You know those ads they've been playing before movies lately, the ones where they take some guy that does carpentry or stunts or something of the like for the movie and they get him to put on his best feel sorry for me face and talk about how stealing movies is taking bread out of his kids mouth?
Disgusting if you ask me.
The corporate fat cats are worried about a reduction in the massive amount of money they make. They're just using the little guy to play on the publics sympathies. The line that takes the cake for me is at the end when they flash some text on the screen that says "Movies, they're worth it". Clearly, the general public is beginning to say, "no, they're not worth $9 and the popcorn isn't worth $7 either". Perhaps the industry should start listening to it's audience.
Reminds me of the record industry. On that note, here's a very interesting article about iTunes and what that means for artists. I say support artists by going to live shows. They actually get paid for that. Buy a beer at the venue. The venue pays the artist, by supporting the venue, you support the artist. Better yet, buy a t-shirt directly from one of the band members. And then continue to download as much music and introduce it to as many friends as possible.
Uh, how does that work again?
Beer -> Venue -> Artist
is different how from:
Download -> Label -> Artist
Do you really think that the artist is making 10% of whatever the bar takes in for the evening?
Posted by: sp at January 30, 2004 02:46 PMNo. I'm sure they don't get any of the bar tab. They may not even get a percentage of the door. But, as I understand it, they get a guaranteed amount. And most bands claim they make the most money on tour. Which tells me that supporting a touring band - in any capacity, probably does more for the band than buying the CD from Sam Goody.
Posted by: mh at January 30, 2004 02:57 PMIt's disgusting to show commercials of any kind at the $9 movies!
Posted by: ll at January 31, 2004 11:34 AMYeah, they make money at the door from people who buy tickets!
Posted by: sp at January 31, 2004 08:44 PMI have a lot of problems with this site, which I'm not going to get into. If anyone really wants to chat with me about it, go to Donna's site, where I posted, slightly drunk, about it.
After posting to Donna's site and got to thinking about the problem of music and making money. I read in article in USA Today talking about how the taste of music fans is changing. They (me included) are regressing as a result of technology. There was a time on history when musicians released mostly singles on 45s. That was what people bought. As time went on, musicians started making albums, which worked fine until the advent of CDs. The long length of CDs has forced musicians to make longer or more music to fill the space, which is almost twice that of vinyl albums. Anyone who has bought a CD knows that is not always successful. A huge amount of artists, including a lot that I like, are putting out albums with four good songs and 8-11 that are pure shit.
Well, we're moving back to a 45s society, only now we call them mp3s instead of 45s. Musicians, however are still clinging to that album format under the guise of it "encompassing" they're mood at that the time. All I want is music that I enjoy.
Also, why is when people discuss how musicians get screwed by the major record labels we never discuss how stupid they were to sign a bad contract in the first place? Don't they accept any responsibility for buying into such a bad system?
Finally, a question. I buy a CD. I take some songs off the CD and burn them on my own CD for personal use. I give the CD I bought to my daughter. Am I being bad to the artist or am I committing a crime?
Posted by: Kevin at February 1, 2004 10:40 PMWell, the workers at the factory in Vietnam are sort of striking, so I have some time on my hands. My problem with iTunes is this: say a CD costs $12 (give or take a couple bucks), for which you get about 12 songs (give or take a couple songs). Included in that $12 is:
-The cost to stamp the CD
-The cost to print the liner and stick it in a case
-The cost of the case
-The cost to store the thing in a warehouse
-The cost to ship it to a store
-The cost of retail store overhead: rent, employees, etc.
-And a big chunk of profit for the record store
iTunes charges the same price, but without incurring any of the above costs, AND they want me to use their shite overcompressed, low bit rate AAC format, which sounds like crap on any kind of halfway serious equipment. Blow me, Apple. Cut the per song price to a quarter and we can talk. In the meantime, I'll spend the same money and buy the disc, keep Twist and Shout in business, and ensure I still have a high quality hard copy of my music when my computer crashes. There's a reason all these record companies are launching music download sites suddenly, and it's not so they can give more money to the band.
Oh, and I agree about the ridiculous ads they run before the movies. The calculated costs of piracy the studios and software companies always trumpet (billions of dollars!) make one big false assumption: that everyone who ever downloaded an illegal copy of something would have purchased a legitimate copy if the free version were unavailable. Uh, okay. I know in college I was all set to spend $20 THOUSAND dollars of my own money on CAD software, until I found that pirated copy and realized I could spend the money on food and rent instead.
Posted by: Scott at February 3, 2004 01:10 AMTo answer Kevin's question about the legality of burning a few songs and giving a disc to his daughter, that is probably legal. According to Duke Law School, analyzing the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 [http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2002dltr0023.html]:
The AHRA also provides for a royalty tax36 of up to $8 per new digital recording machine and 3 percent of the price of all digital audiotapes or discs.37 This tax is paid by the manufacturers of digital media devices and distributed to the copyright owners whose music is presumably being copied.38 ... In consideration of this tax, copyright owners agree to forever waive the right to claim copyright infringement against consumers using audio recording devices in their homes.39 ...
Posted by: uh at February 3, 2004 08:14 AMWhile I'm not defending Apple or iTunes, they don't incur the same costs as stamping a CD, it's not free to put up a site to sell songs. I do think, however, they have less overhead.
I hae never ordered anything from iTunes and couldn't even if I wanted to. The store only works on iTunes 4 and since Apple has stopped making upgrades for resturant servers who still run Mac OS 9 because they can't currently afford to double their laptop's memory and purchase OS X. But that's a whole other Blog post.
Posted by: Kevin at February 4, 2004 03:11 AMThanks for the tip, uh, nice to know I won't have any RIAA lawyers serving papers. Maybe.
Posted by: Kevin at February 4, 2004 03:13 AM