A month after download law, consumers spending less on music


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I'll just say, from my personal experience, people like you are an exception. Most of the people I know (in their teens / twenties anyways) would buy at least a few of the things they download (not all, but a few), but they don't because they can get it for free.

As for the article, looking at sales one month after the bill passed is not conclusive of anything. As Johnny said, this is merely a continuing trend of sales that were already falling. While this is a trend that has been seen several times before, I'd argue that these laws do little to actually deter people from pirating. The fact is, piracy is as rampant as ever. When a new law actually puts a significant dent in piracy rates, then let me know how sales figures compare.

Whereas from my personal experience, those who just pirate without regard for purchasing content are the exception. That just goes to show that personal experience isn't always the end-all be-all of things that involve a population of about 6 billion people. :)

I think the difference is in the ability to afford items. The group you are referring to are the group that wouldn't have actually purchased the item anyways. They wanted it, but couldn't afford it, so they found a way to get it.

The group I refer to can afford the items, but do not like parting with money unless it is for something that they genuinely want.

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Sure I do. It's called a library. I can go there and check out books, and if I like them I buy them. If I don't then I return them. I do the same thing with my Kindle with the 'Kindle Lending Library'. I try out books that look interesting, and if I like them I buy them.

Books have a very legal way of employing a 'try before you buy' method that no one really frowns upon.

I suppose there are libraries (I was more thinking digitally try when writing the post though), but they actually pay the publishers to do that. There's money being passed around, it's not just some magical free thing - and the Kindle lending library requires a paid prime membership which covers the cost of doing that. The closest thing to a library for music is Spotify and even that makes sure money is going around to artists when you listen.

Heck, if you want to try things - we've had this perfectly fine legal way of doing it going around for a while - it's called renting. It's not free, but all these thing's are luxury items, not essentials. There shouldn't be any honest expectation for them to be free.

Music & Movies don't really have that.

Music has the 10-30 second clip. It's usually the 'best' 10-30 seconds of the song...which can be very deceptive. I've bought songs before based on those 10-30 second samples and found that clip was the only part of the song I liked. That was a waste.

And? There's plenty of things in life you can't see the full picture of before you buy. You buy it, you take a risk, you like it or you don't. It's how things have worked for centuries. There's not some right where you have everything you buy must be perfectly fit your criteria - you buy things you see that catch your eye. Sometimes that pays off, sometimes that doesn't.

If you're disappointed after buying something, just be disappointed... unless they've genuinely falsely advertised, but samples are genuine parts of the tracks.

When it comes to movies, trailers these days tend to be more deceptive than anything. For instance I refused to go see Dark Shadows in the theater due to the trailer making it look like a really crappy remake of the original. I'm now going to watch it with a friend because they've seen it and said that the really stupid campy comedy bits were all in the trailer and that the tone of the movie isn't the same as the tone of the trailer.

Just based on the preview I wouldn't have known that.

Again, and? That's the studio's fault, that's just business and that's something they'll have to fix going forward. They lost a customer fair and square from their own doing. And then word of mouth has been doing what's it's been doing for centuries. Maybe they need to focus more going ahead on music discoverability. (As an aside, I actually spend a lot of my free time working around and creating music discover-ability concepts and music playing software, but it's nothing I have a paid interest in, nor do I particularly listen to much music myself - I just leave the radio on for background noise most of the time)

do like how you swapped from the 'don't really know anyone who does it that way' argument to the 'well that's still not acceptable' argument.

I don't think I did "swap arguments", ah, I didn't... I was directly replying to you. Unless I actually have to reiterate everything I've previously said in each future post, why even add this line?

