This is an issue thats personified the 2000s. The issue of intellectual property and copyright. What's people's opinions here on what will become of piracy? Does anyone think it will revolutionize a whole industry? I think its affect on the record industry has been big, but it would have a bigger impact on the movie business.

I'm sure a lot of people wish it would just go away, but the younger generation born around 1990 or so seems to have taken a big liking to it.

This is an issue thats personified the 2000s. The issue of intellectual property and copyright. What's people's opinions here on what will become of piracy? Does anyone think it will revolutionize a whole industry? I think its affect on the record industry has been big, but it would have a bigger impact on the movie business.

I'm sure a lot of people wish it would just go away, but the younger generation born around 1990 or so seems to have taken a big liking to it.


It has had a huge impact.  This is obvious when you look at royalties paid out to artists over the last 30 years.

I had a friend who was part of a group in the 1980's.  They had a few successful albums, but are mostly known as a "one hit wonder".  He now specializes in building computers for recording studios, and he has told me how much his royalties have declined.

In around 1995, he made about $25k per year in royalties.  His peak "post fad" royalty payment was in 1999, when "80's retro" first started.  That year he made just under $30k.  But every year since then, his royalties have plumeted.  The last time I talked to him was in 2004, and he had just recieved his final royalty payment for 2003.  His total payments that year were just over $10k.

Most people think that the RIAA gets to much for music.  But when adjusted for inflation, CDs actually cost around 40% less then they did 15 years ago.  CDs are one of the few things that have either stayed the same, or actually gone down in price over time.  And the majority of money collected is spent to either cover overhead costs, or royalties to the artists involved.

*****

The biggest effect is that over the last 10 years, music has largely stagnated.  15 years ago, music publishers were willing to take a chance on new groups and styles of music, in the hopes that they will become a hit.  And making a CD is not cheap.  It costs in excess of $5 million to produce and distribute a CD.  And with the advent of widespread piracy, it has become harder for companies to justify this expense.  So instead of taking a chance, they simply stick to things they know will sell.

One thing that can be considered a positive effect is that this has forced a lot of artists and groups to have "reunion tours".  As they see their royalties shrink, many have had to go back on the road to make up the lost income.  But it is kinda sad to see an artist that was once on the "top of the charts" now in his 50's, playing at a regional amusement park.  So while it can be nice to be able to see them live, it is also sad to see some ageing rocker trying to prance around in tight spandex 20 years past his prime.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the same thing is happening in the movie industry.  Just look at the huge number of horrible "remake" movies of the last few years.  Dukes Of Hazard, Miami Vice, Bewitched, Lost In Space, Rollerball, etc.  For movie companies, it is often cheaper to simply dig out some old property that they hold the rights to.

Amd just like music, movies also have actually gotten cheaper over the years.  I still remember when a prerecorded videotape or LaserDisc was normally around $50.  Now most movies can be bought new for under $20.  And with the widespread availability of rental services I simply can't understand why somebody would not be willing to drop a few dollars to get or view a movie legally.

I myself am an avid purchaser of movies, having in excess of 500 in my collection.  Just today I bought 3 movies, Hard Day's Night, Empire Of The Sun, and Fever Pitch.  Combined with the other 3 I bought this week (Buck Rogers In The 25th Century Collection, City Heat, and Highlander 2) I spent around $50.  And that bought me over 50 hours of entertainment.  That is less then $1 per hour, a damned good deal.

I'm not into downloading movies, I would rather own the actual item on DVD.

I'm not into downloading movies, I would rather own the actual item on DVD.


same here.  It's fun being able to get a movie complete with the sleve art, and the (sometimes) costum DVD cases.  You can't get that with downloads

Ditto.

I'm not into downloading movies, I would rather own the actual item on DVD.


Not to mention the extra features, like trailers, documentaries, deleted cuts, and more.

Personally, I prefer watching a DVD I own myself because of my hearing problem.  95% of the time, when I watch a movie I have the closed captioning turned on.  And I always find it a great dissapointment when I buy a movie and discover that it does not have captioning at all (or only foreign language captioning).

Yeah, I think that has a huge impact on why there's only been residual shifts in musical trends since about 2002, and even in the late '90s, the current genres were around in early form. The industry isn't going to put as much effort into it if there's not as much of a product to push. And with CD sales declining, record companies aren't going to take as much of a chance to sign unknown acts or something they know isn't a winning formula.

If file sharing becomes legalized and more respected, that's probably the key. It's just like how music had to fully embrace videos and creative, visual artists c. 1983 to get out of its post-Disco slump. This is just the next step.

Theres was a good show on CNBC tonight pertaining to this, they talked with a lawyer, CEO of Warner Records Edgar Bronfman Jr and Bare Naked Ladies. The whole show was about how the music business was struggling to reinvent itself admist the huge market decline for CDs and CD stores like Tower Records closing shop. The guy hosting the program stated how the CD was going the way of the 8 track and vinyl. In interesting fact was how over half the music consumed isn't even paid for.

An interesting comment was made by the music entertainment lawyer who said that CDs originally came with files you listened to for each track, now with the advent of the computer and downloading, you no longer need the disc to hold those files, just the files themselves.  Also explained during the show was how the record companies were now reaching the point where they were trying to reinvent their business all over again, Warner recently layed off roughly 800-1,000 employees and assembled a new team of young employees, trying to tap into Myspace and the social networking craze. They mentioned Bare Naked Ladies and how they ditched their record contract and decided to sell their music independantly and through Myspace. Interestingly they said they make $6 from each album off Myspace when they made only $2 when they were with a record label. Edgar Bronfman Jr said his company was also trying to tap in to the mobile phone music market, and how they had a plan for music convergence on phones to become a new major source for revenue. The idea of having music available wirelessly anytime, anywhere on your phone. With the release of the iPhone bringing widespread public attention to the idea of listening to music on a phone, this seems to be a possibility.

