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No kiddingNo kiddingPosted Dec 13, 2005 5:57 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)Parent article: GStreamer to support DRM
> But the incorporation of DRM capabilities into our free system seems like a step in the wrong direction.
Yeah, a giant _leap_ in the wrong direction, IMHO. It's not like FOSS has to to help "poor" Hollywood and recording "artists" grab even more money from unsuspecting public. These people keep bringing in record profits and screaming about being ripped off at the same time. A little bit like banks, down here in Oz - every year more and more billions are taken away from people and yet they keep slamming us with even more fees, claiming it's costing them more money to run the banks (complete nonsense, of course).
It would appear that the entertainment (i.e. this is supposed to be about having fun) industry is taking themselves way too seriuosly these days.
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No kidding Posted Dec 13, 2005 9:02 UTC (Tue) by hein.zelle (guest, #33324) [Link] There are artists out there who are feeling severe pain due to illegal copying. I know of at least one starting group that has basically given up on professional music: as soon as they became popular their CD's were copied so often that they didn't sell worth a dime anymore. On a bigger scale with settled bands and record labels, the problem lies (imo) with record labels and similar companies as well as distributors that first take at least 50% of the money (if not a lot more), pass a tiny fraction over to the artists and then start complaining they're not making enough money due to illegal copying. Most bands, as far as I know, are not at all in favour of making it hard to listen to or otherwise use a CD you've bought by introducing DRM measures.
No kidding Posted Dec 13, 2005 14:53 UTC (Tue) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link] On a bigger scale with settled bands and record labels, the problem lies (imo) with record labels and similar companies as well as distributors that first take at least 50% of the money (if not a lot more)...For more information on how bad the music industry really is with regard to treatment of artists, read The Problem With Music, written by respected indie recording engineer Steve Albini.
No kidding Posted Dec 14, 2005 0:02 UTC (Wed) by jeaton (guest, #34521) [Link] OK, folks, as an indie recording artist AND experience SW engineer, I'll tell you that it is not a question of whether an indie or signed artist is in favour of making it hard to listen to or otherwise use a CD you've bought by introducing DRM measures. Whether you all want to believe it or not, the recording industry really IS being impacted financially by people ripping and copying their music from CDs, which directly impacts signed artists who have a right to get paid for their art and impacts indie artists particularly who now find it a LOT harder to get signed since labels aren't in a financial position to sign as many new artists because it costs tens of thousands of dollars to produce, master, manufacture, market and promote. From my producer and other artists that KNOW the industry, I can tell you that huge numbers of staff have lost their jobs over the last few years as a result of people making copies of other people's CDs rather than for out the cash themselves. Friends, this is nothing short of theft. You can paint it any color of rose that you want...it's still theft. In the vinyl and early CD days the recording industry made money on the fact that every person that wanted to make copies of vinyl or CDs had to accept a copy with degraded audio fidelity by recording to tape. Now with the ability to make digital copies of music on CD with virtually equal fidelity with ease, CDs are being copied in vast numbers resulting in MASSIVE dip in CD sales. So, in summary, as an indie artist, I'm in favor of technologies that can prevent people from ripping me off by allowing others to get my hi-fidelity music for free by copying CDs or MP3s. What you are all talking about has nothing to do with free speach or consumer rights.
No kidding Posted Dec 14, 2005 0:29 UTC (Wed) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link] I can say with a fair amount of experience that your views don't represent the majority of indie artists. In fact, many of my favorite labels sell CDs and vinyl only slightly above *cost* (Touch & Go, No Idea), because they do it for the love of art, not to make a buck. Likewise, I actually *buy* their products because I respect them and their non-profiteering stance. I also go to see their shows and buy t-shirts and other merch, which is where the artists really make a living.
Maybe you should tour more; your fans surely will support you through tickets and merchandising, right? If not, well...
No kidding Posted Dec 14, 2005 1:58 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > Friends, this is nothing short of theft. You can paint it any color of rose that you want...it's still theft.
According to copyright law in the US and many western countries, it is well short of theft. It is called copyright infringement and generally speaking isn't a criminal offence (unless certain conditions are met). That's legally speaking.