At any rate, even for games I don't see why people feel entitled to have to try everything before hand. If the publisher doesn't push out a demo - it's annoying, it's their loss and I probably won't buy it. That's something the industry has to sort out, and there are potential solutions going forward, like the one provided by OnLive - who let you just play the first 30 minutes of most games on their service. If you don't want to take a risk with your money, then... don't. And I'm sure there'll be plenty of people on here who think there's some honorable reason for piracy (as an FYI, please don't directly admit to it here, it's technically against community rules), but I'm likely never going to agree with it. It's just not necessary, and I just really don't see or feel the need or entitlement to have to try everything. If I commit to buying something, I'm fine to go through the experience of the product, whether I like it or not in the end. If all these things we were talking about were essentials, and not luxuries, I might have some sympathy. But they're not and I don't :p

And with all these people pirating, there's less direct incentive for the industry to directly attack the main problem of discovery, because they can simply place most of the direct blame on lowered sales piracy. If that wasn't there, and sales were still going down, you'd bet your ass they'd be doing something to kick new life into it - simply because they would have too if they wanted to remain in business. Unfortunately, most solutions are going to probably cost money or have adverts, and with piracy so prevalent there's plenty of less noble people who seriously just couldn't give a damn about paying - who simply just want to listen / play that content - who aren't going to want that "compromised" legal counterpart.

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BTW, just to toss an example out there Johnny...and using this as a specific example, but not saying it's something I directly engage in...Imports.

With the world as tightly-knit as it is these days it's easy to share ideas and communication, but not always content. There are still many areas around the world that release content just for their specific region, and make it hard for anyone who lives elsewhere to determine their like or dislike of that content.

There are many television programs around the world that never see a US release or see a much delayed one. For instance the show Hex that aired in the UK. I was made aware of the show by a friend who lives there.

The show finally did air via BBC America, but it wasn't for a couple years. After that some of the episodes were released on DVD in the US, but not everything. In fact the version sold in the US is a 'neutered' version of the show missing about 10 minutes per episode, and only contains a part of Seasons 1 & 2. About 9 episodes are missing total on top of the missing chunk of each episode.

So in order to see the show here in the US someone would either have to buy equipment from the UK and have it all shipped here, then buy the UK versions of the show.

I'm not saying someone should pirate in this scenario. What I am saying is that content producers/providers put in so many roadblocks to finding ways to enjoy their content that they cut off possible revenue.

This frustration leads many to the only affordable outlet available to view that content. Is it legal? No, but I'm not going to necessarily fault someone for it.

It's like some of the things I'm working on. There's a few projects (personal ones) that I'm going to be spending a lot of time on. I'm going to put those out there at some point in the (hopefully) near future. I want people to buy it, but if they pirate it I'm not going to chase folks down for it.

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Taking risk? I rather not when 95% of music is complete crap. Sorry but I only buy from bands that put effort into music. Please dont get me started with movies. I only watch the ones I know will be good. Unlike some of you guys I rather not throw out money on crap and be disappointed. Thats how I work and do things.

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Probably a lot of music is bought after hearing someone else playing it and deciding to grab it on iTunes or buy the CD, and if the majority of people playing those songs in the first place were doing so illegally, and are now not due to the law change, then the people who would have heard them and bought them are no longer doing so either

Word or mouth / ear is a big chunk of advertising

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If history serves as anything: There was once a time when artwork, paintings, and photos costed a lot of money. Forgery was a big business, and highly illegal during this time, copying artwork, with varying punishments.

Now, you just "google" an image, and if you want it you just save it... Set it as your desktop, or go the extra mile and have it "blown up" to be framed or just go to any art store and get one of many replicas. All the frame work done for you. Completely legal, copied art pieces.

Most people don't go buy art to hang up, unless they really like it. I don't see how this is any different than music, or any other artistic or entertainment medium. Record labels, gaming and movie industries are just greedy and refuse to change their ways as time goes on.

That will of course eventually change.

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The reason for low Japanese music sales is simple: AKB48

Holy cow! It's like the cast and crew of High School Musical learned Japanese and jumped up on the stage and started singing! WHY DID I JUST GOOGLE THAT?, lol!

Edit: Sorry, I know it was off topic. Didn't mean to break up the very interesting conversation you guys were having. My apologies! Back on topic....

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