I want. If you have better arguments you might convince me. If you just have a lot of money to buy legislation that’s not good enough for me. An interesting aspect here is that we are our own little RIAA so to speak. In our experiment, which might not be a model for others, we not only get to decide what’s available but also who gets the money. We give it to those musicians that are just starting and specifically those who take the economic risk not to be part of a system like the music industry. Well, I’m not sure if it’s a risk after all. Anyway, it shows idealism which I value highly. I’m quite sure that most musicians start making music because they like to make music. If they see a prospect in publishing in an alternative way so much the better.

Are you absolutely certain that it was Billy himself punting these Ts & not some tout/corporate shill?

Personally, I have my doubts. Remember, he _is_ the milkman of human kindness… =]

Thanks for the link – good article. It’s worth pointing out that a flat rate tax and a license fee are two different things. This article seems to be talking more about taxes, which I don’t think are a good idea for all the reason the article spells out.

A voluntary license fee would be different. It wouldn’t be perfect, just like radio play royalties and publishing aren’t perfect, but I think it’s the best option we have. Watch out for a new paper by Bennett Lincoff on this next month.

Right.

So this means we can no longer sell:

Seeds
Animals
Movies
Software

Bummer. I’ll let everyone know. Thanks for clearing that up.

Don’t Panic… second try…
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3396281/The_hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galaxy_-_BBC_radio

Not should be free, is free. As a freely copyable object the compact disc has no commercial worth – you cannot sell what can be freely reproduced. Well, you can until the bottom finially falls out when the last of the Wal-Mart shoppers buy themselves a $200 computer..

Damien said: “I agree on one thing – art is worth something and artists should be rewarded.”

And I concur. Artists and creators serve an essential social function, and richly deserve to be compensated for their efforts, as they spark and shine to the rest of us. However, coke-snorting, hooker-banging record-company middlemen which have for decades forced artists to give up control over their creations to facilitate distribution deserve to have their eyes gouged out and their ocular cavities repeatedly urinated upon. Just sayin’ is all….

thenotsojollyroger said: “anybody got a good random torrent to throw at me?”

The_B-52s_-_Funplex-2008-YSP is randomly interesting. The B-52s’ 1970s sensibilities meet the electro-emo generation…

Matt… Please read this post from brokep:
http://blog.brokep.com/2007/12/06/the-problems-with-a-flatrate-system/

I’d not pay for a flat rate system. But oh well, I’m one of those guys who still like to have physical CDs and pays extra for cool specials that come with ltd eds.

That would mean everyone in your town spent only $2.50, annually.

Please drink your kool-aid yourself, Matt, as we’re not susceptible to this heresy of yours. :-)

“most people will be happy to spend money on music as long as the price is fair.”

The price will never be fair b/c business people don’t want to make a living they want to make big fat $$$. And if there’s no business, there’s no price. See how it works?

What we have here is an oppurtunity to create new revenue streams for millions of artists independently of old bottlenecks such as radio play lists and major label rosters. This is an oppurtunity for artists and for fans, the only guys who lose out are the majors, which is why a better range of legal alternatives to p2p sites hasn’t materialized yet.

But alternatives will appear, and most people will be happy to spend money on music as long as the price is fair.

That’s not to say I don’t love it. I do. But it’s not the most important thing is the universe. If people want to make music, then do so. If you want to get your hopes up for the landslide of cash, go ahead…. And if you don’t sell as many as you thought you would, that’s ok too. Just don’t try to stop the globe from spinning, cause in the digital age it’s a pretty risky venture to try and make your daily bread off music. It can be done. I just get the feeling that these ‘musicians’ who winge on about filesharing and piracy and whatnot feel somehow exempt from the reality of life and survival. How many industries have gone offshore. How many hardworking folk like you and I looking for new jobs as a result?

Poor poor musicians. First you try to steal all our girlfriends in high school, and now this crap. Imagine whining about your failure at 60? Oh wait, Mr. Bragg is doing that right now.

I write, produce, engineer. I DJ and play. Whatever, dood. I also have bills of my own to pay. So I got a job and am going to school in the fall for an industry that doesn’t potentially upload my paycheque to p2p. Am I boring, or pragmatic? Are musicians pragmatic? I don’t think most of them are, terribly. Put all your eggs in one basket already.

But that’s the case for book because most people still prefer physical copies of books.

But that’s the case for book because most people still prefer physical copies of books.

Several years ago, a major computer magazine published that a team of computer scientists had succeeded in creating electronic cash, or “e-cash”; the money was effectively a data packet that could be withdrawn from a bank, passed around like money, and returned to the bank for money.
A key feature of the e-cash was that it was completely untraceable. It kept no log of who had it, or where it had been; it was just that, just a protected data packet to be sent back and forth between clients and banks and exchanged for “money” (ref. Ron Paul) and material goods.

Paypal is not e-cash; paypals brethren are not e-cash. They are just as expensive, just as NON-anonymous, just as traceable and inconvenient as credit cards.

I don’t know what happened to this e-cash, just that it disappeared. I don’t think it was because it was un-secure, since to it insecure is to argue that online money transfers in general are insecure, and to argue against the many bank transfers and credit card purchases made online every day.

I think e-cash disappeared because it was too dangerous; not more dangerous than free information sharing, but as dangerous; because it would be a free online market.
People would have money, and be able to use it unsupervised and unregulated, with no profit to anyone but the seller.

Computer programmers, I LOVE your work on stealth p2p, high-E p2p, anonymous and encrypted p2p, and your work in general in contributing to the community. I’d like to request, that the opensource developement community continue the revolution outside of just media bounds though, and get into solving e-cash: all of online commerce will follow.
And then the commies will really sh*t their pants!!! :)

What I don’t agree on, is that the only way to make money for everyone involved in the process of making art is by making viewers/listeners of art pay money.

I don’t pay (or some symbolic price) to see paintings and sculptures in museums.
I don’t pay radio stations to listen to all the songs they play.
So how do they manage to survive?

Two ways – government and ads. If government can finance museums and some artists (at least in my country), why can’t it finance all of them? Together with ads it would be enough for everyone to have more than decent paycheck. Why should an actor get 20+ million US$ a year, while a nuclear physicist gets less then 1% of that?

What gives them the right to be worth more than a brain surgeon, astronaut or a professor? Even my home town (400k inhabitants, clean and fast-growing) spends less money in a year (1m US$) than some earn monthly!

How do scientists get payed? If government wasn’t providing money for science, NASA would be a multinational corporation…

If I buy a 20€ DVD, most of it goes to some company, but even the small piece that goes to artists ends up in them buying their 4th SUV or a 3rd mansion.

This is whats going to happen, you have no choice but to embrace it, stop trying to act like this can go away.

As soon as a new technology is born that is more efficient and better in every sense, it is absalutly impossible to stop from being the new standard. As soon as P2P was born it was destined to take over the world, because its better, there is no better distribution method at this point and time. There is no master mother server place that can deal out music to the masses.

This is the future and the past, its pathetic how they try and stop what cannot be stopped, they need to instead be thinking about the next technology after this, they might JUST have enough time to prepare for it and profit from it, if they act fast.