Song Swapping Not Deterred

Luriden · Post by **Luriden** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 12:23 pm

Sorry, I know you all are tired of RIAA topics, but I saw this on my AOL welcome screen and thought some of you might be interested in it like I was:

LOS ANGELES (June 30) - Despite the threat of lawsuits from the recording industry, music fans across the country continued to swap songs illegally over the Internet, many taking precautions to remain below the radar.

Kazaa, the most popular software for file sharing, saw a significant decline in user traffic during the first 10 hours following Wednesday's announcement by the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major music companies. But traffic bounced back within 24 hours.

From Wednesday afternoon to Friday morning, the number of users signed on to the FastTrack network - the system that supports Kazaa and Grokster - fluctuated between 3.4 million and 4.4 million, according to figures reported by Kazaa.

''The numbers have been consistent-to-normal fluctuation,'' said Richard Chernela, a spokesman for Kazaa parent Sharman Networks.

Grokster saw downloads increase Thursday between 5 percent and 10 percent, said the company's president, Wayne Rosso.

Recording industry officials said Friday they don't expect their campaign to produce change overnight.

''This is a long-term effort,'' said RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss. ''We are committed to communicating the message that offering copyrighted music online is illegal. It hurts artists, songwriters and everyone else who brings music to the public, and we will hold those who engage in this activity accountable.''

The RIAA said it would file several hundred lawsuits against individuals within eight to 10 weeks seeking financial damages of up to $150,000 per copyright song.

The plan was met with skepticism in some quarters.

''The recording industry is not going to win if all they do is sue people,'' said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based advocacy group on technology and copyright issues. ''They can sue all they want, but that's not going to make CD sales go up.''

In the past, the industry went after the file-sharing services themselves, succeeding in shuttering pioneer Napster. But newer services like Grokster and Morpheus have managed to dodge the courts so far by decentralizing their systems and arguing they had no control over usage.

The RIAA hopes that by going after users directly, it can end the rampant piracy it blames for a three-year slump in music sales.

While the recording industry's threat appeared to have little effect on the pace of downloading over the most popular file-sharing services, the move drew the ire of many fans, driving speculation that it could ultimately backfire and encourage a new crop of file-sharing services capable of keeping users anonymous.

Filetopia already promises to do just that, and another, called Blubster, is to launch Monday.

''If the recording industry succeeds in their goal of making large numbers of people feel unsafe in their file sharing, it's a safe bet that someone will come along to fill the sudden demand for an easy, safer way to use P2P,'' said Adrian Lamo, 22, a communications researcher from San Francisco.

For now, many users of file-sharing services say they take some precautions, but remain undeterred.

''I don't think that I trade in the volumes that they would be interested in,'' said Alec Cumming, 24, a Los Angeles film restorer who estimates he has 200 downloaded songs on his computer. ''If they really went after me, I would pretty likely stop. I'm not making any money off of it.''

Others hoped to skirt the RIAA's sweep, which is initially targeted at those who share ''substantial'' collections of MP3 files, by simply disabling the sharing feature on their software - something the RIAA hopes will mean fewer songs available on the networks.

''I turned (the feature) off because they're on their witch hunt, and I think the witch hunt will die off and prove to be just that,'' said Jeff Gregory, a Web editor in North Palm Beach, Fla., who uses Kazaa.

404NotFound · Post by **404NotFound** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 12:53 pm

Like I said before, to sue the most active music listeners is basically crippling their core audience. CDsales--;

hearld500 · Post by **hearld500** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 1:00 pm

Exactly.

Luriden · Post by **Luriden** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 1:16 pm

I'm actually too scared to use KaZaA anymore. I never shared to begin with, but I'm just scared to download at all now. Now I just use FTP servers at Gamingforce.com to download albums, but I still find myself buying albums more than I download them. I couldn't boycott them, I buy CDs on a regular basis. Their plan has seemed to work on me.

I used to always download albums before buying them though, like the new AFI for example. I downloaded it because I was broke at the time, fell in love with it and just bought it yesterday. Who says piracy is completely evil?

