EggyToast wrote:
quoted 7 lines For example, one idea being heard a lot recently is the idea of a
>
>> For example, one idea being heard a lot recently is the idea of a
>> compulsory license, where everyone accessing the Web will have to pay
>> a monthly fee [say a few dollars] and will then be able to freely
>> download whatever music they want from wherever they want.
>
> See, I don't see how a blanket license would work, either.
Points well taken...there are a lot of problems with the compulsory
license suggestion too. Another problem is that you couldn't do this
only for music -- eventually video, text, images, and software would
have to be addressed as well.
But OTOH -- do you have any better ideas?
This compulsory license idea has emerged as a likely contender for a
solution because everything-for-free is not a solution, DRM/copy
protection will not work, and there remains a huge consumer demand for
obtaining music through P2P systems. Plus, whatever the [debatable]
effect of P2P on record sales at the moment, in the long run widespread
broadband and improving P2P tech will result in a situation where you
can get the full CD-quality files of anything...I can imagine buying
many CDs myself when it gets to that point. Some people will perhaps
continue buying music in physical form, but that market will shrink
drastically in the long run, I think.
This proposal is currently being discussed quite widely on the
Net...what does anybody else think?
In spite of its problems, at the moment I'm personally leaning in favor
of the idea...Digital Cutup Lounge gets far more downloads than CD
sales, and it would be great to get paid for that. If implemented
correctly, the effect of this ought to be to direct a lot more money
toward the kind of non-mass-market artists we talk about here on the IDM
list -- their fair share anyway.
Actually this proposal should be ESPECIALLY good for IDM as a genre
because I would guess IDM and electronic music in general have a higher
proportion of computer-literate fans who download tracks and that would
show up in the statistics.
John
quoted 56 lines Certainly, not everyone who uses the internet uses it to download
> Certainly, not everyone who uses the internet uses it to download
> music, even those with high speed connections. Me, for example; I may
> say "I download something I've heard some good things about but I'm
> not sure about buying it," but I actually download very little music
> -- maybe a track a month or so. Never an album. I tried downloading
> an album or two a while back and although I got every track, I never
> listened to it. I had other CDs that I actually spent money on that
> demanded more of my time, if for no other reason than the money issue.
>
> The thing that bugs me about that is that a blanket license would not
> be an equal license. People who download very little music, akin to
> the radio or radio taping, are not a problem to the record industry.
> And people who download tons of stuff would be going above and beyond
> what the license covers and use that as an excuse to certainly not buy
> anything.
>
> What's really funny about "losing sales to piracy" is that there are
> probably few sales actually *lost* to piracy, unless you're
> considering people who buy something and then dislike it. If someone
> likes something, they're usually very willing to buy it eventually. I
> mean, MP3's are akin to borrowing a friend's CD for a while for those
> people -- they listen to it a few times and decide to pick it up for
> themselves soon. But the people who buy albums blindly, or based on a
> few songs (like most "popular" albums that get radio play) are bought
> by people who like the one song, but may very well dislike the album
> as a whole. Those are the people that are turning down purchases
> thanks to p2p, and I see that more as quality control than as "lost
> sales."
>
> If I make a car that runs fine but falls apart after a month, some
> people are going to be duped into buying it, but after a while the
> public will get clued in that I make a crappy product overall. The
> record industry tries to avoid that by releasing such a massive volume
> of music. Personally, I think that's why p2p won't really affect the
> smaller labels, for the sole reason that most albums that come from
> smaller labels are consistent throughout the entire album. There
> aren't "hits" and there's rarely filler, so there actually is
> incentive for album purchase. That rarely exists in more "mainstream"
> albums.
>
> But, of course, this has all been hashed through countless times
> before :D
>
> derek
> -------
> eggytoast.com
> -------
> coming soon: eggtastic.com
>
>
>
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--
John von Seggern
producer - DJ - researcher
email <johnvon at digitalcutuplounge dot com>
bio <
http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com/newsite/jvsremix.htm>
home <
http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com>
school <
http://ethnomus.ucr.edu/jvs/bio.html>
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