Over at The Register is a news article about file sharing and its effect on music sales. It details a few points that i totally agree with that most people fail to realise, mainly the points about people who download albums that they wouldn't actually buy, and the point about CD sales that boomed in the 90's was in actual fact most likely due to people re-purchasing their archive. Take a look at the full article over at The Register...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/36655.html
Full Version: Kazaa and co 'not cause of music biz woes'
This has been getting a fair amount coverage in the papers today in the UK.
I'm old enough to remember the ridiculous 'skull and crossbones' warnings that used to be printed on LP inner-sleeves.
I remember thinking at the time that cassette copies of albums were actually 'free adverstising' for the music industry, and were probably beneficial to sales in the long term. In retrospect I believe this has largely been accepted as the case.
What the industry wanted, of course, was for people to buy pre-recorded cassette *as well* as their LP copies for car and portable listening. We would now (quite rightly) regard taping LPs as 'fair-use' for this purpose.
To me, there is no reason whatsoever to believe the same is not true of the modern equivalent of the cassette, compressed digital or even bit-for-bit CDR. People who are happy with a copy of an album (MP3, CDR, whatever), would probably not have bought the album anyway, as the study referred to concluded.
There is a simple, universal rule which anyone who studies ecomomics will know well, the 'bell-curve' of demand for any product. The time scales can be decades long, but eventually demand *will* peak and then start an irreversable decline. CD is on the down-slope of it's bell-curve.
The reaction of the big corperate owners to this has done nothing but piss off their customers - so-called 'copy-protection' (corruption) of CDs, destruction of it's sound-quality, strong-arm attempts to gain control of on-line music etc.
I can't say I wish them well with this industrial facism (I find the new 'lo-fi' standard of CD sound particularly infuriating), and I believe they're going to find out pretty soon that they're shooting themselves in the foot if they continue with it.
RF.
I'm old enough to remember the ridiculous 'skull and crossbones' warnings that used to be printed on LP inner-sleeves.
I remember thinking at the time that cassette copies of albums were actually 'free adverstising' for the music industry, and were probably beneficial to sales in the long term. In retrospect I believe this has largely been accepted as the case.
What the industry wanted, of course, was for people to buy pre-recorded cassette *as well* as their LP copies for car and portable listening. We would now (quite rightly) regard taping LPs as 'fair-use' for this purpose.
To me, there is no reason whatsoever to believe the same is not true of the modern equivalent of the cassette, compressed digital or even bit-for-bit CDR. People who are happy with a copy of an album (MP3, CDR, whatever), would probably not have bought the album anyway, as the study referred to concluded.
There is a simple, universal rule which anyone who studies ecomomics will know well, the 'bell-curve' of demand for any product. The time scales can be decades long, but eventually demand *will* peak and then start an irreversable decline. CD is on the down-slope of it's bell-curve.
The reaction of the big corperate owners to this has done nothing but piss off their customers - so-called 'copy-protection' (corruption) of CDs, destruction of it's sound-quality, strong-arm attempts to gain control of on-line music etc.
I can't say I wish them well with this industrial facism (I find the new 'lo-fi' standard of CD sound particularly infuriating), and I believe they're going to find out pretty soon that they're shooting themselves in the foot if they continue with it.
RF.
This study has already been posted on HA: harvard, unc study on File Sharing, not harmful?
Sorry, i wasn't aware that the topic was already posted on HA, it's a new artical today 
That being said, I agree 100% with RockFan. I'm a sole believer that i have a RIGHT to copy MY OWN MUSIC so that i can listen to it where i want. After all, you're buying the song/album arnt you? not the physical media as such (otherwise songs would cost penny's!). For my mp3 player, i want to encode MY music. For my car, i copy all my CD's to CDR. There is no way on earth that i would leave original copies in my car. My friends car got broken into recently, and insted of going for his cd player, they went for his cd collection, and took nearly £300 of cd's insted (albums are roughly £15 here in the UK, and he had about 20 disks in a wallet.).
All this copy protection too makes it so that i cannot copy my music to CDR (well, in theory anyway), or encode it to MP3 for my portable. Insted, i'm forced to download them illegaly from the internet for this purpose. Copy protection FORCES PIRACY! Even the original CD's arnt guarenteed to play in my car cd player anymore. I'm guarenteed that i can get a listenable disk for my car if i download and burn it off, rather than paying £15 for one that might not.
Any music that i download and that i don't purchase myself, as the article concludes 100% correctly, i would NEVER buy myself. The argument that if i'm not willing to buy it i shouldn't listen to it is weak. I get flooded with it by radio and music television. I couldn't care less if i didn't have it. If anything though, downloading has increased my love of music. However, the amount of music i purchase now days has declined, not because of downloading, but because of this copy protection, and the loudness race. I hate spending money on good audio equipment for the record companies to compress the dynamic range to distortion levels. I just hope in the future this will change, but it doesn't look good
That being said, I agree 100% with RockFan. I'm a sole believer that i have a RIGHT to copy MY OWN MUSIC so that i can listen to it where i want. After all, you're buying the song/album arnt you? not the physical media as such (otherwise songs would cost penny's!). For my mp3 player, i want to encode MY music. For my car, i copy all my CD's to CDR. There is no way on earth that i would leave original copies in my car. My friends car got broken into recently, and insted of going for his cd player, they went for his cd collection, and took nearly £300 of cd's insted (albums are roughly £15 here in the UK, and he had about 20 disks in a wallet.).
All this copy protection too makes it so that i cannot copy my music to CDR (well, in theory anyway), or encode it to MP3 for my portable. Insted, i'm forced to download them illegaly from the internet for this purpose. Copy protection FORCES PIRACY! Even the original CD's arnt guarenteed to play in my car cd player anymore. I'm guarenteed that i can get a listenable disk for my car if i download and burn it off, rather than paying £15 for one that might not.
Any music that i download and that i don't purchase myself, as the article concludes 100% correctly, i would NEVER buy myself. The argument that if i'm not willing to buy it i shouldn't listen to it is weak. I get flooded with it by radio and music television. I couldn't care less if i didn't have it. If anything though, downloading has increased my love of music. However, the amount of music i purchase now days has declined, not because of downloading, but because of this copy protection, and the loudness race. I hate spending money on good audio equipment for the record companies to compress the dynamic range to distortion levels. I just hope in the future this will change, but it doesn't look good
QUOTE (fireballuk2001 @ Mar 31 2004, 02:48 PM)
I hate spending money on good audio equipment for the record companies to compress the dynamic range to distortion levels. I just hope in the future this will change, but it doesn't look good
You and me both, friend. It's got totally out of hand.
I recently tried to get QOTSA's 'Songs For The Deaf' on LP for no other reason than the UK CD relsease is so badly f****d up (although by no means the worst I've heard), only to discover it's been discontinued.
I intended to 'master' my own CDR on my half decent kit, and actually be able to hear Dave Grohl's monumental drums *properly*. Oh well.
ciao,
RF.
EDIT - one day I WILL learn to touch type!
If I was a manufacturer of Hi-End audio equipment, I’d be cursing the record company's right now. They really should be pressurising the record company's as its loosing them money. I'm forever reaching for my volume knob to turn it down because of the distortion, but it doesn't make it any better. It’s not my equipment, it’s the Source 
Oh well, and I guess I should learn to love older music more
Edit: I need to learn to Touch Type too
Oh well, and I guess I should learn to love older music more Edit: I need to learn to Touch Type too
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