TV Schedule

Those damn hippies!


  3. embed code
  4. KevinAnderson
  5. related topics
The music industry is panicking about the sales of CD's being down 10% from last year. Is it consumers downloading music instead of buying CD's, or is it ‘silicon valley hippies' who are killing the music industry?
KevinAnderson

18 responses // Those damn hippies!

  • Go Kevin. Sound stuff. But where is the debate about video content? The next frontier will be/is the democratisation of video distribution and the loss of the traditional broadcasters' monopoly. Then maybe the program makers will have the opportunity to forge their own relationships with end-user consumers - or maybe Apple will stitch up video too.
    RodBanner
  • Should the pirates share the blame with the hippies equally, or has the pirate's looting caused irreparable damage to our beloved music industry?
    mattbrawn
  • The day I stop DL'ing my media is when the RIAA is dead, music returns back to an art instead of this manufactured bullshit, and I can directly (and easily) support the artists I like.

    I encourage more artists to put up their own official webpage and allow their fans to directly purchase their music online in the absence of the RIAA, record companies, MTV, etc.

    In this day and age, I will only give my money to the artist. He/she can then give money to his/her producer, editor, whoever.
    Pfestler
  • i'll stick with my initial argument since day one when metallica became whining douches. how can we be fined and arrested for the transferring of 1's and 0's? it's data that is under protection of freedom of speech and the freedom to privacy. as long as we're not distributing and selling downloadable content, why the fuck should anyone care??? viva la resistance! argghhh thar be internet pirates about mateys!
    Thargor19
  • Funny that YouTube's manager would make such a claim, his site offers up not just music to listen to free of charge, but video as well.

    So, who is he to talk!? He's redirecting the heat and blaming someone else.

    The reality is the music industry is down because in part, the music industry. They've had this nice little monopolistic stranglehold on music, what you get to hear and see, and now with the proliferation of internet and technology, they're loosing the control. Poor babies. They've only made billions and billions - they wanted it all, forever damn it!

    The movie industry is no different. A very small number of people, a small mindset determining most of what will be available for viewing to the rest of the country. There's a fundamental problem with this. We complain and talk about corporate media feeding us only what they want us to know to affect what we think and believe. Guess what? It's been that way with the film / tv industry for a century.

    Don't get me wrong, we've had wonderful films and TV shows along the way, and a bunch more garbage, but what did we miss out on?
    VoyagerFilms
  • i dont understand what this has to do with hippies....
    o.O
    ZanzaCat
  • Excellent point! If only more artists would be willing to follow the example of other artists like Radiohead. Their website allowed me to purchase their album In Rainbows directly. I could've even bought it for less than five dollars if I didn't mind having a lesser quality of sound. This strategy of selling albums supports the artists themselves and allows them to have more control over their own art. I know that I would rather have the money go to the artists directly rather than give 80-88% of the royalties to the record companies. It also empowers a more free market approach to how we obtain our music and release it to the world. I suppose that's why the major record labels have fought so hard to avoid it. Btw..that hippie theory is ridiculous. The change in the music industry was inevitable. What did they expect...that everyone would be happy advancing every other aspect of their life with technology except for music? Please!
    stefania
  • Great video! I agree with you that rather than take action and accept the fact that their business models were all obsolete, these RIAA groupies decided to point the finger at whomever they could, while the real innovators embraced digital technology and created digital music empires. I guess their mentality is to not go out without a fight, but not matter how much of a fight they put up, it will not change the occurrences of the digital revolution.
    maxdrumer
  • Very good point
    sumfight
  • RodBanner, good point. Do you use Miro formerly Democracy Player? The TED conference is using it to help distribute their video content, and they've struck deals with public broadcasters in Europe. It's a got a built in BitTorrent client. (Oh, and I'm watching digital TV on Ubuntu using Kaffeine, a great piece of open-source media software.)

    Apart from the points that I made, I'd also like to say that having covered the download debates and the Napster, I don't believe the everyone just wants 'free as in beer' content. I believe that fans want to support the artists that they love. Convenience and choice is important to music fans as well, which is why while the music industry was suing fans, Apple was building a business. Missed opportunity.

    Thanks for the comments everyone!
    KevinAnderson
  • and what does this have to do with "hippies"?
    katelinsdandelion
  • Guess what kiddies? The new business models ARE in place, have been for a couple of years now. If you are continuing to use your favorite P2P to illegally download music than you are stealing.

    That's right friends, YOU ARE STEALING (wash rinse and repeat until that concept sinks in).

    Kevin, I'd love to see a follow up to this piece in which you show us what P2P's are really used for.

    Let's be honest here my man, P2P's are used to download music, cracked software and porn.

    I have not met a single musician or business owner who has ever directed me to a P2P site in an effort to promote their product. Not one...ever.

    I'm sorry but it disgusts me to see people continuing to justify the theft of intellectual property. The 'David vs Goliath' mentality that people have adopted towards the record industry in order to justify their own theiving is a joke.