Post by **pixel** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 1:50 pm

I like how they say it hurts everyone else except the record company

Lartrak · Post by **Lartrak** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 1:56 pm

I'd suggest pirating your favorite artists albums, then send them a check in the mail for $5-$10. It's way more money then they'll get from a CD, and the recording industry is not exactly deserving of the billions they get.

Post by **Specially Cork** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 2:06 pm

American record labels spend so much money on album production, that the bast majority would need to sell millions more than they ever could before they would even break even.

Sure, there is the odd suprise album that does well (like Hybrid Theory) but you can guarantee that Meteoroa would've cot a lot more to produce, and won't make nowhere near as much money.

The RIAA also seems to think if they stopped people downloading all these mp3s, everybody would go out and buy the albums. Not true. There is a lot of music on my computer that's good, but thats because I only enjoy certain songs from a lot of bands, not the whole album. I'm not going to buy an album based on magazine reviews or one song.

Record companies need to realise that people are willing to pay for music, if it represents good value and allows you to filter out the crap. Nobody wants to buy an album for one or two songs. Some are beginning to realise this, but they end up offering mp3s at ?1 each, which means a 40 double disc compilation (which are very common) would cost you ?40 to make legitimatly, plus the equipment needed. In the shops a similar compilation would set you back ?12-?15 all professionaly pressed with inlay booklet etc. Not what I call value for money.

atf487 · Post by **atf487** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 2:55 pm

I think the reason why record companies have to take so much money is because only 1% of their artists make a profit. Like for every band like Coldplay, there's a thousand Palo Alto's. So to make money, they need to take that much.

But, they also could do things a lot more intellegently. For instance, like spending 1,000,000 on production for an up and coming band, when you could just use pro-tools to record it, which would sound very good, but only cost around 1000 for the program/board/etc, and sound quality would be like what you'd get in a studio. DL some garbage MP3s to see what I mean.

404NotFound · Post by **404NotFound** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 3:38 pm

Lartrak wrote:I'd suggest pirating your favorite artists albums, then send them a check in the mail for $5-$10. It's way more money then they'll get from a CD, and the recording industry is not exactly deserving of the billions they get.

I think that's the best idea i've heard yet.

Though it could get the artists in trouble with breech of contract and such.

farrell2k · Post by **farrell2k** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 4:21 pm

I don't think that most artists even own the copyrights to what they produce through th major labels. It would be dumb to let an artist keep the rights, because it would possibly limit your ability to market the music, since the artist could technically demand you stop selling it, etc.

There is no way to improve sales figures. They can't stop online file swapping, and lowering cd costs will not work either. They will just have to be content with the billions they already make.

Lartrak · Post by **Lartrak** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 6:57 pm

I'd like to mention - if there were any artists I actually liked producing *new* songs I actually liked, I'd be willing to pay a $1, maybe $2, for that song in CD audio format. Point in fact, I might be willing to do that for older songs, but I doubt we're gonna see that happen.

99.9% of the songs I listen to are at least 15 years old.

Egotistical EvilN · Post by **Egotistical EvilN** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 10:26 pm

Do your worst, RIAA.

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 10:50 pm

DetunedRadio wrote: But, they also could do things a lot more intellegently. For instance, like spending 1,000,000 on production for an up and coming band, when you could just use pro-tools to record it, which would sound very good, but only cost around 1000 for the program/board/etc, and sound quality would be like what you'd get in a studio. DL some garbage MP3s to see what I mean.

