How scared of the RIAA are you?


How worried are you of being caught by the RIAA??  

275 members have voted

  1. 1. How worried are you of being caught by the RIAA??

    • A lot
      8
    • Somewhat
      33
    • Only A little
      56
    • Not at all
      177
    • I already have been =(
      1


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They used to say "home taping" was killing music, now it's meant to be internet downloaders. But the real pirates these days are crime bosses - and the rewards are plentiful.

The net has given rise to many novel ways of doing business but the methods of the Recording Industry Association of America has got every twisted e-commerce scheme beaten.

Last month, the association began suing hundreds of its customers. For the RIAA - which represents the major US recording companies - this makes perfect sense.

The people being sued are sharing music with millions of others via peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa, Grokster and Morpheus.

This tidal wave of subpoenas is the latest in a series of steps the RIAA has taken to stop "file-sharing" which, it believes, is causing CD sales to fall through the floor.

According to the RIAA, CD sales dropped by 10% in 2001 and a further 6.8% last year, largely because of file sharing.

In America and the rest of the world the biggest culprit in falling music sales is large-scale CD piracy by organised crime.

In just three years, sales of pirate CDs have more than doubled, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

Every third CD sold is a pirate copy, says the federation.

The IFPI's Commercial Music Piracy 2003 report, produced in early July, reveals pirate CD sales rose 14% in 2002 and exceeded one billion units for the first time.

Not least in the East

The pirate CD market is now so big, $4.6bn (?2.86bn), it is "of greater value than the legitimate music market of every country in the world, except the USA and Japan".

Pirate CDs on sale in Malaysia

In some countries it is hard to find legitimately produced CDs. Ninety percent of CDs in China, for instance, are pirate copies.

Counterfeiters have forced the price of a fake CD down to about $4, which only makes CDs in the music shops look even pricier.

Embarrassingly major record labels and distributors have been fined twice by the US Federal Trade Commission for price fixing their products.

However, pirates are not solely responsible for the crisis in the music industry. After all, it is actually producing CD titles.

Replacing vinyl

According to the RIAA's own figures, over the last two years the US music industry has produced 25% fewer CDs.

The peak of production was in 1999 when 38,900 individual titles were released. But by 2001 this was down to 27,000. Releases grew again in 2002 but were still below the previous high.

Singles are important to fans but few record firms

Musician George Ziemann says if only 3,000 copies of each of the "missing" CDs were sold, the fall in sales would be wiped out.

For Mark Mulligan, an analyst with Jupiter Research, the music is weathering a hangover after the 80s and 90s boom, when everyone was buying CD versions of their old vinyl records.

"Now the CD replacement cycle has drawn to a close," he says.

Also the global decline in CD sales is taking place against the background of a general economic recession that is depressing sales of almost everything.

After piracy and the production of fewer CDs comes the changing dynamics of the music industry.

Competing for kids' cash - mobiles are another new demand

Many of the people using file-sharing systems are looking for singles. By contrast the music industry is focussed on shifting albums.

This is reflected in sales figures. In the US sales of CD singles generate only a few percent of the total market. In the UK, it's 10% of all revenues.

Typically, singles are used to drum up support for an album, being hyped weeks in advance and played heavily on radio and TV long before they go on sale.

With nowhere to get these singles and no desire to buy an expensive CD album just for one song, it is no wonder many fans turn to file-sharing systems.

Finally, music just isn't as important to young people as it used to be. There is more competition than ever for the cash in a teenager's pocket.

"Youths are no longer defining themselves by music in the same way they used to," says Mr Mulligan.

New markets springing up

Now, he says, brands, clothing and lifestyle are as important as music.

Added to this is the rise of the mobile phone, the increasing popularity of computer games and DVDs.

In the past the music industry had young fans almost to itself. Now it has to compete for the limited cash in a young person's pocket like never before.

The music industry cannot hope to sue everyone using file sharing to find music as that would take hundreds of years and already the US legal system is complaining about the work the RIAA is heaping upon it.

There is no doubt that some piracy is going on via peer-to-peer systems but maybe not to the extent the RIAA fears. Perhaps it is about time they sang a different song.

