Best solution for the file sharing problem?

[mvd]

Poll question: Best solution for the file sharing problem?

I say add a small internet tax - after all, radio stations and other things have done it in a similar manner. In history, this kind of thing even happened with ships and artwork.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

1. What problem?

The record industry was born (in it's current incarnation) as a result of radio, and they will die as a result of the internet. During their death throes, they are suing some of their customers.

This too, shall pass.

[Guaranteed]

3. And I have no sympathy.

Lucky if you get 2 good songs on an album.
As Eminem said: "Gimme back my sixteen dollars!"

[mvd]

4. Well..

If the things shift to the intenet, we'll still have arguments about sharing. It's possible that the RIAA will cease to exist as we know it, though.

[Guaranteed]

7. Things really have already

shifted. It's over for them.

[mvd]

8. I think there will still be music ownership

But whether it's the RIAA remains to be seen. Sales are better this year, but not great.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

10. Music is something that transcends commerce.

Music is more real than the RIAA. Music is a common language between people who have no words in common. Music is a tiny echo of the vibration of the universe. Music gives voice to the spiritual heart buried in the gross physical body. Music can be created by the deaf, and provide visions for the blind.


And they're gonna stop us from sharing it? You really think if I write a song that I 'own it'? I better never sing it then...

[mvd]

12. I guess I like the thrill of getting the physical package

Call it old-fashioned if you want. :) But I agree: the RIAA has no grasp of the potential of music. They're just thinking about themselves.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

13. I like

a nice double album cover so you can really spread out your lid and clean the seeds out -- now that's old fashioned...

[mainegreen]

2. As if killing peer-to-peer would work

Before peer to peer there were other methods, like FTP. After peer-to-peer there will be something else.

Silly Executives!

[LoneStarLiberal]

5. Lower Prices, Revise Business Model

The record industry (and the motion picture (does that title sound as goofy and antiquated to others as it does to me?!?) industry) is a dinosaur that does not want to evolve. It wants to go about business as usual, ignoring the fact that the world in which it operates is rapidly outpacing it.

These latest lawsuits and the broadness of the DMCA are indications of the lengths to which the industry will go to preserve its hegemony. The only problem is that their hegemony is becoming less and less relevant each day.

Regardless of their backwardness and the overwhelming tripe they produce, we do have laws in the United States. Copyright is one of them, and it needs to remain that way.

What needs to change are not the laws but the industry. Sue as they may, sue as they might, they will change or they will become irrelevant.

More initiatives like iTunes or limited digital copy protection are, in my opinion, steps in the right direction. Sueing customers doesn't work. Threatening ISPs only makes them look more like the bare-knuckled luddites that they are. Undoing all copyright law or even undoing only digital copyright is equally as foolish.

We're simply stuck in a slow evolution cycle. It will pass, but until it does, keep up the pressure!

[starroute]

6. I would bitterly resent paying a tax on net access . . .

. . . to cover some snot-nosed kid's Britney Spears downloads.

On the other hand, music is like water. It flows everywhere, following the paths of least resistance, and seeping into every crevice. You can't stop it flowing.

There's no way the music industry can be allowed to keep getting rich on a basis of artificial scarcity. However, I can see about three ways it might continue to justify its existence:

1) Sell the extras. DVD's are already being marketed on the basis of the add-ons. If CD's came packaged with extras that couldn't be readily downloaded, there'd be a lot more incentive to buy them.

2) Sell freshness. Thanks in large part to the Net, stuff passes through far more quickly these days. It's here, it's big, and then it's yesterday's news. Especially for teenagers, having the latest and best before any of their friends is important. If the RIAA wants to launch an ad campaign suggesting that the really hip kids buy the new releases the day they come out, while the techno-geeks who wait to download them are permanetly a week or two behind the curve, that would be fine with me.

3) Sell the good stuff at a premium. Everyone accepts that there are gradations in software, from the top-of-the-line professional stuff, to cheaper professional programs, to shareware, to freeware -- and that, with rare exceptions, you get what you pay for. Instead of throwing crap at a wall and hoping some of it will stick, why can't the record companies use some of their wonderful market research to figure out who really, really wants what and offer it to them in deluxe form for a price -- while the rest goes out somewhere between cheap and free.

Of course, most of this would require a totally different marketing structure than currently. The present structure, based on old-style radio stations and fueled by payola, is both slow-developing and throw-it-at-a-wall. Instead of trying to kill Net radio, they should be nurturing it, with the aim of developing a fast-moving, closely-targeted, feedback-heavy relationship with music fans.

If all that were in place, there would be no reason for the record companies to worry about people trading around inferior MP3's of last month's music -- they'd be way too prosperous to even notice such marginal losses.

[toddzilla]

9. make it all free

artists make money on concerts, executives make money on albums. screw the executives.


when i release a CD, it will be free for download with a tip jar to contribute whatever people feel like it's worth.

[ikojo]

11. Make downloads free or as close to free as possible.

As the late and Grateful Jerry Garcia said (and I am paraphrasing) concerning allowing Deadheads to not only tape concerts but to trade them as well (as long as it was free trading)......

After I have sang the song I am done with it and you can do with it what you will. "let the words be yours I am done with mine."


The Dead made very little money off their studio work. For a bunch of stoned hippies they understood that the money was made by constant touring.

What I liked about the original Napster is that almost anything I wanted was out there somewhere. It wasn't what some suit in LA or NYC decided I should hear, it was what the FANS wanted to share...thus resulting in a better and more broad selection of tuneage.

[LTR]

14. Every two decades or so

the music industry freaks out about some threat to their product.

First, early radio was feared as cutting into sheet music sales.

Then came the 78, then the LP.

Reel to reel and 8-tracks came along. They all got nervous.

Cassette tape scared teh hell out of them in the early 80's.

CD's scared them even more.

And now, the ability to download a near-perfect copy of a song and burn it on a CD.

Funny thing is, the music industry is still alive and kicking.

[gyopsy]

15. Keep laws current

If CDs didn't cost less than 50 cents to make and weren't being sold for $20, I might be more apt to buy them.

Besides, I've been "stealing" music with analog tapes off the radio for years!