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Napster Deal Fails, Employees Fired
nbc3 ^

Posted on 09/03/2002 9:39:26 PM PDT by chance33_98

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To: Sarah
Just a small detail....How do you propose artists, producers and promoters be remunerated for their efforts?

It is not true that a "recording industry" needs to insert itself between the artists and the consumers in order for the artists to be paid.

The problem the RIAA has is that a large part of what it has historically done for artists is rendered useless by the Internet and computer technology. A "recording industry" was necessary when the equipment required to produce large numbers of physical copies of recorded works was a huge capital investment, and when copies had to be physically packaged, distributed, stocked, and sold around the world. All of that required immense up-front investment in distribution and inventory expense, making it outside the realm of possibility for all but well-established artists.

Now, however, copies can be created on-the-fly, as needed. There is no physical manifestation of the copy, so there is no inventory expense, and no inventory risk. The "capital equipment" required to make copies is a PC connected to the Internet. In short, anyone can do it.

What is happening to the RIAA now is what happened to print magazine smut merchants five years ago, and it is probably cosmic justice that record companies will follow the same path to oblivion.

When the old smut industry disintegrated in the presence of the Internet, smut activity actually increased. There is a market for smut, and pornography is the one area of Internet commerce that everyone agrees is making money. But it's not the same people making it. The Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler empires are dead meat. The industry is literally dis-integrating (in the economic sense) into thousands of little pay-per-view web sites that are increasingly run by the photographers and the models themselves. There is no "recording industry" in that business model.

Whether the RIAA likes it or not, the "music industry" is going to the same place.

There is a similar thing going on in software publishing. There are a fair number of one-man-band software houses out there now that have successful businesses run entirely from the Internet. The days when a clever programmer needed a "software publisher" to get his wares onto retail shelves are gone. I don't think any of these guys are going to turn into Microsoft, but they are making good livings. This can be what the music industry turns into for those artists who choose to make it work. What may disappear are the mega-acts like Britney Spears who are more hype than talent anyway. But very few musicians were ever going to achieve that status. For the vast majority of would-be recording artists, the "Internet model" is actually going to give them a better shot at making a living from their music than they were ever going to get from record companies.


41 posted on 09/04/2002 12:25:24 AM PDT by Nick Danger
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To: chaosagent
I think they would make less because you would buy far fewer CD's. Their industry is based on the star system. They can only justify $18 per CD because you get a lot of songs on a CD. Even though you don't know the songs, you buy them based on the artist's credibility in your view, and you keep it whether you like it or not. Allowing you to purchase only that which you preselected and pre-approved would be incredibly disruptive to their business model.
42 posted on 09/04/2002 12:31:56 AM PDT by monkeyshine
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To: chnsmok


I couldn't resist ;)
43 posted on 09/04/2002 12:58:08 AM PDT by chance33_98
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To: Nick Danger
That is brilliant!

Using the smut industry's fate as an analogy for RIAA's future is perfect :-)

44 posted on 09/04/2002 1:01:22 AM PDT by Bobalu
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To: Sarah
My family doesn't believe in downloading music we haven't paid for, but you should have seen us struggling with temptation and trying to rationalize ourselves into watching a pirated copy of "Lord of the Rings-The Two Towers"! So far we haven't, but December can't come soon enough for us.
45 posted on 09/04/2002 1:24:12 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler
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To: Jeff Chandler
DISCLAIMER: In case any copyright attorneys are out there, we only heard about the LOTR copy. We never went any further with it and don't really know anything about it, and even if we downloaded it without knowing what it was, we deleted it without watching it and couldn't tell you where we got it anyway.
46 posted on 09/04/2002 1:28:49 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler
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To: July 4th
The record companies were hiring crappy new artists anyhow

There have always been crappy artists and there have always been good artists. I mean you have to admit, most of the stuff in the 70s was pretty cheesy. The marketing machine is always geared to younger audiences, the good music is out there, but you have to search for it, and don't expect to hear it on the radio.

47 posted on 09/04/2002 3:39:33 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: chance33_98
The consumer will still continue to drive the market. Those companies/entities which fail to adapt will die on the alter of obsolescence. The market says that file sharing is how the future model will work. I'm just stating the facts. I really doubt that any single non-government entity has the ability to control the trends of millions upon millions of web users. It's a losing battle and the RIAA are living in a dream if they believe they can compete with an army of 12 year old hackers.
48 posted on 09/04/2002 3:42:26 AM PDT by Caipirabob
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To: Timesink
People hear their music online, and then go and buy burn their CDs.