Morally speaking, why do some people think that it is OK for them to work once and make money on that forever? I have to go to work every day if I want to make a buck. So does an actor that acts in a theatre, for example. Why should some other people be privileged not to put an effort in every single day?
No kidding Posted Dec 14, 2005 2:27 UTC (Wed) by jeaton (guest, #34521) [Link] Yea, like I said, you can paint it any color of rose you want...
If the music and movie industries are not fueled with funds, they'll simply dwindle away under a model you desire. The demise, however, will not be for lack of demand for the product. It will simply be due to a lack of people with integrity. Businesses, after all are all about making money.
No kidding Posted Dec 14, 2005 4:48 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > Yea, like I said, you can paint it any color of rose you want...
It is a matter of law that conditions exist for copyright infringement to become "theft" (a crimial offence, actually). Just because you think it is "theft", it doesn't make it so. You are just painting it in your colours, while I'm trying to point out the reality (US & Oz):
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
> If the music and movie industries are not fueled with funds, they'll simply dwindle away under a model you desire.
Quick, save the world! Oh, while at it, make sure open source is forbidden too. All the signs show that the "software industry" is already suffering because of those pesky FOSS lovers.
I certainly hope that human existence isn't about "survival of industries". Because if it is, we'll never do anything better than what we know today.
To dwindle away... Posted Dec 15, 2005 5:44 UTC (Thu) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] > If the music and movie industries are not fueled with funds,> they'll simply dwindle away under a model you desire. Now that would be a rosy outcome! No longer will record companies be able to profit by signing bands into indentured labour, throwing up some glossy posters and videos then pressing the 'copy' button at $15 a pop. More likely is that these industries will adapt to a different business model that offers what the real market -- the consuming public, which happens to have taste and duplicating machines of its own -- demands, instead of demanding draconian enforcement of new artificial monopoly rights. People have already started spending less money on prerecorded mass-market CDs and films and more on live entertainment, concert merchandise (including indie recordings, often on CD-R, at a reasonable markup) and art objects -- a direct financial return to numerous individual artists. No-one here is advocating the abolition of copyright. We *are* decrying the attempt to keep general-purpose machines out of the hands of the general public. > The demise, however, will not be for lack of demand for the product. It would be for a lack of demand for the product *at the inflated price* it's offered for. I have no problem paying $20 for a disc if it cost $10 per disc to make the music. I simply don't buy music at those prices if it has already amortised a million times -- unless it's *really* good (I confess, I did buy a couple of Beatles albums at full price a year or two ago).
No kidding Posted Dec 15, 2005 0:18 UTC (Thu) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link] It is not, let me repeat not, an artists right to get paid for their work. That may be trivially true, but I still feel it's important to stress the point since it is one of the most often repeated untruisms (if that's a word).
The right lies solely with the customer. It is my right to buy whatever stuff I like. And I don't like revokable licenses to listen to songs on approved equipment. I do buy CDs from time to time, but never DVDs.
No kidding Posted Dec 15, 2005 8:07 UTC (Thu) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] "the recording industry really IS being impacted financially by people ripping and copying their music from CDs"
That is most likely true. Some data suggests the impact is a positive one for some parts of the industry, but whether positive or negative it's extremely unlikely to be exactly zero.
The recording industry seems to be suffering as much if not more from their own paranoia and bad business decisions than from illegal redistribution (note that ripping and copying per se have no financial impact on the recording industry whatsoever unless there is also distribution).
People who don't buy CD's today are basically the same people who weren't buying CD's ten years ago--they still listen to music, but now they can listen to music more easily, reliably, and with higher audio quality than ever before. If we magically made it impossible for these people to listen to music without purchasing a CD, they wouldn't listen to music at all, or they'd revert to some technologically backward behavior like singing to each other. About the only way the recording industry is going to extract money from these people is if they get a grant from the government.
New artists are adapting to changes in their environment. Signing up with a major record label is fairly far down the list of likely outcomes even at the best of times, but now one could get oneself featured in a game or TV commercial soundtrack, or run a website with a PayPal donate button to cover studio expenses without intending to make a living from music performance.
