On Sun, 2004-12-05 at 11:05 -0700, Siri Amrit Kaur wrote:
> > On Saturday 04 December 2004 09:02 pm, Jared Anderson wrote:
> > > I believe those with good products, ideas, or inventions will be rewarded
> > > regardless of copyright laws (or Kazaa) if what they offer is truly
> > > unique and superior.
> >
> > I agree to some extent. The market likes good stuff and votes with
> > dollars.
> >
> > > I think society evolves how it wishes, and
> > > regardless of what the RIAA wants, they will have to evolve too if they
> > > wish to survive.
> >
> I'm finding this discussion fascinating and elucidating. It's making me think
> of how the Dave Matthews Band has set up its' business model from its'
> inception. This is a little OT, but demonstrates what you're talking about.
>
> DMB does things very differently from most bands, and are consequently far
> more successful than most bands. They've always allowed fans in the audience
> to tape their live performances and distribute those recordings free of
> charge. They used to let tapers to plug into their soundboard, but stopped
> that when people started selling those recordings. The band asks that people
> not sell their live shows, but always give them away. They don't like
> filesharing, but prefer people actually mail the disks to each other to keep
> it personal. They ask that people BUY their studio-recordings, and not make
> copies of those to give away.
>
> The fans spread the free music around and it increases their fan base. Because
> people like what they hear, they're more likely to buy tickets to shows and
> buy their albums when they get released.
>
> When they were negotiating their first recording contract with RCA, RCA wanted
> to put a stop to the live taping. The band refused and RCA gave in. They've
> continued to allow taping and are consistently one of the top three grossing
> bands in the world (with U2 and the Stones.)
>
> This year, they started making some of their best shows available for download
> for a price. These are soundboard recordings which are better quality than
> most tapers can pull. They're marketing these shows directly, bypassing the
> recording company.
>
> Basically, fans respond to the band's talent and generosity by generously
> giving money back to the band. Some people cheat and sell the live shows over
> Ebay, or distribute them as MP3s over the net, but overall it's a hugely
> successful business model. If a lot of artists adopt this model, it will
> force a change in the recording industry.
>
> Sorry if I've bored anyone with this.
----
This hardly represents that much of a difference. 'Impromptu' live
recordings have been part and parcel of popular artists for many many
years. I remember seeing the first Neil Young and Led Zeppelin
'bootlegs' in the early 70's.
OK - so they the record company doesn't stop the life recording.
The problems with the RIAA and the music industry are pervasive. You
have ClearChannel dominating both the live performance and with a few
other radio conglomerates, dominating the radio market.
Virtually the only opportunity other than being backed by a major record
company (slim chances of that happening) for a new artist to break in is
to do all their own production, sales and distribution (web).
This specifically refers to the RIAA which is zealously trying to
protect their ever shrinking profits. I don't mean to dis' DMB - they're
clearly talented, clever marketers and successful. I can't see how the
practices of DMB are likely to have any impact on the recording
industry.
As for the MPAA, which is what I thought was the original topic, where
to view DVD's, you download and install the libdvdcss (or however it is
properly called), and the thought was it was an illegal act. The motion
picture industry is profitable, growing and evidently, acting out of
fear that the P2P users will erode their margins akin to what happened
to the music industry.
I'm glad you find this to be an engaging topic but in the end, it is a
lot of words by those of us who are less than fully informed, make our
own decisions, guided by what we believe to be fair use.
Craig
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