One thing we have today that we did not in, say the 70's when cassette tapes were introduced, is the technology to actually CREATE our own digitally mastered compact discs via the home computer. The quality of these CD's are every bit as good as what you can find in the stores, and are a fraction of the cost.

So, if everyone is burning their own CD's with music they are downloading, where would the artist earn his/her/their money (besides live appearances)?

49 posted on 09/04/2002 3:54:11 AM PDT by peteram
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To: chnsmok
Wondering that myself. What is a Free Republican stance on this.

My rule of thumb is that if I download three or more songs from the same album, and keep them for more than a week, then I'll go and actually buy the album.

Honestly though, my ideal situation would be to pirate the entire album, and send 10 dollars DIRECTLY to the artist. Because it's 9 more dollars for that one CD than the artist would ever see from RIAA.
50 posted on 09/04/2002 4:01:42 AM PDT by WyldKard
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To: WyldKard
I always give a little chuckle when I see people downloading christian music this way :) I am guilty of that myself. On the few times I have done it, perhaps a handful (I honestly don't even know the name of a website to do it anymore since napster died) it was for one purpose - to download christian music I could not find at the stores. Older stuff Like Keith Green (which they did some re-relases and I bought), Wayne Watson and Sandi Patti and the like. I rarely want what is on an entire album, very choosy about the songs I like and I would gladly pay the cost of a cd or more a month just to be able to get only the songs I really wanted.
51 posted on 09/04/2002 4:06:58 AM PDT by chance33_98
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52 posted on 09/04/2002 4:21:30 AM PDT by KneelBeforeZod
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To: chance33_98
Napster still has (had) the best P2P interface for music.

They should have gone to Fiji as soon as the lawsuit was filed, but they were greedy-wanted to be a big cheese onshore-too bad.

RIP, ded kitty.

53 posted on 09/04/2002 4:26:56 AM PDT by Jim Noble
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To: chance33_98
I said it when Napster was born and I'll say it now--you CAN'T make a business out of stealing other peoples work. DUH!
54 posted on 09/04/2002 4:29:45 AM PDT by Musket
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To: Sarah
Do you mean until the end of time or for the work they actually do?
55 posted on 09/04/2002 4:31:02 AM PDT by RWG
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To: Musket
I said it when Napster was born and I'll say it now--you CAN'T make a business out of stealing other peoples work. DUH!

Sure you can, it's called taxes. Works for the government.
56 posted on 09/04/2002 4:35:49 AM PDT by chance33_98
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To: chance33_98
Napster was clearly theft. However, technology in free markets routinely runs ahead of the law, and in this case the genie is out of the bottle. The law must in some way adjust, just as the VCR companies worked out an arrangement to tape television movies.

I am of the opinion that this is PART of the current malaise in tech stocks, and that the industry is in part waiting until this issue is solved to move ahead, because we were on the verge of Internet movies and instantly downloaded music. No more.

57 posted on 09/04/2002 4:45:14 AM PDT by LS
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To: Musket
And I said, that what you said was never the purpose or intention of Napster. They were just the first or most famous of those who recognized a market for mp3 formatted recordings. People who recorded their own music in mp3 for personal use on mp3 players, and still went to the store and purchased cd's to use on their cd players.

I used the vcr industry as a prime example of what legal copying was all about. That industry nearly didn't survive the attacks from the film industry, but guess what, the vcr became the film industries greatest tool for increasing their bottom line, through movie rentals, as well as spawning an entirely new industry.

Nobody knew when Napster began what the combination of Napster, a computer and the internet were going to become, and their are certainly no lack of replacements for the service. The music industry should have been able to reach an agreement, in the same way the film industry reached an agreement that brought them wealth beyond what they thought possible at the time.
58 posted on 09/04/2002 5:13:08 AM PDT by wita
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To: Jeff Chandler
Cool trick for a film that is still being edited. You didn't pay for it, did you?
59 posted on 09/04/2002 6:56:54 AM PDT by savedbygrace
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To: ecurbh
"I guess the RIAA can rest easy now that file-sharing is dead. </sarcasm>"

No, just back into the closet where it belongs.

60 posted on 09/04/2002 7:25:15 AM PDT by elfman2
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