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ya i'm with you, i'm more worried about the MPAA than the RIAA, i have not downloaded a non-live song in years. but movies ..well that is adifferent story altogether :whistle: :shifty:

i second that *cough 150 and counting cough*

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The same applies to music.? The earlier comment about the whole world could download 100 songs b/c with music there are no costs to cover was made by someone who obviously has not worked in the industry.

...

Those same 100 songs, say 10 CDs worth, at an average price of $!7 per CD, are worth $170.? Now, factor in 100 people downloading the pirated songs - and there goes $17,000 in revenue.? That's for 100 people folks.

No physical product is lost or altered.

You can only count this as "lost revenue" if people are downloading things for which they would otherwise have paid. Many people download things they would *not* otherwise go buy, as their interest wouldn't be great enough. They'd just do without, tape off the radio, or listen to a friend's recording. People download things because they're curious about music and so on, and that's a good thing--those who download music actually *increase* the amount they buy over the long-term. The vast majority of what's downloaded is *not* a lost sale, and cannot properly be considered "lost revenue". It needs to be thought of as someone spinning through the radio dial with a bit less manipulation about what they turn up.

The other problem with calculations of this "lost revenue" is that it's done at the price the industry wants to charge, period. In a proper, fair, awake market, the music industry would realize it needs to drop its prices one way or another as it's now competing with DVDs/Netflix, videogames, Internet, etc. It doesn't. The industry is bloated, careless, and sloppy in how it goes about things, and it's time to sober up rather than thinking all its problems just *must* be to blame on this "file-sharing" thing.

You obviously haven't "worked" in the industry anywhere near long enough, nor understand "basic" business fundamental:whistle:le:

In all frankness, the "industry" in its role of information-sharing, etc. is now nowhere near as "important" as it perhaps once was. Sure, there'll still be soundtracks and the like, but the industry frankly is due for a massive constriction, whether it likes it or not. It's just not worth that much relative to all the other competing forms of information that are now out there.

Edited by poind
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You obviously haven't "worked" in the industry anywhere near long enough, nor understand "basic" business fundamentals.

Yeah, right. And the internet doesn't side-step capitalism at all. :rolleyes:

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The same applies to music.? The earlier comment about the whole world could download 100 songs b/c with music there are no costs to cover was made by someone who obviously has not worked in the industry.

...

Those same 100 songs, say 10 CDs worth, at an average price of $!7 per CD, are worth $170.? Now, factor in 100 people downloading the pirated songs - and there goes $17,000 in revenue.? That's for 100 people folks.

No physical product is lost or altered.

You can only count this as "lost revenue" if people are downloading things for which they would otherwise have paid. Many people download things they would *not* otherwise go buy, as their interest wouldn't be great enough. They'd just do without, tape off the radio, or listen to a friend's recording. People download things because they're curious about music and so on, and that's a good thing--those who download music actually *increase* the amount they buy over the long-term. The vast majority of what's downloaded is *not* a lost sale, and cannot properly be considered "lost revenue". It needs to be thought of as someone spinning through the radio dial with a bit less manipulation about what they turn up.

The other problem with calculations of this "lost revenue" is that it's done at the price the industry wants to charge, period. In a proper, fair, awake market, the music industry would realize it needs to drop its prices one way or another as it's now competing with DVDs/Netflix, videogames, Internet, etc. It doesn't. The industry is bloated, careless, and sloppy in how it goes about things, and it's time to sober up rather than thinking all its problems just *must* be to blame on this "file-sharing" thing.

You obviously haven't "worked" in the industry anywhere near long enough, nor understand "basic" business fundamental:whistle:le:

In all frankness, the "industry" in its role of information-sharing, etc. is now nowhere near as "important" as it perhaps once was. Sure, there'll still be soundtracks and the like, but the industry frankly is due for a massive constriction, whether it likes it or not. It's just not worth that much relative to all the other competing forms of information that are now out there.

Your premise is based upon that fact that many people will go out and buy it if they like it, and the rest would never have bought it in the first place.

My premise is based upon the (loosely termed) facts provided by the RIAA.

I do not like the RIAA< nor do I care to support them, but the fact remains that *their* whole premise is that the lost revenue comes from people who downlaod the music as ooposed to buying the music outright.

I would disagree that most people will go out and buy it if they like it - if they can make a perfectly good opy at home that sounds pretty close to the original, and it only costs them the time online, processing time and the price of a CD-R, then they will opt for the cheaper alternative.