A decent board alone is going to set you back more than that. I do agree, however, that spending $1,000,000 to produce an album is pointless. Most decent studios are already equipped with ProTools. While a major label release isn't going to be made using $100 microphones ($100 is cheap for a mic) they don't have to buy the uber-expensive condenser mics to produce pop or rock music. If the labels want to turn a profit on more of their releases, they just have to stop paying outrageous prices for over-produced crap. While a decent studio setup will cost many thousands of dollars, and equipment maintainance will cost a few more dollars, it doesn't justify what many labels are willing to spend (which also is an advance on the band's cut of record sales. If the album doesn't sell, the band doesn't make a dime.) A good album should (in my opinion, based on experience in smaller studios) can be produced in a week or two. The last CD I performed on (which sounded great) had 9 songs and took a total of 3 days to record, mix, and master and cost a total of about $500. Naturally a major label will spend more than that, but if the musicians come in to the studio prepared and know the material inside out, it shouldn't take long to record. The mistake that is too often made is that albums are written in the studio. This is a waste of money, because writing can take place in somebody's garage, demos can be recorded on a $200 4-track cassette machine by the band, and the real money doesn't have to be spent until it's time to record it for real.

farrell2k wrote:I don't think that most artists even own the copyrights to what they produce through th major labels. It would be dumb to let an artist keep the rights, because it would possibly limit your ability to market the music, since the artist could technically demand you stop selling it, etc.

It depends on the individual contract. If you have good legal representation, you should be able to keep the copyright to your songs, although the record label will have the exclusive right to market and distribute the sound recordings produced while you're under contract to them.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 12:42 am

I doubt that the record companies would want to let them keep the rights to their own songs. That'd mean they wouldn't be able to exploit them as much.

I still like the idea of downloading MP3s for an album, and sending the money off to the artists. Of course, the record label would probably try to sue you if they found out, because they wouldn't get a cut.

I think that having music for sale in MP3 format is really stupid, since MP3s just don't sound anywhere near as good as a CD, even at stupidly high bitrates (like 320kbps). It'd be better to download it in a format like FLAC, which is about 4:1 compression and is totally lossless, so would produce an identical track to the original CD.

Narcissus · Post by **Narcissus** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 1:29 am

We built our own recording studio (no where close to what a professional studio has), but it's still the best around this area. We've recorded over 200 songs, and have released 16. We got 1100 copies of our first cd made professionally (I did the artwork, and my brother recorded/mixed the music). We spend a few thousand on it, (got it professionally printed, and registered with SoundScan) and it's selling like hotcakes around here, and the next cd we release will be a double cd with over 40 tracks on it. We're constantly upgrading the studio, so the sound just keeps getting better and better. There is another local guy that stole some of our songs and put them on his cd (that he produced from home, didn't spend the money to get it mass produced) and didn't give us any credit for those songs. So there's a big deal going on here now about that. If you'd like to hear the track my brother did about this guy it's here.

Here's our mp3.com page. http://www.mp3.com/bumps

We know we aren't going to turn a profit on the first few cd's, but we're talking to a local record place about state distribution, and possibly in a few other states here in the midwest. If we ever make it big, we can rerelease the old cd's we've put out for even more cash. We're constantly in the studio that's why I haven't been around much... but I'm trying to do something here, and I get easily sidetracked when I get caught up on Dcemu. I end up spending all my time on here (I'm bad about regulating myself on stuff).

I honestly support any artist I think deserves it. From one musician to the next, if you make good music and people enjoy your stuff, good things will come. If you can make it on your own without a record label, the paybacks will be a lot more (in most cases). I think what file sharing with music is going to do is weed out all the crap. The good artists of each genre will survive, but the bunk ones will go down the drain. People will download the one good song you have, instead of paying for your whole album.

/end ramble... lol

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 2:14 am

BlackAura wrote:I doubt that the record companies would want to let them keep the rights to their own songs. That'd mean they wouldn't be able to exploit them as much.

Like I said, it depends on the terms of each individual contract. As far as I know, the record company pretty much always owns the copyright on the sound recording, because they front the cash for it and that's what they're really trying to exploit. (That's what the (P) means. It's the same as (c), only pertains specifically to sound recordings.) The performance rights, rights to produce copies of the sheet music, etc... for the songs is a different matter which will vary depending on the deal between the individual artist and record label.

I remember reading that back when Black Sabbath put out their first album, they actually even retained the rights to the sound recording and just leased the master tapes to the record label, which led to the album being released on several different labels over the years.