    McGuiness is right. You want to make money from setting up pipelines that allow the mass distribution of intellectual property without the consent of those who created it? Pay up!

    Anyone on this board who thinks that the music they are illegally downloading is just one's and zero's doesn't deserve to be listening to the artists they are ripping off in the first place.
    Filmpunk
  • Thank you K Anderson...I completely agree with you that there are a lot of people out there (myself included) who do want to support the artists and not steal their music. I'd just rather purchase the music in mp3 format rather than buying cds. If the opportunuity comes for people to purchase artists' mp3s while giving them full royalties, I'm all for it! In the meantime..I suppose I'll just continue to use programs like Itunes and emusic. Thanx again for the video and input!
    stefania
  • hmm filmpunk, rules were meant to be broken. i say keep on stealing and defying laws free peoples of the internet!!!
    Thargor19
  • For those interested in going beyond the rhetoric, here is a transcript of the speech given by McGuinness;

    http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry...
    Filmpunk
  • Filmpunk. Thanks for the link to the whole speech. Yes, he raises some issues (more than I could go into in a minute video) even though as I point out, he also takes the music industry to task for their lack of innovation.

    As for your broadbrush dismissal of P2P as strictly a technology for piracy, that is simplistic and false. In fact, Grokster wasn't busted for being a download service but for 'incitement', encouraging copyright infringement through some of their advertising statements such as 'We are the new Napster'.

    Also, companies like Azureus and Miro (was Democracy Player) are making a business out of P2P - both based on BitTorrent technology. As I mentioned before, Miro has struck deals with the TED conference, and European public broadcasters to distribute their content via Miro. Azureus had a deal with BBC America to distribute HD content in the States. P2P is a very valid and useful technology. The courts have not overturned the Betamax ruling, which says that just because a technology can be used for copyright infringement doesn't render illegal other non-infringing uses.

    What ails the music industry? The fact is that CDs were a high-margin product. There was a period of time when the industry had historically high sales as people replaced their vinyl and cassette music collection with CDs. It was gravy days for the music industry. Now, they are returning to sales that are more consistent with historical averages.

    As for arguments about 'think about the artists', I'd much rather buy music from a company like Magnatune that licences all of its catalogue under Creative Commons and splits all proceeds 50/50 with the artists.

    I'm not advocating piracy, but I also find the music industry's arguments hollow and self-serving. I support artists. I support musicians. I'm not so enthusiastic about supporting the parasitic 'music industry' that treats me as a de facto criminal.
    KevinAnderson
  • Spin it how you'd like Kevin but I can go on to any number of P2P sites right now and illegally download music. This is not an oversimplification my man, this is a fact!

    People get caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar and then get punished for it? Oh well.

    There are a lot of products I would love to have without paying for them. It would be great if somebody would set up a pipeline for me to get easy access to these products with little or no chance of being caught but alas, there are laws that discourage them from doing so.

    McGuinness asks for P2P's to finally be accountable for the content distributed through the services they provide and favors a 'three strike' plan in which users would receive fair warning prior to action being taken against them. Hardly sounds irrational to me.

    I have spent the last 15 years of my life on both sides of a recording console and have witnessed the changes in the industry first hand. Discounting the effect that illegal downloading has had on the recording industry is ludicrous to anyone who has been living and working through the realities of it all.

    I do appreciate that you continue to support musicians (unlike some of the others on this thread) and am happy to agree to disagree with you on this one.
    Filmpunk
  • Filmpunk, we both work in creative industries of sorts whose core business is being disrupted by the internet and changes in consumption. Trust me, the newspaper industry isn't a happy place to be for lots of journalists. Google and Craigslist and changes in consumption patterns have hit the business quite hard.

    Sure, some people rail away against Google for 'stealing' our content. They rail away against Craigslist for stealing classified ads.

    Also, McGuiness wasn't actually calling on P2P networks to be held accountable but actually calling on internet service providers and other tech companies (whose responsibility in this is dubious at best) to share some of the billions they have made.

    The actual impact of piracy is subject to debate, and frankly, I've not seen good numbers from a disinterested party (not the RIAA) that puts a credible figure on these losses directly due to piracy. Although I'm open to some links to figures if you have them.

    I'm not saying and did not say that P2P wasn't being used to infringe copyright, but in line with the Sony-Betamax decision, I was simply stating that there are non-infringing uses of the technology.

    I'm no radical copy-lefter. I don't believe that people should help themselves to free music and movies just because they can. And I don't. I played jazz semi-professionally, and I know how great it is to get paid to do something that you truly love.

    For me though, the recording industry has done itself no favours by painting music fans with the broad brush of music pirates. If I pay for music, why should the industry dictate whether I can take a CD I bought and copy it to my iPod? Why should they be able to dictate how I listen to and enjoy the music I paid for? How is that fair?

    Thanks for the discussion, and I'm glad that we can agree to disagree respectfully. Best of luck with the music, and I hope you wish us journos luck too. We need some these days.
    KevinAnderson

Add your response

Login/Registration is required to add a response.