I share a similar point of view. If a kid with a dollar per week allowance
downloads a song from Napster, the artist and label that song belongs to
isn't losing any money, because the kid never had the funds to buy the CD in
the first place. Lets say the "industry" makes a finite # of album
pressings.
1) Scenario: The kid hates the song. He will delete it.
RESULT: NO CD is sold, Industry neither profits nor loses $.
2) Scenario: The kid likes the song. He might save up 3 more dollars and
buy the single.
RESULT: 1 CD is sold, Industry profits $.
3) Scenario: The kid likes the song, but it's not availble on a single,
only on the $18 LP. This kid is not going to be able to save for 18 weeks
plus tax and still be able to be a normal candy-eating, video-game playing
kid. No matter how good that song is, he'd never be able to afford the
disc. He keeps the MP3 song.
RESULT: NO CD is sold, Industry neither profits nor loses $.
4) Scenario: The kid is older now, and has a $10/week allowance. He's spent
the past few years downloading music, and is really getting into listening
to music. Now that he has a little more money, he just might go out and buy
a CD or two!
RESULT: 1 CD is sold, Industry profits $.
5) Scenario: The kid gets DSL at home, downloads music day and night, burns
the MP3's to CD for archival. He doesn't need to buy CD's because they're
free on Napster!
RESULT: NO CD is sold, Industry neither profits not loses $, because a
physical copy of the media, which is how music is sold, has not been stolen.
That finite # of pressings will eventually sell, just maybe not as fast as
they would with Napster. MP3 hasn't been around long enough for the world
to get a clear picture of how they affect the music economy, and by
terminating such a new and potentially world-changing technology in it's
infancy, it may actually do more harm than good in the long run.
Technologies must be allowed to grow and evolve in order to understand them.
Imagine if years ago, nuclear weapon research was suddenly halted, and the
half-developed technology became public knowledge (which all things
eventually do anyway, due to social entropy). We'd have a serious crisis on
our hands, MUCH worse than it is now.
----------------
Exactly what method of replication can warrant "piracy" ? If someone
downloads an MP3, the Industry calls that piracy. What if someone else
(with an exceptional memory) listens to a song on the radio, remembers it
note for note, beep for beep, whatever the case may be: when that person
plays back the song in his head, and enjoys humming it to himself just as
much as he did hearing it on the radio, is he pirating that song? Is he
costing the industry money because he didn't have to go out and buy the CD
to enjoy the music?
----------------
Back to Mozart. Any money musicians made back then was given to them for a
live performance. There was no such thing as recording media, so the only
way they made a living was by performing. I think thats how it should still
be done. Use cheap CD's to attract people to the concert. Charge a
reasonable but profitable (never greedy) amount to get in, and let people
enjoy the sounds. Let them enjoy the sounds after the show as they listen
to the dirt-cheap CD. Trust me, they'll come back for the next tour.
Thats all for now.
quoted 83 lines ----------
> ----------
> From: Jeff/Ninja Tune
> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:58 AM
> To: idm@hyperreal.org
> Subject: Re: [idm] record sales and napster
>
> It goes as such...
>
> -if you're a real music fan and you're current state of living dictates
> you
> can spend $100/week on music, I think regardless of Napster you'll still
> spend that $100, but due to Napster (or other systems) you'll just have
> more
> to listen to and be able to make better choices on where that $100 is
> being
> dropped.
> -my worry is long term as a generation of people comes up who never had
> the
> "record shopping experience" that we would have all had. But I think by
> that
> point I think most "illegal" download sites will have been forced back
> underground and the majority of people will only know how to access paid
> sites. I liken it to the porn industry. I remember in 1995 when I first
> got
> a modem it seemed like the entire web was free porn. Try finding it now
> without having to spend loads of time.
> -and for the record, we never saw a slip in sales during the entire
> Napster
> boom but that could have been attributed to many other factors outside of
> Napster. It's entirely possible that we could have been selling more than
> we
> did but can't really say, and since we saw a rise in sales I can't
> complain
> about it.
>
> Like I said, didn't have a problem with the theory, just with the players.
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
> on 2/14/01 6:22 AM, Hew Maxwell at hewtwit@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > Just read Jeff from ninja-tune's mail. I assume there are quite a few
> people
> > in here who own record labels/are trying to put out records. And I
> assume of
> > those of us listening to 'idm' (argh, how I hate that term) most of us
> have
> > access to napster. Probably significantly more so than most other
> genres. So
> > I'd like to ask the record label owners this; what has happened to sales
> > figures since napster came along? Has it affected them dramatically in
> any
> > way? I for one use napster, but am probably buying the exact same amount
> of
> > music as before, if not more. That goes for everyone I know as well. If
> > anything it has made me more aware of the need to support the artists I
> > think are great. I'm sure, as has been said so many times, it's going to
> > fuck the majors, but will it really affect the 'underground?' I'm not
> > saying it won't, but if it is going to - surely it would have started
> > already?
> >
> > So record label owners - let us in on your sales figures.
> >
> > Hew
> >
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