Why pay tens of thousands when a cheap laptop, some specialized audio gear (which you can often rent), and a web site or a popular blog is all you need to reach a worldwide audience? This is the *real* threat to the recording industry--not that individual consumers will rip off artists, but that the artists and consumers will figure out that they only need each other, and stop signing contracts with the recording industry.
This is why DRM targets media player vendors, and why consumer electronics vendors find DRM so fascinating. DRM prevents consumers and artists from connecting with each other without the approval of a third party. A widely deployed DRM system can put the recording industry under the control of the DRM systems vendor, at which point the recording industry is pretty much irrelevant--the recording industry will still carry all the risk, but the DRM system can raise fees or pull the plug any time the industry doesn't contribute enough back to the DRM system vendor.
Assuming we are not all forced to implement DRM, most good artists are not really going to notice when the recording industry implodes (or at least drastically restructures itself to cope with reality). By that time the artists will know where the audience is and have the technical means to reach them, and vice versa, so the benefits that a traditional recording industry can provide just won't matter any more. The recording industry is not going to go away, but it is going to have to change quite a bit to focus on the remaining useful things it does do well. One of the first things the industry has to do is stop trying to accelerate its own destruction with DRM...
No kidding Posted Dec 15, 2005 13:34 UTC (Thu) by arafel (subscriber, #18557) [Link] The reports I've seen - the independent ones, not the ones paid for by the RIAA - conclude that the impact of copying is at worst negligible, and at best positive, and that the sales reduction is primarily due to bad decisions by the record companies.
If you have credible evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested to see it.
Yes, the *recording industry* Posted Dec 15, 2005 15:47 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] Very specifically, the bureaucrats and hangers on who spend way too much time and money on dubious projects, dubious studio time, dubious marketing. The artists themselves are not suffering nearly as much as the incompetent bloated middle layers. The *recording industry* will adapt, sooner or later, to the modern age and eliminate the bureaucrats and hangers on who pollute the artists' world. In the meantime, the Internet is exposing more clearly than ever how inefficeint that industry is, and voting with its ears to ignre their squealing.
No kidding Posted Dec 22, 2005 21:32 UTC (Thu) by graydon (subscriber, #5009) [Link] "artists who have a right to get paid for their art"
I see this assertion often, yet it is false. Artists do not have a right to be paid for their art. If you have an employment contract or a sales agreement, sure, you can enforce the agreement. Art in general? No. Society does not owe someone money because they create art.
If you create art, you have certain limited rights to control its replication, performance, association with your name, etc. For a while. If you cannot monetize those rights in the alloted time -- say because you produce lousy art, or are a lousy salesperson, or made the mistake of locking it inside a DRM scheme -- that is your problem.
Customers broadly understand that failure to pay will eventually result in production drying up. They'll pay for stuff. Most people are honest buyers of stuff priced at reasonable-seeming prices (i.e. not ever-rising prices when production and distribution costs are obviously falling).
People are not going to buy something "because you wish it so", or think you have a right to it. You have to be selling something a customer wants, at a price they like. If DRM turns out to be "sorta sucky", people don't have to buy it. They can buy a skipping rope, or put their money in a jar.
Here's a list of "sorta sucky" aspects of various DRM schemes which will drive potential customers away:
- no ability to timeshift
All these things make the DRM'ed content unappealing from a sales perspective. They are not "sellable" features. Customers will not ask for them. Some customers might tolerate them, if you're the only game in town. But a certain number will just decide that your art sucks, isn't worth the hassle. They might go to your non-DRM-selling competitor. Or, if you're a real jerk and have legislated all non-DRM-selling customers out of business, your customers may just go play a video game. Or go for a walk. You have no right to their money.
No kidding Posted Dec 25, 2005 16:01 UTC (Sun) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] Thats another issue.Let me put it very succinctly. If I am required to run some kind of junk that you folks put out to listen to music, I won't. This industry may be your bread and butter, but it is in no way a necessity to me. I really don't care about your business model. If the music attracts me in a format that I can stomach, you will get my money. Let me repeat. It is not my concern whether you eat or not. My concern when it comes to music is my enjoyment. Your sense of entitlement and the drive to make it difficult for me to enjoy music is making me not want to support you. Derek
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