When confronted with the subject lawsuits for downloaders who were just customers and how that is percieved,  Edgar Bronfman Jr also mentioned how he believed anyone who didn't pay for his product, he didn't consider customers. Instead he talked about ways of trying to get people interested in more value in their products, more value than one can find in free downloads.

While he made a few good points he also came across like someone trying to keep his neck above the water when he's on a sinking ship, trying to convince people of certain possibilities, but some of it I thought he was full of sh*t on. He overall didn't come off the way he intended. Its pretty obvious he knows he's in trouble.

However it does seem that their at the point where they can pull it all together now, just in time for the next generation.

95% of the time, when I watch a movie I have the closed captioning turned on.  And I always find it a great dissapointment when I buy a movie and discover that it does not have captioning at all (or only foreign language captioning).


I always have the CC on as well.  I get so pissed when I buy a DVD, and there are no subtitles, or there is almost every subtitled language but english.  I have a vew DVDs with Thai and Japanese subtitles, but no English on them

They entertainment industry has come up with a novel solution:
They've stopped making anything worth stealing.
:-\\

They entertainment industry has come up with a novel solution:
They've stopped making anything worth stealing.
:-\\


Bingo! Unfortunately, that also means there is nothing worth buying.

I occasionally d/l music, however most of what I d/l are songs I already have on disc, but am too lazy to find.  :D

They mentioned Bare Naked Ladies and how they ditched their record contract and decided to sell their music independantly and through Myspace. Interestingly they said they make $6 from each album off Myspace when they made only $2 when they were with a record label.


But do you wanna bet that they still do not make as much money?  One of the reasons artists fight to get such contracts are because of the wide-spread distribution and promotion of their music. 

In fact, they have not even placed on the US, Canadian, or UK top 100 charts since they went independent.

However, they are currently working on a "Greatest Hits" anthology collection with Rhino Records.  So while their experiment may have sounded like a good idea, it seems to have pretty much failed.

And some of the early attempts to capitolize on P2P also met some pretty spectacular failures.  I remember doing some work for Robert Fripp's "Discipline Global Mobile" years ago.  For those that do not recognize the names, this is the man and company behind King Crimson.  In around 2001-2002, they were experimenting with distribution on Napster (the old one, not the new one).  The idea is that you downloaded the song there.  If you liked it, you would send them money for the CD, and they would send you 2 CDs.

Sounds nice, but it really didn't work.  I remember they had rooms full of these "Twin CD" packs, and nobody was buying them.  The company was almost bankrupt by the time iTunes came out, whis is about the only thing that saved their "Online Distribution" department.

As an afterthought, I wonder how different things would be now, if Metallica hadn't fought Napster?

I'm not into downloading movies, I would rather own the actual item on DVD.



I don't really like to download them off the internet either. I'd rather have the DVD as well, and not to mention that unless you have a good internet connection it takes forever to do :(

Nothing really worth buying. Everything now seems to be a 1 hit, maybe 2 mediocre artists who aren't worth buying. Lack of classic meaningful albums. I like some Rihanna and Fergie songs, are their albums worth buying...not really. Illegal downloading is a big part but pushing mediocre of the moment artists all the time is also gonna lead to lower sales. There's always been fad artists that don't sell much at all, but now there's more than ever before.

I'm not into downloading movies, I would rather own the actual item on DVD.


Same here. Even if I wanted to download a movie, it would take eternity to download on my computer. I wouldn't feel comfortable at all downloading movies, anyway.

Intellectual Property is a fricking nightmare! *SO* unfair and very very difficult to sort through the legalities when some companies call it into play. I won't go into the details but Himself is doing battle with the BBC at the moment over it.

For example I had a top listed on Ebay and as I like to give my items a catchy listing heading I had it listed as 'Disco Diva.Red Purple & Black Sparkly Corset Top'. It got removed because a company called Diva Corsets said I had infringed their intellectual property by using the words 'Diva' and 'Corset' in my listing heading. I complained and actually won that one, as the words weren't next to each other in the listing heading and I had the top listed under the shop I bought it from for maker, but how far does it have to go?? In my opinion you can't own words but they obviously felt they do.

I'm not into downloading movies, I would rather own the actual item on DVD.

I think when it comes to DVD, the real problem is not downloading them (most people don't have the download speed or time for it). I think the industry is still concerned with DVD copying.
Pirated copy's of DVD's from China and whatnot is what the industry is really concerned about.

I do occasionally copy a DVD for my collection, thats one of the reasons I have Netflix, they have a selection of DVD that just can't be found anywhere else, and these movies are not for sale or for rent at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video either. Now that Tower Records is gone, for most of the things I want on DVD I've got to order from Suncoast at a ridiculous price, or copy it. :-X

Most "copy protected" DVD's are easily defeatable. Until the industry finds a better way to stop coping they will continue to have a problem.

As an afterthought, I wonder how different things would be now, if Metallica hadn't fought Napster?

I guess you can't really tell, embracing Napster may have had a more dangerous impact on retail sales than one would think, possibly leading the labels to be in even worse shape than they are in today and ultimately making it a longer process to recover.

I know of someone, who downloaded music lately, and got a yellow card, saying they were monitered. Could they get arrested?