However, I was not stating my argument as my own views, but rather as the views of the RIAA.

I agree - it is the same as when I used to dub albums onto cassette tape to enjoy listening to while driving in my care - eventually, when the cassette wore out I would have to go buy the album if I desired to listen to it further and I had not purchased the album previously in another medium.

But with Electronic media, if you have the space t o keep the music on the HD, it is a backup, thereby ensuring that you will never have to go buy the album again - you just burn another CD when the first one gets too scratched up.

The RIAA is ridiculous for saying that the revenues lost are strictly from "pirated" music by the individual. Yet, my point was that the music is not cheap to make (when it is made at the behest of an RIAA corporation member) and that inevitably there *is* revenue lost.

For some 12 year old kid whose parents buy a computer with a burner in it, $10 will go a long way to buying CD-Rs - more so, in fact, than it will go to buying a new CD. Do you think that 12 year old with limited funds is going to go out and buy the album when he can burn it and buy some Nike's instead?

Last I checked, you can't download Nike's and burn them.

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An important point that many people seem to miss is the fundamental difference between intellectual and physical property.

Physical property can be owned by one person (or organizarion) at a time. If one is stolen, there is a loss of one or possibly two sales (the person who stole it certainly won't buy one, but may have otherwise, plus one unit that was stolen can no longer be sold), plus the production cost of exactly one unit.

Intellectual property, particularly music, software and the like, things that can be digitized, transferred and pirated in that way are very different. Let's say someone buys a CD. There is an even trade and a license has been paid for. Now that person rips and shares that CD at no cost to the original producer. Other people are then downloading that CD, still at no cost to the record companies. There is only a theoretical loss of potential sales on an unlimited scale, as opposed to exactly one with physical property. Meanwhile, all the "stolen" CDs are still in the stores and can still be sold. There is no way for sure of judging just how many sales are lost, so all this talk of financial losses in the millions is bull $#!*; because they really have no idea. They could be losing millions or they could be losing a few dollars. Let's not forget the sales gained by people who use P2P to discover new artists or to preview something before they buy it.

Sure music profits are down in the last few years, but what industry's profits aren't? The economy is in a low right now so why would people be buying luxuries like music when money is tight? Aside from that, in recent years the music industry has been dealing with competition that they didn't have years ago, with things like computers and video games on the rise. There are many alternative forms or entertainment nowadays that didn't exist in the past.

People should really stop using physical property for examples against piracy. Piracy is wrong, I won't deny that. It is, however, inherently different from theft of physical property.

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I firmly believe the recording industry has brought the high rates of piracy upon themselses by charging absorbient prices for CDs. Effectively, they have priced themselves out of the legal distribution market. Their greedy business model was the reason Napster was created. An easy way to screw the music industry as pay back for years of screwing the consumer.

We all know that the artist makes about $1 per CD. $2 per CD if you are VETERAN artist such as Madonna who already spent years earning $1 per CD sold and negotiated a better contract. New bands are lucky if they get $1 per CD. Nonetheless, the recording industry charges from $13.99 to $17.99 for 75 minutes or less of music. At the same time you can get a 2+ hour DVD for $15.99 to $19.99. So they have tacked on an additional $12.99 to $16.99 per CD which costs them a buck to produce. Anyway you slice it it is highway robbery. Especially considering what you get from a DVD for comparison!

If the recording industry could cut out some of the fat in their distriubtion channel and sell a CD for $9.99 or less, I doubt you would see as much pirating of songs. They should try making a better product and people would feel comfortable paying for it. It is that simple.

The difference between physical property and copyrighted property, is that people (with a conscience) will pay a fair price for copyrighted property. People (without a conscience) won't pay for anything they could steal. The people without a conscience justify it by stating that they haven't stolen anything because they don't have a piece of physical property. The way to combat piracy is making a good product at a good price that people are willing to pay for rather than go to any length to get for free.

I think Metallica did a great job with their recent album: St. Anger. You get a CD, an hour long DVD and a few hours of downloadable concert "bootlegs" from their website. I didn't even consider firing up KazaaLite to download the new Metallica album. For $12.99 buying the CD was a STEAL! Anyway you slice it that was worth the $12.99 I paid for it at MediaPlay. If more studios/bands put out albums with this kind of value, the piracy would grind to a halt.

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